After months of planning, deliberation, postponement, rescheduling and more planning. We finally got to go for the outing. Now I consider this initial tirade about planning essential as we as a gang were planning this trip since about a year and when it finally materialised it did live upto its expectations.
So we got together on Friday evening to celebrate R’s birthday and during dinner & drinks at Inchara, made the final arrangements. Then the plan actually got into action as K and I went to get booze (about 48 cans of KF strong and an Australian wine did the trick). Came back and hogged like crazy before Su dropped me home with plans to go to some sanctuary and saying that he would pick me up at 6 in the morning.
Well the plan was still tentative and I got a reality shock in the morning after I had taken a bath at 6 (the whole narration is non-fiction, so hold your breath) and came to know that the venue had been shifted to Shivasamudra Falls and also that people had just woken up and the whole program had been revamped as A was flying down from Hyderabad for this event.
Now knowing our gang I knew it was highly improbable that they stick to even this altered plan or for that matter any plan. So proceeded to wash my clothes and do Sudoku before I got a call saying I should come up to Su’s place instead of they picking me up. Since Su’s car does not have an audio system I also had to take my TP along with me and the fact that autos are extremely difficult to obtain near my place, I had to walk lugging my hand-all for a considerable distance and two phone calls, before I actually found one auto.
Once I reached Su’s place (at about 8:30) I realised that I was the last one these and we started at once after a round of vulgar obscenities. After that it was a nice drive where I and Su changed hands on the driving wheels and generally took the new Maruti for a ride. Had breakfast at Kamat, which was a bloody awesome place and then went on to a Reliance Bunk in a certain City/Town/Municipality/Taluk (as claimed by our very own R) but the city (read village) was so advanced that it did not even have credit card access in the filling station.
We reached Mandhya at about 12 and from there it was a 30 minute drive along which they are quite a few beer cans scaterred amid chaotic shouts as one of the beer cases was done with. Reached the falls at about 1:30 and soon Su was commenting that this was not the place he came initially. So all of us were a bit apprehensive and thinking whether we made a mistake coming here, but our confused and confounded host had hit the jackpot as the first view of the falls themselves were awesome. As perplexed and baffled he might have been, Su was soon beaming with pleasure and forgot to lock the car in a hurry to get to the water.
From the next two hours, we had fun unlimited as we tried to compete with the furious tirade of the water by consuming as much beer as humanly possible and disrupting the flora and fauna with wave upon wave of subhuman noises. You would be surprised to know how difficult it is to open a beer can once you are drunk enough to break the seal opener with which it is manufactured.
And then began another round of antakshari with R signing yet another Dig song that no one understand but all of us got thoroughly wet with continuos splashing and generally behaving like a bunch of behemoths. Anyway at this point A got totally smashed and fell into the muck(later, he would claim that he did not remember changing his clothes or where he kept his watch).
After some more frolicking on the water shore, we changed and made our way back to the vehicles in a haphazard manner while trying to see that we did not leave anything except empty beer cans behind (all you environmentalist, please excuse us). Once we reached the vehicles and were deciding where to eat lunch, we heard a scream saying that Sa way injured. Apparently Su had tried his hand at throwing the ball and Sa was playing fetch when he fell into a ditch and injured himself severely. He could not even get up and the screams we heard were only partly due to his severely intoxicated, injured state.
We quickly went down to the place he was lying and saw that he had cut his knee really badly. Someone got the First aid kit from the car and I tried patching him up as well as I could. We then carried him over to one of the cars and put him beside another of that days victims ‘A’. ‘A’ had absolutely gone over the edge and was seen puking his guts out quite a few times.
Then started a series of arguments which generally had only one purpose which was to scream at the top of your voice while trying to appear sober. Firstly the colonial cousins P and Su had a go and after that I and Su had a shouting binge. After unanimously deciding that we would all start back only after all of us sobered and that would take atleast one hour, we started at once and drove to the nearest cliff edge.
Friends, Romans (whoever) and countrymen who are reading this. Please do not panic as the gist of what I am about to say is that we just went to the edge of the cliff not to commit mass suicide but to enjoy nature and view the scenery which was truly breathtaking.
After downing a couple of sodas and having a refreshing talk where the words “Sorry” figured prominently. We decided to get Sa back as soon as possible and so decided to drive back. The drive back was uneventful except that we came back via kanakpura and saved about 50 kms worth of distance, petrol and effort.
Lesson learnt: You tend to drive effectively when drunk.
Anyway 5 of us had dinner at a dhabha while the others took Sa to the hospital. He had about 4 stiches on his leg while. K on the other hand had taken a bus to gultland to meet his better half. A recovered completely to even give us insights about the weather and how India fares in cricket matches. I must say I liked him better when he was wasted.
Anyway a not so glorious end to an awesome triip but as Shakespeare once said and wrote “All’s well that ends well”. So for the people who missed you can make lots of Oinks, grunts and guffaws because that’s what you can do. Sayonara.
PS.. I would have uploaded photos along with this narrative if it had not been for a certain Lazybones who goes around showing his new CASIO watch.
