Bandar as he is called was our senior in the masters program. But any party without him was kinda boring. It was his ultra PJs, his stories of past adventures and misadventures that was the highlights of any get-togethers.
I narrate one such instance which was the highlight and still fresh in my memory and happened just bfore he left .
SCENE:
On that fateful day we sat outside on the grass eating the whiskey flavoured choclates he had recently bought from IRELAND, sipping coke and enjoying the afternoon sun.
FLASHBACK:
He hadn't received his luggage that was supposed come along with him in the flight from IRELAND , but was never checked in. To his badluck he was supposed to catch another flight to ITALY with all the baggage that was left out in IRELAND. There was nothing much to do except calling and asking the airport people about the update.
ACTION:
We left for my apartment after deciding that we would meet him late in the afternoon, as there was nothing much to do from our side, not knowing that bigger action was yet to come.
Even late in the evening he hadn't had any clue as to when he wud be getting his luggage.
His innumerable phone calls to the airport could not convince the authorities to deliver him his luggage to the address in SWEDEN, before he left. This made things complicated as he was supposed to leave to oslo the same night and take flight a flight to ITALY the next morning(PS: OSLO is about 8 hours from LUND and is a different country altogether...the only reason for him to take a flight from oslo was that the ticket was cheaper ). But now he it was turning out to be costlier than a simple straight flight from SWEDEN. And now it was late in the night and now he had decided on two things...1. cancel the ticket from OSLO(i dont know if he cancelled the ticket or not) however he booked another flight from COPENHAGEN which was the closest airport. The tricky thing was that the baggage if delivered would be done to his address in SWEDEN while he would have already left to ITALY and the whole purpose of getting the baggage would be lost...
So he wanted to fax a letter to the airport baggage authorities asking them to send the baggage to his address in ITALY.
Well.....where to fax the letter, in SWEDEN, when not a single shop would be open after 8pm in the night and the clock had struck 12 long back.....??
(Un)fortunately I had started my thesis @ ERICSSON and was probably the only 'ray of hope' (I wud scapegoat :)) and Shashi asked me to fax it from my office....I couldnt say no as he knew one could fax from Ericsson and secondly it wouldnt be right on my part if I didnt help him at that point of time.
But,i was not prepared to go alone to office at 1 in the night(let alone faxing the letter, I havent stayed till that time even working on my thesis), so all the others(dijo, rohit, rahul) were also forced to come with me.....and the worst part was that they werent allowed inside, so they had to stay until i finished the Mission(I guess those guys can chip in with their story of encounter with the tiger when they were waiting for me).
CLIMAX:
I dont know whether it was I, who lacked the skill of faxing the letter or Shashi's bad luck, I tried in vain for about half an hour to fax the letter. By that time I had got a few calls from my freezing friends outside and had to make a move. Wishing Shashi good luck, I came out carrying a few cups of coffee to the frozen beings waiting outside. The coffee lwas frozen in no time and we had no choice but to drink it we all reached home at about 2:30 in the night....
EPILOGUE:
........the next morning Shashi woke up 2 hours late, exactly at the time when he was supposed to be on the flight to ITALY, but still on his couch, 50 kms from the airport. I really dont remember how he left for ITALY, probably Rohit will update about this.
But, ofcourse the story did end happily......Shashi got his baggage to the address in ITALY and is happy doing his masters there.......
- @ all those who accompanied me on the Misson ...pls do add in more details if u remember and loopholes if any....
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