Adventure in the air

Blessed are those who can speak and understand different languages beyond their mother tongue!

Atleast the language spoken in places you visit more often. I've experienced this problem much earlier when I got married and joined the defence fraternity. But what we experienced recently with my sister's air travel was nothing less than a nightmare.

After a month long vacation with us, my sister was going back home to Coimbatore. It took a lot of convincing from us to make her agree to travel alone by air. She was insisting on train travel as she was not comfortable travelling alone by air for two reasons. One, she doesn't know the language and secondly the check in procedures.  She was very worried about how  she was going to communicate, in case required!

To cut short the long story... We thought we could circumvent the problem by booking a direct flight and wheelchair assistance , so that the assistant can do the check in things. So we did that.  Web check in and a wheel chair booking also done. All possible assistance given including meal and an empty water bottle (to fill water inside the airport - ensured she doesn't have ask anyone for anything).

The flight was supposed to go halt in Bengaluru for half an hour but onward passengers were not required to deboard the plane.

As the saying goes, Man proposes and God disposes.....

Her flight reaches Bengaluru and there was an announcement asking all onward passengers to get down and board another flight which was going to Coimbatore.  But... she didn't understand the announcements - which were in Hindi and English!! So, very sincerely, since we had told her not to get down, she refused to deboard when the flight staff asked her to!!  Finally, when they insisted, she called us and we spoke to the crew member and asked for a  wheelchair, which they didnt have. Then they had to be shown the ticket again which showed wheelchair assistance booking. Then  they ran and got a wheelchair. 

With a lot of high voltage drama, she finally made it to the coimbatore  flight! She couldn't have managed to go home but for the wheelchair!

PS: I've told her to watch some Hindi serials to learn Hindi.

Happiest day... Successful kitey day !!

Both the kids dread and feel happy about Sunday.

Dread because they have to recite the tables to Nanu, happy because papa will be home (sometimes mumma also).

Today began in a typical Sunday mode for kids.

Didn't want to get up from the bed, no breakfast and only reading a book in the bed. It was the usual for us. 

Nothing was planned for the rest of the day. By the time they finished their breakfast it was around 11 am.  After all the lazing around, Gannu went to dig his tunnel and 'Abhi (the elder one), reluctantly sat with his mother to do some school business.

Suddenly Gannu came running to us and said, let's fly a kite!! I sent him to Gaurav (who can never say no to kids). Gannu armed with kites and the roll (without the dangerous manja) reached the terrace with papa and bhaiya. 

After struggling for what looked like ages, they managed to FLY THE KITE!!!!! Abhi, mumma and me joined the mission. Abhi was flying the kite most of the time. This was the first time for Gannu and his joy knew no bounds!!!!

Just as they were getting comfortable and enjoying themselves, another kite crept up behind ours and tried to cut our kite! Without the manjha, everyone got worried about how to enter a kite fight.. but, with some natural talent, Abhi managed to veer the kite away and save it tactfully!  Most of the time Abhi was flying the kite with the help of Papa and Gannu was the cheer leader. Even though he could hardly fly the kite, he was so happy. He kept saying today is the happiest day.

Thank you mera Thanedaar

It's a chilly and windy morning. Children are attending their online classes thanks to the weather god and local administration. I too sat in my comfortable seat with a cup of hot tea and was scrolling down some old and gold album of the kids. It just took that one short video of my 'Gannu', (my younger grandson) to make me write this post. 

  It has been a few years since I last posted in my blog. I have been wanting to write but somehow I couldn't bring myself to do it. Thanks to my Gannu for giving me that much needed motivation or push to write again.

Back to the video:

It was covid time. All of us were under self-proclaimed house arrest and making videos and clicking photos of our little ones' activities. On one such evening, the conversation between Nanu and gannu goes like this ---

Nanu:   What do you want to become when you grow up?

Gannu: I want to become a thanedaar.

Nanu: What will you do if you become a 'thanedaar'?

Gannu: I'll catch the bad people, stop them from wrong doings and of course regulate the traffic.

Now, 4 years later, thinking about it, the third point made me laugh because just yesterday, the traffic here was so bad that their usual 35 minutes drive from school took about an hour and a half to reach home and they missed half the time of their hobby classes. As the memory of that time popped into my head, I had to write about this today itself! 

As each one of us experiences the growing traffic menace everyday,  in today's progressive times, why the little one mentioned about the traffic at that time, I don't know. 

So much forethought!!!!!

Wish we had more Thanedaars like mine!