Anyways, we reached Kasol at around 7 pm in the evening, and found a room for ourselves at Herbal Valley hotels, more a makeshift homestay, but it was cosy and had hot running water... what else could we ask for? On the way to the room, we had spotted a market and we were rubbing our hands in glee to do some shopping. Kasol by the way is a favorite spot of Israeli students, in fact most of the populace there consists of Israelis and locals.... So it was time to sample some Israeli cuisine... the only name I remember is Falafel (and dont ask me what it was)... Anyways, post that we had dinner at a place close to the river, sitting close to the water in darkness, with the stars and moon gazing down at us. It was a full moon night, and a white, bright moon was shining down at us, the stars were so close it seemed I could reach out and pluck one from the sky. Somehow we didnt feel like talking much, the moon, the river, they were soothing our parched souls, stroking our stressed out selves, telling us it was ok.... all's well with the world. Before we knew, it was past midnight... time for slumber. Lying on our beds, snuggled in cozy quilts, I was listening to the various sounds a night makes... and telling myself I couldnt sleep, but sleep I did.... and peacefully, dreamlessly.

Next day, when we woke up, after a leisurely breakfast in bed, we asked the hote walla for places to visit... he told us that the Manikarn Gurudwara was hardly 4 kms away... and post a hot bath, this was where we went... a rough, perilous ride later, we had reached the Gurudwara which is famous for its hot springs. Having paid our respects there, we went back. Spotting a shop with beautiful stoles, we stopped and were just walking towards the shop that it started raining. The three of us quickly bought the what all we wanted to, and told the driver to go back to the hotel... Walking in rain had never been so much fun, so purifying, so cleansing... we laughed, we sang, we did a jig on the roads, and if the locals thought we had gone crazy, their indulgent smiles didnt show it. And I guess nature too wanted to dance, for when it stopped raining, we were transfixed by the sight of a beautiful rainbow... I cant describe how awed and intimidated, and yet protected I felt over there, surrounded by those huge mountains, dark clouds and that beautiful rainbow. When we reached the hotel, drenched, shivering, we ordered ginger tea and paneer pakodas.... Life, at that time, was pure bliss.

At night, we asked the hotel manager to arrange for a bonfire... sitting there, warming our hands, singing songs, sipping wine, we knew we were fortified to go back to our stressful lives, for nature had soothed us, calmed us, filled up our souls with her beauty. As far as holidays went, it was not at all restful, but I wont trade it with anything else.

I am back, with Mt Work again enveloping me, but I am smiling, I feel happy.... knowing I can go back again, knowing I will go back again...

Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.

My parents often tell me that I must have been changed in the hospital, what with me being totalaly different from them. Both of them are prudent, cautious spenders, I wont know prudent and caution if they greeted me every morning, they are not very fond of reading, AHEM, and they are homebodies, not at all fond of travelling, and me, I have itchy feet... cant tolerate the thought of not going out of Delhi at least once in three months or so.... and having been blessed with friends who are as mad as I am, its generally a piece of cake to pack up some clothes and get outta Delhi. However, for the past few months, beginning last year December, Mt. Work had been relentless, and though I had been yearning to get away, I couldn't.

Finally, last week Wednesday, R and M (my two fav friends, and R and M they shall remain), and asked if I wanted to get away for the weekend, what with Monday being a US holiday. I tried to pretend I wasnt interested, but sigh!!! My friends know me too well. So we decided to go to Chail, a sweet, remote spot close to Simla. We had decided to leave Friday night by road, reach Chail by Saturday morning, spend a leisurely 2 days there and start back Monday afternoon. All in all it was supposed to be a relaxing, restful weekend. Well... read on to find out how restful it actually was.

We left by a hired cab on Friday, and were happy as 3 larks chatting away in the back of our hired Indica. (Put three trave crazy girls together, and you can imagine the cacaphony they can make). When we reached Chandigarh, all of a sudden M chirped, "We have gone to Chail so many times... lets go to Mandi. I wanna go to a place where there's water... and we have Beas there.... just imagine, it would be so much fun sitting next to the river, listening to the water gushing by, all that clean water, cold weather" Needless to say, she didnt have to work very hard at selling the idea to us. The driver was told to find the way to Mandi. The perplexed and resigned look he gave us had "Girls!!!!" written all over it. And we veered off on the road to Mandi, which is quite far from Chandigarh I tell you. The road till Kiratpur was extremely bad, and everytime we hit a pothole, we could all but imagine the poor driver cursing us, and somehow we would break into helpless giggles. Anyways, we dozed off, and the next morning when we opened our eyes, we were in Mandi..... Day 1 of the 2 day vacation had begun.... bleary eyed we found a hotel and just crashed....

When we woke up it was around 3 pm, and the sun was streaming in through the curtains... we went down, had some snacks,and were just deciding the course of the rest of our stay, one of the hotel boys who had come to clean the room asked us,"Aap log Kasol kyun nahi gaye, yahan se 4 ghanta door hi to hai. Bahut sundar aur shaant hai, yahan kya karengi aap sab" Pin drop silence... We looked at each other, and I was selected as the bearer of the sad tidings to the driver. The look on his face when I told him that we now wanted to drive further up to Kasol was.... well, priceless!!! So, at around 4 we left Mandi for Kasol. The drive was beautiful, we stopped often for pictures. We had the beautiful Beas travelling with us, another unpredictable female keeping us company. We passed a dam, the name of which I have now forgotten, apple orchards where we could see people with huge baskets tied to their back, picking up ripe apples, small houses with D2H dishes on the roof (this was really surprising), and once I saw a 1.5-2 year old kid sitting on the extreme end of a ledge, playing merrily with some flowers... the driver wryly remarked, "These are children of the hills, they wont fall off..." and somehow, the logic made sense. We saw a beautiful make shift bridge (check photo gallery), which left me spell bound. But most profound of all was the content feeling of homecoming which I always feel when I travel up towards the hills, and when you have a river with water so clear it shimmers, travelling with you, the journey is actually undescribable...

Continued in second part...

You know... I wont be able to get Kaminey out of my head till the time I actually write about this one song which has managed to ensnare my imagination. So much has been written about the Dhan Teden....but somehow that didnt strike me as all that special.. and this one, the title track is such a beautifu word play... Who else but gulzar could have come up with such beautiful lyrics? And Vishal, who has sung the song has imparted so much soul to it... post RDB, Vishal really is the best thing to have happened to Gulzar, for who else would give the wordsmith such unheard of words to work his magic with? Kaminey as a word in day to day lingo doesnt inspire all that respect and finer sentiments.. but just listen to Gulzar and Vishal work magic with the word Kameeney, and you wont be able to call anyone this particular name anymore...

I saw the song, rather was mesmerised by it in the movie, and the first thing I did when I reached home was listen to it... the opening strands, in that typica Vishal voice, just hold you spell bound... and somehow I loved the line Ik dil se dosti thi.... ye huzoor bhi kameene.... its almost as if these two are holding the words close to their heart and caressing them... velvet hewn words...

Vishal imbibes such a lazy feel to the song... he sings as if there's no tomorrow... no hurry, no rush, and he forces you to look a hard, harsh look at your life, all the while soothing you, telling you that its all right.

Kya kare zindagi isko hum jo miley
iski jaan kha gaye raat din ke giley, raat din ke giley
meri aarzoo kameenee, mere khwab bhi kaminey
ik dil se dosti thi yeh hazoor bhi kaminey
Kya kare zindagi isko hum jo miley
iski jaan kha gaye raat din ke giley, raat din ke giley

kabhi zindagi se maanga pinjare mein chand la do
kabhi lalten de ke kaha aasma pe taango
jeene ke sab kareene the hamesha se kaminey
meri dastaan kameenee mere raaste kaminey
ik dil se dosti thi yeh hazoor bhi kaminey

jiska bhi chehra chila andar se aur nikla
masoom sa kabootar naacha toh mor nikla
kabhi hum kaminey nikle kabhi dosti kameenee
maere yaar bhi kaminey ik dil se dosti thi
yeh hazoor bhi kaminey

Life at times seems so impossible... desires so impossible to attain, and yet they make us run, rush, lie, cheat, weep, steal, just for that one elusive moment of happiness... People are not what they seem... innocene is masked by guile... it might be me who is innocent, it might be you.... ultimately we all are the same... meri dosti kameeni, mere yaar bhi kameene...ik dil se dosti thi, yeh hazoor bhi kaminey...

Goosebump stuff......... hot tears scalding your soul, and a soothing hand stroking your tired, jaded heart... thats the magic these two magicians have wrought with this song....

There are days when you think your insides will burst if you dont write... and then there are days when you are content just to sit and read, ponder, savour.... I have always been extremely fond of poetry... Today I took out my old copy of Mappings by Vikram Seth, and re-read his translation of a quatrain by by Faiz.... and was as bewitched as ever...

The original goes like:

Raat yun dil mein teri khoyi hui yaad aaye
Jaise veeraane mein chupke se bahaar aa jaaye
Jaise sehraaon mein hauley se chale baad-e-nasiim
Jaise beemaar ko be-vajah qaraar aa jaaye

And Vikram Seth, that wonderful, talented man has translated it as : (and so so so beautifully, if I may say so)

Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly ,in the desert, moves the breeze,
As, to a sick man, without cause, comes peace

Words fail me... as they are meant to, when confronted by sheer beauty of this magnitude.....

Someday, you will look back at it and laugh.... this is what I tell myself when I am dealt with what I call the Forehand by Life....

Yeste
rday, I was talking to a friend about heartbreaks, pain, love lost, and general phiosophy of life, suffering... and when I put the phone down, I was still thinking about it...

So many times, life deals us a blow from which it seems we will never recover, when each step seems like a task, and one tiny push is all it would take to bring you down. There seemed an inexhaustible supply of tears, each smile seemed to be a farce, just a mechanical stretch of your lips, which hurt you more than it fooled others... and you were convinced, this was it... no more happiness... life as you knew it was through... There were days when you woke up and would wonder that you were still alive, for surely, to feel so much pain and keep on living was impossible... pain which envelops the ice slab which is supposed to be your heart and threatens to squueze it till you gasp for breath...

And then, it slows, the speed at which pain hits you... the pain dulls, the wound does not hurt so much... and you keep on poking at it, just to see if its there... or to remind yourself of the pain it caused, maybe so you dont fall in the same trap again... wound-scar-wound-scar... life becomes a circle through which you dont want to escape... maybe there's some comfort in pain after all... it saves you from fresh bouts.... There are days when you forget to poke at the wound... oh it is still there, throbbing and making you feel its presence..... but you lower your guard down, bit by bit... and there are times when it hits you again, just to remind you that it hasn't been vanquished... rather, it is there, waiting for you to fall in its abyss once again...

Then, a miracle happens..... Time passes... you learn to smile again, the ice which had replaced the heart thaws, and life infuses you with the simple joy of being... and you heal... the wound stops throbbing... it stops hurting, and you smile again, a smile which reaches your eyes, finally... and one day you remember what had hurt you so much... and you wonder, was it as important as it seemed that time? If yes, where did the hurt go? How did all the pain recede, the pain which had enveloped you like a blanket, and which, now is conspicuous by its absence... And you realise, all you had to do was to let the pain go... let the hurt go, and you could smile again... laugh again... sing again... live again..... the winter of life called pain has passed, giving way to the spring called Happiness....


There's some truth to the saying, "Someday I will look back at it, and laugh", and thank God for it...

This is for a friend, a dear friend, who is angry with God because Boss has been taken away from us....

A diary post on R D Burman seems like a joke to me... How can all that beautiful music be covered in one post? But then, there's that matter of indulgence as well, so let me indulge as I think about all my favorite songs which have been composed by him. I wonder what I can write about Pancham, that maverick of Bollywood, who, breaking all the rules, gave us a fresh music, and when all thought that Western music and sounds was all he was good at, gave us some soulful numbers which no one can forget....Its another thought to ponder that when I think of the revered music directors like Salil Da, Madan Mohan Saab, Khayyam Saab, I am filled with awe, but with Pancham, there's no such reverence, all I feel is affection, affection for the kid who refused to grow up.. for thats what Pancham seems like, a kid who lured you into believing that he was all about Western sounds and music, and then astounded you by his soulful, sad, haunting numbers, and smile mischievously at your surprise.

Today I am not going to talk about the numbers which we all know and love (I do wonder how I will stop myself though) I still feel goosebumps when I listen to "Ae Ri Pawan, dhoondhe kise tera mann", its as if I am outdoors, looking at the clouds which are flirting with the wind, specially when Lata sings "Baadal se tera, kya hai kuch naata... kaahe jhoome naache gaaye, aaye jab saawan.. baawri si tu phire...".

And then there's "Bade Achche lagte hain" from Balika Badhu, where along with young Amit Kumar, Pancham sang the haunting boatman's call, "O manjhi re jaiyo piya ke des... " You dont even realise when R D slips in with Amit Kumar in this timeless melody about two people too young to understand love, and yet are drawn towards each other.
A song which so many people would have sung while going to meet their beloved is "Chala jaata hoon kisi ki dhun mein"... I loved it when Kishore Da yoodled like Pancham in "Wo Aalam bhiiiiiiiiiiiii ajab hogaaaaaaaaaaa" a peppy song, sure to put a smile on your lips to match the song in your heart...

And then, there's that beautiful, beseeching appeal for love, "Dilbar mere kab tak mujhe, aise hi tadpaaoge".. where Kishore's baritone has been fully utilized in the Antara of the song... next time your partner is upset, do sing this song and see the magic work...:)

Sunny was a movie which came and went, but the songs are still remembered fondly by the afficianados, specially "Jaane Kya Baat hai, jaane kya baat hai... neend nahi aati, badi lambi raat hai" a song which miraculously has the power to lull you to sleep with a smile on your lips. This I feel was a tragedy which befell Pancham... most of the movies he composed music for, came and went without making any mark... How many of us love the cult song "O hansini" the original swan song of Bollywood where Kishore was at his magical best, a song which has epitomized love, and how many have seen the movie Zehreela Insaan... Sad....

But then, me being the greedy me have to talk about some of my most adored gems... "Jis gali mein tera ghar na ho balma" sung by Mukesh in Kati Patang... a song so beautiful in all its simplicity... talking about a selfless, innocent and honest love. "Kahin na jaa, aaj kahin mat jaa" from Bade Dilwala is Lata and Kishore at their lyrical, musical best in a haunting duet which talks of bolstering the beloved with love's support... And then there's the melodious "Kahin karti hogi wo mera intazaar" sung to perfection by Lata and Mukesh... do hear the alaap (I hope thats what it is called) by Lata right after the first mukhdha.. and then the words "Armaan hai koi paas aaye, in haathon mein wo haath aaye, phir khwaabon ki ghata chaaye, barsaaye khumar... " The song has to be heard to believed.

But I cant end this post without a song which never fails to mesmerize me "Kya jaanoon sajan, hoti hai kya ghamki shaam"... and no, I didnt hear it the first time in that so called tribute "Dil Vil Pyaar Vyaar". The original, sung by Lata has the power of stopping you dead in your tracks, it is so powerful in its softness. It actually is like hot wax, rather hot love dripping inside your soul... or maybe, hot tears burning the backside of your eyes...

Today the heat seems more merciless than usual... Standing on the side of the road, I was looking up at the sky, searching for that elusive piece of cloud which might bring some hope to the poor parched earth. I thought of all those "yagnas" which were carried out in old times... but thats too convoluted to even think of now...


Anyways, here I was, thinking of rain, and the sun was beating down mercilessly on me (the office cab was terribly late), as if to kill every thought in my head which screamed for relief. And here was me, the stubborn, whimiscal me, wishing for rain, looking up at the old neem tree, which seemed to conspire against the sun, and did the shade of the tree seem a whee bit cool, just that bit dark? The neem and I have an old friendship... every week day I stand beneath it, and in summers it protects me from my enemy sun. Anyway I am meandering again...

So here I was, wishing for rain, and thinking of what all I would do if it started raining once again... For one, I am not going to cry in the rain. I am not going to use her as a mask for my tears, rather I will let her pure droplets cleanse my soul and heart, and any tears, if they do escape, will be of sheer joy at the beauty of rain, tears I shall be proud of...


The days its just cloudy I will sing "kali ghata chaaye more jiya tarsae - aise main kahi koi mil jaaye " and try and cajole the clouds to let go of some of their possessive nectar. And the day it rains, I might just sing two of my favorite rain songs, "O ghata saanvari, thodi thodi baavari ho gayi hai barsaat kya", and " O Sajna, barkha bahaar aayi" I will specially look at the dark clouds and sing, "Saanvali saloni ghata jab jab chaayi, ankhiyon mein ren aa gayi, nindiya na aayi", words which seem to caress the clouds as they might a loved one... I might just walk out in the rain, singing to myself the song from Do Aankhein Barah Haat, "Umad ghumad kar Ayee re ghata", or maybe I will take all the neighborhood kids, and play in the rain, with Shubha Mudgal's "Abke saawan aise barse" playing at the chai wallah's or I might just take out my car (wish it was a convertible though), with "Garaj baras saavan ghir aayo" blaring at full volume, paying ode to the rain in my own way....

Rain, come soon.... all these songs in my heart are awaiting your arrival....

I was reading the comments on my last post,(Maine (Phir) pyaar kiya), and one comment kinda woke up my inner voice... (yeah, which anyways refuses to shut up)

Nidhi had commented how I had made writing about Nostalgia an art form... and lo and behold, IV strikes again...
Me : Awwwwwwww, thats such a nice comment... such a sweet girl (I am generally all praise for people who comment nicely on my posts)

IV : Yeah...genius with writing nostalgic posts...that should tell you something

Me (In a weary and wary tone) : Not that I asked for an opinion, but what should it tell me?

IV (in a droning tone) : People who keep on revisiting the past are not really hinged to reality as it is now.

Me : Thats not fair... we all know there are triggers in our day to day life, which make us nostalgic. Hell the advertising industry makes a neat buck when it triggers happy memories (help me here Deepa)

IV : So they make fools of people, and you make a fool of yourself... what a distiction haan...

Me : No... its not like that... everywhere they say that if you vent your emotions its a healthy sign... so I was feeling nostalgic and happy, and I wrote about it... whats the big deal?

IV : Yes, but I am sure they dont mean for people to do that with such unerring frequency as you do, do they Nonu?

Me (sensing dangerous waters) : Listen, for once why dont you mind your own business, and for God's sake, you are my inner voice, why can you not say anything nice about me?

IV : Oh well, I have to be like you... nice begets nice, and vice versa... but have you ever thought, that if you are like this now, ready to plunge in Nostalgic thoughts at the drop of a hat when you have so much to occupy you, all wistful and sighing away to glory what will happen say fifteen or twenty years down the line, when there will be more free time? I can just imagine kids running after you, and you constantly muttering about how things used to be in our time. (badhbadhana was the term IV used actually) Loony Bin it is for you Nonu... Loony Nonu... LOONY Nonu!!!!


By this time, I had again successfully shut the IV... and decided to do a search on the net for Nostalgia. As per Wisegreek,com, the word nostalgia is derived from two Greek words – nostos, meaning 'homecoming', and algos, meaning 'pain'. The medical professionals who coined the word nostalgia in the late 18th century were describing a serious emotional and physical condition, not the current meaning of wistful thoughts of earlier times. Originally, nostalgia was viewed as a crippling condition that rendered sufferers incapacitated by despair or intense homesickness. Soldiers suffering from nostalgia were often pulled off duty in order to recover their sense of purpose. Indeed, nostalgia was considered a legitimate condition for voluntary release from military service even through the 1860s. If a soldier became too overwhelmed by thoughts of home or the life he left behind, his abilities as a fighter could be compromised. The damaging effects of nostalgia were a major problem for militaries and other government agencies around the world for hundreds of years. Only with improved treatments for melancholia and depression did the clinical definition of nostalgia begin to fade from history.

This is enough to scare me off Nostalgia for a long long time... and IV, you remain shut, for good!!!! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmph....

P.S Nidhi... if you are reading this, pls dont mind... the joke is on me... :o)

I was ten or eleven years old when MPK released... No VCR or VCP (remember them) at my place, I had to negotiate several days of quietly eating Daal, Karela and Tori (watergourd I think), to cajole my father to take me for the movie my friends were raving about... and once I had seen it, life was never the same again... I fell in love with Salman Khan... my first crush... and I hated Bhagyashree with a vengeance, for obvious reasons, and yet tried to emulate her way of speaking, hairstyle, anything. (Too bad I was so opinionated that I could never speak in that extra sweet way). But my craziness for Salman and the movie knew no bounds. With my meagre pocket money, I bought a cassette of the movie's dialogues and songs (Thanks HMV), and by the time I was through with it, the cassette was squeaky, and I had memorized most of the dialogues. Then, with the advent of the cable, anytime the movie would be showing on any of the channels, you would find me mouthing the dialogues along with the characters. And the music... oh man... SP Balasubramaniyam and Lata wrecked havoc on my studies with Dil Deewana, Mere Rang mein, Aate Jaate (so what if it was a lift off of I just called), and all other songs... I would write the lyrics down and sing them along. Anyways, I grew up, and outgrew the movie,and my crush. There were other handsome, more debonair men!!!!! :o)

Why this post today, rather tonight? Well... I was busy reading in the evening, and my Dad, flipping channels in his room, suddenly called out... Nona, tumhari fav movie aa rahi hai, Zee Cinema pe... (he still teases me about my Salman fixation)... and just impulsively I switched on the TV. I was telling myself I had outgrown it, and of course, it was nothing when I compared it to the cinema I really like now... (Nonu, you have developed airs...) and yes, the movie worked majorly because of its fresh approach, but thats another story, and this is no review and I am digressing...


So there I was, all ready to take my nostalgia out of the treasure chest and laugh at the memories (snobby, haan), and guess what, half an hour later, by the time Prem saves Suman from Jeevan in the party... I was watching it as engrossed as ever, mouthing the dialogues (Dosti mein no sorry no thank you; dosti ki hai to nibhani hi padegi, Cigerette smoking is injutious to health, sehat ke liye haanikaarak hai; Udaas hona, yun akele mein rona is injurious to health, sehat ke liye haanikarak hai.... I can go on and on and on....), that Friends cap, the teddy bear, laughing at Laxmikant Berde... singing along, Dil deewana bin sajna ke maane na.... and the I love you chant in background... By the end,Prem had conquered all evils, had earned the Rs 2000 which was the condition set by Suman's Dad (Is baar note bheegenge nahi babuji, nahi bheegenge).. all my airs had vanished... I had fallen in love once again, sighing away to glory, shedding a tear, and surreptitiously wiping it away.... And how can I forget Handsome... the mother (rather the father) of all white doves, Masakalli included!!!!

Sometimes... Love does conquer all....happily ever after does happen once the Prince and his princess ride off in sunset.... Sometimes.....

I had promised myself that my next post is going to be something very serious... so here goes...

In my office building, on the floor where my kaam ka pahaad resides, a new Taj Mahal has been built... nope, not the one Shah Jahan built for his Mumtaz, but the one my employers are getting renovated for all the Mumtaz(s) who work on that floor...


It started one hot summer morning, when, having travelled from Delhi to Gurgaon in the merciless Delhi heat, and having climbed up two flights of stairs, looking like something the proverbial cat had dragged in, I almost dropped my laptop bag on the workstation and stalked off to the washroom, to give my frazzled nerves a modicum of sanity. And instead of the cool heaven I was so used to looking at, it had been replaced by a sign... "Closed for repairs".. Now, this might not seem a big issue to those of you reading it, but trust me, it was akin to a catastrophe. The other washroom was at the other end of the floor, and trudging upto it, I was almost reminded of the commercial for Ambience Mall, "One k.m. of walking space on each floor". To rub salt to the wounds, there were the new girls... now you have to understand the girls' washroom dynamics to realise the significance of this statement... Girls, with their hair down (in all sense of the expression) develop a certain camraderie and familiarity with each other, which develops from their transformation from sweaty devils covered in dust and grime of the road to calm composed angels. And there all the girls are, trying to find space in a new washroom, its almost like venturing out in no man's.. errr no woman's zone...

So there we all girls were, bemoaning the lack of progress of the so called repairs, and believe me, nothing, none whatsoever in the recent history had been awaited with such baited breath as the culmination of repairs were. Everyday we would watch from outside, as wooden slabs, new tiles and other stuff were stacked next to it, and one fine day a dame came up with a quip,"aisa lagta hai jaise naya taj mahal ban raha hai", and the monicker stuck. Not to mention bad mouthing the girls with a territorial right over the other wash. Everyday, while dragging ourselves to the wash at the other end, before the kidneys went kaput, we would wonder aloud as to how our in house Taj was faring... One strange thing which I noticed here was that the Mens' wash was also being repaired, but not a peep was heard outta them... Strange creatures guys, I tell you!!!

Anyways, a month passed, and our fascination with the Mahal waned. We no longer wondered aloud, and had adjusted to the different routines... when in the midst of the day I hear a chirp..."Taj Mahal is ready girls", and you had to see, rather hear the cacaphony of voices to believe it... it was as if we all had received 6 months' of salary as bonus. And off went the inspection committee, to inspect the new Taj, not paying any heed to the washroom attendants warning of it not being Open... poor woman, she was no match for us... and there the Taj, our new Taj (for we have rechristened it that) all new, gleaming, polished, awaiting us... and there we were, mentally embracing our dear old washroom.

But as most of the times good or bad, the best had been saved for the last... now the washroom at the other end was being renovated... God, You really are great!!!!