My Vacation In India

Hello,

This year I finally took the longest vacation since 2000. When in State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, I was used to a one month vacation. I could take it without feeling of any guilt and as a right. In Axis Bank, taking a vacation for four weeks was unthinkable. An organisation where small absences from office is frowned upon a request for vacation was made trepidations and the Boss had to be molly coddled before you actually sent your application. When I landed in Kuwait small vacations seemed to suit me as I could make more than one trip to India. But this year I heard my kids complaining that they hardly felt my presence during a vacation as I would generally end up being busy in a lot of work and forget to relax.
The one month vacation was good.
After relaxing for ten days in Jaipur where I played a cricket match for Mentor Finance against SJ Public School and ate a lot of Jaipur delicacies, we spent four days in Ahmedabad.
The time I spent there was excellent. I played Table Tennis with Sanju, the brother of my brother in law and lost all but one game. It was however surprising that spectators found my attacking game more entertaining than his ultra defensive and calculative game. My nephew's Janoi was celebrated with pomp and ceremony and I MCed the reception. Once again with a little bit of immodesty I have to add that I did reasonably well.
After Ahmedabad we, my family and my youngest sister, her husband and daughter, made a trip to Somnath and Diu.
The Somnath Temple is a new Temple built over the ruins of an old temple complex famous for the series of attacks and loot by Allauddin Khilji.
Diu is a wonderful tourist destination untouched by the mad stampede of tourism. We stayed at Radhika Resort, a very reasonably priced, well located and equipped resort. The beach is not much to rave about but the food was good, the time spent in the swimming pool in company of the family was relaxing.
The trip ended with a return to Jaipur and further exploration of the eating joints.

One of the most enjoyable aspect of this trip was the connections I made with old friends. I talked to several of my class mates, SBBJ mates and Axis Bank mates. The old memories came flooding back and gave plenty of joy.

I am not sure if I can take a similarly long vacation in the future but memories of this vacation stored through pictures now pasted in the computer and the revival of old connections will keep me fresh and expectant till my next vacation.

Best regards,
Manoj