SK working
in Pune was supposed to leave for Trivandrum (our hometown) from Mumbai the
next day. Since it was a weekend I asked him to come stay at my place and take
his flight the next day. I decided to invite my dear friend Arun as well so
that we could have an impromptu party at my place on Friday night. Since it was
an all Malayali get together the usual suspects were in attendance. Beef,
Alcohol, Kerala Chicken Fry and Barotta .The irony of it all was that our guest
of honour SK was a teetotaler and a pure vegetarian. All 3 of us were just
chilling out at my place when my brother Jude joined us. A law student in
Mumbai he had come to spend time with me over the weekend.
Off late I
had discovered that being an employed Malayali guy of marriageable age is a
tough ask and that too living far away from Kerala. All of your friends around you are either
married or in the process of getting married. My guests for the evening were
discussing their domestic travails of their 2 year old marriage and here I was
thinking of getting married. My train of thoughts was interrupted by a phone
call from my mom who was asking me if I could make it to Cochin(a city 1500 kms
south of Mumbai) on Sunday because she wanted me to meet a girl there. I was
like what the hell it is Friday night and you want me to reach Cochin within 48
hours. Well you can’t pretty much argue with the boss. We all started looking
for flights and trains but because of the of Vishu(New Year festival in Kerala)
on Sunday the flights and trains were overbooked.
All of us
barring SK were in high spirits since the Party had already started. Jude pitched for a crazy idea as to why don’t
we drive Angelo to Cochin. He said what are friends for if they can’t rise upto
the occasion and make things happen. His rationale was that right now it is
Friday Midnight if we start from here now by driving nonstop we could reach
Cochin in 10 hours. After dropping me if they drive back to Mumbai again
nonstop they can come back to Mumbai in another 10 hours. This way Arun will
not have to miss work on Monday and Jude will not miss his exam as well.
Arun pensively asked me if I really wanted to
meet this girl to which I replied in the affirmative. SK who had been a silent
spectator all along was all pumped up. He cancelled his flight ticket for the
next day so as to join us in this road trip. He said that we could use an extra
driver for the long journey. Jude the lawyer managed to convince the 3
Engineers on such a crazy idea. Even today I fail to understand as to why SK who
was in full senses agreed to be part of the plot. This given the fact that he
could be at Trivandrum the very next day without much of a hassle
The journey
begins
 |
| SK, myself and Arun |
 |
| Jude, the Lawyer
We packed up whatever food was left behind. I took one of the best pair of my clothes, my mind was buzzing in anticipation for the upcoming meeting. We had a pit stop at Arun’s place to inform his spouse about the plan, it was well over midnight. As we parked our car I made a bet with Jude that Arun’s wife is not going to fall for this crazy idea and he is not going to come with us. Don’t know if Shilpa was too sleepy to even comprehend as to what her husband was saying, nevertheless Arun came back promptly with a change of clothes. Later on we came to know that Shilpa had reminded Arun that they had to renew the lease of their house which was expiring on Monday. He was planning to finish off that task the next day. Arun assured her that he would see it on Monday without fail. Shilpa warned him that he better stick to his word or else they could be homeless after Monday.
To our
discomfort we realized that we were out of Gas. Even at this hour there was a
considerable amount of rush to fill gas. We stopped behind the long line of
cars Jude the lawyer again got into action he went to every car in the line and
made up a cock and bull story that the guy in the car missed his flight and was
not able to go for his wedding. As friends they were planning to drive him to
the venue and were short of time. As we passed each of the cars the drivers
smiled and nodded to me.
The drive
out of Mumbai city was uneventful but we were in for a surprise as we reached
the ghat section. We had not anticipated the Truck traffic at this time of the
hour. Boy it was incredulous and with great difficulty we maneuvered through
the multitude of heavy vehicles. It had been 10 hours since we started the
journey. We stopped at the side of the highway for a quick bite of the food
that we had with us. As the day dawned we 3
ENGINEERS realized that the LAWYER
had taken us for a ride as we had made very little progress. We were nowhere
near even half way thorough to our intended destination. Once the reality sunk
into each one of us we understood the enormity of the task that lay ahead of us
but we decided to soldier on. Jude and SK took turns in driving as I was
forbidden from driving because they didn’t want to tire me out.
 
After
sometime SK’s wife called him to ensure if he had checked in for the flight on
time to which SK replied that he was at the airport and it appeared to him that
the flight was cancelled. He assured that he would keep her posted and
disconnected the call. All of us stared at him with a look of amusement. He had
to come up with something innovative to be able to explain as to why he was
delayed we all deliberated on the permutations and combinations of the
possibilities by which SK would reach Trivandrum on Sunday Morning. Finally
after a couple of hours he called his wife and informed her that he got a
flight to Bangalore. From Bangalore he would take an overnight bus and would be
with her on Sunday Morning. The story sounded believable because it was
Saturday afternoon now and at the rate at which we were going we would reach
Cochin in the wee hours of Sunday. From there SK could take a train and reach
Trivandrum by around 10-11 in the morning.
|
We couldn’t
stop for a break but rather continued our journey. We were driving the entire
day without a break. We had a flat tyre in between but luckily we were passing
through a city so we had help at hand. As we were waiting for the tyre to be
replaced Jude noticed that there was a Unisex parlour across the road. With
support from Sudhi he managed to cojole me to get a facial in a bid to improve
my prospects. Post the facial my face was wrapped in a towel like a jack fruit
so that I could be preserved from the hard sunlight. You women will never
understand what all we men go through to get hitched.
The journey
continued, somewhere in Karnataka we were stopped by the Highway Patrol which
seemed to us as a routine checking. After the initial checks of the license and
the papers they were not very convinced about our story. They asked us to come
to the Police Station so that they can thoroughly check our car. Supposedly they had received a tip off that
some contraband was being transported via road and that was the reason why they
had set up the patrol in the first place.
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