Reading VT's latest blog reminded me of this incident.

The Rex movie theater on Brigade road in Bangalore. A bunch of college lads rush through the gates, eager to occupy their seats. I was one among them. It doesn’t take us much time to settle down, after the usual yelling (at the top of our lungs), for the fans to be switched on.

We lean back with chips and drinks all in place, ready to have a great time. A bunch of girls suddenly appears on Tuhin’s radar. Soon the rest of us are also tuned into the same frequency as Tuhin. The Mt Carmel angels move into their seats, a couple of rows in front of us. Surprise! Surprise! There is Priya, the girl our own Vicky was courting or pataofying.

How could we let Vicky miss such an opportunity? So one of us walks down immediately to negotiate with this guy who occupied the seat next to the girls. The idea was to let Vicky sit there and then somehow manage to get Priya to sit next to him. Don’t ask me the logic behind all this; at that age we are damn sure that such moves always work.

However it was not to be as easy as we thought. The guy just wont heed to our appeals and adamantly refused to move from that seat, even though we were offering him a better seat, couple of rows back. He just wont budge, in fact by now he was gripping the seats with all his might, just in case we yanked him out. For him, this was probably the culmination of years of tapasya (penance) and missed chances; he had finally got to sit next to the cool babes from Mt. Carmel, that too, at a movie. He wouldn't have swapped that seat even for a balcony position. Commenting from a neutral standpoint today, he was absolutely right (what say VT?). But at that moment Vicky’s interest was paramount to us.

Soon the negotiation entered a heated phase with the poor guy getting a few whacks and a flurry of choice words which I rather not mention here, to maintain the decorum of this blog. Real hooligans you may think; blame it on the guy who wrote “Everything is fair in love and war”. In such situations we could not be remorseful of our actions. There are certain unwritten code of conduct that apply in male friendship, which only guys can understand. A friend in need is a friend in deed; isn’t that what another great person averred about friendship? So then, Vicky needed our help very much, period.

As the battle ensued, we didn’t notice that Priya, realizing the real reason for all the hullabaloo, had quietly slipped out of the pack and got herself out of the building and probably to a much saner environment. By the time we came to know about it, the damage was done. Little did we realize that there was more awaiting us outside. After Priya left, we were no more interested in pushing our case with the guy, so we left him alone and moved back to our seats.

Just around interval, Venky, who had been to one of his innumerable toilet breaks (we never figured out how a human being could piss so much), came rushing back. He looked as if he had just seen a ghost in the toilet. A pale and trembling Venky informed us that the guy whom we had manhandled, was waiting outside with few burly guys, all set to do unto us what we did to him. “Do unto your neighbors what you want them to do unto you” another great saying which we had forgotten about before our act. “Vinaasha kaale vipreeta buddhi”,  right?

So with danger lurking right outside the theater doors, what do you think we did?

-- TED

Yaaron ke liye to sau khoon bhi muaaf.. that used to be the attitude..