Superstitious seconds

In 1991 we visited the Ukai dam near Surat for a weekend. I had left my sunglasses in a guest house there and, sure enough, within a few months my husband was transferred there. The place was in the lap of nature but it lacked basic amenities and my husband often jokingly blamed my innocent sunglasses for our two-year-long banishment there. Then there was that visit to Brindavan gardens in Mysore. The children were very disappointed to have missed out on the spectacle of the musical fountains in the gardens. We had returned to Bangalore when I realised that I had left my wristwatch in the washroom of a hotel just outside Mysore. The watch was lost, but after a few years our second visit to the beautiful garden did materialise — and this time we got to see the musical fountains.

There was this marvellous expedition to Leh and Ladakh in 2004. It was another world for us — the stark Himalayan wilderness, the mysterious Buddhist monasteries, the ancient gompas, the beautiful Stok and Leh palaces, the Indus river. Driving through the snow to the Pangong sa lake on the China border at the height of 17,000 feet was a thrill in itself. But the magic soon ended and we were back home before we knew it.

On returning to Ahmedabad I discovered that my oxidised silver earrings were missing. It was a wrench to part with my earrings, without doubt. But I look at it this way — I may actually get to visit Leh a second time.