“machi enga amma kitta kekanum da” tis was the trademark reply when we asked prince for this much awaited trip to allepy by our friends. Allepy – the Venice of Kerala. I always had a wish to visit this place after seeing it in VTV and when my sister visited this place recently with her husband and posted the pics in FB, further increased the thirst in me to visit that place. My friends prince, adithya, arun v s aka sori, santhanam aka sexy, shrivignesh aka chittu, anand aka puluthi mama and kalingaraj wanted to take a break from their busy schedule from their work. Then we zeroed on 2 places Ooty and Allepy. Me and adithya somehow managed others to select allepy.
We gave that job of organizing the trip to sexy as he was well versed in doing it right from our IVs to BAJA. There was a bigger task of getting the consent of others n making them come to this trip. Chittu, me, sexy, kali, adithya and sori were always ready for it as soon as tis trip came up. The most troublesome guys were prince and mama. Everythime we ask him abt the trip this trade mark dialogue of his come from him “enga amma kitta kekanum da” as if our ammas and appas are not concerned about us. And here comes our mama as usual his puluthi thanam surfaced. He was not telling clearly whether he is coming or not til the last date. Sexy somehow managed to book the house boat with his otta Malayalam. The best part was he didn’t even tel us exactly how much it costed. Then with the help of mama a cab was arranged for the trip.
The day arrived everybody were set to go and were praying for only one thing sori should not come late to cbe for the trip. But it was a sort of miracle he came half an hour before our expected time. Then we all met at sungam junction and finally we started our trip. As soon as our cab started adithya started pulling legs of mama, as it was the funniest and easiest pastime for us.and our journey to allepy took 9hours instead of 7, thanks to the lorry which ran into a pole and spilled all the goods in it on the highway. We met our boatman in bus stand and we were escorted to the boat which was parked in some corner. With all excitement everybody got into the boat checked our rooms and started our photo shoot. Even though light was not good we clicked many pics. Then adithya came with the idea of playing mafia. It was totally new for us. He explained the whole rules of it n he was the moderator for the first time. N then it started. we started shouting at each other suspecting other. It was a superb mind game we jus have to find out who he is based on his activities. Prince was bang right in pointing me out what I was whether a mafia or a villager, purely based on my reactions. I tried a lot by showing different gestures but all in vain, he found out all the time. We were so much into the game that it was 3am. We didnt even notice it. We al went to bed and it al started the next morn. It was like water, water everywhere not a drop to drink. Its jus backwaters, houseboats and smaller boats. And first time in my life am seeing a city boats as we have city buses in our city. Prince was busy with his camera and everybody got freshened up and our boat set sail for some round trip. We had the usual breakfast of idli sambar which all south Indian homes will have on a regular weekday and the difference was we got boiled egg as an addition to idli. Mafia again started haunting us, even for the second day I was given the role of mafia though it was by lot and prince found out easily. Then sexy and chittu wanted prawns for lunch so they were scouting for some fish shops and after seeing the rates of it they jus settled for the fish fry which was already there in the lunch menu. They boat was anchored at some place for lunch wher chittu and sexy had a holy dip in waters. And prince as usual was covering their jalakridai.
After lunch our boat and mafia again started. It was the inland water ways where our boat was sailing. And after a brief journey in backwaters. It came to the spot where it al started. And now comes the best part of our trip. The settlement. Til this time nobody knew how much this boat trip costed. Whenever we ask abt it to sexy he ll tel “machi onnum prachana illa pathukalam”. This gave us a picture that everythin was under control but it wasn’t. After checking out the boat guy came n demanded for 15k for the trip telling some lame stories and reasons. And our sori had to step in. “vayi illaina nai kooda mathikathu” this phrase best describes sori’s convincing skills. He started negotiating with the boat guy teliing all type of nonsense lik “naanga china pasanga na” , “first time allepy vanthirukom na”, “enga family la yaaru vanthaalum unga boat laye poga solrom na” and finally “enga ellarodaya honeymoon unga boatla than na”. then finally after many rounds of negotiation for half an hour. We settled for most 11.5k. this shows our sori’s talent. And this was the best dessert for our trip. we all left the place asap. And started back to Coimbatore.
