I was really excited when I got a call from Biju V (the same paattukaaran) at 7.30 PM on 9-May-08. The excitement was that we (a group of 9 CEC-ians) are going to meet again after a long time. We were dreaming for this for the last 2 months. It was in March while I was browsing the address book of my Mobile, I got stuck with a name – Swaroop. I don’t know where he is now and what he is doing. I called him and fortunately the number was the same. As there are lot of new providers and lot of new offers, and a person like Swaroop who is greatly known to his money saving/spending attitude, I thought he might switch to a more financially beneficial one (however I don’t know the one which he have now is of this category). But it was a real surprise to me that he picked the phone and said he is in Madras and going great. We talked for sometime and he bought the idea of a get-together. I said it would be difficult to arrange something like Green Valley (hope those who were part of those 2 get-together didn’t forget this name) as most of the people are more family oriented and lost interest in such a get-together and I will try to talk to some of other guys in blore as well. I called Shiraz, Mona, Biju etc and all of them are really very much interested for having it. So I started a thread to a selected group who is in Bangalore and in the States about the get-together and we planned it to happen during the Easter weekend. Everybody was ready for it and the date was okay till we got a mail from Ranjith Paul to postpone it to the second Saturday of May, as he is coming in the last week of April. As all of us know about Ranjith – the great story maker, we thought it would be good for us also, if we get the company of Ranjith. Lot of exciting things will happen and lot of stories (happened or framed) will be shared and will add more value to the get-together and so on and we decided May 10th as the date. From that mail onwards, we put together more than 60 mails regarding this and all were looking forward for May 10. The confirmed list of members are Annan (Vinodu George), Mona, Swaroop, Paramu (Pramod), Kuzhi (Vivek), Shiraz, Ranjith Paul, Biju V and me. B'lore-ians took a leave on Friday (9-May-08) and started there from early morning in Mona's brand new Scorpio at 5.00 AM.This is just an introduction of how it happened !!!
I was traveling to Changanachery with my wife and kids from Muthukulam (I hope you know that it is my home town) when I got the phone call. Biju said they reached Cherthalai and will reach Kumarakom in one hour. I was at Thiruvalla at that time and I know it will take more than that for me to reach Kumarakom. I told Geethu (my wife) that it is a shame that if I am late, as these guys are driving from Bangalore and if they reach Kumarakom before me, and being a resident of Kerala and staying near to Kumarakom than any of them I will definitely get good treatment from them. Any way I switched the gear, drive fast to reach Changanachery soon. My Son was asking me to drive slow as the driving was rash and he is not used to it. I said, am in a hurry as I have to go Kumarakom soon as my friends are waiting there and he asked what is that?, is that your office? I said it is not my office, it is a place like Veli (he knows that) and I told him that I also have friends like him. He has some friends in his play school like Joel, Aman etc. and I quote that example and he is some what convinced.
I reached my wife house at Changanachery by 8.15 PM. After unloading the luggage (not my wife and kids) I took a quick shower, had food and started to Kumarakom. I called Swaroop on the way and he said he will wait at Kottayam and we can go together. After that I got a call from Ranjith saying that they have reached Kumarakom and in another 20 minutes I reached Kottayam. As per the direction from Swaroop I waited in front of Josco Jewelers ( I don’t know whether they have any slogan like ‘Janakodikalude aswastha sthaapanam’) . After some time I heard a hello behind me as I was looking in a different direction and it was from Swaroop. I saw a Kottayam achayan who dressed in Naadan style. We last met for Mona’s wedding 4 years back and he has not changed much. We went to his wife house to get rid of his car and started from there to Kumarakom together in my car. On the way we got a call from Kumarakom for buying Cigarettes. We bought them (5 Packets of Gold Flake kings and 3 packets of Wills - Made for each other, the petti kada owner though that we are going to start another one near to his shop ) and rushed to Kumarakom and reached there in another 20 minutes. We reached there at 10.15 and we saw Shiraz in the balcony ready to receive us. I have been in touch with Shriaz once in a month as I stayed in his house at Trivandrum for almost 7 years. So I didn’t notice much change in him. But Swaroop noticed lot of white hairs in his head. He said he is getting older and that sounds similar to our old Shiraz - the oblix-Xerox-Shirax.
While entering the corridor we heard loud laughs from Mona and Paramu (might be due to some pulu from Ranjith) and as we entered the room we saw Kuzhi , Ranjith and Biju also. We greeted each other, had beer and shared lot of stories with lot of erivs and pulis. All of us were in a great mood as it is a long time since we had such a wonderful time together. Ranjith looked like he is 8 months pregnant with a big round belly. When we talked abt that he said he is not interested in hearing any comments on that as he had lot from his relatives. However he said an interesting thing about his belly – “Muthugou (….yeah the same as in Thenmaavin Kombathu) and connection”. However we stopped that and shared the old stories in our college. There were lot of things we discussed mostly about the interesting things happened during our college days. The arts festival where Arun Varghese showed his talent, about Annan who found Sumesh and Mary for the first time together @ a restaurant in kottayam, about Reema, about Safeer and his intuition to become the college chairman and how we tackled it, about Sai and his problems and lot more. In between Shriaz turned up with chappathi and duck roast/chicken roast and said that it is 12.00 AM and we need to sleep now. So every one had food and went to bed. There were only 2 rooms for the first day as Mona didn’t envisage that 8 of us will turn up on 9th night itself. So we arranged extra bed for accommodating that. Ranjith said that we will give him a single room as his snoring is very famous and he never know that lot of other big snorers were also in that room. Somehow all of us managed to get a good sleep that night.
(Thudarum)
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