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First
Prize
Off
The Wall by Archana Upadhyay
Evening soliloquy The halter-necked gin-and-lime - Her Liposuctioned
Loveliness -- sashayed in first. "The usual, ma'am?" "The very same,
my good man." My good man? Hearty. Expansive. Usually it is just
a curt, supercilious nod. Even cool, unflappable Jerry, prince among
bartenders, did a quick double take. Hmmm. Afternoon tryst with
her latest beau, I shouldn't wonder. They come in here sometimes,
she and he. The rum-and-coke, tiny bloodless feet strapped thinly
in silver, minced in next, a little tugboat to the bulk of the schooner
- the buttoned-to-the-collar whisky-on-the-rocks - that followed
her in. "Hi, darling!" "Hi back, precious!" Mmwah, mmwah.
Such
sweetness; it could not be engendered by anything but the deepest
loathing. Mentally, I toast the gin-and-lime. Not the tiniest crack
in her composure, not even the odd guilty twitch, to betray that
she has spent the better part of the afternoon bonking the whisky's
lawfully-wedded. But seriously, I don't blame the man. If I was
married to a fat, arrogant so-and-so with a chip on her shoulder
the size of the Petronas Towers, I might have been tempted to do
the same. Not that my tastes run to Her Loveliness, though. *********
I suppose you could call me a lounge lizard. I come in here, every
Friday evening, just to look at the fourth one in this group, just
to drink her in. I am nothing if not careful, though - I don't think
even Jerry knows what I'm really here for. As for the 'girls', I
would wager these three haven't even noticed my existence, even
though I have been in exactly the same place in the room every Friday
evening over the last year. One of my lesser-known accomplishments
is my unobtrusiveness, my talent, so to speak, for blending into
the background. But I like to believe that the fourth, 'my' girl,
has noticed me. She hasn't said anything - she isn't that kind of
girl - but sometimes, when I've looked up from my dinner, I've caught
her looking at me, wonderingly. She always drops her eyes instantly,
so that I'm left wondering if it was, after all, only a figment
of my fevered imagination. Suddenly, my heart lifts - there she
is, streaking into the fug like a bright-eyed breath of laughter.
Jerry has seen her too, and is already mixing her a shandy, when
she says, with a big sweet secret grin (Ah, Jerry, what I wouldn't
give to be where you are this minute!) - "Make mine a tequila this
time, Jerry. Ditto for the others. Lots of lemon. I'm buying." "Tequila?
What is the excitement, darling?" queried the rum-and-coke breathlessly.
"I'm not telling," said the Tequila, nee Shandy, Temptress, "until
you are all sloshed out of your crazy minds." "Wheeeee!" screeched
the gin-and-lime, unconcerned. "Who cares?" "Are you sure you want
to do this, dearie?" intoned the whisky in a wet-blanket kind of
voice. "Tequila isn't cheap, you know, even in this hole."
Mercifully,
the tequila arrived that minute, and shut her up for a bit. Jerry
lined up the shots, three per girl. Two down, and the delicate rum-and-coke
was coughing and sputtering, kicking off her silver-strapped thingamajigs,
and whirling like an inspired dervish on her tiny feet. Three down,
and the gin-and-lime was doing the shirshasana, not a good idea
at the best of times and certainly not when you wearing a long wraparound
skirt and no underwear. And the whisky, for reasons beyond my understanding,
was staining her shirtfront, blubbering noisily into the most ample
bosom I never saw. "Now tell us," they begged drunkenly. "OK. I've
just won a contest. A Tequila Story contest." I knew she had it
in her. Always did. Talent-spotter, that's me. I wondered, obliquely,
what she had written about. "Guess what I wrote about," said my
beautifully-telepathic angel, and when they turned, hanging on to
her every word, "Us!" "You didn't!!!" Horrified. Deliciously so.
"And him!" There is something about having four inebriated women
suddenly crane their necks to look leerily at you that turns your
blood to ice. "Think of all the scandalous things that old geezer
must have seen and heard in his time!" Old geezer? Me? Ah, cruel,
cruel temptress, to promise so much and give so little! It wasn't
her fault, it had to be the tequila. But a chap's got his self-respect.
Clicking my tongue sadly, I made my exit with as much dignity as
I could muster. It was only much later that I realised I had left
my tail behind. In moments of great stress, we lizards do that kind
of thing.
2nd
Prize
Tequila
sunrise by Manisha Lakhe
Tequila
Sunrise. Really. I woke up with this terrible need to pee. "Oh gawd,
I'm turning out to be a real middle aged fart," I thought, rubbing
the stubble on my chin and comparing it favorably to the cactus
needles that seemed to have sprouted all over my tongue. I peed
long. Hands free. My eyes still half closed to the diffused light
forcing its way through the bathroom window. I yawned. And then
looked down to get a grip on wilting John Thomas and almost sprayed
the bathroom, horrified by what I saw. There were fifteen goldfish
in there, an unflushed offering to the porcelain god. And I had
just peed on them. I rushed out to the living room, naked, to confirm
the number. Yes, there were fifteen gold fish in the pee-bowl, because
the aquarium had none.
What
had happened here? My head felt as if it had been on ice for a while.
And why was a small giggly voice inside my head telling me to jump
around? Why was it calling me "Mowgli"? I shook my head. Dance naked?
Undignified? Sure. But I shrugged my shoulders. What the hell, who
was going to see me do anything? Roopa was away for a bloody Feng
Shui course! Feng Shui? Feng fucking Shui? Flashbulbs exploded in
my brain and I held on to the phone for support. Feng Shui? Vaafuckingstu?
Yoga? Art of fucking Living? Earth Mother Circle? Clan of the fucking
Cave Bears? Last night the bunch of us had formed the Fed-up with
Fads group. And Roopa's goldfish were sacrificed for our protest.
A few of my prized heavy bottomed caballitos were sacrificed too.
And four of the five bottles of fermented blue cactus juice as well.
Slam
one. Some of us sputtered. It had been a long time since we had
done this. "Every time I turn my head to speak with Carla, there
she is -- twisted up in some weird position on the floor!" "Think
of all the action in your bedroom, man!" "I thought the same! Yoga
is bringing her close to god, not the husband!"
Slam two. Perfect. Like the memory of one's first cigarette. "Each
time I come home I see her lighting candles for peace or some such
shit. Then the whole house smells like vanilla ice-cream or lemonade.
I was a spectacle at today's meeting when I walked in smelling like
lavender!"
Three. The salt and lime put my tongue on fire. "Remember how Sudha
hated my poster of Frank Zappa by the computer? She hated his goatee
now, she's torn it down and there's a huge picture of Jesus and
the five Sikh gurus and a couple of sadhus. That they all have beards
doesn't faze her and she's praying to them all! She's even taking
Sanskrit lessons to bloody 'understand the deeper meaning' of religious
texts!" Four down. We salute the Aztecs and Indoor Gandhi. "I used
to complain about Preeti being so hyper.now she's wearing white
all the time and smiles all the time and spends all her time with
the Art of Living chaps.the whole house feels weird."
The fifth killed a few more brain cells. "Someone called my darling
Lolo fat, and that threw the whole house in disarray. The freezer
is empty. We're eating rabbit food or some bizarre combination of
six grains and seven greens. The kids are hungry all the time.we've
visited McDonalds on the sly, and I hate lying about it." "Gawd,
you mean to say she's not going to make Chicken Kiev any more?"
We need the sixth now. The stories have become scarier. "Raji has
turned Vegan. Threw out all my shoes and belts one Sunday morning.
Called me the Butcher of Bombay!" Could we go on? How did these
complaint stories compare with the rowdy tequila nights at bars
talking of body slamming with Selma Hayek?
The
eighth, ninth and tenth knocked us all out. I think I heard about
Niki's trips to the tarot reader, and Shalu's sudden fascination
with the celestial alignment of the stars. I know Deepak was crying
over Natasha wandering around the house in silence because she was
practicing Vipasana. I knew that fourteen goldfish lay dead on the
table, and the members of Fed up with Fads were lying under it.
Now it was my turn. Like others before me, I fished out the last
wriggling goldfish by its tail and looked it straight in the eye.
With the other hand downed my shot. Then I dropped the goldfish
on the wooden table. It danced about wildly. I raised my glass and
brought it down hard on the table, hoping to put the damned fish
out of its misery. Others too had tried. It wasn't easy. And just
as the others I too voiced my hate for the fad that had swallowed
my Roopa whole, each time I smashed the glass on the table. Now
Roopa tells me the big bandage on my forehead is the result of her
discovering five guys asleep in the guest room (smiles plastered
on their faces), me on the sofa ("What were you doing naked with
those guys around? Ugh!"), her goldfish in a stinky bathroom, the
next evening. She had taken one hard look at everything, pronounced
me guilty and had meted out punishment she felt suited for the crime.
She took the last bottle of tequila ("It was sitting on the table,
laughing at me!" she claimed), and smashed it over my head. This
is not a fish story.
3rd
Prize
Mix
em up by Vikrant Nath
This
happened when I was working with a travel agency in Sydney in the
late 80s. It was a hot summer night in March and a very small pub
in Kings' Cross, Sydney was to close down forever. I had visited
the place a few times before, and had exchanged some cocktail-recipes
with the barkeeper; a very fat guy in flowery shorts. When the cafe
was forced to close down, I was invited to the Great Booze-Up on
it's final night; All Night Free Drinks, absolutely free. (Apparently,
the owner wanted to minimize his stock). Of course, this was an
offer I could not resist. Because the drinks were (I have to stress
this) absolutely free, I decided to not drink the same drink twice
that evening. I tried to persuade my friends to join me in this
interesting experiment, but they just laughed and laughed and laughed....
Parts of the evening are vague, but I remember the following drinks;
(consumed not necessarily in that order...) · a Chateau Margot ·
an Absolut vodka (with ice) · an Absolut Pepper vodka (with lots
of ice) · an "Oude Jenever" (a revolting Dutch drink; Old Gin) ·
a Tawny Port · a Ruby Port · a Johnnie Walker Red Label (with ice!,
which isn't really such a big sin with this dribble...) · a Southern
Comfort (with ice) · a "Kamikaze" · a Cointreau (with ice).
Around
midnight I developed a sudden urge for fresh air. Perhaps I just
had too many intelligent conversations for one evening... I went
outside and just sat there for a while, enjoying the last spasms
of summer. The bass line of Bruce Hornsby's "The way It Is" was
overloading the speakers and everything seemed wonderful and laid
back. Suddenly this absolutely slick chick snuggled up to me and
told me how very impressed she was with my endeavors of not repeating
a drink that night and asked if I would like to try a Tequila body
slammer with her. The gentleman that I was, I just couldn't refuse
a lady. So back it was to the bar to try my hands (rather my tongue)
at body slamming (it was my first time !!) The first one was a complete
out of the world experience. Then for the first time that night
I decided to repeat my drink. Just as I was about to lick the salt
of her cheek, that all of a sudden my digestive system decided to
reverse its gear. I remember receiving a tight slap across my face
before passing out. The next thing I remember was waking up in Brett's
(my colleague and my drinkin' buddy) room. "You are damn lucky mate
(pronounced might). You barfed when you did. The sheila (ozzie for
a woman) you were slammin' with mate was a drag queen." Before he
could finish the sentence I barfed again. I have not been able to
body slam since then.
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