It was a lovely Bangalore drizzle and Amma bid me well as i got into the ric. Discussions with the auto driver about the trafiic was a mind numbing thing to do all right, but did i have a choice?? "Thank you Madam, happy journey!", said the auto driver and i smiled thinking of what lay ahead. My eyes were searching for my big fat bro and would it miss? ;) Ah! there he was! Walked towards him and dropped my bag. "Whew! Where are the rest?", I ask and pat comes the reply, "As usual, we have to wait!" First comes our flautist, 'Pan Parag' Shivling whose smell just stifles me! I mutter to myself and wonder how people even manufacture such stuff! Finally Nag aunty and Small make their entry and off we go!

Destination Platform 5, here we come!! We all wonder where our beloved sir has gone and "Bhoo"! I look back and there he is with his everlasting, soothing smile and the gang of 6 entered the Kochuveli Express!

I enter the coach and Oh my God! i see one of the most handsomest faces ever and there goes another name into my list of crushes :) My eyes said it all and Tej was glaring at me!! Please for heaven's sake, not one more!! But depression sets in like a boomerang, cause he's a dad of a cute lil baby, Gladys. Hehe! as long as he was a feast to my eyes, i quite frankly dint care much!

Sir and Pan Parag had different seats so the rest settled down for the long journey ahead! Oh yes! I finally learnt a sentence in Mallu and here goes, "Nyaan trivandrum poi tiruchi varum" and the cute papa (dad of Gladys) smiles at me and i feel oooooooooooooh!!!!

Our guru beloved treated us with his perfect sangathis and all of us sat listening dumbfounded, as always! We all sing in unison many of his compositions and life cant get better :) I sing 'Silent Night' and my Tej sings swaras for that too much to Gladys' mom's amusement!!

Come thaaci time and we settle in for a good night's sleep as we have a long day ahead!

Oh by the way! the purpose of travel - A TV recording for a channel called 'Amrutha' where each of us will be singing Bhajans for a slot of half and hour.

Trivandrum welcomes us next morning with a lot of humidity, men clad in lungis showing off their thighs and mallu-kuttis with their oily hair let loose! Oh yeah! Shivling welcomes me with his Pan Parag stained mouth!! :(

'Sony' (quite frankly, even after the trip i cant figure out who this person is!!) picks us up and off we go into God's own country. The hospitality is warm and the room is just perfect - a honeymoon suit for three ladies :)

Though i knew my recording was first, the fragrance of Appam and Stew took over me and i satisfied my tummy! We headed Co-operative Banking Society for thats where our sets were. A beautiful set i must say, a perfect 'baitak' in white! The director, Reggie, a warm person greets us and sends me off for 'make-up'! Ugh! How i dreaded sitting through the 5min ordeal! The 'make-up uncle' has just finished smoking his ciggie and he was all over my face :( i was finally 'made-up' and was asked to sit on the 'baitak'. Lovely accompanists, my beloved guru on the tabla and his mere presence boosted me enough and I began my first classical music recording. Real good feeling! I suppose my songs came out well, cause thats what the others told me!

I don't quite feel like talking in detail about the recording, guess its for those who watch it to talk about! It was getting late and i decided i needed to buy the chips i had promised Keer, rather he ordered for it!!! Did i have a choice?!! Mr.Santhosh, our co-ordinator was kind enough to arrange a cab and i went away into the city at the mercy of Vishnu, my 'driver'! Nice chap! With my butler Mallu and 'perfect' Tamil i managed to converse and he told me about his background etc etc. He thought i had a lovely name ;) Though i have my reservations about Mallu men, i quite liked the respect they have for women. Neither the driver nor the chipswaala let me carry my bag of chips which weighed about 7 kgs! i ventured back to the sets and Rashu was recording her bit. It all went well, sad to see sir totally zonked! We quickly went through all the formalities and went back to the hotel soon!

Ah, m waiting to talk about this! Our tummies were rumbling and we had decided to let go and eat like pigs. Haha! but we had other things in store. Ordered for French Onion soup and what could one expect? Onions obviously you'd say! No! Egg yolk and something brown in color which i have no clue what it smelt like! We made all the wrong choices that night and the last spoon of 'Banana Flitters' was just not ready to go down my throat!

A good night's sleep we had nevertheless and came yet another Sunday :) The three ladies decided to buy a Mallu saree and got things arranged. Our driver, a guy who loved showing all his 32 teeth and who thought he was Micheal Schumaker in the making showed us the entire city when we had just an hour to catch out train back home. I think we knew the city better from the way he stopped at every corner of every street to find out where 'Karalkada', an age-old handloom store was! We finally did manage to find it and oh! what a place!

Karalkada, which Tej and super cool aunty thought, when translated was kara-hand, kada-shop and called it 'handloom shop' but later got to know that it meant seashore'!! A shop which is 200 years old, had some amazing stuff. We settled for a mustard color Mallu saree. Mention must be made of the plastic 'vetthalai' they gave us. Real neat!

Sir wasangry that we were terribly late! We gulped down whatever possible and got into the car! I ve heard people say fights can be easily picked up in Kerala and i witnessed one. Our driver just honked at two men who were in our way and Boing! one bang on the car and the two men just couldn't wait to get their hands on our poor driver who keeps mum just to save himself and us some embarrassement.

Back in the train now. Hmmm no cute guys :( But we do have loads of fun! I coin the term '6:15'!!!!! An achievement of sorts i must tell you! i explain the meaning to Tej, super cool aunty and of course! Small in spite of Tej's angry glares :) Sorry Tej! Hehe :) actually m not sorry! hahahahaha!

Another lovely session of Sir's music and i sang 'Thendral vandhu' for him which he recorded! I just loved that moment :) We settle for the night and Pan Parag and his funny antics kill me! But what an artist! He really is good at his art so hats off to him for that :) Art must always be appreciated.

We reach namma Bengaluru next morning and back to our everyday chores. Lovely trip! Enjoyed every bit of it! I m sure i ve missed out writing a lot of stuff here but hell! certain things cant be penned, they are to be experienced and cherished for life!