Christmas Spirit

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It's a day after Christmas and I spent the whole day sleeping at J's house. Cy sat in her room and worked through her math assignment. Hours passed and the Hyderabad sky muffled the sunlight. By the time I was awake and sipping spicy tea, a cold breeze was whipping about. Later Cy and I went to Inorbit. J was to join us from office later on and A, who was visiting friends, also decided to come by after sun-down.

Around eight, we were all assembled at the Cafe Coffee Day at Inorbit. Our cappucinos were downed and a healthy spate of brownie crumbs dusted the table. Then we decided to dine some place. Syn at Taj Deccan was a pretty neat affair and we tripped over fried chestnuts in plum sauce. (Also wonderful were the latticed faux leather table-mats in black.)

After dinner, we trudged up the pretty cobbled path near the Taj to catch a rick. It was cold. I could feel our noses turning red. For some reason Cy and I had started giggling really hard. We looked up at a lovely moon and guffawed. It was so nice. A looked for rickshaws on one side and J looked for ricks on the other side. They managed to hail one down. We stuffed ourselves into a rick, filling every inch of it. Cy sat on J's lap and A looked like he should have taken an extra 10 minutes to smoke another ciggie. I was so happy at that moment. I felt warm and cosy and my heary felt rested. When the rick stumbled ahead, rocking this way and that, going over the slopes and bends of Jubilee Hills, I felt so ecstatic. I don't know why. Some Telugu rap blared from the stereos of the rickshaw and suddenly, a song from 'Saajan' came on. The air got colder. The rick zipped ahead faster. Cy started horsing around and J got irritated. It felt so good to be in the midst of general, breezy, giddy silliness!

This Christmas didn't have a tree or tinsel. But this Christmas had crazy, crazy joy!

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