My vacation:tumultuous & gleeful

Away from the hustle bustle of the city and the maddening crowds, life offers a comforting & a blissful space. I all this time had not even fathomed this. I didn’t have the faintest idea how it is to be on a vacation with your family especially after one has entered the corporate arena & has to perform the drill everyday.

To my delight a decision to visit the backwaters of Kerela was made. I wanted to go to Bhubaneshwar first (BBSR –for convenience will be seen throughout the passage) –my hometown ..as it had been almost close to a year since I had last visited.

After having spent a couple of days at home & devouring home made food we boarded the Koromondal express on the 19th of May to Chennai. On the fateful day of 20th may ‘Laila’ struck and everything went awry. The blessed train was running late by almost 12 hours. The very next morning the staff dropped the bombshell by letting us all know that the train would be stranded & reaching Chennai would be a tad uncertain. With the air conditioning shut & dwindling food supplies, we panicked, understandably (had it not been for the luggage we could have taken a flight from BBSR and probably would have been stranded at Chennai airport for hours).It had to be jinxed any which ways!!

Finally the train de toured and we had to hop into another train bound to Ernakulam squeezing ourselves in the sleeper class with 4 big bags. The cacophony around was an addition to the cup of woes now filled to the brim!! Luckily the TT gave us berths in the A/c compartment not before we had spent 14 hours amidst the commotion! By gods grace we slept peacefully & reached TRICHUR the next morning (22nd May). I emanated an odour no better than the pantry wallas & porters. We had spent close to 70 hours (both the trains put together)!!My body was so acclimatized to the train environment that i could not sleep in stillness..

Finally we reached my father’s friend’s place at Trichur and freshened ourselves. The same afternoon we headed towards Munnar.

In all we visited 4 places Munnar , Thekkady, Kumaragom (supposedly spelt correctly)& Ernakulam. The traditional Martial Arts & Kathakali were a treat for the eyes. I also had the famous Kerela Massage. The grandest of them was the House Boat at Kumaragom. It was splendid. An experience of a lifetime!! The regality of the boat was mesmerizing more so because of the backwaters that stood as a silhouette.Not to miss out we had plenty of fish based delicacies.slurp slurp!! the intoxicating aroma is still around me:)

We took a flight back to Bangalore from Cochin on the 27th of May. On the 28th I had to come to terms with reality. I was back in office (I remembered an instance from Akbar- Birbal stories when once Akbar had asked Birbal to write something that would bring grief & at the same time bring happiness to people who read it. Birbal wrote: YEH WAQT GUZAR JAYEGA). I had mixed feelings!!