26th July 2005 - - part 3

(Late post. Sorry folks, office is killing me! & on top of all that, they blocked blogger! ARGH! :| :|)

Read Part 1 & Part 2 first.

Imagine being surrounded by a complete blanket of darkness around you. Add to that, walking/trying-to-keep-your-self-from-drowning in water. Not to mention a middle-aged lady who was... suprisingly fast! I mean dude, you are in water. you are in the dark. & hello? you are like 35!! How can you move that quick???!!!!


So, the situation looked grim. It was like you get halfway through something and then you have the "Uh-oh" moment. We were as far away from Linking Road & from S.V.Road & suddenly it didnt look like a escape route anymore! The water for some reason was rising alarmingly fast, the lady seemed to be getting taller & hop-skipping to safer places. Bhavik was getting scared at how chest high water for the guys meant a literal visarjan for the tiny me *gulp*. Nik looked tense for the first time during the night, we were holding hands really tightly so that we dont lose anyone. Bhavik suggested that they should carry me. My expression was the precise equivalent of "???!!!!" After some delibration the idea was dropped because the water was overpowering whatever we would do anyway. It was safer to hold hands. I distinctly remember slipping once and almost drowning, with my poor heart in my mouth, thrashing around in the water that a freaking eel! After what seemed like forever, we finally noticed that the water seemed calmer (apparently the earlier rushing water was due to some pipe burst + rain + road slope) and seemed to be going down. Finally reached S.V.Road, where the water was indeed lower and thats when Rupesh says, "Erm.. guys.. where is that lady?". We look around & there are very few people around us, and we exchange looks of "wtf happened to her???!!!" Bhavik swore she was ahead of us when we stumbled upon S.V.Road & right now there was no lady in sight...


.... & thus my friends began the long spoken about,, long delibrated upon story of the "Ghost Lady". You see, Bhavik is, to this day convinced that the female was a Ghost. For whatever reasons no amount fo reasoning makes him believe otherwise and after a while we others gave in to him (the story got famous in college! :P) & she just disappeared in mid air. (I think I even heard a enthusiatic version of her having ulta feet (ghost trademark as we know :D) though how anyone saw her feet in the water noone questioned!)


The story STILL not over, we kept walking on S.V.Road that runs right outside SantaCruz station & reached some god forsaken place & could go no further. Finally, for the first time in the night (around 12.30AM now) we decided to call it quits. Whatever more hiking will have to wait. The pav bhaji we ate seemed FAR away & we were cold & wet & hungry! We took refuge in a nearby electronics store that had been open to the public (which actually added to my woes owing to the presense of two drenched females who took fancy to Nik :|) (Nik, I know you are reading this & saying "KUCH BHI", so shut up you liar!! You gave them your number in 10 minutes. Meano!!! *whackkk* :|) Anyway, so there I sat there drying my newly straightened & currently ruined hair, seething inwards about the blatant flirting going on, looking around for some source of food & EXTREMELY irritated at the fact that the girls who were flirting with Nik kept talking to me like I was a kid ("awwww your chooo cweet!" wtf?! who says that?!)


After some time, I get bored of all the songs discussion (easiest breaking the ice line ever! "What music do ya listen to?" :P) & take out my phone from the cocoon of my tiffin & voila! Not only is it dry & safe, it also has NETWORK! woohoo!!! Go Reliance!!! :P This causes a mini frenzy as random people in that store queue up to make calls to their houses from my phone. There was this girl who got so excited, she jumps up & starts to walk over & goes SPLAT!!!! slips and falls face first. OUCH! Worst part - of all the people who jumped up to help her - me, nik, bhavik, rupesh included - her BOYFRIEND was the last one. That idiot just kept sitting there, looking embarrased. jeez, men i tell you!


We start to drift off to sleep. Only to be jolted awake at exactly 2.00AM with some guy bursting through the door & yelling "Nikunj.. who is Nikunj???!!!" Half scared & half sleepy, we ask him whats the matter - he says Nik's father sent him to take us to his place which is nearby. Oh no! No more walking in that water!!!! But we walked to him place anyway... & then that was pretty much the end of our adventures... We stayed there for the rest of the night, no network (phone batt died), no electricity, rain still falling steadily. We listened to songs on Niks cell for a while then went to sleep.


Early next morning we find Rupesh, ready to leave for college. Erm, what?! we ask him & he says, "Arey aaj Drawing lecture hai... Miss nahi karna mujhe!" Theres a beat of silence & then we all burst out laughing. Nik tells him "come, ill explain to you the facts of engineering! 1.You dont attend lectures..." We continue our song listening session again & finally, wellfed & warm, we leave for home again in the middle of the day. Little do we know what chaos had erupted during the night. We saw it in full daylight. Anyway reach Santacruz station & look around for trains, not working as expected. People are walking along the tracks, and we follow suit. One of my fondest memories was walking on those tracks from Santacruz to Vile Parle, me on the rails, Nik between them, holding hands :P and talking about random stuff. LOL, crushes put you in a permanent mushy mood! :P (Ok, Nik, stop grinning :P) Reach VileParle, theres a train waiting & the guys stuff me in the train (after a VERY angry me pulled (erm.. I think I more like .. dragged..) out a guy who was stuffed inside a ladies compartment and refused to let me in!). Just my luck, the train stops at Andheri & refuses to move ahead. Somehow, between a frenzy of running around for autos & stuffed inside an auto by a decidedly scary looking roadside tapori, extremely suprised to hear him say to the autowala "ae, behen hai apunki samjha na? paisa kiya toh chamat khayega. Sister, sambhalke jaana!".. finally, I reach home.

I find out the other side of the memorable 26/July night... So apparently my mom, so alarmed/terrified/erm..hysterical at the idea of me lost somewhere in some place with no contact whatsoever, had broken down in front of the entire building (and this lady NEVER says anything nice about me to the neighbours. HMPH! Im a certified Engineer MOM! YOU CAN BRAG! :| :P) and so there was something like a shout/scream/yell followed by me being swallowed by a sea of hands, hugs, kissing aunties & random faces I had never seen as soon as I stepped inside my building. :D Mom looked so miserable, it was half alarming-half adorable! :P As for me... God, it rocked!!! :P :D :D

So there, that's all about my 26/July. It was a memorable time for me, for various reasons. I didnt mention this earlier because well, I wanted this post to be a fun post - which the incident TOTALLY was! That also happened to the first & last fun adventure we had with Rupesh - We lost him to 7th/July next year, the train blasts. I have a story of that day too, but later, its tragic & brings back really really bad memories. Anyway,through this wonderful (at times scary & crazy) memory, he lives on forever right? There was a crazy amount of destruction that night & like all news channels flashed across the week after that, the spirit of Mumbai was unbreakable. Two days after the incident, it was like nothing ever happened. Nothing stops Mumbai, and thats a fact that hasnt changed in all the years that I have spent here... Here, Life always goes on. :)

- Annie.