All set!!

I am one of the very few women in India who have never been alone to their pihar (mother’s house) after their wedding, and who have never stayed put there for weeks on end, leave alone months. In the three-and-a-half-years in which the OH and I have been married, I have been to Ahmedabad for a grand total of 3 times, always for about 5-6 days, always with the OH. My parents have visited Bangalore a couple of times, and have stayed for a few months, so we have kept meeting consistently.

This is set to be remedied soon. I am off to Ahmedabad the next weekend, for a week, all alone. This will be my first ‘single’ holiday after my wedding, and that excites me – sadist, the OH tells me. 😛 I know I am going the miss the man sorely. Twice out of my 3 visits to Ahmedabad, he has managed to land at my parents’ house before me, and has come to receive me at the airport. He loves to needle me by telling me that he has already tasted the ‘specials’ that Amma has prepared for me and that they are yummy. Darn the man! (I have always found later, though, that he has refused to eat without me each time in spite of repeated protests from my parents, because it is rightfully my house and I should be the first to taste the special dishes and comment on them. :P) I am going to miss all that needling, for sure.

I have set about making a list of all the things that I want to do in Ahmedabad, and it just doesn’t seem to be ending. I don’t even know if all of that is going to be possible in a week’s time, but I am sure going to try. Meanwhile, I also want to relax at home, talk endlessly with my family, meet friends and sleep till I lose all the stress that has been piling up on me of late. There is a horde of places that I want to visit and a series of food items that I want to get reacquainted with, from very specific places in the city. I have realised, in the course of my planning, that I have never really ‘seen’ Ahmedabad as a tourist. I have never really explored the various parts of the city as a tourist would do – thinking that I could visit them any day. I hope I rectify that during this visit.

I plan to visit the places that the OH and I visited on his first trip to see me before marriage (those where the days when we were still a very shy couple and did not know much about each other). I plan to (ahem!) wear the same dress that I was wearing then, to try and recreate a bit of that magic. 😀 Yes, I am silly like that!

Amma has strictly instructed me not to bring anything – not even clothes – from Bangalore, and to just come with 2 big, empty bags. Apparently, she has readied a lot of things to be stuffed into these bags, and she wants to make sure that I carry them all. Appa is busy making his own list of all the eatables he is going to get me while I am there, and all the places that he wants to take me to. Patti is eagerly looking forward to see me and talk to me. Oh, and the OH has given me his own list of all the things that he wants me to get from Ahmedabad, too. In the midst of all this, I am just hoping I don’t end up looking like an inflated balloon when I am back.

I know I am going to be there for just a week, that time will fly, and that I am only going to my parents’ house, but I am fraught with a lot of different emotions at the moment. I hope the visit turns out great. Fingers crossed.