Ek E ki Kimat

 I was /am going through a rough patch. I seem to have lost all sense of self-control, I feel feverish most of the time, my mind is addled with a fog, a fog that seemed to have always been there , at the summit and it now descends upon me, enveloping me in a stupor. I have so much to do and yet it feels like I have so little time.

In this daze, I decided to leave the city and attend RB's wedding. OMGGG YAASSSSS RB is finally married!!!! 

But I digress. 

We were going to Andhra Pradesh. I genuinely thought I wasn't going to find a thing to eat there - my life these days seems to be the filled with gaps where I contemplate what needs to be eaten. My only other exposure to these states (way before they split up) was at my uncle's wedding - a blissful week spent drinking copious amounts of orange juice and eating curd rice (The mistake of eating real food the first night there resulted in a burnt digestive tract. I do NOT wish a repeat of that experience. Dear God the spice.. pure pain)

Tats booked the tickets on a whim, I simply closed my eyes, glared at my parents (the paradox!) , and bounced away. Now Tats did tell me that she was booking a bus called Intercity.

There are two of those. We were supposed to travel with our friends in the bus called IntrCity (for safety in numbers!) , but Tats in her infinite wisdom decided this was a spelling error  and booked the bus called InterCity.

I reached the bus stop, met my friends and we began tracking the bus using live location.

It showed that the bus was already there. I call up Tats who has gotten in earlier and then she began yelling loudly "Bhaiya, ye Tin Factory hai na? Kaha ho aap", because of course we are all directionally challenged folk and we usually have no clue about where we are or what we are doing. (P remember  - we didn't get lost?)

By some weird stroke of luck, I began hunting for bus numbers and found my bus waiting. And that's when we realized - Ek E ki Kimat

I bid my other friends goodbye ( whose bus was still an hour away) and got in to see Tats looking down with pleasure. "You do realize its not their bus right?" I asked. She looked confused, "What do you mean, not their bus? Where are they?" The bus began to move. I clumsily clambered over and huffed, "Why on Earth did you not come out? You didn't even call me up when it got to Tin factory"

"Wait, what do you mean this isn't their bus, this is InterCity right?"   "It's IntErCity, with an E"

"Do you think this bus is going to Vijayawada?" 

I froze and stared... "Tats you better be kidding right now, we are quite far off from where we boarded" 

The bus stopped after a few minutes, and a girl got in. Sensing our chance, we both leapt over and asked her where was this bus heading to. If a serial killer was on the bus with us, I guarantee you, easier victims would never be obtained. Thankfully she didn't ignore our plea- she confirmed it was heading to Vijayawada. I muttered about never mentioning this to my parents ( because y'know, I am still a child, soon to die, but still - a child) 

However, this odd beginning marked the start of a wonderful journey - I hadn't had a chance to travel with Tats alone before this, we were always accompanied by many people, and it was almost like we were back in college again. We spoke late into the night, we giggled madly (pretty sure we woke the whole bus up) , I was worried about falling off the bus, so she tied me to the seat, and we were on our way. 

This post is not going to be only about the bus journey though...

No, I would like to thank the city, and our wonderful hosts, that made it a weekend to remember fondly.

Vijayawada -on the absolutely pleasant winter day that we got down -  me confidently abandoning Hindi for a "Kannada Baruttha?" which resulted in Tats rolling her eyes and telling me that no - Kannada isn't spoken much in Bangalore itself, so there's no way it's going to work here. We finally got an auto and reached the wrong venue.(The wedding hall)

I apologized to Tats and we took another auto to our place. We met RB's fiance and his parents there, and had breakfast.

So Vijayawada has good food. That was a surprise. Tats discovered a way of soaking her idly in ghee, and coating it with this great powder that tasted nothing like the grainy stuff in my house, and it felt so good eating those itself.

Heck even UPMA tasted phenomenal at 10pm in the night, by when we were already overstuffed. 

I did not expect eating to be the main agenda. We ate dosas, we gorged on the wedding feast, RB's house had some more food prepared - things that are a staple in Andhra apparently - Dhal, Aubergines, Okra - and we hogged that as well. We stuffed ourselves with Bondas at B's place, we ate hot jalebis, we just ATE. SO. MUCH. 

One of our seniors was appointed to take us around the city,  and he (bless his soul) catered to all the whims of two travel hungry girls, walking the quiet clean and peaceful roads with us as we demanded this and that. RB's cousins - OMG you girls, not sure if you'll ever read this, but Madhu, Varsha - you are EPIC. I had the MOST fun breaking rules with you - ah to feel that young again!

Another post as an ode to you girls is in the works!!

RB - you looked lovely! I only wish we could have teased you a little more, what with all the pictures you took ;)

The whole thing ended with us visiting B's place and her farm, where Tats (of course) decided she would climb a tree. So that was fun. I declared myself a Lannister sitting on the wooden throne (because why not) 

We made it back to our bus (which was the same one btw) with 5 minutes to spare. M and B helped us pack our tornadoed (is this a word?) room. If it weren't for them, we would still be packing. Tats slowly realized that overstuffing on bondas wasn't a good thing to do before travelling, and I realized that drinking water frequently during a journey is a very bad idea as well. 

And Tats kept telling us all, "our bus did reach earlier, and left earlier too. Ek E ki Kimat, Tum kya Jaano?"

Until next time,

DragonRider