post-lunch session of "madness" by EZRA R BATHINI!!

Madness at Mysore 2

'...I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it...' -- Jack of Titanic!

Jack had nothing to do with 'Post lunch : Madness at Mysore' but then, I had previously decided I'd use his quote whenever I write something! Now me writing 'here' is something like Cyrus Sahukar playing Ishant Awasthi!! (As for those of you who dont watch Mtv, he actually did and the show was rightly called 'Bechaare Zameen Par'!). But poor Manasa needed a proof!..
Read On...

We started for the Mysore Palace after lunching at an infamous restaurant, which we later understood was famous for 'serving' best vegitarian food!! The Palace was very picturesque with its beautiful domes and equally beautiful visitors!
A huge elephant's head with heavy tusks hanging from the wall welcomed us into the palace (hardly a warm welcome!) but the palace was all grand with its delicate wood carvings, graceful chandeliers, decorative stained glass ceilings, ornmentals,
paintings, portraits...
Halfway into the palace, Ghouse Started wondering (and reasoning) if kings who lived there played Cricket (?!)... and Deepthi Started counting no. of mirrors in the palace(poor thing!). Santosh, more interested in the monetary value of the things
around!..Manasa reading evrything she could find below those Pictures....Neha wanting to 'click' everything... Chaitu
topping her from doing so... (Thank God, they dint allow cams inside...I could imagine Ghouse and me cursing for hours!). Anil slowly slipped into Jodha-Akbar mood (understandably!). Reena..No, she was just smiling at everything!!

We then moved to the Palace's family museum with more pictures of the Royal kin, history of Mysore Dasara,collections of costumes and jewellery. Ghouse by now established that the kings played (or liked playing) cricket.[info : The present scion of the Mysore royal family His Highness Some Raja Wodeyar is actually the president of KSCA and was watching the rain soaked 4th onedayer in Bangalore while we were happily touring his home!!]. The museum also had some fine examples of family hunting talents and ofcourse the Royal Armory.


Outside the museum, we were greeted again by elephants obviously giving rides to people. Time now for a 'Haathi n Chiti' oke...nevermind!...read on... Its natural that people get excited about animals such as Elephants... but funny when it came
from Manasa..Now she wanted to 'touch' the Elephant (Ele, in short) there...despite Ghouse's warning(Now, this warning's actually a shout 'No, Manasa!'.... people around stared at us!)... Ok now the plan was simple, you give give the Ele a coin (It uses its trunk to take), it passes the coin to its master and then gently places its trunk on your head..(as if blessing you!). We raked our pockets for a coin and found one.. Manasa was supposed to give the coin but mind you she was too brave for this..So Santosh did the honours... the Ele passed on the coin and lowerd its trunk to 'bless' Santosh... Now its our brave Manasa's turn, the Ele lowerd its trunk but couldnt find the head...the mighty beast tried again... lowered and lowerd its trunk... to the poor ele's trouble our M was duckin low... Now, imagine Glen McGrath trying to pat on Sachin Tendulkar's head (who was ducking)!.. the Ele somehow managed to touch Manasa's head.

We joined the others and it took us some time to really get out of the palace (Reason?.. the Cams are out again!). Ghouse and
decided to sanctify the walls of the Grand Palace before we started for our next stop.... the Chamundi Hill(s).
The said hill was famous for being a sort of vantage point...from where you can look at entire Mysore City... the sight would be beautiful, I was told, especially with all the lights On!... Now as we set out, Reena was guiding me...,"on your left"...

"On your right,now"... "No, there!". and finaly we saw it.. the illuminated mysore with Palace at its centre... wonderful sight again but then it dint last long... thanks to our driver (He's not driving the tempo...but a Chevrolet at some
Motorally!!).. On top of the hill was a temple... and also darkness (pun intended!).. The darkness did not dampen the spirits.. Chaitu's still taking pictures!!... [Quick question, what if this Chaitu was asked to play football?... He'd be kicking?.. No he'd be Clicking!!(haha... bad joke?!... Ok, One for the Over!)]...

Well we soon stared our journey back home.. Obviously tired, everyone fell asleep except for me, Anil and ofcourse Deepthi... She was showing us her infy pics (five times each!!...) For a momemt i wanted to accidently drop that camera!! [D-joke coming up, start laughing, Anil: Are Yu Fine? Deepthi: entha kattali (fine)??..
Bored, Anil decided to wake everyone up... music started and with it Anil and his moves!!.. what followed next was, as Manasa would write, 'lots of dancing and singing', even Neha and Manasa (Not very surprisingly!..hehe).... Everyone's high and happy when suddenly mummy Neha realised that something was 'wrong'... and ordered everyone to sit quitely!!...[Quick question again : What if Neha was asked to play football...No, She'd be Kicking really!!]

Back in the tempo, everyone obliged not knowing what was happening!!... Now the wisest of the group, me and Anil knew what was the 'wrong'!... It was Gatorade... yes, harmless Orange drink, mixed with a little of 'nothing' (Shaken, Not Stirred!..
007 sytle!)... The 'madness' was instilled by the day!...not by the 'not-so-vile' drink!... but then Anil's wild moves and my cricket-commentary-influenced speech on 'Avnanna... Kaadanna...' exaggerated the idea!! Everyone had only one thing on mind for the rest of the road.. food!!... After a make-shift dinner(its already late for food in Bangalore... we could only manage to get some cakes!!) and Anil taking the respo of dropping people!!... Me and Ghouse ran to our place just in time to see
unusually healthy looking Munaf Patel save the rain marred 4th onedayer!...

Sanity Returned!

"EZ"