"Chalo, we'll select this one", after hours of views, reviews and re-reviews we finally selected the pub which we were going to go..the first time in our life..The basic conditions we were looking for were that the place should be close to our place, walkable distance in fact, so that we need not drive back home.Another thing was that there should be a live band performing.Harry was very particular about that! Live band!!
Finally it should be well within our budget, which actually finishes even before you start counting.
With extensive research in the internet, an optimal solution was found out and we started walking to the 'selected one'.
The tables arranged were quite congested but we adjusted within the space constraints.We had a good view of the live band which had already started performing, some Greek and Latin song to me and Fino. Looks like Anish has heard the song before as he was humming along.I am sure Harry wouldn't have heard this song even in his dreams, but he started shaking his head as though he knew it as good as the nursery rhymes he learnt in his childhood !
The menu was presented before us.As it was our first time at a pub, we found the names of the cocktails very interesting.Harry pointed out at one of them and I too agreed upon that one. Anish declared a pitcher of beer for himself.He always wants lots of quantity to be seen before him.Like, he orders 12 chapathis and finally ends up eating only 3 or 4. Fino, intelligently came to a conclusion of sharing the pitcher with Anish, and later ordering more if required.Though Anish felt a bit disappointed for not being able to gulp the entire pitcher all by himself, the mere thought of ordering more pitchers brought him to high spirits, even before ordering them!
Harry held his hand high and specifically called a lady waitress to take our order."Yes sir, what would you like to have",she asked
"Can we have Sex on the beach?", Harry asked with a wicked smile.
Anish and Fino looked startled.
Harry pointed to the menu and clarified,"I mean this one, this cocktail, 'Sex on the Beach' "
The waitress stared at him for a minute and wrote down the order.
"And a pitcher of Carlsberg", Anish said.
Fino then ordered some starters.
The waitress took the order and before walking away looked at Harry and pointed somewhere.There were 3 huge well built bouncers standing there.Harry's smile got converted to a more innocent and frightened smile, and he started looking at his mobile, a common thing people do when they are out of words or expression.
We laughed aloud together seeing Harry's expressions.
"Did you guys know, Harry has worked out a plan without any loop holes to get an excellent appraisal next year", Fino said
"Oh! what is that?", Anish enquired.
"He had this Goal setting meeting with his manager; His manager gave him some areas of improvements, and some N number of goals...and in turn Harry asked for an onsite opportunity...", Fino said and Harry continued from there,"My manager told me that he will try to send me onsite this year..Now, what will happen at the end of this year.He will call me for the appraisal meeting and tell me 'you have not met your goals', at that time I will not have gone onsite, so I will tell him, 'I gave you only one goal, that is to send me Onsite, you have not met that, so I did not meet the goals you set for me either' .manager will be check mate !!"
"Ha ha, kewl..If your manager is as intelligent as you, this plan will definitely work out", Anish said laughing aloud.
A waiter, not the waitress came with our orders. Anish held the pitcher in his hand like holding a new born baby and gave his mobile to Fino to capture the moment.
"Let me upload it in Facebook", Anish said after having a look at the photo.
"Caption can be 'Pitcher Perfect' ", Fino said.
"Wow, that's great.."Anish said and uploaded the picture. Harry immediately logged in to Facebook from his mobile, liked the picture and commented, "Pitcher abhi baaki hai :)". !!
"By the way, Nithesh, why are you silent.Usually you are the one who keeps on talking"
"Nothing yaar", I said.
"Are you disappointed with the Aircel thing", Harry asked
"Naaah"
"What Aircel thing?", Anish asked
"Hey, some of you just explain it to him", I said
"He was having an Aircel connection", Fino said,"suddenly one day the connection got suspended.He called the customer care, but they arrogantly cut the call asking to call back later.Then he posted the matter in their Facebook page, and when they realized that people are seeing it, someone called him and said that there is some problem with the ID proof he had submitted, so he had to re-submit it "
"But then why did not they inform him in advance before suspending the connection"
"No idea", Fino said
"Get idea", Harry already started showing sings of having 'Sex on the Beach' !
"Anyway, he walked into an Aircel store to submit his ID proof.He gave his Driving License.There was some issue with their photocopy machine there, and alarmingly they blamed it on the License.They said that this license was not a valid one"
"WHAT, why?", Anish asked
"My license is in book format.I guess they don't know how to take copy of multiple pages in one paper", I said
Fino continued,"Already frustrated by the bad service till then, he grew angry and said that he no longer needed their connection and also told them that none of his friends will ever take Aircel"
"Sure buddy,I will never take Aircel", Anish said and patted on my back
"No the story is not finished yet.The Aircel Customer care executive told him, "How many friends will you tell?Ten?Twenty? Or will you post in Facebook?Twitter?Do whatever you want!"
"CRAP, did he tell like that?", Anish asked
"Yes dude, he did.", I said,"As I walked out of the store, he even followed me as if he would even beat me up.He was well built almost as that bouncer.So I quickly moved from there"
"Dude, you have to let people know about it", Anish said
"Hmm..."will do that ..let me become a celebrity.., I said.
Harry completed his glass of cocktail and was shocked to see that I hadn't still started mine."But that is not the reason that Nithesh looks gloomy.What is the real reason?", Harry asked
All three, Harry, Anish and Fino stared at me as though I was going to tell my love story.
"Nothing yaar, yesterday I had work till late night and while coming back, as I reached Gangothri circle, I saw that an accident had taken place there.A car was lying there and I saw blood smeared on the road"
"Ohhh!!!"
"I enquired with a person there..The car was driven by some drunk fellows and they hit a donkey.The donkey died on the spot.I saw there was another donkey standing on the footpath staring at the blood on the road.I left the place and went to my home.Today evening I again happened to go through the same place.There was huge traffic unlike yesterday night.There was no blood on the road.But the donkey stood at the same place staring on the road, where its partner had been killed.I saw tears in its eyes.I really felt bad about what had happened.Yesterday the guy who told me about the accident told me that luckily no human died.I don't know what is superior about a human than a donkey, if what a human does is to carelessly drive after getting drunk and kill someone and afterwards say 'lucky, its just a donkey! '."
"ohh, the drunk guys must have got away with it because they killed 'just' a donkey"
"Don't know", I remained silent.
All of us were silent as we walked back home.As we reached Gangothri circle, we saw the donkey still standing there, probably waiting for the return of its partner, or still not able to digest the fact that it will never return.
2 bikes fled past us, one of them just grazing my t-shirt.The guy sitting behind the bike had his beer bottle held up and shouted aloud, "Woohoo...Saturday night, ", and handed the bottle to the driver, who emptied the beer bottle while driving.The bike crossed the donkey and we could still see tear in its eyes..
We quietly continued walking back to our homes...
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