The blue sky

Scene 1: Atul and I had been to Salzburg, Austria the last time I had come here. It is a beautiful city, clean and picturesque. We had taken a tour for the week end from a tourist agency. Everything was planned and executed very well. The cab came to pick us up from our location and there were 3 other pairs of people in our little van. 2 from Australia, 2 from UK, 2 from the USA and we were from India. The language which connected us was obviously English. I wondered, if there was no English, today we wouldn't have been able to interact with each other in the tour and it would have been so boring to sit like that seeing each others faces! Scene 2: There is a group of people in Karnataka, who share the same surnames as us, e.g. Velankar, Devdhar, Joshi etc., but speak the Chitpavani language. They are here since 4 generations and do not understand a word of Marathi, which is my mother-tongue. I came to know about the existence of such group when I came to Bangalore.We had...

This time it was different. I had come thrice earlier to Germany, but in different roles. I had come here twice as a student and once after marriage, but before Tanay arrived. This time, I was a full time mother looking after my 5 months old son. And this was altogether a different experience. Managing him alone without any help from the family members, friends was a great learning for me. Of course, Atul was biggest help. In the initial days, he cooked for us, made us feel at home by doing most of the things, he also went shopping for us. Once, I got into routine, I took over the cooking part and a little shopping part too. Due to which, I could take Tanay out for a ride and get him some fresh air. He immensely enjoyed those rides and smiled at everyone he saw. The Germans here were little surprised by his babbles, because usually German kids are given soothers all the time and I have hardly seen them cry or whine or talk in public. But this fellow enjoyed every little attention ...