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21 Dec 2009

BPS 1996 Re-Union Part 1

The day arrives, finally, with much fanfare. Days of worrying and planning, arranging things, inviting people and going through the rigmarole of organizing an event finally come to an end. The evening before, when Ash dropped me off at the usual place on the main road, we sat for a few minutes discussing the dos and donts of the wardrobe for today. It was a special day, after all. Having been part of the organizing committee, we wanted to make our best appearance on the big day.

My house was a madhouse this morning. I cleaned out the wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear. Nothing seemed good enough, none of my clothes were perfect. They were either too short or too long or too conservative or too tomboyish or too girly or too bold or so many other things but not right for the day! After spending over an hour going nuts, I text a friend of mine in desperation. He replies saying, "Yes, I shall tell you how to lose weight before noon so that you can wear the perfect dress".

Another few minutes of rummaging through the cupboard, I meet the friend online. "Help me!" I scream. So we start going through my clothes, eliminating one by one. It comes down to "Okay, boring work clothes it is". Shit! This can't be happening to me! I can't wear dull office-wear to my school re-union :-O No! I'm ready to scream now.

"Let's try again", I say and we go one by one. Dresses are out, either too girly or don't fit me. Finally, it's a choice between blue jeans and a brown Tee or black jeans and a white kurta. "Go with black and white", he says. Not the best choice but well... maybe... "It goes with your school uniform", he continues. No!! That does it, I'm not wearing B&W. So, blue jeans and brown Tee it is. My eyes fall on a transparent brown printed top, I like it. If I fit into it, I could wear it with a matching spaghetti and black jeans. Spaghettis flying around, none matching. Back to square one. "Do you have a brown Tee that could go with blue jeans?", he says. No, no, no, I don't want to wear jeans. I want something better.

3 hours since I first started worrying, blue jeans and a light brown blouse is finalized. I rush to shower and when I step out, I'm not happy with the choice of clothes. I try to find a matching top for the brown, printed, transparent top. No luck. Sigh! I try on a couple of other tops, singlets, blouses with my blue jeans, then black jeans. Lohith calls me for pick-up, I don't dare answer! It's 11 and we have to be at the first teacher's place to pick her up, I'm still picking my clothes. I text him that I will meet him in 15 minutes. Then Ash calls and I'm half dressed, still haven't decided on the top. I wore a gown and decided that was it.

Ash says Lohith is going nuts, nobody has arrived at the venue. It's 11.15 and we cannot pick up the teachers without the students at the venue. Shit shit shit! Lohith is on the other line, I hang up with Ash and answer his call. Mohinder cannot come to the venue, Lohith has to stay back. Good God, who will bring the second car to pick up the teachers now? All 3 of us start calling students frantically, trying to get somebody to the venue. At 11.45, Ash calls. Lohith and I have to meet at the C V Raman Nagar junction, she will bring the first teacher there and we proceed to the next pick-up. By then, Ash & I have both had calls from a couple of teachers. Everyone's getting restless! Mad mad rush!

I take a rick to C V Raman Nagar bus stop (bugger loots me, grrr) and walk upto Domino's. Lohith calls to say he's only leaving the venue now, Mohinder has reached. It's noon. I ask him to meet me at Domino's. Ash calls in 5 minutes, she's just passed by Domino's and picks me up. We call Lohith as we proceed to pick up teacher #2. He has still not left the venue. We ask him to come to Thippasandra and call us, we'll tell him where to meet us next. Teacher #2 picked up, I call another teacher who is yet to confirm. She's not coming. I don't know what to say. I thank her and hang up. Ash takes the phone from me and calls back, finds out why the teacher cannot make it (I wish I could talk/socialize like her... damn!). Teacher's mum is ill.

At the third pick-up point, we have 2 teachers but they will not fit into Ash's Santro, so we decide to go to the fourth pick-up point and return to location 3. I call the teacher up and ask her to come down to the gate. Three teachers in tow, we each the next place. Lohith is still not here, the teachers say goodbye to the family and are ready to get into the car. Where is the car? Lohith's still not here! I call him, he's at Poorna Pragna School. I'm ready to faint. "Shishigriha school mate", I nearly yell. "No, poorna pragna", he insists. "Shishugriha, please come to shishugriha", I plead. He sees all of us standing, we were on the next road. Phew! In the meanwhile, the teachers are all excited to see each other. Thank God for that. They seem to have forgotten the delay for a few minutes.

We bundle up all the 5 teachers into Lohith's car. He will take them straight to the venue, where about 7 or 8 students have arrived. Phew! Ash and I have to hunt down one last teacher for Lohith, his favourite teacher. She has been invited but she moved residence in the last couple of weeks and her phone numbers do not work. We do not know how to find her but we have to.

We drove to the teacher's old apartment and I ask the watchman. He says there is no teacher living in the apartment and no one has moved in the last couple of weeks. I report to Ash waiting in the car. She is not ready to take that for an answer. We go back and insist that she lived there and just moved, he must know where she went. After arguing back and forth, he in Tamil and Ash in Kannada, while I'm on phone trying to find out if mum knows, I suddenly hear him say "Madras!". Yes, yes, yes! She just came from Madras, that's the one! I hang up in a hurry and ask him to show us where she moved. He knows exactly where she stays and takes us to her house, just a few buildings away. Bingo!

We ring the bell and she sees us. "Are you ready ma'am, shall we go?", we ask. "Where to?", she says. Silence! Ash and I look at each other. We remind her about the reunion but she says she cannot come because the house owner is fixing up the house for her. Then starts the begging and pleading, explaining how we cannot go without her, Lohith desperately wants to meet her and so do the others, her son could look after the house... Ash talks to the son too.. finally, she agrees. During the loo-o-oo-ng wait for her to get ready, we call up some students. Thirteen at the venue. Rajesh and Sudhakar have gone to get flowers, they call me for the final head-count of the teachers.

Finally, Ash & I leave to the venue. Lohith has given Ash directions and we follow it to the T. Wait! Something went wrong. We went over the hanging bridge and reached ITI. No Bhagini or Fern City in sight. We call him up, he has no clue where we are, neither do we! We ask an auto driver and he sends us right back over & below the bridge. "Vapas jao, bridge ke neeche jao aur flyover chado", he says (Go back over the bridge, take the road under it and go over the flyover). Lohith calls, everyone's here, where are you girls? He can't wait to see his fave 'miss'. I explained to him. "I told you to take the flyover, not the bridge", he screams. We are all laughing. What the fuck is the difference?

Ash and I are tired and starving, both not had breakfast, thanks to wardrobe tension, waxing tension, etc. On the way, Beli calls for directions. Ash & I are laughing so hard, I can't talk. I hang up, clutching my stomach. I can't stop laughing! Beli is at the hanging bridge. LOL. ROTFL. LMFAO. Anyway, all done, we finally reach the place.

The boys look at me and start howling. Martin and Rajesh grab me and want to see my watch. "Hey guys, is it 11 yet?", they say. And there it starts... sigh! Punctuality, 11Am arrival, they can't stop ragging me. It's 1.30PM. Martin is having a party at my expense. "Last year, she didn't turn up, we should be happy that she's finally reached, this year", he says.

Lunch, photographs, chatter, all fun. A quick extempore speech by our ex-headmistress, then Mohinder, some more quick conversations, fun. We give the teachers the 'go-green' calendars that we got them, they are so pleased. They are thrilled that the surprises kept coming. Good good good. Lohith takes all the teachers back home, while Ash and I sit down to have some ice-cream (lots of ice-cream) and start writing little cards for everyone. Sharu and Sri help us put them into envelopes and hand them around. Somewhere in the midst of all this, we have done some calculations and collected money from everyone.

Lohith returns, Ash hastens to explain the accounts to him, the guy wants us to pay for 35 people, we only asked for 30 plates of food, we only ate for 25 people... blah blah
Lohith: Let me just freshen up and come quickly, gimme 2 minutes
Ash: No! Listen to me first. This money, blah blah blah
Lohith: Ok ok, no problem, gimme whatever money you have. I'll pay the rest (he's shaking)
Ash: No! You have to listen to me. This is the account, blah blah blah
Sangeetha: Ash, he needs to pee badly, can't you see him dancing, just let him go
Ash turns red, Lohith runs, we can't stop laughing!

Lohith, Ash and I take a bouquet of flowers and a calendar, meet his uncle and aunt who have helped with the venue and lunch. We all break up and head home, planning to meet at The Beach at around 6.30PM. What a day it has been! So much excitement! I can't wait to go home and get some shut eye. However, that is not to be. Lucky wants to play with me, some quick Facebook updates, an email to my helpful friend from the morning and Ash calls to pick me up again!

Part 2 of the BPS Reunion D-day starts. That's a story for another day...

3 comments:

  1. It's a hoot, really funny!! What a mad day, how did you survive.

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  2. With lots of alcohol in Part 2 ;)

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  3. My comments had to wait for this... In fact, this blog got me to think a lot about a re-union... Unfortunately, that won't be possible. It's a rare thing when student re-unite and get there teachers too... You guys have done a wonderful job.
    I wish I could do that. In fact, we have no clue about a lot of school friends.
    Anyways, this was a nice blog which would remind many of their school days and make them think.

    Thanks for writing this chotu...

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