The friend who booked our holiday got us a great deal on the air tickets - but at the cost of check-in baggage, which was so limited, we ended up having to pay extra for it anyway. "You won't need too many clothes in Bali," our friend justified, but as my wife was to prove, Indian families pack more than mere vestments when it comes to being prepared for every exigency - and some sleight of hand.
One case was packed with enough linen - sheets, pillowslips, towels - to furnish an entire apartment. Our airbnb bookings, while untested, seemed luxurious enough not to warrant such extreme caution. "Silly," said my wife, when I pointed this out to her, "these sheets that I pinched from the hotel where we stayed for Sarla's daughter's wedding need replacement," clarifying that she'd merely switch the soiled ones with fresh linen from the hotel, thereby saving her the trouble of shopping for any. Her ability to recycle towels from holiday to holiday is the stuff of family legend. And now, any remaining space in the bag was taken up with toiletries that we were expected to use so that she could purloin the ones supplied by the hotel. "It's for the maid," she fibbed, though none of us was fooled: the total inventory would be pooled for use back at home.
Another case was taken entirely by her clothes - beachwear and casual-wear, formal dresses, even saris because "you never know", she said piously, ignoring my pleas that I no longer had any space for my clothes. "Don't be fussy," she chided, when I asked for a little room, "just wear any old thing, it isn't as though anyone will notice." I squeezed my tiny vacation wardrobe into our cabin baggage, only to find it emptied because my wife insisted on stuffing it with nibbles for when we might be hungry, ignoring my entreaties that Bali is known for its fabulous cuisine.
Between her and the children, they packed another suitcase with their footwear. I counted 11 pairs of flip-flops, a couple of "matching" keds each, formal shoes, heels, boots ("so the sand won't get in at the beach"), some casual shoes, "floaters" and slip-ons - enough to set up a shop, I thought. When I suggested that perhaps I might carry a pair of flip-flops too (I was travelling in my sneakers), this is what my daughter said, "Dad, you're going to the beach, shouldn't you walk bare feet on the sand?"
She should have occupied the least space, considering her choice of clothes was restricted to Ts, shorts and skirts, all of them flimsy and lightweight, but then there were hats and shades and a whole lot of girly stuff besides, leaving her overstuffed valise with no breathing room. My vain son, not to be outdone, matched her shirt for skirt, and considering that he'd invested several weeks at the gym "sculpting a beach bod", it seemed an awful waste to cover it up, but what did I know of young people's sartorial ways?
Having been done out of bag and case, I tried to fit in some essentials in my laptop bag: an extra pair of reading glasses, a couple of books, some working notes and a couple of pen drives, only to find everything replaced by my wife's "travelling essentials". "Darling," said my wife, "don't you think it silly to pay for extra baggage for your hobbies and conceits when the important thing to do on a holiday is to enjoy it?"
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
