I’m all excited about my upcoming whirlwind trip to India next week. 4 cities in 2 weeks does not leave much time to chill out and meet people, and I will have to run helter-skelter to meet the hardworking ones. Then there’s all the food I’ve been craving for months, and clothes that I have to buy, coz the Vietnamese sizes are nowhere near mine! Have to mention – Souvik has a problem with clothes fit too, so it’s not only about the fat. More like work than a vacation, and one where I don’t have to buy a Lonely Planet, or trawl through other blogs to get a ‘feel’ of the places I’m visiting.

Hopefully the weather in Delhi will improve, we will see the city transformed yet again for the Commonwealth Games, meet various people who will lament, “Oh how sad that Souvik couldn’t come.”  The only excuse I have to be in Mumbai is that it is the transit point between Delhi & Kolhapur, but there are hundreds of friends to meet (literally), and the best clothes shopping in Fabindia and OMO. The hillside in Kolhapur is green again, after the rains, and I never tire of photographing the greenery, buffaloes, wildflowers and the lake. Am trying to keep meals simple here, but there’s Phadtare’s misal, and Sunitabai’s bhakris (yumm, slurp). This time round, I have to put up the hammocks that we bought in Cambodia. And parents will comment, “This is perfect for Souvik; how sad that he couldn’t make it.” Final stop: Bangalore, mainly to babysit my niece, Sara, while Reva and Vish go off salsa-dancing on the weekend. And Sara will ask, “Where’s Souvik?”

The greater excitement is that Reva and Sara are travelling back with me, so they can help in lugging the dals and atta that I will inevitably have to stock up. Errrrr…. Sara will lug her blankie, and the airlines will lug the rest. And we have a whole bunch of activities planned around Reva’s favourite subject – FOOD!

Before I leave, however, the cleaning lady needs to be organized around Souvik’s schedule (through Google translator), mountains of laundry to be sorted out, and a few containers of sustenance in the freezer for the poor, sad husband who has only 26 DVDs on World War II for company the next 2 weeks.

And I look forward to seeing India through the eyes of my SLR camera, and subjecting you all to some choice images.