The last lap

When I was back in Chennai,the last week with my parents and sister were one of the most fulfilling and fun filled ones. It was going to be a long time before we would be together again, so we decided to make the fullest of it.

My mom comes to Chennai and I don't take her to T Nagar for shopping is just not done. So we had the customary trip to T Nagar which resulted in quite some heavy shopping. I tend to loose my patience with such stuff but then anything for mommy dear. Along with this we also had the trips to make to K's office which was far far away from humanity. I had to make 4 trips to the office to get all the travel related stuff done,and boy I did notch some kms in my car!Again, it was going to be quite a while before I drove the beauty again, so I was not AT ALL complaining about the time spent with her. Now also even though I have the most ravishing cars serenading on the streets, my heart longs for the Red Beauty parked in our apartment back in Chennai. :(

By the grace of God, my mother in law and mom get along like a house on fire. (Touchwood) Ironically there are times when the ladies gang  up against me! This time too was no different, with both of them pampering me when I got tired of running here and there, helping me a lot with the packing, suggesting what to take and what to skip and equally reprimanding me if I lost patience. It was also heartening to see, both of them cook side by side. Mil making the south Indian delicacies and mom cooking for her finicky husband :). They also did chores together, mil putting the washing machine,mom drying the clothes and folding them, cleaning up some of the mess the packing used to create and all the other pesky work that creeps up. I really miss the two moms I have :(

My dad was way too busy those days. There was the Soccer World Cup, Wimbledon, Twenty Twenty between England and Australia if I am not mistaken and some other series. So while the whole house zip zapped and zoomed, my dad was the stationary figure, completely glued to the TV. The one time he moved muscles was during the morning walks. And I was not the one to miss the walks with him. All the while, I used to walk all alone and with the ipod plugged in. This time it was going to be with my dad. It brought back old memories of when I was in school and dad, sis and I used to go on long walks. Suprisingly, my sister, not one to wake up before 0800 also jumped in to the prospect of walking even though it entailed getting up a 0600! Three of us had some enjoyable walks around Besant Nagar and I will always cherish those mornings.

The gang of girls went out for a dinner one night which will always remain one of my favourite outings. We went to a place called "Once upon a Pirate" near the Besant Nagar beach and had a splendid evening there. We gorged on some delicious food and took all the time in the world chatting about this and that. Dad decided to put up at home itself since,he did not want to budge an inch from the TV front.

Mom,sis and I also spent a lot of time walking in the evenings to the nearby stores. We used to spend the evening running small small errands, someday for the rolling pin, for safety pins some other day,some evening it was a trip to the parlor for some pampering while some other time it was a temple visit to thank chubby God.We just needed an excuse to step out of the house and do things together. Towards the fag end of my days in Chennai, the times became more action packed. There was purchase of new luggage, some clothes for K and other some other knick knacks. The list that was made was big, but it was awesome fun, checking off things which had already been purchased, striking out stuffs which we felt were not necessary, weighing the suitcases and then again rearranging the stuff all over again. There were some things which I wanted my sister to take back since she would be able to use them atleast. There was fervent packing of those items as well. Now as I reminisce, there are so many many instances I can think, when we rolled over laughing over some silly joke, got all hyper on some instance, raised voices over some difference. But one common thread that ran through all the 5 days the 5 of us were there, we were in it "together". Everyone was thinking in the same direction. I thank God for making me pass through the difficult times that were and in the end showing me how much my entire family rallied for me and K. Touchwood. And Thank God!