Of travels and travails

The last time I flew on a plane alone, I was in the 9th grade, returning from my Uncles place in Dubai, and had an air-hostess looking after me throughout. This time, I was on my way to meet my sister in Ahmedabad, and actually had to find my OWN way around the airport. And would you believe it, I didn’t lose my luggage, didn’t land up in Timbuktu, and didn’t even trip or fall despite an extremely slippery floor at the airport. Little Soumya is all grown up, sniff!

Well…not quite. (In my defense, I had finished my book, I was hyper, and under no adult supervision) My neighbour on the plane was a nice polite blue eyed German, who was talking animatedly with his wife about Indian cuisine, and the attention to detail with respect to the flight food on Jet Airways. The tray had some brown mucky stuff, some yellow mucky stuff, and a vadai. Mister Blue Eyes was raving about the brown mucky stuff, just as I pushed it away from my plate. From the corner of my eye, I saw him doing the same thing. I took the yellow mucky stuff and mixed it with chutney. He, I realized, was doing precisely the same. Fascinated, I sliced my vadai like a bun, spread tomato chutney on it with a knife, threw some brown muck, some yellow muck, and some butter on it, and in a delightfully choreographed maneuver, ate it with a spoon and a fork. He beamed at me, I smiled encouragingly, and he proceeded to slice, spread, throw and eat. Now before you judge me, let me remind you of all those times you’ve sat in a Chinese restaurant with your chopsticks on the floor for the third time, while the Chinese couple sitting adjacent to you have expertly finished ther noodles and are giving you haughty stares. In fact, the more I think about it, I am increasingly sure that when I finally do travel in China, I’ll find them all using forks and grinning guiltily at me. I just wanted to know what kind of sadistic pleasure they derive with their chopsticks. So consider what I did as an analysis of human nature, and not a cuckoo-ish nuthead clowning around.

I did tell my sister the story, as soon as I reached. I think she began to think of excuses to lock me up in the hostel room when she wasn’t around. But I got the support of her friends soon enough. I realized quickly that the secret to bonding with them was to generously peddle embarrassing childhood stories about my beloved sibling. Worked like a charm.

The first thing we all did was go to a Garbha. And I loved it. It feels good to know that I can finally dance an Indian dance without looking like a drunken gorilla. You can have two left feet, but you still manage to look graceful as long as you twirl and clap every 30 seconds. Plus, it is highly probable that you aren’t the worst dancer there, simply because of the humongous number of people present, and hey, who doesn’t love the occasional ego boost right?

I was also given an official tour of the campus. Which is gorgeous. I was completely taken in by the huge open spaces, the lawns, the trees, and the red brick buildings that made the entire place seem like a palace.

I had the mess ka breakfast, and mess ka dinner a few times, and it wasn’t bad at all (Due to lack of proficiency in Hindi and the necessity to prove that 5 days in Ahmedabad has had SOME effect on me, you will henceforth find a few kas, kis, kays and thows scattered here and there) We went out for kay a Gujarati thali lunch thow on one of the days, and it was marvelous. We had “kanvi” and “passey” and kithow “dokla” and lots of other yum kikow dishes, the names kaki of which I can’t kaykay remember, but it was all delicious. I think I’ve displayed enough of my Hindi speaking skills to last quite a while, so I’ll stop now.

I also witnessed their traditional birthday celebrations, which involves smearing hot pink cake on the birthday boy, throwing him up to the ceiling, and almost but not quite bashing him against a wall. Sophisticated I know, and hilarious to watch too.

So far, I think hostel life is awesome fun. But then again, I got to enjoy all the perks without having to open a book throughout, so that MIGHT have influenced my opinion in a teeny tiny way.

I have learnt

1. If you are a boy about to be engaged to a very pretty girl, stay away from other girls who WILL want to pinch your cheeks every three and a half minutes.
2. A hostelite will have to accept Maggi as a staple food sooner or later
3. Sleeping before 4:30 in the morning WILL be frowned upon


I really had a fantastic time. I loved being able to spend so much time with my sister, I loved the LAN (bid a tearful farewell to it), I liked her friends a lot, and now the next time she mentions “Cole” or “Sebi” or “Nautanki” or “Kaushik”(his nick cannot be used as this is a PG rated blog), a solid face will pop into my head, and not just some hazy description.

Heres to WIMWI!