Great day with dad…
Drinking session with mom…
Anything left?
Oh! Yes!! Needed to complete my 1000 mile goal for the year with my brother. Which is why we got up early in the morning and went out for a run.
It was a great feeling to get past the 1000th mile while running with him. I was even appropriately dressed for the occasion!!!
Sharmila always picks on me for not drinking in front of my parents. Which is true. Since my parents have a thing against alcohol, I do not drink in front of them. In fact, that is an understatement. While in Kalyani, we climb up the water tank on the terrace to have our daily wine or lock ourselves in my sister’s house. That has not stopped me from getting my father in law and mother in law to try out wines. And much to my mother in law’s dismay, my father in law looks forward to my visits so we can drink some wine together.
And that might be part of the problem. Maybe that is why Sharmila always picks on me.
Not any more!! Look who is drinking here!!
After dad went back to his room, he chatted with the nephews and niece for some time and dozed off. The kids started playing some board games that I had brought for them.
My sister, brother, sister in law, my mother and myself – we went down to the bar downstairs and spent a few hours there talking about a lot of life questions. And by the way, for Sharmila’s benefit, I want to point out that in the picture, my mom has a mojito in her hand, my sister and sister in law have Bloody Marys and my brother and I had gin and tonic.
Ok, maybe my mom’s drink did not have any alcohol in it. But ours did. And that is what counts!!
So there!! 🙂
Dad not only made it to the resort, he even has had a great time so far. After checking in, we all sat down by the lawn with a lot of tea. He started predictably with the standard questions like “Who owns this place?”, “How much money was spent in building the property”, “How much money are you spending on this trip”… and so on.
But a few minutes later, he warmed up and started chatting with all of us. After about an hour or so, the three siblings of us were getting worried if he was feeling too tired. We offered to have lunch sent to his room. But he decided to walk with us to the restaurant which was a little way away – for him. He walks for about fifteen minutes in the evening every day and then literally spends the rest of the day lying in the bed.
After lunch, one of the staff of this place offered to get him a wheelchair. What was very startling was that he summarily dismissed the suggestion and then slowly and painfully started the long walk to the room which was about two hundred yards away. You can see from the picture that the walk was not easy but he would have it no other way.
Around the time he reached the pool, he was exhausted. He just sat there with my mom and started chatting with her. I started shooting hoops with my nephews, niece and my brother nearby. After about an hour more, he finally walked to the room with us.
He had arrived at 1. Finally he went to his room at 5:30. This, for a person, who is always in his bed but for half an hour so.
Even he himself remarked that he was surprised that after the long journey, he had stayed out for such a long time and yet he was not feeling much tired. Then he turned to my niece and said “See, you were telling me not to come. It is a good thing I did not listen to you and instead came here.”.
Some of us had to hold our niece back from hurtling herself at my dad!!! 🙂
No car journey with my brother at the wheel is ever complete without the mandatory tea break. The tea by the street side was uncharacteristically not so great this time… but the real fun is always getting out and chatting with the nephews and my brother and sister in law.
After a break for about fifteen minutes we proceeded for the resort. The phone reports that my brother collected seemed to indicate that my father was also mid way thru and had not yet instructed the driver to go back home!! Looks we will reach the meeting point pretty much at the same time. I think he is committed now!!
P.S. As I was showing my brother this post, I commented that our shirt style is the same. “So is our hairstyle”, he quipped 🙂
The two nephews are always there, without fail, to receive their uncle. They call me “J2”. Coming to Kolkata will never be the same without being hit by the humidity and simultaneously see these two moment I step out of the airport doors!
The first thing they yelled was “J2, dadu gaaritey uthey porechhe”. Meaning, grandpa (my dad) has started his trip. The excitement all around is palpabale in the family. Looks like the family as a whole is going to meet in the resort, after all!!
This one is for Bob Hart who revels in these kind of software glitches…
As you can see from the ground speed of 17 mph, we were not flying any more. In fact we had landed in Delhi and were cruising to the gate.
But note how the display claims we were still over 700 feet over ground. And apparently, we were still 59 miles away from our destination! Moreover, it would take us 24 full hours to cover that. Best of all – the local time in Amsterdam and New Delhi is exactly the same!!!
This year, our vacations were focused on Natasha since she was going to leave us for college. She is not a beach person – thus we did not do a long, long tradition of the family – annual beach trip. Instead we took in a lot of mountains – which is Natasha’s favorite place to go to. From Blue Ridge Mountains closer to home to all the way to the mountains and glaciers of Alaska, we saw some beautiful sights. And between them, we made trips to the mountains in Oregon, the mountains outside Seattle and the mountains in Idaho. We finished all this in the first seven months. (Tasha left in August)
I did not join the Sharmila, Natasha and Nikita during their vacation in Dallas but Dallas has no mountains. So, I am not counting it here 🙂
We did not do our annual international trip this year either (India trips do not count). But we were able to spend some quality time as family on vacations before Natasha left for college. It was certainly worthwhile seeing the constantly bickering sisters bond outside home.
Objective #2: Of course, finish my running year with the 1000 miles side by side with my brother!!
Objective #3: Keeping up with my standard practice, I am going to meet some parents of old friends and some of my old teachers if I can locate them. This part of my trip is always dedicated to saying Thanks to people who influenced me during my childhood. I have no idea whether I will be able to see any of them again but spending some time with them – for absolutely no good reason whatsoever – will be my way of showing gratitude. I am not sure I will make it to the old age home near my dad’s place where I have made some new acquaintances from my prior visits since dad and I are meeting outside his home this time (fingers crossed :-).
Objective #4. Of course, there is the other part of these trips – digging up friends from the 70s and early 80s that I have not seen for three decades and sometimes four decades and just check on them to see how they are doing. Most of these meetings are spent remembering the old times and me updating them on all the people that I have kept in touch with and often connecting them thru phone calls, Whatsapp and Facebook.
One very interesting trip will be this particular guy that used to play with me back in the late 70s. I cannot even remember when I saw him last but it was probably 1978. After much research, I think I have found out the village he now lives in. I am told he tills land there – basically became a farmer. I am going to give it a shot and see if I can get to the village and ask around and meet him. That would be just super!!! And if he cannot remember me, I have an incident to remind him of!!! That is sure to do the trick!! 🙂
