Road to India - 15 days to go [Vacations]

Life has an important function in terms of the work, we do. At one step, there are some very hectic days when you think life is no good, then there are some fine or cool days, when you think, life is good and little bit boring. In any case, brain demands for a refreshment every now and then, and as we have seen so far in our short life, weekends are not often enough for this refreshment. That is the reason, you have some long weekends during the year, you can add a day before or after the long weekend, and you have a nice 4 day vacation. But even that is not enough; you still need some more refreshment in terms of a little longer vacation. So you get some leaves depending on what kind of career you are in, what level you are in, etcetera. Whatever be the case, vacations are always great and what is best in them depends upon person to person. For us, the Indians, it mostly means spending time with family during festivals and weddings.

Best part of childhood is the summer and winter vacation, again depending upon which place you live in. For the hills of Uttarakhand, we used to get 10 to 15 days vacation in summer (in later part of June). When we used to live in ‘Pithoragarh’ (1988-1995), it mostly meant I would spend time at ‘Nainital’ playing with small handmade cycles - take a small stick (used for charts), attached shoe polish box on one of the ends, and here you go, you have a Harley Davidson. My great grandfather (father of my Nanaji) used to make these for us in minutes. There were other multiple options as well like horse riding, be a shopkeeper, visit mall road / flats, play with Mamas, Mausis, Nanaji and of course, Dadaa was always there. List is endless, but it was always fun. In any case, as a child you always have multiple options, at least in the late 80s and early 90s. I still remember the delicious food, my Nani used to cook.

Another good time was 4 to 10 days vacation for Dashhara and then for Diwali. Diwali was the time, when we used to visit our village ‘Dwarahat’. It was fun spending time with grandparents. The best things in Dwarahat was going to the fields, spending some time with our cows (I still miss two of them - a white cow Champa and a brown one named Lachhima), playing ‘Gulli – Danda’, visiting the various temples (they are made in times of Pandavas) and one small market. Still that place can be a bit boring sometimes, but never with Dadaa. For countless days we have played bus service (Dadaa playing the driver and me playing the conductor), and ‘Pasaa’ (dice) cricket. So all in all, again it was quite a good time.

Then there was the mother of all vacations - the winter vacation ranging from 40 days to 60 days. These vacations provided one of the best times as well as one of the boring times. Boring times because if weather is too bad, light will go for 3-4 days and you cannot do almost anything, even if light is there ‘Doordarshan’ used to save this time to telecast the worst (read Art) movies like ‘Rudali’, ‘Sooraj Ka Satavaan Ghoda’, ‘Wo Chhokari’. Best times because plenty time to play cricket on sunny days, to roam around, to read comics, etc. Needless to say that it was more enjoyable because Dadaa and my sister, and all my friends were also having vacations.

Did I say 40 to 60 days vacation? Can you imagine that now what would a vacation for that much duration mean? Sounds Jabardast. Well, yeah… 40 to 60 days… keep day dreaming!!

- Neeraj Mathpal
July 6, 2011