The vacation starts!

‘Listen up – we are going on our annual holiday’   She-who-must-be-obeyed announced to me one day.

‘Eh?’ I was startled. ‘We have no money, there are issues out here – how can we go on holidays?’

She-who-must-be-obeyed went purple – any questioning of her travel plans enrages her and turns her into the Incredible Hulk.

‘PUNY HUMAN!’ she screamed at me ‘How dare you question my travel plan?!! HULK SMASH!’

‘OK OK...’ I threw up my hands ‘I was just asking.’

‘The kid has summer holidays and that’s the only time that I get a chance to do a long trip! My life is full of getting her up, bathed and dressed, fixing her breakfast and lunch and leaving her to school! Who is going to do that if I am not here eh? You only sit on that sofa and pretend to be another sofa on top of a sofa! Who will cook dinner? Who will manage the maids? Who will take care of your mother? Who will....’

AAARRGHH. I covered my ears and crawled under the sofa and hid there, trembling – like an inhabitant of Pompeii must have done when the volcano exploded and was saying it with lava and burning ash.

Finally she ran out of steam and calmed down enough to see that I wasn’t even there.  Puzzled, she looked around and finally saw my feet sticking out from under the sofa. 

‘What on earth are you doing down there?’  She asked, bending down to look at me.

‘Oh...um...er...nothing...I...was....just looking for my pen. I thought it might have rolled down under here....’ I crawled out and dusted myself off in a dignified manner.

‘So – please continue – you were saying that we are going on a holiday. Where are we going?’ I asked brightly.

‘South Africa.’ She replied

‘Ah...good...’

‘And Australia’ she continued.

‘Australia!!’ I was dumbfounded. ‘South Africa and Australia! What a combination. I was thinking South Africa and Namibia, or Kenya, or even  Madagascar....but Australia! What relationship between the two apart from the fact that they are both in the Southern hemisphere?’

Then I stopped abruptly – shit, I was criticising her travel plans again!

I looked at her, alarmed – and sure enough, she was swelling like an enraged bullfrog!  First she went red with anger, and then turned large and green as she turned into She Hulk. It was like watching a traffic signal.

‘PUNY HUMAN! HULK SMASH!’

It turned out that she had already got the South Africa visa and Australia visa, booked the tickets, planned the itinerary, done the reservations, told the maids, cancelled the milk, and consoled a tearful mother in law.

‘You lazy bugger! Time for you to do some work.’ She growled at me.

‘Maine kab na bola?’ I protested. ‘I didn’t even know that work was going on. I would love to do some work. I live to do work. I thrive on work. I am a worker, not a drone.’

‘Yeah yeah.’ She said ‘Listen – I want  you to go to ICICI bank and get some foreign exchange. Can you do that?’

I nodded intelligently ‘Right. ICICI bank. Foreign exchange. I can do that. Piece of cake.’

‘Go to ICICI bank – ask them what their exchange rates are – then call me – I will tell you if the rates are OK – DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE YOUR JUDGEMENT – then get X amount loaded on a travel card, and Y amount in CASH. Got that?’

I saluted smartly and went off to the bank, and found the foreign exchange guy.

‘What are your foreign exchange rates, my good man?’ I asked him grandly.

He got all excited – he must have thought that I am going to buy a few crores worth of dollars – and looked at his terminal and gave me some numbers, and was completely astonished when I just nodded and walked off.

‘Sir – where are you going?’

‘Just  a sec – let me tell my wife the rates and then she will tell me whether I should buy or not.’

‘Ah!’ The bank guy got the situation in an instant. I was just the hey you – the real buyer was the wife. ‘Then maybe I should talk to ma’m directly.’

‘Er...OK.’ I handed the phone to him. He started talking confidently, but within a minute he turned pale and started sweating – by the end of the conversation he was just a pale watery blob.

‘Yes ma’m yes ma’m yes ma’m’ he was babbling ‘I will tell sir the rates.’ I took the phone away from him before he burst into tears.

He immediately gave me a much reduced rate on the AUD loaded the travel card immediately, but he said that currency notes were not available and I should collect them tomorrow.

‘OK’ I replied and went whistling back home.

At home, SHE asked me ‘ Where are the currency notes?’

‘Oh – he didn’t have them in stock.’ I replied breezily. ‘Asked me to get them tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?!!’ she asked incredulously. ‘TOMORROW?!!’

‘Er...yes...’ I replied, edging back – not liking the vein pulsing in her forehead.

‘Did he give you a written commitment on the rates?’ she asked with a dangerous calm.

‘Er...no...’ I replied, edging back even more.

‘YOU HAD ONE JOB!’ she screamed. ‘ONE JOB! TO COLLECT FOREX’

‘but....but...’ I spluttered, as I watched her turn large and green.

‘HULK SMASH!!!’

Sure enough, the boy I had spoken to took the next day off  - talking to SHE must have given the poor fellow brain damage – and his manager was incredulous at the rates he had given, and refused to release forex at that rate.  I thought of releasing SHE on him, but then decided against it as I didn’t want to shut that branch down. the panic might spread from branch to branch and next thing you know - ICICI would be tottering. It might spark off  a banking crisis and Raghuram Rajan would be screaming WTF and tearing his hair out. 

So, in the larger interest of nation building and a stable banking system, I didn't pursue the issue any further. 

Bharathi threw up her hands in despair when I told her and went off mumbling ‘ONE JOB....’

The next thing I knew, I was at the airport in front of the immigration desk.

‘South Africa.....and Australia?!!’ the immigration clerk looked at the ticket with some confusion.

‘Why?’

What could I say to him....I didn’t have any idea myself.

‘Er... I don’t know exactly...’ I confessed, and the immigration officer’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

‘Actually my wife planned the whole thing, and I didn’t dare to ask why.’

He looked at me incredulously and then  looked at the spouse name in my passport and recoiled, as if he had been holding a live cobra!

‘AAARRGHHH!!’ he screamed ‘BHARATHI ?!!’  he quickly stamped the passport and pushed it back at me.

‘GO GO GO...’ he said.

‘And ...er...’ I stopped and he smiled shyly at me ‘Enjoy your holiday.’