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Share"We are all going on a summer holiday..."
While growing up, summer holidays meant regular getaways to hill stations close by (Mahabaleshwar and Matheran were the perennial favourites), journeys to different parts of the country from Kashmir to Kanyakumari with my family, or most often to my grandparents' bungalow in New Delhi.
So, too it has been for me and mine now --though our annual breaks have been to different places and for varying duration. But this summer, for some reason or the other, we have been 'holidaying' at home. And, believe me, with two kids of different genders and an age gap of almost five, keeping them entertained has been no mean recreation at all!
True, the elder has been perusing her tomes through the vacations or doing her work on the computer in between watching programmes on television, but for the younger -- who is just tiptoeing into the ninth -- having just decided that these were the last 'free'holidays before his ICSE (in Circa 2011), life was one long...well, football match.
Giventhe varied viewing timings of the IPL and the endless (to my eyes) football matches on television, night and day are blurred with seamless ease.
Frantically searching for a window to take a break, I found one this week and thought of flying off to the capital with my twosome in tow, only to face a barrage of queries from my twosome.
"What am I going to do there? You go alone with Gaurav; I will stay at home," my daughter told me. Then the younger man in my life piped up:"Mom, I will go anywhere you wish but we have to be back on May 27."
I frantically searched my memory, struggling to recall the importance of that date but in vain. "God, Mom," he grinned. "It's the finals of the Champions' League. I am calling my friends over; you promised!"
Sigh! In all the discussions and in some changed work and study schedules, the window to travel slammed shut. We decided to have a blast holidaying at home and it's proving to be fun. Our days and late nights are peppered with pizzas and pastas, colas and candies, mangoes and mood swings, slammed doors and Scotland Yard sessions, howls and hugs!
As I write this, my daughter and I are home alone, my son having disappeared to his cousins' home for the weekend. And, before the much awaited 'House full' Championship night, I am expecting an invasion of cousins and friends on different 'nights at home' -- the more the merrier!
