Pondi-Cherish

This was two years back when I visited Pondicherry with my friends. One of them have verbalized this trip as below. Truely awesome. Cheers Pra!!

Pondicherry Trip - Memories close to my Heart

A dream trip for which planning had begun almost a year and a half back, finally became a reality on Saturady, the 7th April 2007. It was started by 3 people(Tabassum, Manju and Myself) and later we had the pleasure of Aarati's company.

Little bit of History...
It all started when Tabassum went to Pondicherry for the first time with her now infamous(among us) gang. I being her poor cubicle mate had to hear her trip stories in detail and it was obvious that she was very much impressed by the place and Tequillas. And after listening to her stories and Pondy incidents continuosly for 2-3 days, even Manju and I developed an interest for the place and the cheap Tequillas . We 3 decided to go to Pondy when a suitable time comes.(Never thought that the time will come after 1.5 years). Circumstances didnt permit us to go ahead with the trip. Soon Tabassum joined Patni, Mumbai and the trip seemed like a distant dream. But all of us were determined to fullfill our dream one day. Later in August2006, Tabassum visited B'lore but only for 3-4 days. Pondy trip didnt even come to our mind because there was not enough time. Manju and I went to Mumbai for our New year celebrations with tabassum being our host. It was during that time we decided that we will make it happen in 2007. Finally it was when Aarati got settled in B'lore and a remote possibility of me going onsite by mid year appeared that we felt the need of urgency. That was when Tabassum decided to come down to B'lore for 2 weeks(So, nice of her :)). From that day onwards all 4 of us had only I thing in our mind:PONDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. After many discussions and chain of mails, the final itenary was prepared. It was decided that the trip will start on 7th April evening and conclude with our arrival back to B'lore on 11th morning. Onward journey Bus tickets were booked, after a majority(Tabassum, Manju and Myself) supported bus over train and Aarati was left alone:)). Anyway from the information we got, we were sure that the Pondy railway station was far away from the city. All were busy gathering whatever information was available on the internet and Books regarding Pondy.

The lady arrives...
Tabassum reached B'lore on 5th April and was welcomed at the airport by 3 crazy people holding placard which read "WELCOME Tabassum with VADA PAAV". She was all stunned and started laughing in her trademark style. Even people around us could not control their laughs seeing all this. We had the initial round of Vada Paavs sitting on a footpath at the Airport.(Hum Vada Paav khaane ke liye kuch bhi kar sakte hain). Later we dumped her luggage in my room and obviously went to Corner House(How cud Tabassum start her trip with anything else)

Last 24 hours before the journey...
On 6th, I came to know that I need to go to US on 11th April. So, threw a grand party for all my friends, the same evening. Next day from afternoon to evening we were busy doing my onsite shopping. Bought all the stuffs which we thought were necessary. Later, all 4 of us started from my room at 9:00 in the evening, towards Majestic for our Pondy bus which was scheduled to depart at 10:30 PM. In between all this there was enough time for Tabassum to grab a cup of Hot chocolte fudge from Corner House:)). We took an auto from koramangala to majestic. Found the platform where our bus was parked. Got into the bus and made ourselves comfortable at our respective seats. I and Tabassum sat together, Manju and Aarati took the seats behind us.The bus started on time for Pondicherry. The incidents which took place in bus during the journey are more than enough to make me laugh anytime and anywhere. To summarize it, that bus journey was fun for us but nightmare for our co-passengers.