A Night of Debauchery... Rewind!

I remember ending up in a barf at ArS’ apartment in Goregaon around 4 in the morning. If I rewind from there, I remember a long taxi drive with AP sleeping, Ars (being the tanker of energy he is) singing an old mallu poem (one which I have always liked, about a mom and her 12 kids and the mad one) and me keeping barely awake and trying to make even the mildest of senses of what ArS was on about. Oh, the taxi drive across the length of Mumbai from Colaba to Goregaon was delightful as always. It had started at that mouth watering roadside eatery in Colaba, Bade Miyan, when the three of us, half out of our senses and with almost overflowing tanks, told the driver to find a loo for us first. Thankfully he did.

Though I don’t remember this time much of what I had at Bade Miyan, I do remember before that we had gone to a local bar ‘Gokul’, where we saw the cheapest vodka on the menu and had two large pegs each of it. I don’t even remember the name. Alkazar? Oh, and a couple of omelets. That probably finally knocked us out. That was probably around 2 AM. Don’t you just love this place? Now since I have started reliving this night backwards, I remember 20 minutes before reaching Gokul, we had entered the sports bar near Leopold’s. And spent barely ten minutes inside it and spent close to 2 grand. As far as I can remember, the sequence involved, walking into the sports bar, mild interest in the cricket goin’ on on the tube, sitting at the bar on three high stools and asking the bartender for three Tequila shots. This was downed in a matter of seconds and we ordered the next round. Then we asked for the bill, paid and got the hell out.

Going back from there… we had taken a taxi from the area near Not Just Jazz by the Bay and Mocha to reach here. Why? Coz after all the effort and miles walked from one end of Colaba to the other to find the famous ‘Gaylord’ (yea, yea… that is the name… but its actually supposed to be the best for continental food!), we realized they were closing down. Not even 1 AM!! Jazz did not serve hard drinks outside, and the Mocha across the street only had strong beer. Naah!! However, the way from Leopolds to Gaytown, uh..lord I mean… was pretty interesting. I remember the Sundance bar and restaurant, where we got in, ordered Antiquity blue (2 larges again), ordered delicious beef and talked at the top of our voices about… what? I think it was about girls, sexual conquests (limited ) and condoms. I sure hope no patrons were offended. But then again, if you are stuck in these places at midnight with sensitive people, you deserve it.

Now this brings us back, almost, to the start of the journey from Leo’s and what inspired this night of debauchery (lol). Our aim had started out to taste the continental delicacies of Gaylord (man, why cant they change the name??), we had started by coming across Café Royale. Now we hadn’t heard of this place. But once inside we realized even Bill Clinty (presumably in his pre-Monicagate days) had sneaked in a visit here. They had the most amazing cheesecakes. And along with the cheesecakes we had a couple of pegs of amazing Russian Vodka (naturally). Wow… blueberry cheesecake and Russian Vodka. I GOT to try that again!

In between all this, I also have vague memories of smokin’ away to glory on the footpaths and also helping an African lady win back one rupee from a shopkeeper tryin’ to harass the poor thing. Though seeing her size I really did wonder if even without my altruistic intervention she may been ok. Maybe it’s the shopkeeper who should be thankful. She looked pretty angry even when she told me thanks.
Oh and did I mention this started off in Leopolds with a double pitcher of beer and sausages? At the earthly hour of 9 PM when even the ladies, Poo and ApS were with us… Thank God we packed them off early that night!

Here’s to more drunken revelries with the indomitably BIG duo of ArS and AP!!!