Party time!

Yesterday Christopher called me and asked me to join for a dinner that he was hosting at the Seasons (run by a Nepali woman named Sandhya). The place – I already knew – serves some wonderful pizzas; it rivals any of the multinational pizza chains. Including Pizza Hut, Pizza Corner and Domino’s. I wasn’t the only guest. He had all the architects who work for him (and their families) and the Director of Urban Planning, Thimphu (and his family) as invitees. I said yes without thinking much.

He came to pick me up this evening. We were at the restaurant by 7:30. The perfunctory introductions and greetings were soon over and done with. I was seated between two guys (both known by the same first name – Rahul). One can’t have dinner silently right? Nor can be a dinner complete without some liquor. So there was Fiddleback wine – an Australian wine (that mixes different kinds of wines to make its own). Fiddleback comes from the name of a tree that grows in the Australian wastelands (and is known for its fine grained wood). The wine also is supposed to be fine-grained! Some name that is eh?

The other guests were Prajakta and Uday Bhaskar (husband and wife), Rahul Sathe (one of the directors in Christopher’s company), Shalakha (she was a wee-bit late to the party), Rahul Navile, Venkatesh (the other South Indian from Coimbatore and an architect like the rest of them), Meghraj (the Director of town planning), Dipti (his daughter), Deepak and Ashok (Christopher’s man Friday).

Wine flowed (and so did the conversation from then on)! I’m only trying to put all that conversation into print for the sake of posterity! Not that this was some intellectual conversation. Far from it. But, we tend to ignore the lighter moments of life for the serious ones – and miss out on all the fun!

The tête-à-tête started off with pleasantries – asking about one’s whereabouts and antecedents. But, that also gave the impetus to move ahead and explore! Rahul Navile is a vegetarian and so is Uday. Navile was a teetotaler too. Uday said, “he’s a Jain and that’s how he doesn’t drink”. I said, “there’s nothing in Jainism that says alcohol shouldn’t be consumed. However one shouldn’t eat/drink anything that grows underground. Including groundwater”!

Uday said he doesn’t eat non-veg ‘coz he’s a Brahmin (and me being the proverbial debater had to accept the gauntlet that didn’t exist). I retorted and quoted extensively from all the sacred texts of Hindus that substantiated the non-vegetarianism that existed among Brahmins in the past. And I patted Rahul Sathe’s back saying, “he’s a good guy! He’s having wine just like all the good Brahmins of yore – who consumed Soma and Sura!” In between I tried to humour Dipti (who’s very much in her teens and - since her father was around – couldn’t drink wine with us).

Shalaka who’d joined late informed me that she’d recently come to Bhutan much against her wishes. I asked if it was a torture being here and she said, ‘I’ve been bound and gagged and brought here but I’m slowly beginning to like the place”. “Stockholm syndrome” I retorted. Sathe assured that soon her partner was joining her (a girl) and she’d have little to complain (tongue-in-cheek). I asked him if it was a faux paus or deliberate, and Uday said, “it’s more deliberate than anything else”. Poor Shalaka was lost!

For some reason the conversation teetered towards movies and that’s where all the entertainment began (movies are entertainment right?). First someone suddenly remembered Bombay Boys (and there was unanimity in appreciation for the first Kaizad Gustaad movie). Uday who’s into new wave and art cinema (as I gathered) was extolling the virtues of movies made in single locations (like, a single room or a single set). I helped him remember the name of a particular movie he was struggling with (Aath Chaalees ki Local) that was picturised in a single room! So, Navile butted in to add, “all those locales don’t add much to a movie” and Uday seconded it wholeheartedly. I couldn’t sit back. I quoted, “Kal Ho Na Ho though completely picturised in NY is probably one of the best scripts you could see in the recent years among movies – commercial or art house. One of course has to forget the last half an hour of the movie when it is turned completely a Punjabi marriage and death rehearsal. The screenplay is extremely taut and the dialogues are razor-sharp. The rest of the ingredients lend judicious support”. Either for being polite or by genuine appreciation, there was general agreement on this.

But it didn’t stop there, and Sathe said, “Yash Chopra’s son Uday Chopra is seen in the movie right?” and I said “No”. But Navile affirmed what Sathe said. He said, “he appears in a single frame” (holding a placard declaring, “day three” or something like that). And, the conversation turned to Uday Chopra’s looks (why on earth anybody would discuss him is a multi-trillion dollar question). Navile said, “he’s a hunk but not good looking” and Uday said “but he thinks he’s handsome”. I said, “of course he’s handsome; definitely for a missing link that he’s between mankind and apes”. Prajakta jokingly added, “he’s definitely better than Suneil Shetty”. I replied, “Suneil Shetty’s the first missing link – one closer to the apes; Uday’s the next – one closer to the humans. You can even make that out from the number of facial expressions that each of them can exhibit”. Uday said, “for a man from Karnataka criticizing Suneil Shetty, that’s something”. I couldn’t sit back and hence said, “there are always two sides to a coin. We have a beauty and a beast; Aishwarya Rai and Suneil Shetty – Walt Disney could’ve made a motion picture with these two instead of animation had he met them”.

“What do you think of Shah Rukh Khan?” Uday asked. I said, “he’s another monkey”.
“But he’s so popular”
“So are monkeys and monkey tricks! Don’t you remember in small towns even to this day the charmer with the monkeys attracts the largest crowds?”
“But …”
“But I must admit that if Shah Rukh Khan’s on screen you can’t look at another person in the same frame. He’s got that presence. The only one who’s as good – if not better – is Bachhan”
“I agree. One can’t remember another with the same charisma”
“There sure is. Rajinikanth in the South has the same charisma”
“How could you say that! He’s yikes”
Venkatesh butted in here. “Call what you may he’s really good”
I joined back, “in his latest hit Chandramukhi there’s this dialogue between him and Prabhu, the other hero where Rajinikanth on being complemented for his physique says, ‘you’ve to stay fat and I’ve to stay thin, else people don’t like it”
Uday, “really??!!”
Venkatesh, “yeah, that’s true!”
Uday, “But Prabhu’s definitely better looking than Rajini”
I said, “no…I don’t…”
“You think Rajinikanth is better looking?”
“I didn’t say that. But you can’t compare a cockroach and a bandicoot in looks”
"Ah! that's a nice way of putting things!"
"But all said and done RAjini's the most popular actor in Japan. The entire country had come to a standstill when his movie 'Padayappa' was telecast on the New Year's Eve!"
"You mean to say he's the best export to Japan from India?"
"Next best - next only to iron ore; not that there's much difference between the two though"

By then we had finished several bottles of wine and pizzas. It was time to move. As we started filing out of the place (after wishing pleasantries to Sandhya) Uday said, “we must get together once more to talk like this on Rajini and the rest. That was great fun”. I said, “if we do it more than twice it’d grate on everyone’s nerves, eh?”

Christopher dropped me back home. I thought I must share this (for what value is something you’ve to decide, dear reader)! And, here I’m at 10:30 in the night typing away furiously (lest I forget all the interesting nuggets; but I’ve cut short the entire passage on the pretext of not letting your interest flag – it might still though). Happy (grumpy/grudging) reading!