One for the master, And one for the dame........

It does not matter if nobody reads your writing. The point of writing is self-expression — gathering an audience should be secondary. You cannot connect to other people without connecting first to yourself.

So, no need to connect to others. And that is a pleasing proposition. Just like the other day when an old school mate dragged me out of my cocoon of inertia, sat with me soberly while I drank, talked to me tenderly, told me lies.. I am not a woman, you know. But time did fly. Not bad at all.

My last blog post was on June 24, 2008. That, I still remember was on a trip to Arunachal.  A North East trip that could probably be never re-enacted. Not that some one stops you from travelling to NE. 

In fact, tickets for my next NE trip have already been booked by pal Ullekh. I leave Kochi on Feb 9 at 7 am and reach Delhi at 10.10 a.m. The connection flight to Bagdodara is only at 2 I think. That is the nearest airport to reach Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim.

So when I wait in the airport till our man turns up, probably I will have to hunt for the airport bar. Rather, that is certain. I am not programmed to wait. Forgot to boast that this ain't my first trip to Gangtok.

I think three years back, it was in April, 2011, that I went there with Professor. The cricket World Cup was happening and the central city square, which in my faint alcohol-tinged memory is named something like Mahatma Gandhi chowk, was bustling with cricket fans. The national flag was all over the place. 

The noisy crowd, not locals but mostly the Hindi speaking cow belt lot, was getting some rush of adrenalin, which was being confused as nationalistic fervour. Perhaps more of that later... as if some one is pleading..

Back to the Delhi airport bar hunt. I don't remember having a drink in Delhi airport, but I have had it in Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata (The airport didn't have a bar then, but some Bhadralok helped).

Twice, I think, I missed the flight after checking in. That was in Mumbai airport. I also had the fortune to run through the tarmac with gun totting men chasing me. I realised the power of  my breath -- reeking of you know that -- then. They left disappointed. 

The day I left Bangalore to perhaps end once and for all my nearly two decade stint outside Kerala, I had the fortune to stumble upon Nandamuri Balakrishna, the son of the legendary NTR and brother-in-law of Narra Chandrababu Naidu.  At the airport, I realised what stardom is when two airport staff, or rather fans of the Nandamuri clan, jostled with each other just to carry his bag for which Balakrishna probably didn't need any assistance. Balakrishna is now a TDP MLA.

Gradually, after many YouTube rendezvous with Balakrishna, I began to develop a liking for him. Just a few hours ago, I managed to watch the punch dialogue scene (Watch video below) from his blockbuster Simha.

Even folks with whom I went for Telugu movies can't digest the phenomenon that is Balakrishna. Not even Don Sebastian,  who otherwise has a liking for all things Telugu. But his little daughter Izarra, who barely started walking then, loved Balakrishna garu's famous "No Police" dialogue I belted out then. Telugu was Greek to me. And she hadn't yet uttered her first sentence then. That is the power of Balakrishna. 

Izarra (See video above) and her younger sibling Nayra have now christened Don3 as Diya -- the name of their school, albeit tentatively, their parents presume.  Perhaps, the only trick Don and Delma  could now resort to is to settle for another name in the guise of school name, official name, church name. Whatever.
One for my master, And one for the dame..

Back to the Mumbai airport bar, and back to the first NE trip. Professor and me reached airport by say 1 p.m for a flight which was I think around or after 6 p.m. The instigation was the murky reputation I had for missing flights. So we decided to hit the bar in the airport hoping that at least that would ensure we board the flight, which happened fortunately.

I say fortunately because, as I referred to earlier, yours truly had missed it twice after checking in. The Professor who was to stand vigil against such anti-social tendencies hit the bar with me in gay abandon.

I don't remember the drink, but professor would. For every three pegs we had, the offer was a jacket. We drank nine and collected three – a sacrifice for our brethren who were calling from all over Mumbai and Bangalore every now and then, hoping till the last minute that the curious case of the missing flight would happen again. It didn't. All three jackets have vanished now.