Of Growing Up .... And Still Not Wanting To Grow Up!

If it weren't for cockroaches, I'd choose to retire in a beach house. 

On our recent trip to Thailand, The Husband and I were talking about where we'd like to build our retirement home. He picked icy mountains and me, the beach. What began as a harmless discussion soon avalanched into a heated discussion of where the retirement house actually would be. There's nothing that spells 3 years of marriage as much as these avalanched arguments do! Very soon there were defenses flying in from both ends, memories being brought alive from previous trips to the mountains and the beaches, each one wanting a desperate one-up against the other and then when all tricks were exhausted, The Husband came up with the last standing nuke in his arsenal - the C bomb!

"There'd be cockroaches all over your beach house, by the way.", he smiled. "It's a tropical country problem", he continued. It was just the morning after we were attacked by a huge cockroach in our hotel room and after scaring me, hid somewhere in the room, not to be found, leaving me to sleep completely covered under the blanket, lest the big brown monster attacked me in my sleep. And this won The Husband the retirement home. 

And I gave him the nastiest stare I could manage. He was right. He knew it and I knew it. He burst out laughing and I conceded to the mountain home, albeit one that overlooks the sea!  Yes, castles of Scotland would be apt, I know. We're open to accepting donations for our retirement home. PayTM accepted happily. Heck, if you really want to donate, I'll even accept the old 500/1000 notes!

It's just funny how some things don't change even when you grow up. 

Just like how I still need to show my ID proof even at 28! There was a time, when I really wished people stopped asking for my ID proof. It was embarrassing enough to be stopped at a casino at 24 when my 16 year old cousins would waltz past me, roaring with laughter. I even thought that there might be a police raid at my wedding and my Dad would have to show my birth certificate to prove the marriage is between legal aged people! Thankfully none of this melodrama happened at the wedding. So, digressions apart, from 24, an age, where one really wants be considered older than what they are, you suddenly cross the invisibly scary Quarter Life Crisis Line of 25 and all hell breaks loose. Till this line, all marketers are making a bee-line to woo you. After crossing this line, its all anti-aging creams and hair color brands promising 100% gray coverage chasing you. Yes, so you're in this why-did-I-grow-up/I-still-want-to-be-18/24 zone and a bouncer outside a pub asks you for your ID proof and you feel 18 all over again! Your happiness will know no bounds. This bouncer would have made your day with just one line - that you still look 18 or younger! So all the anger you had on all the bouncers who'd previously asked you for an ID proof vanishes in a minute and you have new found positive feeling towards them!

As for people who're wondering about the kind of brands behind women nearing 30 and 3 years married, please have a look at the pic below. 

Yes, showing are-you-pregnant/are-you-wanting-to-get-pregnant ads are so passe. Thank you Google, for acting like a nosy relative!

It's all a part of growing up, I guess. But as we're growing up, I feel society's evolving in reverse. No, I'm not referring to the kinds of ads shown to me, I'm over it. I'm referring to chat conversations of today, where words have been so easily replaced with emojis. Especially when The Husband does that, when what you're really expecting is a nice 3 paragraph reply and all you get is a smile smiley. It drives you nuts! I mean come on, how difficult is it to type, we don't even have the press-thrice-for-a-letter Nokia phones anymore! Our ancestors took millions of years to evolve from cave paintings to words and language, and we've so easily evolved back to cave paintings in a conversations via emojis! I think all husbands should definitely stop using them. Immediately. For Evolution's sake, if not their wives. I hardly think Husbands would do it for Evolution too, maybe if they got Dhoni's captaincy back in return, they'd do it! Men, phew!

This was my small bit to humankind and Evolution, this return to blogging. Hoping to seeing you'll more often :)

Let me know what you think!

P.S - sent the link to The Husband for what he thought of the new post. Guess what I got as a reply? Yes, a smiley 😊. There's no hope left for Humankind. Evolution in Reverse has begun!

And The Green Lady Danced!

Sitting with our feet buried ankle deep in the sands of the sequestered Gokarna Beach on the New Year’s Eve, taking in the cold of the sand. Looking at the vast expanse of Arabian Ocean outstretched in front of us, we saw a distant light source in the sea. Anchored in, yet floating on the surface, we assumed, was to light up the sky for the fishermen at sea during the dead of the night. This light source, however, was green in color, and from the distance that we saw it, made the entire horizon have a green band of light.  

“This is what it would be like to see the Northern Lights? The sky completely green against the black night?” said Karan

“I’m sure it would be way more spectacular”, answered Tejal.

“We really wouldn't know how it is until we see it” I chipped in

“It’s better to see it once than hear or wonder about it a thousand times” Himir nonchalantly mentioned.

This was the last day of 2014, when we, four friends sitting on a secluded beach, making plans to see the one of the most amazing natural phenomenon and braving the harshest winters.

And on the last day of 2015, we were standing under the Stockholm sky, bringing in the New Year with a marvellous fireworks display and waiting for the Northern Lights leg of our trip.

Between the two New Year Eves went in months of research, numerous changes to the itinerary, waiting for deals to book, optimizing on the budget and just waiting to go to Norway! And yes, of course, incessantly talking about the impending trip and annoying everyone around us. 

  

In the posts to follow, I’ll write about our entire journey about how we made our itinerary, short-listed places to see, booked our tickets, optimized every stage to save money, even if it was as less as 1 Euro, our experience of actually witnessing the fabulous Aurora show and just relive Norway all over again as I write!

I’ll start off on how to start planning for Northern Lights and Norway!

1. Expensive Norway!

• Scandinavia is expensive. Food, cabs, hotels, public transport.... everything! Even though the exchange rate was about INR 8 for 1 NOK/SEK, everything is priced high. A trip to Scandinavia will burn a deep hole in your pocket.

• If you thought prices cab/rickshaw Mumbai are expensive, wait until you set foot in Norway. About a kilometer in a cab will cost about INR 800. You’ll have an outpouring of love for the Mumbai rickshaws after a trip to Norway.

2. Make a budget and stick to it

• More than a making a budget, it’s important to stick to it. More often than not you’ll come with temptations to stay in a slightly better place, eat at a fancy restaurant and take the cab instead of the metro, but, resist the temptation and stay in control.

• Once you have decided you’re going, start hunting for deals. For flights, for hotels, for your excursions, for everything. Getting good deals is essential to seeing more in less money. Before the start of our trip, we had fixed a budget of spending not more INR 1.5 lacs per person, we stuck to it religiously, save for a pint here or there, and spent close to INR 1.65 lacs per person for an 18 day trip. Yes, you read it right. This was inclusive of flights, hotels (Radisson and likes), food, excursions, expensive cab rides and other miscellaneous expenses. I’ll write more about how we managed our budgets soon.

3. How cold is it actually?

• It is going to be COLD. But, with the right clothing, you can manage it. The Norwegians have a saying, ‘There’s nothing like bad weather, only bad clothing’. I couldn't agree more. I'm a person who feels cold in Mumbai winters. And if I could go to Scandinavia in winter and come back alive and not in a frozen state, anyone can!

• Everything under a roof in Norway/Sweden is centrally heated helping you manage the cold. But still, it is easier said than done. Personally, I felt that more than the layers what helped us manage the cold was the fact that we were mentally and physically prepared for the cold. We even prepared ourselves physically for the cold by not wearing a jacket when the office temperatures decided to mimic the Polar temperatures or not asking the husband to turn off the AC while sleeping and shiver away all night. All this helped us immensely. And now that Norway is over, screaming at the Office Maintenance guy and the husband to turn off the AC is back!

• More than cold, it’s the wind that gets to you.

• Yes, you will have to dress in layers. 5-6 or more depending on cold tolerance. But resist the temptation to over pack. Please travel light. Carry not more than 10-12 pairs of clothes per person. You don’t sweat nor smell there. Dragging heavy suitcases on snow covered roads with hands protected by mittens and you in 5 layers of clothes is not easy!

4. All this is fine, but what about the food?

• If you’re a non-vegetarian Norway is your paradise.

• If you’re a vegetarian and Ambani’s kid, you’ll survive eating out at the Norwegian prices.

• If you’re vegetarian, not Ambani’s kid and travelling on a strict budget, CARRY FOOD. Ready to eat meals, soups and now that Maggi’s back, carry tons of Maggi. Even if they come back uneaten, you can stock and sell it in black if it gets banned again. This is what my uneaten Maggi stock is for!

• If you’re a Jain with strict eating policies, may God bless you in Norway. You have no option but to survive on theplas and khakras. Luckily, due to the cold, the theplas will last longer. Ours didn’t go bad in 18 days.

5. Where exactly is anything to do with the actual ‘Northern Lights’ in this post?

• In very simple terms, Northern Lights occurs when certain solar particles hit the particles in Earth’s atmosphere and because of a lot of stuff that was taught to us in Physics classes about electrons, ions, magnetic fields, energy states and the works, the sky lights up!

• Since the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis is a natural phenomenon depending on the solar activity, you will never be able to predict for sure of an Aurora display. So yes, all your money spent on this trip is a huge bet.

• Sometimes, the Auroral display will last for hours and sometimes, only a few minutes. So basically, you’ll have be ready once it’s dark.

• Photographing the Auroras is quite tricky. You’ll need a DSLR camera and will have to make a few setting changes to take pictures. A normal digicam or your phone won’t do. For iPhones, there’s an app – Northern Lights Photo Taker (Rs.60) is a decent enough app to take pictures.

• There’s too much to the Northern Lights to be able to fit in the sub-point of a point in a blog post. It deserves more!

And yes, the most important thing about the famous Northern Lights that no one will tell you – The magnificent Aurora Borealis is nothing like what Google Images or National Geographic or Instagram pictures have been telling you. To know more, keep watching this space. Till then, enjoy the slideshow I've created on the Northern Lights pictures we've clicked.

Photo Credits - Karan Mehta

Of Growing Up ... And Being Married

I recently read this article online that mentioned the signs of being in a good relationship. After reading this, I instinctively felt that the writer missed the most important sign of being in a good relationship. That of not posting about your every moment spent with your partner on social media, instead of enjoying and living it. Half of my Facebook timeline is full of husbands not being able to have enough of their wives and girls going all my-hubby-is-the-best-hubby-in-the-whole-of-MilkyWay. 

I'm 8 months married and it absolutely doesn't feel like being married. Maybe the fact that I have geographically relocated within one kilometre of my previous residence is a major reason. When you're staying in the same area, there's less of adjustments to be made. You know the roads, the shortcuts to get around, the grocery stores, the restaurants, the subjiwalas and the likes. (Not that I do any of the home grocery shopping now after marriage, but still thought of adding the point to make myself sound like an adarsh bahu.) 

Jokes apart, adjustments or no adjustments, there are serious orientation issues after marriage for girls. Something their husbands will never understand. And many will even crack jokes. Like mine does. Girls, my advice to you, ignore them. If you can, record their jokes and play it when they are crying at your daughter's bidaai. Game. Set. Match. 

Yes, so digressions apart, the orientation issues stem from the fact that suddenly in one day, you no longer return with your parents to what you grew knowing to be 'your' home. You return to a new house, with new people and you're supposed to call it 'your' home. It takes time for your mind to adjust! It took me some time to train my mind to not keep playing Candy Crush Saga when the train halts at Andheri, but quickly get off, as you no longer have to get off at Vile Parle. 

For quite some time, while you're struggling to call a new house as yours, your new family more than welcomes you in their home and life and you start to adapt to their way of life, at the same time, you start getting a little distant from your old home.  It's a phase where you basically feel like you're in a No Man's Land. You don't belong at either places! It's like, you know that your new home is IT but you've always been at your old home! You are unable to call any of your homes as YOURS. It weird. And only the ones who go through this would understand the feeling of this strange belonging yet no-belongingness. 

This state of disorientation hits the peak when you're supposed to sign documents. Old sign or new sign. Old name or new name. The first thing is to figure a new sign. And remembering it! And then the withdrawal symptoms of still calling yourself by your maiden surname. There are certain things that are absolutely difficult to let go of.  

It hits you even more, a week into your honeymoon, when the lack of Indian food in your stomach, makes you wonder how your parents have let you go to another hemisphere with a guy. ALONE. 

And then one look at your husband, and you forget all this. Even the lack of Indian food. 

Because he makes it all worth it. The adjustments you have to make, the disorientation, the name change. Everything.