Adventures in Xin Tian Di

Well, many of you reading this article, or rather a short chronicle, would be very familiar with the place called “xin tian di”. It must be a topic of almost everyday discussions for you. But a very negligible minority would also be quite unaware of its whereabouts. I do not blame them for being naïve in this particular department. They have a right to be so. For the benefit of this small minority, I shall resort to drawing a brief description (with words, of course), of this particular location. Not at length though.

It is a dazzling place, to say the least. People rarely sleep in Xin Tian Di. The reason probably is because it is primarily a destination of nocturnal activities rather than diurnal. During the daytime, you would rarely find anyone trespassing its periphery with the hope of finding anything of interest. Not that it is disallowed. It is perfectly legal even during broad daylight to be found taking a stroll in the streets of Xin Tian Di. But the night is when the real action starts. In short, it is a heavenly abode for the lone traveler seeking solace with agreeable feminine company and to add to it, availability of music for entertainment and ale to quench the usual thirst in generous quantity. Most of you may already be forming a very accurate idea of what the place holds. But others might be drawing towards the wrong conclusion. I leave them free to do so.

We were thirsty. The ‘we’ constituted of me and one of my very able colleagues. We were stranded in an unknown city of vast population with hardly anyone of close familiarity. We had nothing to do during the daytime. But who cares about daytime. The evening is when the fun begins. You would already be smart enough to deduce how the feeling is on such occasions. We were thirsty for sure and we wanted some action too. So we consulted some local experts with specialization in this particular field and we got the hint that Xin Tian Di may be the place we are looking for. So we decided to set off with immediate effect.

It must be around 9 in the evening (or night, if you insist) that we treated ourselves with a sumptuous dinner and set sail in search of Xin Tian Di. We were pretty excited with the possibilities, I have to admit. The mode of transportation we converged on was a taxi. Taxies were the prevalent mode of transportation in the city in consideration. With the mere wave of a hand you could have at least a couple of taxies stop at your feet. We could stop one readily.

“Ni Hao!”, I said.

“Ni Hao!”, replied the driver.

“Xin Tian Di”, I said.

“Tin Bu Dong”, said the man in charge of the taxi

Until now, the exchange of dialogues may not have been of any significant interest to the casual reader. But now it did. What he said roughly amounted to saying “I do not understand you”. Now this was a tight spot. I was not very well aware of the local lingo although I take pride in being able to manage quite well so far. And if you are well versed with my previous chronicles, you must be aware by now that I am not a man to give up and accept defeat at the face of it. I tend to give stiff resistance. And stiff resistance is what I gave on this occasion.

“X-i-n T-i-a-n D-i”, I said.

He gave a vigorous jerk to his head.

I was very pleased with myself. I inhaled considerable amount of air into my lungs to ensure the chest bloated. My able colleague was very proud of my efforts. We started our quest.

After about an hour’s drive, the taxi came to a screeching halt. The event did not move us. The driver on this occasion gave us a queer look.

“Wajida”, he said.

“Oh”, we said in unison.

We had finally arrived! The place that holds all the secrets of nocturnal pleasures was right in front of our eyes. It was dazzling all right. But not quite. We were amazed, but probably we expected too much. You must be aware in situations when you have too much anticipation, the real thing appears slightly deflated. As you would have rightly guessed, we were experiencing similar emotions at that moment. That was not to deter us though. We barged in.

There was displayed to our view pool tables and bowling alleys in ample quantity. There was ale and women too in ample quantity. And we gambolled along. We hopped one pool table to another. Bowled one alley and then another. Our excitement knew no bounds. We did even enjoy the ale. We left the women alone. And after a night full of amusing activities we returned home with a feeling of contentment. We had the right to be content.

Early next morning we set out for the workplace. After all, you have to work and let pleasure take a back seat now and then. That we did. But during lunchtime, we also discussed at length with our specially recruited experts in the amusement department and disclosed what we did the previous night. They were thrilled no doubt and very pleased to share our happiness. But what did strike as a dampening note was that the “Xin Tian Di” in our case was “Xan Tan Di”, a place that offered amusement far lower in level that what “Xin Tian Di” would have offered. And early next morning was our return flight.