The Da Vinci Code

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My Most Amazing Experience with Anish, Rubin & Harry-(Epilogue)

I don’t remember waking up, now that I think of it. I just remember coming to his hall and sitting down in front him. Harry woke up earlier than I did; I don’t know how my friends are doing this, really! Both of us went to sleep by 5:30. He got up at 11:30 and was sitting on the couch eating some breakfast; I think it was cornflakes. I looked at the clock; it was 12:35. I yawned and he said hi, then I went back in to brush my teeth. I had to first recover my toothpaste from my bag. I had forgotten to bring a toilet bag and I always had this strange feeling throughout my trip that the ‘crest’ toothpaste (50ml) tube I was currently using, would unscrew its cap on its own accord, and have the pleasure of turning the front pockets of my bag into a mess. I checked my bag. No mess.

After brushing, I came to the hall again to find Harry still eating. He was browsing through the channels on his TV and would occasionally find something interesting to watch. We ended up having our attention caught by the movie ‘face/off’, which I had seen before only too many times. We watched it till the end, I remember, and then I met Harry’s dad who was just leaving for work. Harry and I then just chilled for some more time. I flipped through the entertainment plus magazine and had a quick read of the newspaper. Then Harry decided that last night, or should I say this morning’s game of football would not suffice as enough and that we needed to play more. Well actually he didn’t say that, but he was doodling and juggling the ball so I decided to join him. The funny thing was that after 2 minutes of playing, I felt so tired that I thought that I needed another 7 more hours of sleep before I could ready myself for my next match. Harry, I could tell was feeling the same and so we quit, and listened to music instead.
I saw the movie family guy too, that day. My god, it was the most hilarious stuff I had ever seen yet. Family guy to me is a highly exaggerated version of ‘The Simpsons’. Even ‘The Simpsons’ at times can get a little serious, but this was absolute comedy every single minute of the movie. A must-see, by the way.

We relaxed a bit more till about 5:00 pm, by which time my mom had called and had started to wonder where I was. She told me that I had not been home properly since Wednesday and wanted to see me home as soon as possible. I agreed, I had been out long, and it was about time I left for home.
I had 5 bucks left, since my last escapades outside. Harry told me that if I wanted to save myself from cab-fair (which I did), I should use the bus. The bus stand was at the Dnata building a couple of hundred meters away from Harry’s house. We talked a bit on the way, but then I just started watching the road; the Sheikh Zayed road that was heading towards the city. I don’t know what it was about that place, but it made me think a bit. Or a lot. I don’t know myself but what I did realize is that I hadn’t been to this place ever before. I thought about how people take their cameras and take photos of foreign countries when they go with their families on holidays. I was quite disappointed because, I wanted to take a picture of this road; for some reason it made me think that, people don’t take photos of their daily lives so often. Its just when they go out to different or new places. Now that’s understandable, but what about our daily lives? Nobody is taking photos of that right? There are far more little-little details that were missing out because we don’t pay attention that much to our surroundings. That’s what I was thinking about. Our surroundings, this normal, day-to-day world that we don’t pay attention to. I, at that point of time suddenly started to appreciate everything that came in front of me, I started noticing little things, like a persons shirt, the way Harry walks, just basically everything that we ignore generally. I think we’re not paying attention. We’re so busy doing other stuff that we forget to appreciate the beauty of simple things. I’m not preaching here or anything. It’s just that at that point how suddenly, I felt so strongly about this. In half an hour I thought about this a lot, just half an hour. It was the wind blowing in my ears. The setting sun on my face. The silence between Harry and me. This impact was so great on me that in the next 5-10 minutes I just sat and thought about these last 3 days. If you have noticed I have tried to put in as many details as I could remember in ‘My Most amazing experience with Anish, Rubin & Harry’, just as a test for myself. And I have still left things out. If in the last 3 days I can’t remember things, how will I ever remember those important details that took place in my life so long ago? I know it is impossible to remember everything, but we have to try, or you know what, it should come naturally. Why should we do it? Because it gives a sense of well being. You feel good, I don’t know how to explain it that well, I’m not a very articulate person, I’m just trying to tell you as much as I can, and how much I feel about this. I try to write as well as I can to bring out this feeling to all of you reading, I wouldn’t have done this otherwise. I didn’t tell anyone right after I felt this way because this way I can share it with all of you.Just try it. Try to pay attention. I had to tell you.

Harry and I walked on further and finally reached the Dnata building.

My Most Amazing Experience with Anish, Rubin & Harry-(Part III)

When Harry and I reached the venue, we really wanted to have fun…know what I mean? It’s those times when you go to try something new, you feel like you want to have a good time. We felt like enjoying ourselves, so even if the gig was crap we would still find something good about it. This wasn’t applicable though; we did enjoy the larger part of the show, with most of the credit going to Strings. But before strings there was something…something else. Something different. Something not necessarily good, but different anyway. It was by no means special. Hell, it was unbearable. It was…DJ Sash.

Obviously you haven’t heard of him. With so many DJ’s around these day who’s going to remember names, right? Wrong. DJ sash was an instrument of destruction sent by the devil himself to make us touch, pass and go lengths past the line of insanity. His music was so loud, that it made testament and Megadeth look like children discovering the volume dial. He was 10^5 billion. I’m pretty sure that DJ Sash had just come to irritate us. Harry and I were sitting in our seat with our hair in a new style. It literally blew us away. It was so loud that the crew of the Emraan Hashmi concert (which was incidentally also happening that night at DCC) called him to CUT THE VOLUME DOWN. At least we know how the earthquakes happened.And screw Live, we wanted to see him dead. People like DJ Sash in my opinion should be shot. Or burned. Either way he must die.

But the funniest thing about this was that even though his music was unbearable to the human ear, I enjoyed that time. It was the ultimate Paradox; the most ironical situation; the biggest oxymoron. Harry and I enjoyed ourselves. We made so many jokes that the DJ Sash situation turned into a laugh riot. Most of them can’t be written down, but it was still funny like hell. It was the funniest concert to date. Thanks Harry, I had too much fun that night. After more than 2 hours of crap, Sash finally stopped. We thought we had gone deaf, but it was true: Sash had played his last.
But by no means was he finished.
“Hey guy out there! Welcome to Umeed in aid for earthquake victim! Let me give you little bit brief introduction…”
Just frikkin’ hilarious.
Bombay Vikings finally arrived as the opening guys. They were good, the dude sang well and I knew most of the songs except for 1 or 2. Very ‘pop’ish, but fun sing-a-long types. What really impressed us is that he came into the crowd and we saw him up close. Very Sporting. After Bombay Vikings, came the band that we came to watch: Strings. There are the most kick-ass, Indian (okay Pakistani) rock band…not that they are many though. But still, they performed great, the singer was awesome, all guitars synced well with each other. The lead guitarist was really good with solos that would impress Ali. Great Performance in my opinion, I knew most of their songs, including their latest hit ‘Zinda Hoon’: OST from the movie Zinda. They closed with that song. Great drumming and great distortion in that last one. We didn’t get any plectrums from them though, but as Anish put it, we needed Ali for that.
Next was Shehzad Roy. That’s when we left. He started with a slow boring number and the crowd was quite let down after the fast paced Strings.
Harry and I exited the arena after saying bye to Udai and Rohan who were also there. We were deep inside Media City, so we decided to walk a bit. We eventually ended up walking from the heart of media city past the outskirts, past the sheikh Zayed road, across an unopened, newly constructed bridge, further down that road, past a few more buildings, till Eppco. Which was about 2km away. We had spent 10 bucks at the concert for shwarmas. I had cash, but not enough, so I decided to stay over at Harry’s house. Harry paid for the cab and we went up to his place. I met his mom who gave me a change of clothes for the night and a pair of rubber slippers.
I thought Rubin’s house was filled with food, but Harry’s would give the former stiff competition. Food wasn’t everywhere, but centralized to the kitchen. Cookie boxes under more cookie boxes. Chips, cornflakes, milk, coke and other snacks filled his cabinet. I wonder how he’s thin.

We reached his place earlier than I expected, merely by 11:30. We played football first, Harry thrashed me…but only because he had more scoring space, more place to move around! His goal (a cardboard box) was tucked away in a small corner of the room where one person had difficulty in reaching; how do you expect 2 people to attack, defend, shoot, block, dodge or move for that matter in a width of no more than half a meter? Anyway after that we amused ourselves with a short game of tactical ops in which I realized that Harry (no offense) sucked badly at. After that some more music and a few more games of football, including a volleying game, of which I must say the result was pretty one-sided after I whooped him. We kept talking, playing basketball with that little net in his room, and talked some more. Finally we reached a point of retardation, where we couldn’t take it anymore. We were half dead; we didn’t know what we were saying, random insults and philosophical sayings coming out of our mouths at different points of time. Then we got up and had water. After that we just fell asleep. Harry tried to sleep on the chair, by stretching his legs out onto another chair, but was fairly unsuccessful after being forced into quite an awkward position, which involved him sitting up and which made him look like one of those beach chairs on which people sunbathe. After seeing that he was uncomfortable, he promptly got up and went to the other room to sleep. I didn’t bother to say goodnight, I was too tired for that. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep slumber.

(to be continued...)

My Most Amazing Experience with Anish, Rubin & Harry-(Part II)

I woke up later than Anish. Rubin came into the room all ready for his tuitions. I brushed my teeth and got ready for brunch. After Brunch Anish and I got to work. Anish sat at the laptop and had to make a certificate for the people who participated in the mime workshop. He made it look pretty grand in the end, with a blue and gold theme. I on the other hand sat at the computer looking for source files for the Elvis video. I was quite unsuccessful; I couldn’t even find the song on the file-sharing program. Finally Anish had to help me. We tried to find ways to cover up our lack of sources by repeating the same visualizations in different ways. Pretty ingenious if you ask me. But we didn’t do that till later. We kept searching for source files. By that time Rubin was back from his tuitions. We had time till 4’o’clock. Rubin had to go to Zabeel Park, Anish home, and I had to go for a Strings concert, but I’ll talk about that later. We began our work in full swing by about 1:30 in the afternoon. We really had started completing stuff, in the one video I mean. It was going nicely until Rubin’s computer froze, and halted us. Luckily we saved the files and we continued, but not before Rubin “lost” his hard-drive. How can you lose a hard drive? That’s Rubin. Aah stupid I.T. Presentation, Naa!

We had still not got the track and ended up calling Mr. Rodericks who was in school and asked him to send it to us. More precious time was going. Then we hit another block. With lack of source files we still could not complete the video. Rubin and Anish fought for creative control and I was thrown into it as well. In the middle of it all I realized I had gained 1 Kg! I was now 46! It must have been all the food in Rubin’s house. He seems to have food in every nook and cranny in his house. Anish also said that he felt that he was putting on some weight. Plus we had McDonalds yesterday. Super-Sized. We had Toblerone, Amicelli, Orange chocolate, Ali’s favourite chips, lemonade, and water. After that Rubin’s computer froze again. It was quite frustrating but then we managed to finish quite a bit before 4‘0’clock. It was time to leave. I had to go home to collect my tickets for Umeed.

Anish left us at Clock tower to go home and study for his upcoming S.A.T. examination in May. Rubin and I got off at Bur Juman, where we met Bharath. They were going to Zabeel Park together. I said goodbye and thanks to Rubin for everything and reached home.
At home I changed had a shower and picked up my tickets. I waited in front in for bur Juman for Harry who was coming with me. I had 30 Bucks with me after yesterday, but restocked at home to balance it at 50 again.

I met Harry, and it was from that point that my journey became suddenly so different from my usual mundane ones.

We took a bus to Sheikh Zayed road and got off opposite Trade Centre. After that for no apparent reason we kept walking straight, past Nandos and past Pizza Hut. We walked and walked. Walked through the construction detours and past the cars parked. It was 6:30; the show started at 9:00, so I figured it would be okay. After walking a bit more, we caught a cab. In the cab I spoke a bit with Harry and a bit with Ankita. We reached the Venue: Media City. It was going to be held at the same place that the Jazz Festival was held. We stopped the cab at the outskirts of media city. The bill came to 35. Then we walked some more. Then the shock came. We heard Drums. We heard distortion. Harry and I looked at each other for a split second, and then broke into a run. The sound was getting louder. We reached the gates and sighed. There was no one inside. The security let us enter.

Before I continue let me inform you about the concert we were going for. Umeed was a concert in aid of the earthquake victims of last year. The People performing were Bombay Vikings, Strings and 2 other guys, Shehzad Roy and Atif Aslam, who I personally am not interested in seeing “live”. But anyway, I got free V.I.P. seated tickets to this concert, courtesy of Avneeth Fernandes, a friend who lives opposite my house and is in my bus. Dude if you are reading this thanks a lot; I’ve never had more laughs at a rock show than this one.

Back to the Concert. We came into the venue and saw that strings were having their soundcheck! We saw strings upfront before the show started and they were trying out different songs until they left at about 7:00. They were really awesome, with heavy distortion effects and great bass. But then after that we went and sat, and as soon as we did, all hell broke loose. Strings finished and then came the arrival of DJ Sash.
(to be continued...)

My Most Amazing Experience with Anish, Rubin & Harry-(Part I)

On Wednesday the 22nd of March, I made a plan with Anish to go to Rubin house to stay over. We had lots of work to do and stuff for the upcoming April fundraiser and had to make the videos for each song that was to be sung. That day was incidentally also the 1-year anniversary of our not-eating-anything-from-McDonalds-,-Hardees-,-or-KFC oath. We were excited as hell and were literally dying to sink our teeth into that high cholesterol, high BP level giving food. We had chosen McDonalds as the oath breaker and we were going to have dinner at City Centre Sharjah. Anish took the guys for football that evening, and promised to leave after he was done. I dint play that day and instead waited for his call. He arrived at my building with Fabron. Fabron reminds me too much of coop from the show Megas XLR. Sorry I had to say that. Apparently the newly titled “Ex- Twelves” had joined them for football since their board exams were over. Now everyone knows that I’m a cheap guy and have empty pockets half the time. Today I had exactly 50 bucks and still decided to take the bus to sharjah. The 3 of us walked from my building to LULU centre and didn’t feel like sitting in the bus so took a private cab for 35 bucks. The Cabbie looked a bit seedy, but we weren’t worried: we had Fabron. We looked to have a long journey ahead of us so I had to think of ways to entertain us. My PSP was in my bag and I had the movie Hitch on it so we decided to watch. Now, I had sworn that I charged the darned thing just last night, but from the signs it was showing, it looked like we were going to have a short movie. “10 minutes,” I said. In ten minutes we managed to watch a few funny parts but then the thing just turned off and refused to turn on again: not like I tried, though.
After 35 minutes or so we reached Sharjah city centre. Anish was scared because he was wearing shorts, and I recalled that Rubin had once mentioned to me that you could not wear them in sharjah. We were greeted by Mr. James and Rubin and we immediately set out on a hunt for the food court. Aaron was also supposed to join us. I really don’t know what Aaron does when he is not with his friends, no really, it’s quite strange, apparently he NEVER comes out the house to meet anyone for dinner or anything. Its quite strange (but true), but he maybe just pre-occupied with someone else…
Anyway enough about Aaron. We reached McDonalds, and had to endure another round of agony as we saw the long line of people standing in front to get their food. I felt like shouting at them “We have not had this “food” in a year god dammit!!! get outta the F!@#$%^ way!!!!”. But instead I said, “Aww shoot”.
Rubin treated us, we thanked him for that. I had a Chicken McSpicy and Anish a Chicken Big Mac. Well so much for bird flu. We held the burgers in our hands and hit both of them together and said, “cheers”. And then we ate.
In retrospect I felt that the first bite was worth that whole year of waiting. I could taste everything the melted cheese, the mayonnaise, the lettuce, the buns, the sesame seeds on the bun and obviously the not-so-spicy chicken. It was brilliant; Anish and I looked at each other and smiled. It was like a drug, it was like a McDrug. Like that gave us Mchappiness. The French-fries, the coke, everything tasted good on that first bite.
After that, well it was,well…nice.
The five of us walked back to Rubin’s house and went straight for the computer room. Fabron got the big chair (hmmm…) and the rest of got the others and spares. I changed into my night clothes as did Anish and then we began to go through Rubin's drafts for presentations. After that we just went through source files and other junk till about 2:30 in the morning, by which time Mr. James and Fabron left. It was just the three of us then. We watched the terminal, till about an hour later. We were all dead tired and wanted to sleep bad. Our eyes were closing by the time Tom Hanks was stuck in that wretched terminal. We talked a bit more, and then couldn’t bear it any longer and the fell into a deep sleep.

I think subconsciously we 3 knew that we hadn’t done an ounce of work and that we had to leave the next day. Rubin had tuitions in the morning. We pledged to finish the work the next day or else we would have wasted an entire night having done nothing.
(to be continued...)

My Most Amazing Experience with Anish, Rubin & Harry-(Prologue)

Harry and I first just looked around and stared at the road in front of us. He told me which bus would take me home after being out for 3 days. I left home on Wednesday. Today was Friday. I thought all the things that had happened to me. It’s funny because in the last half an hour of my journey, my contemplating began and finished by the time I reached home. We talked about various things that had happened last night, including the “wacky, waving inflatable arm flailing tube man”, and the football scores. 4 buses came and went. They were full. We sat down and kept talking. Its funny how such a simple experience has made me think so much. Finally a minibus came. This meant I would have to take another bus to get home. Harry gave me a buck-fifty; I gave him a hug and got in. The bus driver asked me where I wanted to go. I repeated Harry’s words, “trade centre roundabout” and paid him for my ticket. The bus rattled past the Dnata building and we were off. The bus was empty apart from my other co-travelers; a man and his wife. After making just one stop we reached the roundabout and I got off. I waited for bus no 21, it would go straight to my home, but I was impatient and got into 26, which would take me a bit further from it, I’d have to walk a bit. I got into the bus and ironically saw bus no. 21 stopping right behind the one I was in. I even saw the relieved faces of the people getting onto it. I reached karama centre, got off and walked back home slowly.