A tale of 3 cities and 7 gal pals

From Chennai to Bangalore to Barcelona

The movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara(ZNMD) had released and here we were— four out of a ‘gang’ of seven from college planning our very own ZNMD trip! And to Spain, no less. Barcelona(BCN) and Ibiza(IBZ) to be precise.

Flashback to a month ago. Aditi, who now lives in Tanzania with her hubby and four-year-old son, was visiting Bangalore. Rekha, an account director in an ad agency in Chicago, was also flying down here. So it fell upon Aanya and me (Chennaiites) to get together with the girls and have a blast! Aanya and I had not spoken for two years over some drunken misunderstanding caused due to one party drinking too much tequila and the other having a sleepless night. Ritika, who was the third musketeer that fateful night of the misunderstanding, was still not communicating with me, despite my attempt at reconciliation via a Facebook message.

Word had it that Ritika’s mother-in-law had run over Ritika’s toe while learning to drive. Speculations were rife as to whether this was truly an ‘accident’ or there was more to it than met the eye...Sinister speculations aside, the four of us: Aditi, Rekha, Aanya, and I, wanted to have a blast in Bangalore.
Rekha said I could join her on a train ride back to Bangalore after her day-long stay in Chennai. While I was still considering that option, Aanya proposed a road trip to Bangalore! Just her and me and miles of uncharted terrain. The fact that neither one of us could find our way out of a paper bag surprisingly never came up. And we cheerfully made plans.

Aanya, who is quite an online shopaholic and spendaholic located a lovely, airy, roomy service apartment that the four of us could stay in. My dad dropped me at Aanya’s place early in the morning and this was our first meeting after the two-year-long misunderstanding. AWKWARD! The fact that we happily decided to spend the next eight hours sharing a car with this two-year misunderstanding between us speaks volumes about our friendship. Or flakiness. Whatever:p
Anyway, what they say about true friends being able to go for months and years without talking, but everything seeming just the same when they get back in touch is so true. I experienced it first-hand with Aanya. And all the good times we’ve had over the years came flooding back and I felt oh-so-awesome. The times we ‘posed’ on the Lady Marmalade chair(read fancy chair) in the loo of a five-star hotel, the times some drunken slob slobbered all over her at a nightclub while I watched in disdain, the time some random chick hit on me thinking I was a lesbian(erm let’s forget that, shall we?)..in short every crazy, fun-filled, ‘happening’ memory of mine had her in it.

We made our way in her BMW with her speeding at 140 km/hour. I inhaled sharply and if my body had permitted it, I would have held my breath right through the trip, in anticipation of the car flying off the ground and turning into a magic carpet ride – something that seemed more and more probable as we sped through.

What lay ahead was a long, winding road leading to a destination that would change our lives forever in ways we knew not how. EXCITING!

We chatted about this, that, and the other. It’s amazing how time flies when you are having fun. I tried listening to music on her iPad, a feat her 3-year old son had mastered and he could probably run a tutorial for me. We listened to all our favorite songs. I checked out her playlist. A lot had changed in two years, perhaps, but it was heartening to note we still listened to the same songs.
When we finally reached Bangalore, I was given the dubious distinction of calling the service apartment manager. Luckily, everything went well. No one had taken away our rooms. No last-minute unpleasant surprises. If anything, the manager could have given us clearer directions to the apartment, coz we wove in and out of lanes and by-lanes for ages, until I began to think my feet would never hit terra firma again.

The other two girls were on their way. We reached the apartment and as if to make up for all the yelling on the phone, Aanya left the doorman a generous tip.
We showered, changed, and lounged about after choosing our rooms. Rekha and Aditi soon reached and it was REUNION time!
We decided to go to Sky Bar, an open-air, rooftop bar on the 16th floor of UB city. We LOVED the place. Ordered lots of chocolate martinis and started swapping stories.

Aditi, who lived in Tanzania, had just been through a harrowing experience where some locals had burst into her house in the dead of night and demanded all the cash and valuables from her house...the robbers had brandished guns! They had threatened to kill Aditi and her family if they didn’t comply. Luckily, only money was robbed, but the three lives – that of her husband, child and herself – were spared.

Immediately, Rekha chimed in with a story of how she got mugged in Chicago on her way to work and the robber had demanded her iPhone, which she didn’t part with. But all’s well that ended well— he got scared (with all the commotion she was causing) and ran away. Her life...and iPhone...intact!

I exchanged a dazed look with Aanya. What’s with all this crime spree everywhere? To lighten the mood, someone said we all should go on a holiday. We spoke about the movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, which had released the previous year in which a bunch of friends met up in Spain. And this is how we hatched the plan – the seven of us – (including the three other girls who didn’t make it to Bangalore, but were part of the group) would all go to Spain next year!
And what’s more? We made it work. Yes, sirree! All seven of us landed up in Barcelona and Ibiza next August, but hey! That’s the stuff of another story.