Kishore Singh: Exhausted by others' travels

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Our neighbours were leaving for London in dribs and drabs, and not strictly in order of exit, and they would all come back the way they had gone "" or would they? The confusion was getting to us. The first to leave was also the most reluctant, but as the head of the family he was setting the precedent by flying off to the West Indies on an official engagement from where he would return via London.

He came to borrow books to read on the flight, and to have a drink (while his wife packed for him), and he moaned about having only two days in the city with the family "" and would we mind the spare keys to the house for him, since everyone was going to be away and he'd be back at some unearthly hour of night?

"He's so unorganised," cribbed his wife when she was to leave a couple of nights later, "I've had to see to all the arrangements." This meant locking up two bedrooms (more keys for us to mind), many last minute instructions for their maid (also leaving for her vacation), little quibbles about who would pay the electricity and gas bills in her/their absence "" oh, and the little matter of taking care of their daughters till they too took a flight to London. "Of course we'll look after them," we sighed.

Which was easier said than done. It was the first time the two girls had been left alone in an empty house with a cook, a car to zip around in, no check on late nights and sleepover parties. "I'll call you in a bit," the elder would say, if I phoned to check on their welfare. "Oh god, we're fine," the younger one would complain, saying her mother's directive to friends and relatives had everyone policing their movements.

I had volunteered to drive them at midnight to the airport, and their mother had gladly accepted, so my son and I were resigned to the chore. But it seemed their mother had also agreed to scores of relatives performing the same task, and there was danger of a half-dozen of us landing up "" so, with a show of reluctance we backed off.

Instead, the girls came over to have dinner with us before their flight out to London. But it seemed that with all the partying and getting around, they still had to pack and have their baths, and if they didn't hurry, they'd miss their flight. Even as they gobbled down their meal, their mobiles kept ringing with instructions from anxious relatives their mother had rallied around, checking about documents and passports and foreign exchange, and telling them not to talk with strangers. It was an extremely fraught farewell.

When they too were gone, we heaved a sigh of relief and got on with our life. But we hadn't reckoned with the maid who, partying out late no doubt, called past midnight on my mobile to say the apartment lock seemed not to be working. She slept over at our place that night, and in the morning we had to summon a carpenter to repair the broken lock, and now she's all set to go too, but has several last-minute instructions for her sahib, which can we convey to him when he's back?

Which, of course, is the next thing we're dreading, for he returns on Saturday night, and will want all the keys, and presumably a meal as well. A few days later his wife will arrive, but we're not to tell her we've been fraternising, and last, when the kids arrive, we're on hold to accompany whichever parent goes to the airport to drive them back. All their travel has been very exhausting for us.