My 3D Encounter with X-Y-Z!!!

Prologue:
Hi guys. Last week I had been to my native place. And now I am back with a new piece. I felt that best thing I can write this time is about my trip. So the blog becomes the travel-log. Innumerous incidents, sweet and sour happened across this entire week. I have picked up three out of them to depict here. I am sure at the end of it, u will surely agree, that why I preferred to have the heading as the three-dimensional axis.

Travel plan:
As I had to plan this trip in a short notice, so I didn’t get tickets in the direct train to my native. And I am still to witness being air-born, as I have saved that for some special occasion, not for this kind of travel at least. So I had travel from Bangalore to Chennai and then from Chennai to Calcutta and finally from Calcutta to my native town. My return journey was direct to Bangalore but.

Scene 1:
Location: Chennai
I boarded train on 28th February, Saturday morning from Bangalore to Chennai. The journey was ok, without many hiccups, except scorching heat in the latter half. The train reached there at 2.45pm, on schedule.
There, my dearest friend, lets say X (Being good at math’s I couldn’t refrain myself from using those algebraic aliases), our first dimension, was supposed to reach there and pick me up. My next train was at 11.35pm in night, and I had plenty of time in my hand, so we had thought to spend that time together. But alas! When I reached, there was no sign of her. I called her up, and she told me that she is on her way, and will reach in another 5minutes. After a long wait of 31 minutes to be precise, 5 another calls to her and her 5 another corresponding replies of reaching in another in 5minutes (God knows which watch she had put on, which was always adrift of the target place and target time by 5minutes), she finally arrived. By that time, I was burning with fire, and had all plans to blast her. In fact I had thought of all the sequential dialogues, which I had to deliver in angry young man (AB’s) style. But before I could switch on the ignition, something happened which changed the entire course of events.
Who says girls don’t have brains. I feel they have mightier brains to tackle the adverse conditions, which will make any gentleman nervous. Ravi Shastri, cricketer, will always talk during in his commentary about captains should have their plans A, B, and C ready while on field. If plan A fails, switch to plan B. If plan B fails, switch to plan C. If plan C fails, back to plan A. I am sure; he never did a research on girls. Believe me, they will always have plan A till plan Z to cover up such situations.
Anyways back to business, after seeing me she greeted me with a ‘hi’ and followed with a statement I will like to quote here. “How come Gaurav!!! You have become so thin. You have lost weight.” While waiting for her at the station, I had checked my weight, wasting 1 precious coin. I had gained exactly 1 and half Kg from last time what I had checked. Still since a beautiful girl had given such beautiful remarks, and an angry young man became a chocolaty hero within seconds. My anger melted away as if I was standing on Chennai road, in a hot afternoon with an ice cream in hand. Before I could put that in mouth, it all melted off. Then she added up another story; how her roommate Shalini, had promised to drop her till station, and ditched in the last moment, and she had to struggle in last moment to reach here; (Shalini, if you get to read this by chance, confirm me with your comment) otherwise she would had been in time. “Remember last time when you had come, I had reached 30minutes before and had waited for you”. This last statement with a smile was an indication to put an end to the current topic; a big full stop.
Next immediate target was lunch. I had avoided taking the same in train, so that we can have together. But my bloody…err sorry typo; my best friend had gobbled and come. That was enough to kill my hunger. You know right, I am the person with good heart and all. I was more interested in having lunch with her, than just having the lunch. Then we agreed upon a little snack. From there we went to Spencer plaza, a shopping complex and thought of spending the time there. Spencer is a big mall, and first centralized AC mall I had witnessed where I was still sweating. Chennai heat takes toll on AC’s also. But local people are so adjusted with it; this problem is only for outsiders. We headed towards KFC. Had chicken snackers and cold drinks, sitting on high KBC like revolving chairs. First thing that flashed was a Slumdog millionaire followed with Jaya ho!!!
After that we went out for window-shopping. We roamed for a long time. Out of all outlets, one that attracted me was a very small shop, named manonline. This shop was completely dedicated to all Manchester United fans. With jersey’s to all the accessories was available there. (Note: I didn’t find any such dedicated shop for Chelsea or Arsenal or Liverpool). After threshold limit, we got tired, and planned to sit somewhere. We found one ice-cream parlor. We went there and ordered our flavors. Mine pista, and hers butter almond. But finally she ended up eating my flavor more, after all my choice is always better. ;-) We sat there for a considerable good time, and we were willing to sit more, but in front of us those parlor people chucked out one couple, who had spent few hours, over a single spoon of ice-cream, and that ice-cream had turned into juice by then. I don’t know if I should call them shameless, because after all this, they both entered the very next juice shop and sat there with a glass in front. Hope they were not waiting for that to freeze into ice-cream this time. Back to us, we had heavy amount of shame left in us, so we got up and came out. Then we stood there in balcony, and chatted about all our sweet and sour memories of college life; our masti, fights and just everything. It was unbelievable, how time passed by so fast. Later we realized that we chatted for around 2 hours standing there. J

A small confession to miss X: Remember when we were chatting in front of that ice-cream parlor, one beautiful girl had come. Believe me guys; her face was just like a doll. Everything was just picturesque. I was not able to take my eyes off her. My eyes were following her everywhere, and it had started to look cheap (As told by Miss X). Seeing my inclination, jealous Miss X pinched me, and told that I should not look like that. People are watching me. I had completely forgotten that all this while I was standing with her. I came back in hosh. But I didn’t want to get caught red-handed like that. So I framed a story (learnt this in her company. remember plan A…plan Z). There was an ad put up just behind the head of that beauty. It was about ice-cream parlor chain opening in Dubai. So I lied to her, telling being from a Middle East team, I was interested in that ad and I was reading it, not staring at that girl. So sweet of X, she believed me. I am sorry re. I was looking at that girl only, and I can bet that she is one of the best faces on this Google earth. Now you don’t be J, my dear X. [end of confession].
Then we planned to do some serious shopping. We went to the outlets of Pantaloon and Westside. First we decided to explore the entire outlet, before finalizing about something. I was exploring it nicely, except for one place where I was forced to stop. Not because my feet were not moving, but because X had pulled my hand, and had changed my direction by 180 degrees. She stopped me from exploring because that section was restricted and dedicated to the fairer sex only. Who knows, another Columbus could had discovered another America, but not on that day at least. ;-) After exploring, and a number of trials, appreciations, depreciations and finalizations, we settled for few pieces. We prolonged our stay little further in that outlet; just to listen beautiful songs being played there. It was almost 8 and we headed for our dinner. This time to have that together of course.
We went to the Noodle House. The entire day had gone so sweetly and even the companion was so sweet that I hardly gave a second thought, and gave a nod to order for hot and sour soup. Followed by dragon chicken and shanghai noodles. We were fully stuffed. Came out and had a lime juice. It was almost 9 ‘o clock. Time to leave for her. Maybe, the toughest part of the day. But for safety reasons, it was too late, and we came out of the complex. She had to get a bus from the other side of the road. While crossing the road, I held her hand. She is still a kiddo, and too much afraid while crossing the road. She behaves like a mobile in vibrating mode (Just for fun X). We crossed the road, reached the bus stop. I was still holding her hand. I offered a silent prayer that bus should come only after minimum 10 minutes, or maximum after 2 hours. That maximum limit was framed with due respect to the timing of the train which I was supposed to board. But only heat is not the problem in Chennai, even buses are a big threat. The very second bus which came to that stop within a minute, was heading towards her destination. Language is a tool to express your emotions. I wanted to tell her that leave this bus, and take the next one. But I failed the language test. I had to leave her hand and let her go. Not because I wanted to do so, but since her hand was an integral part of her body, which had started the movement towards the bus. All the fun I had through out the day was suddenly over shadowed. She got into the bus, got a seat, waved hand, and the bus went off, and the life goes on.

Epilogue of Scene 1:
She had given me a lot of instructions, for how to get an auto and reach central. I was told to get into running autos, not the standing ones as they demand more. I was supposed to negotiate from 30rs and to finalize for maximum 40rs. But men are men. I went to the bus stop, got a bus, paid 5rs and reached central, waited for another 2 hours or something watching Madhavan doing some ad for exchange offer in mobiles. At 11.30 pm boarded the train and Calcutta, be ready, I am coming. J

This was the first dimension of my travel-log, the X-axis, the base, on which every one depends. And ironically, my base is my best friend too. Thanks a lot X, for giving me a memorable day. :-D Rest two scenes to follow soon.

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