The morning of the last day dawned upon us, and we were all mourning. It was, after all, the last day. I decided not to use the toilet, apart from brushing. I really didn’t want to spend an extra few unnecessary minutes with those mosquitoes, especially when I could take a bath at home. But then, thinking of that made me reflect upon how soon I was going to be at home. Groan.
Me and Karthick packed real quick, and headed over to the Married Scholars’ hostel. The plan was that Ashi, Bakri, Liggy and I, along with Ritu ma’am, would go to View Point, early in the morning. Unfortunately, we found that they had not been able to get the bathroom, because the people with whom they were sharing it, had gotten up before them and reserved it for a while. So, unfortunately, our plan for going to View Point had to be cancelled.
This was more unfortunate for the girls than us, because we had already been there, done that. They hadn’t even been there once. Anyway, Karthick and I had not had breakfast. Food was directly delivered from Subhansiri to the Married Scholars’ hostel, because the latter did not have a mess and kitchen of its own. So, when breakfast arrived (aloo paranthas), ma’am got us both a plate as well.
Our last meal in Guwahati. Sob…:’(
There were two ways of going to the airport. By the bus, which was at…I think…8:30, or to take a cab. Ma’am didn’t want to take any chances, so we took the cab. While we were waiting for it, I found the ‘g-newsletter’. It’s not a newsletter by Google, but one for IIT Guwahati. A survey had been conducted about ragging, and it was found that around 59% guys enjoyed it. There were several other statistics like how many people endured physical ragging, verbal or no ragging at all. There were also separate polls for girls as well.
Anyway, the cab had come by now. But we realised that we had not got our Techniche bags, that everyone else had got. So, the 4 of us marched off to Hostel Manas. Meanwhile, ma’am caught us up in the taxi, and told us to get in, because there wasn’t too much time left. So, then we drove to Kameng, picked up the other guys, who had been waiting for over an hour, then went to Manas, where Ankur was there to give us our bags. We bid him farewell, and proceeded to leave…
…except that the taxi driver got kinda lost in the campus. A bit of doubling and quadrupling back later, we left. It was very emotional.
We crossed the Bramhaputra one last time and waved goodbye to the policemen! When, we finally reached the airport, we realised we were way too early…typical Ritu ma’am. It was an Indigo flight.We checked in, and roamed around the airport. Then we hit jackpot.
Sort of…
We found these 2 little shops, selling handicrafts and all. You know, the kind you’re likely to find at an airport…not so great quality…overpriced stuff. But we had no other choice, and I badly wanted to take something home. So, I ended up buying a small fan (the one which you hold in your hand and wave), a painting made of bamboo (so technically, I can’t call it a painting), a hairclip for my Mom (also bamboo), and a little mantlepiece display of a couple of typical(?) Assamese people.
By now, our flight was boarding, so we went for security check. There, there was a bit of alarm. Karthick’s', Shikhar’s and my school bag were taken aside for inspection. I’d got mosquitoe repellant, which apparently wasn’t allowed. The mystery was that I was allowed to keep it in the bag, while coming from Delhi to Guwahati! Shikhar had a geometry box with compasses (even he had got it in his schoolbag, from Delhi).
Karthick’s was most amusing. They were asking him to take out his pair of scissors. The funny thing was that he didn’t have any. He hadn’t even got any to Guwahati! So after arguing for five minutes, and proving that we were, after all, students, and couldn’t do much harm, we were allowed to leave. Nevertheless, there is no proof that students are harmless. We are quite capable of wreaking havoc, anywhere and everywhere we go.
The flight was entertaining…more so than the one to Guwahati. But it was also short…or we must’ve felt so because we didn’t want to leave. The four of us played Truth or Dare, but dares were limited, because we didn’t want to irritate anyone else. So we introduced situation and burn house, instead. I’m not going to reveal any more details.
The one thing I can comment about Indigo, is that they’re pretty focussed. Their main priority, is getting the plane into the air on time, and landing as well. So, even though there was a delay at Delhi, we landed 5 minutes before time! Plus, their air sickness bag was funny…it just said ‘Get Well Soon’, in big friendly letters. We had to buy food, but at least there was some, unlike the JetLite flight. No Cafe Coffe Day nonsense on this flight.
When we landed and got off, I was moaning big time. I hate Delhi weather…makes my hair go nuts. All frizzy and curly. Again, for the short distance to the terminal, they insisted on the bus, which was making nothing but wide-radius circles. Collecting baggage took some time, unlike last time. We all bid farewell, and went home. Now began the pain of writing at least some points about the trip, because I needed to write this mammoth series of posts, and I wouldn’t remember a thing after the exams. Oh yeah, and the exams are over. Dunno how I’ll do…
And I’d like to wind up by saying that it was a simply ‘gaargeous’ trip.