Come together! Right Now!

Yeah the Beatles were 4 when they wrote that song and we were five! Well, should have been six really but then Debjit aka Dabba decided to do a last minute volte-face and ended up ditching the rest of us.

If you are still trying to keep up with the blabber, rest assured that I am talking merely about our infamous DTE (D-Top East in Patel Hall, IIT KGP, you uninitiated baboons) reunion! Seeing as how this was a long long affair, I am gonna break this into 3-4 parts, following the example of the great loin of the cyber-jungle Madda aka Bharath Ramesh aka Bharathchandra Maddopadhyay (who had once performed the infamous belly-dance wearing his white towel --- uhh, nothing but a white towel --- to the auspicious tunes of Pink Floyd singing, interestingly enough, "We don't need no education" in the background.... but that's a story for another day!) in his own superbly written google-map-direction version of our travelogue at "http://krosswindz.blogspot.com/".

Before...
everything began, it was planning. A massive 150+ emails were sent back and forth discussing every nitty-grity of the upcoming reunion for months in advance. Now my dear wingies would know this very well that in the matters of taking decisions where places of a) interest b) food and c) movies are concerned, we take more time to decide than George W takes to spell pulchritudinous (and hehe... that should probably be counted in units of hours!). But all's well that ends well... due to the meticulous google-mapping and atlas-gorging by the abovementioned immensely resourceful Madda, we finally had a plan of action:

1. July 01, Fri: everyone flies into Las Vegas by midnight... we shack up at the shady Motel 6 until next morning.

2. July 02, Sat: We drive through Zion National Park into Bryce Canyon and then drive all the way to Grand Canyon by nightfall and stay at Holiday Inn.

3. July 03, Sun: We check out GC by morning and drive back to Vegas where we reach by evening and then, ahem, partake in entertainment of the kind only Vegas can offer.

4. July 04, Mon: Partake in said entertainment only Vegas can offer till evening after which call the reunion officially over.

Now the five studs and one cyberstud that were supposed to be part of this enterprise were (in decreasing order of their notoriety): Vivek (aka Vivs aka Khassi aka Azzu Bhai), Biplab (aka Billi), Nari (aka, uhh, Nari), Bharath (aka look-above), Debjit (aka Dabba) and your's truly (aka Mojo aka Boka). Dabba, as mentioned before, pretended to be busy with his work (whilst official sources say he was vacationing in Hawaii in his latest multi-colored polka-dotted undies) and finally couldn't make it. SO it was left to the five of us to make this affair one huge success!

HALP!! My parents are remarrying... each other!!!

Transcript from last nights phone chat with my unparallelled Dad:
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Starting scene... fone rings... i pick up... mom's singing... for me apparently (she is a professional singer)...

Song ends... I think I clapped or something... dad makes some small talk and then the bomb:


me: so how's the passport stuff going?

dad: ohh all paperwork done (he has been saying this for last 10 months)

me: yeah sure dad! how much is *really* done?

dad: abe yaar (not really but tone was such-like) really everything! only thing is Ma and me are going to an
official notary...

me: what the heck for?

dad: We need to notarize our marriage.

me: you need to what???!?!?!?!?!

dad: because passport form needs marriage cert...

me: uhhh... and you dont have one???!!?!?!

dad: nah

me: wha..?!?!?!? :-O

dad: yah

me: so basically there is NO legal proof that you and mom are man and wife?????

dad: nono... we have snaps...

me: you have what??!?!?

dad: blabbers somethng like "wedding photos", "social gathering", "mala bodol pics"... mala bodol=garland
exchange in bong

me: dude you're kidding me right?

dad: No!! in those days no one did marriage certificate...

me: so officially mom can leave you anytime she wants and have you fend for your own dinner cuz hehehe she wasnt even married to you in the first place :-D

dad: uhhh... yeah (i think I detect the first tone of uncertainty precipitated no doubt by the thought of having to possibly face the stove alone)

me: so wait what the heck were you planning to tell immigration officers at LAX when they asked for proof of
marriage???

dad: why we will take pictures... lots of them!!!

me: uhhmmm dad I dont think he will be in a particularly festive mood to enjoy your wedding pics :-S

dad: in india it works in legal courts!

me: in US it dont.

dad: then?

me: go get married.

dad: huh?

me: yeah... go and do what you shuda done 26 years ago... do a registry court wedding (I am doubling over barely able to contain my laughter at this point)!!

dad: hmmm yes that sounds like a good option... more safe, no?

me: yes dad... and while you're at it buy mom a good wedding gift :-D

dad: hehehe yes yes yes... wokkay then we will do that on Monday

me: good.. and dad...

dad: yeah what?

me: good job on the wife... she is hot :-D

dad: what is hot?

me: uhh... uhmm... nuthin... good luck with the certificate!

dad: ok ok thanks... ok bye and call me again four days later... and remember only 5 minutes... no more wasting money (my folks always say this and end up talking for 40-45 mins)

me: yeah sure... have a good one! bye!
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