India Trip

In mid January we visited India for a month, it was an amazing trip and fortunately Ishaan kept well throughout the trip and enjoyed a lot. The occasion was Dinu Chachu's marriage for which Ishaan had been waiting since long, on skype he used to ask Dinu Chachu and Tanvi Chachi when are you guys getting married.

We stayed in Mumbai for week before going to Indore for the marriage and Ishaan had a great time with Anahat. Ishaan use to get up early in the morning so that he could drop Anahat to her school bus, and then he would wait for her to come back. Anahat also introduced Ishaan to all her friends in the neighborhood and every evening they all played together. Ishaan and Anahat use to enjoy in the big bathing tub that mamaji had, they stay in for hours and splash water on each other and laugh.
Ishaan got chance to be a part of republic day ceremony in that community, he wore Kurta Pajama and got Indian flag sticker on it. It was a new experience for him, he saw flag hosting and did stand straight to sing "Jana Gana Man". Most of the evenings, Ishaan, Anahat, Neha and Nanu use to visit a park nearby where a lot of kids played, Ishaan was very happy to see so many kids and use to wait for his turn for the swing but while he waits, an elder kid will pop up out of his turn and take the swing and then Ishaan will come and complain that others are not sharing. It was too short time for him to understand that he is India and no one shares here, if he waits for his turn, it would never come, he has to move up and grab it.

After staying in Mumbai for a week, we went to Indore for the marriage. Ishaan was waiting to meet his cousins at Indore, as he had been hearing about them since long time, specially Neil. When he met Neil he was very happy to play and talk with him, but after few days he found that Neil is not sharing with him. Whereas Neil was very very cute, he was 1 yr younger to Ishaan, he use to love Ishaan like anything he would ask everyone to tell Ishaan to play with him, if Ishaan is sleeping Neil will try to wake him up so that he can play. Neil use to hug, jump, pull, kiss Ishaan which Ishaan never liked :-) it was fun to watch both of them. Just before marriage, Ishaan's other cousin Parth came to Indore and then Ishaan started playing more with Parth, who was 1 year older to Ishaan, they both use to run, play and do lot of things together, poor Neil was not able to catch with them at times. But overall, if you ask Ishaan today who is your brother, he will only say Neil and is always ready to talk to him over Skype.
During the marriage preparations, Ishaan use to be with Neha most of the times when she was involved with the dance preparations and use to observe the steps and songs. We were very surprised later when Ishaan showed us the steps on few of the songs and danced on them. This showed his interest in Music and Dance and was an indication for use to start his training on the same. Ishaan never liked the Dhol during various functions, he found it very loud and tried to stay away from Dhol wala.
After marriage at Indore, we traveled to Jodhpur for another marriage. We decided to go by train so that we all get to spend a lot of time together and Ishaan gets experience of the train for which he is always excited. I actually wanted to take him down on every station and show him how to buy tea and other stuff at station. At Jodhpur, his buddy was Parth, he was happy to see Parth again and most of the time they both were together, playing, running etc. At Jodhpur, Ishaan had his first dentist visit, Doctor mama suggested to get the filling done for a couple of his teeth and asked us to visit his clinic. Ishaan knew mama well so he was not too tensed and I told him if the dentist is good, just like doctor mama it never hurts. Ishaan sat over the entire siting quietly, did exactly what he was asked to do and got the filling done. I was very happy to see him obeying and not shouting, crying or screaming during the procedure. During his Jodhpur visit he also got close to Tanvi Chachi, although he already knew her and called her Chachu's girl but now he actually saw and played with her. His phrase that we all remember while coming back from Jodhpur he kept saying in train "Chalo Khel" to play cards, and he use to say it in such a nice tone.
One good thing that happened during the entire India trip was he learned to speak and understand a lot of Hindi, am sure if we stay in India for 3 month he will learn it completely. He even started speaking few English sentences in Indian accent by watching English cartoons in India. His favorite cartoons were Chota Bheem and Doremon, he even insisted on getting DVDs for these cartoons.
Ishaan met a lot of relatives during his India visit in Mumbai, Indore and Jodhpur, in fact he would have met almost everyone whom we know in India. How much he would actually remember, we really dont know but we are happy that everyone was able to see him and spend some time with him. I hope we can visit India more frequently so that Ishaan can get further closer to everyone in his family and consider himself lucky to have such a big and loving family, as we do.