And So the Madness Begins!

So, guess who's in town?! :D

Rayshma!!!!!

Madness is now officially here as she herself declared and it started at about 10 this morning, which was when she set foot on English soil. Or airport tarmarc, if you will.*


I was a whole hour late in actually meeting her (in my defense, I expected her flight to land on time if not late and immigration formalities to take some more time therefore my timing of arrival would have been perfect as I planned) all the same... I am terribly sorry for being late and I apologise. I'm yet to get a proper account of that hour but I did get the gist that it involved her panicking thinking I wouldn't turn up, and if I did, I'd miss her because she wasn't standing where I'd requested that she do. I hereby decalre publicly that I'm a woman of my word and you may rely on me to do what I have promised, come hell or high water. Unless you piss me off that is.


Anyway, so we met and greeted each other like, as my darling dad puts it, a pair of fighting cats — there was much high pitched screeching involved. Quite apt if you ask me. There were also warm hugs and great grins and she did say something for me being ate but I only caught the end of the sentence which was '... bitch!'. So yes, happy union all around. Oh and she also let go of her trolley when she saw me and ran to hug me, so the trolley promptly careened and crashed into the nearest guy standing. Not that we cared much.


And then we went out and waited for the cab to come pick us up. Which took its time and in the meantime all we had to identify it was 'It's a red Fiat'. Neither of us being conversant in car company logos, we stuck to the colour red and gathered much entertainment out of looking out for every red car passing by and peeking inside. Eventually our cab did arrive and the driver was a rather dashing looking young man in a suit. For a full two seconds I thought it must be a mistake that the guy in the suit was going to drive us... he looked more like the city boy types who was about to take his girl on a date... but no, it was indeed the driver. He lugged Rayshma's luggage, stowed it. Let us sette down in the backseat and after asking for the required locaton details... started off. And we resumed conversation. Or we would have anyway, if driverboy would have let us. He wanted to know where we were from, if it was our first time in London, oh okay so I live here... and then he promptly switched the radio to some channel that was playing hindi music and told us that he understood and spoke these many languages and was Afghani and Rayshma and I nodded seriously and said'Impressive' as was obviously expected of us. He then realised we were not about to actually talk much to him and concentrated on his driving. Sorry driverboy, we really would have liked to talk to you... but we had a lot to catch up on ourselves. Perhaps next time. Oh ya, Rayshma's hubby called in the middle of all this and I got confused since the display had her name and asked 'Why are you calling me?!' and she said 'Arre mera pati hoga na!' and then proceeded to have a wifely conversation which involved mock-scolding him saying 'Liar!'.

Landing at her PG played out into a whole new story in itself. Apparently her place hadn't actually been booked and had we not turned up when we did, she'd not have had a place at all. But we did and that was that. The landlord freaked us both out somewhat. An elderly desi, he was rather fussy and flighty... insisted on stowing her bags (very heavy bags I must add), told her she wouldn't have to worry at all about anything, insisted on making tea for us and chatted 100 to the dozen in the midst of all this. When we went to have tea, in the dining room (He's extremely meticulous), the table was set very nicely with individual place settings, coffee for her and bowls and plates for us all and a million different snacks. He piled our plates high and insisted we eat and... whew. He sounds very nice... but I'm here to tell you, the sooner she moves out the better for us all.

Then, having firmly said she wasn't coming back for dinner, we set out and I showed her how the transport works and stuff... I'm sure I confused her more than I helped :P

In very short, we got to central London and did loads of vellapanti, walking around, had very lovely cocktails in this bar in Leicester Sq, had dinner at the nearby italian where I came up with the most insane ideas for restaurant policy regarding finger bowls, and then I saw her off on the tube to her place. I should let her fill you in on details.

All in all, I am extremely happy she is here and over the moon that I shall have company to be my mad mad self around. (We actually meowed at Victoria and the company we were with had to pretend they didn't know us :P)

So, welcome to London Rayshma... I hope this will turn into a long term stay!


* I only just realised that the 'will' in 'If you will' indicates choice rather than action. How daft, I know.