Last
day of exams are always fun and especially when a whole day is planned for you,
partying till late night, sleeping the next whole day and taking a flight home
in the evening. But who knew what destiny has stored for me that night. Just
when I was lost in my thoughts of the next day when my phone rang.
It was Baba (my Father) on the
other end who excitedly told me that “Honey, I have great news for you.
Robbie’s marriage has been fixed and we are going to Kolkata for some shagun
and I would love that you join us in that trip so you need to meet us in the
Mumbai airport tomorrow morning as we have a flight of 9 o’clock from there. As
you know there is a late night flight from Bengalore to Mumbai and I would like
you to board that but don’t you worry Tamo will also there and I have informed
him too he will be on his way to flat. You too hurry up. Bye, see you soon, Sweetie.”
Oh my God! Tamo, a big No, my twin brother is just a pack of problems, always
teasing but then too it’s easy to be with Tamo than to travel alone. So I asked
Puff to drive me to flat, as like always Tamo took the car with his friends who
were also our PGs. Puff who’s actual name was Ms. Padmalakshmi Raghavamma Iyer
too was our PG and in the course of time we became great friends. She was from
Madras and her father was a high posted IFS officer and was mostly out of
country in different ambacies bought her a car as he didn’t wanted her to
travel by public transport in a city such unsafe as Bangalore. Puff and I went
out of the disc and guess what? We got lost as it was a new mall and we were
visiting it for the first time. After a long time at last we found the exit.
Puff took out the car and I started to drive towards the flat. The flat
originally belonged to my late maternal grand-father and after his death it was
mostly given on rents by my parents to college students of Mumbai as this flat
was very near to big universities of Bangalore. It was a beautiful 4BHK flat with
every ammunity present in it and when I and Tamo got into NALSAR, Baba gave us
the keys of the flat as he thought that it would be better that we live in this
flat only. After that in last 1 year we found great 6 PGs. 5 were guys and one
Puff, all of us studied in same college and so it also helped in sharing the
maintainance of the flat and helped in studies too. As we were so many people
in a flat we appointed a help for cleaning work. She also use to some small odd
jobs like giving our clothes in laundry, bringing basic groceseries, etc and
there was a common driver to maintain every bodies vechiles as Ranjit and Kunal had a
Sports bikes. Baba gave us a car. Puff and Sushant had their cars.
It was
after a lonely traffic signal that I felt that somebody was following us and in
nervousness we sped up the car and boom in nervousness we hit the wall. Puff and I got scared as it was a lonely road
and the car following car stopped. We saw some guys coming and rushing out of
the car. I knew Bangalore in never a safe city for girls in late nights like
this. It was approx 12 and we were scared. Oh! It was Tamo and his friends; he
too was as much scared as me. Genuinely it was the 1st time I was
very happy to see these hooligans. “Sandy! You damn scared me, are you alright,
I got a call from baba that dada’s shagun is there tomorrow and we need to join
it. I saw Puff’s car and started to follow. But you gave me a scare today.
Don’t you ever drive again, you little devil” then turning to Puff he said
“Sorry, for the car but we are in a hurry so should we leave now. I will give a
call to driver and tomorrow he will pick up the car.” They gave us gave us a
lift till the flat. In further drive I noticed little swell over my ankle and I
realized that it was an ankle sprain but I kept mum. Reaching our building Tamo
screamed “oh! Shit, no electricity” and he also noticed my ankle swelling, he
asked concerningly was I all right to which I said it was ok. With the help of
Puff and his friends we reached to the legendary 5th floor. As we
opened our flat what we saw, a perfect mess as everybody was having exams there
was no time for cleaning and the bunking of the help made it more worse. None
of us had a plan of leaving in such a hurry. With the help of Puff, I somehow
packed my things as it was dark and my leg was paining. In meanwhile Tamo also
packed his luggage. Sushant promised that he will leave the keys in our Mumbai
flat as he also lived in Mumbai and previously we three had planned to leave at
last locking the flat.
Reaching
the airport, we found it a bit unusual. Some moments later we realized that
there was no airport staff. My mind reminded back to the morning newspaper
which said “All India Airport-Staff Strike”. The news said that the next day
i.e. from midnight 12 o’clock there is one day strike of supporting staff of
airport. We somehow doing the boarding when the airhostess told us “Mam, the
flight has been postponed by 2 hours”. We were trapped because after boarding
we can’t leave the airport premises and now our flight was after 2½ hours. So
Tamo and I decided to sleep in the airport. The next morning we both had splitting
headaches thanks to the last night. In flight also we didn’t got snacks.
Reaching THE Mumbai airport we sighed a relief. We came out of the flight
holding our heads and reddened eyes, seeing this Dada and Baba were shocked and
surprised to us in our party clothes and too in such bad condition and we were also
looking like hippies. And thanks to the All India Airport-Staff Strike we
didn’t got a single morsel of food in Mumbai airport also. We finally reached
the Kolkata Airport. We looked like the contestants of “Beg Borrow Steal”.
Happy to be at last free and with my family. The previous night was one
of the dreaded nightmares of one’s life. But the joy tears in the eyes of
Mai(Mother), Baba and Dada compensated everything.
Seeing me lost in my thoughts,
Tamo came and stood there and said “What happened? You look lost.” I just told
him that I was thinking about yesterday’s night and finally we said “What A Day
It Was.”
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