June 1st, 2007 admin
The old joke goes, “Are you ready?”. “No, I am Zail Singh.”. Zail Singh, a former President of India, misinteprets the question to mean “Are you Reddy?”, where Reddy refers to Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, the President of India prior to Zail Singh’s term. In any case, here, though Reddy was not part of a joke, he was responsible for keeping the jokes coming along at a fast clip thoughout the weekend. Sandeep Reddy’s non-stop nonsense, off-the-cuff lines kept us all in good spirits. His “Whaatay wondraful!” or “What it is?” or “No way! Jose.” or the dozens of other mimicry/impersonations of popular phrases were inimitable. Nandu’s “Let’s make a U-turn”, “Let’s all calm down” and his forays into telegu literature (restricted to “Aithey?”, “Ouna?”, “Yenti?” etc, through sheer self-control), or my “Have a happy” also come to mind as other quotes that were overheard during the trip.
Memorial Day weekend, 2007, was May 26th , 27th and 28th. Kavita and I left Raleigh on Friday evening, May 25th, and reached Cincinnati at 9:30 PM. Sandeep and Gayatri picked us up while Nandu and Shalini picked up the 7-seater, Hyundai Entourage, which we were to use for our trip to Gatlinburg the next morning. The occasion was the yearly reunion that Mili organizes and this year we had 20 members participating. Mili and Sandeep live in Florence, Kentucky and people (related or otherwise, like us) converged onto Florence from places as varied as California(Nandu and Gayatri), Chicago(Kavita akka, Kanth uncle, Shalini, Ashwini, Kavita akka’s brother Karthik and Kavita akka’s parents), Anderson, Indiana(Uma auntie, Guna Uncle, Deepak and Guna uncle’s sister), Kansas City(Varun, Sushant and Prasanna) and Raleigh(Anil and Kavita). The influx went on until 4:30 AM on Saturday. The venue of this gathering changes every year and this time it was decided that after initially coverging at Florence, the group would head to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which is at the northern foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
Friday night, when we got home, dinner preperations were going on, although mostly done - Grilled vegetables on skewers, barbeque chicken, vegetable biryani, Raita, bottle Gourd curry and Sandeep’s ‘hit’ dessert made from Marie biscuits stacked together side by side with cocoa and cream sealing them together. After the wonderful dinner, our hostess, Mili, clarified what everyone’s sleeping arrangements were, and everyone prepared to get some sleep, although I hear from Kavita that they were talking deep into the night.
We left at 7:30 AM on Saturday in 4 cars, after a thankfully brief discussion of whether to fit 20 people into 3 cars and save both gas (which is hovering around $3 a gallon) and the communication/co-ordination overhead, or, to take 4 cars and pay the extra price but get some flexibility with space in the cars. We wisely decided on the latter. 7:30 AM was surprisingly nimble-footed for a group with the inertia that 20 people generate. Mili, Uma auntie, Kavita akka and her mom took care of the kitchen activities with utmost efficiency. Throughout the trip they made sure we all got our morning teas or coffees, breakfast, lunches and dinners. In whatever was prepared in the kitchen, there was usually a range of choices, no repeats, and everything was prepared with gusto, speed and expertise.
In our car (a 7-seater van to be more accurate) were Sandeep and Mili, Nandu and Gayatri, Kavita and I, and 11 year old Shalini, aka Shalu or Leany. The drive, both during the onward and return journies was smooth sailing except in the vicinity of Gatlinburg. Sandeep’s Garmin, his portable GPS (Global Positioning System), would show exemplary patience, calculating and recalculating routes for us even when we missed innumerable exits and turns. Enchanted by the patient, sagely, mastery of the roads, Sandeep referred to “her” as his girlfriend, Garmin Electra. (By the way, there is a real actor by the name Carmen Electra.) However, by the time we got to our cabin, the relationship was a disaster. Sandeep lost his faith in Garmin Electra’s sense of direction and “patience being a virtue” notwithstanding, conceded that she took us for a ride towards the end. After countless U-turns on steep, hilly roads, we somehow got to our lodge two hours behind schedule. The U-turns were lent an added dimension of thrill because there were three other vehicles in tow and the ‘leader’, me in this case, had to keep them in mind when making any U-turn decisions or pull-over decisions.
The lodge at “Gatlinburg Hills” resort was a full-fledged, all-furnished house with 4 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, 3.5 bathrooms, 3 balconies with rocking chairs and one with a hot tub where Shalini and Ashwini had a great time and an entire floor devoted to the entertainment/game room with a pool table, a video-game machine, an air-hockey table, a big screen TV, a long L-shaped couch and a 2-storey bunk-bed. On Saturday, after reaching the lodge, we mainly relaxed. We had an early, yet sumptuous, dinner, which mainly Kavita akka and Uma auntie expressly prepared. Dinner included sambar, rasam, curd-rice, egg-curry etc. Later we enjoyed a short walk downhill to the rental office for the luxury homes, came back and played a lot of games in the game room. Eventually, everyone retired for a night of well-deserved sleep. I slept on the lower level of the bunk bed in the game-room.
On Sunday, we woke up a little late to make up for the lack of sleep everyone subjected themselves to the previous night, thanks to the excitement of seeing old and new faces. The checkout time was 10 AM, so we all got ready and had a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs, tea or coffee, and upma. Once we were all ready, packed and loaded, and after we completed a final inspection of the lodge to make sure we were leaving it in good shape, we checked out of it on time. Then we drove towards Clingman’s Dome. We stopped along the way at several lookout points as our cars began the climb into the hills. There was a beautiful creek that the road was never too far from, for a while, during the drive. We stopped and went up to the creek at one spot and took some pictures there. We took about an hour to reach the Clingman’s Dome parking area, from where a 20 minute hike took us to the highest point in the Smokies. The lookout tower on the Clingman’s Dome point had a long spiral ramp that allowed us to get to the lookout platform, which gave us a 360 degree view of the Smokies around us. The point is at a height of 6643 feet, the highest point in the Smokies and the second highest point in the US, east of the Mississippi river. Also, half the hill is in Tenessee and half in North Carolina. So in one way, Kavita and I went from North Carolina to Florence, Kentucky twice this weekend and came back twice this weekend. On the way back down to the parking lot from the Clingman’s Dome tower, Gaay suggested we take a hiking trail called the Appalachian Trail, instead of walking down the same paved path that we came up on. Some of us were up to it and took the trail, the others, especially elders and children, went down the regular paved path. Many of us taking the trail were not sure it would eventually get us back to the parking lot, but gauging Gaay’s confidence, decided to be obedient followers. After Clingman’s Dome we drove down to downtown Gatlinburg where we took the “Sky Lift” (chairlift) trip up a different hill. With our feet dangling in the air, and the landscape we crossed including a large creek, it was a fun ride. Sandeep and Mili in the chair in front and Nandu in the chair behind our’s (Kavita and mine) kept us good company. Kavita was semi-petrified, clung on the the chair and refused to turn around when Nandu wanted to take a picture.
The return drive, for the most part, was uneventful. We did spend a lot of time getting out of Gatlinburg because Garmin Electra was still confused and we did not have good maps. We were late enough that it did not make sense to try and return the car the same day and pay late charges. So, Sandeep called Hertz and extended the rental by a day for the same daily rate ($71, I think). Nandu and I shared the driving while Sandeep navigated. Kavita and Gaay’s murmuring could be only faintly overheard as it deflected the beautiful strummings of Simon and Garfunkel, whose music we played.
Monday was a relaxed day. The families/groups left one by one. Nandu took care of the rental and the gas for the van throughout the rental. Sandeep took care of paying for the lodge, the groceries etc. Kanth Uncle had paid for the Sky Lift tickets. Monday morning we decided to let Sandeep get back to all of us with the expense report and payment options later. Overall, in spite of the the minor driving direction fiascos, rental extension etc., it was a good break from work and life. I had semi-voluntarily (upon Kavita’s request) decided to not carry my laptop during this trip. My cell phone decided to use the opportunity and die on Friday evening. So I was disconnected from the rest of the world in more ways than one. A few minutes of checking email and cricket score on Kanth uncle’s laptop, Sunday night, were my only contact with the outside world. As we await the flight to Raleigh, to start boarding at Gate C3, at Charlotte’s Douglas International Airport, I look back at the last few days as a happy experience where I met lots of wonderful people, saw a beautiful part of the country, relaxed and refreshed myself for summer 2007. Next year’s meet might be in San Francisco, Yellow Stone National Park or Raleigh. Nandu, of course, wants an advance notice in case it is in SFO, so that he can make other arrangements and sneak out before the troops show up.
Anil Krishna
May 28th, 2007
Pictures from this trip are here
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