Gokarna.

This is a true story, it may sound a bit ludicrous, but every thing I write here is true.

I was in the final year of KREC, my attendance percentage was in the single digit range. After a night of heavy drinking and smoking (as was our practise every single night of the year, and by smoking I don't mean tobacco), I awoke at about 2 PM when I received a phone call.

It was Bhushan, my best friend, who stayed in the room next to mine. We had single rooms then. The call went like this.

"Hello"
"Hey man, guess where I am ?"
"In the room next to me ?"
"No man, Gokarna. Catch a bus and get here"
"Gokarna ? WTF are you doing there and how did you get there ? and why the hell didn't you tell me ?"
"Just come here man, will tell you all later"
"Okay man, where do I catch the bus ?"

I got ready and left. 3 buses and about 10 hours later I arrive at Gokarna. The journey being made infinitely more difficult because he did not have a cell phone, the irritated co-passengers and difficult to handle bus conductors didn't like the look on my face, and the fact that the rains had made the roads turn into mush.

I met him at the bus stop late at night. He was on a bike that looked like it had come under a truck, and his foot was bandaged. I decided not to ask him about it till we got settled in. We drove the bike over dirt, shrubs, hills and in total darkness until we reached OM beach. The rent in the only good lodge there, the lodge being filled with white tourists, was way beyond what our allowances would allow, so we had to take a room in a dirty mud hut, with cotton mattresses that were so old and dusty, that it made me think that the last time it was cleaned, we might still have been under British rule.

We smoked a few joints, drank super expensive beer at the 'hotel' which was just the owner of the room in his single room kitchen cum bedroom.
Slept.

The next morning I awoke to find Bhushan rolling joints, he had enough stuff to get the entire Chinese army high, twice over.

He had met with an accident on the way to gokarna apparently, the fool had driven all the way from Surathkal on the bike and somewhere along the way had crashed into a truck, the bike was now in urgent need of being de-commissioned.

The place itself was awesome, we saw two women skinny dipping, there were people playing snooker in the open air, hammocks suddenly didn't look all that useless, pretentious assholes playing acoustic guitars trying to impress women making me glad I didn't get mine over. The owner of our room charging exorbitant rates for items such as 'chocolate pancake', 'pasta bologna' and 'Pure Hash from Shimla' while maintaining a smile and pretending as though he was lowering the rates just for us.

Our constant companions being daylight robbery tea and individual joints, both of which a rarity back in college where tea was Rs 2.50 and a single joint was sometimes shared by 8 people. That was when we met Yeohan, or at least that is how I think his name is spelled.

To be continued...