Thursday 5 February 2009

Birthday bash.....

Its been long, that I have not done justice to my beloved readers….If I had been a Shakespeare or a Tolkien or a McCarthy etc, I wouldn’t have given a shit before using that line…..bah!, but the fact remains, I never got time to update my blog in the recent past…This being the first post since then, I am assuming your benign patience :P Well….with no better topic in mind, I thought I’d rather pen down the affairs of the most wonderful day so far this year, which happened to be my birthday! :)

Starting off…from the previous night, I was badly pissed for a lot of reasons, had a really long n tiring day in the office, slogging my ass off…I had to stay back later than usual, so eventually I missed the last shuttle of the day by hours…

My cubicle mate, Uday cancelled his dinner plans with his roomies & chose to drop me home on his bike at around 11 in the night. I decided to treat him, for which he accepted only on account of my on coming birthday…Boy! that was some dinner, a typical Andhraite cuisine, we had their special ‘all-rice’ meals. He being an andhraite we went to Nandhini Hotel, famous for its Andhra-style delicacy…

On the way back home, I realized it was not long…and desperately wished if it was somehow possible to postpone my birthday by a couple of weeks. Not holding any expectations what so ever, the only wish I had, was to be able to spare some good amount of time so that I can speak to my family whole heartedly…But guess!, I was in for quite a surprise... not just one but a series of surprises :)

Hmmm…as I entered the house I found one of my office friends - Nitin, already sitting inside with Varun (my room mate cum project mate) and his elder bro Ashu was busy on his own….I was actually glad to see him, but since my ambiance was reflecting sardonic monotone since long, I chose to remain quite, casual & as-a-matter-of-fact-ish. Harpreet had to follow support timings and Rohit (another room mate) works on shifts, both were no where to be seen…

Suddenly around 11:50 Sardaar(a.k.a Harpreet) made an entry carrying 5 bottles of beer…looked at me casually and said…

”sab log busy the, aur late aaye….sare shops band ho chuke the to cake nahi mila…I could not help it, isi se kaam chala le”

I said….fine, no issues at all….a stress buster was more than anything that I needed at that time….I went into my bed room to change, then right as the clock struck 12 I heard voices outside in the hall, turned around, saw a hint of Rohit’s shirt (he had come down from the office asking an early leave for the day)

Next moment…….

I was being laundered!!...literally, the noise was worse than what you will find in ‘dhobi ghat’…5 people on a rampage, beating me with stuff I could never have imagined in my dreams…there were Rods, Chappals, Hangers, Skipping rope and I was even threatened by a Leather hunter…Well It was hard to fathom if they were expressing their immense love or relishing their long held desire to even things out, wonderfully disguised by the occasion…Rohit particularly mentioned…”Main to nahi chodunga sale pade ko…bahut maraya hoon me tere birthday ke liye” Damn!…from that moment, I decided, the only day I’ll most eagerly await will be my room mates’ birthdays!!.....

After about 30 minutes of bashing and running around the house, when they finally realized that they might have equaled if not exceeded the count, compared to the total count of beatings, I would have taken in my history of 23 years, I gasped for some breadth…only to find myself running bare feet on the road, the very next moment…

Imagine….12 30 at night at a very peaceful residential locality, running out like mobsters…Things were fine till I was chasing Rohit with the bottle of sprite but it gets a bit nasty if you have a Sardaar wild in hot pursuit, in the middle of the night, holding a bottle of beer and madness struck in his mind…I had accepted it looong before it went over me…

Next when we returned home, I found they had brought the cake as well :)….It was kept safe at our owner’s refrigerator…Then went on the usual cake cutting ceremony followed by a 'cake-body-massage'…No wonder I enjoyed purposely falling over Harpreet’s mattress with beer, sprite and cake laden clothes…That was by far the best part of the night! :D :D

(from left- Nitin, Varun, Rohit, Me and Sardaar...Ashu took the pic)


We wrapped up later with having beer & sutta at our usual hangout, the front parking space of the house before we went to sleep…

The next day I woke up early, took sardaar’s bike and went up to the temple as promised to my dear mum…Immediately after that I received their blessings on the phone…already rejuvenated and happy, before ending the call, my ‘Pa’ asked me to check for a courier in the office…wow more surprises!!!

Upon reaching office, little did I expect that my mail box will be loaded with Birthday wishing mails :) Some unknown people, some of whom I wouldn’t have spoken more than a word in the entire year, had actually bothered to take some time out to send in their warm wishes…May be it shows the power of MindTree’s ‘bench strength’, but still I wouldn’t have done that just for anybody…

Next big surprise, my PM came to my desk around 12 in the noon, to hug and kiss me good bye!! :) He confirmed my release and added he doesn’t want the authorities to bite hiss ass questioning, if I were to be found working there again :) :)

And I did not waste a split second, getting moved by the emotions of the moment, immediately messaged Sardaar n Rohit to stop all the shit they were busy with and book the tickets, cuz we were goin to GOA!!!!! They responded to my SOS with more conviction than expected and quickly explored all the possible options of jugaad …travel agents, on-line sites, jack through somebody’s contact etc…

In the afternoon, I checked out the dispatch dept for my courier and found a lovely T-shirt awaiting me in the parcel. I have always loved my bro’s choice…:) and I thanked god that the day couldn’t have any been better…..but I guess it had more in store for me…

I continued with my work, and at around 5 :30 a mail popped up from Varun. It was sent to the entire team. This is exactly what it read…

“Let us all gather together at Phase 3 cafeteria to celebrate Devar’s Birthday….Bring along with you what ever tool and stuff you can get…sticks, woodland shoes etc etc… to ensure a happening time :)“

Dang!!! No sooner did I finish reading it, every one had already started. It was so sincerely planned and immaculately timed…that it made our project look shamelessly secondary before the cause :P …I was probably carrying the most austerely dumb expression of a happy fool over my face, not able sink in the reality of the moment as I had never expected anything like this, especially considering the kind of atmosphere that was prevailing in the recent days. I was vaguely aware of people murmuring around the way up, either patting my back or warming their hands in a threatening gesture, while I was struggling hard to keep myself calm, composed & again, as-a-matter-of-fact-ish…For those who do not know how my project runs, things like these, never happen, even our PM confronted Varun asking the reason for this partiality :) (Thanks bro.. :))

Well…it happened…more than 50 people had gathered, 2 large cakes were cut, some went over my body for which I too tried to retaliate although it was hard to do while sustaining that gentleman-ly behavior… Then as per the tradition I got loads on my bum...(for a moment Varun had forgotten he had a lingament tear in one of his legs..), then PM handed me a MindTree table clock, and a Birthday Card signed by the entire team…. it was all fun…(except for the Bum bashing part...)

The last one......came as a conformation-of-tickets mail at around 7 :30 PM, Rohit got the tickets arranged; he booked for both onward and return from Goa…finally!!!! :D ... it was decided....and nothing separated that delightful moment except for a few hours wait that’s it!...

The rest of the day was spent over the phone as calls kept coming in tandem from either relatives or friends….

So…that’s how the day ended…I only wish it keeps on getting better in the years to come…. ;) :P

P.S.- I’d like to dedicate this post to all those who helped to make this day such a memorable one…Love u all…

Devar…

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I am the first one!!! :D

You actually reproduced everything you told me the other day..and I guess now even Goa deserves a post :)

Keep writing !!!

RicochetRabbit said...

Harpreet is planing to write on that, ill support a link... :)

Jisha said...

majorly cool! may you have many more such happy birthdays.. :)

RicochetRabbit said...

Thank You :)