Some days back, a kid at my home asked me “do you like travelling in Innova?” The question was too simple and straightforward. He just wanted to know whether I found travelling in Innova comfortable enough, since its hype in Ads with Aamir Khan in so many roles.

I thought for a moment, and gave a satisfactory “yes” to him.. My memories flew to almost one year back.. I am sure all my friends who were part of that incident, would be having the same or more livid picture of it.

As the usual practise in Poornam, a group mail comes on a fine morning to some email addresses. It roughly had the following content… “Since Gemi is leaving Poornam, we need to give her a proper farewell.. Shall we arrange a trip to Kodai for that? Those who are ready, please reply to this mail with a yes…”

Two reasons made me send an immediate “yes”.. one is, its for Gemi and there is not even one person in that group, to whom I am not close to, or not free to.. Second reason was, my camera had just arrived from US with chakky. Where else would I go with my craze for photography and the new camera?

Thus, on a fine morning we started off in a Innova. We had a total head count of 10. But the craziest of the lot, Sojish, decided to travel by his bike. Thus, the Innova started with 9 people in it. See the crazy group :

Almost everyone in the group saves this photo in his/her gallery, or Desktop .. and still holds it close to their heart too.. Right now, I got it from Suresh’s gallery..

The trip was too good. I may scribble the beauty of it, at a later stage. Anyway, the most wondeful part of it was, we understood that a song can do wonders.. If Tansan can create rain out of Meghmalhar, why not…

We were nearing Thrissur on our way back.. Everyone had the feeling of loss.. yes, the beautiful journey is going to end.. and, one person leaving poornam out of the group… Chakky is taking al his driving skills to navigate the Innova.. It was raining heavily. Suddenly it happened..

I still don’t know what motivated him to sing.. he demanded that he wanted to … There was a big cry of “ayyyoooo” from the car… Still, we yielded to the wish of our driver, and he started, “Swara raaga Gangaa Pravaahame..” We didn’t even get time to shut our ears, before that there came a sound ..”thud thud tak tak tak”.. and the innova came to a halt.. It seems at the start of the “Swara raaaga gangaa pravaaham”, there was an equally deep gutter on the road filled with water.. two of the unfortunate tyres of our Innova drew their last breath…

The driver cum singer had to pay the price for his song.. To remove the spare tyre. he had lie on his back in the mud water in rain under the car..

Till now, sight of Innova, or the above song which was powerful enough to make two tyres go “pssss psss psss” [this is one keyword which I include only for those 9 friends of mine. I don't want to reveal that story here :-) ] evokes the same nostalgia of a rainy dark night, where 9 people were laughing over a punctured tyre when the journey resumed…