The End of an Era

I’ve always maintained that I’m going to blog about work as sparingly as possible. Even then the work stories have to be very interesting, funny, or self-indulgent, otherwise there really is no point in telling them.

I’ve been really busy lately. Busy to the point of not actually doing much else with my life other than work. Seriously, like, almost nothing else at all, oh my god totally.

Tonight though, my family and myself had our official “Happy Leaving Day Rutvik” gathering, organized by The Legend himself. He had some cake in the car, so we sang him “Happy Leaving Day” and made him cut cake and all. I had the office camera on me so we had “Picture Session” and all. It’s funny how we’ve grown to love our own ridiculousness. I love it. I blame my brother for it. He’s singlehandedly bringing the cousins together, all under his reign albeit, but a noble cause nonetheless. I’m beginning to meet my family and really enjoy their company.

If you have never had the pleasure of meeting Rutvik, then you haven’t really experienced true love and irritation and admiration and repulsion for one human being simultaneously. He is The Legend. He is Head Macha. He’s The Pune Pundek. He’s the biggest cobra in the world.

“Macha, I just had my milo, so I can’t go out.”

“Dude, so what? Just come out”

“No ‘cha. It was the milo with milk, not like how they make it in the mamak. You know how they make it with water at the mamak? It’s not the same ‘cha.”

“Whatever fucker.”

Rutvik is the man who we took to Singapore and singlehandedly threw down the gauntlet for how to be drunk and misbehave under the radar while in a foreign country as stuck-up as Singapore CAN get (I’m not saying they are all the time, k? I like Singapore. I’ve grown to really love it, really. But they can get a little insecure sometimes). He sang Justin Timmmerrerlake on the streets late at night, he got drunk on champagne and cleared four white guys off of the dancefloor so that he could do his MC Hammer Dance. He found the 2 for 1 Kilkenny Special at the bar next door, ran all the way back so that we wouldn’t order ANYMORE kilkennies from the rendhi hotel bar which was overcharging us. He had a pee buddy. He passed out during the group photo. In a country that doesn’t allow you to spit freely, Rutvik was throwing up out of the van, in the flower pots in front of the SingTel building, at a shopping centre car park on Orchard Road, at traffic lights…

If anyone of your other friends were doing this, you’d almost hate them for being such a punk… but not Rutvik. With Rutvik, you celebrate those moments with him. You clean him up, help him on his feet, give him water and then laugh at him. Then he laughes back with you before he tries to throw up again.
Yet it isn’t the drunkard that we are going to miss, or the bloody rasta that he is. Every 2 months he’ll pop by and tell you about the latest 60 Bob Marley albums he just downloaded.

“Did Bob Marley make 60 albums?”

“Yeah dude, he did. He made so many albums”

What we are going to miss is the kid with the amazing ability to inspire love in so many of us. We truly LOVE this boy. He’s one of our family members. Even his family have come to recognize the special bond he’s got with us.

I’ve got so much to say about him, but I can’t put it into words. There is no way, really. I do know that I haven’t felt that sad, gut sucking centre of sadness that I felt after we said bye to him at the bar tonight. I’m going to go send him off to the airport tomorrow, and that will be fun and distracting and painful, yet tremendous closure coz I want to see the fucker get on the plane.

It’s the End of an Era for Kuala Lumpur. Ask anyone who knows him in this city, and there are a lot of people who do.

“Rutvik, you should get on facebook.”

“I will macha, but I need to get a digital camera first.”

“What the hell? Why?”

“Because I’ve studied it ‘cha. Facebook is all about the pictures. People tagging and exchanging pictures and stuff. Look at the kid…”

“Shut up dude. Ok. Whatever. Friendster then.”

“Yeah man, Friendster rocks, plus I'm going to be on MSN dude. Facebook is too hectic. You'll see me 'chat. Hopefully I can sort out some kind of internet connection for 24 times..."

"Hhahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhaa"

"24 hours... I mean, 24 hours"

Maybe I’m the only one who finds this funny, but whatever lah.

It’s been a month of love. Many different kinds too. Emotions that haven’t been pricked in a while came to life, bubbled to the surface briefly, and with one open and close of my romantic season, the flowers came and went. People leaving, people on the brink of dying, people with health problems, people coming back, people from the past, people from a possible future. Love rekindled briefly, lost again. Lost for the first time. Gone going gone. So vague kan? I’m lazy to type lah. This way if you get it, you get it, if you don’t get it then…Sorrylah.