S gives me the gift of lifetime!

My mom would always say that her second born daughter was the most beautiful baby that she had ever laid her eyes on. For my mother, my sister was bits of stardust blown from the hands of God! While I was the wild one turning my mother’s life upside down my sister gave her lot of peace with her toothless smiles & numerous gurgles. Though I was always fascinated with these stories, little did I know that I will get to see history repeat itself with the birth of the daughter of my sister!

It was 8^th of June, 2017 the sky was silently sweeping away the darkness & making room for the first ray of sunshine to hit us when we were handed over our own little sunshine! Oh my! Have I seen a prettier baby than what lay in my hands? Her arched lips slightly open her skin all radiant & pink as she has been kissed by the deity as he sent us his blessing on the holy day of Snana Purnima.

In midst of all excitement, I caught my mother all teary eyed & grinning ear to ear at the same time. “She looks exactly like my Bebo!” she gasped. The first glimpse of Tara, that’s what we call her now, is something that I’ll have with me for eternity, the gush of emotion as my heart swells with love for this tiny tot who looks directly in your eyes & makes you her own- My mother & I were already taken & it took just a picture of Tara to get my father down on his knees!

He took to social media & crazy phone calls to announce the arrival of his Grand Daughter. She is born on Purnima, weighs 3.7Kg & looks exactly like here mother is what I kept hearing all day long as he attended to each & every call from friends & relatives. Our house & our hearts were festive that day!

We all have been on adrenaline for sometime now & my adrenaline started 600kms away when I got a sneaky little ping on whatsapp from my mother telling me to check Hind leak.  I called her immediately & she tells me that there is a slight leak but not sure if Bebo will go into labour. Google & few of experienced mother’s along with mine advised me that it might take Bebo  24-48 hours to deliver, so I should stay put the night in Bangalore take the next day evening flight & come to Kochi.

To be honest I was not convinced, the last flight out of Bangalore to Kochi was at 10 pm that day; it was 5 pm when my mother had snuck in that info, the discussion & consultation had taken another hour! I called Bibhu & he asked me a question “Will you be able to sleep that night?” Two browsers on my laptop & one click on the uber app & I was on my way to Kochi. No one knew except for Bibhu that I had flown into Kochi & checked into a hotel. My mom called me at 2.30 in the night to tell me that Bebo has gone to the hospital & she will deliver soon- I saw Tara that night!

Convincing Mother India!

It was my regular ride to office in an uber cab chatting with my mother over phone, that I mentioned why don’t we plan a trip to Europe! I thought my mum would jump out of excitement knowing her love for Travel, was it the old age or the expense she seemed remotely interested. Nevertheless, I kept my persuasion hat on.

When S & I were 10 and 11 years respectively, The Steel Melting Shop a department in Rourkela Steel plant was undergoing modernization by a German technology. During this time my father along with his colleagues had an opportunity to go to Germany, live there for few months and train under the organization helping the Indian Government to upgrade its machinery. I remember S & I being super stoked about it- drawing up a list of things we would want, the necessities he should be carrying with him, and understanding currency exchange for the first time, helping my mother pack while my father would hover around her patting her head now & then- back then we would scream at him thinking he is troubling mum.. Little did we understand the silent gestures of Love!

Anyways, my father was back home after 4 months with bag full of goodies, anecdotes and pictures that told so many stories of the land far far away. S & I wouldn’t leave his side for a moment, we were determined to make up for all the lost time and all we wanted to hear was the stories he had to say about his travel. My mum would be enthralled by all the stories as well; the nomad in her eagerly scooping up all excitement around! After a days’ conversation with my father I had it all in my heart; his love for the magnificent Eiffel Tower in Paris, the beautiful landscape & the snowcapped mountains in the Switzerland, the countryside of Germany and the various technologies the Europeans have to make the citizens life easier. Being in the mid 90’s India was yet to see a metro rail, an ATM machine, Super-fast trains with automated doors and what not and As kid of 11 years old, I knew it was fantasy world to be in!

Back in the days, a middle class family in India would barely have passports forget about traveling on leisure to any place abroad. So, when my father travelled to Holland for another stint, we insisted that mum travels with him but due to unavailability of passport and documents she couldn’t. I knew my mum had really wanted to travel and see the European world, nonetheless like any other mother in India she made peace with her destiny and announced that “it wasn’t meant to be”. I wouldn’t say I made a pact that day that I would ensure my mother travels to all the European countries she has been hearing stories of, but deep inside I just wanted to do that for my mother one day.

That was February 1998, and the conversation with my mother in the Uber cab was in the month of May, 2015. If you have ever met an Indian mother you would know how she can, in no time, weave a list of responsibility that she has at home and no one to take care of if she goes on a 20 day holiday- in few words who is going to feed her husband and the fish in the tiny pond, water the plants in her garden! And all of this worrying after the Steel plant has housed a live in maid, garden & a cook within our property! I was not taking a ‘No’ for an answer, So I got S & my father on a conference call- 20 mins later my mum & I were ready for our 20 days trip to Europe! Woohoo!

Travel without The tripadvisor.com

As kids, Summer vacations in India was a time of joy- Schools were on vacation, extended family & cousins make their way to each other’s home & the scorching sun didn’t bog us down from running around the trees. All in all it was time of action for all kids in the household.  The elders in the Family got together & in India when families came together it meant lot of food, unending discussion on politics, weather, more food and food and food!! S & I(S is my younger sister and partner in endless crimes) have been exposed to so many of these conversations & after a point S would have found her nose deep inside a mystery book and I would have found solace on top of a Guava tree in our backyard talking to the birds and fighting my imaginary battle with the squirrels!

Summers’ in our house also includes vacation; my parents loved to travel & India being a big country we had many options & terrains to choose from! There would be mountains, beaches, historical cities and what not. Our mother would ensure S & I take care of the travel logistics- the ticket bookings, the stay and the list of things we need to do during our holiday; mind you I am talking of the era where there were no facebook, Trip advisors and travel blogs. It meant S & I walking to the nearest railway station to fill up a form and hand it across to the man on the other side of the window- he does some typing and hands us a voucher which allows us to travel in the Indian Railways to our destination only.

Figuring out things to do and stay was the most difficult part of the journey. Like I said it was all in the late 80’s and early 90’s where the internet boom was yet to hit Rourkela, a small yet comso town in the sleepy state of Orissa. Rourkela is a small cosmopolitan industrial town in Orissa & the Rourkela Steel Plant is a big incentive for people around the country to come & settle down here. I remember a particular trip that our parents had entitled us to plan: Agra-Delhi-Jaipur-Punjab-Jammu & Kashmir!

Now, S & I thought our parents were definitely kidding; how the hell do you plan Jammu & Kashmir! So we sat down one summer afternoon racking our brains and listing down the people we or our friends or neighbours knew were from Jammu & Kashmir; there were none! Our usual planning style would include drafting a questionnaire to be asked to the natives our destination, sucking out as much information as possible- where do we stay, what do we see, the entry ticket cost and what not.

 Since, we couldn’t find any family from Jammu & Kashmir we took help from a friend of our aunt who introduced us to a group of people from Jammu who would roam state to state, town to town selling woolen garments. Our happiness knew no bounds- we finally found our Trip advisers! In the midst of the ongoing conversation came the Lassis, the cola drinks & the rasagullas. S & I poured out our list of questions that we had been drafting & redrafting, the pages of our notebooks were scribbled with information on things to do, how to reach the best of the places, the insiders tip on the doing things on budget & place to stay; infact I remember Wajid uncle calling his friend in Kashmir from our landline (No Mobile phones yet!) and booking a hotel room for us. Half a day later we were sitting on tons of references and lots of love from uncle Wajid & Shami who would continue to come to our home every summer with the best of their products.

 Our trip was anything but the best.  We had a time of our life doing train journey from Rourkela to Agra- Delhi-Jaipur-Delhi. From Delhi we did a road trip to Punjab- Himachal- Rishikesh- Jammu-Delhi & train back home.  Today when I look back, planning trips were so much fun. It just didn’t include reading somebody’s blog and making notes it meant talking and sharing experiences and making relationships for life. Dedicated to all the wonderful people we met during our travel planning & travel days for bringing us the stories from their homes in faraway land we would remember for life!