My first Beer - Birth of a legend.

Pic - Firangi and I flagging out our favourite T-shirts. Below you'll notice a black thing. It's CMKT's trunk.

Q – What happens when a girl breaks a guy’s heart?

Ans – Two guys become the best of friends.

It was a winter evening of 2003. Firangi and I were sitting in our balcony, speaking about topics which didn’t make sense (about love). With our minds engulfed in dark clouds we hardly saw the next step. Amidst that mist we chanced upon a guy carrying a crate full of beer.

We looked at each other; we’ve never been so sure in our lives. We fled down the staircase. We stared at the board which read ‘ADITYA WINE AND BEER SHOP’.

We had never tried alcohol nor were too friendly with people who were fond of it. Hum to apne Maa-baap ke ache bache the. As a result we weren’t really too sure of the brand and the kind. So considering the budget and the TV ads we decided to get a ‘Haywards 5000’. Of course I decided to pay (Firangi, if you ever happen to read this note, remember I paid for your first social lubricant).

As we were about to enter, my girlfriend called. She resolved our differences. Now, wait a minute, I was about to get drunk because that’s what grown ups with broken hearts do. Now that the damage was re-paired, I had no reason. But I couldn’t leave a man behind. So I stormed into the shop and ordered for two Haywards 5000.

Initially my request was turned down, because we were under-age (we forgot about that). But then I told him that I was from Bihar and my friend was from U.P. That worked. We got the bottles to our apartment.

There was one more problem. My room-mate CMKT was the Nerdiest (MS Word says that’s not a real word) creature on the planet. He wouldn’t allow us to turn our educational abode into a bar. So, we decided to savour it before he returns. No sooner did this idea dawn upon us than the door-bell rang. CMKT was back. With a kingkartavyavimud state of mind we hid the bottles in a trunk. Little did we realise it was CMKT’s trunk.

He wanted to study (as usual), so he opened his trunk to take his books. Have you even been unfortunate enough to watch the entire episode of any Ekta Kapoor soap? You’ll sure see a scene when a particular reaction is replayed thrice, just to reiterate the strength if that particular emotion. That’s exactly what his reaction was. He lectured in a dad-like way. Like prodigal sons Firangi and I took the bottles and walked into the other bedroom.
Beer tasted like shit the first time. But we were so used to taking shit from our fate that we continued consuming it. Finally we finished our beer. We weren’t drunk but we wanted to be drunk, so we got drunk.

Piece of gyaan – Alcohol makes you brave.

Firangi and I stormed in to CMKT’s room and abused him in a way he couldn’t imagine. We scared the shit out of that poor thing. He left the room in tears.

Such was the experience; we decided to face it more times.

And that was the start of two greatest alcoholics our friends will ever know.