When I flied..

Autumn 2001,
Gaithersburg,
Maryland,
US of A .

One fine sunday morning, we were all set to start our venture to King's Dominion, a theme park in Virginia. We were four in the plan - 3 guys and the only courageous me.! :-D
Before I could leave my apartment the phone rang. It was Purnima. I'd invited her to join us, but she was reluctant. *Roller coasters* were not her cup of tea. To my surprise, what I heard on phone was "Can I join you guys too? I will just watch you guys enjoying".
"Are you sure you want to dole out that hefty an amount only to watch us enjoying?"
"Well, yes.! better than to be bored to death here alone".
"Well, come over then" and now we were five. 3 guys, one courageous me and one not-so-courageous Purnima (@Purnima, please don't mind this and keep reading :) ). KD has a HUGE parking, and one can hear the screams of *fun-riders* in the remotest corner of parking lot - loud and clear.! Purnima took a step back, "I don't want to go". "arre chalo na, what will you do inside the car the whole day?". And we literally, physically, dragged her through the park entry. So! The fun was on.!! The first ride we came across was something similar to columbus in Appu Ghar, the only difference being that the ship used to take complete circle, and as if that was not enough, it used to halt for a few seconds when you r hanging upside down.! "Arre purnima ye to sabse chotti ride hai, at least try this one." "What will you tell others? You went to KD and did nothing". And once again, she was literally physically dragged and before she could realize it, was put on the ride. That hanging upside down did some trick to her - dimaag mein chemical lochaa, screws falling out or neurons short circuit, whatever - but after that Purnima was the first one in the queue on all the subsequent rides..! Wait, the best is yet to come.!

We came by the "skyflyer", some variation of bungee jumping. We all were watching it, our jaws dropped - in awe, in fear, in anxiety, I can't really recall now, but leaving us (or at least me) completely numb. I knew I didn't want to do it. The guys registered for it, though I am sure not really whole-heartedly ;). And then we kept standing there, seeing people swinging like the pendulum of a HUGE clock, our hearts pounding faster than the ones who were swinging.. Suddenly, Purnima turned to me and said "Priyanka, lets do it.!" Did I hear it right? Was I dreaming? Was it hallucination coming out of mental numbness? "You never know if we will get this chance ever again, lets do it", she contninued. In my mind I could hear "Are you out of your mind? What has gone into you? Did the omellettes you had for breakfast had steroids?" All I could hear myself saying was "Are you sure?". "Yes, lets do it". There she was, the not-so-courageous girl, throwing my 'courage' into my face. ab to naak ka sawaal ho gayaa ye.! ;-) After some trivial to-be or not-to-be kinda conversation, we were standing at the registration desk. [Inner Voice: why am i doing this?] The wait time after registration was long, a couple of hours if I remember correctly, and had I kept standing there, I would have gone weak in my knees. "Yahaan se chalte hain". We loitered around the park, and I am sure, all of us were pre-occupied with the thoughts of skyflyer and all of us wanting it to get over soon.!

The much-awaited, much-dreaded as well, moment arrived. We stood on the podium, ready to be belted and notched into the system. I was stil numb.. [why why why?] Suddenly I heard a question "Who amongst you will pull the string to free yourself?" This is torturous. My courage had gone out of stock till I reached the podium, now another shot is required. To be hanging at the height of 120ft in the air and then pull the string to fall freely under gravitational pull. Before it could sink in, Purnima had already volunteered to pull the string.! The columbus ride was haunted too I am sure, and I was being belted with a part-ghost next to me.! :D So there we were, being pulled to the arc at the height of 120ft. Oh Jeez, "aur kitni upar le jaayenge.!" [o maa! why?]. So what all I was feeling? stomach churning, head spinning, and eyes eager to be wide shut.! And when we reached the top, and the stomach had just started to settle somewhat, we heard the command, "3. 2.. 1... FLY". Wait, in all this rush, we had forgotten where was the string?! Again, Purnima hurriedly found it and pulled it.! Damn, 9.8m/sec sq is just too much of gravitational acceleration. did I ever realized it in physics lab in school?? did I even think about throwing that stone under gravitational pull? :P With wind gushing into our face, hands flowing in air with no support to reach out to, approaching the ground fast, real fast - we had no reason to believe that we won't smash into that blue podium base.. And worst part was, inspite of trying hard, I couldn't scream too.!! the wind pressure was choking the voice.! and then, what was being built up for hours now was over in less than 15 seconds, but as Prashant very precisely put that into words 'moksh praapt ho gaya' :D


The camera couldn't capture on rolls what the eyes captured in gray cells, and those entire 2-2.5 minutes of ordeal is a writing-on-the-stone which probably will get carried across eras :) Thanks to the 'snag' caused by the first ride :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_t0pAGhK7Y

“The bottled poetry”

How does it feel to be out of your wits? To give your intellect a pause from thinking? To be stupidly brave? Or may be, bravely stupid? To be in a state of transient Euphoria?
Well, I am not sure if we had any such inspiration to drive us; nevertheless, we were still driven to the idea of 'getting drunk'.! Smita conceived the idea and I conceded. Again one of those times when I wonder, why? :). [Smita, now when I look back, I realize we were over-ambitious by every measure. :D].

So.! The project was ON.

Chosen day, Friday!
(how badly I wish I would have remembered the date). Alright.! It was very carefully chosen, so that next two days are enough to get over 'The Hangover'.! :D

Chosen company, Well, none. just the two of us :)

Chosen drink, here comes the red flag.!
How to choose a drink? C'mon, We couldn't have asked the guys around, 'hey, we wanna get drunk, please suggest how to?'. I was having late night shifts at that time. smita ke taane still reverberate in my ears, 'tumhein kya lagta hai, tum roj roj pati ki tarah office se late aaogi aur main roj roj biwi ki tarah khana bana ke tumhara intezaar karungi? bus aur nahi chalega ye.!'
Well, an over occupied pati left a very obedient biwi to do the honors. The only store we could think of, 'Giants'. And from the account of things that Smita narrated, she looked up for a lady attendant there, 'explained' the situation to her."you see, we are the first timers, so please suggest something mild". The red flag was closed with the bottled poetry - a bottle of wine.!

All set. The impending Friday had to be the D-day. pati was instructed to be back from office on time. Dinner was winded up first and fast.! The party girls slipped into pyjamas, a big plate full of bhujia, jagjit singh in the air, lights out and yellow lights on. maahaul was complete.! All set. Nothing can spoil the party now.! To get the poetry rolling, the bottle was to be uncorked. A knife should come handy. Nopes. Pair of scissors. Didn't work. Some 'instruments' from the vanity kit too made it to the table. Aargh.! it refused to budge. The hopeful thought 'arre, it will open in while', transformed to 'its not even moved a mm', eventually ended with 'ah. i am sure it has moved a couple of mm's further in.' The bottle's neck proved to be the bottleneck. The party was spoiled. After struggling for an hour or two, we surrendered. Had we not yielded then, we would have for sure shattered the poem, spilling the verses all over the house. Disappointed, disheartened and dashed, we went off to sleep.

We were not to give up yet. Next day, the account was narrated to Ashish. The charming suitor whom Smita eventually married. And we were enlightened with the concept of 'corkscrew'. "Naah, its not there in our kitchen, else we would have discovered it". We borrowed it from Ashish. Only to realize later that we had one in our apartment's kitchen too.! Alright, we decided not to tell anyone the tales of our idiocy :D. We were now in a position to setup a Saturday evening. maahaul restored.! Damn.! it tastes so pungent. I am not sure if I could have anything more than a few sips.! As Smita reminds me everytime, for every half a sip, I consumed at least 4 spoons of bhujia. And after every quarter a sip, she would ask, 'priyanka, kuch hua kya?'. And then she will freeze for moments trying to 'feel' things. :D :D jaise taise, we wound up after an hour or so, concluding that we can't take any more sips, and that we were perfectly 'normal'. more 'normal' then regular 'normal' :D. To continue with the spirit of absent-mindedness, next morning, she came to my room and asked, 'priyanka, theek to ho na? hangover type feeling to nahi aa rahi hai'. And then she repeated the act of freezing of last night, sincerely trying to 'feel' something. :D

Only later did we discover that the wine was so mild, that guys visiting our apartment used to gulp down a few sips in case they didn't find water in the fridge.!

Here we are, the aim not fulfilled even remotely, rather we were the subject of ridicule for days to come. But giving us memories the mention of which can get us on the floor laughing. The mere utterance of word 'wine' in faintest of sounds can bring a smile to the face.

For Robert Louis Stevenson, Wine is bottled poetry, for us, It is bottled comedy. :)

Today..

There are days when you feel that there is nothing more to life than converting oxygen to carbon dioxide. No thought is capable of drawing the curve of smile on one's face; and then there are days like today, when the reasons to celebrate are just pouring in and one finds it difficult to catch up. A bronze for India from the most unexpected corner; a convincing win in cricket; and a hope for another silver in boxing. First time since we won 2 medals in any olympics since 1952. And the icing on the cake is I won 25K in Radio city's Celebrating Changing Delhi contest.! So I thought no other day could be better than today to start my long pending plan of starting a blog :-)
Cheers and chins up.!