Bangalore to Goa – The Fellowship

This is part 1 of 3 of the series which recounts the journey of four friends from Bangalore to Goa. The trip seemed memorable in real life, not sure how much of it will get translated in words. People do crazy things once in Goa but sometimes crazy things just happen.

It's happened so many times to candidates for Presidents, Prime ministers, etc. that they did something rash in their youth and that comes out as a problem while they run for the office. Hence, even though the story is inspired from real life, I will try and make it sound fictitious, so as not to jeopardize the already negligible chances that my characters have of making it to the office.

Here is a quick introduction of the characters:
Lead characters:
A: has quite a bit of energy, compensated by lack of scruples and wisdom, is proud of his mafia links
K: has again a lot of energy, compensated by characteristic carelessness. Acts cool when in deep shit especially if it’s created by him
S: IBCD, Indian born confused desi. a little more on the balanced side otherwise
D: low on energy compensated by loads of smarts, planning and decision making capabilities (all self proclaimed though)

Guest Appearances/Absences:
R: very high on energy and fun quotient and not to say very filmy (only female cast in the story)
T: known for pulling out when everybody is counting on him. He has a history of doing unusual things
U - unknown – Was actually just a filler to add to the size of the group for the trip. May be he realized that in time and hence defaulted.

Plot Synopsis
Four guys on a trip to Goa; A total of 50 hours; out of which 20 was travel, 6 for sleep and rest was play time. This was a trip with more than its fair share of "Oh shit" moments and that’s what made it so memorable.

Detailed Script
All the characters of the act were part of one project and all the lead characters were part of the same track/module. The project was going in full swing, or at least that’s how it seemed to be. The projects, as they say have a habit of getting over schedule, over budget and over patience. This went beyond all the benchmarks set by the history. On top of it, the track was the most critical and hence the most screwed up. Just to give you an idea of how screwed up it was; the track had a history of more than 5 failed leads in as many months. Some did bad and others worse.

It was clearly not the right time to plan a trip but since K was quite insistent, he took it upon himself to coordinate the whole trip even if it meant some dilution in his commitment. Clearly he knew his priorities well. Roles were defined clearly

R – The inspiration. Encouraged the main characters to go for the trip and agreed to provide all the guidance required given her prior experience.
K - Logistics
D - Plan
A - Camera, supplies
S - No specific role

T – Was assumed to be part of the trip always but decided to pull out. Apparently he has been to goa once and hence didn’t want to go again. T, out of the trip.

The trip was planned for 5 people and since T had pulled out, so we had to find a replacement, thus U came in the picture. So, things went well, days were decided, the plan chalked out, tickets bought and the stage was set... for a series of “oh shits” to happen.

The outset
A, K, D, S reached majestic bus-stand but U was nowhere to be seen. None of the other four had his phone number. After a series of phone calls, first to find out his number and then to learn that for some reason he won't be able to make it to the trip. The group decided to see if the ticket could be sold off which happened or not is inconsequential.

The first let down of the trip was the bus. It felt like the scenario in one of the forward mails, where a client is promised something (a 7-course dinner), she expects something else (a full platter), and something totally else is delivered (McAloo tikki – The one with the tagline – “Aapke zamane me baap ke zamane ke daam”).

It was expected to be a chartered luxury bus for the trip and turned out to be just a normal bus with luggage in passageway, crying babies and everything that comes with our buses. Good part was that it was going to Goa. They were on the bus and the journey begins.

Part 2: Coming soon…

Here it is - Bangalore to Goa: The Warm up
and here is part 3 - Bangalore to Goa: The Return

Comments (4)

Character development kiya nahi ki story suru kar di... Kuch to sikha hota Harry Potter se!!!

Thanks for the comment wanderer:). Reasons why I didn't focus more on character development.

1. Length of the blog. It already is long enough to cover three posts. It will become a novella if I do.
2. I wanted to keep the characters a little anonymous, any more character development and I would give it away (in case I haven't already to a lot of people) :-)
3. Look at the thickness of Harry Potter novels and if you have read them, you will realize that none of the characters was introduced in the beginning and most of it happens while other things are happenning.

For the readers to decide for themselves if the account represents fact or is a mere allegation, here's a link which can give more insight into the
character T
.

This one was different...waiting for the other two parts of the story....