The stay
Lately my Bombay trips have become fairly mono centric. No matter how grave the objective is, the hidden agenda has always remained Bala- a friend who often turns up as a mentor by turns me off time and again!!
Thus in Bombay, while Kandelivelli east comes up as the most legitimate and convincing station for stay, Bandra has become an irresistible destination to purge out the subdued desires and emotions all at once!! Bala’s big shot donor agency position and brand IRMA always help me to buy in my family that the guy is of big help in terms of professional development……. some thing which barely happened during our eerie rendezvous at Kartar road, Kalanagar or prolonged rick rides !!
But the last Bombay trip has actually changed all these dynamics at once and for all! Considering the convenience, I decided to stay up with another friend of mine who happens to be a guy! He is an ‘almost-childhood-friend’ thus I described the stay to my overtly concerned friends as : Safety ensured!! Even Tupur, who has always been a strong support to my all so called illicit activities, sounded dubious- “who’s the guy? And how come u’re staying with some one else when Bala is in Bombay??!!” Her reaction was prompt and logical as the almost child hood friend is not such a close one. The fact that he’s Ria’s classmate and a very special friend of Ritu- have made his presence prominent in our peer discussion and that’s all !! So perhaps it has been a desperate call from my part and may be li’l shocking from his part too!
2 sleepless nights together changed it for good!
Handful of lie, mugful of coffee
After having a nice Punjabi dinner with refreshing Bacurdi rum, Bala dropped me near Vashi station: I could see from the distance…the black tee guy with black Pulsar….inevitably it had to be Subhabrata, my almost childhood friend!!
Chal coffee khai – was the first phrase from him and the journey started off! ( oops I still remember, because some how I was anxious in my sub conscious mind- how to initiate the conversation or what to say actually). Settling down at CCD, my first task was to call up my parents and giving them some bluffs about my stay in a stupid hostel in Mumbai central and its whereabouts! Surprisingly I didn’t feel bad about it (how mean of me!!)….as I could remember Tupur’s word in one of those literary letters…. “echhe kore aro ekbar mayer dike ekmutho mithyee chure di.. echhe kore aro ekbar fire jai” (wish I could throw another handful of lie to my mom.. wish I could go back again…) Thus, I was sort of cherishing my attempt of trying to reach those time……when we had crazy dreams to live life on our own bizarre terms…the unforgettable days of Jadavpur University…the time when we hardly used to differentiate between a guy and a gal….a time when no Ahemednagar reaped any fear within me… that ‘something disastrous’ can also happen in the process of all these…so going back and being unleashed was the Mantra….and it reigned large in me!
Night 1: CSR mania and Sandipan
First night I was supposed to sleep early, dog tired by a non ac 32 hrs journey amidst maddening crowd and scorching heat and a prestigious admission test in TISS; but we called it a night only at 4 ! Discussion started with photography, about his new semi SLR and its amazing bulb mode, and then it turned towards Sandipan Chtoopadhaya and his bizarre creation…the adolescent memories with those books…the pain the neysha and many more such incidents; which somehow nurtured the anecdotal gelling of our gang in Kolkata…my true self…my root! Finally we caught up with social work! (What an irony! Discussing social work with a Chemical Engineer) pleasure of working for society …..irritation of working for the same, when it becomes u’r bread and butter… difference between a CSR (corporate social responsibility) and NGO…..Jan Vikash and his Sunday painting attributes… discussion went on and on…..fading away my tension of what to say and Subhabrata’s plea to remain silent (which by then he has already told me) until I spelt out abruptly : Ami ghumalam !! (I’m off to sleep)
Night 2: Robert Langdon and the Omelet
That day could be truly said as celebration over flunking!! I screwed up my paper big time but was happy to spend a Friday nite in a metro like Bombay, with a moderately cool chap…with whom by then I have made reasonably considerable frendship !! So somehow I was waiting for the interview to get over and really didn’t want to think a shit about the whole admission process, rather 10 times call to Subhabrata to fix the venue for a happening evening ahead indeed came up as a matter of grave concern.
Bala had to rush to Pune that nite and our plan to visit Leo pole Café got abandoned and strangely somehow, for the first time I was in a mood to say “never mind”!!
The start was pretty mundane, he took me to a plush shopping mall…Palm village…poor me, I thought it would be some sort of mock shack like joint but….alas!! I chanted a brief n silent curse to him - why in shopping mall? But some how I realized that shopping mall is an inevitable destination to escape in today’s era, so Subhabrata is behaving just perfect and normal!! But soon the course of freak out changed and we discovered ourselves with green apples ( liquid form) and smokes!! That was the start I guess, which followed by some more green apple with magic touchy moments…..a long bike ride to catch a multiplex show ( again shopping mall…phew)…..Omelet dinner at 10.30…..caramel popcorn desert at 12.30 and again a plan of having Omelet at 2….and so on and so forth….!! Setting down in his mystic apartment at around 2.30 was not the end of the day; rather…it was the show after interval….and the show was quite rocking, where for the first time I indulged and enjoyed into some more illegal deeds ( cherishable cherry)!! (which otherwise always made me puke!!) But some how it was his magical company or the magic of the time
(magic moment !!) that I survived that nite, with some innovative visionary images like turning of red 0 power to square n flatten one…..beautiful eyes of him ( he by the way very proud of which) to a black dark socket ( a vision imprinted in my brain from Landon’s Angel n d devil’s famous scene of papal autopsy) and his face to Air’s !! (God last one was the dreadfully deadly)…… (And I was struggling to focus on his face….trying to reinforce the fact, that this chap is Subhabrata…by no means is Ari)!!
Conclusion
Next morning which was supposed to be great as Bala was supposed to return from pune and we are supposed to have blast actually turned out pretty simple….bland and mundane than Subhabrata’s kind attempt of taking me to the shopping malls!! Only there was two incidents worth to pen down: I fell down from a steep stair at Bandra ( stonned me !!) and the “coveted” afternoon I spent with Bala at his lonely apartment was literally speechless(mute) from my part…me half dozed off lying on the sofa and he passionately watching Monorama under 6 feet ….!!
Epilogue
I didn’t screw up my paper so badly as the kind TISS faculty at last considered me for the course and after 2 months of that trip I got a call letter to come to Bombay for joining the course,
I am quite settled in Bombay now and enjoying a typical metro life, Bala and me suddenly became very busy and we have never managed to find time to meet up or catch up a good conversation over phone,
Subhabrata is continuing his stay in that mystic apartment with all zero power light arrangement and old monkis habit,
but there is difference now- I have lost the track of counting; how many sleepless nights we have spent together, over illicit intoxicated indulgence !!
