The Muddlehead by Ogden Nash

Poetry was never my favorite and it still is not.  Though I have written down some things that I claim fall under the poetry category, it was done out of arrogance rather than admiration.  I felt the dire need to express myself in that manner at that time.  At the present moment, neither do I have the dire nor the need and so that phase seems to have ended (at least for now).  Of course, there are a few poetic lines and words that come from the past.  The earliest ones are about about twinkling stars being diamonds and the violence that struck Jack and Jill.  The one that affected the most was about Johnny wanting to play and being affected by a downpour.

As time went on, William Wordworth praised a rainbow and Robert Frost expressed his disinterest in sleeping.  Of course, there was that appreciation that Ogden Nash sent to me, the born spectator.  I think that is almost it.  I don't think I can think of any other words from poetry other than "Kister Monductor".  I searched for these words in Google this morning and it tells me about the poem "The Muddlehead" written by our good old Ogden Nash.  "Hmmm, Mr.Nash again.  There should be more to this than a plain liking" said my mind.  So I looked up Wikipedia to find out who Ogden Nash is (or is it was).  I did not get past the first line.  Mr.Nash left this world a few days prior to my birth and so my over ambitious and superstitious mind screams "REBIRTH".  That being that here is what Mr.Muddlehead says and does.

(Ogden Nash)
The Muddlehead
I knew a man from Petushkee
As muddleheaded as could be.

He always got mixed up with clothes;
He wore his mittens on his toes,
Forgot his collar in his haste,
And tied his tie around his waist.

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

They told him as he went about:
"You've got u'r coat on inside out!"
And when they saw his hat, they said:
"You've put a saucepan on your head!"

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

At lunch he scratched a piece of bread,
And spread some butter on his head.
He put his walking stick to bed,
And he stood in the rack instead.

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

He walked upto a tram one day
And climbed in very sprightly;
Conductor thought that he would pay,
Instead he said politely:

"Parding your beggon,
Kister Monductor,
I'm off for a week's vacation;
I stop you to beg your cramway tar
As soon as we reach the station."
Conductor got a fright
And didn't sleep that nite.

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

He rushed into the first café:
"A railway ticket please, One way."
And at the ticket office said:
"A slice of tea and a cup of bread."

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

He passed the man collecting the fares,
And entered a carriage awaiting repairs,
That stood on a siding, all by itself.
Half of his luggage, he put on a shelf,
The rest on the floor, his coat on his lap
And settled himself for a bit of a nap.

All at once he raised his head,
"I must have been asleep"- he said.
"Hey, what stop is this?" he cried
"Petushkee," a voice replied.

Once again he closed his eyes
And dreamt he was in Paradise.
When he woke, he looked about,
Raised the window and leaned out.

"I've seen this place before, I believe,
Is it Kharkov or is it Kiev?
Tell me where I am," he cried.
"In Petushkee", a voice replied.

And so again he settled down
And dreamt the world was upside down
When he woke, he looked about,
Raised the window and looked out.

"I seem to know this station too,

Is it Nalchik or Baku?
Tell me what its called," he cried.
"Petushkee' a voice replied.

Up he jumped: "It's a crime!
I've been riding all this time,
And here I am where I began!
That's no way to treat a man!'

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee

Young in Mumbai

The guy got out of the plane first, his wife followed and somewhere in between came their son.  Mumbai was not warm; it was quite pleasant.  At the terminal, they got the prepaid taxi ticket.  Fortunately, there was no queue for the Taxi but some confusion ensued in finding an A/C taxi.  The driver was an old man with truck loads of eagerness for small talk.  The guy handed the prepaid bill and a small pink colored ticket that he received from the counter to the driver.  The driver returned the pink ticket which had Rs.15 mentioned on it.  "Airport waale appse lootne ka receipt diya hain" he said "aap he rakhiye isse".  This seemed like an ominous sign of unpleasantness coming by.  The guy got into the front seat while the wife and son got into the back. 

The sights of Mumbai captured their attention for the next few minutes.  During this time, the driver paid attention to the messiness of the roads.  Soon they go into the free way and the driver took his feet off the attention pedal.  He looked at the rear view mirror at the occupants of the back seat and then asked the man "bachchon ko Mumbai goomane aye ho".  The word "bachchon" touched a raw nerve but the man ignored and said "haan".  The conversation did not end there though.  The inquisitive driver continued with "aur madam?"  The guy turned red with embarrassment and anger.  Through gnashing teeth he said "peeche baitee hain".  "Nahin, mein madam ke baare mein pooch raha hoon" persisted the driver.  The man controlled him emotion by holding his hands in a tight bind and reiterated "peeche baitee hain".  "Oooooo acha" exclaimed the driver.  He took out a pair of spectacles from his pocket, put it on and looked intently at the wife in the rear view mirror.  "Bahut chotti dikti hain, donon ka umar mein bahut farak hain" concluded the driver.  By this time, the guy was looking intently out of the window at anything and everything; wayside scenes had never interested him more.  The thought "such a nice place" forced its way into his mind.

"Nahin nahin" chipped in the wife with a blush.  "Oooo sorry" said the driver "galti ho gaya".  The driver now continued with his apology wherein he touched upon his age, his poor eyesight, the guy having a shave to look younger and so on to make worse an already embarrassing situation.  "Where the hell is that damned hotel?"

Innocence lost

A seven year old boy is desperate to reach his father.  He dials his father's mobile number on his mother's mobile but does not get any response.  He dials again with the same result.  The third time his father picks up and the son tells with a lot of urgency "Dad, Mom's laptop is not working".  Father says "mmmm hmmmm".  "But it is not working" cries out the son.  "Ok ok, I will check it when I get back" says the father before cutting the call.  A few minutes later, the father's mobile receives an SMS.  He notices that it is from his wife.  On checking, the father finds the message "Mom latop not working".  The father mutters a few innocent curses (what can he do; any curse worse than the innocent ones would only insult him).  He shoves the phone into a corner and continues with his work.  The morning was a particularly busy one and the father had very little time to play around with his son.  A little later the phone notifies the receipt of a message, this time on Whatsapp.  Assuming it to be one of those important official messages, the father picks up the phone, only to find that it is a Video message from his wife's phone.  The video takes a few minutes to download.  When it opens up he sees the laptop in question showing garbled data on the screen.  His son's voice in the background says "Mom's laptop is not working".  As he is saying this the camera turns to show his son's face.  The camera then turns back to the laptop as it is restarted.  The screen comes up with some kind of screen with Dell written on top.  His son zooms into the screen to give a momentary glimpse of the screen.  As he is doing this he says "See" and with this the video ends.

The Fathers stares at phone display for some time.  He then replays the video with a smile across his lips.

The name is Bond, Ruskin Bond

One Friday I found myself in Delhi for a not so interesting meeting.  The Delhi branch of my company was planning a trip to Mussoorie.  "Why don't you join?" was the question.  Any response other than no seemed rude and that evening I found myself surrounded by a bunch of drunks, as we sat around a sidey bar in Gurgaon.  Like "the last supper" this was the "last drink" prior to boarding the bus to Mussoorie.  We were soon flying across Delhi towards UP and in the direction of the mountains.  Some 80 odd kilometres from the start there an explosion and our tempo traveler lost control for a moment - Flat tyre.  While the driver changed tyres, we had a few sips of lousy tea at a Dhabba on the other side of the road.  There were no further incidents till Mussoorie.

The place of stay at Mussoorie was fine but I was disappointed by the place itself.  From all those Ruskin Bond novels I had expected a cold and snowy place with a great view of the snow packed (or is it snow capped?) Himalayas.  I had got my geography and season wrong.  So neither were the snow packs (or caps) seen or felt.  To me the place seemed to be a cross between Ooty and Yercaud.  The day's plan did not sound exciting.  A visit to a waterfall close by, which many in the group claimed was lousy and then nothing else.  Evening, I planned to go down to the village where Ruskin Bond lives and try to get a signature out of him.  I did not know exactly how to do it but that was the plan.

The guys were absolutely right about the water fall.  It was lousy - very little water and a lot of garbage all around.  To top it these guys had built all kinds of parks and what nots around the place.  Thus the place looked worse; reminded of those dreadful picnic spots.  The sight seeing was done by lunch and all of us being dead tired of the previous night's journey hit the bed for a siesta.

I woke up at around 4:30 pm and walked down to Jay's room.  Sandeep and Jay had shown great interest in meeting Mr.Bond, who lives in a village called Landour.  Google map claimed that the place was some 6 kilometres from where we stayed and we decided to walk to it.  After some distance we asked someone for Landour.  He informed us to "continue a few furlongs" in what seemed like a typical small town manner.  We  walked some more.  It was now a good 45 minutes since we had got out but we had not even reached the end of Mussoorie.  So we would not have covered more than a kilometre.  We looked around and asked a rickshaw fellow to take us to Landour.  He refused it point blank saying he only went round Mussoorie; for the place mentioned we would need a jeep.  For the jeep, we have to travel back to the hotel; another 45 minutes back that is.  Jay suggested, quite pointlessly I thought, let us walk some more.

We walked past a Tibetan restaurant that Sandeep claimed was very popular.  We were so full of the lunch and the growing disappointment of the pointlessness of the trip that we walked on.  We were crossing a book shop when I suddenly saw the name "Ruskin Bond" written on a board.  Besides the board, the man himself was seated sipping a cup of tea, while a set of people were buzzing around.  My eye ran back to the board and it said that Ruskin Bond usually spent his Saturday evenings at the shop signing books and meeting people.  We thanked God for not having found a way to reach Landour and jumped into the shop.  Then books were bought, hands were shook, signatures were taken, words were spoken and photographs were taken.

What happened earlier and beyond did not matter now.  The trip was a huge success.  We had met Bond, Ruskin Bond.

Of Illayaraja, GM and NEP

Growing up in Chennai, I have constantly run into Illayaraja - songs on radio, titles on posters and movie credits, articles in news paper and praise on people's tongue.  I have always liked his music, I think (S.A.Rajkumar and Chandra Bose were not much of a choice anyway).  Some of his songs stay with me forever while others I forgot till hear them in some odd place.  The songs from Mella Thiranthatu Kadavu, Nizhalgal, Mouna Ragam, Idayam, Agni Nakshathram, Apoorva Sahodarargal and some others are songs are memorable.  Then there were those non-film music "How to name it" and "Nothing but the wind", which I remember for reasons other than the music itself.  For a long time I wanted to own these albums but could never lay my hands on them.  I kept thinking I am missing something big in the music world till the time I realized it did not matter.  For me the greatest liking for Illayaraja songs is the nostalgia of  my very young days that comes by when I hear a segment from his song.

But things started changing in the 1990's.  MTV landed in India and the spectrum of music that hit me suddenly grew exponentially.  With more music to digest than my small head can take, I had to make choices.  Thus Illayaraja's music started moving to the peripherals of the spectrum. In the end, what remains today is nothing more than nostalgia.  Even that loses out when I think of that traumatic evening when I was trapped among a few hard core Illayaraja fans.  These guys were going gung-ho about "Rak muthu Rakku" from "Yajaman" in a small hostel room.  They went on and on; playing that song in a loop a million times.  A bloody mediocre sound that these guys claimed had the greatest beat on earth.  The trauma of that evening turned my mind and whatever else against Mr.Rasas mujic.  Of course, A R Rahman's music which came by around then impacted my expectations from Tamil movie music and since then Illayaraja's music just could not live up to it.   

The coming years brought in a new generation of music directors, including the Illayaraja's reasonably talented son, and many a fresh ideas.    The book of history started getting chapters with the name Illayaraja mentioned in it.  Still a few directors (especially in Malayalam) stuck on with the tried and tested Illayaraja  music.  But Guatham Menon decided to rewrite history by making an epic love story that revolves around Illayaraja's master pieces.  The sun which was at the brink of the western horizon started moving up to the east.  Old fans cropped up on facebook.  Old Illayaraja songs were back (but no "Rakku muthu Rakku" thankfully).  Reviewers talked about the current breed of music directors owing their bread and butter to the great Illayaraja and how these fellows showed their respect by playing a bit some old song at this and that spots in their movies.  This went on for many weeks till...

Finally, the day of the music release came by.  The songs came out on the Internet.  Facebook was filled with "Wows", "Amazing", "Maestro" and what nots.  I listened to "Ennodu va va" and "Sattru Mumbu".  The former a retro song that filled me with indifference and the latter a bombastic number with many violins screaming out in agony that filled my senses with god knows what.  Many people thought these were the best (or should I say bestest) songs of the lot.  Apparently, these two songs were proof enough of Illayaraja's magical touch continuing to exist.  "It shows" they said "Illayaraja has not lost it" (whatever that is I did not know he had it in the first place).  I did not like the songs; to me they seemed less than mediocre.  Had it been anyone other than Illayaraja people might not have given it more than a listen.  As a matter of fact, if Rahman had been the music director then people would have protested by fasting to death in front of his house.  Thankfully, this is Illayaraja's music so everyone's happy and rest of us (who don't belong to the group called everyone) have to grin and bear it.

The movie finally got released a few days back.  Gautham Menon (GM), I believe, is one of the most over rated directors in the movie industry.  I found his great "Kaaka Kaaka" (or was it kaake kaake) barely tolerable.  The story line was not the common sort but the execution seemed quite miserable - it did not seem natural at all.  Everything seemed like an act; an attempt to let us know this is one cool movie from one cool movie maker.  His "Vaarnam Aayiram" seemed much worse - it was quite incomprehensible.  Before we could connect with a scene the movie had moved on to another scene and I was left with the feeling of watching a disjointed photo album.  Again it seemed too cool for its own good.  Then came "Vinnaithandi varuvaya".  This movie was a much different experience from the earlier movies and for the first time my opinion of GM was pointing towards the positive side.  The movie proceeds beautifully (both flow and look), with great music and possibly a career best performance by Trisha.  If not for the slight botch up of pre-climax sequences it was a good movie.  The only spoiler was Chimbu's dialogue delivery - he somehow seems to have the ability to convert words in wooden blocks before they a spit out at us.  Maybe he uses some bold-ed font, which hurts our fragile ear drums.  The Telugu version was a bit worse.  Nag Chaitanya belongs to the other end of the spectrum from Chimbu and Samantha's Jessie seemed a trifle too sweet compared to the what-the-hell-cloud-she-be-thinking Jessie by Trisha.  So on the whole, I was in a positive frame of mind about Neethane En Ponnvasantham due to the marked improvement in GMs movie making abilities.  This resulted in my being present in the cinema hall running Neethane En Ponnvasantham a day after its release.

The theater was half filled in when we walked.  The expectations, as expected, were high due to the coming together of GM, Jeeva, Samantha and Illayaraja.    The posters screamed that this is the greatest love story ever made.  It would be like growing up with these two characters, Varun and Nithya.  The ups and downs of their life and more importantly love life.  Soon a group of boisterous guys walked in and they were rambling aloud about "Machan, this..." and "Machi, that ...".  "There seemed to be the end of the movie experience; these guys would comment their head out and not a word of the movie would be heard" thought I.  I should have picked up one of "very nice" multiplexes rather than Mayajaal. But the damage is now done and the movie has just started rolling.

It starts out well with some college scenes and a song that starts off with "Pudikila mamae...".  For some reason, the song and sequence reminded me of Twisted sister's "We are not going take it".  Reasonably amusing start with Santhanam some decent laughs.  Then Samantha enters and Jeeva falls in love at first sight or maybe not the first sight but more like the first re-sight (Hey Samantha and Santhanam spell nearly the same, are they long lost siblings is it?).  These are mushy and gooey scene with Santhanam being the saving grace.  He seems as embarrassing as I was to be a part of that scene (must be much worse for him being on the wrong side of the screen - wait a minute, does this movie have a right side of the screen?).  It has been a few weeks since I have seen that movie but I remember Jeeva and Samantha being too giggly in that scene. But I liked the way that scene end with the the two lovers (maybe) deciding to talk to each other and then we jump into a flash back.

As the flash back unfolded, I realized that I was right about the "love at first re-sight" thought.  The previous sequence was not their first meeting, they had met earlier, many times.  The first Varun - Nithya meeting happened when they were young and as in many movie they seem to fall into something that can possibly be called loved unless someone says "What the hell! How can they fall in love so young?", in which case, it can be called affectionate feeling that can be misunderstood as love to a few silly onlookers (who probably should not be onlooking in the first place - it is none of their business).  Then he ditches her by choosing to play cricket rather than  merry go rounding with her, in which his heart lay.  She loses heart, swears never to fall in love with or show affection (for mature audience only) to anyone in her pretty existence.  God obviously listened to this swearing and decides to move Nithya's house to an area far enough from for Varun's so that they don't meet for next six or seven or eight years.

We jump to six or seven or eight years later when Nithya ends up looking like the actress Samantha and Varun like Jeeva.  They meet at some tuition class where not school children looking school children meet.    A glance from the corner of their eyes results in instant recognition of each other ("Oh God! Its that bugger who refused to merry go round with him", "Shit man! I should have merry go round with her").  I basically don't remember much of what happens after that but soon soon Varun asks Nithya for a coffee date at the you-can-find-it-everywhere-Chennai-of-movies potti kadai right outside the tuition center.  GM chooses this meeting to enlighten us how it feels to be in the middle class.  Enlight 1: Middle class folks vacation in Yercaud a not Australia.  Enlight 2: The middle class chap can only buy two cups of "chaya" with the money in his pocket; a biscut to dip into the "chaya" is out of the question - too expensive.  That per-se does not sound too ridiculous on paper but it was pure cheese that was dripping from the screen.  It must have been the way Jeeva explained what a cool place Yercaud, (which in fact it is).  But that looking at the pocket when Nithya asks for a biscuit what bad.  I found that whole sequence cliched.  I thought the middle class concept has been brought out very well in movies like "3" and "Naan Mahaan Alla".  I think it is GM's ability to be unnatural in the most natural of the sequences that is the issue.  This is definitely not cool.

Post vacation, Varun shifts schools to spend a lot of time with Nithya and they romance around freely.  Soon jealousy strikes and they split unceremoniously. The next meeting occurs at the college.  They fall in love all over again - meaning some more singing (I don't think they dance since this is a realistic movie), some more romancing, a lot of hugging, dialogues filled with more cheese than pizza hut's cheese stuffed crust pizza.  We go through the whole process of falling in love again.  This time we have Yuvan Shankar Raja crying out "Adadaaaaa" for our pleasure.  I was completely lost and disinterested by this time.  I was desperately clawing at my phone trying to play tic-tac-toe for some time.  Then my interest turned to the cynical comments from the front benchers.  Ironically, the movie and Illayaraja's heavenly music were far too distracting.  But the snatches we heard from them were satisfying - We were not the only ones goinf through the pain.  Seeing others go through the pain with us is always satisfying.  As Vadivelu said "Why blood? Same blood!".   By the time, interval strikes us, the hero learns a very important lesson about life - if you don't make money then life is going to a bummer and pretty much every one is going to walk over your father, mother and brother (but if you are lucky enough to have the greatest family on Earth then each member of the family would sympathize with someone else in the family and not call names at each other).  This lesson leads to Varun taking a big decision and the loving couple falling out of love with each other.  So by now, the match is evenly placed with Love and Breaking up scoring two goals each.  Let us see what happens in the second half and the big question - will this match go into sudden death.

At the interval, I heard someone mention "Hey, let us not tell him how lousy the movie is.  Let him come and watch.  Heeee heeee heeeee".  How can the world end when there is so much good will available?  The second continued the downward trend.  It somehow seemed a trifle better than what happened in the first.  While the first half was boring and cheesy, second was sporadic and melodramatic (not necessarily the acting but the situations were definitely melodramatic).  The flaws were many but it is the pretense of realism and what I ended up perceiving as a display of GM's utter conviction of his greatness that made the movie unbearable.  Some of the annoying aspects that came up in the movie in the second half are given below.
1. The "ennodu vaa vaa ..." sequence with all those mails that the hero wished to send but did not till much later that makes the heroine blush with happiness.2. The penultimate scene where the heroine and hero spend some time together a day ahead of the important marriage.
2. At the end of the above mentioned sequence the hero's father gives the most important piece of advice (how many times have we seen this shit?).
5. The whole climax by which time everyone in the audience were screaming "Adadaaaaaaa..."

Obviously I did not like this movie but I have seen so many comments and reviews mentioning that this movie is a classic.  The only reason I could decipher - It says love is a bed of rose plants; there are roses but there are thorns too.  Why is that very different and why should we appreciate a movie for that?  I can understand if this is a first time movie maker.  This is Gautham Menon who has made God knows how many movies.  I mean if the reviewers keep encouraging this guy he will not make another movie half as good as VTV.  Anyway, lots of money wasted on a boring two and half hours that completely ruined the reputation of Jeeva and Santa Maria (or was it Santa Clause, Santhanam; oh no it was Some one that).

Falling to pieces

For a long time, I thought I am the king of indecision. But then I came to the decision that it was not indecision but that in many cases I did not care to decide.  I came across the song "Falling to pieces" by Faith no more during my indecisive phase.  A line in that song had a profound effect on me (as in I said "Wow" every time I heard it and nothing more).  But as time went by, I realized the entire song was very well written.  Mike Patton is a talented lyricist and singer.  The song goes like this.


Back and forth, I sway with the wind
Resolution slips away again
Right through my fingers, back into my heart
Where it's out of reach and it's in the dark
Sometimes I think I'm blind
Or I may be just paralyzed
Because the plot thickens every day
And the pieces of my puzzle keep crumblin' away
But I know, there's a picture beneath
Indecision clouds my vision
No one listens....
Because I'm somewhere in between
My love and my agony
You see, I'm somewhere in between
My life is falling to pieces
Somebody put me together
Layin' face down on the ground
My fingers in my ears to block the sound
My eyes shut tight to avoid the sign
Anticipating the end, losing the will to fight
Droplets of "yes" and "no"
In an ocean of "maybe"
From the bottom, it looks like a steep incline
From the top, another downhill slope of mine
But I know, the equilibrium's there
Indecision clouds my vision
No one listens
Because I'm somewhere in between
My love and my agony
You see, I'm somewhere in between
My life is falling to pieces
Somebody put me together

The profound in the song is: Droplets of "yes" and "no" in an ocean of "maybe".  What better way to bring out the meaning of indecision.
 

Wedding drama

"We have to book tickets for your cousin's wedding"
"But that is three months away"
"Yes, it is on a Sunday and we are out of tickets to our home town for that weekend"
"Out of tickets!!!! Already!!!"
"We can book tickets to the previous station though".
"Oh OK.  On Friday and Sunday right?"
"Right"
"I will take care of it"

A few days later.
"Your uncle tells me that there is a function on Monday that we need to attend.  So you have to cancel the Sunday ticket and move it to Monday"
"Ok, hope I get the tickets"

A few minutes later.
"I got the tickets to home town directly.  It is second class though"
"Thats ok.  I am glad we got the tickets"

A week prior to travel.
"Your mother had a fall and she seems to have fractured a bone"
"Oh heavens! Is she OK?"
"Yes, it is not serious but she needs to be on bed for at least 2 weeks"
"Shall I cancel the tickets?"
"That will not be necessary.  Your sister will take care of her.  You have to cancel the tickets for your mother and sister though"

At last, the day of departure comes by.
"We only have an hour and half to get to the station. Where are you?"
"I am 10 minutes away. I will be there soon; be ready"

A little later.
"The taxi I had booked is not here yet"
"Sir, he will be there in 30 minutes"
"What! 30 minutes is too long.  My train leaves in an hour"
"Sorry sir, we will see what we can do"

A few seconds later.
"I am nearly there. Be cool."
"That is not the issue.  The taxi fellow ditched us; can we use the auto you are in."
"Oh God! This driver is an ass but we don't have a choice."

Fifteen minutes to departure; a traffic jam defines the degree of separation.
"I am in the train, where are you guys?"
"Nearly there, should be there anytime now"
"OK, but be quick"
"Driver, do something and get us to the station quick"
"What can I do look at the jam?"
"Is there no other way?"
"No and even if there is one, how do I move out of here?"
"But... Ah, its clearing, go quick"

 A few minutes for the train to depart.
"Which platform is it on?"
"Platform 10"
"Thanks God! Thats close.  Which bogie and how far is it?
"Let me check."
"It is right at the back, not too far"
"Good heavens! Our train's moving.  We have missed it."
"No, that is on the next platform.  We should be able to make it."

Two lives coming together
A happy occasion for all
As time comes near
Walls round the world of celebration fall

Faces from times earlier
Are back in flesh and blood
Some old others older
Smiles and laughter spread

As the night approaches the festive mood reach to what seemed then to be  a crescendo.  Dinner is about to be served.  A little further, in the old house, a spirited party has begun.
"So what will you drink?"
"No, no, nothing, I am a teetotaler"
"Tea totaller, what is that? Some problem with your liver is it?"
"No I don't drink alcohol"
"Why? Problem with your liver know? Doctor's advise eh?  Hey one more glass for me"

A little later
"This is so much fun.  We should do this regularly.  I will send you a message the next time we have a similar party ok?  Now, give me your number"
"9..."
"Hey Uncle, did you know that this guy is a tea totaller.  His liver has some big issue"
"Oh is it.  So sad.  You should not drink too much.  You should know your limit.  Look at me, I have been drinking since 16.  No problems, everything is in ferpect shape."
"No but ..."
"Ok, give me your number boy."
"No but ..."
"Hey fellows, what a good party.  The vada and sundal are excellent.  Did you try the sundal?  It is so healthy.  Try it, try it, come on."
"No I am ok"
"Do you know this guy is a very intelligent fellow.  He wears specs and has studied in that premier institute.  Hey, how come you don't have a glass"
"No, no, he has a liver problem and so cannot drink"
"But..."
"Oh oh.  You should be careful boy.  Try this sundal.  It is good for the liver"
"Here, have a glass of coke.  You can drink coke right?  I don't think that will spoil your liver"
"His liver is spoilt already. Such an intelligent fellow but with a out of shape liver"
"Poor guy"
"No..."
"This is a good party.  We should do this every year"
"You are the only sane person here.  So take down everyone's number and give it to us.  We will call back everyone next year"
"This sundal and whisky make a good combination"
"I prefer Vodka with lime"
"Hey guys, isn't this a great party.  It is so nice to meet all these new and old people.  We should do this every year"

A few hours and many rounds later, only one person still had the comprehension of walking straight meant.  The others continued gushing about the greatness of the party, promising to meet in the coming years and sympathizing the guy with the bad liver.
"Lets propose a toast for the bride groom.  Where is he?"
"There under the table"
"What are you doing under the table?"
"Searching for my engagement ring.  It seems to have rolled into some corner here."
"What! You lost the ring"
"What!..."
"Oh God..."
"You should be careful"
"Are you not happy with this marriage? Did you throw it away?"
"This is terrible"
"Let us toast"
"What toast.  The guy wants to cancel his wedding"
"Ah! Got it"
"The ring?"
"No. The cap of that bottle of Vodka"
"What about the ring?
"Oh I forgot"

Soon the spirits in the bottles were emptied and a dinner of chicken, mutton and other things were served.  It was nearly time for people to get onto their beds.
"Someone fell"
"Who?"
"How?"
"What happened?"
"I think your uncle fell and he was bleeding.  Some guys took him on a bike to the hospital."
"Bleeding!!!! Oh god, he has a heart condition."
"I think it is OK.  Should not be serious."
"How the hell did they take him in a bike?  He would fall right off."
"No there were three of them and he was in the middle."
"This is crazy."

"I am so disappointed.  How could you do this to me?"
"Hmmmm .... mmmmm...."
"I did not expect this from you.  Now everything is lost.  What will I do?"
"Augh... aaaa..."

"How is he doctor?"
"Nothing serious.  A small cut on the forehead - 3 stitches and nothing more.  Take him home."
"Do we need to take a scan?"
"Only if he loses consciousness or vomit."

"Good heavens.  He has vomited."
"That is the only the alcohol."
"What! How do you know?  Let us take him back to hospital."
"No no, it is only alcohol.  Come here and smell it."
"No, its ok."
"Here, smell my hands"
"No no no no.  I see it is alcohol.  I am leaving."
"Oh lord! I am so tired.  I am going to die"
"You will not.  I will die before you.  I am younger and you are older."

The drama ceased at some point.  People got into their beds and woke up next morning - a couple to marry and others to watch.