When I find myself in times of trouble...

And I do so very often. Its like I don’t see it coming, things just keep going from bad to worse, sometimes in as little time as one morning, and I simply sit through it all watching everything go wrong. I guess I’m like that. Sometimes, usually most times I can’t help the way things turn out. Or rather I choose not to. Its not a conscious choice I make, its just that I’m used to shit happening. So when things start going wrong like yesterday, I simply play along and hold my breath for things to get better.

Yesterday I woke up late in the afternoon to find my roommate completely smashed and informing me that we have to vacate our room today with a stupid grin on his face. Now we need some background. How was he drunk by 12:30 in the afternoon? It all began the night before, which we spend reminiscing good old college times with a senior of ours till some 3 in the morning and drinking away to glory. After consuming copious amounts of alcohol my roommate passed out, and eventually we all hit the sack and we hit hard. However, there was still half a bottle of rum left over in our room, which my dear beloved roommate emptied the as soon as he came to his senses in the morning. So he was drunk by the time I woke up.
Now back to the morning, ie. yesterday. I wake up, finish my preliminary packings and go down to the office to speak to the management to let them know when we were actually going to clear out. The room was booked by my roommates mum (but he couldn’t speak…refer last para, drunk story) and we weren’t really expecting a room charge. So it was kind of a minor heart attack that I suffered when I was told that we had to pay 8 days rent @ Rs.700 per day. A quick math after the shock you realize you owe something around Rs.5600. I had Rs.200 in me pocket and another 1000 odd bucks in my ATM account.
I ran back up to my room and informed my semi-passed out bastard of a friend that we are soon to be ripped of the scarcest commodity in our meager existence. He tried calling his mom to fix things up, however figuring out that he was smash drunk she cut the line. So we rushed out to the nearest ATM, withdrew all that we had and paid our bill. Then we headed to the next Government guest house where we were supposed to put up for 2 more weeks. This too was arranged by the aforementioned friend’s family. On reaching the place we found that my buddy was supposed to be carrying an Order for stay at that Guest House which in all his intoxication he had misplaced and was not to be found anymore. So here, really hungover in an alien city, I am standing before a hallowed government building heavily guarded by cops who weren’t even allowing us to keep our baggage outside their gates. Not to mention the fact that we were completely and utterly broke.

One of the many privileges of having been a junior is that you have extremely well paid seniors in almost every major city in the country. So as a last resort we sheepishly called some seniors who promptly bailed us out. So much so that I spent the night stoned, after consuming beer at a hip place, with a well cooked lamb steak being digested in my stomach. Although I had to spend half a day roaming about Bangalore with all my baggage (looking for the guest house/waiting for my senior to get free), it had turned out alright. I had a good night’s sleep, and having had to spend part of the day waiting for my senior I went to an exhibition hosted by the graduating batch of Srishti School of Design. I figured I needed a place to faf that wouldn’t cost me money. And student exhibitions generally do not cost money, even though you might find terribly exciting things there. For example a coffee table made only out of old rusted bicycle spare parts or a film shot over 3 generations or a graphic novel (Ethereal) written and drawn by a 20 year old with an uncanny similarity to Dave McKean’s (of Sandman fame) artwork or the numerous beautiful Design School chics who waltz around chewing gum. So it had been an extremely frustrating and peaceful day. I don’t know if those two words are ever used together, but it does happen to reflect my state of being pretty often, confirming the fact that I can never truly lead a “normal” life no matter how hard I try.

But I think its fun being me. At the end of the day that is. Cheers.