Going back to our roots – Our wonderful visit to India

We have been long absent from our blog. The reason – just could not get back on track after our 3 week visit to India. We now come back with many beautiful experiences and memories of our homeland.

We had the entire trip pre-planned to include meeting with friends and family and visiting places. Luckily, we were able to meet most of our friends as per plan.

Gwalior – Celebration, Seminar, Zoo & Golgappas: Showed off my hometown to my Better Half for the first time!

Just two days after we landed in India (New Delhi), we had to go to my hometown – Gwalior, to meet the newest addition to our family – Arsh, my nephew, and to attend his birth celebration, which was planned to coincide with our visit. The function also gave us an opportunity to meet our extended family. What’s noteworthy in the function was a beautiful hand-made Pin-board with baby nappies and clothes to write wishes on. All the guests wrote their wishes on those nappies and clothes that were hanging through a clothespin. Another noteworthy thing was a flex-poster with Arsh’s photos – it really added to the beauty of the function hall.

This time in Gwalior, Vivek got an opportunity to accompany my father to an environmental seminar in which my father was the key-note speaker. He spoke on one of his passions – Vermi-composting. In Vivek’s words, the experience was ‘enlightening’ and all the media coverage made him ‘feel proud’ of father and his work. If you want to know more about his work, you can connect with him through his FB page Prof. OP Agrawal.

We visited Gwalior zoo where the animals were super-active unlike most of the zoos. Seemed like the animals are given good care there. This time I took Vivek to my favorite Golgappa shop. Golgappa is a north-Indian appetizer, one of the most-common street-foods, and unparalleled winner of every female’s taste-buds. If Vivek has to describe it, he would say – its a sure shot way of making wifey happy. The shop is my favorite not because its the best in taste but because they do not dip their hands in golgappa water and use mineral water and are still inexpensive. Vivek was super-impressed with the process used by that street hawker to ensure hygiene while serving the masses.

Time to move on to New Delhi now…

We visited Kingdom of Dreams and finally saw their much hyped play Jhumroo. We did not like it much and would give it a rating of 3/5. They don’t allow kids below 2 yrs in the play due to high decibel sounds. They have a small child-care with 2-3 care-givers just outside the theater where kids below 2 can be left. Initially, we left Pari there and went to the play. But soon after, we got a call from them saying that Pari is crying. Its the worst child-care ever! The care-givers are not trained to handle kids, they did not even try to soothe Pari or divert her attention so that she stops crying. We know this because this happened during the 10 min break and we were keeping a watch on Pari.

Lost & Found

In no-time, it was time to return. At the New Delhi airport while waiting for our flight, as we were recalling all the remarkable moments of our visit, not expecting anything more, something eventful happened. We lost my boarding pass. All the boarding passes were with Vivek but mine was missing. He went back to trace the boarding pass while I talked to the airline representatives to apprise them of my situation. They immediately put our check-in baggage on hold and told us that in case we do not find the boarding pass, probably we would miss the flight as there was not enough time left for re-stamping of boarding pass. Thankfully, Vivek returned with a content look on his face that told me that the boarding pass has been found. It was found at the airport information desk, and the people there did not even care to inform the airlines about the boarding pass so that its owner could be tracked and informed…such inefficiencies!!!

While we were thanking God for finding the boarding pass, we were not aware of one more series of lost and found. In the flight, we lost Vivek’s cellphone. We searched everywhere, under the seats, our bags, even informed the crew. After all, where can it disappear in the flight. We were sure that we brought it in as the air-hostess instructed Vivek to switch it off. The crew was very helpful and after landing they were able to find it under a seat where we had already searched 🙂

And so ended our memorable trip to India. Namaste.