Should I Call It A Vacation?

[ritu 1]

I remember that a few years back when I was in college, my maternal uncle had almost dictated us to accompany him to his place. He had built a luxurious house, on a plot that was gifted to him by his in-laws. It is a nice place with a rural touch to it. I would rather say that the main body was that of a rural area, and the touch was of an urban one. They called it a town but it hardly had any such signs, not because it didn't stretch that long, also because it wasn't crowded like the big cities, but the very structure of the people's mind and the town were different. the people used to wake up early..... really early at about 3 or 4 in the morning . My uncle's mother -in law would get up at 3 in the morning ( about to be morning) and start to cook. We had our sleep deepened by 3, let alone the question of rising up, by 6 in the morning she would have her bath after cooking , and go for "POOJA", that was the time when we brushed our teeth, we would come looking for tea, she (my uncle's mom in law) would firmly refuse as we were late by 2 hours for tea. It was then time for breakfast, can you imagine breakfast at 6:30 in the morning, I wasn't out of my sleep totally, but I couldn't let the amazing food cooked by granny ( uncle's mom-in-law) go, so without having tea , had to have breakfast. We would feel so hungry by 8 , but were only allowed to wait till lunch was ready. We were told that we should have our bath a little earlier than 8 or 8:30 in the morning, even in that chilly winter morning. At 11:30 in the morning they had lunch, who on earth has lunch in the morning as 11:30 is morning! For us it was the time to have a sip of tea whether at home or out, but as they say,"When in Rome, do as the Romans do.", it was conjugal to have lunch, our time was 1:30 which is considered normal across the world, but it was tea time for them an hour later at 2:30. There was no custom of going out for recreation, the only purpose would be shopping for household requirements, the shops would close down by 7:30 in the evening, and in granny's place they would finish their last meal by that time. Honestly, I wanted to relish on the food cooked by granny, it was more than awesome, but the time allotted to the meals were in no ways in accordance to what we have been brought up with. The way they viewed issues were quite different from our perspective. You know what, the people in the towns don't think that way, like they called our visit to be a vacation for us, whereas it wasn't the same for my family members.

[sheepdog 10]

Our own vacations are somewhat simular to yours, as to we go to visit my sisterinlaw, but that's were the simularity ends. Even though they get up earlier than I normally would, we don't have to get up if we don't want to, and meals are planed around everyones schedule and nobody misses anything. I don't think I like your style of vacation. I mean, what's the point if there is no time for recreation or doing other things you enjoy. I do see we have something else in common, I'm not much of a morning person either. I mean really, aren't vacations supposed to be for you to get some rest and have a little fun? Your's didn't sound fun at all. Except eating of course. Nothing like a good meal with friends and family. But you should of had a lot more freedom to do other things that you wanted to do in order to call it a vacation.

[ritu 1]

Exactly, it was such a turn off , I do follow a planned regime as I need to balance work and home both, but on a vacation we are not supposed to follow our same boring daily routines,wish someone could make granny understand that.

[sheepdog 10]

Well, it would be nice if you could, but let me tell you, when you get old you get really stubborn and set in you rways and nothing short of dynomite will shake you loose from a lifetime of routine. You'll just have to love Granny the way she is. She isn't likely to change.