Final Weekend before Job 2

I am scheduled to start my second job in another 3 days. It doesn’t seem that it was just yesterday when I began typing out my mail to my ex-company’s batch on how I was going to miss them, on how great a time I had, etc. It was 2 years ago, and the 2 years since have gone by…well like 2 years. If there were some incidents that made life zip forward, there were a whole lot that had to be flogged all the way through the passing-gates. Thought not exactly weighed, I still had a few pangs in my heart as I began to spend this weekend.

And, to quote Dhimant, the weekend was a breeze. :) It was filled with the usual non-stop laughter (or BS as our dear Albert Pinto would like to say), rankings and ratings that I am proud to have hit rock bottom in, eating out at new places, and … oh yes, a good reason for not cutting my hair. :)

Thanks to the laziness of the other guys, squash didn’t turn out to be in the agenda on either of the days. I don’t claim to be an active guy, actually I am the anti-thesis of “active”, but the others just beat me at my own game (and I don’t mean squash). I remember when I used to play squash with a TT-racquet inside my house when I was in school. I used to pretend to be both Boris Becker and Pete Sampras. Despite my best intention to not bias any play against Sampras, it would be Boris who would always win. To say that pleased me is an understatement. But sadly, I can’t go to The Club and pay 100 bucks for a bit of role-playing mono-acting charade at this age.

Speaking of mono acting brings up the next event of the weekend. As we were heading to watch Kingdom of Heaven, Dhimant called us to watch a play titled “Khatijabhai of Karmali Terrace”. A slight change of route, and there we were – the four of us (Dhimant, Devil, Inder and myself) - along with a dentist friend of Dhimant’s and sitting in the auditorium watching a stunning performance by Jayita Bhatia as Khatija. If one bifurcates a play into performance and story, this one scores incredibly high in the former and very low in the latter. After 70 minutes of uninterrupted acting, and watching her slowly metamorphose from the regal daughter-in-law to the regal yet doddering grandmother, my opinion on theatre per se hasn’t improved, but I hold the actors in a much higher esteem.

The events just before and just after the play involved slandering of The Devil (of which I wasn’t a party to), vaporization of a week-old tiff, Inder’s mistaken identity blunder (which I have sworn to not reveal to non-Gang members), introspective-intrigued questions on why anyone reads our blogs, appropriateness of The Devil nick on himself, and the compliment on my hair from the dentist (Thank you ma’m! :)).

Following this was nice hot tea at Infinitea, and a good dinner amidst raucous pandemonium at Aura. By then, Pinto had joined us from his village and participated in our 3-way NBA discussion. Go Pistons (for my sake), Go Pacers (for The Devil’s sake) and Go Suns (for Pinto’s sake). Overall, a nice end to a nice evening.

Sunday was all about chilli and its manifestations at Annachi. A first-time experience with Chettinad food for the non-Tams (Soldier, Dhimant, Inder) in our Gang had them sweating through every pore and literally pleading with us to rescue them from the exquisite Annachi fare. Inder was the only one among them to come out unscathed. Personally, I loved the food and the ambience. Nice 80s Tamil movie instrumentals in the background and hot, spicy food on the table seemed to make a good combo.

To answer Inder’s question on the temporal position of rasam in a meal, I came up with this - “Rasam is an omnipresent culinary item”. :) You can have a cup of it as an appetiser, enjoy a nice mixture of rice and rasam amidst the meal, or finish off the proceedings with long draughts of steaming rasam. Hmmm…we need to go to Annachi more often.

Let me end this post with my take on friends:
At the end of the day, the place we go to, the things we do there, the happenings that we witness are mere trivialities – a noble charade to provide an opportunity to those people to earn their livelihood. What matters is the company of friends you are with. Even watching the proverbial paint dry can be an engrossing activity if you are among friends who mean a lot to you. Personal likes/dislikes, interests/disinterests fall by the wayside, they are shed away as a snake molts its skin. I guess I am blessed to be with so many such friends.

Ah…now isn’t that a nice Arab, eh?