The tipping point, walking the plank and all that jazz

My last post would have given an indication of what is to come in the future, friends be going off to unknown lands, again to explore and learn about themselves and explore the world and expand their horizons.

So it is quite obvious, apart form the sleepover there would be the oh so spectacular night out. Normally confined to the weekend, we decided to move this party along to the greatest day of the week, the new party night , a freaking Monday, that too a monday in which I would have to update my weekly sales binders for the big honchos to see. Nevertheless I decided to take care of that way before our stipulated time to meet, ie 7 PM on the dot. We need more time since we planned to get drunk, or at least Babla, chintoo and Nagu did.


Things never go as planned and sure as hell I get a call in which I am asked to download this huge data dump which would have taken me a whole day.[ still doing it in parts] and I had to give it in 30 minutes, not going to happen I think to myself and I call chintoo to tell him we need to meet later


"Make it 8 PM, its gonna take me some time"


That 8 PM becomes 8:30 and at one time I had resigned myself to not being able to go out for the final drunken escapade for quite a while, my friends come a calling at 8:30, screw work, called the boss and left for an epic night out.

Grabbed a cab with Babla, Chintoo and Nagu and headed off to the favorite destination to get good food,[ especially duck] and cheap booze, Tangra, the chinatown of Calcutta, the ride was a good 30 minutes from my office but as usual the drive is anything but boring with a ton of stories, laughs and abuses flying about from one guy to another.

We reach our beloved Cin Shing restaurant in the middle of Tangra at around 9:15 PM, a desolate place with just the construction of a new flyover and the zooming cars whizzing by that would only provide us any sign of life around for around a kilometer or two. 


Now getting to this place, the restaurant was hard, since the entire road was dug up and this moat had formed around the premises, we had to cross over a plank of wood, each scared that their fat ass might collapse the plank and we would end up in the much which would probably have had feces, vomit, urine, and a whole host of bacteria just floating about. Luckily the plank did not snap , I guess since I was praying to the Lord , we made it across is what matters I guess.


We walk in with just another group of guys like us waiting and hogging stuff off another table, taking a table at the corner, the first thing I eye up is the amount of soda or at least the variety of cola drinks they had in the cooler, last time I was here I had around 7 different fizzy drinks, this time I was out to beat my record.

The ordering starts with a ton of prawn chips and chicken fried wontons, while the other guys decide on drinking alcohol, I decide to start my carbonated madness with a bottle of Thumbs Up, the best selling indian soft drink, EVER!, chintoo goes for a fosters, babla and nagu decided to have Blenders Pride while downing a ton of chips and fried nuts, we also ordered the classic Peking Duck and some amazing fried fish with another round of wontons to go about, the food was the king, the alcohol was the mistress and I was there to face the madness.


The person first hit seemed to be babla, which is funny because he normally handles alcohol the best amongst the other 3, laughing hard, screaming out to us that "This is the  highest high I have been in a while" and "I have never been this happy being high in a while", of course there is the ever so needed call to his new squeeze saying how much he really loves her and all, alcohol brings out all the secrets in em all.


Rohit also did the same route, called Bhabhiji up, spoke in this hush hush tone, probably about him running away to the US , we also had a chat with Bhabhiji, me being the sober one also acted the most crass by constantly abusing over the phone, not at her but at the other members of our club. Oh and rohit for some reason decided to have 3 beers and chugged em all down one by one, no waiting, then he goes berserk and starts hitting his head and shaking it about like some ants had entered his ear.


Nagu kept and played it cool, not talking much, just drinking, funnily he kept himself in control the best and didn't act freaky like Babla or chintoo did, however its because of him we came up, I came up with the line for the year, while Rohit and Babla are constantly teasing him about his "Kritika" , while I for once tried to reason and take his side, as soon as I said "Nagu......"
He shouts out
"Shut UP ADEEEEEM!!!!"
I tell him " You idiot for once listen to me, either you treat me like an equal in the group or treat me like a muslim", they all start laughing crazy.He still keeps denying he has a soft spot for the girl but finally after being drunk he does reveal that he and her are going to work in the same city, again, if that is not the lord telling him to move in with the girl for life, I don't know what is.


"Line of the night" says Chintoo, agrees Babla and Nagu.


While they keep on drinking, I have my own personal fight with the cold drinks , downed a thumbs up, fanta, sprite, 7 up and a Limca, I finally had to retire with another bottle of Thumbs up.I was so filled with a ton of soft drinks that I did not touch the next round of wontons although I absolutely love em.

While we decide to leave the premise at around 11 PM, something strikes chintoo and he says "Dude, that PLANK!!!!!" 
"If I fall into the ditch with the water, do not pick me up and let me die there, DO NOT PICK ME UP, I CANNOT GO BACK IN THAT STATE"

So we climb down the stairs, Nagu has gone ahead of us while I try to take Babla along with me, he constantly abuses me "I don't need help fucking chut, move aside, I can control myself" 
Rohit goes on a blitzkrieg and starts hitting me for no reason , we walk slowly towards the end of the road when Nagu shouts out "FAAAAAAKKKK man ADEEEEEEEEMMM"


"What happened?"


Nagu : "Dude those planks..... they are not there anymore, just some bamboo that is all."


me :"Stop fucking around you idiot"


Nagu " I am not joking"


Sure enough, some chuts removed the planks and we were stuck thinking what can we do to move across, luckily or unluckily we saw a pair of bamboo poles tied up above the ground with another on tied around waste high which we could use, Chintoo goes across, so does nagu, Babla is the one we are scared off and Chintoo eggs him on, comforting him he can do it.


Now its my turn, while I gingerly try to come across, Chintoo for some fucked up reason decides, lets have fun with the Musalman and starts shaking the bamboo sticks, I am scuttling across in fear of falling into a ditch while the bastard has a jolly good time laughing at my predicament.


We now have to walk around a kilometer against oncoming traffic going at around 60-70 KMPH and we are not on the pavement since there is no pavement, I am coming along with Babla to make sure nothing happens, he is on an abusing spree, showing everyone the finger, every car he is showing the finger and how he would fuck people, showing the indian F U sign, he pushes me away and wants to walk it alone.


We reach Topsia after a walk and take an auto to Park Circus, Babla loves the wind in his hair and is laughing his arse off for no reason, we get off the auto and now Babla does not want to go back home, its 11: 30 and he is insisting on going somewhere else, then he wants to have something sweeeeeet.


While the other 3 try to find a way back home, Babla vanishes and reappears with chocolates for all, Yay Willy Bonkers is back, abusing all the way infront of the Arsalan restaurant, hell he even wants to have shit ice cream, rohit has an ice cream, in his state of drunkeness he buys a mango ice cream thinking it was orange, while Babla had the same, Nagu and I had the safe chocbar, Babla is still not happy with his sugar intake for the night and buys 4 large Cadbury dairy Milk bars for all of us to have, While I hogged down mine and Rohit's since he did not want to have it, Babla kept his for later. 

We took a cab back to Kidderpore, since I had to go home and get to bed for a long day in office, Babla again did not want to go back home, insisting on moving about, then he goes on berserk mode and starts to mouth of obscenities to the cab driver and tries to make him eat the chocolate bar he had kept with himself.

"Nahi, woh boka choda ko khana hoga, I have had enough of them bastards refusing to take us from one point to another"
 
We pacify him enough , although he does shout of abuses to random people, including police officers, tries to shove  his leg outside the window of the car and almost beats nagu up for no reason, oh and I forgot to tell you, right outside the restaurant he tried to climb a lamppost, so there you go, the babla was finally released from his cage.

At a bridge Rohit sees a ton of graffiti and says

"You know how I can tell its the work of an STB student?..... its cause they can't spell for fucks sake"

True that.
 
When I dropped the 3 off at kidderpore before I took the cab to my place, babla shouts out one more piece of advise

"If the bastard has not had the chocolate yet, don't fucking pay the mother fucker"
Told like a true STB  ite against a taxi driver who was wondering whether he would make it back alive or not.  
 
While I thought this would/could have been the last ever night out like this, a pact has been made, every year from now on, ONCE at least once shall all us friends meet up and go on a night of drunken madness for 3 of the people and 1 person just trying to get them all back in 1 piece.



 

A journey ends, the other begins

Exactly 10 years ago I had returned back to the city of joy from my long tryst in the desert kingdom which I had grown to love over the 7 years I had spent there, starting a new journey here was never easy, shifting to a completely different country, meeting new people and relatives, trying to make friends and holy crap adjusting to a school without Air conditioning, life was tough, hell it was hell for quite a few days, you get a gist of the crap I have been through from my earlier posts, check out the earliest ones for the best stories.

So around 6 years I shifted to my new residence and since rooms got bigger , accommodating friends was no big deal, in fact this gave to the rise in the massive number of sleepovers, check out "sleepover" for a brief history of the same. This get together would involve a few friends staying over at my place, staying up late and eating a ton of food, drinking a ton of cola and abusing and sharing a ton of kickass stories since all of us were crazy enough to have crazy stories which we had to share.

The Nagu, Babla, Chintoo and I, the ultimate crazy group with a ton of nonsense to spread and cherish, those were the days of college stories, women,football, goofs, chutiyapanti , you get the drift.

Recently we had another sleepover, with all 4 of us present , Chintoo came up with a very important point, 

"This could, actually it is the last proper sleepover we may EVER have"

Alas, it is the end of a journey, Chintoo is off to the US for 5 years to study and get his PhD, Nagu is off to Ahmedabad to work and Babla is busy touring the country, 5 years from now who knows what life holds for us all. Nothing will ever be the same again, its been a kick ass journey from college to work, while work may suck, its the weekends which people remember and it still is the same for us now, the last sleepover, the journey ends, we move on to another story of life its just this chapter which ends and which marriage beckoning for at least a few of us the story called the Sleepover , the activity, the long nights, the long stories we kept in just to share with one another over a few bottles of soda and ice cream , the abuses we sprayed on people and one another while the clock would strike 3 AM will now rest in memories.

Thou were a great friend, sleepover, thou shalt never be forgotten.
  

Reboot? BOOT it out

With half of Calcutta going crazy with a ton of superhero movies, Avengers most recently, it seems people have forgotten what taste actually is. I saw the avengers and while it was a decent enough movie, people started comparing it to Nolan's Batman, why? probably because they can't believe how a great movie or a series Nolan has made and the inevitable comparisons will come with crap movies.

This just went to a whole new level this week, while people have been gearing up for the new Spidey flick, reboot as it is called. The reviews were quite positive, I did not read any American reviews about the flick so I don't have a clue as to what the other side of the Atlantic has to say about the flick.

Spidey is just as good as Batman, if not a better superhero at least in being more of a "human" with emotions et all. Hell a paper [ a leading paper] even came up with these 2 comic books fans having a long arsed debate which barely should have been covered in the first place because these comic geeks are only in it because super heroes is now a fad, especially with the new Batman movie and the reboot[ again I said it] of Superman by Nolan.

So the entire city was gaga with the new movie, reviews were good, hell the comparisons started and there were some idiots saying the movie had a more human, emotional element of Spidey which was missing from the  last 2 spidey movies, Tobey versions.

The hall I went to was a family hall and I had a ton of kids running about and screaming about spidey but If I was in the normal halls I visit I would have been screaming my lungs out as to how lame a movie this is, by the interval I was completely brain dead and by the end of the movie, I knew I had amazingly wasted 2 hours of my life and this was probably one of the worst sueprhero movies I have seen.

Garfield, as the ladies say is cute but dear lord how have they massacred the movie, Peter Parker was a geek a nerd, someone who would not stand up for himself, ok lets fuck that all up, screw the comics and the canon and lets make him this stand out guy who stands out for right and all. Then the part of being an anchor for Aunt May, in this entire movie, Aunt May is shown for the exact amount of time as Irfan Khan, go figure, seems she was not an important character at all, and Irfan is there just for the Indian audience, they knew spiderman 3 was huge in India, so just put an Indian actor with a few lines and not an important role, hell even a blind man with no talent could have done that role. 

Also this movie showed that being a superhero is easy as hell, PP [parker] easily makes his costume, his web device and all, no problems at all. And of course you DONT need a secret identity to be a superhero, in the movie, PP was without his mask with his suit on for almost all the fight sequences. Screw hiding the face, let every person in New York see what or who spidey really is.

The final bit that pissed me off is these sequences of Spidey and Connors, Connors post lizard has control over what he does and follows spidey, finds out it is Parker, again, you dont need to hide your identity do you? Follows him to school and tries to destroy him, which he fails with, the climax of the flick is just as lame , wont spoil  that , go and watch it yourself to believe how lame and predictable it turns out to be.

Oh and being a Superhero movie, this is going to have a sequel, oh dear lord.

PS: This movie has had one of the best openings for a foreign flick in Indian screens, even beating the last great movie which was just as crummy but now looks like a far superior movie, Spidey 3. Roll on with the sequel.