India - Machan after work

Maybe I've already told you that this trip to India in which I'm involved is quite hard...

You might know that the main reasons are that we work really hard from Monday to Friday... Almost from 9 to 21 every day (well maybe we go out earlier on Friday...) but it's hard to maintain that working rythm for a long time, specially when you are away from home, from those things you know that help you to relax, and prepare for the next's days battle.

You might know as well that on week-ends we tour India to exhaustion. We don't want to leave not a single spot (interesting spot) of New Delhi and nearby places unexplored. We have been to many places. We are learning a lot about this wonderful country, filled with so many people with so many cultures, religions, problems and spirituality. A country full of contrasts.

But when friday evening becomes a reality, the end of a tiring and stressing week becomes the beggining of a week-end of discovering, enjoying tourism. And nothing is better to begin with such activities than the wonderful ritual of beer-friending.

Beer-friending is one of the most global rituals around the world. It consists on going to a comfortable bar with good environment and ambiance, filled with people and beer, and specially good feelings. Some good food is also appreciated. Machan in Gurgaon is one of these places. A very well know place by the guys at the India office as well as by most of the spanish mates of mine that have been around Gurgaon (Delhi).

Machan is an open-air bar, filled up with Indian males (unfortunately nowadays in India it's not common that girls go out and drink beer with friends. Even it is not "morally" well seen that you drink in front of your parents because it is regarded as a lack of respect to the parents and also as an offence, anyway, beer-friending is becoming more and more common in the most developed Indian cities and it is becoming more and more socially accepted). As I was saying, Machan is an open-air bar, filled up with Indian males and a very few Indian girls. Then it was us.

And "us" in this occasion meant, me and tEst (it's so exhausting to spend so much time with the same person... I'm sure that when we go back to Spain, we will never talk again to each other). But despite everything we have an acceptable relationship which is good enough to help the both of us enjoy of a really funny experience.

In the photo (not of much quality by the way, but iPhone camera + beer + Jasneet + bad ilumination gives this results).

And well I mentioned Jasneet. And yes, he was also included in the "us" thing.

This funny boy, with the beard and the turbant is one of our Indian office mates. A good colleague that came with us to our trip to see the Taj Mahal in Agra (I'll explain that in the future with all the photos we took).

He is a friendly Sikh, a religion and culture, born a lot of centuries ago with the intent of protecting India from the invaders. Their look, contrary to what most of the people tend to think, is due to the intent of the founders of the religion that all the members of their culture "could be recognized among a million". I could explain a lot more things about their culture and beliefs. Anyway, I leave that for a future occasion.

In the photo you can also appreciate two bottles of beer with different label. Here in India there are mainly 4 big labels of beer. The Indian one, Kingfisher, whose owner also has an airline (my doubt is whether the beer is included into the airline's pilots catering), and they also deal with bottled water.

In addition to that one, there are other foreign labels brewed in India: Tiger (Thailand), Foster's (Australia), Calsberg (Idontknow).

As you may appreciate in the photos the atmosphere of Machan was a very comfortable and relaxing one. There were a lot of people that quite probably had just gone out from work. In fact some other guys from the office were already there when we arrived...

At some point a group of men started to sing merrily and happily... Gosh! We felt like in Spain! As a good company to beer, we ordered some typical Indian dishes... In the most pure Spanish-Tapa-Style: beer, dipping-tapa food and friends!

The main difference were the location, the language and that the "Indian tapas" are really very very spicy. Which is something bad and good for beer-takers like me. Because the more you eat, the more you drink, just to calm the hot suffering in your mouth. What I really fear is going back to Spain and realizing that I can't sense no more the flavours of home food. I fear that all my taste senses are already dead. But anyway, little by little, everyone with an open mind and with a slight tolerance to suffering can get used to hot and spicy food.

Specially with a good beer on your hands. But "us" in this expedition included one more member. Gagan. A vegetarian hindi from our India's office. Also fond of beer-friending, and specially fond of jokes and laughs. I'm in fact sitted next to him in the office and there's no single day that we don't spend some minutes to laugh a little bit about things...

The member, the traitor who deserted our beerfriending cause was Pankaj. That traitor, who abandoned us for some unknown and mean motive, will suffer our revenge. Now, at this same moment, I will tell the world that according to some people Pankaj means ROSE!!!!!!!!!!! What a suggestive name for a boy! Anyway, Pankaj told me that in fact Pankaj means Lotus. In any case! My vengeance is served. Cold. Mean. Hahaha. Now you will not hesitate and you will not abandon us for some unknown and unjustified reason.

So far, the history. Now only some additional photos about the evening, the place, the bar. And the reference to arrive there: IndianTimes.com. A big modern building that can be seen from the Machan and that is the true and only reference to reach that wonderful place from our office.

The last photo, just in case you don't understand it, is what we all saw while we were leaving for home.