There are different types of hangover, the most obvious is the one that you get after a healthy dose of booze, which you get rid of fairly easily. However, there is one more type of hangover, which is difficult to get rid of, or maybe it is not meant to be gotten rid of. Most of my friends including me, appear to suffer from this type of hangover.
Even though 5 years have passed since we passed out of college, we still believe that we are just out of college, and do almost everything that college kids “supposedly” do, whereas people like us are expected to behave “responsibly”. But if you look at the scenario logically, it might appear to you that all those things which are supposed to be done during college are quiet expensive, and there lies the constraint, which is not there once you start earning. Hence, the frequency of partying actually increases only after college; it’s more like a catch 22 situation out there.
Further, note that the definition of partying is a function of time, which means it changes with time in accordance with the equation, which I am yet to derive. At this point of time, by partying I mean, getting out of your house and getting into a public place (not your friends’ place), having at least a couple of pegs, if possible dance a bit, . There need not be a dance floor, you need not have a girl by your side (anyway, you would end up finding all the other girls more attractive than your girl, it is true, if its not in your case, rush to a doctor immediately); you could do a snake dance (my favorite), or stand on the restaurant’s chair and throw your hands and legs in every possible direction (this is the best way to dance), it is still called dancing. Further, while returning home you should have the fear of being caught for drunken driving, and if possible, when everything shuts down, drive down to Mysore road coffee day. Broadly this is what I call partying.
Now moving on to the trend of partying, if you were to study the trend more closely, you would notice that it follows a bell curve, like the one I have picked from a book called “crossing the chasm”, which I am reading at present. While the book is about a more serious subject, I still believe that the concepts or at least the curve can be corelated to the current topic.
In the present context, you could consider the X coordinate to represent the frequency of partying and the Y coordinate to represent your age. The bell curve has a big void pointed at by the arrow, which is called the Chasm. The age at the beginning of the void could be, say 26 or 27 for guys and 24 or 25 for girls, and the age at the end of the chasm could be, say 29 or 30 for guys and 26 or 28 for girls. Lets call this age the chasm age.
You would notice that from the time you start making money till the time you reach the beginning of the chasm, the frequency of partying increases exponentially. You are game for partying every second day, and NO is not an answer, life is a party, and you tend to fall short of cash every month irrespective of how much you earn, but you never stop having fun. But before you know it, you would have hit the chasm, you wouldn’t have realized it. A hint that you have most certainly hit the chasm, is the fact that a guy (I am not referring to Teja ;-)…) in your gang is going to get married. You are really exited about his marriage, only reason being, there is good bachelor party coming your way! Next thing you hear, a second guy gets engaged(I am not referring to Giri ;-)…), and few weeks later, you notice that they have become good guys. They go back home early because their fater in law would be joining them for lunch, they don’t drink much and some even talk about quitting sutta and liquor, and they even justify their moves. Sooner than later you realize the bindaas guys in your gang have reduced, and the frequency of partying has drastically reduced. This is when you are falling into the chasm, a boaring life.
While some surrender, and fall into the chasm, and never ride the next big wave in the bell curve, others emerge as winners (Daridra I can see some potential in you to be a winner, while Dog the Tiger might end up becoming an uncle). How to cross the chasm is a whole new topic in itself, and we will not touch upon it in this post.
I, along with some of my friends realized that we had arrived at the beginning of the chasm when we were chatting on facebook at 8pm ON A FRIDAY, I know its sad. But we didn’t surrender, we didn’t want to let down our parents, who would be concerned if we don’t get our healthy dose of liquor. So we just moved our lazy asses and marked the beginning of crossing the chasm by having yet another kickass party! Got high, ate well, danced (minus the snake moves L ), checked out chinks following Gandhiji’s principle (minimal clothing, awesome!), and got caught for drunken driving!
Will be cross the chasm? Will we ride the next wave? Most probably, WE WILL! And we hope to see you there!
PS: Cops can not fine you unless the reading in the alcohol detector shows a number more than 30.