You're gonna hear me roaaar!!

Any guesses? Come on, take a guess!! What's that?? The title of this post is from a well-known song? Wait, isn't that a Katy Perry song?!! And if you said 'Eye of the Tiger' right away, you've just won - well, nothing! - except, of course, the chance to read about a first-hand account of Katy Perry LIVE IN SHANGHAI!!!

The whole thing started a couple of months ago - when all of all things, Facebook suggested that the Katy Perry Prismatic tour would be an event I would be interested in. Made the mistake of mentioning it to Manasi - and her reaction was astounding - she really, really, really wanted to go. I decided to look it up - and our concert going dreams had a rude shock - the tickets were 2400rmb, over $400, per person!! I though that was that - no way I'm paying that much money for a concert - how about a CD instead, Manasi??

And then suddenly - again, thank you Facebook! - one more day in Shanghai was added to the tour - and cheaper tickets for the 2nd day seemed to be available. This was right before Spring break, and I mentioned it to a couple of friends - it would be fun to take our girls - and then we all left for vacation. So here we were in Boracay, and I get a FaceTime call from MW, who is in Thailand, with some other friends - did Manasi and I really want to go to the concert, tickets were available!! Of course, Manasi was completely over the moon!! I did say yes - as long as the price was less than 1000rmb!

1000rmb - $200!!! Still a fairly large amount, wouldn't you say? So I think I was completely justified when I almost cancelled the plan when Manasi had a hissy fit about the 1000rmb restriction. None of the other moms think so much about the money (so not true!), everyone else would get to go, and it's not fair - more in that vein!! And I'm thinking, we're in BORACAY, and I'm discussing whether or not to pay $200 to go to a concert with my sulking 10 year old daughter - talk of being spoiled, privileged, entitled??!! So even though I had already agreed to pay for the tickets - I told her we weren't going - and kept her in the dark till a night before the concert. The expression on her face when I told her we were going after all - priceless!!

We picked up the girls straight after school - TW, MW, me and 4 girls - in a van headed to the Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai!! The concert didn't start till 8pm, so we were planning to get dinner before the concert. GPS showed a whole bunch of restaurants close to the arena, so made more sense to head to the venue, and then find a place to eat. Didn't quite work as smoothly - true, there are quite a few restaurants, but nothing really where we could eat with kids. We did find an Italian restaurant - a really fancy place - but the service was so sloooow - we didn't stay too long!!

Meanwhile, as we were walking - the girls were noticing all the vendors selling a ton of Katy Perry merchandise - T-shirts, hats, posters, bags, you name it! - my little one totally redeemed herself by not asking for a single souvenir, so of course, I relented and bought her a T-shirt and a hat! We still needed to find something to eat - it was finally at Paulaner's that we found french-fries, popcorn chicken, and some other finger food. By this time, we were running late, so we got the food to go and headed to the entrance - where all of it was promptly confiscated by security!! No food inside!!!

Modeling the T-shirts!

Luckily, there was a food counter inside - and although, the only food available was chicken nuggets and pepperoni pizza - at that point, anything would have been good!! We were expecting the concert to start at sharp 8pm - and it did - but it wasn't Katy Perry. The opening act was brief, just about 30 minutes - and then there was a break, a long one!! We could have had another hour to find some real food - or even eat the food we had bought from Paulaner's - if we hadn't been hurrying to get to our seats by 8! Oh well! The good thing was that the girls were in such a fever of anticipation, that they didn't even notice the crappy food!!

Waiting...

Inside the Mercedes Benz Arena

Finally, finally, there she was - in a blinding blaze of light - Katy Perry, and much to my delight, she launched straight into Roar - my favorite KP song (at the risk of being labelled totally uncool, I have to admit that Roar and Firework are the only KP songs I know!)! It was quite electric - and it was totally fun to see the girls singing along - Roar has been the unofficial theme song for our Dulwich Tigers team, and is special of all of us!! Our seats were actually quite decent - we would see the stage quite clearly, but my little red camera wasn't strong enough for the pictures - I really wish I had taken my Canon with the long distance lens!!

It was non-stop entertainment after that - she really is an incredible performer!! There was one awkward moment - kind of funny too - when she sang the song "I kissed a girl - and I liked it!" Our 10 year olds were bemused - fortunately, they didn't really get it, and there were no weird questions!! It wasn't all fast songs - Katy Perry also sang a couple of slow ballads, what a lovely voice!! The last song was my 2nd favorite (haha!) song - Firework - and the audience was requested to put on the special prismatic glasses - actually, not as special as they sound!! It made for some cool pictures, though!!

Manasi absolutely loved it!! She was on her feet for most of the concert - singing along, or shouting "We love you, Katy!". With her friend, AW, she had made a couple of posters, and they both tried so hard to be noticed by the audience-cam, waving those posters over their heads, jumping up and down - it was really a shame that their picture didn't go up on the big screen!! All good fun!! I was prepared for a night of deafening, head-ache inducing music, but, much to my surprise, I had a really good time!! Go Katy Perry!!!

It was quite a late night - it was after 1:30am when we got home! And part of the deal with going to the concert, that no matter what, school would not be missed the next day! And once again, Manasi came through - waking up on time to get to school - although I do suspect that the main reason to go to school was to brag about the concert!! What a night - a truly great memory from our time in China!! 

Random memories...

Just a couple of days ago, Manasi was planning to have some of her friends over, and she needed my help to figure out a plan for the Xbox - how to play so that everyone gets a turn - the talk inevitably turned to good sharing practices. But that's not what I wanted to write about - soon after my little chat with Manasi, I found myself humming an old Marathi song - I only remembered a few of the words, but could not get the tune out of my head! It was starting to annoy me - I didn't even particularly like the song - but then, it came to me in a blinding flash, a particularly crystal clear memory - here, just for fun, watch the song here - before I take about my memory!!

Mind you, this is from ages ago - I must have been 8 or 9 - and yet, I can see it like it was yesterday. My grandmother's house in Sangli, summer vacation, the whole house drowsy, settling in for a nap, the sunlight dappling the walls of the room on the upper level - there was a hook in the ceiling of the room (hmm, I don't exactly remember why), and a rope swing was suspended from this swing, the seat a couple of blankets folded together. My cousins and I took turns on the swing - the rule was to sing a song out loud, and then when the song was done, it was the next person's turn - very simple, very effective! See, it was that talk of sharing that triggered this...

And there I see her, my cousin, Vaishali, singing away -"He rashtra devatanche..." - it was always her favorite, and it always seemed to be the longest song that any of us knew - but rules were rules, and she could swing as long as she was singing! Seriously, I can almost reach out and touch her - long braids flying out behind her, eyes closed in concentration, and the hypnotic swing! What an incredible memory from an incredible time in my life - simple, carefree childhood, when the biggest worry was to come up with a song that would last a long time!! All the more precious today when all of us cousins have drifted apart, busy with our individual lives...

This literal blast from the past left me thinking - it's strange how for most events in life, we have a general memory, a remembered emotion, the details vague and blurry -  how many incidents are actually sharply delineated, permanently etched? My oldest clear memory is actually a non-memory - when I was 18 months old, my parents took me to Kashmir -yes, there is actual photographic evidence. I have been hearing this story my entire life - we flew from Mumbai to Srinagar, and since I  was a baby, I didn't have a booked seat. Yes, this was a time when people could just walk up to a plane with an unticketed baby, and even more surprisingly, the pilot walked out and said it was ok, as long as an adult held the baby on their lap. Try doing that now!!

The high point of the story - the pilot was Rajiv Gandhi, who actually went on to become the Prime Minister of India!! Regrettably, I do not remember that plane ride - my first ever actually. I do not remember playing in the snow with my mother - that's the photo I have. I do not remember getting the mumps while on that vacation. And I most certainly do not remember Rajiv Gandhi graciously letting me get on his plane!! And that actually makes me wonder how much Manasi is going to remember all the places we've been to!!

A moment I actually remember very clearly - when my mother was expecting my sister, she had me touch her stomach and there it is, the baby kicking, I still remember the almost electric thrill of the moment. Surprisingly, I don't remember too much of my sister when she was a baby - sibling rivalry blocking it out maybe? When she was older - cute as a button - again, these flashes. She was, what, 2 maybe - and she was leaning against a folding armchair propped against the wall, and it fell on her. Blood everywhere, and again, the weird details - I remember exactly the dress she was wearing, the moss green and cream stripes, the velvety texture, and her howls as the blood turned the green to a muddy brown!! I have no idea why I thought of that just now...

That song is still stuck in my head - but far from being annoying, it's like an old friend come to visit. I just had to share this - and now I can get back to write about my Philippines vacation in peace. I love that this blog will be a repository of memories for my daughter!! I love that I can pass on a piece of my past to her and never have her forget!! I love that my random memories have a place to call home!!

The long way to Boracay

Boracay Island, Philippines - our destination for Spring Break 2015!!! Ever since Boracay was voted to be the Numero Uno beach vacation spot a couple of years ago, its popularity has soared! Almost all our expat friends here in Suzhou have been, and many of them had said that Boracay was their favorite vacation place of all time!! The drawback - getting to Boracay is not as simple as hopping on a plane - the way to this tropical paradise is anything but easy!! So ever since Ajey booked our vacation - way back in July - I have been a little anxious about the travel!!

All roads to Boracay lead through the Filipino capital, Manila. Cebu Pacific Airlines has a direct flight from Shanghai to Manila - at least the first leg of this journey seems straightforward, doesn't it?? Also, we were to break journey in Manila - we had 2 days before the next travel phase - not bad at all!! And then 2 days before we were to leave, a tinny news flash passed across the TV screen - "Super-typhoon Maysak heads to the Philippines"!! Wait - what??!! And of course, the typhoon is expected to hit Manila on Friday or Saturday - the 2 days we were planning to be there!!! I for one, was all for just canceling the whole thing - seriously, do you remember the last time a super-typhoon hit the Philippines!!

So I spent the next 2 days sick with anxiety - Ajey's insouciance left me completely baffled - at one point he went as far as to say - Well, when will we ever get to see a typhoon up close - this will be awesome!! Umm...not!!! The Weather Channel, of course, didn't update as fast as I would have liked - and the Internet wasn't much help either!! The latest news before we left for the airport was that the typhoon would hit Manila a day later - Sunday! So we would definitely make it as far as Manila - our flight on Sunday - no idea!! In any case, even if we did get to Boracay, the forecast was dismal - rain, rain and more rain!! So much for the perfect beach vacation!!

In all this obsessing about Maysak, its route, its gale force wind speeds - I completely forgot to check the weather in Shanghai!! So it came as a complete surprise at checkin to be told that our midnight flight had been rescheduled to leave at 6:30 in the morning!! Well, at least they told us right away - instead of having us wait forever in the terminal!! We contemplated just camping out in the airport - bringing back memories of traveling from US to India with huge layovers in Europe - but good sense prevailed, and we decided to get a room in the hotel at the airport - very imaginatively named Airport Hotel!!

We weren't really expecting much - but the hotel was surprisingly decent!! Clean, with a fancy lobby - and after much amused giggling, the housekeeping staff even brought us the extra sheets and pillow we requested. The best part? No worry about getting a shuttle or a taxi in the morning - just wake up and walk to the gate!! Our bags were checked in - so we didn't have a change of clothes or even a toothbrush - but getting a few hours of sleep was definitely better than a cramped seat in the airport!! Our flight was delayed a little further - but by 9am, we were on our way to Manila!! Woohoo!!!

There are 2 options to get from Manila to Boracay - fly to Caticlan and then a ferry to Boracay, or fly to Kalibo, catch a bus to Caticlan and then get a ferry. The flight to Caticlan, however, is not only super-expensive, but being a small airport, the only planes that can get there are turbo-props!! We were to fly to Kalibo instead - and unbelievably, still no sign of the typhoon!! The absolutely perfect way to get from Kalibo to Boracay is Southwest Travels - extremely, extremely organized and well-run - right from the airport to the bus, then the ferry, and then the car to actually get to the hotel - I'm impressed!! Finally, we're in Boracay - and the sun is still shining!!

On the way back, we were to reverse the journey - and we realized what a difference the halt in Manila had made!! We were picked up at our hotel by Southwest at 7am - quite an early start. Southwest service was once again flawless, and we were at the Kalibo airport at 10:30am - well in time for our 12:30 flight. And then started the waiting - delay, delay and a further delay. Our flight from Manila wasn't till 8pm that night - so we weren't really worried about missing our connection - it's just that the waiting is so exhausting, not to mention boring!!

In Manila, we made a quick dash to a nearby mall to grab dinner before our flight - wasn't nearly as close as we had thought - and we did have to hustle a bit to get back to the airport! All 3 flights so far had been delayed quite a bit, surprisingly, this one was to depart on schedule!! Pudong airport at midnight - stumbling with fatigue climbed into our car, for the last leg of the journey - back home to Suzhou! It was almost 3am by the time we reached home - we had been traveling for 20 exhausting hours!!! Whew!! Was it worth it - was Boracay worth these long hours of travel?? Wait for the next post - coming soon!! Oh, by the way, the super typhoon never came - we didn't have even a single drop of rain the entire time in the Philippines!!

In memory...

This past March has been a difficult one. On 14th March, barely 20 days after my grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary, my grandfather passed away. Yes, it has been a difficult month - and even now, I find myself bereft of words - unable to articulate our huge loss, unable to write a fitting epitaph to his towering life. Stock phrases are of scant comfort - I know he lived a full, rich life; I know that at 88, every day we had with him was a blessing! - but the cold fact remains that Aaba is gone forever. No more elaborate family histories, no more Metamucil, no more Modi tales.

My extended family gathered around my grandmother, needing to comfort her - as much as we may miss Aaba, for Aaji - I can't even begin to imagine what she's going through. 65 years - lives so closely intertwined - sundered apart in a second. Her blank eyes and still hands say it all - and yet from some deep reserves she is summoning up the courage to face the empty day, to retain a semblance of normalcy - all so that we don't worry about her. What absolute strength of character!

And while Aaba will be deeply mourned by many, I do hope that we can also find a way to celebrate his incredible life. It is up to us, his grand-children, to carry his legacy forward, to make sure that those stories, those memories - bittersweet today, invaluable tomorrow - remain alive, and above all, to learn to live like he did - Carpe diem, and full force ahead!!

I will miss you, Aaba.