Mysore Tales - I

Pink Floyd, Vodka and now, Chuck Palahniuk.

We all are addicts and we keep looking for potential in other people. We want them to be worse than us or at least as drowned as us, in our similar addictions. If not, we spread the same.

Virus© and I are victims to the same dope – music, vodka, misery and Chuck Palahniuk.

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Mysore was on my mind for quite sometime now. Jodhpur and Rourkela had given me a brief notion on the northern and north-eastern life of India respectively, and though, the beautiful Shillong and Leh Ladakh are still to be explored, the empty pockets and lack of a proper plan had made me look towards the South. Mysore easily seemed the best bet; with an online friend inviting time and again for a nice session of vodka and Floyd, I just packed my bags and left for the promised temptations.

The train journey to Bangalore was quite uneventful this time. Shantaram and camera remained my best company. Sajid, a good friend of Sundar, happily picked me up from the station. A good shower, excellent food and cheap milkshakes later, I left for Mysore. I was told the road trip will be really beautiful and the amazing snaps do prove the tale.

Getting down at Mysore, I made my never-met-never-seen-friend, Virus, come to pick me up at the bus station. The tired, exhausted and Infy-cted person gathered all his strength and happily traveled a good 20 odd kilometers to collect me. The welcome began with an exchange of the friendliest and the most romantic words – “Aa gayaa chutiye!” The adventure began.

Knowing Virus© :

You curse Mysore, Virus likes you. You curse Infy, Virus loves you. We see Dil Chahta Hai posters on some walls and I say that your Mysore just released a decade old movie and he says, “That’s the fucked up city of Mysore for you”. Then we pass Purple Haze, “We get wasted here” he says and why not your house I ask. “We continue there” satisfies me as an answer.

Virus© and the ATMs:

Our first stop before the “big night out” was at an ATM. The ATMs at Mysore do not function for Virus. “Infy manages these ATMs”, Virus feeds me. No wonder they suck, I say. You curse Mysore, Virus likes you. You curse Infy, Virus loves you. In all those 3 days, whenever Virus stood before an “Infy-managed” ATM, it never worked.

Meet the people:

Chaitanya and Virus have been buddies since their school days. Back then they cursed their schools, now they curse Infy. Time moves on, people change, things to curse change, but the curses remain the same. When I entered their abode, there was no electricity. Chaitanya and me exchanged “hello” throwing torch-lights at each other. Then there was another roommate – Surendra aka Surya, another old friend of Virus. I do not know their subject of curses before, it is Infy now, is all I know.

But it was a while before he entered the scene. Till then, time was spent cursing him. An hour later, Surya came with money and some bad news – “Even they are coming”. Hurl of abuses and near death violence later, we locked the doors, got on the bikes and headed for the pub. On our way Virus came up with “Let’s get some stuff for us when we get home”, and I said oh yeah! Old Monk and some cola were the only available options. So Virus and I went back to the room but since the other two had carried the keys to the room, we were forced to keep the bottles outside. Hiding the booze behind the garbage bin was Virus’ brilliant idea.

The binge:

Purple Haze had stopped serving drinks by the time we reached there. Mysore closes by 11 pm but after lot of persuasion, we were given our respective pints. Mysore sucks. You curse Mysore, Virus likes you. But we had entertainment at the pub in the form of partly-stoned and badly drunk English – who turned out to be an employee of Infy. He was rated as an embarrassment to the British community. And Infy places such guys, I ask. You curse Infy, Virus loves you.

An attempt at getting physical with one of the females at our table, a big smacking kiss to his roommate, an attempt to play with the wrong “instruments” in public were reasons strong enough for the management to show him out of the pub and slap him some fine.

A decent dinner later, we headed for home. I introduced Virus to Blackfield and we opened Old Monk. Weirdly, no one was in much of a mood to go crazy. So the rum lay aside while we discussed music. Then Floyd started playing and I suggested we raise a toast to them. We filled half our glasses and cheered for bottoms-up. I said let’s do this one more time. It went on for three more times till our noses and throat hurt. It didn’t take time; ten minutes later, the world became a blur and there remained no sense in the talk that followed. The proceedings of the night cannot be further disclosed due to one main reason – we do not remember what happened. I do remember talking to some random friend of Virus at 3 am, then calling Red at 3.15 am. The last memories of the night to me are of someone heading for the sink and myself, crashing onto the bed. Day one ended as planned!

The mornings after are never sweet. The numb day that followed shall be continued in the next part. Stay tuned.