New Year 2013
So the world did not end on 21/12/2012 like the Mayans and Nostradamus predicted, and we got to usher in the first of the teenage years of the 21st century – and this New Years was unlike any of my previous ones, as instead of the usual hunting for a place to party like I have always done, this New Years (also the first in my 30’s) was the quietest New Years I may have ever had.
I remember even as a kid I used to stay up and watch New Years special TV, even if it was just on DD, and even then there was more noise than this New Years. I even remember in 2008 when I was training in Vapi, and to celebrate New Year 2009, I travelled all the way back to Bombay only for that one night, to catch up with Bangdu, Dev and others and have a house party. So basically I was always attracted to a New Year party like a moth to a flame, and wonder if this is a sign of growing old now ;)
It all started with plans being made way back in September itself to combine Ninja’s wedding, along with New Year’s night in Kerala with Geeta’s Balti gang. I booked a flight from Bombay to Cochin on Dec 28, Friday night, and a return from Kottayam to Bangalore on Jan 1, Tuesday night, and thereafter, Bangalore to Bombay on Jan 2nd afternoon.
So we were to spend 4 nights in Kerala, and the wedding being in Kottayam, mom was overjoyed that we will get to spend that much time in the Kerala house, and that too with friends, which is the first time for me (as none of my friends have ever visited this house in spite of so many of my planning attempts). But we actually ended up spending very little time at home, and ended up doing so many other things, that Geeta and I felt like we wanted another day’s break after returning to Bombay as we were that tired.
Anyway, on to the details of the trip now:
Dec 28:
Jeetu and Sachin had dropped in home the previous day as they were leaving to Goa from Bombay in the evening. Pretty much around the same time as Geeta’s and my flight to Cochin in the evening. I decided to go to office to complete a few things, which included getting my laptop from servicing. Geeta stayed home with the other 2 and picked me up in the Meru on the way to the airport.
We landed in Cochin at 7p.m and reached Ninja’s pre-wedding ceremony (Maduram Vekkenam I think it’s called) at Kottayam only by 10p.m. We just about caught a few drinks and dinner before it closed down. But what was really a shocker at the party was the music and dancing that was going on. I would have never expected a bunch of people in Kerala dancing to Punjabi music. But I guess it was the doings of the Balti gang itself there, and somehow with the presence of alcohol, lots of the others, mallus included, began to break a leg at the party.
We wrapped up around mid-night and went to my Kottayam house to crash. I was visiting this place after nearly 1.5 years (mine and Jeetu’s house reception being the last time we came here) and little did I know that I was only going to spend the few hours at night here, as we were traveling the rest of the time.
Dec 29:
Woke up early to chat with parents for a bit. It was such an arduous task as I really wanted the sleep, after all the flight and car journey the previous day, and the wild dancing at Ninja’s party. But woke up any case as we knew we had to leave for the wedding in a while and really needed to catch up with parents.
So we went out and sat on the swing and chatted around. Neha was the only one from the rest of the gang that joined us while we sipped our tea, and soon we were all getting ready to leave. Just before the guys first left in the car that had come to pick them up, papa gave everyone a glass of tender coconut water, which was actually tender coconut from our own backyard – that is just so cool! So we had all of that and the guys left to Ninja’s house to get him ready, or like Shreyas likes to put it – for Zelu to put on Ninja’s undies.
I got the girls along after they got ready and headed straight to the church. We were a bit delayed with the traffic on Kottyam’s single lane circuitous roads, and missed Tina’s walk down the aisle. But we still had to attend nearly 1.5hours of the church proceedings, and people ended up dozing off, or playing on their phones to kill time. I tried very hard to keep pace with what the priest was saying, but even I gave up in a while.
Somewhere in the middle of the ceremony, all of us went ahead to get a glimpse of the couple, just when they were about to recite their vows, and we were all getting excited and passing comments which totally pissd off an aunty there who asked us to shut up. Little adventures inside a church! We kept quiet after that and just returned to our seats, to resume dozing and playing with our phones.
Once the ceremony ended, we headed towards lunch arranged outside the church, and the food was just awesome. Most weddings have 2-3 varieties of chicken or mutton dishes; here there were 2-3 varieties of different meats itself. So there was Duck roast, Pork fry, Fish curry along with some inconsequential veg dishes, which were all simply delicious. I kept gorging on the Fish and Pork, and a lot of people commented that the Fish was very good. The dessert post the lunch also tasted incredibly good in the Kerala Heat.
After lunch, we decided to head back, when we noticed there were some photography sessions in progress inside an auditorium. So we quickly went in to get snapped with the happy couple. Done with that, and some more photos with the girls flaunting their dresses, and we were on our way back to our Kottayam house.
All of us went to sleep after we changed, and that was a big mistake, coz we ended up getting late reaching the House Boat at Kumarakom where we planned to spend the night. So by the time we finally got there, it was dark and we had missed the sunset and a chance to go for a ride on the boat (it would be rescheduled to the morning now), we could not arrange for Prawn fry for dinner that everybody was really looking forward to (shops all closed) and we couldn’t check our boat properly, as we’d gotten something that looked quite crappy and too late to figure an alternative.
Anyway, we tried making the most of it by setting up some cool serial lights that Sonika brought along, for which we figured an ingenious method of using some chapati atta to make the lights stick against the wall. Sonika then played music from the mini-speakers she had brought along, and the rest of us got to making our first drinks. Soon Neha and Zelu went to prepare space burji, and I had sweet talked the boatmen by giving them some beers to lend us their kitchen for some time, and pretty soon, we were feasting on the burji’s and having our drinks.
The boat had moved a bit and docked along with some other boats against what looked like a really thick forest – which added to freaking people out on the boat as the night progressed. We began with playing DC and soon moved to “I have never...” I was super high by this time, and kept bugging Neha who seemed even higher than me. She got so bugged by my making her conscious that she went and slept. Geet also followed shortly, and the rest of us were left to continuing the game.
At one particular time, one of the boatmen comes and asks if any of us is a doctor. He says he’s got a pain in the arm and ventured into the forest to meet a doc. The other boatman also decided to go into the forest and kept walking all over the place making weird noises in the night. Sonika was sitting towards the edge of the boat near the forest, and she kept freaking out with the noises. I told her it was just the guy, and she asks if it is “guy” or “ghai”. After confirming that it was just the second boatman, who also decided to leave us all by ourselves on the boat, she calmed down, and anyway came and sat on the other side of the boat. We carried on with the game, and most of the night was quite a haze, and better left that way, than to divulge some of the stuff I remember being shared. But all in all, it was quite an adventure on the boat, till we all were too high to carry on, and all my tactics of getting people to defer dinner failed, and we soon went and crashed in the rooms, just about large enough to accommodate all of us.
Dec 30:
We got back to Kottayam, after Tanya, Sonika and Vaidy took a cab from Kumarakom straight to Cochin, and freshened up before heading out to Vagamon. This is a hill station fairly close to Kottayam, and later we got to know that it’s quite infamous for being a terrorist training ground as well. Of course, there was nothing much to do after getting to know about this after reaching the place, so we just stayed put in the GH the entire time.
We left home immediately after lunch, and skipped the fresh Toddy pa got for us as I needed to be awake for the journey, and in spite of leaving around 3p.m, we ended up reaching the GH after dusk. It was quite scary driving after dark, and there was one stretch when the cloud had descended, and visibility was completely zilch on the roads. Thankfully the after dark driving was not for too long, and could have been completely avoided in fact if we had got the directions properly from the GH caretaker, but in any case, we made it just about in time for a few drinks and dinner and crashed for the night.
Dec 31:
New Years Eve! We began by waking up in a GH in a Hill Station, which we realized was the only habited place for a long distance around. There was one house in front of our GH, and one on top of a hill that we climbed later in the day. But there was nothing else.
We just spent the entire day playing Bluff and Rummy and chatting with Ninja and Tina who joined us around 11 in the morning. Then after a nap in the afternoon, once again resumed drinking and playing DC before ushering in New Years.
And truly, this was all we did on a New Year eve. Chilled out in a small lonely GH, with just nothing but Tea estates around us, and Ninja telling us scary stories of a tall bird that attacks people here, and of course, the terrorist training camps that are there around.
Just before we hit the bed, the caretaker also tells us that there would be some road construction work happening post 9a.m and if we need to avoid being stuck in Vagamon any longer, we will have to leave early. Shreyas, Neha and Zelu had a train from Kottayam at 1p.m and Geeta and I really wanted to spend some time with parents before leaving Kottayam, so we had no option but to wake up and leave early.
Jan 1:
I woke up at 7a.m with my head in a total state of buzz. I drank some tea, and threw it all out the next minute. I tried walking around, but my eyes would just not focus. I tried reversing the car to see if the motors in my arms would function without having to use my brains too much, and just about managed to do that.
So without scaring anybody any further, I just kept quiet and told myself I can do the journey. Thankfully, as I drove, I sobered up, and my eyes were beginning to focus again. It took us quite some time to reach Kottayam, and just about managed to drop the other 3 to the train station by 12 noon, and Geeta and I went home for some lunch before we ourselves went to the station by 4p.m.
Quite a crazy New Years day it was as well – traveling, and recovering from a hangover, that was all the day was. Not a bad start actually if I were to look back at it, and definitely a totally different experience.
Now for next New Years, I hope I can be at a totally partying place – something like Times Square in NYC and see the crystal ball descend. That would be quite something now.
For now, looking forward to a new year that I would like to really slow down, as 2012 went at Trans Rapid pace! Good luck to us all...
So the world did not end on 21/12/2012 like the Mayans and Nostradamus predicted, and we got to usher in the first of the teenage years of the 21st century – and this New Years was unlike any of my previous ones, as instead of the usual hunting for a place to party like I have always done, this New Years (also the first in my 30’s) was the quietest New Years I may have ever had.
I remember even as a kid I used to stay up and watch New Years special TV, even if it was just on DD, and even then there was more noise than this New Years. I even remember in 2008 when I was training in Vapi, and to celebrate New Year 2009, I travelled all the way back to Bombay only for that one night, to catch up with Bangdu, Dev and others and have a house party. So basically I was always attracted to a New Year party like a moth to a flame, and wonder if this is a sign of growing old now ;)
It all started with plans being made way back in September itself to combine Ninja’s wedding, along with New Year’s night in Kerala with Geeta’s Balti gang. I booked a flight from Bombay to Cochin on Dec 28, Friday night, and a return from Kottayam to Bangalore on Jan 1, Tuesday night, and thereafter, Bangalore to Bombay on Jan 2nd afternoon.
So we were to spend 4 nights in Kerala, and the wedding being in Kottayam, mom was overjoyed that we will get to spend that much time in the Kerala house, and that too with friends, which is the first time for me (as none of my friends have ever visited this house in spite of so many of my planning attempts). But we actually ended up spending very little time at home, and ended up doing so many other things, that Geeta and I felt like we wanted another day’s break after returning to Bombay as we were that tired.
Anyway, on to the details of the trip now:
Dec 28:
Jeetu and Sachin had dropped in home the previous day as they were leaving to Goa from Bombay in the evening. Pretty much around the same time as Geeta’s and my flight to Cochin in the evening. I decided to go to office to complete a few things, which included getting my laptop from servicing. Geeta stayed home with the other 2 and picked me up in the Meru on the way to the airport.
We landed in Cochin at 7p.m and reached Ninja’s pre-wedding ceremony (Maduram Vekkenam I think it’s called) at Kottayam only by 10p.m. We just about caught a few drinks and dinner before it closed down. But what was really a shocker at the party was the music and dancing that was going on. I would have never expected a bunch of people in Kerala dancing to Punjabi music. But I guess it was the doings of the Balti gang itself there, and somehow with the presence of alcohol, lots of the others, mallus included, began to break a leg at the party.
We wrapped up around mid-night and went to my Kottayam house to crash. I was visiting this place after nearly 1.5 years (mine and Jeetu’s house reception being the last time we came here) and little did I know that I was only going to spend the few hours at night here, as we were traveling the rest of the time.
Dec 29:
Woke up early to chat with parents for a bit. It was such an arduous task as I really wanted the sleep, after all the flight and car journey the previous day, and the wild dancing at Ninja’s party. But woke up any case as we knew we had to leave for the wedding in a while and really needed to catch up with parents.
So we went out and sat on the swing and chatted around. Neha was the only one from the rest of the gang that joined us while we sipped our tea, and soon we were all getting ready to leave. Just before the guys first left in the car that had come to pick them up, papa gave everyone a glass of tender coconut water, which was actually tender coconut from our own backyard – that is just so cool! So we had all of that and the guys left to Ninja’s house to get him ready, or like Shreyas likes to put it – for Zelu to put on Ninja’s undies.
I got the girls along after they got ready and headed straight to the church. We were a bit delayed with the traffic on Kottyam’s single lane circuitous roads, and missed Tina’s walk down the aisle. But we still had to attend nearly 1.5hours of the church proceedings, and people ended up dozing off, or playing on their phones to kill time. I tried very hard to keep pace with what the priest was saying, but even I gave up in a while.
Somewhere in the middle of the ceremony, all of us went ahead to get a glimpse of the couple, just when they were about to recite their vows, and we were all getting excited and passing comments which totally pissd off an aunty there who asked us to shut up. Little adventures inside a church! We kept quiet after that and just returned to our seats, to resume dozing and playing with our phones.
Once the ceremony ended, we headed towards lunch arranged outside the church, and the food was just awesome. Most weddings have 2-3 varieties of chicken or mutton dishes; here there were 2-3 varieties of different meats itself. So there was Duck roast, Pork fry, Fish curry along with some inconsequential veg dishes, which were all simply delicious. I kept gorging on the Fish and Pork, and a lot of people commented that the Fish was very good. The dessert post the lunch also tasted incredibly good in the Kerala Heat.
After lunch, we decided to head back, when we noticed there were some photography sessions in progress inside an auditorium. So we quickly went in to get snapped with the happy couple. Done with that, and some more photos with the girls flaunting their dresses, and we were on our way back to our Kottayam house.
All of us went to sleep after we changed, and that was a big mistake, coz we ended up getting late reaching the House Boat at Kumarakom where we planned to spend the night. So by the time we finally got there, it was dark and we had missed the sunset and a chance to go for a ride on the boat (it would be rescheduled to the morning now), we could not arrange for Prawn fry for dinner that everybody was really looking forward to (shops all closed) and we couldn’t check our boat properly, as we’d gotten something that looked quite crappy and too late to figure an alternative.
Anyway, we tried making the most of it by setting up some cool serial lights that Sonika brought along, for which we figured an ingenious method of using some chapati atta to make the lights stick against the wall. Sonika then played music from the mini-speakers she had brought along, and the rest of us got to making our first drinks. Soon Neha and Zelu went to prepare space burji, and I had sweet talked the boatmen by giving them some beers to lend us their kitchen for some time, and pretty soon, we were feasting on the burji’s and having our drinks.
The boat had moved a bit and docked along with some other boats against what looked like a really thick forest – which added to freaking people out on the boat as the night progressed. We began with playing DC and soon moved to “I have never...” I was super high by this time, and kept bugging Neha who seemed even higher than me. She got so bugged by my making her conscious that she went and slept. Geet also followed shortly, and the rest of us were left to continuing the game.
At one particular time, one of the boatmen comes and asks if any of us is a doctor. He says he’s got a pain in the arm and ventured into the forest to meet a doc. The other boatman also decided to go into the forest and kept walking all over the place making weird noises in the night. Sonika was sitting towards the edge of the boat near the forest, and she kept freaking out with the noises. I told her it was just the guy, and she asks if it is “guy” or “ghai”. After confirming that it was just the second boatman, who also decided to leave us all by ourselves on the boat, she calmed down, and anyway came and sat on the other side of the boat. We carried on with the game, and most of the night was quite a haze, and better left that way, than to divulge some of the stuff I remember being shared. But all in all, it was quite an adventure on the boat, till we all were too high to carry on, and all my tactics of getting people to defer dinner failed, and we soon went and crashed in the rooms, just about large enough to accommodate all of us.
Dec 30:
We got back to Kottayam, after Tanya, Sonika and Vaidy took a cab from Kumarakom straight to Cochin, and freshened up before heading out to Vagamon. This is a hill station fairly close to Kottayam, and later we got to know that it’s quite infamous for being a terrorist training ground as well. Of course, there was nothing much to do after getting to know about this after reaching the place, so we just stayed put in the GH the entire time.
We left home immediately after lunch, and skipped the fresh Toddy pa got for us as I needed to be awake for the journey, and in spite of leaving around 3p.m, we ended up reaching the GH after dusk. It was quite scary driving after dark, and there was one stretch when the cloud had descended, and visibility was completely zilch on the roads. Thankfully the after dark driving was not for too long, and could have been completely avoided in fact if we had got the directions properly from the GH caretaker, but in any case, we made it just about in time for a few drinks and dinner and crashed for the night.
Dec 31:
New Years Eve! We began by waking up in a GH in a Hill Station, which we realized was the only habited place for a long distance around. There was one house in front of our GH, and one on top of a hill that we climbed later in the day. But there was nothing else.
We just spent the entire day playing Bluff and Rummy and chatting with Ninja and Tina who joined us around 11 in the morning. Then after a nap in the afternoon, once again resumed drinking and playing DC before ushering in New Years.
And truly, this was all we did on a New Year eve. Chilled out in a small lonely GH, with just nothing but Tea estates around us, and Ninja telling us scary stories of a tall bird that attacks people here, and of course, the terrorist training camps that are there around.
Just before we hit the bed, the caretaker also tells us that there would be some road construction work happening post 9a.m and if we need to avoid being stuck in Vagamon any longer, we will have to leave early. Shreyas, Neha and Zelu had a train from Kottayam at 1p.m and Geeta and I really wanted to spend some time with parents before leaving Kottayam, so we had no option but to wake up and leave early.
Jan 1:
I woke up at 7a.m with my head in a total state of buzz. I drank some tea, and threw it all out the next minute. I tried walking around, but my eyes would just not focus. I tried reversing the car to see if the motors in my arms would function without having to use my brains too much, and just about managed to do that.
So without scaring anybody any further, I just kept quiet and told myself I can do the journey. Thankfully, as I drove, I sobered up, and my eyes were beginning to focus again. It took us quite some time to reach Kottayam, and just about managed to drop the other 3 to the train station by 12 noon, and Geeta and I went home for some lunch before we ourselves went to the station by 4p.m.
Quite a crazy New Years day it was as well – traveling, and recovering from a hangover, that was all the day was. Not a bad start actually if I were to look back at it, and definitely a totally different experience.
Now for next New Years, I hope I can be at a totally partying place – something like Times Square in NYC and see the crystal ball descend. That would be quite something now.
For now, looking forward to a new year that I would like to really slow down, as 2012 went at Trans Rapid pace! Good luck to us all...
