Celebrate good times

Went to a hookah bar on Friday night in Jubilee Hills, Celebrations. Akhi, a high school and college buddy, was visiting from Delhi and "getting drunk with a bunch of blokes" so figured I'd go join him.

Despite a slightly younger crowd that made me feel like I was seventy three, the place was really nice. An ocean of city lights glimmering in the distance makes for an amazing view from this rooftop restaurant, and finally some proof that Jubilee Hills was in fact, a hill. I had had a full meal with mom and dad at Peshawari a few hours earlier, so didn't get a chance to taste the food here but I will be back for a full restaurant review.

Personalized service was what this place was about. There was one guy dedicated to our table and his sole job was to make sure that hookah kept going with one interesting flavor after another. My favorite was Pan Pasand, a flavor that brought back memories of the candy from way back when.

If the personalized service wasn't enough, the place had a Rajasthani folk singer who came to your table with his sarangi and sang any song you requested. Since we couldn't think of anything, he sang his favorites. The guy had an amazing voice which more than made up for his Rajasthani affliction of converting "sh" to "s"; a voice like that and you are allowed to pronounce mushkill as muskill or anything else you want it to be.

I had seen a funny ad on TV recently about Rudaalis, which reminded me of the movie, so a song from Rudaali the movie was requested. He didn't know the lyrics so he asked me to sing the song while he played the sarangi. After singing just one verse I realized this was bad idea - these guys were drunk, not deaf. The singing from this point on would be left to the professionals.

The rest of the evening was spent talking about old times and sharing jokes. The reminiscing was left to the old folk, Akhi and I; college was all too recent for the rest. The jokes were a little to racy and sexist for a blog, but I will be sure to use some of them in less than polite company. And it was a very interesting bunch - two of them had never had any formal English education but you would never be able to tell by talking to them. They went to Telegu medium schools and picked up English just by interacting with others - very impressive. The whole group was very down to earth and the conversation very refreshing.

There was still coal in the hookah and still jokes left in the tank, but it was getting late for the old folks in the group. By the the time we were done, it was well past my bed time.