It all began in October 2012. I returned from an outstation trip and came to office on Monday to find photos of a few guys from their trip to Trivandrum. And thus was coined the phrase "Dude! We gotta go to Kerala". It so happens that Arun (one of the aforementioned guys and a friend and a colleague, Phew!) is from Trivandrum. Also from the same city is Ajith. So these guys decided to just take off to Kerala for the weekend. They were, ofcourse, joined by a Nishant (you'll notice this one doesn't end with an "h") who is my namesake and co-troublemaker in the office.
We'd been repeating "the" phrase every alternate weekend or so, which was the frequency at which Arun went home for the weekend, but hadn't really gotten to making it a reality. One fine warm and sunny afternoon of Mar 2013, on a coffee break, or was it breakfast, we repeated "the" phrase with a certain finality to it. Before your imagination runs wild, we decided to go the following weekend. Murphy's law being what it is, a lot of the cogs in the universe's "plan implementation division" did not work together as a team and this idea, surprise surprise, did not materialize.
Then came the news that would actually deliver a blow of finality to "the" phrase. Arun was being transferred to the Delhi office. It was now, in the face of certain loss of future opportunities, that we brave soldiers fighting the war called life, made "the" decision. A week before Arun was to leave town for good was the weekend we decided to finally make the trip. Tickets were booked, families were told and leave applications approved. Yes, in that particular order. You think you cut it close, come live my life ;)
On the foretold Thursday eve, we packed our bags and left for the bus stand. The cogs were all in perfect sync. So much so that it was raining in Bangalore on that evening. A kind of the universe's way of saying that our vacation had started. The only thing on our mind was that we were now free of all other worldly responsibilities towards work and home and were headed for three days of coastal monsoon weather and the beauty that we've heard is Kerala.
The bus left bang on time at 08.15 pm from Madiwala and a movie was played, as was tradition. The first movie that was played was "Romans" which Arun told me was the best recent comedy movie made in Malyalam. Yes, they play only Mallu movies on the way to Kerala!! Fortunately this one had English subtitles and I had Arun beside me to help understand the nuances. After about 10 mins, most of which was only the introduction and the scrolling thing with names (dammit why can't I remember words when most needed!!), some of the passengers ahead complained this was the 106th time they were watching this and had it changed. Disappointment!
The next change was called "Husbands in Goa" which is a remake of a Hindi movie where three husbands go to Goa to have an affair (again, not remembering. This is becoming a habit!). Arun told me this was a crappy movie and I agreed as I have seen the Hindi version of it, which didn't make sense in a language I understood either. Fortunately, this was objected to as well and the next change, was what Arun told me was the worst movie ever and one that other Mallu's had advised him to not watch inspite of it starring Mammootty. This was titled "Kamath and Kamath" (pronounced Kammmat and Kammmat in Mallu).
All this took about an hour or so and we realised that we had travelled all of about 5 Km from Madiwala. This was normal, I was told, as it was raining and the traffic is always heavy on this road. I was just wondering what the reason may be for so many people leaving Bangalore on a daily basis!!
The rest of the journey went fairly well. I slept through the latter half of the film, as advised by Arun and woke up the next morning to find myself in Trivandrum at 7 am. Bang on time I was told. It had just stopped raining and the weather seemed very nice. We got off the bus, collected our bags and headed on to Arun's house. As expected (actually Nishant had told me this) Arun has a very nice house. Formal introductions were made to his mother (only I needed to be introduced) as I was the "other" Nishanth she was meeting.
After some tea and rest, we were called for breakfast. Appam and stew, which was very nice. The first item on the agenda for that day was a visit to the Anantha Padmanabha temple. The same famed temple where wealth beyond imagination was discovered. It being a Friday, there wasn't much of a crowd at the temple. This was very helpful as were all wearing mundu, which a mandatory requirement to enter the temple premises. The idol of the lord is about 80 feet long (yes, long. He is in a reclining position you see) and has to be viewed through 5 doors. It's like taking 5 photos and stitching them to create one panoramic view. It is quite glorious and we were happy to be able to spend sometime in front of the idol and admire it.
After we went around the huge temple grounds and had admired all the architecture and stone carvings of the god knows how old temple we decided it was time to move on to the next item on the program. We got dressed at the car and headed out to Ponmudi. Ofcourse, when we left, we decided to eat something on the way as we might not make it up there by lunch. Arun took us a very nice place called Flavors after which we headed on.
More details in the next episode
We'd been repeating "the" phrase every alternate weekend or so, which was the frequency at which Arun went home for the weekend, but hadn't really gotten to making it a reality. One fine warm and sunny afternoon of Mar 2013, on a coffee break, or was it breakfast, we repeated "the" phrase with a certain finality to it. Before your imagination runs wild, we decided to go the following weekend. Murphy's law being what it is, a lot of the cogs in the universe's "plan implementation division" did not work together as a team and this idea, surprise surprise, did not materialize.
Then came the news that would actually deliver a blow of finality to "the" phrase. Arun was being transferred to the Delhi office. It was now, in the face of certain loss of future opportunities, that we brave soldiers fighting the war called life, made "the" decision. A week before Arun was to leave town for good was the weekend we decided to finally make the trip. Tickets were booked, families were told and leave applications approved. Yes, in that particular order. You think you cut it close, come live my life ;)
On the foretold Thursday eve, we packed our bags and left for the bus stand. The cogs were all in perfect sync. So much so that it was raining in Bangalore on that evening. A kind of the universe's way of saying that our vacation had started. The only thing on our mind was that we were now free of all other worldly responsibilities towards work and home and were headed for three days of coastal monsoon weather and the beauty that we've heard is Kerala.
The bus left bang on time at 08.15 pm from Madiwala and a movie was played, as was tradition. The first movie that was played was "Romans" which Arun told me was the best recent comedy movie made in Malyalam. Yes, they play only Mallu movies on the way to Kerala!! Fortunately this one had English subtitles and I had Arun beside me to help understand the nuances. After about 10 mins, most of which was only the introduction and the scrolling thing with names (dammit why can't I remember words when most needed!!), some of the passengers ahead complained this was the 106th time they were watching this and had it changed. Disappointment!
The next change was called "Husbands in Goa" which is a remake of a Hindi movie where three husbands go to Goa to have an affair (again, not remembering. This is becoming a habit!). Arun told me this was a crappy movie and I agreed as I have seen the Hindi version of it, which didn't make sense in a language I understood either. Fortunately, this was objected to as well and the next change, was what Arun told me was the worst movie ever and one that other Mallu's had advised him to not watch inspite of it starring Mammootty. This was titled "Kamath and Kamath" (pronounced Kammmat and Kammmat in Mallu).
All this took about an hour or so and we realised that we had travelled all of about 5 Km from Madiwala. This was normal, I was told, as it was raining and the traffic is always heavy on this road. I was just wondering what the reason may be for so many people leaving Bangalore on a daily basis!!
The rest of the journey went fairly well. I slept through the latter half of the film, as advised by Arun and woke up the next morning to find myself in Trivandrum at 7 am. Bang on time I was told. It had just stopped raining and the weather seemed very nice. We got off the bus, collected our bags and headed on to Arun's house. As expected (actually Nishant had told me this) Arun has a very nice house. Formal introductions were made to his mother (only I needed to be introduced) as I was the "other" Nishanth she was meeting.
After some tea and rest, we were called for breakfast. Appam and stew, which was very nice. The first item on the agenda for that day was a visit to the Anantha Padmanabha temple. The same famed temple where wealth beyond imagination was discovered. It being a Friday, there wasn't much of a crowd at the temple. This was very helpful as were all wearing mundu, which a mandatory requirement to enter the temple premises. The idol of the lord is about 80 feet long (yes, long. He is in a reclining position you see) and has to be viewed through 5 doors. It's like taking 5 photos and stitching them to create one panoramic view. It is quite glorious and we were happy to be able to spend sometime in front of the idol and admire it.
After we went around the huge temple grounds and had admired all the architecture and stone carvings of the god knows how old temple we decided it was time to move on to the next item on the program. We got dressed at the car and headed out to Ponmudi. Ofcourse, when we left, we decided to eat something on the way as we might not make it up there by lunch. Arun took us a very nice place called Flavors after which we headed on.
More details in the next episode
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