My Fiction Library....

.....is all catalogued and ready to go into storage.

Agatha Christie’s
1. Crooked house

I believe I can soar....the pictures...

I believe I can soar….

Before officially putting 22 Nov 09 in my list of 10 Best Sundays Ever, I would like to send out a proper thank you into the universe for introducing me to Dilip Kotecha and his brood. These are four perfectly ordinary people five days of the week – going to school, managing a business and a home. But come Friday, they pack their car and drive up to Panchgani where they set up tents and spend the weekend paragliding. I met them on Saturday and was invited to take a whiff of their exotic weekend.

But first, about the drive from Lonavala to Panchgani. I still live in the dark ages and do not have maps on my phone. So I figured the route out on Google Maps on Saturday night , and - I blush to say this – took a 3 page printout of the map along with the instructions , which I consulted every half hour as I drove. But what a great concept - Google maps. The instructions read something like this : Take a right, drive 55.8 km and then take another right. This thing was made for people like me.

I rediscovered how much I enjoy long solitary drives. The solitary part is important. For one, I can sing cheesy Hindi film songs as loudly and as unselfconsciously as I want. And for the second, no guy gets to criticize my driving. In the last seven years that I have been driving, the one consistent thing has been that no guy over the age of ten sitting in the passenger seat has been able to resist telling me, in great detail, about the flaws in my driving style. I hate clichés and I never find it amusing when people say that women drivers are the most dangerous things on roads; particularly since I know many excellent female drivers. But there is a subset of this species which IS extremely dangerous - a woman driving with her teeth set together trying not to murder the male passenger who has told her for the nineteenth time to Take Her Foot Off The Clutch. How would you like me to take the foot off the clutch and use it to kick you, buddy?