And at last, something out of the usual to put down! Here's the one time when things went exactly according to plans. Of course there's always the "Well, almost."
There's something about the conversations we all in general have on Facebook, that I would like to add here, as out of place it may seem.When we are in the middle of a Facebook 'chat' that has been going on for a few days, there's this strange inexplicable anticipation from the other end that develops inside the head, I guess, specially when you secretly look forward to running into the person on the other end, in reality. Moving on.
Three days filled with fun, amazement, nostalgia and loads, loads, loads.. loads of food and a bit of that above mentioned eager anticipation throughout, specially on the last day, were to follow. And it wouldn't be far from right to say that all of it was expected.
Having reached the college a couple of days before all the hustle and bustle, it was a breeze completing all the formalities of getting into the next semester. After that was done, I joined two of my fellows for a long due trip to Palakkad, the home to half my ancestry.For th next three days, this song 'Khwaabon ke Parindey' form the movie 'Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobaara' stayed the only song in my mental playlist, that too in a loop.
A hop onto a train, and two and a half hours later, I stood on the Olavakode station platform, a few meters away from the place where I remember spending hours of my evening as a kid with my grandpa, watching trains pass by. A small flashback here..
I am pretty close to my grandpa, whom I fondly call 'Dadaji'. As a kid, I visited him during vacations. Nothing unusual here. For some strange reason , he and I had a very strong rapport. On my visits to his place, he took me out for evening walks saying "Wa da, train kaannan pua"(Come on, let's go out to watch some trains...). He knew it was something I looked forward to. And I don't exactly remember how I developed a fondness for watching trains go by. So, at a place, a bit before the station platform, there was a small railway crossing, just enough to barely allow a few people, maybe a bicycle or a motorcycle to cross the tracks. I stood there with my Dadaji, sometimes, on his shoulders, watching train after train pass in front of us. I still ask myself why I did that. I just get no answer. Besides, I remember myself as a kid saying, "Dadaji, Eniyum uru train"(Dadaji, just one more train) each time it was supposed to be our last train. Strangely, I don't remember a single occasion when he got annoyed of, what now sounds like a very weired request.
So more than a decade after making my grandpa wait for virtually hours at that meek little crossing, I was back to the same place. Well almost, considering the small distance between that railway crossing and the platform I mentioned earlier. Never the less, the nostalgia was more than enough to get me to call Dadaji. He was ecstatic to find that I still remembered all of it. I clearly remember his happy voice over the phone. Not a bad start to a 3 day trip, not a bad start at all!
Traveling through the streets of Palakkad, it was waves of nostalgia, lashing left-right-and-center. But beyond a point, even the nostalgia got nauseating. So I gave it a chuck!.
Back at my friend, Daasa's(Aaditya), Nayan and I settled into his room. The next three days, I was going to be the cleanest I would be for all the life I have lived, and very likely all the life I am going to live. A bath twice a day is a MUST! It will be a safe move to leave this topic without getting into intricate details of my personal hygiene routine.
Moving on to all the moving around we did, we didn't do much moving around on the first day except for the train journey.
I haven't exactly had a 'boys only' trip of any kind before this, most of my trips involving err.... family crowd, but this one would be something like 'Dil Chahta Hai' with all the driving done by Daasa's father... And I am not complaining.
By the way, on the first evening, Daasa's father had proposed a morning outing to the park nearby, something Daasa had warned us about, and threatened us against agreeing to. But then, who's afraid? The proposed time was 5:30 am. I couldn't sleep a blink after 4:45 am out of excitement. A new track, fresh morning air, what more can you ask for a start to the day? After our small sweat session, we were walking back to Daasa's place. There was this sound that came out from a very unexpected place.... and it wasn't from any of our backsides. What we heard, sounded like "Could you please give me some change, if it wouldn't be inconvenient to you?". The guy who said this was...... wait for it.... wait for it.... A beggar!!! The most sophisticated one I had encountered yet.
The first thing that crossed my mind was "Wow, even our beggers take Kerala's 100% literacy rate rather seriously!". But it saddens me that a lot of our potentially employable crowd is loitering around, unnoticed, whatever be the reason. I spent the remaining way to Daasa's place hoping we wouldn't run into another eloquent begger.
After reaching home, I suddenly got this idea of going to the terrace of the house. Apart from my decision to spend 2 days at Daasa's, this was the best decision I had taken in the two days I spent there. The view from the terrace was tranquilizing. Although I couldn't see the Nilgiri range of mountains, as I could from my grandpa's home, the view of the horizon was refreshing. Add to that the fact that neither Nayan, ,nor Daasa followed me upstairs, it felt like 20 minutes of meditation. Those few moments felt exactly ripped out of a movie scene. Call me a narcissist, but in my mind, my hair was all stylishly flying and fluttering in the wind, like that of some bad-ass bloke sitting at the edge of a cliff. A bad-ass bloke sitting peacefully on the edge of a cliff, sipping a cup of piping hot coffee might sound like a contradiction, but all of it felt good!
The rest of the day was bliss!
After all the morning running-around, our run-in with an intellectually superior beggar, a bath, and amazingly amazing home cooked food, which we stuffed ourselves with, it was time for an outing. Uncle(Daasa's dad) dropped us off at MALAMPUZHA! It's one of the places I used to visit almost every time I visited my grandparents. But this kind of a 'Boys' day out' was a first.
After fooling around with, putting our heads into, and riding a ginormous crocodile made out of rocks, we decided to leave the croc to it's peaceful Tuesday-Morning solitude, as it was a Tuesday morning. Ever since we had arrived in Palakkad, the winds had been particularly strong, and cool. So despite the brightly shining sun overhead, the heat wasn't exactly an issue. After waling all around the Malampuzha garden, we climbed onto the Dam. On one side, there was this beautiful garden, on which, some 300 Crores had been spent for it's beautification, primarily a high-tech fancy 'looking' entry to the garden. That was all there was to the beautification. On the other side of the dam, there was this vast expanse of water, namely the Malampuzha river. For the sake of GK, it is a tributary of the Bharata Puzha(River).
The view from the top of the dam was 'damn' good. With kites playing in the wind all around above us, trying to reach higher by riding on thermal drafts or trying to stay still in the air against the strong winds, it was all worth capturing on camera, that is, in case one had a good camera. Again, in case......
The dam was also 'damn' long!. A lot longer than I had expected it to be. You see, when you're with your family, your mobility is pretty much restricted to your family's movements. Out of somewhere, a cranky kid starts crying because his hat/pants flew away, the girl wants to fix her hair as they too are flying in the strong wind, one more uncle says that walking in the wind feels like resistance training, someone else is having some other random problem, and the list goes on..... and on! When it's three fellows with raging hormones, even if one of them has a bit too much of 'surface area', it doesn't really slow a gang of three.
The three of us walked, sprinted and climbed our way all around the dam. The long straights on the dam caused a very strong urge to sprint the entire length of the dam, and I had no intentions to quell my urges. Running against the wind was like running through a cake. It gave a new meaning to the phrase 'it was a cake-walk'. Okay, sorry, it was a cake-run. Thankfully, Nayan too was quite excited with the prospects of running through cakes. So, the two of us got into our elements and got going! Daasa didn't exactly share our enthusiasm for cake-running. He was more busy eating the cake, I guess.
Nevertheless, we got to on of the 'far ends' of the dam, just to discover that we were about half way through it's whole length, as far away, we could see the dam extending farther away. So we were like "Let's chuck it, we'd rather get back and watch a beautiful King Cobra."
Next stop, the Snake park. Daasa is fond of snakes. But Aunty(His mom) isn't. And hence, he seldom gets to go to the snake park. And that's exactly where we stepped in. For Company.....
From what I had heard about the snake park from Daasa in his earlier mentions of it, in my imagination, the place was this wild forest with a glass tube cutting right through it, for the protection of visitors, and snakes wreathing, wiggling, twirling and turning all around, outside the tunnel, of course. And what the place turned out to be, although only from the looks of it, was a children's park with a few chambers and glass boxes thrown in. Again, that was from the looks of it, and Looks... Are Deceptive! For instance, as much as the guy looks like Tom Criuse in the mirror, everyone knows the truth.
Coming back to dangerous creatures in the park, they were all around! I was just hoping that another one wouldn't come out from someone's pants!! Okkay! Sorry!! Bad JOKE!!
But the park fellows had a joke ready for us. At the entrance of the park, there was this wall describing all about snakes, their names, their usual prey, their typical habitat, and stuff. There was this one rat-eating snake, who's name I cannot recollect. Apparently, the snake typically lived in people's houses.... So where did the people live?
Soon, we were all tired of all the jokes we cracked, and decided it was time to head home. So that's what we did. Back at home, we watched the James Bond's 'Thunderball', the movie that virtually added the jet-pack into our imagination. I slept during the movie.
At around 5 in the evening, it was time to get out again! We basically moved out to check out some second-hand books. On our way, Nayan found his love. It'd been a while since he had started his search for something with lots of chocolate in it. And here we were, standing outside a shop selling 'Dark Chocolate Mousse'. All three of us have a penchant for dark chocolate and coffee. As a matter of fact, we barely escaped getting into an argument with Uncle(Daasa's dad) about how coffee is not good for the body.
After that, I specifically insisted on heading straight for the book store, as I am STINGY AS HELL!!! Specially when I realize that I will soon run out of cash.
At the bookstore, I ran into this cult novel 'Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. I didn't want another thing! Thankfully, the book store had a second copy of the book, which kept Daasa and me from getting into a wrestling match over the book. Getting out of the bookstall, I felt like a 5 year-old girl who had just gotten hold of her favorite Pink dressed/haired Barbie doll. I actually held onto the book, refusing to put it into the carry-bag that Nayan was holding. But at on point not much later, I got a feeling that I was being a bit too touchy with the book. So I popped the book into Nayan's bag.
We headed to Daasa's grandmom's place. There, more eating followed.One thing happened here. While we were leaving, Nayan did the most atrocious thing he ever could have. He went and touched Daasa's grandmom's feet to show off the cultural values his parents instilled in him!!! It was one of those "That Moment When....." moments, which have gained popularity on Facebook. I am particularly not fond of this 'touchy-feet' custom, and had no intention to touch Daasa's grandmom's feet. And so, I didn't. I feel a bit uncultured, but not that comes in the way of my peaceful existence. Then we headed back to Daasa's home. That episode was still further followed by more eating. At the end of the day, I felt like a stuffed chicken! Then it was another night's sleep, as the next day, we were headed back to college.
In the morning, after a good breakfast from Aunty, we got ready. I was opening the gates of the house for Uncle to get his car out, when I suddenly had this strong sense that Nayan would go and touch Aunty's feet! I just turned around to go and tell him not to do so, and there the bugger was, doing exactly what I was going to plead against... Arsehole!
I walked up to Aunty. I am not exactly the 'huggy' types. I somehow managed to give her a hug. I wish I had given her a more tighter, warmer hug. In the car, while on our way to the station, I felt as if I had just lost that one rare chance to hug my mom tight, whom I usually never hug on my way out of my home, out of my shyness. It's kind of a strange feeling. The last three days couldn't be summed up in better words than those of Nayan's. "It is now that I feel I am leaving home after vacations"......
