Bye-bye, Bowling and Forts!

allsmiles | 31 May, 2005 18:14

Another weekend another story. Quite a contrast to the previous one.

A neighbour was leaving us for good. So everyone got together on Friday night to say the bye-byes and stuff. Never figured out how people manage to heed to their inner voice and take major risks in life. The chap has a plum job with Microsoft and he is leaving all that to take up some business opportunity. Moreover he says he wants his kids to grow up much closer to the roots. That is quite admirable I would say. Not too many folks do that, or want to do that. As for the celebration there was mostly food, music, booze and dumb charades. Quite a combination that was.

Come Saturday and an ex-colleague came over to town. The plan was to go bowling for a while and then lunch and then hang around some coffee place and chat up till anyone kicked us out. Bowling is fun, many would agree. Trust the Americans to come up with such a simple yet addictive game. 10 pins, one ball, two chances to strike them all. Just that its a bit too expensive to my liking. Another trait of American ingenuity. They get you all addicted till they can take all your pennies. Can you believe the whole machinery in a bowling alley could cost a couple of crores? I used to be of the opinion that setting up a bowling alley was a decent investment proposition.

I could remember a time when bowling was a huge craze. One had a good 5-6 decent places to go bowling. But now I cant think of more than 2. And the other one seems perpetually closed for renovation. So it was Alleygator. The place is okey but the music too jarring. Can't stay there for more than an hour or so. Anyways my friends arrived and we started with bowling right away. Time kaa to pataa hi nahi chala. We were hooked and continued another one. V says "Use a heavier ball the first time and the lighter on the next time." K refutes and a debate was born. The discussions covered a detailed analyses of Newtons laws and high school physics - mass, momentum, acceleration and so many equations. But K made a whole lot of sense with the suggestion "Dont look at the pins. Look at the arrow marks. And try to get the ball there.". It worked. After a while they tried their hand at spinning the bowl. My fingers were screaming by then. After a few games of air hockey, we decided we were all hungry enough to do justice to the buffet at Green Park.

But then things turned out quite differently. The car had some prominent scratches and parking guys refused to believe that the incident occured after the car was parked there. They refused to own up any responsibility and spoke pretty rudely. So our lunch plans were stalled for the time being, my friends went to register a complaint with the local police station (the nearest one). They anticipated it would take a while, didnt want to kill my weekend day and asked me to carry on. They call back at 5:30, all went well. The police guy goes to the accident site, carefully examined the victim car and the car next to it(henceforth called the accused car). He declared the injury to the car was a fresh one and there was some speck of paint of the victim car on the accused car. But since it could not be conclusively proved, the negligence of the parking lot guys was severely criticised and they had to pay up a sum of Rs 2000/- to my friend. Justice prevailed although one had to go without food for quite a while ....

They came over to my place and tried to relax by playing all possible games available. TT, Badminton and all. Ended up being more hungry :) Finally headed towards "Shikaar" the Mexican outlet and got barely past soup and starters when we all decided we had enough. V had to travel that night and also had another longer journey planned the next day and hence refused to eat beyond that. K had curd rice. We all parted ways at 10:00 pm totally famished and amazed at all that happened.

Sunday evening had history written all over it. Out of the blue my mother suggested a visit to the Golconda Fort. Well, it was always embarassing to admit to people that I've stayed here longer than 10 years and havent visited the place. I did visit it as a kid but barely remember anything. This time I just wish I was better prepared with better foot wear and stuff. We visited the Qutb Shahi tombs which were on the way. The fort was quite awe inspiring to say the very least. To imagine a structure built in the 13th century and last so long ....The ariel view to me was the best. A pity my camera batteries gave up by the time I got to the top. It seems there was secret underground connection between the Fort and the Charminar. And also that the Deccan plateau was ruled from this very fort before the city of Hyderabad was born. The 400-500 steps journey upwards didnt seem so bad but the stair case leading downwards was quite uneven(esp with my heels) and there was this constant danger of losing the balance. A crowd did gather to witness the light and sound show, which we decided to let go for now. Another day, another time.