Hangover.. The New Year Bash..

PROLOGUE

Well, i guess i must first admit that the article might not quite turn out to be the sleazy one as the title must suggest, Talking about the title...neither is it the old trick off the book to get you to read my crap, nor is it entirely misplaced, which you will soon learn. So, that’s for the starters as I should be getting on with the story.

Saturday Morning…January 1, 2011

From the far corner of my eye I could see the dawn breaking in through a distant vent. I could make out the silhouette of a door... I was lying sprawled on the ground at the corner of what I now came to realize was a huge hall. Rubbing the drowsiness from my eyes I looked around to find five more bodies lying around. It was very dark and cold...

Some Hours back...

Time: New Year's Eve, Evening 5 pm
Place: Infosys Training Centre, Mysore.
Actors: Praveen, Manu, Koshy, Hansel, Jyothish and yours truly...

We were perched close besides 17'' monitors and eyes even more deep in it. Each pair of those eyes had a different emotion to boast.
Praveen, Manu and me had a glint of malice in our eyes as we stared intently at the screen. We were too grossed in a game of Counter Strike and had eyes for nothing else. Eyeing the nooks and crannies of the map we were slowly advancing in search of each other.
Jyothish was sitting near me and he was scornfully glancing at my screen, ranting off his legendary conquests in the game.
Koshy was sitting straight up and staring at the monitor with a dazed look. He usually reserved that look for our weekly assessment test papers but today it was right there.
Last, there was Hansel and the expression...BLANK. He had his eyes as always closed (if that were open, it would have been a story of itself) and was drifting off to sleep.
We were all at GEC 2, and for those unaware of the abbr. it stands for Global Education Centre and yeah the second one at that.

It was out of helplessness rather than choice that we forced ourselves to sit in front of PC's on a new year's eve. Whilst the other lucky guys, read 'northies' had got themselves a date and a party to be at, here we were, stranded in front of 17” monitors!

Buoyed by the thought that this might be our last new year together away from home and a desperate urge to do something wild I was hit with a brilliant idea. I jumped up and declared:"Guys, we must go on new year bash”. The first reactions from the rest were not so convincing. Praveen and Manu gave me a quizzical look. Koshy had a bewildered and still dazed look. Jyothish as usual threw the most disgusting scorn at me. Hansel on his part just shifted around on his chair and went back to sleep. I was not to be let down. I got up and urged the others too. It was New Year and we must have a New Year bash! "New Year Bash"...that was the exact words that I blurted out and it somehow seemed to work. Praveen and Manu jumped in on the idea...Koshy gave a shrug that said 'whatever' and joined in. Jyothish mumbled something about planning before going out but joined in too. Hansel who woke up right then promptly followed us as we ran to our hostel to get ready.

At exactly around 6pm on 2011 new year eve we thus started off into one of the wildest nights of our life till date. We never had a plan but to put Jyothish at ease for our own good, we did have a namesake plan and it was something like this:

Step 1: Go into city and find a good pub brimming with booze and girls.

Step 2: Enjoy the night, have a great New Year Party till midnight!

Step 3: Find a hotel and put up there for the night.

Jyothish was still not completely convinced but came with us anyway. Little did we know that the guy up above had an entirely different party planned out for us.

We landed near Mysore city at about 7:30.We headed for the nearest pub we knew, “Purple Haze”. Eying the crowd and with an air of nonchalance walked straight into the bar only to find our way blocked by two bouncers. One was so dark and so big that keeping him outside the bar seemed justified. For one he would not fit in through the entrance door even if he wished to and secondly, none would notice him in the dimly lit pub and would bump into him more often than not. The other guy was tall, strongly built and looked like he could easily knock out all six of us in one blow. The two bouncers gave us a loathing smile and asked for our passes. We stared blankly at each other with raised brows. The bouncers sensing us to be some crazy party crashers promptly pushed us away back into the buzzing crowd outside. After loitering and sniffing around for a while we realized one thing. There were special passes to get into that party and with the passes all sold out there was no chance of us making it inside there. Thus our first shot at the ‘PARTY OF THE YEAR’ was foiled.

We were not disheartened and after a round of debate we decide to go ahead and try our luck out in the Mysore city. We were sure we could end up in some pub or the other in the city. Confidently we made our way to the city. We went straight to the pub near the bus stand and the only one we had been to earlier... “Opium” (aka Pai Vista).True enough we greeted by huge exotic hoardings all screaming of a helluva New Year party. We hastily made way to the counter to grab our passes. This time we were hit on by something much harder. A Notice!!
It said the entry rate was 1500 per head...
Hang on... Thought that was the worst? Down under, in bold red letters were written those lethal couple of words that shattered our heart to pieces...

"ONLY COUPLES ALLOWED"

Story of our life!!1500 was not something we couldn't cough up, but where on hell were we supposed to get a girl each? We couldn't even get to make one of them talk to us for the last couple of months here, and how on earth could we get one to go to a party with. Dejected we crept back out of the bar only to find so many familiar faces walking in. Giving them a wry smile and “Waiting for our partner" excuse we stealthily made our way out with disappointment written all over our faces.

Time was 9:30.We had almost given up on our quest to find 'THE PARTY OF THE YEAR'!!We had to back to our hostels before 10 if we were to get in before the gates were closed. Just then Praveen suggested the name "Zamindar". It was a pub on the outskirts of the city on the Bangalore Mysore highway. We had to make a decision. If we were to go ahead and try our luck at Zamindar we could not make it back to our hostel on Infy premises. After wasting around ten minutes of our precious time on a pointless debate we decided to toss for it.

Here I must take a quick detour and mention this sacred ceremony. I always carried around a One Rupee coin. Trivial and crazy it may sound, that coin was very sacred to all of us. When decisions were never in horizon and we were all lost we turned to our "Holy Coin" for solace and helping us out of the fix. Incredulous it may seem, the coin always gave us precise answers. (We continue this ceremony to the present day).

So out came the coin and off it went swirling up in the air. True to its worth it came back down into my all inviting palm with an answer to our dilemma...

We were hailing an auto and making rushing over to "Zamindar" for our ever eluding New Year Bash. It was half past ten when we reached Zamindar. It was right besides the highway indeed, But wasn't exactly a disco pub as we had not expected nor was it buzzing with hot girls as we had hoped it to be. Nevertheless we got ourselves a table and ordered us a nice round of booze for starters. One round gave way to a second one and then a third. All were pretty drunk and spent by the time food arrived. After sweating for more than an hour and half, it was well near midnight when we finished our food.

Loud crackers heralded the breaking of the New Year. There was a huge round of huge cheers as more crackers were burst. Wishes were going around and we too joined in. New Year was here and though not exactly the one of our dreams, the moment had come.

Well spent and drowsy we made our way out of the hotel. There was no question of going back to the INFOSYS hostel at this time. Koshy was mumbling all sorts of nonsense. He was repeatedly claiming that he was sober despite the fact that he was talking to a door and was walking in rounds. Jyothish was even more difficult to handle. He claimed that he could not feel his legs and that his head would burst any moment now. He even told that he feared that we might take him to some remote place and finish him off. (Not that we didn’t wish to)Manu and Praveen were better and easier to handle. Praveen was silent and was hugging a lamp post. Manu on the other hand was laughing to himself which I assumed was after reciting his infamous jokes to himself. Then there was Hansel.Well, there is no telling when he is in his senses and when he is not, so there he was holding Jyothish.

Phase 3 was underway. We needed a place to sleep it off. After enquiring with the security guards at the hotel who assured that there were a hundred hotels down the road, we trudged along.

True to their word, we did hit upon a hotel after dragging ourselves along for ten minutes down the lonely highway. There was a security at the gate in half stupor. We stated our purpose, but on the other hand the guy kept staring at our face. We asked for a room again and the guy was still having a dazed look. He made some crude gestures at us and we finally realized one thing. The guy didn’t understand one word of what we had said. Praveen amongst us had considerable knowledge of Kannada having grown up in Bangalore. Praveen went ahead and spat out some weird sounds. To this day we have no idea what the guy said, but the guard seemed to understand one word. ROOM. He realized we wanted rooms. He went inside and picked up a phone and pretended to talk to the manager or some idiot inside the hotel. Anyway he came out with a disgusted look and stated. “NO ROOMS. GO!” and started to wave us away.

We walked along and came across around 4 hotels, but the story was the same everywhere. You may find it hard to believe, but all the hotels on the lonely stretch of Bangalore-Mysore highway seemed to have been filled up to the last room. Highway Patrol whizzed past. 6 drunken guys walking down the road laughing and shouting doesn’t make a good sight. Luck for that one reason seemed to favor us, for the Patrol police seemed not to mind us and left us alone. The situation however was getting grim. It was past 1 am now and we still have not found a place to crash.

We were left with just one choice, sleep it out on the roadside or in front of a shop or just sit there till morning came. It was getting damn cold and the fact that some some of us couldn’t stay up any longer put both the choices out of question. The New Year was beginning to be a real tough deal. We were stranded and it seemed only a heavenly force could help us now, and it was indeed one that saved us that day.

Left with no hope, we were walking along and then we came across a church. The church was well lit and there seemed to be some people outside the church. Hansel who hadn’t said a word till then now spoke. He explained that it was the MIDNIGHT MASS at the church which was a regular thing during New Year. He said we could go inside the church and sit with the other people for the holy sermon. He assured that these things would go on till morning and we could sit and sleep while the sermon was underway. We had nothing to lose. No one would recognize us nor would anyone understand what we were talking about. Hansel explained the plan. Fair idea, given the fact that that the guy had just downed some 3 glasses of beer and ‘I-don’t-remember-number’ of vodka shots.

All decided we made way to the church and just as we walked in through the gate a huge crowd came pouring out of the church, and even worse, all of them were talking Malayalam!! No, we were not hallucinating. Drunk, yes we were, but this was real stuff. It was a Malayalam mass and it had just got over.

Royally Screwed and the last resort virtually going down the horizon we sat outside the church dejected as people went around greeting each other. Slowly vehicles pulled out and the church ground started emptying itself. We could see the head Priest bidding goodbye to the last of the visitors and seeing them off. Nothing to lose and too tired to move our asses an inch forward we decided to confront the head priest.

I don’t know what the Head Priest thought when Hansel and Myself headed up to him with the weirdest of requests. We had our stories prepared. We were 7 young church goers who had so eagerly come for the midnight mass and having been so engrossed in the mass, we had missed the last bus back to the Infy campus and now needed a place to rest. Thus the first thing we did on the stroke of New Year night was lie to a priest and that too at a Church. So much for starting the New Year on a good note.

Anyways this Priest guy was kind enough and told us we could head over to the church hall at the corner of the Churchyard and take rest there. He even offered to send some mattresses and sheets too. God bless that kind soul. Armed with enough sheets and pillows we headed over to the dark hall which was infact an unused auditorium filled with all sorts of junks. We found ourselves a good spot on the dais and lied down there. Thanking the all seeing one up above and his grace, we drifted off to a sound sleep as soon as our heads touched the ground….

From the far corner of my eye I could see the dawn breaking in through a distant vent. I could make out the silhouette of a door... I was lying sprawled on the ground at the corner of what I now came to realize was a huge hall. Rubbing the drowsiness from my eyes I looked around to find five more bodies lying around. It was very dark and cold...

I don’t remember when I woke up. Rubbing off the sleep from my eyes and still sprawled on the cold hard floor, I stared around in the dim light trying to comprehend where I was. Suddenly everything came rushing back. The drunken night... the late night wandering and the final showdown at the church. One by one was waking up around me and the groans of realization went ringing around the deserted hall. Slowly we got up and made our way to the door at the far end of the hall with staggering steps. Dawn was breaking in and it was sort of still dark outside. Damn cold too, we realized once we stepped out into the yard. Looking around for someone to say goodbye before we left we met a guard at the gate who though half asleep and even more surprised to visitors on the other side of the gate opened it for us to let us out. Mumbling a vague thank you we headed straight up the highway we had walked down in half stupor yesterday. Luckily for us we found ourselves two ‘RickshaWallahs’ who agreed to take us to our hostel campus( which was less than 2 km) for an amount that I have heard INFOSYS charged their clients for one man hour of work. It was weird the way the world worked.

Anyway half asleep and fully grateful, we reached the gates of INFOSYS campus around the time the guards were about to open the gates. Curious to see visitors at such wee hours, they let us in only after a thorough scan of our ID cards. We then headed straight up to our rooms to sleep off that one hell of a New Year night.

P.s: We will always be grateful to that Priest who let us sleep in the church hall without much questioning or scrutiny and to whom we could not say our thanks the next morning. I still don’t like to think what might have happened if he had said a NO on that eventful night!! Go indeed work in his mysterious ways.