Which raises a question – Why do credit cards in India give miles? Should they not be giving kilometers???

The displays showed and my boarding pass says my flight to Kolkata will leave from Gate 51.

If you carefully observe, you can see gates 49 and 53 on the right and 50 and 52 to the left.

Where is gate 51? Did it already board the plane without me?:-)

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!! 🙂

I was flying KLM from Atlanta to Amsterdam. After we got up in the air, the lady came and asked me if I wanted to start the evening with a cocktail. Immediately, I remembered my last trip to India. If you recollect the flight attendant “DJ” on Qatar Airways from Doha to Kolkata, somehow managed to get me Luxardo cherries and Angostura bitters for the Old Fashioned – which was not even on their menu. To try my luck again, I went on a whim and asked her if she could fix me a “Flying Dutchman”. I say on a whim because I was trying to pun on Flying a Dutch airlines. And guess what? She said “Sure we do. That is our featured cocktail”!!

It tasted very good but slightly different from what I remember. Found out that they use blackberry liqueur made by Bols (a Dutch company) and I was used to Triple Sec (orange liqueur). Also they added lemon juice and some simple syrup. The gin was, as expected, a very Dutch gin – Damrak. If you get a chance, check out their website (Damrak Gin) to get a chuckle.

Apologize for the picture quality. The ambience light in the plane was not too bright….

One more of those treks to India to go check on the aging parents!! This time I have something I am incredibly excited about. To understand my excitement, I have to take you back nearly two years. After decades of gently prodding and poking my dad, he finally overcame all his mental blocks to go visit the place of his birth (nearly seven decades after he left).

Ever since, every time I had seen him – and that is three to four times a year – I kept pressing him to come out of home and spend a few days in a resort with all the family around him. It would be a change of place and would absolutely alleviate a lot of tension my mom goes thru (this is part of the psychiatric challenge she is a patient of) when we all come to see him.

He has steadfastly refused to budge from home. Last December, we had to cancel ten flight tickets and hotel arrangements because he declined to leave home at the last moment. You might remember that I did a makeshift trip for a couple of days since the niece and nephews argued successfully that the outing was not just for my dad.

This whole year, I have been again trying to warm him up. With absolutely no success, whatsoever. In fact, when Sharmila visited him earlier this month, he sent a special message thru her to ask me not to request him any more.

Around that time, I remembered meeting Samaresh’s dad six months back. If you go back to that story, he was the gentleman – hard of hearing – who sat in the bed quietly when I went to meet him. And then suddenly, when I mentioned his granddaughter, he came to life and grabbed an album and started explaining the pictures of his granddaughters to me.

Not above machinations, I placed some well placed calls to my niece after Sharmila left my dad’s home. Essentially to badger by dad. Not sure what happened but I got a WhatsApp message from my sister one day asking me to call my niece. My niece, very excitedly, reported that my dad had apparently said “Accha, ektu chinta kortey de.”. Which means, let me think about it.

That was the opening I needed. Next calls were to the nephews. They are absolutely my blind followers. As instructed, they promptly called their granddad – one by one – making a case that they can go on a vacation only if my dad agreed to join in too. Later I found out that my elder nephew had totally taken a few more Machiavellian cards from his uncle’s (that would be me) book and even suggested that it is not fair that he does not get to see my dad more often.

With the entire confusion of the whole kitchen sink thrown at him, my dad relented. A week back, there were total festivities going on in Kalyani. My mom was super excited that we will go out (she likes going out but cannot because of my dad). My sister and brother in law were jumping with joy. And the nephews and niece of course could not strut around any more proud even if they had wanted to.

My brother – the most street smart person in our family – promptly booked a resort outside Kolkata for a few days. But when I asked him why did he reserve starting the day I land – in fact, I am supposed to go straight to the resort from the airport – he had an impeccable logic. Scarred by dad’s last minute change of mind last time, he wanted to make sure that dad does not get to see me at his home first. Lest he goes “Well, now I have seen you. I do not need to go out. You guys go ahead and enjoy your time”.

That was pretty smart of him, I say.

For the last five days, during my daily call to mom, I was perennially afraid that she would start by saying “Dad does not want to go…”. Till this morning it has not happened. I am really really hoping he does not change his mind while I am in the air. At this point, having thrown the grandkids at him, I have no other trump cards left!!

Wish me luck that he won’t change his mind. I do not know if he will ever get out of home after this again. But what a great sight it would be to see my parents surrounded by their three children and their families. Those are some pictures I want to show my niece’s and nephews’ kids some day a few decades from now…

As of now though, 3 flights, 24 hours of flying time, 2 layovers totaling 13 hours and 3 hours of car drive separate me from seeing that sight…

The girls are heading out to Dallas by road…
Fuel tank full? Check!
Battery condition good? Check!
Tire pressures? Check!
Pictures of the girls? Check!
Good to go? Not really? Forgot the teenager angle…

Snapchat done before starting? Check!

Okay, now we can go! And with that the girls headed out on their first long road trip together – 800 miles or 1,300 KM one way. With Natasha at the wheel!

On an aside, I am getting regular updates from Sharmila from the road. For example, they took their first thoroughly deserved break after about 10 minutes. Because a Starbucks was spotted!!! I have a feeling it will be next year before they reach.

I also noticed on Sharmila’s Facebook that her first post today “All girls road trip commences” was preceded by a post “Off to India!” from early December. It appears to me that her long vacations are interrupted only by her short vacations!! 🙂

P.S. Not finding anything better to do at home, I myself am heading out to India 😉