The Vacation Begins

My boss told his entire team three days ago that we were supposed to finish off all pending tasks by the 23rd of December, and schedule a day of fun for the 24th. So basically our vacation began a day earlier than was originally intended.

We went out for lunch and a movie today, and I'll write about the movie separately, but there are a couple of anecdotes from lunchtime worth mentioning here.

We were supposed to go to The Great India Place for the whole thing. Bhatti, Abhinav, Bhavna, Aman and I arrived a little later than the rest of the party, and Aman went off to get himself a pair of sunglasses. The other four were supposed to find the rest of the party and decide on the lunch venue. At this point, Alok called me to find out where we were. I told him that we were going upstairs from the parking lot, and I asked him where they were. He told me that everyone was in the food court. Now I absolutely do not like the food court out there. I told Alok that I was not coming to the food court. He told Mohit, our boss, that I had told him that I was not coming to the food court.

Eventually I did go there, because I thought that, since everyone else was there, it would be a reasonable place for all of us to gather, talk, and arrive at a consensus on the lunch venue. Now at this time, these teammates of mine, together with Mohit, were plotting to pull my leg a bit. They decided to veto whatever alternatives I suggested to the food court and make me believe that, since I was the only one who did not want to eat there, my opinion did not matter too much.

So there we were, gathering an opinion poll on the lunch venue, and the only ones who voted against the food court were the four of us who had shown up late. Obviously, if Bhatti and Abhinav had been aware of the plan, they would certainly have joined the rest of the party. Quite likely taken the lead.

Eventually, Anuranjan told me the plan that they had all planned, and we went to a decent restaurant to eat. Gauri was actually taken in by the whole thing for a while, in spite of being a party to the mischievous plan. For a moment he actually thought that we were going to eat at the food court.

I have this habit of picking my favourite dish from all the ones that are left over at the end of the meal, and forgetting for a few minutes that I am not at home. I like to pick up the serving bowl and finish off whatever is left, directly from that bowl, using the serving spoon. I think my friends from school and college are quite familiar with this. Apparently my teammates were not. Bhatti was giving me one of his priceless expressions and found the whole thing interesting enough to capture on camera. He was a little reluctant to show me the picture, for fear that I may delete it. Hey, I am at least that sporting, people. I would not delete such a picture. I've asked him to mail it to me when he transfers it on to his laptop.

For the next eleven days, I am going to forget all about my work, my diet, the gym, setting alarms to wake me up... I am just going to unwind and do the things that I normally either don't find time for or don't allow myself to do. Just a little while back, I had some of my mom's freshly cooked, piping hot gajar ka halwa. There's nothing quite like it. Nothing quite like sleeping to your heart's content. Or staying up as late as you like.

I'm going to start checking off items from my to do list tomorrow. I'll keep everyone posted on those. And there is a movie review pending from today's outing, which I will write tomorrow as well.

Enjoy the holiday season, folks.