Chennai Chronicles- Part 2

This post is especially for Anna. She claimed that bloggers ( and I'm using the word quite loosely to include me in it) who usually bravely publish a Part 1 never write the next part. Ha. So there. This is Part TWO . In all fairness though, if she hadn't challenged me I probably wouldn't have written this post. :)

So, where was I? yes, the magical watch.

6. After that , the gang headed to the Marina Beach, and as they were walking back, they saw a Merry-go-round. Most of them ,like excited li'l 6-year olds, wanted to ride it. Most of them, unlike excited li'l 6-year olds, weren't ready to pay Rs.10 per person to get on it. After quite a bit of bargaining, they managed to wear the poor man down, and got it down to 50 for 7 of them or something. The disgruntled, grumpy man brought a few of them stools to get on the horses and then started the thing. Was huge fun, all yelling their hearts out and all. Only soon, it wasn't so much fun. It started going faster and faster. Uncomfortably fast.N starting feeling slightly faint and had to hold on to the nearby horse to keep herself steady. And pretty soon, it got so fast that she started yelling to stop it. and so did a lot of others.But it kept spinning. It finally came to a stop. All of them got out, some looking quite green in the face (some did get sick later in the night). The man, N noticed, didn't look so disgruntled any more. N suspected foul play. She was (and still is) sure that the man was just getting back at them ( or he may have just wanted them to have a little excitement and thought they could handle the speed. but the other sounds more interesting, so let's just agree with N, shall we?)

7. They went on different autos to City Centre after that, and N and a few others popped into the washroom. And as she was leaving, a girl who looked very familiar entered. She just couldn't place her though, and not wanting to be called rude, was about to say hi ( hoping to figure the name out as the convo proceeded, as she sometimes does) when she stopped herself. She had suddenly remembered where she had seen her. but just couldn't believe it. She had seen her, on several occasions - On Orkut. On her friend's friend list and in photo albums. Obviously, she was completely unaware of N's existence.

8. It was late , City Centre was closing for the day and after they switched like almost all the lights off, the gang decided it was time to leave. Everyone was in high spirits after a good meal from KFC, and was laughing and talking loudly. And while it was nice singing songs and stuff in the middle of the road which was pretty empty by then, it also meant most buses had stopped running. But that didn't stop them from doing all the aforementioned.So they heartily(well, most anyway) decided to walk to the local train station. which had also shut down for the day. After a few more spontaneous songs , some why don't we spent the night here then! Yes, Let's ! Woohoo!'s and some Oooh, let's walk back to IITM! Yes, Let's! Woohoo! 's later, they started walking again until they met a couple of policemen, who suggested they take autos.Finally,all of them squeezed into two super-huge autos and made it back to iitm.

9. N got to attend the salsa/jive workshop! ( To the uninitiated: The Gods of Thoushaltnotlearnsalsa had cast a terrible curse on N, preventing her from ever attending a salsa workshop however much her heart yearned for it. The scheming gods went so far as to get the salsa workshop for Ragam '08 canceled and extended the duration of the Lindy Hop Swing classes back home to a month just when her winter vacation was cut short to less than 3 weeks. Aye, The Fates play such cruel games.) Anyways, 'twas quite fun, although she did find the whole dancing salsa in a circle quite strange and funny.

10. N fell off the local train, as mentioned before. It was time to leave. One by one, they clambered on to the train to reach Chennai Central Station. When just M, N and S were left to get on, the train started moving. M managed to get on, but as N was attempting to do so, the train picked up more speed and she couldn't hold onto the pole. She remembers hitting something and falling flat on the platform and thinking ' Now S and I will have to come in the next train' while hearing a bloodcurdling scream by M and a tall, lean figure which looked like P jumping off the train onto the platform. And sometime during this incident, S pulled N away from the train. Someone, hearing M's scream pulled the chain and the train came to a stop. Apparently, from where M and P were standing, it looked like N was disappearing into the gap between the train and the platform, although there was really no such gap, because the local train sorta bulges outwards. which explains their action-movie style responses.Once everyone got back on the train, there was lot of sympathetic ruffling of N's hair. Some It's alright,k? Are you okay? Sit down for a while's and a lot of looking at N and shaking of the head's. S after a while, began to demonstrate the entire sequence of events to those who weren't present, though P didn't seem too amused at the idea. P and S still occasionally throws in ' I jumped off a moving train to save you.' and ' I saved your life!'. Note to S and P: See now, unless there's some internet recession, and they delete the Least Read Blogs or something, your acts of heroism are recorded in the WWWeb for posterity. You're Welcome. :)

11. S was mistaken again.for a beggar this time. By one of the our own (nitcians). Before you start wondering about his clothes ( and before he tries to hunt me down), the reason for the misunderstanding was his..ahem...flute playing abilty. Basically, he and M were trying on different tunes on the Rs.10 flute someone purchased on the train journey back. As S was playing , S ( Another Guy.Hmm..Strangely,Gossip girl never had the Two-people-with-the-same-initial issue.) who was in another compartment stuck his head in.
'Oh, it was you! We kept waiting for a beggar playing the flute to come and ask for money. was wondering why he was taking so long to reach.' On the upside, the real beggars do play the flute well.

12. This is an All-things-Animal point. There were deer in iitm. And a whole clan of monkeys well-adapted to their habitat. These wonder monkeys know how to eat from unopened chips packets, shamelessly enter the bathrooms in the Ladies hostels to raid the garbage bins and a few of the gang even spotted a monkey making a hole in an unopened coke bottle and coolly drinking it afterwards.The hostel the girls stayed in had a mascot dog with a blue collar who was always sleeping all stretched out in front of it ( until it seemingly couldn't stand M's repeated, almost envious 'This dog is always sleeping! Doesn't it ever wake up?' anymore and moved to the nearby hostel on the last day).

It's 'That's all, folks!' then from me for now. Whew! Thanks again Anna.:)