Picnics – a Bane or Boon? --- II

The gang was least aware of what was about to happen on the next trip to the farm house, The Black Door farm house. As the picnic season drew closer the discussions increased deciding where to go. One day The Bird came up with a suggestion for a farm house, some relative of his had visited a few days back. Since, all the others had no better ideas or resources to arrange for a farm house, the suggestion was accepted without any investigation. The day drew closer and the preparations were completed. This time the mode of transportation was a Pakistan Navy truck (courtesy of Mr. Lt. Ghazi F/O The Gay). All set the gang left for the place from Jauhar, the 9-0 of the gang. Half-way through someone asked the bird now where to go and he came up with a rather amusing reply “Yaar black gate hai us ka!”. Voila!!! The mystery was part-solved, the farm house had a black gate. Now it was so easy to find a farm house with a black gate. Lost in the area of Malir (I remember the Bhains Para there :P) we roamed here and there and again there and here, until someone came up with a silly idea of calling that person at the farm house. After hours of wandering in the wild the gang was escorted safely to the farm house, greeted with surprises apart from the frogs. The place barely had a room, the pool was smaller than the water tank at my place, no place to play, and lots of vegetation here and there. The party started with the placement of the organizer “The Bird” in the pool along with his valuables, followed closely by a few others. Soon all were inside the pool enjoying however they could. Haseeb, the true successor of “Slash” played us sweet erotic music all night long on the guitar Jaws had brought with him. Dinner was served, dinner was consumed. Swim, swim, swim, until the dawn arrived. As the sunlight shone on the natural habitat surrounding the gang, the fruits on the trees glowed magnificently, in such a manner that it brought out the Charles Darwin’s monkeys in some of the fellows. Mangoes were the primary target, absconded in their early ages the little-not-yet-sweet mangoes dropped from the tress like rain after a flurry of things ranging from stones to “The Bird” were thrown over it to get more and more of the sweet delicacy which was not sweet yet. Before the gardener was awake his Mango tree was raped of its beauty by the brutes. The major share went to Ghazi brothers, who promised a mango party at their place which is yet to arrive. The pool had no top over it, but still the helpless youths of BU had to swim. They waddled in the pool aimlessly all day long, until it was time to leave for home. For me at least it was not what we call a successful picnic. From getting lost to swimming under a bright hot sun all are factors that make a picnic unsuccessful but not a disaster, as the presence of friends is the real spirit of the picnic and not the place.

The almost-disastrous picnic left a bad taste in the mouth and it was almost a nightmare to think of another picnic. Time flew by until “The Restless” could stand no more. “Abay Haan! Aik buri picnic hogayee tou ab kabhi nahi hogi kya?” The restlessness made it impossible for the entire university to stay in the premises of the campus and soon somebody handed the contact details of a leisure resort to the lot. Services of the Panchayat were launched and soon the picnic got planned without any hassles. The restlessness was in fact present in all the members, only that they knew how to keep it concealed. Royal Paradise was a farm house owned by some distant relative of His Majesty Ahsan Akber, after a little alligator tears shed by some of the gang members, the farm house was booked. Departure took place from the same spot in the same mode of transportation. The picnic started off on a bad note, when the beloved sheer-maals got dropped somewhere in the commute. But soon all the gloom was washed away when the sight of the farm house greeted the gang. Awed by its grandness the gang spent the first many minutes exploring the place like a group of excited nursery kids placed inside a play area. This was a dream come true, a big ground *as big as a rugby field*, swings, a well lit large pool, paittee *tabletop football*, spacious rooms, neat kitchen, clean bathrooms *until…HAHAHAH*, security, what else does a soul need for picnic? Since once again the troop got lost in its way to the farm house the whole lot was a pack of hungry wolves. Dinner was served first and then no one could be stopped, in the pool, on the paittee, on the swings, out in the ground, all spread like it was the first time they were left out in their entire lives. After a heartful dip in the pool, the group started a new game they started handing each other the most violent punishment known to the human kind, the “Saza-e-****”. The homo*exuality-triggered activity was started by the two most known people of the kind. The “Russian heart throb” and the infamous “Boss”, both after grabbing each others’ limitless times were bent upon feeling others’ unmentionable parts *:P*. Almost everyone had to go through this at least once, with the exception of the “Russian” who went through the process many times, enjoying each one of them to its max. After the pool football, wrestling, hockey, cricket etc. ended, the guys decide to hit the big field with lush green grass. Football was chosen as the sport, even though none of them knows how to play it. Customized rules, varying length goals, fouls, breaking fingers (especially foot), nothing with that match was correct, but yet it was played. With a few accidents the game came to an end. It was followed closely by a small-scale cricket tournament *which I don’t remember exactly who won.*. All moved on to less tiring activities Paittee and cards till the dawn, and then again in the water. Tired to the limits, some of the guys again tried to play cricket but it was as clumsy as anything wayward shots, wayward deliveries, dropped catches, made it more of a comic movie rather than a proper game of cricket. As the day proceeded the fellows fell one by one, here and there, sleeping the tiredness off. Then a mystery happened, one of the bathrooms suddenly got choked. All were suspects in the initial phase but then it came down to a few, namely the Pathaan, The Restless and the Germ Don Dirtoo. Who polluted the clean bathroom? This mystery can not be solved to date. The pathaan was infuriated after being accused for the wrongful act which he pleaded he was not guilty of (the catch here was the way of DOING THE ACT). He even got physical with the bird that had to fly to get support. But here ended a successful picnic on a beautiful location. Literally if there is some farm house I will like to visit again it would be this one.

To be Continued...*last part*

Picnics – a Bane or Boon?

For the Bahria University’s Fall-2002 batch, picnics have been the most difficult and troublesome plans to put to task. With a variety of people part of the group, the needs of each one of them had to be met to not to offend or make anyone angry. The schedule is usually revised twice or thrice to set a suitable date for the picnic. But usually some people have issues with that particular date too, but this is all part of such events as they involve a large number of individuals each having a separate life with commitments.

The “Panchayat” were usually the flag-bearer behind the whole idea. The Panchayat included the 5 most active caliphs of the section, namely, “The habitual Offender”, “The Restless”, “The Bird”, “The Kabab” and some fifth person usually “The Gay”.

The First Step was to decide where to go; yet again the problem of “too many cooks” came into play as each one had a different opinion of where to go and where not to go. Discussions sprouted all over the section. Everyone could be spotted trying to convince the non-goers to join the party to increase the amount of funds and also fun, but mainly funds. Usually one individual was approached by at least 6 to 7 people sequentially and by the time the last one arrived the culprit would usually have had said yes to the offer.

As soon as the date and place was decided the responsibilities were automatically allocated to each one of the caliphs as soon as the dates were decided. “The Bird” was responsible for the financial management of the event and calculating how much each individual will have to pay. “The habitual Offender” was usually responsible for retrieving the funds for the picnic from the going and even the non-going people *=(*. “The Restless” – well he usually remained so restless about the event that it was hard to assign him a duty, but still he was responsible for motivating and gathering more and more people for the event. “The Kabab” was responsible for the food and “The Gay” was usually responsible for the transportation.

Even though these events should be more people-managed then being panchayat-managed but just to play the blame game the management task was assigned to the panchayat. Out of the 6 picnics, the management had to bear criticism for 3 of them, as the participants included some hard-liners, like the GecKo and the “Russian heart-throb” who were very quality conscious and required that everything be perfect or not be there at all.

After all the fund gathering was completed the responsible took-off for their individual tasks. Food, transport and location all were booked and it was made sure nothing was left out, which always happened. Out of the six picnics to have been arranged to date 4 were on a farm-house and two were on the beach. The latest one was held in the mid of last year at a farm house. The picnic was not doubt the worst ever planned picnic. The fun was marred by something totally unexpected.

I have personally attended, 5 out of the 6 picnics. The First one was the one I had skipped as then I did not have enough faith on the boys whom I was going out with. The second one was also planned on the beach, which I agreed to go to due to the fact that I couldn’t avoid the “pressurize-to-wipe-the-brain” therapy and also because by that time the boys had earned a bit more faith and respect in my eyes. This picnic was carefully chalked out and had very less or almost no flaws at all. The only thing that gloomified the picnic for a
few was the announcement of the semester result. Besides this the picnic was enjoyed to its most and remains one of my most memorable ones. Unfortunately, like mentioned above there was no camera available to store the happy and content faces of the picnickers who executed a successfully planned picnic.

From there onwards no picnics were arranged on the beach. The gang apparently got enchanted by the charm of the farm houses and wanted to have a go at this particularly new mode of picnics. The new experiment didn’t went that bad initially, the four farm houses we encountered were Adeel’s farm-house (Al-Syed), Black-gate farm-house (Mithoo knows the name only), The Best farm-house (Royal Paradise), The Worst farm-house (only zeeshan knows the name and its better than only he knows it). Out of the four experiences the first one (Al-Syed) and the second last (Royal Paradise) experiences were out-of-this-world ones.

The first experience was the most well-planned as it was the first one for almost all. The farm house had three sub-farms A, B, C. We made a booking for farm A. But since the farm was experiencing load-shedding *thanks to our power-supplying-tyrant KESC* and we were routed to farm B instead which was a heaven in Karachi. It had this big grassy ground, a very big pool and a large hall-like room. The most exciting thing about this picnic was that it included all of us even Salman Shahid and Farhan Sana. After a hell-of-a-night in the pool (which also made very clear what The Kabab considered as “mazaq” and what “not mazaq”) and a double wicket tournament in the twilight the money was well received and all were quiet tired. But the excitement incited everyone to go beyond their usual powers. The morning was gloomified *this time for all of us* by the caretaker as he came and informed “Bachoo! Yeh tumhara hissa nai hai…udher apnay walay hissay mein jao”. With great reluctance the gang agreed, the journey to the other portion started and ended shortly. The day was ruined when the first person went up to the pool to have a peep in it. The water was green-colored, OMG! Moss!!!! Hopes went down and all started cursing the caretaker *a few (lead by The Restless) ran away back to the old pool to have another dip in secretly but their plan was foiled when the caretaker came back with a stick :P but the Restless one was in the pool much before that :D*. Alas! All were sitting beside the pool thinking what to do now. Started throwing things inside the pool *being a Pakistani it was our duty to destroy what is not ours in a riot!*. Here another fun activity awaited us, DABBU. Many engrossed in this dry activity and started having fun again. All were like zombies then murmuring FUN! FUN! Whatever provided fun the whole mob turned towards it. When one went back to the pool the whole came back to the pool. The Restless one kept running between the two until there became a path in the grass from the DABBU to the Pool. Then a surprising thing happened one of the zombies jumped into the pool. The others watched from the ledge whether he survived or melted in the polluted green water. But surprise he came out alive and started laughing, all were shocked, it seemed the water contained some chemical which caused a person to laugh like mad. But then the Flower Khan *the ganda zombie who jumped into the dirty pool :D* said “Abay the bottom of the pool is green colored!!!”. All were like WTF! Green colored pool bed. !@#%$, #$%$@ and then one by one almost all jumped in except the few moronic zombies who still had doubts. The day ended on a good note and all were happy after executing back to back successful picnics.

To be Continued...

An Ode to an enemy

The fearless GecKo® fears none. Until he is not dead the opposing team is not at rest, anxious every minute that the GecKo might come from anywhere and annihilate the whole squad in one go. This fear keeps the other team on its toes and causes them to camp here and there, which in GecKo’s gaming books is an unforgivable sin, or use automatic weapons like the SMG which in the gaming community is not considered as professional gamers weapon of choice.

GecKo® loves challenges but almost all the fellow-gamers are easy targets for him, except a few. One of them is now a goner as he does not come to the gaming much often. Besides that person the only person GecKo loves to face is ReaperMani formerly known as RoboMani.

Why ReaperMani? ReaperMani has the most extensive experience of the Counter Strike game. He has been playing CS for three or more years now. He had started playing up against bots which are computer-programmed players. This gave him a head start when the others chose/ started playing CS. Soon after all the fellows adopted CS as their favorite activity together, GecKo started playing CS too on his Local Area Network and it soon became his obsession. He learned and learned, played against the best of the players on the LAN and soon surpassed the skills of the fellow players.

Even having the LAN experience which the others lacked, GecKo revered two players most Sameer and ReaperMani, as somehow they always managed to get the better side of GecKo. Sameer too had been playing on the LAN but had been going on and off so his experience wasn’t as much as GecKo’s but his skills were at par with that of GecKo * =D.

ReaperMani has also been one of the most consistent performer on the CS Nights programs. He has not only played but also acted as an unsolicited captain for his side as he usually gives the call-outs to the fellow players. He has a complete skill set with adequate sniping skills and superb assaulting skills. Besides this the accurate and proper usage of supporting items like the Flash bangs and Grenades makes him an even more difficult and tough opponent to encounter. His gaming sense is very correct and utilizes hearing to his favor very effectively.

Every famous player like the GecKo has to face some criticism sooner or later. ReaperMani was accused of playing under the shelter of Sameer who was young and in his bloom those days =D. But soon this accusation was turned to a mere murmur as ReaperMani proved that his skills were what made him a tough opponent and not Sameer’s close association. He proved this fact the day he was cast in the team playing against Sameer. Besides getting Sameer, ReaperMani also managed to get the top scores in all the rounds. The people accusing ReaperMani had to admit his supreme skills and accept the fact that he was a better player. One of the accusers was GecKo himself.

“ReaperMani is THE best when it comes to backup.” - Sameer

“The only difference between the two sides was Mani.” - GecKo

At the last CS Nights gathering held on Saturday 12^th April 2008, ReaperMani yet again played his heart out to get his team close call wins over an equally placed opponent which had a superb sniping front lead by Capt. He not only lead his team very well but also managed the team mates efficiently, having the three most nagging players on your side and scoring even after that is for sure what we call skill.