It had been a long day, with all the top bosses swarming down to Bangalore, to give us the pleasure of their wisdom, though unsolicited. The dealers were there too, and it was old wine in a new bottle.
Effectiveness on the field was perceived to be low, and thus we had to go through another round of cleansing and enlightening about the mysterious new gearbox of our trucks, the E2 series is here to stay, and we were discussing or rather being told of the future of the technology. That no one understands the technology is not a point to ponder without some nausea.
Then the dealers left, and the meeting turned into an internal meeting, what with all that went on and on through the day being repeated in the evening. We were let go at 8 pm, from the Leela Palace, apparently a 7 star hotel. I stole all the nice, black pencils that had been kept for our use. I need not buy pencils for a decade now, at the most conservative estimate of my rate of usage of pencils.
I have a colleague in Hyderabad, Karthik, a Tamilian, who earlier worked for Tata. He is from Bangalore. Both of us decided to go get some beer after all this hulla had gotten over. He suggested the Purple Haze. We landed there.
Once the door opened, I was literally hit by the music, smash across my face. Audioslave! We found a couple of seats at the bar counter and ordered beer. We were the only guys in formals that evening, and everyone gave us a desultory glance for our liberty.
It all started off fine with me. The music was great and the beer was good. The people were young and there was a strange sensation within me. Then I started swinging. My head was darting forward and back. And with a pitcher guzzled and with the music, I finally had got to a high.
Then it was a maelstrom of the nirvana’s, erasmus’ and the what nots. Another pitcher and it was getting late and the tempo changed to some slow music. Altogether that night, I had drunk 2 pitchers and 2 rounds of my favorite scotch, nothing much by my standards. I manage to guzzle more at my place with Jagjith Singh, Farida Khannum and Abida Parveen.
We somehow got to our hotel rooms, and the next day I woke up with pain at the back of my neck. Head banging, something I am not used to. But it was an amazing evening. In a pub after a long time. But I had never been to a theme pub before. I rocked!
