Parenthood...

Wow... This week we will complete an year and half of this amazing adventurous tumultuous journey and I can't help but reminisce about when we came to know that Agastya was on his way more than 2 years ago around this time... It wasn't the most convenient time but it was the best time... Because how much ever you plan for these things, you are never ready... :P I remember everything like it happened yesterday... I would love to write about it, but I wonder if everyone would be interested in reading about it.. :P So fast forwarding to when he finally arrived with both his arms in the air crying his lungs out, this beautiful little pink thing that has tragically his mother's nose but amazingly his father's heart... :) Ever since THAT happened our lives changed drastically... 

Of course life was not going to be the same anymore... What were we thinking? The first couple of weeks are a fog of memories... I don't think that any one of us remembers clearly what was going on... But of course we remember how many times in a day he fed and pooped (p.s. we have a detailed log about number and color :P) ... I remember one particular instance when he pooped as I was changing his diaper and since Rama was still in the process of throwing the old one and I wasn't fast enough to put up the new one on him, I had to take it all in my own two palms... Yes I did that... After that day nothing grosses me out anymore... :P And the sleepless nights... Sure when you hear people talking about it or when you read about it, it does not sound as scary... But trust me it is much much scarier... My poor husband started hallucinating for God's sake... :P So our big solution was sleep when the baby sleeps... YES! As soon as he was fed, had pooped, had bathed and ready to sleep, we both were ready to sleep as well... Doesn't matter if we had eaten anything or had bathed... Nope! Just plank out as soon as Agastya is out... :P 

More than Agastya getting used to us, we were the ones who struggled to get used to him... One month later, we started to get acquainted to each other.. we became his friends and partners in crimes... he started recognizing us, little smiles here and there, little naughty looks a few times... playing around us like he doesn't care.. And then came his first social smile and it put everything into perspective for us... These things one never forgets... After that his milestones kept coming one after the other, sitting on his own, rolling over, crawling, walking... Phew!! Everything he did on his own, with maybe a little help from us here and there, and I still wonder at this little miracle that has been put into our arms... And the enormity of the word P-A-R-E-N-T crosses my mind... 

Because Parenthood really does change everything... And I don't mean it in the cliched and cheeky way... I mean really really it does change everything... Your life, your relationships, your eating habits, your temperament, your choice in movies, your choice in music, your work life, your perspective about people around you... everything goes for a toss... If you were a calm person you might become a maniac and if you are a little bit of a maniac already then you will definitely become more psychotic.. :P The point is when we become parents we completely change as a person... We do!! Nobody should claim otherwise.. Nope! And after we become parents, we finally understand more deeply who our parents are... What they did and why they did so... And after writing this piece of blog I, Shruti Ravinderan, from the bottom of my heart want to thank every parent I know for bringing up their children in the best possible way... Giving them good food, the right education, the healthy life... Because gosh I know it is so so incredibly difficult... Now I do!!! So hats off... You all did and are doing great... Give yourself a pat on your back... :)

Disclaimer: This blog post is not meant to discourage anybody from having children of their own... :P Just a short warning though... :D :P Do it at the right time, when you're done with all that you've wanted to do... Never blame a child for your shortcomings.. Ever!

Of siblings and their rivalries...

For years I have been trying to solve this mystery... I have been a victim of this so-called rivalry instigated by outer "agents" for years... It has affected me deeply, so much so that when I hear somebody tell me that they love their brother or sister without any questions asked or that they never used to have fights, in short that they have had peaceful relationships with their siblings, I say (and I quote) "Bwahahaha!! What a load of beeeeep!!" :P ... Seriously, I personally think having a completely peaceful relationship with ones own siblings is a rarest of rare occurrence. (No offence to anyone)

When we were young, me and my sister were pitted against each other, in almost every aspect of our lives. Some used to think that she was cuter/prettier than me, some would think she was better at sports than me (which was very true), some would say that she was better at extra curricular activities (which she was) etc... The list was endless. And honestly, I never had any problems with what people 'thought', but when they used to discuss these things in front of me, you know, it would break my heart. What these people did not realize was that, even though I was the older one (older by an year and 8 months), I was still a child. These were trivial stuff but for a child, these little things do matter. It dented my relationship with my sister for a long time. I suffered from low self-esteem. I used to feel so guilty all the time for being jealous of my sister. I used to blame myself for all that I was feeling against her and I used to think that I was the only elder sister in this whole world who had problems with her younger sister. This continued until one day when I stumbled upon a debate on this very topic on the television... It was hosted by our current Minister of Education, Mrs. Smriti Irani. They had invited this scholarly girl from one of Delhi's best schools to speak on this topic. What had started off as an innocent debate turned into this verbal explosion of all the built up frustration in that poor girl, I remember clearly how she viciously attacked her younger sister, proclaimed that her parents do not understand her and broke down in front of the audience. Mrs. Irani had to console her later. That day I understood one thing that I never hated my sister, infact I loved her a lot (and I still do), and all of my issues seemed really small. And I decided that I should grow up and stop being such a baby!! Trust me after I decided that, the people-talk started sounding like nonsense to me.

Very recently I came across an article about healthy and unhealthy sibling rivalry. It said that while it is important to instill a sense of healthy competition between siblings, it is also extremely vital to know the boundary between healthy and unhealthy competition. As parents we have to make sure that our children do not give importance to what others around them say about them, we should inculcate in them a sense of responsibility towards each other without being condescending towards one particular sibling and should never extol the achievements of one sibling in front of the other.

As children are so impressionable at any age, the stuff that we say in front of them makes a hell of a difference in their lives, while it might make great personalities out of timid ones, it can completely shrink a budding bundle of confidence. It is not necessary that every child out there has the strength to stand up for herself/himself, and it is not just a parent's responsibility to mold a child into an independent and confident individual. We, as a society are also obligated towards this great task, as not only are we bringing up every child around us, we are shaping our own futures through them. In short, it doesn't matter that if you have children or not, you are still a part of bringing up of every child around you. :)

Photography: My beginning

During a photography workshop that I attended recently we were asked about how we started out taking pictures... What motivated us? Everybody came up with their own stories and this was mine.

While growing up I used to think that I was not as creatively blessed as my peers and my sister. I remember how whenever given a pencil and a paper I would end up making two mountains, a river flowing through them, and the sun rising/setting in between. Meanwhile my best friend could sketch almost anything, such was her imagination. And my sister? Whoaa!! She was and is a genius when it comes to sketching/painting... She does oil paintings, glass paintings, faded sketching, fabric painting... Pheww!!And it would be hard for me to even hold the brush straight. Growing up, I always thought that I had no creativity, no imagination... Until I got my first camera phone! :) It was Moto Razr with a 2 MGP camera, but the inspiration had still not hit me. It did hit me and since then I look at things more through the view finder of my camera than my eyes. :P

I still remember the date. It was August 5th 2007, friendship's day, the day when my love story began with my city, Bombay. 

I moved to Bombay in June and shifted into a shared accommodation in Thane in July. I was miserable and home sick. The only places I knew was my office and my apartment. And to top my miseries it started raining in Bombay in late July. Although I enjoyed the first few days of the rains, it soon became a nuisance. I lost 3 umbrellas in a span of one month, the numerous wet laundry, unavailability of auto-rickshaws when needed the most, my perpetually wet sandals... etc. etc. In that one month I got so fed up that I planned going to back to Delhi for good by the end of that year. But then 5th August happened. 

My friends asked me to go with them to Bandra and I agreed only reluctantly because it was about to rain and I didn't want get stuck in any unknown area. I am not sure how things are now at the Bandra fort, but at that time it was open and people would throng that place to see the beauty of the Ocean. We went to the beach and walked all the way from Mannat (Shahrukh Khan's bungalow) to the fort. It was a windy day and rains were approaching. For a girl born and brought up in Delhi, this kind of scenario is irresistibly romantic and fantastic. I was immediately taken by the beauty in the enormity of the ocean, the humongous waves, the sweet scent of the approaching rains. It was all overwhelming. Then we reached the fort. I was and am still afraid of heights, but that day I climbed up to the top of the fort. It was just ocean until where I could see, we were surrounded by it. The waves were beating around the walls of the fort as if an angry beast was trying to knock it down. I saw beauty that day, unparalleled, inexplicable. Beyond words. That day I found inspiration to freeze that moment in time and in memory, so that I never forget that I was there. I was motivated to finally take out my phone camera and take pictures. :) And from that moment on I have been lucky enough to find such inspirations in almost everything, every person around me.

For me photography has been a way of expressing my own type of creativity. When I started taking pictures I started off with a 2 MGP phone camera then progressed to a 5 MGP phone camera, then came my Sony cybershot & then 12 MGP Fujifilm and now very recently Canon 650D. So, in the beginning I had to kind of start learning about post processing softwares and using them because a lot of times the pictures would come out a little below my expectations and these softwares would help me reach the favorable results. I still use these softwares as I can put a fun spin on my pictures. :)

According to me, to be a good photographer a person should be capable of seeing and appreciating the beauty in the most ordinary things around them before they even start holding a camera. Also, photography for me is one of the most selfless professions. Trust me it takes a lot to stay behind the camera when the rest of your family is posing in front of it. Moreover when people complain about and criticize your picture you have to maintain your calm. And when people share around the pictures you have taken by spending so much time and effort, without even giving proper credits, you feel all the more frustrated. So, yes it is not everybody's cup of tea. I believe and I know that not everyone can master this art. It needs a lot of time and patience. And I know I have a long way to go and that I am an amateur.

Since I started taking pictures I have observed that the following qualities are essential for anybody to become a good photographer:

 - passion about the art not just the craft
 - a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of practice

 - motivation and drive to go through anything to get that one great shot

 - dedication and a lot of commitment towards the art

 - patience, a lot of it!!

 - selflessness and absolutely no ego

 - most importantly, you need the eye, to see and reflexes to freeze :)

I think the following quote by Ansel Adams says it all for me:

“A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.” 

The eyes that haunt me...

I have this habit of analyzing everything and every person around me. This habit has got me into trouble multiple times and has sometimes got me out of them too. It is a part of my character, my personality, so I can't help but live with it. This bit that I am going to share is from a memory that still haunts me even after almost 12 years... I am sure that I over analyzed this situation too and created a story by myself around this one character that I saw for merely 10 minutes. Yet unfortunately I know it must have been true.

In 2002 I had just finished school and was studying to take engineering entrance examinations. I had joined this study institute in south-west Delhi, and I used to take a DTC bus every day to get there. 

One of these days, I took a bus to go to my classes. I still remember I used to pay a mere Rs. 2 to get to my bus stop. It was a short ride, but I had just started taking the bus alone and by myself so I used to enjoy every moment of it. On this day, I was sitting right near the exit door of the bus so that I could get down as soon as my stop came. I saw this little boy climbing on to the bus. He must have been be around 7 or 8 years old, in a blue shirt and grey shorts, of fair complexion, a handsome diamond shaped face, with beautiful milky grey eyes. When I first saw him I expected a parent or a guardian or somebody older to him to have accompanied him on to the bus because you never expect such a small kid to ride a bus alone. Then I started paying attention to his complete appearance. The shirt and shorts were dirty, he had no shoes on and was smelling of urine. He stood near the door for a minute and then started to make his way through the bus, asking for alms. Some people gave him a rupee, some people avoided eye contact, some shooed him away, but he relentlessly asked each and every person and then went back to the door of the bus. He stood there holding onto the pole, looking at the passengers, through his transparent, beautiful grey eyes, full of cynicism instead of innocence, full of ridicule instead of playfulness, full of a cold stone like quality instead of the warmth of a childhood. 

He got off the bus when it slowed down at a traffic signal. I just sat there, stunned by the horrific reality of that sight. I was 17 years old. I had just finished school. My life and my world until that point in time revolved mostly around my school, my family and my home. I used to have problems related to my studies, my friends or my family or my teachers. That day, in those few minutes I realized that I had just seen something that was beyond anything I might have gone through personally.

A little boy who must have been from a good family, pampered by his parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. A little boy who probably must have been on a vacation, or playing in a playground with his little friends, or coming back or going to school. A little boy who must have had a good future to look forward to. This little boy, who must have been snatched away from his family, his friends, his future, his childhood. This little boy who must have been lost and scared for such a long time, must have looked for his parents in so many buses he must have boarded, must have asked strangers if they knew his parents. This little boy who was abandoned by the society, today had abandoned the society itself. This little boy had given up the hope to ever find the ones who had once fed him, bathed him, sung lullaby to him, protected him. 

I still remember him because after that one day, I saw him everywhere, at the traffic signals, on buses and trains. The numerous children that I would see, begging for alms, touching feet of strangers, sometimes carrying infants, I would worry for them at night, not being able to go to sleep. The guilt of not being to help them in any way weighing down on me. But I am stuck in my own troubles, my own miseries. How will I ever be able to do anything to end this plague? That day I saw him alight from the bus and walk away, disappearing into the crowd. But I never forgot those eyes. I will never forget that boy. And he will forever haunt me.

 Note: According to a shocking data published by the UN office on drugs and crimes (UNODC) on human trafficking, the most common form of human trafficking (79%) is sexual exploitation. 

The second most common form of human trafficking is forced labour (18%), although this may be a misrepresentation because forced labour is less frequently detected and reported than trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Worldwide, almost 20% of all trafficking victims are children. However, in some parts of Africa and the Mekong region, children are the majority (up to 100% in parts of West Africa). 

While the above was a Global report, according to Wikipedia there is no reliable way of specifying these numbers in India. But according to some NGO's around 20 million to 65 million people in our country are effected by flesh trade. According to CRY 11.8% children in India are engaged in some form of child labour (National Family Health Survey III - NFHS).

The thing about having the right looks...

When I got engaged in 2009 I posted the picture of me and Ramakrishna on Orkut, I remember being so happy for us, after all it was a big deal as we had never thought we would get our parents' approval let alone getting engaged :P... People congratulated me, it seemed that my friends were happy for me... :) But I distinctly remember one of my "friends" commenting on the picture, "YOU also got engaged???!!!! :O "... When I think of that now I feel like laughing out loud, but at that time that comment hurt me a lot, I don't know why, but it did... It was as if this person didn't think that I was worthy of getting engaged, or falling in love, or finding love for that matter... Thinking back, maybe it has something to do with me not having the "right looks" while I was growing up...

My childhood was according to me the best one a girl could ask for... I had and have an extremely supportive family... I can say that I was quite free to be who I wanted to be... So I was this tomboy who almost never gave a damn about what anybody would say about her... But I would be lying if I said that it never bothered me when people made fun of me for the way I looked... The comments would be mostly about my weight, like, a playful "fatso!! or moti!!" to "If you lose weight I would marry you!!" to "Oh my god!! How much do you weigh??", then about my eyebrows, like, "you look like Changez Khan!!", or my nose like "You have a flat nose!!" or "Your nose looks like a pakoda!! or a samosa!!" Lol... Once a close friend of my parents' told me (when I was 17 years old) that I looked as old as my father's sister not at all like his daughter and if I did not pay attention to my looks I would not get a decent groom... The list goes on, and whatever I do I could never forget these remarks/suggestions and advises/taunts... In a way even after having the coolest parents, I had a hard time growing up... But the fun part about having a family such as mine was that I always knew that they had my back, that they loved me no matter what and I didn't need to prove anything to the rest of the world...

So when I set out in pursuit of true love, I knew what I was looking for... I had promised myself that I will not change myself for an unworthy, undeserving guy... If I ever fall in love it will be with someone who appreciates me for the person I am, who doesn't tell me to dress up for him, who doesn't ask me to change my ways... It all sounds pretty idealistic but it is true and I think I am one of the lucky few who found exactly the person she was looking for... I was never a fan of the literary and fantastical love at first sight scenario, how can I be, when all my life I have been told that I don't score enough in the "right looks" department... So it was not a "love-at-first-sight" for us, it was more of a "love-at-a-gradual-pace" for us... :P and for that one thing I am grateful to god...

Now when I look back to all that has been said and done and to the person that I am now, I do not regret anything... Really!! All those taunts and friendly or unfriendly remarks, taught me to rebel and made me the person I am today... And to tell you the truth, even though I did care a little then, I certainly don't care now and I definitely won't care in the future... I think its all because I was blessed to have the kind of family that I had and have... :)

Recently I was going through an article that explained how children have body image issues from an age as early as 6 years... It was heartbreaking and that's what triggered me into writing this article... So to those people who have teen-aged girls and boys at home with body image issues, I would just say what my mother said to me when I was 14 years old, "At this age you would get attracted to the opposite sex for all the wrong reasons, but it will take you a long time to find that one person who would be attracted to all the right reasons in you!! It is important to know who you are and what your priorities are and sticking to them, no matter what!! It is important that you know that the right person will never ask you to change yourselves for them... :) "

I think what I am trying to imply is that it is essential that we support our children in every way possible, to let them know that they are worthy of love, no matter how they look, or what they wear, or how they speak, or how they walk... It is important that they know that we've got their back... :) To let them know that there are no "right or wrong looks", there are just people, while some are right... Some others maybe wrong... But we should never judge them based on their "looks"... :)

A Little Adventure - Part 2, From London to Brussels to Liege to Verviers to Aachen

Continuing from where I left off...

When you are travelling to a certain place on a Monday morning you expect the trains and buses to be relatively empty, the bus and train stations to be a little less crowded... So when I reached London's St. Pancras railway station I was shocked to see the queue which had materialized to board the train Eurostar. The Eurostar takes people from London to Europe to mainly two destinations, Paris and Brussels. Mine was supposed to take me to Brussels. I had a legit ticket but with number of people in the queue waiting for their turn to board the train, it was clear to me that I wasn't getting anywhere near Eurostar that day.

I had no idea that there were so many people who would be travelling on a Monday morning. Of course it was the mid-December and most of these travelers wanted to get back home for the holidays or had their tickets rescheduled for the next train. This particular queue extended all the way from St. Pancras station up to the British Library i.e., almost half a kilometer long. People were standing there from 5 a.m. in the morning, I had reached there at 9.30 a.m. I had nowhere to go in London, had no friends or relatives who stayed there, so once again I was stuck there, it was either the Eurostar or spend the night at the station for me. Of course the anxiety and disappointment of not being able to see my husband after going through so much was weighing down on me. I cannot explain what was going through my head, my eyes were full of tears. I started calling up my parents and parents-in-law in India to inform them of my situation, they started calling up everyone they knew who could have anyone they knew staying in London to arrange for an overnight stay for me. I called up my husband to inform about this situation and broke down. We gave up all our hopes of seeing each other and being with each other. I had just finished up my call with my husband when I saw that the plastic tape that was holding this line in order had come off from right where I was standing. I took it as a sign and cut the line. I am the kind of girl who has never cut a line in her entire life, and in that moment, I made a snap decision and cut the line. I still feel bad about it. A lady in front of me tried to yell at me for doing that but decided not to when she saw that I was on the verge of bawling. When I settled down into the line, which was moving at a snail's pace by the way, I suddenly realized that I had to pee really bad. Now of course I couldn't leave the line. God it was exhausting and painful. Stuff we do for love!!

After standing in that god forsaken queue for what seemed like an eternity, I was still quite far from the check-in gates when a few people from Eurostar staff came running towards us and announced that the last and only train to Brussels from London is about to leave and who ever had a ticket to Brussels should be on that train. So a bunch of us ran towards the check-in gates dragging our luggage, completing the check-in, security and immigration formalities in a flash, and just like that we successfully boarded the train. I called my folks and my husband and informed all of them the good news. And then after what seemed like a lifetime went to the restroom in the train. The relief that I felt was stronger than the happiness I was feeling about seeing the love of my life. But this ordeal does not end here. See when the whole of UK was put under gridlock, I did not know that Europe was under gridlock too. My train was taking me to Brussels, while my husband was stuck at a city called Liege in Beligum and had no way of coming to Brussels to pick me up as none of the train were plying out of Liege to Brussels. So, at around 7.30 p.m. I reached Brussels, all ecstatic and bleary eyed with the anticipation of seeing the man that I love. We kept talking to each other on the phone and he informed me about his situation. I waited until 8.30 p.m. at a cafe in Brussels station. Then we decided that I should go to Liege as trains were still leaving from Brussels to other cities. So I, trusting my unique sense of intuition coupled with a weird sense of direction got to the correct platform on Brussels station from where the train to Liege was leaving. It took me 40 terrifying mins to reach Liege as a first time traveler in Europe. But when I reached and saw his face for the first time in almost 3 months after our wedding, I forgot all about my survicle and sciatica pains, the fact that I was nowhere near Germany made no difference to me, as far as I was concerned I was home. :)

The display at the Liege station was flashing the details of a train back to Aachen, Germany which was supposed to leave at 9.30 p.m. As we kept looking at it, in a few moments the time being displayed changed from 9.30 p.m. to cancelled. It was pretty clear to us that we were going to be stuck at Liege. My husband suggested that we should go to a hotel for the night and try to get back to Aachen the next day or go to the border town of Verviers which is only 40 kms from Aachen and take a cab from there. There was a Turkish family at the station who also wanted to go to Aachen and were weak in English, so I suggested that we should go to Verviers together and try getting to Aachen from there and take these people with us so that we could split the cab fare. It sounded like a good idea until we all reached Verviers. Now being a European border town, Verviers was nothing like any of the other European cities. The station was not well covered, the restrooms were non-functioning and LOCKED!! The vending machines were not working, and we were again stuck, but this time it was not just me and my husband, we had a family with little kids with us. The situation was much worse than before and we had to find a way out of that town. My husband, the father and the eldest son from that family went outside the station to find a cab, but no one would take us to Aachen due to the grid lock. There was only one 24/7 kiosk shop open outside and the taxi dealer was not picking up the phone. We waited and waited for somebody to help us but the complete town was shut down. By 12 a.m. we all had given up all hopes and were thinking of staying the night at a hotel there, if something was open. At that time I went outside the station to just be with my husband for sometime. I noticed that the owner of the 24/7 kiosk shop was a south-east asian man. I asked my husband if he had talked to him. He said yeah and that this guy was from Bangladesh. My husband is the most intelligent and skillful guy I know, but he is lousy at being street smart and getting his way. I rushed to the shop and talked to that guy in Hindi. I explained to him about our situation and told him that we had a lady and two young children with us who could use some warm place until we found a ride back home. He obliged and offered us some chairs to sit in his shop were there was a heavenly heating system.

We were just settling down there when at around 12.30 a.m. another south-east asian guy came into the shop. He was a pick-up truck guy who was there to drop some liquor off at the shop. He was of Pakistani origin. The owner of the shop talked to this guy and explained our situation and asked him if he could take us across the border of Belgium-Germany to Aachen. He was reluctant at first but after looking at our harrowed expressions he obliged too. He made sure that we all had our passports and visas in place and loaded us all in his truck and drove us to Aachen. During the journey on the highway I saw why Europe was under gridlock. It was so dangerous to be out on the road at that time. Everywhere you turned you saw snow and ice. Thick thick ice. My god it was scary and the snowstorm made it worse. So we all reached Aachen in one piece, we thanked the kind Pakistani stranger, who went by the name Khan bhai, for all his help, paid him with all the money we had in our pockets and bid him goodbye with wide grins on our faces.

Me and my husband reached his tiny but beautiful one room kitchen apartment in Aachen's city center, near the Dom cathedral, at around 2 a.m. in the morning. I told him that I was famished and he said that he had cooked for me a Keralite delicacy called Avial for me before leaving for Brussels that morning and had made a pact with God that I will be there to enjoy it with him. I couldn't control my glee when I heard that. We had our first dinner together after 3 months of staying apart. After everything we went through in the past couple of days, this moment meant everything to me. And I proved it to myself that if we want something with all our might and we put in all our thoughts and efforts into something, we would get it eventually. It is just a matter of time. And I also learnt an important lesson about my own life, that things that go perfectly well from the beginning, have the best chances of getting screwed up in the end. So, after that one time, whenever I faced difficulties in the beginning of a journey or a test or a project, I never worried too much, because I knew that it will have to work out in the end. :)

A little adventure - Part 1, Europe's worst blizzard, gridlock and journey to Birmingham and back

When I got married to my boyfriend of 2 and half years, I had no idea that we were embarking on such an adventurous life. I always thought of my boyfriend as a soft guy who plans ahead for everything and doesn't like taking risks. This nature of his is in stark contrast of mine, as I am quite the go-with-the-flow/happy-go-lucky kinda girl. Before I got married, I had no clue about the importance of saving money, making investments, the share market or all the other big financial terms he used to use in front of me, in the hope that I would learn these things from him. 

The first year after our wedding, we spent apart in different countries, me on the Island of Britain, doing my Masters degree, and him working in a city called Aachen (about which I had never heard before he was deputed there) in Germany. The first couple of months we did everything to justify our decision of living apart to our families and friends, but each day it started becoming more and more difficult to stay away from each other. We got married in August 2010, he left for Germany in September and I left for the UK in October, and by December we were going slightly mad for not being able to be with each other.

So we decided that for the Christmas vacations I would visit him in Germany. At that time I was this scared little person who would not even board a bus in her own University city because she was not sure where the bus would take her. I know, it is lame, but this is the truth. My husband used to accompany me virtually through google earth whenever I had to take a bus journey within or outside my city.

In November 2010, I got my schengen visa stamped without any glitches and delays, and I was pretty psyched about travelling to Germany in December. A little background on my life, the no-glitches/delays thing never happens to me without any reason. I always have a rule, if my ride is smooth until a certain point in time, I know I am going to be pushed into a ditch or a well the next moment. Okay so continuing my travel saga, I was supposed to board a flight from Birmingham to Dusseldorf on a Saturday mid-morning. I had my tickets, my visa and all my bags where packed according to the 25 kgs of luggage allowance. 

I started from Leicester to Birmingham on one of the local trains. I had never traveled on these trains before. So I didnt even know how to open the doors when your station had arrived. So obviously I missed my station, I know this is lame too, but I had a lot of luggage and by the time I dragged myself and my luggage to the door the train had already left Birmingham to Coventry. So now I was in total panic and to make matters worse it had started snowing continuously, and at that time I had no idea what that snowstorm was turning into. So I got down at Coventry all wide eyed and teary eyed... Thankfully had the sense to board another train back to Birmingham. Somehow scrambled my way to the airport in one piece. Checked-in and got my boarding pass and settled down at the lounge waiting for my turn to be called to board the flight. That's when my ordeal started. The first time I glanced outside the airport's waiting lounge, I couldn't see any air crafts as it was snowing so heavily, all I could see was the white snow, which was fascinating to me being an Indian girl brought up nowhere near snow. Suddenly all the displays in the airport started showing that all the outgoing flights had been delayed by half an hour which gradually increased to one hour then to two hours and then all the displays flashed that all the flights had been cancelled. Even at that time I had no clue that I was stuck in the worst blizzard of its kind in Europe in that decade. I again dragged my luggage down to the check-in counters, in my desperation to get to Germany, I was ready to board any flight at any time out of UK, I was even ready to stay at the airport until that time. I had only £100 in cash with me and as luck would have it, my card got blocked for god knows what reason, my phone got completely discharged and I was stuck heaving and dragging my very heavy luggage around the airport which had become a battle ground. As a student you don't have much money at your disposal. I had no eaten the whole day because of all the anxiety and anticipation of travelling alone and now my empty stomach had started making questionable noises. By 3 p.m. it was dark outside and I still had no clue where I was going to stay the night. Somehow I used my head, got my cell phone somewhat charged, booked myself a bus ticket back to Leicester and set out to find a bus that would take me home. Now the funny part was I was oblivious to the fact that the whole of UK was under gridlock because of the blizzard which meant that no buses or trains were leaving from any of the stations. I boarded a bus, which had a kind bus-driver lady, who dropped me at the Birmingham bus station from where I hoped to get a bus back home. But no buses were leaving from the station at that time. I tried to flag a taxi to take me to the Birmingham train station, a kind lady offered me a lift and dropped me just outside the station in her taxi. I again dragged my very heavy luggage up to the station through all the snow between my survicle and sciatica pain... I got to the station from where I booked a ticket to Leicester. When I reached the platform I saw all the passengers lined up, sitting on their luggage or on any dry surface they could find, waiting for the train authorities to put in a train to Leicester, because as luck may have it, all the trains had been pulled off tracks due to heavy snow and low visibility. So I sat there too, and completely gave up my hope of reaching the safety of my dorm room. It must have been half an hour since I was sitting there, a train pulled up on our platform. It was not supposed to go anywhere and was going to be parked there for the rest of the night. All the passengers waiting to go to Leicester jumped into this train in desperation and hope that they would let this one go. When the authorities came to remove us from the train, all of us defied them and said that if they don't let the train go we would just sit inside it as it is at least warmer than the platform. Finally they obliged and said they would let this one go. Oh I can't explain the sense of relief I felt when the train moved from Birmingham. Within an hour I was back in Leicester and in my dorm room. I had bought a Subway sandwich that I devoured and slept like a baby that night.

Before I left for Birmingham the previous day I had emptied all of my food rations, rice, lentils, vegetables, fruits as I was not hoping to come back for the next 20 days. So when I got up the next day, which was a Sunday, I didn't even have milk in the fridge to prepare some tea. I was famished and set out to hunt for an open shop or market nearby. Of course everything was closed, between it being a Sunday and the country being gridlocked and all. I was on the verge of collapsing when the kind uncle from the Pakistani shop down the road noticed my predicament and opened his shop for sometime. I grabbed whatever I could, cooked something and ate like an animal until I was full. During all this time, me and my husband were talking and we decided that he would book my ticket on Eurostar, the only train plying between the UK across the English Channel and Europe. I had to get to London to catch this said train. So the next day i.e., a Monday I set out to catch the train from London's St. Pancras station. Little did I know, a brand new ordeal was waiting to be unraveled for me in London.