The Yellow Brick Road

GAH!! Has my funny bone disappeared for reconstructive surgery??! A quick survey of my latest posts has alarmingly revealed that I have officially drained all the humour out of the self...hey, in my defense, what can you expect when all you do is spend close to 20 hours of the average summer-holiday day in a horizontal position, automatically dropping into an almost drug-induced stupor when faced with the sheer dullness of life all around?! But Yikes! This is no excuse to turn into a drippy, nostalgic, sentimental blogger (ah, sob sob, it was fun while it lasted!) So before I am bombarded with queries reminiscent of the 'Woodward's Gripe Water ad' (for the uninitiated, 'Enna Aachu?! Kozhanthe azhuvuthu!!', etc etc.,.) I shall make up for the absence of a laugh by contributing an incident that is hopefully laugh-worthy enough for the masses...and even if it's not (as my sense of humour can not necessarily be called 'conventional') jus go ahead and laugh, what the heck, the more the merrier, make me happy!!

Ahem, so anyway, getting down to it...there we were, beloved Father-Daughter duo, two determined souls hell-bent on finding 'decent' accomodation for yours truly's new journalistic ventures in the city. Armed with detailed directions from trusted Git-mate Split-Git (whose vital instructions such as 'spot the potti kadai/tea stall at the start of the street and turn left', etc would do well in the best of the Lonely Planet guides) who recommended her own abode for moi, we set out to find the hallowed portals of Ze Hostel. After jerking over the initial speedbreakers such as ''Oh it's spelled 'Sait' Colony, not 'Seth'!!" and arguments over traffic rules ('So what if there's no "free left" Pa?!! This is Chennai!! You own the road!!!') we somehow managed to find the afore-mentioned potti kadai and the right colony.

Of course, the city-planners knew we were coming years ago, and decided to add to the fun by placing the '2nd street' before the '1st street'!! Sensing that Dad dearest was beginning to lose the rare 'No worries, I'm cool' attitude and revert to the customary road-rage, I took swift action and yelled out to a group of Auto-kaarans for help. 'Keep turning left, you'll find a Maa maram...there's a hostel there...I think...um...no wait, Gulmohar maram...no no, Maa maram only'. Er, thank you, oh wise blessings to Chennai transportation services, but how do I find a tree???!!! But they insisted there was only ONE Maa maram in the whole colony (yes, the city planners thought of that too) and so, though I suggested I'd be fine with spreading the mattress and pillow on the pavement, we persisted.

Finally, Desperate Dad suggested we get out of the valient steed and scout the area on foot. Good idea it seemed, except everyone had starkly different opinions as to where the place actually was! Passing everything from groups of adowable pre-schoolers coming out of a nearby school to a boy carrying an equally adowable pug (I could've sworn it was the Vodafone doggie himself!!), we were nearing critical point as there seemed to be no women's hostel on the near horizon. And then, there was light. Sunlight, literally, which hapened to stream through a break in the clouds and land miraculously on the building in front of us. Confirming the house number only added to the joy, as Dad and Daughter broke into a celebratory run right into ze future abode, much to the amusement of the warden awaiting our arrival.

'What took you so long?" she asked, the golden question to which we could only reply with smiles of complete serenity. 'I don't care what the place is like, how much the rent costs, or how the food tastes', Dad muttered, 'just TAKE it!' No arguments there, my man. Truer words could never have been spoken...just glad to be alive and kicking :)