That Long Overdue Post

About time now that I posted about my trip.
Well to begin with it was a weeklong. I left the day after Christmas. Christmas was a bit hectic but it was fun…and lots of eating. I think that’s the thing with these festive occasions. One eats in one day what one would otherwise take at least three days to consume.
Major Christmas lunch happened at my sis-in-law’s place, followed by a major Christmas dinner at our place. Yes I know its crazy, but that’s how it happened. Everyone left only after midnight, and then by the time we cleaned up and all that it was quite late. And of course, office the next day. I’d wanted to pack before going to bed, but then was too tired. Man! I came back in the lunch break and packed…then I went back to office, and then left early, came back, packed whatever I’d forgotten in the afternoon, which turned out to be half the things. Dad came early too, dropped me at the airport. But the sight from the plane…man! Ok I shall not go into that again.
Flew Deccan, which means little or no leg space (yes AFJ, I can see you nodding), and I’m just a little tall. So I was mighty happy when no one took the seat next to me. Just stared out…first at Chennai, and then eventually after 11/4 hrs at Hyderabad. That city is very strangely planned I’m telling you. My Hyd friends are gonna hate me for this, but seriously, while Chennai looked like a huge lake of fire in a black black sea, Hyd looked like a series of puddles. Lots of little puddles spread over a large area. It was therefore strangely beautiful. (Ok mamu put down that shoe…shoes don’t get along with computer screens) See, then again, I would also reluctantly call Hyd my second home. (Reluctantly, for political reasons.) It felt so good to see Hyd from the sky. Until that moment the fact that I was actually going to be there for a whole week hadn’t hit me.
Nor did I realise how cold Hyd was till I stepped out of the aircraft. I mean I knew my lovely sultry beautiful Chennai was bound to feel hot in comparison with Hyd. I was sort of prepared – I carried a sweater (you can’t imagine how ridiculous that looked when I was standing in the Chennai airport). Inspite of that though, I complacently stepped out of the airplane thinking, “yeah it’ll be cold, so what?” My next thought was “Damn!!” as I scrambled to put on the sweater. And you know how it is when you scramble: first I put it on and realised that my bag strap was stuck, so I took it off and put it on again and then realised that the stole was stuck in between, and I feel cold rather easily so every time I took off the sweater I thought I’d just freeze. The auto ride back to Campus!!!! The autowala was trying to make pc with me, and I was trying to reply in a coherent non-teeth-chattering manner. And I swear the campus is at least 2 degrees colder than the rest of Hyd. But I was there…I was home – uhmm…I was in my second home.
There are at least a million other memories from that one-week, just like any other week is made up of a million other memories. Like sleeping in a sweater+shawl+blanket…like discovering Eat-Street…like long bike ride…like having your companion sing “you pick the time…. tick tick tick tick” while watching Harry Potter on Imax…like lunching on cup noodles at 6.00pm in amicable silence (or almost) …like running out of the room and into the cold cuz there’s no signal in the room…like watching friends bbq meat on made at home (hostel more like) equipment…(yes I have immensely talented friends…they’re the coolest!)…like asking people to bring rabbits for you when they come from the U.S…trying to get thru to parents at midnight on new year’s eve to wish them and getting frustrated cuz all lines were jammed…laughing because you know you are so high you cannot walk straight…asking for the fruit punch when its right in front of you….fireworks at 2 am…(I remember thinking I want to light at least two flowerpots placed side by side…the others wouldn’t let me…said it was too dangerous blah)…endlessly making fun of mamu…explaining how arrows on an agarbatti stand are actually the representation of a tribal God…going three together on a bike…going to a shop and realizing both you and your friend forgot to bring wallets…poori-chole in the mess (yes Rita! Feel jealous)…. man! And so many many more little memories. And so many other things I wanted to do didn’t get done…but no matter, never mind. Fun is fun.
Almost missed my flight back. Well not actually. I thought I would miss the flight as I sat all tense in the auto on my way to the airport, only to discover that the flight had been delayed by an hour (which eventually turned into 2). There were lots of kids on board. At least 5 – ranging from a few months old to about 7 years old. The older ones were fine – if you consider hyperactivity ‘fine’. The babies were having a bit of trouble. One in particular was bawling away…and since it’s a small aircraft (and I really do mean small), it’s not easy to block out the noise. But then the other kids took it upon themselves to entertain the baby. They were quite effective actually. Also it was entertaining to listen to them. One girl and boy in particular were competing with each other in terms of prosperity. Unfortunately couldn’t hear what the boy was saying but the girl was talking about the number of houses she has…she started with a modest 4 and ended with 700 lakhs. Yes, that’s right. She’s rich I guess 😀
Well then that’s it for now.
Sorry about the looooooooong post. But its only once in a while that I write this much, so I’m sure you’ll excuse me. *Sigh* What a happy beginning of the year!