A Drive to the Mango Orchard

It was another lazy weekend in chennai. Sun was blazing hot. Nice home cooked meal. Sun tv. Thiruttu cd on the computer. helped my dad out a bit with his organic store. a trip to the farms outside the city. quality family time. This kinda sums up my trip to chennai.

I just realized I hardly got friends I could hang out with in chennai anymore. Most of the people I used to hang out with have either moved out of chennai or they are really very busy or I am not in touch with them.... so much for having spent some good 21 years of my life in that city. I guess that's payoff for not being here for the last 5 years.

Anyways, something interesting about my weekend was my trip with my dad to his farms outside the city. It was a nice drive there. It was very heartening to see how well the infrastructure has developed over the years. Nice broad roads, not much
traffic, excellent exit ways. The ride was amazing especially in my dad's tata mobile. It is cool vehicle. almost like a truck, occupies one whole road. kinda gives out dont-mess-with-me kinda statement. excellent power steering and pick up. However, the roads leading to the farm was not so great. Actually, there was no roads. There was this pit right in front of our pathway. we put some stones to avoid getting stuck there. Inspite of that, our wheel got stuck in the pit. So me and my dad were stuck in the middle of no where. In the far off, we could see some guys grazing their cows. we called them up for help. Apparently, my dad knew that guy and he was eager to help out. two more guys came up on the way. They offered to give us a hand as well. So all of us tried pushing the vehicle out of the pit. But the vehicle did not move an inch out. In the meanwhile, bunch of kids came there....they were giving all kinds of suggestion to move the vehicle out...one of them offered to go and get an axe ..In the meanwhile, another set of village dudes came that side....so some 6 dudes and 5 kids tried pushing the vehicle again. It worked this time. Kids were all excited. Haaaaaay! They shouted and gave high fies to one another. It was definitely a fun moment. After that, the village dudes went on their way with a smile, and the kids joined us in the same vehicle on our way to the farm. They showed us a friendlier route to reach our mango orchard. I wondered if we would have gotten this kinda unconditional help in the mind-your-business-cities.

Even when I was a kid, I had always enjoyed my trips to the farms. Me and my elder cousin brother have spent many a long hours during summer holidays in these farms - laughing, playing, fighting, eating raw mango, drinking tender coconut, bathing in the pumpset, swimming the river, driving tractor, flying kite, teasing the dogs and cows etc. All the memories are now rushing back to me. But now he is in USA and me hardly visit these farms. Sometimes I think I should plan to settle down somewhere here. But I wonder after having got used to the hustle bustle of the city, if I would be able to live there for long. Whatever it is, this will be one of my favorite places in the world.