Da Man asked me to check out an email trail from his college-group mailing-list. I did and was amused. The first email (verbatim except for name of the sender) in this trail reads as follows:
Hi Mubbers,
I, for one, will not be able to make it to the June reunion in Madras. I think many of you probably won’t be able to either.
What say you to a meetup in Vegas in August? Before school starts, and just us, no family, for a weekend. Like in “The Hangover.
Perhaps the second weekend in August, 8-9th…let me know your thoughts.
We will have a lot of fun. Let’s do it. Oversea’ers are most welcome too.
-xxxx
Let’s analyze the hive-mind of this group of grown men. First thing to notice is their moniker– Mubbers. The word, Mub, means under-the-influence in street Tamil lingo. That tells us something. At first, I’m tempted to wave it off as teenage stupidity because these fools apparently picked the moniker when they were still in college. But then I go on to see that so many of these men remain boyz. The invite has received numerous accepts. “I’m in”, “Count me in”, “Me too”, “Let’s do it” are the tame responses. The outrageously enthusiastic acceptances, which I can’t reproduce, would make any violet shrink.
And I’ve met all these guys, their wives, and their children. Everyone of these fellows is a sober looking professional. Each is a family man yoked to a never-bar-hopped-type wife and diligent school going kids. These men are, in the Vegas sense, lame with no game. I can only picture them in the casino discussing topics such as Tesla cars, stock picks, and the wisdom of joining a startup. In this context, their excitement to reunite in Vegas to cavort “Hangover” style, that too after leaving wife and kids behind, is more than a bit comical.
Couldn’t they just own up to their station in life and meet-up at Yosemite for a manly hike up the mountains? Or share a few pints in a sports bar within downtown San Francisco? Of all the places in the world, why Sin City sans family?
Here is some more background. The “June reunion” mentioned in the afore-quoted email is the one that has triggered this rush to Vegas. That reunion, the real one, is being organized in India by Da Man’s classmates who still reside there. I know because I’ve seen that email trail also. That reunion is to take place in a nice resort, explicitly welcomes wives and kids, and even lists out a variety of family friendly activities for the attendees.
It would appear that the Indian chapter is going about its business organizing a “tame” event in line with their proclivities. Da Man’s cluster of “mubbers” for various reasons feels pressured into entering a kingdom of cool. It is best that I leave this post by stating the obvious without delving into underlying reasons– there is quite the difference in attitudes, perhaps even world views, between the two classmate cohorts.
DancingDrums 