An accidental but a fantastic trip to Chennai

by Areeb Khan Professional Laundry Attendant

I am an avid traveller. Rather an avid solo traveller. I have done solo travelling so much that now even a little bit of company feels strange to me. I have developed a taste to absorb and observe things on my own. Last month, my parents took me on a family trip to Rameshwaram, one of the most religious spots of our country, situated in South India. I am not a religious person either. So this trip was overall a pretty bore to me.

In Rameshwaram, after we visited the famous temple and my parents did all kinds of prayers, we went to a local carnival happening right near our hotel. It was a local carnival, but it was huge, I couldn’t trace its boundaries. I wasn’t interested to go there either. But I do not travel with my parents much, so I thought rather than cribbing about everything, I can enjoy the present moment with my parents. There were a lot of games that one could play. Of all those, there was lottery too. It had different prizes ranked up. 1st prize was a 40” TV, 2nd prize was a 2-night hotel stay in Chennai and the 3rd prize was a branded full sized four wheeled luggage. I randomly put my name in the lottery, and to my amazement, I got the 2nd prize! What are the odds! I couldn’t believe that I won myself a free stay in one of the hotels in Chennai. I was happy that after spending some time with my parents, I was going to spend some time on my own in a different and a new city.

I quickly booked my tickets to Chennai. For Chennai, I had to travel by road till Madurai, and from there I had to catch a flight. But all the pain was worth a free stay in a new city. As I reached Chennai, I found out that my accommodation was in one of the hotels near IIT Chennai. It suddenly crossed my mind that my aunt was a professor at IIT Chennai. After I put my luggage in my prized room of the nice and decent hotel, I called my aunt and went up to meet her at her campus accommodation. I had often heard from my aunt about randomly coming across of some deer on the campus. Today I actually came across one and was pleasantly surprised.

It’s amazing how my deliberate trip Rameshwaram changed its flow and turned towards a surprised trip to Chennai. I visited the beaches at Chennai, went up to see Krishna’s butterball- the huge boulder balanced on a hill, had some delicious food and after 2 days, safely returned to Delhi.