memories of one Valentine's

I think this was in the year 2010, precisely, the eve of Valentine's Day, i.e. 13th of February. I was in Mumbai, just my usual visit to get out of the not-so-happening life of Vadodara. The plan was to catch the morning chair car back to Vadodara for the Valentine's, till then party and chill in Mumbai with my friends. So, it was Saturday night and we were partying all night. My train was at 6 am on Sunday morning,a nd it was my then best friend's boy friend's idea to party the entire night and then drop me at the Bandra station the next morning. Initially we were 4 of us; that included my friend, her boyfriend, their male friend and me. By about 9 pm in the night my sister called me up, telling me that she had no plans for that night, so she also wanted to join us. Generally, I and my friend avoid including my sister in our fun parties, simply because she is too girly girly kinds. I mean she gets mean at times, at times nice and entirely predictable, so in short she is a complete girlie. Also, she has the tendency to break into those random tantrums of hers, because of which we always have to change our plans according to hers, or at times even have to drop all the party plans and simply suck at home. So, everyone gave me a face when I welcomed her to be a part of our party that night. Obviously afterwards, I pleaded and assured everyone that all will be fine tonight, she has grown up now and I went on with all those silly support statements, which I do not even remember today. She came over to our place, from there we all went into some disc, I think Firangipani at Andheri (W).

All of us partied hard and were all having fun. I kept reminding my friend's boyfriend to not make large pegs for me, because I had a train to catch like in few hours. And he kept assuring me with bigger OF COURSES, bigger than the portions of drinks he was making for me. After the club got shut at around 1:30 am, we all headed to our home. My sister's bag was at our place, so we first reached our home to pick that up, but do not remember today who among us switched on the T.V. Well, there was the English "Wanted" playing on it, and since all of us are die hard fans of  both Bollywood and Hollywood movies by that name, we all ended up watching that movie. All of us were so high; we did not even bother to shut the main door. It must have been after an hour that I realised that my younger sister was sleeping on the bare floor; I woke her up and also woke up the other guy. Since he was the one who was only a beer drinker, I asked him to accompany me in dropping my sister to her home. Luckily she stayed nearby, and also because of the lack of traffic at that hour; we dropped her safely to her place and came back to our flat, all in one piece.

Time was 4 am by then, I knew it was a tricky time to be awake and drunk at the same time, of course I had to be at the station in next 2 hours. But since I was feeling so sleepy, I asked my friend's boy friend to wake up and stay up with me. A nice reliable boy who he is, he asked me to take rest for at least 1 hour. He made sense to me, since I had a journey to make, and it could be dangerous to sleep like a drunkard in the train in front of so many strangers. Also, he assured me that he would stay awake and ensured that he would set an alarm for 5 am to wake me up, and would also come along with me to drop me at the station. Somehow I trust gentlemen at times, so I trusted him and succumbed over to toxins induced slumber.

I woke up fresh at 7 am and that was the end of my happiness. I panicked and started shouting. The realization that I had missed my train that left the city 2 hours back and because of that I would not be able to meet my husband on the Valentine's made me so so sad. I was about to weep when I realized that this would have been once in our lifetime when we could not be with each other. The moment this thought came to my mind, I got all energized and opened up the notebook that was lying in one corner of the room under a heap of dirty clothes. I got on with my research skills and found a number of a cab services in the city. The opportunity of catching another train that could drop me to my city on time was all exhausted, so a private cab was the most suitable option available. By then my best friend had woken up, I updated her on the entire story of her boy friend being an irresponsible friend, and we both girls kicked him. He was so deep in sleep that he did not even move, we both then got back to our task of calling up the cabbie, whom I had just short-listed. She gave me the option of spending another day with them, but if it was not for the 14th of February, I surely would have stayed back.

The cab guy turned out to be real prompt, he showed up at my place within half an hour, I jumped into the cab immediately so as to not waste any more time in reaching my destination. I negotiated with the cab driver to drop me off to Surat in 3 hours, because I could only afford the expensive journey till there. I then called up one of my facebook friend who stayed in Surat. He was more than happy to receive a random call from me. He was nice enough to book a train ticket for me from Surat to Vadodara in the evening. So, that way I could spend time in Surat with him and then could catch a train to my city in the evening; leaving me time to have dinner with my only husband.

I was happy that the driver arrived on time, I was relaxed finally. I wanted to catch on a quick nap, but the realization that I was alone in the car with an unknown man on unknown roads made me alert and I was all up to sit straight. The guy only broke the ice between us by asking me if we could halt somewhere for tea. By then I was also itching to have my cuppa, and then I initiated a conversation with the guy. I admitted to him that I ended up missing my train, though I did not reveal to him the reason for the miss. I also told him that I did not have the cash amount in full to pay him, but could do it the moment we reach Surat through the first ATM that we would come across in the city.

While getting into a conversation with him I got to know that he was a nice person, who is hard working, honest and respects women. I also got to know that he owns 2 taxis and gets informed from a particular agent about customers who want to travel for more than 4 hours in a day. So, then he gets to keep 75% of the payment from the customers, and the rest is the commission for the person who gets him the clients from the Internet or his personal network or from anywhere. And there I popped up to help that man. I took all the details from him and created an ad for him in the Just Dial and also shared his number among all my friends as the most reliable and safe cab driver who can vrooom you up to your destination in no time.

Well after paying him for transporting me from Mumbai to Surat, I bid him an adieu and we both parted. I was then greeted by my Facebook friend whom I was meeting for the first time in my life. We both went to see the movie "My Name is Khan" which was so cliched and so Shahrukhanite that I urged him to leave the multiplex. He was feeling embarrassed in exiting among all the jam packed audience filled theatre, but since I have practised it many a times before, so I just asked him to follow me. We both left the multiplex premises and came out laughing and giggling.

Then we passed our time loitering around in the cafes in the city, well what else one can do in a place like Surat?? He then dropped me at the station and I boarded my train, and when I reached Vadodara station, there my husband was waiting for his wife to surprise her on the Valentine's. He did surprise me when he asked me how did I manage to make it?? I was like why I would not? He then told me that he had anticipated that I would not wake up on time and hence would end up missing the train. He therefore, had called me several times in the morning, and every time I would attend to his call and reply "yes, sure" and then would hang up. So he was damn sure that this Valentine's day we would be celebrating solo. But he was happy and also worried that I would somehow make it on time, and he cannot always thank the destiny for safeguarding his wife with strangers all the time.

I am sharing the facebookprofile of the cab driver, for whom I am so happy. Today his earnings have multiplied all because he started dealing with the customers directly. Co-incidentally, today he is the only facebook friend among all the friends/characters who are mentioned in this story. All of them are neither friends in real life nor on the facebook, except of course my husband and sister (we again added each other a week back, for the 5th time, LOL)

worn out look after binge drinking and then travelling

chance meeting with a facebook friend

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Tea Vs. Coffee

As long as I recall, I have always been a tea lover. It was may be because I was born in a house-hold that was all Tea pro. Then I got married into a family that is again a die-hard tea lover. In fact, my addiction for tea reached to its profound limits while staying with my husband. I remember my first food/drink/edible at this place was indeed tea. Well, it is customary to offer tea/coffee to a guest. But, my stating that is just to endorse the relationship associated with tea. Once when I my husband flew to Colombo, he got the finest Dilmah in practically all the fruit flavours. He knew I, his then girl friend was always up for experimenting with new flavours of tea. Be it the Lime, Orange, Lemon grass or the Thyme. Green teas are something that I really love, or rather  loved.

me-churning-coffee-in-Kerala-for-my-mallu-friends

While living a corporate life with endless discussions in projector rooms, and hours and hours of con-calls, I must have drank close to a litre of tea in a day. I remember we both (husband and I) used to drive 10 km at 2 am in the night to some remote tea larri (kiosk) outside city premises to have 3cups of tea each. That was because in those days we were so careless that we did not even know that our gas cylinder had finished and we had no time or intention to get it refilled or at least place a request for a new one. Also, at that hour of the night, only the ones at the highways were open, ones within the city limits would get shut by 11 pm prompt. As I mentioned in my last blog, I practically did NO cooking even after few years of marriage. Till today, 99% of the times, tea is made by my husband only.

Since the introduction of these Cafe Bistros in the country, drinking coffee has become one of the trademarks of the elite in the society. Though my association with coffee has only been of making it for others, the real Cappucino style that I learned from my mother.  For close friends, it is me only who prepares the coffee during all the get-together, but I would be the only one not drinking it, until unless it is getting wasted. Even at these cafes, I do not shy away from sipping my ginger-honey tea. At times, I did try the cold coffee in the form of Frappes and Mochachillos; they were nice but nothing could come in between my true love for the real larri wala kadak chai.

Both of ours love for tea did not even dim in the country of Alps. There also instead of the affordable coffee, we used to order the premium priced Darjeeling or the Assam tea. Our love for tea never really is measured in terms of money, in any currency.  I recall once in my previous job in a research organization, I helped out a colleague from Sri Lanka with a project that she got stuck with; and in return she wanted to gift me something. I promptly asked her to ship the Chamomile, Jasmine, Thyme and Gignseng flavoured Dilmah. She was also taken aback, by the way we both have never even spoken to each other on the phone. It was just the e-mail connection between both of us, then also I did not think twice before asking for that gift in return for the help that I rendered to her. I really have been determined for the love of tea. Our close friends are also aware of this fascination of ours, and they use it to coax us into spending more time with them. So, with endless cups of tea, we both could be stationed at a place for hours and hours. At one of our close friend's place we both are customarily served 2 tall glasses of  tea each along with Alu parathas for the breakfast.

All this seemed fine till now. It all seemed like a marriage full of genuine love. The true love for tea in me. But the story recently had a sharp twist. I visit one of my journalist friend at a popular tea larri often. There usually I drink tea, the way I have been doing for donkey number of years now. But at one instance of my visit to that larri I happened to drink coffee by mistake. I think the orders got mixed up with some other customers at the place and I got to drink a small glass of coffee  instead of the regular tea. I wanted to discontinue drinking that, but since I am from the school of thought of  not wasting food; I ended up drinking it all. By the time I had my last sip, I realised it was smooth as silk, with the flavour of coffee lingering on my palate for a long time. It seemed that I had experienced coffee in its pure form that day alone. Since then, I am dying to have coffee again. I never bought one, so I am little apprehensive and feel awkward in bringing about the change in me. I know it is just a usual beverage, but it like hits on my ego strong. Umpteen times I have been advised by few of my seniors at previous work places that "Business women look professional when they sip coffee, particularly on a client visit. Tea is for non-ambitious house wives". I have always shunned those sort of bias and impressions; may be the societal associations tagged with both the beverages in our country made me love tea more, and in a way revenge for these beliefs came out in the form of disliking coffee.  Therefore, it is taking me a while to sip one more cup of the sheer smoothness and brilliant taste that I experienced that day for a mere 5 INR.

Does it sound like a devoted married man falling out for a young beautiful girl after successfully doting on his wife of 20 years??

our-usual-chai-lari

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The Catty Me

So, this is when I think I had come to spend some time at his place in the morning at 8 am. He was a bachelor then, (we were not married that time) and both his mother and sister were also not in the home for more than 2 years. The sister got married and went to stay in the U.S.A, and his mommy was spending time at her very own States (States of Punjab). Naturally then, he did not have a functional kitchen, just the one that could make tea and heat rotis. We both enjoyed the lovely tea that he prepared. He tried to make that day as special as he could, well it was a special day then. It was the first time I visited his place for a morning tea. After having tea, he took my leave and told me that he would be back in 2 hours, as he had an appointment with someone. I was alone in the entire house with nothing much exciting to do. I switched on the television, hoping to catch up with some latest Bollywood numbers. I was staying in a hostel those days, so lacked the privilege of holding a television remote in my hand and controlling the channels. That thrilling activityI must have done for another 15 minutes, after which I got bored. I then moved to doing some thing more interesting than that. I started roaming around the house. After checking out the usual stuff like the decorative pieces, and tiny tit-bits here and there, my eyes got focused to the unopened package of OREO sitting nicely on the dining table. I was thrilled to see that. As we had started dating just few weeks before that, so I was confident of forgetting all the courtesy and manners that I must have accumulated till then. I simply attacked on that package and started opening it. But even after 5 minutes, I was still opening it, yes it was that securely packed. May be it knew that it would be hijacked by me, so the packaging was securely sealed on it. I further struggled with it, and after snatching it from all over, I gave up. It was simply too much of an effort to have an Oreo.

I had woken up early on that Sunday, and I knew I would be up for the whole day, so I altered my attention to rather indulging in a good sleep till he returned. After sleeping for about an hour, I woke up, cause I was feeling hungry. I found out that he was back and was on the phone. He greeted me and was sounding excited to share the rest of the day with me. After he was done, I slyly asked him if he could open the box of Oreo for me, as I was pretty sure that he purposely must have got those for me only. Otherwise why else would he firstly buy such a big pack and place it on the table. He surely thought of gifting me that. He replied to that, but not with an affirmation. I was surprised to hear that from him, and that too so early in our relationship. I frowned automatically, and then he started to explain and apologize, both simultaneously. Immediately it struck me that it was not a gift for me, and was meant for somebody else. Considering the price of it then, (12 years back) and my economic state of a student, I felt really bad. I mentally started preparing my list of apology when he was putting out his. But I had no idea that his apology speech would have such a surprise element, to which there would be no need of my apology speech. He told me that he threw the entire box of 1 Kg of Oreo in the dustbin because he found it pilfered by a CAT!!!

I screamed in surprise : "A CAT"

"Yes, a CAT. One stray cat haunts my house and snatches most of the food stuff. She also breaks open the packaged products like biscuits, wafers in her trademark way, which is so typical of its species. The same cruel snatches I found on that biscuit pack, so I threw it away. I am so sorry, I bought the entire pack for you only as a gift, but I will get you another one today. OK. Love, I am really sorry"

After  hearing this I could not utter a single word. Till date I have not admitted the events of that day to him, but after moving into the house with him, I got the entire windows properly grilled, so as to render the entry of any external cats into the house. I am the only ruling CAT in the house to this day. LOL

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