If I sit down to think about the embarrassing moments of my life, I come to think about zillions of them. I wouldn’t be able to distinguish as to which is the best one so far. That’s the reason I began to write about those in regard to something when I see the same kind of incident happening to some one else or if I my ‘stupid’ brain comes to think about it. So this time around I am going to narrate an incident which happened when I was in my 2nd PUC, which is the 12th Std.

Pre-university students; the ‘josh’ students of any college. You somehow get more worked up and excited to do things at this stage of life comparatively to any other stage. Everyone is new to freedom, which was a rare component all these years in schooling life. All would be excited, raring to go, just like the way the film’s markets the image of college life, like way it comes in few “Kollywood” films. I had been playing cricket too much to get a feel about the world of discos and pubs around Bangalore. My friend, who apparently happened to be my classmate & cricket peer, decided that we are going to have a look at the way these things function. I swear I had entered coffee day just once before that. That coffee day incident by itself needs a separate post. I reckoned no fool would spend anything like 15 bucks on a coffee, when it’s available in the local “Darshini’s” for 3 bucks, then. I wondered why people flocked places like these?!

To give you a background of my friend, he was a major extrovert then. He was trying to adi one desi chick, actually from South Africa. That bugger had no guts to approach her straight for a date, so he decided to do it through a friend of her. We named the friend as “Tarzan”, since at that time she had better biceps than mine. She was nothing short of a tomboy, rather a tarzan like girl, if you want it that way. The only way my friend thought to reach this South African chick was to please the Tarzan chick, since that would make Tarzan chick to say some nice things about him.

Now one Friday we decided that enough is enough & we are setting our steps into “Sparks”, one of the famous pubs in the city. I requested him if I could bring along another friend of mine, since he was no better than me in all these matters. For us then going to a pub was a major sin since I was, as a matter of fact, am still totally stiff against drinking. For which he immediately agreed, since it would not a matter if it were three boys or two boys. We decided to meet halfway which would be a common place for all of us at seven in the night.

The time came & I was dressed up in a jean & Tshirt for the occasion, debut into pubbing world. You should have seen my friend; he was looking as though he was going to a cocktail dinner at Taj Coramandel or something similar to that. He was dressed in a blue formal shirt with black pants; it was just the tie which was the missing piece out of the attire. I was already laughing away to glory. I thought his dress was itself a shock of the evening, but didn’t know that there is something more electric awaiting me.

Desi’s and Time? Similar poles of a magnet. My friend took his own sweat time to reach the place where we were supposed to meet; along came the polly. I never imagined that Tarzan would be sitting at the back of his bike. It was a shocker to me in every sense. I never expected her to accompany him since he never mentioned that a girl, oops sorry Tarzan, would accompany him. Here you should note the gender, she was never a girl or a guy to us, she was just gendered as Tarzan. (all the tomboyish girls beware of this!)

It surprised us that “Sparks” never had lights. I thought it would be a mini spectrum of colored lights. My imagination always told me that pubs are similar to that of discos. You should understand my mental growth at stage of life. I was so affected by watching Mithun Chakravarthy & Jeetendra films that I was given a certain vision of how pubs & discos were supposed to be. So this was at first like a major shock when I saw no lights inside the compact hall. Before we entered the pub (well till today I still don’t know if it is a pub or a disco), there was this huge monstrous figure who blocked all our way since he thought we didn’t clear the age restrictions. My friend was such a punter that he held a driving license faking his age then, which made things easy for us. The monsters words still circled my ears as we went past him to make ourselves comfortable to watch Mr. Bean on the big screen.

The moment was approaching. The bartender approached us for the order. I put my hand first up and said I want a Pepsi & some finger chips to go along with that. The formal friend and the punter friend joined me in ordering themselves each one. Now it was the time of Tarzan to order something. I made a small note from the tissue papers available in the table to the punter friend immediately which read “Balls I will be paying for Tarzan!!!” He swiftly looked at me and made me gestures which meant that he will bare the headache. I was a relieved.

“One Kalyani Strong” said Tarzan. Immediately my reaction was close to the yahoo smiley which turns its head from right to left in surprise. We were guys who ourselves have ordered for Pepsi’s and finger chips but Tarzan wanted Kalyani, that too Kalyani strong. The bartender looked at me and made a face which I will never forget all my life. It was like spitting on my mascularity and thrashing it in an ultra huge bin. I was too scared to try to prove something against that & walked away from that place as soon as possible. I was told later that Tarzan got sloshed up till her nose and laid some omelets.

This was the first time I ever ventured into a pub. I have been to pubs accompanying friends, to bring them back home when they are drunk, a few thousand times till now. But this was like never before. It’s always the first time that you something which stays in our memory for a long time than what we do over and again a few hundred times.

Each and every time I step inside a pub the first thing I remember is TARZAN!!!