2 days ago on Friday morning as I woke up, I was looking forward to spending a long weekend with Reia, Freia and Ivy at home. The previous evening a snow day emergency had been declared in the Tri-State (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut), as a blizzard moving towards the area was scheduled to hit during the night and leave snowed in towns and roads before moving on further North towards the Boston area.
Looking out, I could see that the blizzard had hit and the snow was piled thick wherever you looked. Making myself a cup of tea, I started checking my mail. A mail from an important client caught my eye, and was short and sweet. When can you come to India/ Need to meet. I decided to mail him later and check a convenient time when the phone rang. It was the client. Same question. My answer. When do you want me to come. When the response was asap, I was like, okay, will be there by Wednesday.
As this conversation was happening, I was thinking to myself, whether I could leave today and reach India by Saturday. My brother Don and Frank were already in India to attend the Arangetram (A Dance Initiation) of our niece Simran. This is an important function and I couldn't be there as I had just returned from India a couple of weeks ago. Now that there seemed to be an opportunity, I wanted to try.
I had to first see if Ivy and the kids would be okay, considering that Ivy was visiting and I had already spent a large part of the visit in India. She's scheduled to go back in less than a week. The day after I get back, if I make it, I was feeling a little guilty and was making an effort to tell them that this was completely unexpected and not planned. That's when Freia said, its "Serendipity". I had no idea at what that meant and so looked it up and it was a perfect description of the events unfolding. My family has always been supportive, and this time too, not only were they okay, they actively participated in trying to make things happen.
There were 2 major hurdles. To make it I had to leave in the next few hours. It wasn't going to be easy to get to the airport. More important would I be able to get tickets and even if I did, would the flight take off, as there were 1000's of flights that were being cancelled.
Started checking for tickets and they were obnoxiously expensive. Tried several airline as well as travel sites. No luck. On 2 occasions I found reasonably priced tickets and on clicking buy, the ticket was no longer available and the next available ticket was priced twice as much. Finally tried Kayak a second time. This time an Air-India ticket miraculously appeared that was a direct non-stop flight to Mumbai and was very reasonably priced. And I was able to do the booking on Kayak itself, which seemed to be a new feature, but the fulfillment was by Priceline.
The only problem was that it was a 4 p.m. flight and I had to leave in the next hour or so, More important how do I get to the airport. I decide to try my luck and called my colleague Tony. In a strange twist of events, his regular car was at the shop, and they had loaned him a multipurpose 4 wheel drive. And he was happy to help get rid of me, so he had a few days of peace.
All went well. I made it to the airport, the flight took off on time and I landed in India a full 20 hours before the event. Today's event. Strangely enough several people knew I was going to come. They obviously knew something I didn't.
The Arangetram is an individual dancing performance and Simran was awesome. She danced flawlessly and her dance guru who was part of the background music and vocals couldn't stop smiling. I was able to do a live broadcast via Skype so that Reia who Simran would have liked to have attended instead of me, as well as Freia and Ivy could watch.
Unfortunately, the performance is not available online. Yet. I'll give a link as soon as its available. And its something that every person should watch. The end result of 8+ years of commitment and dedication all summarized in under 2 hours.
Looking out, I could see that the blizzard had hit and the snow was piled thick wherever you looked. Making myself a cup of tea, I started checking my mail. A mail from an important client caught my eye, and was short and sweet. When can you come to India/ Need to meet. I decided to mail him later and check a convenient time when the phone rang. It was the client. Same question. My answer. When do you want me to come. When the response was asap, I was like, okay, will be there by Wednesday.
As this conversation was happening, I was thinking to myself, whether I could leave today and reach India by Saturday. My brother Don and Frank were already in India to attend the Arangetram (A Dance Initiation) of our niece Simran. This is an important function and I couldn't be there as I had just returned from India a couple of weeks ago. Now that there seemed to be an opportunity, I wanted to try.
I had to first see if Ivy and the kids would be okay, considering that Ivy was visiting and I had already spent a large part of the visit in India. She's scheduled to go back in less than a week. The day after I get back, if I make it, I was feeling a little guilty and was making an effort to tell them that this was completely unexpected and not planned. That's when Freia said, its "Serendipity". I had no idea at what that meant and so looked it up and it was a perfect description of the events unfolding. My family has always been supportive, and this time too, not only were they okay, they actively participated in trying to make things happen.
There were 2 major hurdles. To make it I had to leave in the next few hours. It wasn't going to be easy to get to the airport. More important would I be able to get tickets and even if I did, would the flight take off, as there were 1000's of flights that were being cancelled.
Started checking for tickets and they were obnoxiously expensive. Tried several airline as well as travel sites. No luck. On 2 occasions I found reasonably priced tickets and on clicking buy, the ticket was no longer available and the next available ticket was priced twice as much. Finally tried Kayak a second time. This time an Air-India ticket miraculously appeared that was a direct non-stop flight to Mumbai and was very reasonably priced. And I was able to do the booking on Kayak itself, which seemed to be a new feature, but the fulfillment was by Priceline.
The only problem was that it was a 4 p.m. flight and I had to leave in the next hour or so, More important how do I get to the airport. I decide to try my luck and called my colleague Tony. In a strange twist of events, his regular car was at the shop, and they had loaned him a multipurpose 4 wheel drive. And he was happy to help get rid of me, so he had a few days of peace.
All went well. I made it to the airport, the flight took off on time and I landed in India a full 20 hours before the event. Today's event. Strangely enough several people knew I was going to come. They obviously knew something I didn't.
The Arangetram is an individual dancing performance and Simran was awesome. She danced flawlessly and her dance guru who was part of the background music and vocals couldn't stop smiling. I was able to do a live broadcast via Skype so that Reia who Simran would have liked to have attended instead of me, as well as Freia and Ivy could watch.
Unfortunately, the performance is not available online. Yet. I'll give a link as soon as its available. And its something that every person should watch. The end result of 8+ years of commitment and dedication all summarized in under 2 hours.
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