1973

It was August 2008. We headed off from Mumbai to Bangalore after much anticipation - your friend Richard, who I had never met, lived there in a small flat in the first floor of a converted house. We spent a couple of days in Bangalore, including one very memorable night of clubbing where we got really drunk on Tequila (or was it Vodka? we were young and broke so I don't remember!) and you passed out on the stairs to the flat, with Richard and I trying to get you up for like 2 hours before you recovered enough to cooperate. Think we managed to get you up precisely two steps in those 2 hours.

Anyway.

We decided we need to go someplace and explore.

This was back in the days when there was no travel apps (and my aging n-gage was still almost cutting edge for being able to do email and chat in its browser!) - so the only way to travel was to go to a bus stand, inquire and head over.

We decided (did Richard recommend it?) to go to Coorg.

It was an overnight bus ride. I fully charged my phone. It had a battery life of 8 hours when fully charged if I didn't use the screen at all - which could be extended to 8 hours 25 minutes if I only listened to one song on repeat. A full 25 minutes more than Nokia themselves claimed - beat that!

And so I picked one song.

It's now 2026. I still remember that bus ride like it was yesterday - middle of the bus (most comfort!), left side (probably cos the right wasn't available - the best views are usually on the right!). You had the window seat, and I had the aisle. And after listening to that song on loop for 8 hours (I stopped the song before the battery fully died!) I can still say, 18 years later:

I would call you up every Saturday night
And we'd both stay out 'til the morning light
And we sang "Here we go again."
And though time goes by
I will always be in a club with you in 1973

ps: Even if you don't remember, I would love to remind you: your favourite song for that trip was "Hey there Delilah". And your Sony w800i had a much better battery life than my n-gage, so that's the song we listened to for the rest of the journey!