A lot happened last month. First was an agonizing wait for my Advance Parole to be approved and then endless shopping for chocolates and knick knacks. What do the 2 have in common? I was going HOME after more than a year! :D Happy me!!!!
Though there was a lot of anxiety over the Advance Parole, I managed to get on that airplane in the end. Got picked up at the airport by Elf's sis. What a cutie pie she is. Oops! Forgot to mention the whole reason for going to India. My brother in law's wedding. So you can imagine the hustle and bustle. The wedding was at Trivandrum, which is the capital of Kerala. A whole 11 hrs away from Calicut. Needless to say, it all went well. Had fun with R's cousins. Don't remember laughing so hard or joking around after my grad days.
I cannot begin to describe the shock I experienced at seeing all the changes back home. Remember that attack of nostalgia I had described earlier? All that vanished into thin air. Poof!!!! The face of Kerala has changed, with clumps of high rise apartments doting the skyline like unwanted warts. I hated it. My tiny house sits in a tiny lane, so tiny that it can be considered a one way lane. And in that space, there are 4 - 5 apartment blocks. And the price of land has skyrocketed. Much as it is good news for me, I feel sad at the way the place has transformed.
Now back to my Advance Parole. My husband's company sent it to Bangalore and so we had to postpone our tickets, lose some money in the bargain and then pack our bags and head off to Bangalore 2 days before we had planned to leave home. Bangalore was another shock, the same story being repeated, except on a bigger scale. :( Shopping, which I used to think was cheaper in India, turned out to be just as expensive as back here. The only good thing that happened was that I got to meet 2 of my dearest friends. It felt so good to sit and blabber my heart out. :)
After all this, I was so eager to get back, even NJ seemed way better. Guess am a proper NRI now, living the American dream.
PS - It did not rain even one day while I was there. :(
2 comments:
Face of Kerala's changing like crazy. Soon I dunno whether its gonna be called God's own land - cause there wont be any land left ;-).
Shopping from India - he he .. dropping $$ prices doesn't help that much either and Bangalore is another crazy city fighting it out for the top spot amongst other cities with >3 hrs avg. commute :P
If you did not pay a visit in like 2-3 years - you'd doubt everything right from the moment you land there :D
@rajesh - So true. And pple seem to have more spending power over there. That is the scariest of all.
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