I’m back….

…. to Bangalore and on my blog after a fantabulous vacation in Ahmedabad.

I think I will be doing a series of posts on my trip to Ahmedabad gradually, but for now, here are the salient features of this vacation in bullet points.

~ As you people already know, this was my first real vacation without the OH. Usually, the OH takes care of the planning and execution of all our trips, and I just help a bit with the research. This entire trip was funded, planned and executed by me, and that gave me a great high. It was more than a trip home – it was an attempt to explore how I fare on my own, and an attempt to explore a city that has been home, but which has never really been explored. I realised that I am not all that bad at planning and execution.

~ I did miss the OH a lot, but that did not stop me from having super fun on this trip. I managed to see some of the most important landmarks of Ahmedabad, which I had never seen before. I realised that Ahmedabad has changed in a lot of ways. Parts of the city are still the same – old and dusty but full of history – and parts of it are new, throbbing with excitement and newness. The city is FAST developing, with SG Highway boasting of some of the best eatery chains that are present in other major cities of India, and the Sabarmati riverfront project and all.

~ Ahmedabad has a lot more to offer than I have seen yet, and I don’t know if I will get a chance to do that anytime again. I would love to, though. There are loads of places that I would love to visit around Ahmedabad as well.

~ Ahmedabad is paradise for food and clothes lovers. I managed to eat some wonderful food out of the house and buy some lovely clothes, without burning a hole in my purse. I don’t know why these two aspects of the city are not promoted in the Gujarat Tourism advertisements! They should be!

~ My parents have sold off their house. A neighbour expressed interest in buying it, and a deal was struck. They will be vacating the place pretty soon, once the registration and other details are taken care of, and shifting to Bangalore. This makes me both happy and sad. This is what I had been wanting all along – for my parents to settle down somewhere near me, so that I could visit them often. It bothers me, though, that ‘home’ will never be ‘home’ for me again. I probably will not even be visiting the city again. In fact, the prospective buyers visited me while I was there, and were discussing their plans to pull down walls and cover balconies and, in short, customise the house to their tastes. They are very enthusiastic and happy about settling into our house, and it gives me peace to know that it will be well cared for, but it pains me to know that it will never look the same again. Well, such is life. If I were a millionaire, I would have bought the house myself, but that is a distant dream. (Smitha, this is what I was telling you about the grass always being greener on the other side.)

~ The trip gave me cartloads of time to introspect about my life and things that have been making me happy and stressing me out of late. It made me think a lot of my direction in life, what I want to do next. I don’t have a clear path ahead of me yet, but I do know the baby steps that I want to take now.

~ This trip showed me and my parents that I have changed. I cooked for them on a couple of days, something I have never done before on a holiday home. I handled the kitchen entirely for a few days, and let my parents relax, sit back and enjoy the meal. I packed my bags three whole days in advance before I was to leave. My parents were stunned. This convinced them – and me – that I can be super lazy or super efficient as I want to. 😛

~ My time in Ahmedabad brought back many fond memories, and many demons from the past as well. It set me thinking again, and thankfully, I realised I have largely been able to make my peace with my demons and be gratified for the good things in life.

~ I realised, yet again, how different the OH is from typical Indian husbands. This trip made me relive the reasons for marrying him in the first place, and made me thankful for having him in my life.

~ I realised that life in a smallish city has its own charms. I was able to run a lot of errands within a few hours and reach home still fresh at the end of it. I realised I could reach anywhere in Ahmedabad within 20-25 minutes, within 30 minutes at the maximum, which is quite unlike Bangalore. I was totally at the mercy of auto rickshaw drivers there, who are, still, largely dependable. In fact, they seemed fit to worship after having experienced the auto rickshaw drivers in Bangalore.

~I managed to meet up with a couple of old friends, and it was fun. It was just like the old times. There were no gaps, no awkward pauses, no stares. We just seemed to pick up where we had left off about 3 years back. That felt great.

~ The trip was fraught with emotions, as a trip home is always – rather, as what is probably the last trip to a place that you called home is bound to be. My stomach is still churning with a variety of emotions. It was a chore cooking the dinner yesterday after being back in the afternoon, getting up early in the morning today and getting back to work. Hopefully, the routine of everyday life will set me right soon.

~ I managed to carry back an assortment of spices and powders and chutneys that Amma graciously dumped my bag with. I had to leave some of the stuff that she had packed untouched, too, thanks to the weight limitations on the airlines. There were loads of things – big and small – that I would have loved to bring back from Ahmedabad, but couldn’t. That reminded me of a friend’s Facebook status long ago: ‘Wish home weighed 20 kg.’ Sadly, it doesn’t.

Well, that is that for now. I hope to be back soon with the rest of the posts in the series.

How have you been doing, people? What’s up? I am all ears!