One of my blessed friends (blessed to be my friend, of course) decided to splurge a few hundred grand on a big bash in the center of the city (financially blessed as well). It dawned on me that driving to Bandra, and then driving back from Bandra at 3:00 am would be pretty close to an out-of-body blissful experience. Ever willing to make compromises with my personal value system for these little opportunities to spend time with my car, zipping by sleeping beggars on the streets, I decided to go (dressed up in my newest bestest clothes). H2O seems to be the latest hotspot where every pretty, young and scantily clad – this is turning out to be an irritating cliché – thing wants to be seen now days. First time at a nightclub then. Here I come!!

As I walk in the massive door guarded by two huge Stumbo-The-Giants, I am hit hard. It’s the bloody music! Heaven-knows-how-many watts of non-sensical noise are blasting out of those blighted speakers. It was so loud, I couldn’t hear myself think (Boy, am I glad these autovalas aren’t allowed inside, we’d have a buzzillion watts of crazy noise in every auto then). And the songs, eh, I can’t understand a single word of what they’re saying. And hey, they’re saying something only once in a year, or some sort. Those precious words are interspersed with the booming ballasts of maniacal percussions. What happened to music I say!

It’s also dark, very dark. And the darkness is accentuated by psychedelic blue lights embedded in the floor. Huh! Yes, they also have that stunningly expensive laser equipment that draws funny abstract figures in garish colours on every wall. Interesting! Ah there, a number of people have cute little orange LED’s on their faces. Nice way to light up the path ahead of you, I must confess. I generate the gumption to ask the waiter (I think he’s a waiter) for one of those nice pathway-illuminating devices. A white stick has magically materialized from nothingness. Hey! It’s that surefire key to lung degeneration and subsequent oral cancer we commonly know as a cigarette. Funnily, everone’s smoking one. Now, the thing about cigarette smoke is that it stinks, unlike the smoke from a Tata Motors Direct Injection diesel engine. Now that smells like it was made in heaven. Beats me why these people prefer to smoke then. Then again, it’s not the only thing that beats me!

As the irises have deftly modified their size to let in as much light through to the retina as is humanely possible, I can make out something that resembles a dance floor. Eh, there’s a bar as well (with three foolish men throwing bottles at each other – they’re just and arm’s length away from each other no, why not just pass them over in a civilized manner. Beats me). There’re a few LED-equipped human beings acting demented on the dance floor as well, they call THAT dance? Ugh!!

There’s “Slithering Snake”, who, not more than a few moments back was innocuously sipping a Diet Coke, sitting on the seat next to mine. Looks like some senseless “50 Cent” song has galvanized her into action. There, I can see her now, dancing away like a mutant crossbreed between Britney Spears and Prabhudeva. All the suggestively-sex-simulated Britney steps, now magically (ahem) married to junglee-jerk Prabhudeva jigs. She has her date-for-the-night as company, put your hands together for “Lame Leftfeet”. Lame Leftfeet isn’t enjoying proceedings too much. Slithering Snake is slithering too close to his body for comfort – this is a public domain remember! Well, he’s not too good at dancing either. He’s got two feet that are left-er than the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He’s struggling, I am enjoying!

Not to forget, “Gender Indeterminate”, wearing a weirdo costume that does exemplarily well at veiling its…err…gender. The less said, the better. I cannot, though, resist mentioning that in the ensuing melee on the floor, I have inadvertently stamped Gender Indeterminate’s foot with size thirteen leather boots that ensconce feet that support a tenth of a tonne of pure fat. Gender Indeterminate has taken the shock surprisingly well. Makes me wonder whether it’s a human at all! The less said, the better.

In one corner towards the far left, there are a few fair mountain-like entities, sincerely trying to move tectonic plates with their boogie endeavours. “White Elephants” suits these imported female giants to a T. White Elephants are taking simultaneous swigs from two bottles of Bacardi Breezer, one in each hand. I speculate they’re trying to blend a few Breezer flavours to electric effect. God bless them!

There are various other colourful specimens of varying sizes, shapes, and err…genders. All stuffed into a cramped dance floor. Yes, we’ve built the city on an island, and space does come at a hefty premium, but it hasn’t come to THIS yet. Look beyond Chembur Sir, the government is doing a darned good job at reclaiming land hitherto occupied by mangroves and saltpans by using priceless debris. There’s so much space there. Why don’t we go and dance there, like free souls, with not a single human body to bump into every few seconds? Yet one more question beats me!

At the bar, there’s magic of a different kind in full flow (like the beer and the vodka). The aforementioned three monkeys are now disinterested with throwing bottles at each other; they’re indulging in interesting activities of a different kind. One of them has created a fire and is playing around with it, swallowing it up as if it were sumptuous chunks of succulent chicken tikka. A couple of them also sport weird nozzles which they point at glasses, press one of an assortment of buttons, and voila, the nozzle is spurting out spirits faster than a Formula One refueling rig. With all my self-confidence intact, I make my way up to one of the monkeys. “Can I have a glass of chilled water?”, I shout over the blasting ballasts of 50 Cent moaning unintelligible gibberish. One of the monkeys has fainted at my request. Looks like the last time someone asked him for a glass of water was when Mumbai was home to Tyrannosaurus Rex – quite a few millennia have passed since then. The other two monkeys kept gaping at me as though I had time-traveled from Chhatrapati Shivaji’s age. What’s wrong with asking for a glass of water at H2O I say? Isn’t it as natural as asking for a double-crust cheese pizza at Domino’s? One more question has beaten me to pulp!

At the dance floor meanwhile, Slithering Snake, Lame Leftfeet, Gender Indeterminate and all their innumerable brethren, now inebriated by limitless quantities of the choicest spirits, are dancing with each other in all permutations and combinations that the laws of mathematics permit. After watching the same girl (name withheld for security reasons) dance equally closely with three buffoons at three different times, my thoroughly exhausted gray cells have given up on determining who’s dancing with whom and who wants to dance with whom. The ghosts of “Permutations and Combinations” from Std. XI math have come back to haunt me with a vengeance, and what a vengeance! Suddenly, the decision to leave out that chapter as “option” (ugh, Maharashtra Board) does not seem too prudent. Nature has its own ways of putting its point across. I stand beaten, yet again!

After what seems like centuries; staring aimlessly into the detestable haze of cigarette smoke, psychedelic blue lights and brain-dead drunkards, with nothing but a glass of iced-tea for company, the mind starts drifting towards matters of a more spiritual nature. What is it that is respected? A swig from a bottle of Foster’s with a Marlboro in another hand?

Why is it that this chivalrous, considerate, handsome, kind, mature, non-drinking, non-smoking, sensible, sensitive, stable, young (alphabetically arranged for your convenience) man (ahem, yours faithfully) is perennially dismissed as being too old for his age? Why is it that this chivalrous, considerate, handsome, kind, mature, non-drinking, non-smoking, sensible, sensitive, stable, young (I heard cries of “Once More”. Promise!) is considered to be impeccable husband-material, but dull, dreary and boring date-material? Why is the world so unfair that immeasurable quintals of “Fair and Lovely” would not suffice to make it a little more fair, just an iota? Beats me!

Disclaimer:
This is a piece of fiction (ahem). Any resemblance to any person, place or incident that occured in the past, is occuring in the present, or will occur in the future is purely coincidental and utterly unintentional (err, somewhat!).