MY FIRST ADVENTURE

"Hello!"

"Hello"

"Hey, listen, would you mind if a little kiddo tags aong with you for SNAP?Like, we've both got the same centre and everything, so i thought may be we could go together...Do you mind?"

"Okay"

"Great! Hey, i'll call you later, okay, like, i'm at the church right now for choir practice and i can't actually hear pretty much anything."

"Fine"

"so i'll call you later, okay?"

"Okay"

"Bye!"

"Bye"

Phase one-over. I had to write SNAP- Symbiosis National Aptitude Test on December 20th 2009 and i've found myself company for the trip- Hrishi. That's short for Hrishikesh Varma. he's actually got a name quite longer than that, but i don't seem to remember it. Anyways, the point is, Hrishi agreed to go with me to Ernakulam to write SNAP. Now all i had to was to convince my parents NOT to come along.

*****

I was never happier about my mother's cake making business. She had to make around 20 cakes that day, so there was no way she could come along! I never thought i'd get to go all by myself, correction, i never thought i'd get to go with a stranger( I had seen Hrishi only twice before this fateful journey) to the next district.

Usually, when you are twenty, going by bus to write a test is not quite a big deal. But when your parents are...well...like mine, and if you're still being treated as a kid, it's quite a big deal. A very BIG deal. Which is why i couldn't stop exclaiming that i couldn't believe that my parents had actually let me go.

" Seriously, i still can't belive that i'm actually going to Ernakulam with you! i'm glad my mom got all those orders for today...You know, she's given me a long list of do's and don'ts in the bus, i shouldn't sit somewhere in the extreme ends, i shouldn't open the windows fully, i'm supposed to give a call the moment we reach Ernakulam..."

" Um...Could you talk less loudly? People around might actually think i'm kidnapping you"

" Oh! Sorry. But still, i still can't believe she let me go! You know what, maybe, she'll come following this bus, and maybe when we reach Ernakulam, she'll be waiting at the bus stop..."

"I've travelled with a lot of other girls, but you are really scaring me."

"Oops! Sorry! But still...I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I'M I THIS BUS WITH YOU AND THAT I'M GOING TO ERNAKULAM!!!"

Well, i really enjoyed the busride. Music, a bag of lays, the wind through the window...and yeah, those sample questions i had downloaded. I'm not exactly a G.K person and reading through all those questions was something i was never going to do if i were left alone with them. This guy next to me was different though. He not only read through the questions, but he seemed to know almost all the answers too! Interesting...So in the bus and at St Albert's we went through all those questions. ( Another character, 'Rajappan' , as he was called, entered the picture at St Alberts. He 'accompanied' me back to TCR)

SNAP seemed pretty Okay. Much better than the mock SNAPs i'd taken. But the irritating thing about the real SNAP was that the OMR had to be filled with ball pens. I knew i had made a mistake in the quant section , but i couldn't do anything about it. Sad. Anyways, after the test i called home and gave my location and the estimated time to return. Now i'm going to have my first adventure. The morning journey was a li'l adventure too, but this time it was going to be more adventurous. Hrishi had to attend his cousin's marriage, so i would be travelling back to Trichur alone!. Well, Mr Rajappan was there in the bus too, but we never talked and we were in two different ends of the bus and didn't care about each other's existance, so it can't be counted. I had my first ever long busride alone. Emphasis on ALONE.

But that's another factor my parents didn't have to know. Like 'Priya', who was to have been accompanying Hrishi and me for the SNAP trip.

Over two hours of standing in a crowded bus wouldn't have ranked high on normal people's fun scale. But i enjoyed it. Yeah, my feet were getting sore and my hands were getting tired clinging on the bars, but still, it was a nice experience - to see how people edged closer and closer to a seat from which someone was about to get up, the way men (young, old, bald alike) tried to move closer to the women( Having a backpack is a good safety measure), the way some people pushed everybody on their way aside to reach the door at their stops. I learnt all the rules for travelling in a K.S.R.T.C bus that day. I learnt that you couldn't keep the window half open, that you get in through the back door and leave through the front. ( I almost missed the bus because i didnt know this)

Having to take your mobile phone from your jeans' pocket is quite hard when you are balancing in a crowded bus. Since our choir had to perform at 7:30 pm and since that was the time i'd actually reach Trichur, every ten minutes, someone from the choir would call. I learnt the names of almost all the places between Ernakulam and Trichur because they kept on asking where i had reached.

I had almost forgotten this Rajappan guy, but i saw him as we got down at Sakthan. after a quick 'bye!', i walked on to get an auto. Wow! Here i was, getting down a bus when it's almost dark, with the street lights on and everything! I've ridden my Flikky(my scooter) at hours like 11 or 12 thanks to the carol competitions, but this was way different..........I had half expected my parents to be there, ready to escort me back home and i repeated to myself the little lie Hrishi and i had made up to explain his absence. But no one was there. I was doing this competely alone.......Such a lovely feeling. My first adventure ended blissfully as i took an auto back home, having a satisfied, happy, 'I can do things alone' smile on my face.