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Even vending machine coffee tastes better in Chennai. Seriously.

The first thing I did when I got off the train was to buy coffee. It is thicher, has less water and even smells like coffee. If you have not had watery, sewage-like Nescafe or Lipton coffee, then you will have no idea what I am taking about. The great thing about Coffee Day vending machines is that you can control the amount of sugar that goes into your coffee. Why haven't Nescafe and HLL not figured out yet that not everybody likes their coffee with as much sugar as a boiled confectionary? Anyway, as I was thinking all this and loving my nice strong coffee, I forgot to watch where I was stepping and stepped into one of those large spaces that are so randomly strewn in Central, just before the Chennai Central Welcoming You board. By space, I mean empty, where there should have been concrete. Anyway, I twisted my ankle/foot and almost fell. It was one of those funny moves that people make when they know that they are going to fall unless they do something drastic - my something drastic was a little shake, stumble, bend forward and jerk and put my other foot down as hard as I could. It worked! I didn't even spill all my coffee. Yep. That went through my head as I limped to the car behind the oblivious driver. I still had most of the coffee left, and I could always lick the rest of it off my hand if I got desperate. Got into the car and left for home. On the way out of there, I noticed the CHennai General GOvernament Hospital. It is huge and looks spit shining new. It was good to know that there was a place that I could have gone nearby if I had broken my foot.

GOt back without much further ado, and my great-aunt woke up to let me in; said hi to her and my grandmother, let them go back to sleep and went to raid the kitchen. Didn't really feel like eating so made myself more coffee. Unfortunately, there was only enough coffee for one cup so you'll have to wait. Yummy. Filter Coffee rocks.

The train journey was a study of the train ceiling. The dirty, ugly, too close to my face ceiling. I wanted to sleep when we had gotten on (7.30 ish), so I got in to the top (3rd!!) bunk and slept. I got up at 10 and they refused to let me down, claiming no space. So I got my mp3 player out and listened to music and zoned out again. GOt up again at 12 and they still refused to let me down. I slept again, read a little, listened to more music. I'm glad I came prepared. I listened to all 178 tracks in the 20 hour trip. Yay me. ANyway, I finally got down at around 10 pm. I spent more time horizontal than otherwise this trip. It was awful. My back ached and I felt really weird - zombie like. Had 2 spoons or rather fingerfulls of "Veg Pulav Rs.20" and almost died. It had gone bad. SO had half a packet of Parle G Tiger biscuits and listened in to other people's conversations. Mostly people making fun of each other. One of the other girls (3 in total) who had come asked me what song I was listening to and I sorta sang out "My friend's got a girlfriend and I hate that bitch"; she looked horrified. I asked her why and she said that until this train trip, she had never heard people swear so openly before. Poor thing. I felt bad for her. I just grinned and shut up. See, I know when not to shoot my mouth off.

Anyway, nothing much happened. I was looking out through the window at the stars. I recognised Orion. That is the only constellation I can recognise. I used to be able to recognise the big and little dippers but I don't remember what they look like. There was this set of 5 stars that looked like a ladle and this other set of 6 that looked like a 6 pointed star. I though that was really cute. Nobody else did.

How do you tell someone that they have terrible B.O.? I tried to stick my head out throught the bars of the window, but my head was a trifle too big for that, not figuratively speaking. I am a very well grounded person. Do not laugh.

It is taking me a while to get used to this keyboard. I keep hitting capslock.

Nothing else to say.

We met the darjeeling band (Grunjee Morfins) at the station yesterday morning. They looked diappointingly normal.

The Indian Ocean concert was good. After the first 3 songs, everything else sounded the same to me. They sounded very good, just repetitive. Except for Kandisa and Bandein, I didn't recognise anything. They played the latter twice. The crowd went mad. Good stuff.

What do I do now? I think I'll go watch TV till my aunt and uncle come back from their walk. TV!! Haven't watched TV in months. I'll probably end up watching BBC, NDTV, Discovery or NGC. Wait, they might have History. Ok I'm going now. I love my History.

Tada folks. More things as they happen.