Travel travails… (Part II)

Warning: Read Part I first!

‘Sweating like a pig’… Do you know what that phrase means… I know it and I know it far too graphically. It was 11am of a very humid Mumbai morning and I was drenched… I did not sweat as much even when I was giving my board exams and while reading my physics question paper I realized that all questions seemed alien to me…But then I am getting ahead of myself here… let me recount what happened in my journey… The guy who had previously asked to exchange seats with my friend was back with a new DEMAND…

I have never been posh… but what with the appraisal and all I was feeling like a million dollars… I had carried shorts and changed into them from the rather uncomfortable jeans that I was wearing (ofcourse I had double checked that Sush was not in any of the compartments – including the two tier AC compartment) which was a core part of my ‘shining armor’ (read more about the shining armor)… 15 minutes had passed hence I had resumed watching Mystery, Alaska and that ‘guy’ asks… “Bhai saab, would you happen to have an extra pair of shorts…?” I looked at him… I didn’t know what to tell him… then just when I thought of giving him a treatment similar to the one that my friend had given… he adds… “You know these terecot trousers are not very comfortable… there is no breathing space…” Obviously this guy was not aware that there is such a concept as ‘too much information’… It’s moments like these when you realize your true love… blogging… There was a guy asking for my shorts, I mean my honor was at stake and all I could think about was how good a post this would make… go figure…

The friend came to my rescue… he quickly interjected saying… “How much is your gold chain worth?”… Finally he slept off on his berth forming a deathly grasp around his luggage…

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Travel: Hope Floats…

Just back from the most perfect holiday… well as the title says it was almost perfect… I am still unsure what was missing but I am sure that as I recount my experiences I will find it…

You know that scene when Rajnikanth finds out that he has two villains to kill but is left with only one bullet… yeah, I know life’s a bitch… so… what are you gonna do?

Something like that happened with me too… I had been planning for a vacation for a long, long, long time and nothing interesting was forthcoming… Some or the other thing always got messed up… sometimes my friends weren’t free, sometimes I wasn’t available, and sometimes the wallets did not permit… I mean going on an intergalactic ride needs a space shuttle and building a spacecraft does not exactly cost peanuts which my company pays… so… I was doomed…

But then one of the training that I went thru’ came to my rescue… the training was pretty unique too… It was about ‘around the world, without a penny’… and that is what I did… I spent rupees… lots of them… the amount would have been enough to pay for a dinner of four at Tandoor (an upscale restaurant) at Bangalore….

So I went home got out all the wedding invitations I had received and did that ‘inky-pinky-ponky’ routine and hooray! I won a chance to visit Mumbai and attend a friend’s wedding (Not my first choice but I was sure that I did not want to spend a fortune on attending a wedding in US)… it was a blessing in disguise… I could visit the glam cap of India… (glam cap means glamour capital which means spaghetti tops and micro minis, stilleto heels and lacy underthings… I am getting ahead of myself here…) So… I was excited…(I am talking about my mood here…)

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My Umbrella…

Everyone remembers their first… the first time you flew in an airplane, the first time you saw the sea, the first time you kissed a girl, the first time you fell in love, the first time you cried (strictly in case of guys), the first time you sang a song, the first time you won a prize… the list is endless… I too, like others, had a ‘first time’… I remember my first umbrella… No, it’s not a metaphor… Stop laughing… It was a Saturday, I remember because I had an off at school and mommy did not… She only had an off on Sunday unlike me and that really made me feel like a King… We were well-off at that time but not enough to afford a house-sitter ever week and hence here I was with mommy at hospital. No, I was not a bad boy… hospital was where Mommy worked and she took me along… every Saturday…

It was 5pm and it was already as dark at night… I saw the bright flashes of light coursing thru the sky accompanied with thunderous clap-like sound… I receded to the shadows cowering, closer to mommy where I felt safe… She looked at the watch and announced it was time to leave; I did not want to… I did not want to venture out in the rain lest the bright flash of light strike me or mom… the distance between the hospital and the bus-stand was a good 100 meters… the rain was coming down hard… Just before leaving the expansive courtyard of the hospital mommy stopped to open her brown bag… I was thinking to myself, “This is an odd time to hand out a chocolate…I was trying very hard to recollect what I had done that deserved a chocolate… but nothing notable came to my mind”

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