Uh-Oh!

When was the last time you had an "uh-oh!" moment. By that I mean, when was the last time you realised that you were about to head into a very strange realm of reality where everything around you was about to implode/explode/collapse. And sadly, sometimes like Michael J Smith, the pilot on the Challenger Shuttle, you might not survive that "uh-oh" moment.
But, lets clearly define the moment before we carry on - such a moment is not when you walk in on some guy making out/fingering/having kinky sex with the woman you think you love. No thats a "What the fuck was I thinking?" sort of moment. An "uh-oh" moment is not when you decide to make a complete asshole of yourself on national television, thats a "Let me make a complete asshole of myself on national television" moment. An "uh-oh" moment is always a point of time when circumstances beyond your physical or mental control start spiralling into a situation from which you cannot run away, but you also know that you don't run away you won't survive the event unscathed. At the very least you will be scarred for life, because your synapses will decide to play back an image which you desperately try to forget. Like the time my swimming trunks slipped off in the Dalhousie Institute swimming pool. Even though I was just eight years old then, I can't forget that time, because I just can't. You can't consign your "uh-ho" moments, even if you survive them with no physical damage under the carpet of your head.
OK, if you still don't get what I'm talking about, lets make it even simpler. I've had a couple of "uh-oh" moments with my friend Bobby the Rockstar aka Bobstar. Now, ideally you should not sit in a car with Bobstar unless your life depended on it. No lets make that clearer - even if your life depended on it you shouldn't sit with Bobstar in a car when he's driving. So, on one of my trips to Manali, we were sitting in Bobstar's cars and he was driving, and we didn't have a choice, because he was the only one of us who owned a big, fancy car those days. And then outside Sonepat we had a classic "uh-oh" moment. Because no matter what Bobstar did, we were fgoing to have an accident - you see what I mean - you can't escape from the situation. Jumping out of a car travelling at some obscene speed is not a reccomended idea. But then again, the realisation that you're going to smash into the back of a Tata isn't a great idea also. But, then you have to thank the NHAI which hadn't repaired the central verge thanks its bereaucratic laziness and Bobstar's incredible Michelin Pilots on his Honda City (the Bobmobile) that nothing rather dramatic happened to us. But you get the point that I'm trying to make.
Incidentally, Bobstar in a another demonstration of his dramatic driving skills recently managed to flip over his brandish-new Toyota Corolla almost killing Rodu in the process. The things that listening to Van Halen too loud can make you do!
So you, dear reader (who most probably came here looking for something like this) now get the point that I'm trying to make. We all have these "uh-oh" moments in our lives, and ultimately we're responsible for setting ourselves up for the moment, but when it comes we have no control in trying to trying to correct the stall, because you're in what pilots call a 'flat spin' and recovery is near impossible. Most of time the ejection seat works, but sometimes you perish.
The reason for such a confusing beginning is what happened to me last night. There was a corporate event being organised by the publication I work for, and like all corporate events, after you flirt with the girls from marketing/TV channels (or not, in my case) they are quite dull. Sure, you have to network and spread your visiting card around as if it was a veneral disease, but these things are awfully boring. And while killing yourself is a fad in Bombay nowadays, I only wanted to get out and grab something that could take me back to my beloved VH1 where I could watch VH1 Skin - hey it means what it says.
But no, things never go according to way you plan. Never ever do things simply melt away. No, because someone has a nasty sense of humour up there. So, Bossman, as bored as his colleagues comes up and asks me if we should skip the joint, after all it is Bandra and all. Even though I try to explain that most of the bars are being shut down by a Nazi-inspired police force, he insists that we (Bossman, me, Boss the third, Bombay Boss and four more colleagues) break out. So we decide to go to Seijo, but thats closed for a private party, so we headed two minutes down Waterfield Road to Zenzi, which is a really fun place as well.
Now, I must mention one point over here, we were already quite high. I had been drinking a nice Chilean Chardonnay, and many of the others were also drinking wine at the office event. Now, I don't usually count drinks, but I guess I had drunk five or six glasses by the time we hit Zenzi. Bossman decides that we'll stick with wine and he ordered this very nice Californian brand called Papio - I loved their labels. OK, the Chardonnay was a bit on the fruitier side, but heck this stuff got its job done, because some people just lost it, and I knew that I was headed into an "uh-ho" moment and I couldn't do anything about it. And to make matters worse, I was getting progressively drunk. The conversation slipped towards religion - and if you're like me you know that religious discussions and alcohol don't mix. At all. Anecdotes about how Saudi's charter jumbos to circle above the country so they can all enter the mile-high club enmasse began to be told, and then of course we moved on to the cartoons. This blog post by a Saudi national on the issue is hilarious, in fact his blog is a contrarian and educated view of the entire episode, great blog!
Suddenly, I hear a statement "All ****** are bastards" while talking of a minority community. Now, I'm not being moral policeman here, I'm also guilty of calling minorities and different ethinicities by extremely politically incorrect terminologies. But in private, not in a bar, especially not at the volume. OK, so the wine was getting to someone, and I knew that that now I was neck-deep in Quicksand, who cares if it was Waterfield Road or not, I was sinking fast.
The only way out, other than ordering the fabulous Calimari was to break my Beer ban - the wine was over and even Bossman (who was caught in-between humour and horror, as wine opened up recesses in his colleagues minds that he had never seen before) knew that one should only stiff office for so much and had ordered us off the wine. Y'see I was doubly screwed because I sat in-between my bosses.
Anyway, things kinda progressed off the scale, with people get stuck onto one issue for several minutes and arguing over the same point again and again. It was surprising that voices hadn't been raised to levels I would expect in such a heated 'shop' discussion. Now was the time to give me a Smith&Wesson so that I could put a bullet between my ears. Thank god for the fact that I was drunk. Thankfully, the Zenzi folks wanted everybody to leave (and the place had amazing eyecandy, absolutely stunning eyecandy) and we walked out around one-fifteen at night, I managed to slip away without saying the goodbyes I should have and into an auto and back home.
However, all said and done, while it was an "uh-oh" moment, it wasn't as disasterous as it could have been, maybe some minds were dullened by the wine, God knows. However, it was entertaining, hey if you gotta go down, you should go down laughing your guts out (unless the woman in questions smells like really, really rotten fish - OK PJ, so sue me).
Would I do it again, you're damn right I will. In a bloody heartbeat. I live for "uh-oh" moments, they are the only things that make life worth living. Travelling in Bobstars car when he is driving, on the other hand is another question altogether.