Slacker

September 2007

TURKEY is exciting

But never fly Turkish airlines. The flying of the craft is perhaps often done by some disgruntled and drunken Galatasaray player or fan. Both my trips to and fro to Istanbul I felt every kick that made the craft fly through the clouds and GOAL! You will wish you never found turkey exciting.

On top of that my boss insisted that as soon as the flight takes off I should lie down occupying all the three middle seats and not respond to any of the flight attendant’s efforts to wake me up.

ISTANBUL is beautiful

And they call us Hindustanis. Never visit Istanbul with 7 middle aged, vegetarian men who think getting out seeing Istanbul couldn’t be better than sleeping in their hotel rooms.

If however you get stuck with such 7 characters you must not forget to take a trump card, someone who will be middle aged, could be a relative of one of these men preferably from their wives’ side, non vegetarian and extremely enthusiastic to stay out all night looking for traditional food and rock cafes.

The HOUSE CAFÉ, banks of Bosphorus

Is simply breathtaking. The changing lights of the bridge, the dark river, the reflections from a cruiser occasionally passing by and the almost invisible other side of the river. I had to eat and drink something as exquisite as this experience. So I had well cooked sword fish with a cocktail called- college slackers, which I thought, had the most amazing blue colour. This I thought after I had half drunk the cocktail, was tipsy and this glass with its blue contents seemed the best thing to stare than the men sitting around me, and after the good looking guy on this other table finished eating and left without even getting know that I had been giving him the ‘yes’ looks. The BLUE was my only comfort.

The LAST dinner

Was a pleasant surprise. Our agent took us back to the banks of Bosphorus. We entered a restaurant which I clearly remember had a board of the house café somewhere around it and I thought were just entering a different section of the same place i had been before with my vegetarian herd.

Dishes and orders were happening between the Turkish speaking stewart and our agent Sezer. He asked for our preference of drinks and after everyone had ordered I asked for a glass of college -slackers. The man who took our orders came back from the bar in a few seconds and informed Sezer they didn’t have college slackers. I insisted I had it the previous day, and began explaining how it looked. The order for a drink must have crossed the time actually required to order a drink and hence the barman appeared himself to understand the matter. I explained him about college -slackers and I must have explained it well, because they nodded their heads, yet they seemed to have nothing that looked or sounded like college- slackers. I was quietly reflecting at this fact while everyone waited staring at my face. Finally the barman said something to Sezer and walked to the bar passing half a smile to me and half smile at himself.

Sezer interpreted him to have agreed to make something which might be close.

What came, other than being blue had no resemblance to college- slackers. I sipped a bit to check and realized this had graduated from college long time back. Sezer then translated the waiting barman’s smile- Sanjukta is the colour alright? Is it the correct pantone shade?

To which everyone roared out in laughter.

By the time I had finished this drink I was telling myself to keep my mouth shut as much as possible.