I went on a vacation for
20 days to India. It's a pity that visiting home should be called a vacation,
when you now live in far off land of the United States. It was a short and
sweet vacation to my home - Chennai. The 20 days flew as fast as it could, but I
managed to enjoy and savor a lot of experiences in that brief period.
I would like to share
some of those experiences with you. Here are 20 experiences in those beautiful
20 days in India in no particular order!
1.
Zyoptix Laser surgery - It's a surgery done on the eye to correct refractive powers;
basically you do not need to wear power glasses to see after this surgery. I
had this procedure done for the same reason, I wanted to wear sunglasses. A
fascination that started in childhood watching Rajnikanth use them in style. So No more power glasses for me. I
can show off with sun glasses and have already got a Ray Ban to start with.
(p.s. the operation was super scary)
2.
Air Tickets solve
Dilemma - A few months back, my mom and sis moved to Bangalore from Chennai.
Dad got promoted and moved to Ahmadabad. So I was confused on where to
have the family meet, whether in Chennai, Bangalore or Ahmadabad. The air
tickets solved the question; Chennai had the cheapest tickets and well,
rightfully so.
3.
London Dreams
- During my flight to India, I had a 10 hour transit at London Heathrow. Online
research said that I could go out into the city with a 24 hour visa, if I had a
transit of 6+ hours. So I was all excited to visit London as well...
Unfortunately, it didn't happen. so I ended up sitting for 10 hours in Heathrow, it didn't help my case that even Chennai Super kings
lost the IPL final that day.. A
Day of broken dreams... :(
4.
A surprise welcome - We had a new member in
our family about a year back, a Dog named "Sugar". A Fierce and
daunting hunter dog, who was once small, cute and cuddly. He had grown into
this gigantic form, which’s feared by everyone. I was visiting after 2 years
and we hadn't met at all. I was a bit scared about the meet as I had heard a
lot of him over phone from mom and sis that he's very fierce and uncontrollable
but it was completely the opposite when I met him. He behaved as if he knew me
since his birth that was the friendliest welcome from a big beast.
5.
College Friends - I
met my college friends on two occasions. A hand full of them only could make it
to the meet, but it was a very nice short meet. It has been 5 years since we
parted ways from college; everyone is in a different walk of life now. No one
is really doing what we expected, we would achieve after college but it was
interesting to see that the same old friendship remained pretty fresh. And yes,
it's been five years and still people wouldn't stop talking about
certain things... :P
6.
School
Buddies - If college seemed a long time ago, School is ancient times. Yet, I
managed to meet 3 of my school friends, 3 very close friends. Prem, Harshal and Raj mohan.
The meet with each of them was short, we didn't really have time to talk about
all those lost years but it was really nice catching up with them and their
lives without having to use facebook!
7.
A Friendship through comments - Sinduja. A fellow Left Hander and a dear friend! She got introduced to me through a
mutual friend. Our friendship and communication is only through comments in our
blogs and on Facebook, yet she's a
friend with whom I share a high level of Intellectual compatibility (yes, we
are very smart!), both online and in person. Even though I knew her for more than 2 years, I had met her
only once before this trip. (This time I met her twice! so it's in increments
with every India visit!)
When we met for the first time, she was going to start her
studies in journalism; I was almost done with my masters and was in verge of
starting my job search. I told her that, "the next time we meet, we'd both
have completed what we are starting now, and would be in good jobs". Guess
what... It came true! When I met her this time, she completed her studies
and started a job, and I had worked almost 1 year in my current job.
8.
Fights that will be
missed - My Sister 'Sasi' and I share a close bond. Our sibling fights make it
a lot stronger. During those 20 days, we had so many of those fights, some
silly, some serious ones too. I really regret that the fighting opportunities
have become very scarce since I left to USA. I do advise her occasionally (as I
am the elder responsible one you see...) but it ends up in a fight. I even
tried to advise her about her Masters studies before I left for my flight, and
it did end up in a fight... What else do you expect?
9.
Cousins who are not Kids anymore - I am the
eldest grandson on both sides of my family, so I am used to seeing all younger
cousins as small kids. Only this time, I realized that the kids have grown up a
lot and were not actually kids but are in their late teens. All but one of my
cousins on both sides of my family are done with school and are in college now.
(one more reason to feel old at 26)
10.
Anna Nagar Destroyed - my hometown of Anna Nagar was not the way I am used to know. It had changed so
much due to the metro rail project and flyover constructions. The Anna nagar main road and shanthi colony road have become one ways. there's no thirumangalam signal and commuting from my house had become a
complicated thing as I had to travel extra 2 kms in and out of small streets to reach the main
road... am little satisfied that I got to see the famous Anna Arch before it's
being demolished to make way for a flyover there.
11.
Weddings Attended - I managed to attend 2
weddings out of 4 that I was invited to. One of those was in Chennai and the
other all the way far in Nagpur. The one in Chennai was a bit of surprise, as I
came to know of the wedding only a few days before I left to India. the wedding
itself was a surprise as the bridegroom, my college friend had a unique talent
to become a God man (aka swami selvananda) but who knew, he'd marry the same athai ponnu (aunt's daughter) he used to talk about in college
several years ago.
The other wedding in Nagpur was for my Friend from UConn, one of the
reasons he left America was to get married to his longtime girlfriend, and I
was glad I could make it to his wedding and represent our UConn group from USA.
12.
Weddings that I
couldn't attend - Unfortunately, I couldn't attend 2 weddings for which I was
invited. Due to some unexpected family commitments and lack of time. I
apologize to Karthik S, I wish I could have attended his wedding, as I knew
about it for a long time and planned for it, but couldn’t make it at last moment. I also couldn't make
it to my good friend Jerlin's wedding
as well as it was close to my last days in Chennai, so I couldn’t find time to go for it.
13.
Mumbai - Nagpur Adventure and Trichy trip- It was quite a travel adventure as I had gone on
this trip after my eye surgery, I had a bit blurred vision and was wearing a
thick black glasses all the time(so nearly blind). It was quite a miracle that I
went so far and came back without getting in harm’s way.
A Short trip in Car to Trichy and back to visit my Grandma, and families of my dad's
siblings. It was sweet that all were overjoyed to see me. As I’ve said before. I really wish I had more time to spend
there as well.
14.
Mrs. Anuja Mani-
A very dear friend and well wisher whom I known for a long time now...
this lady has become so busy that I had to wait 3 hours sitting alone in a Cafe
below her office to get her appointment for a lunch... was it worth ? Yes, of
course. This girl's dynamite, she says things to me, that no one else will even
dare. I wish I had spent more time with her, but as I said before, she's too
busy and on top of it, she's married now. [Aah... I couldn't make it to her
wedding as well... :(]
15.
The American side
of me - I found that I had become a bit more Americanized than
before. Not that I’ve got any American attitude. I was bothered that a doctor’s
appointment at 9 am, was not on time and I had to wait one and half hours to
meet the doctor. I stopped correctly at the stop line at red light, when
everyone around me sped away. I waited in line for my turn where people did not
bother about a line being there. The above things are not bad; they are
good manners, yet in India. It’s ridiculed. I noticed that I had consciously changed;
I couldn't change to my Indian ways, unless I tried hard. It felt
quite weird not being able to act Indian in India.
16.
Dude Where's my Flight? - This funny incident
happened in the London airport during my return to US. I had a transit and had
to go from terminal 4 to terminal 3 to catch my flight to Chicago. The Airline
which will not be named, made a funny mess, they couldn't track where
the flight was parked for about 45 minutes, then later found out where it was. So
they boarded all the passengers in buses and took us to the airplane... Guess
what, the flight was parked in Terminal 4. So it was not a big deal when the
Airline lost one of my Checked in Luggage, as they seem to lose their airplanes. !
17.
Driving in Chennai - During my earlier visits
to Chennai, I did not find it much difficult to drive the car, as I had not
driven a car in USA, this time though was really different, as I have been
driving in USA for a while now. I had a tough time operating the indicators as
it's on the right side in India. I kept switching on the wipers, whenever I had
to make a turn. Otherwise, I had a great thrill driving in Indian roads. After
coming back, American roads seem to be boring and routine.
18.
Parents - It's very true that no matter how
old you become, you are still a child to your parents. I saw that with mine as
well. They were very caring and protecting me like a child. When we were having
a leisure discussion regarding my wedding and my parents were quite unprepared
on how to go about it as they didn't really come to realize it. Well, I know
they will soon learn the tactics of it and move forward. It’s only a matter of
time.
19.
Lost in thoughts - a recent obsession of mine,
I observe the dynamics in an organized work place. How people go about in their
work, the system, how the work flows within it and maybe how it can be
improved. I had a really good time analyzing each detail in a variety of public
systems such as airports, airline crews, buses, police, traffic, hotels...
etc... I can see in plain sight that there's a lot of scope
for improvement in efficiency and labor in all of those systems, alas
I wonder what's stopping them from making those changes and I wish I could be
in such power authority to make changes.
20.
Identity crisis - I still have an Identity
crisis within me, a dilemma whether to stay in USA or go back to India. The
India trip doesn't really help much. It increases the crisis in me. I
am on a balanced pedestal now; I wish I find an anchor on one side which would
pull one of the sides strongly, so that I can decide. I wish I find that anchor
soon.
That's a Long list of
Experiences, even though my trip's a pretty short one. I hope my next trip has
much better experiences to talk about... :)
