The Cup of Madness

Last time one of my friends asked me. Why no write up nowadays? Prairies of creativity shadowed with the dunes of indolence was the reason I had given to him. As a poet from my mother tongue described his state of creative ecstasy like "Whenever my cute sweet heart, the damsel poetry, kisses me on the cheek, Here I stand, amidst the creative ocean, playing veena to adorn my shyness with jewels". Though the cute damsel is in her teens, in my case, her tickling effect can be no lesser. No more doodling lets jump to the story (Sorry UTK this has been delayed for a long time). Since the story is a real life incident I don't want to delineate the actors in detail. Dissecting the topic, "The cup of Madness" is not the cup worth insanity (as in case of the championship cups), rather it is the one which wakes up the madman inside you .Analogous to the magical potion prepared by Druid Getafix (for Asterix fans) this one gives you a gargauntum of super human strength...Surprisingly this one has been drunk across the Northern Hindustan as a Prasad from Shiv temples...Even now if you are guessing, let me disclose the name, the Thandai...

Hailing from the south, the only idea I had of Holi is its celebration with colours...And I got introduced to it only after coming to this deccan plateau. Each of my Holi celebrations there were different in its sense. The barbaric painting of colors, climbing ghats etc to mention a few. However in the last time, the season triggered some whimsical urge inside us to try out the cup of madness. Unfortunately we had an unsuccessful and tedious day roaming inside the city labyrinths to get "bhang", the primary ingredient of the potion (From here onwards Potion is promoted to a proper noun to describe the ..You know what...).So in this Holi time we didn't want a take a chance and wanted to make sure we get it for sure..

One of my roommates took up the responsibility...I am calling him Druid Getafix or simply the Druid Bhai, he being the potion maker, for cofidentiality.(An Asterix comic character introduction can be helpful for my readers if any ;-) )..So the D-day commences and the Druid is taking his assistant (thats me) to get the necessary ingredients of the potion. Mistletoe(another ctrl-c crtl-v) is banned in this city so furtiveness was maintained in getting the core ingredient. We got the mistletoe, some milk, some grapes and other fruits and of-course some colors for celebrations. I was calling all the interested members of the gaulish clan in parallel. Some were trapped already in office but the rest jumped on their bikes at the mention of the potion making ceremony. There were no Romans, Visigoths and Normans nearby but even then the gaulish clan want to become superhuman. We had painted ourselves with colors before the druid started making the potion...His comment "Bhai logon aaj aapko bholenaath ke darshan mil jaayenge" was taken very light heartly by us....

The clock is dragging itself like a snail. All the interested gaulish warriors had arrived and got smeared with the colours .The most enthusiastic one was a young Gujju boy UTK who was cribbing from the last Holi only to have the potion. Other guys were flat members Happy,Patel and Dshk , Lale our friend and one UTK's friend. After an hour the druid had finished preparing the potion..It was served to every member in the flat glass after glass.Lale was drinking in slower pace coz he had to drive back home sober. We were still in the state of sobriety. Thought the devil will kick later, maybe. We went outside the society to celebrate the festival with some other friends....Some of them stayed back in flat as they got the harbinger of something bad.The druid and the party was celebrating Holi outside..In that euphoria I was getting slipped into something nasty..The whole world was appearing to be dressed up in a different outfit. Responses seems to get slower. Every objects appearing with an extra outline.. Even in that transcendental state I couldn’t resist to go out with debu for shopping, a thing the inebriated but pragmatic Surds(Happy) refused. I was trying to cross the road and found the bikes and the riders getting zoomed in and out. I was not in a state to judge when to cross or not and so I grabbed Debu's hand for support. Debu was stopping at very shop leaving me in that blissful state alone and with a little spin (quantum computing 1 0 and a spin) . Is this the transcendental state which the sages only had experienced. I couldn't control my guffaw seeing a guy's face colored by his friends..After some minutes which seemed like eons I managed to reach the flat inebriated with the potion.

No sooner did I pushed the door open than I collapsed to the floor. Now delineating the characters in the room....On the bed sat UTK swearing and cursing the whole world and himself. The poor lad got his first kick in life (he didn’t even had a drinks before), had puked voluntarily had a bath and still was left in a bad state...Adi was a bit in control..Surds's justified his Da Vinci Code addiction putting the famous Mona Lisa smile and his eyes reflected the satisfaction of winning a world cup. However he didnt open his mouth at all...UTK didn’t stop his cursing.."My god why did I drink this..I am not able to sit properly at all.S**t yaar S**t ". I had made some dirty remarks about his audacity which was appreciated with a round of guffaws .Patel is roaming around trying give more potion to all of us to which I only yielded..UTK's friend had already left.Druid is enjoying the session like hell.I was swearing and troubling Happy for his silence but nothing would make the Monalisa smile to change.."Rang Barse" song was playing in MTV and we were saying like "Amitabh ko koi sharm nahi doosre ke samne uski biwi ke saath aish kar rahaa hai " and the laughter followed. Now the situation inside getting worser and quantum computing is getting more prevalent inside my head making it spin like a top same with Patel as I can make out.It is 50 times more strong than any inebriation I was subjected to before. Dshk has given some lemon drop to the baffled Patel and saying that it will aggravate the effect..Patel suddenly got up and said to Darshak "Mere ko kal theek 7.30 ko utha dena chahe kuch bhi ho jaaye"..I couldnt control it any longer and had to purge the infamous potion out..Lale now left for home ..Exhausted and inebriated I collapsed to my bed.....

In that stateless state for how long I got up to see the Druid calling me for food. It was 7 in the evening.I remember having something to eat probably fish...UTK was not there..Druid had dropped him...I went back to sleep again...Luckily I woke up at the next day morning and was able to go to office. Dshk broke his promise and Patel and Happy were snoring like pigs..Hey its me again not the potion.In office I found UTK still having the hangout of the previous day...He was still swearing and cursing himself..Now here comes the update of others..UTK's friend who had left early to celebrate with his friends got an attack and thought it was a stroke. He was muttering Hanuman Chalisa.. He was sandwiched by his friends in a bike which he tried to balance in the way to doctor.Got an injection from the doctor and went home to drop dead.Lale's incident was the best ..Even though he had only a couple glass it was too much for him..Lale who had been brought up in Pune couldn’t not find the way back home..He reached Deccan Gymkhana and was wondering in which way he should go to Tilak road .After transgressing into some one-ways only he managed to reach home.The potion had thrown a late Yorker to get him out..UTK still was not out of the punch..For the lunch we went out and I had to hold his hands to get him cross the roads..Our PM was saying "Bacche ki jaan logi?".....Happy and Patel woke up after a marathon sleep and our Druid bhai got embellished with an excess of gaalis from both...Evening I went back to house and found all of them awake and sober...

Now to conclude...The potion indeed was a unique experience..I have tried hell lots of drinks but the inebriation caused by the potion surpassed all of them..We almost had the darshan of Bholenath thanks to Druid Bhaai...And due to the invincible potion of superhuman strength I had my most memorable Holi ever and doubt if I will have a something which is steal is numero uno post.Regarding the potion UTKs opinion was unanimous among us "But I wont do that..No I wont do that".

"Jai Bolo Bholenath Ki....."