Today I was riding in the metro to meet a friend when I was suddenly confronted with an image of my past. I wouldn't actually call it an image because what I saw would frame me having the bests of tastes. Call it more of a metaphoric image.
I saw this young guy on the train. He couldn't have been beyong his teens. He was most definitely heading for a party...and he was dressed for it. That's atleast what he thought. He was wearing this gaudy, shiny black shirt with red pinstripes, skin-tight black jeans and pointy brown formal shoes, with gelled hair and the works! The guy looked more like a wannabe pimp than anything else. But man! the attitude that went with his dress...its as if he KNEW he was dressed to kill! It reminded me of this one incident of my past that still makes me cringe.
I was in class 11 in a new school where I didn't really know anybody. So the only people I hung out with were my much older cousins in their second and third year of college. As it turned out, being the hanger-on that I was, I was invited to this party along with my cousins to one of their friend's place.
I had never really attended a 'party' at that point of time and my cousins all knew so. So they decided that this would be my induction and got really gung-ho about it! They got me all starry-eyed about how many hot chicks would be there at this party and how they would all be drunk and uninhibited. I was really getting pumped about it being the horny, pimply teenager that I was. They also decided that I needed a makeover to up my coolness quotient. So they convinced me to wear this really funky shirt to go with some baggy jeans and spike my hair with copious amounts of gel. I felt like a real stud.
Looking back, my feelings hadn't really translated into a tangible reality. I was wearing this hideous white shirt covered with splashes of shocking yellow. My hair looked ridiculous as it was too long to be spiked up straight. In the end I looked more like a bespectacled Fido-Dido than the cool dude that I thought I was.
Then real fun started though once I got to this party. The hot chicks were there alright and they were all plied with enough alcohol. I was in awe but couldn't really muster up the courage to dance with anyone. I had my eyes on this really sleek looking, hot-chick wearing rather slinky clothes. To my utter joy, it turned out that she happened to be only other person at the party who was of my age! That just got my hormones working overtime! Being in the frame of mind that I was in, I was already envisioning how I will totally charm her pants off and how we will be torridly making out before this party got over and then how we'll hook up. But first I had to ask her for a dance.
I informed my cousin that I really wanted to dance with that girl but didn't have the guts to ask her. His response to my quandry was to ply me with alcohol. I had already consumed alcohol way beyond my capacity by then and was beginning to feel like the King of the World. By the time I decided to ask the targeted girl for the dance, I was really feeling like Superman! In reality though, I was swaying like crazy and slurring my words when I made my way across the room to ask her for a dance.
I had pre-planned what I wanted to say and had envisioned how I'll lock my eys with hers', stride across the dance floor and charmingly ask her for a dance. What really happened was me stumbling across the room, interrupting a rather intimate conversation she was having with some guy and slurring the words "May I have this dance" to her. Yup...I did say that. I think the last time that line was used, it was 1882.
She did dance with me, albiet very half-heartedly, making sure there was atleast a 3-feet distance between the two of us. I tried making conversation with her about some lame-ass school-curriculum nonsense. It was mostly drowned in the loud music and my slurring-words. Also, she couldn't have cared less about what I was saying. ..she was just trying to ensure that the dance didn't last any longer than necessary.
What happened thereafter was just a blurry haze. There is a vague memory of me puking and confessing my undying love for her at the same time. It was followed by some more puking. Apparently, I passed out at some point (rather embarrasingly early in the party) and was carried off at the end by my cousins. I did wake up to puke most of the way back home, including at the feet of a traffic cop in the middle of a street crossing ( this is all heresay...I categorically refuse to believe this to date).
But the one thing I do remember is that at 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up in unfamiliar surroundings and looked at my cousins and asked "Is the party over?".
