It was the first ever afternoon flight to Trichi by Air Asia.... and it was pleasant and without much turbulence... i was fairly surprised with the food because it was good...
That wasnt the only surprise i had on the plane.... When the captain introduced himself over the intercom... The name sounded familiar .... after much thinking and an hour or two later when he came out of the cockpit... i finally recognized him,... Captain Warrin was a schoolmate and we were also in the scouts together... We havent seen each other in ... 17 years....
I got real excited when i got the first glimpse of India... glimpses of the Cavary river from the plane gave me such a rush... kekekeke...
When we finally landed we where greeted with two fire trucks on either side of the plane... and the captain assured us that everything was ok and this was just a way of celebrating the flights maiden voyage...
After experiencing india's infamous bureaucratic management... we finally got outside to the arrival hall where we were greeted by my father-in-law's brother and cousin brothers... I last saw them at my wedding... I remembered Uncle Mani's infectious smile... He gave us all a big hug welcoming us to YINDIA!!!!!
After bundling ourselves in two Ambassador cars and a motorcycle... we headed to father-in-law's sister's house which is a short drive from the airport.... The drive there was err...interesting.... it was organized chaos.... its amazing how traffic weezzes around ...lorries ...cars.. motobikes... cows... and people.... Vehicles honking the hon and overtaking even when there was on coming traffic.....making every inch on the road a close call ... it was truly amazing that we didnt get into an accident... Organized chaos, ...thats just putting it lightly....
Once we turned of from the main road to the service road that lead to the house i felt a little better because there was less traffic but.... the tar road quickly disappeared and was replaced with laterite ... and it was becoming more and more challenging for Uncle Mani to drive... the car was old you see... and it was a stick shift... it looked like the clutch was hard to operate which is why the car stalled many times... but for most parts of it i found that Uncle Mani was always one gear too high...Anyways we reached the house in one piece ....
As most of you know my Tamil is slightly better then my German... So i was like half guessing what everyone was saying... There was a lot of laughter and some joyful tears... but i kept to myself most of the time... giving a little nod and a smile from time to time... sometimes giving a 'yes' or 'no' answer in tamil... hehehe.. ofcos then grandma talked to me ... and i could not make head or tail of what she was saying... of which my mother-in-law explained that i knew very little tamil ... and hardly can speak tamil...... Then there was alot of oooooooooohhhs and aaaahhhs and hahahas... (somebody shoot me now)... luckily i had my camera to hide behind...
Ofcos when they saw my camera ... i kept hearing them say in tamil "@#@%%^* Press??!! ahh?".. and i say, "No no hobby hobby!!"... and they go "ooooooh #$^&^&*&@" which translated is "ooooooh any nice pics"... then i show them a pic on the lcd "werrry nicce ah" while shaking their head side to side...
We didnt stay long and promised to come over for lunch towards the end of our stay in India... we bundled ourselves into the cars again and headed to father-in-laws house ...which was closer to town...
Before Uncle Mani could get the car moving, i asked him if i could drive the car... he immediately said "ooo wofcos can.." but then hesitantly switched places with me... ofcos both wife and mother-in-law said please be careful.. and off we went, thru the bumpy laterite road .... My god this clutch was harder then my old vw beetle... now wonder Uncle Mani was struggling with it... When we reached the junction to the main road, father-in-law who was in the other car asked me if i wanted to switch places with Uncle Mani again... I said no worries lets just continue our journey and give Uncle Mani a break from driving...
... since i was in India, I did what the Indians did..... I was HONKING and over taking those cows and vehicles like my life depended on it.....
There is alot of work being done to the roads in and around Trichi... which i guess is a good thing because the roads were terrible... but there is so much of road works being done everywhere which causes horrendous jams.... We worked our way around the city and made it to Keelaputur by dinner time...
We unpacked and made ourselves comfortable... then visited my father-in-law's auntie... yup... Auntie... theres actually two aunties or the proper term i shld be using is grand'aunties who were still alive and kicking... and the one thats actually still kicking it is the one fondly known as the Cooking 'Parti'(Grandmother). She cooked for us for most of the days that we were in Keelaputur... She was the most lively person I've ever met... and boy can she cook!!....... mmmmmmm the food was delicious... i fell a sleep satisfied
I LOVE YINDIA!!!!!
