My definition of an eventful trip

Aaaaaannnnnnnddddddddddd I am back, from a very short yet eventful and adventurous trip to India. It was so action packed that this post is going to be a lengthy one, hence a sincere request to all my fans (aka readers), to show some patience and read along, while I’ll try my best to make it as engaging as possible.

The excitement was only sinking in and we were clicking pictures at Ottawa rail station itself (if you know me well, you’ll also know I am an over enthusiastic photographer), when a pretty faced, 20 something young lady interrupted our photo session and asked if I was Deepali. There, I had found a friend at the beginning of our journey itself and I knew it, this is going to be a fun filled voyage.

Ottawa to Montreal, Montreal to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Delhi. One heck of a travel. But we couldn’t complain as we kept bumping into friends/ acquaintances (planned or otherwise) and the extensive journey became less painful. Catching with the Amandeep and his family at Amsterdam airport and traveling together from there was kinda fun.

Right when we thought this journey couldn’t get more exciting, a police officer came to our flight to make an announcement that 2 Afghani prisoners were being deported to India in our aircraft, but he comforted us by further adding that they were under security covers and there wasn’t anything to worry about. I guess the second part of his announcement was lost in all the commotion created amongst the passengers. As if the journey wasn’t going exciting enough, one of the Afghani kept screaming and yelling every now and then, to keep us all on the tip of our toes, ready to jump off the aircraft ;)

After a sleepless 17 hours, annoying kids kicking the back of my seat and getting through a very rude immigration officer, we reached Delhi airport (which looked more like a bus station) at 1AM. Ashish’s mom, dad, sister, brother in law, and nephew were waiting at the arrival gate for us (only if dogs were permitted, Brutus and Asterisks would have joined them too). The moment I saw them, tears rolled down my cheeks and I got overly emotional. I was returning home after a year and a half.

I could smell India. It was pollution, mixed with dust, paan spits, dog shit and body odor of at least a thousand people in the radius of 200 meters. Ah! I was in India. My country.

Regular people usually head back home from the airport at 1 AM after a 17 hour journey, but our priority was different. I wanted the taste of kulfi in my mouth even before I brush my teeth. So we hunted down a kulfi vendor at that time of night, savored the taste of that delicious kulfi and then headed home.

It was good to be back. The pollution in Delhi was bizarre. At noon, you could look at the sun without sunglasses, and it is an orange ball, as if the sun was always setting. It’s not just the air pollution that drives you crazy; it’s also the noise pollution. Continuous honking, loud people, street vendors, deafening music, is enough to wanna puncture your eardrum.

While the traffic in itself is crazy enough, in a huge avenue, extremely busy, you cannot tell which side people drive there. In the middle of that avenue there are also cows, and everyone drives around them. There are people sleeping in between two avenues, a place that barely fits the body of a person, while cars pass at full speed just beside them. Who would choose such a place to sleep?

Besides cow, you can easily spot other sacred animals let loose on the streets as well, snakes, rats, monkeys. Not sure if Dogs are considered sacred, but they’re seen everywhere. Mosquitoes and flies are more common than all these animals together, but they are not sacred, so just do not open your mouth and you’ll be fine.

I was enjoying myself. That smile never left my face. I was relishing every bit of my stay. I was enjoying the traffic jams, bumper to bumper driving, Hindi radio channels and FINALLY some funny advertisements on radio (I can vouch for it that Indian ads are the funniest and most innovative ones).

In no time, we were preparing to leave Delhi for Jammu. It was time for me to see my family. My mom, my dad and my Mishti. With a heart full of excitement, we flew from Delhi. We had been pulling all nighters, meeting relatives, friends, attending weddings, catching up with parents, that by this time we were exhausted. With a hope of catching up some sleep in the flight, we shut our eyes, but in half an hour, captain announced our arrival.

I was home. I was going to see my Mishti. I didn’t know how I would react upon seeing my parents. I was imagining all this in my mind when Ashish said:

“I’m sure your dad would come to the airfield to receive you”

“Arrey! How can he come to the airfield? It isn’t a joke, the security is strict here. How will he be allowed?”, I shrugged my shoulders.

“Your Bapu (dad), has so many friends. I’m sure they’ll let him in”, Ashish uttered with confidence.

We stepped out of the aircraft and our eyes took a quick scan of the airfield and didn’t see him. “See, he isn’t here”, I said.

We took two steps further and there he was. My dad, my hero, on the airfield. Walking towards us.

He has always managed to make friends everywhere he went and charm people with his personality. He knows how to get his way through. I hugged him for a minute, shed a few tears and happily, we head home. I wonder why other co-passengers gave us that look, as if we were celebrities or shooting a movie ;)

Mishti was waiting for us at the door. She can always sense when we around. For a few seconds, she looked at me in disbelief, and then she didn’t leave the sight of me.

Ma, as always, kissed me all over. I had longed for her kisses.

I was in my house. The smell, the feel and the aura was so mesmerizing. It was pure bliss. The feeling of being pampered and loved by your parents is incomparable to any other. Pre breakfast fruit bowl, heavy breakfast followed by super heavy lunch, supper, dinner and post dinner sweets, makes you wonder how does ma get all the time to prepare so much food and yet spend all the time with us, when we can barely cook one meal a day? The answer is simple, she would wake up at 4AM to prepare all this, to be able to spend every minute with us.

The next 4 days were delightful. Mishti followed me where ever I went. So much so, she followed me to the washroom, and would wait outside until I came out. Once she even managed to sneak inside the washroom (naughty girl ;))

My dad had taken 20 days leaves coz I was coming home for 4 days J

“Why did you take TWENTY days off Bapu?”, I questioned

“We had so much to be done before you came. All the light bulbs needed to be changed, clock batteries are all fresh and new, the curtains of the entire house needed to be cleaned, etc”.

Even though I’m sure Ma did most of the work and Bapu just lay around watching Cricket, the excitement that his daughter was visiting home after a year was clear in his voice.

I love my family so much that I couldn’t digest the fact I was leaving so soon. I was upset, sad and distressed. My heart sank when we reached the airport to depart. I could barely speak. My throat choked everytime I looked at Ma. She’s the most adorable piece of art. God must have been at his best while designing her.

Passing out at the airport: -

While checking in, my head started to spin and I told my dad that I felt dizzy. The next thing I know, my dad had lifted my legs, some other fella had lifted my shoulders and I was being taken somewhere. Everything seemed very unclear and hazy and it took me a while to realize I had passed out. I opened my eyes to see that I had vomited all over the place and I was sweating profusely. I saw my concerned parents trying to wake me up and some angry passengers staring at me. I guess if I was at their place and some random girl had puked on me, I would be mad too. But I didn’t pay much attention to that and went back to passing out.

After creating a huge scene and some entertainment for the co-passengers, I regained conscious and cleaned myself up. I smelled foul. I quickly went to the nearby garment store to get a change for myself. He didn’t have anything for girls, so he handed over a kids t-shirt to me, which he was certain would fit me. Only after a bottle of water, 2 cups of coffee, medication, two cans of deodorant and a round of interrogation, were the aircraft security staff satisfied that I am not sick, but just homesick. So they let me in.

Anyways, in this entire ruckus, I did make a great friend at the airport. Again, I apologize for puking at you Sahil ;)

I was back in Delhi. Back to the regular long night outs, tiring days, attending functions and caching up with friends. It was time to attend Ashish’s best friend’s wedding. I swear, if I wasn’t such a wonderful and mature wife, I would have certainly misunderstood their relationship ;)

We caught up with all his friends, friends wives, friends parents and friends siblings. Was a lot of fun. We danced till Ashish’s shoe broke, then went home to change the pair and danced again ;), laughed till we dropped out of our chairs, got some lovely clicks, ate the food to die for, witnessed relationships, drove around at 3 AM in search of paan with no luck, and slept during the main wedding.

Again sleep deprived, we thought we would finally catch some sleep on the aircraft now. Tired and exhausted, we say out goodbyes to families at 11 PM, get on the aircraft, and rest our heads for a while that in an hour an announcement is made, “Due to technical fault, we’ll be heading back to Delhi”.

That’s it! The universe doesn’t want me to sleep. This is all a conspiracy. We were stranded at Delhi airport for nearly 8 hours, and we kept fighting with the staff until we did manage to get our tickets re-routed.

It was one heck of a journey, but at least we came back with tones of stories.

Highlights of my trip:

Here are a few things that fascinated me enough to take space in my blog:

1. We were entering a mall, and at the gates, boot of ever car is checked (apparently in search of a bomb). The security guard opened the boot of the car in front of us, and a mouse jumped out of it. Where we burst out laughing, to all the others, it was a normal day-to-day sight :)

2. In a hope to get my tooth fixed, I went to a dentist in India (since they are so freaking expensive in Canada). I am not exaggerating an inch here, but the dentist was talking to my dad while drilling my tooth. When I asked him to numb my tooth as it was hurting and bleeding, his usual reply was, “It’s quite normal”… hahaha J No wonder dentists are so cheap in India :)

3. While we sat in line for our eyes check up, the doctor was inspecting a not-so-literate man’s eyes. It was clear that he had never been to an optician before. We were all left in splits when the doctor prescribed him glasses, only after asking him his age :) 56?, +4 :) hahaha

4. My grandma is adorable. She is one person who can take any joke and knows how to laugh at herself. If you know her, you’ll also know she can talk for hours and hours keeping people around her in awe. This time, she said something so funny, it cracked me up completely. One of my uncle’s has been promoted to the post of District Collector. Grandma wanted to congratulate him on his success, so called him up and said, “Congratulations on becoming a conductor (bus conductor)”:) hahaha. My oh my! :)

5. When Ashish was getting late to catch his airplane from Jammu to Delhi. It was nearing the take off time; Ashish and my dad were still stuck in traffic. My dad called up the airport authorities and requested them to do something about it. The authorities (one of whom is dad’s good friend), assured that they can delay the flight by 15 minutes max. As soon as Ashish reached the airport, without any security checks or check ins, he was pushed inside the craft. One crazy experience. It can only happen in India.

6. This was the first time I was meeting all of Ashish’s friends after our wedding. The charming me, doesn’t take much to create a good impression. But things can get messy, when I am mad at the dhol waale (musicians). At Ruchit’s wedding, the band party (musicians) was so annoying that they seemed to be bugging everybody. After a while it got uncontrollable and they started passing some remarks. People who know me, would also know, that I don’t take any non-sense. Even if I am nobody at the wedding and it doesn’t remotely concern me, if my blood has boiled, god save people around me. In front of the entire baraat, Groom’s family and friends, bride’s family and friends, I stormed at those musicians, yelled at them and shoed them away. That’s when Ashish dragged me in and said, “Can’t leave you alone for even a minute” :)

7. Bapu coming at the airfield to receive us :)

8. When I collapsed at the airport (read above)

9. When our flight made an emergency landing (read above)

10. Those priceless walks with Mishti Wow! I’m ending it here, coz I can’t write anymore. Have fun reading!