Getaway!

Now that me hating my work is stale news, it obviously is no surprise that I don't work at all. And so I don't know whether I would qualify as one who requires a 'break', 'vacation' or a 'stress-relieving outing'. But I still feel I deserve it. Because I'm like a bird in a cage, stuck where I don't wanna be and that's as stressful as it can get. Ok, that's like heavy logic and all, so I'm gonna skip that. But, I'm glad that I went on a recent trip to Pondicherry that my sister made me go to. (made => forced, threatened, black-mailed).

Planning for vacations is one of the most important pastimes for my family and friends. It's like building castles in the air. In the midst of a conversation, someone would get a brainwave and say,"Hey! How about we all go to Pondy next week? Ok, we'll call so and so. We could take this car and that. And we could stay here and..........". The next time another one would break out,"Hey!How about we all go to Goa next week?Ok, we'll call so and so. We could take this car and that. And we could stay here and.........". The next time it would be Coorg, Ooty, Kodai - you see we were never short of ideas. We'd plan and plan and plan. We'd laugh about how much of fun it 'would' be and what all we 'could' do.We'd even crack the jokes we 'would' crack and crack over them way in advance like cracks. But on the trip we would never go.

This one, though, was different. It wasn't a family trip (Dad & Mum weren't there) and it wasn't with my friends. It was just the 5 of us -Me, Dolz, Harsh and his 2 best friends (it was one of their b'days on the 4th). I felt like the 5th wheel, the wet blanket, the kebab mein haddi -you get it. My Dad and Mum were insistent I shouldn't go, like I was flying in the air for going on a trip with a mushy couple and unknown guys. Dolly felt otherwise. She felt she would be alone amongst her man and his buddies and she needed me along. Like that stuffed teddy for security.

And go I did. Surprisingly, I had a super-awesome time. Doing nothing much but just lazing around. We started from Chennai by car at around 1 pm. It was like freaking hot and half the trip went by cursing the weather. By the time we reached, it was like 4. We stayed at this really nice resort - 10 km or so from Pondy itself. I LOVED the place. A nice, ancient recluse kinds.

We got to our rooms to change into more comfortable, summer clothes. Now, we sisters aren't swimmers, thanks to Dad being hydrophobic, so we just sat around by the pool sipping cold orange Breezers and watching 3 grown up men act (as nutty as) 3 year olds in the pool. After a while, it got really boring and we decided to get into the pool and just wade around.

We got out at around 8, went up and changed and headed down for dinner. The restaurant was beautiful. French style architecture et al. (It also had a very 'natural' setting, like, we had insects exercising their natural right and flying about unattended) Harsh then came up with a brilliant idea of going down to the beach for a walk. I'm a total dark-o-phobic and I pretty much walked the way with my eyes shut. Thankfully though, the 'men' ran back once they heard a couple of wild dogs howling somewhere in the distance!

My Darling bro-in-law is really smart and his next idea was to talk about, what else at 11.30 pm, but ghost stories. I was mad as hell, I mean, he knowsssss I'm really, really scared! I let him go ahead with it only because I knew how to get my revenge- I would sleep with the lights on and not let him sleep the entire night! Buhahahaha! [Unfortunately a combination of Bacardi and Vodka turned out to be a potent sleeping pill and he was in Dreamland the second his head hit the pillow].

Anyway, we headed back to the room for a drink-and-music session. Harsh was the man of the day. He was in some mood, trust me. Usually the un-romantic types, he seemed bent upon singing only 'romantic' songs (which was the only reason my sis didn't mind the sharp increase in his alcohol intake). Kishore Kumar was everyone's favourite and each one of his songs was brutally rendered by us 4 vocally-challenged people (minus my sis, who's is an awesome singer). Oh, I even played hip-hop tutor for a while. Public demand, you know, tsk tsk. It was hilarious to see them trying out the steps, especially when they were high :D

Finally by 3:30, we retired tired to bed. I couldn't sleep till like 5 am and I woke up by 9 because I vaguely heard that the 'complimentary' breakfast table would close down by 10.15! Once again, the men decided to get sun-bathed in the pool and me and Dolz, for fear of skin-cancer, stayed back. We cut a cake for the birthday boy, had lunch and headed back to Chennai.

Short vacation but high on rejuvenation. I somehow didn't wanna get back. I guess a vacation always does that. It is true, y'know- the lesser expectations you have, the more satisfied you would be. Because I went thinking I'm gonna have a miserable time, but I ended up having a fantastic time.