2005 begins...

New Year’s and Birthdays have this nasty habit of reminding me how useless my life has been. As Kaushik pointed out during the get-together (the main subject of this post later on) at my place, “In another 6 months, we both will be 26 years! Dammit…26! Even 30 doesn’t scare me…but 26 truly does.” Such milestones only make me ponder on what I’ve earned out of my own capabilities. There’s nothing. Zilch. Zok. Nada. You get the point.

Well…there is one thing. My friends. And I had the fortune to spend my New Year’s Eve with all of them (well almost). Even if there are a few misgivings, I don’t think that I would have chosen otherwise. Even if there was an overall atmosphere of cribbing, I don’t think that they would have chosen otherwise. I may be wrong. But I am not. (Yikes! I have begun to sound like Rajneesh, who incidentally lent his voice to our party, with the statement-contrastatement.)

Anyway back to the party. One account of it is already available in the blog of Ameya aka The Asphalting Osmium, so I shall try to fill in the missing pieces. Since my parents weren’t in town, my home became the obvious venue. Kaushik came up with an idea of buying actual poker chips to supplement our game of Flash (for earlier exploits in this game kindly refer to the Sandur Blog). Drawing on this, Inder advised me to buy a Monopoly set. And I actually did! Obviously the shopkeeper thought I was purchasing a gift for some kid. I had to refuse his multiple offers of gift-wrapping it. It was pretty embarrassing. :)

The game of Flash ensued with the primary participants being The CEO, Lankan Coconut Seller, Ambani Brothers, Kokila Bhen, Asphalting Osmium, Building Blocks and The Red Husker. Also known as Dhimant, Akshai, Vivek & Pramod, Kaushik, Ameya, Inder and me. The Husker was the clear winner despite some late comeback attempts by the Ambanis who were helped by Kokila, who had shifted to full-time consultancy due to his inability to get his curreny right. LCS kept us in splits with his incessant jokes, while Osmium kept us knowledgeable with his incessant pearls of wisdom.

All this was interspersed with calls from Moo York and bouts of “partying”. CEO and Husker took up camera duties…and lets just say that we have some pretty damning footage that would dispel all the nice impressions the parents have about their sons.

Having tired of Flash, we shifted to Monopoly with few of the guests volunteering to be part of the Anti-Trust Observation Committee. A new pairing of Carlos & Miguel, the Colombian Dope-Lords was formed with the entrance of Rajesh. The Ambanis lived up to their reputation by landing up in jail every other turn. The winner was LCS. By this time, the observers were all asleep or watching Terminator 2.

I spent the next day alone cleaning up my house and setting everything right. Then I slept for another 10 hours. Thus ended 2004, and began 2005. It was indeed a lot of fun to talk about old times and speak about our status as losers.

Is 2005 going to be different from 2004? Hmm…I think not.
Do I want it to be different? No idea.
Do I wish for anything to happen? Hmm…as Stephen King says in one of his books, “Don’t wish too hard for something. You may regret it later when it actually happens!”

Happy New Year!