LIPS DON'T LIE

LIPS DON'T LIE
LISPING WHISPERS...

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Exploits de` Dragonular December----Part 2: THE ARRIVING, THE STAY

MOOD INDIGO
Before starting to expound on this particular and incessant yin-provider chapter of my trip, I would like to make a declaration. This expanse of four days happen to be one, if not the most memorable time of my life as on this day of 1st January, 2012. Therefore any instance of dramatization and exaggeration should by compassionately forgiven and not accounted for.

I, whose word power has already declined to alarmingly sloppy levels, will surely not be able to string it all up in words...so first things first...I think I'll have to invent a whole new lexicon to describe precisely how I categorically feel about the whole thing...just almost like that impossible girl "RAAGA" did in DIL KABADDI to arrive at a precise, descriptive word about "husbands"... (yes, totally laughable!)

I (we) reach Mumbai, after the two-hour lone travelling siesta, we finally alighted at the Kalyaan station, on the dubious and purely sheer guesses of a "respected" senior who had absolutely nothing listed to his credit about Mumbai to guarantee a righteous decision...but on the occasion of a complete void of any other suggestion provider, we religiously subverted to his advice. After another half an hour of aimless wandering about the station, and asking local tea vendors about the much-needed advice on local-train conveyance in and around Mumbai, which made us look almost like a bunch of lost, hapless, third-world tourist contingent, we managed to gather that a certain station called Kanjurmarg is the aptest station to go, for reaching Powai Vihar. Incidentally, Aman had also mentioned the same when asked, but the fact being, I could not remember this overtly Marathi name at all, (I actually ended up mumbling Kodaikanal, thankfully, only to myself :P) I had kept mum throughout this excruciatingly embarrassing session of ignoble questioning.
One of the chief reasons I was farthest looking forward to this trip was, I had a painfully grinding fortnight at my own college, just before emplaning. I don't fancy my bragging about exactly what I did, but 
really looked fwd to take a break after the hectic fortnyt at my own college after organizing two mini literarure n quizzing fests...do din se kuchh khaaya nahi tha n mom claimed by face looked like that of an underfed sparrow...yes it did...i gathered after looking at the auto-rikshaw mirror....after encountering a mirror after 4 days flat!!!

Standing at the entrance of India's best college, watching a humongous rush of students, all impatiently trying to get inside the gates of an institute they all, at some or the other point of their lives, with different magnitudes of desire, wanted to get admitted into, in itself answered the plethora of doubts that topsy-turvied my intestines throughout the journey. This is the place I had yearned to be in, although agreeably, not with the desired amount of ardour that would have forced me to work harder than I did in those seemingly impossible couple of years, had tortured myself poring over subjects that were beyond me, had gained 30 kilos of extra weight doing absolutely nothing (yes, I was almost 80 kgs when I started my college, those extra pounds have thankfully vanished owing to the magnanimous size of my campus, and the forgo-able food served in our mess, where, for some strange, undeciphered reason, we pay to be fed in) and forgot to look attractive with braces adorning my geeky appearance. This was the place, I would have been, if all had gone right, if on that fateful day, I had not stepped inside the kitchen trying to satiate my ever-growing hunger for anything edible ,and if the rice starch would not have burnt my back, and if there would have been enough aloe vera inside the fridge, and if our house would not have been so far from the hospital, and if I had not missed the couple of months of organic chemistry whiling away precious time on a queen-size bed all the way down in Chennai. Arghhhh...horrible remeiniscences never ornamented any blog, and I feel too lazy delete the wordiness of what's written above. Honestly, this was a place to BE in.
Anyways, Aman (The Techfest Guy, dude..this nick is going to take major proportions later in the story) comes to meet at the Gate. Honestly, when an old and super-eminent friend meets you at the end of a 29 hour long Indian train journey, you feel everything, the whole caboodle of profligacy and courageousness was totally worth the pain.
Quite unexpectedly, I am still having trouble believing this actually happened and the fact that I don't possess a  single photograph of the trip doesn't help either. One particularly jocular friend whose nick is unfit to be publicly declared actually took advantage of this fact trying to trick me into believing that none of this  happened  de facto and I was merely suffering from another of my drastic-daydreaming-bouts, only a particularly major one this time.
SAC-The Student Activity Center of IITB was reached by adopting one of their heftily efficacious modes of transport, the bus. The entrance to the place featured a stupendous multitude of PEOPLE. I mean, sooooo many same-aged people, all huddled up in a place clearly dissident to handle such crowds, waiting for accommodation, (now THAT alarmed me...after a 29 hour journey, any commonplace female concerned about preserving her sanity, would be completely stumped at the prospect of waiting for another 10 hours, just to get a place for slumbering their clearly-not-meant-for-any-more-exertion-body). The place was teeming with pioneering food stalls with terrifyingly exorbitant rates. After another couple of hours of idleness and eventlessness (as the Techfest Guy was catering to his indispensable duty at The Techfest organization) I discovered the presence of a Bath at the SAC, and much to add to my joy,it was clean. Leaving my things (AND a Manchester United original merchandise "Black Jacket") with a girly-gang clearly not meant for handling other people's stuffs, I hurried to melt down 29 hours worth of grime collected over a vast expanse of 5 states. Having managed to find a great pastime at last, which lasted for an hour, I was jigsawed at a certain hostel 8. Portraying great time management skills, The Techfest Guy reached exactly at the same moment (I fancy giving myself the liberty of saying that as I am unaware of the exact amount of time Aman spent standing outside the SAC). Following another painfully boring hour of waiting to get fitted at the hostel, we finally embarked where I would first taste the unrestricted and supposedly addictive Mumbai air. Aman promised to take me to a "Stud-maxx" place, where he said, the world's greatest garlic breads are served, and that the ambiance is "God"...After a fatal wait near the much coveted gate once again, where the auto-wallahs were more choosy than the kids, nowadays, are with their food, we managed to reach Pop Tates..the "unrestaurant"..where again we were duped by an unavailingly long queue, which remaindered enough time for  a quick coffee at a nearby CCD..How I missed my hard earned coupons following the precedent tiring week isn't exactly what I would like to launch into a discussion about at this late hour. Yes, it is 3:35 in the morning...n its drizzling here in Ranchi...my hands have almost frozen from typing, I am UNBELIEVABLY sleepy, and the only reason I am still struggling here with my eponymously delayed article is that I undertake such petty challenges a bit too seriously than presumed.
The Pop Tates tale was another unforgettable stretch of two hours indeed..after warming the seats at the bar for about 20 short minutes, that mostly comprised of us altercating between the random-est things under the moon, no breezers (or anything loftier in the hierarchy) needed to provide any kick whatsoever, gazing at the framed posters of Rolling Stones list of top 50 bands of all times, with live telecast of "The Hard Rock Cafe" blaring mutely in the background, and Aman finally declaring the place to be closest to his preposed Heaven (read Goa), we helped ourselves to a particularly sumptuous (veggie) meal, to kick start Mood I and it didn't harm either that the dessert at the end was free, fit for manic gluttons, totally exclusive to the fact that we were so full we could not complete the paid-for pizza, leaving which unfinished had no otherwise legitimate reason whatsoever. Followed the visit to the almost boarded up R-city (which, believe me, was the need of the hour, as I had foolhardily not brought any of my summer clothes owing to the infamous sub-zero temperatures at Mesra and my complete inability at predicting a stark contrast somewhere within the same country), the pointless and crazy reverberation between an affordable and a chic cinema, finally ending on the chic one (you can always expect such happy and coincidental endings to dilemmas with the Techfest Guy around) for the nail-biting, seat-shifting and O-mouthed movie MI4 (not, aptronymically, to be confused with MoodI). Interrupted by a shifty phone call claiming to have discovered my lost ManU jacket made by one of my own college seniors and the fabricated conversation extending teeteringly dangerously into the night, I could not wait to snuggle up inside my sheets and finally call it a day.
The next morning (technically just a few hours away) was inaugurated by a failed attempt to get up at the crack of dawn for a ride on the Hot Air Balloon scheduled to be queued for at 4:30 AM, calling up Ravi and explaining to her in length (and in roaming) about the events happened yet, trying to make her feel jealous and guilty about abandoning the trip altogether and a disastrous discovery of my arms being carelessly left unwaxed. Using a sworn-never-to-be-used cream, and skipping the sleeping bodies of many unrecognized silhouettes, breakfast was had at the canteen, which would cater to the cuisine needs of almost all the guests at campus for the next four days, after The Techfest Guy was done with his Techfest Thingy. No quizzing events were lined up for the first day of the fest, and I, with Aman, bursting with energy appeared for Word Games, which at the end of it, were a serious blow to my supposed braggadocio and the fact that we were late by 40 minutes didn't exactly made us jump with happiness either.
Moksha, my oldest friend, in true sense, my "Diaper Buddy" entered the scene here. She made a dramatic entry into the Lecture Hall where the verbose Wordy Games were going on, and was received by me with a great show of plain, raw anticlimax. The fact was that, I could still not drink on the fact that I was decisively meeting her, after a gap of more than 3 years. And Dude, did she change, being completely metamorphosed into a Manipal girl..like an MIT girl and all..slim beyond recognition, tanned, lensed, with a girlish purse dangling from her arm, a flashy cellphone somewhat remotely similar to Aman's (My Karbonn seriously needed space to breathe at this point of time...it was enjoying a peculiar sense of exclusive superiority like baby rabbits do in the presence of growling bards), brace-free teeth, she was hardly the erroneously aptronymed Miniiiiiii...I mean, you get the hang right, like CHANGED.
Moksha and I loitered around, trying our luck unsuccessfully first at the Fish Pedicure Tank, at the Karaoke, and at the non-veg food stalls, finally hitting gold at the Fresh Face award, and getting treated to a Lux Gift Hamper...the package was massive enough to make me happy. Six struck surprisingly early that day, and Moksha was supposed to be let gone off. Struggling again with the autowallahs, pleading them to drop us off at the lucklessly close Kanjurmarg station, me making a complete ass of myself at the local ticket reservation counter (no, sorry I am not expounding on this), us girls quite conveniently helping ourselves to the first class compartment without tickets, Aman calling to suggest me the measure of trying to weep off the ticket checker in case he confronted us for the "offense", and the three of us disembarking at the Marine Lines station, Moksha was saw off at a taxi and we wandered away to the outstretched expanse of the phenomenal Marine Drive. The exit to the station was teemed with a great multitude of hawkers, vendors and musk-smelling horses, another sight that has etched stubbornly on my mind, ironically followed by an Ambling aimlessly does give you those pangs of tingling pleasure Ravi keeps mentioning about and I had never really believed her to turn out true at this, but at my own expense that day, I found out, the immense truth of her words. With not one worry to hammer your head (Yes, I would like to reminisce about it that way inspite of it not being exhaustively true; the incessant worry about flunking my Basic Electronics paper always exasperatingly lurked about in the background) you really do feel Red-Bull-ified (wing-ified) without actually being so. Bugghy rides were yearned for, which in Aman's words were "infy" expensive, talked, stared into infinity, talked, looked at the famous skyline of Mumbai, talked, fancied buying the Worli-Bandra Sealink, talked. I ended up concluding that Mumbai was absolutely a livable city, provided you have enough rokda in your pockets, to fulfill all your desires, all those rosy dreams into the future which, for me, definitely included buying a place at Lavasa, and for him, going on a world tour, (Anshul reckons Aman would be the first one amongst us to buy a flashy car, and geeky gadgets being the outrageous spendthrift he is) and what not. Chowpatty flanked this, and the experience was a true definition of being poles apart from the one, the night before. The fun quotient remaining expectantly the same as of the night before, if not more, and the components included the devouring of Pav Bhaji, Aloo Chat, Meethe-Mirchi Golgappe and sitting on the "Chataai" with my four inch high heels off for the first time in the last 18 hours, which in itself was a memorable moment. Icecream (not at the chowpatty) followed the Great Indian Chowpatty and I tried out my first ever Coconut Flavor, which was praised quite sarcastically about in Two States by CB. It was thoroughly worth my money, no offences meant to CB. Gateway, and the grandiose view of Taj, so close up and aggravatingly magnified in front of my disbelieving eyes were doubtlessly a treat for them, and I would not be exaggerating things if I choose to mention that somethings are far more beautiful when not caught inside the domains of bromide. The sight of the Victorian paved road, the boarded up exhibition shops, the renaissance lighting of the streets and the marauding clicks of my heels past all of them are again something not to be forgotten in a hurry. We could not think of anything better than watching a movie again this time round called something that really made the gentleman in A man seek insidious resort (Ladiezz versus Ricky Behl) in a more important-to-be-mentioned hall, The Regal Cinema, one of the oldest cinemas of India...I googled it out..the Britishers made it and it was here that they had infamously written "Dogs and Indians not allowed". Totally getting into the groove with the musty smell of past and the shared love of Vintage, we annihilated the movie, in the middle of which I had tirefully dozed off. In another tyky turn of events, we happened to miss our last local which resembled a stunt straight out of a Bollywood movie, which was again, thankfully avoided into completely being made so by shelling out copious amount of waterproof, green semiotics from the tight budget I was SUPPOSED to follow.


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lass straight outta a 1940 romantic fantasy, fairy-believer, eggplant hating, pixie marauding, redonkulus, laconic, dominique, pottermaniac