Random Memory - Take 2

Over at his blog, Heh heh describes one particularly drunk and eventful weekend that we spent at WIMWI five and a half years back.

My initial plan was to write up my version of the story - subjecting the whole incident to a Rashomon like retelling - but I realise you're probably better off hearing his version because I don't remember that much of the evening.

Here's what I do remember: I remember meeting up with s. and heh heh and going from dorm to dorm looking for alcohol, like some nomadic tribe that would move on to new hunting grounds when all the prey in the area has been exhausted. I remember eventually making our way to Dorm 13, where fool-jhadu handed me a big coffee mug full of neat bacardi and told me to drink up because we were going to miss the show. I remember thinking this might not be such a good idea, then (because I was already half a dozen drinks past the point of sober reflection by this time) complying by downing the entire contents of that mug down in about three gulps. I remember walking to the auditorium. I remember getting really pissed off because people weren't letting the facchas perform and wrestling s. to the floor in order to teach him a lesson (the fact that I did this in the middle of the stage, and knocked over half the mike equipment in the process did not, at the time, strike me as a contradiction).

I don't remember being carried out of the auditorium and placed on a table in the open air. I don't remember rolling off the table and hitting the ground (though in hindsight it doesn't seem so hard to predict). For all that you need to rely on Heh heh.

I only remember waking up with a bruised feeling in my side, being carried to some unspecified destination by s. and p.j. I remember s. cribbing about how they were only doing this for me because of the grades I got and if he'd got drunk and passed out no one would have cared. I remember p.j. deciding to use this opportunity to demonstrate the Correct Way of Hauling a Human Body, a technique he apparently learnt long ago in a mountaineering course. His demonstration of this consisted of first showing what happened when you held someone the wrong way (the body in question - mine - ended up face down in the flowerpots) or held someone the right way but didn't coordinate it properly (same result) before finally demonstrating the proper way to get the job done.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the basement of D-1 (the girl's dorm) where I was staying (my only friends in my junior batch were both women), and realising with horror that I had an early morning flight to catch in order to make it for the introduction and training program for my new job. I remember thinking I needed to get out of the dorm and find someone who would get me to the airport. I remember standing up. I remember wondering why people say you can't feel the earth rotate, because there it was, spinning about all around me. I remember marvelling at how clean the floor in that room had been kept as I flopped down on it. I remember wondering why I hadn't noticed this when I was standing up. I remember realising that I couldn't see anything more than four feet away. I remember wondering where the hell my glasses were.

And I remember standing in the doorway listening to the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs to the basement. Without my glasses I couldn't actually see who was coming, but I figured there was a 50-50 chance that it was someone who knew me and I could ask her to go fetch one of my friends who would make sure I made my flight (I remember trying not to imagine what would happen if I missed my first day at work because I was too drunk to make it). I remember saying "Hi! Do I know you? I was wondering if you could help me..." and hearing a sudden gasp followed by the sound of running feet, a slammed door and three bolts sliding shut. I don't blame her. I'm not a pretty sight even when I'm sober, and at this point I was unshaven, dissheveled, bleary-eyed and must have looked like something out of a B grade slasher movie. I remember trying to explain to her that I didn't mean any harm and getting no reaction. I remember going back to bed and thinking about how I would spend the long years of unemployment ahead of me.

Eventually MR came and found me and got me out of there. Eventually I made it my flight (thanks to the able stewardship of n.) after sharing a last minute chai with u. and heh heh. Eventually I got cleaned up and by the time the training session started I was my crisp, professional self again. But I have this clear memory of wondering whether I could make it up those steps if I crawled up them on all fours, and not being sure I could.

It was one of the best nights of my life.


Categories: Personal