Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Saturday Night Fever...

No!This is not a post about the hit 70s movie by the same name...Au contrere.....Its about a comic anecdote from my very real life....

It all started with a dinner plan, that for a change, was planned well in advance(5 hours!!). All were to congregate at 8:30 pm at Mr. S's place and then head out together. Now i anticipate the late arriving tendencies of my friends(weve been together for about 14 years now, so i think i can take a fair guess!!) and go 20 minutes late. And voila!..For the first time, iam not the first one to arrive. Mr. P had arrived first. So we both got talking downstairs till Mr. S arrived. As soon as he gt down, he stuck his cellphone ot his ear and walked the equivalent of about 3 kms by the time he was finished. Till the Mr. SG and his fiance Ms. AV also made their appearance. After the usual indecision on where to go, we decided to Ambrosia since we had a Ms. AV's Santro at our disposal. So off we went discussing everything from our common friends to football on the way.

On getting there we approach the Maitre'D and ask him for a table for 5. We get the standard "saturday night in a restaurant in Pune" reply.."Thatl be 15-20 minutes Sir"..So he takes down my name and cell phone number(talk about slick!!) in his diary....and we head out to the lawn at the rear of the restaurant to while away the time.Now personally i hate having to wait for a table at a restaurant.Its like standing in queue to eat(which i incidently hate as well). Nevertheless, we were sitting there discussing something bout someones and somethings..me and AV were fiddling with SG's MotoRAZR V3i...and suddenly, i get a call on my phone...its the Maitre'D.."Your table is ready sir"...Wow!..Real Slick i say...

So we all walk up to our table and get seated...we unfortunately get a table which doesnt face the TV...Czech Republic Vs. Ghana is on....and Ghana are leading 1-0...i say...this looks interesting....however we park our butts on the chairs and start to look around..admiring the ambience and all that jazz...soon we get the menu cards and order soups with a plethora of starters....i rub my hands in glee..Food!!...

The soups came and we started to dig into them like Bangladeshi refugees! Now as we are waiting for our starters to arrive, AV suddenly announces that her cars keys are missing...And as SG was responsible for them, we all look at him expecting him to pull a David Blaine and conjour the keys out of thin air. But alas! Nothing that magical was about to happen! We had a full blown crisis now. We immediately trooped out to the place where we had been chatting so animatedly before and scoured the entire perimeter looking for our keys. Leaves were parted, branches moved, ground kicked and hands dirtied. But to no avail. We came up with zilch. AV had by that time called her dad and told him about our little mishap and inquired if the spare keys were handy. Suddenly, one of our buddies, PP calls us in excitedly. He had found the keys!!! We rush to him like Superman to Lois Lane(only in the speedy sense) to inquire. Evidently a kindly gentleman had found the keys on the parapet and held on to them. Bless him!We all returned to our table euphoric at our stroke of luck!

Now by this time our starters had arrived and had gone stone cold. I requested the waiter close by to kindly re-heat them for us. However, he flatly refused. Now that left me kinda miffed. However, not wanting to create a scene, we all sat down and began to devour the food. WIth those down, the main course was ordered and more waiting was to be had.

Now al this while, there was this group of people sitting opposite us. A couple, one of their parents and one of their sisters. Now they were sitting with their back to me. We were chatting in general when i AV suddenly started to snicker and elbowed SG. I inquired as to what was afoot and was told that the "mother of all PDAs" was under progress behind me. That guy was going at his girlfriend/wife with all he had. MAJOR PDA! And in full view of the family. And other patrons as well. Now ordinarily iam a strong proponant of PDA, but this was getting ridiculous. They were one step away from making out right there on the table. Our food arrived(and so did theirs) and all the while we were eating i could guess that the show was still on judging by AVs reactions.

Now halfway through our meal we heard a commotion going on at the PDA table. Evidently the hotel had charged them for a dish of prawns(which they had sent back cause they didnt like it) which the man there termed as "bad food". He demanded the cook be summoned which he was. The entire family was under the influence. The 2 men in particular. Now the cook was not one to be cowed down by a man so obviously under the influence. He stuck to his stand that "this hotel does not serve bad food". So the man now got down to abuse. "I wanna talk to the f*****g owner. What the f**k do u think you are serving? I want his f******g mobile number!"."Its not a question of the f*****g money. I can trhow that on your face. But i dont expect to be charged for f*****g bad food!" On this the cook coolly replied that nothing of that sort was necessary and possible. So the manager was called and evidently everything was settled. They were packed off with a complimentary serving of prawns i think. Now if what ive seen in the program "When chefs attack" is anything to go by, that dish of prawns they got complimentary had quite a few moret hings "complimentary" in it!!

By this time we had finished with our dinner and walked out with this drunk group as they prepared to leave. On the way the girl asked her hubby/boyfriend "Do u think i should drive?". On whick i let loose from behind.."Yeah i think you should!". Now i dont know if they heard me or not, but they didnt say a thing. We all crammed ourselves in to the car and let out a hearty laugh. What a night!!

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