Bangkok : take one

When she looked back at it later, she was pretty sure it was the hijra moment that defined all the rest of them to come ..it had seemed quite poignant even on the way to the airport..R had just freaked out and the driver uncle had momentarily locked and unlocked the doors just to make sure she couldnt open em and bug them.. you were never quite sure.. and at any rate she hadnt seen one around the air india building in the two years that she had been living there..

the entire journey to the airport was filled with fun...and i dont mean that in the cliched way..then again maybe i do..
everyone was in a chirpy mood ..songs were being sung..and little little things were being noted.."dude!! we wont see the house for the next five days!! dont you think houses smell all weird when you get back after a long journey??"
"hey...i want to play this number game thing...im sure somewhere around tuesday..theyll announce my number and there will be noone there to collect it and then i'll be all sad and all"
"we'll never really know who got to win the sa re ga ma pa li'l champs now..!! oh fahk!! i dont think i want to go anymore..mom! youll miss all your serials even!!"

the hijra had seemed pretty mad at them ..she kept going on and cursing...though they couldnt hear anything because of the glass...R just spelt out some random curse and predicted that we'll land in the seventh level of hell and our bangkok trip will be the worst ever and how we should give the hijra the money she/he so badly seemed to want..

and then came the airport ..and with it all the memories of how indian airports werent really that nice as compared to well...phoren airports...she remembered the time at singapore when they had spit raspberry mirinda all over the check in counter...and how mom had made them drink two whole one-litre bottles of the stuff because she didnt want to waste any and neither did she want to carry any back.. they had stashed one bottle in the bag anyway..and then they had moonwalked all over the travellator laughing like complete idiots trying to backwards-walk-race mom who was really really mad by that time...

oh...back to the point..
finding the line was pretty tough...especially if you were incapacitated with laughter...and if a very cute ..though irritating mallu uncle kept screaming at everyone in a happy-irritating tone "SHARJAAA!!! YOU BE WANTING TO GO TO SHARJAAA!! YESS!!!" and kept pushing random people into the check in line for sharjah..

they were standing in both the lines (all due to brilliant indian railways behaviour of mom ..who kept trying to push everyone else out of the way) and she and R started staring at other people in the airports.
airport-people were somehow always better to watch than train-people ..you can make up much better stories about their lives ..especially if you know where they are going..
and then came out this intricate story about how if their plane crashed , then they would NEVER want to be marooned on a deserted island with these people .. "lost " with this particular bunch of passengers would be boring as hell..
all this while mom was sending out her killer-glares and telling her she was a disgrace and was just pretending to laugh in public cause she was subconsciously attention seeking..

then they just got bored and refused to stand in the line and went out and sat on the trolleys...while dad and mom battled the woman at the check in counter...

they came back...with the suitcases...she was going towards them and her mom was just shaking her head...no..'.er...whats going on mom?' 'uhm...i dont know how to say this ...but we arent going ..'

yeah..
right..
WHAT !!

then came an hour of hysterical laughing outside the airport while waiting for their car to return..and R totally lost it and started laughing and crying at the same time...it seems there was some immigration issues...mom and dad could go ...but her and R couldnt..they tried convincing their parents to go...but they wouldnt hear of it...it was pretty dream like in a way..
she didnt know how to react..this wasnt in her range of oh-i-know-how-to-behave-now circumstances...so she just laughed again..
and then the little mallu uncle comes right up to them and says "SHARJAAA!! YOU BE WANTING TO GO TO SHARJAA YES??"

then R said something completely random..
"dude!! im so proud of us...if we have a reality show about our family...this would be the time that the camera men got the shock of their lives...nobody in their right minds would be laughing at this!!"
and she couldnt help but burst right out into laughter again..

the next few days were proof to the fact that the universe hated her..college got cancelled on monday and tuesday..people randomly came up to her and made l signs on their foreheads (she secretly liked that though) ..thousand renditions of "why-i-am-not-in-bangkok-right-now" were given out...

another one of R' gems came
"dude...looks like we will know who won the sa re ga ma li'l champs after all then"

on second thoughts..she should definitely have given the hijra some money..