Mangalore and Memory lanes

I was in Mangalore this weekend. It was the first time after a long gap of 7 years that i went to Mangalore with all my sisters. The occassion was my aunt's fiftieth wedding anniversary. How she is related to us is another story that can take two pages to explain. Suffice it to say that she is my mother's elder sister and my father's younger sister(go figure)

I decided to combine work with fun and since the party to celebrate this event was in the evening post 8PM i called a cousin of mine to set up meetings for me with group advisors of various institutions and the movers and shakers of the Mangalore business world (such as it is)

We took the morning flight and reached Mangalore at 10AM,an hour later than scheduled. The minute i walked out of the aircraft and switched on my mobile i got a call from one of my various cousins. He was calling to inquire if i had reached and whether i knew how to get to my 11 AM meeting. Excuse me but how did he know. It turns out that he knew my itenarary for the entire day and so did all my relatives and they had handed over the organization of transport for me to this cousin. Stunned does not explain how i felt. What busybodies this clan has.

It was touching(and a tad distrubing) to receive calls through the day offering to pick me, drop me and enquiring about the meetings. To top it all everyone gav eme background and tips on how to handle all the chappies that i was meeting(Business intelligence at its best eh?)

When we were younger we used to be sent to Mangalore every summer for two months. While we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, as we grew older we resented these holidays. They became increasingly intrusive, one could not do,say or even breathe without thirty people knowing about it immediately. We were so used to being free birds in Bangalore and could not understand the concept of escorts and not stepping out after 5 Pm in the evening, when in Mangalore. We sisters gradually refused to go there for our holidays and our trips became infrequent.

We now visited mangalore for weddings, events, birthings and pooja's. This particular trip made us realise how much we are loved and i could finally see the intrusiveness for what it really was, concern and a sincere need to see all of us to Suceed in whatever we do. But i cannot still get over the fact that all of them treated us like kids who needed escorts lest we get lost. And that too in a town which has only three main roads :-)