A few days ago, for some reasons, I was reminded of a night-out that I had gone to when I was in fourth year in DCE. The night-out was so awesome that it really deserves a blog post!
This is how the scene began. One fine night, just some time before the last day of our last semester, Arpit began talking to me about how many different places were there in Delhi that I, being a non-Delhiite, should’ve had visited before leaving college. Among the places he mentioned, I liked one called Chanakyapuri- there is a road there called Shanti Path which is home to many embassies in India. The road is flanked on both sides by trees and is (obviously) a posh and high-security area. Even though I had once passed through there, the idea of going there on a night-out excited me. I wasn’t really sure that Arpit was serious until the next day when he and Prashant called me up to discuss the plan for the night! We arranged two bikes- we didn’t have any of our own- and included another friend of ours called Ashutosh.
Our first stop of the night was PVR Saket. The only other cinema house that we had considered for watching a movie was PVR Priya- the other halls in Delhi were just too common! We watched ‘Houseful’- after spending a difficult time trying to convince Ashutosh to settle for Houseful as he had watched it just one night ago and the movie wasn’t actually worth watching twice in theatre! The film was okay but when we came out at around 2:30am, Arpit told us that he had lost one of the bike keys (the pic on the left was clicked just before this grand revelation)! We spent almost an hour searching for the key but couldn’t find it- it was an hour of dejection and cursing each other for what had happened (Ashutosh was adamant on aborting the night-out, whereas I and Prashant were adamant on continuing!). At last, a lone fellow who was roaming there (at 3:30am, doing what I’ve no idea) told us that he knew how to start the engine of a Pulsar!
Our next stop, or rather drive, was in Chanakyapuri. With the beautiful view of the different embassies (each of which was built in a different style and architecture), being there felt good. We had another incident there- Ashu wanted a pic of himself standing in front of the US embassy (with the US flag and some name plate in background!). Prashant insisted on letting it go but he wasn’t in the mood for that. Well, he tried and we managed to click a couple of pics before 12 or 15 policemen, security guards, etc. (about half of whom were in plain clothes) came running to us and started the usual ‘Thaane me chalo’ rant! We weren’t drunk or anything and had all the requisite IDs etc. but then, we were at the US embassy (some other place may not have been that sensitive) at almost 4:30am. We talked to them, deleted the couple of photos we had clicked there before they let us leave!
I also wanted to see the sunrise at India Gate but Ashu (again!) was hungry and we had to move to Connaught Place. There is a dhabba that is open 24 hours (in front of Regal) and we took so much time there that reaching India Gate before sunrise was out of question. A little later, Prashant and Ashu made us wait for some time as they went inside Bangla Sahib on our way back to college. It was already 6 or 7 am and the sun was up.
For another day or two, we told stories of this night-out to those people who didn’t come along with us for petty reasons such as assignments, viva preparations etc. and (of course) uploaded photos to Facebook! It was a night well spent and a night worth remembering!