Part 1:
A string of interesting events have occurred over the past months or so, which, in their own little way, have a small connection to this site. The reason is that they were all brought about either directly or indirectly by my brother Lucano, who as we all know, is (was) the author of the now defunct Mexican Shenanigans column, and also the author of a short story featured in the Guest Column. Well, to the surprise of everyone (him included), he came back home, exhausted after all those many shenanigans in Mexico, the few that we know about and the many that he never got around to writing and dispatching. The reason the despatches stopped was that he had already moved on to other things, ‘love’ being supreme among them. And for that reason, he was not alone when we came back; how could he be when he was already one half of a couple, with she, the one whose drawing of Rolly the Lamb graces this page, being the other half? Come the one year anniversary of his departure for Mexico, the fact will be even more solidified with the marriage.
When a marriage is imminent, you begin to think back wistfully of all the past marriages you’ve attended, and in the process, of all the lives that have changed usually for the better, but sometimes for the worse, too; we mustn’t forget about that side of the coin. I, on the other hand, think back in puzzlement, and try to figure out whose wedding was which. Seriously, after you’ve attended a fair share of weddings, things start to mesh in your head, and very soon you realize that you can no longer be trusted to even tell whose spouse was whose. After all, don’t all wedding have the same basic plotline, where two people decided to tie a knot somewhere and throw a massive bash and then all the alcoholics rush to the drinks and soon make fools of themselves. For me, the only defining aspect of a wedding that can separate it from other weddings is how the drunks proceed to make fools of themselves, and for that we all know, the variations are virtually limitless.
In my case, however, the instances of a person gone drunk and behaving bafflingly have been so many and so memorable, that even those instances can’t separate one wedding from the other. So what I now have in my blessed mind is just one continuous and everlasting film roll depicting again and again the various drunken devilries witnessed at weddings. If you want to take my admittedly thoughtless analogy to the point of obscurity, think of it in this way: the editor in my head (the *sub conscience*) has taken all these film rolls (those would be the memories) of the many weddings I’ve attended, and joined them all together such that the end result, the complete edited movie, is a wild, bizarre and freaky joy ride of hard liquor, vomit, and urine. The editor (the sub conscience) has of course pulled several fast ones on me, by erasing a few memories, and adding a lot of fictionalized memories and the stories of other weddings told to me by others, too, to the final movie, so I don’t even know how much of it is true. Now dim the lights and raise the curtain, for now what follows is the one-time only screening of this oft-mentioned movie in my head. In other words, I’m about to relate my version of the many weddings I’ve attended, all rolled into one messed up mother-wedding that to be sure never really happened.
It all began in the church. I was, to the sheer bafflement of everyone, standing near the altar and holding a candle, while wearing a thick heavy frock-like thing which, adding to the already heating effects of a power cut and a candle flame burning close to my face, made me sweat profusely. For some reason, even though I never, not once, was the so-called ‘altar boy’ in my entire church-going life, I was chosen to be the altar boy for a wedding, of all things. While I held the candle and sweated buckets, I pondered the reason for such a choice, concluding that my angelic-demeanour maybe played a part in it. This conclusion, however, ran away crying from my mind when I looked to my right and saw another first time altar boy, ‘Piddler’ as he was known then, sweating a respectable amount himself and making faces at someone in the church. Piddler, to be kind, wouldn’t be thought of having angelic-demeanour if he was dressed in glowing white and flew around with the aid of two large wings sticking out of his back. Piddler would also be a companion during the drunkful events that were soon to pass.
Soon after the union of the two people was over, and the priest’s sage advice to them was given - imagine how indispensable the advice coming from a person who in all likeness had never had a lasting relationship with anyone other than God must have been - we were all rushed to the main ground where the reception would take place, and where the sweet river of alcohol would flow. But until the flowing commenced, however, things were rather drab and uneventful. At the table where I was sitting were also seated the usual suspects: Piddler, B. B. King (the King of the Bearded Bitches), Bulky Boozard, Long-Haired Slam Dunk Kid, and lastly (maybe also the least, being the sole teetotaler after me, hence contributing only a significant little to the proceedings) was Frank Cubeson. Frank was wearing suspenders which I took great pleasure in stretching outwards and then releasing so that they, being elastic and all, caused him some pain as they retracted. He requested me to stop what I was doing, as if it continued, I might be doing the same to my future wife, only in that case the elastic that I would be pulling would be of some other garment.
The first half hour continued in this manner, with mild-mannered jokes being passed around followed by mild-mannered laughter. Then came the dreaded moment when the music started to blast from ancient speakers. As we all were well aware, loud dance-able music invariably results in respected elders leaping on the dance floor with all the vigour they can afford. Then, on noticing those youngsters just sitting there, they take it upon themselves to drag these youngsters on the dance floor and give them a choice between dancing and a whack on the head. To prevent all this, our entire company thought it would be best to split up and move in different directions, so as not to attract any unwanted attention. Thus came about the breaking of the fellowship: Piddler and I going nowhere in particular; B. B. King and Bulky Boozard rushing to the open bar; and Slam Dunk Kid and Frank Cubeson left with no alternative but to be the sole obligatory dancers to make up for the sad lack of any other youngsters.
Left by ourselves, Piddler and I decided to wreak some good ol’ havoc while we had the time. This happened to be one of those weddings which had an abundance of those silly balloons inflated with that crazy gas, helium. It also was one of those weddings in which there was a lighted candle at every table, to create a ‘romantic’ candle-light feeling. Piddler, putting two and two together in a way that only he was able to, grabbed a balloon, unknotted it and released the balloon on one of the lighted candles. I’m not quite sure what he was expecting, but after the explosion he sat there startled almost to death, and then started laughing in a way the ancient human might have done when he discovered fire. However, the explosion drew a lot of eyes and refused to be averted, so I suggested we go to that shady corner near the bar till the curiosity died away.
Part 2:
At the bar, we were briefly reunited with B. B. King and Bulky Boozard, and they, on seeing us, smiled affably and continued with their drinking. I noticed that they were out to break the first rule of alcohol, by drinking whatever they possibly could, and thus mixing drinks which on no account should be mixed. Anyhow, for the most part we ignored them and they did the same to us. Piddler, just initiated into the art of drinking, grabbed himself the nearest glass he could find and downed it. Then, he repeated the procedure. I, being the compulsive non-drinker that I was, resolved to fill myself with mostly water, and some soft drinks. It was free, after all. But for how much longer could this unmitigated consumption of fluids go on? Approximately 45 minutes, it turned out. With bladders that passed their maximum stretching points long ago, we set out desperately to the loo. It would be another perfect addition to a so far perfect killing of time, as few feelings that a human can experience are more pleasurable than the sweet feeling one gets when one is desperate for relief and gets it only at the very last minute.
Or so we thought.
Unbeknownst to us, Bulky Boozard and B. B. King had left the bar a few minutes before we set out for the loo. Drunk to no end, they accompanied themselves with four glasses, and wandered on aimlessly. Using the alcohol in their glasses as fuel for their wandering, they wandered as long as their glasses were filled. It so happened that at the exact point at which their glasses got drained, they were standing in front of the loo. At some distance from them was the unfortunate best man, towards whom they aimed all their profanities and vulgarities for no particular reason, and then, they entered the loo. It was at that point that I, with Piddler following, set out in desperation for the faraway loo, struggling not to explode, taking small steps and holding myself. I saw the loo in the distance, and began to run as best as I could, which wasn’t very good at all. Like Rani Mukherjee in Black, I only could take small steps with my feet spread apart. My reason for doing it was justified, but what was Rani’s reason for walking like that? Anyway, as I got closer to the loo, I saw the blurred vision of B. B. King just about to exit the loo, and he saw me too, with his perpetually half-closed eyes. Then he smiled a drunkard’s smile as I got closer and closer, slowly beginning to lose control of my sphincter. I saw that his hand was on the doorknob and that the smile was spreading across his face, and with the reasoning that even another drunk would be hard-pressed to follow, he began to close the door, with him inside, slowly at first to taunt and torture me. Things got desperate with me; putting all my energies into my Rani Mukherjee-esque run, I got closer and closer, as the door closed more and more. Not willing to take any chances, I leapt towards the door. In those few moments while I was flying through the air, I heard the slide of the latch on the door from the inside, and braced myself for a crash.
So there I was with my knees pressed together and rubbing my head which was sore from the slam , when Piddler came up to me and said , “No problem. There’s always the outside. Relieve yourself outside , like the animal that you are.” I was in no state to argue, so I ran outside into the parking lot and faced the wall. I heard him shout out: “What the hell are you doing there , facing the bloody wall ? I meant here , on the car !” That statement was enough to make me momentarily forget about my increasing desperation and look at him with shocked curiosity. “What ? The car ??? Why , for God’s sake?” “More fun that way,” he explained, and proceeded to get sweet relief himself, all the while laughing hysterically, on one of the cars. When he was through he said though his laughter, “Come on you can do it!” To numbed by what he just did to think and too desperate to realize what I was about to do, and amid strong urging that said repeatedly “Go on , go on !”, I succumbed. And judging from my boundless giggling that followed, it was fun.
On our way back into the reception ground, I asked Piddler through my laughter, “But why on the cars?” He pondered for a while and said to me, “Well, I suppose it stretches back to my childhood days.” “How so?” I asked. “Well, don’t you know already? Why, when I was very little, about this high” - he held out his hand so that it was a foot from the ground - “I gained quite a reputation for piddling from people’s rooftops.” “So that’s why they called you the Piddler On The Roof?” “Dead right.”
It was with this surprising - and rather alarming - disregard for what we had just done that we entered the reception ground again and saw the groom himself banging on the bathroom door and demanding that it be opened. Beside him was the best man. Being the snitch that he was, he went and told the groom of all people of what the two drunks had done, as if the groom had nothing better to do. So bearing the most sheepish grins that I had ever seen, B. B. King and Bulky Boozard exited the bathroom slowly and walked away, as though nothing had happened, and then progressed from mindless wandering to meaningful meandering.
In the meantime, on the other side of the reception ground, the Long Haired Slam Dunk Kid and Frank Cubeson were busy dancing to the strange whims of the lead singer of the live band that sought desperately to entertain the old fogeys. The lead singer was a man, although he didn’t seem to be aware of the fact - that’s probably why he ran through a highly emotional rendition of Sheryl Crow’s Strong Enough (To Be My Man). It took a while, but the fogeys on the dance floor soon began to realize that the band was, by all accounts, utterly horrendous. This fact struck them pretty hard, as it was very rare indeed for them to have an opportunity to get away from the banalities of life and just enjoy themselves. As it was, they did all in their power to remove this dampener from their spirits; this sadly constituted no more than going for the hard liquor. It’s a well known fact that once a person is drunk, there can never be a band bad enough to sink that person’s spirits, and in this case it was no different. Very soon, three quarters of the fogeys were in the blabbering-idiot phase of drunkenness. With the increasing of the drunkenness, there was a marked decreasing of common decency, and ladies were getting their modesty outraged left, right and centre. But since they were drunk too, they didn’t really care. Along the way, the Long Haired Slam Dunk Kid, on account of his long hair, got mistaken repeatedly for a woman, and in the process, got his decency outraged just as repeatedly by blabbering perverted fat men, much to his uncontainable horror. Having never felt quite as shamed as he did there on the dance floor, he saw that the only way he could get through it with the least amount of damage to his psyche was to drown his embarrassment in gallons of beer.
Frank, on the other hand, was getting pissed like he had never been pissed before. Looking at all the madness around him and the sheer lack of restraint of it all, he began to feel overwhelmed. What made matters worse was that he was also a staunch teetotaler, and so couldn’t even understand why these things were going on. All these feelings of deep, grave anger slowing began to take form as an unbelievably strong surge of energy within himself, and when he felt that he had to let it out, he closed his eyes and let go a muscular kick. When he opened his eyes, he saw the Bulky Boozard standing in front of him and clutching his stomach in agony. Few things can bring sudden sobriety to a drunk like a swift, harsh kick in the stomach, and for perhaps the last time that evening, Bulky Boozard saw things with a blinding clarity. It occurred to him that he had mixed at least seven different types of hard liquors in one go, and he suddenly felt very sick. Still clutching his stomach, he bolted for the toilets only to remind himself before he got to his destination that the bathroom door would be locked, and so ran outside, but this time remembering a little too late that he was inside the bathroom when it was locked and so it had to be open now. Of course, it was much too late to turn back then. He got a whiff of urine and ran in that direction; when the whiff got strong enough, he threw up. When he was through throwing up, he was surprised to see a car staring back at him, which had puke all over one tyre. With a strange sensation of guilty pleasure, he walked soberly into the reception ground, and then, just as quickly as he gained it, he lost his brief sobriety.
Part 3:
It was thus that things soon came to an end because people were too drunk to go on any further. And once again, we found ourselves seated at the same table that we had vacated 2 1/2 hours back. Just as we thought that our adventures for that day were over, along came the priest who had presided over the mass, making a very self-conscious attempt to walk a straight line. He was going to each table and shaking hands with everyone he could, muttering pleasantries. By the time he reached our table, he was quite exhausted from it all, and plopped into a chair that nobody offered him. Then, unasked for, he started: “You know, just because I’m a priest it doesn’t mean I’m not a human being. That’s what most people seem to think, unfortunately, and that makes life very difficult for us. They tend to think that I’m a rock. I’m not a rock; I’m just another human being! Why, is it against the law for us to find women attractive when they so obviously are? Once again I’d like to say: I’m not a rock. Why, just today I saw this beautiful woman somewhere, and sure I found her beautiful, and sure I felt something stir inside me, anything wrong with that? Why are you laughing? Do you find it so hard to believe that there actually was a beautiful woman in this entire mess? Wait, I’ll show you” - he stood up and looked around for a while, then his eyes lighted up and he pointed to the bride - “ah yes. There she is. Isn’t she beautiful?” An uncomfortable silence passed by while we all frowned at the priest in mild disgust mixed with scorn, not sure how to respond next. It was Frank who then put his arm on the priest’s shoulder, and said, “I hate to tell you this, father, but she’s already taken. That ship has sailed!
It was soon after that that the eternal wedding celebration came to an end. We quickly staggered to the parking lot and loaded ourselves into the car, of which Frank, the mighty teetotaler, was the designated driver. We drove for a while in silence, each one of us partly amused and partly disgusted with our behaviours during the eventful evening: Piddler smiled in memory of his exploded balloon, I shuddered at the way I relieved myself, Bulky Boozard felt dismayed over the pointless loss of all his alcohol for his system, B. B. King drooled at the thought of depriving me of my need to take a leak, and Frankie hoped that no damage was inflicted on any of Bulky’s vital organs. The silence was finally broken by Frank, who was sniffing the air like a rodent. “Say, does anybody else smell something? I’m getting this gawd-awful stink here, smells like puke…with a hint of urine?! What the hell?” A few tense moments passed as the guilty parties waited with baited breaths. B. B. King, who despite being inebriated beyond hope, showed an amazing presence of mind that was otherwise largely unseen and came up with the answer. He was sitting next to the dozing Slam Dunk Kid, and said, “I know, I know! It was him!” He pointed to the defunct Kid. “I swear on my godchildren’s lives, I saw him puking. Because he drank so much, the fool. Why he chose to puke on our bloody car I’ve no idea, but that’s what he did.” Piddler also ventured to give his explanation. “Well, I don’t know about that, but it does explain something that’s been bothering me - maybe since he had already thrown up on it, he decided to piddle on the car, too. I saw him doing that, you know. I mean, look at him! He’s a raving drunken maniac, for God’s sake.” With a faint quiver in my voice, I added, “Yeah. Maniac.”
Frank didn’t know what to think, and knew it would be pointless to argue, or even ask for further elaboration. Even worse was that the next day, everyone would be hung over and no one would remember the slightest thing. It was just one of those unsolved things that he’d have to live with, he thought to himself. But for all the drunken madness that took place such a short while back, though, my own actions were the most baffling. Just why on earth did I, in spite of being perfectly sober the whole time, indulge in this deranged defiling of our own car? With this frightening thought in my mind that frankly sent shivers down my spine, I soon lost consciousness and caught up with my much needed sleep.
The End?