India Trip Dec 2024 - Part I - Time with my parents

Looking at the last post I did, I realize it has been 2 years since I wrote anything here. For a minute, I got scared when I tried to load my blog post page and it said, it has been removed. I had almost forgotten that blogpost is gone, but my old posts were still alive in blogger.com. 

The December of 2024 was spent in India working from there for 2 weeks and having a family vacation for the rest of it. My boys now 23 and 19 years old had not been to India for the past 9 years.

 

The time spent with Appa and Amma in Nandhavanam (it is the senior living where my parents are at) was good. Appa laughed and smiled for my jokes and sang songs with me. We read some Sujatha story book I had taken with me - this is something we enjoyed since I was little girl. I had wanted to see Meyyazhagan with him and as expected, we both enjoyed every minute of it. The movie did not disappoint me watching a second time and seeing my Appa react as expected to for every scene was bliss.

Another movie I wanted to watch with him was 'Kishkintha Kaandam'. Thanks to my friend who uploaded good quality video of the movie! I could not watch it in the first visit to Chennai due to hospital visits that I had to take Appa to. But on my revisit, I made sure I try my best to watch it with him. I did make it happen in the span of few hours I had the day before leaving back. And he absolutely enjoyed and appreciated KK also! I made fun of his occasional memory issues and pointed him to Vijayaraghavan's character references!

I did not have time to take Appa Amma to a resort like last time. So all my time was spent in Kanchipuram suburbs with them. 

Two of the days I took Appa to hospital checkups I was able to take him to different restaurants than A2B. He only goes to A2B, Saravana Bhavan or Sangeetha. One day I took him to a Nagarjuna kind of restaurant hoping for a Ilai pottu meals with parippu podi and the andhra daal. It was not in my destiny during this trip to India. Lunch closed and we had to order a'la carte. But Appa now had to eat things that I ordered and really enjoyed the soup, naan, curry and veg fried rice. The next day I had him try idly manchurian which he would never have ordered if it was left to him - but ended up relishing it.

It has been 3 years since Appa Amma moved to Nandhavanam. This is the first time I was there for at least one day of the annual December Arts Festival. I took Appa to watch the first day music program and then boys and hubby joined too for that and the lunch that day. We did Wordle together (kids and I and thatha) which was a dream also. After that it was time to say bye and leave back to TVM. That made my heart heavy but I cannot show it out. Part of me wanted to execute the North india trip with the boys successfully. Part of me was sad to think I won't be seeing them this trip after this. It is what it is!

 

Traveling to Greece from US in off season (November) – tips and lessons learnt

 

When we planned our trip in November Thanksgiving week, I was looking up the web for advice on what to expect from a trip there during the off season.

Pros:

Lower prices: As found in all search results, the expenses are very low compared to the peak season. Airbnb’s and hotels are much cheaper, so you save a lot.

Weather: Summer is pretty hot and humid, so that distress was not there during this November. To our surprise, weather was in 70s which was unexpected for us. We assumed it will be cold and packed more of the warm clothes.

No crowds: You can enjoy the quiet. Santorini had very few people we would bump into. Mykonos had much lesser than that. Athens will always be busy and crowded.

Cons: When I read about ‘not everything is operational during off season’, I did not understand the impact. But after traveling, I realize the impact now. 

a)      So, this means that there are no excursions available. The catamaran tours and such won’t be operational, so you are on your own in planning your activities. 

b)      Very few options for restaurants – you got to pick and choose from whatever is not closed for the winter. Google does not show the season closures, so we had to sometimes call restaurants directly to check if they are open.

c) There are hardly any taxis or Ubers operating due to off season in Santorini and Mykonos.

Santorini:

 When we were in Santorini, we stayed in a Cave house in the Oia. Oia had some restaurants open and there was some life still prevailing. The beauty of this place can be enjoyed in off season also. But when we went outside in the Santorini Island, you can see many restaurants have been shut down completely. I wonder where the people who own these shops go during off season. The answer I got was they probably are in a holiday or spending these months in Athens.

 

Should I rent a car in Santorini

If you are planning to stay in one place and move about closer to it by walk, you are good. If you want to explore the island, you MUST have a rental car – especially in off season. We were able to drive around and stop at different spots and enjoy the scenery only because we had a car at our disposal.

 

Pros of traveling in off season was that we had no trouble finding parking, which I am told will NEVER happen in peak season.

 

How many days is enough in Santorini

I felt 3 days was more than enough to explore Santorini and I was ready to go to the next place.

 

Attractions we visited: Sunset at Caldera, Órmos Ammoúdi , Akrotiri Prehistoric City (we drove there, but did not care step out to see the ruins), the Red Beach, The Black Beach.

 

We did the Oia to Fira hike which is super a long hike but lets you see the whole island from up above.

Mykonos:

 

This is such a small place to explore and in off season, there isn’t much to it at all. Had we seen a clear advice online, we would have totally skipped the trip to Mykonos. I believe in summer, it is beaming with all the people and lively – it is known to be the place to party, but all we got was a harbor front with 4 or 5 restaurants open.

 

We rented a car only to find out that we cannot drive into many small roads and so cannot park next to where we lived. We had to park in a public parking and wheel our luggage for 10 min to get to our Airbnb.

 

How many days is enough in Mykonos?

 

We spent 2 days in November and since there was not much happening there, we felt this was enough. I am curious how the experience will be in spring or summer.

 

Attractions we visited: Windmills Little Venice, Chora neighborhood, Paraportiani Church. We drove to Ano Mera village and roamed, but there is not much to it.

 

Athens:

We stayed in the city in a hotel – a change from the Airbnb’s in Santorini and Mykonos. The best part was the proximity to all attractions and a million restaurant options around us. There is no need to rent a car if you are only concentrating on the historic monuments (Acropolis, Temple of Zeus etc.). Parking and driving in Athens will be a pain, so you are better off walking around or making Ubering or getting a taxi. It reminded me of New York City overall.

 

How many days is enough in Athens?

 

2 nights is probably enough to explore the main attractions in the city. Of course, if you have longer, you can explore more and I feel you can keep finding places to visit around here because it is rich in history and heritage.

Attractions we visited in Athens: Parthenon, Acropolis, Acropolis Museum,  Philopappos Monument on the Philopappos Hill,

 

Hope this helps overall if you are planning a Greece trip in off season.

2020 review

New year wishes are pouring in from all directions. People are posting in Facebook what a year 2020 was and how it changed everything. 

I don't feel anything. It just feels like the end of this year came too soon. We had time off for the last week of the year and we took each day lazing around and doing home projects or chores. In the midst of all that, it seems like this year abruptly ended and everyone is so excited to welcome 2021. I am not ready yet. 

All those messages of hope! I am an optimistic person for sure, but this seems too much. How different is January 1st going to be from Dec 31st? Not too drastically different! Yes, the vaccine is here and front end workers are getting it. I was not expecting this before the end of 2020 and I am not able to believe it and I am so happy for that! But I am not sure when we will get our vaccines being the common man here in US. And when will our parents get it in India?

The whole year flashes in front of my eye now - at least I have to pretend that it does! I am feeling pressured by all those posts on Facebook that I have been reading :) 

The year started quietly with my hopes of bringing my parents when the weather gets warmer here in the US. Then came Covid in March. - just a few days before our wedding anniversary. We were all locked down - something no one ever imagined. Flights and airports were closed. We were scared to go to the grocery store. We wiped the things we got. People cooked delicacies and posted pictures of food. It was like a cooking competition! It inspired even me to look up dishes and try new recipes. That has never been a thing with me! I used to cook only my traditional dishes and never ever watched a recipe video.

On our anniversary, we got pizza and pasta for takeout - this seemed like a sin in itself. 

Then things got better when weather got better. We stopped wiping the groceries. I walked with my neighbor and we shared our frustrations of being cooped up inside home with no outlet. We shared what we cooked that afternoon and which take out options sounded exciting. The ultimate luxury was getting food from outside. 

I have never walked this much ever! Everyday I used to walk in the morning and evening. It was so addictive that I could not bear to be indoors when the sun was out in the morning. It helped me a lot mentally and physically!

We managed to go for a beach vacation and survived it!

My college-goer went back to college to try his hand at apartment life. I worried about him as much as I worried about our parents in India during the initial lockdown. We were constantly scared of Covid.  

I have also never read these many articles on the internet. I was panicked and in a frenzy, reading every article that came my way about Covid. 

I got tired of sitting in my room day and night. I woke up, worked from there, and slept in my room. When work ended, I came down to cook AGAIN! The vessels were never ending - I cannot complain as my boys and husband DO help a LOT. Laundry became totally my department. Folding clothes became a mundane routine thing I could do while watching TV.

I connected with so many people from my past. Talking to my friends and relatives during my walks with the new airpods was a blessing.

Some new Whatsapp groups were formed. It was like family and we shared day to day happenings. We traveled by road to meet friends.

I spoke to my father every single day almost. First time in my life, I did video chat on a regular basis. I drove him crazy when I was worried or panicked about them being exposed to Covid. We would talk about what movies he watched during the day in Youtube. Our Tamil jokes, connections to old memories all came into play in the conversations. I am grateful for every such chat which made me connected to him when hopes of meeting in person was close to non existent. I "whatsapped" my mom to keep her involved with what was happening with my life. I sent them both pictures of dishes I made.

I had to take time off during the year. There was no point conserving vacation for a trip outside the country. I met friends for lunch in outside restaurants and sometimes inside them.  Pajama bottoms and a decent top was the attire for every day video call meetings. I dressed up when I got any chance. I clicked pictures whenever I could.

I am really happy and grateful for how the summer went by. The sun was enough to lift my spirits. I dreaded winter and it struck me exactly as I expected. Dark evenings that started at 4:30 and not being able to meet folks outdoors killed me. But I was glad that Nikhil came back home which added some color to our dreary winter days. 

I am grateful to my friends in Bangalore who toiled to help sort out things in our home and we were able to rent it out finally. I am forever thankful to my cousin brother in India who guides me on what I should be doing next in the grand scheme of things.

Elections happened with a welcome change in leadership!

 And here the year has ended. I am truly happy about meeting friends and connecting with folks via phone calls. These are folks who have not been in touch for decades. It was interesting to see how different people remember different bits and pieces of information of what happened years ago.

I don't want to say that 2020 has changed me forever for fear of sounding cliched. It was a totally different year and it drove us crazy and scared the hell out of us. Thank GOD that were are all still alive while throughout the year,we have heard stories of lost parents and great talents.

Let us hope for a 2021 which will be different from 2020. Let us hope for the fear to end. Lets hope for a year that would bring us back to normalcy. May we not forget the lessons we learned and may we continue to appreciate the little pleasures of life.

Gone are those days (foodie memories alert)!

BC (Before Corona):

We used to go to work (into the office), meet people on office hallways, elevators, restrooms and kitchen and have conversations there. It was fun to catch up with different folks. These are folks we would not otherwise meet in our social circle, but there is always something to learn from/relate to their experiences in life. I miss all those random conversations with the colleagues.

 There were two kinds of days: one where you had packed lunch and one where you did not.

The packed lunch days meant that we get to eat lunch in the picnic bench in front of our office building if the weather was good. Outside air can do magic to you. We would share our food and taste what each person brought. We would share recipes and stories of our home and kids. We would then go out for a walk in the trail near by. We will aim for some miles in our Smart Watch or sometimes rush back for a conference call. In winter, we missed the walks outside, but still enjoyed having lunch together at a table.

The second kind of days was more fun too. When I don't have packed lunch, I would reach out to others at work - hey, who wants to go out for lunch? It was unplanned, many times, but it let us get out of the office building, enjoy some different food, chat and share what is going on in life and then come back to work world refreshed. I would catch up with ex-colleagues or old friends and I thoroughly enjoyed those times. I am very particular about staying in touch with old friends, reconnect with them from time to time. 

This takes me to the exact point I was going to make. What do I miss the most in those lunch times - don't laugh at me or judge me, but it is the truth! I miss the Indian buffets - especially the South Indian ones! 

Before you judge me and say - oh my God, that is a lot of food, you overeat and gain weight etc, hold on! I am a vegetarian, and over these recent years, I have started appreciating quality more than quantity. Yes, we tend to overeat in a buffet - but the variety it offers is amazing. 

Let me try to describe the spread of my favorite South Indian buffet!

It begins with a nice appetizer - uzhunnu vada, Gobi manchurian, veg spring rolls, chilli idly, bajji - any of these could bring a smile to my face. They better have a complementing chutney in the condiments section.

Then comes oothappam or appam with vegetable stew or kurma. Or pongal laden with ghee. Poori or Semiya upma would be welcome always. I am not a fan of naan in South Indian restaurants, so I would prefer these other tiffin items anyday. I save my naan cravings for North Indian restaurants.

Again, people laugh at me if I say I like to try an upma in a buffet. I want to taste an upma that I did not make, how hard is it to understand that logic :-)

This restaurant brings dosas and chapathis to the table. In the initial days, they brought kerala parotha instead of chapathi! Even better! So we can relish 1 chapathi with the yummy paneer butter masala and enjoy the mini dosa with sambar/chutney!

Oh! I forgot to mention that the small cup of hot steaming- spicy and sour rasam - was grabbed on the first round itself and placed in my table. It gives a heavenly solace to the soul.

Time to enter the world of rice. They typically have Vegetable Biriyani and a mixed rice (curry leaf rice, tomato rice or something of that sort). A spoon of each is good enough to determine which one of them is better today and have it with raita and pickle. The fryums or oil fried appalam on the front end of the table comes in handy now. 

A small steep cup half filled with curd rice and topped with some sambar or pickle lets me taste the curd rice.  Curd rice better be without the pomegranate seeds - just regular seasonings for me, please! A spoon of any poriyal or vegetable would be appreciated.

At this point, I cannot eat anymore. So I go grab a small steel cup and get the dessert - nothing to beat the kesari which is orange or yellow in color. I love the cashew nuts, avoid the raisin and don't like the pineapple or mango they put in it. Any South Indian dessert would make me happy. So tired of gulab jamuns that come in north Indian buffets.

Finally, just half a cup of masala chai to call it a day!

With this corona, this is the ONLY thing that one cannot dream of today. Resturants reopened for take outs and dine-ins even, but I have not heard of the Indian buffets resuming! Take out does not cut it, after all and it can never replace the satisfaction of sampling each item in a buffet to enjoy it with its complementing side dishes!

Sigh! Until AC (After Corona)! Waiting to relish a quality Indian spread without worrying about 'spread' ! Who is with me :-)

Week 12 of Quarantine - The Illusion

When you are in the cold claws of winter, it almost seems hard to believe that warmer days will be here. You keep waiting and waiting for the freedom from the jackets and sweaters. The slightest bit of warmth or sunlight is like a boon and I would adjust my work schedule to step out for my daily walk to catch a little bit of the sunshine.

Now, we are officially in summer. What a relief from the suffocation of quarantine added to the winter agony! It almost is misleading. It created an illusion that corona virus does not exist anymore. As we walk in our neighborhood, initial signs of driveway get-togethers was a shock. How are these people able to do this? Are they not afraid of the consequences? I used to wonder. 

I guess people are tired of waiting for months for the freedom to breathe outside and starving to have some human conversations and meet-ups with friends. 

We are slowly becoming comfortable with breaking the lockdown restrictions we religiously followed in the first few weeks of quarantine. Going out to a park and hanging out with some friends sitting far apart became ok. It was nice to finally meet folks and talk. A part of me was still worried, but I hear that if you are outside, we should be ok.

The excitement phase of trying to cook new dishes has faded now. It was a cooking marathon of dishes we never would make - now it has come to the normal routine with occasional desire for new trials. 

The restricted feeling of making-do with the grocery you had is not there anymore. I can just wear a mask and go to a store to get an ingredient, if I want it badly.

Today our county moves to 'yellow' phase. We are all afraid of increased number of cases in the coming weeks. Hope things stay in control and we can be relieved of this menace soon!

Week 6 of Quarantine

Quarantine Week 6 is rolling. Will we get used to this as a permanent thing?

Other moms are complaining about how they are overwhelmed by school work help they have to provide their kids. From what I hear, the struggle is more for parents of elementary school. They never had a online learning concept or system in place. So it is a major struggle to devise such methods now.

My boys are thankfully older and more independent. I cannot complain much about them troubling me with help for zoom calls or  school assignments. I wonder if what I am doing is good enough as a good mom.

I start off the day with breakfast and shower and the morning office calls. In between hours of work, if I were in the office, I would have stopped by a colleague's desk for a chit-chat. On the way to the restroom or back, I would have exchanged some small talk with someone, complimented them for their outfit or shoes and or made some ad-hoc lunch plans. Not any more.

Tired of sitting at my desk and typing, I walk around craving for a chat. I enter the room of my 8th grader teenager and he says - "mom, can you go out, I am in a zone with my home work. Don't distract me".

I open the door of freshman-in-college room and he is obviously in a zoom call. I flee from there hoping to chat a little with my husband if he is not on an office call. He too seems to be on a call and I wave at him and walk away,

Before it is too late in the night for my dad in India, I call him. These talks give me the confidence that he is doing good and can comment about movies, whatsapp jokes that are relevant to current situation. This gives me peace that I can go about my rest of the day and night. There is always a fear and worry in the back of the mind still.

It is all about food prep and food to make. When there is time at hand, we head to the kitchen to make something. It has been a good opportunity to try out dishes we never had the time to make. Lot more time at hand for preparing ingredients that will come in handy for cooking,

Here too, I cannot complain that I am the sole chef at home. There is a partnership in place, my husband cooks too,  and the boys have all been very co-operative.

• Apart from emptying dishwasher which they used to after we nag, now we have them help us furthermore in the kitchen. Like cleanup after dinner or lunch. Putting dirty dishes away (yuck...) and loading dishwasher or wiping clean dishes. 

• They like to jump in to the kitchen and bake occasionally. Both boys worked together (argued and fought too in the process) and made their first ever pound cake from scratch and converted it to a pineapple upside down cake. I am impressed.

• Boy 2 helped peel  a whole stalk of garlic in exchange for a fast food meal he has been craving for 5 weeks. And I caved ..!

• We have been playing carroms and it is a series of tournaments going on. We all have improved the skills a lot. First time in my life, I impressed my Boy2 with any kid of game/sports skills. I am so happy for that.

Still, there is a certain thing about routine that needs to be broken. It makes us stick to the same things every day - and there are areas of focus needed around cleaning/organizing closets etc which don't fall into this routine.

So far so good.

Week 4 of Quarantine

Today is Apr 8, 2020. We are living in an era where somethings never imagined are happening. Like me blogging again :-)

Three and a half weeks of quarantine period have passed by. 

Only thing that can guarantee to put a smile on our faces is nature. Sunshine during the day as opposed to gloomy clouds are THE ONLY thing that will make me happy. That means, I can step out for a walk. Gone are the days when I would ask to go out for a dinner with the family or dream of going on a long drive. All I ask for is a sunny day so I can walk. Even while walking, I think of those friends who have not stepped outside home to avoid the risk of contacting the virus from the air. I wonder if I am safe by doing this.

This walk is so very needed after the hours of sitting on the desk and typing. The stiff neck longs for some movement and what is better than a nice walk outside.

We have been blessed with some better weather days. Morning times, the bird sounds come as a realization that some other system is going on as usual even though human lives have come to a standstill. Added to the sunny surprise, is the view of the spring blooms on the trees. Some are waiting to bloom and these buds promise a better tomorrow. It is good to see nature going on its planned course as we transition from winter into spring. This gives us hope for some day soon, summer will be here. There is also the hope that summer temperatures may help curbing the spread of COVID-19. 

P.S. After typing this positive post, later in the evening, I heard about the 21 year old Malayali boy who passed away suddenly due to COVID-19 and I was terribly moved and affected. At this point, I could not smile even with the sunshine and spring blooms.