Ohh man! I had an awesome week. Kerala was amazing. My brother's marriage went really well and ... I have a sister-in-law now .. and a really cool one too :).
We left for Kerala on Monday morning, too early for my comfort. Our flight was preponed to 5:55 a.m. much to my disappointment. I was rudely awakened from my slumber at 3:00 in the
morning night. Needless to say, the feeling was not at all nice. Half asleep, I dragged my body to lift the heavy luggage to place them in the taxi. It was a bit chilly in the morning. I kept dozing off during the ride to the airport. We boarded the flight on time and was looking forward to go to sleep again. I did sleep for about half an hour just to wake up to find that we hadn't moved an inch! For a second, I was taken aback since I expected us to be flying and not on the airport. My bro told me that the pilot was stuck in a jam and hence the delay (I dont know how true this is btw). Anyways, we finally did took off, 40 minutes later than the scheduled time. We had a halt at Mumbai where my future in-laws were boarding. We "kids" were promptly separated from the seniors since they all wanted to sit together (or was it the other way round?) Anyways, my time was spent in sleeping and reading
The Sound of the Beast. Breakfast in the flight sucked. We landed in Cochin 40-45 minutes later than scheduled. The pilot informed the temperature was 23 degrees much to my delight. We collected our check-in baggage which is always a tension filled atmosphere. On reaching outside, we faced some more delay after finding that our taxi was waiting for us in the international terminal for some strange reason. Anyways, from the airport we had to travel to Ottapalam which was a 3 hour drive away. The drive, however, was amazing. Road trips in Kerala are always breathtaking. There's soo much to see. There'll be paddy fields, rivers, coconut trees all neatly lined up and the bright blue skies with these li'l foamy lumps of clouds make up a truly majestic scenery.
We checked in the hotel in the afternoon and went to my grand-uncle's ashram for lunch. I was famished by that time and the food was soo good that I just had to overeat. We came back to the hotel to leave for Calicut to my father's sister's place. She had just had a surgery and informed us that she wont be able to attend the marriage. Hence, we went to meet her. The drive again from Ottapalam to Calicut is 3 hours long. The weather was awesome..really nice cool breeze. We reached there at 8:00 pm and were there till dinner. Dinner at her place is always amazing. Thats one of the few places we can feast on yummy non-veg food. My father's side of the family are non-veg but my mom's side are veg. They realize this and hence always prepare something special for us. It was no different that day. We feasted on 2 types of chicken dishes, fried fish and malabar parathas. Ohh man..just writing about it is making me hungry. Since we were late, we couldn't spend much time on booze..sadly. Anyways, the drive back was very tiring..all of us were sleeping the entire way. We reached the hotel at 1:30 am or so.
Next day, we had to visit my dad's and my mom's place. We left early from the hotel after an ordinary breakfast. First, we went to my dad's place. Its a small football crazy place called Tuvvur near the western ghats. We can see the western ghats from his house if the weather is clear. Its an awesome peaceful place which gets really scary at nights due the absence of street lights and the large population of insects. Being a forested area, the place comes alive at the night time. I remember being scared sh*t when we used to go there when I was a kid. I swear, it gets soo pitch dark that you cannot see your own hands. However, there are loads of fire-flies flying about which makes the place simply magical. Anyways, apart from the gorgeous scenery, its dad's nostalgic stories from his childhood which make these trips memorable. He showed us his classmate's homes, the place where he used to play football, his old school..even the tree on which he and his friends used to pee :D. After meeting my cousins and playing with the house dog and the newborn calf, we left for my mom's place in the afternoon.
Mom's place has this huge paddy fields en-route to her house. We have to walk through the fields to reach there. Sadly, nowadays, farming is not as economically viable as it used to be and it was shocking to see these fields filled with weeds and undergrowth. We had tea and met my other grand uncle. It was the first time I was meeting him...the reason however is still unknown as to why we dint meet him earlier. I remember always going to the pond that he had in his house but we never met him. I learned swimming in that very pond. Anyways, we headed back to the hotel in the evening. We had to discuss about the marriage ceremonies and other important stuff at the ashram. We did all that and had a wonderful dinner. There was a small daaru session with Glenfiddich which was ohh soo nice.
The next day, all of my other relatives were to come and hence the day started pretty early. We dint have anything else on the agenda except see them checking in. My bro supervised all the room allocation and stuff. We found some time for a small daaru session before lunch which was pretty nice. It was almost 3 p.m when we had lunch. In the evening, we had to assemble at the marriage hall for a dinner feast. As luck would have it, just when we had to leave, it started pouring real bad. It went on throughout the night. Fortunately, the next day, the D-day, it was bright and sunny.
We all got up early for the marriage and got ready on time. The video ppl had come and started their stuff. The best part about a Kerala wedding is that it gets over pretty quickly and unlike a north indian wedding, its action packed. The ceremony was simple and was over within the muhurtam. After meeting and greeting a lot of guests and taking millions of photos, we finally had lunch. We rushed back to the hotel to check-out. We had to check-out by 3:30 and leave for Guruvayoor. We packed off the bride and the groom early so that they can check in at Guruvayoor by the time the other guests arrived.
The others had to leave in a tempo traveller; which is basically a 14 seater bus. However, we had soo much of luggage that we could not go in that. Hence, me and Babu hired a separate taxi just for the luggage and us. So, it was me and Babu with all the luggage in a Qualis and the others in the tempo traveller. Both of the drivers were really adventurous while negotiating traffic! The drive however was the best among all the drives. The sun was setting down painting the sky bloody red and orange. It was such an electric mix of green and orange that me and Babu were literally mesmerized by it. That was all we talked about, the entire way...and trust me, guys like us seldom spend time talking about nature ;-).
We reached Guruvayoor at night and checked in at about 7 pm. We were pre-occupied with the day's proceedings that it really did not feel as if my bro got married. That happened when we all crashed in the room. Right then, when we all were resting our tired legs, was when it all sunk in. It was exciting indeed.
We had a small visit to the temple and ended the night with a much needed dinner.
The next day, we planned to visit the temple before starting the long journey back home. We checked out at 9:30 and started the return journey. It was nice and sunny and I was busy clicking away with my camera. However, midway, we got to know that the flight was postponed to 6 pm in the evening (from 3:00 pm). That was soo irritating. We had reached the place at 1:00 pm and had 5 hours to kill. Well..apparently, NO. We had to wait for 7 hours! At about 4 pm, it started pouring...and pouring real bad. I swear I hadn't seen such huge lightning crashes and thunder ever. Our flight had been delayed further by 2.5 hours. After an agonizing 7 hours, we boarded the plane all exhausted from the waiting. We landed in Delhi at 1:00 am at the new T3 terminal. The place is soo huge that it took almost 40 minutes to collect the baggage and reach the prepaid taxi line. I reached back at 3:00 am..ironically at the same time that we had started our journey from Delhi. I hit the sack straightaway.
Phew! I had an awesome time last week. My body is still in the vacation mode and I really hate the fact that I have to go to the office tomorrow :( However, the celebration would continue, since we have the reception next Sunday. Ohh good times!