My Journey Home!

(wrote this a few days after reaching Mumbai!)

My trip home was an eventful and exciting one. I knew I would have a great time on the flight. I was really looking forward to going home, but I was pretty excited about the travel as well. I love travelling and meeting new people on the way. It is amazing how strangers open up to you far quicker than people you already know for a while.

Prem had invited us to his house for a “house warming” party. I ended up being the head chef and cooking soya chunks, cauliflower potato and spaghetti (if that’s what it was, because it was as Indian as you can imagine! And I didn’t eat it, but the guys said it was pretty good). We saw 10 things I hate about you. I think that is one of the best teen romantic comedies around. And more importantly, it was heath ledger’s first big Hollywood film.

The next day, I was pretty gung ho about the big day finally being there. I had been looking forward to that day for so long. It was a good productive morning. I went to Dundurn Property management to hand over the post dated cheque, dropped of the borrowed textbooks at Thode library and also got a haircut done. There was some kind of police drill going on at Thode that morning. A police drill about a possible hostage scenario at Mac. Wouldn’t that be something? (And I go in and heroically rescue whoever was in the clutches of the bastards causing mayhem! )

All my bags were packed and I was ready to go. I left at 12:15 for the Dundurn GO bus stop. I handed Prem the keys to the house. Finally bus 46 appeared in the distance. It was raining lazily. The thing about the rains in Canada is that there are never torrential rains; just simple, boring drizzling. I carried my bags out the bus shelter, and waited for the bus to stop. Trouble was, that son of a bitch didn’t stop the bus. That was a major cause of concern. I dragged my bags back to the house so that I could access the internet and get the timing on the next bus or to probably call the GO bus operators and find out what the heck was going on. I reached home and realized that I didn’t have the keys and that they were with Prem. Dammit! I hoped dlink would be on in the kitchen and thankfully it didn’t disappoint. I found out that the next bus would be at 1 15. Apparently, the reason the driver didn’t stop before was because I didn’t flag him down. I have never had to flag GO buses at the Dundurn bus stop. I thought it was a given GO buses would stop there. This time round, I waved to the driver when he was around 200 feet from the bus stop. I got in and finally I could relax. I wasn’t too worried that I missed the bus. In fact, I was remarkably calm.

The guy gave me a ticket to square one, but when I got off; I told him I wanted to go to the airport. The driver was good enough to let me go to Bramalea and catch a bus from there. I met a coupla other people going to the airport too. One was on his way to Slovakia and the other was a Nigerian teenager on his way to Mexico City. His father was the Nigerian ambassador to Mexico.

The check in line for jet airways was a pain. It took almost an hour and a half to get to the counter. The woman behind me was an old hag who was talking to some friend of hers on her macbook on skype. Every other statement was loaded with sarcasm. One was, “These people have enough luggage to sink the titanic!” Well, Indians always travel fully loaded!

I called Sunny and Harpriya from the airport. I love wifi and I love gmail for giving us free US Canada calling. Here I was, speaking to people from my laptop. I even could have called people back home. I had a final French vanilla at Tim Horton’s and indulged myself in a bagel with cream cheese and a double chocolate donut. The excuse I gave myself for my indulgence was that I had too much Canadian change in my wallet and that it was becoming fatter than ever.

I met this woman at the lounge. She was a Gujarati from Ahmedabad and now a Canadian citizen. She got married a year ago and was going to meet her husband. She had already applied for his citizenship and was waiting for CIC to respond. She had done a commerce degree from Oshawa and was now working somewhere. Her parents and siblings were in Canada too. I had a pretty decent conversation with her; just the usual, what I was doing, where I was going. Stuff like that. I finally boarded the plane. I saw these cute girls on the airport and I was kinda hoping they would sit next to me but that didn’t happen. Instead, a Canadian geologist sat next to me. He was a pretty talkative guy. The trouble was his mouth was kinda smelly and I had to turn my face towards the window every now and then to escape the “noxious fumes” emanating from his yapper. He had travelled quite a bit and was on his way to Romania. He told me about the work he was doing and he said that he was interested in geology and archaeology together. It was interesting to hear his experiences abroad. (Peru, Brazil, Romania, Italy, Switzerland, Scotland). He was one of those loner traveller types

I saw Rajneeti on the first leg of the flight. I liked the movie for Ranbir Kapoor’s Machiavellian schemes. Just what I love doing and should have done more often. Everything else was ok. It was a rip off of Godfather and also from the lives of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi. RK was obviously Michael Corleone. I also saw this incredible documentary called the Inside Job. Boy did it enlighten me as to what really happened on Wall Street which caused the financial crisis. Mind boggling!

Once we were over England, I started looking out the window. I was lucky enough to look out at just the right time. The English Channel has a variable breadth between England and the European mainland. There is a part which is incredibly small; well, small enough that I could see both England and the mainland from up above. It was beautiful. There were hundreds of ships sailing in the sea below. I’m sure they were gigantic, but from way up in the sky, they looked like little toys. The plains of Brussels soon appeared. Neatly arranged square tracts of land were all over the place. Wind turbines dotted the landscape. We landed in Brussels and found the weather to be pleasant and sunny. One of the amazing things about Europe is that they have beautiful weather all year round. The winters too aren’t as brutal as Canada. I also met this other chick from Canada called Emily. She was a lawyer and was on her way to Barcelona to meet her cousin. She gave me her number and I’m supposed to call her once I get to Hamilton because that’s where she lives too. She finally left because she had to go catch her flight from some other terminal. I reached the familiar airport terminal of Brussels. It was just as I remembered it. I’d been there 9 months ago on my way to Canada. Thee geologist and I roamed the airport and looked around for free wifi. But unlike Toronto’s Pearson international, these people weren’t as generous. The cheapest internet connection was 6 euros for half an hour. The duty free shops were full of the usual stuff: cigarettes, chocolates, booze, perfumes, and little trinkets and other European stuff. We finally sat for an hour and half where the geologist regaled me with more tales about his travels all over the world. At 9:30 he finally left to catch his flight to Romania. I met the Gujju chick once again, waiting to board the flight. Her name was Rinkal, by the way. It is a weird name but Gujju’s do have funny names sometimes.

I was finally on my way home. No stop over; all the way to Mumbai. This time round, I saw some magnificent views below. Sometime when we were over Iran or possibly Iraq, I saw snow covered mountainous regions below. It was breathtaking! At dusk, the color of the sky in the distance was also beautiful. It was a pretty interesting flight

Jijaji and Harsh were waiting for me when I got there. I love jet airways because everything was bang on schedule. Scheduled lift offs, scheduled landings, everything on time; and amazing service, and fairly decent food. Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait too long for me at the airport.  Mumbai was just as I had remembered it. I was actually a little surprised because I barely felt hot. I thought that since I was coming from 6 degrees weather, I’d find Mumbai incredibly stuffy, but that wasn’t the case. The weather was really good. In fact, even as I write, the weather is amazing.

It was good to meet didi again and be back in her house. She cooked lunch for us the next day and as usual her high standards were maintained. Her food is amazing. Every time! I got to Miraroad at around 5. I drove from Malad to Miraroad and I had a superb time driving. I loved it when the rickshaw waalas didn’t care for anyone else on the road. I loved the mayhem and the chaos. This was home!

That evening, I just walked into Prathmesh’s house. It was good to see the expression on his mother’s face. When she told Prathmesh that I had come, he thought she was kidding. It was good to meet my bro again! We caught up, spoke our usual bullshit and I had a great time. We went to RNA and I met a few people from the gym who I remembered. RNA was a mess. Overcrowded and swelteringly hot.

 I was eagerly waiting to sink my teeth into some good old roadside food. That was one of the things I missed about India. It felt great to be back.