Time to fill in gas: 1 min
Time needed to pet the street puppies: 5 mins

My brother and sister are like the Pied Piper of Puppies. Wherever they go, dogs and puppies of every ilk make a beeline for them…

(That guy in the picture is my brother Chiradeep)

Everything worked out picture perfect. He did follow thru with his word to the niece and nephews that he will come.

Mom insisted on joining us for the evening drinks each of the three days. Last evening, in fact, she asked for another mojito!!

Time to say Bye for now.

That expression on his face as he climbed into the car to head back home, I felt, entitled me to check off the first objective of the trip…

And with that, I slipped into the other car to achieve as many of the other objectives as possible….

Okay, we also have to eat our rosogollas and wear our monkey caps but… soccer is way up there in the list…

He seems to have gotten some of his mojo back. He is cracking jokes, telling the grandkids stories and most importantly having a friendly banter with mom!

The nephews are yet to wake up.

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 🙂