It just got better..

It’s a Tuesday and my week has started…came back yesterday from Redang, Malaysia. Total hrs travelled: 10 + 10 -- to n fro The place is just awesome….simply awesome.. Goa comes a close second…ya seriously. It is beyond the regular expectations of an island….white sand…corals…fishes…snorkeling….decent food for most of the time.. And lots of alcohol… .. . Met a Swedish guy while drinking….which goes along with the perennial destiny thing that co-exists…we never meet women at such occasions..and even if there is one…we don’t move…so drop it.. Now Fredrick…the Swedish guy…was a Dylan Fan….and we spoke about His Holiness…divine supremacy over all mortals etc…. And Fredrick took out his cell-fone and started playing his favorite collection of Dylan songs -- starting with …and I remembered of one such night… When I was fairly high…among the best company ever…and there was Matt……a balding 35ish American who believed in the Bard…and we sang infinite songs that night….yes infinite…until the bitch arrived with two dumb Gujjus and spoilt our moment…brought us back to our desperate muff-seeking reality…and nothing could change it… … Coming back to Frederick and my night of drinking….well we got pretty drunk….we spoke about the boss and we shared a common view about the futility of religion…we spoke a lot of crap.. We were pretty drunk…the bartender….oh…I have to tell you about the bartender.. The Bartender -- Basu -- was half Bangladeshi - half Nepali… Basu was the best bartender ever…just like in the movies…he comes over and talks to you when your mind is at that weakest moment of self-indulgence…and Basu comes over and asks casual question about home and heart…and he tells you about his life… Now Basu is the sweetest Nepali I have ever met…he is comprehensible because of his Bangladeshi roots…but he says he more Nepali cos that’s where he spent most of his life before becoming a Bartender.. Basu is happy to meet someone who speaks Bengali but quickly adds that he doesn’t know it very well…cos he spent his infant years there..and his nepali is better..we choose English. He has been to India…worked in Goa for 3 years…worked in smaller pubs and discs….worked in a 5 star too…and he sweetly pushes in the fact that he is an international Bartender's License holder…used to know around 150 different cocktails (mock tails included)..and now 3 yrs in the island has led to his memory loss…and can recall around 80. Among the various concerns that Basu has, one of them is that the decreasing count of his cocktail memory is due to the unavailability of variety of liquor in the Muslim Country of Malaysia…Also the chances of him going to Jail if the Police find him serving to a Muslim crowd….which as I gathered is an offence…and so after each drink that he poured…he meticulously placed the bottle back inside the numerous unmarked cupboards.. Basu is a man of the hills and 3 years on an island….that too on a beach front (the rest of the island is thick un-inhabited forest) has taken its toll and he has see boredom first hand…which simply tells him to move on to someplace else. He works 2 shifts…one as a bartender in the late evenings…and after that as a guard for the night and it is occasionally that he has the luxury of a conversation with a customer. Sometimes there are busy nights….other times..no lone drinkers. Basu is a man of dreams and ambitions too….he tells me that when he is done with the island..he will move to Melbourne, Australia sometime early next year… Why Australia I ask? He gives a smile and tells me his story. It was a time when Basu was working in a bar opposite to the Australian Embassy in Kathmandu…one of the girls working in there used to frequent this pub. Basu used to walk her home everyday and they fell in love. He plans to settle down with his woman. In my conversation with Fredrick regarding arranged marriages in India…Basu was quick to add that he is a Hindu and will marry the girl of his choice…and that too of foreign origins…Basu will be remembered every time I ask for another drink. So coming back to Fredrick again….the bar closes at 12.30 am…and Basu was kind enough to let us be there till 2 am…and poured us as much as we wished for…I was running on cocktails that night…something like screwdrivers…and Fredrick was on Heineken…the goddamn viking had downed 12 cans of beer. I offered to buy Basu a drink….he refused…he was a teetotaller. We finally called it a night at around 3 am….at which point walking straight was a problem…for some reason Fredrick just went ahead and jumped into the swimming pool..i followed suit…I wondered if there was anybody who would object…but the man in the shadows was Basu….as the night guard now…and he didn’t mind. Next day morning was supposed to be another snorkeling trip..and I didn’t want to miss that…we called it a day. Snorkeling was amazing…I managed to a decently sized shark….it reminded me of Sir Steve Irwin….given a chance…the shark would have had his worst encounter with humans if he was around… Lots of corals…sun..sand…stars…fairly fine no. of good women in bikinis…beach volleyball…mp3 player…and a lot of soul. Oh…and there a couple of other Nepali;s I met working on the island…how they got there is another interesting story….and they were bored with the sea… There was this place on the island where you could see blue glowing sand in the dark…it glowed…you could touch it and pick it up….but the glow would last for a few seconds….simply amazing. …..

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