Dancing with Dogs: Impressions of India

Impressions of India - I

I know it has been a little over a week since I got back from India, but it did take me about this long to get non-jet-lagged and find enough time to actually think back and post a bit about my experiences. I left here with my son and flew into Mumbai via Amsterdam (Ravi’s dire predictions about NWA not-withstanding). I had landed in Mumbai on the 29th of October in the night and the first thing I notice… is the stifling heat! By the time I got my bags claimed, you might have mistaken me for someone who stepped out of the shower without wiping the water off, I was so dripping with sweat form every pore of my body. It was an experience I had to get used to after a long time (I had last been in India March 99, so it was quite a bit). Of course, the fun was only beginning.

First thing I did when I got settled in was to call Yaz - turned out he was happily enjoying dinner with Amit and Gaurav and others muching away delicious meat with no thoughts of trying to call a hungry freind over (sniff!). I had known Yaz for over three years now, but this was the first time I had ever heard him talk and it was a pretty strange feeling to finally put a voice to the person (I had already seen his pictures, I had an idea what he looked like).

Yaz being who he is, asked me to call Ravi - the shy, withdrawn person that he was sold to me as (I know, I actually fell for it). I am happy to certify to the world that Ravi is not shy! There! He is in fact a lot of fun to talk to and of the 15-20 minutes we probably talked that night, we spent about 10-minutes just laughing at each others’ PJs and convered such important topics as getting Ravi his own page at the Wikipedia (he didn’t sound the way I imagined him to sound either). We had all made plans to meet up for a little breakfast before my 11:00 AM flight to Vizag.

Amit was the first person to show up the next morning and kept me company till Yaz and Ravi showed up. Gaurav was also able to join us a little bit later (we were too happy a celebrity such as him actually sat there and ate with us to give him a hard time about coming in late :p). It was a great way to start my trip off really, since the meet could not have gone any better. It was a meeting of old friends, we had so much shared history - we had so much to talk about, the cartel quiz by MadMan, Ravi’s SARS jokes (joke being just a loose description here) and tons of other things we had been through together as bloggers. Before I knew it, I was anointed Godmother of the “cartel” and my son was drafted into it. I was actually quite sad when it was time to leave, but I had a wedding to attend to in Vizag and my sister would have buried me alive if I missed it. More on that coming a bit later.

Posted by shanti at November 22, 2005 10:04 AM