It was a cold, snowy February night in Chicago when I went to watch a basketball game with my colleagues - Gowdish & Ramesh. After the game, I remember saying to them,
“There are two kinds of people in the world - those who have watched an NBA game, and those who haven’t”

The next year, I did a tandem skydive, so I had to issue a new statement,
“There are two kinds of people in the world - those who have jumped out of an airplane, and those who haven’t”

Today, I have to issue a third statement,
“There are two kinds of people in the world - those who have fired an AK-47 machine gun, and those who haven’t”

I had arranged for a motorbike taxi to come and pick me up from my guesthouse early in the morning, to take me to the firing range. Once I got there, I was shown a menu card (I wasn’t allowed to photograph the menu). Each page of the menu had the picture of a gun, a brief description, the country where the gun was invented, whether it was a single shot or automatic, and the cost of firing it.

One could choose from a range of handguns, revolvers, sub-machine guns, machine guns, a grenade launcher and even a rocket launcher (bazooka). If I could have afforded the steep price tag of 350 USD for firing the rocket launcher, I might have done that. But I stuck to my second favourite item on the menu - the AK-47 for 40 USD. I was also told me that for a price, any target - from a duck to a cow - could be arranged. Not being someone who would kill a living thing for sport, I happily settled for a paper target.

Take your pick, ladies!

Next I was given an army jacket and thick headphones, and led to a narrow tunnel kind of structure with a table and chair on the near end and the target on the far end. The table had a small attachment where the nozzle of the gun had to be placed.

The firing tunnel

It's time to Rock N Roll

To start with, the gun was in single shot mode, but it refused to fire the first few times because something was stuck (maybe the safety was on, I have no idea). When it actually did fire, I realised what a powerful weapon it was. I had mounted myself pretty firmly on the chair, and was expecting a strong recoil, but it still shook me pretty hard. Not recommended for persons with weak chests or shoulders. After firing about 5 single shots, I changed it to automatic mode, and proceeded to obliterate my target.

Poor guy didn't stand a chance