Shanghai Diary

Chapter One: On my way to China

25th Feb, 2010

I was cooking dinner when I got a call from N saying that we were flying to Shanghai next morning at 8. I was exceptionally calm, considering the fact that I had never been on an international flight and also considering the fact that I am a super-sensitive, nervous, panicky little woman. But, for once things were totally under control. Half of the packing was already done and the rest, the utensils, were neatly laid out on the half-packed bags, which would be packed later when N came home. He came home and told me that we were to go to the TCS office and collect our passports. So at 10 pm both of us walked to the TCS office which looked more like a honeymoon cottage than a serious, corporate IT office. I was standing outside with the watchman when N came out, worried as to why there were three zeros printed on our passports, next to the duration of our stay in China. We immediately got it confirmed from a friend that three zeroes didn’t mean that we would be thrown out of the country, the moment we entered it. On our way back home, we called up both sets of parents and informed them about the suddenness of our voyage. We reached home, and heaved a huge sigh of relief. We ate dinner at 11 pm and finished packing at midnight; at least that was what I thought, because when I unpacked those in Shanghai I was struck with a very enlightening thought about marital life. It is that usually, things are packed by the couple and then re-packed by the husband when the wife goes to sleep. N finally slept having had his usual tour to the fridge for a mid-night snack and after watching the highlights of the cricket match he missed owing to the collection of the passports and the flight tickets.