Ours is a very democratic family. All members have equal
right and freedom to express opinion about almost everything and opinions are
examined carefully before a collective decision is made!
To feel that each one of us has freedom to do as per our
wish, on an average day, I cook Pesto Pasta for the boy, pasta with white sauce
for the girl, lamb curry for the Head of the Family while I stick to my staple
fish curry and rice! If we decide to go for a movie together, we only travel
together to the movie hall but I head to a theatre screening a Bollywood movie
and husband and children settle down in a different theatre for an English
movie. Needless to mention, we take lot of time and deliberation to decide on
something major!
For us, “ Let us go somewhere for vacation” is a very major
and sensitive issue. Honestly speaking, so far, our travel diary is almost
blank. In the past 16 years that I am married, we had only been to Nainital for
one and half day and we had gone to Phuket last year for 5 days. Reasons are
many…..
…..Primarily because, husband is required to travel about 20
days a month to all parts of the world as his employment demands. His tired
body yearns for the cosy comfort of home and some home cooked food during
holiday and he would prefer to stay at home given a chance.
….. Secondly, I am not a travel person per se…. I do not
possess strong legs to walk miles to explore things or to marvel at the
exploration people have already done; I do not have a strong heart to jump into
any kind of adventure in a faraway land; neither I am emotionally so strong
that I could forego my mandatory annual visit to Greater Noida; I would rather
prefer to travel to Greater Noida during holidays and watch Nature’s wonders on
Discovery Channel or National Geographic and I have no regrets for “missing out
on fun”. (Of late, I have been nurturing a secret wish of going to see Leh and
Ladakh all by myself, reason unknown to me even!)
If travel to different places is equivalent to gathering
knowledge, then I am illiterate and uneducated to the core and I am not ashamed
to accept that fact.
…..the last important reason being purely financial. Yes, I
could not come out of typical “service class” mentality where ‘ salary’ is
earned to be saved for a better cause of life and spending so much of money on
a holiday and few days of fun does not get a ready and quick approval from me
much to the annoyance of my husband and children !
But that was when children were small and they were yet to
learn to put forward their likes and dislikes! Now they are grown up and
mingles with friends who go for vacations (ordinary and exotic) each year as a
ritual. Peer pressure was building up within them, I guess and finally, two
years back, both of them were very critical of the fact that we had never been
to any place other than Greater Noida during holidays. In the evening, after a
very brief deliberation, the house was divided into 3:1 and a family decision
was made that we would go for a vacation each year at least once. My
contribution to the plan was limited to packing my stuff and carrying myself to
wherever they would decide to travel!!
The planning for “December holiday” has started in the
household for this year. The other day, husband got four travel magazines of
DNATA and I was given the honour to decide on a place for the family to travel
to. As usual, before I could lay my eyes on the beautiful sample pictures of
the places featured in the magazines, I read the “per person” cost and did a
quick mental calculation of the “financial outflow after adding 30% overhead
cost”. My husband was insistent that we should go to some place in Europe this
year. Tragically enough, I have very blurry idea of geographical definitions and
boundaries of Europe, America or as a matter of fact, any other continent and
country other than India. To avoid confusion, I announced during dinner time to
the children “We are going for an Austrian holiday this year. Now, if Austria
does not fall in Europe that is none of my problem. I have already decided”.
The family approved then and there.
“We have to apply for visa well in time so to avoid last
minute panic and uncertainty” was my husband’s premonition. To look and talk
little informed, I tried to search in Google for visa formality the other day
and left the site halfway as it was too much of information-overload for my
brain. I thought it prudent to leave it to the person who is most experienced
in the family as regards travel is concerned as he travels in and out of Dubai
almost like any Airline crew member…. I went off to sleep a little excited and
happy that day thinking about our ensuing Austrian Holiday.
Just after I said my prayers and closed my eyes with the
happy smile still intact, strangely enough, memories of the incident happened
during my fifth chemotherapy session flooded my mind like a surge of mud-water
and swept me three years in the past to
the hospital bed. A serious allergic reaction of the chemotherapy medicine
almost took my life. The Oncologist mentioned to us later that he never
encountered such severe reaction in his entire career of 16 years as a Cancer
specialist and that I was alive was nothing short of a miracle! While the
doctors and nurses were fighting tooth and nail to bring me back from the
clutches of death, I was barely conscious to understand the severity of the
battle. I could only feel the tight hug of my husband who kept on whispering
into my ears “Dare not leave me alone”; I could only remember how dad wept
helplessly to his Almighty when the diagnosis came out, “Take my life but dare
not snatch my child from me” and I could only murmur to the doctor,” I have not
kissed my children good-bye”.
I was not afraid that it was time for me to end my earthly
journey so soon and so abruptly and the thought that I had not travelled to
many places while I was alive, did not even occur to me. Rather, I could sense
immense calmness within me that I could be a good daughter to my parents; that
I could be a good mother to my children; that I could be a good wife to my
husband; that I could be a good friend to few.
On that day and time, I was ready to travel to God’s own
country and since then, I am always ready. Life has taught me to stay
clutter-free. I live life without many attachments, without much expectations,
without any regrets for my acts and deeds and I feel extremely content at all
points of time. With each passing day, the realisation is getting stronger that
only few people and few bonds matter in life; rest all is immaterial and
peripheral to living a happy life. Whether I get to go for an Austrian vacation
or not; whether I get to appreciate the blue water of many oceans or mighty
heights of mountains in different parts of the world or not; whether I get to
taste cuisine from around the world or not --- the measure of my happiness and
contentment is not going to be altered, for sure!
Cherish those few people in life and nurture those few bonds
with all your heart and soul!!! Having said that, if an opportunity arises on
the periphery to travel to a new place and explore, grab it with both hands.
On a funny note, I will certainly irritate my children and
husband with this philosophy of mine and a decently long lecture to convince
them to buy this. I see a prospect of saving few thousand dirhams and a holiday
to my very own Greater Noida in December….
