When I was a kid, the only night I got to stay up till 12 in the night was the NEW year's eve. Then after I joined Engineering, usually I stayed out till 2 in the night. In MDI, the parties would go on till 4. But the ultimate were always the parties that you read about on Page 3 of News-dailies.
Now its not the same party that most guys have on a Saturday night back home. These parties in Berlin are a trip to crazy and back. Some parties just leave you at crazy and forget to take you back - Beware of such parties. Such parties are suitable only for Michael Jackson (R.I.P mate) and his friends (the ones over 18 years of age).
So I went to this party or should I call them parties coz they are in plural, and it was like crazy. Now I dont want you to think that I havent been to/have been invited for any parties. As you might have guessed, I am like, super popular here in Berlin too... And everyone wants a piece of Arshat coolcucumber... Now being a nice guy, I do like to appease people and go to every party that get invited to, which is Every party btw.
But of course I have my own constraints... I am not a party machine now, am I? Wait... maybe I am!
So this pretty blonde girl asked me out... I kid-you-not, she really did...!! So maybe she called like a group of 8 people to go out, but my friends in India and my son are gonna hear a different story! :P
If I have learnt anything from German TV, it would be never to turn down a blondie.
Now my regular readers (all 3 of you) know that I am a quiet guys who usually keeps to himself unless he really likes you after which he showers you with a mix of funny anecdotes and knowledge tit-bits. If you have noticed that I am like that with you, go buy yourself a chocolate medal. Others, keep trying :P
So as a quiet guy, I never really attended many parties. My engineering background and my straight A's made sure I spent Saturday nights cuddling with my books. Okay, go ahead make fun of me... But now, I can talk bout cars till dawn and you can not! And some of that talk does turn on some hot girls in the class, so there! In your face!.... Okay, I am kidding. My little 3rd and 4th cousins read this blog and I would like to tell you guys, car talk aint hot... Cuddling with books takes you nowhere! Maybe it takes you to IIT or better SPCE, but we have a girl:boy ratio of 1:147, that's where you want to end up? haan? haan? :)
The night started with quiet drinks. And it ended with quiet drinks... But inbetween lay the crazy. I wont explain the crazy as a timeline... It just started randomly, like it used to happen in class back in the 6th grade when the teacher was not around. One notorious guy with the name Chetan or Karan used to throw a chalk at someone and then would start the chalk fight of the century. The fight would end with one of the chalk pieces hitting the teacher between the eyes.. wait.. does this story sound like David and Goliath to any of you?
The evening had started at around 8 and all of a sudden it was 3 in the night! The night had just begun... Imagine that! The night began at 3!
Now in Mumbai/Delhi, the pubs have a realistic feel to them. They spend money for it to look swanky and stuff. There is a huge dance floor depending on whether you are Delhi or Mumbai. Its smaller if you are in Mumbai, coz, well, lack of space. Btw, did you know that in 1997, Mumbai real estate was costlier than Manhattan?! without the PPP! So anyway, there is a DJ playing songs with the words - Mainu, tainu, Ahun Ahun, balle, shava if you are in a Delhi pub and English songs if you in Mumbai. The number of English songs played depends on how further south Mumbai are you ready to go! There are 3-4 big bouncers in pubs in Mumbai to control the crowds. In Delhi the number of bouncers and their body-size doubles to control drunk Sardarjis, most of whom are as big as the bouncers themselves.
The bar occupies double the area and have more people crowding it than Mumbai. The bartenders are themselves drunk and go like-
"Mainu nahi karna pyaar.. ahun ahun ahun" when asked for a drink...
The point is, it looks regular... In the pub we went to in Berlin, well, it was like the inside of a Submarine... It was all red and green and blue and bare brick walls. It has all these pipes running through the pub. And there was this huge pipe with sofas inside and stuff!! How cool...
Now there werent any Bouncers in this club or maybe they must have hid themselves after they saw me coming. I tell you, the tales of my bravery are spread far and wide. But the bartenders were scary. I am so used to ahun..ahun..ahun... when asked for a beer. And they werent drunk at all!
I went -"Ein Bier bitte?" (One beer please, I hope it means that)
"Diese? oder Diese?"(This or this one?)
She could make out there were two different types of beer in the fridge!! She wasnt drunk even by a bit! Disappointing I tell ya! :P
The songs played were without any lyrics - they went - dhumchuk dhumchuk twing twing twing... And people - i-kid-you-not - the people had the beat memorized!!!! So after dhumchuk dhumchuk, they went in chorus - twing twing twing... It was in one word - Awesome!
So I was just soaking in the twing twing twing in me and trying to synchronise my dance steps, giving the Germans the complex of their lifetimes, just then a girl comes to me and says -
"Hi! Are you from India?"
"What?" I shouted.
"You Indian?" she shouted. It was difficult to hear her over the dhumchuk dhumchuk
"Yes."
"Bharatnatyam a dance form in your country?"
"Yes, also Kathak is from India" I shouted proudly.
"Yeah. about that, go learn some.. you suck!"
So after getting my ego thrashed from a girl whose only sense of dancing was to sway her curls from left side to the right, I went and sat in one of those Submarine sofas. And there I saw a boy and girl... well... since my cousins are reading it - I saw a boy and a girl "make notes". Now its cool in Germany to "make notes" in the train, airport, taxi, Brandenburger Tor, but these two were making like notes real hard... Like they had an exam coming up. The girl was also reciting the notes they were making. I am no prude. Well I am a lil. I made sure I made the notes makers a little conscious. hehe. What? Daddy's gotta have some fun too!
I hid behind the bar to see if the curly haired girl who had crushed my dancing ego had left. She was there dancing, thankfully here hair covered her face and eyes and she couldnt see me dancing in the corner. I was doing the best moves Berlin had seen since the last time Michael Jackson was here and I was giving them what they wanted. Obviously, the pretty blonde girl I had come there noticed me and invited me to dance with her.
Now I was dancing my heart out when I froze. My lower jaw fell down, forming a huge gap, formerly known as the pie-hole. The girl stopped dancing and shouted-
"Isnt dancing your thing?"
Of course dancing is my thing! I just showed Berlin the dance moves!
I came back and sat on a bench made of pipes and bricks. I now disclose, for the first time on this blog, what I actually saw that made me stop in between my jig -
I saw.. ahem... two girls "make notes" Oh yeah... I saw what most of Mechanical Engineers with, usually just 1 girl in their class dream of! Everytime there are two girls - standing, talking or the best - fighting, they think something will happen that would make them start taking notes! But it never does happen!!
Today, I became the first in my class of SPCE Mechanical Engineering, class of 2007, to witness it. If any of you have already done it, I have a blog and i have written it down... So I am officially the first, suck it up!
So anyway, after having so much of crazy, I hate to admit, I was tired. And I was the only one of my group who was tired. For the rest, the party had just started! They did some pub hopping, which essentially means, go from one pub to another till all the pubs in the city close down post noon.
I came out of the dark interiors of the pub into the soft light of the morning Sun. The slight chill of the German Summer was in the air. We sat in the taxi and they dropped me at the station. I got into the train. Swaying slightly as the train rocked the rails. It was 7 in the morning. I had partied for the last 11 hours!
I remembered the Page 3 headlines announcing that the party went on till the wee hours of the morning. Wee hours meaning 5 am. Here I was, wondering about how MDI parties lasted till 4 in morning and that seemed a big deal. I remembered how as a kid, staying awake till 12 at New years eve seemed like a big deal. And now, here I was wide awake at 7 am, with a night of dhumchuk dhumchuk, making notes and pub hopping behind me. I looked out of the window to see my station approach. I got out of the train, did a little jig and twing twing twing.....
Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary
Current Issues: berlin, blonde, escp, german, germany, mdi gurgaon
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Kunal Tikare said...
Dude, nice post man!
And come on, gremans dont understand bharat natyam and all, so its obvious for them to find your steps weird!! You might have danced really well, perfect mumbaiya style :P
one more thing, making notes is substituting well man!!
Sumit said...
I heard somewhere that the most interesting place to be in if you don't drink is a bar. The notes were interesting I guess unless you were not drunk enough to hallucinate and later make up this stuff :P
Rohan said...
Whoa!
You really had a gala time out there...Keep posting.
s4n705h said...
hahahaha.. IThis is one of the "cleanest" post ever written. I am reading this at office and laughing. BTW nice perspective of how we the idea of late night changes as the time changes.
A said...
Ha ha! Looks like i will need a crash course in dancing before i step out of the country :-) Nice post. Hope you get to see lots more women 'making notes' :-P
Arshat Chaudhary said...
@Kunal
Thanks man!
I danced like awesome man! They just dont get it!
@Sumit
Hehe.. no man.. not making it up..
@Rohan...
Sure did! :)
@Santosh
It surely is clean :P
Glad you liked it
@Madhuri
I dunno... Do watch me dance first and then decide for yourself :P
enchantinganki said...
hahaha :D
nice post!!
dhimchuk-dhimchuk!!
kya baat :-P
making notes and all..Waah ..!!