Miami-White Plains Non stop Balle Balle !

Friday Night at Gulves place:
Gatti calls us for Tandoor/Beer combo.We jump at the chance,enjoy the Bud and the tandoor and conversation shifts to what time is a "good time" to begin our road trip. I suggest a moderate 8-00 am.Bhosu an insomniac by nature insists a improbable 6-00 (his plan being clubbing till 5-00 so that he can sleep in the car till his driving duties beckon him) and gulve who
really has no responsibilities whatsoever decides to contest me and bhosu and floats 7-00. Gundya whose had another torrid experience at airport roots for 10-00.We bicker/fight/argue and vehemently proclaim our indivisual choices to be the most sensible. As usual We fail to reach a consensus so we decide to settle things the Milton way. We make Pacchaki. "Kamichi
majority". Gulve wins,sets the time for 7-00 which basically means 9-00. Gundya/gulve leave to watch the game at Cesmec, Bhosu goes clubbing and I having slept just 3 hrs the previous nite (courtesy joshis friends) leave for home excited and all set for my first real driving experience.Promises to be fun. I am a little concerned though. Gundya says hes added my name of his car insurance but we dont have any proof apart from an confirmatory email from Geico.
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Sat at 7-00 am :
No ones including yours truly has wokenup. I wake at 7-20 then at 8-00. I call everyone and looks like we mite leave by 9-00. Eventually we leave milton at 11-00 ET.
Sat 1100 to 1600 hrsKhare takes the wheels first, I being the navigator. We hit our beloved I95. Gonna be there for freakin 1100 miles and > 20 hrs. B4 leaving Gulve takes a snap of all of us, the only one of the trip as it turns out. After that his Canon never left the car.In a flash we are out of Miami, reach FLL and are onto Palm Beach, ~ 75 miles from MIA. Rains hit us.We are stuck in a jam for ~ 40 mnts.Bad start, I mutter to myself,and never failing to remind Khare the virtues of sticking to ones lane when he attemps to change and get ahead by 10 feet.Not worth it I remind him. Gradually the traffic block subsides and we settle down. Gundyas driving, the newly acuired MP3s churnin out songs and B&G are bickering on how to adjust sleeping positions. I am doing nothing in particular except trying to spot hot chicks driving in sleek cars or at least just the sleek cars.Some intermittent conversations ensue, We discuss Indias victory, my luckless job search and gundyas even more luckless attempts to patao and date anyone female.He tells me about his "Love Guru" and how hes helping in setting up dates for him. gets me interested for sure. But I am alert at all time in my role as a navigator.Gundya being prone to speeding keeps me on duty throughout.

Heres a demo conversation:
Tats : are limit 65 ahe jara halu ghe apan 90 war ahe

Gundya : silence, complete ignore marto. I slow down the "Dhoom machale Dhoom....." blaring from his deck

Tats: are kami karki, cop ni dharla na tar g*** lagel, jitka speed ahe titkya $ che ticket milel

Gundya: (sly smile, slows down a wee bit, coz when it comes to money this guy has it all worked out)a couple of secs later I shout/yell/pray as we merge into another lane

Tats: Are aplyala YIELD aheeeeee......halu gheeeeeeeeeee

gundya : hmm

10 secs later we are back on 90mph, I am back into chick-spotting and fantasising what it would be to dance with Esha Deol. In the meanwhile Gulve and B continue thier attempts to convert the rear seat into a sofa cum bed for two.

**We stop for food at Burger King, at New Smyrna beach.**

Sat 1700-2200 Hrs

Finally I am driving, Waited long for this,real long. Been drivin in India since I was 18 and once even b4 that when I coaxed our driver to allow me to take out the maruti in reverse from our house. Somehow didnt have the chance to drive here. I screw up my first big opportunity to impress my mates with my skills. I put the Corolla in the wrong gas station choosing to leave
one just before that falling victim to G attemts to force us to fill gas at some stn for which he gets CC points. B challenges me to reverse the car and put in back in the previous stn, I dont take up that challenge,sheepishly make an U, fill the tank and off I am. I take the I 95 exit. and settle down.Turns out B and G are no longer sleeping.In fact both are wide awake & Gundya now the navigator monitors my every move.Everyones a little tense I suspect. Then for some time no one says anything.Its as if they are waiting for me to come up with somehing sensational like messing up in lane changing or something similar. No such xcitement for them. I am as solid as a Dravid defense against an Aussie attack. Sensing that, BandG give up their sitting posns andn decide to go back to sleep.Once again they fight they bicker, they bargain and the highly resourcefull nature of G means that they use are off to sleep the use Gundyas T shirt as a protection from the sunny sun. (What an dumn alliteration !)We move at a nice pace.Its a psychological boost when we leave FL. The Jacksonville downtown is quite beautifil I notice.We
just go on and on stopping at a Mac Someplace in between. There we get down from the car and whao...its cold. Miami chaddis as unsuitable for this weather as SRK in a nonromantic movie .So we have coffee. All except your truly then go and releive themselves in the MacD.
They say this is a result of Coffee. I am the odd one out. They also reach a consensus that if a foulish smell occurs henceforth in the car I am to be blamed since I am loaded. I protest and announce that I will announce loud and clear before I do. And so we get back on the road. At around this time I am begining to get a little tired. I have seen us through our second
solid traffic jams. One in Atlanta near Savannah. We crawl for45 -50 mnys and cover just 8 miles in the process. A brilliant driving performance tarnished by a stupid traffic jam. Am I plain unlucky or what.Anyway Its time for the raat ke khiladi to take over. We stop for lunch some
place in the S.Carolina. I eat as if food were out of style but so do BandG.I am a lil worried. They are gonna be driving so why the heck are the eating so much ? At this stage we have covered 530 miles.Its 12-00 am by the time we finish food and bidi and all that. I and Gundya slip into the rear seats and BandG take over from here.

Sun 00-0500

I can only vaguely recall what went on those 5 hrs. What I know is that we just zipped along cutting thros the S and N Carolinas and half of virginia. Much like Veerus strokeplay Bs driving is quite thrilling. B drives on an avg at 90 mph. Its a good thing I was sleepy and groggy else I would have probably seen to it that we slow down. We dont, we stop for a leak just once when I spot a motel and was hint to my mates the comfort of warmbeds and blankets and hot chocolates as compared to rear seats of Corollas.I cant seem to sleep but around 0300 I go 180 degress and wander off into dreamland.Being vertically challenged does have its advantages, At around 430 B is ready to give up the wheels but not quite. He wants to see the trip meter roll to 1000 under him and so it is. We pull into a gas stn, everyones hungry and all have Dunkins Donuts except me.Again I am the odd one out. The raat ke khiladi having done a magnificient job look towards the rear seats as longingly and lovingly as an Indian netaji towards his voters in election time. So yours truly and Gundya are back.We gave covered 1000 miles.

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Sun0600-1100
Not quite sure of Gundyas sleepiness status and rejuvenated by an hour or so of sleep, I offer to drive. BandG go back to their sequence of fight/bicker/bargain/sleep and so does Gundya. I am driving alone listening to nice jagjit Songs playing in the background.Perhaps the quitest phase of our trip since all are well and truly sleepy.We have 350 odd
miles to go plus another 40 once we hit NYC. Even I am feeling to feel the effect of lack of good nights rest.Just once, for that briefest fraction of a second I sense my car veer into the shoulder onto the rumble strip.Its just a wake up call I need. I concentrate hard feeling if I can cut another 125 miles Gundya can finish off the rest 200 odd. And so it is. We stop once at a shitty convenience store. Because I am hungry now I eat mexican-veg-cheese taquito. Bad idea. Its oily smelly and smells of jalapenos (Another dumb construction). But I am hungry so I eat all the same. Then I take a cup of coffee, hand over the keys to Gundya and slip into the co-drivers seat.I have passed through Virginia and some part of Maryland ( Baltimore,DC) and so on. We are almost there.Gundya finishes off the rest of the miles with elan.The drive is quite beautiful
and the roads are really awesome and curvy.We pass thro the NJ turnpike,pay a heavy toll and are finally into NYC. We cheer our arrival. Through all this Gundya opens his windows every so often for some absurd reason which earns him plenty of "tuza aaicha ****" from the rear seaters. He simply smiles,ignores them. But I also teach him how to operate the heater.how to
operate the MP3 and the defrost & similar things.Turns out he knew nothing in his car apart from hitting the starter and zooming off.Also quite an achievement for me since I am the most techno-phobic person on gods earth
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Sun 1100-1300

We are on the right track to White Plains. Like excited teenagers, and we are 26 yr old tenagers, we plan our strategy for rest of the day.Take a shower and finsh off all the food at any available Desi rest seems to sit well with all. But Gundya screws us it up all up BIG TIME. He offers to take us to White Plains via a scenic route and so at the last moment and to our intense dismay he decides to take an exit. He says "Picadilly North warun jau ",only the pblm being that we see Picadilly East and West and no North in our further road signs. When we attempt to go back to our I 287E we cant. Weve completely been confused.I had heard horror stories of NYC traffic and confusing roads. Now I know what those went thro and also understand why Gundya has to stay at airports so often when he misses flights.He takes wrong exits you see, going south when he must go east and so on. Somehow we reach back on the right road wasting around 45 mnts inthe process.The good part of this being I get to see the NJ Nets Continental arena stadium and the Giants stadium. Finally we reach home with no further issues.We have travelled for ~ 26 hrs inclusive of breaks and gas halts. Weve cut thro 1400 miles and miles of concrete.B and G have driven 500 miles each and I almost 400.Weve reached safe and sound in one piece.At the end of it I can only thank Eisenhower for making this possible! Thers one last bit of confusion. The daylight savings means we move one hour ahead. My cell does not auto correct.Somehow after a brief struggle and lots of R&D I manage to learn how to change the time of my cell but I have to still deal with the watch. I give up having failed last year on this very issue. I know its an useless endeavour. Basically this means I cant wear my wrist watch for the next half an year Since I cant adjust its time I wear it only Oct thru april. Sad but true. When I confess this to everyone all have a hearty laugh. Alls well that ends well I say.
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PS : We shower , eat at a mall food court, sleep, eat again, sleep again and drop BandG off at LGA at 5-30.Road trip over, back to reality!
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