A Sunday in Arlington

A short description about my day.

It was a great day coz' as expected I got up late. Around 11 am which was the primary reason why I was fresh, active & enthusiastic for the whole day. But the real adventure starts after all this. The stomach was upset & to my agony it remained in the same condition & refused to respond readily and sympathetically. :)

My roomie Sanket told me to drink lemon juice which I readily agreed too and acted upon. Suddenly, it struck all of us that it is morning. This was relevant to the fact that there is a charitable institute called Mission Arlington out here which gives everything (obviously free) required for the house right from normal furniture to TV, Phone, rather everything. I would definitely spare the details. & it is always the 'Desis' apart from the really needy ppl who make a beeline out there. The fact all the good things are dispatched in the morning & we were in real need of a study table & book shelf made us come with the plan to head to Mission Arlington (it is popularly referred to among the 'Desis' as 'MA') One can always hear conversations like 'arey ye bhi MA ki krupa hai' kinda things. We went there in the car. My third roomie Yogesh parked the car right in front on there office just to chk out whether they are open.

Our house has everything from MA right from bed, mattresses, couch to chairs & of course TV. Sanket got down & peeked inside to ask whether they are open. The man at the other end rather I should say that the wise man at the end popped the question 'Have you come to make donations?’ We were in shorts with weird hairstyles having just woken up from a nice 12 hours sleep and we had a look at our 'avatar' and again answered no 'We have come to take few things'. The conversation went on only to end that come tom we are closed today! But the whole incident was a real hilarious one.

Back home. The next endeavor was the plan to go to the Hindu Temple in Irving. I believe this was due to the primary reason that we hadn’t been to the temple since we had come here (all 3 of us are quite religious no doubt) and the secondary free food from 12-3 every Sunday. I guess the chronology of the reasons was swapped & mebbe for the right pre dominant reasons as by the time we got ready we were really hungry as it was 1pm. We were 6 ppl in one car while going and 7 while coming back. The price of the gas was going to be shared however that was the max. We could possibly fit in. :) The endless telephone conversations and navigation with the help of the directions given by Map quest enabled us to finally reach the temple.

The temple was a resplendent site. It was really wonderful and felt nice. A huge & big place. We prayed (for an A grade) & saw the place around. Of course, we had the lunch too. I ate in diminutive quantities consciously thanks to the stomach where as for the rest it was a gala affair. Having are stomach's full we left early as it was again time to sleep. Returning back home from the 'holy visit' we slept again for about 3 hours. In the evening it was time for some study. Just glanced thru' there homework to be done though got bored quite early as was not in a mood to do so. Went online ordered some DVDs back home. I dunno how the rest of the time passed away mebbe making dinner & eating the same. It was 11. Now, the comes the cherry topping on the nice sumptuous black forest cake. Wow! What an analogy! hehe :) I sometimes do applaud myself.

We decided to go to Lake Arlington. Again, the navigations directions & requisite things were ready in our hands & we left in 15 minutes. In exactly 15 minutes we reached our final destination. It was a nice big lake. Surprisingly, a lot of ppl were still present doing diff. activities like fishing, sitting & talking in the serene peace surroundings of the lake & some doing all kinda things. hehe After taking cognizance of the place we decided to have a walk on one of the ramps. After crossing the many hurdles we reached the end of the ramp. We found an Indian family coming in a boat towards us. They got down on the ramp apart from the driver (I believe that’s what we call the person who steers the boat) who was taking care of some things. We casually happened to ask him about whether this boat was his' own? (We were thinking of paying for a ride in case he offers one) He was a nice person and answered in eloquent Hindi are you from India. The reply was yes & then onwards the talking was done by Sandeep Singh Gill. 'Arey 'Desi logonke liye sab maaf hai' ....come have a seat in 'INS Basanti'. He took us for a wonderful ride. It was almost bliss. The smooth breeze, the turns, and the spin everything was really delightful & contentful. He took us towards the other end of the lake where we helped him park or rather tied his boat. Got down where a nice 'Merc' was waiting. He drove us back to the Lake. In the course of events some things which transpired were his expert comments like 'India is a place designed my idiots where even geniuses cannot survive where as America is a place designed by geniuses where’ even idiots can live.'

The ecstatic joy we had been thru was visible form our glowing ardent faces. From here we went to Wal-Mart to do some shopping at 1 am in the night. Came back home still thinking about the realistic & fabulous experience. Slept in the wee hours of the morning at the end of a brief brush with destiny & luxury.