Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Ride, Sweat, and Amelia

Sleepy, but still I can brief the day - here on my blog, as I'm presently under a crisis of having run out of pages in my notebook, and not being able to locate the same one that I'm so anal about.
The evening started very late. The advantage of my early return from the office was squandered when I set out fixing the newly-installed broadband in household, trying to reconfigure and restart the modem a million times, to ultimately infer that dear K hadn't even confirmed if our line was activated or not. Annoyed and fatigued, I dosed off just like that.

I had to be somewhere by 2000, but the sleepy self doesn't recognize that; so when I woke up from this transient sleep just 10 mins short of it, I hated myself. Despite that, I clothed up, and despite an expected delay had I taken out my bike, I did - there was this lingering resolve of making it a self-powered ride around the city, especially since I'd been left in a vacuum riding my bike in the past couple of weeks, partway partway due to the bike's condition, partway due to my lethargy, and partway coz A had been a bitch despite his biweekly promises. So without dusting or any tweaking, I carried the weight of my bike two floors downstairs, and then dragged it out to the mechanic's to fill up some air. As the stars be, the evening was going to be tougher - the foot pump at the mechanic's was faulty and I ended up pumping in air but losing a lot more of it, in brief: CS'd, as we friends refer to it. Then a visit to the filling station a hundred meters ahead, where I thankfully had a commercial-grade machine to my rescue! I was sweating profusely by the time the bike breathed into life (so to speak), and already a few minutes into my announced arrival time of 2000. Despite, the feet hit the rhythm, and in the next twenty minutes I weaved through some heavy evening traffic to reach my destination PortsideCafé in Lado Sarai.

This destination, PortsideCafé, (and Lado Sarai itself) was new to me. Moreover, it being a luxury furniture showroom would create more confusion, since everybody knows that I have little taste, and even lesser money. To demystify any bewildered souls, I was here on the temptation of a movie screening - a 2009 big-banner Hillary Swank movie on Amelia Earhart, the legendary female (American) explorer. Lado Sarai has a dusty access and unkempt facade, but it was easy to locate this place. At 2025, parking my bike in haste, I entered, sweating. I greeted the wrong guys, sweating, who directed me to the right guys (gals), whom I again greeted, sweating. I already had my killer line prepared: "I hope I'm not too much into the side of late," but luckily I found the movie hadn't even started.

Within minutes of my arrival, the lights dimmed and the movie started. I quietly settled down with a glass of water, after poorly conversing with an attractive girl with bulbous eyes and remarkable lips at the drinks counter. The carbonated sugar, I passed. There was even beer at offer, but I passed, since I now hold claim to much superior play between the tonic and the palette (refer to earlier posts). Most people had company, I didn't. Lucky for me, as I sprawled across the last seat available on the plush leather couch at the back. And so it went.

The movie, sucked. The evening, not so much. That there were popcorns and dinner at offer was a plus. I befriended Rajat - the guy who brought in the kebab cartons - during the dinner break, and learnt of his fuck-marketing-and-family-business moment, to aspire towards being a restaurateur. No others to share words or wisdom with; but as I rode back at 2250, Anirudh, one of the loners like myself, who was spotted standing in a far corner nervously, drew parallel to me, and made chitchat followed with an introduction - right in the middle of the road, as we navigated our separate vehicles on those roads. We two were, it seems, ones drawn there through a mailing group of creatives in and around NCR, while the rest were facebook acquaints in some way, so there was our handicap. But, regardless, not bad at all, for a first impression.

I pretty much consumed my energy detailing on the evening. The day was uncharacteristic, so there's not much to talk about, anyways. I did get hands on the AAAs that I'd ordered through eBay; I have a load of AAAs now. I'm set for long musical outings in the company of my Pipe and iPod, but sadly in the lack of friends who always chicken out or keep deferring or keep suggesting inferior alternatives to compromise on grander plans. Now leave me alone, "I have Lars and the Real Girl" to finish.

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