This is the story of a day in the lives of five people - the Fraud-Bong, the Vintage-Bong, the Old One, the Stud and the Loser (your's truly).
On this fateful day, in a place that is assumed to be a place for the great minds of the country, our five protagonists decided to watch a movie. Frankly speaking, the Loser had no expectations from the movie, but maybe someone else did. But, maybe I am spilling the beans prematurely. Let that part come when it ought to.
In the morning after some impromptu discussions, they booked the tickets. The show was for a 4pm since the Loser and the Stud were having classes on a day when most of the people were enjoying their weekend. But the pleasant-weather capital of the country decided to have the worst rains of the year at 1.30pm, precisely one hour before the time to leave. After the rains supposedly had subsided, the fab-five decide to leave for the most-happening place of the city , where the theater was located.
Then, something happened that usually never does, the direct bus to the 'most-happening place' which has a frequency of a bus every 20 minutes, was standing right outside the campus. So, all of them, not believing their good luck, get on the bus. But Murphy's law never fails. The bus got into a traffic jam and moved only 15 meters in 15 minutes. After a couple of times of almost getting off the bus, the fab-five decided that it would be better if all of them walk to the front of the jam and take some transport from there.
As they started walking, the reason for the jam became clear to them. There was water-logging on the road where a bus broke down right in the middle of the road and vehicles wary of going through the water for the fear of water entering the exhaust and the engines. The Loser, in his typical style, folded his jeans and walked through the knee-deep water just to realize after crossing the water, that none of his friends were to be seen. What transpired was that the Fraud-Bong decided that he won't damage his shoes in the water and decided to stay back. The other three members of the fab-five decided to take a longer but a less water-logged route to the place where the Loser was standing.
By the time they arrived and met up, they received a call from the Fraud-Bong that he took the first bus out of the traffic mayhem and was waiting for all of them at the next signal where traffic was flowing smoothly. Then, everyone decided that since the place was just 300-400m away, so all of them might just walk to the place. But there was another stretch of water on the way. The Loser again took the lead and crossed the water on foot, again to realize that the other three had taken another bus to the next signal. And to rub salt on being made to feel like a total Jack-a$$, the bus which all of them had got down from crossed him. But the fab-five was united and did not get on the bus as the Loser had not reached the signal on time.
Then, crunched for time, they decided to take auto-rickshaws to the theater with the Loser, the Old One and the Fraud-Bong in one Auto and the Vintage Bong and the Stud in the next one. The first auto reached the theater 10 minutes late just to learn that the movie had not started.
But the Vintage-Bong and the Stud were having an mini-adventure of their own. On asking their auto-driver to drive fast, the driver in a bout of madness, stopped his auto and refused to move any further. After failing to convince him to move, they got down and took another auto. Alas, God had decided to make this day memorable for everyone. So, the auto-driver, in a bid to reach the destination fast, took a short-cut that took them through one of he largest cemeteries of the city - on which the Vintage-Bong later commented, "I would be having nightmares about that for the next few days.". Ultimately, they reached the theater 20 mins after the movie had started.
The movie was as expected, not too good and the Fraud-Bong decided to call it quits very soon. I guess he realized that lady luck was playing a trick on him that day. In another bout of madness, the Fraud-Bong, after failing in his conquest to convince others to leave, left in the intermission alone to go back to the revered campus. They later learned that the Fraud-Bong only watches those movies in theater that he expects to be really good, something that they did not know of before this incident.
The others, not to be outdone by a bad movie decided to enjoy it, by taking the movie light. Although the plan was to enjoy it on the lines of a cult-Indian campus movie, but this one did not provide any scope for that either. They enjoyed nonetheless. The movie might as well have won every award if there was a 'Razzies' concept in Indian cinemas.
Then, the now surviving fab-four decide to roam around the streets of the 'most-happening place'. The go to a 'Chat Place' to have some authentic Indian street food. But, as mentioned before, God had decided to make this day memorable for all of them. It started raining again and they decided to take shelter in KFC.The Stud and the Loser being veggies, decide to stick with the awesome crushers, while the other two feasted on KFC delights. Then, since the rain was showing no signs of subsiding, they decided to walk through the rains to the bus stop to catch the bus. Water was flowing down the street like it was a big drain rather than one of the most-well known roads of the pleasant-weather capital.
After, walking for some 5-10 minutes, the fab-four located their bus stuck in the long line of cars and buses and got on the bus. As, everyone knew that the bus would take a long time to take them back ,they decided to start playing antakshri, and with all of them being bad singers, it was not a musical delight. They were lucky that no one came up to them and threatened to beat them down. That may have been the only piece of good luck they had had whole day. After getting through the intial mayhem of traffic, the roads were surprisingly clear and they reached back to campus to culminate one of the most memorable days in all their lives.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
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