Of mutton, new year and Erode - 1

There are many things you can do in Erode and many things you can not do in Erode.. you can not slap a lady's bottom in Erode without ending up in jail/getting your hand chopped off/getting a slap on your face/all of the above. You can not visit a beach in Erode...cos well there aren't any beaches in Erode

But what you can do in Erode..if you are really lucky.. is to become friends with this guy named K.Mustafa Jaheed... I was lucky..so were 17 other guys...and we lucky ones got to exploit ( Jaheed would beg to differ ) Jaheed's friendship and his mother's god given ( screw agnosticism for Mutton Briyani ) culinary skills. "Come home for Bakrid", Jaheed had been saying and at the end of three days his home became our home.

But first things come first, and in all cases the beginning comes first. So we begin at the Chennai Central on the night of 30th where the first batch of eight assembled with their bags ( and B. with his pack of cards ) to board the Erode-Yercaud express starting at 22:30...we reached Erode the next day at 06:30 ( only thing express about the train is the name ) Jaheed ( monkey cap on ) was there to welcome us to Erode.."Welcome to Erode" and off we were to his home ( K1 and K2 buses get down at Thiru Nagar Colony )

Landed and by the time we are through with breakfast ( hot and crisp Pooris with aloo and Chicken Kurma ), one realises the importance of Experience on such trips. As i had already experienced the cooking and hospitality of J's home twice before.. I knew its best not to stuff oneself up at a meal cos the next one gets tastier and larger..so i restricted myself to 6 pooris..ya thats right 6 !!!

By the time we got ready for lunch the next batch of three had arrived and J. had got himself a hair cut..and not to forget the sheep which were to play a very important part in the next day's proceedings had also arrived. 3 of them nice and fat. J. was apprehensive that since this was the first time they were purchasing sheep from a farm, the sheep may have been given lots of water to make them look fat...

When all this was happening, we got ourselves introduced to the kids of the house... Each of them with their own unique character.. We had Aashiq, the eldest of the lot, studying in fourth, that should make him ten years old, the character of the group.. made the mistake of giving a phone to him and making him ask H., a girl in my class whether she wore a bikini in Goa, fifteen minutes and a lot of chit-chatting later the phone was returned, after V. ( to whom the phone belonged to ) realised that Aashiq was eating into his phone time. In the fifteen minutes, Aashiq figured out what a bikini was, punched V. on the head, asked H. what a bikini was, and if she wore one in Goa and finally if she played football without wearing anything waist down.

Akila was the adamant one who wanted to play cards and win..adding much to B.'s anxiety, firstly, as the pack belonged to him and secondly, B. has a bad record when competing with the fairer sex. Reshma the friendly one, who seemed to be particularly fond of V. and me. Cos she knew us from before. Rubaida, the mature one and the youngest one, who did everything in moderation..didnt like anyone holding her hand or stroking her head, or pulling her cheeks..then there was Ajmal the talkative one, ask him a question and you would get many answers and none of them may be the answer you were looking for. His brother Nadeem was the silent one who believed in the powers of action. Fatima was technically the eldest, but she was not a part of Erode as she lived in Kerala, she was just hitting adolescence and teenage, so slighlty aloof.

LUNCH was served - Khuska (white pulao), chicken kurma, dalcha (tasted somewhat similar to Sambar)... BRILLIANT !!! ... as i know what all i ate over the course of the three days and i know that my vocabulary is dry when it comes to adjectives.. i shall henceforth use the word BRILLIANT !!!

Playing with kids is a great way to ease digestion of a heavy meal.. I, on the other hand, decided to catch up on my sleep, as the previous night's train journey accounted for only three hours of sleep (about five hours short)