Thundershowers et al

Well, we had quite an experience last Sunday evening. K and I had almost covered 4/5th of our walk route when we suddenly recalled that we were out of green chilli sauce, muri, chanachur, paneer and garlic paste ; we decided to take the road past Desi Bazaar so that we could purchase the necessary items on our way home (how easily we manage to use the word 'home' now to describe a rented apartment in a totally different country, though we're just here for a year or so now never fails to amaze me). Well, we'd just finished buying the things and were preparing to leave the store when we opened the door with dismay to find that the anticipated weekend thundershowers had actually (high time, since there had only been the intimidating inky black/slate grey cloudy skies and dense suffocation for the past two nights) begun and we had no umbrellas, raincoats or the car with us to bail us out. Unpleasant state of affairs, of course, particularly when you have two reasonably heavy polythene carry bags in both hands, including one containing incense).


Well.


After considerable chaotic thoughts and discussion, we decided to call up Abhishek Shinde, our neighbour and friend at Brookside, to come with his car and help us go home, particularly since it being a Sunday, the store in which we seemed to be stranded would itself shortly be closing (around 8 pm) and it was already a quarter past 7. K's call led to the latter's voicemail however. It was my turn. Despite K being awkward about all this asking for aid business, I decided to call up Mansi, Abhishek's wife and explain our situation. I'm glad I overlooked K's hesitation and called. Mansi was very prompt. She explained that Abhishek had been attending a call and had therefore not been able to answer K's call. But she'd pass on the message and see to it that we were 'rescued' pronto. Relieved, we strolled around the shop, trying to look sincerely interested in all it had to offer (not very convincing though, considering we'd been there many times and had by now almost memorised the contents of its whitewashed shelves) .

Luckily, Abhishek Bhaiyya turned up very soon, in dripping jacket with equally dripping umbrella (obviously the latter was rendered practically useless by the merciless onslaught of the thundershowers). We went to the car in pairs, K coming back to retrieve me, both at the shop and at our complex front parking area. He was keen on going home but the Shindes insisted that we stayed on for tea and an adda session and so we surrendered. K was baffled by my not being concerned so much about catching a cold in the pouring rain without mufflers etc to ward off any potential infection as not having my camera on me at that point in order to capture the beautifully vivid surreal looking clouds in the overcast sky. He thinks I'm becoming batty, what with all this 'I just have to get a photo now' phases of mine taking place too frequently nowadays for comfort. LOL.

Well, it was nice though, the long chat session. The guys had beer (I relented for a change) and we had tea. We started with thunder, hopped on to the smoke from Apt #1 in our complex early that morning and then went on to horror films and somehow finally ended up with Varun Gandhi's histrionic skills. The last would have left a bitter taste in the mouth, had we not ended with K's jeera rice and chicken keema that night. With walnut maple icecream for dessert. Yummy !