New Year Party

“Ashish and Nilesh are still not here, they are so late!” said Sachin to Ganesh and Prabhat.

“They said they will bring the cold drinks and snacks, so they will surely take some time.” said Prabhat.

“Let me put some funky cassette in the player, let’s enjoy the songs till they come,” said Ganesh.

It was year 1997 and five teenage friends were celebrating New Year party, and for Sachin it was first time he was doing party without parents.

Ganesh put an audio cassette of a popular movie in the player and pushed the play button.

“Wow, very good man! Party felt dead without music!” said Prabhat.

Meanwhile Prabhat had a fantastic idea of making the wait amusing.

“Let’s share most funniest moments that actually happened in our lives. Everybody will tell their own experiences. Let me start with mine.” Prabhat said with excitement in his eyes.

“OK. It was a small but very funny incident happened with me and my friend Paku. We were on long trip to Paku’s relative’s marriage, on my bike and I was driving while Paku was telling me the route. After an hour and half we stopped at a petrol pump station. We filled the petrol and we were ready to go.”

Prabhat stopped a little and laughed to himself then continued. “Now problem with Paku is that he is very short and he needs more time to get seated on the back seat of bike. That day it happened that I kick started my bike and was waiting for him to seat. Paku found it difficult to sit due to the heavy bag he was carrying, so he placed the bag on the seat first, and was ready to sit on the seat. As the bag touched my back I thought he already got seated and drove the bike ahead. Paku remained his leg raised in air and my bike slipped below his leg in front direction.” Everybody burst into laughter after hearing Prabhat’s incidence.

“When did you notice that you had left him on the petrol pump station?” asked Sachin trying to control his laughter.

Prabhat was also laughing and then he continued his incident, “Actually Paku got confused and did not call me before I was too far ahead. So a couple on another bike on the pump station came after me and kept honking and yelling at me. It was only then I realized that something went wrong. After I noticed the couple coming after me I slowed the bike down. They came near me and told what happened.” Prabhat continued laughing.

“It was only then I realized that it was the bag behind me and not Paku, and I burst into laughter. The couple also started laughing when I thanked them and I returned back to pick him up.” Prabhat continued.

“Now try to imagine what was the reaction of Paku when I went back to pick him up. He cursed me for next ten minutes before commencing back on our journey.” Prabhat finished his story with a giggle.

“That was hilarious really!” said Ganesh. “OK. Now I will tell you a funny incident happened with me.”

“What are we missing guys?” Ashish and Nilesh entered the room with plastic carry bags in their hands.

“Hey, you guys arrived correctly in time.” said Ganesh. “We are describing one funny incident each happened in life, Prabhat just finished with his incident. Now I am going to tell mine,” explained Ganesh.

“But what did you bring for snacks?” asked Prabhat.

“Cold drinks for kids and beer for men, he he he,” said Ashish.

“What? Really? You bought beer?” exclaimed Sachin.

“Believe me buddy, I have contacts at right place and right time,” said Ashish.

“It is not good to drink here, this is my uncle’s house, and something might go wrong. Drinks are strictly prohibited to in my family, why didn’t you tell me that you are going to bring alcohol?” Sachin said with an annoying tone.

“Relax man everything will be fine. I know you won’t drink so I bought cold drinks for you,” said Ashish.

“But Sachin, there’s no harm in drinking. I understand that you are not allowed to drink, but if you drink a little your parents won’t even know. Why do you worry so much? It’s New Year man, you should learn how to enjoy,” said Nilesh.

“I don’t want to hear scolding from my father man, I won’t drink,” Sachin refused.

“OK. No problem. You and Ganesh enjoy with cold drinks, Me Prabhat and Ashish will have beer. Don’t worry everything will be fine,” consoled Nilesh.

Prabhat interrupted in between and said, “Let’s start drinking and continue with our funny incidents. Who was going to speak next? Oh yes Ganesh. Ganesh you take the cold drink and chips and start with your story.”

So everybody grabbed their drinks and Ganesh continued with his story.

“You know Ajay? He was overweight since childhood. So he wanted to do some physical activity and joined judo karate class. It helped him reduce his weight a lot. He learnt a good quality of judo karate and his performance was above average,” Ganesh continued with the incident.

“It was when belt testing exam was arranged by the judo karate class, and all the people from the village were invited to witness. There were teachers from different districts who came to be as judge and others were testing the skill levels of every student,” continued Ganesh.

“The test was divided into three parts, namely physical conditioning, judo karate skills and fighting skills. When it was turn of Ajay for testing stomach conditioning, he was asked to lie down and the teacher stepped on his stomach. For a few seconds Ajay was strong, then the teacher had a little jump on his stomach and Ajay released a huge amount of gas,” Ganesh and others started to laugh.

“For Ajay it was extremely embarrassing moment. But the teacher promptly controlled the situation by saying that it happens and no one should laugh. We stopped laughing that time but whenever we remember the incident we can’t control our laughter,” Ganesh finished the incident.

“Well it was a good one and now I also remember one of my childhood adventure which turned into mis-adventure. But before I start Ganesh and Sachin I would again ask you, do you want to drink beer?” Nilesh spoke with words slipping through his tongue.

Ganesh replied instantly, “Dear, I have never tested beer, I don’t want to drink, but I want to taste the beer.”

Sachin got surprised to hear that and interrupted him, “What are you saying man. If you also drink I will be the only one not drinking. It was you because of whom I had a will power to not to drink, now you are saying that you will also drink?”

Ganesh replied with a smile, “No no. I am not going to drink, rather I will only have the taste of beer. I think my parent’s won’t come to know if I just tasted the beer.”

Ashish affirmed, “Yes it is true that if you only taste a little beer, it won’t create any problem and your parents won’t know.”

“If that’s the case I will also taste the beer,” said Sachin with dare.

“OK then. Take this one beer for you two, and welcome to the club. If you two drink that one beer no one will know that you drank,” said Nilesh with slipping tongue.

Now Nilesh started to narrate his incident, “Do you remember the banyan tree outside the playing ground of K.D. School? I used to go in that playground for playing cricket. Then I came to know that I can swing on the aerial roots of the tree if I climb on the double exercise bar. So I started to enjoy the swing on that tree. Other children also started to follow me, but I quickly became so expert that I used to reach the tree trunk and stay there in one swing of the aerial root. Besides I was also learnt to swing the root, and jump to catch the root mid-air, just like they do in circus. I was so proud of myself that no one could do what I was able to do,” Nilesh said with proud in his face.

He continued after a small pause, “Then on one fine day, I was enjoying the swing and suddenly it broke when I was in air. I fell on the ground and skidded on the slope towards the other side of the tree. It was a sharp pain and I went in panic, I couldn’t even utter a sound from my throat. There were others playing in the ground but nobody noticed. It was evening, dark and I thought I might stay there lying whole night because I couldn’t move.”

“How did you come out then?” asked Sachin.

“After some time the pain was bearable and I started to move gradually. Then I came out myself and called the others. They gave me water to drink and helped me to go home,” finished Nilesh.

“Man…” spoke Ganesh with deep voice, “this was absolutely not funny. This was horrible. You could have got injured badly and could have resulted in serious injury.”

By this time Ganesh and Sachin finished one bottle of beer.

“Ganesh, the taste is weird but I am not feeling anything different,” said Sachin.

“Yes Sachin, I am also not feeling anything. The taste is weird, but I think we can have one more,” said Ganesh.

Ashish pulled out one more bottle and gave it to them. “Take this, but drink slowly because you are drinking for the first time, you might get a hangover.”

“No man, we are absolutely normal. Don’t worry, we can finish one more,” said Sachin and opened the bottle of beer.

Ashish said, “I have really a good incident that happened with me. This is really funny, and you will all like it.”

Ashish continued, “So it happened that one Sunday, there was an extra class and our headmaster whom we nicknamed Zapata also came to the school. After our extra class we were leaving, just when headmaster came and inquired about how our studies were going on. I and Nilesh had already left for the washroom and we just saw headmaster talking to others. After we returned from the washroom we came out of gate no. 2 of the school, whereas others came from gate no. 1. There was a common wall between gate 1 and 2, and no one could see each other, but we could hear each other. The moment I stepped out of the gate 2, I loudly asked, ‘what did Zapata say?’ and the next moment Zapata appeared with the other boys. I didn’t know he was accompanying my classmates.” Ashish started to laugh already.

“The situation was so difficult that the other people couldn’t even laugh, because he was directly in front of us,” Ashish continued.

“But what did he say after hearing this?” asked Sachin.

“He understood whom I was calling Zapata and called my name. He asked me how the studies were going and other stuff, but the situation was really very embarrassing and funny.” Ashish finished his story.

“Now it’s my turn,” said Sachin with slippery words. Beer had started to take effect on him and he started to tell his incident.

“I was so forgetful in my childhood, that if I was asked to go to the market to purchase something, I essentially had to make a list on paper, otherwise I would forget to purchase a couple of things. Even if I had to fetch only one thing from the market, I still had to keep saying the word throughout the way, or I would forget what I went to the market to purchase for. Even the shopkeepers happened to remember my name, because I used to visit the shop repeatedly after forgetting lists.

Once my mom asked me to go to the market, so she told me, “Sachin take twelve rupees from my purse and go to the market to fetch rice flakes. And remember to bring thin rice flakes and not the thick ones.”

So I took exactly twelve rupees from the mom’s purse and started to walk down to the market speaking ‘thin rice flakes’ repeatedly to myself. Whole path I kept repeating the words only just before the shop my attention was caught by a banner which I started to read, and while I was reading the banner I reached in front of the shop. There was no other customer and the shopkeeper looked at me and immediately asked what I want, to which I went blank.

“Oh my God!” I said to myself, “I forgot what I came to purchase.”

The shopkeeper was familiar with my forgetting habit, so he looked at my blank facial expressions and understood that I forgot what I came to purchase. I felt very ashamed and thought I should remember what I wanted before the shopkeeper comes to know that I forgot what I wanted to purchase. So just to pass time I asked him, “Do you have sugar?”

“What kind of question is that? Every grocery shop has sugar.” He said annoyingly. “How much sugar do you want?”

I still couldn’t remember exactly what I needed to purchase. The only thing I can remember was that the thing I wanted to purchase was not ‘coarse’. So I said to the shopkeeper, “I want fine sugar!”

“Fine sugar? What is fine sugar? There is only one type of sugar I have known in my whole life, and it is not called fine sugar.” he exclaimed. “Are you forgetting what you wanted? Go back and ask your mom what you exactly wanted and come back.”

Now that felt to me like an insult! Of course I am forgetful but how could he say that directly to me? I must prove to him that I am not forgetful and should be firm with my statement. So I insisted, “No… no. I clearly remember, that my mom asked me to purchase fine sugar and nothing else.”

Now the shopkeeper got confused. He was sure that there is no such thing as fine sugar, so he started to analyse himself as to what it may be that I forgot, and he guessed it correctly. So he asked, “Did your mom said thin rice flakes and not fine sugar? Because there is nothing other than rice flakes which is available in two qualities.”

And those words, ‘thin rice flakes’ fell on me like heavy bombs.

“Of course, thin rice flakes,” I said to myself, “that’s what I wanted. He recognized, but how do I accept that I am a stupid and forgetful? If I don’t purchase right thing mom would scold me.” I was stuck between a valley and mountain situation. At one side there was a mountain of mom’s scolding and at the opposite side there was valley of insult. I fell in turmoil for what to choose. But after proper thinking I chose the mountain.

“No, you are wrong. As I said, my mom asked me to purchase fine sugar and not thin rice flakes!” I said firmly.

I came to know how the mountain was exceptionally high after I received the scolding of my mom!”

Next day Sachin woke up late at his home. He got up and was surprised as to how and when he returned from the previous night’s party. He gradually got out of the bed and as he tried to walk he felt very heavy pain in his legs. Gradually he realized that he was feeling pain all over his body. So he came out of his room and went towards mom, he found her in kitchen.

“Mom…” he called his mom, but before he could say anything his mom interrupted him.

“Got up you idiot! What a mess you did yesterday?” mom exclaimed.

“Mess… what are you talking about what did I do?” asked Sachin.

“We came to know that you drank alcohol previous night.” His mom said with anger.

“No no mom I didn’t…” Sachin tried to hide the truth from mom.

“Don’t dare to speak a word. You were completely out when your friends brought you here. All of them were drunk. They said that you vomited in your uncle’s house. Your clothes were all dirty. You were not even able to walk properly. Your father asked your other friends to leave and he was very furious. You asked your father for apology that you won’t drink here after, and now you are lying that you didn’t drink.”

“Oh my God! So much happened?” Sachin asked with wide eyes and open mouth.

“But why am I feeling pain everywhere?” asked Sachin.

“You don’t remember you nonsense idiot. Your father beat you with that stick for half an hour last night. That was when you asked for apologies and said you will never drink again!”