A little trip away from home: Chapter 5

Chapter 1: On a whim
Chapter 2: Beginning of the end
Chapter 3: Riding the train
Chapter 4: The best day

Happy falls

This brings me to the last day of the little trip that the gang and I set out on. The drunk night before was followed by a late, and rather alarming wake-up call. 

Deepak: Da, the girls are ready already.

I: Oh fuck, I missed my workout chutiya!

I was supposed to get up early and go for a little sweat session with Deepak and Geetu, but never managed to wake my arse up on time. In fact, I barely made it through my morning ablutions on time for breakfast. On to the last tourist spot for the trip…. Happy falls!!

It wasn’t until 350 metres before we reached the place that I realised that it was actually ‘Abbey Falls’ and not ‘Happy falls’, which sounds like someone called ‘Happy’ falling from some place. From a little research on Wikipedia, I found out that this beautiful waterfall and its tree-laden surroundings is close to where river Kaveri begins. And the forest you’re surrounded by here, boy-oh-boy, it’s straight out of a Lord Of The Rings movie. These 80-100 feet tall trees truly make you realise how fucking incy you are on this planet, and boy are they some sight! The waterfall itself wasn’t much of a big deal. Yes, the background was gorgeous, misty and dramatic, but there was little about the water falling that would blow your mind. Maybe, it’s better to go to this place during the rains, when the stream is stronger.

The way back out was a nice little hike, where again, the chaps went berserk on the photo session. This time however, I think the massive number of clicks were a sign that we all were coming to terms with the end of the trip. Or maybe, it was just me.

Our long drive back to Mangalore was through quite a windy set of roads. It was left, right, left, then hard right, and that went on for a good 15-20 odd kilometres. While most of the chaps were quite silent throughout, Geetu and Yaseer were feeling some serious motion sickness. What the hell is motion sickness?? Whatever it is, both puked their hearts out, which kind of sucked, as in maybe nature should have spared them their motion sickness.

Back on the move, it was almost noon, and quite a sleepy time for most of us. I was sitting in the centre of our Xylo’s middle row, with snoozy Deepak on my right and puky Geetu on the left. It was that time that I felt the pesky lady on my left lean on my arm and dose off. The pressure of her weight against my arm felt a bit strange, warm, soft, almost comforting if you may, like she trusted me. Perhaps, she didn’t hate me all that much. What a woman. It’s just that we are fire and ice when we’re in a group, but otherwise, one-on-one, we actually got along pretty well, I think. I’d realised this first time during that final bottoms-up shot of rum, and now, as we were headed back for Mangalore, where this trip would finally come to an end.

A pit-stop for lunch on the way and some more stray chats later, we reached the point where the gang and I were to part ways. It was kind of happy sad. Some ties had grown stronger, many new ones were built, and then there was boatloads of memories that this trip packed into itself. The weekend felt more like a week, that too in a good way. Honestly, that’s not something you get to say often.

Importantly, it was a complete U-turn for me. I’d set out in search of closure, in search of that woman who now seems to be a creation of my fantasies. Now, I have a new clan that I can rightfully call mine, one that took me in without an ounce of doubt or apprehension. A better way to start a new year? Not that I can think of. 
Perhaps, this happy little song makes for the perfect ending.

A little trip away from home: Chapter 4

Chapter 1: On a whim
Chapter 2: The Beginning of the end
Chapter 3: Riding the train

The best day

We’d wrapped up the second day of the trip pretty quickly. The rafting bit didn’t take much time, except for all the posing and the harsh morning sun which made clicking photos a proper pain in the neck. Then as usual, dear Geetu had to do the skirt-blowing Marilyn Monroe position on every rock she climbed, which took another year to get right.

By the way, we had two members in the gang about to get hitched (not to each other!). One’s Mr Deepak of course, and it’s quiet little Ms Leela who is going to hear the wedding bells soon after. Her groom-to-be was roaming around Coorg around with a gang of his own about the same time that we had planned our little trip and our gangs ran into each other a couple of times. I liked the leather jacket that Leelu’s fiancé wore, and Krishna and Geetu liked Leelu’s fiancé’s good-looking best friend. What our hungry lot liked even more was that the groom’s gang treated us to tea and snacks.

Following that, we headed straight for the Golden Temple (Namdroling Monastery), which last I remember, was a serene, ultra-peaceful place to be. That’s however only if you manage to get there by afternoon. By the time we got there, the place was teeming with noisy humans. Anyway, we got into the big main hall, sat around for quite some time, and I can hardly remember a word we’d uttered. It was mostly tales of our native villages in Kerala, how all the neighbours want to know when you last had sex, which one next door is scheming what and a lot of things that aren’t currently coming to mind. Back to the hotel then, with a good bottle of locally made rum! Yum!

By this time, we had gotten a bit more accustomed to each other’s eccentricities… I think. The ladies called me Ganapathy for some reason. When I asked Geetu why, she said, Ganapathy was a god, who you offered the first plate of food, as he’s the one who alleviates you of all your troubles (well, something along those lines). Understandably, I understood little from the explanation. I was just happy to get the first shot of the rum. Haha. Maybe, I was the only one that got properly sloshed. Actually no. I was pretty much in control. I do remember Leelu letting a bit of that guard of hers down, Deepak was a little looser in his manners, Yaseer had gone to bed after one drink or so, Geetu didn’t kill me, and Krishna looked as peaceful as Buddha.

A bit about Krishna here. At 5’11, she’s a towering giant, a gentle one at that albeit, and she’s the first woman I’ve hit it off with straight away on the very first meeting. She’s the protective kind, the kind who’ll never let you stay low, perpetually effervescent in manner, or at least that’s the part that most people see. Dig a little deeper and you’re likely to break down on the first story she tells you of her life. Fortitude, bloody hell. No wonder she looks like an unshakable mountain.

Back in our room, the booze party continued, and that bottle of rum lasted less than I’d thought it would. I’m partly to blame for that. What I don’t get is why people mix their liquor with weird soft-drinks. Coke, Pepsi, Limca, goodness know what all, cumin flavoured fizzy pop, wha?????

Anyway, there was the fag-end peg or so left in the bottle by the time I saw it finally. Krishna had decided not to drink, Leela didn’t look like she was up for one more, Deepak was probably too lost thinking about his fiancé, Yaseer was in deep slumber by now, which left Geetu and myself as the last men standing. “Let’s split the last one” I said. She agreed. “Neat”, she agreed to that too. “Bottoms up”, I was a bit surprised that she didn’t refuse. Glug-glug-glug-glug, I poured into her glass, let the rest of it into mine. 3, 2, 1 and it all went in within the blink of an eye. Damn, that was fun! “Rum khatam, paisa hajam.”(The rum’s over, the money seems well spent)

Chapter 5: Happy falls

A little trip away from home: Chapter 3

Chapter 1: On a whim
Chapter 2: The beginning of the end

Riding the train

Deepak, Geetu and I reached Trissur at about 12ish at night, with the rest of the party having already reached the station beforehand. We were hungry, and to our luck, there were a bunch of shops open at that time. That too in Kerala, a state where bed-time means 9pm. We got into one of these restaurants and began hogging. We stuffed our faces till it was 1:25am, when we realised that our train to Mangalore was at 1:30. We reached the platform just before 1:30, but Indian trains behave just like Indian people. If a meeting is at 3:00pm, everyone arrives at 5:30 the next morning. The train was, from what little I remember, about an hour or so late. And so, we decided to wait till the train showed up. Not like we had much of a choice.

Waiting at the platform was fun of …. For the first three seconds. Yes, we had little Ms Leela’s Gio high-speed internet, which we made appropriate use of during the intermittent dance sessions. But by then, 4000 year old Deepak’s back began to creek, Geeta became allergic to me, I became allergic to Geeta, and Leela’s cold got a little worse. That left everyone except our superwoman Krishna(because she can punch a hole through any human) and super-Mallu-man Yaseer(because he largely speaks in super-fluent Malayalam) in pain, and there was no sign of the train. And then, when we were all at the brink of dozing off on the platform, it came. Chhuk-Chhuk, Chhuk-Chhuk.

The remaining chaps had booked their berths on the train. I? Well, in my scheme of things, this trip to Coorg was more of an afterthought, a last minute quick-fix that saved my vacation. As a result, I hadn’t reserved my own berth for the night. That meant one thing and one thing only. I had to find a seat in the General Compartment, where all of India’s population had lodged itself, so there was no place to sit. Also, I had to endure the cold winter night, which this year, was notoriously colder than I’ve ever experienced. Unsurprizingly, I didn’t have a blanket. Hence, tata sleep.  To really top things off, I did manage to find an empty seat. This seat, which was RIGHT in front of the coach door, had a draft of cold air blowing STRAIGHT at me all throughout the night. So, I crouched into a foetus position, or my best attempt at the foetus position, and endured the night, sleeping in pockets of 5-10 minutes. That was a bad night. Poor Deepak had offered to share his berth with me. But that was a touch too gay and 69-ish, not to forget, a little too unfair for him, and hence I chose to freeze to death.

But things improved with the rising sun. The cold subsided, we reached Mangalore in one piece, and everything fell into place as per the plan, whatever the plan was. Before I was even in the picture, the group had planned the whole shebang. A seven-seater MPV to haul our arses all around Karnataka, all the accommodation, the spots we’d cover on the trip, the works. So all I had to do was pay up on time, and annoy the nuts out of the rest of the zoo clan. Awesome!

Out of Mangalore, our first pit-stop on our way to Coorg came in the form of Malpe beach, a fishy-smelly port that had lots of little motorboats ferrying people around – mostly to this place called St. Mary’s island. That’s precisely where we were headed.

St Mary’s Island is where the waters are clean and blue, the beach is made up more of little crustacean shells (amazing for acupuncture) than sand, and you feel like at that place, the world is somehow at peace with itself. Of course, that’s exactly a location where our Ms Geetu had to get all over-excited and wet her pants….. in the water of course (man, she’s going to kill me when she reads this). Most of us followed suit; Deepak and Yaseer even followed shirts, pants and underpants too, and just three of us walked back with our “Chaddis” nice and dry. Many poses and snaps later, it was time to head back to mainland, and so we did. That’s because the next leg to Coorg, was a good 200-odd km away. We left the beach at about 4pm, so it would be about 11 by the time we made it through the winding Karnataka roads. We had to have a food break too, which would eat up an hour at the very least. And we were famished as fuck. That brings me to our hungry Leela.

Usually, this mild mannered vegetarian saint hardly lets you know she’s around. During this trip, though, she’d gotten all of us scrambling for our plates. That was of course because of a teeny-weeny fault of ours. We’d stopped at a pure-veg restaurant, which, little did we know, would turn out to be Leelu’s den. We ordered, the food came, it vanished, we ordered, the food came, vanished, and the cycle continued. Our driver was taken aback when his food disappeared by the time he turned around to pick up a phone call. The culprit was Leela of course. One can just imagine how hungry she must have been. Or maybe, that paneer was a bit too delicious.

Through all of this, we managed to reach our hotel at about 10:30 at night. Two from the gang had gotten the drinks. The smart one, I don’t recollect who, got brandy (yay yay!!). The slightly soft one in the head (I bet it was Geeta) got whiskey. Goodness, I hate whiskey! But in the interest of getting sloshed, anything sounds good. Well, the drinks went on till 2am, the morning of the 1^st of Jan, and what an entry into the new year. We yacked, yacked, yacked and yacked, gibberish and globberygoop of every size and kind, and this was the night when Geeta tried to punch me for reasons known only to her. Damn, why did she want to punch me? I’d asked Deepak as to why this woman hates me so much, and his response left me a bit startled “She hates you for the same reason you hate her.”

We three boys went back to our room soon, and I still had no understanding to my recently answered question. Overthinking….. Ah, FTS.

Next day was déjà vu, only that last time, I was with my parents. The itinerary for the day was a water rafting place in Coorg followed by the Golden Temple, a Buddha monastery that’s pretty nearby (Google the place if your curiosity gets the better of you). Apparently, the monastery sold some really nice momos, or so we presumed when we read the word ‘momo’ on its canteen’s menu. Sadly, they had run out of momos for the day. And hence began our hunt for momos in the nearby restaurants, all of which sold the dish. Nice.

We spotted one which proclaimed that it served authentic Tibetan and Chinese food plus the momos. Quite obviously, none of us gave things a second thought, and barged right in. Little did we know that the place offered a loose-motion inducing super-spicy chutney, which had the potential to have us all sitting on the commode for the rest of the trip. Thankfully, we had the lord of digestion on our side as we powered through the maida-wrapped momos, plate after plate.

Back in the room, our choice of spirit for the first night of 2017 was RUMMMMMMM!!!! Neat, desi stuff, that you could chug right down. By the way, it was on this trip that I realised my capacity. I’ve never downed some six-odd neat pegs before, that too without dancing on the table tops, which I think is quite an achievement. This night was actually an improvement over the previous one. We’d all gotten along a bit better, and could tolerate more of each other’s rubbish, and the best bit? The chaps knew how much I liked rum, so I got extra of the dark-golden liquid, which is absolutely brilliant! I’m beginning to suspect that I drank most of it, and the gang just watched me polish it all. But was I the only one getting drunk that night??

Chapter 4: The best day
Chapter 5: Happy falls

A little trip away from home: Chapter 2

Chapter 1: On a whim

Beginning of the end

Not very often does the realization strike you that in the worries of the next moment, you are forgetting to breathe in the present. In the process, you get so bottled up that you lose your shit even when a stranger taps your shoulder and asks you directions to some place. That’s when I remembered my boss’s line “IS THIS THE END OF THE WORLD??” Obviously, he’d blasted me for getting too anxious over something at work. And here, as I waited for this woman, I had my answer to my boss’s question – “Fuck no!” Not that the answer quelled my anxiety, for she’d said she’ll be down by the canteen any moment.

Suddenly, I saw the familiar face. Hair tied tightly behind, thick, black wayfarer glasses on the face, she looked tired, almost like a vestige of the person I knew in college. She gave me her typical sly smile, I responded in what I think was half a smile (which I bet would have looked damn creepy), and she led me into her college canteen for a cup of coffee. It was pretty much the same deal what we spoke over phone, as to how it was never meant to be, how she never felt right, how I never felt right about it from the very first day we met, yada yada yada. Honestly, I think it was down to this one sex chat session we had some time ago, that really fucked shit up for good. Maybe I got carried away. Maybe I didn’t. But now, as I look back in retrospect, only one thing comes to mind…. “Who gives a shit?”

She was smart to keep the meeting short by having some friend of hers call her midway. I HATE it when someone attends a phone call during a meeting, and she knew that. So that was a fair way to end it. At least, this way, I didn’t have to think of an exit strategy. Little perks of having the hots for an unscrupulous human, I suppose, as much as the thoughts of such a thing stabs you in the heart. But I think I’ve developed a thick skin, and so, I have a new mantra. It’s called FTS, a.k.a. FUCK THIS SHIT (in caps).

Agreed, I felt like my heart had been ripped straight out of my chest, I wanted to pound a wall till it was reduced to dust, and maybe, my anger would have gotten the better of me. Especially when she later texted me “I feel much better after meeting you. Thanks for coming.” But then again, FTS. I had a bunch of folks and a wonderful road trip to Coorg awaiting me.

The entire gang for the trip was from my college. Of the five Mallus on board, I already knew two really well, I knew the other two by their names, and there was this supposedly ultra-smart woman (Let’s call her Geetu, sweet name no?), who I had made acquaintances with earlier over phone. And she spoke Hindi! Yesssssss!!!!!!!

Of these, Deepak – a dude who’s about to get married, and the person I’m closest to in the gang – was on his way from Trivandrum to Trissur, where we had decided to group-up and head to Mangalore, and thereon to Coorg. Geetu and I joined Deepak around Kochi, and met up with Krishna, Leela and Yaseer, the rest of the Coorgi gang. Of the lot, this Geetu woman was kind of a pain in the arse from the start. Just kidding. She’s weirdly sweet, and I say that even though she tried to punch me in the face when she got a bit too tipsy on one of our boozy nights. That happens. I’m usually on the verge of getting punched by women. Goodness knows why.

You know what’s the best bit about a bunch of perpetually hungry hooligans travelling around? The food!! Bloody hell, we managed to get good food wherever we went. Plus, Karnataka food is dirt cheap, and you need not necessarily have the hotel cooks wiping the sweat off their foreheads and arm pits every 3 minutes while they cook (or let’s hope). Maybe, the whole demonetization thingy played a bit of a spoilsport, but honestly, Coorgi chocolates aren’t all that worth buying. Before all that, however, there was an atrocious overnight journey that lay between Trissur and Coorg…..

Chapter 3: Riding the train
Chapter 4: The Best day
Chapter 5: Happy falls

A little trip away from home: Chapter 1

On a whim

It all started with a whim, a frenzied whim that had all the qualities of ruining a life. That life could have been mine. This impulse took me many miles away from the confines of safety, far from the ones I love, those who love me back equally or perhaps a lot more than I can phrase. For all I know, I shouldn’t have let my hurt little ticker on this strange adventure, because as ‘she’ said, “This is not normal. It only happens in the movies.”

But, I am a guy, I have a few things dangling between my legs that have minds of their own. The middle one’s having a ball with the other two chaps swaying to their own tune, and here I am, wondering… are they singing “I want to break free” in chorus? Actually, it was Farrokh Bulsara singing on my mp3 player.  

I’d set out on a journey of a kind to Kerala, in search of this creation, who until a few days ago, I truly believed, was made solely for me. My woman.

I took a leap of faith and booked my bus ticket to Mangalore just the night before. Seventeen tedious hours on that bus, then another 10 in a train before I reached Kochin, just for a little chat that I knew wouldn’t last for over an hour. Thankfully, my toils wouldn’t have gone in vain, for on my way back, I had a gang all set for a real fun trip.

That said, my mind was teeming with questions. Will I reach Kerala on time? Will I see my lady? Will she meet me, because despite all the chats, photos and calls, it’s been so long. Will I be able to make it back to meet the gang on time? All of these thoughts, a lot of music and a few clicks on my kindle surprisingly ate up the arduous journey up to Kochi. But instead of reaching at 5 in the evening, I made it at 9. So although I’d arrived, I’d lost my chance to see my lady for the day. Yes, a long phone call later, I knew for a fact that I’d meet her tomorrow. However, for that, I’d have to wade through her tantrums, which would take me another four years. So day 2 it was….

Seeing her in the morning was out of question. Fuzzy haired, smushed-up eye liner, sleepy little thing, who wants to see that woman? Nah, not me… that’s a lie. But I was like fuck this shit. Better roam around the city, see stuff, then maybe catch her off guard, and the end may be a bit smoother.

Thankfully, I had a bunch of things to scout around. The Kochi Muziris Biennale for one. It’s an ‘International exhibition of contemporary art’ as per Wikipedia, so that’s exactly what it is, I suppose. I’d heard about it from Nayan, a close friend from college – the bugger had attended the exhibition a few years ago and raved about it, the way he raved about hippy things. So I thought, anything is better than putting up all day in my dingy hotel room. A few pushups later, off I was on a bus to Fort Kochi, the venue for the exhibition, situated on the tip of land and the Arabian sea. I stepped inside like a kid into a labyrinth, wondering where to go, and how to go about. But this kind little lady, Anjali, gladly showed me around, and that’s how I bid four hours adieu. Bu then, it was two o’clock, three hours to go before I got to see the one I truly set out on this journey for. Next stop….. Lulu mall!

Now, Kochi’s Lulu mall is a result of all the tonnes and tonnes of money that’s come from the “Gelf” (Middle-East), where Mallus export themselves to in truckloads. The mall is like a gargantuan concrete slab (at least for Kochi) that’s just…… massive!!!

I’ve seen friends click selfies with this mall in the background, which used to leave me thinking “That’s a mall. Dude, that’s a mall!! Why the fuck would you want to click a selfie showing off that you went to a mall?” For that matter, why would you click a selfie in the first place? Tell another chap to click a photo of yours! That way, you’ end up talking to an extra human on the planet, instead of ogling your phone. Ah, forget it. I saw another 35897 fellow beings excluding their right hands from a picture of theirs inside the mall.

Besides being humongous as hell, it’s the same fair as any large mall you’ve been to. Lots of people, lots of shops, lots of brands you’ve never heard or seen before – all of which are too high-class for you– and plenty of fatty food! The cornerstones of an nonintellectual future populace. By some miracle, there was a bookstore there. Phew! After browsing through some interesting, then some really raunchy titles, I decided to take the exit without reducing my bank balance to zero. Now all that remained was finding my little miracle, which was easy-peasy. I knew where her college was, got into a cab, and reached in just 10 minutes. From thereon, the eager waiting ensued, and so did a trillion doubts. What if she makes an excuse? What if decides not to turn up abruptly? Am I late today too? Should I wait at the gates? Should I wait at the coffee shop?...............

Chapter 2: The beginning of the end
Chapter 3: Riding the train
Chapter 4: The best day
Chapter 5: Happy falls