Indigo and other colors

The one year anniversary of this particular story happened a couple of weeks ago so I thought I'd jot it down.

CEO decides that he needs to have a major blowout on his 29th birthday. He asks the gang for suggestions on where the celebrations can happen for the big event. After shooting down several options, the Madman finally tells the CEO to shut his trap, open his wallet and leave the rest of the planning to him. The final decision is to have a boys night out at Indigo in Colaba.

The evening starts off early at the CEO's house with a few stiff drinks. The remaining alcohol is carried in papercups and we load into the two cars (no stupidity btw - we had drivers) and we're off.
Everyone orders their respective drinks. After a couple of rounds, someone (this was either Alex or Sam or CEO) calls for shots. Since the CEO was giggling about money not being an object, of course Alex decides we cannot do with mere Smirnoff so all shots are to be made with Belvedere! The Bartender dutifully sends over half a dozen Belvedere Kamikaze shots in a bucket.

After that first round of Kamikazes, Sam and Alex developed a twitch in their arms. Everytime we were done with our shots, their arms would fly into the air and jerk and point at our table signaling for more shots to come in. Now do keep in mind that our regular drinks are also being drunk by us at the same time. Post the 2nd or 3rd round of shots, the Bartender decides that we're a bunch of fellas determined to get plastered so he decides to nudge us in the right direction. How you ask? By adding free shots to each subsequent bucket that's coming to our table! To give you an idea of the insanity, (remember there were 6 of us), by the time the last bucket of shots was got to the table, there were 14 testubes in it. F-o-u-r-t-e-e-n!!!

Highlights of the Night:-

# 1 - The Fight that never happened
The CEO, the Miner and me headed to the little boys room. A fourth random dude (FRD) was doing his business in the corner when our more than tulli CEO says a few words primarily to us but to which FRD takes mild offence due to CEO's not-so-French vocabulary. And he quietly says to the CEO to watch his language. Me and the Miner thought that was fair enough becoz well... the CEO does speak terrible French. There's about 10 seconds of silence which follows and then before you can say "Can I have a repeat of my drink?", the CEO starts to shout loudly - questions along the lines of (the completely logical-when-drunk), "What the Fuck are you saying huh??!!... What THE F-U-C-K are you saying m****ch**d??!!!!??"
Next thing I know the CEO is literally lunging towards the poor guy and I had to body block the man before he did some serious damage. Now I outweigh the CEO by a good 40kgs and am a good 3-4 inches taller than him, despite that I barely was able to hold onto the man. He slammed me into the damn handdryer so hard, that my arm which took the worst of it was bruised for the next couple of days.
By then the CEO has this whole ankhon-mein-khoon-utar-gaya type of look! Which was so disturbing that another guy who came in, took one look at the CEO and promptly fled! :D

# 2 - Davaa Daaru
Before the party begins...
CEO (already 3 drinks down): listen Madman, I'm on medication man... don't let me have more than a couple of drinks.
Madman: er... OK

Halfway thru the party...
CEO (5 drinks and a few shots down): Bro, you just order whatever maaannnn... Get the 18 year old Talisker and the damn Cubans too!
Madman: But... dude... they're freakin' expensive!
CEO: Fuck that! Maal lao!!
Madman: er... OK

Waaayyy into the partayyy...
CEO (you dont wanna know): You sshou... I ssh... shouldnt be drinking coz I'm supposed to be on medication...
The Bartender at that moment puts a bucket of shots onto the table.
CEO (lunges for the bucket, grabs a couple of testtubes and puts it into his shirt pocket!): Thisshh is Mine!
Madman: er... OK

# 3 - The 'After Party'
We're all standing at the entry waiting for our cars. Alex. Madman and Miner get into one car and CEO, Sam and me get into the CEO's car. CEO is riding shotgun with Sam behind him and me behind the driver. There are lot of cars waiting to drop/pick people so our cars are still waiting for the traffic in general to move. Lots of crowd waiting outside. All the pretty SoBo lads and prettier lovelies are standing outside Indigo. I rest my weary drunk head and am able to see the CEO... Barfing outof his window! heehee... I can barely move my head but I want to share this giggle-worthy moment with Sam and as I slowly tilt my head to call out to him.... BARF!! Sam's joined CEO as well.
Watching the pretty SoBo crowd going Eewwwwwww in unison - Priceless!!

#4 - The Fight that could have happened
Alex being Alex is always looking to score and even when he isn't he just can't help himself. While talking to the Madman, Miner and some random MILFish woman and an oldish gentleman who're complete strangers to us btw...
Alex (who's obviously high... nudgin Madman): But she's damn pretty na?!
Madman (embarrassed): er... bro... just be cool...
Alex: arre... its not like I said anything bad right?! (turning to the other gentleman) Right?! I mean its not like I said anything wrong man... She is goodlooking y'know...
Miner (turning to the same gentleman): Hey I'm sorry... He's obviously a little drunk... he's just being silly... I apologise on behalf of him to you and your wife. (!!)


Statistics:-
Total Bill for the night - 70 K
Total Billed shots for the night - 96
Total no. of free shots - A mystery till date
Total people who threw up that night - 5 (yup.. I didn't)

Quotes:-
Alex (on the night of the Madman's engagment): No man... I'm not drinking... How come? Arre I'm still drunk from the CEO's party last year!

Hema Aunty

Close to her office, Dee met an old friend's mum (OFM) who offered her a ride back home. Being in the business of fashion and lifestyle, Dee is asked by this OFM for her recommendation of a hairstylist located preferably in Bandra.

Dee: Oh there's this really good stylist who works at ____ and I would definitely go to her.
OFM: so she's good eh?!
Dee: Yeah absolutely... Atho she's got a kinda downmarket type name, Hemlata or something (giggle)... but aside from that, her work is really good.
OFM: My name is also Hemlata beta but you can call me Hema aunty!

Dee turns into THIS size with the sheer mortification of it all.

Salman Rocks!

Cast & Crew

The boys



Madman - My partner in crime for the most part till he got screwed engaged last night. Works in finance, loves his cigars and single malt. And that might make him sound like a pretentious prick, but he's really not :)



Miner - He came into our lives one evening... and fucker never left! His moniker reflects his profession. Long suffering from various stomach ailments, the Miner has set his health concerns aside and is now on a mission to visit every single doctor there is in our fine city. Why? Because he can...



C.E.O - The self professed CEO of his company (well to be fair, he is its Head but he seems to be in love with this other title), this particular gentleman handles incredibly HUGE portfolios by day and commits MAJOR verbal and other gaffes by night. A lot of the stories here will be about the CEO and he loves the fact!



Samson - Sam has conned a lot of people over the years into believing that he is one of those quiet bhola types but we know the truth - You ain't kidding anyone man... Loves (and hates) his movies with a passion that prompted him to get into the business. Don't ever rile the man about his (in)capacity to drink because many a foolish one has ended up regretting it.


Zac, aHart, Goose & Zeus - Another bunch of common friends and these dudes are also bandmates from the Ansh & Still Waters days.


Blackfayth - Your host and Sutradhar on this ride. His go-with-the-flow attitude is in equal parts likeable and annoying to anal types like the Madman. Since this is a team blog, its safe to say that the others will regale y'all with stories of me. Till then... main apne pairon par kulhadi kyun maroo?



The girls



Y-Girl - Her name might/not conjure up images of a superhero, but her handstands could just confirm it. The 'Y' is for the Yoga she teaches and she finally decided to make an honest woman of the Madman last night.



Dee - The Miner's friend who works in fashion and lifestyle.



Shutterbug - BF's friend who prefers shooting people to earn a livelihood.





The others


Alex

Chilli C

What's the story?

Yeh Toh... was born one evening not long ago while driving somewhere in the bylanes of Bandra. The thought was to chronicle some of the funniest stories, incidents and gaffes that we've either been a part of or have heard about but are included because of their mirth inducing factor.



The Idea isn't a new one by any means. I'd been meaning to put down anecdotes about the gang for a while now. But the immediate problem of course was that there are so many of these stories. And the problem I've found with good anecdotes is that they lie gathering dust in some corner of our memories. Until that one drinking session where someone new meets up with the group and these stories start crawling out of the woodwork.



The Title - refers to an oft-heard filmi dialogue that the gang has now adopted as our own. You've probably seen some Hindi movies where one of the sidekicks is the sort, who always has a better (but not really) story than the one that has just been narrated to him. And he usually begins his one-upmanship with, "Arre yeh toh kuch bhi nahi hai..."



The Crew - The usual suspects will be introduced in the next post.