VJ and Thuks fly to San Antonio tonight and the mandatory bye-bye get-together was scheduled at Café Coffee Day on Cenotaph Road.

I don't really remember where the conversation went as I was too busy concentrating on my 'Choc-a-Vloc'. The almonds were removed on special request. I have known only one way of eating almonds - when Ma stuffs them into my mouth while I am using both my hands to tie them shoelaces.

VJ still had a few hours left and was still to complete his packing and couldn't make it. So, once done with CCD, we decided to pick him up and head to the Fruit Shop in Besant Nagar. By the time, Dil and myself got there, Maddy, VJ, Cheeru and a Gentleman-I-had-never-met sat together, seemingly sharing innocuous tales of rambunctious women at their respective workplaces.

Once the juices came in, the circulation of the glasses followed. Strangely our Gentleman, stayed out of the U-sip-mine-I-sip-yours assembly. That didn't bother Dil and myself and we continued to enjoy the moment, just as everybody else.

Some, 33minutes later, after having heard through all our fantasies, expectations, truths and half-truths, the Gentleman rises, doesn't wave or nod to any of us, pays his bill and leaves. I was mighty shocked. Dil wasn't amused. And without checking the others' expressions, I finally gathered the nerve to ask VJ - who was that ? After all, it was a gathering for enjoying VJ's last evening in Chennai, so he mustave invited the man.

I thought he was VJ's friend. VJ thought he was Cheeru's friend. Cheeru thought he was Maddy's friend. Dil, forever baffled at the prospect of counting the exact number of Cheeru's acquaintances, thought he was another of his friends..

Maddy knew he was not one of us. Now he tells us. Apparently, the Gentleman had joined us for want of a table to place his glass on. It's a different thing that he didn't budge even after all the remaining tables were long empty.

Instead, he'd been courteous enough to sit thru all our conversations and lurid gestures, enjoy his drink nevertheless and gracefully leave after settling his bill.

I think the adaptation of the share-auto jig in juice-conclaves is a concept gone awry. I guess we've not been here long enough because the laughter is still spontaneous, everytime one thinks of the evening gone by.