Travelogue - Tajpur Trip - Part One

One not-so-fine day

 

Joyee pulled a chair vigorously and collapsed into it at my cubicle. By the redness of her face, I guessed it was not just the effect of the hot sun and the broken roads. Some new khichdi must have pakao-ed in her project.

“Sue, will you go or not?”, she exploded.

Yes, Khichdi it is.

“Yes yes, I will!”, I exclaimed. “I just can’t take Kolkata anymore! I think I’ll do something drastic. Take drugs, kill somebody or go to jail.”

I being a highly imaginative person who tended to become reckless in moments of desperation was capable of making such statements.

“Excellent!” Joyee replied happily. The air-conditioning and my desperation must have soothed her a bit. “Neither can I. Chalo, let’s google. Where will we go?”

We opened West Bengal Tourism’s website.

“Mountains?”

“Mmm…so many of us won’t get leaves together.”

“Jungle?”

“Nope. Monsoon. Mosquitoes. Malaria.”

“Okay. Only option left. Sea.”

“Fine. But not Digha or Mandarmani.”

“Tajpur?”

“Fine. Tajpur it is.”

“By the way, where is it?”

~*~

September 8, 2012

Saturday. Kolkata.

4.30 am. The alarm rang. Still in sleep, I called up Shiv, the Late Latif. The phone kept ringing as expected.

5.30 am. Text from Joyee. “Car is late by 30 minutes. Will call you once in the car.” Nahiiiiiii.

My phone rang. Late Latif’s calling!!!

“Still sleeping?”

“Dude, I am not like you. I am ready already.”

“Oh is it? Good. They’ll be late. Gokul just called me.”

“That doesn’t mean you’ll go back to sleep. Move your lazy butt and get ready. If you are late, we’ll leave you and go away.” I threatened him, as I do most of the times.

In response, I only received a nasty laugh over the phone.

6.30 am. Will these people ever come? Shall I unpack and inform everybody that I’ll be in Kolkata this weekend? Shucks!! What beizzati!

6:45 am. Joyee’s calling. “Listen, we are near your place. You come at your pick-up stop.”

“Yippee! Coming in five minutes.”

7:00 am. Four of us safely in the car. Gokul, Joyee, Piyush (our friend and guide for those two days) and I. Next stop was at Shiv’s.

7:15 am. Jadavpur. Waiting for Shiv.

Joyee called up Shiv. “Dude, where are you? We are waiting for you.”

Shiv: “Yes yes, I am already out of my house.” I took the phone to cross-check. There was no background noise of vehicles. I felt like throttling him.

I: “Don’t lie. You haven’t yet left your house. Are you ready? When did I call you?” I was almost paranoid.

Joyee snatched the phone from me. “Fine, come quickly.”

“You better call up Aish and ask her to start off”, Joyee said to me.

Aish was our sixth member and we were to pick her up from Mecheda. I called her up and gave her the instructions.

“Why was the car so late?” I addressed the janta.

Gokul, who was responsible for arranging the car, replied, “Ummm…actually, the person who was supposed to give the car had said that already. You know what, we didn’t have a car booked till 10:30 last night.” He grinned shamelessly. All I could do was giving him a scorching look.

Thankfully, our Mr. Late Latif had arrived by then. After a collective round of verbal abuse, we finally started towards our destination for good.

~*~

  
Continued To Travelogue-Tajpur Trip-Part-Two