Ok, I think I want to put Triin's trip (will continue the story next post) aside for this post and talk about something a little more recent while it is still fresh in my mind.

Bengalis are really a more cultured people than Singaporeans.

Last Thursday night, my colleagues had a little soirée to celebrate the return of two of our requirements gathering team from Tokyo. They show clips of their stay in Japan. Of course, I had already seen clips of daily life in Tokyo courtesy of Keika who lived there, but it was interesting nevertheless.

The group gathered around in a circle and started drinking and singing. No, I don't mean the searching-for-the-notes-but-not-quite-finding-it kind of singing you get in really bad karaoke bars. They were singing a cappella, their melodious voices wafting through the air. Some of them should really go professional, they were ALL very good, and we're talking about dyed-in-the-wool true blue-blooded Geek-programmers here. They sat around sang short takes and snippets from assorted movies, some of which I even recognize and could hum along. They were egging me on to do a solo number, but I wasn't drunk enough for that, but I was serious considering where Andy Lau's "Mineral Water Song" (Gei wo yi bei wang qing shui!!!!) would take me.....to jail probably, for noise pollution....even in Kolkata.

And it was right here, I took my first serious amount of alcohol. I always tell people I don't drink. This is, of course, not true. I can drink, but I loathe the taste of alcohol. You do strange things sometimes in the name of not spoiling the mood of the party, and surprise, surprise....with impeccable timing, my mother called all the way from Singapore just as the first drop touched my lips to tell me to take care of my health. One bottle of whiskey and another of vodka later, I discovered another part of me I never had the occasion to notice before. I had a pretty high tolerance to alcohol.

This came as a real surprise to me, since my father was a famed alcohol detector in my family. He could get drunk taking a bowl of sharks fin soup which had one table-spoon of XO mixed into it. Shucks, he could probably get drunk on a pack of expired barley-water.

I hardly ever drank any alcohol before this, so I assumed I was my father's son and two sips would put me down for the count. I was also having a little problem with sleeping, and hoped the alcohol would help things along a little during the night (My father used to have a can of beer beside his bed, the beer probably became flat before he could finish the thing). Oh, I started out just like my father, flushed red (mostly hidden by my dark tan) for maybe 15 minutes, 5 minutes of light pounding headache later, everything cleared up and I was back to the point right before I started drinking. Wierd and a waste of alcohol.

So, guys, if you call yourself my friends, you can stop asking me to take a drink. I will also NEVER voluntarily buy a drink from a bar in my natural born life.