I headed out to Cochin on saturday night to meet my parents. It was anyway a holiday for my sister till wednesday (who has told me that she keeps a keen eye on this blog), who was also there. All in all the trip was bitter sweet or in true mallu style - "too bitter to swallow and too sweet to spit".
Travelling to cochin always makes me feel happy - for many reasons. Some clever guy has once said that Happiness is not something you experience, it is something you remember. Nostalgia of those days when you could be happy if everyone just left you alone is what keeps taking me back there every once in a while.
The trip started out with a rainy saturday night in Bangalore, where the hero (as in me) started trudging up to madiwala with the one true key safely in his jeans pocket. Reached around 15 minutes earlier and spent those with pretensions of dinner. The bus was supposed to arrive at 8:45 PM, it usually shows up at 9. So there I was with mp3 player plugged in, reading Falling Sideways. The bus finally arrived around at 9:45, nearly an hour later. I ran into an old acquiantace who was the first friendly face I ever saw in hyderabad. Alosh was in the seat just behind mine - we barely talked, except about Benoy leaving Oracle Hyderabad.
Arrived on time at Cochin, having literally flown the distance between Salem and Coimbatore. Father was happy to see me, but pre-occupied with his work - he doesn't like having too many masters too much, especially when some of them are politicians. There was some puja going on, which was essentially a lot of smoke without any mirrors (at least visibly). I stayed out of the smoke cover, unlike my mother who survived the experience on an empty stomach - women are wonderful. In the midst of this, my sister nicked my two Terry Pratchetts (Equal Rites and Sourcery) for my collection back at home.
It had been two months since I had driven anything (except other people mad), but I took out the Honda Dio and cruised cochin roads. It has just stepped out of service and was smooth upto around 80 km/h. Anyway, I managed to get back to the home alive, in one peice and not a fugitive from the law. Most of monday, I spent asleep. I woke up early enough to just get dinner in before shipping back to Bangalore.
If you didn't get the moral of the story yet, let me repeat :
Happiness is not something you experience, it is something you remember.
By those standards, this was nothing to keep notes about. So just forget about, get on with life - We've got a schedule to keep.