Hyderabad, biriyani, condoms and acid – Part II!!

(It’s advised that you read part one before going ahead - if you haven’t already. As a general rule of thumb, it is always better that way. Of course if you are a block head who insists on reading this first, go ahead! Nothing I can say can change your chosen path! So ride forth brave soldier! Slightly stupid, yes, but brave!)

So here we are in Hyderabad. After successfully purchasing “our gift” and getting it safely to the groom without getting caught, we enter the wedding festivities. There were two goondas straight from a bad tamil/telugu movie who we were really scared of! We heard they were from Rayalaseema, the town known for thugs. But scarier still was the thought of getting caught red-handed – or blue-handed, if you will – by the father-in-law. He always smiled at us, but in an evil sinister way. Kinda like ‘The Captain’ from HIMYM…

Now, here’s the thing about Andhra marriages, the muhurtam or the auspicious time for these marriages are fixed based on the to-be-wed couples’ start-signs and usually this falls at night! So the wedding party started at around 8, (i.e. food was served from then on) but the actual marriage began only at 10.30… PM!! Just few months back I went to a friend’s brother’s marriage which was at 4 in the morning! Why are auspicious times always at such ungodly hours?! I swear when I get married it’ll be at some evening 7. Maybe earlier coz I wanna be well rested for the first night, honey-moon, etc. I have my priorities right!

                       Landing back in India after a dream sequence honeymoon in Switzerland (Pudhu vellai mazhai song as bgm), I look at my watch, it’s crossing 12 and the priest does not seem to be giving up even a little bit! He’s chanting fervently into the mike that the helpful assistant is holding up and try as I might I’m not able to doze off in the back with all this going on. The couple on stage although is having the time of their life. When the priest asks my buddy to hold his bride-to-be’s hand and throw some stuff on the fire, he does so with a smile on his lips and many a sweet glances go between him and his beloved. Romance at this time!! My sadly single soul can not take it! After haranguing Kay for an hour, we leave at 1.30am. The proceedings seem to have ended by then. Or at least there is a pause for some photos and I use it to congratulate the couple and get the heck outta there!

                        This, Fate decides, is the perfect time for my next adventure! We were actually staying in a nearby apartment where we had one room all to ourselves and two other rooms occupied by random families. So we reach there and find that it is locked, but by a sliding chain lock. After fighting with the door for a while and pounding on it to no avail, yours truly decides to give one last try before getting back to the marriage hall. The thought of seeing the priest again is too much for me. I get my hand in, jimmy up the lock a bit and before I know what’s happening it’s coming loose and the door was ajar!! Hey, presto! Unfortunately there was no applause. Moments like these could really use a laugh-track to shake things a bit… Plus how weird would it be if you kept hearing people laughing inside your head! Admit it, it would be awesome. It’s just the way you’ve been brought up that makes you think that it would be called mental.

            Anyway, we just trooped in all tired. My friends almost immediately fell asleep. My drowsiness had kinda fled away coz of all the activity at the door. I was also really thirsty. So I make my way to the kitchen. Feel my way up to a light bulb. Open two refrigerators, both of which are, of course, empty! There did not seem to be any water in the house! I think of drinking a bit of tap water and approach the sink and there viola, was a neat looking Kinley water bottle with what looked like two sips of water in it! I take a sip.

 Kay wakes up hearing some frantic noises in the kitchen and sees me gargling furiously. I point to the bottle. He smells it and pronounces solemnly: it is acid! He reiterates that since a similar smell was coming from the toilet in our room, it was possibly bathroom-cleaning acid. So yes, I had just taken a swig of acid! Not just any acid, toilet cleaning acid!

                   After more gargling and retching I go lie down to try and get some sleep. My tongue is still burning a lot. But I’m not panicking much. So Kay regales me with awesome stories about how drinking acid can kill people. I thankfully didn’t swallow any. He still feels there’s a chance that my tongue may completely burn-off and how I may be lisping the next day. Thank you for all your kind words Kay! I just love how supportive my friends are!

                    But don’t worry readers, your intrepid author is fine and fit as a fiddle. Except for not being able to taste a thing for the next two days I was pretty normal. Anyhoo, this is why although I ate at the Paradise and ordered their best chicken biriyani, I could not taste a thing! For what it’s worth I got a vague sensation of taste at the back of my tongue while eating it and it seemed good! Do try it and get back me to me with your reviews. Meanwhile write to me if anyone wants to know how acid tastes!

P.S. Last week my mom had kept a cup of coffee decoction in the fridge. I thought it looked like grape juice and was about to taste it. But the experience from the acid kicked in and I smelled it first! So lesson learnt! Always smell random liquids before gulping them down, no matter how thirsty you are!! Also when my brother told this story to my grandpa, he took him aside and said that what I drank may have been alcohol but the poor little kid would not have known the difference! Thank you, dear grandpa!

Hyderabad, biriyani, condoms and acid!

Just prior to my trip to Hyderabad for a friend’s wedding, I was talking to helpful bro #2 and he was suggesting that I eat biriyani at Paradise hotel and blog about that and other touristy stuff so that I could get more random hits on our blog. But events occurred that put all thoughts of biriyani to the back of my mind. I did end up eating the famed Paradise biriyani but a review of it became quite impossible! (Also I realised that mentioning Paradise biriyani a few more times will actually still help with the hits, so I might do that a bit.)

                        Okay, so let’s start at the beginning. My college class mate and my telugu guru (especially of the bad words) was getting married! At 22!! After getting over the initial shock and after a lot of WTFs, my friend Kay and I decided to make it to the Big day, bunking office… I also got it into my head that being friends of the groom, it was our sacred duty to provide the groom with protection for the first night, honeymoon and stuff. Coz getting married at the tender age of 22 is one thing but a kid at that age?!

So after a tiresome 14-hour bus ride where we braved a crazy storm, we arrived at the wedding hall even before the groom and braved a host of unknown relatives and a slightly scary father-in-law. Deciding that escape would be the best idea, me and Kay gave vapid reasons and entered the streets of Hyderabad and there began our quest for condoms!

                        Now Kay is this idiot who is usually all talk and no action (if you are reading this Kay, no offense. But you were really of no help with the condoms!) So the delicate task of going to a shop and asking for condoms fell onto my fragile shoulders. After I lost all my gusto when I saw a little kid near the counter at one pharmacy store, we enter pharmacy store #2. Or so I think, after trying to get the attention of the store guy who was on the phone I turn to Kay to roll my eyes at, and find that he is still outside pretending to talk to someone on the phone!! Of course all vestiges of gumption left me and I slunk away from the pharmacy. Thankfully the guy at the counter did not notice the slinking away, just like he didn’t notice me entering, talking or anything!. This is when it hits me. How truly alone we are in this sad world!

            We continue prowling the streets, when I notice this bustling super market. Light bulb hits me, super markets have condoms! I need not ask for them, all I need to do is get them to the counter and pretend not to cringe at the stares that the counter-lady gives me. We enter supermarket, frantically search for condoms, almost lose hope but then on the right lower shelf just below a row of aftershave, there were condoms! There was a variety of brands and types to choose from. I ask Kay to choose. From a distance he points to pack of Skore condoms and says those are the latest. He refuses to pick them up and put it in our cart. I do it. Get two boxes, just in case. We buy some more stuff, just to seem normal. We head to the counter. Counter lady stares but does not say a word to trying-hard-to-be-nonchalant-me. She asks for two rupees change. Since I don’t have it I turn to Kay, who is of course ten metres away and pretending that I don’t exist. He gets a bark from me and coughs up the dough and we leave. I told you he was of no help! But important thing was: I had successfully bought my first box of condoms! I think that officially transitions me from boy to MAN! I open the cover to look lovingly at the first box of condoms I bought and discover that they are blue! Okay maybe not the best wedding gift ever but most probably the most useful one our friend got that day!

                        Buying protection should seriously not be this tough, though. Open up a bit India! (Yes, yes.. I know.. That includes me and the treacherous Kay!) We should start treating sex as a normal phenomenon more! So come India, especially counter-lady-at-random-supermarket-in-Hyderabad-whom-I-will-thankfully-never-again-meet, let's decide not to judge innocent young adults who buy condoms! We should, in fact, appreciate them for being aware of safe sex and following it (or propagating it as in my case.)

 Now what has all this got anything to do with Paradise biriyani you ask? Well nothing actually. I just wanted to tell you about the time I got condoms. But there is another adventure behind that biriyani. Look out for Hyderabad, biriyani, condoms and acid – part 2!