Upcoming Vacation Stress

Next week, I am going on a short holiday to Chennai. I can’t really call it a holiday as no one (positively no one) would want to visit Chennai during the peak of the summer season.

I am actually going there to attend my cousin’s wedding. Although I am really looking forward to the break, I am also stressed about the number of things I need to take care of before I leave.

My to-do list and major cause of stress:

• Complete all my official work in time before I leave, and so hopefully not have to cart laptop off to Chennai (hahah…in my dreams)
• Make sure I pack everybody’s wardrobe appropriately – including jewellery, sarees, and shoes that all work together. Garrrh…this is going to be difficult. Practically all my jewels are hand-me-downs from elders in the family, and my sarees are pretty much as per their taste. Think, heavy wedding Kanjeevaram siks from Nalli ONLY! Had big dreams a couple of months ago of buying a designer saree and blouse and really dressing my age, rather than an aunty…Thanks to my profound laziness and permanent state of brokeness, that dream dies a natural death 🙁

  Even worse, thinking I am going to buy a designer saree, I just did not bother to stitch a blouse for the saree that my mom gifted me and has been nagging me to wear for ages. Of course, there is no time for stitching now! Will land up at wedding wearing salwar kameez or ghagra choli (neither of which is close to wedding-appropriate)…oh…no, I will end up spending my hols listening to moans such as:

  “I told you months ago to bring that saree and still you haven’t done it … how come you are always so busy for these things, but are never busy to update your blog”…and so on and so forth…

• Make sure that all the train tickets are confirmed and not to forget to take the print-outs of the tickets. I am very much capable of landing up at the platform without print-out. I am put in charge of this whole expedition, and so I am solely responsible for anything going wrong.
• Remember to go to the beauty parlor this weekend. This trip has been a handy excuse for putting off all grooming activities for months on end. The idea being, I will get everything done at one shot just before the trip and land up there looking really neat. Unfortunately, months of unwaxed limbs, untweezed face, un-manicured hands and un-pedicured feet, and untrimmed, uncolored hair is not really going to go away after a couple of hours. I will probably need to book the parlour for the whole day 🙁 and time is just what I don’t have right now 🙁
• Return books and borrow books from Eloor library (because no trip can be complete without some reading material)
• Research for some new places n things in Chennai to do (so that I have something to blog about when I get back, as well as keeping the snubnose occupied)…hah! this is what we call “oru kallu le rendu maanga” (translation: drop two mangoes with one stone)

Do you wonder that I am stressed?
Here is a cartoon depicting how I am feeling right now:

One thing I don’t have to remember is to get the gift. I have cleverly decided that money is the way to go. Not only that, I have budgeted the amount correctly AND ensured that I haven’t spent it on anything else. HURRAH for me!

On an aside: anyone have any suggestions regarding things to do, places to eat, in Chennai (something preferably air-conditioned)? Vandalur, Pondicherry, Amethyst, Snow-World do not count – already been there …