Welp- I started writing this post when I was in India, and at that moment in time I really didn’t feel like hitting publish or putting my thoughts out there. Now that I’ve had a moment to get my thoughts together, decided to finish this up and publish.

Hi!

Well it’s been a minute again, and I find myself back in India. I am currently sitting here in the living room of our flat, having a minute to myself, and I thought I’d write to get my thoughts out.

The last three months have just been go, go, go. While I am thankful for every minute, I have been kind of exhausted. I hit my toe, and my nail almost ripped off. My A1C levels went up unexpectedly, and then I had a bit of a stint in the ER dealing with a health scare (thankfully everything is fine). But on top of that there’s the usual stuff in life, and I am trying to find this balance where I am just happy and not operating from a place of stress. In reality there really is only so much I can control.

Now, we’re all here to celebrate a big milestone for my grandmother (ammamma). In the blink of an eye it baffles me how fast time has flown. My grandfather passed away when she was just 47 years old and since then she’s had to do everything on her own. From the beginning, I’ve always known her as this strong, independent, self-reliant woman (which she still is), but with age, some changes have definitely happened. In general, I hold a soft corner for older people- they are so wise, and come with so many life stories. Yet, it makes me sad as well to see all of these people that were once strong to become so child-like and dependent once again. And, older people tend to be this sort of glue for a family that’s inexplicable.

Hyderabad is basically the place we call home. I was born here so there’s always some sort of tie to the soil of this place, and home is really I think where the family is, and how you build it.

It’s morning here right now, and I love jetlag ( I know it’s really weird). But I love waking up before everybody else, and just sitting in silence and enjoying some peaceful moments to myself. I love listening to the traffic on the road already starting up. The horns, the honking sounds, birds chirping, vegetable vendors yelling, and yet it is silent around me.

We’re all landing at different times in the family. My mom, dad, and most of my mom’s side already finished a load of things like going to Kashi, Shirdi, Tirupati, and have been on the go from the start. All of us kids are just starting to trickle in.

From here on out, I am just writing in past tense, as I am recollecting and finishing this up way later than intended- apologies!

Mom, dad, my sister, myself and my aunt headed to Amritsar first and spent 2 days there visiting the Golden Temple and neighboring areas. I’ve always wanted to go to Amritsar and enjoy the food, and every time we’ve come to India in the last couple of years, I’ve really been pushing to see more of the country and experience the various cultures and cuisines here. Amritsar, honestly was lovely. The food, the people, the overall experience, etc. I was pleasantly happy with my conversational skills (if I may say so myself), and we had some interesting conversations with the local folks, which is always a memorable part of travel. The Golden Temple was just something else. I was immediately hit with how clean the temple was, how there was a job for everything, and the immense amount of volunteers that were there.

We stayed over at the Delhi airport on the way out to Jaipur, and spent a couple of days there to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday. It was fun for all of us to stay together in one place, visit the local sites ( Hawa Mahal, Jal Mahal, the City Palace, etc), and experience the food (to be honest, after Amritsar, I really wasn’t blown away by the food in Jaipur). While it was nice to experience another city, to me it really was in the small moments there: getting together in my cousin’s room to play cards late at night, the conversations we had on the long drives or at the restaurant in the resort downstairs, bickering about the little things, taking my grandma on the sly to get something to eat or shop, etc.

After coming back to Hyderabad, I think it was a little bit of a whirlwind. We had a little pooja at home since all of us were together again, a little mini picture session (since we hadn’t taken family photos in ages), had a reception to go to, finished shopping, ran around to the tailors, and visited some relatives. We missed out on one big thing when we went this time (which I still feel bad about), which is visiting Puttaparthi, but maybe it just wasn’t meant to be this time. Hopefully sometime later this year!

Overall, I think we covered most everything that we wanted to besides the one thing I mentioned above. I loved traveling everywhere this time, and was happy about the fact that I knew most of the areas that we visited growing up, so I could navigate a bit easily by myself. I had a list of places to eat at, that we’d always go to growing up, and was able to do most of that. One of the many things I am grateful for, is the fact that my parents really pushed me to learn and speak our languages at home- granted it’s not perfect. But, it’s helped so much in talking to grandparents and relatives when we head back or people who only know how to speak in the local languages.

There’s always a mixture of sadness and relief that’s there when leaving. It’s a mixture of feel sad leaving family behind, familiar territory, etc. Yet there’s also a bit of relief to get back to a routine, and work.

Below are some pictures!

Till next time!

-K