Come on baby, light my fire

As of afternoon, July 3rd, I was not doing anything on the 4th. In fact, I had forgotten about the long weekend entirely, since the 4th was a Sunday. Later that day, Krishna Sekar called and said he'll try to come over, maybe with a friend. Even later, Anindya Roy gave a surprise call, and said he would come down here with Prakash Nanwani, whom I had not met since graduating from KGP!

So this is the sequence that happened, in brief. Madhup Bakshi, '99 ME, met up with Krishna Sekar, '99 CS, and managed to miss the bus that was to bring them to the city. As chance would have it, the next bus had Avinav Khanna, '01 EE, who was coming to see the fireworks on his own. Once these people landed up, I met up with them and we had a nice lunch at PongSri Thai Restaurant. Unable to find a liquor shop open that would sell some good wines, we decided to go home and open the nice scotch I received from Kanishka and Snigdha on my b'day a week back. As we teamed up with "Captain Macallan", we were joined by Anurag Singla, '99 CS who got delayed by a few hours because he dropped his car keys into the gutter as he was coming out of a highway rest area, and had his roomie drive down from home with the spare keys. With nothing much to do before the fireworks, we chilled out on a hot day, smoking and drinking. Around 6-something, Anindya Roy, '98 EY, and Prakash Nanwani, '98 CH, landed up from the Boston area. After some munchies and a few more rounds of drinks, the 7 of us started walking east. Reaching the fireworks display was the easiest of all - as soon as we crossed 1st ave, we fell into the NYPD channels, and that made things immensely simple - there was only one way to go, so no decisions to take and no views to worry about. After a lot of walking in the long lines of people, that resembled a rally in India more than anything in this country, we ended up in a very nice spot - on the FDR drive, southbound, right in front of the river. Just as we were getting comfortable, Kanishka Lahiri, '98 CS, landed up at my house, found a parking spot, and a cab, and joined the thousands still in queue. He made it to the northbound side of the FDR, still with a good view. The fireworks started at 9:30, and kept us in awe for a good 30 minutes. So, as things happened, 8 graduates of IIT Kharagpur ended up celebrating the US Independence Day at New York City together.