Preface - "Allan Here"

Last night, I went to a bar for the first time in my life. I told my super-supervisor, a post-doctoral researcher about ten years older than me that her smile could be used to test radiation counters. And that was before I had started drinking...no wait, that’s not why I am writing this.

So before my back became hunched and my neck crooked and I became this soulless, lifeless nerd whose ultimate idea of revenge is to beat the bubble-words or text-twirl or any other face book app high-score of that guy who has been hitting on this girl he fancies from afar....before I had forgotten how to make friends without sending a request first or to smile without a colon (of course, there are other things you can’t do without a colon...but smiling?) and before I discovered the sheer joy of sitting alone in my room night after night and watching Southpark episodes for the tenth time, I had a life. It wasn’t a great life, it didn’t even seem like a good life, in fact I do remember wishing it would end a fair number of times (of course, it soon did), but it was a life.

I had friends on the same continent, I had hobbies; real hobbies, not stuff you’d do just to write on your resume or to be able to spend time in the same room as that girl you‘ve been fancying from afar, or to beat the high score of the guy who’s been...and, oh yes, chics dug me like mad (I know, I know. But hey...I have a right to improve my memories, right!). On the flip side, I also liked backstreet boys and thought McDonalds was the ultimate in fine dining. Anyway, this is the story of that marvellous life...

I’ve decided to call myself Allan, and all of my friends would be given random American names. And all the girls that I fancied at any point of time would be called Cynthia, mostly because that is unlikely to be the name of any girl who was in my school. All the girls that fancied me at any point of time would be called...ah well, I doubt I would ever need a name for that category. Most of the events take place in Delhi, the great Indian capital, or Gurgaon, its shining suburb that’s one growth spurt away from turning into the world’s most expensive slum, from about eight or ten years ago. Although it does seem like all of it happened a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away....