The agony of Summer vacation !

The thought of summer vacation may conjure up visions of total relaxation for many , but not for those less fortunate souls who will literally be (pun intended ) be at the receiving end of visits from unwanted guests during the entire duration of the vacation !

The Swaminathan familythis year , decided to spend their summer vacation ,( not in Chennai which they did every summer without fail, doing the rounds of the innumerable relatives !) going to Darjeeling . Teenage members of the family were entrusted with job of gathering all info about the place and nearby tourist spots from the net, which they started even before one could say "Darjeeling" ! Mr.Swaminathan cheerfully left for office promising to book tickets (of course by air only) for the trip, which left the family in a state of euphoria !

Little did the Swaminathans know that the letter that was to arrive that afternoon would dash their hopes to the ground ! Humming to herself "Kastoba ..." (song from Parineeta, shot in the tea estates of Darjeeling) and imagining herself to be the lissome lass (never mind that in reality she was the typical plump mami with diamonds in her years ,and a Kalakshetra cotton saree wrapped around generously endowed frame !) Mrs Jayanthi Swaminathan answered the doorbell to see the postman with a letter !

As she ripped open the letter and read , and her eyes opened wide and she collapsed onto the sofa ! The letter was from her husband's aunt , in which she had written that her brother-in-law's son and his family would be arriving in Mumbai on a 3 weeks vacation, adding that she had recommended that they should not stay in any hotel , but in her nephew's house !

What to say about the poor Swaminathan family whose dreams of a cool vacation went up in smoke. As for the guests , the less said the better ! The Swaminathans house became a flurry of activity throughout the day with Jayanthi making idlis , dosas and kaapi , sambar , lemon rice, thair vadai, mysore bonda, curd rice ,appam , etc. in addition to pav bhaji , paani puri , dhokla (requests from the guests to be treated to local eats !). The 10 years old twin boys (little horrors ) turned the house upside down with their pranks and experimented with TV remote, played piano on the comp keyboard and drove the teenagers of the house mad ! The household bai did the vanishing act two days after the arrival of the guest (sore with Swaminathans for having cheated her of the vacation she would have had, had they gone outstation !) . Jayanthi ( a shopaholic herself ) vowed never to go shopping , after the experience of taking the visitors for shopping "(" we have heard in Mumbai everything is cheap" said the visitors ) . The Swaminathans also decided that after their 35th visit to show Gateway Of India to one more visitor ,they would never step anywhere near Gateway of India for the entire lifetime !

Relief washed over the Swaminathans as the vistors bid goodbye and the house became their haven once more ! `

Last heard that the Swaminathans were planning to lock their house on the first day of summer vacation next year, and do the vanishing act themselves !