After the euphoria following the semi-finals, I guess I was due for a bad day. Yesterday was close to being the most surreal day of my life.
It started quite well: met friends, watched the Ninja Turtles, had lunch together, stepped into work for a few minutes to check if everything was in order, went to another friend’s house, smoked up, listened to weird music, got ready to go home get comfy and watch the match.
I’ve been told that I display some peculiar habits. One such being the fact that I hate – absolutely detest - watching cricket in a crowd. I suppose it started when, as a kid, watching cricket with my dad and having to answer his questions whilst watching the match. Listening to the sibling and my father exchange views on the match was as close to torture as I have ever experienced. My point is that I avoid crowds when I am watching a match especially if it is an important match.
Yesterday, I felt different. I was giving thought to being in the midst of a crowd watching our boys go about winning the ultimate prize. If Sri Lanka ended up winning the world cup, I wanted to be there. With a crowd of drunk, obscenely loud strangers, hugging everyone around them. It would have been fantastic.
“So you wanna go to CH?”, Shanjei my friend posed the question.
I hadn’t made up my mind, but I was high as a kite. That millisecond before I answered his question, my uninhibited mind jumped to around 3 in the morning. Sri Lanka had just won the world cup. Drunk, obscenely loud strangers before me, waving the Sri Lankan flag and hugging all before them. Suddenly, I was also one of those who were drunk and obscenely loud, hugging everyone around me.
“Well?”, Shanjei’s question brought me back to the present.
“Err, yeah…what the hell”, I found myself saying before I could plan out an answer in my head. Goddamn weed.
Plans were made to go to CH before I could say anything else. We got into the taxi just as the rain started and me, in my rather intoxicated state, found it all too trippy. Every object around me suddenly transformed into a musical instrument, emanating sounds that became part of my grand orchestra. I was Wolfgang Fucking Mozart for a few minutes.
Shanjei’s phone rang just as the rain ceased. The concerto in my head had also reached it’s rousing climax.
In the background:
“Where? But you asked us to come to CH. You sure? Okay, I’ll be there.”
Plans were being changed. Oh holy fuck. How I hate plans being changed.
The taxi was making it’s way to Thimbirigasaya where we were to pick up Shanjei’s girlfriend. As we turned into her lane, we see a car parked across the entrance to the lane and the driver, drunk as an Irishman and acting twice as silly, refusing to move the car. The lane was narrow so there was no way even for our three-wheeler to go through. Shanjei asked me to stay in the taxi while he picked his girlfriend up.
I was all alone in the taxi and the taxi driver was eyeing me strangely, aware, perhaps, that my mind was cut from reality. Suddenly, in the background I heard Shanjei and his girlfriend screaming at someone. Before I could peer out, Shanjei and T got in muttering “Motherfucker”.
What have we here, I wondered. Apparently, the drunken guy had insulted T……… in Russian. When was the last time you heard of a drunken Sri Lankan guy insult someone else in Russian? No, I wasn’t hearing things. T is an Indian Muslim but she looks Caucasian, and she knows a few foreign languages. And the drunken guy, apparently, made a few lewd comments in Russian of all things.
And the night was just starting. Fucking hell.
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