Anatomy of an Indian Bachelor Party - II

BOMBAY (Feb 22) This is the second installment of a two-part post on the tradition of the Great Indian Bachelor Party (BP).

Hmmm, so where were we? Yes, we, i.e. the friends of the soon to be ex-bachelor were ruing the fact that hiring strippers in India is not only illegal, but also impossible for mortal folks.

So the BP minus the lady starts like any other party on the block. One by one, the visitors start trickling in. The ones already inside the house look at the door in eager anticipation that somehow a stripper has been magically procured, while the ones entering (who bear no resemblance to a stripper I might add) invariably ask -- "Aw man! You guys didn't arrange for any ladies tonight!!" with the nonchalance that only pimps and dandies possess.

The rest of the night is planned out to consist of three major events --- raunchy music and dance, porno talk and last but not least, borderline homoerotica. The third event is often used as a substitute for strippers, and all objections and complaints against it are usually drowned in a pool of alcohol. Now, the chronological sequence of these three events is usually decided impromptu, judging by the "mood" of the party, but often it is also dictated by the loudest (and usually the most drunk) member of the group. For the sake of brevity, we shall call this member LM. Note that the identity of LM changes continuously with the passage of time and the drinks tray.

Now to get the mood started, some nice chap, may God curse his soul, plays such an item number that any man worth his testosterone would need atleast half a litre of alcohol to gyrate on it. Shining examples of such songs are -- Mera chain wain sab ujdaa (aka Kajra re), Chadhti jawani meri chaal mastaani, and Husn ke hazaar rang..kaunsa rang dekhoge. After fulfilling the minimum drink requirement for these songs, a bunch of guys hit the dance floor usually in the form of a central dancer aka the alpha male, who is surrounded on all sides by the "extras" aka the beta males who try to seduce the alpha male with their *hot* dance moves.

A word is in order about the dance moves here. These moves would never see the light of the day if it were not for these BPs. Mature sober men turn into orang-utangs, and the bold and naughty ones metamorphosize into a deadly mix of Amrish Puris and Gulshan Grovers. Random hands grab random waists, and cozy ballroom dancing ensues, periodically interrupted by lusty thumkas. Oodles of pot-belly flesh are paraded in public when a few banians are taken-off/ripped-off the dancers, initiated usually by the LM. In short, such choregraphic masterpieces are created that would make even Rakhi Sawant snort her ugly little nose with disgust. Ofcourse, like in every alcohol-aided dance party, there are people who take undue physical advantage of others, this time without paying any heed to the gender parity.

During this moment, all the fencesitters, who are trying to look casual by sipping gracefully on their drinks and making light banter, are secretly thinking -- "Shit! If I enter this dance-floor of death, I will definitely lose my virginity the wrong way tonight!". They resist all attempts by the alpha-beta male dancers to pull them into their midst, using excuses like "Aw its ok, I gotta get me a drink first" and "No you guys go ahead, you guys rock! Woohoooo!!", while the drunkard inviter goes "kjdgjkhag lmjf gjhh eqoiowe, kajra re! kajra re! mera kaale kaale naina!" twisting his not-so-supple waist the entire time.

I should state here that all efforts notwithstanding, by the end of the song and dance sequence, there is not a single soul in the group who hasn't been fondled and groped by his fellowmen. So, one way or the other, all the gropers and gropees are slightly tired at this time, which leads the party into Phase 2.

Phase Two deals with all the BP folks, having put their banians (or shreds thereof) back on, calmly resting around the TV set. A poll is now taken as to whether the time is ripe for doing a pondi-quiz or watching a pondi movie. Now we all know about pondi movies, don't we? So I won't say too much about them, except that watching a pondi movie with twenty other chaps is perhaps the sorriest sight ever! I will not discuss the pondi-quiz too, lest my blog is swarmed by sex-addicts and is perma-filtered by blogspot. But just to give you a brief idea, at the end of the quiz, one realizes that all his friends are perhaps the most perverted sickos to walk the planet, and hence, are perfect companions and equals.

Finally, after all this is over, enters the optional Phase Three. This is the deadliest phase of them all. It decides whether one will return home like a normal man (viz. more than half-dressed and with atmost 1 litre of alcohol inside), or like a naked homeless guy. For you see, this is the free-for-all phase, where one is allowed to do almost anything to anyone. And that includes dousing with alcohol (but not setting on fire, thats not cool), re-ripping the banians or even shorts, wrestling, and even doing stuff that is driven by hormones. I personally didn't have the misfortune to find out more about Phase Three, but I have seen pictures, and my life has never been the same again, to say the least.

This brings me to the end of the BP. I must admit now, that I have broken the first commandment of the BP, viz. you don't talk about BP. As a punishment, I might be murdered, or worse, cast as the alpha-male in the next BP. And to that I say:

The BPs are gruesome, cruel, and *beep*,
But I have many invitations to keep,
And thousands of banians to purchase before I sleep,
And thousands of banians to purchase before I sleep.

Anatomy of an Indian Bachelor Party - I

[Warning: Longish post. Will be posted in two installments]

BOMBAY (29 JAN): If you have a friend getting married and have been given the onerous burden of throwing a bachelor party for him, or if you are a non-Indian looking to mock us Indians, then look no further because the buck stops at this post.

The Bachelor Party (BP) is yet another Americanism that has been twisted and amalgamated into the Indian society, much like the Kadahi-Paneer Pizza and McAaloo-Tikki burgers. During the import of this noble concept, many of the aspects have been altered or dropped and new ones have been added to cater to the needs of the Indian males.

As a member of the elite group, who has attended one such party and missed two, I consider this as my duty to reproduce factual accounts of what actually happens behind closed doors in such scenarios.

The saga usually begins with discussions over beer (another priceless import), and two guys are nominated whose sole job is to generate excitement about the BP, about how good its going to be, and how anyone who doesn't attend the BP is such a loser that he shouldn't have come out of his mama's womb. You could say that they are almost, but not as good as, the Microsoft PR and Marketing professionals. Such guys are usually required to have a superficial knowledge of the black-ghetto vocabulary, and anyone who has lived in South Central Los Angeles or New York Harlem is a natural qualifier. You can expect these fine human beings to spout periodic utterances like "yo dawg! This parteh is gonna rock!" or "We gonna pimp tonight dude!" and so on.

By this time, people are so excited about the party that they start peeing their pants off, consequently causing an increase in the sales of Lee and Levis. Adult diapers have yet to take off in this country, it seems. Anyway, I digress, but the point is that by this time, every virgin in the group starts believing that this night is his night, and every veteran thinks that he is gonna have that elusive menage-a-trois for sure.

The next step involves planning the logistics, which in India means arranging for Old Monk, Royal Stag and Romanov, along with 10 kilos of namkeen and 5 kgs of Paneer Tikka. In the ten days leading to the BP, the drama increases exponentially, with lunch room banters, urinal conversations revolving about the party instead of "that hot new chick in HR, who, I am positive is giving me the eye".

However, as the days pass by, it becomes the duty of every guy in the group to moan about the fact that how not being able to hire strippers sucks. The virgins are usually the most vocal in voicing this complaint. This is usually followed by brainstorming session on "what to do now?".

The answer to this question varies from city to city. In Bombay, till last year, it meant going to a dance bar with a few wads of Rs 10 notes. In Delhi, it meant and still means going to the sole cabaret place in the city where it seems Rs 50 can buy you "Sharara Sharara" (a sleazy Indian song, admired by all desperadoes including married men). Yeah I know, it is not the same, but it is pretty much what you can do short of traveling in a cab adorned with blue-tubelights (Bombay), and driving past Connaught Place at night with the car windows rolled down (Delhi).

However, the BP organizers are an enterprising bunch. They are usually not bothered with trifling minor irritatants such as the lack of a stripper ruin it for them. Their 'improvisations', for the lack of a better word, will be described in the second part of the post. This, and much more, when we return after these messages.

I am alive

BOMBAY (Feb 7): No, all ye faithful readers of this blog, I am neither dead nor without an internet connection. I was and still am busy with a paper submission deadline. Sigh! the things that people do in the name of higher studies. In order to not lose my meagre readership, I thought of giving a not-so-brief update.

I turned 27 a couple of weeks ago, amidst considerable fanfare, sponsored by my partners in crime at IIT. A couple of eggs were gifted to me, in the hope that atleast one of them would find its way on top of my scalp, but my ninja moves ensured that it was not to be. Some highly unconventional gifts were received, including one that questioned my sexuality, but moi loved them all equally nonetheless. This was the first of the series of birthdays that I have officially decided to hate. Twenty seven, as it turns out, is on the wrong side of twenty five, especially for a single man suffering from hairloss.

In other personal news, I managed to finish the Mumbai marathon in a decent (for me) 2 hrs 14 mins and this is the last sentence I will write about it, lest you all tie me to a stake and burn me for this shameless piece of self-advertising.

Finally, an old undergrad friend of mine has started a blog. So if you came here looking for examples of good penmanship, then please proceed further. I, for one, am looking forward to discussing gay topics like HTML templates, comment moderation, lack of readers and low pagerank with him. Ofcourse mutual backscratching in the form of inter-blog comments with him is tacit.

Asterix
PS: I had drafted the first half of a post on a topic, which I feel is spicy and cheap enough to attract comments. No wait, not just spicy, but TOI spicy. Something that the esteemed newspaper would be proud to carry on their front page. So please look out. And as usual, thanks for stopping by.