After spending the first day in Pune with a couple relatives, college friends, and Reshma, it was time to spend the second day and last night in Pune with my college roommates. To commemorate the occasion, I had brought a couple bottles of Single Malt Whiskey from the Duty Free shop at the Airport. It was such a nice moment to see everyone together after many years of college. Catching up with my college roommates and spending this time together was definitely the highlight of my India trip.
The day started normally, with us going to a nearby breakfast place to have some food. I still remember, it reminded me of the way we used to have food just outside of our college. It reminded of the fun times that we had together a few years ago.
After the breakfast, some of my friends were still hungry, and hence decided to drive down to a more spot to have Idli Sambhar. I was thrilled about it because the one thing I never miss while I am visiting places is to try all kinds of food that those places have to offer. After the food, it was inevitable that we had some chai and other snacks. The one thing that I found funny was we were eating while standing up. Even though I have spent almost all of my life in India, I found it strange to just stand and eat. I tried finding a place to sit, but didn’t want to awkward the situation for my friends.
Anyway, I spent the remainder of the day catching up with other friends and doing things that I liked. I was just waiting for the day to get over so that we could sit together as former roommates and talk to each other, which we hadn’t been able to do for the last few years.
To prep for the evening, we roamed around different shops and stores – to gather enough Chakna and food for the night. If you don’t know what Chakna is, it is an Indian snack that usually go well with the liquor. It felt good to realize that I was taking care of the party and loved to do so. We spent almost an hour gathering everything that we could find and headed to my friend’s apartment to start the festivities.
Man, we had so much fun. As the evening started unfolding, we talked about so many things and cherished so many memories. If there was one word to describe this evening, it would have been “memorable”. We talked, gossiped, and tried living the engineering life again. My friends didn’t miss out making fun of me as I was the one living abroad. That moment was enough to tell me that nothing had changed between us and we were the same humans that were once roommates and used to spend days together.
During the night, we decided to take this party to a roadside bar across the street and called a couple other friends to join us. They came and we had more fun. If I am not wrong, we were in that bar until it closed, which was well past 2AM. Some of us puked (I won’t say who) and some of us ate too much, but one thing I know is that everyone of us had fun and that’s what we were going for.
I was glad that I took the time out and visited these guys, because I wasn’t sure when the next time would be when I would get to see them.
Cheers to good time and life!
Next stop – Home!
stochasticity 