Dukie Bulletin Board- 3

All set for a ride!

"Did you ever notice when you blow in a dog's face he gets mad at you? But when you take him in a car he sticks his head out the window." ~ Steve Bluestone

Duke has a few worldly possessions that he owns with a guarded attitude that no one has bothered disputing his claims... Listed in the order of his 'attachment' to them-

1. Our car, sorry, 'his' car (He first owned a black Fiat and is now the proud owner of a silver Santro)

2. His 'Alien' soft toy that papa brought him a few years back (It is yellow and blue with two antennae sticking out of its head)

3. Sandy. Yes, my cousin Sandy. I know we are talking material things but with Sandy, Duke quickly established a strong ownership that was similar to what he had done with our car

4. And any other thing that took his fancy...

Dukie was barely a few weeks old when we first tried taking him out on our scooter. It was almost disastrous... He wriggled and squealed and whined with terror so much that we forced to stop just a few yards from our home and take him back home... So, it was quite obvious that when we took him in our car the first time, we were taking no chances! Mom had him in her lap in the front passenger seat and had the window rolled up, with just a couple of inches open for some ventilation. And then, we discovered how a car window affects a dog! He wriggled and squealed and whined again but so he could stick his nose out the window! He soon had his head out the window and was looking out at the passing world with such a look of happiness and contentment that we couldn't stop laughing at him :)

From that day on, the black Fiat belonged to Dukie and Pa only 'maintained' it for him :) He would insist on being taken out for car rides, sometimes standing in front of the garage and barking until Pa took him for a ride. A few years later, when we sold the Fiat and bought a Santro, we were wondering how the missing Fiat would affect Dukie. But lo and behold! The Santro belonged to Duke within a few hours of it arriving home...

Dukie was now a year old and growing fast and flourishing. We were discovering a lot of things about him too. Two things we learned 'Not' to do around him was-

1. Scold Sandy- Ma and pa had a tough time in disciplining Sandy as Duke would just stand there and bark like mad in a menacing way if we so much as gave Sandy a dirty look... I told you, Sandy belonged to Duke...

2. Mouse hunt- The first time, we thought Duke would be useful so we let him remain in the room while we tried to catch the stray mouse that invaded our home. We realized that Duke would go berserk at the sight of ma (Pa is scared of mice, hee hee hee) standing with a broom in her hand and whacking behind boxes and would, instead of attacking the mouse, run and start attacking the broom. He would just look blankly like an idiot and would realize belatedly that the mouse had just run over his paws in its bid to get free. Yes, Dukie was that dumb when it came to catching any pests...

We soon started locking him out or in a spare room when we either attacked another pest or if ma and pa had to take Sandy to hand... Duke could be heard howling on top of his voice but he was at least safely out of the way! Safely for him, that is. Ma had once whacked him with the broom while mouse- hunting :) Na, she didn't mean to (She probably did!) but he had darted at the broom just when she was aiming for the mouse.

We were soon realizing that dogs were not quite the 'dumb and sweet' pets we had been expecting... Dukie changed quite a lot of our assumptions about dogs. He displayed such intelligence and individual character that we soon revised our outlook of him.

A few really cute instances for you. These are a few of our 'popular' Dukie stories-

1. The groundnut laddoos- Dukie loved, loves and will always love food. Of any sort! He had just been drooling over some groundnut laddoos when pa decided to give him one. Duke hogged nicely and after a few minutes realized that there was some stuck to the top of his mouth cavity. He tried all possible mean to get the stuck laddoo off the roof of his mouth and then he suddenly quieted as he probed around with his tongue. He realized that the laddoo was stuck somewhere 'up'. So he found a simple solution. He lifted his head up to the ceiling and then started licking the air over his head :) Only, all he found was air :) Pa had to help him scrape the laddoo off after that stint didn't work!

2. Ducking for dear life- Papa was posted to Delhi when Duke was a couple of years old and our house was on a hill top over looking the Indira Gandhi International airport. Most aircrafts landing passed us overhead and seemed very low. The first day, while on his evening walk, a plane was making its descent and passed low over the land. Dukie looked up, saw the aircraft over his head and to 'save' himself immediately sat down on all fours so the plane would not touch him :) He stayed in that position until the plane was safely on the runway!

3. Don't go pick on someone your size- Duke has always derived some sort of a sadistic pleasure out of barking at 'poor' street animals while sitting in 'his' car. He would yell and his body language would suggest that he would tear the other dog or animal (usually cattle) apart if only he were on the ground and not riding in his chariot. He was always particularly aggressive around cattle. He would bark at them even while on his evening walks. One day, he found a calf a little way away from a cow. And being the coward that he is, he decided to terrorize the calf. He pulled hard on the leash, got himself free and stood very close to the calf barking his head off. Before the cow could come to its rescue, the calf turned his back to Dukie and delivered a swift kick with its hind legs straight to Duke's jaw :) Lol! have we laughed about that incident or what? The coward has since then started barking at cattle from afar and never tugs hard enough on his leash to get free, just enough to show that he is not scared of taking on any other cow. We pretend to believe him :) Let him keep his dignity...

4. Jumping Jack- You would have, by now, realized what the car meant to Dukie, it was his prized possession. So what would happen when two of his interests, his car and his love of terrorizing hapless street animals, collided? We found out soon enough. We had just pulled out of our house when Duke spotted cattle near by. He was so super excited that after barking a couple of times, he just jumped from the backseat onto mamma's lap in the front passenger seat (That must've hurt her...) and then all dad saw was a blur of cream go by the steering wheel. It took us a few seconds to realize that the cream silhouette that had dashed past was actually Duke who had jumped out of the car- Back seat onto mamma's lap then out the drivers window! Wow, we were a few yards down the road when we stopped. Dukie had hit the road and after barking at the cattle again, realized that the car, HIS CAR, was no longer around. We sincerely believe his greedy heart must have skipped a couple of beats! As we watched, he came flying down the road, eager to get back into the car. Pa, just to teach the idiot a lesson, drove on a couple yards more before letting him back into the car... We were thankful that there was no traffic around when the stupid pig attempted the stunt... He has, since, never tried anything like that ever :)

5. Traffic Signal- This must be a common occurance with over- enthu and extra- friendly labs. Dukie had once scared the daylights out of a motorist when, at a traffic signal, he had reached out and licked (Read kissed) the elbow of this poor guy who almost died of a heart attack! We were majorly embarrassed but were saved any drama by the fact that the man was fond of animals and did not make an issue out of it. We have been very careful not to let Dukie try that again for the fear of causing an accident. I mean he would love to repeat it and may cause someone to react violently. I mean, I love dogs but would be rightly scared to have a monster size doggie reach out of his car window and lick my elbow!

Well, those were just 'some' of his antics, there are many many more! Stay tuned and you'll know just why we are all so obsessed with our butterball :)

I'll sign off for now, see you soon!

Cheers!

Megha

Dukie Bulletin Board- 2

Waiting for lunch!

"If you think dogs cant count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them."~ Phil Pastoret

Hi! I'm back and so is Dukie... I left you rather abruptly at the end of my last article but being a homemaker is no easy job! I had forgotten a chore and had to rush to complete it before Arvind came home...

Well, lets pick up where we left, Dukie and Dhruvi. Two of the cutest babies, one four legged and the other two legged. They did give us a lot of laughs and it was nice to watch them together. As much as I would like to tell you about how they grew up together but that would hardly be the truth... Dukie started growing at a rate we really really wanted to alter. Pups are so cute, why the hurry to grow up??? And Dhruv's parents got transferred out around that time.

By now Dukie was now almost three months old and looked like an awkward teenager with his head to body proportions a little skewed. His head remained a little too big for his body until he got out of being a pup (Officially 18 months), so we had this slightly funny looking doggy who had a big head and plump, rounded smaller body, boy did he look sweet or what :)

His antics continued and kept us busy and flustered... He had already fallen in love with his adoptive mom and made up his mind to show his affections for her by using the age old technique of wooing any woman, getting her gifts :) The only problem was the type of gifts he picked up (Quite literally...). One day he brought her this really really long stick he had picked up on his evening walk. He had barely managed to hold onto it and then encountered a serious delivery problem when the stick would not get through the door. It was so long that it was getting caught at the door. And as Dukie was holding it in his jaws, it was parallel to the ground and was too long to go through the door width. He tried tilting his head in both directions but to no avail, the stick was too long for such manipulations as well. So this poor guy just sat down outside with the stick still in his mouth and waited for mamma to come out to greet him. Dont ask why none of us helped him, I mean, why would we help him bring a long stick into the house that he would use to then demolish our belongings with? Anyways, he waited patiently for ma to come too the door and when she did, he wagged his tail as fast as it could without falling off and laid the stick at her feet. She was less than thrilled with the gift but her maternal instinct did not let her ignore her son's efforts, so she patted him on the head and said 'good boy'. Bad move ma!

In a few days she started getting 'better' gifts... He once returned with something in his mouth that was quite small and he managed it to hide it between his jaws. He came running into the house and laid his gift at mamma's feet. We got to know of his 'offering' by the scream we heard! We all rushed to where mamma was and saw this dead, half rotten bird carcass that Dukie had picked up for her! Told you, bad move ma... Ma was too sickened to react and Dukie sat there with a hurt expression on his face, he did search a lot before closing on this particular gift. Well. no problems, he decided to get her another gift that he had not liked as much but then maybe ma would like that better. I mean, who really understood women, right? So Dukie goes back and returns with a dead frog :) Lol! Just a matter of perspective, I guess...

We started being more careful about leaving the door open so this idiot would not run away on excursions again, so the only outing he had were the pee and poop walks we took him on... And we had special instructions from ma not to let him out of sight or to let him do any 'shopping' for her :)

He was now put on a leash (You bet he did not like it, but it was more a necessity than a choice...) and he quickly learned how to overcome the restrictions imposed by a leash. Brute force. He would just pull us along wherever he wanted to go. He was strong and we would end up trailing him, our typical position- heels dug into the ground and from that point upwards, our body formed a backward slash, I mean we were constantly in this position \ as we tried to fight him pulling at the leash. And that was the position we were to be found in while walking him for the next few years...

Duke got bigger and we realized he knew no 'doggie tricks'. Well, he should at least know how to shake hands and sit and stuff right? So, we started on our next phase with him- Training. Easier said than done :/ He wasnt going to make this any easier for us, that he had decided on...

So we would sit for ages trying to teach him how to shake hands and he would just look the other way, not understanding why we were acting so silly, extending our hands and grabbing his foot and saying good boy and patting him each time we grabbed his foot. But we were family, so he just let us continue but did not bother participating.

Then papa came up with the idea of using treats (Biscuits and chew sticks) and now some piggy was all ears for what we had to say! He was most attentive and soon learned to sit, and give a right as well as a left hand shake. The only problem now was that he wouldnt do any of it until he knew he was getting a treat afterwards. If you tried a 'shakehand' empty handed, a dirty look, a growl (If you are persistent) and a bite (If you dont know to back down on a growl...) was all you received.

So we started on the stage two of his training. Getting him to do tricks without expecting treats. Well, you do know he's a lab, right? So you might as well know that we failed, quite miserably. The only times he would do tricks is if he felt like it or if ma asked him to. Otherwise the treats were his regular motivation... Pa did not give up and soon Duke started doing tricks for pa just so he would stop bothering him :)

He grew up, nice and strong and we were happy. He was not quite what we expected, but then who said life is fair right ;)

Soon, it was time for me to head to college and wait for vacation time to experience 'Dukie- madness' but I was always kept updated on his 'activities' regularly. This was when Dukie realized what the function of a telephone is. It was a device that ma and pa held against his ear and he got to hear some one baby talk him from the other end. Stupid but he managed to humor us all :) He patiently 'listened' as I went on 'talking to him' on the other end...

One continually worrying point for us was Dukie's peeing pattern. I mean, he was almost a year old and he still insisted on peeing like a girl doggy, with his hind legs all stretched out, he was supposed to have started lifting his hind leg when he was a few months old and here he was still behaving like he was a baby. We had just got sick of people asking us what 'her' name was... And then one day, he was at it again when he spotted a girl doggy walking his way and very slowly and almost artistically his hind leg went up, hallelujah!

The little joys of life ;)

Well, he was now a year old, 30 kgs, super energetic, spoilt and greedy piggy and seemed to be just half way through by the way he ate and destroyed things around him...

His last leg of puppy-hood was marked by major-ly happy events and memories but there was one memory we all wish we could forget, it just hurts too much, even now... But you'll have to wait a while for me to get there...

I'll be back soon enough and will take you through the mad life this guy led and dragged us through too...

He has been a blessing and not one day goes by without at least one of the family thanking god for having brought this butterball into our lives...

More to come!

Dukie Bulletin Board- 1

The Hero Himself!

"My dog's not spoiled ... I'm just well trained !"

This one's for Duke, the 'forever baby' we brought home in 1999. Life was never to be the same... I have mentioned my furry baby in my previous posts but I always felt I was cheating him out of the coverage he deserves... He needs his own space (On my blog, I mean!) and I'll give him that now...

Duke, registered as Duke Havaldar, was brought into our family when we were all grown up and pa couldnt resist it anymore... Ma liked dogs but that was about it. Sandy (My cousin who stayed with us through his school), Nammu and I did not know too many dogs ourselves but our love for dogs was generated through all the doggie stories ma and pa told us... The major stars were:

1. Jimmy- He was my ajji's (Granny) dog, a lovely Alsatian that I had played with as a kid. He was the first one to receive us each time we went to Hubli for our summer vacations... A patient, lovable and beautiful dog... He was also the first dog to bite me. I received seven injections but I thank god that my mind did not develop any phobia due to that incident... I was at fault, I had fallen over him while he was sleeping...

2. Snoopy- The yellow lab of one of my dad's friends that had stayed with ma and pa when I was a baby. He was left with my parents for a month while uncle and aunty went for a yearly holiday and when dad met him almost ten years after that first time he stayed with them, he was the first to the door and gave pa a welcome that made up one of our best 'dog story'.

3. Kitty- She was, I think, a collie... She was small though... A beautiful, long coated girl dog who we doggie- sat while her family went for their vacation. Even after her family came back, she would head for our place after her evening walk causing her owners to stop all her visits to our place. We were upset by their behavior but now that we have this pig of our own, we know how bad you feel when your dog has an attachment for someone outside of your family.

4. Papa's sheep dog- This one was our favourite due to the fact that this was pa's very own dog he had as a kid...

We were so ready for our own doggie... We always knew it would be a yellow lab because pa was quite sure of that. I was in my 12th standard, Nammu was in her 8th and Sandy was in primary school when we had this Air Force mela where we had a breeder participate as well. Vinod Uncle. He told pa that one of his lab's had littered and that he would bring over a couple of dogs for us to choose from.

As promised Vinod Uncle came on a Sunday with this small cardboard box and he put his hand into it and brought out two SUPER CUTE lab pups, a black one and a yellow one. They were both placed on the carpet for us to inspect and play with. It was love at first sight... Nah, not Dukie, we fell for his darker brother :) Duke was a sorry excuse for a lab, a puny little stupid thing that just lay there on the carpet and slept through most of everything... His brother was super enthu and so happy-go-lucky! he played with us, he chewed on stuff, he peed around the room, he pulled at Duke's ears while that idiot slept through even that, he sniffed at everything he could get his cute little nose to, mmmmm, we knew which one we really wanted and pa also seemed confused. Sure, he had always wanted a yellow lab but the black one was just adorable. Pa took a deep breath and took one of the biggest risks he ever has, he picked Dukie :) Some dreams are too strong to let go off... The cream pig won due to only the colour of his coat and no quality of his own... We were happy both ways, we got our very own puppy :) Sure, he looked boring and dull but then he was one of the last of the litter and was weak and was barely a week old and it was unfair to judge him that early... He was taken back to be brought home officially when he was a little older. We should've taken him in a month after that but a week later he was back home, for good...

Yippe! We were a doggie family now! It felt like we were finally a family... Dukie started giving us memories and stories from the day he came into our house. We were in a temporary accommodation in the Air Force base of Coimbatore when he joined us. it was a hall and a bed room. Nammu, Sandy and I had taken to sleeping inside the room while ma and pa took the carpeted hall as pa's back hurt on anything soft. Duke took to sleeping in the hall with ma and pa. He had a corner with warm clothes spread out for him but he chose to go for nightly excursions once the lights were out.

He would explore around and would try crossing hurdles- like the lower supporting rod on the table, or some show piece on display or even pa's neck. The funniest bits were where the stupid thing would get caught across the table rod and start whining for someone to go rescue him. Pa would nudge mamma and she be Dukie's knight in shining armor as she picked him up, rather unceremoniously, and dump him between herself and pa so he would not stray again. But our Don Quixote would be up in a minute and this time would be caught trying to cross pa's neck. His hind legs were weak and he would spend the night spread across pa's neck, two legs on either side and whining quietly. Pa never rescued him as I guess he enjoyed having a soft fur ball that was all snuggly...

He also showed criminal tendencies from day one... He would:

1. go into attack position, forelegs stretched flat in front of him, his butt raised high up and his tail wagging slightly and would leap on mamma. He was no more than three or four inches tall and would get lost in the folds of her saree and struggle to get out while ma did nothing to help him. That was his lesson one that mamma was not-to-be-messed-with :)

2.run away from home and go exploring. He only had to find the door opened a bit and he would make his escape. He would be found a couple of hours later, either loafing around the play ground outside our mess block or in the laundry with the dhobi bhaiya...

3. eye my beautiful African Grey Cockatiel birds. I had a pair and their cage was kept out side most time. This idiot had been observing the way we would open the latch and feed them and one fine day he just walked to their cage and opened the latch with his snout. One of the two birds flew out and we decided to give out the other one to a shelter as I believe they need mates and are not to be kept alone... We were to be found the whole of that day outside, Sandy, Nammu and I, looking up trees and whistling in the hope that the bird would return... We even took the cage with the other bird but it did us no good. Stupid Dukie, hmmpf...

4. steal any food he could find. His height was a blessing and we managed to keep him in check by just placing everything on high grounds...

He grew at an astonishing pace and he was soon into his teething stage... I dont know if it was just this idiot but he chose to chew on everything except his own chewy toys! We have lost count of the number of bathroom slippers, sandals, shoes, mugs, dustbins and anything remotely chewable that this guy destroyed... He was on a spree! He would keep at it, one after the other. I had read somewhere about this species of African ants that ate everything in their way and whole villages would evacuate if these ants were found headed their way. Duke kinda became like that for us. He would chew and destroy everything that lay in his path, our hands, fingers, legs included. Nammu, Sandy and I were never found without scratches or bruises in that phase of this idiot's life... He would just come and start chewing at our legs or hands if he did not have access to any other chewable stuff. He was our very own Hannibal Lecter... Only he was kind enough to not kill us as that would rob him of the many chances to chew us up in the future...

Two of the cutest incidents happened around this kid called Dhruv who would come over with his mom. Dhruv was barely 8 or 9 months old and was the first human baby that Duke had seen. One of Dukie's specialties was that he treated other dogs like, well, dogs. His peers were the humans. So, quite naturally, Dhruv became his play buddy while Dukie also experienced a new emotion around Dhruv. Jealousy. Duke would put up with Dhruv as long as they were playing together, the moment ma picked up Dhruv or talk to him, Duke would see red and bark and if that did not help, just plain sulk till ma pampered him too...

So this one time, Dhruv picked up Duke's stuffed toy (Duke's stuffed toy, yeah, right! That bloody thief. It was Nammu's until this guy lay claim on it...) and was trying to drag it along while he crawled... Duke knew he was not supposed to hurt Dhruv (Why was beyond him but he listened to mamma anyways...) so he watched for some time before quietly creeping up from behind Dhruv, he then grabbed the toy with his front teeth and then ran off at full speed to go into hiding while Dhruv howled at the sudden way in which he was robbed of 'his' toy :) Dukie knew he had done something wrong so he stayed under the bed until Dhruv and his mom left and after testing the waters by peeking from under the bed, he made an appearance...

The second time, Dhruv watched Dukie give a 'shake-hand' for some time after which his mom asked Dhruv to give her a shake- hand too. Dhruv promptly lifted his leg and put it in his mom's outstretched hand :)

Well, I gotta go now but there is more to come, loads of it! So stay tuned :)

Love you Duke!

Ooty Bulletin Board

The Queen of Hills...

Dedicated to all the BFFs in the world...

Hi,

It is quite well known that most girls:
· Are threatened by people of their own gender (Even when they don’t need to be…)
· Check out other girls more often than probably even guys do (I think we just try to see what the other girl has going for her or doesn’t… It is like watching a fashion tip movie rather than read a magazine…)
· Have more ‘boy’ friends than girlfriends (I’m sure you have heard a lot of girls go, ”Oh, most of my friends are boys… It is so much easier that way”)
· Despite all the aversion to the same sex, have that one BFF (Best-friends-forever) that they cannot do without…

I’m dedicating this piece to the last point in the list given above and my BFF, Paromita Som.
Paro and I have been friends for, well, you know, I’m really not sure how long we have been friends for! No, it’s not that I don’t know when I met her first; I remember clearly when we first met and also the circumstances but when we turned into ‘friends’ is something that is a very vague, blotchy memory… Hmmm, weird, I always like telling people how we have been friends forever, but that’s not really true. We ended up being friends somewhere down a few months, even years, of knowing each other…
Paro was my junior in college and we were both put up in the same hostel during our college time. After the completion of my engineering, I continued staying in the same hostel as I then started on my MBA. We both left our hostel on the same day, with each other. We both shifted to new places and got ready to get into our new roles- working singles. Ok, before I get distracted into telling you how our friendship blossomed, flourished, endured etc, let me get back on to track…
While we didn’t meet too often, we kept in touch. The one aspect of our relationship that is its USP is that we accept each other. Period. No complaints, no demands (Ok, yeah, those of you that have seen ‘Ajab prem ki gazab kahaani’ have probably caught me!). We are both mad to a certain degree (Varied flavor of madness, though…) and find it easy to be with each other as neither of us is judging the other. Hanging around together is never any trouble or awkward for us as we end up doing stuff we both quite like- movie, shopping, eating, reading, pampering ourselves etc etc… So, as we near the end of our single status (Yeah, I will FINALLY be getting married this year!) we decided to take a trip by ourselves (Paro’s wedding gift to me!). Just spend some time together and do, well, nothing. We just wanted to have some time to ourselves… So we decided to pack our bags and head to Ooty (The queen of hills…) for a three day trip. We ran the idea through our respective boyfriends and the idea was trashed without a second thought! Ooty? Ooty??? Why would two girls want to go to Ooty? What will you do there? Just the two of you will be going??? It’s a honeymoon spot, what will you both do there??? These were some of the questions thrown at us and after some cajoling, pleading, explaining, threatening, we were given a go ahead :) (Whatever happened to us being independent decision makers?!? Some things in life never change…). So we got the go ahead and started on what the itinerary should look like. I won’t keep you guessing. Please find below the itinerary that was prepared by Paro after checking with me and sent along with a lovely senti mail to me:
2 Days Trip Plan :
· Start on 12th Feb early morning enjoy the Bandipur view and reach Ooty at around noon.
· Take an auto till Lake View hotel and check in @ around 1:00pm(max)
· Take rest for some time then go out for lunch (or have it in same hotel)
· Take 5 mints walk till Ooty lake and go for boating, 10 mints car dashing, 5 mints toy train ride, 15 mints horse riding then take a walk near the lake (or sit near the lake)
· Around 6:30pm back to hotel ,relax and explore the hotel garden and take a walk inside the hotel .
· Order dinner and plan about the next day from the hotel enquiry .
· Next day just relax go for early morning walk have nice breakfast take lots of snaps for memory and then start the day with some shopping or visiting different tourist places depending on the mood or we can relax enjoy the view and weather… read some novel and explore the near by area .
· 14th Feb check out @ 11:30 am…. have brunch then take an auto till bus stand.
Well, if you have been following my blog you will realize that things never quite happen the way I plan it. Never. So why would this trip be any different, right? Yeah, so we started off all right. Read through to find out what all we did through the trip!

12 Feb ‘10
We had to board the bus from Mysore to Ooty at 7 AM. So we had planned to get up at 5 AM and then get ready and out of the house by 6 AM. It is rather difficult to find autos that early in the morning in Mysore (It’s a small beautiful city and most people prefer having their own mode of transportation…) and hence the one hour window to get to the bus station. Arvind (My soon-to-be-husband! Eewwww, husband sounds so boring! I’ll just stick to calling him my boyfriend…) had offered to come over in the morning and help find us an auto (Why he would not drop Paro and me, by turns, to the bus stop is beyond me…) so we were pretty relaxed about getting to the bus station on time. Well, nothing exciting happened there except that we found an auto guy willing to ferry us to the station. Only that Arvind bargained with him for one and a half meter. What that means (This is an explanation for any person who hasn’t ever had a blessed chance to travel by the ‘Auto Rickshaw’. I don’t believe there is anyone who hasn’t, but then you never know!) is that you have to pay the auto driver a fare one and a half times of what the meter reading comes up to. Well, sounds reasonable, right? So NOT. That concept works rather well in a place like Bangalore where the meters are not all rigged. In Mysore, you bargain by price (And to think that Arvind has been residing in Mysore for over three years :/). Anyway, the meter started its astronomical ascent pretty much after a kilometer had been traversed. Both Paro and I were focused on the meter and just couldn’t take our eyes off it (I don’t think I am ever as alert as I am while tracking an auto meter!) and spent some five minutes squabbling with the auto driver about the final fare (80 bucks! It should not have cost us more than 50. 60 tops…) and paying him only 70 (Boo hoo hoo, I HATE wasting money where I could’ve avoided it…) and then later trying to focus on the upcoming trip… We made it to the bus (After being misdirected twice in the rather small bus station. It’s embarrassing to mention, but then, it did happen…) and got on board and then looked around twice to make sure we were on the right one- There was this HUGE party of almost 30 people (Later confirmed to be 27… Still, I was close in my initial estimate…) who seemed to be off to Ooty on a sightseeing trip. Paro looked uncomfortable straight away. Oh, I forgot to mention that the party I just talked about consisted of a rather loud, noisy, chatty variety of people. They seemed to be farmers from Maharashtra out with their womenfolk on a well deserved vacation. The only problem was with their perception of the ownership of the bus through the journey. They were quite successful in making me and Paro (And probably the rest of the passengers as well…) feel like we had hitched a ride on a marriage party bus! After we got used to the loud conversations coming from all directions (Paro had the window seat initially so she only got hit from three directions…) we settled into small talk and watching the fields go by… I loved looking at the beautiful serene lakes and the cute little ducks swimming around in them while Paro commented about how easy to please I am. She found it very amusing about how my happiness has such low trigger levels. A bird or a lake or some animal or something equally silly was enough to lift my spirits. I took it as a compliment (That’s one secret to being happy with Paro. Assume most of her comments to be compliments and you’ll do just fine…) and drifted slowly into a deep sleep. I vaguely remember Paro waking me up so she could get out and grab a bite to eat at the place where the bus had stopped for breakfast; I clearly remember sliding into the window seat Paro had just vacated and then quickly pretending to be asleep again so she won’t ask me to budge and get back into my aisle seat… The bus started again and in just half an hour or so we entered the Bandipur Wildlife Sanctuary. The flora was all dry and brown as we were just getting out of a winter season and there had been no recent rains, the fauna (Spotted deer, wild boars, elephants, peacocks) were out in the open, lazing around in shaded glades and looking utterly bored by the vehicles passing on the road, and looking quite snobbish and downrightly sardonic at the various loud calls and shouts being given out by the occupants of the passing vehicles (No, my voice was not among any of the shouts and calls sent hurtling through the cold crisp air... Seriously, I’m really enthusiastic about wildlife and stuff but would never do anything stupid like shouting at the animals to capture their attention…). After a rather alert one hour where I was on the edge of my seat (Paro reclined her seat and looked ready to sleep…) and kept peering through the hedges and trees trying to spot some other form of mobile life, I got sleepy again and reclined my chair as well. Paro and I chatted a little while and talked a little about everything in general and nothing specifically. We had, by then, started our ascent into the Nilgiri hills and while both of us are prone to motion sickness (I hate travelling in the ghat section for this reason alone…) we were pleasantly surprised to find the bus crawling through the mountain section and thus hardly unsettling our stomachs. This allowed us to both huddle near the window and peep out at the lovely tea plantations and the various pleasing-to-the-eye scenery that passed by… We finally pulled into the city of Ooty and sat with silly content smiles on our faces while we saw the board for the ‘Lakeview Resort’ pass us by. And then a couple of seconds later it hit us that, whoa, we had to get off there!!! By the time we realized that we needed to disembark, the bus had started towards the city bus stand and we decided that it was just not worth the trouble to raise an alarm and get the bus to stop (We weren’t afraid of creating a scene, just that we were too lazy and decided to see how far we‘d get before we had to stop and travel backwards…). We were both again glued to the window as we watched the bus travel quite far (No walk-able at any rate) and then finally come to a stop at the bus station.
The Ooty bus station was quite a disappointment. It is quite filthy and in bad shape, almost crumbling to dust… I was rather disappointed but Paro seemed ok with the way it looked as she had just recently visited Ooty and knew the latest state of its being… We then enquired about how we could get to the hotel. It turned out to be just around a kilometer from the bus station and I forced Paro to walk along with me. We walked quite some distance and then stopped at a place Paro said was really bad (Yeah, doesn’t make sense, stopping at a place you already know is bad but in my case, the stomach rules the mind…) and had some lousy lunch. My mind grumbled at the quality of the food and also at that raw fish smell that lay over the place like a thick blanket but my tummy thanked me (Come on, I had not even had breakfast! Ok, Paro did buy me some pakoras but it still wasn’t ‘breakfast’…) and we started out to the hotel again. It was when we reached the Ooty lake that we realized that the distance 1 km was only between the lake and the bus station. The resort was a further kilometer away. With dirty looks and grumbles from Paro and weak, half hearted encouragement from my side, we finally managed to skirt along the whole lake and make it alive to the resort, yippee!!! It was almost two PM by the time we checked in… Paro hated being allotted a cottage away from the lake view but I was so engrossed in admiring the cute little cottage and plopping myself on the soft bed that I managed to convince her to not badger the reception guys (That didn’t stop her from trying though! She still called them and asked for a change of rooms but we got so comfortable in a few minutes that I don’t think we’d have moved even if they had given us a better cottage!). After we got comfortable, we decided on what we needed to do next. Ahem ahem, I know I gave you guys my planned itinerary earlier on and that you know Paro and I were supposed to go see the lake and do boating, 10 mints car dashing, 5 mints toy train ride, 15 mints horse riding then take a walk near the lake (or sit near the lake). Well, we did none of the above. We got into the cold blankets, waited it to get a little warm, opened one book each and started reading… Hahaha, I know you must think we are mad for going all the way to Ooty to do just that! But, yeah, that’s what we did. Paro has a BIG aversion to cold so as soon as her feet started getting cold, she got really uneasy and jittery and we decided to go out and read while basking in the warm sun… We did that for an hour or so, lying down on the lovely grass with the warm sun on our faces and reading, mmmm, pure bliss… Our hour was up (Read- The sun’s strength had diminished and Paro had started fidgeting again…) and we went back in and she quickly got to the phone and ordered for a room heater. It came shortly and we snuggled into bed and let the warm air make us feel all fuzzy and nice… We also pigged out on some Gobi Manchurian and then went back to reading. After a couple of hours Paro got tired of reading by herself and said it’d be so good if someone read to her and bingo! She said that to just the right person. I LOVE reading out aloud and co- reading any book. So I got into the groove and read her a few chapters complete with voice modulation (At least I’d like to believe I did…) and enjoyed sharing the story with Paro. We then ordered a nice big dinner and went back to reading a little more after which I drifted to sleep and Paro read through the night until almost 3 AM and slept after she had finished the book. Well, that’s was day 1 of your trip :) I know, you still are wondering why we couldn’t do all this at either of our homes, but then, we had a really good time, so that’s all that matters… Zzzzzzzzzzzz…..

13 Feb ‘10
Mmmmmmmmm, we slept in till 9 AM and were still debating about what we needed to do… Just then the landline phone rang and it turned out to be the Hotel travel desk checking if we were interested in their package of Coonoor and Ooty. Wow, amazing, of course we were interested. We got on and surprise! there were only honeymoon couples on the bus. Sigh… why didn’t we listen to our respective boyfriends when they explained about Ooty being a lovey- dovey destination??? Hmmm, after the initial awkwardness we got pretty much into our groove and started checking out the couples. Short description of the interesting ones:

1. Pretty, elegant girl with nerdy, I-can’t-believe-my-luck guy- They were accompanied by a girl of around eight that we assumed to be the younger sister or niece of the girl. The two girls sat together and the guy (Wearing Poma shoes; no, I did not spell it wrong…) sat alone separately (Who brings kids along on honeymoons???).
2. Arrogant, South-Indians-are-so-frog-in-the-well thinking Delhi couple- We had a brief conversation with them where we asked if they were from an IT background. Their surprised look unsettled us a little until we realized that they actually were from an Income Tax (IT) background :)
3. Shy, quiet girl and an I’m-no-frog-in-the-well-south-Indian guy- The guy was singing- along songs from the 80- 90s that the tour guide was playing in quite a remarkable accent. Redefined the term ‘mother-tongue’ accent.
4. A very cute and quiet couple- Were yelled at by the driver when they decided to take an extended trip into Sims park while the rest of us waited :) Don’t over work your brains, they were actually just strolling…

Hmmm, those were the interesting couples that I remember. There were a few others, but they seemed normal enough to have passed my attention…
We did a regular circuit of the Ooty lake, the Botanical garden, Tea plantations, Lambs rock, Dolphin’s nose etc etc and had quite a surprisingly good time despite us being the only girl- couple ;) hahahaha… Reached the hotel quite tired and perked up almost immediately when we saw that there was a bon fire arrangement done up in the resort lawn which was actually right behind our cottage. Yippee! We were going to get an opportunity to get dressed and party through the night! Hmmm, I told ya, things never work the way I plan it. It turned out to be a private party (We actually called the reception to check; pathetic, I know…). We now had two options:
1. Crib through the night about the loud music and noise
2. Use the music to have a pajama party of our own!

We went for the second option and loved being silly! Paro even did some aerobics while the music was on, hee hee hee, optimum utilization of resources! After dancing ourselves out of the left over energy, we watched a couple of movies and crashed for the night.

14 Feb ‘10

“Good morning Paro… Happy Valentine’s day!”
“Mmmmm, good morning! Happy Valentine’s day to you too!”
Yeah, that was how we woke up. We were just starting to chat again when someone knocked on the door and we, predictably, pretended not to be awake (I’m so sure the guy would’ve heard us talk from the outside, but it doesn’t hurt to try, does it…) so he would just go away. When he seemed persistent, I went over to open the door and found this sweet old man standing there with two packages in his hands. He asked my name and then shuffled the two packages to pull out a lovely bouquet of pink roses! Wow! I’ve never received flowers on Valentine ’s Day before and was almost speechless. There was another bouquet of lovely red roses for Paro. That’s when it hit us that Allen had those flowers sent for us! How totally sweet can a guy get??? I gloated over the flowers for a while and then called Arvind to complain about his lack of enthusiasm with anything remotely close to planning a surprise… The only response I received was, “Someone sent you flowers, so be happy and enjoy them”. Hmmpf. How do all the romantics in the world get stuck with the anti- romantics? Big mystery…
We then decided that we better get a few more snaps while we can (My sis had fooled me into believing that the camera battery was charged and hence we had managed to get only a couple of snaps yesterday before the battery died out on us and left us in the lurch…). We fooled around the resort garden a little taking snaps that we felt would be useful on Facebook or Orkut. Only problem was that Paro is a PATHETIC photographer. She would never ask you to pose or even say cheese, would take a snap in a second without bothering to check if the position of the subject was favorable, would not bother to view the snap and see if another ones required to be taken, would just walk away without giving you a chance to take another picture if you didn’t like the one she just took. Not quite the best person to be taking Facebook or Orkut snaps, you know…
After the so-called-photo-session, we got packed, cleared our dues and started our walk back to the bus station. Stopped in between to buy some Ooty chocolates for Arvind and my sis, Nammu.
Our trip back was quite uneventful and dull (We were both forcing ourselves to sleep to avoid being sick. The driver was handling the bus like a maniac and that was all we could do to keep from throwing up…) and we reached Mysore five hours later.
Though we did nothing amazing, like maybe scuba diving, sky diving, river rafting etc etc, we did something that made us feel so much better- Spend time with our best friend. Thanks Paro for the lovely time, I owe you one.
Well, since I am talking about BFFs, I really want to thank Arvind, Paro, Bharathi, Raj, Alfia, Sharath, Hemanth, Ashwini, Alka, Mathew, Govind, Archie, Sreenath, Sirisha, Shweta, Aditya, Rutesh, Sundar, Swarna, Ranjana, Rashmi for being my BFFs in their own ways. Thank you for making my life so much more special. I love you.

Bangalore Bulletin Board- 3

The big not-so-fat Kannadiga wedding...

Hi!

When you are ten close cousins, with an age gap of not more than two years between two consecutive ones, the first marriage is probably one of the most exciting events that you have looked forward to all your life, well at least since the time you start appreciating how you can deck up and loaf around the wedding looking all pretty and happy…

Keerti Akka, my only elder girl cousin, got married on 11 Dec 09. Ok, before I start the wedding narrative, let me list down the order of us cousins (Descending age- wise) for you to understand better the story going forward-

1. Kartik Anna
2. Keerti Akka
3. Vinni Anna (Vinay)
4. Vicky Anna (Vikas)
(3 and 4 are twins)
5. Me
6. Nammu
7. Shruti
8. Sandy (Sadashiv)
9. Channu
10. Shashank


The first five of us have been the closest group amongst all ten. Nammu was always stuck being a no-mans-lander; she was too young for our group and a little too old for the younger lot. Shruti was a part of the younger group for some time until they decided that they’d like to be an all boys gang and Shruti was then pretty much in the same boat as Nammu (It is no wonder they are such good friends now…).

The equations changed over the next few years with Nammu growing out of being a pesky, irritating and imposing sibling and into a rather outspoken (Frighteningly so…) and confident person. Sandy came to live with us so he could school at Kendriya Vidyalaya (My Alma Mater!) and ended up being with us for almost eight years, he’s back in Hubli now, doing his engineering course. My older cousins all got busy with studies, friends, and whatever else they wanted to pursue. And the obvious happened, we all drifted slightly apart with the whole school-summer-vacation thing coming to a stop as we each headed to colleges to pursue higher education in different cities and with different calendars. Of course, we would still try to make it to Hubli (That’s where my Ajji-maternal granny, stays with my Mama, Mami, Sandy and Shashank) once a year but ended up meeting only a handful of cousins given that all our leave calendars differed based on what course we were pursuing…

Now, that piece of not-so-happy and nostalgic sounding trivia was given to you so you realize how totally important and big an event this marriage was as it would be the first time in many many years that the whole family would be meeting and spending almost a week together. Were we looking forward to it or what??? Oh yes, we were :)
The wedding mania started for me and Nammu in the last week of November when dad insisted on us travelling to Hyderabad to shop for our wedding clothes (Everyone knows that Bangalore has better clothes to offer but dad differed in his opinion. We both think it was just an excuse for him to call us over for a weekend break. All he had to do was ask, or even tell, but he decides to make a strong case of advertising the Hyd clothes industry :/). Anyways, the point is that we ended up going to Hyd and spent an evening shopping for our dresses. We did find exactly what we were both looking for and were quite glad that we achieved both our targets (Buy a nice dress and spend time with family). The biggest perk of going to Hyd is that we get to meet our fat, grouchy, furry baby… Though we constantly keep getting ‘calls’ from Dukie (It’s just ma or pa calling us in one of their weird moments and holding the receiver against Dukie’s ear so we can talk to him…), we only get to meet him when we go over (Which is not the case with our parents who are perfectly capable of travelling around on their own and do so rather often too…) and hence make it a point to go over as often as possible.

So, after spending a rather nice weekend at home, we got back to Bangalore and got back into our routines. We had both planned to go to Belgaum (That’s where the wedding was organized) two days in advance but ten days before the wedding we decided, what was the big deal of missing one more day of work or college??? It was after all Keerti akka’s wedding! And that’s when we decided on giving her and everyone else a surprise by landing a day earlier. We had to endure Keerti akka’s taunts of her sisters not being around for her wedding, her sisters behaving like guests and not hosts, her sisters being so insensitive (Etc etc, I’m sure you got the general feel of what she threw at us…), but then, as it was meant to be a surprise, we could not really let anyone in on the secret as we didn’t trust anyone of our relatives to keep a secret for us (We are all related from our moms sides and they just about happen to be a very chatty (I NEVER said gossipy!) lot). So, after all the last minute shopping and stuff, we were ready to board our bus for Belgaum. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Never apply mehendi on your hands if you intend to change later on. I mean, I got mehendi applied on my hands on the way back from work and then on going home figured I could not change into more comfortable clothes as the mehendi would smudge and get spoilt. So I ended up travelling, rather uncomfortably in my formals.

And oh, another thing! It was the first time I had ever travelled by a sleeper bus (I always had a feeling the chances of crashing in a sleeper bus are higher and they’re not as safe as ordinary buses. Don’t ask me where I got that from!) and was the experience great or what??? They are very comfortable and really nice! The road to Belgaum (At least the last 3-4 hours of that stretch) is very picturesque and it felt great lying down comfortably in those bunkers and watch the lovely fields go by… Hmmm, I almost feel like I invented the sleeper coaches, I was so excited about it (Nammu was initially quite amused about my enthusiasm but after a while just plain snapped at me and asked me to give it a break and sleep quietly. Whoever told me that ‘I’ was the elder sister :/). Hmmm, ok, the point is, if you haven’t already tried it (And I’m sure that will be a small minority), do travel once by a sleeper bus, it’s quite nice.

I do deviate a lot, but then there are so many nice and exciting things that happen in parallel to the actual event that it would be unfair of me to leave out those bits (At least that’s how I feel, I’m sure some of you may be more than happy for me to leave out those parts :)).

And, yeah, on the way to Belgaum, we happened to talk to Papa (He was the only one who was let into our secret of landing at Belgaum a day earlier; though he has lived with ma for over 26 years, he still has not been completely corrupted, so could be trusted!) and when I made a casual remark that I don’t remember having seen any Auto Rickshaws in Belgaum (We planned to take one till home), he started out on an illuminating (At least he thought it was…) narrative of how Auto bodies are built in Belgaum. This wasn’t really a required piece of information for you but I was thinking and maybe the whole habit of providing more information than is necessary is hereditary, in which case you can’t blame me, it’s not my fault ;) it’s in my genes :) :) :)

Ok, I’ll try to curb that particular genetic inclination of mine and stick to my main stream narration.

So, after giving everyone a nice surprise (We did have the Miss India moments with my sister standing like a statue for a second with her hands on her face in an ‘oh-I-cant-believe-I-won’ expression and then flinging herself on the two of us and giving us breath- stoppingly tight hugs…) we settled down to a BIG breakfast of paranthas. We spent the better part of the day just lazing around and meeting with more cousins and uncles and aunts than I have met in the last two years…
The next two days went by in a jiffy with loads of wedding preparation work being done, lots of family gossip and news, lots of running around trying to get one chore done (But getting pulled into twenty other things while walking from one room to the other trying to get that one chore done…), stuffing yourself with laddoos, chiwda and any thing else that looked edible, celebrating our Mama’s birthday in between, driving on the highway (Under my brothers supervision, of course, J, being screamed at by elders for doing nothing and just loitering (Hmmpf, who do they think pasted the wedding posters on the cars windshields), got Keerti Akka and the others ready and looking pretty and radiant etc etc). So, it was a whirlwind of activities and on 10 Dec evening, we shifted to the Kalyan Mantapa (Wedding hall) for the engagement and wedding rituals. The engagement happened the same evening with the groom’s side gifting akka a lovely green saree which she had to change into immediately so they could start with the engagement rituals. It was very tradition based and with lots of mantras and stuff. After the engagement, we got a breather of a couple of hours and then the Haldi ritual started where the bride and groom are made to sit together (With one of their family members sitting right behind them as well). These four people sat in a human square while people applied a wet and pasty combination of turmeric and oil on their face, arms and feet and calves. After decently applying the paste to them for around half an hour, the grown up crowd suddenly went mad as they pounced on each other and started applying, throwing, sprinkling the turmeric paste to, at and over each other… After acting not-quite-their-age for an hour or so, they went back to being boring adults, but did we enjoy that one hour of watching them be kids again, or what :)

The nicest part of the haldi ritual was after the whole stock of haldi paste was emptied. The four people (Bride, groom, and one each of their family) were taken out into the courtyard and made to sit on four different wooden flat boards (We call that ‘Mani’), again in a square shape and five buckets of water was poured on each of them by turns. This ritual is quite amusing as four of the five buckets contain warm water and one surprise bucket contains cold water. My ajji explained that the logic behind this ritual was that the four buckets of warm water stood for happiness and the bucket of cold water stood for the small portion of disquiet one experiences in marital life. So, the ritual meant that the couple is being taught the lesson that just as they share the happiness in their lives going forward, they also need to share the not-so-happy moments as well. It was a lesson in commitment and steadfastness. Hmmm, interesting.

It was almost 3 AM by the time we hit the bed and the muhurat was at 8:20 AM, so we all had to be ready for the actual wedding by 7 AM. It felt like we were woken up the minute we hit the bed (It’s so true that every time you have less than 8 hours of sleep lined up before you, it feels like you never slept coz someone woke you up the minute you fell asleep…). After getting ready, we sat through almost two or three hours of rituals after which Keerti akka and Shiv were declared man and wife. I loved the ‘Saptapadi’ ritual the best. This is where the bride and groom are said to have crossed the seven seas to get to each other and has multiple layers of meaning. Like, for example, my ajji said it meant that they are tied together for seven janmas (Lives), the rest of the relatives were divided between my ajji’s reasoning and that of the seven seas concept. It was quite beautiful to watch.

We couldn’t wait to hit the dining hall after the wedding ceremony was completed, we were famished as we had had nothing to eat since the previous evening’s dinner, what with the muhurat being so early in the morning.

We were almost wound up and done by five PM. The Groom’s family had set out for home (Kolar) and Shiv (My new brother-in-law!!!) stayed back for a day so he could take Keerti akka back with him to Kolar. The bride apparently cannot leave her maternal home the same day as her wedding.

Keerti akka left home the next day and I did not see a single dry eyed person that evening. It felt so heart wrenching to see her leave her childhood home and set out to make a new life of her own. It almost felt like a final good bye. I haven’t been so moved in ages. Every woman present there was either thinking of the time she left her maternal home after marriage or the fact that ‘her’ daughter would soon be leaving home too. For people like me, my sis, Shruti, it showed us what we are to face in a not-so-far-away future date. As Keerti akka touched the feet of all the elders and took their blessings, I truly understood what it means to be a daughter. While the pandit kept reiterating how Keerti akka’s life as a daughter comes to an end and her life as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter-in-law commences, I couldn’t help thinking that blood bonds are stronger than such rituals or beliefs. My parents would continue to hold the same spot in, not just my heart, but my life as well after I am married. The way I see it, I’m not losing my family, or they, me. We are all just gaining new family members and have that much additional happiness to look forward to. I told akka the same thing and I hope she believes it as strongly as I do.

Well, we were quite dull that evening and almost as if to cheer up and clear the whole depressed mood, we cousins all had a MASSIVE pillow fight, its a wonder we all have our necks intact… We also played dark room (Indoor hide and seek played in the dark with all lights switched off). I haven’t laughed so hard for a few years now. We all had tears in our eyes and the whole hungama had more than one of us rushing to the loo, still giggling :)
Well, that’s how the whole wedding scene ended, but hey, don’t go away yet. The best part of the whole ‘vacation’ is just starting. Na, I didn’t try to misguide you or anything, or take away your time by not getting straight to the point. It’s just that I had two separate experiences in these five days. One, the wedding, the second, the maddest train journey ever…
So brace yourselves, I’m ready to take you along on my craziest train journey ever…

13 Dec 09- Indian Railways + Mad family= Unimaginable chaos

0900 hrs
I just got up and have been roaming around the house with no particular intent or purpose… Nammu and my Mami are leaving for Hubli in half an hour (Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I? We are all travelling to Hubli today and then catching a train to Bangalore from there at 6:30 PM and then while Nammu and I head home, the rest of the gang heads to Kolar for the reception on 14 Dec 09). My Ajji, while really loving towards us cousins, is not very maternal or caring when it comes to my Mami, her daughter-in-law. So, she’s asked Mami to go early and prepare loads of chapattis for our train journey tonight (You only eat out on trips when you are single, never with a family…) and Nammu’s going early cause she has lots of friends there that she needs to catch up with (She did her UG from Hubli and hence the widespread friend base). I also have to get lunch started as I told everyone that I’d be cooking today to ease the stress on all Mamma’s present.

1000 hrs
Nammu, Mami, Vinni Anna and I are all headed to the bus station to drop the first two. Anna’s promised to let me drive on the way back, yippee! I cant wait to drop off both of them and drive all on my own! Ok, there is bus that they can get into. Anna just helped them put their luggage on the racks and got them settled. The bus reeks of diesel, I just cant stand the smell of it. I’ve always been nauseous when it comes to diesel vehicles. Its better I get down and wait near the car.
Ok, Vinni anna and I are headed home now and wont let me drive till he hits the highway (He still doesn’t think I have confidence enough to drive in a crowded city environment) but that’s ok. At least I get to drive. Ok, he’s pulling over so I can move into the throne, yippee!!!
Wow, does it feel good or what? I LOVE driving and the freedom that comes with being independent! The windows are pulled down completely and I feel almost like Dukie with the wind blowing through my hair and across my face. Kewl, I am finally getting truly independent…

1100 hrs

Did I just tell you that I was feeling independent some time back??? Hmmpf, you should see me now, I’m seated on the floor of the kitchen and cutting a small mountain of vegetables for the lunch I promised to make everyone…
Every time I venture into the kitchen, I realize that being a mom or a home maker is no easy task… Well, I better stop grumbling and get started with work; I’ll never get done otherwise…

Hey, did I tell you I learnt this new recipe of yummy khichdi from Alfia and have tried it on a lot of people with really good results (Read nice compliments :)) and I have decided to try it on my not-so-easy-to-please family. Ok, I really need to stop getting so distracted and finish with my work.

1300 hrs

I can’t believe it took me almost two hrs just to make a big cooker of khichdi, jeera rice and some tomato curry. I have never been so slow, but then I’ve never cooked for around 10- 15 people either. Phew, I am in the wrong profession, I should be a chef; I can’t describe the sense of satisfaction you derive after the completion of making a meal for the people you love. It’s quite amazing and very gratifying.

1330 hrs

Gratifying? My Dodamma (That’s my aunt- Keerti Akka’s mamma) just said my Khichdi tastes like Bisi Bele Bath, hmmpf. It’s not very flattering because that not what I was trying to attempt to make. Anyways, she said it still tastes nice, so that much is nice. I’m not so sure I ought to be a chef.

1345 hrs

The others all loved it, yippee!!! I so totally should’ve been a chef!

1430 hrs

Mamma, Dodamma and my younger Aunt all left for Hubli by bus. Kartik Anna, Dodappari (Keerti akka’s dad), Ajji, Siddu Uncle (Shruti’s dad) and I will be travelling to Hubli by car. We need to leave latest by 3 PM for us to make it to Hubli by 5 PM and then we need to start moving all our family (12 people in all) to the station along with the truck load of luggage. Anna just came back after dropping Ma and the others. I hope he hurries, we have only half an hour to get started.

1500 hrs
Don’t ask me if we have started yet, coz we haven’t. We are FAR from getting started. Karthik anna is cleaning something in his room. What a smart guy, he chose just the perfect moment to start on a cleaning spree… I wonder where he gets these flashes of brilliance from. And guess what? While anna cleans out his room, dodappari is cleaning the drain outside. Not really cleaning but stuffing a loooong stick down the drain and trying to unclog it. What does this family eat??? I mean, they have different levels of defined madness running in their family… Hee hee hee, it’s rich of me to talk considering the various eccentricities of my own family!

1515 hrs

He finally hit the bathroom 2 minutes back and is out again now searching for shampoo… :/ Why me??? I could strangle him with my bare hands…Oh god, he is now standing in his room and screaming that someone has taken the shampoo sachets that he had kept there. Yeah bro, like you are likely to find small things like shampoo sachets intact in a house that just hosted a wedding and had 20 guests housed in it at any given point of time… He just found some old sachet and finally is headed into the bathroom, victory!!!! Well, almost…

1530 hrs

He’s singing in the bath, hee hee hee, and not all that well too :) :) :) Oh, that’s another family secret, we are all horrible singers but love singing anyways, not really a great combination for people around us :)

1600 hrs

We are finally on the road… All rooms cleans, all drains unclogged, all stupid hair on one person’s head shampooed, and two very grumpy people (Ajji and me).
Anna is claiming to get us to Hubli in an hour and a half. I hope he does, that will barely leave us an hour to put together the whole circus crowd waiting for us in Hubli…
Wow, he is driving quite fast (At 100- 120 KMPH), I don’t have any doubts of us getting to Hubli by 5:30 PM now.

1730 hrs

Ok, we just reached and everyone is almost ready. Hey, where’s Nammu? Let me check with Mamma.
I can’t believe how irresponsible my sis can be at times. We have to be out of the house by 5:30 and she is still out with friends. She has absolutely no time sense. I hate the fact mamma is having to apologize to my aunts and uncles because of this girl's delay. Hmmm, not time to worry about that. We need to start packing our stuff into the five autos that my brothers have lined up outside. Wow, so much luggage! Whoever started the philosophy of travelling light will die if he sees this (It’s definitely not a woman, trust me…).

Ok, we’re all off to the station now. Hey, that stupid pig Nammu just passed us by on Mama’s bike. At least we know she’s almost home and Mama can actually drive her back to the station. As they would be on a two wheeler, she’ll get there in time, if not ahead of us. Sigh, one tension off our head. Its almost 6, we’ll have just about half an hour to get settled…

1810 hrs

We are all regrouped at the station entrance and after checking the luggage, have started moving towards the platform. I’m sharing a bag with my cousin Shashank. It’s really heavy; I wonder what they’d stuffed into it… Hey, why’s everyone running? We still have twenty minutes, right? Hello people! Oh forget it, we’d better run too…

Whoa, it’s not easy to run while you are carrying a heavy bag, even though Shashank is helping me. Ok, hang on. Something is seriously wrong. There are too many people running on the platform. I don’t get it, what’s happening?
The view in front of me just cleared and I can’t believe my eyes, the train’s already moving and slowly picking up speed… It was to leave at 6:30 PM, its still just 6:15 PM, what’s happening then? Most of my relatives are trying to get into the guard’s cabin but he’s starting to shut the door as more than 15- 20 people are trying to rush past him into the cabin. Oh my god, I cant believe this mess. Damn, I just tripped on someone. Hey, dodamma, stop pulling me, stop it! I’m gonna fall again. Wow, I did not fall and got into the goddamn train with that big bag. I don’t see Shashank anywhere though…

Let me explain the scene in the guard’s cabin to you. The following people are in it right now: my Dodamma (Keerti akka’s mom), my aunty, my uncle, my Mami, Vinni anna and my mamma. The guard is trying to close the door so no one else can get in. My dodamma’s pleading him to please stop the train for 2 minutes as my ajji is still running somewhere on the platform and is almost 80 yrs old and has had a major heart attack a few yrs back (Not someone you want running behind a train while worrying her heart out about whether or not she’ll be able to get on it…). The guard finally relented and has stopped the train for 2 min and onboarded ajji and told us all to get off and board the train in our respective bogies. Mami got off; I was just about to when the train started moving again. But we are not worried, I mean every one else had around five minutes to board the train. I can see everyone present give out a sigh of relief. It was a close call. I can’t help but be worried about ajji as she’s panting so hard, I hope she’s ok. Mamma’s with her, so it should be fine. The train is slowly pulling out of the station.
You know, that feeling when you feel like someone kicked you in your gut? I think we all just felt that. While looking through the glass in the cabin’s rear, we just saw the rest of our family standing on the platform with the luggage. Before we could all breathe again, dodamma’s pleas started again. But the guard is not budging, he’s done enough for us already… The elders are all telling him to at least let us off as the tickets are with Mami who got off. While all this is unfolding in the guard’s cabin, I can see Nammu trying to run to us with the tickets in her hand. I hope the poor baby stops before she falls and hurts herself. The platform is now vanishing and we see our family slowly fade away until we can no longer see them.
I can see dodamma and mamma start to cry out of desperation and ajji is sitting on the bunker with a stunned expression on her face. Aunty, uncle, vinni anna and I look at each other and after a deep breath, start putting a plan in place. First we calm dodamma and mamma down. Now that they are ok, im calling up Nammu to see how they are reacting. Between Nammu, me, uncle and dodappari (Who’s with Nammu and gang) we decide that they’ll talk to the station master, show them the tickets and ask him to update the train TC to let us continue our journey and then they will catch a bus and get to Bangalore.

Oh, 2 BTWs, I didn’t tell you did I, the reason
· We almost missed the train was because the train timing had been changed to 6:10 PM and none of us had bothered to cross check and
· The rest of my family was unable to board was because the train was a passenger train and not express which meant there were people PACKED in the train as it would stop at every station and there was no room to even put a toe, forget boarding the train (Even in the reserved compartments…). It was as good as a local bus that ran once in every 4 hours so every person would cram wherever there was space…

1845 hrs

Anyways, coming back to the point, we are now split into two groups and the best (Worse actually) part is that the tickets are with the group which is NOT in the train… The guard is very clear that he’ll house us in his cabin only until the next station, however small that may be. So at the next station, he has uncle and me get off and see if we could talk to the TC and make some arrangements about the ticket. We have barely managed to get into one of the stupid overflowing compartments when the train starts moving again. We are now, two people in S4 bogie, and the other five in the guard’s cabin. I just called Nammu to check on updates on their end when she tells me that they are actually in a Taxi and are racing to Haveri, which is the first major station that the train will stop at next, and they have another 70 odd KMs to traverse. The one good thing going for us was that as this was a passenger train, so it would take us about an hour to reach Haveri. But the train stops there for not more than 2-3 minutes, so it would be a close call.
We just crossed another small village station and got a call from mamma that she is in S3 cabin along with Vinni anna and aunty. Only my ajji and dodamma now remained in the guard’s cabin. As we inch closer to Haveri, my heart starts pounding as I know time will work against us.



1950 hrs

Nammu just called, while we are 5 minutes from Haveri, they are 5 KMs from Haveri. I’m praying as I have never before done so. We are now pulling into Haveri station. I tell Nammu that we are on platform No. 1. I lose contact with her as they are probably rushing to get into the train, or platform, or station or even the town (Please dear god, let it be the first…). Hey, the train’s moving again, I don’t see any sign of them, anywhere on the platform or anywhere. I have never felt so disappointed or let down. Hang on, Nammu’s calling me. Yippee!!!! They’ve made it. They don’t know what compartment they are in, but they are onboard! Hmmm, I can finally breath again :) God bless.


2010 hrs

The first group of us (The ones that had managed to get onto the train at Hubli) are now all together and feeling quite relieved. The second group is not with us, but on the train and safe, that’s all matters now.

2115 hrs

We are all back together now. I cant tell you how glad I felt when I saw Nammu, they were almost welcomed back into our bogie like heroes :) (While I personally felt Nammu and Kartik Anna should be beaten up royally for delaying us all at Hubli, I was too relieved to react in any way except be happy…).

2230 hrs

We are all settled into our berths and cant wait to fall asleep, we’ve had enough excitement to last, well not a lifetime, but definitely a couple of years, oh, not even, that, a few months :) I’m sure life has more exciting plans for such a mad cap family!

A story within a story:

I need to tell you guys about the experience my sis and her group had while they were travelling by the taxi to Haveri. The driver of their cab had no clue on how to get to Haveri but they managed to follow the road sign posts and get to the city. When they were almost there, they noticed the city pass them by on their right and then it hit them that they were on a by- pass and would definitely not make it to the station on time. Then, maybe as an answer to all our prayers, they found a guy standing at the edge of the road with a parked bike and talking to someone on the phone. When they enquired with him on the road to the station and explained their situation, he got on to his bike and asked them to follow him. He then took them on a route that was barely wide enough for the bike to go on. The taxi somehow managed to make it on that road and instead of taking them to the main entrance of the station; he had them stop at a very small side entrance which gave them the additional 5 minutes they needed to get onto that train. I’m sure that while they will never forget his face, we all will never forget the kindness he showed to our family that night. God bless the man and his family, wherever they are now. Thank you for helping us.