Happy Friendship Day

Friendship day!

Now how can I find time on a Sunday for that? Specially since I had a migraine, could not locate my Driving License and I had to take care of the entire week’s school uniforms with our Iron-Man (the presswala) off to his village.

Anyway these things are for kids aren’t they?

And my friends always understand when I don’t pick up their calls or sometimes end a call abruptly. Work has to come first and it does. Family comes even before that. And in between, I do find some time for my friends, sometimes.

I know my friends deserve so much more.

And so this belated Friendship day post goes out as an apology to all of you.

To Pooja, who has been there for me ever since we were six year olds; Talking me out my mad-cap ideas, believing in me, even when I hardly give her any reason to do so, pushing me to do better, do more.

To Sonal, for still making time for me in her whirlwind schedule, for making me believe that some things to remain the same, so do some relations.

To Softy, for understanding me so well. I miss talking to you!

To Rachna who still co-ordinates her ‘talk-times’ with me-so that we never realize that we have not met for YEARS.

Shubhra, who understands my dilemmas without needing  words. Makes things better by listening to me, laughing with me.

Shivani-who slips in and out of emails, but makes sure I know she is there for me.

In fact the entire Gang of 10 at MBM. My life is so much richer because of you-Anju, Rita, Ritu, Reena, Sarika.

To the friends who drifted away, reconnected with over Orkut or Facebook, but with whom I still don’t keep in touch so regularly. I may not have soulful messages, or witty updates to share with you all the time, but I am really grateful for the fact that you are around.

And to my blog friends , some of whom I have never met, but who still take the time to read my posts when I come out of hibernation, to post a line to cheer me up when I need it most.

To the one person who has to put up with me the most-the only one for whom I did tie a friendship band..

Thank you for being my friend.

Happy Friendship day!

(Belated! Yeah, so what? This is my 100^th post. It may have taken me a long time, but I am so glad to dedicate this one to my friends! Over to you-Sachin)

Looking for a Silver lining

I have not retired from blogging.

I have the same excuse as everytime.

I was just waiting for things to come back to turn right.

But things just kept turning left.

Just the little mom things

Like house-hunting with the stop-watch ticking away in countdown mode.

Like the kids’ exams to get over-they did. But then we had to make up for all the missed-out Guitar and Art classes.

And the maid just had to leave for her native village for a three-day trip which got stretched to a week.

And it was just the time that we found that both cooking Gas cylinders were now empty, and a delivery which normally took three days, this time took 11!

I did have the microwave to pull me through, but there just happened to be a day-long power-cut too.

And then the kitchen taps didn’t leave me the option of ignoring them till we moved away, the school van didn’t come one day, my partner in fire-fighting had to go away for two weeks, and the school declared a day off when it was my working day.

Is insomnia preferable to nightmares haunted by houses and exam papers and cooking breakfast on powerless microwaves?

Maybe not-I realized as I heard the screeching dent on my car.

The quotes on positive thinking just did not work.

It was only on reaching office and drinking hot-coffee from a machine that worked that I could think of the silver lining.

The dent is on the left fender!

The old one! For which I can now claim a replacement.

Let me celebrate by logging in.

When you drop your camera in the sea

Smitha’s post on cameras brought back another memory for me.

Of a trip where our digital camera fell into the sea at Kanyakumari and refused to get switched on

The next stop was Thiruvananthapuram.

The Service Centres said they would take a week to let us know if it could be repaired. Still hoping that it could be, we picked up a Kodak Camera which used a 'Roll' of film to print pictures.

I didn’t know they still existed.
My daughters thought it was weird. What you don’t get to see the picture? How do you click then? How do you know if a picture got clicked?

You don’t. You see and you click, and you wait till you click all the photos, and go back home, find the time to drop off the Roll for printing and pick it up again.

It sure is an exercise in patience. And you do not have the luxury of clicking away in haste, deleting in leisure. 

But you do get to treasure the moment.

Lost in languages

Why can’t these people speak in English? My friend fumed as a project discussion again lapsed into local lingo. Why don’t you learn the language, someone quipped back.

But what language was that?

When I had shifted from Delhi, I just knew that people in Karnataka spoke Kannada. Soon, I learnt, Bangalore was another world. 

First, you need to identify which of the 7-8 (leaving out the dialects) languages was being spoken.

Oh it's not that difficult, when most of the words end with “u” it’s Telegu, when they end with “aa” it’s Kannada, Malayalam sounds completely different, and Tamil you can make out from the tone….was the advice.  As for Tulu and Coorgi, they are somewhat similar to Malayalam.

Wooah! I stopped trying to figure out languages from then on.

In Germany, I was touched when people would look up words online to get the right English word to explain things to me.

Oh, but when an animated discussion starts everyone lapses back to fluent native German. And then they notice me, and apologize for leaving me out.

But I keep telling them, it’s is really not a problem for me.

It’s like being back in Bangalore

What do I say?

Loving someone means having never saying Thank you?

Ok, Eric Segal said something slightly different, but having spent a lifetime on mushy romances, I  do think that sometimes, it is such an inadequate think to say.

But then what do you say to the one who drops everything to stay back and make Palak tortillas with the kids while you fly away?

To the one who reads instructions off the carton, to bake a cake on my birthday?

To the one who believes in me even after knowing me so well?

To the one--ahem--who actually does not like me writing my thoughts on a blog..so I am not getting any mushier...

Just wanted to find a better way to say Thank You!

Mom Alone

Growing up is such a pain.

Especially when you have to do it when you think you are old enough not to do it anymore.

Leaving children at home and travelling for work is what Moms and Dads need to do all the time. And I had managed not to do all this time-it was a record.

Was-past tense

This one time-I am doing it. Not that I had run out of valid reasons, but this once I felt I could leave, knowing that they would be able to manage.

I am the one not able to ‘manage’.  Offering bubble-gum to a stranger as the flight takes off, not able to launch into my spiel about the history and geography of the place I am travelling to,  talking to my family only through the screen-not able to touch, feel, poke or tickle …………..it is a whole lot of growing up.

Being the one staying back with the kids, managing the home-work-kids-and everything else issues, this once I feel that the one going away has it worse.

Do I have so much more to learn? 

How to be a cool parent

Papa, I am dropping the Mech Paper. I know I will flunk if I appear in it.

First year at college, and I had just learnt that it was now possible to “drop” papers you think are too tough!

The cool Dad reply

Beta, why don’t you read up a bit, whatever you can, and give it a shot? You might just clear it and not have to read the WHOLE thing again. Just try a little…

There was some logic in it..

Oh Ok. I’ll try what I can do. But I just want you to know I might not clear..

That’s ok, you can always study all over again, but I do think it’ll be much easier if you can manage to read up a little now…

It’s final exam time at home now.

And the toughest part of my job is convincing these two to study.

As I gear up for another argument, telling myself I am not going to lose my cool/blow a fuse this time, Dad’s words echo in my mind.

Was there a small pause in his voice as he heard my declaration?

..A sharp intake of breath and a hesitation as he thought over what to say?

Are there some memories that become sharper with time?

Conversations, which you understand better after a lot of water has flown under the bridge?

Or is it just wisdom, life forces you to acquire, that shows up things in a different hue altogether?

Please life, give me the wisdom, to say the right thing to say to my children, right before their exams.

Please friends, do share some advice,

Or just pray for me…

First love

No it's not about my daughters' but my own...

The heady, exhilaration..

The soft, mushy feeling..

A solace, a homecoming

An adventure, a discovery

Someone who was always there for me,

Setting my imagination free,

Letting my dreams soar

Bringing a smile on my face no matter how lousy the day was,

My best friend, my strength, my happiness,

My best memories

If that isn’t love, then what is?

My Amar Chitra Kathas,

The man who gave me some of the best moments of my life, who shaped my childhood, passed away early this month.

I had to log on to pay homage to this wonderful man,

And to thank him for leaving behind a wonderful legacy for my children too..

.

(This is my younger daughter’s typical afternoon read-unwinding after school, even during exam time. And I can’t blame her.)

So even though I am on an unplanned blog break,
even though I am running a backlog on my work, on kids' exam preparation, I had to write this one post.


Thank you, Uncle Pai! For making my childhood so much better.

The Birthdays again

Another round of birthdays-days of hectic activity, running around, last minute crisis…and complete MADNESS at home..It’s this which keeps me away from my blog too, this time of the year!

On one hand we are grateful that we only have to do it once in a year, on the other hand we feel completely drained out this time of the year-physically, mentally and financially!

And yet we do it with more zeal every year!

Planning both parties, buying everything we can get our hands on, cooking up surprises, making plans to delight them at every step...

However this time, I was questioning myself more.

Yes, it is ok to splurge once in a while, but shouldn’t we be thinking of the other little girls out there, who are still struggling to live?

Are we teaching them the right things? 

After years of receiving, shouldn’t I be teaching them to give more? 

Maybe, from next year, we’ll spend half the effort in taking them around to the blind school or SOS village and let them experience the joy of sharing their gifts.

My ideas seemed to idealistic when I thought of these two, who insist on keeping a piece of return gift also, on top of all the gifts they get, actually agreeing to give up on anything.

And then, Elena came to me herself saying, Mom can we please give something new to Parvati didi this time? We thought about what our maid would need most and then she happily packed up satchels of school stationery for the maid’s children.

It was a small thing, but I was really happy she thought of it. My little girl is growing up all right! Yes, we’ll do more, all along the year, and not just on the birthdays, but we had made a beginning.

Just a few words..

Why have I stopped writing?

'No Time to write' is obviously is the first excuse. But then like the school kid having to think beyond 'viral fever', I had to think of a new excuse when the same friends kept asking again. 

A writer’s block? Well that was a new one for me and it became the new favorite. It also sounded kind of "cool" to flinch one of the kids' terms.

And just like it happens in the good old fairy tales, it became true.

I got so used to not writing that I didn’t miss it any more.

Because I had nothing to write, and so many of other things to do, I stopped logging in. Then I didn’t get updates from other blogs too. More time on my hand. Took up knitting. Atleast that doesn’t upset people like words do.

Packed away writing like a piece of nostalgia that doesn’t belong to the present anymore. And just like nostalgic memories, the longing to write and share didn’t go away. It keeps popping up, just like now.

Has the block worn away a bit? Will it go away faster if I promise not to fib again? Any tested remedies?

Or do I just "un-cross" my fingers and dare to log-in..