Anjaana...Anjaani...

What a tremendous experience! I truly believe it to be something which is of the once-in-a-lifetime types. In case anyone is wondering over what I am talking about, please refer to the song Anjaana...Anjaani from Yuva. I bet that you would have noticed Kareena Kapoor and Vivek Oberoi wearing life jackets, lying on a motor driven raft that is splashing across the waves of the ocean. We did this and much more.

Ravi had come in quite early for the party and he had to cool his heels in the office reception for quite some time. A delayed and short exit interview later, I was all ready for the long day. Bijon had made all the plans and made bookings for what is called the Catamaran dive (I am not sure if I have the spelling right). There were ten of us and apart from Bijon, who had had this experience earlier, all of us were pretty apprehensive and scared about the safety factor. Numerous attempts of chickening out later, we were all ready in our life jackets, looking as terrified as hens waiting to be slaughtered. The life jackets being worn out and torn at places did not help either.

Since we were the first customers for the day, we had to drag the raft from the shore to the sea. All ten of us, yes...all ten of us sat on the raft and two life-savers with their motor propeller and nothing else, started steering us towards the sea. The journey was exhilarating, to say the least, With water coming on the raft, or rather the raft going inside the water, it hardly seemed that we were on some structure above water...it was as if we were all being carried away by the waves to some unknown destination. That destination proved to be some two kms from the shore where, as one of the life savers smilingly admitted, the dept of water was some 500 meters.

The life jackets and the absolute confidence emitting from the life savers had emboldened us and all ten of us actually jumped into the deep sea, clinging for life to the rope tied to the boat. It was an amazing first few minutes and probably the scariest ones of my life. Panic was clearly written over all our faces, especially when we started to lie down on the water with our backs facing the sky. Soon after, however, we were able to control our bodies and lay in a more comfortable position with the sky above us and the water below...oh my God, absolutely heavenly. We were all scared and shouting at the top of our voices to keep the panic down but that was when we started. Ten minutes on the surface of the deep sea and we were all singing...Anjaana...Anjaani

This amazing experience was followed by two games of cricket, not too keenly contested but fun anyway. The fact that we played on the beach, with the running made difficult due to the sand, made the game all the more interesting. Before we noticed, it was already dark and time for us to take the showers and be prepared for the dinner. Dinner was at a new restaurant called ECR Dhabba...quite decent food and at a reasonable price, too. Bijon, Nitin and Sathish went out for some drinks as it was not available at the restaurant (pretty surprising, given it was a highway restaurant). This actually bugged me for some time, especially when we had to finally cancel the movie because of the delay and the fact that everyone was tired like anything.

I really had the time of my life and was so tired when I came home that I fell asleep before I had the time to change my clothes and locate the bed. Pradeep, our landlord came in the morning to give us the draft for the advance amount. He really is a nice guy, making it a point to come over and give the money himself so that we do not face any problems on our last day in Chennai.