My way on the highway

        As I was moaning my last month of maternity leave in January 2020, my phone blinked with a whatsapp alert on a new group saying "Malavika's surprise birthday". My sister Malavika was going to turn a year older in February and her husband, Kaushik wanted to surprise her with a family holiday close to Bombay. I looked at the message and was immediately tempted. Then I remembered I had a 5 month old and a 7 year old and my husband had a commitment to teach physics at the Bangalore Planetarium on the weekends. So if I had to go it would be alone with the kids. How could I go? "Should I say no" were random thoughts in my mind. However, I was also tempted as I wanted one last holiday before going back to work. The December holiday was too short. So I replied to the whatsapp group message saying that I was tempted and to count me in. I would reconfirm in a week.       The above message got my parents thinking. They were going to say no as they had anot