The Hangover

Fellas…. Lemme take you through this funny, weird and amazing story of an autobot known as Lee’s comp.

I was at home.. on a Saturday night. Staring at the screen and hoping to engage myself with some interesting chat. What a waste of Saturday night. Hence I saw my friend Lee online and without any hesitation I popped the question. Lee… will you drink with.. do you want to spend your entire Saturday night partying with me….and the answer was Yes J

I reached his place by 11 pm. Half a bottle of vodka for me, Half a bottle of Whiskey for him and couple of beers were promptly and neatly set on the table. On the way to his place…. I stopped to buy 10 Milds..and first time in my life.. the paan shop vendor was cribbing to give me more than 4 cigarettes. Apparently that was the last pack he had and he wanted to smoke the rest…. Very weird. I somehow negotiated for him to give me 8 milds atleast. Anyway.. chuck it.. totally out of context with respect to how Lee got this comp drunk.

We started off with Beer and few smokes. Very dopy music from some random site called weeds (a must listen). Then we slowly graduated to more affirmative music and to our respective vodka whiskey…and of course more smokes.

It was 1 am.. or 1:30 am.. where the alcohol had smoothly and effortlessly blended with our thinking. I could just feel it guiding me to loosen myself and take a deep dive into the music that the autobot was playing. This particular comp has been there through the thick and thin off all the parties. It has always acted as a catalyst to cheer u up… to take you the one state higher that you already are.

I had had enough of Vodka… and Lee forced me for another drink. The mix of thumps up and vodka is just delusional and impossible to deny. I had a sip of the glass and placed it on the CPU and continued to explore the trance I was already in. Lee was dancing… I won’t call it dancing.. it was more like fits attack. I joined him in the tribal dance on this so called disturbed song called down with the sickness. During the end of the song… Lee was all excited to play the next song.. for which he went towards the comp.. and in all the enthusiasm he somehow managed to topple the glass of vodka I had kept.

For his bad luck.. the CPU case was open… and the CPU was forced to absorb the holy drink. Now comes the part when I just couldn’t stop laughing… hahahahahhahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I was rolling on the floor.. and Lee had this shock on his face. He had just managed to short the freaking motherboard. I was stunned.. and stood in front of the comp in disbelief. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh along with me or mourn for his dear comp. The best thing he could think of was … he just ran across the room… dragged his roommate Vineet and said “ Dude… I just short my comp.. do something”.

Vineet was way too busy in the war of worlds of warcraft where in he was battling with 25 men across the world. He just looked at the whole scene.. which was hilarious.. just gave one smile.. and said..” let it dry man.. its cool.. it will recover on its own”.

All this while I was rolling on the floor. …literally and laughing my ass off. We laughed so much that we slept off.

I got up in the morning, woke up Lee to say goodbye. I saw the comp.. and the whole scene just rushed into my head. There I was… laughing away in glory. Lee tried his best to control and ignore the laughter. I had a good smoke and left…feeling pretty bad that we will never be able to party there again. I was hoping that the comp will recover the short and get back to what it does the best.

Lee called me couple of times during the day.. and was still very dismal and annoyed that the comp was still screwed. We concluded saying it got the best end.. it earned it… and deserved it. It got drunk and died.

Its 1:30 am next day… I was watching some random movie.. Lee calls with this excited voice and says… “ Dude… the comp is done with the hangover. Its back”. I couldn’t believe it… what the heck.. I mean.. I dunno what I mean. How the hell did it just recover all of a sudden exactly after 24 hours.

And this is the story my friends I wanted to share. Just truly amusing to its core with the brilliance of the autobot : Lee’s comp. So moral of the story is.. no problem.. get your comp drunk.. it will just recover. Hence the comp lived happily ever after.

Its party timeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

The Purple Haze:Day 6... the final day!!!

Day 6: Oct 1^st, Wednesday, 2008

 

After so many seconds of writing, I have eventually reached the final day, Day 6. I assure you I have no intensions to continue writing after this final blog. Day 6 is not that long.

 

I woke up at 11 am with a heavy head, and red eyes. I was all alone at home, no mood to brush and put some mugs of water on my head to clean myself.( by mug I mean plastic mug which people use for bathing… not the one you find at haze ;-)).

I was feeling nice about yesterday’s adventure. Everything had gone according to the plan, I just had to get the bag today and everything will be over. I might even forget Somendra Singh as a just another desperate from Delhi.

I called up Ashish to check on the proceedings. Apparently Somendra Singh had called him and taken my number. So all I had to do was wait for his call. I needed to know how is he going to deliver the bag, I could plan well and arrest the bugger (whoever comes to give the bag) to get more details.

I got a call at around 1 pm from Hyderabad. The conversation went like this :

Asshole: “ Hi, Is this Shrikant Aditya???”

Me : “ Yes speaking, tell me “

Asshole: “ Somi singh here, I took your bag by mistake. I am returning the laptop, passport and harddisk. I have no use for these things.”

I so badly wanted to abuse him on the phone, but it was required to talk to him calmly and get some valuable information.

Me: “ Whats your name again?... “

Asshole: “ Why do you want my name, just be happy with what I am telling you. My name is Aditya Singh”

Me : “Why you lying bugger, I know your name is Chutiya Singh. So Chutiya tell me where is the rest of the stuff”

Hearing this.. he kinda got agitated

Asshole: “ Abe..oye.. Don’t talk too much and don’t ask too many questions, just be happy with what you getting. I dunno what I did with the bag . I called  you so many times, you never bothered. I just took out these things and threw the bag there itself.”

 

I was boiling with anger and with being a mere 22 year old youth, I had all the possible aggression in me. I couldn’t control myself. I can not really give you the details of the further conversation. It was a string of abuses in hindi which was like an avalanche process. Just kept increasing with time.He cut the call.

I called up Tabriz and told him what just happened. He was furious too but asked me to stay calm and talk to him properly. Lets get the things first, then we will catch him. I had to agree, Chutiya Singh…ooops Somendra Singh had the upper hand.

 

After some 2 hours, at around 3 pm he called again.

Asshole: “ Gussa utar gaya? ( you calm now?).. Ab sun, I am an engineer too. I know the importance of Passport, So I want to help you to get it back. You shout how much ever you want… you cant do anything to me… you can’t catch me. I am not employed anywhere and there is no way you can track me. So just be happy with what you getting”

I lost it again… So the avalanche process started again.

Me : “ It doesn’t matter where you are, Do what you want, I am coming to rape your happiness. Keeping a passport is a serious offense and you know I wont leave you until I get that. This is why you sending it. Just pray for your luck, as far as you are alive, I am gonna chase you down and …….. ( Can not say it here)”

On hearing this he kept the phone again. He was calling from a coin booth, so there was no way I could trace him.This continued couple of more times. I had to give up and talk to him normally else he would not call again and I needed my passport as soon as possible.

He called again at 5:30 pm :

 

Asshole: “ Now listen, One of my guy will come and give you the laptop and passport. Give me your address and Ashish’s address as well.”

I gave both the address ( which I regret even now). He said his friend will come in another hour and asked both of us ( Ashish  and I ) to be at our places.

 

I immediately went to Koramangala Police Station, told this Tabriz. He adviced me to take two cops with me to my house and arrest the guy when he comes. He didn’t have enough cops to send two places ( all were on church duty due to bajarang dal).

He was not sure what to do if the guy goes to Ashish’s house first and asked me for suggestion. This is where I believe that when elders say, important decision shouldn’t be given to young guys, they will give amazing idea which generally fails.

I suggested, we will ask Ashish to lock his house and go out. This way if the guy goes to his house first, he will have to come to my house anyways where I will be waiting with two cops. It sounded perfect.

I took two cops in auto. I don’t wanna narrate what we talked in the Auto but I must tell you this. You can do anything if you are a cop and no one will balls to oppose you. It was peak hour for traffic, and we were stuck in front of forum. We had to go the other way of forum. Our man, one of the cops asked the Auto driver to drive through forum. It was hilarious, All the forum security running behind the Auto, cars coming from the other side shocked to see one auto zipping towards them. I wish I could do that again.

Anyways, my house is like one and a half hour drive from Police Station. It was well past that one hour time Somendra had given. I was tensed now, We have no clue where the laptop is , no call , we aren’t at my place, Absolute mess.

Then I got a call from Hyderabad again.

Asshole: “ My guy had gone to Ashish’s house and no one was there, so he has left your stuff under a tree opposite to Ashish’s house” and he kept the phone.

This is where I realized the mistake, why will a thief be so much considerate to hand it over to someone, He will be more than happy to leave it wherever he wants.

I called Ashish, who along with Aravind was waiting for me at Police station. I asked him to pick up the stuff from outside his house.

These ten minutes, which I was waiting for Ashish’s call was terrifying. All the efforts I had put in last 5 days were flashing in my head. I had put everything at stake just to catch him. All possibilities where crowding my head. What if , some beggar stole it from under the tree. What if, Somendra was bluffing. What if, there was a bomb instead of my laptop.

After a wait of ten gruesome minutes, Ashish called me and confirmed that He found the laptop and my passport under the tree and is getting those things to Police station.

There was a sigh of relief. I was still in tension, and  I knew I will be till I have my laptop and passport in my own hands.

I finally reached Police station at 9:30 pm, there was a khadi Levi’s bag lying on the table. I opened it, and there it was…. My laptop, PASSPORT and hard disk. It was like how white castle was for Harold and Kumar. Finally I got it.

I wasn’t smiling, I was and still am in utmost anger with Somedra Singh, an educated useless engineer who stole my bag , returned only my laptop and passport, kept all the money ( 200 USD…3000 INR) and the best part is…. He is proud of it. No shame and regret what so ever.

Tabriz wanted to put Ashish behind the bars, so that we get more information. But decided against it due to Aravind’s persuasion. Since Somendra singh had come via Ashish’s roomate , we decided that we will wait till October 20^th when this roommate of his will be back from his vacation.

I still don’t believe in the rubbish story those “Fertility” guys made up and I am sure neither do you believe. One thing I learnt is not to hurry up. So I decided to wait till Oct 20^th, question all of them at once. No one will divert from a common story since all will be together. Let them prepare if they want to, its fine. As Zohan says “ you don’t wanna mess with Sadiiii” ;-).

With this, I  submitted a letter to Police with all the details, missing items … received items… when I received them, what are still missing, for how long I didn’t have my laptop,passport ( In case of terrorist activities this will help ;-)).

The whole bag with all the cash and stuff was worth twenty thousand rupees. I would look at it this way… I spent twenty thousand bucks for an interesting adventure, a break from my monotonous life… and yes to get so many contacts indeed. I know all the police guys in Koramangla now and all the employees at haze.

What goes around comes around. It has to end where it had all started. I don’t think I need to say where I went that night to celebrate.

 

 

Everyone knows the story now, any help will be appreciated. Let nail this Somendra Singh and put him behind bars( as in the one in police station). If anyone has any good suggestion, please leave a  comment. It will surely help me. BTW… I am back in Bangkok!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Haze rocks!!!!

 

Just to end things on a musical note… The whole situation reminds me of a hindi song from Rock On… “ Pichle che ( which replaces saat) dino mein maine khoya.. Kabhi khud pe hasa main aur kabhi khud pe roya……” 

Cheers 

Aditya 

The Purple Haze: Day 5

This is the snapshopt I took from the cctv camera whose printout I carried everywhere.

DAY 5: September 30^th, Tuesday, 2008

 

Note: Names of the companies have been changed for the obvious reason.

 

I am not just bad at spellings but also with counting. I counted wrong, when I said 5 days, it’s actually 6 days ;-)

Anyways, I struggled and got up in the morning (Day 5), skipped bath and breakfast and bolted towards Office. I had to complete some more formalities with respect to standby laptop.

At 10:10 am I got a call from Pramod (Police) who asked me to come down to the station. I went there, met Tabriz and got some valuable tips on how to go about the case today and then Pramod and I left to ICICI branch in MG Road.

We reached at around 11 am, and its closed. Apparently September 30^th is half yearly closing for banks. I was not ready to give up today as well, Pramod flashed his Police ID and talked to the Control unit manager in malyalam who arranged for us to meet a gentleman by name Mr.Raman. We met him, explained him the whole situation and what do we get.

“ All this data is stored and handled in Mumbai, I will send a mail and you should get the details by evening or by tomorrow.”

Its interesting how people change their minds to speed up the “help” process if we know the local language. After all my pleading and convincing in Kannada and a helpless wait for one hour our man Raman gave us the details.

The card was not an ICICI credit card, so there was no way he could have given me Rajeev Mukherjee’s details. Raman gave us the 16 digit card number and confirmed that it was a Standard Charted Credit card. He even gave us a contact with name Munavar who works in FCU ( Fraud Control Unit) of Standard Charted. I was so relieved to atleast get a clue.

Standard Charted was hardly one Km from ICICI. So Pramod and I walked down in 10 minutes. Meanwhile Pramod kept telling me we are bound to get lucky today, nothing can wrong. For those 10 minutes I took those words as a mere unexpected consolation from a Policeman.

I was wrong, everything was going well, fitting into places. We were worried whether Munavar will be there or not, even if he has come to office will he help us???? Since we weren’t carrying any formal police letterhead addressed to Standard Charted.

We met Munavar in the lift itself (what are the odds), and explained him Day 1 to Day 4. I even bluffed that I have my flight in another 8 hours so that he will hurry it up. And it worked, we got the details about Rajeev Mukherjee in 15 minutes.

Rajeev Mukherjee, one name that I have been hanging to since last 4 days, is a software engineer in “Fertility”. I got his number as well. Being a rookie, excitement took over sense of mind and I made a blunder.

I just wanted to check if this number is Rajeev’s and confirm he is from “Fertility” in Bangalore. I could’ve called as some ICICI/HSBC bank official for some Personal loan.

But no, the conversation goes like this

Aditya: “Hi My name is Aditya and I lost my laptop bag on Friday night at purple haze, were you there in purple haze last weekend?”

Rajeev: “ hello… hello… ummmmmm…. Which weekend are you talking about… I don’t know whether I was there…. I don’t know anything about any stolen bag”

Aditya: “ I am talking about last weekend…26^th sept.. Were you there?”

Rajeev: “ No I wasn’t there… I think you have called a wrong person”

Aditya: I wanted to you mo@#$% F*** as!@#$*.... But I resorted to “Hmm… well I have police with me, why don’t you talk to him”

Rajeev: “ No No no no…. don’t disturb me with all this, I am flying to US tonight. I don’t wanna talk to you any more”. And he hung the phone.

This conversation gave me the confirmation that this Rajeev is hiding something and this call gave him some time to think and act probably ( I still don’t know ).

 

I called up my friend Gaurav who works in “Fertility” to check Rajeev Mukherjee’s details in the intra directory. I got his building name, his cubicle and his IP phone. Gaurav in fact called him on his IP phone and tried to talk to him, but as expected Rajeev hung up on him as well.

 

We went back to Police station, after consulting with Sub Inspector Tabriz, I took two police men and went to “Fertility” to get this guy to Police station. Tabriz  gave me 3 blank letterheads with his signature and asked me to write a warrant letter if required.

I had to be sure Rajeev is still in the office, so I called up another friend of mine Pranav who works for “Fertility” and sits in the same floor as Rajeev. I asked him just breeze through his cubicle and check whether he is still there. Once I got the confirmation, we were on our way.

I have to admit, even though I was in deep shit with so much at stake, I was enjoying myself. I could not imagine doing all these things by going to the same old cubicle and pretending to be good at networking. (This statement should not be taken seriously by fellow Cisco Employees).

We reached “Fertility” campus, we checked with the security and they asked us to wait for the Security manager who had gone for lunch. We figured we can utilize this time and have our lunch as well.

“Fertility” is one of the companies in this campus which is huge and trendy. I was thoroughly enjoying the look in the eyes of bonded corporate’s. One thin,frail guy with a nice jacket surrounded by 2 cops on either side walking around the campus with head held high.( lol ;-) ). I treated the two cops, finished our lunch and continued our wait.

Finally, the security manager arrived, a grim faced stout man with oval rimmed glasses and a pathetic forced smile pasted on his face.

He seemed a typical old guy,pissed with his job and has fun in chit chatting and delaying important things. For eg.. he asked each one of ours ( there were 3 of us) history, which police station, who is the inspector, how is life…blah blah blah. One of the explained him the situation ( which was totally unnecessary). The manager took all the details on a sheet of paper and stared at it for like 10 long minutes. I wonder why these guys do this, do they wanna show that they are serious about something and in deep thought or do they wanna show that they have become old and it takes some good amount of time for them to comprehend things.

After all that staring, he says “ Fine… I will check with HR and get this guy Rajeev to call you by tomorrow evening”.

Me : “ I don’t think you understand the urgency of the matter. Why don’t you check in the directory where he sits and just get him to come down by calling him on his IP”

Manager “ Which company do you work for son?”

Me: “ Cisco Sir “

Manager: “ Hmm… good company, your company might have these directories but not “Fertility”. We have to go through HR and they are in a meeting for another 2 hours So I suggest you wait till then”.

Me: “Sir, please understand, this is very urgent and important. You don’t have to go through HR to call an employee.”

Manager said few words and went inside to check something. After fifteen minutes he came back and says “ The HR meeting is going on, its very important meeting and I can not disturb them for this matter. All the 120 HR’s are in this meeting so it might take more time. Why don’t you come tomorrow?”

One of the cops lost it, he took the manager to the side and told him that I am a minister’s Son and can cause lot of problems.

Manager got Rajeev and one HR in next two minutes. This is the same Rajeev i found on orkut. He was red in face. On asked why didn’t he pick the call he said he thought it’s a prank being played by one of his friends. And for the orkut thing, he said his internet was conveniently down from last two days. (working for an IT company).

We still spoke to nicely,explained him the whole thing and showed him the printout of the cctv snapshot. ( as seen in the begining of Day 5). 

He refused that he knows the person and can not identify him. He even called his two friends Ashish and Aravind who were with him that night. All of them couldn’t identify him. After explaining them that he came out with you guys form the same table, one of guys said “ Dude there is no logic behind your explanation.. I am sure you are wrong”.

On hearing this, the silently sitting cop stood up and said “ I will show you all the logic… come to police station”.

Those guys apparently with the feeling of helping me agreed on coming there and also check the cctv to get more clues.

I took them to haze and Santosh showed them the video, even while doing so they kept saying they don’t know this guy. There are five guys walking out from the same table, with this thief in the middle, three of them standing with me watching the video and one more was their friend. This was freakin crazy. One of them Aravind, who is a regular customer to haze from past 10 fuckin years, talks so much, I felt like punching him. He was the only one who knew kannada and kept talking crap by giving stupid explanations.

They had to agree that this thief bugger was with them, but still claimed they don’t know him. It was some random party where random people came and drank with them. He talked so much that he convinced Tabriz to give him time till evening so that they can find out who it was and help me. He kept talking as if they are actually doing a favor to me. I didn’t interfere and agreed on the timelines.

I went back to office to complete some more things in order to get standby laptop configured. In these dark times I just don’t smoke and drink.I eat “chaat”.

Guys...I am really sorry...something happened and I lost the 2nd part of this Day's Blog. I am not sure if I can write it again.

Ok I managed to write some short one so as to continue the story. 

I ate loads of “chaat” and reached haze at around 9 pm.Even the Haze Manager Satish was there. Rajeev Mukherjee, Aravind and Ashish arrived along with Felix from “minihard”. They finally confessed and this is what Aravind said in Kannada :” It was farewell party given by Rajeev since he is leaving to US. There were 5 guys, Me… Rajeev, Ashish,felix, Ashish’s roommates friend. We went back and realized it had to be him. The thing is we don’t even know. He had come here for an interview… he partied with us in the night and left. Somehow we got his number and address from a college slambook. His name is Somendra Singh. We called him and asked him whether he took a bag, he denied even to us. Then after telling him that there is a police case etc… he finally accepted and told us that he took the by mistake to delhi. He has assured us that he will return the bag by tomorrow evening, he is not going to come to Bangalore because he says that he is scared to come here…and if Police wants let them go there to Delhi…he can handle there”.

 

After this lame explaination… there were two dominant feelings that rushed in my head. One of anger with this bastard Somendra singh… who took my bag and the second of absolute happiness that atleast now I know what happened to my bag. All that I had done in last 4 days finally paid up and concluded as planned.

I wasn’t sure how to react. It was a kinda feeling that a hard working graduate would have when he gets in to Harvard after all those sleepless nights, but it’s a correspondence course( Bad example actually, probably I should stick to facts rather than hypothetical situations).

Somendra Singh, a jobless thief who can afford haze. They even gave his address : W2, Narayana Vihar, Street number 6, New Delhi, 10029. If he had come in front of me at this time, I would have definitely spent rest of my life in Koramangala Police station.

 

Anyways, I took these self confessed buggers to Tabriz, figured let him have the last say in this. He heard the lame explanation given by Aravind again. He took me to the side, he told me that they are lying, but lets not do anything now. We decided that we will wait till we get the Bag, then act.

Ashish was trembling with trepidation, intentionally or unintentionally he was involved in this. We tried to call Somendra Singh, but his cell phone was switched.

I wasn’t that relieved, Even though I had my hands on the door knob, the door still needed to be open. Still, this does not mean I will not celebrate my understated victory.

By the all the tata tata  bye bye  happened it was late, I entered Haze at  10:55 pm, 5 minutes before the closing time. Had 3 shots of large whiskey and slept like a dog with a stupid smile pasted on my face and dreaming the bag in my hands tomorrow.

The Purple Haze:Day 4

Day 4: September 29^th, Monday, 2008 

Day 4 was as lame and boring as Day 3, all because of stupid bank Holidays. I won’t be shocked if people stop reading this blog after Day 3 and Day 4… but let me promise you this…Day 5 is the best.

My parents were not bothered about this whole incident,maybe they were.. I didn’t notice. They left early in the morning for some holy trip to mantralaya ( a holy place in south India where apparently people pray).

My agenda for the day was to leverage the contact I got last night and try and get my bag by tomorrow morning so that I can still continue with my schedule (which failed miserably… agenda’s are supposed to fail).

I went to Cisco first thing in the morning, carried out the proceedings for a standby laptop. In the mean while almost entire Cisco was aware of this situation, its amazing how powerful word of mouth is. I couldn’t take too many stares and question’s thrown at me, so I headed towards the place where I would find peace…..the police station.

By peace I mean endless waiting, which also involved endless smoking. I could feel the nicotine in my throat. I waited patiently for the sub inspector Tabriz to come. I had requested one cop to inform me once tabriz comes, and I waited for like 2 hours.

I finally gave up and asked the cop whether Tabriz is gonna come, the cop says “ Tabriz Sir came thrice and left, you didn’t meet him?”.

Even the cop could hear my blood boiling, I lost it and had an argument with that cop in his own freakin Police station. The cop abused me inside out and Tabriz finally came. He abused me for another ten minutes and finally sent a constable Pramod with me to go to Bommanhalli ICICI Branch.Let me tell you how good and effective these guys are…tabriz instructs Pramod as “ tell those lazy bank guys that Rajeev Mukherjee is a terrorist suspect and he is gonna plant a bomb in ICICI in few days. Ask them to give the details as soon as possible.”

Pramod and I went to Bommanhalli Branch and found it closed ( which was expected) and somehow got the details that we need to get in touch with main branch in MG road.

I took pramod out for lunch so as to get his efforts aligned with mine. I bluffed about several things and he was in sync with me. During the lunch I get a call from Tabriz apologizing to me for shouting at me earlier and asking me to come back so as to discuss how fast we can solve the case. This is the power of a call, one can not expect things going his way unless and until he has some contacts within Police.

This day was really boring and was a nice build up for the action packed Day 5. I was assured a constable with me 24 hours and was asked to lead the whole investigation. I even typed the request letter for information to ICICI bank on behalf of Police.

I called up the travel agents and canceled my trip.By evening I was in haze and stayed there till 9 pm with some futile discussions with the manager. All I was thinking was what will happen tomorrow and how should I go about it. I went back home and slept and waited with eagerness for the next day, my first full fletched investigation.

The Purple Haze:Day 3

DAY 3 : September 28^th, Sunday, 2008 

I had to wake up due to loud chaos downstairs. People were deciding where to have breakfast, India coffee house or some shop on CMH road famous for chole bature which came in today’s paper. They decided to go with the famous thing and just included me by default ( Actually they asked me and I said Yes).

Its 9:30 in the morning, my life has turned upside down and I am riding to have chole bhature. To my bad luck, the shop ran out of stock and we went to India coffee house.

I must say, one must have scrambled egg there, its delicious. I think we are going off track, I am supposed to continue with the interesting story. 

By afternoon I realized I had my cheque book in my bag, the passport was there for the signature and all the possible bank credentials in the laptop. It took me almost 2 hours to talk to HDFC and disable the cheque book. 

Meanwhile, given up hopes on cops I decided to search Rajeev Mukherjee through orkut. I got 3 possible hits in Bangalore but all of them had lata mangeshkar and kishore kumar in their music interests ( which meant they wont come to haze for nuts). Still, I left each of them a scrap with the incident and my phone number. 

I took one of my friends Shashank and went to see where the hell ICICI bommanhalli branch is and went to Madivala police station. I told the whole story to a cop there, he just lifted his hands and said this is not their headache. I must go back to Koramangala police station since I filed FIR there. I was kinda confused, I told him they themselves sent me here and then I got one of the best advices so far. He asked me go file a complaint against the koramangala police in the koramangala police station. 

It was clear that I needed some contact who can help me out. I had like a pint of beer and few smokes with friends and went to haze again hoping something to happen. I waited there till 10 pm and went home. 

I finally had to confront my dad,told him the whole incident replacing purple haze with “fine food and hotel” ( that is what its registered as). He made some calls and got me a contact of DCP Koramangala. Coincidently even his name is Mukherjee ;-). 

Knowing that Monday will be a bank holiday I had given up hopes on flying on Tuesday night. I decided to cancel the tickets first thing in the morning.

The Purple haze:Day 2

DAY 2: 27^th September ,Saturday, 2008

I ride back home with no other thought than how stupid I can be, thinking about all the possibilities that could happen in the morning. I reached home, couldn’t sleep for nuts.

Woke up early in the morning, brushed, went for my stupid driving class with the teacher cracking some fuckall jokes for which I had to laugh.

 

I was not sure whether I should inform my family at this point of time, going against the thought I just took my bike and reached haze at 10:30 am.

The security asked me to stand outside till Santosh ( the cashier) or one of the floor managers come.

 

Here I am , standing helplessly for around two hours. My phone went out of charge, so I copied sonali’s and paro ( one of the juniors ) number on my hand.

I called Paro and asked him to check with all his bloody IIT friends whether they have taken my bag. I called Sonali and asked her to urge Anand to send some Haze bloke as soon as possible. In two hours, nothing happened apart from I finished like some ten ciggies.

 

This was one of those helpless moments where I was standing with no one to talk to, no charge in the phone, crowded with weird thoughts about what possibly could happen to me. At one point of time I even thought my manager Madhukar will throw me out of Cisco ( but he was very very helpful in the end).

I needed someone to be there, moreover a phone so that I can do something. So I called the only number I could remember… Mansi’s number and got Varun’s number. I called him and explained him the situation and what do I get from his side… He fucking laughed… lol…. But he was there for me in next 15 minutes.

I didn’t know what to do, I was sitting in purple haze 11:30 in the morning with some Metallica being played in the background. I ordered a large whiskey, and waited for someone to turn up. By the time Varun came, I had gulped 3 large and I narrated the entire story.

 

Time was running out, my hopes of avoiding Cisco and Family and going on with the scheduled Bangkok trip seemed fading. I called my manager Madhukar and explained him the situation… He understood and gave me some instructions that I must do with respect to Cisco security policy.

At around 1 pm my savior came, the brilliant cashier Santosh. We decided that lets see the cctv that was recorded last night and try and figure out something.

We spent around one hour watching the video with no hopes, in the end stages… there was this bastard who was carrying two bags on the way to exit. I stopped and zoomed and confirmed that it was my bag.

 

First feeling, I was so happy and relieved to at least know what happened to my bag. Second, I was so angry with this guy, If he had come in front of me that time I would have killed him. Then I thought it was a mistake by that person since he looked very much educated and must have just picked the bag by mistake and will return it by the end of day. I ordered few more drinks and gulped them down…neat and pure.

 

Here is where my investigation begins. The guy who took my bag was from the group who left last… so we could easily figure out which table they were from. For my luck, that table bill was paid by a credit card. I got the ICICI transaction slip from the pub.

The name of the card holder was Rajeev Mukherjee. We swore at him few times and went ahead to find out his details.

 

We tried calling ICICI customer care and lodge a false transaction complaint from the merchant side so as to get more details about Rajeev Mukherjee. Let me tell you one thing… ICICI customer care sucks. Sucks big time. There no way you can talk to a human being unless and until you have your own credit card. Even then it will take some gruesome rounds with that electronic chick giving some amazingly useless options.

 

Time had come that we involve police to get things accelerated a bit. After having lunch in paramount ( Ghee rice and Dal fry), we ( Varun and I) went to Kormangala Police station. This is undoubtedly the funniest part of this story.

 

Both of us enter the Police station with apprehension in our mind. Every single Policeman staring at us…. Why??? Me… A thin, kinda high on whiskey with slightly unshaven rugged beard with torn cargo’s. Basically a very dirty shabby appearance. But  it wasn’t me who caught everybody’s attention. The man… Varun, with torn jeans and heavily bearded chin… looked like a terrorist who has not had bath for days.

Anyways I filed a FIR for the loss of laptop and passport. The cop gave us some gyaan for 15 minutes and belted me around for another 15 minutes about how careless I am. He called someone on the walky talky and assigned one police for our case.

 

That Police came with another two cops. We took them to Haze ,showed them  the cctv video and gave them the transaction slip. They were confused so we suggested why don’t we go to ICICI bank in Koramangala.

They agreed and we were in ICICI in 10 minutes. Just imagine… two shabby and heavily bearded guys with 3 cops in this blast season.

 

Let me tell you this, cops don’t know English and rest of the world doesn’t know Kannada. We learnt that we need to get a request letter from police and provide it to the bank. We did that, then we got to talk to the most dumb bank manager I have ever met.

She understood the scene and says there is no way any bank can give the details with just last 4 digits of the card number and the Merchant ID. I cant imagine a bank manager can say this. I got damn pissed and bluffed the following sentence with some support from Varun : “ Are you telling me if there is some discrepancy in a transaction you guys don’t have a database where in you locate the particular transaction and troubleshoot. Don’t give me this bullshit, I am a software engineer and there is no way you can claim that you can not give me the details with just a transaction slip”.

 

I was shocked I said that and so was the bank manager Priya. She got confused and said they cant help us and directed us to ICICI bommanhalli branch since they handle credit card details. All this while the cop was silent, when he heard bommanhalli , he quickly escaped by saying that is outside Koramangala’s limit and he cant help me anymore.

It comes under Madivala Police limit so I need to contact them. It was already 6 pm and Saturday. The bank closed with Sunday and Monday being bank holidays and my flight on  Tuesday night. I couldn’t believe after giving so many details there was absolutely no one who could help me. Neither the police nor the stupid ICICI bank.

 

In the meanwhile I called Cisco Security call center and updated them with the proceedings, Initially they belted out a things to do for me, but after sometime I get a call saying that there has been a bomb blast in delhi , some 10 Kms away from Cisco Office so they are all busy with that and there will be some delay in handling my case.

I could not ask Varun to stay longer because first time in his life he was actually studying for some GRE. So I went back home, explained everything to my family and heard their taunts,charged my  phone and left.

 

Its amazing how people react to such things, they know the person is in deep shit and still give comments like how can be so careless. I know I was careless and that’s why this happened, but no one gives a shit what I went through… same old question..why was I so careless. I can take some suggestions of what I should do now rather than what I should’ve done.

 

At around 8 pm I head towards Haze with no clue what to do. I had this tiny miny hope that the person will return the bag today and everything will be over. I will take the police case back, his life will not be screwed over a mistake etc etc.

I needed some company so I called the two juniors Inder and Paro. They were there in like 15 minutes. We kept smoking and discussing what to do next. We came to a conclusion that we rather I need to check my contacts who has some influence in Police or in ICICI. I called like thousand people with futile attempts. I even called Cisco HR thinking they will know such people. It was Saturday night, what can I expect … people will leave everything and start searching their respective contacts.

 

At the end of the day we concluded with no results and headed have dinner. I was going back to haze when I met some of my friends …. There we go again… Repeat the whole story again, listen to their expert comments ( they were all trying to help me ), smoke some more..etc etc. I took all of them and headed towards haze for a last check and there was nothing. These bastards invited me to their house to play poker, and I shamelessly accepted the offer.

 

I was riding to their house when the cashier Santosh called and asked me to come back to haze. I was suddenly thrilled and ripped through the traffic back to haze. When I reached Santosh bent down and lifted a bag ( it seems just a sentence here… but my whole mind was racing with some fluid at a super speed ). I was so depressed after seeing the bag, It wasn’t mine. Some guy had left it that night and he even came back before it closed to take it back.

 

I went to my friends place dejected and played poker all night.. made some money which I never got, laughed about my whole scene and state and slept without a clue what I should do next.  

The Purple Haze: Day1

This is a brief write up for what I would call five interesting days of my life…Ahhh that sounds too dramatic.Hmmm… Let me call it as repercussions of my elevated negligence.

Please do not mind the spelling mistakes… its bound to be there.

 

DAY 1 : Friday night… 26^th September 2008, I was at haze with 2 juniors and some random IIT people. I came straight from Office looking forward to avoid some lonely time at home.

Haze was playing its usual songs and as usual the people all around were head banging and shouting their lungs out with their eyes locked at the screen. I was so bored of this conventional sight that I just concentrated on my drink and smoking away in glory grimacing about the future of Bangalore with a thought that our smoking days will be over. I never ever thought at this point of time that what is in store for me… the next few days. Mentally I was set for another trip to Bangkok for some lame presentations on Tuesday night.

Anyways going on with the night, I was so indulged in myself sitting around these unknown people, I even borrowed archies from the neighboring table and read the first chapter in the dark and hazy night.

Then came these decently hot chicks with amazingly ugly and old men. A junior of mine and I couldn’t help but stare. After few moments I saw two blokes Sonali and Chetan who were in the crowd. I was so excited to see them for two reasons. Primarily I got some known company to spend my time and second, they shared the table with those decently hot chicks. Time had come when I made my shift from the IIT table to a bit more glamorous table (including Sonali ofcourse ;-) ).

Little I knew this move would cost me so much.

Let’s skip all the description of how the night in haze folded, will write that when I have something to do.

I got along well those two females (at least I would like to say so). It was the closing time and the haze manager urging us to leave, the juniors bugging me to get up so that we can go to Paramount. In all this urging I just left the pub with my bag lying at the IIT table… lonely… unattended… just lying there loaded with various things for which later point of time I start hitting myself for keeping those those things in the bag.

So we all head towards paramount, we have our food, ready to leave. Then it suddenly strikes me…. Fuck.. I left my bag at haze. I look at my watch, its freakin` 12:30 am, I bolt towards haze. One of the worst sprints ever, I had to take a break in between…All because of this stupid smoking.

Now let me tell you the content of my bag. Laptop,Passport,200 USD,one external HDD, Glasses, 3000 INR worth forum voucher, my flight tickets.

I reach there and stare at the locked doors, I start banging at the doors..no one replies. I am like shit… I am so screwed. With no hopes I start walking back to paramount, swearing at myself all the way, swearing at those two chicks, swearing at my bag.

I met Sonali and Chetan, they being the veterans pulled some strings and called marathalli Haze manager Anand, who checked with the Koramangala cashier Santosh for any lost bag reported there. Unfortunately the answer was no, there wasn’t any bag left.