Road Trips

I am hopeful that I will make some fun road trips in future, but during the last three months I have made some every day - from AIIMS to Main Sector Road, Gurgaon via Lado Sarai, Andheria More, MG Road and Sikandarpur, and then back to AIIMS. During these trips I got to know three women who are all completely different from me and from each other, and it is surprising how we all got along so well.

Today's was my last such trip. They had become an essential part of my weekdays. Monday mornings were given a perfect kickstart in the car, and the weekends were brought in on even better notes every Friday evening.

Two Mallus and two Punjus with an opinion about every possible thing under the sun started a routine in the first week of June. Each one was unsure how it would be to be with the same people for 8-10 hours inside the office and then travel together for 3 hours too. I personally was shit scared of the thought. I seriously thought that these women will drive me crazy. But a few days down the line we realised that however bad someone's mood at the time of climbing into the car be, it won't last more than 10 minutes thereafter. And to think that we've become so close in such a short span of time is quite unbelievable.

A little something about my carpool buddies...

Molly: Her world is her now almost two-year-old daughter, Jeslyn. So we all know what Bebo had for dinner last night, why she puked on Molly, why she likes her dad more and so on.

Molly also seems to have the bestest husband in the world. The man sounds perfect, and him being a psychologist is apparently a real advantage for them. Hmmm...any psycho students here? :D

She also has a great mother-in-law who, apart from being nice to her in general, keeps sending her presents from US. It's a perfect world, it seems. Don't you think?

But oh, Molly tortures her car's engine by absolutely never using the first gear. She also tortures the people in the backseat by breaking hard enough for us to keep ramming into the front seats every now and then. Aaaand she does not have a proper license! So you see what a risk-taker I have become in this little time.

Nevertheless, she is a real sweetheart. She was in a different department from the rest of us and so our workload was always different too. But she always used to sit and wait for us in the evenings if we had work. "Molly, do minute", "Molly, bas ye mail bhej doon", etc seemed like never-ending moments but she never complained.

I am sure she will do well in her new company too.

Avan: She is the bitch I was weary of in my initial days at work. And today I told her that I absolutely hated her from the beginning. But today she is also probably the one I seem to connect with the most. Her mannerisms are the most unique, her jokes are as sad as sad can get, she is as defective and retarded as me, and I don't know when she became Avan from Avantika for me. She shares her birthday with Bhaiya too.

She is our entertainment queen. Out of nowhere you will get a weird email from her and the next thing you know, some 4-5 systems are beeping non-stop as there is absolute crap being discussed in the loop. Whether it is a Sub that she is craving for, or she is upset that nobody asked her before going for lunch, we always need to be prepared to see some real drama.

Also, she is my mom's cooking's biggest fan. If, by any chance, I take rice to work and she does not get it, it means I will get looks for the rest of the day. So to save myself, I realised very early that it is best to carry extra food. That is why I am still alive to write all this today.

She is also the "future CEO" of some bigshot company. The woman is made for marketing and she surely will do it sometime soon.

I hope this laughter medicine of mine goes a long way and keeps in touch in times to come.

Lynn: She and I have nothing in common, except for a project about which we like to crib together. And we still manage to never run out of things to talk about. She is after my life because I roll my eyes too much, because I bought the same bag that we gifted her on her birthday, because I team up with Avantika to take her case, and because she apparently loves doing it even if she does not have a reason.

This headstrong Leo never admits her faults, and in the last three months we have heard her say, "Dude, we're new...it's all cool. How would we know that this needs to be done?" several times. And this is irrespective of everything, even if we know that it needs to be done. :D

Molly's rearview mirrors serve more as looking glasses for Lynn than they do what they are actually meant for. Tell Lynn that there's a hair on her shirt, or that she has put on weight, and the next thing you know...she is in the washroom!

She has seen every music video that has ever come out, and she has seen every soap/programme ever aired on Star World or Zee Cafe. She knows all the characters inside out.

She sits in the frontseat of the car, is a bad RJ (coz she plays all the songs that I don't like), and gets sadisitic pleasures every time Molly breaks and I & Avantika jerk forward.

"Lynn Bouselly from Research Data Delhi (a folder on our network)" was a cheap attempt at humour by Avan, and now everytime I think of Lynn's last name, this is what comes to my head.

She will kill me if and when she reads this!

But she is extremely sweet and helpful. I have bugged her a lot with silly doubts and she has always explained things patiently. Goes without saying, she is quite efficient at work. And our group is not complete without her.

This has been a rather long post. But Jun-Aug '07 were memorable days because of all these people. I don't want to forget this time.