Vacationing with parents

The vacation season is here. With the Memorial Day weekend coming up in less than 10 days time, the summer is finally here and the vacation/touring kicks off. I have a moderately decent lineup planned for this summer already but I am missing last summer when my parents were here.

The article is not about vacationing@parents’ and also not about parents vacationing at your place. Neither is it about those childhood days when you HAD TO travel with your parents and nor is it about visiting ancestral house every summer. This is plain “go to fun destination/ touristy places” with your parents, siblings do not matter, rather their absence may be more fun because you get full 100% of their affection.

Last year when mom n dad came here for summer, we went out on long weekends to many places: NYC, DC, Chicago, Niagara, nearby places like Cape Cod, Rhode Island etc. I had been to almost all of these places before and while I cannot comment on how these places would feel with a partner, it is certainly a very different but positive feeling with mom n dad.


First of all, I was organizing everything which never happened while I was in India or when I was younger. Second is mom n dad assisting me in every possible way they can. Whenever I travel with friends, “who wakes up first” is always an issue and mostly it had to be me. With maa and baba, I was the last. Long live that extra ½ hour sleep. Thirdly, they are happy with whatever you show them. For example, we went to this really crappy aquarium in DC thinking that like everything else in DC, this also would be the biggest aquarium in US. It so turned out that it was even worse than the aquariums they have in restaurants. But maa and baba never showed any dissatisfaction and enjoyed the sad looking piranhas.

Another thing is I think the blood relation part. They like what you like and vice versa. This does not happen with friends. You may not like beaches and your friends might not like mountains. But your and your parents’ choices are generally the same. My parents like the typical touristy thing of visiting more spots and do not care for spending a whole lot of quality time there. This totally agrees with me. For example, because of time crunch, we did not go on top of lady liberty. But they didn’t mind.

Parents are great moral boosters. I was so disheartened to see the mile long queue to go up Sears Towers (the tallest man made structure on western hemisphere). But they gave me the necessary moral boost to go ahead. And I suddenly realized that I have a special privilege day pass, and vroom, went up the tower in minutes.

There were two more occasions when I was sort of grown up but went around with parents and elder brother. One was a conducted tour to Ooty, Mysore and Bandipur forest when I was 17. I had just got reject from getting into IIT and the trip was a great soothing agent. And part of it was because of being with parents. The other one and it was a really memorable one was a family vacation at Puri. We knew everything in Puri, there was no touristy stuff, it was plain rest, swim in the beach, visit the temple and eat healthy veggie food. Very unlike our tour choices, but it was immensely enjoyable. It was also the last trip of just us 4.

So my advice to all my “still single” friends is that please go on a vacation with your parents asap. Going with your partner may be more fun, more active, more partying, more drinking but definitely not as satisfying as being kid yet again.

Indian waiters in the US

My data spectrum is probably skewed as my opinion is based on around 12-15 restaurants in greater Boston area and 10-12 in rest of USA. But many of my friends agree with me. Waiters in Indian restaurants are below par. I am not claiming that waiters in all other restaurants are good, but for Indian restaurants, they are all below par for the same reason.

Most of the Indian joints are a family business. The waiters there are either the owner himself/herself or their extended family. There is no way they have done a professional course in waiting. This reflects in their behavior. In India, nobody cares about the waiter except how quickly they bring the order. But here, most of the places, there is more to than just bringing food that is involved. The Indian restaurants here are lost between the two and fail on both respects.

Another thing that comes out often is what somebody told me as reverse racism. The waiters, especially when they are the owners have a general tendency to look down upon the Indian customers. Their behavior towards Indian customers is totally different from the rest. I cannot describe what they do differently but it can probably be explained by a theory: Back in India, waiters are not held in that high esteem. But here, the waiters in Indian restaurants are generally the owners and they think that by waiting they are degrading their position before fellow Indians. So to “claim” their superiority, they always appear to have a high nose.

Another difference between other restaurants and Indian ones are that in other restaurants, there is at least 50 if not more percent of women waiters. By nature they are more friendly and appealing. This is totally absent in any Indian restaurant where it will be usually a grumpy faced granpa who will take your orders.

However, I need to mention two exceptions. We all know that Indian food is really good. In some places, they hire local people for waiting and they do an excellent job. They try hard to get the names right and are generally qualified waiter/waitresses. The combo of good food and good waiting makes a deadly combo. In many cases there are ABCD girls too who chip in who in addition to good waiting skills also have a good accent with food names. Places to mention are Dosa in SFO and Kabab Factory in Boston.

The other one is a tiny restaurant Dosa temple near my place. These people are the India kinds. They do not try to copy, so they come forward as genuine and that’s what makes them special. They also do not have that attitude that seems apparent on the other desi waiters.

No wonder, Indian buffets are so popular. It’s difficult to screw up.