India Trip

After a gap of two years, we made a three week trip to India in August-September.

Anirud's excitement and questioning began right from the moment we stepped out of home. As always, he took intrest in everything - right from the trolley to passports to the signboards to the logos of various airliners. Inside the flight, as he had an exclusive remote to fiddle with he was very happy switching channels and watching the flight path. Seems that he had attentively listened to every announcement made by the crew, as he was saying days later - 'Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Mumbai'.

At Mumbai, while we were travelling between the terminals, the driver of the bus we were travelling honked. This brat, who had never listened to a horn for that long expressed surprise by asking us if that was indeed the sound of a horn. We expected him to ask that question everytime he heard one, but thankfully he learnt what it is and we were spared.

As we had a wedding and an engagement in the family during this trip, for the first time Anirud met quite a few people and that too all at once. He was very much at ease with many of them although quite expectedly, all through the three week period, his two grandpas were his best mates. Both of them literally danced to his tunes. For the first time, Anirud even stayed in our absence with his maternal grandparents for a few days.

But for the fever he suffered with for couple of days, it was a good trip for everyone. Anirud enjoyed every day of his stay in India and to some extent was able to understand that UK and India are two different countries, far apart and with different ways of life.

Thousands and Thousands

Few months ago, 'two' was the default quantity for Anirud when it came to 'time'. It was always '2 minutes' for everything. He will need '2 more minutes' for getting up from bed, will get ready in 2 minutes and what not. He would even 'become hungry in 2 minutes' (innum 2 minutes-la enakku pasikkum). Not sure when, but two minutes is now gone for good. Instead, it is 'thousands and thousands' now. While 'two minutes' stood for 'few minutes' (konja neram), 'thousands and thousands' stand for 'lot of time' (romba neram). These days, he goes on like 'I want to play for 1000s and 1000s of minutes' ('Naan innum thousands and thousands of minutes velayaadanum'), 'It will take 1000s and 1000s of minutes to go to India' etc.