A Night To Remember – Part – 2 continues like this dear readers… Aha, so where were we? Yes, we had got the high command’s approval that we could indeed make it to a camping trip to the Jungle Lodges and Resorts, Bheemeshwari. The kids were in fact much more excited than me.
My pretty wife looked prettier when she was in control. Like obedient labourers, my son, daughter and I took instructions and started packing. By nature, my daughter is much more focused than my son. For instance, if she is instructed to get me to put on a diaper for her, she would ensure she catches me by my collar and pulls me toward the cupboard, gets the diaper and helps her wear it. Until then, in her baby voice, she would scream ‘dapper, dapper!’
My son, on the other hand, is a happy go lucky fell who does not worry about anything. He would listen to instructions, make progress in the direction of the task but lose focus as soon as he would get an object of interest. My wife called out to me and asked me to get her the pink ‘Tupperware’ boxes from the kitchen cupboard. I walked up confidently, opened the wrong cupboard, and started to scan it with absolute concentration. After observing me for a minute, my wife coolly went to the right cupboard, pulled out the boxes and placed them on the kitchenette with a loud thump. The sound did not distract me. I was focused on ensuring I got the boxes out of this cupboard only. Only a light tap on my back cut through my concentration and I turned back. My gaze met a confident look on my wife’s face classifying me yet again as a ‘duh’. I was very sure that this point in my wife’s favour would definitely be brought up later at a more appropriate time. I walked away dejected.
The rest of the twenty minutes saw me goofing up at least another four times and my son losing focus three times ending up in getting one kick from me on his behind. In retaliation, he laughed the baby laugh. For a minute, I felt he was laughing at my goof ups. My wife and daughter came out as clear perfectionists.
I looked at my Tissot. We were five minutes from our deadline. Once again, I did my signature move. I screamed out in the same ascending tone, ‘Are you ready to get out and get some speed?’ The last two words of my question were drowned by tiny little voices screaming back a positive response.
Sure enough, my wife managed to stick to the deadline that I had set. The fourth minute saw us locking up the house and scurrying down to the swanky blue Baleno that looked pleased as usual to ferry us. As my Tissot clocked the fifth minute, I gently turned the ignition key and the engine came to life as smooth as peanut butter.
Pretty soon, as per Bangalore standards, we had hit maximum speed on the NICE road and were zooming past several other cars amidst loud karaoking to Ronan Keating and Lionel Richie’s numbers.
When we were about forty minutes from our destination, I was forced to take a detour at a junction and for a moment I felt I missed a road due to a construction work that was underway. After about five minutes of driving, we noticed something unusual. A group of people were signalling out to us to stop the car. It was already dark and we did not intend to stop for any reason. As I zoomed past them, I could see that they were clearly angry at us for not stopping. One big burly man actually came up close to my window and angrily signalled out to pull to the side of the road. I had not researched to check if the road had any crime reported. But sometimes, it might really just be someone’s first time trying crime and I might be the first person to report crime on this stretch of tar on a website.
I looked back in the rear view mirror and let out a sigh. I looked back at my wife. She looked reassuringly calm. She bent forward and whispered into my ears, ‘I know you will not let any harm come our way.’
As we exchanged romantic looks, I noticed the road ahead leading into a flyover. My instinct was that we should be at our destination in about another thirty minutes. I got back to giving my wife some loving looks.
However, my instinct did not support me in predicting a long slimy danger ahead.
(To be continued….)
-Loyson Paes
Other suggested Reads: A Night to Remember!
Life as we didn’t know it! – Part 1
Life as we didn’t know it – Part 2
Life as we didn’t know it – Part 3
