When you wake up early morning, get ready, leave your child with in-laws, travel through traffic, work 8-9 hours a day, endure troubling students and irritating parents, struggle with office politics, make your way back through unwelcoming autos and crowded trains and then single-handedly baby-sit a growing child for more than 4 hours till he goes to sleep and wake up many times a night to feed him, what is the only thing a super-woman mother needs? VACATION.
That is exactly what i decided your aai should have. The idea was not mine. It was Aaba's idea. And everytime, he puts up an idea, my first instict is NO. So, when he suggested about going to lonavala for a weekend outing, i outright refused it. Then, Aatu tried to convince Aai with an additional plan of visiting Aditi aatya and her newly born daughter in Pune.
Aai was quite excited about going. Nothing wrong about that either. Besides our honeymoon at Mahabaleshwar, a wedding trip to Delhi and a vacation at Kerala, we haven't done any other big travels. In the last 10 years, we haven't been to more than 10 weekend outings as well. So, i thought she deserved a break. But, we will do it my way.
The initial plan was to go to Aai's mama's house in pune a day prior and then join the others at Aditi aatya's house the next day and spend the rest of the time together at Lonavala. But, Mama had some guests on the same day and so that plan fizzled out. My research was on overdrive and the place i found out for our first family outing was something me and aai will remember for a long time.
We started on 23rd December. Being a Monday, traffic was less on the expressway. We made our traditional stop at the food mall on expressway where you had your first bite of the food-mall batatawada. You were super relaxed in your car seat. (Thank you Swapna Mavshi). With the help of GPS, we finally reached our destination. And with your mother saw, she started loving me a little bit more.
Fazlani Nature's Retreat was a paradise. An area so vast that we needed golf carts to travel to our rooms, machans to watch the serene back-waters of a dam, green manicured lawns to laze around, bicycles to ride in to one's chldhood, a horse farm where you fed horses and even sat on one, a bird farm where you played with white pigeons, turkeys, geese, fowls, ducks, swans and even a peacock, a rose farm where we saw some amazing roses, a room with 5-star amenities, great lobby, vintage cars, artifacts, cordial staff, there was everything. The food was a slight letdown, but you enjoyed your milkshake sitting on your own chair.
All good things come to an end and we had to check out the next day. We decided that we will not meet the others at a temple they were supposed to visit and instead go to Aditi's place directly. Our car was packed with huge bags your aai had brought for Aditi aatu's daughter. We were hungry and had a delicious misal at Zingat misal off the highway. We reached Aditi aatu's place much earlier than the others. Aditi aatya and Vinayak kaka had bought a nice tricycle for you as a gift. Nisha aaji, Pramila aaji, naik kaka, gauri aatya, arnav dada, sarvadnya aatya had also joined aaba, dah-aaji, aadya tai and aatu. We had a nice time there and then started for our destination at Lonavla.
If Fazlani was a heaven, then the homestay near Ekvira mandir (far from lonavala) was a hell. It was a house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by darkness, riddled with huge mosquitoes, lizards, scorpions (and maybe even snakes). The owner was a smoking machine and the rooms were absolutely pathetic. And when i made a spontaneous decision of not staying there for the night, your aai started loving me a lot more than before.
It was dark but we had made up our mind to return to mumbai and stay at mahim. It was a 2.5 hour journey and how will you react to the travel was the only thing worrying me. We lost our way, had to change your clothes, got back on the right track, made a loo-stop, reached mumbai, lost our way again, got caught in traffic and finally reached mahim. And all you did was sleep. It was like you knew that aai and me were angry and you decided to stay calm.
The next day, Vagdevi was celebrating its 50th anniversary and had organised a satyanarayan pooja. Aajoba saw to it that every Kelekar worked hard so that all members of the building have a nice evening. You walked some steps on the 'jajam' spread on the terrace, which gave me an idea to buy one which resulted in you walking without support in the next few days. We returned home late night on 25th December, tired and sleepy, with memories sweet and sour.
Incidences on a day can be good or bad, but memories are just memories. And those 3 days gave us a lot of them. I have promised your aai that we are going to take you to a lot of different places. By the time you are reading this, i hope i have lived up to my promise. But no other vacation will have that cute little thing sleeping in that car seat and having no idea why his parents are so happy seeing a lake and some birds.
That is exactly what i decided your aai should have. The idea was not mine. It was Aaba's idea. And everytime, he puts up an idea, my first instict is NO. So, when he suggested about going to lonavala for a weekend outing, i outright refused it. Then, Aatu tried to convince Aai with an additional plan of visiting Aditi aatya and her newly born daughter in Pune.
Aai was quite excited about going. Nothing wrong about that either. Besides our honeymoon at Mahabaleshwar, a wedding trip to Delhi and a vacation at Kerala, we haven't done any other big travels. In the last 10 years, we haven't been to more than 10 weekend outings as well. So, i thought she deserved a break. But, we will do it my way.
The initial plan was to go to Aai's mama's house in pune a day prior and then join the others at Aditi aatya's house the next day and spend the rest of the time together at Lonavala. But, Mama had some guests on the same day and so that plan fizzled out. My research was on overdrive and the place i found out for our first family outing was something me and aai will remember for a long time.
We started on 23rd December. Being a Monday, traffic was less on the expressway. We made our traditional stop at the food mall on expressway where you had your first bite of the food-mall batatawada. You were super relaxed in your car seat. (Thank you Swapna Mavshi). With the help of GPS, we finally reached our destination. And with your mother saw, she started loving me a little bit more.
Fazlani Nature's Retreat was a paradise. An area so vast that we needed golf carts to travel to our rooms, machans to watch the serene back-waters of a dam, green manicured lawns to laze around, bicycles to ride in to one's chldhood, a horse farm where you fed horses and even sat on one, a bird farm where you played with white pigeons, turkeys, geese, fowls, ducks, swans and even a peacock, a rose farm where we saw some amazing roses, a room with 5-star amenities, great lobby, vintage cars, artifacts, cordial staff, there was everything. The food was a slight letdown, but you enjoyed your milkshake sitting on your own chair.
All good things come to an end and we had to check out the next day. We decided that we will not meet the others at a temple they were supposed to visit and instead go to Aditi's place directly. Our car was packed with huge bags your aai had brought for Aditi aatu's daughter. We were hungry and had a delicious misal at Zingat misal off the highway. We reached Aditi aatu's place much earlier than the others. Aditi aatya and Vinayak kaka had bought a nice tricycle for you as a gift. Nisha aaji, Pramila aaji, naik kaka, gauri aatya, arnav dada, sarvadnya aatya had also joined aaba, dah-aaji, aadya tai and aatu. We had a nice time there and then started for our destination at Lonavla.
If Fazlani was a heaven, then the homestay near Ekvira mandir (far from lonavala) was a hell. It was a house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by darkness, riddled with huge mosquitoes, lizards, scorpions (and maybe even snakes). The owner was a smoking machine and the rooms were absolutely pathetic. And when i made a spontaneous decision of not staying there for the night, your aai started loving me a lot more than before.
It was dark but we had made up our mind to return to mumbai and stay at mahim. It was a 2.5 hour journey and how will you react to the travel was the only thing worrying me. We lost our way, had to change your clothes, got back on the right track, made a loo-stop, reached mumbai, lost our way again, got caught in traffic and finally reached mahim. And all you did was sleep. It was like you knew that aai and me were angry and you decided to stay calm.
The next day, Vagdevi was celebrating its 50th anniversary and had organised a satyanarayan pooja. Aajoba saw to it that every Kelekar worked hard so that all members of the building have a nice evening. You walked some steps on the 'jajam' spread on the terrace, which gave me an idea to buy one which resulted in you walking without support in the next few days. We returned home late night on 25th December, tired and sleepy, with memories sweet and sour.
Incidences on a day can be good or bad, but memories are just memories. And those 3 days gave us a lot of them. I have promised your aai that we are going to take you to a lot of different places. By the time you are reading this, i hope i have lived up to my promise. But no other vacation will have that cute little thing sleeping in that car seat and having no idea why his parents are so happy seeing a lake and some birds.
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