Gym Chronicles-I

This is becoming what I like to call my version of the Huffington Post. Only in my head since there are copyright issues et al to consider. But Huffington because I huff and puff and almost get blown away and there's only one piggie to consider- again moi.

Ok back on track, back on track, keep up, keep up...hup two, three four! Very few people frequent a gym on Saturday afternoons and I'm glad. Sometimes a bit of solitude is also good while you're doing your thing on the cross trainers. But seriously two things- Akon and his Mr.Lonely. Not cool dude. Not cool. 1) Because it's animal cruelty to make chipmunks sing and that too such a lame song. 2) Because who in their right mind wants to work out with THAT song playing in the background. I swear my pace on the treadmill slowed down some.

But people who choose the music in gyms must know (or are just tone deaf) that an up tempo song automatically induces some stamina or increases the pace even a wee bit in the people exercising. Well it always has for me and I can't believe I'm the only one out there who speeds up and unconsciously undulates the hips to zesty songs. So they rectified their Akorny mistake and played Chhammak Chhalo...I increased my speed on the treadmill from 3.5 km/hr to 4.8! See. That's empirical data for you.

Ok, onto second uncool thing- why do the bicycle seats have to be so hard and SO small? Some of us happen to have enhanced our seating area and if the bicycle seat is the kind where my 2+ kid sits on, I think that's hardly fair! But I persevered keeping pay offs in mind and sat through a 15 minute cycling session. What happened to me afterwards hardly merits a mention beyond the fact that when gluteus maximus muscles fall asleep and then start waking up in patches, walking back is a pain indeed.

But coming home to a loving family where one ran to me and greeted me with open arms and the other said, "Go bathe, you stink". Made it all worthwhile.

Alrighty then. Even prisoners have time off for good behavior and I shall make use of my time to nurse the glutes back to health so they can get back on the horse come Monday.

*would salute but my arms hurt too much*

Determination...

is so *not* what it's cracked up to be!


After becoming like the Big Bad Wolf (only imitating the huffing and puffing part and not becoming hirsute and having my ears shoot up higher than my head!) and countless nags from Red (who undoubtedly doesn't like to be on the higher end of a see-saw mattress) I finally went and joined the new neighborhood gym.


They were nice as all new gym people are. I was greeted with surprise (not!) on supplying the information that I had a child and was 30+ yada yada yada. And then one of the trainers conducted a one-one to determine the areas I needed help with aka where all my body needed to be broken before I could be put back together as a new person. Noo surprises when it was discovered that everything was covered with fat as snow and ice covers a tundra. An odd contraption that I had to hold at chin level apparently scanned my body and threw up a whole array of numbers that I was hoping wouldn't add up to bad news but they did.


In my defense- short people can come across as being far more chunkier than others simply because there's less area for the fat to settle on. And gravity acts quicker and in a far more menacing fashion on us as well.
But staying at home also led to raiding the fridge, eating (well eating should cover it all), getting exercise when my kid was being a typhoon and at all other times just collapsing with something to read or watch and my elixir aka coffee.


But let me actually start on the pain that awaited (and still does) me there. I might actually consider a move into the realm of BDSM after all this. Seriously.
I started with the cardio exercises and initially found that walking to gym from my house loosened up the calf muscles a bit and got the sweat glands activated some. I was hopeful. And then they put my cardiovascular system through the kind of damnation that left quite a bit of awareness of muscles and their tensing in areas I hadn't thought could hurt.


Yesterday I did weights for the first time. And although they started me with just 5 kgs (I thought..I lift a 13 kg kid everyday, so how hard can this be) I was gasping and doing the Lamaze-y breathing I did during my labor and was cursing (inside my head) because everything was on FIRRRREEE!
My upper body strength is pathetic, my knees feel like they should be glued down because they'll fall off after another stint of walk-run-pump puff puff! And somehow the trainers always know you're about to drink water like you spotted an oasis in the desert...SIPS only Madam. Sirf SIPS lena.


But my kid's been the biggest beneficiary of my initial days at the gym. After he comes home from school I'm so pooped I let him watch one or two extra episodes of Chhota Bheem since I can't chase him around the house if I switch the tv off. Also when he runs off he has to double back to find me because I'm still hobbling on after him whereas he's halfway to China.


But there are some interesting moments also. The cross training machine is by the side of the big glass wall.
And we're on the 3rd or 4th floor I guess. I get a good view of what's going on all around by the time I get to the cardio sections. Which is good because I get distracted enough to not keep obsessing about when the 15 minute set will be finally over and when I'll be able to sit somewhere and manage my knees and calf muscles like an old grandmother with rheumatism.


I noticed these things- there are very little trees in my area especially on the main road. There are some funny (if you let your mind run along those lines) businesses next to each other viz the infertility clinic is next to a macho man gym, the wholesale grain store is next to a medical shop.


More people in the area use Tatasky than other DTH services. The autowalas are lower life forms no matter what height you look at them. The buswalas are more suited for driving monster trucks, 2 wheeler drivers want to defy the laws of physics and be at multiple locations at the same time.


The guys in the gym across from us do a few curls and weight lifting and keep looking askance at our gym since it's newer and it's bigger. They do a lot of macho posturing and slap palms after every few sets aka locker room behavior mixed with bro-ness.


I get so caught up in watching them all that when the trainer comes and asks me to move to another machine I usually  ask..shall I go on for another few minutes? I can feel my endurance building up. When they ask me to move to another machine irrespective I face the sight that scares....me- sweaty, bedraggled, lardy and RED! Yup..the cycling machine in bang in front of a mirror.

So after thinking that I don't have any further stamina to pedal...seeing myself in the mirror is incentive enough to keep pedaling away and get off the machine. Those fifteen minutes can't come soon enough!

Here are some of the other instruments of torture-

 

This one made me feel like my arms were going to come off. They haven't yet but that doesn't mean it won't ever.

No comment.

Strangely enough, the one machine was totally comfortable with.

Another contraption that made me feel like the biceps muscles would snap and fall to the floor like confetti.

This one was hard to get on and off...but once I got on I just wanted to sleep it off...clearly the trainers won't let me do this one too often.

And that, in a big fat nutshell is my how my exercise regime's been going. I'm going to post more blogs here as soon as more feeling comes back into my fingers and arm muscles.

Watch this space for the series titles: Blood, Sweat and Copious Tears aka how I lost 100 gms.

Mmmm

That's the sound I tend to make when I'm stretching with arms flung out. And since it's before coffee am doing that mentally since my hands are busy :)

Was woken up with a phone call from the States. One of our family friends rang up and wished us and told me about his brand new granddaughter. Always nice to hear about babies being born and then the knee-jerk thought is, "beta...aage aage dekho hota hai kya!"

Am not malicious about babies being difficult or even tough to manage. It's a fact of life. Wouldn't you be cranky if you had a mobile over your bed and nothing but your toes and fingers to play with for the first few months of your life. Of course my son's been making up for that big time by reaching for everything (and I mean everything) that gets in his way, but I'll fix him yet. If he can be a brat then I'm the Brat-Neutralizer (fingers crossed and praying hard!!)

But let me talk about last night...oh glorious last night. The absolute last night of the year when I conked off way before midnight courtesy the rigors of having a 2 year old and having had wine after a long time. Thank goodness! Both these can dull your senses into oblivion I was Mayor of oblivion yesterday! I didn't hear the phone, the pings, feel the vibrations of emails, texts anything. I even missed out on the fireworks and just slept the night away. I honestly cannot think of a better way to end a year...sleeping peacefully. No dreams (that I can recollect) and no kid to take over my blanket or edge me off the bed. I slept in a nice cocoon of my sheets and when I woke up I wasn't even cross that it was still dark outside. Hey! It's a the first day of the new year...I'll be cranky tomorrow once Monday creeps in and I'm back to the routine.

I was talking to Red last night and it occurred to me that I've been spending all New Year's eves with him since the year we met. We have been to parties, met the requisite party drunks, bumped and spilled drinks in crowds and have also had cozy times. The cozy times are quite fun actually. While nothing compares to having a few good, like-minded friends around to share the laughs but I'm becoming a homebody.
It'll be a long time before I become a hermit but the last time I went out and danced the night away was well...a long time ago. Now it's more of cozy dos, entertaining friends at home.

But new beginnings to a new year or not, there are still things that don't change- laundry, the milk's to be boiled and the paper to be scanned before it's confiscated by two males- one who wants to read it, especially the sports page, the other who wants to tear it- no particular page.

To New Beginnings!

The Mandatory Year-end Post..

This has been a doozy of a year but then again I guess I usually end up saying that about most years while they're ebbing. But there have been a lot of things, meaningful things, that have happened this year which will probably not happen again. But again, that's true of every year although the degree to which the sentiment is felt varies.

The son and heir started school, playschool, but school nonetheless. He skipped in happily enough and took the hand of the teacher there (a person he'd never seen before in his life) and went right in to the kiddy room. He didn't much give a thought to Red and I waiting outside. But the moment the wailing began from the other children he decided that solidarity was the name of the game and he joined in too. And once his loud pipes joined the melee well...the melee became a solo performance of sorts. The other kids whimpered but mine HOWLED. Anyhow, that went away surprisingly quickly and he completely adapted to this brand new aspect of his life so seamlessly one would think he had been going for ages.

One of my personal highs (and an amusing one at that) was the summer I spent at my parents' place. Finally, that stage in parenthood had been achieved when I took my kid to his nani's place for the summer. Life had come full circle for me- I used to be taken to such a place myself and now I had someone who I would be taking :) 

Little things began to amuse me more than they used to..rather I began to take more joy in the "prosaic". The way the leaves of the plants glowed when I watered them...I watered them and watered them till the discernible dust had been blasted off them. Unfortunately my son too got the same idea only his wasn't restricted to the flowerpots. 

He watered me, the balcony chairs, himself..Oh HOW he watered himself over and over again. I don't know if that's been helping him grow. He's stopped being chubby and has become lean. He lives on air, milk and juice and meal time is usually one where bargains are made over which show he can watch- the horrid Chhota Bheem or the Simpsons. Once Masterchef Australia stopped, he didn't quite take to Masterchef USA. I guess Gordon Ramsay and Joe Bastianich  put off quite a few people!

We got the imp his very own cycle for Christmas and until he begins to pedal properly it's up to us to put the cricks in our back aside and keep pushing him everywhere he wants to be wheeled :) 

The year also marked a departure from quite a few things, people, habits, thought processes and basically set me up for another year of parenting, some tough decisions, some good times and a yearning for patience, good sense and energy to see things through to the end in 2012. 

But knowing me, it'll probably fizzle out the same way the resolutions about getting in shape have been fizzling out for the past few years. One thing I am looking forward to is our first proper family vacation. The rest of the stuff like the monkey starting nursery, completing 5 years of married life (oh boy! talk about doozies) are stuff that future blog posts will be made of.

Signing off in 2011.

Necessity, Thou ART the ancestor of creativity!

Parenting is about a lot of things- I will NOT touch upon patience (why break one's head about a quality that's been elusive and will continue to play hard to get for all eternity?) but that apart parenting has got LOADS to do with creativity.
Again, if you aren't totally off your rocker courtesy your kid's antics, you'll be able to harness it fairly well and when required.

MLM is at best a fussy eater. He isn't fussy about what he eats, he's just fussy about eating. Why bother to stop and eat when he could be playing, watching that cursed Chhota Bheem, smearing 'kalash' (colors) on everything from his hair to my nose?
So like it or not the telly becomes an accomplice during feeding time. He gets entranced by the yellow people aka The Simpsons or the goody-two-shoes Bheem and allows me to spoons what I think is an adequate amount of food in his mouth. Threats of turning the t.v. off work extremely well in getting him to open up. It's my personal 'Open Sesame' as it were.

Tonight was no different- he was refusing to eat and I was adamant about not mushing his food so I could almost funnel it down his gullet. And as ever, sighs, Bheem baba was displaying his valor for all the nincompoops like my kid. I made small balls of the rice and curry and kept feeding MLM each one saying they were Bheem's laddoos. He didn't notice each one got progressively larger and he ate till I could do the tummy metrics and deduce he'd eaten *enough*. Of course, in case I didn't get the message fast enough, MLM also told me by raising his palms- EMUFF!!

So a child fed, very little threats doled out and some imgaination was displayed. Plenty of pats on the back- all by myself but hey...you gotta take what's there. If I wait for a bravo I'll be waiting till the cow come home.

But the whackiest and most imaginative thing was done was Red a few minutes ago. We're supposed to get MLM to do inhalations with Vicks or Karvol and Red being all congested too it becomes a way to spend quality time as a family. But where do I come in? Ever watch those shows were those herpotologists try to track down and then measure those boas and anancondas? The snake writhes like nobody's business and the people have to fight to not get knotted up in its coils? Well, the steam inhalation process with MLM is quite like that. He pretzels himself and whoever else is holding him till he's as far away from the rising steam as possible!!
To hold him steady or to get the inhaler close to him while Red's got a grip on him is my main role.

Anyhow, this little squirmer has always had a thing for the red clothes hamper we have in the bathroom. His father had set him down in it once when he was younger and I think that had created a memorable memory in his freaky noggin. So while the fight between father and son ensued, the hamper was brought forth and aforementioned squirmer was released. He dumped all the clothes out of it and said PUT! We ain't stupid. Most of the times. We put him in the hamper and took care to place the lid on top. Now before anyone decides to call Child Care services let me interject that the hamper has holes all over it and allows for PLENTY of ventilation. So there he sat, crouched inside, thinking he'd outsmarted us and his father held the inhaler close to the walls of the hamper and let the smoke waft in.

And that's how you get a child to do inhalation. If you're (un)lucky. When I was his age I responded to the "or else" my mother used to dole out with unfailing regularity. No hamper-shamper for me.

I wonder what's next. I really, really do. And going by recent history I wonder if we have big enough containers for his Littleness when the next challenge comes along!

So shoot me!! I get ahead of myself...it's the one thing I CAN do mentally since I have small feet and it takes me forever to go anywhere or keep up with anyone else :p but I do have a strong tendency to jump the gun and sometimes, Praise be the Lord of Russian Roulette for Thou Art Indeed Merciful, the said firearm doesn't misfire.


A lot of people often tell me stuff they are deeply invested in, with some amount of caution. They know the moment they tell me I'll be ricocheting off and planning the way ahead whereas they'll be the ones (im)patiently waiting for things to actually happen. But there's a joy I find in possibilities. More than the probables, its the possible that unlocks your imagination and increases your normally pedestrian limits to absolutely freaky ones. 


I'll give a wee example right about now...my kid's been under the weather on and off for a while now. I saw 'under' purely from a figurative standpoint. That he's been ON my head is the truth. Anyhow, while still a distance from being A-Ok he showed some improvement this morning when I saw one nostril relatively unblocked while the other one looked like I'd need dynamite to clear a path through it. And off I went- thinking of all the things he'd be able to do once he's better and symptom-free. Hang on...that's not good...didn't think it through...him being symptom free is tantamount to a full scale demolition drive :-)


But all those ramifications apart...being able to let my mind race ahead and often just see a whole plethora of things happenings gives me a feeling of being liberated, whether all those things eventually come to be or not is a whole different blog post. Somewhere I know that the probability of all of them getting fulfilled is quite low, but letting the mind unfettered by pragmatism is one of things which I think people should knowingly indulge in now and then. It would surprise them the extent to which imagination still plays a role in our largely mundane, hectic, deadline-bound lives.


And once routine and need-to-dos, must-dos et al intervene and we get back to the grind (not an unpleasant thing as I've come to realize), we can just wait for another opportunity when imagination again takes flight away from the prosaic, the pedantic and into the realm of the slightly whimsical carelessness.

Ruminative Mornings...

Every city has it's own feel, a vibe if you will. My hometown has always seemed to be like a crowd of gawkers. There's a lot of energy that abounds but it's not like a lot of productive stuff is getting done.

The city I've settled down in is quite relaxed...to the point of seeming sluggish. Calling it laid back can be an euphemism. It's entire nature seems to be Manana...what's the hurry? Take it easy. Have a margarita...okay so maybe it doesn't give off a margarita vibe either but it's not about the hustle and bustle either.

But take an early morning and most cities across the world will seem similar if not downright alike. There's a stirring, a bit of reluctance, a lot of freshness and just that easy, slow languor of a city and it's people coming to, before it dons the garb of it's usual look.

There are some clearly marked distinctions in it's people as well.
There are those who clear are NOT die-hard fans of early morning rising and are compelled to do so by pressing reasons. They don't seem awake internally although they're awake and functioning. Their lights aren't entirely off; but dimmed till their own rooster crows and they awaken.

Then there are those who rise with the sun, maybe even before and seem to want to capture each ray of the sun on themselves. They aren't just chipper if you look closely you can really see them dew-dappled and daisy fresh!

I was looking out the window of the cab while I rode to the airport and it didn't seem like I wasn't in my own city. There are patches in every major city which could just as belong to another hundreds of miles away.

I think I might just have discovered my calling- discovering a new city at dawn every so often. It'll make for some interesting vignettes and some good picture postcards- the ones captured by the lens of the camera and the ones taken by the mind's eye.

The Bamboozling Baby

My son has a fever today. He came home feeling a bit warm (98ish) and that was an indication that he might have fever by evening. For the uninitiated- my offspring maintains a near reptilian body temperature of 35 C or so. Ergo, the closer he gets to the norm for a human being I know without a doubt, a fever's on the way.

Now, begins the fun part- he will NOT rest although he LOVES to take his syrups (thinks they are all types of honey) and he refuses to keep his socks on even though the floor's pretty cold. He loves the shoes though but off they go flying through the air if he feels "constricted".
I gave him a few warnings, he didn't listen. So he was put on a timeout in his cot with a bunch of his toys. After the first few toys went quickly airborne, he settled down to playtime where all the toys were given a liberal dose of his opinion that his mother was bad! They turned out to pretty stoic as an audience so he opted for some play time with crayons and renting a coloring book apart. O Joy!

Every now and then though he'd look at me and say ask to be taken out of captivity. I'd ignore him or say 'No'. After all his sad faces turned up futile, he started with the endearments- 'Betu'..making smacking sounds, blowing me kisses, even went to the extent of calling me 'Mamma' rather than by my name.
When even that fell flat he sat down frowning for a bit and was quiet. That quiet was SO loud that I stopped what I was doing and started staring at him. If you know my child, you'll know quiet spells come along only with high grade fevers or portend impending catastrophes.

THAT was when El Nino 2011 played his trump card. He clamped his hands over his butt and said, "pottypottypottypotty". I had a feeling I was possibly being played but had to take him to the loo just to be sure. And I'd been had BIG time...the moment he sat down on the toilet seat and I backed away, he slid off saying, " Otey! Potty finish. Bye!" and ran out of the bathroom towards the living room.

Of course he's back in captivity now and alternating with the glares and sad faces and asking about all his possible rescuers viz his grandparents, his father and some t.v. characters (Noddy, Chhota Bheem& The Simpsons).
As for me, I'm contemplating whether it'd be against the Geneva Convention to put a funnel in his mouth and feed him mush for dinner (he won't sit and chew stuff if he's got a cold and fever) and if I can glue/ scotch tape his socks around his feet.

In the meanwhile, if you'd like to know what a child does when quarantined in a cot, take a look see at this video. Kids around the world are the same- willful, determined and MUCH smarter than their parents.

Oh me...Oh my

I know exactly what category of mothers I fall into. I'm the 'ever-gobsmacked-never-able-accept-my-child-is-like-this' kind of mater.

Maybe most mothers go through this phase but from where I stand, there's me, there's the human dynamo and there's me again with a mop and cleaning rag.

Let me clarify- he isn't one of those kids who're tantrumy or perpetually knocking things down; he's horrendously curious and there are certain things that he's convinced his little mind are good for him. So when his nemesis-cum-beanbag of a mother thwarts him, it's usually gory.

The most apt description that comes to my mind is that my son is a mix of the manic phase of the obsessed Chucky doll with the overall sweetness of the original one. He makes me feel like I'm in a barnyard and he's the cacophony of all the animals; in one go.

His speech is still slurry and his attempt at saying everything and rapidly leads to funny kinds of sounds emanating that we have to listen very closely to before being able to decipher it. Yup, what Red and I do is very close to code-breaking. A new age Enigma of sorts. Only no Unterseeboots for us to avoid here. It's a torpedo of words that'll blow you away into fatigue, laughter and wonder.

The current thing is reciting nursery rhymes. We suddenly get to know he knows a particular one because he's not one for repeating things when asked. And we made a point to not become those parents who're constantly trying to find out what the kid learnt in playschool. It *is* playschool for God's sake. He'll have a repetition of most of things in Nursery again. 

Trying to teach him rhymes or counting at home needs to be an activity that's constantly mobile. He took to counting very well since it involved going up and down the stairs. But the A,B,C and poems need to be enacted and each time with more energy and animation else the stickler for performance that he is, he makes me do it all over again. And again. And again.

Last night before bed time he wanted a recitation of Incy, Wincy Spider or as he calls it- Ishiwishiflawa *rolls eyes*. He directed me to move here and there before he was satisfied with my "placement" as it were and then he adjusted the comforter onto us and then gave me the signal to begin singing. And if the tone is off (after 100 performances throughout the day) he'll say Ayu, No, No and shake his head and keep repeating the name of the poem till I get it right.

I have a feeling he's got the temperament to be a music conductor (only difference being he's more likely to hit someone with his baton if they aren't getting things right) or a movie director. All the signs of wanting things to be organized perfectly, very very mise en place before it's off to Mother Goose land :)

But despite all this and stupidly after all this time, I am AMAZED how positive he is, how affectionate he is and how utterly energetic he remains throughout the day. Hitting the ground running is a phase that he seems to believe has to be taken literally. 

Anyhow, my morning alone time's come to an end soon the sounds of 'Ayuuu' will float through the house the rounds of heels hitting the floor will follow till I'm found. Lemme go sneak up on him for a change and have the day my way...!!

Evil Mommy over and out!

A First: Pet Store Visit

Pre-P.S: "This blog was written out but not posted towards the end of August. In a way it's good because there's an addendum to it and that's- ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!
Once you read till the end it'll make more sense."

I never knew how much I liked animals or how long it's been since I handled a baby. I got a dollop of both yesterday.

Red and I found a pet store bang in the middle (ok, corner is more accurate) of the city and we took MLM there for a visit. His first visit to a zoo was less than stupendous and was memorable for the humidity and the hordes of people rather than the scores of animals he got  to view.

This pet store was quite nice. More of tropical and exotic birds abound but they were fantastic! And many to give MLM a run for his money what with their IQ of a 3 year old to his 2 year one and their vocab of 100+ words to his semi-gibberish :)

The puppy I'd spied on the window sill while driving by the last time around had been predictably picked up by someone but there was a regal white Persian cat who was too busy grooming itself to give us a glance. Either that or it really had a thing for the taste of its...ok let's not go there ;o)

There were kittens too..3 of them and the one I picked up clearly objected to my method of handling it. It unsheathed its claws and wanted to be dropped back into it's cushion post haste. The rabbit nibbled, the budgies budged all over and the macaw ate it's cereal without a care in the world.

And what was MLM doing during this time? He took a step back with the macaw flapping its big wings and was contented to NOT stroke it. It did do a bit of caressing to the kitten after being warned of not beeping it on the nose. And for the rest, he was just quite stunned to see and hear so much color and cacophony up close and all within touching distance.

I left word at the store to inform us if they get either of these pups...and within our purse strings. It makes more sense to buy diamonds rather than a pet at the prices they quoted...pedigree sure comes steep...verrry steep.

But I would like a dog around the house. I have a kid who follows me around and goes round and round as if he's chasing a tail. Seeing a dog do the same might just be more of the same stuff :)

Let's see what comes our way. I already have one pet...maybe it'll be easier if the pet has one of his own too.

A Post Pour Moi...

I have a habit of going back and re-reading a lot of things I've written earlier; mails, blogs, text messages. I'm not entirely sure why I do it though, except maybe to put myself back in touch with what was influencing me back in time. Again, why that is even important or relevant I'm yet to discover. But I do it nonetheless and I realized that I do often have A-HA experiences or a 'Hmm' from this particular exercise.

While going over some old posts I counted the number of times I've used the phrase 'It's funny how...' and while it's an oh too familiar and prosaic stringing of words I've used it very often because things constantly keep surprising me, amazing me even.
My BFF1 often mocks and is even more exasperated with how oblivious I can be to things which are BANG right in front of me. Am downright like the proverbial blind person in the dark room looking for a black cat at times.

And so no surprises yet again, I found it "funny" how a global and yet VERY old concept of 'Carpe Diem' could surprise me with it's intent and depth. I first knew it to be a Latin phrase, then a poem by Ol' Willie but the meaning of the words hadn't really hit me much. And by now you can guess that it has. Pretty strongly at that.
But what's more important is other things not entirely related to any kind of 'carpe-ing' have started pinging inside the noggin too.

Life in the past few years can be very accurately (now) be summed up into these phases-

• Looking for inspiration- I did look for it far and wide and somewhat wrongly believed it to be overtly dramatic in nature. A lot of things happen gradually but the pace belies their impact. A fast moving event's advantage is merely that you get to react to it quicker; doesn't mean it's necessarily in your benefit. A gradually transition into things is often best since it gives you time to weigh your options and keep your eye on the ball. A very wrong metaphor for me because despite keeping four eyes on the ball my co-ordination is like a drunken monkey :-( 

• Seeking out newness- Man! that was the most miscalculated step EVER! Life ought to be refreshed and rejuvenated as often as the need is felt but to give into the need blindly is nothing less than falling down the rabbit hole and ending up in Wonderland. And that was an odd place wasn't it? Jabberwockies, vindictive queens and the irritatingly mysterious Cheshire cat? After a lot of 'WTF' moments I've realized that after a particular age, the mental and emotional elasticity doesn't allow one to snap back to a previous state of normalcy quite so rapidly or completely. A few looks before the leaps don't leave you feeling rueful about things that transpired which could and should've been nipped in the bud or delved into with caution.

• Communication conundrums- Talking about inspiration earlier and today another A-HA experience happened when I was flipping through the channels for MLM's programs. Home Improvement's reruns were on and the lead pair's take on the nature of communication really mad me think- WOW...a sitcom actually made me THINK! Color me enlightened :p I really used to think that I was aces in communicating but being able to communicate what's needed and at the time that's relevant is finally the essence of the matter. I've often held some of my core people as being defaulters in our way of life and it's understanding because they didn't get what I was communicating. But it didn't always occur to me to spell it out for them either. I told them in many ways but being figurative is always going to fall short in front of straight-up words expressed as plainly as the situation demands. Being metaphorical or being non-verbal merely adds weight. Taken by itself, it's fallen pretty flat where I'm concerned.

• Fighting with myself: I keep telling Red that I was FAR more aware of myself and life as a college-going young adult (despite the faltugiri indulged in) than I am now-after almost 5 years of marriage, a kid and God-knows what else! I knew my boundaries then and often tested them without breaking them. And breaking boundaries has too much glamor associated with it than necessary. You don't need to be an adrenaline junkie or be loose cannon. Sometimes all boundaries do is protect you body and soul since crossing over unleashes consequences that aren't necessary for one to experience in the first place. But too much of lamenting and being an emotional coroner is equally counterproductive. In hindsight I may very well realize that I was better off in a particular time/ era of my life but heck! I can't undo all that's transpired either in the meanwhile. So either I make my peace or admit that regular rumination about it will mess me up further. 

And it's not all that difficult either. I can't honestly think of that many incidents that I'd have preferred I'd not been in, experienced at all. Every place I've been in, the people who've made an impact- for better or for worse, still matter because it's made me more aware. And awareness is nothing to sneeze at. Even the stuff that makes you cringe. 

I do hope when I look back at this particular blog, I can think in a contented manner- been there and still doing all these things but in a manner which keeps me satisfied and not looking for any elusive wisp of reality.

Travails of Sleepytime....

Many of us sleep alone at nights. And they are the lucky ones. The ones who don't aren't unlucky per se but they've lost that God-given privilege of rolling about on their bed all by their lonesome, unless something bad happens and well...that's where couches (in conjuction with angry spouses) come in.

Why am I suddenly tripping on sleeping alone? Well let's see now- the only child that I am, I graduated to a bed of my own at a fairly early age I'd say. And after that I've found that a bedmate (even a chaste one) just didn't do it for me all in all. Something would happen that'd make me long to sleep. A-L-O-N-E!!

The current trigger is the hubby's death grip on my coverlet. Boy! You think it'd be easy to shove a slender guy out of the way and dig out my wrap from under him. You'd think wrong. I'd have better luck excavating dinosaur bones somewhere. The sheet'll be free once he moves. And he doesn't move. Much.

Which leads me to another bone of contention. I'm a wriggler. When I get into bed for the first time I HAVE to wriggle till I mush out a nice cozy space for myself and get the place a bit warm in the process. This doesn't go down well at all. My moving's been likened to the earth rumbling amongst other not so nice allegories. But what can I do? Not everyone's a natural bed warmer like my father. I remember some pretty cold winters I've tried to sneak under his comforter because he radiates furnace-like heat when all covered up.

I sadly, warm up only the place I lie in and since I'm a twitchy sleeper by nature I seldom lie in one place long enough for it to get properly toasty. I inevitably used to wake up from a cold spot on the bed during the winters in various places I've spent my childhood in.

Hyderabad not really having much semblance of a winter is definitely easier on my malfunctioning heating coils.

Anyhow, I realised that sleeping alone is a gift that is never given again post marriage and during the times when you have clingy roommates in the hostel. But that's a different cuppa tea altogether.

Take me for example- I frequently smacked the new groom across his face while we were getting used to sharing a bed. Now I can sleep pretty much anywhere. But he NEEDS to be on his left else he feels as if he's deprived himself of a good night's sleep. Don't ask me why. It's not as if the mattress people stuffed his side of the mattress with more foam and left spikes in mine right?

But adamant he is and on the nights when I've occupied the left side, the following mornings have brought me face to face with Monsier Le Grumpy.

Bonuses of sleeping alone- your posture can be anything at all and you don't ever have to have people grumbling over you at odd times of the night about why you are mimicing the Karate Kid's Crane kick in your sleep. So whether it's a pose of a bird hatching an egg or a midget hatching a plan, your posture is your thing and you get to indulge in all sorts of jungle gym activities all while you sleep beatifically.

Advantage # 2- you can emit any kinds of noise from anywhere you wish and not be thought as disgusting or get an elbow in the ribs right in the middle of the gorgeous dream of you and...erm...nevermind who else.

It's a great and understandable provocation for bodily harm leading to murder if you're startled away by a monstrous snort of your partner. That pillow never looked handier for smothering, am I right?

Drool is also another dread to have to encounter. Imagine while fast asleep, you roll over/ reach other and your hands, feet touch something cold, stickly and thoroughly unpleasant. It's enough to recreate THIS!

Another reason to not let others in your bed, especially kids, is that they'll never want to leave!! Mine starts out in his own cot and somehow always ends up draped over my head, feet in my face, fingers tangled in my hair or moving around between the sheets like a wraith from the horror movies. Am convinced the hubby sleepwalks and then picks up el munchkino and places him between us. And after a few attempts of his kicking his father (whose bones hurt your hands and feet when you make contact with them) my son's permanently turned his limbs towards me. Courtesy my cellulite. Apparently I often go *bleep-bleep* in the night after being kicked in the face or almost being pushed off the bed. I don't remember them of course. I'm in limbo you see. Formed of fatigue and memories of the days when I ruled my own bed and rolled around in circles and formed odd geometric shapes that were a puzzle to my mother.

For now I'll just dream of sleeping by myself instead of tugging the sheet free (it aint gonna happen) and get a few winks in before the sheet usurper and the child repo agent (it SO feels like that) both work in tandem to have me lying awake through the night and working on another blogpost.

Nighty night! 

A touch of Paintspiration...

I SUCK at arty stuff. BIG time. We're talking crooked lines drawn with a ruler even.That's the extent of the suckiness..that however has never prevented me from enjoying art or the pretense of being an closet avant garde artiste!

I'd go through these sudden "art-attacks" where I'd stay up all night mixing paints just to get the PERFECT hue of something and then spend the rest of the time painting things which made no sense to anyone except me. These weird bits of art would go up on my wall or the door to my room and after a few days I'd tear them down and the artlust would leave my person; to return suddenly unbidden.

My mother's side of the family are quite artistically inclined and they draw and paint the kind of stuff people can recognize or even like to look at. My father's biggest artistic achievement used to be masking my typographical errors on letters and birthday cards and making the errant letters into a clump of grass or flowers :-) That soon stopped after I learnt to spell and he discovered whiteout.

Cut to circa 2011 and MLM- he's been finger painting in playschool and coming home with flecks of paint on his clothes and looking very happy at each speck and splatter. I bought him kiddie paints and some chart paper and a whole new chapter of parenting began. The separate clothes for art time, the rags, the accessories for painting and of course the display of said art. It's taken the shape of a family weekend activity that gets whoops and hollers and leaves my floors with shapes of blurry hands and feet in jhango colors.

Seeing this kid paint with so much concentration and joy infected me with the desire to paint and with me to think is often to do. I went and bought two canvasses and started off on the path that inspiration led. The paints and brushes acted like a Ouija board and pretty much guided my hand. Red was initially quite skeptical of the amount of time I spent in just lathering colors on the canvass without any other shapes materializing for a long while. I kept going on about displaying texture and he took it to be intellectual gas of a person who has NO clue what she ought to be painting and takes refuge in arty-farty terms to disguise the fact :-) but in the end both canvasses were finished with alacrity and due pride was taken in displaying both to the usual suspects.

The first one, unarguably, looks like something a kindergarten kid's drawn while the second has pretensions of being a minimalistic representation- of sorts.

The only person who truly appreciates them is my son. He would love nothing more than to play with them, rub Play-Doh on them and even add more depth to them by spilling more colors on them as well...

But this wasn't art for art's sake. It was entirely for my own sake and there are some more oddities in the offing am sure. Watch this space. Psychedelic technicolor had nothing on me!

Drooly Perfection

Feeding his Peeps!

mini artist

It's all in the mixing of the colors that true art flowers...or so mini-messyboots believes :-)

oh boy...

Being the daughter of perfectionists is not a cakewalk. Especially when you realize that they managed to infect you good and proper!!

You can't manage to put in a load of laundry without your thoughts straying to those shirts of the hubby's that you put in without scrubbing the damn cuffs and collars with the special cuffs and collars liquid! You tolerate that inner turmoil telling yourself that hubby wouldn't know the ring around his collar if it came up and tapped him on the shoulder so why should you bother anyhow? Go on and get a mani-pedi while the opportunity's been given to spare some time. But the voice of your sainted mater resonates LOUDLY in your head about the brush and detergent just sitting there, waiting for you to clean his unnecessarily expensive shirts!!
And so you do!

Then you notice that the sink's counter's got water rings from the hand soap dispenser and some other bottles kept there. You walk on by hoping that years of passive listening won't catch up with you and start a tandav inside your nogging. No such luck. What do you do? You find coasters that you aren't using and put them under the above mentioned bottles and stick your tongue out at them for good measure for messing with your alone time and making you think too much!!

You move on and find that your footsteps are moving towards the closet where you keep the extra crockeries and cutlery. It's another mammoth battle as you try to go towards the t.v. and the wine that beckons in the chilled glass (yes, the wine's room temp and the glass's chillled. So sue me!!) but your steps meander towards the cabinet and you open it to notice that the silver's become oxidized. Your mother's voice again looms up in your head and to fob it off you immediately get that empty plastic container that's been gathering dust in your kitchen and immediately dump the silverware in there and heave a sigh of relief because now it's all in one place and the rest of it's been protected from the evil atmosphere! BUT you will again be haunted by EL Madre in due time to clean it with the damn silver cleaning fluid :(

Finally, you've done most things that would sit well with the givers of your life and decide to chill for a bit and turn on the lappie to lament about your follies and foibles and pour a generous bit of vino blanca into the glass when both mater and pater both start up simultaneously in the attic that serves as your head and start telling you that they raised you better than this- drinking wine in the middle of the day, alone, for no rhyme or reason and this had better be the only glass or else young-ish lady!!

You turn up the volume of Lady Gaga on the speakers a bit more and top the glass off and say bye now..cya! and turn your attention towards this newest bit of idiosyncrasy which surely proves your OCD beyond a doubt!!

The new lexicon...

Times change and with them things assume new meaning or undergo quite a bit of metamorphosis.
Take for example Moi. Earlier I'd just have been one of the many women who are raising a child. But today, am so much more. I am a label. A new breed of people if you will. I am...wait for it...a S.A.H.M!! Ta da!!
A Stay At Home Mom for the doofuses out there who aren't upto date on the new lingo.

And while on the topic of the new lingo let's take a stroll through the garden of phrases and words that the SAHMs espouse or have thrust upon them.
These are random and not in any particular order of importance.

• Baby-sat: very simple one indeed! It doesn't indicate the past tense of someone taking care of your baby. It means just what it reads like. Baby. Sat. The thing you were so happy about at when around 5-6 months of age your baby first sat. But it's the last thing they want to do now and just act like their feet have springs attached on the bottom.

• Friends with benefits: again..simple. You are friends with some who benefits by association of playing with your baby and being hugged and kissed by the darling munchkin. And YOU benefit by palming off the precious bundle onto someone else while you deliberate how strong you should make your coffee to get through the rest of the day!

• Toilet training: a tough one. To get your child to do and also what it implies. For you it means conveying to the child, "handle your own doodoo in the long run. Mommy's cleaned enough bums to merit shivers at the sight of a wet wipe" :(

• Nanny Cam: ostensibly for spying on the nanny to prevent any harm from coming to the child and making sure the nanny isn't some kind of a Satan worshipper while you're away. But actually it's the pleasure of knowing that while you DO pay for it, someone also pays dearly for the joys of spending days on end with your dear little poochums.

• Mother's helper: can be anything from a bib, a spoon, but usually ends up taking the form of a television and hypnotizes your offspring so you can detox and count to 10 in your mind and possibly implode rather than explode.

• The first word: a misnomer if there ever was one. It starts out slowly but rapidly spirals into so many words that you never end up having the last one. 

• The last word: uttered by your child when he/she finally sleeps off for the day. The last word is followed by blessed peace and a realization that there is indeed too much noise in the world around you.

• Clean: a word on household cleaner bottles and a word you used to know but haven't been able to employ in a while and probably won't be till your child goes outside the house for long periods of time.

• Spanking: something that hurts you more than it hurts the spanked one and you usually end up apologizing for the booboos that you caused. At the end of the day, its your fault.

• Colds: hell on earth as far as toddlers are concerned. The house resembles a Mardi Gras parade with the amount of tissue paper confetti that gets strewn around. And you keep fervently wishing for the dreaded mucus to go and infest elsewhere but not in that particular nose. It's also known as Damnation without Relief- For the parents.

• Threats: what you make a few times every day/ hour/ minutes (take your pick) and what your child will counter by picking up the phone and telling on you to parents or parents-in-laws and make you look like Cruella De Vil!

• Sleep: a thing of the past. Nuff said!

Of advice and applicability...

A slight variation on the chorus of the song by T.A.T.U- 
"All the things they said (2x)
Running through my head (3x)
This is not enough..."


Ain't that the bleepin' truth!!


Get an education they said- mandated actually. I don't know when was the last time I used fractions- mixed or otherwise. The main help of being "educated" is that I can read books and express myself via written words; electronic and otherwise.


Go see the world they said- and took me to certain parts. But Monaco, Paris at 12 years is a con job. You can do BUPKISS! And not much more.Later on when you travel in your 20s, it's a much better experience although you end up doing half the number of places as compared to your first trip.


Have some coffee they said- and you did. And got hooked to the extent that while it no longer acts as a stimulant, you still can't do without it. You turn into this from this unless you have caffeine pumped into you at regular intervals.


Study a subject like Psychology they said- after I brought it up in the first place. What happened? I ended up understanding people even lesser than before. Unless they had disorders which were beautifully explained in the DSM or ICD...everyday people were quite a trial from time to time. I imagine I am too.


Get a job they said- and so you applied. It changed very quickly from a novelty and came out with it's hidden fangs and claws. It paid for the booboos it gave you but it still...


Get married they said. Oh boy..it started out as only fun and then routine set in. Lots of things came to the rescue but nothing quite binds like marriage.It nurtures, savors, aggravates, empowers and what you have left with at the end of the day is a realization that you will never have the bed ALL to yourself again.


Have a child they said- and you did. And then you wondered from time to time...is that demonic creature screaming with contorted features really me? Is that person making goofy faces and cleaning up Gods-knows-what from God-knows-where still me? Is that imp in human clothes with red cheeks running towards me with actual joy?


Sit back and relax they said at the end- and so you did. With a cup of coffee, the blog post taking shape steadily and making you look around and think- Yes..this IS my life. Those ARE my people. And I do LOVE them, quirks and all. Not because they reciprocate but because they made me to become the multifaceted person I am with my chipped halo that I've been trying to hold onto since I turned 10 and the horns which never seem to be hidden too well.


All in all...not a bad situation to be in but only if you have some good music and munchies for the rest of the voyage.

Geographical Mongrel?!

That's what I thought to myself I was. My father and Red were talking to the carpenter in Hindi ( a language that changes it's shape depending on who's speaking it, but I guess that holds true for most lingos) and they asked him where he was from because his Hindi was chaste; in a manner of speaking.
The talk progressed to him being able to pinpoint and tell my father he definitely was *not* from Hyderabad. Actually that doesn't take brains to decipher. Anyone with a ear not blocked with wax and noise pollution will be able to discern the Northeastern lilt in my father's speech. He's saved from sounding like a hardcore Bong speaking Hindi only because of his extensive tenure outside his home state.

But getting back to me- born in Calcutta, and brought up nomadically in UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan and now settled in Andhra Pradesh. Couldn't have gone further from my roots had  I tried as a conscious effort.
 Going back to Calcutta for summer hols and Dusshera doesn't entire erode your obvious non-Bong strain in the speech.
So when people ask me where I'm from I pause for a bit and say am settled in Hyderabad but have lived all over India. Saying I'm from West Bengal originally brings forth too many questions about the state which am woefully ignorant of. And it inevitably elicits the question of my spoken Hindi which is as non-Mamta Banerjee like can be. So if an encapsulation of my precedents have to be delved into tis best I jump into it at the onset, non?

But people of my nomadic ilk also seem to seek each other out. Apart from the common experiences in life, it's quite a comfort to "come home" to an individual who is also mongrelish and has enough and more of anecdotes of their own.

And now with a hybrid child in the family one can only guess how much of his Bongness, Teluguness and overall Hyderabadiness will manifest as time goes by. He will be, the ultimate mongrel!