trichy trip

Things I don’t want to forget about the trichy trip
1. The fact that I got permission to take off with friends for the first time. I still can’t believe my parents agreed after ten minutes of hectic convincing. The fact that an uncle studied in the college some three hundred years back really helped.
2. Staying up till three in the morning, crouching uncomfortably because the other berths were lowered, talking to my friends with the cold wind hitting my face was the best part of the trip. I was completely at peace and very secure in the most unlikely place. No pictures to document it, but the approaching erode junction with the air smelling very railway station-ish , the ghostly shape of trees as the train moved away from the junction is a permanent clip in my head. We giggled as bugger had to deal with some people in a nice way even in this weird setting.
3. The campus was huge and that only seemed to impress upon us the scorching clime of this place. The heat reminded me of the in-numerable summers spent in salem, when we would play cricket in the afternoon, unaffected by it all. But now, I cursed and cribbed , one of the reasons could be my miserable mental setting after most quizzes these days. Growing up sucks, cliché take it.
4. We also slept a lot battling mosquitoes.
5. S, bugger and I had conversations, with all the new found unquestioned liberty which only three girls even a after a long day can manage. I also realized I missed out on some universal girl meeting where they teach you very essential stuff, it is becoming more evident by the day. Ganesha help me!
6. Food in general sucked. Iced tea is nice. Food court there was hell bent on stuffing us with North Indian fare, which was anything but edible. Somebody tell them we expect to be treated with the best of rice in the kaveri delta. The same reason prompted us to lunge at rice on the last day in the mess. Folks at home are very proud of this, my other achievements being zilch.
7. On the way back, we had to stop over at salem, to catch a bus back to Bangalore. Sat on the steps of saravana bhavan and discussed yedurappa’s supposed extra marital affairs and the power behind his throne at about ten in the night. Vijaykanth movies are extremely entertaining, even makes you soul search, when there is a friend, who is high because she smelt alcohol. S also predicted the storyline at about 2 in the morning when I was rudely shaken awake when the bus stopped in a shady bus-stand. There was some reference to Gabriel Garcia marquez, but my memory fails me.
8.Should buy a cigarette lighter . They are fun.

There were moments when I was really pissed off, sometimes when I was inexplicably happy. Don’t want to sound preachy but the trip was life in itself.Everything about this trip will make me smile someday.

yesterday

Jayanagar was a distant far flung alien place for a true blue malleswaram kid like me, it was a place which cropped up in conversations with relatives when they spoke about how somebody’s uncle lived there, Appa also told me it was the first locality which was planned by BDA, hence its sculpted features. Now that I study in a college which is one of the landmarks of south Bangalore (no not BMS) though its in the fringes of the city, with a friend who is very jayanagar, my foray into this alien land has become more frequent. It’s a place out of books , with its perfect wide roads, innumerable parks with kids playing ( they have dasara vacations-dammit) and sheltered bus stops. All this is extremely romantic, but not if you are lost in 6th block like we were yesterday, with poor S in her home ground directing us in a maze of parks. Also there are lots of ganesha temples probably one in each alternate road, so it just adds to the confusion. Once we safely reached corner house , we gorged on our DBC’s and then moved onto a salad place which to my utter surprise seemed to worship ganesh, playing gaalipata songs through the afternoon. S was really proud and I was dumbstruck when the waiter there helped us out with our order in achh kannda. Proof that mass-influx from the cow belt has not affected this place, like how it has affected malleswaram and its people( extreme anguish and pain). The houses are beautiful, some probably built in the eighties when BDA first allotted the sites, the archetypal single storey with cobwebs with a faint trace of austerity, others a little more fancy. As NI and I walked back to the stop, we saw two ajjis in a quiet street talking in a hurried manner, something very clichéd which we talk about everyday, but hardly get to see. I really hope brigade and renaissance stays away from here, though I spotted a brigade classic to my displeasure. The Vani Vilas hospital is so Victorian. Why is it called vani vilas? Did kempe gowda build the Bangalore fort or was it tippu?