An Eventful Month – Part Two

<>Oh yes....it was going to be a long long time till I got to my final destination.
NC to NY to Paris to India!
It was about an 8 hour flight from New York to Paris.
Closer to India, yes I was....but still not close enough....
The flight from Paris to Mumbai defined painful.
Not only was I feeling miserable because of my bad cold.... but I was also getting a horrible headache because of the crying babies. Lots of babies...
May and June I guess is the common popping out season... so I’m guessing when they are 6 months old, its time to take them to the grandparents in India.
Whatever the reason...or whatever the secret was....there were a lot of kids on the plane...
One would stop crying.... you would think thank god!....and soon after...another begins...
It was an endless cycle.
And another annoying thing....there was always a line for the bathroom.
That just got on my nerves....no matter when...the occupied sign was always lit up. The only time it wasn’t was when they were serving food....
Food....that also was another problem... dad forgot to tell them that we were veggies....so we got stuck with chicken. <>Anyways…
After a lot of 30 minute naps…. Fast forward to… India landing time…
It’s always so exciting to see the first glimpse of that place you have been eagerly looking forward to.
Tears quickly rolling down…. tears of joy…. finally I was home… <>

Greeted by a selected few family friends… and words like… "You look the same!"
Making me wonder, if that was a good thing or bad. I guess they were glad to see that I wasn’t wearing anything with a plunging neckline… or just anything that would be inappropriate!

<>The first day was very interesting.
When I woke up I was greeted with noises of cars honking. That I think was a good start. It did put a smile on my face! Day one was dedicated to shopping (just like most of my days, but… keep reading!)
I think I stood out like a sore thumb… especially when it came to crossing roads.
No one would be considerate and stop... infact I think people would speed up when they see people crossing the road.
It was funny…. I bet most of you would laugh your asses off if I had a video of my first day.
I would have to grab some inhabitants hand while crossing the road. It was also terrifying to see people driving.
During the peak traffic hours, I kept my eyes closed for parts of the drive because I kept thinking that the car next to us was too close… that people were driving in the middle of the lanes… people almost never showed their signal lights…

Things like this used to be normal and very regular 5 years back… and now it’s scary and frightening.

<>Before we landed in India, the plan was to get vaccinated for Malaria and all that NRI stuff…
That didn’t really happen…. actually we ended up breaking a rather strict rule on day one itself. The rule, created by grandpa, was not to eat road side food. Not to stop at any sev­puri waala bhaiya to get a bite. Apparently we had lost all our immunity... blah blah… beware, these are not my words!
So we were walking from one shop to another when my eyes fell on the sev­puri waala bhaiya. I don’t think I’ve ever drooled like the way I did at the sight of a man. I stopped, turned around, and looked at mom. She stares back at me with a straight face. Then she looked at the object of my affection, then moved her eyes back to me…. and smiled. YAY! That sev­puri was sooo good; I could have probably even licked off that guy's fingers! SERIOULY! <>

I know, I know…. it sounds really pathetic, but most of you’ll wont understand how orgasmic it could be when you get snatched out of the world where such food items are easily available… and then after 4 years… its all back again. Trust me… its ummm ummm good.
I was all smiles after that… maybe my smile could have been misunderstood as the ´I just had the best sex in my life´ smile. Ahem... lol yeah!

So basically that was day one…

The goal for day two was to loose the accent. I felt like people were dealing with us differently… I think it was very easy to tell we were different! My mom doesn’t even have that much of an accent… and still people could tell. Arrey (in mast Mumbai accent) even if we were not saying a damn word I think they could tell.

<>In one of the shops…we were looking at saris and I said that I did not like the style… so the guy tells me… "The style that you are looking at is the latest things. There, what you like is things that have come from here. So this style will come there after some time. This is new… and that’s why you are saying this. You will find the same style in almost every store."
That was kinda funny… He did have a very good point… !!!

The first week in Mumbai was very nice. I misplaced a lot of things, including my phone dairy, because I was living from one person’s house to another. So cause of that, I only got in touch with 2 of my friends whose phone numbers I had memorized.

<>Then there were a lot of firsts…
A lot of memories of old times coming back feeling as fresh as ever…
This week served as a reminder of old crushes, regeneration of some, realization of how things and people around me have changed, realization of how much I have changed (!!), an appreciation of things that were no longer mundane to my life…

And this was only the first week…

Come back and learn more about my trip in the concluding part...
I promise I wont make youll wait as long as I did this time..

And yeah,... ignore the date on here....
Take Care... and return soon!