I still know what we did last summer

I still know what we did last summer

This is a small incident which happened some 5-6 years ago. Not of much importance. I just wanted to share the not-so-common experience here.

My cousins and I used to go for a summer trip every year. But the previous trip had left a pretty bad image among all of us and another venture away from the shelter of home was not exactly a dream for anyone. But not wanting to be left out, we decided to get all the Free Cousins of the World and embark on this mission. So we gathered 12 in all and called ourselves the Dirty Dozen! (Eleven of my cousins and myself. And dirty we were!)

Started in the morning and after traveling up and down the country we decided its time to have some dinner. Since we were busy making Pepsi shares go high by indulging in all kinds of corporate junk food, no one was in a mood to have lunch. So you can say a dozen wild hungry minions were on the look-out for a food joint.

Unfortunately the call of the stomach came when we were in the middle of nowhere. God and our parents had forgotten to put this place on the face of earth. There was not a single living soul to ask directions. And it was approaching midnight. We could hear some grumbling noises rising above the rattling of our vehicle's heart but was unsure if that was from some wild animal or from our own stomachs.

All the nice meals my mom offered and to which I had said 'NO' indignantly, lined up in front of my eyes. I still believe those brinjols were doing some kind of tap dance. We were completely in an alien land. No one knew the local language. Somewhere in Southern Karnataka. One or two farmers we 'encountered' on the way threatened to poison us (Or that was the closest interpretation which one of my cousins volunteered to offer. Others are not worth mentioning. RediffiLand might raise 'objectionable' clause against me)

11 hungry stomachs and 22 eyes looking out on either side of the road was not a very comical picture to anyone. Except for the one who smartly fell asleep. He was smiling nicely in his sleep which none of us liked. Must be HIS dishes doing a cabaret in his dreams! The smile became so unbearable that we poured the last bottle of water over his head. He must have thought he was having a rain dance with his bhindi.

We traveled some 50 km in different directions. Some started exclaiming that, they have seen many of the places we passed, before. We conducted 15 minutes of interviews and group discussions before coming to a conclusion that it's a pure case of Déjà Vu. (12 most brilliant souls and ardent followers of superman & spiderman simply cannot run in circles. Never!) More brilliant souls started to think about gate crashing a house and ransacking for food. After a point of time all of us were ready to follow suit. The only problem with that plan was that, to start with, you needed a HOUSE to ransack, which in that part of world was rarer than a sleepless-history-class in school.

Then we saw!  We saw God in the form of a Truck.  It was going at a speed of 30kmph ahead, with a half asleep driver at the wheels. We all started to yell at the driver to stop the truck. Some stuck their torso out of the cars and waved and yelled at the truck. At last we knew that the driver saw us. The driver put his head outside and turned back and instead of reducing the speed he started to race for his dear life. Poor chap must have thought its some hooligan party chasing him. (Dirty Dozen is no misnomer. We did look dirty. If our parents had seen us like that, they would have disowned us and all of us would be out on the adoption list in an instant). Anyway a loaded truck was no match for the will of our stomachs. We managed to chase down the truck with a wild eyed terrified human as its driver. (It was our luck that he didn't abandon the truck and ran away crying "bachao")

After recovering from the initial shock he said that there is a famous hotel 10+ km from that place. And that it's open all the time. But we needed to take a detour to reach that place. Some of us had already offered the Gods sacrifices if we got food. Visits to temples, Quit Smoking dad's cigar, not to make the dog pee inside the house, not to watch some certain kind of movies ever in life etc etc. Then what is a detour to us.

We turned the cars, followed the route that was told. We reached the place the driver mentioned. There was a small shack. An old shirtless uncle was sleeping with his legs on the coffee pot. There was a board hanging skewed from the shack's ledges. It read.

"Hotel Famous"

Epilogue: The food that we got from there was the best one anyone among us ever had. It was some kind of mixture of rice, sambar and some more nameless things.. Something more or like a Mexican Gumbo.

PS: That was our last summer trip.

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