Now that our two daughters have got married within the year 2009, my husband and I are left to plan and lead our own lives after a very very long time. It is a strange feeling that we could do whatever we want, the plans not involving our daughters always.
Of course, it has been that way ever since our daughters got settled in faraway places, one across the country and the other across the continents, when they started working a few years back. Our fiercely independent daughters hold responsible jobs and belong to the jetset generation. They kept assuring us that they would get married when they met the 'right' guys and urged us to go travelling or do something we like and enjoy our comfortably retired position. As both kids were born before my husband crossed 30 years of age, (only now he has crossed over to the senior citizen club), we both are active to do all the travelling we wanted even though our daughters had taken years to really 'settle down' according to Indian standards. But no, all these years, as true Indian parents we considered the marriages of our offspring our utmost duty and we always felt that there is unfinished business at home.
As a compromise, we travelled to the U.S., in 2005, to be with our younger daughter, with the hidden agenda of making her agree to one of the grooms we had lined up for her in the matrimonial websites. We did the usual sightseeing tours on both the West and East coast but no wedding came off that trip. We had to visit her again in 2008 and finally the match happened. Wonder of wonders our elder daughter followed suit with a choice of her own, within months of our younger daughter's engagement. Whew! they both got married in 2009, within six months of each other, to the collective sigh of relief from our numerous relatives who had despaired of ever attending a wedding of their oldest nieces!
Yesterday the last of the wedding formalities got over with the mandatory temple visit for the couples. The house is empty with the newly weds back in their workplace after the extended holidays. Now we have lined up various jobs around the house which we had set aside until after our kids got married.
My husband, having come out of banking service on VRS ten years before his actual retirement age, is already on a busy routine which he calls semi-retirement. Doing regular online trading in stocks keeps him busy five days a week, with his online research commencing at 4.30 am and trading starting at 9 am. Of course, his 'office' is one of the three bedrooms at home, with his PC and laptop ensconced in very official-looking manner with a computer table and a writing table, a small TV to watch the movement of the scrips on NDTV Profit, a stationery cupboard and a notice board with the printouts of important market news and cues gathered in his research. Quite impressive, huh?
His repeated offers to play his assistant in the SOHO elicit the least interest from me as I have little interest in commerce and the facts and figures bore me to tears. My only interest is reading books and as an offshoot I have started blogging too. This forum provides me an outlet to all the random thoughts that mill around i my head. So, readers (if any!) be warned that the posts may not have any continuity at all!
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