The Destination

When I said our trip was 'meh' I meant that in comparison to what happened before. You are sure you've managed to step out of the maelstrom of the previous two days, but there is this niggling doubt, that maybe you haven't? In hindsight, we had, we absolutely had, but it is a realisation that came much later.

So let's start from the beginning:

Way back in 1990, I went off to this little town called Karaikudi in my home state to do my Engineering degree. We were about thirty female to about 200 males. Weird ratio right?

Anyway, most of us availed of the hostel facilities there and only three ladies, more like girls, we were teenagers, were what we called day scholars, attending classes and going back home because they were Karaikudi natives. While the hostelers mixed and mingled on a daily basis, the day scholars were people we met in class and nothing more. So we were on a slightly distant kind of dynamics with them. And then we had various departments and people tended to make closed friends with people who were in their department. Too many variables huh?

So ultimately, you made lifelong friends based off a completely complex calculation, factoring in a myriad set of criteria. And then if you move away to the US, running into each other becomes an even more rare thing and sometimes friendships fizzle out. 

But beyond this, sometimes, another conglomeration of events can set things on its head. What was in the periphery, suddenly is front and center. What didn't catch yor attention is now engaging your senses. 

As usual there is a catalyst that sets things in motion, and that, in my case was the 25th reunion that was being planned for our Engineering class of 1994. Teams were formed for various aspects of the reunion and I happened to take up part of the memoir preparation work. And I ran into a classmate who had been a day scholar and therefore not on my radar way back in the 90s. Not that we fell into each others arms right away, but we did, gradually. We found that we thought alike, hated the same people ( which is a huge thing!!), looked at life with the same perspective. That we lived in the US made the whole thing more attractive because we could possibly meet once in a while. Which we have I should say, much to my happiness. 

And that social media bane, Whatsapp, turned out to be boon this time, introduced me to the other friend that I am close with and we had been together in the hostel and like I  mentioned previously, hadn't been close too because that complex calculation hadn't resulted in close friendship, but more  of a nodding at each other level of familiarity.

But here, our our friendship thrived. We were reliving our college days from 30 years ago and tentatively feeling each other out about people we went to college with and how we felt about particular classmates etc. Like they say, ' tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are'. Surprisingly, we noted,that we did have an aversion to the same set of people. I am writing this with absolutely no guilt. Not liking certain people is, in my opinion, a virtue and it speaks volumes about what kind of person you are. You don't have to go after them with hammer and tongs, but steering clear of them in itself indicates  your intolerance for certain values, attitudes and behaviors. 

I digress. 

We slowly grew our friendship, with Whatsapp helping. A reunion in Colorado last year cemented our status as friends and then we let loose. We chat, we call, we meet. We talk about any and everything and people who went to college with us look askance at our little gang! I'm sure it surprises them as much as it surprises us that we weren't exactly friends 30 odd years ago as teenagers, but here we are,  in our fifties, thick as thieves. We sometimes wonder why we weren't friends back then, but the algorithm didn't work then. And there is a time for everything and this was when it was preordained that we become close. We don't defer to each other much, we have lively arguments about things and don't always agree on things either. Our taste differ, from clothes to food to books to TV. But age has given us the wisdom to know when to draw close and when to give each other space.

Circling back to my first post about the Camino, these were the two friends, I decided , would form the perfect trio to walk for days with. If a one day trek worked out, 5 days should be ok.

Thanks to our Alaska Airlines fiasco, my two friends had a day to themselves but were constantly in touch with us asking for updates and they even stayed awake Friday night until we had landed and were finally in bed at the hotel.

Saturday came bright and early and we all slowly awoke and got ready and finally stepped out of the hotel, took the shuttle and went back to Hertz and got our car. A big fat, Buick Enclave..accomodating six people.  Off we raced to pick up my friends at a pre-arranged spot. Breakfast at Waffle House and off we drive to San Antonio. 

We managed to get the requisite passport for stamping at each Mission and the lady at the Pigrimage center assured us that our certificate would be ready for pick up when we walked back to the pilgrimage center later. However the center would close at 3.00 p.m instead of 5.00 p.m because there was a wedding being officiated there. But she gave us the number of a person to contact once we got to the center, who could get us our stamps. That was so nice of her. When things go the correct way, they exuberantly do!

We drove to the last mission on the Camino: Mission Espada, because our plans was to end at the Cathedral San Fernanado in downtown San Antonio. Parking the car at the Mission, we  began walking. Each of us had a back pack, water, hat, snacks and plenty of good spirits. The weather cooperated massively. Not too hot, no rain, cool and bright.

We took about forty five minutes to the next mission, San Juan. Noe and Manny enthusiastically joined me and the aunties and they took turns walking with each of us and on the whole we had a great time. We weren't tiring,  but we had our eyes on the time because we had started 3 hours later than anticipated and so had to hurry a bit. The next mission, San Jose took us and hour and a half partly because it was a beautiful walk and also because we took a break to buy shaved ice and salted cucumbers from a pushcart vendor on the way. We took pictures, hydrated ourselves on the sugary ice and meandered on the path.

We took a reasonably long break at the Mission San Jose and then Manny and Vincent rented electric bicycles to drive back to Mission Espada so they could drive the car back to pick us up.

So the three of us with Noe as our male protector, walked another one and a quarter hour to the Pilgrimage Center at Mission Concepcion. As promised, one phone call and we had our certificates presented to us, but we had the last leg of the walk to finish. 

By then Manny and Vincent were there with the car, and we palmed Noe off on them. And then, it was just us. With an hour long walk left. 

We took off, just the three of us, chatting about this and that,  and since we were walking within the city, we had crosswalks to watch out for, traffic lights to wait at and our flagging energies to pay attention to. 

My legs were bothering me and when I mentioned it to my friend, she laughingly said she had held back from saying it because it would probably bring us all down, but we did concede that we were tired and achy.

But we kept up. Our chatting gave way to this focus to put one feet in front of the other and surreptitious looks at the GPS to see how many minutes were left.

The last thirty minutes of walking was in downtown San Antonio and so the crowds increased and there were more distractions,  but we persevered. 

And finally, the Cathedral came into view. And right at the light, my family stood facing us and waiting for us to cross the road to join them in walking the last 100 feet to the Cathedral. 

Walking into the Cathedral was awe inspiring for me and funnily we walked in right when the Lord's Prayer was being said at Saturday Mass.

Peace, peace is what the Lord wants us to have. "Peace I leave you,  my peace I give to you". 

The entire verse,John 14: 27, is:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. In a world filled with negativity, peace is more valuable than all the riches the world can offer.

And what is more peaceful than a long leisurely mindful walk with desirable company and love and laughter?

Tired but happy that we had achieved what we had set out to do, we had dinner and drove back to Austin and went our ways.

The walk was rushed, not the pace, just the inability to take breaks. We didn't walk around the Missions, rich with history and tradition. We didn't dawdle anywhere, it was like eyes on the prize. But we were tested and passed with flying colors. We, as a trio, withstood the pressure exerted and came away unscathed. We know we can do the longer walk, no questions asked. That is a long long time away and for now, we are soaking in our success!

Journey Part 2

After falling in bed at 12.30 a.m Thursday night ( or was it Friday morning?), we woke up and had the whole day to kill before it would be time to take the flight.

Since we had to scrap all our plans to celebrate Manny's birthday at Austin, we decided to buy something at a bakery that we frequented. And Manny decided he wanted slices of all the cakes they had instead of just one cake. So we walked out with big fat slices of Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Raspberry,  Strawberry, Pumpkin Spice and Vanilla Caramel cakes.

I had almost cleaned out all the vegetables in the refrigerator and so we had to settle for a salad and of course the yummy cake slices for lunch and make do with just that. Which isn't a complaint, the cakes were too delicious for words.  

Thursday's fiasco was soon forgotten as we got ready to do the whole thing all over again.  Leave at 2.00 p.m, park the car at the parking lot, take the shuttle, get to the airport, clear security, and reach the gate. Hopefully our experience would diverge after that, fingers crossed!

Oh, we had been given food vouchers for twelve, twelve  solid dollars by Alaska for the horrible experience of the previous day. We used them to buy dinner, but funnily, we didn't buy dinner in any of the places we had, the previous day. That would be jinxing things we thought!

Back to the gate, a different one this time, and we noticed that the incoming flight was late, not by much, but enough for this little quiver of worry in the pit of my stomach.  It can't happen again, can it?

We took off thirty minutes late but we did take off and were just going to be a little late, nothing big.

The flight was uneventful and we even had a lightning show at 30000 feet,the likes of which I've never seen before.  Portland has tame rainfall, slightly heavier than dew with barely any thunder or lightning to gussy things up. This show went on for about thirty minutes and finally it was time to land. We were starting to descend, but after a few minutes I noticed that we weren't actually descending anymore, but staying steady at that altitude.  Were they dumping fuel? That's for emergencies I knew.

I frantically texted the resident aviation freak who was sitting in the row ahead of us asking what that meant and he reassured me that if it were bad, they would have announced it.

Finally after half an hour of circling, we  landed, an hour later than the original ETA. We didn't simply land,we landed straight into a thunderstorm. 

Chennai has its fair share of thunderstorms and I grew up experiencing quite a few, but this one was something.  The rain blowing sideways and the light and sound show that I saw from the air continuing on the ground. And the pilot came on the PA system,  to let us know that it seemed like a fast moving storm prevented us from taxiing to the gate and so we had to wait - at the tarmac- the one experience we had been spared on Thursday. 

And wait we did a good thirty minutes more, watching the rain lashing the plane and lightning lighting up the entire airport. I was sitting there  at the tarmac, watching this fire and brimstone fury of nature and planning ahead.

So obviously our Hertz rental car pickup had to be done without agents because they close at 1.00 a.m and it was already past that time. I had already let the hotel know that we were skipping Friday but would check in after  midnight . So the room should be ready for us. I looked forward to the bed in the hotel room so much!

We deplaned, picked up our luggage and walked to the Hertz counter, where obviously there was no one. But a traveller( his luggage gave him away) asked us if we were there to pick up a car and let us know that Hertz had had an outage and we couldn't pick up a rental. What?? This was confirmed by a couple of, it seemed like Hertz employees, who walked in at that moment.

I was livid. Here we were, stuck at the airport, with no car to take us to the hotel. Which was just five minutes away.

We walked out of there and were thinking of options- Uber? Taxi? Then it hit me that hotels near airports have shuttles. Voila!

One phone call and 10 minutes later, we were on the shuttle going to the hotel. That was one knot that disentangled well.

I marched right up to the check in desk and gave the lady my name. After a two minute search, she very gently asked me if I was at the wrong hotel..I was at a loss for words at that point! 

Murphy's law in action!!

Here's the Google version:

'This phrase is known as Murphy's Law, which states that "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." It reflects the idea that if there are multiple ways for something to fail, the worst outcome is likely to occur.'

So one more word added to my Lexicon. Groundstop, crew timing out, and now Murphy's law. 

Life teaches you lessons, but I could have done without the accelerated version.

I took a deep breath and let her know our circumstances and showed her the text message I had been sent the previous day, welcoming us to the hotel.  That actually helped because they had actually checked us in the previous day and that was why my reservation hadn't popped up on Friday. I had already checked in on Thursday. 

Finally, key cards in hand, we took the elevator upstairs and opened the door to our hotel room at 2 00 a.m Saturday, the day we had planned to walk, starting at 9.00 a.m. Seven hours to go.

Bliss! We changed into pajamas and crashed into bed and were out in minutes.

Murphy's law in action was a sight to behold, but I lay in bed and in the few minutes before I nodded off , it hit me - we were exactly where we needed to be Friday night. In Austin, in bed, safe and sound, warm and cozy ,tired but finally contented. 

The walk we had planned had religious dimensions obviously, but my friends weren't Catholics and we were undertaking this journey as a mindful walking process.

But God, whatever name you call him by, has you in his sights.  As it is said in Isaiah 49:16 -

'See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;'

It might seem like the walls are closing in, but no, he literally will hold you up and save you.

 My friend actually reminded me to include this in the post, I'd almost forgotten it: We have had a habit of praying before undertaking any journey and so we had prayed before we started from home on Thursday. When I reminded Noe to pray before we left on friday, the answer was a curt, "No!" And an explanation, "We already prayed yesterday!"  Noe's confidence is enviable. No worrying that God might have forgotten us in his busy schedule, and needed to be reminded again.

And so I went to bed, happy and grateful that we have someone watching over us, making sure things get straightened out and go our way. 

And, yeah we got our car rental the next day without a fuss..

The walk was uneventful,  and the rest of our trip was' Meh'..but I for once, loved, absolutely loved, the ' Meh'!!

Journey, Part 1

Every journey begins with a single step and this one began not even with me taking that single step.

It was Vincent's journey that spurred my mine and so all the credit for this post and everything that we did or experienced ( good or bad, you’ll find out why I said that, as you keep reading) goes to him. 

When he did the Camino and came home, he went on and on about it (and still does) and that is what gave me this idea that maybe I should do it too, not the entire 700+ kilometers, but the last 100, which would still get you the coveted certificate.

 And unlike my husband, I cannot imagine walking alone. Cue the music! I have managed to reconnect with a couple of friends from my college days and we decided that we would maybe walk the Camino together. But that is still a long time away. 

In the meanwhile,Vincent discovered that there is a much smaller Camino, an almost 13 mile one, here in San Antonio, Texas which sounded intriguing. We did want to walk the original one, but were wondering how to see if we would be able to walk together and make the distance in a decent time and also not start hating each other on account of the proximity. 

This one day trip seemed the perfect way to find out. So we planned and plotted.

 After a couple of probable dates fell through, we finally settled on October 25th of this year. And my sweet family decided they were coming too! Well, the more the merrier. 

The flight tickets were booked, the hotel room was reserved and the car rental was paid for and we were eagerly anticipating the walk. We all had practiced on a minor level by ourselves and felt we could manage the trek.

So one friend was coming in from Dallas. The other was an Austin native and we were flying in from Portland. We were arriving close to midnight on Thursday, spending a day sightseeing Austin, walking on Saturday and leaving on Sunday. 

By Wednesday our bags were packed, and we were all eagerly awaiting the trip. Also Portlanders like us were looking forward to the 80 degree weather that was forecast for Austin and San Antonio.  Perfect! Could things be more perfect? 

Thursday dawned bright and early and we left for the airport late afternoon for the evening flight. We all are sticklers for time in my house, so we managed to clear security and get to the gate, way before actual boarding.

Portland airport is a sight to behold. Lofty wooden ceilings and lush greenery effectively mask the hustle bustle of a typical airport. The food scene in Portland is world renowned and the airport is no exception. So we all went to our favorite places and bought dinner to eat on the plane.

I kept my friends updated on our flight time and finally boarding time rolled in. Except we weren't boarding. The minutes ticked by and I started to fret about the car rental in Austin closing at 1.00 a.m and hoping we would get there before that. And the minutes still swept on and nothing happened. Finally around the time that we should have actually taken off, the announcement came that Alaska Airlines had declared a groundstop. What in the world is a groundstop?

 This is what Google spits out if you search for it:

'A ground stop is a temporary restriction on an airport where air traffic control requires aircraft to remain on the ground at their origin airport to manage traffic flow, often due to severe weather, staffing issues, or other operational problems.'

And that was where we were. They had turned off the monitors at the gate and we were looking at the check in desk at the gate for any sign of hope. The stoic people at the gate gave us updates maybe every hour and it was never good news.

And we sat there and sat there, with every minute slipping by and  with our thoughts slipping ahead to the practical difficulty this threw at us. Checking in at Hertz was going to be a pain. The hotel, I needed to call and let them know we'd be late, but how late? We had no clue. So we were pacing around the gate area, and managed to eat the dinner we'd bought to eat on the plane. And ofcourse the phone for once was heaven sent. There were more updates  to be found online than the gate attendants were willing to give us. We knew the stop was nationwide and there were actually planes sitting on tarmacs all over the country, so we were relatively ok because we were inside the terminal with access to innumerable restrooms and restaurants and space to stretch our legs.

And wait we did. Poor Noe was distraught that we weren't on our way and we had to convince him repeatedly that we will soon be up in the air, though we weren't actually sure of it. Finally, at around 7.30 they said the groundstop had been lifted and we were boarding. Sweet!!

And by 8.00 p.m we were all seated and all that was left was to take off. Austin, here we come!

But 10 minutes later, we had yet another update from the Pilot. He hadn't gotten the final flight plan and had to wait..obviously there was a back log. Fine, whatever, we were seated and like they say, we had nowhere else to go but up, right??  Nope, oh nope, one can never underestimate how much further down one can go in some freaky circumstances. 

And hour later, yet another announcement: No finalized flight plans yet. However there was an escape clause: if you were done with this nonsense, you could deplane and get a full refund for your trip at the ticket counter.  About 30 smart people did walk out the plane at that point. We were obviously not in that gang. 

And we were seated in Economy Premium and had to watch the First Class passengers being offered snacks and drinks while we, the hoi polloi were only allowed to use the restroom. When one guy asked for wine, he was offered water (Jesus in reverse!) and told he could have wine after  takeoff. Another wound in an already hurting wound!!

Around 10.15 p.m the final final announcement: since the groundstop had stretched beyond maximum  allowed working hours for the crew, they had timed out. So whether we had the flight plans finalized or not, we had no crew to take us to Austin.

Damn! Have you felt hopeless and furious and guilty and sleepy and tired all at the same, same time? I have, when I was a new mom, it's called post partum depression, but hey ironically Manny was an hour or so away from turning 25 and here I was feeling way past post partum depression. And I had company. Poor Noe was so unhappy and was almost begging to go and we were convincing him that we would go the next day. We hopped off the plane and with just carry on luggage, we rushed to the gate and were told that the ticket counters had a lot of Alaska employees waiting eagerly and sympathetically to help us and we should rush there.

Rush we did, and the line there was fortunately, was only six people long. But the counter had just two employees helping out. What?? Where's the  bunch of sympathetic people? And as we watched the line started growing amd growing like Jack's beanstalk and was soon about a 100 people long and there were still only two people at the counter. And for some weird reason the passengers ahead of us had,  I don't know what kind of travel plan changes in mind,  it took a good forty five minutes to get through the six of them. By then we were not sure we'd even have seats on the flight the next day and we were almost convincing Noel that we would postpone the trip to maybe March of 2026. And since Vincent and Manny had taken off work anyway, we'd do stuff as a family that weekend. Never mind that an atmosphereic river had been forecast for  Portland for then. See how luck literally follows you and doesn't let go??

Anyway,  we got to the counter and in less than five minutes had our trip rescheduled for the next day and  got out of there. One of the highlights of that day actually. We came out of the airport, caught the shuttle, came to the parking lot, picked up our car and drove back home and stepped into the house at exactly 12.00 a.m October 24th.

And that is how Manny turned 25 in our garage!!

So we ended ( or began, depending on how you look at it) the day, older obviously, that experience aged us massively, but also wiser- we knew a bit of airplane jargon but I would have preferred just reading about it, not living it. But hey, we were home,  safe in bed, boarding passes ready for the flight the next day.  Like Scarlett says, "After all, tomorrow is another day". 

And the tomorrow that came after, was definitely something!

That deserves another post altogther!

 

To Each His Own

This one is a long overdue post and I finally sat down to write it because God knows, next year we might not even celebrate the day like we usually do. Not to sound all gloom and doom, but hey, you do read the news everyday right? Enough said then.

So we have this tradition of bursting fire crackers on the 4th of July and since Manny is a stickler for rules, we don't buy illegal ones.Just the tame boring stuff you get in BiMart or Costco. This has been going on for almost 10 years in this house. While Noe is not an active participant in setting them off, he does sit outside in the driveway and unenthusiastically clap at the lacklustre crackers Manny sets off. He timidly holds the sparklers with his hands as far away as possible from his trunk and he is very wary of the whole process.He is not afraid of fire, this is a kid who uses the cooktop and the oven with ease in the kitchen. I think firecrackers are a completely different story.There is a loss of control when you are letting them off or holding them in your hand. There is no reducing the flame, turning it off option is there?

So for the last few years that has been our routine. Firecrackers from Costco or Bimart, very few bought piecemeal, Manny feeling morally superior, but I'm sure yearning to blast a few of the illegal ones.

So as June rolled around, I went to Costco and looked at the stuff they had. I found a good big package at Costco for a good price and bought it. I didn't bother with the fine print. A good deal is a good deal. I let Manny know that I had left it in the garage and he should check it out.That poor kid, decided that Mom knew best and didn't bother to see what the box beheld. 

So July 4th rolls in and he enthusiastically opens the package in the semi darkness to discover that the entire, the entire package was, get this, poppers...the tame kind which barely has any firepower in them. The look on Manny's face!! He was looking daggers at me and the only retreat I had was the fact that he hadn't checked the package when I had repeatedly asked him to. 

He rushed off to the tent sales at the nearby grocery store and stormed back in because they had wound up the store. He parked himself in the living room and was muttering about his stupidity and my choice of fireworks etc etc.

Where were Dad and the little one you ask? It hit me after mollifying Manny, that the two of them were not around. So I walk around the house looking for them and I find them in the garage, or more like the driveway, blissfully letting off the poppers. Every single one of them. 

Vincent looked amused. Noel was standing there, fearlessly picking up the poppers, one after the other and letting them off. No cowering or backing his butt out and keeping his hands as far away from his body as possible. This was someone enjoying every bit of the experience.Not in this many years had we ever seen this level of participation and enthusiasm. He was blissfully unaware of his brother's frustration and disappointment.He single-handedly finished the package. It took him a good hour to finish it off, but he was positively glowing form the experience.

So we had a kid who was sitting there despondently and another who looked like the cat who got the cream. It was usually the other way around! All, over the same pack of firecrackers. That was a lesson for all of us. What rocks my boat need not rock yours. Disparaging other's choices is unnecessary -unless their choice is a danger to themselves or others or involves negativity.

So do your thing..whatever it is. Have a good time!! Me? I'm buying the exact same package at Costco next year. Hopefully we'll be celebrating what has been celebrated for the last 249 years. Fingers crossed!!

 

Maama

 I stealthily take peeks at the clock every few minutes. My mind swiftly travels the 10000 odd miles and in my mind's eye I see the events unfold. They are preparing to place him in the coffin. His final journey will begin soon. They will take him to church and then to the cemetery. They said he will share the space that his son currently is resting in. He has a few more hours left of sharing this earthly abode with us and then he will truly be gone. From us, from all of us. He will become a memory, a bittersweet one. I cannot reconcile myself to the fact that it is happening yet again. 

Why him? 

The word maama is usually reserved for one's mother's male sibling. But your father's sisters husbands are also allowed to use the same honorific. And for my sister and I, the only maama we have known was my aunt's husband. They were married in 1975 when my sister was almost four and I was close to three years old. And our maama has been in our lives ever since.

Adults have their own thing going. But how they interact with kids is indicative of their goodness and my maama aced that one!

I am 52 now and he still will sound so happy to hear my voice and see me in person. A fish person out and out, he'll bring bucketsful of fish for us and even convince my aunt who doesn't need much convincing, to cook for us.

My most favorite memory is of me being 17, finishing up my last year of school and attending Math tutoring at one of his neighbor's house.  He used to wait for me to be done and walk to his house, serve me breakfast that my aunt  would have left for me before she went off to school, and then drop me back home in his bike. This happened twice every week for a few weeks and I still remember the love and concern with which he used to plate up the food for me and wait till I was done eating. Serving food is still a feminine thing but he mothered me everytime he did that for me. And even now the sweet addition of 'ma' to my name when he addressed me, made me feel like a seven year old kid indulged in an uncle's affection. Recently he asked me for a favor through a friend of mine and I feel so happy I was able to do it for him, thanks to my friend indulging me. Thank you ma!

Life put some much of physical distance between us and we spoke not very often, but every conversation was easy, with grievences being aired and comfort being offered...maama weathered the loss of his son and made it for eight more years, but the loss and ensuing things took a toll on him. 

I woke up today and it was all done. Maama is a memory now. 

He is truly at rest I'm sure. He needs it. Hopefully he's caught up with his kid and they are somewhere out there shooting the breeze. So long, maama, the only maama I've ever felt loved by. Thank you for all that you did for us and we will for ever love you and miss you.

Elixir 2

 I opened up a cherry tomato pack today  to use on a salad and just on a lark, looked at where it was from. Mexico!! Of course!

This time next month, that box worth three dollars might cost a fortune. Should one go easy on the tomato consumption or splurge and regret later?

That brought up that most important question- what is worth fighting over? What is worth paying many times over for?

A couple of weeks ago, I fried up a batch of tapioca chips and posted the picture on my school Whatsapp group, and boy did that resonate with my batchies! Everyone, well, almost everyone, came up with their favorite childhood sneak snacks and the memories associated with them.

Most of the food stuff we came up with were inexpensive, street food kind of edibles - the kind that present day parents would probably shudder to think of (our parents did too) . But the memories they evoked were priceless.

There was talk of how we pulled the wool over our parents' eyes and purchased forbidden munchables and they were none the wiser. One friend and her sister were willing to forgo taking a bus back home and walked,walked! 30 minutes back home just so they could use the ticket fare to buy some fried goodness off a pushcart. There were parents who indulged their kids and bought them everything off a movie theatre menu!And there were parents who worried so much about hygiene, that the kid, even when she was much older, would indulge and hope not to get caught out at her escapade. There were sweets and savouries and drinks and cakes and fruits  and traditional stuff and funky ones. Gradually the discussion expanded to the  experience of tasty stuff purchased anywhere in general. But not the restaurant/storefront kind. More like the pushcart kind. We even talked about the bell rung by a specific pushcart fella, the universal clang announcing the arrival of yumminess that all of  us could hear and identify in a jiffy. Soan Papdi anyone?

Talk shifted to where we would buy said delectables and off we went on a geographical excursion of Kodambakkam and its vicinity. Names of the stores were remembered and their latest avatars if any were discussed. 

And in conclusion, the grand plan was made to  have a reunion where we would go on a  walking tour of our old stomping grounds and taste as many of those goodies( if they were still available) as possible.

Those memories..the way they tapped into our sensory remeberances...the sweetness of a cake, the icy chill of a sherbet, the spicy crispness of a samosa, the gooey milky feel of milk kova, the fluffy airiness of cotton candy,the crunch of butter biscuits,the sour tang of elandapazham, the cushiony sponginess of pazham pori, the starchy crispy chips, the creamy paal ice, the stony sugar rush of kamarkattu, that hit of chilli from mango slices, the gooey theyn mittai...the list goes on. 

At our very basic level, we are merely biological species and our survival depends not on social media or technology. It depends on fulfilling our basic needs..food, shelter..and food is the most important of all.  That was a lesson I learnt during Covid times and again with the Palestinian debacle.

I have always been overweight and I noticed that with age and health issues creeping in, there a certain hesitation about enjoying food. There is this inner dialog about calories and fat and weight and ..well the joy out of food is literally yanked away. 

I don't remember the previous generation being this wary about food. So what changed? Medical advances have pinpointed reasons for the sudden uptick in health issues in our generation. And the solution obviously is also right in front of our eyes- less stress, more active lifestyles.  But our work environment and the social media foghorn does not let us be. There is more money to be made,  another promotion to be achieved, yet another car looks cool, a bigger house..the list goes on. Jobs have become not just sedentary, but they also take up so much more of our time. We have made everything else easier to let us focus on making more money, by working our tails off and leisure is measured out by the teaspoonful.

Notice how in our flashback moments, all of this eating happened while we walked..from school, towards the bus stop, or towards home. Leisurely, long walks that helped us polish off whatever goodness we were cramming into our mouth, but also burning off the calories it came with. Not that we were aware of it or even cared. 

What has changed now? Age has obviously caught up with us and we have more information at our disposal and I think funnily it makes us more aware but less sated. 

Finding that compromise? Rough one. Tough one.

So here's to all my fellow fifty plus ladies, enjoy life, what it offers us and if it happens to be croissants, share it with all of us!!

 

 

Elixir

If you were offered the elixir of immortality, would you take it?

Being eternally young would be awesome wouldn't it? Imagine being, say 15 years old all your life. No aches and pains of a 50 year old, no feeling tired all the time, no kids to worry about or spouse to fight with, no aging parents keeping you awake at night with concern, no bills to pay, no insomnia, eat like a horse and barely gain weight, no doctor visits and health metrics to check on...well you get the idea.

Could there even be a flip side to this? Look around you...all the people around you might not be graced with the same gift. So what happens then? They age and eventually disappear from your life..you watch them go through the aging process and all the attendant issues and finally experience the pain of losing them..while you hang around forever. So this whole eternal youth thing might be overrated.

So what's the middle ground? 

How about being able to time travel for short periods, be a youngster again and then get back to your present day life? Now we're talking! 

And now, how about being able to pick friends you can time travel with?  It's getting warmer!

And how about meeting up in the most beautiful of places, just enjoy each other's company, drink in the scenery, share experiences, fight about what happened years ago, correct the version someone remembers or alter your rememberance of events, laugh about things, cry over some others, get pissed off and calm the hell down. That's much better!

And then go back, back to your present day life, altered, but feeling still the same, at your age but somehow feeling younger, waking up from a sweet dream with that feeling of joy bubbling within you but not regretting being woken up because you know you can do it again. Bingo!

Well, this past weekend, we managed to do just that. Thirteen of us who had gone to undergraduate school together back in India and graduated thirty years ago, decided to meet up in scenic Georgetown, Colorado. We booked tickets, set up accommodation, planned and stocked up on food, checked out things to do at Georgetown, googled restaurants and breweries and generally were sure we had taken care of everything. 

This get together was months in the making, but like everything in life, things took an interesting turn the day we were all flying in.

A software update to a security code happening in Texas, made blue screens pop up everywhere..Intel had it bad but so did hospitals, and ofcourse airlines. The cascade of delays began early in the morning and we still haven't seen the end of it. We were all flying in from every corner of the US and very few of us escaped unscathed. 

As inauspicious as flight delays might sound, we did manage to coordinate meet ups in the airport, shared rental cars and managed to congregate at a friend's house in Denver. The thrill of seeing classmates we hadn't seen in 30 years was already making us feel a few years younger. After a quick dinner, we set out to the AirBnB we had rented when the second snafu hit. A typo had been made in the address and so the first set of people trying to get to the place had an adventurous thirty minutes not getting shot while trying to check door numbers and backyards and finding the right house. And all this close to midnight on Friday. We finally made it in and the party started!

People trickled in into the wee hours of the morning and we gradually woke up Saturday all excited about catching up on 30 years worth of each of our lives. Hiking on green filled trails on the lakeshore while talking over each other and trying to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of each other's lives, laughing at stuff that had been jogged in our memory by someone, sighing while remembering classmates we had lost in the in between years, all the while feeling the years dropping away. Back at the house, we settled in the sunny backyard while the menfolk tried out the kayaks and also a funky wig our resident naughty imp had brought with him. We were all clicking pictures like crazy and posting them online in all the whatsapp groups that our college friends had. But most of us weren't stuck to our phones, like we would usually have been on a lazy Saturday. 

Lunch at a brewery nearby while playing musical chairs with each other before finally settling in and placing our orders. Sharing food and camaraderie and ribbing the teetotellers while passing around tater tots and fries. Loud and rambunctious, the years  still falling away,  we finally wound up lunch and walked back home. 

Hearts and tummies full, we congregated in the lowest floor of the house and chatted away for the better part of a couple of hours until it was coffee time. 

A quick visit to church and a stroll  through downtown, followed by a pizza dinner and a walk down memory lane with a renowned young singer made us feel even more younger.. we were almost back in college. And then there was an impromptu open hearted conversation about our time back in college which became not just nostalgic but also cathartic for some, maybe all. Bedtime was actually Sunday morning and waking up knowing we had to wind up was painful..but we made the most of the half day we had before checking out. More beautiful hikes and breakfast followed by a drone operated photo session and finally it was time to leave. A quick check of the house to make sure everything was ship shape and then we were off. Back to our friend's house in Denver, lunch and more chatting and joking and laughter before we started our heart heavy trip back to the airport for our flights home.

With flight delays and really long security lines, the last of us got home in the wee hours of Tuesday morning  and we all eventually turned 50+ again. Back to the grind of daily life. Jobs to go to, houses to manage, calories to watch,  steps to count, traffic to fume over, politics to rage about, and ofcourse, family. 

Why should family be just defined by relatedness? Why can it not be defined by shared experiences? Doesn't the fact that kids barely stepping out of their teenage years ,congregating in a college for four solid years,  living and breathing and studying and gaining knowledge and experience and losing and winning in life together make us family?

When our parents sent us off to Karaikudi,  we were all seventeen or eighteen year old. We all shed our childhood in the ensuing four years and graduated not just with a degree in Engineering, but as adults ready to face the world. That was what all of us did together. We grew up together.  We grew up in the same house, ACCET. Almost siblings? Weren't we?

I can see the imp rolling his eyes already because I married a classmate...stop!

So we are all back in our respective homes, but still feeling high. And this high will last a while. Hopefully until we meet again. And hopefully very soon. 

Waking from a lovely dream usually is not welcome. But this one was.  Reality is fine. Because we know we can recreate that dream again. Our first attempt, I would say was a roaring success and all of us I'm sure would agree that more meet ups are warranted. When and where is TBD. But when you're family, the minutiae doesn't matter. We'll get it done!

Here's to a reunion again, soon!