Delhi Trip

Musings of the mad man

It was a busy Friday at the 3rd floor of Torry Pines in EGL Business Park, Bangalore. I was toiling hard to preempt all my engagements for that day. I was supposed to catch a flight which will take me to Delhi. We have been longing about this trip for months now. We were supposed to attend the ring ceremony of our friend Vipin. It was important because he was the first guy in our group to decide to put an end to the misery (bachelorhood?). On the other hand , for me apart from attending this auspicious occasion the other important wish was to meet Puneet , the “punjaab da puttar” with a lot of literary muscles (change this ) and have drinks together. I happened to meet Puneet during my stay in Chennai. I met him over a “daaru” party organized by Ashok(Don’t search in Wikipedia for details), and almost immediately he became so close and special that every time I got my self drunk after that evening , either I have done it with him or with the wish of his existence. He is someone who has been the “Sultan-of-Spin” for my Chennai gang. Trust me , this guy is a real genius , I will not go into the details of his earthly achievements like being a great bibliophile , a great fan of music or a great cook but this is the guy who can wake you up in the middle of the night and take you out to the sea beach for talking philosophy ( well , we had this kinky code word for philosophy again discovered by the great man himself….Rule of De-icks ).
I think this introduction will not make any sense if I don’t talk about Vipin. He is my class mate from NIT Warangal. We happened to talk to each other only when we were in second year of our B.Tech. I don’t know may be our emotional frequencies superimposed quite instantly, we became friends, I think during final year , which was also marked by the staggering number of curriculum activities, we came close to each other to the point that some “others” started calling us as gays ( I do clarify , we have been straight all the way and will be in future J ). We were separated because of our different job locations. But when I came to Bangalore and started living along with him, life became a never-ending party. But the gala (neighbors called it as Gallata , the Kannadiga word for making noise) was torn apart after he decided to go to Delhi to consolidate ( this is my favorite synonym for marriage) his life.

A-grammatical actions

Now, about the flight , we were late again , we hustled our way through the security check and finally pushed our way inside it. The moment after the feeling of intoxication, that typically happens when you see the red lipstick clad lips of an Indian airhostess was settling down, we discovered a whole bunch of bald people inside the aircraft. They were everywhere , an European would possibly think that people were retuning from a “skin head” summit , a Gulti ( the sweet nickname of all Telgus in this planet , definitely not decided by their parents ) would think people were returning from their pilgrimage of Tirupati , but they were speaking Hariyanvi ( at least that’s what Saini pointed me out). Finally we located our seats and thank god we got places to keep our hand baggage overhead. The flight took off in no time and we immediately sensed the noise like being inside a general class compartment of a fully loaded train. Well ,then we decided to simplify our sorry state of affair ( typically the headache multiplied with body ache after having a long day at work) by divulging into some real “shit talking”

( I don’t guarantee that you will find a convincing meaning of this in dictionary , you might also have involved yourself something like this , typically the kind of discussions where you pretend to become a

“I know it all” and start commenting on multitude of things starting from the Budget till Breads or from Politics to Prostitution). We were guzzling every drop of fun doing this till a sweet voice broke in clamor, it was the stewardess herself, asking whether we need some water or not. Rakesh aka Saini affirmed his wish for a bottle and asked me whether I wanted one. I did the craziest thing …this is what I told him ...”I don’t want to drink water from a lady who has hair color like the tail of a street dog” (Sorry for not patronizing the spending that she has committed for the same thing), Rakesh was all cracked up in laughter, so was the gal seating in front of our seat. She was laughing it loud and so enthusiastic about my comment that she took off the headphones of her boyfriend and told him what she was laughing for. (It is always a great feeling to make a female happy, because they deserve that.)

Finally we landed at Delhi airport and I could read from Sidd’s mind, Delhi is all set to become the El Dorado for us. Rakesh managed to hire a cab for us to reach Vipin’s place in Gurgaon. Till now I used to consider the misgivings about the drivers (professional) of Delhi as urban legends but this time I faced the “real” one. We faced real challenge to close the deal of paying him extra bucks for his toils(?) as we didn’t have proper idea about our destination.

Then atlast we were inside the duplex that Vipin owns in Gurgaon.

Nimboo Fry

It was as perfect as an Indian wanna be’s ( read Bachelor) room should look like. My immediate attention was drawn on the fact that this dude was living on cold drinks because all I could see was 2 litre bottles of Coke , Pepsi , Fanta and Sprite in his kitchen. We thought we will change and snooze but we were just being optimistic. Because we all felt the disruptive rumblings of hunger in our stomachs and our to add to our miseries there was no food in the house and you can’t expect a restaurant to be open during midnight in Delhi. We decided to cook, I was enthusiastic about that and started on crafting some Khichdi for dinner, we were supposed to put some potatos in the khichdi but before I put them the power went off , we made frantic phone calls to the owner of the apartment ( aka Vipin ) and located a few half-finished Candles , lit up one to continue the cooking extravaganza. Sidd worked on washing the potatos and put them inside the frying pan. It was going on good till I found out one dazzling potato on the frying pan in that half lit kitchen, the one claiming to be distinct among the darker ones immediately caught my attention. I thought of claiming the ownership of that fair potato after were done cooking, then all of a sudden the power came up and to my utter dismay I found out ………….the odd one was not a potato at all …it was a lemon that was getting fried. What a crap!! I said to my self, I got laurels from Sidd; he pointed out “You are the first cook in the entire history of gourmet to fry a Lemon” – Real “Nimboo” fry it was ….

After that feat we had to sleep as we were supposed to get up early in next morning, it was a opera of mosquitoes waiting to accompany us, though we were too tired to appreciate their presence.

Bhaiyas of Gaziabad vs Behenjis of Noida

The next morning we were taken to Gaziabad where the funeral of my friend’s bachelorhood was meant to happen. As he has already complained me that I am not happy about his marriage, I will pretend to be a “nice guy” now on and depict whatever happened around me that day and let’s hope it will be fun. The driver discovered us as first timers in Delhi and he started pointing at the places of importance, he almost educated ourselves about the existence of every Bus-stations , Temples , Gurdarwas , Hospitals and Hotels that came up on our way. He also complained about the way traffic management of Sheela Dixit’s Delhi and Mayawati’s UP differed. Finally we reached the function hall of Hotel Residency where the stage was set for a big fat Indian ring ceremony. We were served florescent colored soft drinks and we grabbed one of the round tables, we didn’t want to miss a single scene of all that happened there. Vipin was looking happy, so as his fiancé, they had to smile at everyone who turned up to wish them luck. Then came the DJ, though his existence was the oddest thing in that nicely decorated function hall, with its loudspeakers fitted with funny lights meant for an open air show, but he ensured that we revisit to some popular Hindi chartbusters and entertain ourselves. Being one of those hailing from a Tagorian Bengali family where listening to “Choli ke piche kya hai” was categorized as the most heinous crime that you can possibly commit , I mistook the skimpily clad girl dancing on the number “Babuji zara dheere chalo” as an “item” number specialist. Then the ceremony started , the elderly ladies were chanting some ritual songs meant to be sung in this situation and playing “Dhol”, the ambience was wholesome I must say. We were told to fasten our seatbelts as the “Behenjis of Noida” ( the female friends of the my friends fiancé ) could reach the hall anytime. I saw a sudden rush of adrenalin in Rakesh’s ears turning red. Then they came in , all dressed in black , blue and pink , they were looking exotic (don’t read between lines). I was told that they have prepared for some show in the honor of the two getting engaged and there it was ....they started their ecstatic performance.It was time for all of the males present in that hall to improvise their photography skills by measuring those gyrations. I could see people being frantic in adjusting their cameras to focus on favorite destinations.

Then there was lunch and after lunch was this introduction session where Rakesh was interviewed by a lady wearing black sari. The lady pretended to be judging one of those man-hunt events, where you get to ask questions those when answered should show your personality traits. So no wonder he was asked to describe himself in one word, and he did …..The word was “Classy” ( I wonder the cliché though that “classy” and “exotic” have some logical togetherness).

At that point, my cell phone started ringing and it was none other than “Bhiayaji”, a character taken from the movie named “Haasil”, Bhiyaji instructed me to join him in CP (Connaught place). I decided to hitchhike one of the Pooja’s (the fiancé) friends coming back to Delhi.

Pinky

Now I wish to be explicit about someone in that entire exotic lot. Its none other than Pinky , well its one of those situational names you give to a person just by looking at him/her. I would rather not use the words like “damsel”, “sexy” , “dazzling” to define her presence. Just that this tall, fair Punjabi lady perfumed by the aroma of elegance was all set to put the stage on fire. I noticed the tinges of red color on her bare arm; they were enough to make me go poetic. I couldn’t resist myself to dance along with her and then claim this honor by texting to Bhaiyaji that “Today I committed the sweet crime of dancing with a Punjabi gal”.

Driven by Kunal , powered by Polaroid:

It was Kunal, who offered to drop me near ISBT, from where I would get the metro to CP. I was feeling tired like a dog in hot summer, it was a madding sun on the streets, my eyes were aching badly. I decided to help myself wearing my goggles. First time I sensed its being an utility and not another useless accessory at that instant. And of course we had a third person in that car, she was Namita. I sensed that they were classmates, doing mba , aspiring finance pros , it was nice talking with them about the fixed assets and other assets of any organization. I, like other situations, was not selling Yahoo to them but just listening to some good music that was being played in the car.

Peccadillo at Piccadilly

He has grown beard like Saif Khan in “Omkara”

He is put on weight like Benicio in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”

He has started smoking ..yet again

He has switched to desi Beer from Single malts

And Bhiyaji was there. After being hugged by this gentleman I forgot all my toils , headaches. He had the passport of a great night of boozing , smoking , listening to “real” music with him. We had our starters at “The Drunken Duck”. The first pitcher was the ice breaker , now we were talking about the “days” of togetherness in Chennai. We decided calling Nitesh ( aka Nikki) , another protagonist , who is currently educating himself in Barcelona. After almost three were down, we decided it was the time to breath some air. We paid the bills, peed like pregnant women and came out of Piccadilly. We decided to collect some fuel for the night from a shop nearby, satisfied our gastronomic needs by having “Meat Pulav”and then drove back to Puneet’s home in Gulabi Baag. I was introduced to this Punjabi folk single “Chamkila” in the car. I also rediscovered Saiyaan by Kailash Kher.

Now we were in Gulabi Baag , where I met Gunjit ( Puneet’s wanna be film director bro) and Kamal. I had sometime talking to Puneet;s mom and dad before being called upstairs by the man himself. There were seven of us in that 35 square feet room which was four feet high. It was a real rabbit hole, a perfect place for having a few pegs with people who are very close to your heart. Vat-69 was the name, and we were in business soon, accompanied by some kosher Kabab.

The dessert was rice and chicken curry that mummyji had cooked for us. It was a semiconscious sole of mine , half submerged in the déjà vu of the remembrances of my recent reading of the “Age of Shiva” , indifferent of the clatter of people in that room fighting over the claim of sovereignty of the differenced provinces of East Punjab , making an arduous attempt of pretending to be conscious to my own “self”. I went to bed.

Being punk at the 5 feet paradise

I always wanted to write about the people from north eastern provinces of India , Delhi seemed to have offered me of that opportunity too!! “We have a car and we have 2 hours of free time …what we can do” , I called up Kamal ( Puneet’s brother ). He suggested us to go to the Priya Market at the Vasant Bihar area , we were there in no time. It was one of those posh arcades waiting to be transformed(?) , shops around a huge fountain that does function anymore. We located couple of same kind of shops where they sell accessories that you might want to get hold of just to claim that you are a “High” person. You better guess who the proud owners of those shops, none other than the north eastern brothers and sisters, with their low rise, piercings claiming their membership in the history of Rock & Roll. Like African Americans in US , in India these are the people who are really cool, they are Indian but they are not hairy, they wear latest stuffs from UCB , RockPort or Kappa , they listen to heavy metals . One of these shops were so motivated by Iron Maiden that they were selling idols of Eddie.I felt bad about being rotund and profound for the first time.