Dot'n'Comma's wedding tour.
*Contents
*- Preface
*- The initial plans
*- The start of the journey
*- Trichur Towers
*- The water falls *- The wedding eve
*- The D-Day @ Guruvayoor
*- The mystery of the lost tickets
*- The return journey
- Preface -
Before I start narrating my experiences of this wonderful n fun filled trip to Trichur to attend a wedding of our close friends, lemme introduce the protagonists, the cause for this tour to happen,the bride and groom - Anu and Girish.
The Groom - Girish : a.k.a DOT, a fellow Maverick, sincere workaholic but still weird, adventurous and err.. yea jumpy...!!!
The Bride - Anu : A friend, colleague. Renamed 'Comma' as in Dot's Wife by the Mavericks! A talkative and lovely person and now a wife of a maverick.
The initial plans
We all had started looking forward to this wedding.. of Girish and Anu since the days when they officially announced their declaration of love for each other
(Read Harish's blog for details - Dot in Love - I&II).
"
Good news dude! The date's fixed, its 5th of Feb at Guruvayoor, Kerala", I could feel the excitement in his voice, as he gave me details of his marriage on that call. The whole group was excited, another mav in the nuptial knots. We all decided to leave bangalore on Friday night, 3rd of Feb via train and return on Monday morning, 6th of Feb. Harish took up the responsibility of booking the tickets as he was well aware of train ticketing and also the destination was in and around his hometown. But, for some reason the plans were delayed, train tickets weren't available, and we had only a week left. Harish had blocked 8 tickets of a KSRTC Volvo bus
(Vidya/Nandini/Bindhu/Naveen/Vinay/Pavithra/Divya and Me) but his name did not figure in the list and after a lot of enquiring, unfortunately, he had to opt out of this trip for his own personal reasons. A couple of days later we had a couple more mavs joining us
(Karma/Kiruthika) adding the count to ten.
Since we would reach Trichur by Sat morning and we had to be at Anu's residence in the evening, we were left with a whole day for ourselves. We had a lot of suggestions, one major one was about spending Saturday at Cochin, which was almost finalised but overruled at the last minute as time did not permit. Further enquiring with the mallu's
(read Anu, Harish) about nearby sight seeing around Trichur, lead to the visit of the splendid
Athirapalli and
Varachal water falls. Harish A final detailed itineray
(in a Ms-Excel format) from Harish was broadcast to the mail ids of the probable ten. Harish also releived us with the news that the return journey would be through Train. Though he could not make it, he did try his best to set everthing right.
The start of the Journey We started the journey with a small dissappointment. Bindhu couldnt get her leaves approved through her manager. Anyways, we had no looking back to do so we packed our bags off and met at the Majestic bus stand, platform 14-b. It was a little hard for everyone to get together and locate the right platform. Rafeeq, another of the Mavs, was there to see us off. 9:00 pm, we boarded the bus and set off, all eager and excited about the trip. We had merely moved a kilometer, and out came the chips, biscuits etc, from the girls luggages.We hardly left Bangalore and Krits was already sleeping. Guess it was the effect of the movie being played on the video. It was some typical bollywood love story titled
'Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai'. Being left with no other choice, we tried hard to stay interested in that movie, but there was something else which caught the interest of Div and I. Vinay alias Vincee was engrossed in an animated conversation with Nandu, and we
(Div n me) did not miss any oppurtunity to teasingly disturb his serious talks. An hour or more later, we had our first pit stop at Krishnagiri. We got down for some refreshments, except for Naveen, who was sleepin like a child. I satisfied my hungry stomach to some parotas and dal. The girls bought some more candies n biscuits while Vinay and I puffed some smoke before we moved again.
Vinay continued his conversation, but this time it was some philosophical talks
(or thats what he told me) with the ever so-sensible Karma.Thankfully, the movie came to an end, the curtains drew and it was time to say goodnight. Not a good night for me though, as I tried hard only to fail, to put myself to sleep. Giving up, I glanced at my watch which read 2:00 am. We were at Salem. I looked around and noticed that almost everyone except for the Driver were asleep or atleast did manage to steal a few winks. I felt so unlucky, with the fact that I cannot sleep during travel. I felt more envious, when I looked at shorty Pavi, who was all curled up in her seat like a sweet lil baby in a cradle. Time flew by, as we reached Coimbatore, our next pit stop for some hot samavar
(a type of tea kettle) tea at 5 in the early morning of Saturday.
Trichur Towers We were a hundred odd kms away from Trichur as the day dawned on us. Others resumed their sleep, while I walked up to the front to have some small talks with the driver, trying to stay away from boredom. After gaining some interesting information about all those geeky looking switches on the drivers panel, the specifics of a volvo bus etc etc from the driver and conductor, I returned back to our seats and was happy to see all up and awake, except for Krits, who slept till Trichur. Hmm, well atleast the movie had some effect.
Divi had something to say. While I was talking to the driver, she woke up to find that I was not in my seat. She looked back to see a person sleeping on the back seat. Assuming it was me, she mischieviously tickled his feet, to her horror she noticed it was some other perosn when he drew his blanket off his face, she ran back to her seat. I heard that the poor guy was shocked and scared. Lol, thanks to our mischievious lady.
We were almost there, when Div informed that Anu had asked us to get down at Shintel bus stop which was a walk away from the hotel we were to lodge at. I asked the driver to stop at that place but he was not aware of it and neither was anyone else. I called Anu, who then told me that its not Shintel but Shakkanad (or thats what it sounded like), still nobody seemed aware of any such name. There was this one lone passenger who seemed a little over helpful. He asked us to get down at his stop and he will guide us! Someone offering more help than you need obviuosly leads to some suspicion,though the girls thought he was being sweet.We instead opted to get down at Trichur government bus stop.
Reached Trichur, and enquired the way to Trichur Towers, the hotel. Thankfully, Div and Vinay knew some Malayalam. We walked up to the hotel, taking some pics of the morning stroll.Checked in Trichur towers, where Anu's dad had three rooms booked for us. One for the guys, and two for the girls. We moved in to our respective rooms. We guys had to share the room with another guy named Steve, who was Anu's school friend and had checked in well before us. We had a good two hours to freshen up, before the breakfast being served and take the Van to the waterfalls.
We got in our room and were just getting to know Steve better, when we were joined by another mav - Nitin Shetty - who came down from Mangalore all by himself. We were delighted to see him after a long gap. It was 9 am, and Naveen was still having his bath. A good 45 minutes in the bathroom. Guess he mustve slept there too ;) . Breakfast would be served only till 10am.
Steve,Nitin, Naveen and all the girls were down at the restaurant, while I waited for Vinay to finish his bath soon. Vinay and I were down exactly by 10, with Vinay taking all the scoldings for being late. Thankfully, they had atleast Uthappam left for the both of us. With a pinch of jokes and laughter we left the breakfast table and waited at the reception for the Van to take us to the waterfalls. Steve preferred spending time with Anu and her family, so he didnt join us.
The Water falls
Merrily singing away to the game of Antakshari, we drove through the ghats to the falls, when the driver halted and informed that we need to drive back 4 kms to Trichur as he had forgotten to fill fuel! The driver was also a little too fast and rash, which scared Karma and gang who eventually pleaded the driver to drive slow and safe. From singing (or screaming) we moved on to play a game of Dumb Charades, which really got interesting as we chose quite difficult movie titles. It was almost an hour up driving, and we still were curving the ghats. Tired of shouting, singing and playing the fool, we switched on the music and played some english mp3's with some good numbers which re-energised us to sing-along. I was made fun at and called a blind man when I wore the sunglasses, which were a little too big for me. Well with the sunglasses or without them, each time karma looked at my face, she burst into laughter!!! I wonder if my face looks that funny - lol ?!
Finally, we reached the waterfalls, and they did live up to our expectation. Splendiferous and spectacular, falling from a considerable hieght, gracefully kissing the rocks. It was an admirable sight. We walked down to Varachal waterfalls. Knee deep, wading through the flowing strong currents, cautiously holding hands. Click click went the camera's, while we played around in the flowing water. We had to leave Varachal early as we were running out of time. We moved to Athirapalli and it was a long climb down. This one looked quite enormous and dangerous too. The cool breeze sprinkled droplets of water gently on us as we were perched on top of a steep rock for some group pics. It was worth spending a few moments in this picturesque arena.
There was this rock right close to the falls and was in between the river. It was full of moss and looked slippery, making it more dangerous and inviting for a nice rock climb. Half the group decided to enjoy the sprinkling water and sat on the rocks, while the other half - Vinay,Nandini,Vidya,Nitin and me went further in the river. We stopped Nandini and Vidya at a certain point and asked them not to follow us further as it is dangerous. (Actually, we felt it was a GUY thing to get risky and dangerous, so we managed to shoo off the girls..hehe ).
Vinay, Nitin and I, slowly but precariously waded through the waters thus reaching that slippery moss filled rock. Nitin and I managed to get on the top, while Vinay stayed back. He didnt wanna climb as he wasnt sure if he can get down! lol. Proud after achieving what we wanted, we moved back to join the rest of the group. Here comes the tough part -climbing back to the top. Pavi decided to take some shortcuts through the bushes Nitin, Vinay, and I followed her. Half way up, we reached a small hammock like shop which sold only Soda water! With no choice left, we tried the Soda to quench our thirst but couldnt get it down our throats. Vidya had a better option - she washed her hands and face with Soda !!
We made it to the top and restored our energy with some narial paani (tender coconuts), while Pavi and Div junk shopped for some jewelery. We moved on, hungry and tired to a restaurant which was almost an hour away. Had lunch, the famous kerala parotas again. It was 6pm already, and Girish and his family were waiting for us at the hotel reception, as they had arranged cabs for us to reach Anu's house.
Reached our hotel tired and dirty, to be greeted by Girish's family and relatives all decked up for the pre-marriage function. Our cabs were to leave by 7:30 to Anu's house, but again we were late. Freshened up, dressed in the best, we moved to Anu's house.
The Wedding Eve -
All decked up, we were received at Anu's house quite royally. They had a video coverage exclusively for us when we entered. We truely have to acknowledge the unaffected warmth and hospitality showered on us even though we were late and missed the essential part of the function. We had some interesting stuff to converse with the to be weds, before we moved for dinner. We couldnt believe our eyes when we saw Girish - neatly dressed, well behaved, staying still at one place and hardly talking! Woah, never seen him like this before. Worth mentioning was Anjusha's (Anu's cute little sister) presence which enthralled us et al. She is a lot more talkative than her older sister - chirpy and loud. Though she gave more attention to Vinay and me (she had met us before), the whole group enjoyed her innocent and sweet comments. The one comment about the wedding couple drinking half - half milk in the train was the best of all. After dinner, we thanked Anu's parents and walked back to the hotel accompanied by Dot.
It was only around 10pm and the Trichur town was sleeping. Its not the same back in Bangalore. While everybody looked weary and exhausted after spending the previous night travelling and a long day at the falls, vinay and I were a lot more energised, jumping around and playing the fool while talking to Harish on phone. I guess it was the after - effect of the Red bull energiser drink we had. It literally energised us.
At the hotel, Girish joined the guys in our room and went berserk laughing and fooling around, and telling Steve all about the G-Club. I guess he could not hold the pretence of being the well-behaved guy any longer. Nitin,Vinay and I had another of the Red-bulls, after which Vinay wanted to jump on the already snoring Naveen and Steve to scare them of their sleep.
The D-Day @ Guruvayoor
Naveen, Steve, Nitin were the first to wake up, and an hour later Nandini comes to our room, rings the bell and says "Good Morning Vincee ! Wake up". 5 guys and a morning wish to only Vincee ? hmmm!. It was very difficult to wake up at 8 am on a Sunday morning, but somehow we managed to pull ourselves up. Vinay was again the last one to have a bath and took his own sweet time. Pavi banged on the bathroom door making him realize the delay. As usual we were late, it was almost 10 am, but this time we had a reason. We were trying hard to get our Dhotis on, though after a lot of attempts we did succeed, before Steve discovered that they look transparent and he can kinda see through our dhoti's. As soon as his words fell on our ears we pulled off the dhotis and decently put on our pants and walked out. Though we paid for being late by missing our breakfast, the girls chose to remain furious but Vinay sportively took the blame and in turn blamed the dhoti's to be the cause for the delay. Anyway we managed to reach Guruvayoor before time.
11 am, the time for the 'saat pheres' (or the seven steps to marriage. This ritual involves the bride and groom circumambulating around the sacred fire seven times while the priest chants the holy mantras.) There they stood, the groom in a kurta and dhoti, and the bride bejewelled with gold, lots of gold. We got our camera's in focus, not to miss capturing every moment on film. The lenses zoomed in close as the traditional music of the shehnai and flute fell on our ears, while the couple religiously performed the marriage rituals, the namaskara, the seven circumambulations around the lamp of fire. It was a moment to remember.
Pavi,Krits,Karma,Vidhya,Nandini and Vinay headed to enter the temple for darshan.Its believed that you arent allowed to enter the temple with pants/salwar or anything thats divided. While Vinay had to purchase a new non-transparent dhoti, Pavi and Karma got their skirts along with them and Krits,Vidhya and Nandu were in sarees. Steve, Naveen, Nitin, Div and me headed to the reception hall, where we were witnessed to the customary garland exchange of the bride and groom, in the fascinating flowery mantap. Post-lunch, we grouped together with Girish and Anu for some group snaps, spent some time with them and headed back to our hotel in Trichur. Vinay and I did suggest a visit to a nearby beach, as we heard that there is a beach around 8-10 kms from Guruvayoor, but the rest of the group thought it would be a risk of getting delayed and missing out the scheduled return train to Bangalore. As soon as we reached Trichur, Pavi enquired "Where are the train tickets?"
The Mystery of the lost tickets
"Its in my jacket and you've got my jacket" replied Vinay. "Ive checked the jacket, and there are no tickets there", informed Pavi. Vinay kept insisting he last placed it in his jacket, though the girls said that they are sure its in our room. Meanwhile we bid adieu to Nitin as he had to go meet a friend in Ernakulam and would then move back to Mangalore, his hometown.
We almost ransacked our room searching for the tickets, but in vain. We searched every nook and corner and all luggages, and the thought that we arent going to find it was getting stronger and stronger. We were tensed, we did not know what to do. vinay and I sat down, giving up the search and trying to think of alternatives. We checked with the girls and they too replied negative. We put our brains together and finally decided to go to the railway station, for there could be a chance to get a duplicate. Vinay and I caught a rick to the railway station. Disturbed, we decided to go any length to get everyone back home. If not everyone atleast the rest, we did not mind going home a day later. With the help Vinay's help of broken malayalam we tried our best to convey the message to the railway authorities that 'we have lost our tickets and need a duplicate'.
One of them informed us that the reservation counter has been closed. After a lot of pleading, consulting, there was one person who volunteered to help. He approached us and after 20 mins of trying to make him understand the situation, he thinks that we want to cancel the tickets and sell it!!! Err.. thanks to the language barrier. Finally, this person understood and informed that there are new tickets available which are of 1st Class A/C coach and are priced at Rs 1000/- each. Without giving it a second thought, and having no choice we decided to go for it and taking responsibility for the tickets, we also decided not to let others know the price and tp pay it whole fron our own pockets. we were on our way to the nearest ATM, when we decided to check for the last time with the girls if they did find the tickets. And guess what? They had found the tickets! (or thats what they told us). Not sure if they were playing the fool or really did find the tickets, we were upset on the fact that if the call wasnt made, we wouldve ended up spending around 9,000.
Taking advantage of the situation we didnt allow our temper to calm down, as it was our turn to get furious, to scold and blame the girls. We tried our best to avoid conversatoins, and convey the message. I repeat 'We tried our best'. But, these girls apologised and were so damn sweet that we couldnt hold our so called 'revenge' anymore. In seconds, they got us talking and lauging with them as if nothing happened. Actually, we literally told Divi and Pavi, that we tried to act like we were pissed off with them and their reply was "Yea, we could make out." With that reply, Vinay and I, just stared at each other, shrugging with a look that seemed to say 'Its difficult to get angry with them'.
The Return Journey
Our departure was scheduled at 1815 hrs, but the confusion remained if its 1815 from Ernakulam or from Trichur. Anyway to be on the safer side, we reached the railway station at 1815 sharp. A message on the board read there's a train to Bangalore numbered 6525. Assuming this to be our train Div and I enquired, and were informed that the train 6525 leaves at 1945 hrs. Div, trying to be mischievious again, informed the rest that our train will leave in the next 10 minutes from platform 2. I backed her by agreeing to it. We waited on Platform 2 for a few minutes, when we let the cat out of the bag that train 6525 leaves at 1945 hrs. A good one hour plus left with us. We decided to go for some coffee, when we heard an announcement that theres is a training to Bangalore - #2383 leaving in another 5 mins. Naveen, who had the tickets checked them just to be sure, and to our horror, our train was #2383. The announcement was for us! We rushed with the luggages to the respective platform and boarded the train. Though we did locate our berths, we had to make a few adjustments with fellow passengers, so that all of us are together.
That mischievious lie did save us from missing the train. After settling down, we decided t divide the expenses equally between us. Pavi, Div, Karma took the pains to calculate, divide, multiply and all possible mathematics to get it sorted out. Result? Close to an hour of discussion, arguments, and calculations. Finally they came up with who should get how much, and who should pay up. Vinay, Pavi and I, were to get money.The rest started paying up, but in the end of it all Vinay and I had more money than what we brought with us!! Maan, wish these girls could handle all our financial transactions. We would definitely benefit. Actually, we had also received Pavi's share. We finally sorted it out after some re-calculating.
After all the mathematics and algebra, it was playtime. Yup, with these girls playing those clap-clap games with some rhymes. it did look like a scene right out of a primary school. We did move from these girly childish game to more mature and mindboggling ones like J.A.M (Just a minute) and Twenty Questions.It was hilariuos. While Div talked on Vinay's multi-coloured T-shirt, Karma picked on me and compared my hair to a shoe-brush! The fun followed with a boiled rice dinner. Post dinner Naveen, Vidya, Nandini, and Krits dozed off on their respective berths, while Pavi, Vinay, Karma, Div and I stayed up for some 'serious' talks.
One topic led to another. From ghosts to the possessed, from burglaries to obnoxious callers. From real life experiences to incidents and stories heard from others. Its quite rare that you would catch us talking on serious, philosophical, rational and spiritual issues (...except for the one on Vincee's "eye-talks"...). We enjoyed every talk and were eager to share our thoughts, opinions and experiences. According to me, I feel this was the best moment we spent together.
While we talked on ghosts, witches, and strange people I got up to go to the loo. As I came out I noticed a lady clad in green top and jeans, squatting right beneath the wash basin and searching her bag insanely. I was about to call out to her and ask her to moveas I needed to use the wash-basin, when she looked up and stared at me. She had a very weird and a peculiar look. Her eyes were painted with eye-liner, she had broken dirty teeth and lots of make up, she wore some junk necklaces and bracelets. Now after a group discussion on witches and ghosts, what would you think of if you saw such a person? I quietly washed my hands and moved. I narrated this to the rest and there were all sorts of assumptions she must be trying to commit suicide by jumping out of the train, or maybe she fought with her husband and moved out, or she mustve run away from home etc etc. Well whatever the reason, the whole look was scary. She scared Div and Karma with the same look. Div actually saw her and ran back to us. I had to stand guard for both of them and while I did, I noticed the weird lady was drunk and not in her senses at all.
Karma though scared felt sorry for her as she did not have a berth to sleep on and it was biting cold. She wanted me to approach her and offer her to sleep on an empty berth we had. I was very much against it. First of all she is a stranger and looks weird and very different, giving rise to all those doubts. She is travelling illegaly and is drunk. It was not safe to let her around us, while we were asleep. Moreover a guy offering her an empty berth to sleep? yea right!
As midnight closed in, we lied down on our respective berths trying to catch on some sleep. It was damn cold. We had no blankets. Pavi managed to use Vinay's jacket. Vinay stole my jacket. And I unable to bear the cold any longer, got down and walked to and fro searching for something to cover myself up.
Reached Bangalore well before dawn. Nandini, Naveen opted to get down at Bangalore City, while the rest got down at Bangalore Cantonment. The final goodbye and we were back in our homes, reluctantly coming to terms with resuming our daily typical routine life.
Its more than two weeks now and the whole trip still lingers fresh in our memories, moment by moment. Truely unforgettable.
Well, the fun did continue a few days post trip with long email-trails discussing the happenings of the trip, playing the blame game, defending and justifying. I would love to get into details of these mail-trails too, but let me leave this for another post.
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