Drunk Times, Part-2

Get up!

Get up!!!

(That’s how most of my mornings start, with the sweetest sound I know.)

What do you want?

Can’t you listen, the doorbell is ringing! Get up and open the door, must be the garbage lady.

I can’t feel my legs, you go.

Well, I am lazy more than I am numb.

I get up every day. It’s your turn.

From when did we start having turns?

From today.

I lost it. I move the blanket, look around for my shorts. I can’t find it. I go to the pile of dirty clothes near the bathroom and wear one of the used jeans.

Oh Shit!!! My head hurts.

I told you not to drink that much. When will you start listening to me? And don’t forget the bottles, She screamed.

 I go to the kitchen, the smallest in the planet. I see three big poly bags filled with trash.

Shit… I murmured. Where does this trash come from? Three fucking bags. What did we do yesterday? I tried to remember, my brain failed. It happens a lot now days, I just forget things. May be I am getting old. But 22 is not the age people consider old. Probably my drinking habits. I think she is right, I do drink a lot.

I open the door, the aunty is standing right on my face.

Aunty ye lo.

‘Kitna time lagaate ho saab? Jladi aaya karo warna mai chali jaayegi kalse.’

Sorry, aunty So raha tha, I apologized.

Everyone is in hurry now days. I wonder where they want to go. May be it’s just me who likes to stay at home. Everyone is in time. She always came in time, one year and she never missed a day.

I turn back. Holy fuck! What did we do yesterday? There are cigarette buds and ash. Small papers, roach, glasses, clothes, plates. This room is a mess. I don’t know, it’s messy because we do things or we do things to forget it’s messy.

It’s the other way round honey. Now shut up and sleep!

It’s 8 o’clock. You should get up, it’s fucking Monday, we have fucking jobs to go. I will make some coffee for you.

My kitchen is the most amazing place, everything is in one hand distance. The real value of school’s morning assembly, stand in one hand distance method, the retarded architect who made this building probably loved his school days. That butt-hole didn’t realize, there will be people living in this house not cockroaches. They live here too but ...we are the one who cook.

The used Horlicks bottle, which I use now to store coffee is almost over. It’s the last installment. Sugar is almost over. I wonder how things get over so fast. Good days, good consumer goods, money, time, they all share this characteristics. They get over.

Take your coffee.

Ahhh…get up. You’ll be late.

She takes the coffee. The next few minutes will be a visual treat. The way she wakes her up, with meowing sound, stretching arms, getting folded in and out, and the hidden yawning. If anyone records this and put it on Youtube, it’s a million dollar footage. The cat videos will retire. I never understood why people put their cats on the internet when you have equally charming women around you. They do stupid things all the time. They say stupid things and behave unpredictably 24*7, isn’t that what makes the market for cat videos.

I don’t want to go to the office, I fucking hate it.

She keeps her coffee mug on the side and starts crushing.

Don’t be stupid, just go.

She is busy roasting the cigarette.

Say something.

Ok Baba, I’ll go, let me smoke first. Mean time you take a shower.

Well, I don’t think I have any time. I will just wash my face and go, it’ll take another half an hour to heat the water. I’ll switch it on for you.

Now all I need is a kind of clean shirt which will go with this jeans. The black shirt. I think all the clothes we buy should be black for three reasons, first it’s sexy, second it goes with your hair color, we fucking Indians, third they never look dirty. They do smell after a week but then we invented DEOs. I wonder why people take bath every day. It’s such a noble activity and it’s a comparatively new trend in human civilization. I don’t think they bathed every day in 18^th century. Christ sake No. We are just wasting our time, pouring water on us, using all the expensive products. What do we get? A sense of belonging.

She puffing out the grey.

You are a dirty man, you never take bath. Sometimes I think you are a buffalo’s soul, you need another man to rub and clean you.

That’s right. Hand me the bottle.

I make a peg in the same glass of yesterday.

Good Morning, we cheered. I gulped and she puffed.

Drunk India, Part-1

I was already six pegs down when she came in. She insisted on taking my bottle away from me. That glassy and classy Old Monk, 12 years blended. There is a reason they save it for 12 years and sell it out, I insisted. She refused to listen.

Do I say anything when you smoke up and pass out on that bean bag? And come on its winters. They just started putting it on sale. One can’t just get the Old Monk-like a banana, all year long.

She is smiling.

I know her answer, she would say – But I don’t go crazy and fight to listen the whole album of passenger, over and over.

He is my favorite artist, don’t you listen to trance before you pass out? I almost whispered.

I am not scared of her, it’s a respect I pay to all the Indian crazies. Her long black curls always come on her face while she talks. Her plump face like one of those 18th-century painting scares me, but that’s the face I am in love with.

She is the old style. She has the fat around her waist. Her pale color, I prefer pale over tanned. It works for me. I think skin color can’t be the only reason I am tolerating her for last two years.

She is annoying sometimes, but she is also the reason I am alive. She took care of me all this time and I did the same.

And I am not addicted to the alcohol, though I drink almost every day. I am one of those guys who know they can leave the bottle whenever they want. At least they believe so.

She is a short girl but god has fixed it by giving her the equally high-pitched voice. There are times when she tries to sing those choruses from the trance songs, she is not a good singer, but it doesn’t matter when you are drunk. You anyways can’t differentiate between a human voice and a sound of a breaking glass, what would you know about good singing? All sounds same. At least for that period.
I am in more love. Each day.

Okay, don’t throw it. Hide it. Challenge me to find it. If I find it, it’s all mine.

You mean hide it in this one BHK flat? Oh sorry, should I just say BK? I can’t find a hall in this house.

She is sarcastic sometimes. Most of the times. I don’t understand why she does that?

Does she really hate me?

But then why she stays with me?

These are the questions upon which one day I’ll have a crucial conversation with her. I’ll clear all my doubts that day.

That day will never come. I am such a kitty.

It’s 3 o'clock in the morning darling, it’s not the time to fight. Just sleep.

I was sleeping till you played ‘Let her go’ and sang like that song really means something to you. Well, what you and your favorite artist trying to say, I should go and find someone else. You want me to ‘Go’? – She insisted on ‘Go’?

This one is a tricky question. Doesn’t matter what I answer, she wouldn’t leave. I have tried both. Several times. We had this conversation too many times now. The words like déjà vu seem fake now. Or maybe, it is déjà vu.

I have no one in the room to confirm. I am drunk enough to not ask, and she is high enough to not bother. She is always high. I can’t remember the last time I saw her in her senses. But she can say the same thing about me that she never saw me sober.

Thank god our parents are rich enough to afford all the bills. They think we here are struggling with our career. But that’s not completely false, in a city like Delhi you can’t really start from the scratch. You always need a host. Most of the people here are just parasite, living upon other people. Contacts are what this city has for relations. It’s hard to find people who stick around you.

I don’t want you to go anywhere. Ok, let’s sleep. I give up. You can throw my bottle if you want.

She is staring at me. I have no idea what to say.

I LOVE you, I passed the plate on her side. We boys always fill these gaps with our inability to be single. LOVE YOUs are the escaping time bombs, which might take few seconds, but never refuses to work. I know one day it won’t. But today is not that one day.

Awww… I love you too.

She puts off her cigarette.

My ultimate ambition

Remember?
When you saw that first naked woman in front of you.
That shiver in your brain and that moist in your pant.
That stammer in your voice and that glitch in your vocab.
That reflex of confusion of holding on or let go.
That innocence of not understanding, that pretentious moment when you pretend to be the first timer.
What happened to the years of porn magazines and Internet domains?
I still remember it.
Either that was your most memorable moment of this human life or you don’t remember it at all.
In my case it was the grandmother of my best friend, ‘JOHN’.
I want to be one of those memories…