On why I am not a monkey

“Thank God it is Friday” was on my lips the moment I left office on February 22 2008. Tony (Toddy) Pullachen had invited us over to his flat for a drinking binge. I had been of the drink for quite some time due to viral fever and other god forsaken ailments, so I took to the invitation like fish to water.

Now, I pride myself on being a reasonable man when drunk.
Drunk and loud? Guilty your honor.
Drunk and obnoxious? Guilty again.
But Drunk and Unreasonable? No way. I aint the type who says “Don’t hold me, I can walk straight” or the type of guy who insists on driving the moment he is drunk. In fact when I am drunk, I insist that the sober man drive. But Friday was different..:(

After successfully downing God knows how much of those divine cups of Ambrosia, we turned on the idiot tube and lo! There was this old Mohanlal starred movie “Pakshae”. As we lay about watching the movie passing snide comments on how beautiful olden time heroines looked, Innocent (another actor) who does a cameo in the film entered the scene. One of his dialogues roughly translated to “let’s rock at the city centre, that’s where the fun is”.

You can’t tell that kinda dialogue to four drunken men without a response. Pullachen was on his feet in a second shouting “let’s go for a night ride, all the fun is in the city”. Not surprisingly in five short minutes I found myself the pillion rider of a bike driven by Shyam who was fortunately not too drunk. I would have stayed there if not for Samjith driving the other bike. You see, Samjith did not know how to ride a bike and he was riding it. I did not know how to ride a bike and I wasn’t riding it. Blatantly undemocratic and un-socialistic if you ask me.

I wanted to drive our bike then and there. Shyam soothed me with some soberly words and finally we compromised that I would drive up till the gate and he would take on afterwards. But, at the gate I decided that I could go up to the main road and I drove up to the main road. At the main road, I felt that I could drive up to Hyderabad (from Bangalore!) but fortunately two things stopped me from doing it.
1) The biked had very little petrol
2) Shyam decided to get the bike back (big monkey do as he please!)

All this time, Samjith to his credit was driving his bike very well. After going past Marthahalli on the outer ring road, we stopped due to lack of petrol. There was only enough left to get back in one piece.

Samjith on the other hand drove away with not a care in the world. As we waited for them to return, I badgered Shyam to allow me to drive “a little on the main road”. Finally Shyam agreed. Just as I spotted Samjith’s bike, I jumped on mine and accelerated away. Shyam was holding on for good life.
I: Ever seen “matrix re-loaded”
Shyam: Yes
I: Let’s teach Trinity a few moves shall we?
Shyam: No Way!
I: Yes! Here’s the way
Shyam: Oh noo….

I zigzagged between trucks like a maniac, my alcohol induced self-confidence kept telling me to “push it dude, push it” and I pushed it. At one point, I looked back to see where Samjith was (somebody forgot to tell me about the wind factor! You can’t just turn around and look when driving a bike at speed, you loose your balance!) Fortunately, the bike was stable and Shyam did not notice anything. But that moment of imbalance send electric shocks down my spine.

All the alcohol in my blood seemed to vaporized away. The foolishness of what I was doing struck me. Crazy! that’s what I was in those moments. What the f*** did I think I was doing? and that too with somebody in the pillion seat! Me, I didn’t have a license and more importantly I didn’t know how to drive a bike, this was maybe my 2nd/3rd time driving a bike.

It was only a few months before that a cousin* of mine had a bike accident and here I was happily repeating what my parents and relatives had pleaded me and my cousins not to do. I slowed down carefully, stopped the bike and gave it back to Shyam.

The good part:
1) I screwed up, but it did not harm anyone else, so thank you God
2) I screwed up, but I did not get harmed, so thank you God

To err is human and err I did, hence proved that I am not a monkey! Friends who for long had suspected simian antecedents in me are thus proven wrong!

*If my cousin reads this blog then all I gotta tell him in my defense is “hey! I was wearing a helmet!”