Going away on holiday is no longer a matter of packing the bags, patting the dog, hiding the silver, giving the staff enough funds to keep them in food and good humour, and asking the neighbours to pay the utility bills that won’t wait till your return. Nor can you take a vacation on a whim — a trip these days requires as much planning as a corporate presentation, and often with less successful results.
My daughter will leave for a break from her five-star college routine for a week in Goa where, unlike our humdrum trips, she and her sorority group intend to live it up — which has meant weeks spent in preparation. First off, she signed up for a gym membership to get a toned body, then added experimental diets to her erratic routine. “I’m on fruit only today,” she declared one morning, spurning cereals and eggs and sausages and croissants for a portion of papaya. Unused to such a cruel regime, though, and after she’d waded through a potpourri of oranges, guavas, grapes, chikoos and bananas, but still hungry, she settled for a thick strawberry shake (“Technically, it’s still fruit, right?”) and a blueberry cheesecake.
Other days brought mood swings caused by a lack of carbs, or proteins, or perhaps zinc for all I know. We weren’t allowed to eat or even snack in front of her and found ourselves having our meals hurriedly while standing over the kitchen sink. She’d break down at the sight of takeaway menus stuffed into bedside drawers. For her troubles, she appeared sickly and wan, which she declared as an enviable figure, and to clad it in appropriate clothing that didn’t hang off her thin frame, she broke the family bank to go off shopping for a holiday wardrobe. With it came an array of unguents – lotions, scrubs, hair treatments, polishes, paints – and now that she’ll be off next week, dates have been booked for a makeover at the salon, all of which seems a waste considering it’ll last only till the first dip in the sea.
“As long as they’ve got the perfect picture on Facebook,” explained my wife, who isn’t above such vanity herself, “it’s worth the effort.” She should know, having spent all of the night previous to flying off to Mumbai to be with her mother in hospital, colouring her hair, steaming her face, rubbing things on and off till the bedroom resembled a dump. It was time to leave for the airport before she expressed herself satisfied with what she saw in the mirror.
But having got her face, she’s now worried about her body, since we’re scheduled to be in Sri Lanka later this month. Already, she’s made bookings for checking into a spa, once she’s back from her mother’s bedside and before leaving on our sojourn. “I’ll need to get into shape,” she told the manager, “so fit in as many sessions as you’ll require,” which also had her personal yoga trainer smile from ear to ear. “It seems like a lot of trouble simply to be going away on a holiday,” I said to her, thankful that I, at least, didn’t have to torture myself into some sort of fitness routine, little knowing that she’d left instructions to put me on a diet that seemed to consist entirely of orange juice and yoghurt. Just as I was thinking I’d got off lightly, the neighbourhood hair salon called to remind me of an appointment made by my wife for my monthly shearing but which I found included exfoliation of parts too embarrassing to mention in this column. So watch out Colombo, I may not have a six-pack, but at least I can boast of a smooth torso – and follicle-less legs.
