Thought I would never share about any of my personal experiences, which would not reflect a 'way of life' for a common man or woman, on my blog. But then certain experiences change the course of your resolutions and so it happened with me one night in Gurgaon (the urban village settlement of a screwed state). The rarity of the incident had also provoked me to document it, which happened first time in the early three decades of my life. The ‘Prison' night is not about a criminal night behind a jail or bars, it’s about an unfortunate evening at a night-club located in an up-market mall. In fact after reading this briefer summary of the events, you may also like to re-consider the notion of Gurgaon clubs and might prefer to refer it as the ‘Clubabas’ (wannabes), which have been mushroomed because of urban development, IT companies and ‘moolah’ it has brought along to the local folks or better prefer to spend your weekend nights at a ‘Machaan’ (local name for an authentic dhaba, which allows you to get your drinks and be sensible on your pockets) without giving wings to masochism.
It was the Sat night of May 28, 2011 and the hangover of losing my wallet (3-4 days back) at a busiest metro station of Delhi was still vivid in my memories. In fact that last fortnight had been kind of strange and choicest of unfavorable things were doing favors to me. I was chaotically preparing to leave for Gurgaon in anticipation of a perfect weekend, which involved attending an awards ceremony at a five-star hotel and later a typical club-night out with my Gurgaon gang (due for long). The plan was to board a metro from Malviya nagar to IFFCO Chowk station with one of our newest and youngest roommates, my flat mate’s teen cousin from Karnal who was on a year’s sabbatical in Delhi for his Lawn Tennis coaching (Interestingly he chose this sport because he was moon winked by the monies in it), for the awards function. We boarded the metro around 8:00pm and reached the hotel by 8:30pm. The evening was perfectly crafted for the successful achievers and institutions, with luminary ‘book termite’ Chetan Bhagat as its chief guest, greetings and celebrations were flowing ‘On the house’. The milieu was getting infectious and I could not hold cheering myself up with the company of two large ‘Teachers’. I was already in high spirits and eagerly awaiting for my friends call for the next blast. It happened and we decided to hit a night club at M.G. Road (any random club, which would allow stags). Here, I have one confession to make that the night-clubs are always more enjoyable and ‘Hangovery’ with ‘All guys’ gang. We met in typical male bonding mannerisms and started checking out a happening place for the night, while I already knew that Gurgaon had cattle-class clubs but was all game for it because of my dear friends (who have been practical and supportive of me all through) Bomber and LSD. Finally, we zeroed on a spot, paid charge of Rs.1000/ each and made rather a quiet entry. The place was spacious, had a marble floor unlike a dance floor, sex ratio of 10:3 (male to female) and dryly the Dj was playing English numbers. My friends were ostensibly frustrated with the club’s census report but I was in a mood of full blast that night come whatever could be the disappointments. We headed to the bar counter and I managed to convince my gang for round of hard drinks (because Bomber has ‘Parental’ and LSD has ‘Minus’ appetite for alcohols). The point was to make it a ‘Rocking night’. The place started warming up with people and raw dance antiques, we secured a corner (close to the DJ console) and started enjoying the tipsy company wiggling-waggling in our cocooned space. The club scene was getting ragged by every minute with boys and men desperately seeking the attention of few girls (countable on your finger-tips). It was turning into nothing less than a budding ‘red light’ area for males. Clubs have always been hubs for ‘indecent proposals’ but this was getting notoriously licentious. I was counting it as a one of its kind experience and my mates were seemingly open to all proposals. It was about 12:30 in the morning and we had spent almost two hours, inside the Clubaba, by then.
I was running into my fourth drink and the other mates were wedged on their respective pegs for long. And, here story had a twist when a bouncer walked up to one of my friends and murmured something and he moved out of our cocooned area. The body language of both suggested me that the big doubly-fat guy was telling us to move out of the space if we would have drinks or stand without the drinks. It just put me off; the fellow had just encroached into our area and was trying to spoil the evening. I deliberately picked up my drink and started having it right in front of him. He stared into my eyes and asked to go out of the space but I was not the one to budge off. I told him, “We have been enjoying here for last two hours, what’s the point of doing this now.” He replied (In Haryanavi accent), “You better move out or I will throw you out from here” and he pushed me back strong. All shocked, walked back to him and told, “Look I work for media so you better check yourself” to this I had a center-shock from him and he said something that could have come only from such desperate, bi-sexual and useless creatures like him. I smirked and remember telling him lastly, “You better come out and we would have a one-on-one discussion and set it straight”. In fact I was not finished when I felt a strong blow on my head (from the back side), which almost made me lost my control. Before I could understand something I had a whack from my right (definitely not from the bouncer, whom I was confronting with) and the next I remember, a swarm of bouncers descended upon me and started pushing and punching me from all corners. I was anticipating hostility but couldn’t ascertain the severity of generosity (like ‘US of A’ caught unguarded during 9/11 attack). It was raining blows but I was not ready to go down. I resisted by managing few punches and dragging few along with me out of the club. But they seemed to had already started feeding on to their desperation and were not willing to stop, till a fellow bouncer realized that I had enough and could get killed out of this club-rage. He pulled me out of the jumble and pushed me out of the emergency stair case and the last I heard from him was, “Tu bas yahaa se jaa yaar”. I was barely able to stand and experiencing mirage of pains. In seconds, I was joined by my friends, feeling dejected; not able to relate to the developments and handicapped by the percentage of alcohol running in their bloods. They could not able to rescue me from the 5-6 beastly creatures (equals to 10-12 normal human beings). I was gathering my senses, contemplating my retaliatory options but nothing was clicking in that unacquainted place and faint state. Police could have been an option but it would have not helped much, I was drunk and they could have accused me of any wrong behavior. My mates were worried about me and I was laughing on myself for taking things rather seriously and being an ass-hole. My friends made me walk down the stairs and left for LSD’s home around 1:30am. I could experience a wave of deep pains by the time I reached home. LSD said, “Let’s see a doctor”. I told, “No”, we would review the case tomorrow and crashed into bed.
The next morning, I was screeching under pain on my left chest area, ribs and complete middle- back. I was not able to gather the strength to pull myself together for getting up, sitting down, lifting things or even wearing my clothes. It was time to see a doctor and we went to Apollo clinic, I told doctor the juicy story and she was like, “Who told you to party here, when you belong to Delhi”, confusingly she asked me, “Is it a medico-legal case?” I replied ‘No, don’t worry’. Post examination she prescribed for X-Rays, Ultra sound and medicines. Fortunately, reports did turn out negative but I was still languishing with the chest, rib and back pain. The only way to deal with this was to pamper myself with care and it started showing signs of improvement after 9-10 days of medications. I didn’t tell anyone about the case not for the fear of getting embarrassed but for the sake of pain and drama it would have created across the relationship spectrums. I did write something on Facebook to make myself feel good, ‘Ohh my Gawd lag gayii…’ because this is the place where you are seldom taken seriously.
Getting bashed up by a stronger race of species was neither heroism nor a ‘Satyagrah’ but had there been one or two more rounds of their blows I would have been critical or ended up in an ICU. The experience; scuffle, punches and moment was straight out of some movie’s action scene and I was feeling it ‘real time’. It has etched a lingering-sweet memory on my mind and I would always remember it for one thing, from all of the obvious, that I stood up to someone’s nonsense like a fighter and braved my way through the most miserable of hopes. I don’t know what my mates feel about the ‘Prison' night but we had a great time together till Tsunami struck.
Cheers Peeps! … Annu
It was the Sat night of May 28, 2011 and the hangover of losing my wallet (3-4 days back) at a busiest metro station of Delhi was still vivid in my memories. In fact that last fortnight had been kind of strange and choicest of unfavorable things were doing favors to me. I was chaotically preparing to leave for Gurgaon in anticipation of a perfect weekend, which involved attending an awards ceremony at a five-star hotel and later a typical club-night out with my Gurgaon gang (due for long). The plan was to board a metro from Malviya nagar to IFFCO Chowk station with one of our newest and youngest roommates, my flat mate’s teen cousin from Karnal who was on a year’s sabbatical in Delhi for his Lawn Tennis coaching (Interestingly he chose this sport because he was moon winked by the monies in it), for the awards function. We boarded the metro around 8:00pm and reached the hotel by 8:30pm. The evening was perfectly crafted for the successful achievers and institutions, with luminary ‘book termite’ Chetan Bhagat as its chief guest, greetings and celebrations were flowing ‘On the house’. The milieu was getting infectious and I could not hold cheering myself up with the company of two large ‘Teachers’. I was already in high spirits and eagerly awaiting for my friends call for the next blast. It happened and we decided to hit a night club at M.G. Road (any random club, which would allow stags). Here, I have one confession to make that the night-clubs are always more enjoyable and ‘Hangovery’ with ‘All guys’ gang. We met in typical male bonding mannerisms and started checking out a happening place for the night, while I already knew that Gurgaon had cattle-class clubs but was all game for it because of my dear friends (who have been practical and supportive of me all through) Bomber and LSD. Finally, we zeroed on a spot, paid charge of Rs.1000/ each and made rather a quiet entry. The place was spacious, had a marble floor unlike a dance floor, sex ratio of 10:3 (male to female) and dryly the Dj was playing English numbers. My friends were ostensibly frustrated with the club’s census report but I was in a mood of full blast that night come whatever could be the disappointments. We headed to the bar counter and I managed to convince my gang for round of hard drinks (because Bomber has ‘Parental’ and LSD has ‘Minus’ appetite for alcohols). The point was to make it a ‘Rocking night’. The place started warming up with people and raw dance antiques, we secured a corner (close to the DJ console) and started enjoying the tipsy company wiggling-waggling in our cocooned space. The club scene was getting ragged by every minute with boys and men desperately seeking the attention of few girls (countable on your finger-tips). It was turning into nothing less than a budding ‘red light’ area for males. Clubs have always been hubs for ‘indecent proposals’ but this was getting notoriously licentious. I was counting it as a one of its kind experience and my mates were seemingly open to all proposals. It was about 12:30 in the morning and we had spent almost two hours, inside the Clubaba, by then.
I was running into my fourth drink and the other mates were wedged on their respective pegs for long. And, here story had a twist when a bouncer walked up to one of my friends and murmured something and he moved out of our cocooned area. The body language of both suggested me that the big doubly-fat guy was telling us to move out of the space if we would have drinks or stand without the drinks. It just put me off; the fellow had just encroached into our area and was trying to spoil the evening. I deliberately picked up my drink and started having it right in front of him. He stared into my eyes and asked to go out of the space but I was not the one to budge off. I told him, “We have been enjoying here for last two hours, what’s the point of doing this now.” He replied (In Haryanavi accent), “You better move out or I will throw you out from here” and he pushed me back strong. All shocked, walked back to him and told, “Look I work for media so you better check yourself” to this I had a center-shock from him and he said something that could have come only from such desperate, bi-sexual and useless creatures like him. I smirked and remember telling him lastly, “You better come out and we would have a one-on-one discussion and set it straight”. In fact I was not finished when I felt a strong blow on my head (from the back side), which almost made me lost my control. Before I could understand something I had a whack from my right (definitely not from the bouncer, whom I was confronting with) and the next I remember, a swarm of bouncers descended upon me and started pushing and punching me from all corners. I was anticipating hostility but couldn’t ascertain the severity of generosity (like ‘US of A’ caught unguarded during 9/11 attack). It was raining blows but I was not ready to go down. I resisted by managing few punches and dragging few along with me out of the club. But they seemed to had already started feeding on to their desperation and were not willing to stop, till a fellow bouncer realized that I had enough and could get killed out of this club-rage. He pulled me out of the jumble and pushed me out of the emergency stair case and the last I heard from him was, “Tu bas yahaa se jaa yaar”. I was barely able to stand and experiencing mirage of pains. In seconds, I was joined by my friends, feeling dejected; not able to relate to the developments and handicapped by the percentage of alcohol running in their bloods. They could not able to rescue me from the 5-6 beastly creatures (equals to 10-12 normal human beings). I was gathering my senses, contemplating my retaliatory options but nothing was clicking in that unacquainted place and faint state. Police could have been an option but it would have not helped much, I was drunk and they could have accused me of any wrong behavior. My mates were worried about me and I was laughing on myself for taking things rather seriously and being an ass-hole. My friends made me walk down the stairs and left for LSD’s home around 1:30am. I could experience a wave of deep pains by the time I reached home. LSD said, “Let’s see a doctor”. I told, “No”, we would review the case tomorrow and crashed into bed.
The next morning, I was screeching under pain on my left chest area, ribs and complete middle- back. I was not able to gather the strength to pull myself together for getting up, sitting down, lifting things or even wearing my clothes. It was time to see a doctor and we went to Apollo clinic, I told doctor the juicy story and she was like, “Who told you to party here, when you belong to Delhi”, confusingly she asked me, “Is it a medico-legal case?” I replied ‘No, don’t worry’. Post examination she prescribed for X-Rays, Ultra sound and medicines. Fortunately, reports did turn out negative but I was still languishing with the chest, rib and back pain. The only way to deal with this was to pamper myself with care and it started showing signs of improvement after 9-10 days of medications. I didn’t tell anyone about the case not for the fear of getting embarrassed but for the sake of pain and drama it would have created across the relationship spectrums. I did write something on Facebook to make myself feel good, ‘Ohh my Gawd lag gayii…’ because this is the place where you are seldom taken seriously.
Getting bashed up by a stronger race of species was neither heroism nor a ‘Satyagrah’ but had there been one or two more rounds of their blows I would have been critical or ended up in an ICU. The experience; scuffle, punches and moment was straight out of some movie’s action scene and I was feeling it ‘real time’. It has etched a lingering-sweet memory on my mind and I would always remember it for one thing, from all of the obvious, that I stood up to someone’s nonsense like a fighter and braved my way through the most miserable of hopes. I don’t know what my mates feel about the ‘Prison' night but we had a great time together till Tsunami struck.
Cheers Peeps! … Annu
