We were well stocked and the drinks started to flow. Parag came in from Pune and immediately got his usual "BROKE-BACK" comments from the gang. It was good to see him in shape, usually you see that when someone hits the gym, in his case he hits the hospital :) It was not so cold as you would expect in the dead of the night in Lonavala and we spread some chairs in the porch and started to reminiscence the good, the bad and the future that beckons each of us. We were wired this time and there were like 3 laptops. I hooked up mine to a speaker and we enjoyed the music as time passed. It was like the previous 2 QBRs we spent at this place, everything still seemed the same, the fun, the bonding, the slapstick comments, the howling (dedicated to Tanveer). And now we all know how inspired we can get, so when someone asked Hemu why the hell wasnt he picking up our calls, he gave some lame excuse and we told him probably he felt crippled like SK in the film Sholay and should immediately hire "RAMLAL" (SKs domestic help in Sholay) to attend to his calls. So the next time you see Hemu across the street, just mention "RAMLAL" and he should get worked up :)
Now admist all this fun and hoopla there was something very unplesant that we had to brace ourselves with, the unceremonious exit of one of our HKs, Mahesh Karkera. It is one of those things you wished never happened but it did turn out otherwise, in a way it is a good learning experience. But hey, we got the number to go even with the introduction of a new HK, Amit Khanna, so there you go, you win some, you lose some.
We were out having the time of our lives well in to the dawn and then one by one we hit the bed, it was time to catch forty winks. Before we did that, some of us headed out for a quick breakfast, we feasted on the misals, omlets and bhurjis and topped it up with piping hot chai.
We were up by 1:00 PM and decided to fill our tummies and headed straight to a local restaurant, Hotel Lonavala. Javed hooked up with us during this time, he drove from Mumbai straight to the restaurant in Lonvala. The food was reasonable and filling. The next plan was to play a game of cricked, sweat enough and jump in to the pool, as you can guess, the uncles and daddys that we had turned in to over the years, we couldnt pull our ass up to the playground and rolled over in to the pool instead, like a hippo in fresh water lake.
The time spent in the pool was awesome, as it always is, imagine hippos playing water sports, I had to pay the price for not stepping in the pool, I had to keep running around taking pictures, capturing video and throwing the ball back in the pool. The guys played the sport in true spirit, cheating, sledging, getting pysical, thank god we are all Indians and share the same race. As the game went in to the twilight, the inevitable happened. Rahul shared his special announcement. He was leaving us. This was going to be his last QBR and he and his wife were heading to the US to pursue their dreams. It was an emotional moment and the guys hugged, shook hands and finally hoisted him in the air, still in the pool.
With a heavy heart, the guys stepped out of the pool and headed to the bunglow. You could make out the sudden turn of events had its impact on the guys, they went silent and it was pretty much the same for a few hours until it was time to celebrate Elvis's upcoming b'day (March 13). We decided to give him a suprise since we were all together. Over to D-Day 3.
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