Looking around while blowing bubbles in a coke

My dad lands here this evening and I have my convocation tomorrow . You know , I thought I shall write something with a 'puraani jeans aur guitar' ,'nostalgia ho raha hai mamu' theme just before I leave this campus , but I really do not want to dwell on that right now.

Recently , due to some unexplained celestial movements and a friend with no regard for punctuality , I found myself in a pizza hut with nothing to do over the next half an hour . I settled down at a corner table , plugged in my headphones , ordered a little something and casually looked around . Being an MBA , I have to develop this inborn tendency to analyse a sneeze , so I used that half an hour to categorise the type of crowd that visits Pizza hut.

1.The loud and happy "hum saath saath hain" family

With ekta kapoor and her silk pallu - scorpion bindi-saas murdering brigade of women , this breed is soon going to be listed with the "Akhil Bhartiya endangered species protection board" , just below the zimbabwean gold faced owl . Everybody looks happy here . Daddy jee jokes with the kids and makes funny faces at them . Mummy jee is satisfied as pappa jee just convinced her the lipstick marks she found on his shirt was mosquito blood . Kids are happy because they know that in spite of their dad making stupid and outrageous faces at them , he is going to order ice cream after pizzaz and garlic bread . The kids are allowed to push their fingers in their noses and run off to show what they pulled out to the couple seated at the next table . The eating is ruthless and this is one of the more noisy tables of the hut . In case it is a joint family , frequent peals of laughter accompanied by table slapping is evident . In case it is a sardaar joint family , frequent peals of roaring laughter accompanied by table upturning slapping is evident.

2. The coochie coochie "Kuch Kuch hota hain" couple

Now this is the karan johar sponsored couple which is usually a boyfriend-girlfriend combo pack. Just married couple who are yet to fall in the where-is-my-shirt-you-pick-kids-from-school' trap of married life may also qualify.

They prefer to sit in remote corners of the hut , well hidden by flowerpots or pillars , leading to problems for waiters who have trouble finding them . They sit as close as siamese twins , may eat from the same plate ( rather unhygeinic) and the only time their hands are not holding each other's body parts is when they are holding spoons or forks . They don't laugh the typical 'balwant-singh-chappar-faad-ke' brand of loaring laughter. It is more like twittering accompanied by whispering into ears . In short , both of them are in complete bliss . For the girl , bliss ends when daddy finds out his daughter has been visiting pizza hut instead of the maths tutions . For the guy , bliss ends much earlier , when the waiter brings the bill.

3. The "shehar ki ladki" tribe

The table which challenges every sound barrier with its shrieking and excited occupants . High school girls maybe . Even college girls , if they are slightly low on maturity . Usually , there is an occasion , which usually , is the birthday of one of those ladies . Shrill and sharp pizza-toppling cries of 'wowwwwwwwwwwwwww' , 'Howww chweeeeeeeeeeeet', 'Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww' escape from this gang . A lot of ribbons , gifts and greeting cards may also be passed around , leading to delight of the birthday girl and a certain archies gallery owner. Noise levels , boy's interest in pizza hut and daddy's credit card expenses rise dramatically due to this set of young women.

4. The "kya kool hai hum" boys.

This is the symmetrical opposite of category 3 above . But boys being boys , the sounds they emit are much less shrill and much more unrestrained in terms of their colorful vocabulary . 'Abbe ****** , pizza kaunsa mangwaye?' , 'Ganguly to G**** hain' , '**** ***' , 'Check her out' , 'Pooja se baat karun kya?' are some examples suitable for an under 18 audience . Their table manners are in urgent need of upgradation and cleaning these tables is the kind of work responsible for salary hike demands by Pizza Hut Waiters Union . Any delay in getting the food on table may lead to heated reactions by these boys , unless there is enough of category 3 around to keep their minds off food . The payment is the most tense and crucial moment , when frequent references to previous 'saale-tujhe-mere-200-dene-hai-pehle-ke' lendings are made.

5. The "na tum bolo na hum" couple

I am really confused about this variety.I mean , if a man and a woman don't want to talk , what kinda gunpoint threat got them together at pizza hut ? But I have always noticed the table as silent as a graveyard occupied by a couple who look as close as kabul and barbados. These people avoid eye contact with each other , smile with the comfort of a nun in a nightclub and keep looking out of the nearest window with the classical philosphical expression . The most elaborate conversations they strike up are about the temperature of the soup , which last for about thirteen seconds , including the sighs and coughs.

6. The 'tanha tanha yahan pe jeena' organism

Primarily , these are people in wait for their friends/girlfriends/boyfriends/blind dates/dates who can see . The waiters eye them suspiciously , clearly distressed by the person's sipping a single coke over the last forty minutes . The fellow passes his time by sipping the drink with the hurry of a super slow motion vision stump camera , blows bubbles in the glass , spends time by memorising every name in the menu card , or just looking at other people.

Yeah , there are other species too , but right now , I need to catch the India-England match and then I need to pack my bags and I need to burn all the movies and music and pictures on CDs . I fly off to home soon , and this is probably my last post from this untidy , unkempt room at New Hostel , IIM Calcutta .I am gonna miss some people , and they know who they are. But then , every end is a beginning of something new , and nothing lasts , which is one of the fundamental truths of life . I may leave this place and the friends I made here , but the memories shall remain . And I know I have to talk about these people and these experiences , but in my current state of mind , my immediate thoughts are about the CD of 'Tom n Jerry' I need to copy from Nishant .Hata saawan ki ghata and chill maar yaar . Life is good.