Kochuveli express

As I lay here on seat 51, upper berth, propped on my elbows in front of my dad's laptop, which has super-laptop battery time(upto 8.5 hours),with my feet half dangling out into the gangway, changing my position once every ten minutes or so to save myself from backache, all in an effort to stay awake till my train reaches home at 0020 Hrs the next day, but at the same time knowing that I can't because the laptop will last for another 1.5 hours only, I don't know why I resorted to this post. Is it the number 51, or the green banana I had?

January has been awesome so far. Two weeks in, I've found myself having to attend only two out of five days of college per week. This will repeat next week thanks to the festival of pongal. This week's story however started with me bunking tuesday to get my driver's licence for both a geared motorcycle and "Light motor vehicle", as they put it. Getting a licence has been every driver's nightmare, atleast in coimbatore, It is not the driving part that is tough but the waiting part which is excruciatingly long. I had taken my LLR at the RTO office near nilgiris, but for my licence I was asked to go to the Thudiyalur office. And I had no two wheeler with me too, so Dad called up a friend and he came with me for the bike test. And resourceful me did not know how to traverse an eight without resting my leg, but that is forgivable when you consider the fact that I haven't ridden a geared bike before. I'll never know why they friggin want 8s when you'll never face such a situation on the road.

So there I was practicing toe-shifts and half clutch releases and bucking my way through a makeshift 8 we made using two stones. 15 or so trials later, I had a perfect 8. Then I go meet my licence guy and he asks me for an extra photo which his colleague conveniently forgot to tell me about over the phone. So I go to this dabba shop where they click you with a digicam and print you out on photo papers and charge you 25 bucks for two lame ass passport size photos, get the photos, stick them and go to pay the required amount. Sounds simple right? Only there are 30 other people in front of me and the person incharge hasn't come yet. Added to this, was the Lotus Eye hospital Eye camp which HAD to happen that very day. Initial dismay turned to suppressed excitement. Tell me. What do you do if you see two hot doctors?! (One of 'em was probably my age give/take 2 years. Smart & pretty. Ahem) And oh, they had this amazing RTO office gum too, which is kinda gooey but doesnt stick on your fingers at all!

So now let me fast forward to the part where I finish both tests and I am waiting for my licence. The room chooses to smell like urine and the guy makes us wait till 3 3o PM, A day I went without lunch. Then I get my licence and I see my dad's name printed as RAI instead of RAVI. Argue, hassle, proof show, name change, get licence, go home, Beat. Licence in hand and Two Ilaneers, 1 tea, 1 samosa, one vada and 1 fanta in me, God knows how.

The laptop shouts at me meekly through a pop-up - "1 hour 25 minutes remaining.". I get up and stretch.

And now, it is time to answer the question. "Why am I on a train?".
My paternal thatha, died 11 to 12 years ago on a Vaikunta Ekadasi. A glorious day to die on, say everyone. Every year my dad goes to do his duties as a son. This year, for a change, I go too. this year, it was bangalore. We keft on Tuesday night at 11 PM in a KPN sleeper bus, which threatened to topple at every squealing turn. I slept, anyhow and when I woke at 5.30 AM and realised we'd reached B'lore in a matter of 6 hours, it chilled me; that coupled with the fresh morning breeze.

We meet the relatives, chit chat a bit, and the omam commences. Devasam food was prepared in the kitchen. The food at this time every year is to die for. Pun intended,

After food, contented faces and filled stomachs start the second round of chitchat. Old stories revisited. my dad's standard sharanyan story to the relatives, talks about the cousins, what I'm going to do, ooking at my uncle's Zune, asking about the Wine kegs in the neighbour's house; It was fun. We had to leave at 4 PM thanks to the winding roads and traffic jams of the bangalore that is today. I sleep in the cab out of exhaustion, for 30 minutes only, but I slept well, good enough for it to evade me this long.

I will be reaching Coimbatore in approximately 2 hours. In 25 hours I'll have been to bangalore and back. Thankfully tomorrow's a holiday. This visit was peculiar, In the sense that, the famed bangalore "chicks" were nowhere to be seen, probably because it was a weekday and not everyone had their thatha's devasam as a reason to bunk college.

47 minutes of battery life remain. I don't think I'd last that long because my shoulders are killing me. I'd planned on uploading the pics I'd taken there as well, in this post and posting it before the laptop went kaput. Let me see if i can achieve that. ;)

Heh, Upside down photo of the wine barrels with the stone wall. It looked medieval.

My Uncle's zune

The guardian tree which looked over everyone as they tried thier 8's

Peacock plantain tree. :P

Tilt your head 90 degrees to the right for an amazing dusk sky.

Peripa's neighbor. Nice walls+pipe
Barrels of Wine. Minus the Wine

Walls of stone

The light from the screen bounces off my face one last time before windows plays its shutdown tune.

Over and out.