Pak Conversations- IX

This one's gonna be short, seeing that I'm a little cheesed off with the world right now, and I don't see the point of inflicting whoever reads this page with my garbage. So if it sounds a little curt to you, that's probably because it is.

It was the 31st of December, and we were headed towards Murree. Its a hill station about an hour's drive away from Islamabad. It was the day before Id as well, and the streets were lined with animals being bought and sold for the next day's feast. That made me a little bit uncomfortable...its not really easy being a non-vegetarian with a conscience, especially when you have wee little lambs staring into your eyes. The drive was redeemed by the fact that we played a very strange game of antakshari, where everybody was reassuringly out of tune, and because I saw snow for the first time in my life, lined all along the winding road.

We reached the main road and managed to get lost twice, before finally figuring out how to get to the Indian High Commission's guesthouse. I was rather surprised to see that it was right opposite President Mush's summer retreat. That one is pretty as a picture, though. Anyway, we spent some twenty minutes warming up with tea and brownies. After that, there was snow, and there was us. Consequently, there was frolicking, singing, taking pictures and stomping around on the pristine white snow.

After that entire Enid Blyton-ish episode, we went to Mall Road for sightseeing and lunch. There was a lot of awesome junk jewellery, to my surprise. There was also a shop called the Magic Box (I think that's what it was called) which had the most confounding stuff for tricksters, like fake phlegm for fake sneezes. Ew. Also kinda cool. I spent all my money at an emporium, and then ate an entire chicken for lunch. Then, I went along with poor T on a reconaissance trip to all the PCOs, trying to call her grandmother, who was originally from Murree and is now in Dehradun. It was not meant to be, as we realised after visiting twenty of the draned things.

On the drive back, our chaffeur decided that he wanted to have a little bit of fun. We were taking pictures of the distant mountains, when he very sagely commented that our spooks (who'd been following us all day) would've noticed our cameras flashing, and would confiscate all our film rolls before we left the country. He also tried to convince us that our van was bugged and all our conversations had been taped. He unwittingly gave it all away when, on being asked as to who had bugged the van, he confusedly blurted out that it was the Indian High Commission that was behind it. Clearly he wasn't as far ahead of the game as he had imagined. On the subject of the spooks, it was hilarious how hard they tried to be inconspicuous and nonchalant, which is a little difficult to do when you're tailing cars that have gotten lost, and therefore have to stop and reverse a zillion times. Again, I happened to look straight at one of them when our car had stopped parallel to theirs. He demonstrated the quick thinking and strategizing that characterizes the intelligence services, and deftly managed to cover his face with his hands, a la Manoj Kumar. Bond would've been proud.

Once we got back, the New Year had to be dealt with. It was with a combination of red wine, Bailey's Irish Cream (and the zillion little deaths I died with every sip), olives, the Beatles and Orkut (unikely and pathetic, I know) that we escorted ourselves into 2007. Then we tamely went to sleep. Did I mention that we're not the most exciting people in the world? Or did you manage to guess it, you astute, perceptive people?

P.S.: - "Urmila, tum usse nahi shaadi karogi jisse tum prem karti ho, tum usse shaadi karogi jisse main prem karta hoon, yaani ki Ram Prasad se."

Vintage Utpal Dutt, in Golmaal (1979), one of my alltime favourite movies. Brilliant guy, such spark, such diction. And a movie about people who were not larger than life. I wonder where those have disappeared.