Rishikesh and the Baba who wouldn't give us Charas

I have decided to break from chronological orders - screw it, the memories are fading fast and the stories just don't stop so will now try to put a date at the start of the post to help put them in perspective.
April 2010
The trip to Rishikesh was in the pipeline for the last six years - one or all of us would back out at the last minute - not that we'd book or plan anything - that's the point of a road trip really - you don't plan it. This time it was planned after long discussions with Rohan, Abhishek and Robert - the date was set - 01 April - should have guessed it then that Rohan was pulling a fast one but anyhow we were really looking forward to it. I was in Bombay till the 31st of March on a company course and was duly informed that Rohan had backed out on the night of the 31st whilst on my way to the airport - can't say that I was suprised - Rohan has this rather annnoying habit of saying Yes and then a NO - the timing of the NO varies though. Robert was all upset and said, "Fuck it" but then Abhishek was adamant or as Robert put it to me, "He has moved heaven, earth and hell to adjust dates of his students etc. etc." so it was decided that the three of us would go regardless. Robert said, "I'll pick you up at 5 in the morning" now this is the same guy who on a day when he has urgent work wakes up half an hour late so I assumed that 5 would probably be 8 at the very least and with my flight landing at mid night I would get enough time to sleep wake up pack etc. etc. BUT unknowingly I had made the cardinal error of saying, " You Can't" to Robert - this I now know is one sure shot way of getting him to do anything, haven't tried it but I am sure even, "You can't ram into the divider at 100" would work given enough alcohol in is system. So Abhishek and Robert stayed up all night - attending a party which had a surfeit of alcohol and BHANG (as I later learned) and tried calling me at 4:30 from outside my house - bad choice since a ringing phone is the last thing that'll wake me - I think they then called on the land line and were soon in my room jumping at me (literally) to get dressed - get dressed I did and that too in a hurry - not because I was really excited but because Abhishek was delirious with laughter and breaking everything in sight (one "BHOLA" too many as I was later informed). Anyway within the hour we were off on the first official road trip - Google Map in hand I was the Navigator, Robert was driving and Abhishek was passed out in the back seat. It took us 2 hours to get out of Delhi - next time trust the road your father tells you more than Google Maps!! Anyway the drive up was long, tiring, devoid of any hot girls with broken cars or lonely housewives hitching a ride and nine hours later we were in Rishikesh sitting in a cafeteria eating noodles waiting for our Raft to arrive. The rafting was fun - a lot of fun - but i enjoyed the swin in the ice cold river even more than the rafting bit. Of course a swim in ice cold water late at night is not a good idea especially if you haven't sorted your accommodation as yet - we were cold, shivering and looking for a hotel when we decided to get a massage done - ntohing hanky panky - apparently not available in Rishikesh - a straight forward massage by a well trained masseur. The massage done bones aching we checked into the nearest over priced hotel (a place with rooms rather) and started on the bottle of RC we had bought on the way up - I think I was the first to crash followed in close succession by the other two as the bottle was hardly empty when I woke up in the morning. The return trip was planned for the same day - why - don't remember but I think I had to get back to Delhi anyway ... to be continued.

The Cow Ride

The day was like any other, all of us went out to Vasant Vihar, spent an obscene sum of money at TGIF (that place used to be nice – I swear – heard it’s closed down now..) and then headed back to my place, bottles of Vodka in tow, can’t remember why but that night we had BLUE MOON vodka with us. In retrospect 2 bottles, 5 guys, Holi the next day it should have been a normal night of drinking – but it wasn’t… We started with a couple of bottles of beer each – drinking with Dad – young men now and all that – anyway the beer drinking went on till about 11 or somewhere there and then we venue shifted to the roof where the stories of the girls and Akhil’s miserable whining about his love life or the love life of his now ex- girlfriend continued.

I started mixing the drinks and for some reason those days we used to have a “rule” the first drink has to be a shot – well not for some reason – the reason is pretty clear now – immaturity – but i think you never really appreciate a person who drinks moderately till you’ve had your fair share of miserable days with forehead splitting hangovers that last till the first drink of the next night. So the shots started and in two rounds we were through with bottle no.1 and then we had the brilliant thought, “let’s go for a walk” so off we went – 5 guys talking loudly and nicely tipsy – simpler days those – drinking was taboo no doubt but times were safer there were hardly any police vans inside residential colonies in Delhi (even a bureaucratic one like this). In our stupor and excitement we came across  a cow – a normal everyday cow – grazing along the sidewalk very peacefully. Somewhere between listening to the various accounts of how ugly “Dundee” is to what a bitch Shagun was to leave Akhil for him, Robert got bored and gave the peaceful cow the fright of her life by suddenly jumping onto her back. There’s still doubt in my mind as to whose expression was more priceless – the cow’s or Akhil’s – both aghast at the thought of a Robert astride a cow digging in his heels goading her to take flight. After a moment’s hesitation take flight she did and how!! The cow dashed for 100 metres thrashing about and all credit to COWBOY Weir for not falling off – in fact i can bet you a million whatever he can’t do it sober – that mount and the subsequent dismount were copybook – mind you the observers were as drunk as the rider. There was a lot of natural applause and of course the usual, “Why the F%&K”. The one person who was silent through all this post ride exchange was Cassy, he was sizing up the next cow and decided he too wanted to feel the wind in his turban. Never one to back down he gave that cow a chase, this one though was smarter and started to sprint as soon as it saw Cassy charge, halfway through the sprint it realised it’s size, I suppose, and turned right around to stare  Cassy in the face – it was a scene right out of a corny hindi movie – the two stared at each other and then the cow charged – man! it was hilarious to see Cassy run for his life. The “walk” continued that night and it included 100 mt dashes and conversations with obscure people on the road after which we returned to the roof and the second bottle – the second bottle was quicker to finish than the first and a lot of merry making resulted in the lawn downstairs to be peppered with digested dinner. I was carried down during the course of the evening sometime and we all made a mess of the room. The next morning being Holi we woke up pretty late were invited to house of one of Dad’s friends to celebrate – the first thing that was thrust in front of us were glasses of super strong bad tasting Bhang – the last thing you need to cure a hangover – to top it all there were these kids running around revelling in the fact that they had water cannons to drench us – till this day I hope and pray that they had a similar experience with pesky kids – the kind you want to kill for hitting you in the back with a balloon on a hot day when you are hung over cause surely they’d have grown up by now and will have a few stories of their own.

Smirnoff and Rockview 63B

Akhil was the vaccation co-ordinator in Delhi for the longest time - he was in a college in Delhi for 4 years marking up notches on his bed post furiously, turning online poaching into an art form and attending college every once in a while. Anytime Robert or I would be home on vaccation Akhil would get all 7 together without fail - those were simpler days - most of us were earning and could well afford night clubs / pubs but these were yet to become as popular as they are now and in any event we always had a party house - Rockview 63B Air Force Station Palam. Akhil's dad was posted out to Patnitop and his mum was away teaching in an international school in Indonesia so it was just him and his younger brother, Mochu in that house - well it was more a liquor storage than a house with some sort of party happening every second night of the week. I remember one such party - we had all gotten together with 4 bottles of Smirnoff, one bottle of lime cordial and one bottle of coke - who did the math - I have no idea but we started the night - the first casualty was the lime cordial bottle with Cassy shattering the top in an attempt to open the cap - and he was even proud of his, "grip". Now, anyone who drinks would know that you want to have that drink just the way you like it - so the glass in a bottle - no problem out came a milk strainer and we started straining the lime cordial - and ofcourse were soon driking up glasses of mostly Vodka which was embellished with some coke. After 2 bottles had been used up and we were all certain we would literally bleed from the glass we had consumed (i mean a strainer...) we decided to make things a little more interesting by taking a walk around Palam - this was a residential colony for the Air Force personnel and had AF police patroling at all hours - but none the less we set out in pursuit of nothing. The AFP stopped us as expected and I have no idea what we told them then or the countless other times we were stopped but they always let us go - must have been me doing the talking or Cassy - most certainly not Abhishek (he still remains a one drink wonder). Our aimless walk took us to a water tank - a kind that I have only seen in India and old (70s) American movies - really high staunchions with a rickety ladder and a cylinderical tank on top. The prospect of climbing it seemed very interesting that night (and many other nights when we set out from 63B after that) and we all climbed up - the interesting thing is that we all made it up in one piece. Once up there Akhil and I started talking of the girl in his life (can't remember which one it was then - one of the famous 8) and Cassy and Abhishek wandered off, after a while we heard a rather loud discussion - it was Cassy and Abhishek perched right at the top of the tank (no support railings around - nothing) discussing the motion of a pendulum - one an IITian the other an idealist who delves deep into any subject that catches his fancy; the result of the discussion was lost when I dropped my watch from the top and Abhishek a ring - the fascinating thing to note though is that it was pitch dark and we were 30 metres above ground not to mention drunk, but both saw the objects right from the top and reluctantly began the descent to collect the items. The walk back to 63B was longer as on the way we all stopped at various points to relieve our bladders, cassy though didn't he simply let go in the middle of the road walking BACKWARDS, a funny sight as you can imagine, but wait he had an explanation - " If you pee on the middle of the road you will not loose orientation as you have the white lines to guide you, you have to walk backwards otherwise the pee falls on your shoes and you have to walk to save time - my first break through as an IITian" - needless to say the paper on that thesis never got completed. We have all since changed a lot especially when it comes to drinking with most opting for beer / rum,Abhishek Whisky and cassy - well he drank enough in those days to wreck his liver for life and now sticks to "white wine please" but Smirnoff it was then - we had all sorts of concoctions around it - one particularly lethal one was called, "Bloody Hell" - a glass half full of Vodka, quarter white rum with 3 spoons of Glucose and water - terrible taste but an instant hit - getting drunk the fastest possible way - that was the goal. The only regret is that we used to all drive back home after those nights luckily nothing untoward happened then but it was still a very reckless thing to do, maybe not actually because the one time I was stone sober going back from Akhil's house I hit the main gate and destroyed the front right side of my car - stayed back for a smirnoff ofcourse.

She created a monster

After I got back from my first trip at Sea in early 2001, A was seeing a girl from our school (used to be with us in school - same year) - seemed a perfect romance, well to them anyway - to us it seemed he was being manipulated in every possible manner - to this day I am sure that it's good that it never worked out for them - he - I don't know what he thinks? Anyway getting back to then and them - he was the perfect doormat, she a proper Diva - on the choreo team of her college (a claim to fame in those days - I was in college for a very few days so all my knowledge of "considered cool" was from friends)and so on - it was going along quite well for them and they seemed "so much in love" that marriage and kids had already been discussed - in fact when I had told him, "You two will never get married" he was so confident that he said, "I'll bet anything!" so the bet was, "You will name your first born, no matter boy or girl, after me" very rumpelstiltskin I know but he agreed. Of course quite a few of the stories that will follow happened in the interim but just to finish this one I fast forward 3 years - college over A's girlfriend decides to move out of town for post graduation, I was unfortunate enough to be the "freind" present on "the last day" and was witness to much crying and teary farewells which I duly clicked with a camera handed to me with explicit instructions "finish the role by evening". So there I was clicking away furiously - look here - another candid shot - great pose - et all, after the 37th click I was a bit worried but then said, "this might be longer role with 42 pictures?!" and everyone was relieved so I clicked 5 more in quick succession and then another and then yet another till we were convinced that I f...d up the role load - the evening had ended and the girl needed to get back home to pack - she was ofcourse furious at having no memories of the "last day" to which I quipped, "You have no pictures but you have the memories, right?" this one sentence started the trend of girl friends of all my friends hating me - to this day the jinx remains unbroken - and the publishing of this page will not break it I am sure. Anyway we went to the phtographer around the corner, "who loaded this role - idiot loaded it all wrong - nothing can be done!" so I not only had a girl who hated me for ruining her day but also a crest fallen friend, to make ammends I bought another role, got it loaded proffessionally, drove my friend back to his girlfriends house at night, finished the whole role in one hour and had it developed and delivered the next day - this appeased her to an extent but still, "the memories are lost" Sigh!! Anyway we move on, well actually she moved on very soon after moving out and I saw Devdas first hand in real life replete with drunken stupors, heavy smoking, bottle smashing and self harm (as dramatic as your imagination can get and then some) - from these ashes emerged a monster - A was a transformed man - a once shy nice guy became a womaniser in search of his victim at all times - he preyed on unsuspecting young women on the internet, through friends and generally all over - to be honest he managed to get some when we couldn't - so we labelled him a monster - but in reality it was great for him - he moved on and on and on - I think on one of the drink nights we counted 8 different women in one calendar year - impressive by any standards and definitely better for him than what he was in - but till this day after a few beers one of us is liable to say, "she created a monster" - that monster has today settled down and is quite happy with life and love and I do wish him all the very best in life. I just keep reminding him of his promise, let's just hope that the first born is not a girl.

The First Trip at Sea

It was june of 2000 when my first trip at sea materialised, I had stopped going to college, actually my college being what it was, St. Stephen's asked too many questions as to my long absences (for training) and I decided to take the moral high ground and write to the principal explaining my desire to sail the seven seas and yet keep a connect with the college - he obviously promptly worte back, "F...k Off" so I officially withdrew from the college and spent the entire summer doing nothing much - well I did join some sort of graduation with an open university which required a hundred assignments a month and I delligently did them all till June came around and I was told, "You're joining, WH Blount in America, it's a tough ship best of luck". Fresh out of school when you tell someone, tough ship, he thinks, "I've been handpicked!!", so with a lot of eletaion and sense of pride I embarked on my firt long haul international flight - great flight - first flights always are I suppose and on the way I met an Officer joining the same ship, having grown up on defence bases (my dad was in the Air Force then) I was very respectful and hanging onto every word he said - later on (very soon actually) I realised much it was hogwash and he was not as smart as he thought but anyway joined ship in Port Arthur, Texas was initiated into the life onboard in a rather harsh manner and I realised why this was a "tough ship" - the first day was 12 hours of non stop work - all sorts of work from fetching coffee to cleaning out the holds to hammering with all my strength to try and shake off cargo that was stuck to the ship's hold - but again innocent days those, I was so happy working that it didn't occur to me that I should be tired and was more than eager to help everyone with everything. Time on that ship used to pass very quickly as we used to do only 2 day runs and soon we were arriving in Mexico - ofcourse two days were enough to have my interest piqued with all the stories I had been told about the nude beaches and strip clubs that awaited in Playa Del Carmen - alas! it was also the first time that I made a mistake on board - dropped paint or some such (can't remember) but it was enough for me to be told, "Shore Leave is banned for you" so my first reprimand and a bit harsh in my mind (being a senior officer my self now) but I got on with it and made do with stories from the other cadet who went ashore. Next time though there was no stopping me and a fresh faced boy of 18 from Delhi (Delhi 10 years back though - we are a generation behind todays teenagers) stepped on the sandy beaches of MEHICO with bulging eyes and jaw that was stuck open - the round of beach ended up in a strip club and trust me there are very few things in life that can duplicate the high of your first time in a strip club especially so at 18. The girls there couldn't stop gushing over "the kid" or "Bambino" as they called me and I was on cloud 9 - still to pay for sex seemed immoral and desperate and even though I was drunk for the very firt time in life I decided not to go down that route - a decision that I am quite proud of till date. Ofcourse I got the usual ribbing, "You're scared, you're kid etc etc" from all on board but I stuck to my ground (to be honest the ribbing was getting the better of me and I was tempted to given in). The decision was taken away from me by Ebon, a beautiful mexican girl in her early twenties who was the sister of the Loading Supervisor. Ebon came on board the next day to see a ship(apparently people like seeing ships - i don't get it really) and I was asked to escort her around - a job I agreed to with much joy - the tour over I asked her for her number as we used to come to same port every four days - she readily gave it to me and there started a great relationship that lasted for my stay on board (10 months) it was great while it lasted but ofcourse neither of us saw it going anywhere - the one thing it did do was change the jokes from "kid" to "ladies man" - a rather welcome change. Even though it was my first relationship it wasn't first love and to this day I am sure that if I bump into her somewhere there will be no malice - a perfect amicable end - I guess that happens once in a lifetime too.

The Start

It all started 11 years ago - there were seven of us just out of school heading in different directions wanting to make the most of life struggling to find out what we wanted from life but all of us knew one thing - we all wanted to go on Roadtrip - a trip to anywhere - the destination didn't matter, it had to be a Roadtrip. The ideas started small - Jaipur, Jodhpur, Ahemdabad, Agra - cities within 4 -5 hours drive but that's all they remained ideas tossed around after basketball over a Pepsi at Nickys (a rather run down excuse for a cafeteria in the neighbourhood). We all started some sort of college in DU - most of us joined to bide time while we looked for a proffession to join at the earliest or as a stepping stone to a better institute and the stories changed to days in the college, the girls on the buses, the girls in college, the girls in the neighborhood, the girls on TV and the girls in our lives - basically the roadtrip was soon forgotten but ofcourse, "we'll do it next year". I was the first to leave, causing much heart ache at home I joined the Merchant Navy, actually how I joined is also rather amusing - Akhil's dad pointed out an advertisement in the paper and both of us applied after he made out our CVs, the calls duly cam for interviews but Akhil by then had decided to immerse himself into being a certified geek (a computer something of some sort) so I headed to Bombay alone more to see the city than to get selected as I had never seen Bombay. I was an arrogant kid and thought myself selected before I applied (till today I strive for that fearlessness but have failed to recapture it) anyway I did get selected and in the meantime I got a call to join the NDA (National Defense Academy) as well - I thought about it and then in true movie style tossed a coin - a normal person would probably use a better tool to decide his future but an arrogant 18 year old who thought he was god's gift to the people said,"heads it is" so I became the first one out of our "gang" of seven to leave Delhi for training. Robert in the meantime had gone way ahead of the rest of us - he used to spend his days hunting in forests around Lucknow and nights as a paying guest in a Girls Hostel - how he managed that I am not quite certain but it seemed very cool at the time but the "do something with your life" worm caught up with him as well and he too joined the Merchant Navy. Rohan and Vaibhav joined colleges in Delhi and Gurgaon but Abhishek followed his dreams - as always (till today) - and tried almost every proffession.
That leaves Cassy - he was teh dedicated one - he decided to drop a year to get into IIT and prepared for it in earnest.