The D’ Palace

It was a lazy Sunday, like it always is. We woke up at around 10 30 & hopped into the cars to leave for a remote mouse hole, in which lay a 5-story building. (It was actually my bro Nilesh’s abode) So after some confusion about the road leading to the mouse hole and some discussion about the apparent destination and its unclear path & more confusion about where our navigator (the great man Nileshda himself) might have vroomed on his bike, we finally reached his home. Rasna and misal interrupted my tryst with the terrorists of Counterstrike, & after some “what r u up to these days” followed by the ever-hot topic about Ameda’s (that’s what we fondly call him, amey + dada is too long right?) wedding and his prospective brides me & Ameda decided to leave. Nileshda & we then came up with the decision to catch up a movie at E-square if the janta of pune would let us (i.e. if we get hold of the tickets).

As I said the Sunday was too lazy for us to go out and hunt for the tickets, so we just decided to allowed laziness to cast its spell upon us. Nileshda saw this as he arrived and he too joined us in the act. After giving a saridon (that’s the name we have given to a ‘fake commitment’) to Ketan Bhide & having a good laugh about it, we went out to repair the punctured bike. Suddenly as if a brainwave would occur, Ameda said “Lets vroom to Apache’s for a beer” as the mechanic arrived at the conclusion that the tube had to be replaced. “Apache!” I said with a wow like expression. I always do get excited when I here that name, as excited as a child when he sees the ice-cream van. As the puncture was fixed we came home and at about 8 pm left for Apaches.

But somehow a reverse brain wave came to his mind and he said to me “Lets skip Apaches and head for some coffee.” I nodded as I often do, but somewhere in the back of my mind I was carving for some beer. Now as the verdict was put out to Nileshda his face turned into a frown, as if he had swallowed a bitter pill. “Coffee!” He moaned. He wanted to have beer. He suggested we go to a bar instead of Apaches. It was making sense, because Apaches is not a place from where u can zoom out within an hour. And since time was a major constraint we headed to D’Palace, a garden restaurant & bar. It was a nice place, clean & green with nice fountains. We ordered 2 beers of Kingfisher mild & fish fingers. We celebrated with “cheers” & I gulped it sip by sip, sandwiched between helpings of fish fingers, potato chips, peanuts, papad, sev & puffs of cigarettes.

At the same time as we were discussing various things like marriage & Nileshda’s confident “I m not into this commitment thing”, we rose above the clouds as if we were in a flight, not literally but internally. Soon enough the topic of marriage was replaced by interesting topics like the mind blowing hot female colleagues of Ameda and the thrills of dating older married & experienced women. We ordered another beer much to the indifference of Ameda, as the topic changed again.

It’s the thing about alcohol you know; it awakens the philosopher within you. I think every person has something to say on a particular topic. Only alcohol gives him the strength to express himself. Another wonderful thing about alcohol is that it gives you the power to tolerate anything & anyone.

After a beer each, my two bros shared the bill. “I owe them a lot,” I said to myself as I had lost the count on the number of times these guys have treated me. I love them & these guys are more like close friends to me. I don’t think anybody enjoys with brothers as much as we do. We grabbed some mouth fresheners just to get ready to go home & cigarettes to enhance the pleasure quotient. We dropped Nileshda near a rickshaw at Chandni Chowk and took a u-turn to proceed home. I had managed to grab a cigarette from Nileshda. “Hamara bhai bigad gaya hai!” he taunted.

We put some hard rock on. It was Metallica, both me and Ameda loved it. It’s as simple as that, Metallica rock. They really do & somehow the alcohol increases the pleasure. At that point I felt like embracing the entire metallica band along with Vijay Mallya! I kept on muttering the lyrics between regular puffs. It was a rocking drive back home.

We reached home at 10 pm and after dinner, as we got ready to sleep I realized how good I was feeling. It was as if I could see the Gods doing their chores when I looked down about 10 floors from where I was. I was up in the air and wanted to keep flying. I realized that one beer was the perfect way to get me high and not to overdo it. I have gulped 2 ½ beers one day, but with this one beer I was feeling better, about 66 kgs lighter probably. So amongst other things, I promised myself to write this one and post it on blogspot.