Yesterday was a rainy Sunday evening. I was stepping into a new profession, a new home, and a new life. New friends had laid out a spread of the most delectable…liquor to welcome me into the new friend-circle. Noble thought indeed, but bottles of Kingfisher jostling for space with pints of Romanov was not exactly my idea of a ‘welcome’ party. Couple that with the detestable smoke from an assortment of cigarettes, and this was looking like it would to be a very, very tough journey ahead.

I was wrong. The ‘Booze Binges’ evaporated into nothingness as mysteriously as the first one had appeared – Next Gen never paid enough, I figured. A week into the new life, I also figured it was not likely to be a difficult journey at all; rather this was going to be one helluva roller-coaster ride with the whackiest characters ever seen and the weirdest situations ever experienced.

I was right. It did not take me too much time to blend in with my new colleagues and, rather surprisingly, join the heavy-duty bitching sessions at a level of competency and proficiency that my colleagues had acquired only after ‘working’ hard for a few months before I came. Also surprising was the fact that I – a documented, proven snob – had no trouble in opening up to the threesome.

It is surprising how people can make such a massive impact in such a short period of time. Of course, certain things helped. We were bound by a common thread of interest that was so strong it was almost like a massive iron rope. We were in a small-ish office that was home (and rather literally too) to just about ten people. Weekday evenings, Saturday nights and whole weekends were spent sitting like losers in the eerie glow of CRT monitors (cheap ones). Needless to say, in a setting like this, peppered by the catalyst of having so few people doing generally nothing, relationships and bonds solidified swiftly.

Bonding leads to changes, and it was no different in our case. As we gingerly sampled the others’ choice of music, food and girls (the last one, only figuratively – pun unintended), it was turning out to be a thoroughly enjoyable learning curve, almost like the curves that chic-in-white-with-the-wet-hair-who-got-a-lift-on-one-young-man’s-bike sported. Anyway, Bunny gave up his repeat-till-kingdom-come bouts of listening to ‘Aur kya’…and nothing else. His new Winamp playlist had just one song: ‘Coming Back to Life’ – repeat-till-kingdom-come, of course. Amit was building a reputation (or a notoriety) for demolishing lunch boxes with disdain. Especially when Kartik’s came full of ‘Dhansak’. Kartik, meanwhile, was turning out to be a big ‘hothead across over there’, taking pangas with the rest as if he would be the first to kick the job and ‘b-b-b-b-buzz off’. What an ensemble cast, I say!

It is also astonishing how years of a dead existence often end up as blank pages in the book of life, and but a few weeks of a colourful being can effortlessly fill up innumerable chapters with accounts of thoroughly enjoyable episodes. In many ways, this is what happened to me. While the years from Standard X to Standard XII have been effectively whitewashed out of my memory, it is these last few months that have added a generous dash of eastmancolour to what was a dull, dreary, nerdy life experience. The stories are too many to recount…most of them will now be tinged...

...tinged by a feeling of emptiness, of having to see one of us go off in pursuit of greener pastures (and better babes, though how that will be effected in the absence of broadband, beats me). Life will never be the same again. And though it sounds too filmy to be penned down, it is true. We will go through the motions of everyday office. Once in a while the vacant seat will hit with the hard ferociousness born out of longing. The booze will not stop – it will reduce to a trickle. The bitching will not stop – it will abate just a little. The chuckles will not stop – there will just be one laugh less. Life will not stop – it will trundle along, on three wheels instead of four. You know what the sad part is? Soon, it will have to wheelie along on two wheels instead of three. Will miss you guys!

I have realised that this is increasingly looking like the prayer meeting readout to pray for the soul of the departed to rest in peace. It is not! Broadband lives on, and budget airlines thrive. The Golden Quadrilateral is 95.483% complete. Ab Dilli durr nahin. India is growing at 8%+. Our salaries will grow at 80. Soon we will have all the money in the world to fly down (or ride, or drive) to a common location once every month, eat good food, drink sophisticated wine and bitch about life and wife. We’ll have the resources to meet up once every six months, have a pyjama party, relive the haunted house with the dysfunctional flushes and bitch some more about life and Bunny’s latest flings.

Till then gentlemen...

PS: Mein rehta toh…;)