Fantastic Narrative

===========================================================================

Here is a True Story sent to me by one who has a flair for writing...Commotion Recollected in Tranquility...after a good fifteen years...it ought to have gone surreptitiously into the Diamond Meet Souvenir...

***************************************************************************************************************

Dear Sir:

On New Year's Eve, 1996, a friend and I extracted a bottle of whiskey and some cola from a wing senior as a promised job treat. The senior was averse to drinking and did not have more than a sip or two and left us to our devices, and my friend and I both had some personal woes to drown so we did not mind.

After half the bottle was over, we were both still sober, and did the rounds of the wing, trying to scandalize those of our friends and juniors who were still teetotallers.

Then we went back to finish the rest of the bottle. But slowly we ran out of the cola, so as time progressed we were drinking the whiskey raw, which was too much for either of us to handle.

I have little recollection of the rest of the night, except that a huge fight took place in my room, and then at what must have been around two in the night, I was lying on the bed laid down on the floor of a different room, and nearby was lying my friend, with what looked like stitches on his cheek.

I was missing my favourite Duckback jacket, but I braved the cold to walk the length of the wing to my room, only to find its lock broken and the bed on the floor and whole room ransacked. I felt too disoriented to put things in order, so I made the quickest possible decision to maintain status quo as far as sleeping arrangements were concerned, and returned to where my friend was lying, lay down next to him, and woke up next morning just in time for the first period.

Now, I am not superstitious as such, but I did not want to miss the first lecture of the New Year.

To make things worse, it was HNA teaching electronics. Most of it went over my head, and half the time I felt like puking into the sink that was right next to me, much to the amusement of my classmates who were on to the story by then. HNA, of course, did not notice.

The next period was MLM's, of all people.

My classmates persuaded me to bunk that class, and when I reached the hostel, I was updated by my wingmates about my activities the previous night.

Apparently, I had locked myself in, and was in tremendous discomfort, and was rolling all over the place, shouting, and in KGP lingo, gave my own room a CG, and someone had to go round the balcony at the back to rescue me. In the process, I had puked on my bed, my jacket and on my friends.

My drinking partner meanwhile had gone off to dance with some SNites/IGites who had come to party in our hall. He managed to fall and break his glasses, and the metal frame went into his cheek. He was apparently unaware of the bleeding, and only when someone noticed the blood spurting forth was he taken to a doctor, who stitched him up, remarking that no anesthesia would be needed.

All this while one of my wingmates stood guard over me, and apparently I was doing somersaults (according to him) eluding him while also tried to hang on to his lungi.

That, I would say, was a very close brush with MLM.

**********************************************************************************************************

Here is my reply:

*****************************************************************

Dear Story-Teller:

Great to hear that hilarious story from you...we will talk about it if and when we meet next, in greater detail.

As to my own brushes with alcohol, the best story has already been blogged...about that Russian Mam who made me eat beef-pelmeny and wash it down with raw Russian Vodka...the rest pale before that because it was too much for a born vegetarian South Indian Brahmin. Here is a story I didn't blog so far:

During the early 1970s I was pushed into SDM's lap and the shove was too much for me and things were going wrong with our publication activity...he sent our first Joint Paper to JETP whence it bounced, and then to Czech Journal of Physics who went into hibernation for a year.

That was too much for a loner like me. Folks said that Kingfisher is good to drown one's sorrows in, and one evening, I WALKED all the way to Gole Bazaar and entered into the dingy Anarkali at around 7 PM. And ordered a Beer and started sipping it in a lonely cubicle meant for six or so.

Half way through, three of my third year B Sc Physics (EMT) students walked into my cubicle and it was thoroughly embarrassing on both sides. They kept their cool and I my head. And we made small talk till I gulped the bottle and walked out, took a rickshaw and rushed to my Faculty Hostel for some grub.

That was my last bout with alcohol.

gps


============================================================================