Celebrity column: Surviving a family vacay, writes Shweta Bachchan Nanda

Family vacations are the kind of enterprises you embark upon with hope and optimism, and return with a lot of dirty laundry and suffering extreme exhaustion. This year, after much toing and froing of dates suitable to all members of my family, we were booked for Greece. At the airport, crowded with holidaymakers, our flight kept getting delayed but in 15-minute increments. Leaving us no choice, but to sit tight staring at a never changing screen.

Once at our destination, we would spend our mornings on the beach, where every 30 minutes, I was required to appraise my daughter on the status of her tan, while my son skulked in the room on his laptop. When he ventured out, it was with a towel covering his face and head as he rushed from one shady spot to another to avoid getting a tan. By nighttime, my daughter was sunburnt and my son was pale and in hysterics at his sister’s plight. For food, we would venture into the quaint towns that scattered our island and after bridging a serious language barrier, managed to order. My son had decided we must pool all our mobile phones at the centre of the table …read more