Back to Pune. This time, at Giggles.

 At Mysore they pampered us. They gave us the best of everything. And then they parcelled us off to Pune in a 14 hour long bus journey.

The Pune ECC was welcoming enough. It was the actual hotel hotel. Here, all of us, boys and girls were put up in that one same building. Of course the amenities were awesome too. But we were busy with a different task now. No, not the job.

House hunting. We were shown around houses of all kinds in the little area of Pimple Saudagar. I fell in love with Aakashganga the minute I saw it. The others wanted to make sure that we had chosen the right option so they went around to a lot of other places. But finally we ended up at Aakashganga.

By the way, ‘others’ include Jumi, Elena and Gayathri. Jumi, AKA Sleeping beauty is kinda like me in many things. She would sing out, do the valips, thinks similar, talks the same words I do exactly at the same time as I do. She’s nice and jolly.

Elena dear is the sceptic. The perfectionist. My companion when it comes to leaving late from work. Ever caring, ever helping.

Gaya is our very own Appukkuttan. That look-that untimely giggle-that’s all that takes to set us all off. By the way, our house, no, home is named ‘Giggles’ coz this is where we are learning to live the fun way.

A few months back, I never knew anything about cooking, the value of money, adjusting, responsibility and the like. Living at our own apartment has taught me a lot of things. For starters, one needn’t wash rice grains for half an hour. Also, if the electricity bills are not paid, the power gets cut. And that it’s okay to sleep on the floor for a few months before you’ve saved enough to buy a cot.

There are a lot more things I need to learn though. I’m still a shellfish. May in due course of time, I can be better and make our Giggles even more warm?

‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward,’ One of those ‘though for the day’ lines we used to read out at the morning assemblies. Things are starting to make sense. Things do happen for a reason. Everything happens for a reason. I’m glad they do.