Musing: Backpacking With Children?
I finally got my computer in good enough shape to edit this video and the last bit made me smile. Watch it and you’ll see what I mean. We were staying at this coffee plantation in Madikeri, Karnataka, and took a side trip to see the Dubare Elephant Camp. On the ride there, we met Paul and Kirsten Thompson, a couple from New Zealand, who we instantly took a liking to because we thought they were absolutely bonkers in the best way possible.
They were on a 10 week holiday in India with not one kid, not two, but three. And the names of the children were just brilliant: Merlin, Felix, and Rumi. Merlin, the youngest, was 2, and looked like I’d imagine Merlin the magician to look like at that age, complete with long, wavy blonde hair. Rumi, the eldest was 7, with Felix smack in the middle at about 4! And I remember thinking that this is really encouraging. The spirit of independent travel need not be crushed just because you have children.
Rumi and Navdeep
I got on famously with the eldest kid, Rumi, who we got on camera hosting this video. He did a bang up job too in his cape! What I was really impressed by was how adaptable these kids were, and as cliched as it sounds, how worldly and intelligent Rumi and Felix were. Felix had this really funny way of asking questions. His mum and dad had told him to stop interrupting people and to say “Excuse me,” before speaking. So, armed with “excuse me,” he would interrupt every conversation by repeatedly saying, “Excuse me, ” followed by, “I have a question.” Some of the questions were really interesting, some were entertaining, and some went absolutely nowhere. Rumi was much more reserved and poignant in his observations, and asked really incisive questions. Merlin enjoyed just traipsing about in shoes much too big for him.
Sona was particularly fascinated with what the kids ate and we were both duly impressed that they ate plenty of Indian food, from dosas to dhokla, but sensibly stayed away from the usuals: street food using potentially unsanitary water, which I can understand with kids. Although eating unsanitary street food is the most delicious part of India, I can’t imagine traveling with three kids that young with dodgy tummies or worse! The reason Sona found it so interesting is a) unbeknownst to me, she was thinking about this baby business in “at least a year.” Notice my nervous laughter at the end of the video and the abrupt blank look on my face when Paul mentioned the word, “quantity.” That expression should be right next to a visual dictionary definition for the word “gobsmacked.” And b) Sona’s travels to India never involved street food. This rule about no street food, inflicted by her parents, extended from infancy all the way till past her twenties! Sona’s mother used to pack food like Macaroni and Cheese and cereal for Sona’s brother because he refused to eat Indian food in India. He was nine years old!
I, on the other hand, didn’t know any better. I didn’t know there was another option. I was 2 weeks old when we left England to go to Tanzania, and from there Nigeria, the U.A.E., and of course America. Having been raised in several different countries from such a young age, I thrive in being put into a situation I might not be familliar with. This made traveling in China and communicating with people for things like toilet paper, or cold water using dodgy sign language, not such a big deal. I am very adapatable to different food and customs. My sister, who was much more cognizant of how different the places were from “home,” likes to use the word “adventurous.”
Before travelling with Sona, it was something I’d taken for granted. I don’t get cravings for comfort food and I don’t get nostalgic for that sense of home.But these days, a sense of home is much easier to come by than it was even a few years ago. You’re constantly connected to some version of the familliar. There are bars in Tibet, discos in Nepal, Pizza Hut in China, upscale dining in India, and internet cafes (not to mention wireless cards) all over the world.
Sona and Navdeep Have a Baby!
As a father to a one-year-old, I often think of Paul and Kirsten, and about our next big adventure. Our six month backpacking adventure was a lot of fun, but it was much different to my solo travels. My solo travels were a lot more dangerous, although we did take a really sketchy 15 hour local bus ride in the middle of the night to Srinagar. Travelling with Sona, constantly being together day in and day out, really deepened our understanding of India, of each other, and much later we realized, of ourselves.
I always thought of getting married and having kids as an end to independent travel, exchanging that backpack for a nice carry-on, and being one of those geeky tourists that think they’ve travelled to a country because they booked a ten day tour to the “best” sites. But getting married certainly didn’t have that effect, and thanks to Paul and Kirsten and their trio of swashbucklers, neither will having kids. So, as to the question of quantity? Three sounds like a nice number.
Maybe Baby, Take Two: Can We Afford to Try? Can We Afford Not To?
This is not our niece
After the birth of our niece in October, Navdeep and I had the chat. You know the one. Should we be trying to conceive? After all, I’m 32. And he’s 30. We’re not getting any younger.
I know what you’re thinking. There’s never a perfect time. But is it the right time for us? That’s what we have to decide. Given the economy – I know, that’s our excuse for everything – and the fact that we’re just settling in to life together on the same coast, in the same state, in the same city, we’d like to give ourselves a bit of time. You know how it goes, that little to-do list before you settle down to the business of being adults. Like our trip to Greece. Or finishing my novel. Or even just playing house for a little while longer, just the two of us.
Still, when I see my friends with their newborns or even two-year-olds with sticky hands, I can’t help but hope that it will be our turn soon. Even at six-months-old, my niece is such a charmer, her own little person with a very distinct personality. Wouldn’t it be so neat to have a little person that was part me and part Navdeep, with his soft curls and those big dark eyes?
Then again, babies are a lot of work. And perhaps now, when I’m adapting to working from home and being my own boss, it’s not the right time to add that kind of challenge to our lifestyle. Then there’s the money question. We’re already panicked at the idea of committing to a home –hemorrhaging money as one pal put it recently. Can we afford the baby, the crib, the diapers, the insurance, childcare and all the other unexpected expenses it brings along with it? Our parents managed their broods just fine even when they were living in one-room apartments. Deep down, I know we can manage, too.
So Navdeep and I have decided to give it a go. But we’re moving forward without much fanfare. We don’t want to have to give daily status reports to his mom or mine. So if you run into them, don’t mention it, okay?
Maybe Baby? In Response to that Ticking Clock
I should have known when I hit 30 that it would start. In fact, given that my own mother handed me that scary New York magazine cover story about freezing your eggs—you know, just in case — I should have expected it a lot sooner.
Still, considering the place that Navdeep and I are in at this moment in time, the floaty, fleeting nature of both our careers, trying to establish ourselves as writers and get published, and even just trying to figure out which coast to live on, I was hardly ready for it.
No, I’m not pregnant. But it seems like everyone around me has babies on the brain. Navdeep may not have noticed it, but while we were traveling in India, meeting new relatives, the question came up a lot. We’ve been married for about a year-and-a-half now, and by Indian standards, that’s plenty of alone time. People just didn’t seem to grasp what we’re waiting for.
Sometimes I wonder, too. After all, the proverbial clock is ticking away. And you always hear people say that there will never be a right time. But there is a such thing as a very wrong time, isn’t there? We had the adventure of a lifetime with our honeymoon trip to India, but now that we’re back in the U.S., it’s time to sort ourselves out. We’ve got big plans to get moving with our writing, but we’ve also got to figure out basics, like where to live and how to pay the rent. I’ve already got a short-term gig at People, and by May, Navdeep will don his Professor Dhillon persona once again. We’ll get back into life the daily grind, get our act together, and start to feel like real adults.
But yesterday another pal-o-mine announced that she was pregnant, bringing the count up to four friends at once. And it makes me feel a bit wistful, pause and think ‘Maybe…” But I know that, for us, now is not the time. Not only are we not settled — as much as Navdeep and I hate the word — we still haven’t had enough couple time. We’ve got big dreams, and we’ve got the ambition, intelligence and drive to achieve them. And one day, soon enough, we’ll have our own big, happy family to share our successes with.
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