It was only after two days did I realize the impact of that blow that Vinay had landed on me; my chest is paining like it's going to burst any minute; I feel like I can't breathe whenever I'm trying to get up or lie down; and laughing and sneezing is just about killing me right now. I went to the doctor today morning and thankfully he said that it's nothing serious, just a muscle pull, and not the fracture or whatever my mom was imagining, and there was no need to get an X-ray done. But it still hurts man, and I have to take some pills and apply an ointment which will hopefully reduce the sting.

Vinay on the other hand had his own problems to deal with yesterday. (I had invited another one of my good friends by the name of Prasoon for lunch the other day, because we had to stay back after work on Friday, and meet with the HR for some interviews that they were conducting, and since neither Vinay or I had the money to buy anything, Prasoon bought both of us luch--Biryani--and then later treated us to some lovely cold coffee). That was really generous of him, and I thought I'd return the favour by inviting him home for lunch on Saturday because there was a small get-together at my place that my mom had arranged for one of my sister's pals and her mom, and she was cooking her terrific Chicken and potatoes and Koftay and Pineapple cake for dessert.

Prasoon showed up on time. I had asked him to meet me at Hyderabad Central, this mall about a five minute drive from my place, which he knows, so that way I could pick him up and bring him to my house; most of the people working in my batch are from out of town, so they still haven't familiarized themselves perfectly with the local geography. But they're great guys, and I really, really enjoy their company. So, having picked Prasoon up, we headed home. I'd gone over to Vinay's place earlier to tell him to come along and have lunch with me as well, but he seemed kind of different. I asked him what the matter was and he said he just didn't feel well (which is kind of odd because the only other time that I'd seen him like that in the past two months was when his mother was undergoing an operation on one of her breasts to find out if the tumour near her heart was benign or not--it was).

I tried to make an effort to get an answer out of him, but he didn't seem in the mood, and neither was I. I was still kind of pissed at him for damaging my heart, or whatever it was at the time, since I'd still not gotten it checked on Saturday (I'd done this today) and I had Prasoon to pick up too, and since this was the first visit that he was making to my place, I was a little preoccupied with him at the moment. So I left Vinay at his place, telling him to take care, and that I had to go, and would be back later with Prasoon. I asked him what I should do about lunch, since he's a vegetarian, and my mother makes a dish especially for him so that he can eat at our place. He said he was sorry for the inconvenience, and that he hoped my mother would not mind. I said he could come over for dinner and have the food if he wanted to.

I picked up Prasoon from the mall, and by notime we were back at my place. My sister's friend Veronica and her mom had already arrived, and they were sitting in the living room. I took Prasoon into the inner hall (which is separate for the gents whenever there's a situation that the women want to be alone) and that's where we sat down to have our meal. It was sumptuous, and Prasoon ate like a king, as he always does, as I found out--he's known as the Human dishwasher back home, because of the way he cleans his plate. The guy is 6' 2, and built pretty good, at least with his clothes on (we were comparing our love handles and all three of us have a couple of tyres here and there). Prasoon, like most of the guys in my batch, surprisingly, is a great cook. Most of the people are Bachelors so cooking is something that they've had to pick up, and experimenting with it over time has made them quite good at it. We even have an award winning chef in our class, whose come up with a very unique way to cook a dish, by burying it in a small pit in the kitchen, before covering it with glass, so that it gets heated up properly, and tenderizes the meat to such an extent that it just melts in your mouth.

Anyway, back to where I was--so, there we are, eating our lunch, and after completing it I suggested we go and check up on Vinay because I thought I'd noticed something a bit strange with him today. So we both went to his place, which is like a minute or two away, and we found him lying on his bed, half-asleep, not wanting to get up. He finally did when I told him Prasoon had come over, and sat up and told Prasoon to make himself comfortable on the bed, and then went into the bathroom to wash up. I still wasn't sure what was up with him, and I felt that he wasn't ready to tell me yet, so I didn't push him for an answer.

I had called up another friend of mine by the name of Avinash in the meantime, and had asked him if he was at home since he had invited me to his place the other day. He said he was, and I asked him if it would be alright if Prasoon, Vinay and I came down to his place together. He said sure, and I said we'd be there in fifteen twenty minutes. But Vinay was still not in the mood to go anywhere, and I didn't want to leave him alone, and since Prasoon had already started playing the Spiderman 3 dvd, I told both of them to sit tight, that I would meet Avinash, and would be back in an hour or so, since I had already told him that I wouldbe meeting him soon.

Avinahs's place was about a fifteen twenty minute ride from Vinay's, and I found it quite easily even though this was my first time going there. He was waiting for me outside his house, and guided me to it via cell phone. Soon we were inside, and he was showing me the house and the awesome backyard they have where Vijay's (another friend who's living with Avinash, but has gone out of town to visit his parents) cruiser was parked. It looked neat in the evening sunlight. We sat there for a couple of minutes, went to the terrace, then to the shop around the corner from where he purchased some stuff for the house, drank a Thumbsup (Indian version of Coke), smoked a cigarette, even though Avinash is the most vociferous of the group that I'm in right now (all smokers and drinkers) for me to not pick up on the habit--he literally takes the cigarette out of my hand if he sees me smoking, and I've even been warned by the entire group that if I'm caught smoking in front of them, they're going to give me the ass-kicking of my life. I'm not into drinking, so I don't have to worry about that, but I told Avinash that it's not good to smoke alone, and took one of the cigarettes from his hand, and lighted it with him giving me a reluctant smile. I told him I was planning to quit the habit with Vinay (who plans on stopping from August 1st, and he is one guy who I can believe in actually accomplishing the goal).

After about a minute or two, another one of our pals showed up, and all three of us went home and sat in front of Vijay's PC and went through the movie collection that he had stored on it. I finally saw something that I liked and told them that if they're looking for something with a bit of spice to it (which they were) that they should let the movie that was being played out play. I told them to rewind it to the part of the scene in question, and waited for it to come on, because I hadn't seen this particular scene myself before either; it had been deleted from the TV channels over here. (Can you believe it--we even had the bathroom fight from Eastern Promises censored in theatres in my city--and that was like the fucking climax of the movie!). Anyway, so the scene cam on, and I immediately remembered how uncomfortable it was watching it by myself even though all the nude bits were not shown--it's the scene in which Jennifer Connely has to insert a dildo in her ass and fuck another prostitute while a room full of men are shouting out "CUM CUM CUM CUM CUM" at the top of their lungs.

Avinash and Sudhakar (the other guy who had showed up) were curious about the movie, and I gave them a brief outline of what the movie was. The movie in question was Requiem for a Dream of course (if I'm not mistaken, and if I am, then I apologize for the glaring error).

They didn't seem too interested in watching something that was going to be so much of a downer, especially after I had explained the plot to them to the extent that they didn't feel like they had to watch the movie anymore--so we all decided on Meet the Fockers. I spent the next half an hour watching Robert Deniro and Blythe Danner adjusting to Dustin Hoffman's and Barbra Streisand's shenanigans, and enjoying the laughter from Sudhakar and Avinash's mouths.

Prasoon called up soon after and asked me where I was, and I told him that I would be at Vinay's place in another fifteen minutes (the time it would take me to make the journey back). he said fine and soon I was off. I reached Vinay's place but they were not there; they were in the next lane smoking cigs and drinking sprite. I joined them and asked Vinay if he was feeling any better. He was still not his complete one hundred self again but at least he was talking and smiling a bit, so I was happy to see that. We stayed their standing in the slight drizzle for a few minutes after which we went home. I told Vinay that I would be back in about half an hour and then we'd go and drop Prasoon over at his place.

Half an hour later I swung by Vinay's place and we were off to drop off Prasoon, with Prasoon driving, me in the Passenger seat, and Vinay in the back, kind of slumped over the seat. He still seemed to be in a bit of a slump and I wondered when he'd tel me what was going on, but like I said--I didn't want to push it, so just stayed quiet.

After dropping Prasoon off, we stopped at a roadside Paan-dabba (where you can buy smokes from) and Vinay bought himself a cigarette, lighted up, and smoked with the window open and his head lying on the window sill of the car. That sort of got me worried a bit because I was afraid that he might open the door at any time and jump out of a moving car to commit suicide or something, because that was the kind of vibe that I was getting from him.

I slowed the speed of the car down, and made sure that I kept one eye on the road, and the other one on him all the way back. By the time we reached home, he had already told me everything. The Credit Card people who he had been talking to for the past couple of days, and who had said that they'd get in touch with him to give him a couple of option to pay back the outstanding amount that is left to them, had come calling, and had given him an either or scenario. Either you pay 5,100 Rupees by tomorrow (after which you can avail the option of making 36 monthly payments of 2,800 Rupees to clear of the 85,000) or you don't pay by midnight of the next day, in which case you will be black listed, and they will be sending some people to his parents' place.

Now his parents aren't in the best of health at the moment, let alone the financial situation that they're facing, so he was extremely concerned about their health, and how this would effect them. He told me that he didn't know what to do anymore, because he'd been on the phone since morning trying to get the money together, but all the friends who owed him money were themselves in a bit of a crunch at the moment, and the only one who could've transferred the amount from his account to Vinay's was a Citibank card holder too, and they have some stupid rule about that being not allowed for some reason, so Vinay was basically up the creek without a paddle. No wonder he looked so depressed. He said he had thought of killing himself that day. On the way home he had even tried to call up his father to ask him for help but just couldn't managed to do it and threw the phone onto the dashboard in disgust. Now, he was really desperate.

I knew what he was going through all to well. I had been in the similar situation many, many times--depression wise, and I knew how important it was to make him get through the night. So I decided to stay with him. First, I told him that he was not going to accomplish anything by giving up, and that everything has to have a solution, so we would just have to put our heads together and come up with one. And for some reason my cousin brother Khalid popped into my head, who I had just met earlier that evening after a long time and who's the sort of guy who you can get in touch with during such sorts of financial windfalls. So I asked Vinay if he was ready to keep his bike as collateral for the amount that he needed (5,100 Rupees) and then pay back the amount with interest to the guy who'd given him the loan once he'd gotten his salary at the beginning of next month and then get his bike back--his eyes lit up, and for the first time that entire day I could see a glimmer of hope on his face. He said--yes--oh god yes--anything for the 5,100. I said okay, just give me a minute, and made the call. Thankfully Khalid Bhai was still at home and I explained the situation to him. Now, he isn't in the business of lending out money, but he knows people who do, so he said he'd have to make a few calls and find out, and told me that he'd get back to me after about five minutes. That must've been the longest five minutes that Vinay has ever had to go through I think. Five minutes later Khalid Bhai called up with the bad news saying that the guy who deals with taking bikes and giving money in return is out of town at the moment and will only be coming back on Monday, which would be a day too late for us. So we said if there was anyone else who we could get in touch with. Khalid Bhai laughed and said not at 11:30 PM, and I said of course, but if he could do something by tomorrow, so that we can make the payment by afternoon or evening at the latest--that would be great.

He said sure, and told me to call him up after ten in the morning, and he'd have the information ready for me. There was absolutely no way that Vinay and I were going to sleep that night, so I told him that we'd go back to my place and grab a couple of smokes from my dad's stash and then go back and chat at his place. I told him to park the bike outside and wait while I crept back into the house only to realize that my mom was waiting for me there at the front door, asking me if I'd locked the gate. I said yeah, and then acted as if I was locking the door, and then went into the kitchen to have my daily medication, and then as my mom was about to go upstairs she noticed that the door was not locked, and asked me what was going on, and I told her that I had to be with Vinay tonight for his own sake, and that when I was in his place, down in the dumps, I would so wish that I had someone to talk to too, and there was no one there, so I know how troubling that could be. I asked my mom to get me a bottle of cold water from the upstairs fridge, while I slipped into my father's room and took out a fresh pack of cigs, but not before my mother had come downstairs again and seen me with them, and I told her it's just to relieve some of the tension--I told her what had happened with Vinay and she was a little concerned about him too now. I said goodnight to her, kissed her cheek, and was off.

Vinay and I reached his place and started to smoke our cigarettes, and started talking about our various experiences with life and money and suicide. I decided to be entirely open with him, and tell him everything (like I had done to nobody before) because I knew only by talking to him was I going to get through, and bull-shitting would not help. So we talked about that time when we both tried to kill ourselves by stabbing ourselves in the stomach, but couldn't even make the blade go further than an inch or two, or maybe even not that much (a cm sounds more accurate). I told him that the only reason why I hadn't committed suicide was because no.1--I wasn't sure what would happen to my family if I did, and no.2--I didn't want to be undressed during the washing ceremony that all muslim bodies have to go through before they get buried. I was more afraid of someone seeing me naked than I was about dieing. In fact, the thought was so petrifying that I couldn't even imagine committing suicide in my dreams. Vinay found this hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. He told me--idiot--you'd be dead--who cares if you're naked or not--it's not like you would be aware of the fact! And I said--but I'm very much aware of it now--and that's enough for me to put that idea on hold for the moment.

Anyway, to not make this already long story even longer (and for that I apologize as well--sorry!), the good news is that we got the 5,100 Rupees by 1:30 today, went straight to the Bank, and deposited the amount in the ATM that was there by three o'clock. Case closed. Vinay's happy for the moment, he's coming over to my place for dinner, and then we might go over to another friend's house. I've told him that we're going to start looking out for eachother from now on--which means no spending unwanted money or smoking or drinking fucking cokes. He's agreed.

When I got home from work, my friend wanted me to take her someplace expensive ...

so, I took her to the gas station.

I'm glad he got the money in time. Nice post.

Thanks, I'm just a little peeved that I made a few typos though...

:)