Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Part 8: The night...

Some of the guys went to get drinks while the rest of us headed back to the hotel. There were a few foreigners waiting to check in.

“How did those people land up here?”

“It’s not that great a place”

“All connections – hotel will give commission to the auto drivers and cab drivers for every person they bring here”

“And searching on the Net will throw up their website”

“But the place looks awful on the website. We were actually quite worried about how this place would be when we saw the photos on the Net”

We took the keys from the receptionist and enquired about the wildlife reserve.

“There you might not find any animals – sometimes you will sometimes you won’t”

“So is it better to go to Kuruva islands or the wildlife reserve?”

“Kuruva islands” he declared and with that we dropped the plan of the wildlife reserve.

The guys who planned to drink didn’t come for dinner and instead asked us to get food for them. The rest of us went in search of a restaurant along with the driver. As we walked, we discussed about tomorrow’s schedule.Vasanth tried to get details from the driver.

“Kuruva islands would take how long”

“Ah, Kuruva; you will reach at 2”

“Oh two in the afternoon; hey, Jabradamus it will become 2 when we reach there it seems”

It seemed odd because according to the map it didn’t seem like it will take more than two hours.We questioned the driver again and he said it will take 2. After a while we realized the driver actually meant 2 hours drive and not 2 o clock! We had chappatis, parathas and biriyani for dinner. We packed a lot of parcels for the guys who stayed back in the hotel. On our way back we stopped at a grocery shop and had a different Keralite sweet - each piece was specially packed in a paper.

Back in the hotel, I joined Jabradamus and KY in their room. There was some movie called The Fountain which was running on Star Movies.

“That is supposed to be a good movie”

“Oh, what is it about?”

“About some fountain of life and about a tree but I didn’t understand it”

KY shouted looking at the screen, “Hey this guy”

“What this guy?”

“This guy is that guy?”

“Which guy?”

“It’s wolverine”

“X-Men guy you mean”

“Ya – Hugh Jackman”

“Na that’s not him yaar – you are confusing”

For 5 or 10 minutes we debated over the actor but never reached a consensus. We then tried to follow the story line and unfortunately couldn’t do that either.

“It’s good they put English sub titles”

“Ya, otherwise need to keep volume in full blast and listen to each word. We’ve already missed most of the movie”

The scenes kept jumping between the past and future and between some dimensions. There were two Hugh Jackman’s or probably three – at least one of them appeared quite clearly like Wolverine and there was a huge tree. There was one Hugh Jackman floating in the air in a yoga posture. And the entire story was complete confusion for us – just like how any Hollywood movie is when you try to butt in the middle! We took a break and watched the guys who were having a drink; none of them had a heavy drink and all were within control though some interesting scenes arose.

“Eat da – eat the biriyani. Why aren’t you eating?”

“What is there to eat? You have eaten double your share and now you want me to eat the leftovers”

“Eat yaar” he repeated.

There was actually nothing left over!

“He drank it like water and kept on eating whatever was near him” someone complained.

When we returned back to YK’s room, it was the ending of Fountain – the tree of life was growing out of Wolverine’s body; then there was another Wolverine who was planting a sapling in another world. And finally in the credits screen YK exclaimed as if he had won the lottery, “See – I told you. It was all Hugh Jackman!”

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