The gaieties of Saturdays

I had just entered office and fascinated by the little sparks of nostalgic memory that wishy-washily crisscross my mind very often, I sit down to write this post on how a perfect Bachelor Saturday Night had been.

Our bachelor room was called "The Den" and it was a perfect den. Set in one of the laidback streets of the Brahmin Heartland (Mamabalam, more synonymously West Mambalam), we were a group of 6-8 people at any given point in time sharing 2 single-bedroom apartments.

Some were working, some were studying Architecture (but hardly did I find anyone study, maybe they thought Architecture is about seeing the bends, arcs, and curves of .......), and there used to be someone or other who would be the friend of friend of friend of.......staying temporarily with the permanent lot for reasons unknown to anyone (for convenience sake I will call them "UNKNOWN"). Now you have the 6-8 permanents and 1-2 UNKNOWNS.

Scary Saturdays then, but Soothing Saturdays now.

One by one the roommates would start to trickle in from office, college, etc. and the action plan for the weekend would be laid with inputs from all. One could clearly spot the ever increasing decibel levels of our room as members join in and we used to be eyesore of the whole apartment according to some hypocrites who were our neighbours.

After a lot of deliberation, we would zero in on a particular Hotel, purely based on one of the roommates' suggestion and everyone one would nod to uphold the decision mainly because none of us would want to shoulder the responsibility of selecting even a hotel (that is a typical bachelor for you....one whose mind shoos away anything that involves decision making). The one who decides will automatically become the leader in the land of the undecided and he would weave all possible stories to showcase the hotel he had suggested as "The White Castle". The cavalcade would kick off with the leader traveling first in his bike and everyone following him to "The White Castle". During our travel we used to have the Vin Diesels of our team who would try to race the leader and lose their way, but our leader would be courteous enough to direct these fast and furious guys to the castle and en-route they would join us again, but only to be lost after. This waiting game would delay our journey to the white castle, but it was fun teasing these fast guys and on some days the whole team would not take this waiting biz coolly and would clearly send out instructions to these fast guys to have food wherever they want and go to the den.

After all this fast and furious stuff, we would reach the castle only to find a hut (most of the days this was the case). The leader by now would have become a humble follower and on most occasions would even confess that this was the first time he himself had come to the castle, sorry castle turned hut. By now, the clock would have struck 10 or above and we would have no choice but to have food here.......with the blame game already begun we would start to sit down and have food.

Halfway during the meal, someone would suggest "How about watching a really really really horror movie tonight in our apartment?". Again, like a herd of sheep everyone would nod not for a moment being cynical of what has happened, is happening at the hut-castle (that is the undying spirit of the bachelor for you). The team would nominate 3 or 4 people to rush to the CD rental shop to choose a horror title while the rest of the team would wait for the bill, pay it, and rush home to make all the preparations for the perfect horror movie.

The preparations would be to boot the computer of the Architect (now my mind tries really hard to bring forward a single instance of this computer being used for educational purposes – how hard I think I could not recollect anything like that…..may be I am suffering from selective memory loss), make the bed for all the 8 or so members to sleep almost one above the other bundled like a bale of cotton, fill water bottles and keep it in the AV room so that no one misses a single sequence and to avoid people from pressing the pause button to bring water from the dispenser, to position the computer in the middle so that everyone gets to see the picture clearly, connecting the home theatre system with the comp, checking all the woofers, etc. The only possible break that is strictly permissible is to pissss. Adequate care will be taken by one of our members who would be very particular in taming the noise levels so that the hypocrites are not disturbed and we are not forced to hear a sermon from the devils. You won’t believe the amount of hard work that used to go into this preparatory phase. Back there at the CD rental shop, the guys would search a lot of titles and finally pick up a title that was suggested by the shop owner, because at least then we were not the so-called Hollywood city guys who knew a lot about English movies. This time the name of the really really really horror movie that was suggested by the owner was "SLAUGHTER STUDIOS".

The selection team would enter the den with the CD and to the loud roar of all the team members, the screening would start and the screaming would begin. Every team member would rush to have a glimpse of the CD cover and finally after the initial cover viewing ceremony is over the CD will be given to the techie to shove it inside the drive and to make the final video adjustments.

WOW.......Shhhh…………Aaaahhhhh…….the movie would start.........capturing the attention of everyone, pin drop silence......15 minutes into the movie one by one would start seeing the others face just to make sure whether the other is able to follow the movie or not........in 20 minutes a steep voice would start to pass on a comment - "What the hell is this......there is no horror at all.......there is only laughter......" and again every would nod........and this particular movie "SLAUGHTER STUDIOS" turned out to be "MATTER STUDIOS", a stupid XX movie that had nothing but stupidity.

Laughter and sarcastic comments would start to fill the entire room.......and we used to roll on the ground with hearts filled with nothing but happiness and joy (that is the joy of Bachelor life for you).........

After the whole night gone awry.......everyone would sleep not knowing when the eyes pulled down the lids and when the ears shut doors to the laughter.........This used to be the norm of every Saturday......

Now, I realize how I had lost those Saturdays filled with fun and frolic, joy and happiness, pranks of glee and jollity, and above all the happiness of sharing your space with people whom you love.

But I do not have regrets because I still have all these friends who are just a call away……maybe we will meet one more time to enjoy “The gaieties of Saturdays”.