Epic Shit

Part 1 - 'Plan B' - You Must Have One

I recently wrote a short story and shared it with a few of my friends in desire to get their valuable feedback. I got mixed reviews mostly but more than that a million tips on 'how to write' from people whose biggest achievement in writing was coming up with whacky (as they would like to think) yet clichéd (reality check) hashtags on their facebook / instagram posts. But I took all the reviews and feedback in a sporty way and thought that I would implement them in my next piece of writing.

Of all the reviews, (a total of 6 people had read my previous story) the one that intrigued me the most was when a friend of mine, after reading my story, asked me - "Whether the story was real or fiction?". In response, I told her that "a writer is not one who can cook up stories out thin air everytime. A writer is one who fictionalises the stories of his / her life or stories of people around them. What differentiates a normal writer and a good writer is the art of storytelling i.e. a good 'writer must also be a good 'storyteller'. It is this skill of a writer, that makes the reader live the story and get immersed in the writers' story's world. " (Sometimes I even surprise myself with my responses - Self pat on the back). My friend smiled at me and said "then you are a good writer I guess". It brought a smile to my face and it meant the world to me as the compliment came from her [that's entirely a different story - Not today, Not Yet ;-)] and thus, I decided to give her and my 5 other readers another story to read and review.

This is a story about one of my friends - Harry. I am sure many of us have that one crazy friend who you know would do anything to help you out. That crazy friend in this story is me.

It all started about 1 year ago when 3 friends - Harry, Mukesh and Me decided to meet up one evening at Plan B. Plan B is one of the revolutionary places which started the concept of BYOB ("Bring Your Own Booze") restaurants. There would be a 'Wine and Beer Shop' outside the restaurant. You can either buy booze from the shop outside and bring it inside the restaurant or ask one of the waiters to buy it for you giving him a small tip. The restaurant serves food ('Chakna') at inflated prices but as liquor is brought from the shop outside at MRP, overall it's all quite cheap. This is the reason why a huge population working in places like Gurgaon end up coming to such places on a Friday - to grab a drink, to bitch about bosses, co-workers, talk about their crushes and

their family lives, but mostly people come to these places just to forget all this shit, get high and feel light. Infact, Plan B has made the concept so famous that there are over a dozen restaurants around Gurgaon following the same concept.

By now, as you all would have interpreted - WE WORK IN GURGAON. We had decided to meet at Plan B on that fateful day as we just wanted to sit back and catch up on life and chill. We all have become so busy with our lives that we don't get time to meet friends and just TALK. So, here we were on a Thursday evening (Yes! Not on a Friday - cause Friday's are so crazy crowded that people look like mosquitoes flying over shit). I ordered 3 beers - #BudwithBuds (meaning Budweiser with Buddies) and Mukesh ordered 2 'chakna' dishes. As we started our conversations, we all realized that although we meet up 2-3 times a month along with our other friends ("The Group") but we hadn't discussed much about what was actually going on in our lives. Mostly when we meet, we make fun of each other, grab something to eat and remember some old incidents and end up making fun of each other all over again. Basically, we were a group of idiotic friends making fun of each other at every given instance.

How were we to know that this time would end up being completely different. We started with jokes (as usual) and leg pulling but after 3 beers each, Harry said something that caught our attention. He said that he was in love. We were startled, Mukesh lost control of the 'Paneer Tikka' in his hand (lucky there is a certain 10 second rule that saved the Paneer Tikka's life) and I needed a refill. I had this gut feeling that a long story was coming here (and ordered 3 more pints of beer), and listened to our friend's love story.

So, Harry recently met a girl who he liked, pursued her and proposed to her. Harry has a personality which can impress any girl and thus, before you know it - BAM - Harry had a girlfriend. He is not some handsome looking hunk with a muscular body. On the contrary, he is an average looking guy, (not to be racist) but a little dark in complexion, small in stature, slim in built and looks like a kid growing moustache to look older (he actually does grow it to look older). So, what's impressive about Harry? As I said, it's the charming personality that could make any girl want to be with him (his words, not mine - I guess after 4 beers Harry thought he was Shah Rukh Khan). This was his first girlfriend but still one more than the combined number of his beer buddies (so, I guess he had the right to brag in front of us - Asshole).

Harry met her in office where she joined as an Analyst. She was still pursuing her graduation from SOL ("School of Open Learning"). She had no prior work experience and thus, pretty much sucked at the MS Office. MS Office to the corporate world is like language to human beings. If someone cannot use MS Office then it's like a human who cannot speak the common tongue (Not referring to mute people here - read completely before you start judging me). And our protagonist here (Harry) is a Pro (self-proclaimed with 4 beers down and number 5 in hand) in MS Office. He is an aspiring Chartered Accountant with 3 years of internship experience in audit. In audit, we literally play with MS Office especially with MS Word and MS Excel. Infact, when somebody uses a mouse to operate a MS Excel sheet in front of an aspiring CA auditor-intern, he would look at you like you just announced that you are gay (I have nothing against gay people - just used it as a reference).

I almost cut off my veins in my wrist with my bare teeth and Mukesh crushed a 'Chilly Potato' with his bare teeth (and ate it) when we heard what happened next. He impressed her with his MS Excel skills (I still cannot believe that a girl can be impressed by MS Excel skills of a guy - Where are these girls when I am working on Ms Excel?). But well, as they say, love is blind (quite literally in this case). He starts off by helping her out to meet her deliverables. Later he gives her some basic tips and shortcuts to operate MS Excel. And as time goes by (by time I mean 3 weeks) she grows fonder of him. Infact, she asks him to "TEACH" her MS Excel "PRIVATELY". If you thought the story above was not believable then imagine this - they meet up on a weekend in a mall with their laptops. They sit in the food court and he is teaching her MS Excel shortcuts (he even took tests by giving her complex problems to solve).

So, 4 weeks have passed since they first met and he asks her to watch a movie with him this weekend after their MS Excel tuitions. She agrees and things go as per plan. Now this is where I have a problem - 4 weeks of friendship and he proposes her after teaching her MS Excel over 2 weekends. She says 'Yes'. As he described his successful love story 4 people from the next table (who were listening to my friend's story) cursed him (they are CAs for sure - who else would curse a random guy for making a girlfriend by just using his MS Excel skills) and Mukesh for the first time kept the spoon and fork down (it had nothing to do with the story - actually he had finished all the food on our table and he kept the spoon and fork down to pick up the menu). I, on the other hand, had to pee (5 beers down and not even able to attend a single nature's call) and decided to visit the washroom. As I was going down the stairs (the stairs were looking a little blurry due to some reason - I suppose it was the dim lighting in this place) I kept thinking about how my friend had kept this all a secret for 3 months (as he had been dating her for 2 months now). How was I to know that there was a twist in the tale coming.

I know it all looks like a clichéd story right? Well here comes the twist in Part 2.