Srinath’s, surprise homecoming.

My youngest son, Srinath, surprised us this morning with his unexpected arrival from Birmingham, UK, after two years. Just a few days back I wrote in this column that we missed him a lot for Deepavali festival, as he was the only family member away. I also wrote that my son wanted to come home this month to attend his cousin’s marriage on 18th November. But as he could not get permission for long-leave he preferred to come later in December when he would have a month’s vacation.

Subsequently he changed his mind, he thought visiting us now would be better when the whole family could be together and also attend the marriage. He kept this to himself and went ahead with his travel arrangements. As I wrote earlier, my nephew, Udhay is also at home, he has come from Saudi Arabia for Deepavali and to attend the marriage in the family and a number of November - birthday parties. Udhay has always surprised us by coming home unannounced or by misleading us, since his college days. My son seems to have been inspired by him. About ten days back, Srinath told us that he is visiting Paris from 8th November, for three days. And on 8th morning as he was getting ready to leave for India, he called us to say that he is leaving for Paris. He said his Cell phone would not be operational there, so he would keep in touch through landlines. I advised him to visit as many places as possible there and send us photographs. And to everyone’s surprise he reached home this morning. Since then he has been surprising few friends and relatives by mostly visiting them.

A visit after two years and his sudden presence has made everyone happy and at the same time emotional. I wish and hope he will have a very pleasant and satisfactory vacation.