There should be a word called 'bestest'. If there is one and being the ignorant nincompoop that I am my diwali was that. Well this is how the minutes of my day were
1000 hrs
Woke up, with a huge raging headache which was instantly appeased by pouring myself a drink and confirming with V the time and place where I was supposed to meet. Nikhil made a nice continental breakfast, eggs sunny side up and toasts. And finishing up with breakfast was generally rolling around and Nikhil told me that we should wait for Mainak, Tashy and Akhil as they were also supposed to come. Soon the waiting turned into a full blown drinking session, as soon we realized that we are fucking late.
1300 hrs
Get down at Kanjur marg, to board the local and we are already late by 2 and a half hours late, and I go place myself inside the local as instructed by Gopal in my first local train experience. Everything was good, the train was jammed and I knew that it would get ugly at Kurla Station. But what I had not anticipated was the maddening stampede which would ensue when the train reached Dadar station. It was as if Moses had shifted the promised land to Dadar and these people needed to get instant salvation, the scene looked scarily similar to the millions of rats falling out of the pier to the tune of the pied piper. The best part was that the crowd just coming and coming, I think in actual time it would have taken about less than 13 seconds for about close to 700 odd people to get off the train but it definitely seemed like eternity especially when people were busy trying to gouge your eyes out on their way out.
1430 hrs
Finally reached VT station, a good 3 hours behind the meeting time, and V was not picking her calls, which meant that she was bleeding mad, good thing was that one she was not in front of me, because I would have got the thrashing of my life, and two my sincere charming apologies did manage to ease her little bit. Though I will have to make it up to her when I go there again. So trying to salvage a bad situation we decided we shall head towards this place called Mondegar's, that place is very similar to Koshy's here in Bangalore, just that in Mondy's they have a jukebox. Drank quite a bit, ate quite a bit, and then rolled towards the cab, because I definitely did not want to get back into the local. But that is just what we did.
1800 hrs
Got out of the local, cracking joints and preparing oneself to sleep for the next couple of hours before we wake up and decide what to do next. But not so soon, not till we played the guessing game with all the ring tones on Mainak's phone and laughing like pigs till we passed out of pure exhaustion. And rudely woken up again, no points for guessing! Nikhil again, this time he decided to play house music at full volume, considering I am a rock fan this again did not go down well. So woke up, and Mainak started his auto suggestion 'Go take a bath', which was actually a continuation of the near hypnotic chant we had going on before we slept 'kick him' (kick-him was supposed to be pronounced as keeek-e-im) and sensing that Mainak was suffering from huge pangs of home sickness I did not put out the usual fight I put before venturing into the loo to have a bath.
1930 hrs
By the time I got out of my bath and these guys finished buying the mutton, crackers, booze and the mixers (yes, we guys know how to cook!) We finished doing the prep work, you know cutting onions, washing the mutton, mashing the tomatoes and making them into a puree, in the meantime we did not put a stop the drinking.
2200 hrs
Off we went, to burst crackers, the chakri's and the flower pots, I tried writing my name with sparkles in the air, tried setting a rocket to the moon but unfortunately it landed in the busy market place and we went inside before people caught us and lynched us down. (Notice the play of words, lynched-diwali-festival of lights…Oh! Nevermind)
0000hrs
The stories and the drinking continued, with songs sang at decibel levels which would give an opera singer a complex.
0530 hrs
Passed out from all the buzz in my head and Mainak singing, Ab Na Ja – Euphoria.
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