Lets Put A Smile On That Face

A couple of weeks back, I went to Nasik, a town about 200 kms from Bombay, for a two day visit for work. There were three others accompanying me: Little Bro, The Joker, & Hopeless Optimist. We had to conduct a bunch of interviews and focus group discussions about a housing project. The idea was to reach on Friday morning, conduct a few interviews, finish the rest on Saturday, and then head back. Friday went more or less as planned and nothing exciting happened. The following day, we skipped lunch in a bid to wrap up work quickly. At about five in the evening, famished, we got inside our taxi to leave for Bombay. Everyone wanted to just get back home, probably go out and have fun on a Saturday night. Except for The Joker. He had other plans.  And unfortunately you can't mess with him. He was keen to go to the Sula wine yards, and that was that. He had heard that there was a real nice restaurant where we could wine-n-dine. He convinced Little Bro, and after some time, Hopeless Optimist and I gave in too. Bombay had to wait.

We reached the wine yard in about half an hour's time. To The Joker's credit, the place was beautiful. There was a distillery and a restaurant on the far end, and to reach there, we had to drive through the wine yard. The sun was setting behind the hills and we could see a few people sitting in the balcony on the first floor sipping wine. The setting was perfect. Thought of good food with good wine got our juices flowing.

This is where it all went down hill. Now, you would expect a place like this to be serene, one that plays mellow music which is soothing to your ears. But, what did we hear on entering the place? A loud variant of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' by Britney Spears. We let it go, after all the food was more important than the background music. This is when we got our second shock. The damned 'restaurant' was not serving any food, well except for Jerry's favorite - cheese & crackers. My stomach shrunk, Hopeless Optimist's jaw dropped and Little Bro became grumpy. The Joker had to keep his composure since he was the one who had brought us to this place. Nonetheless we decided to try out a white wine on the waiter's recommendation. Now I am not much of a wine guy and I can't differentiate between a Chardonnay and a Chenin Blanc, so when I had a sip, I had no clue whether it was good or bad. I turned to the others to see whether they liked it. The expression on Hopeless Optimist's face was priceless. She was clearly not happy. This was not her idea of a Saturday evening: sitting in a wine yard, drinking not so good wine, eating cheese on a famished stomach, and listening to the latest pop numbers. 

We cleared the bill and left feeling disappointed. (While heading out, I picked up a bottle of red wine for my colleague, Shiny - the name refers to his balding hair patch). On the way to Bombay, we stopped at a dhaaba (a local restaurant), ate some real food with enough oil to increase my blood cholesterol level by a few percentage points, poured Sula's finest into steel tumblers, and guzzled it. 

The w(h)ining experience was over and our smiles were back.

Double Fault

I love playing outdoor sports, and was lucky to represent my college in Tennis right from my freshman year. The biggest event of the year for a sportsman in IIT is the annual Inter - IIT Meet. It is a week long event, hosted  by a different IIT every year in which nerds from seven colleges from across India battle each other in various sports competitions to come out on top. (Just in case you don't know what IIT stands for, it is the The Indian Institute of Technology). It was, and continues to be our 'Olympics'. To be fair to us, our level of playing is not abysmal. Since IIT-Delhi, my alma mater, did not host the event while I was at college, I had the chance to visit four other campuses.

In my freshman year, we were Guwahati bound for the meet. There were about a hundred and twenty of us representing the college in various disciplines such as Cricket, Football, Tennis, Track & Field events, etc. It was a forty hour journey by train and we had two full compartments to ourselves. Since my team mates were flying down later, I was tagging along with the Football team as I knew a few squad members. At about two in the morning I was woken up by some commotion. I opened my eyes and saw a few chakkas/ eunuchs asking my fellow college mates for money. I pretended to be asleep, but that didn't stop them from waking me up. Everyone in the coach was woken up and asked for money. A friend, I shall call him Prey (for reasons you will soon found out), was also woken up. He claimed he had no money and hence could not shell out anything. Slap !!!. Right across the face, tight and hard. I was in no mood to face similar music so I removed a hundred rupee note from my wallet and handed it peacefully to the eunuch. He/she/it wanted more. I told her that I had only hundred more bucks left for the entire journey and pleaded to leave me alone. I was saved. But alas, Prey wasn't as lucky as me. He wanted to be a smart ass, and as a result, paid the price. After refusing the second time, he was punched, this time with a ring. To make matters worse, he had been hit right on the eye and was screaming in pain. They let him go and proceeded to hassle others. In a span of twenty minutes, the entire contingent was swindled, assaulted, and no one could do anything. After a while, things calmed down and we went back to sleep. The next morning everyone was cheerful once again, except Prey. He did not speak for about four hours and was just looking out of the window with a serious face and a black eye. We even made a video of him sulking, but I am not sure who has it now. The best part, Prey dawned the number six jersey for the football team. (To make things clear, eunuchs are also called chakkas in Hindi. The word chakka refers to the number six). 

Now, fast forward a year, and I am in the Inter IIT meet in Bombay. It was our bronze medal match. The previous day, I had strained a muscle and it was paining a lot. I badly needed to do something as my movement was hampered. Now, Tennis in Inter IIT is a team sport and is played in the Davis Cup best of five matches format in which you have two singles, one doubles and then, if need be, you play reverse singles. I was to play the second singles match which gave me time to sort out the problem. What I did next, is something I will advice no sane person do. It was an act of desperation, one which I shall never forget. I took a bottle of quick relief Volini, and sprayed it on the areas where I was hurt. A good idea right? In most cases it would be, but not when your applying the spray to your groin. I was jumping around like a rabbit. It was burning 'down there' and I could nothing about it. I was screaming inside my head. I tried everything possible, water, did not help, ice, nothing. The Bombay humidity played its part in aggravating my condition. It was plain bad. The only good thing, my muscle pain was gone, but the burning sensation was still present. I played my match hopping around and lost. In all fairness, my opponent played well and as a result we did not win the bronze medal. 

Apart from having fun playing in Inter IIT competitions, I learned a couple of lessons for life, such as:- if a eunuch asks you for money in the middle of the night, you just hand it over without acting smart and never, I mean never, use any spray close to, you know where. Never.