To appease Sunil and knowing very well that he might become even harder to reach in the future, we landed in Bangalore on the 26th March morning. We proceeded to Sudha didi (Sunil’s elder sister)’s apartment off Hosur-Sirjapur road. Tucked away quite far from the core city, the apartments in that area were huge and luxurious and for those fancying an apartment in Bangalore, they don’t come cheaper. We got the usual bear hug from Sunil who was all smiles and it brought back flashing memories of our school days in Chennai. Uncle and Aunty were their usual loving selves, and we were glad to see the entire Sharma family on this trip. Their granddaughter - Saira, wasn’t too amused with our presence and didn’t chat up with us, but her poses for the pictures made up for the disappointment.
Sunil’s mom makes amazing food, and so we didn’t waste much time in kicking off our breakfast with some parathas, kofta curry, aloo sabzi and sweets. We were very keen to know more about Shikha (Sunil’s newlywed wife) and we connected really well over the course of the day, in spite of Sunil butting in with his horrendous jokes J. She briefed us on the wedding ceremony which stretched over 4 days and made it all the more miserable for us for having missed such a fun filled ceremony. We proceeded to the Forum mall to do a bit of shopping and catch up on old times, and the biggest purchase came from Vasant : he bought a Puma shoe very similar to the one I had. Well its another story that he picked an ill-fitting one initially and roamed around flaunting it for a good 3 hours, before returning it to pick the more comfy one. The lunch at the Forum food court featured an assortment of dishes from various parts of North India – Dhokla, Samosas, Masala Rotis, Aloo Parathas, Chole Bhatura, and the best dessert that I have tasted so far – The Rajasthani Malpua dipped in Rabadi. Shikha, seeing our laggard figures, mentioned that we were in a food “coma”, and true to the word it seemed to have lasted for a good 3 hours. Constant pit-stops at the coffee shop helped us stay afloat, and we dragged our weary souls to the apartment with a steely determination to go easy on the dinner. More tasty Chole and unique Shikha style parathas followed, and we let things adrift only to end up staying overnight at Sunil’s place, which wasn’t part of the original plan.
After seeing off Shikha and Sunil to Delhi, preceded by a 6:30AM breakfast, we hopped onto a cab and navigated our way to Vasant’s Uncle’s house. More hospitality was in store for us and second round of breakfast featuring plain dosas followed. Sudhi, (our KOH and he seems to be getting worse day-by-day) whose birthday I missed narrowly, was waiting in ambush and after being fed some cakes by him, we met up with few of our friends for lunch at the uniquely named “Gufa” restaurant. The restaurant is a glorified version of “Rainforest” Adyar restaurant and the decor (including the waiters’ attire) was well done to heighten the feeling of being in a cave located in the Afghan North-Western province.
Vasant was gung-ho about the shopping and I had serious problems in walking after all the food that we have been consuming. We roamed the MG and Brigade roads doing a bit of shopping, and not before long we seated ourselves @ the “Donut Baker” – the best doughnuts in the whole world. (Pardon the exaggeration - I have tasted doughnuts elsewhere as well. But the truth is the ones in Blore beat Krispy Kreme hands down.) After having spent nearly 4 hours on the prowl in the shopping malls and lanes, we went to our usual SLV for typical Kannada food. In all this mayhem, we just assumed that our train was scheduled for 10:45PM, and on the way to the station I realized that it wasn’t. In fact, our train wouldn’t leave Blore at least until 11:45PM, which meant we had to kill time at a rather spacious restaurant where we were the only customers to be attended to. We were absolutely shameless in sharing one coffee pot, while watching the IPL game on a giant screen...all for Rs.29, ie until it was time to catch our train.
Thus ended another eventful, fun-filled and nostalgic rail-trip.
