Back to Pune [Day 2 - Mumbai/Pune]

~7th Mar~
woke up with a sore throat, a slight headache and a long day ahead of me. bhupen and i left together at 9. he went to office, me to meet nitesh. rahul had warned me that central line trains would be irregular...i got to dadar and walked to nitesh's room. turns out he returned from office around 9 the previous night, and had been drinking since then with his roommates. he hadn't slept and looked more unkempt than usual. his flat was a nightmare. clothes, dirty plates, booze bottles and glasses strewn around everywhere. the exact opposite of where i had stayed the last day. we chatted a while and then left for phoenix mall at parel. while sitting there i realised that i hadn't been able to speak to vandy in a month and i had no clue as to where exactly the reception was. i kept on making call after call, trying to trace her, but to no avail. anyway, archan da came by after a while and nitesh had to leave. we went and had lunch and then spent time roaming around phoenix, discussing kolkata and mumbai, mostly, and who was up to what. it was strange to see someone like archan da, who had spent 5 years in pune, speak so affectionately about mumbai. but i guess I'd have been slightly weirded out if he hadn't. by this time I'd almost decided that i would be starting late for pune, since I'd most probably not make it to the reception. just for the sake of it, i tried vandy's number one last time, and she answered....took directions from her and headed back to dadar. took the train to kanjurmarg, picked up my stuff, and then found out that trains were not running towards vashi. so i headed to thane, and caught a bus to pune.
reached pune around 8....headed straight to my room, changed, and took an auto to the reception hall...it was way inside khadki..real pain in the arse, but worth the effort....got back around 11....pranjal called and told me to come to barcode. found subhro, kundu, shautam, pranjal, and another colleague happily boozing away. having nothing better to do, i joined in with demolishing the RS they were having. we finally left at midnight and returned to our room...i was as usual dead tired by then. we still stayed up for a while more. pranjal had drank quite a bit, and he had his last semester exam the next day. duh. we sent him off to sleep, and subhro and i were up chatting till 1, i think....it had been a long, long, long and hectic day. spread over two cities and a load of acquaintances from the various bends of my life. the trip seems to be going as planned. hope it stays that way....