Joining the Dots

“No more adventures?” read Himanshu’s scrap on Orkut.

I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. I had, after all, been at home and having my share of tiny adventures, the sort that makes for bitter-sweet memories. It was just that I had either been a lazy bum or too tired to write them down.

But on a day when I’ve slept for 12 out of the last 18 hours and with two steaming cups of chai just consumed at Ajanta Dhaba, I know I’m in the perfect mood for a long post.

Holmes & Aunty

One TV channel that I have been watching a lot of is the History channel. The two most keenly awaited programs on that channel are ‘Biographies’ and ‘The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries’.

The latter is fun not only because it brings to life the London of old that Holmes lived in (I find it difficult to suppress a smile every time I see the old styled street sign announcing ‘Baker Street’) but also because of the ‘different’ manner in which Jeremy Brett plays the legendary detective.

To be honest, when I first watched the episodes on youtube, I was slightly annoyed by the pronounced manner in which Brett would speak and carry himself. It all seemed so affected! However, over a period of time when I’ve seen around fifteen or twenty such episodes, I think I’ve started liking the quirks that are essential to the Brett version of Holmes. (I remember reading an interview of Pankaj Kapur where he said that the producers of ‘Karamchand’ were swamped with phone calls of people calling in to say how irritating they found the mannerisms of the detective, especially that of scratching his head. Later, the very same people said they couldn’t imagine Karamchand in any other way.)

Anyway, here I was on a Monday evening at Aunt Patsy’s place discussing how I loved watching Holmes. Being the sweetheart that she is, Aunty immediately asked me to come over the next day for dinner (the program is aired on Tuesday nights at 9). Grinning, I agreed.

At around 8:30 the next evening, I was on my way towards Aunty’s house when I decided it would be a good idea to buy some popcorn. I went to this local supermarket where, surprise of surprises, I found a whole section dedicated to alcohol. Given that this supermarket is located in the ultra-conservative Gujarati area of Bhowanipore in Calcutta, it was a BIG surprise.

But my joy knew no bounds! ~grins~ I called up Aunt and she said she would have a Bacardi Breezer. I settled on a bottle of Cobra Beer (have always preferred Kingfisher) and Bulla settled for a bottle of Coke (spoilsport ~sticks out tongue at Bulla~).

At Aunty’s place, we were treated to pizzas that she ordered from Domino’s. What had been initially planned as an innocent TV-watching event had turned into this fun evening.

Pizzas, beer and great company. Plus, Sherlock Holmes solving the ‘Mystery of the Copper Beeches’. Ah, Perfect!! :)

Munna, Guru, Bulla, Pizza

The next Saturday, Bulla and I were again sipping our cuppa of tea at Ajanta when I asked what his plans for dinner were. He shrugged and looked at me inquiringly.

I grinned and decided it was time for another pizza party. We rented ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’ CDs and walked up all the way to Ballygunge Circular Road for the pizzas. Around midnight, when we were half-way through the movie, Chatur messaged to say that he wanted to go to the Jalaram temple the next morning. Now, this meant that we would have to leave our place at 6:30 the next morning in order to be at the temple for the morning ‘aarti’ which is at 7:30.

The only problem was that we were in no mood to stop the movie mid-way, which would go on till at least 2. And going off to sleep at that hour would almost ensure that we wouldn’t be able to get up in a matter of four hours to be on our way.

Solution? I suggested the most simple solution known to any B-school graduate…night-out! :D At two, when we finished watching ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’, we simply took a ten minute break and started watching ‘Guru’, a movie which Bulla had stored on his home computer.

(And yes, we DID make it to the temple the next morning. You can always bank on my gang of friends when it comes to enjoying ourselves full-time, whether it involves staying up all night watching movies or being at the early morning prayers at a temple 10 kms away from home.)

Dada’s Day Out

I called up Arindam Barman (‘Dada’ to the Nirma MBA batch of 2005-07) and we fixed up an outing on Rabindra Jayanti. Dada and his ever loyal bike were at the Elgin Road crossing at the appointed hour. We made our way through a busy Calcutta traffic to reach just in time for the afternoon show of ‘Bheja Fry’ at the Forum Inox. A thoroughly enjoyable 2 hours later, we headed to Balwant Singh’s Dhaba for tea. The joy was there for all to see as Dada gave in to what he describes as the ‘ultimate temptation’, “sutta aur chai”. :D

Tea and cigarette over, we headed to the Academy of Fine Arts. Two of the three galleries at the Academy were displaying the works of some of the most talented painters from West Bengal. Some of the paintings just blew our mind away and there was this painting of a woman from rural Bengal which just made all the visitors to stand and stare. It depicted a 20-something woman wearing a white saree standing in front of the mud-baked walls of her house. I promise you I would have bought the painting had I been a millionaire. ~sigh~ Oh well, a few years ain’t nothing after all.