It was the day our aieee entrance exams had got over. Zits n me had the same centre n just before leavin the place zits in his fake accent said, "i'll call u up man, tonight we have a reason to party". When he said that i had no idea how it was going.......to end up.

Chintan,lokesh,me(tanmay) n zits had abt a million instances where we had got fucked up....big time...., but every time adding one more story to our list to laugh at. We had been together from 4th grade and thus spent most of our adolescence which allowed us to bond stronger than iron glue. We called ourselves the "aurors" (from the word Aurora as in the first rays of the sun).

I got relocated to Delhi in 9th standard and so missed a chance to be with my closest buddies then.While the rest went on n ended up being real close i went out and made new best friends starting everything from scratch.Eventhough we had thought it over initially n i did visit lucknow about once a year, it was never the same again.
Now finally after screwing two years in junior college i am finally back in the city of the nawabs...meeting the same old frns aftr two fuckin long years, people i was used to see everyday..
Now lets go back to the day we started our discussion with. The day of the entrance. It was almost evening and zits hadnt called. While waitin for his call i had almost spoken to all my frns bak home in dilli, the topic of discussion being the same old how we r fucked up cuz of the fuckin entrances with its fuckin reservations.Finally i called up Chintan to chek out where he was n he was like come over to zits's place ,"we're going sumwhere". His casual voice got my ego into working n i said i didnt even want to come. He talked me through it and before i knew i was dressed up for a casual evening with frns. I felt too lazy to wear my shoes ,so put on my grandma's slippers n went to zits' place which was practically on the other side of the road. I climbed the same old stairs(aftr abt 2 yrs) to zits apartment in the 2nd floor.....his door was open as used to be (i recalled)....wid lokesh n vish near the door. Everyone seemed to be getting out of his house to go sumwhere (which on normal occasions mattered the least). I seated myself in chintan's scooty which was safer than being in zits' bike...(jus kiddin...he aint tht bad)...n lokesh was with vish...zits came along racing his bike stupidly as we rode towards the outskirts...chintan n vish were ridin parallel and me n lokesh were talking abt the entrance...it was a after a small pause that he told me tht we were going for a drink...

Vish and zits went to get the stuff and me, chintan and lokki ended up sitting in the dhaba.It was my first time in a actual highway "dhaba" n its simplicity and absoluteness marvelled me... The rusty chairs, creaking tables with its filthy plastic water jugs created an air seldom found in the conventional city resturants promising the Dhaba ambience ... The open air kitchen was right next to where we sat, with a sweaty man making parathas on a giant metal pan with effortless skill. A "chotu" came running clad in a soiled baniyan and a navy blue half pant (uniform of the school he once went to) , carelessly placing three glasses and filling them up with water and hurrying off to the next man yelling at him..
Zits and Vish came back with a huge bottle of whiskey (considering just three ppol were drinking) which wud last for a month with an avg drinker and thumsup for me and vish...Zits sat with tht typical evilish grin on his face he carried since i knew him...Lokesh was boasting about how gud he was at taking alchohol and never getting high, and tht got zits going."What are you taking about. This one time i took six pegs of vodka and only after that did i feel a bit light. All my friends find it unbelievable that i drink so much and still remain sane. (pause)...And chinny...tht bastard gets high even before he's done with his first...accept it dude...Its jus sumthing u cant do."....chintan gave a nod with a tight smile..His tousled hair was tied into a ponytail though he still clung to those kiddish looks he had earlier. We sat in a slightly rectangular chair,Lokesh infront of me,zits to his left,vish to my right and chinny in the breadth of the table next to vish n zits..zits made the drink with an alarmingly dark shade,mixing almost with an half and half ratio...dunno if he intended to do so, was he showing off or jus didnt know to mix drinks..
The food was gr8...everyone appreciated it.....chintan kept appreciating it over and over again...zits drank deeply from his glass and lokesh gave a smirk when he caught my eye...by eight i and vish were done eating. Anil had refused his second and zits refilled two glasses, the shade darker this time.
Both of them kept getting louder with their talk and laughed on jokes only they seemed to understand...chinny sat on the edge of his chair with his forehead resting on the table. I looked at the people around us and at ourselves..something about the place made me feel uncomfortable now.. Lokesh caught the look on my face. "You embarrassed of us??? well this is what we have become".. "You're never coming out with us now are you?" Even this was one of those jokes i was talking about and they laughed like drunkards..well they were drunk huh...But zits kept saying " Oi...you think i am drunk??? we are just acting like that to freak you all out..lokesh enough now."...And they would laughing again...
"arrey chintan you think am drunk?" chintan lifted his head and slowly nodded a no.... with this stoic expression on his face...He knew his limits.....I checked my watch..It was 8:45...Vish was staring at the road, probably wondering the same thing...when are we gonna leave...