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| Goa turns Green and Gold! |
I turned 40 in the midst of the raging third COVID wave in India. Therefore all of my thoughts for a great 40th Birthday break went out of the window. It finally ended up being a three day girls weekend with my closest soul sisters from college Divya and Gopika. Though we planned a trip at Andamans, we had to be satisfied with Pondicherry because of cancellations of all hotels and tourist spot bookings thanks to COVID. However those two days were just fantastic. A chance to just focus on yourself and think about old times but at the same time open your heart out to your closest buddies. The highlight for us was the three hours of bliss at the beach with not a soul other than us three. The glittering sea, the cool January Breeze and the dark night took us to a happy place without worries. This was something we all really needed after COVID. I cannot thank my friends enough.
Many months later, I felt a girls trip was just what was needed to refresh anyone's soul and hence when Anu my closest friend from School told me that there was a Church park reunion happening, I felt I must go. Church Park, the school I went to in Madras is an all girls convent school which is more than 100 years old. Most girls graduating from this school have a very high dose of sass is what I am told!!! A second message came from Shibi several weeks later with a link to join a whatsapp group. A lot of the girls i used to hangout with at school including Anu could not make it to the trip planned in Goa. I was wondering, would it be ok to go? But for some reason, I felt I needed a break and decided to go in-spite of not having been in touch with most people. The only person I was in touch with off and on was Shibi. A few weeks later, I chatted with Serena who was going for the trip. I had not seen her in twenty three years. She was also based out of Bangalore and we decided to travel together out of Bangalore together. So tickets were booked and confirmed.
The run up to the Goa trip was stressful because I was managing my kids alone while my husband was on a sabbatical and my most trusted army aka my nanny had a severe medical condition, which rendered her useless for a few months. Reinforcements in terms of in-laws, parents and of course a new found help landed just a few days before the trip. I was beginning to question whether I should go and whether it was all worth it. But my mother felt, I should use her when I had the chance and checkout!!!
D Day was approaching and Madhuri joined us to make a trio from Bangalore. It was finally happening and eighteen girls signed up for the trip. Serena and me were yapping like the old days in no time and Madhuri joined in. The common thread of Church Park and the qualities we imbibed of having a good time and good laugh clearly showed. We were like house on fire.
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| The Bangalore crew |
The chatterboxes polished off the indigo sandwiches and teased poor me on the quality of Hindi when trying to locate our driver in Goa. We deplaned and boarded our cars and whizzed off to the villas where the rest of the crew awaited us. The villas were located in North Goa in a place called Saligao. We had two nice villas next to each other. I was really comfortable with Serena and it was so fun being her room-mate. Her easy relaxed attitude and no nonsense frank talk probably explains why she is head honcho at Diageo! I really enjoyed being with her and just the kind of no fuss person needed on this trip. Her nickname during the trip was
Ms congeniality. The next person, Khyati needs a special mention for finding and fixing the incredible villas. The other saviour was Sushmita who fixed the drivers to make the whole moving around Goa effortless. We felt like Queens. The holiday had begun!
Put eighteen girls together who last met twenty three years ago as seventeen year old and throw in some good beverages, music, food and venue in the mix to get WHAT??? CHAOS....This is of course followed by generous dose of giggles, laughter and loud hoots. Sanghamithra aka school principal (a moniker she earned during the trip:-)), organised a cute ice breaker that was in hindsight a good way to go around the table to see what everyone was doing. After that we all vehemently protested any organised activity and went nuts dancing near the swimming pool. The day ended with a few of us getting very excited and retiring to bed in a very happy state because we were in very good spirits:)
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| Hema made us these custom made handcrafted gifts. The Artist! |
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| Posers |
The next day, I woke up nursing a heavy head. The Doctors in the group ordered us to gulp down a litre of water and Serena gave me a much needed DART to overcome the hangover. The morning was filled with a lot more chatting, catching up and eating tonnes of hot aloo paratha and chai. If this was bliss, I was swimming in it!
I was in such a good mood that I had forgotten about my two cute babies and my mum who was managing them. I quickly made a call to hear they were also having a wonderful time. The husband in the UK was already warned to not call me as i was incommunicado for three days.
The plan for the afternoon was lunch at a nice restaurant followed by a night club visit.
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Beautiful Goa!
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The Antares restaurant was just the kind of space we needed to take in the wonderful monsoon weather, the breeze and of course the chatter that followed. I was ordered to get over my hangover by having another bloodymary. At lunch, I sat next to Sushmita and Khyati and caught up with them. The talented designer Sushmita was now into film productions and based out of Hyderabad. Khyati was a big time stock investor and also apart from that looked like a dream thanks to the great gym routine she maintained. The food order for the vegetarians was taken care of by the amazing Meghana. She fed our stomach and also seem to know a lot about Goa which earned her the moniker
Mataaji. We followed the lunch scene by some window shopping at the incredibly expensive shops outside the restaurant. This of course led to more laughter and we then peeled off to try and get to the beach before our evening "Do".
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| Anitha and me trying to look poised and failing |
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| The crew! |
We reached the beach and sat down for a little bit and also caught up with Meghana, Kirthika and Selvi. Every-time i was interacting with a new set of people and I was really loving the exchanges we were having. I never thought I would crack up so much with Kirthika. Her humour was pretty much my brand and I was beginning to wonder why our paths never crossed in school.
Maataji aka Meghana then took us to a wonderful shop on our way back where i picked up some earrings and rather chunky neck piece that would accessorise my night look at a place called Romeo lane.
By the time, we got back to our villas to get ready for the evening, we were all rather tired. There was some drama on getting out of the villas and going to Romeo lane because everyone was quite tired. However we all soldiered on, got dressed and got ready to go to the new night spot.
Romeo Lane turned out to be a place for teeny boppers. The average age was definitely 20. We managed to get down to the club which was at the bottom of a very steep hill. If someone had warned us, we would have not worn heels. We somehow managed the climb down!!! At the club, the music was predominantly Hindi/Bollywood- Tell that to girls from Tamilnadu- Our noses were up in the air. However, we overcame our inhibitions and actually managed to dance through the music. The climb up the mountain was something to be written about separately. There was the "OOH and AHH",
"my heels hurt", "Guys I am in bad shape", "Can we walk near Dr Nanu and Dr Selvi so someone can give me CPR if I die" and that was followed by the most epic line "Girls that Nanu is like a mountain goat running up the hill! Damn!!!" Finally, somehow we all managed to get to the top and our cars. I was in the car with Sush, Nanu and Khyati on the way back and we stopped on the way to get Maggi. Maggi was eaten to the music from this chap called Baadshah. I had never had this much random fun.
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| At Romeo lane by the beach |
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| All of us cracking up at something Anupama Surender said for sure |
What can I say about Anupama Surender- I always used to laugh at her jokes in school but since we never hung out much together I had forgotten. Her sharp one liners had us all in splits. When one looks at the new Anupama Surender, the lady who is a far cry from her tomboyish church park day, all I can say is "sexy professor"!
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| Day 2 in Goa |
After the Romeo lane night out, we all landed back at our villas and ended up spending one of the most memorable nights of our trip. Around 8-9 of us just sat and sang. We started off with some popular english numbers of our times right from "Killing me Softly" to "Zombie" which Serena crooned so well, to good old church park singing class numbers. We started off with "Cuckoobara sits", "Eskimo Sikato" to "Boney lies over the ocean","Row row your boat" and we must have laughed so much that night.
The videos of these cannot be shared for public consumption. All we can say is that my stomach hurt so much from all the laughing. Good memories to last an eternity!! One of the random fun moments captured is here https://drive.google.com/file/d/116VAvySqTSBXCnz0Sv0wVdAa2Wmw_fL6/view?usp=sharing
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| This was me mostly during the trip- Cringy Laugh! |
The next day we all woke up late as we had only slept by around 5 AM and we ended up deciding to take a swim in the pool. My villa mates Anupama, Shakthi and me were swimming and I remember feeling something odd at my feet but brushed it aside, thinking it was some leaf. It turned out to be a dead rat. The scream, shriek and loud noises must have jolted the entire neighbourhood. The housekeepers were called in and pool cleaned but no swimming activities were carried out in our villa thereafter! There was a big half hour discussion on rat poisoning but Nanu assured us we were not going to fall ill!
This was followed by some general gossip and catching up. We had good discussions on careers and found out Swarna was a hotshot compliance lawyer, the professors in the house gave us a bit on the drama at their colleges, Shibi on POSH, Serena and me chatted about career growth and all in all, it was a wonderful one hour of heartfelt chatting and it was nice to know that everyone was riding different challenging waves!!!!
We slowly set out for lunch after some good shopping at calgunte. The girls wanted to have traditional Goan sappadu but sadly there was no vegetarian there. Therefore Vidya, Deepa (who was vegetarian for that Saturday) and me set out on our own. Vidya spotted this wonderful Japanese restaurant where we settled in. I also got to know more about Deepa Sivarathna and Vidya. It was amazing catching up like this without the rest of the gang. The trials and tribulations of everyday life of these brave women was inspiring to say the least. It was the most serious conversation I had had the whole trip. Not to forget that the server was "Hot" and the food was phenomenal.
The saapadu girls came back and joined us. We clicked some more pictures here and had some desert before heading back to the villa for the night party as a place called Purple Martini.
The night scene was fantastic at the gorgeous Purple martini. The Bellinis, the sea, the women, the one good looking guy and the music was par excellent.
Pictures speak more than the words so take a look below at this Greek paradise by the sea.
One notable incident was how the forty year olds erupted when they played Backstreet boys:)
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These girls!!!
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| Happy Girls after Backstreet Boys! |
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| Kirthika the Ranveer Singh of our group. Quirky outfits with such style! |
The last day was day for photoshoots and the theme was white.
Everyone had a lot of fun shooting quite a lot of random photos. Check this one below for example
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| Some pose, some dance, some cringe, some laugh...Uncoordinated fun! |
Finally we decided to get one defining group picture! We mimicked the choir stairs of church park assembly!
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Posing as good church park girls
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Of course the rowdies could not be stopped and finally this happened!
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| Real rowdies |
All in all, a trip that will always bring warm memories to me. The common bonds of sisterhood that Church Park fosters was very apparent in these three days. Green and Gold - The colours that binds us.
Comments
;) #greenandgoldforlife