Tired out and Tried out.

In hibernating for almost a month and not posting anything at all in this blog, I have nobody to blame but myself. I have traveled across the seven seas and have come back to the land of the insane, wiser and fatter. In the short span of time, that I was at home, I have been subject to a treacherous schedule of boiled vegetables in the morning to build my appetite, followed by sinfully rich chingri maacher malai curry during lunch, samosas fried in ghee in the evening and chicken chowmein for dinner. The cycle has been repeated with small variations during the stay. I have been woken at 6 A.M in the morning to watch the spiritual programs on ETV Bangla and had to practice the daily new Yoga shown at exactly 6:40 AM Monday to Saturday on DD Bangla. I was made to visit all kinds of temples and ashrams, holy men and aged relatives. The last mentioned fed me with beguni, roshogolla and love. It was too much to digest. I was not allowed to hang out with my friends, because time was precious and they were dispensable while relatives are most definitely not.

When along with my stomach I cried for mercy, I had a day's rest and I finally caught some sleep. In the meantime, I visited the bank to make sure that the little money I had was safe, visited tailors because despite the freezing temperatures an Indian girl must always wear her salwar kameez, went shopping but could not buy anything and even made a futile attempt to take out my folks for lunch to a nice restaurant.

Much of my ranting here would have lessened if time had let me relax and heal the exhaustion both mental and physical. My time has been divided between dropping relatives at airports and teaching my parents to use the webcam to communicate with me. My mother now puts it to optimal use. She positions the webcam in front of the 'thakur ghor' - the prayer room and makes me say my daily prayers even though its 10:30 at night when I usually speak to her. My maid servant was astonished to see me disappear in such a short span without any 'bakshish' (as if!!!) and now demands to know whether I have a maid who does dishes for me. When my mother informed her that I use a dish washer, she said she could come over and wash my dishes for real cheap!

My whirlwind tour has come to an end. I am not even sure whether I am glad to be back or whether it would been better never to come back at all. To contemplate on that, I need to catch up on my forty winks!