Catch up/Get-together/Party - whatever it was, it was fun

Last Friday I had a dinner planned out with my friends. I have been asked not to reveal their identities so I will call them M, V and S. We started as cab mates (although now we very rarely go in the same cab) and now we are friends. We had planned to meet at 7:30 PM and go to a place called Barrique near our office. We were planning to meet for sometime but there was no concrete plans so one day I had sent a mail to finalise the plan. The plan came through and there we were at 7:30 PM on Friday evening in front of our office building. The others had decided to come 10 minutes early while I got down just in time finishing a call. And we headed towards Barrique.

My idea of it was a restaurant but it turned out to be a bar. There was no seating available when we reached so we came out and decided to go to Mojo. On the way I asked "Are we going to drink?" The three of them gave me a surprised look and replied "It's by default." M asked "You don't drink?" I replied "Not if I have to go to office" V said "You don't have to return to office. I can get the cab booked for you." I said "No thanks. I have some work left and then its a question of ethics" They didn't say anything then and we reached Mojo.

As we were given the menus they asked me a second time about drinks and I politely refused. We ordered our drinks and snacks - M went for white wine, S for Whisky, V for Beer and I for a drink called Tantra which was some version of lemonade. For snacks we ordered chilly chicken without capsicum (that's for me) and chilly mushroom.

I noticed quite few things about the others that evening. I didn't expect M to be ready for a drink during office; it was quite unusual for her to do so from what I knew of her. S was somewhat subdued the whole time. I thought it was because of his lack of preparation for an interview the next day. I guess all 3 of us thought so. We found out later that it was something else. With less than half an hour to go for his cab he said the first thing he would do is to have a smoke when he went down. V said "Smoking is allowed here". S was pleasantly surprised and exclaimed "Really". He then looked at M and she said she had no problem. The moment S heard that he lit up a cigarette. His joy knew no bounds and he was a completely transformed person thereafter. I didn't know S was so shy as to not even express his desire to us; and also that he was so much addicted to smoke. V turned out to be connoisseur in terms of drinks and food. The food he ordered was really tasty. In fact I ate mushroom (don't tell my mom :)) which I don't like. In terms of drinks he asked for the wine bottle and read the contents to find out if it would be bitter or sweet. And he went on to tell the various wines he had consumed - ranging from 4 pounds to 100 pounds - when he was in UK. And he also told about the last few days when he had been drinking like anything. And he went mentioning what are the best foods available in the nearby food joints. I had never thought he would be so much into these things.

It was after a very long time that I was having lemonade when others were having hard drinks. Not that I drink too much but I am game for one once a while. And I had this urge to have a glass of red wine but I resisted. After all I was the principled guy :). The conversation went from food and drinks to future plans to have similar get-togethers. S suggested we could meet on a weekend as well as we all lived nearby to which V replied something like "I am a family fan" while M responded with "And I am a bahu" to which all laughed.

Moments like these spent with friends when there are no worries, no deadlines, nothing to attend to, just being yourself and enjoying the moments, is a rarity these days. So when you do get them you feel like staying there forever. But like all good things come to an end the evening ended with 3 of us heading to office while S to cab.