Summers in Transit: Journeying to Family, Food, and Fun
My fondest memories of the “end of school” are the summer vacations that lasted over 2 months. Living with my paternal grandparents, summer vacations meant traveling to my maternal grandparent’s home, a journey of almost 1600 km. Growing up, air travel was not as common as it is today and came at a steep price. A 24-hour train journey set my sister, mother, and me up for excitement and a month-and-a-half extended stay filled with great food, sleepovers with cousins, and the soaring Delhi heat.
Train travel also offered the opportunity to travel in sleeper coaches, exploring different train stations as we traveled through five states and relishing their most famous street foods. In a less global world, in the early 2000s, shopping in the country’s capital was more enjoyable and satisfying as the latest trends at affordable prices could be fished out from the famous bazaars of Delhi. Today, of course, a subtle distinction still exists, but not one that would compel train travel because of the weight of the luggage back then, thanks to shopping.
I do remember having summer homework, though. South Asian parents, back in the day, made sure the kids didn’t have all play and no work, as it made Jack an average or below-average academic achiever, and that is definitely not desirable. If the school did not give out an official one, the elder family members made sure to! Practice a few math topics before the next grade, read a couple of chapters from the English or Science textbooks and explain what you learned, or just revise what you studied in the class you left behind. It is amazing the hope and faith South parents have that their kids who only sufficiently study during the year would re-read the lessons of the class they just finished in their summer vacation. Well, a parent can dream!
Homework or not, summers were a way to go back to the basics, connect with family and my family, I mean extended family members, 2nd or even 3rd cousins, and actually network with your family tree, not just craft it out in art class! Sleepovers out on the verandas and mangoes from the farms chilled in buckets made the incomparable, and yet, having many versions of mango pickle were all annual summer traditions I awaited most ardently. The highlight of the yearly break was the connection with grandparents and the passing down of plentiful stories of our parents, their days as young children, and how just our presence would light up their worlds.
As the temperatures soar to almost 45 degrees Celsius (in peak summer), wishing and praying for the monsoons meant it was time the holidays were coming to an end. Last minute fun, quick and haphazard completion of the summer tasks from school and prep for the new year begins. The summer ends with a trip to the mall for a new backpack, fresh new school supplies, and the mighty wrapping paper for the books which are then carefully wrapped in brownish red crisp paper and neatly labeled for the first day of school, ready to take another year around the sun. 😊
Avijeet Shastry, BA Trainee at Moi Panda
