Sunday Funday !!

Ever since my friend from work Nikhil had a baby, we had been planning to visit him.
But one thing after other kept us busy and our plans kept getting postponed.
It had hardly been 6 months since Nikhil and Suresh joined Salus, but we all bonded really well and become friends with time.

After lots of planning and cancellations, finally we all decided to visit Nikhil on Sunday.

For a change, I woke up early that Sunday morning (yes papa was fairly surprised to see me up this early), hurriedly got dressed and left for Nik's place. On the way I stopped at the bakery, picked up some chocolate cookies and grabbed some veg pattice to eat on the way. In the rush, I had skipped my breakfast and the smell of delicious cakes and pastries was making my mouth to water.
Seeing Sachin's call on my mobile, reminded me that, he was waiting for me and I had to rush immediately.

I met Sachin at the Mayur colony, and we proceeded to FC road, to meet Suresh. As we drove along, we chatted about the lovely weather that morning and pune traffic. Even at 11 in the morning the streets were filled with honking vehicles and crazy women drivers. (my apologies ladies, but sometimes women drivers here really drive u nuts.) As we reached Manmeet, Sachin called up on Suresh to check where he had reached. Suresh was caught in the traffic and said it would take him another 20 min to reach. In the mean time, Anu called up to let us know that she will be reaching Shivajinagar in another 10 minutes. We had nothing else to do, but wait. So, Sachin got chatting, and I got busy eating.

Finally Suresh arrived, and we proceeded to meet Anu. Bechari Anu had heen waiting there along for quite some time. Sachin got on Suresh's bike while Anu sat on my scooty. (i've never quite understood why men are anti-scooty. Most men i guess are embarassed to ride a scooty, just the way they are when they are asked to hold a ladies bag. Let me not start with that now.) It was a beautiful day and we began our long but enjoyable journey. Nikhil was going to meet us in Camp, and so we proceeded to meet him.
Anu and me soon got chatting about what we did on Saturday and so on. We met Nikhil in camp and he asked us to follow him. As we were driving along, it almost felt like we were heading for a mini picnic. A beautiful day, nice breezy roads, driving on bikes, lots of chatting and giggling sure felt like a picnic. The road was long and never ending, but I guess didn’t seemed to mind. We were having loads of fun.

Alas we reached his place. We parked our vehicles in the parking area, and headed for the stairs. Nikhil welcomed us in and we all stepped inside. As we settled down, we could hear Nikhil’s dogs getting impatient to meet the new visitors in their house. As Anu held Nikhil’s baby, Palash, Nikhil brought Chotu and Raja to meet us. Chotu is a really sweet labrador and as Nikhil brought her closer to me, she came closer to have a good look at me and licked my hands. Uhhhhh.. but not Raja.. He was getting angry and Nikhil didnot let him get any closer to us. Had he come any closer to us, i guess every one in the room would have climbed up on the chairs.

Nikhil showed us around the house, and the little terrace, seemed to have been everyone’s instant favourite. As we stood around enjoying the view, Nikhil's wife Aparna came up to say Hi, we chatted for sometime, and then Nikhil arranged some chairs for us to sit in the balcony. Somehow balconies and terraces have always been My and Anu’s fave places around the house (Sinha rashi trait I feel. One more thing in common between me and Anu). As we all sat their chatting, not for one moment did it feel like we were all colleagues who work together. It was more like friends who had got together after a long time.
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Anu was cradling little Palash, I wanted to hold him too. Not being very comfortable handling babies, I sat in one of the chairs and asked Anu to place little Palash on my lap. As I held him and talked to him in a babyish tone, he looked at me with his little angelic eyes and seemed to understand every word I was saying.

It was almost lunch time and everyone was starting to get hungry. Nikhil and Aparna served us some hot sumptuous biryani. And I (who had quit eating nonveg food) could not resist myself from having it. Anu opted to have the veg pattice, while the rest of us sat in the balcony with our plates full of biryani. The delicious biryani was followed with rounds of laughing and giggling.

Finally it was time for us to leave. Thanking Aparna and Nikhil for their hospitality, we presented them with a paper lantern and chocolate cookies. With happy hearts, and filled stomachs we bid each other goodbye.

Although we all are not the best of friends, and don’t always hang out together, we sure had a great time together. We had moved one step ahead of what we were.
From being just colleagues to good friends.

To new friends. Cheers!!