Life is full of SuRpRiSeS

Oct 1, 2008. On board our flight from Philadelphia to Durham. Gaurav was engrossed reading some book, I don’t know which. After all this is one of those few things that I hate the most. I constantly stared into his eyes to catch his attention and not to mention to bug him. But OMG, he was enjoying it like a boy reading playboy. He is deep into his thoughts or is at least good at showing that off. This is one of the MANY things that set me apart from him. He is an avid reader and I am an avid bugger for such readers. I sank back into my seat and started rolling through the pages of American Airlines magazine. Oh!! I just recalled that I am an avid shopper too. Lets scroll through those jewelry pages, I said to myself. Ehhh, poor stuff and I started staring Gaurav in his eyes again. Fortunately, he looked back this time and in a worried tone he suggested that I should read good books. Yawn yawn, I’ll utilize my time in sleeping rather than killing it in knowing about someone whom I don’t even know. Immediately he took out two books from his laptop bag and asked me to pick one. “For a seven day trip, he is carrying three books, isn’t that too much” I questioned to myself. Confident that either of the two choices given to me would be equally bad, I picked one. 240 pages, that would take years for me to finish. I giggled and started reading. Hold on, did I mention that I didn’t even care about the name and the author of the book. The flight attendants have a good timing. Just in the nick of time, they started serving drinks. It’s the decision time. Coke Diet/ Coke zero/ Ginger ale/ tomato juice/orange juice. I had been on high diet for last three days now, so I chose to stick to orange juice. Taking small sips from my plastic glass, I started enjoying my book. Oops, I mean, I started pretending enjoying my book. Sixty minutes later, I heard a sound in the back ground. It was Gaurav. “Get up baby, the plane has landed”. I closed my book that lied on my chest and with all the due respect, handed it back to its owner.

Oct 3, 2008. On board our flight from Durham to Seattle. The flight attendant announced that it would take us 6 hours to reach Seattle. Before keeping his laptop bag on the shelf, Gaurav took out his book. I tried to escape his eye. Six hours and I’ll sleep in peace, I thought. Hey, but why did he took out two books? I recalled the green cover of the book I held in my hands 2 days back. Ouch, and I started pretending again. “A long way gone” it said on the title page. Unable to sleep due to 2.5 hours time lag, I started anxiously waiting for the drinks. “They must be running short of the drinks” I thought as I couldn’t find another reason for this delay. Unable to do anything else, I started searching if the book has some pictures. Books are so much easy to decipher with animations, I thought. But then why would Gaurav possess such a book. Finally, I decided to read the prologue of the book. After two minutes of concentration, I finally made out it was a story of a child soldier. Caught by the sensitivity of the issue, I decided to go on until I doze off in my dreams. “Would you like to have something to drink madam” asked me the flight attendant. I checked my watch. It was already 45 minutes since we were air-borne and I was still awake. This time it wasn’t difficult for me to decide that I wanted to have a diet coke. After next 15 mins, Gaurav tapped me and asked if I don’t want to have my coke. Man, what has happened to me. I was so taken off my the true story of this young child soldier called Ishmael Beah that I kept going on until Gaurav told me that he has finished his other two books and wanted to read this one now. He encouraged me to go to sleep this time. Errrrr, but I wanted to read. We tossed a coin to decide who gets the book. God was punishing me for not reading for so long. Gaurav won.

It had been three days already since he started this book and I was getting anxious about what was taking him so long to finish it. He reads 200 pages in 20 mins, so is he tricking me, I thought. At the end of 5^th day, finally I got my book.

It must be a no-brainer to guess the topic of my next blog. So keep coming back friends, kyonki picture abhi baaki hai mere dost J