Tripping: Chapter 1

This is Chapter 1 of a series, you can find chapters 2 and 3 on the timeline

The plan was simple, and cliched. The gang would meet every year and head for a trip. The gang, of course, was the bunch of stunted personalities who feature in most of my stories. I would have referred to us by our collective name except we had none. And it’s not as though we hadn’t tried either, we had. It’s just that even we had to admit that something like “The Musketeers” or “The Marauaders” would be pushing it, since there was so little we did in the way of musketeering and even lesser in the way of marauding. Having said that, our self respect would still not allow us to be called the “The Kota Hang - Outers Group 2004-2006”. So we remained nameless, torn forever between pride and practicality. But yes, that was the plan in a nutshell, that despite us having been strewn into different engineering colleges across the country, we would congregate at the end of every academic year and head for a trip together to any of India’s numerous worthy holiday destinations.

The plan had its roots in the success of our first escapade. Right after the end of our engineering entrance exams, Munnu, Satpal, Anvesh and I landed ourselves in Goa. It was our first trip together to Goa, actually our first together to anywhere but Kota. Over the next seven days, in that quintessential boys to men trip, we got introduced to most of what would be the fundamental focus of our lives over the next few years. Booze, gambling, women (or the desire for women, if you want to be excruciatingly accurate), we saw it all. But most importantly, for the awkward nineteen year olds that we were, we got our first taste of real freedom. That legendary trip ensured that we would to try to replicate it over the next many years, and so the plan took birth.

By the second year, however, I as the de - facto planner for these trips began to realise how painful it could be to get a few jobless sophomores in one place at the same time. The obstacles were endless and the variables infinite. Satpal, for instance, had a curious kind of problem. No matter what time of the year we planned out the trip, he always claimed it was very likely that his sister would be in Kanpur just then, and hence there was no way he could commit to a trip earlier than a couple of days before it actually happened. This may even have been fine, if it wasn’t for the fact his stinginess was the stuff of legend. (I’m not exaggerating, for instance, we all know that on all 'boys to men' trips, everyone hires bikes, or at least cars. We on the other hand, thanks to Satpal’s perpetual cost cutting, had to go everywhere in Goa State Transport buses. As you can imagine, our pissoff was unimaginable.) So whenever it was just a couple of days to the proposed trip and we hadn’t made any bookings thanks to Satpal’s sister issues, he would realise that the ticket and hotel prices had gotten ‘way too high’ and we wouldn't end up going at all.

Sarthak had other issues. While he was fundamentally eager to go on the trip, he was forever dragged down by his tendencies. His tendency to say 'no' was prime among these. Yes, Sarthak had a problem uncommon to most men, which was that his default response to virtually everything was ‘no’. Once he’d said 'no', of course, it would take forever to convince him that he wanted to do exactly what he was so profusely arguing against.

Munnu’s situation was graver. Somehow his university had decided to schedule its semesters and examinations entirely at odds with all other university calendars in the country, making it difficult to schedule anything at a convenient time for him. In fact, in the third version of the trip, Munnu actually came along with us in the few days of study leave between two exams.

Finally, Anvesh also tended to provide some resistance. Being a hardcore Gujju, he’d seen practically the whole world as part of large Patel Travels group tours and his perpetual complaint was that he’d already been to whatever place we were considering.

In short, everyone seemed to have some ridiculous problem with either time or place. Now I’m not telling you all this to justify why I chose Daman as the location for our second trip. I’m not, seriously, you have to believe me. I’m not even denying that I may have briefly thought that Daman was a virgin beach paradise, superior to Goa in natural beauty and inferior to it in night life, but only just. I’m not denying that I thought that. Come on, haven’t I admitted that a dozen times already? I may also have had no clue that Daman was just a haven for poor souls from Gujarat, who couldn’t drink publicly in their own state, to get sloshed. I may have not known that. Yes, despite all my detailed online research, I may still not have known that Daman was just an overly large and incredibly cheap bar. It is possible that I didn't know that. Although it’s been so long now that I barely remember. Look look, I’m just saying that when you’ve had so much trouble finding the right place and time, and an opportunity opens up which could work for everyone, you’ve got to grab it straight up. That’s all I’m saying, you’re with me on this one right?

So, we decided to go to Daman. For six days. The first group of people in all history to spend six entire days in Daman. But we didn’t know that.

We reached Vapi station early in the morning. The train ride was a long discourse about how Indian Railways had done great work in the Mumbai - Ahmedabad belt and how our journey would have taken so much longer just a few years earlier. All this courtesy Sarthak, who was a certified member of the little known and easily forgotten Indian Railways Fan Club. Satpal was the only one really enthused by any of this, and he cut in every now and then with a “Haan yaar, the tickets were also damn cheap”.

Outside the railway station, Munnu and Satpal took charge of how we would get to the hotel. Yes, Munnu, who made it a point to bargain everywhere, but especially at places with fixed prices, like prepaid taxi counters. And yes, Satpal who, as I mentioned earlier, let slip no opportunity to protect his family's vast, almost royal wealth. With the two of them leading the effort to achieve transportation, we should have expected what happened next. 

Thirty minutes later, a dilapidated white ambassador appeared from somewhere. The kind of model that you'd only have seen in 40's movies. If it wasn't covered in mud and if it hadn't been falling apart at the ends, I'm sure some poor fool would have called it 'vintage'. With a total capacity of five, Satpal and Munnu had estimated that it would suffice for the six of us, plus the driver of course. Despite all this, I was relieved to see the cab. Don’t get me wrong, I knew it was definitely going to be cramped. There was also a good chance we’d end up dead in one of those ‘Overloaded car loses control on NH - 7. Five dead, one critical, one missing’ type of stories. But all in all it beat the hell out of having to travel in a state transport bus. For one, it didn’t involve having to avoid pan spittle from the conductor’s mouth. It didn't involve having to listen to loud, live folk music that you would be compelled to pay for later. It didn't even involve having to push back the gag reflex aroused by a distinct scent of urine from somewhere under your seat. But most importantly, it sure as hell didn’t involve trying to keep enthusiastic eunuchs on the next seat from grabbing your privates. 

And so we set off ..

To be continued...