You'll love my cousins

My Little cousins,,, just cant beat them,, Disasters normally come uninvited but my cousins came invited, so I deserve to get screwed….

The moment they got into my house ,, the initial ten minutes were great, they were sitting in a nice corner not talking to anyone,, refusing every chocolate we offered. “such nice kids” I wondered,, and continued with my work,, moments later I hear a crash,, rush to my bedroom and find the wall clock smashed to pieces ,, while the kids gave out their sweetest smiles feigning ignorance,, old memories of horrible experiences with little kids started haunting my mind,, my gut was killing me,, I knew I was in for some trouble

I tried my best to keep myself off limits but I really couldn’t, they wanted to go to a local fair,, mom looked at me “yeah ,, as long as you stay away from my computer, everything is a good idea”.

Fair was great,, apart from the fact that
one of them wanted to pee every ten minutes and then pester me to keep buying more water,
play hide and seek while I wet my pants wondering what uncle would do to me if I don’t find them
dashing cars was fun,, until now,, I was a bloody punching bag ,, and I had to park my car right in the middle for their convenience,, any change in position will result in some high decibel music


but the saints took over me and I took them to McDonalds

Some expectations if you want to have food with my cousins
Expect water on the table and tissues in your glass
Expect ketchup on your shirt and the fries on the floor
Expect them to fall off their chairs and start howling
Expect yourself to be the centre of all unkindly attraction

Then if you‘re really really blessed, you get to hear loud comments
“if you cant handle kids why have them”


Some tips to overcome mental trauma in case I get my cousins to your place
They are R&D people ,, hide your electronics or find new shapes and uses
And if you don’t keep the keypad locked then expect some international calls in your bill
Expect to find your “my documents” folder in recycle bin
Get used to watching cartoons all day
Get all your old crockery out and put on your old clothes



When you visit them, they’re such nice kids, you just cant help falling in love with them, you discover the real meaning of love,, and just when you doing that they’ll pee on you..
They’re disasters,, the discussion we should have is not whether they’re disasters or not ,, but whether they’re natural disasters or man made disasters


And all you guys keep calling me a bad case practice,, wait till you meet my cousins

All said and done ,,, I love them,, cos they love irritating me and I love getting mad at them.

My first big fat Christian wedding
Awis’s sister got married to his relief of making his room an all male domain,, the entire wedding experience was amazing…. I’ll go slow to take you through the nuances of this moment of history that I was very much a part of…

Date: 19/05/06
Time: 20:00 hrs
Venue: Tony’s place

I’m chilling at home watching TV and bugging my mom, I was tired,,, I knew it was going to be a hard day at work today so I didn’t bother going,, suddenly out of the blue I hear a faint voice calling my name,,, wow ,,, dreams working !!!!!,, but they shattered the moment I saw awis,, he signaled me to come down,,, the first thing I told him was ,, dude you’re stinking ,, did you get a new job or something at a poultry farm,, he was smelling of uncooked eggs,, not a very pleasant experience if you’re his friend,, he got down to business,,, Tony (his brother in law) had to be screwed and he’d come to pick the right man for the job,, well I said,, my pleasure,,, they went through some ritual called “rose” where we’re supposed to put coconut milk on the groom and his best man ,, coconut milk ,,, totally un cool,, we got a dozen eggs,, toothpaste and two cans of snow spray,, moments later the entire house was shrieking and stinking like they’d been attacked by terrorists with gas problems and we left within minutes of our onslaught fearing a strong backlash,, mission accomplished,, I had like a huge smile on my face every time I thought how gracefully I’d banged those eggs on Tony’s head and how I perfected the timing of letting the snow spray out just when Tony opened his mouth,,, “well there’s a lot more to do so stop patting yourself “ chided myself,, awis’s house was like Mumbai,, bursting at its seams ,, 22 people staying in a two bedroom place and just one bloody bathroom,, uncles who had booze for breakfast,, lunch and dinner,, aunts who kept shouting and shrieking in their shrill voices,, kids,, the biggest man-made disasters if you’d met the ones I did,, cousins who bragged about their underworld contacts,, friends who weren’t used to drinking with their Goan counterparts and were dancing to everyone’s delight,, and the worst thing was ,, the entire place was stinking of egg’s,, Alice (bride) had already been attacked by in-house anti-social elements. “Missed it” said to myself

Date: 20/05/06
Time: 16:45 hrs
Venue: Rosary Church

The wedding’s at 17:00 hrs but I have faith in my country and its people,, it shouldn’t start till 18:00 I tell my sisters,, one call to Awis and I press the panic button,, he’s in the church and the ceremony could start any moment ,, here I am ,, in my shorts,, cant even find my underwear and I don’t know whether I should wear a suit,, which shirt,,, gift??? Fuck ,,, don’t even have a gift,, somehow I get into my suit and rush ,, it’s a bloody microwave out there and I’m steaming in my suit,, kept wondering why cant I wear my shorts to church,, two minutes at the church and the priest says ,, I now pronounce you Husband and Wife,, poor guy (Tony),, thought to myself ,,, but I made it ,, I got to see it in real life,, it seriously looked magical,, very very symbolic.. my sisters finally made it and got to see the latter part.

Date: 20/05/06
Time: 19:30
Venue: Godrej Hall

I’m at the reception,, there’s nobody here ,, just some dogs running around ,, the food should have been laid out by now ,, I am hungry and there’s not a single guest in sight,, wow ,, cant believe my luck ,, they’re laying out the food and I get finish all of it J
The guests start pouring in and I have a job role assigned by awis’s mom,, have to entertain guests ,, yeah ,, right ,, like strip or something,, they start with a toast to some real fucked up mixture of ginger juice and sprite,, they called it wine,, I called it a glass of fuck,, moments later the entire place gets a life,, everybody’s dancing to some real cool live music ,, country music ,, Hindi and English ,, loved it ,, they even had some ball dancing stuff ,, but I’d prepared myself mentally that I wont get an opportunity,, zaai had already turned down my offer,, but then I realized,, I had two sisters here ,,, what are sisters for ,, to dance with you when you don’t have dates,, exactly,, and well what happened later were some real beautiful moments ,, it didn’t take very long for the DJ to take over and soon it was me and Awis ,, running on the floor ,, doing crazy stuff ,, the uncles were also responsible for that ,, they took us home for fifteen mins of soul and soda searching,, though awis had a tough time keeping his emotions(and posture) under control initially but some lemon juice did the trick for him,,,

Date: 20/05/06
Time: 23:30
Venue: Godrej Hall

Finally we had our dinner,, its time for the bride to be sent off ,, phew,, normally its big time sobbing for bohri’s ,, everyone from the distant aunts to relative’s friends ,, everyone cries ,, while I get cheap thrills watching them ,, here nobody did ,, I was waiting for this moment to watch everyone breakdown,,, but everyone was more than happy that its finally over,, some uncles even fell down while giving senti speeches on how happy they were ,, I think it was an overdose of booze,, after picking up all the relatives lying in the hall we finally went home,, it was then awis’s turn to get a little senti,, and we thrashed each others brains belting out our respective philosophies from how to make the world a better place??? To freedom of expression (why cant we pee where we want to pee???)

Date: 21/05/06
Time: 13:00
Venue: Hotel Tulsi

Time for a family get together,, wonder why I went there in the first place,, and for some reason I found everyone just staring at me,, got so conscious that I didn’t even wish the bride and groom,, took a seat right next to the door so I could slip in and out without anyone staring,, come and bloody take your autographs ,, I don’t even mind posing for pictures but for God’s sake stop staring,, but it didn’t stop,, awis said some medicine would loosen us up ,, after half an hour of debating and discussing whether or not we should go to the medicine corner,, we finally went,, shitting in our pants,, we just didn’t want people to know ,, specially awis’s parents,, we took so much pain of running around trying to hide ourselves in the small room ,, we literally ducked like we were being shot with machine guns on the border when the cameraman turned to us,, two sips later we were showing off our glasses,,

And two minutes later awis went on an all time low,, in a carefully coordinated prank with awis’s cousin peter,, I told awis I was totally high,, small room,, only family members,, and a fake image to protect,, awis gave me a look which said that his ass was on fire , his pants are already wet and his nerves could blast any moment,, he went to get lemon ,, on his return peter tells him that ali’s talking crazy things and awis’s parents are watching,, by now awis has lost his high and come down on an all time low,, his dreams of getting married someday are being shattered right in front of him ,, which father would give his daughter to a guy with such a drunkard friend,, I just cant control laughing while he’s cursing himself for getting me here,, I just couldn’t help but laugh at a poor soul who thought he’d be crucified now,, he keeps sourcing lemons and I keep throwing them,, then came the worst part,,, I told him I want to dance and the very thought sent him into dungeons of pain and sorrow,, he wanted to cry,, he held on to me really really tight ,, making sure I don’t even move,, it was a very funny scene cos it’s a very small room and both the families are watching us,, and I was just laughing ,, I then pointed out a girl and I said ,, can you get her for me ,, I want to %$^& her ,, there he just blew ,, he couldn’t believe what he’d done ,, he committed the biggest scene by handing me the glass,, he was repenting the first day in school that we’d met ,,, why?? Why?? He just kept muttering ,, he’d just stand by me not letting me move ,, I got more of his cousin’s and relatives involved ,, they’d just go to him and tell him that ali is acting weird and that was enough to push him closer and closer to a nervous breakdown ,, he was sweating like a bull in an air conditioned small room ,, poor guy ,, must have thought of a thousand permutations and combinations that could have gone wrong ,, he was about to collapse of brain damage when somebody asked him to get some water ,, he only left after asking three cousins to guard me,, I followed him right out and he looked at me like he’d seen a ghost ,, I could read his emotions ,, he badly wanted to cry ,, just one wrong word from my mouth and he’d cry,,, I was scared myself cause I thought he’d get a heart attack or a nervous breakdown,, and that’s exactly when I told him and he refused to believe ,, cos if everybody knew that I wasn’t drunk then going by awis acting ultra weird all afternoon ,, they must’ve thought he’s drunk ,, and that’s exactly what happened ,, the poor guy’s misery didn’t end there,, he felt like a fool and everyone stared at him with the “you are a drunkard” look,,, he just kept cursing and vowed revenge while I could feel my abs pain with continuous laughing for more than two full hours…

Awis man ,,, I owe you one

I have always hated Monday mornings since I started working,, but this one was special ,, the best part of working in a start up organization is that most of the times there isn’t a lot of things to keep you busy apart from having your free lunch,, after a frustrating week of sitting in the office doing nothing ,, we decided to take a road trip ,, within minutes we were on our bikes and off to RAJPIPLA,, our honorable journalist Mr. prabin barot was playing host,, roads were smooth as our machines cruised along the highway,, though its not very pleasant when you have hot air hit your face, burn your skin and make you want to jump in every passing pond along with the buffalo’s,, but the worst was yet to come as one of the two cruising machines ran out of fuel on a bridge,, pleasant sight ,, clear water ,, with beautiful shades of turquoise, quite a site to camp,, but in this hot weather ,, every minute was torture,, how we managed to get to rajpipla is quite a story in itself,, we should get an innovators award,, jigin and vivek sir found a real cool way of building muscles in one hand each,, our experiment backfired and they ended up in pain,, never the less ,, we reached.

Starting this moment and our entire experience after this,, we at BNTV are pleased to announce that we are anointing reporter prabin barot as the unofficial king of rajpipla by way of the enormous power the dude wields in his native town..

Day 1
We were put up in an amazingly luxurious and surprisingly empty circuit house meant for senior bureaucrats and politicians, the night was going fairly well as we talked about all the useless issues in general but they got this sudden itch to share their philosophies,,, and it all started,, I thanked god that it was just the four of us,, anything more than that would have led to complications in my brain,, luckily the night got over and so did the living nightmare,,, we checked the entire dam out ,, went to inaccessible areas ,, which were a little scary ,, like the tunnel going through the mountain under the dam ,, think about it ,, you are under a dam where they drilling and blasting ,, and there happens to be water pouring out the ceiling (this actually happened) ,, while the other guys were more concerned about their under wears not getting wet ,, I was shitting in my pants at the thought of the disaster waiting to happen,,, got to see the turbines ,, whoooaaaa ,, they’re huge ,,really huge,,, size of half a football field ,, I didn’t bother touching any shit there ,, one shock from this baby and you’re through with life, hell and heaven in one go,, the entire area is full of rivers and lakes ,, makes it a real chilled out place ,, we even walked on top of the dam with a free fall on one side and a monstrous river on the other ,, for the rest of you ,, please don’t try any of this shit even in your bathrooms ,, its requires professional fools for company,,,. back at the room it was my turn to share my philosophy ,, five minutes into it and I was the only one awake

Day 2
We had two options ,, one more dam or a jungle trip,, some how I lost my jungle bid 3 votes to 1,, though we spent most of our day at prabin bhai’s place wondering what to do and what our boss will think ,, it took us approx 5 hours to figure out that we should live our life to the full and that we should live every moment and not waste time working or worrying,, smart isn’t it,,,, moved to our new hotel ,, the RAJWANT PALACE,,, this is a heritage hotel ,, an actual palace ,, beautiful palace ,, a palace ,, I just couldn’t get over the fact ,, but one first step into the room and I wanted to run back to the circuit house ,, I’ll leave the rest to imagination,,
There was a feeling of desperation in our hearts ,, despite all this water around us ,, all we could do is watch the water ,, the only time I tried to get in a lake to dangle turned into horror as I saw a signboard saying the lake had crocodiles ,, I freaked out while the rest laughed,,
So we went to the local pool with diving boards ,, my first time on a diving board ,, not something I would want my kids to know ,, I went to the board 5 metres above the water level ,, a chill went down my spine ,, I literally sat down on the board holding the railings tight making way for 8 year old kids to jump away in glee ,, t thought of all the stories I’d heard of people dying in the pool ,, suddenly it was a battle for life ,, just wanted to get down some how ,, but strange things happen when you’re to get fucked ,, couldn’t find any concrete to put my foot on ,, I only jumped when I realized what a laughing stock I’d be within my office and my beautiful colleagues,, and I jumped ,, two seconds later ,, I realized I was still alive ,, hands and legs were moving ,, I could see ,, such a fantastic feeling ,, a high that you get when you’ve fought a life and death situation and emerged a winner.

We moved to karjan dam ,, the first five minutes were spent in silence and shock ,, the same feeling when you look at a new born baby or anything more beautiful than you can ever imagine ,, a huge and lively river with mountains on three sides and dam on one overlooked by reserve forests ,, I just went blank ,, I didn’t know what to think ,, thoughts weren’t even coming ,, it gave me such a calming effect ,, and I wasn’t the only one ,, the other three were already in their own worlds humming songs as the sun set depriving us of light to gaze at the beauty of nature ,, I didn’t want to go back,, but the thought of coming back eased the pain of going,, we bribed the watchman promising him dinner if he lets us come here at midnight ,, he was more than happy and he scribbled his favorites on a newspaper, back home we were all talking about life, god, miracles, irrelevance of money ,, I had the feeling that the rest were possessed by spirits but I still gave them company,, after a brief stopover at the hotel we went back to the dam,, this time though it looked freaky ,, dark and empty roads ,, forests on either sides ,, and a dam with no living being in sight,,,,, perfect setting for a horror flick ,,
Full moon night ,,and the waves lashing the rocks we were sitting on ,, mountains on three sides ,, silent reflection of the moon in a hustling river ,, all of us went silent ,, nobody spoke ,, we were just looking at the river ,, it seemed like its calling us ,, I could see a thousand heads just bobbing up from the river ,, calling us in ,, the river desperately trying to free itself from the dam ,, but it made a mind numbing sight ,, at 1 am the silence was broken by vivek sir ,, I looked at him and he was sweating,, said he’d seen a ghost ,, he didn’t really bother describing it but looked shit scared ,, the prankster in me and prabin took over with some amazing stories on our own fake encounters with the spirits ,, three stories later ,, vivek sir gets up and announces that he’ll leave no matter what ,, back at the room he felt much better until I told him about how kings tortured and killed their enemies and slaves at underground dungeons at these palaces ,, he didn’t sleep all night and didn’t even let us get close to the light switch ,, kept them on all night.,,

Day 3
Our deadline to leave this place has been missed by 3 hours,, well wouldn’t crib even if I had to stay back one more week,, we were so well taken care off that I’d never call prabin bhai to my place,, the hospitality standards he set are so bloody high that even my best attempt would not match half of what he did,, trip back was cool,, drove on fifty ,, straight to the office,,

Was such a memorable experience ,, totally unplanned , I had three road trips planned out till the last detail but for some reason none of them happened ,, we just let ourselves get swept away in the moment and this is what we have ,, beautiful memories.