Battle at Prem's

I have been meaning to put this up for the longest time but something or the other always got in the way. Today I finally got around to scanning this. It tells of a battle that was underway at this restaurant called Prem's in Pune. Its in Koregaon park and I must thank my man Dheeraj for introducing us to this wonderful place where I spent 3 evenings during my short trip late last year. Before i get into this let me introduce yall to the protagonists of this tale.

First up is "The Transporter" Arjun Mohanrao. Second would have to be "Mr 3 Series" Dheeraj Bhatia. But the generals of the battle were "Monk Sandbag" Mrinal Shanbhag, "Dhoomil" Deepak Verma and Yours truly "Man Mountain" Arjun Menon. In supporting roles we have "Ms Vice Chief's Daughter" Tanya Thamburaj (engaged to Mr Mohanrao) and "Quotamaster" Capt. Utpal Das. In surprise appearances we have Namrata Kumar and Susan Mody.

Everytime I went to Prem's, it was always for masala chai. What happened thereafter is what we call "Legendairy". I shall only talk abt the last visit as it was a culmination of our trip. Last night in pune and we wanted it to be special. There were talks about going to Thousand Oaks and stuff but late evening (It was not yet dark) we decided we shall go and have chai at Prems and take it from there. We grabbed our "usual" table and ordered our chai. It was deepak, shanbhag, arjun and me. As we sat there generally discussing random topics and laughing at our previous nights antics which included Prems, christmas tree, rocky, coffee, railway station and other amazing stuff, we decided there and then that we would rather spend the evening at prems doing what we do best. We called people letting them know where we were and asked them to join us. Dheeraj and Susan made their guest appearance and it was good to finally meet Susan.

Anyway, we had decided to make this night legendairy so while deepak and shanbhag started with mojitos, i stuck to my guns and as darkness descended upon pune I had my first Old Monk for the evening. Starting with small pegs, the generals joined me with the next round as we declared war on budhe baba. We had made up our minds to beat the last evenings record. While skeptical, i was ready and willing to do the needful incase any of the others fell to drunkenness. People came and went, Arjun went to get tanya, namu left, utpal arrived. Things were totally awesome. We threw back round after round feasting on snacks and conversation. As the evening was drawing to a close, food was ordered. We covered all types of cuisine that evening. Snacks were chinese, Continental and Indian for dinner. I, for once was full, prior to ordering the dinner. But helped out deepak with his butter chicken and nan. When the bill came we were all holding our breath as I was given the task of counting. As u will notice while u look at the bill. Each order was separate so it was a task to count the number in such a huge bill. Finally though we won the battle but Budhe baba will always win the war. We had consumed Thirty Five old Monk pegs between us. A mean achievement if you ask me.

The exit is through the bike parking and Utpal had his "Thunderbird" parked there. Upon arriving at his bike we were amazed to find that pigeons apparently dint like being associated with a bike as they had pooped only and only on his bike. It was freaking crazy. As he rambled back to get some napkins and water to try and clear up the mess Shanbhag went of on a series of jokes on "thunderbird" after which breathing was the only concern. The night ended with us saying our goodbyes. All in all it was nothing but legen..wait for it... dairy!

We shall be back at prems sooner or later! Shanbhag apparently is heading that way in march so if you hear war cries in the koregaon park area know that it is a brave general waging battle....