Displaced from Home !

We left the house with little thought. It was more out of the need for comfort, the need for having access to internet, the cool air of an A/C & of course, clean water, what we otherwise take as granted. There was a blend of adventure in it as well, just taking off in a car with no real destination in mind. The ride was pleasant, well guided by GPS of the car. We were looking out for lights and whichever, town looked unaffected, was a land of opportunity for us. We weren't the only adventurous ones, they were many who fled homes from the fear of a life with no power and no water. They had already infested these places. Quick to realize that all the big motels would be booked already online, I presented the idea of inquiring at relatively smaller ones and we bingo'ed onto a Desi motel. Though denied a room upfront, the owner or perhaps the husband of the owner :) let us in to a room on the pretense of only 2 people in the room. He chose to ignore the fact that we would squeeze in one more. It helps to meet a Desi sometimes! Desi and "vegetarianism" more often then not, go hand in hand and I was sure it would be quite an effort to find vegetation to graze on that time in the night. But this time, prompted with lack of patience, stopped at the gas stations, filled in some chips* n bear and headed back to our home.

We slept till noon the other day, a dreamless sleep. The room we stayed in was determined not to hint us any bit of daylight. It still felt like mid night when I go it up to check my watch and it showed quarter past ten. I got up with my tongue bit between my front teeth as if I got late for a meeting. There wasn't a meeting, not a soul waiting for me. It was just me amidst the snores of my room mates. I tried to head back to sleep, couldn't get sleep for a while with fear of being left behind and world running ahead of me. I told myself I had to take it easy. I had to kill time and putting myself back to sleep is an ideal way to do so. Next time I opened my eyes, it was so close to noon that I felt ashamed of getting up that late. The daylight was wasted to the core. I grinned to myself in the mirror how my existence or lack of it didn't make a difference to anyone at the moment.

Columbus, TX is a town close to 80 miles west of Houston. It is a pretty small town, I think you can run through the length of that town and it was so un-alive that evening, made me wonder if lives are ever brought up here. Most shops close down by 6 in evening, so when do they ever do business? Somehow, I also felt peace there, a calmness which you wont get any part of a city. We hunted for a coffee shop around the town and literally, at the point of giving up, saw a restaurant still open at 6! Wow ! A typical Texan restaurant serving steak, fries* and beer. A small portion of it is quite large for an average guy, I thought. Anyways, we chatted through all topics we can think of, and I was surprised how soon we spent out an hour or more. The rest of the evening was in the hotel room watching movie and chatting with friends online. We checked out the next day at 11 in morning and headed back home in the most casual way possible. Usually, every trip ends with the urgency of heading back home but ours was different. We were killing time all along and had all the time to drive those 80 miles back. Started with a quick breakfast at McDonald's* breakfast special, we stopped at starbucks or any other place we thought was worth a break. Reached home late that afternoon and to welcome us was a damp smell in the house with no power. Taps had running water which was a blessing. You don't wanna know whats cooking in your fridge after two days of no power. Our fridge was a biological weapon. We had to defuse it off with gas masks and gloves. What a waste of food, some of it was anyways rotting before the power cut and most due to the power cut. It took patience, will power and tolerance to sanitize the fridge and get it to a decent level. We ate what smelled good which was mostly cookies, chips* & soft drinks. I never had so much of junk food together one after other. If you happened to notice all the asterisks, it was to indicate all my diet past few days was fried unhealthy stuff. There goes my gym ! It took the whole week to return back to normal. Meantime, we placed ourselves at my friends place who got power the very day we reached home. He had dragged himself home with the intention of getting a change of clothes back to my place but his phone call, as he reached home to discover power, reversed the plan there. We headed to his place to find him with a proud look sitting on the couch of his newly leased apartment. What a choice! This was to be our home until lights turned back on at our place which happened by end of that week.

Well, it was not a terrible experience as such, I had so many conversations with my friends which I wouldn't have had, if not for the forced power cuts and lack of alternatives. I came to know them better than before, found some new perspectives and lot of interesting stuff. Some of those conversations were pretty upfront and some just happened in the dark, so never knew if they were making faces at me or actually listening to me :).