Vacations can turn out to be the pleasant experience they are deemed to be provided you decide to holiday in your own home after dispatching your family members to some distant place. This is a strategy that is increasingly finding favour among experienced holidayers who have seen it all and done it all.

Family members, by this I mean children, are to vacations what elections are to democracy — you may think they are the quintessence, but if you put your mind into them you will figure out that more harm than good has come out of them.

Children seem to have been created by God to ensure that you don’t fall in love with holiday jaunts. In the universe, there are two types of children: 1) Those who don’t like to do what their parents want them to 2) Those who positively detest what their parents want them to. And thanks to children, parents now appreciate the value of staying in office for long hours.

This is the typical diary of what happens on holiday trips to say a hill station, say Ooty

Day of Departure: Handle comes off the suitcase. Probably due to the weight of the unpeeled airline tags you retain to showoff that you are a frequent flier. Make urgent and ungainly repairs to the handle.

Cab arrives late. Driver in a permanent state of surly moroseness. Space for the bags is inadequate (First axiom of travel: Luggage space is never adequate).

Child throws a tantrum over something.

Forget the emergency medical kit at home.

Fret over whether you closed the main door of the house properly.

1^st Day of Vacation: Need a painkiller to subside the splitting headache due to the jerky journey. But no emergency medicine at hand. (Second axiom of travel: The first and the foremost thing you need on a vacation trip is the one you forgot to bring along).

Hotel room rent is exorbitant. Apparently they charge for the weather outside too.

Child throws a tantrum over something.

Driver acts funny and mutters many incomprehensible words.

You wax eloquent over the mist engulfing even the hotel room. Missus disabuses you of your imagination and points to the billowing mosquito repellant that had caused all the smoky halo.

Head to the nearest tourist spot. Find roughly one lakh fellow holidayers seeking the same view and experience. Take the first snap in the camera. Its battery runs out. (Third axiom of travel: You need roughly 50,000 batteries to last a single vacation trip).

Child is unhappy over something and throws a tantrum.

You buy the child a yoyo to keep it in good humour. (Fourth axiom of travel: You may be at Niagara or on the foothills of Himalayas or in the ineteriors of Amazon forests with breathtaking beauty all around. But your children would develop an unquenchable urge to own a hideous balloon or soapy bubble-producing plastic contraption. And there will be a seller for that nearby).

The yoyo comes unstuck after exactly sixteen-and-a-half seconds of active life.

Come back to hotel. Watch TV in the room. Criticise all the programmes to be trashy. Go to sleep with the promise to wake up early and catch in all the fun of the place.

2^nd Day of Vacation: Wake up late. Feel groggy. Order coffee on room service. Feel bad even more. (Fifth axiom of travel: Holiday-spot hotels employ the worst coffee-brewers in the entire world).

Child wakes up throwing a tantrum.

Driver throws a tantrum after enduring a cold night in the vehicle.

Join the crores of revellers at the botanical garden. There are as many visitors as there are as many blades of grass. Every one thinks that he or she is having fun while others are just going through the routine. Every one takes photograph of everything and everyone. There is a battery crisis in the world.

Child wants to eat the dubious-looking baked corn and groundnut. This was the child that refused to touch the milk and cereals at the breakfast table. Reason? It said the tablecloth was stained.

Child throws the corn and peanut after one bite.

Cue for tantrum.

You buy it a plastic helicopter.

Phoot: Sound of the broken toy.

Buy yourself a monkey cap. Look positively stupid.

Child forgets the Rayban coolers you gave her to pose for a photograph.

Search frantically for it. Miss the next leg of the scheduled programme.

@#§Fy##%%: Your state of mind.

(Sixth axiom of travel: You will lose at least one of your favourite and costly possessions on every holiday trip).

Come back to hotel. Watch TV. Criticise. Promise yourself to enjoy the next day in a better manner. Child throws a tantrum just in case.

3^rd Day of Vacation: Wake up late. Find out your missus had ordered coffee as she was nursing a headache. After the coffee, you also have a headache and you make a nice pair.

No hot water on tap. (Seventh axiom of travel: Hot water will play truant at least on one day when you are in a hill station. Corollary: The AC will conk off if you are in a seaside resort).

You want to skip breakfast. Child wants to eat the breakfast it flatly refused to the previous day.

Driver looks waspish.

Go to rose garden. Roses there are named on the indubitable botanical principle that common people know nothing about botany and anything can pass muster with them. ‘Schwap’ is one of the rose varieties. Make what you can out of that.

Slipper gives way. Or your pant gets torn. Or something similar happens so that you never get to enjoy the promised fun.

Child throws a tantrum perhaps for nothing better to do.

Get fleeced by all the local vendors. (Eighth axiom of travel: All the most cheating and shady traders are headquartered in the holiday spot you are vacationing).

Eat at a trashy hotel that charges a premium for trashiness. You understand that the wise men were right when they said: Travel broadens the wallet.

Cash runs out. The ATMs nearby are out of service. They inevitably are. They have a whacky sense of humour. Or perhaps, they are all throwing a tantrum, as tantrums are known to be the most infectious things on earth.

Child is bored throwing tantrums. It is sulking.

Driver is fuming.

Return to hotel. Room service takes roughly 20,000 hours to deliver the humble curd rice you ordered. You puke after dinner. Missus has run out of patience and perseverance. Sleep is the sole need of hour. Child is all buoyant and wants to play with you. (Ninth axiom of travel: Nothing works according to plan. Especially if you are the one doing the planning).

4^th Day of Vacation: Coffee-tantrums-batteries-more tantrums-fleecing-poor food-crowds-headache-exchange of words with driver over fare-broken handle of suitcase.

It all passes in a blur. Nothing really matters. You are ready to kiss the doormat in relief on your arrival back home.

After several days: You start thinking of vacation to some other place.

(10^th axiom of travel: You are never wiser for the experience).

(My weekly column)

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