Until the next NIGHT!

I vividly remember the last night parade of thoughts during my slumber, resulting in the residual of a grin on my sleepy face, the whole process. When the slumber broke, I came to senses, met the real world and an another new morning which usually is bereft of any joy, especially when I have to rush for work; but today, my grin didn’t scurry away like a rat scurries away after seeing a cat, except Jerry. Jerry can kick Tom’s ass any day. Period!

My grinning didn’t flinch!

A light headed morning wake-ups are only a result of a good night’s sleep or no hangover; and waking up grinning, mind you, a full ear to ear, is a lot more than a cherry on top of a cake. Oh wait, before you open your judging fangs let me clear that neither I’m in love nor I’m stupid; even my mother had me tested! Then why such an anomaly? What was the dream about? Why it out lived reality?

Well, to be honest, in my dreams I didn’t go to Hogwarts, neither did I find Drogon, Rhaegal, Viserion nor Toothless, didn’t stroll with Bagheera and Baloo, and definitely not flew over the palaces of Agrabah. Honestly, I can go on with these things I didn’t do for whom I could give away anything to do or be with, so cutting straight to the chase – I saw my siblings and a few close friends playing odd-house-after-drunk games.

I bet, by now, I must have let down the curiosity of most of you, cursing, ‘He sounded promising and thrilling this time and ended up being a damp squib. What is such a big deal about playing games with your siblings? We play that all the time, don’t we?’

First of all, WE DON’T! Not all the time. And if you are still wondering what is the big deal in playing, then I pity you my friend. You’re nothing but lost. Secondly, I think it is a big deal because we have lost contact with you-know-who, ah not Voldemort, your siblings and friends. You dumb fuck! Thirdly, I believe I dreamt that because I happened to indulge myself into such an experience. On my birthday night!

My room, post a cake cutting ceremony and all the elders off to bed, was filled with sibling, cousins and a few friends. We opened all the bottles – Whiskey for the boys, Vodka for the girls, beer after Vodka-Whiskey and Breezer and soft drinks for the faint hearted, children and a pregnant lady. Oh! My Bhabhi is pregnant and due in June. Along with bottles, we had also sneaked in a few starters for biting, ice, playing cards, board games, pen-pencils and books. It only meant a BIG NIGHT ahead!

 Recent turn of events have made us all fall short of time to catch up with one another, as almost everyone is placed and working really hard to build a stable career. Those days are gone where we wouldn’t care about waking up early and planning our day as per a schedule. Thus, giving us all a small window to match our timings and work on the feasibility just to have a good time together. Like most families, we do meet on occasions such as birthdays or public holidays which promise the 3Ds: Dance. Daru. Dhamaal.

Coming back to the night, we all were exhausted dancing with our tummies and livers imploring for you-know-what! We struggled to mark a place for ourselves, first-come-first-basis, in my compact bedroom, where we could seat leaning on something and still maintaining the circle with all the paraphernalia for the night in the center on the bed. We started playing cards to make some money while we were sober, then eventually accentuated our wits with more brainy games as our minds got sloppy. We played, splitting in two teams, a Low-Volume-Antakshri, Dumb-Charades, Cards again, Quiz with pen-pencil as well as buzzer rounds, and with the decisive game for the night before going full-fledged on drinking again – One minute.

The parts to remember were the cheating done in these games – be it poker or be it a pen-paper game. A few of us we copied answers or prompted wrong answers to the other team or distracting from catching the charades. The most fun game was the decisive one – One Minute. In this game, every player will get to select a topic on which every other member, including the proposing player, has to write the highest number of elements relating to the topic, within one minute. E.g. If someone selects cars, then everyone must write as many names as possible within a minute.

Cars, body-parts, Pokémon’s, flowers, rivers, capitals, etc. were a few of the topics. We selected worst of worst topic we believed that we could write way more than the opposition to get the edge. The best part was the adrenaline rush in each and every one either writing or copying and the fun of chase in such an inebriated stage made it special. Even a corrupt government would fall short of cheating when compared to the cheating taking place. The even funnier part is when the correction is being done, needless to say that everyone has turned into a doctor by now. A doctor’s handwriting is still legible, but how is one supposed to know that B, A, N…. and a little of scribbling ahead in Hebrew or probably Greek are the remaining letters of the fruit called banana.  D, E and a wavy line meant Delhi! God save such chaos and competition and the rightful demand for that one full mark even after a typo which ultimately made the checker to give in.

The best part comes when a team wins, with a few deceits, with a team of righteous and an obvious-winning-padhaku-players. The deceivers will tease the hell out of those players making, all in all, everyone laugh. Finally, with the dawn turning brighter, all would retire into their respective assigned beds. These being the normal rituals of the 3Ds of our night-stay, which all of us made sure not to miss. Ending up with father waking up everyone as early as possible in the morning, without a hint of the happenings of the night.

Currently, May is going on, that night, THE NIGHT was in March, still I dreamt it; it made my morning; still that dream lit me up. Definitely, not ‘LITT ME’ up! Such are the memories, one of the best, I know, I’m going to cherish till the end. After all, doesn’t happiness lie in the small things we do with our loved ones? We had many such nights in the past with, now, the frequency of such nights hitting a plateau on a PLC graph, I await such nights like an ardent fan awaits the next episode of  the Game of Thrones.

Until the next NIGHT!