Sweet nothings to reminisce about after a visit home

No matter how old you grow and how long it's been since you left home after marriage, your parents will always treat you special and will try to recreate the atmosphere like you'd never left. 

Usually, if the husband is not travelling with me, Appa insists on picking me up and seeing me off at the airport. And, I always argue knowing only too well in my heart he won't listen. This time, it was Amma who insisted and both of them ended up coming to the airport to see me off :-)

It's sweet to see how Amma feeds the crows and pigeons that feast heartily at a specially made food table outside the kitchen window. The food vanishes within just a few moments of serving. The regulars take the liberty of cawing hungrily and demanding food or more food on certain days and Amma smiles and obliges.

A visit home is never complete without the mandatory gorging on chats and vada pav and binge shopping. Gratifying to say that this was checked off the list this time too!

Love the way my niece and R bond together. They are an explosive pair, just a year apart and similar in nature. They can be more than a handful to handle for the ones in whose care they are in but the sibling love and camaraderie between them is beautiful.

Snaps from a few years back

This time, R decided to stay back for a few more days and we had long discussions about how he felt about it. From "Yes, I'll stay. No worries. You go" to "Amma, I want to play for some more days with S. But, I'll miss you. So, can't we shift here forever?" and "Please, tell Appa to find a job here!"

The conversation would take a different shape at other times,
"It has to be my plan and not your plan of my staying back with pati and periamma!" to "I don't want to come home with K periappa. Ask Appa to come and pick me up" to "Ok, then, but, don't forget to come to the Airport to pick me up!"

His innocent questions, concerns, and a constant plea to shift base tugged at my heartstrings. Finally, he made sure it was "his" plan to stay back! I was certainly proud to see my little boy, all of 6 years, weighing the pros and cons carefully and taking a big decision. I'd worry that he was a little too casual when it came to people and relationships. How wrong I was! He definitely has that tender spot in his heart and understands and expresses his vulnerability. 

It felt so strange to travel alone that day. Getting used to a quiet house too took some time. Yet, I'm grateful for my sister for coming up with the plan and showing the confidence to see it through. R had always bonded with my parents and sister indirectly; as a by-product of my relationship with them. While he shares a separate and special bond with S, my parents have been more of S's grandparents and my sister more of S's mother. I wanted that to change and this arrangement gives the perfect ambience for a direct bond with them to grow roots. 

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Ghar ke side-effects

Statutory warning: The title and the following post can remind you of the plots of many Bollywood movies, but I can assure you that it is purely non-fictional and un-inspired from reel life.

It's been a long four years of having the most coveted milestone of "owning a house" under our belts. Now, if you belong to the salaried class who is constantly trying to climb up the slippery wall of affluence, only to see the wall dismally getting higher and more slippery and your legs and hands weary of climbing, not because you cannot but because you're worn down with the weight of EMIs, loans and soaring expenses, you'll understand what a big deal this is. If you do not belong to this category, I suggest you move on because what's coming next might make you laugh or cry, depending upon how you view this class:-p

The first year of the arduous house hunt involved turning down projects because they were either so ridiculously priced that you wanted to laugh hysterically at the marketing sales guy who sold a mere 1000 sqft flat for "just" 1 crore (not all inclusive), or they were located in the farthest most crevices of the city and just the mere thought of crawling out of the hole and getting to the nearest school, mall or office in the (in)famous Bangalore traffic could make you tired and hungry! So, when at the end of it, when we found a property that didn't burn down our pockets and was relatively in a good location, we carried smug looks around and pitied people who missed the (our) bus.

The second year flew by fast and we didn't realize until much later that our beloved little home hadn't really metamorphosed into that beautiful haven we had been promised over pre-launch talks and welcome drinks. It was just struggling to gain some shape after the cocoon of fraudulent marketing broke. Now, of course, I can choose to think of it as a blessing in disguise because in the process of extracting work from the workers who had brick walls in place of brains, I soon learned the ropes of plumbing, masonry and other sundry construction work. Anybody looking to build their house can please contact me.

Finally, we decided, like many of our neighbours, that we move lock, stock and barrel to our abode which was, albeit a little under-finished, quite literally an effort of our sweat and blood. We began to settle in as a community bonding over the common misery of being cheated. Oh, the human mind! There's so much solace in knowing that you are not the only fool and you have company in suffering.

We prided us on our multi-tasking skills by getting on with our normal life ( as normal as life could get with leaking pipes, broken tiles and ignorant handymen) and taking the builder to task to finish the pending work using the Chanakya neeti of saam daam danda bhed. If only, Chanakya would've been alive today, he could've seen how even his neeti proved ineffective on unscrupulous goons of today who made the Aam junta get entangled in the maze of timelines. Many a times, I did feel like rolling my eyes and bellowing at the goons like our Sunny paji, "how dare you keep giving us tareekh pe tareekh?!" But, I refrained because, sadly, I lacked a dhai kilo ka haath.

Even this was becoming a new normal way of living and it seemed even adventurous to many. I swear none of us said, "yeh dil maange more" but the universe misheard us and gave us more strife. This time with additional villains in the guise of neighbouring landowners. They seem to be influenced by our country's notorious neighbour and claimed a share in our property. We might soon take training in guerrilla warfare. Life is certainly happening here and as things stand we might soon go down in the annals of history for fighting at our LOC a la mini India-Pak border war.

"Har Ghar kuch kehta hai" goes the Asian Paints Ad. In this case, I'd like to add "har ghar khareedne wala bahut kuch kehta hai". If any of you is planning on taking a movie but is at a loss for ideas, please feel free to get "inspired". You could even feature hapless residents like us during the credit rolls singing, "oh paape, ghar khareedke pachtaya." 

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