Scrambled: Vai and Chan - Part 2

proper south indian amma

they dont need their husbands

bhandardara trip: gettin cozy

bhandardara trip: all four of us

bhandardara trip: the morning after
this was after a heavy night of booze, teen patti,
singing & dancing by the bonfire

Chan / Chana / Kameeni / Archana is Y's better half.  Yes i did say "better half" chan!  Believe it!   I'm a nice person.  :-)))

Ever since Vai committed his biggest folly of pataaoing her in his first (gasp!) year of college, she's been the untiring shackle around his neck.  And thus she has managed to successfully domesticate (atleast partially) a hitherto un-tamable wildass.  And she had that one thing every man desperately looks for in a mate...a 2400 watt voicebox.  Vai lost 40% of his hearing capacity just in the first 3 months of their being together.

cuddling up in public places...
...but even in private it rarely goes beyond this, right chana???
hahaha

When Y used to get her to my place to meet all of us, we had made up our minds that she was a complete stuck-up bi*ch!  Even after a couple of years of knowing her over 20-25 meetings, she just wouldn't speak to us.  She used to sit amongst us, staring straight ahead, with absolutely no emotion on her face, discouraging all attempts of conversation with her.  And Vai used to tell us that she was an absolute chatterbox when with him!

But slowly she started mixing a bit.  I think her hostel stint really helped her to open out.  And hidden inside that erstwhile unwelcoming exterior was this fabulous person.  Once we hit it off there was no lookin back.  And like any good friends, over the years we've rubbed off our corners against each other, and also become more and more like each other (i.e., she's become cool like us! hehe).

dubai sand-bashing
here Vai was really enjoying us feeling him up

ganapatipule trip

She swears like a guy and drinks like a fish.  The four of us have a glorious alcoholic history together.  My wife and she are almost les** partners (they say "love you" to each other much more than to their husbands).  I can talk about absolutely anything with her.  I can get angry with her and call her names...and come back the next day with a grin and a "hey bitch" to get a "you dog!" and a punch in return.  She's great.

looouuuuu you.....

She's been with Y for umpteen years now.  My bro always says she's perfect to keep Y grounded.  If he'd got a demure shy kinda wife, he would've become a playboy or a smuggler or hell something like that!  (actually Vai, that sounds really fun, you should have got out!!!!)  But its too late for that.  They have spent around 15 years together....50% of their lives.  Thats something.  I think the only regret she has is that he is much fairer than her!  hahahahaha

chana's attempts at getting fairer

whatta smile chan!

She's the friend i'm most in touch with.  Ever since i've been working, i've been exchanging daily emails with her during office hours.  Sometimes these have run into trails of 30-40 mails.  We've been doing this almost daily, right chan?  Many years now.

And so often when i'm having a really bad day at work, tired and frustrated, she's been around...to make it worse!  She works in advertising, and leaves no opportunity to throw in my face titbits like going on official beer lunches, going to work in shorts and t-shirts, having belly dancers perform in office (yes, its true; all my banker friends, you can jump off your office buildings now), etc etc.  But she's a sport and sends across close-up photos of those belly dancers, and its all good again.

ppl who want the complete set of these photos
can write to me or chan...  :-)

chan, sorry for inserting these pics here
but after so many of your photos
i wanted to end with something nice!  :-)

I miss having her around as well.  Well, our ear-drums are really happy due to her absence, but they'll get used to her again if she's back.  So many people live by airports and railway lines, and somehow get numb to all those shrill whistles and noises.

Chan you bitch, you know rashmi and i love you like crazy.  Now stop smiling and remember to get me a Bowmore and a Laphroaig when you come down here.

Scrambled: Vai and Chan - Part 1

quasi and chana look so drunk!
this is outside Royal Challenge in goregaon...

Y - before he gets started

Y - after a few hours, can shove his head up ur crotch

we were drinking the night before his wedding!
chan kept on calling and bugging him...
symbolic of the years to come...hehehe

wedding day

he's least interested whether she's able to eat it or not

Y / Vai / Vaibhav, is my oldest friend.  We have been together since 2nd standard....thats around....24 years!!  So 80% of our lives we've been friends.  There seems to be no justice upstairs!  So in Wonder Years, Kevin got Winnie, while i got Vai...shit shit shit.

My oldest memories of Y are those of an extremely naughty, wild, hyper-energetic, cool kid.  He was always so pumped up (parents of such kids in the US get them checked for crack or party drugs).  

Jumpin around, playing pranks, getting into trouble, using colorful language that i took years to catch up to, continuously flirting with our (pathetic) female classroom population, playing every sport possible, staying out from morn till night every single day, trading kicks, punches and nail scratches with his elder sister, and generally contributing hugely to his parents stress levels....that was Y.

he looks as mischievous as my two year old... 

A perennial last-bencher, he used every trick in the book to copy during exams.  Not that he needed to; he's absolutely bright, but expecting him to study would be like expecting Indy Jones to walk through cleanly swept, well lit, non-insect/snake/boobytrap infested hallways for his pursuits!  It just wouldn't be right.  Yet the fkr scored more than me in his boards.  Bas@#$%!

But because he was a terror for his parents and teachers, he was one of the coolest kids in school.  Everybody liked him and wanted to be with/like him.  And he used that very well with the ladies.  During free periods they would be all over him, offering their home-work, tiffin, and God knows what else.    :-)    I was nearer to the other end of the spectrum; defi not a studious good-boy, but i dont remember having done anything wild in those years.  And i was even further weighed down by Ninad, who used to punch me every time i said Fuck or Chutiya.  Fuck!  And here Y was frolicking around throwing MC-BC's in every sentence.

We were very thick, Ninad, Vai and I.  Best buds.  Then we went to different colleges and got separated.  We did make time for each other intermittently, but not much.  Then he moved to Aurangabad and then to Bangalore for a few years.  Even i got busy with my life.  It was amazing whenever he used to come back to Bombay.  I used to be so happy.  He is one of the best daaru partners i've ever had.  We can sit for hours and hours having a great time.  Some of the best conversations possible...

er...not much of a conversation here...

Once he got back for his MBA we again spent a few years very much together....vai, chan, rashmi and i.  He's a banker now, well dressed, soft spoken, mouthing investment strategies...difficult to reconcile this with the school image.  Add the fact that beneath all that carefully cultivated devil-may-care and i-give-a-fuck attitude is a softie who: ONLY uses dove soap as it keeps him pretty, regularly uses apricot scrub for his face, drinks pink pink strawberry milk, and is a compulsive cuddler.  Pretty disturbing right?  Vai tune ye kya haal bana rakha hai?  :)

i'm sooooo happy to have her....sniff sniff !

And just when everything was dandy, he moved off to Dubai....bh&*$%^d....sure wish he'd be back here...to meet up on any random day for a much required guy-to-guy chat over some much required booze.

the day they left for dubai   :-(

goofing around during the dubai trip

he cant stay away from her even for a few moments
something very suspicious about his pants!

Vai and i have had our share of fights.  But i've never worried about any of them.  I've always known they wont affect us.  School friendships are the most innocent...uncorrupted by politics or positioning.  Seldom works out like that in college, and defi not at work.  

Vai you fucker, get your arse down here ASAP.  To use one of the cheesiest lines ever: khoob milega rang, jab mil baithenge teen yaar: aap, mai, aur bagpiper club soda....er....waiter, make that kingfisher please!

:-)

3 drunk idiots and a webcam...

Drinkin in the Rain...

"Its drizzling, there's an amazing breeze, and i can see lots of boats out on the lake behind my house.  I'm standing in the balcony with mild spray on my face and a large of neat Chivas in my hand.  Couldn't get better!"

I just put up this FB update.  One peg and i was content typing on my phone.  Two, and i just had to switch on my laptop.  haha  :-)

What a combo....rains and booze....must have been one of the Eureka moments for God, like the time he invented boobs.  Well that one was on the top of the list anyways, dunno why he had to go on and make moobs!   @*&%#$...

I guess i've always had a soft spot for the rains, like I've said before.  But all that's multiplied when you gimme a drink when its pouring.  Aaaaaaah!  Sorry for the inappropriate sound, but the feeling is indeed, semi-orgasmic.

I guess its because of my earliest drinking memories.  I started drinking very late, was in my TY then (i know...its embarrassing), in july 1999 to be precise (thats more than a decade ago....FK i'm old!).  A couple of good buddies and i used to sit in The Den in Santacruz west.  It was a dingy old place, practically empty till around 7pm, when all the depressed uncles used to start walking in, to sit alone and down a quarter or two before heading back to life.

We used to reach by lunch time.  :-)  The place had an antique juke-box in a corner, which played old Rafi and Kishore blues, 2 songs to a rupee.  Those were days when money was really really scarce and it was great to have a juke-box that was 10x cheaper than the other places.  The super-eccentric parsi owner used to pass his time kicking his pet Pomeranian under the table and screaming mother-sister expletives at the lone waiter. 

But still, it was the most amazing place.  I've gone there with lots of great pals (soham, vaibhav, my bro, shabrya, ashish, shadab).  We used to sit for 6-8 hours at a stretch lining up bottles, cocooned safely inside while the mumbai rains thundered down outside.  Those conversations, carefree innocent passionate, just cannot be brought back now.  An age gone by.  Sad.

Since then, June-Sept has always been Whiskey time!  Whether on a trek, or at Lonavala in a car filled with half naked rowdies, drenched to the core or watching the showers in some cosy shelter trying not to shiver because of the chill.....that golden liquid has warmed up our insides like only a good drink can.  Sure, the brands have changed over time.  I now heartily recommend Laphroaig Single Malt to anyone who cares to listen.

The only prob is, its all been too tame, the last few years.  Now that i've managed to get out of the soul sucking corporate rigmarole, its time to do something different.  Sure, i cannot pull off a Gene Kelly (Singin in the Rain - the1952 musical), but I solemnly pledge that the next time it rains heavily, i'm gonna walk around my colony soaking it up and carefree as hell, sipping on a couple of stiff drinks mixed in an empty bisleri bottle, just like the good old college days.

Cheers.

Being boring......rehashed

Enbiem had once put up a lovely poem called Being Boring by Wendy Cope on her blog.  I instantly loved it and the humor she has used, and i forwarded it to all my buddies.  Here's the poem:


Being Boring 
 
If you ask me 'What's new?', I have nothing to say
Except that the garden is growing.
I had a slight cold but it's better today.
I'm content with the way things are going.
Yes, he is the same as he usually is,
Still eating and sleeping and snoring.
I get on with my work. He gets on with his.
I know this is all very boring.


There was drama enough in my turbulent past:
Tears and passion-I've used up a tankful.
No news is good news, and long may it last,
If nothing much happens, I'm thankful.
A happier cabbage you never did see,
My vegetable spirits are soaring.
If you're after excitement, steer well clear of me.
I want to go on being boring.


I don't go to parties. Well, what are they for,
If you don't need to find a new lover?
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.
Someone to stay home with was all my desire And,
now that I've found a safe mooring,
I've just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.


-- Wendy Cope


Now my dear friend Mr.Pawan Arora found the perfect excuse to provoke me and replied to my email with: "Good one but I think you can add on to this."  The fkr knows me too well and that i'd grab the slightest opportunity to do anything other than work.  So i stirred up my noodles a bit and sent him my version of the poem.


Now to really get this poem, i'll have to introduce u to its two main characters: 


Pawan (toinng) Arora is a man in his 4th or 5th decade.  His seniority (in age and designation) oozes out of the tone and body language he uses with us junior folk.  Otherwise he's just a great guy....who has an ability to knock ones wind out with a well timed razor sharp one-liner.  But during the last year this dude has lost a lot of his old cheerful nature and has become more and more serious every day.   


Manjrekar is a friend who works in a competing organization, a kid just out of college, typically cocky (!) and smart mouthed.  He peaked the popularity charts at work because 'somebody' made up the story that he was regularly 'servicing' his boss when out on meetings in his car.  You know how impossible it is to let something like this go!  There was a whole slew of manjrekar jokes involving car seats, inconvenient steering wheels, flossing, chocobars, etc etc etc.  You got the picture right?


Well here goes....


Our Toinng Arora is a nice old man
His abilities noone can question
But lately he seems to be bogged down by
Work pressure and traffic congestion


He rarely replies to mails sent by
Old buddies who love him so much
The intimacy seems to have worn off a li'l
Now that we are not physically in touch


Wake up dear friend, goof around a bit
Get out and get wet when its pouring
You're surrounded by so many silly idiots
There's no reason to go on being boring


Look at Manjrekar, a fine young fella
With mischief written on his visage
He's on for a joke or a quip or a poke
Or even for a naughty little massage


He's eager for action and also adventure
He keeps lookin for things more exciting
But God knows why he picked an activity where
He can add to the thrill just by biting
 
It will help his career (at the cost of his rear)
And surely this cant be called whoring
As long he has a boss and that boss has a car
His life will never be boring
:-)


- Vivek Rao

2 weekends 2 trips - part 1

26-27 sept: Mahabaleshwar

Dd and I spoke over phone on friday and suddenly decided to do a quick mahabaleshwar trip on sat-sun.  I just wanted to get out for a while.  He was on a months break between jobs and was actually quite bored with sitting at home.  Understandable, since his work life is usually quite exciting: stressful days with heartbeats linked to the markets, followed by evenings at some uber-expensive bar, "servicing" some client or the other.

It was a short trip; he picked me up at pune at noon on saturday, and we were back in pune by 7pm on sunday.  The best thing was that we had no agenda whatsoever, and just did whatever we felt like.  I think we were just driving all the time, but since the roads were great throughout the trip, that was very enjoyable.

At night we boozed (dont we always) and had a nice looong chat.  We were anyways jabbering away during the whole trip as a good drive, like booze, makes for good conversation.  With dd it is always familiar territory and we probably said a lot of stuff that would have already been spoken before on some prior occassion.  We are both major cribbers, and most of our topics have that common thread running through!

I hate to admit this, but we ended up doing a lot of romantic stuff together:
- we took a horse carriage ride on the tableland
- we picked a motel room with a bathtub
- we ate chocolate fudge from one plate
- we shopped in the mahabaleshwar market (not hand in hand)
- and to top it all, we went boating

That horse carriage ride was such a big fraud.  We were promised to be taken on a 45 minute ride and shown 10 "points".  The smart-ass carriage boy we got bombarded us with arbit bollywood trivia related to pachgani and mahabaleshwar.  "....amir khan came out of the water here....raj kapoor had a sexy scene there....karishma and amir kissed under that tree...." etc etc.  And from time to time he kept turning back with a wicked grin and asking us "You married?  All married couples come here and enjoy!".  The bas*&%!
He must have said 'enjoy' atleast a 100 times.

He finished off the ten points in the first 5 mins and completed the round trip in 25.  When we asked about this he asked us to spend 20 mins walking around clicking pics like other tourists.  Actually speaking we weren't all that sad....we had anyways been just hanging on for dear life as the carriage had been bucking around like a wild bull in heat.  I dont recommend that ride to any fellow spondylitis sufferer. 

We had one amazing find in the trip though.  The next day, on the way back, we stopped at Parsi Point near pachgani to take in the beautiful view and hog on some super delicious wada pav.  The view from that point is that of a flat piece of land surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and a lake on the 4th.  Looking down, we noticed a surprisingly large temple approx in the middle.  Feeling curious we decided to explore.

We took a small by road from Vai and made our way towards Chikligaon, a small hamlet where the temple is situated.  On the way we passed "Dhom Dam", where entry is absolutely forbidden since the terrorist attack on the Taj.  Beyond the dam is a Boat Club.  The name is misleading as there is actually just a tiny jetty-like structure and a couple of small motor boats.  The caretaker of the neighbouring godown takes tourists on joy rides on these boats.  I'm shit scared of water, but dd forced me into a life jacket, and then into a small motor boat for a long ride on the lake.

The view from that boat club is mind blowing!  Pachgani and mahabaleshwar are really beautiful and all that, but this view was phenomenal.  Amazingly picturesque and serene.  Dd and I will probably always go there on every trip to mahabaleshwar.

A few km onwards, we reached the temple, which is really very large as compared to the small hamlets that surround it.  Chatted with a talkative priest there, had darshan, clicked a few snaps and we turned back.

We reached pune by around 7pm and hogged on lots of chaat outside my building.  That was the first chaat i had after shifting to pune and it felt great.  What a way to end a great trip.

Back for a weekend

Left from office a little early on friday. Reached mumbai by late evening, greeted by the familiar stench and thicker air. Loved it. The office gang were just about reaching Rajyog, near the highway. Felt good to see them all; Surve, Toinng, Bidrya, Dickya, Chaudhari....good buddies from the good old days at IL&FS. Had a great time boozing and hogging with them; lots of office goss to share and some old ghise-pite jokes to repeat.

Bidrya was teased on his secret liaisons, survya on being "retail retail" now, toinng on his impending charge as our superior, dikya on his incessant questioning, chaudhari on his special class of roadhouse humour, and me on my knack of closing down most things i get associated with....some things should never change!

Went to dj's house late in the night and met up with dj, rashmi, dd and annie. Poor guys were forced to stop some stupid horror movie they were watching. Dd suddenly got completely obsessed with watching a tennis match and struggled to get the set-top box working, but engineering ch*t that he is, he couldn't....hehehe

But then i got a throbbing headache and just wasn't able to continue having fun. I think the Rajyog guys had slipped us some cheaper liquor. Pushed off at around 1245 am, dropped annie of at takshila and reached home by 0130 am.

Was lookin forward to once again step inside the flat where we had spent a memorable 2.5 years, but simply couldn't recognize the place! My bro had completely converted it into a bachelor pad; much like his previous two homes at bandra and matunga. Was greeted with the sight of a shining electric guitar and amp left by raju and scratched some strings for a while.

Saturday was lazy. Watched Omkara (for the 3rd time) with bro...good fun...any movie with the opening dialogue "bewakoof aur chootiye me ek hi farak hota hai..." has to be great.

It is midnight now. There are 12 other guys in the hall. Lots of booze flowing. Razoo on the guitar. The night is on...