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!

Looking the other way...

brings us to the question- Why would you want to look the other way to begin with?
Is the sight in front of you unappealing, an eyesore, difficult to chew and digest or simply because seeing it would further reinforce that things aren't as much in your control as you would like to think?

I suspect the latter. Because usually I find (on intro and retrospection) that's how things are pour moi. And it's extremely annoying and not entirely liberating to be honest with yourself. All honesty does it make things unarguably clear about the prevailing circumstances, the likelihood of things being in the future or how they've actually gone down in the past. Honesty yanks off your glasses- rose tinted and otherwise and forces you to look at things and their underbelly.

And while a good, hard look at things is usually educative in itself- it isn't a lesson that you might have wanted to learn in the first place.
Ergo, selective vision or looking the other way.

You know there's something going down that you aren't entirely right with in your mind but to get involved and set it right the way you see it may involve stepping into a quagmire or opening up a can of gigantic worms! 

Now WHO is this day and age wants to deal with the creepy, crawlies of human behavior unless the pay offs are totally worth it? Not many of us. Because human behavior is often tidal in it's nature. The tsunamis take their time getting generated but the tides and ebbs keep occurring and unless you're quite sure of getting swept under or away, most of us are ok with getting wet every now and then.
Keeps life interesting even. Adds a headache or two in the process but hey- omelettes and eggs huh?

Here's to looking away, hoping that playing semi-ostrich leads to peace of mind and not pieces and that while your head is in the sand someone doesn't come and kick the living daylights out of you!


Salut!

I don't understand..

quite a few things but reading the paper gives rise to more things that fall under that particular ambit of non-comprehension.

For example- 

• Why is it so bad to let the Tibetans living in Nepal to celebrate the Dalai Lama's birthday? Is Nepal so utterly under the yoke of the Chinese that it feels that such an occasion merits a ban?
• How a life long coach thinks he can get away with saying that he didn't have an inkling of the "contaminated" food supplements he gave to his athletes? Dude, if they started winning more after the supplements alone, maybe it should've occured to you to check if they were merely vitamins alone? Which nutritional supplement is so kickass that it'll enhance so many athletes' prowess? Are you that green?
• The Telengana Issue- this merits more rambling so no more bullets for now. Just prose.

I've been a gypsy all my life. Indian and all that sure, but linguistically am not entirely of my native state. I have links to Calcutta or West Bengal overall because of the people there who have a connection to me either by friendship or family. But no such sense of belonging occurs to me merely because I was born and half the people there speak a language that I do.

I happen to speak two other Indian languages with far more proficiency than Bangla and can also think in them. That by itself should speak volumes right? Being able to contemplate in a language? 

But neither do I align myself with those geographical areas of India where those languages are spoken, simply because I don't feel like I belong there.

I've finally put down roots in Hyderabad courtesy a myriad of reasons, but had things worked out differently I'd be writing this blog sitting in either Bangalore or Bombay today. 

Whether it's salacious reporting about youngsters killing themselves for the sake of a "Telangana" state of not, I'd really want to know for once, what a damn state is supposed to mean to someone. Does one's identity begin and end with the geographical and linguistic boundaries. There are people in villages who probably haven't seen the inside of a major city in a while, indulging in self-immolation for the sake of the T-state. Either they value themselves very high or they place a massive premium on their action; thinking it'll spur the powers that be to conform to the demands.

And is it really the demands of the masses? Any picture in the paper, any morcha taken out seems to be a collection of ne'er do wells who have been hired or influenced to join in to swell the numbers of the agitators. If anyone were to ask them about why they're agitating and how life will be different for them if a state is carved out of A.P they'll go into goldfish mode and just open and shut their traps aimlessly.

I do believe that while people want the better things in life, they also want to live in peace. Parents don't want their kids not going to school day after day, daily wage earners don't want public transport disrupted so they can't go and earn their livelihood and even politicos don't want to go on fake fasts on and off because guess what? Someone just might have a camera focused on them for good and then they might just have to pull of a proper stoppage of food and water and not merely do a bowel-cleansing 24 hour "fasting" skit.

In states which are geographically spread over different kinds of topography, it may very well make sense of have regional headquarters or separate centers to take care of specific needs of the people, but if every time a demand for a state has to be conceded then the map's going to end up looking like scrambled eggs. And if the formation of a separate state led to ease in governing, promise of a better way of life or at least cessation of the demands of the locals then it might make sense. But when it all boils down to a power play then effectively no one wins, we all sit on the bleachers and watch the drama and impressionable young people go on sacrificing themselves for naught.

If it makes financial sense at the end of the day, the state'll be formed. As long as life can continue being in flux despite increasing agitations, it won't. So I guess there'll be more cookouts on busy junctions, more resignation drama and more students resorting to various means to hurt themselves, and the rabble rousers will just keep screaming themselves hoarse. There's just no place for sentiments in the whole equation at the end of day.

Jai (pick a word, they're all up for grabs aren't they?)!!

?

For the first time since I've been blogging I haven't been able to come up with a title. I was surprised because when blogs are born in the noggin they go through a fairly quick gestation period and the developmental activity is pretty rapid. Of course the process of the birthing is often protracted and not always normal.

Anyhow I've been thinking for a while on the offspring's cognitive processes. I know he processes things well. It's just that he has yet to master language so he can make us understand what he comprehends and how he does so. But watching him is a treat. His reasoning and deduction makes me think to myself what kind of a person might he turn out to be later on.

Because the jury is still out on the whole Nature Vs. Nurture debate I can't quite confidently state that he will definitely exhibit xyz traits. But I do know that both hold water; to an extent.
Case in point- The Mater is a pretty good artist, in terms of sizing something up and reproducing a likeness. She's fairly skilled at the arts and crafts and her brain works pretty damn fast in picking up new techniques in the same field. But I'm all thumbs. Maybe because the Pater is all thumbs? The most creative I've seen him get with a pen or a pencil is turning one of my spelling mistakes on a greeting card into a series of extremely odd-looking dwarfish flowers. But he did do it.

I guess I'm wondering most about creativity. When I used to counsel MBA students a few years back and put them through a psychometric/psychosocial test and later interpret the results for them, I'd find that most of them associated creativity merely with the performing arts. If you danced, painted, sang- you were creative. Else not.
And I remember asking them how they were at problem solving, thinking on their feet, generating solutions, how they ideated, how they perceived various kinds of situations and suddenly they understood how their high scores on creativity were justified.

I've scored a moderate rating on creativity. I think I know why. Creativity is something which needs expression. Merely being able to think creative won't cut it. If I'm able to conceptualize something, anything...it needs to get portrayed somewhere. And creativity and originality aren't inclusive 100% of the time. That's another mistake we make.
While Kaavya Viswanathan situation isn't one we all may find ourselves in, we do need inspiration from somewhere. Where would my blogs come from if I hadn't been able to develop an ability to write? Where would this ability and love for writing come unless I'd read stuff that spoke to me. And how would a style be born in the first place unless I read something good and wanted to be able to write something along those lines.


I don't make a case for plagiarism, but creativity can often be, taking an existing idea and then putting your own spin on it. Hell if that weren't possible, Facebook wouldn't be either and we wouldn't be Superpokin people or playing Zombies and Vampires with people geographically dispersed at any given point of time or day. 

But as ever I digress. Will the offspring be good at sports (his father is- I prefer to exercise my fingers by flipping a page), at music (I did manage to learn and forget how to play the sitar and the piano), be an egghead ( javagod father- says it all) or will he just branch out into a whole different direction and do something unexpected.

With schools offering ways of shaping up a child from a playschool level I really have to wonder how much of nurture is going to go head to head with nature and who will ultimately triumph.

I would dearly love it if he made it to Caltech or places of it's ilk. And would also love it if he travelled the world and took pictures and wrote travelogues that I could read.
I don't want him to emulate Gene Simmons though because why break a guitar when you can strum it? :)

Time will tell...and maybe in time he'll read my blogs and we'll see if his mother turned out to be a soothsayer or nayer and if she found an answer to the on going battle of Nature Vs. Nurture.

Happiness that only a cookie can bring...

Ma da laadla...

YES! am indeed keeping in tune with Bollywood and using song titles for my blogs. Only I doubt I'll go the E.K way and make it (K(Ma) with the K silent :p

And while on the topic of the aforementioned...let me state what territories have been explored recently (kindly understand to mean random acts of violence perpetuated against household objects that cannot fight back)-

1. The antennae of the land-line broken and kind of droopy and loose. I doubt the manufacturers intended the phone to be dragged along by the antennae in the first place. Just goes to show how important a role children play in the quality testing of objects.
2. The screen, sound, camera of my Nokia have been so affectionately attacked that the saliva in the phone has become a reservoir. The sound of the people over the phone seems to be as if originating underwater. A gross exaggeration I admit but you get the picture. The camera's been hazy and grainy after the last contact with the floor.
3. The frame of my glasses are chipped and loose. It really has become a one size fits all :( And I thought that applied to tube socks alone.

It's not that my kid is destructive mind you. Not at all! The cardinal sin that he suffers from is curiosity. What is kept so high up? Let's go explore. Why does the microwave light up and have a rotating object inside...let's touch it and see? What happens if I press that button...and the list goes on.

And there's his wish to hear how things sound ergo throwing them becomes the next logical act.

The way I see it, he'll discover something BIG one day...an explosion at the very least will not surprise his father and I one iota!

As for how to assuage his undying thirst for knowledge...well, as long as there are things for him to list, climb on and taste in this house the skirmishes between him and I are guaranteed. I guess his scurrying around is still preferable to him turning into a zombie tater tot in front of the telly. But commercials have never been more of a lifesaver for me. Especially those of fair maidens getting fairer.

Here's to all the manufacturers of fairness creams. You are the chief reason my son halts in his tracks atleast a few times in the day. May you keep preying on the mindsets of the fairness-obsessed people and keeping hiring geisha-faced girls to help out mothers like myself!

Here endeth the rant. For now :-)

Hai Rabba...

The problem with teaching your kid new words is that they may very well end up using them against you! And usually to their advantage.

Case in point- my child says 'bye' at the drop of a pin to everyone. I mean everyone. He also verry conveniently says bye to me everytime he wants me to stop talking or leave him in peace to wreck his mischief :)

Another example- The word moon. Simple, nice round word with long vowels. I first showed him the Supermoon and he became moonstruck from the word go. Actually moon :p anyhow now he sees the moon everywhere and makes me see it and acknowledge it too! Am sure it's his Telugu genes kicking in...the telugu grooms show their new brides 'din mein taarey' so our man took it a notch up- din mein satellite :D

The list runs long and is convoluted. But his speech aint! Tis simple and limited. And it's shaping my speech up the same way. 
So when you meet me next, if you find me a bit moony...don't call the loony bin on me...just remember this note and say 'bye'...I'll probably get the hint :)

Leaves...

Avian Traffic Controller

The Crooked Room

There Goes the Birdie...

For the birds...

Aunty Mat Kaho Naa :(

It's a given that if you have some much-loathed extra baggage (read fat or lard depending on how coarse you want to be) and are toting around a kid you MUST be an AUNTY!!

Well, this aunty attracted the attention of another kid who clearly doesn't have a diet chart anywhere on the horizon. This child wanted to tell me that MLM had taken her badminton racquet. The object was returned post-haste much to MLM's distress.

The chubby chicklet then felt bad for telling on MLM and started following us around to join in playing with us. She and MLM played on the slide, on the ground and she unbent enough to tell me that she knew that there were different types of birds (crows clearly did not qualify in the line-up) and she wanted to spell it out for me.

She then wanted to exchange girlish confidences and started talking about the magic rope she shared with her daddy :) I hope it was a metaphor for a good time else am quite puzzled by what that's supposed to actually stand for...

But a genial kid she was and am sure I'll have to attend more spelling bees when I see her in the park again :)

The Indulgences of The Maternal Uncle's House..

erm...yeah..I know..it's quite a mouthful of a blog title and out of the blue it seems to not really make much sense. There should be some context, shouldn't there?

Well, there is indeed! Taken in Bangla, the title makes mucho sense. A Mama (or the maternal uncle) is the person whose house the grandparents are usually supposed to be found in. Grandparents mean heap loads of love, abundance of everything good and basically a total and nearly complete immunity from rules, regulations and of course, parental glares and edicts *smiles*

This is the first time that MLM and I are staying with my folks purely for fun. Earlier there were family functions et al and not enough time was found for my son to reveal the full gamut of his monkeyness to his grandparents- or to me  come to think of it.

Apart from becoming more expressive he started by getting the lay of the land as it were. He did a thorough recce a few minutes after we arrived and then proceeded to go and grab and mark as his own, most things which spoke to him. That I was usually scurrying after him didn't deter him much. If he needed me off his case, he simply called to his henchmen (aka my parents) and I was told to clear the way for the king of the land.

And kid is kingg in this case! The kitchen, bathrooms, the balcony, the birds in the sky, the planes he spies flying overhead, the occasional street dog, the maid servant, the cars, the driver (let me know when I should stop with my recital...) all have his patronage and he favors them with his smiles, the thumps of his hands and his incessant babble. Not speaking complete or coherent sentences doesn't stop him much (read AT ALL!!).

And into this mix, add my extended family, my parents classmates of old and of course Red (whom he saw after 17 loooong days), his new red tricycle, the neverending bubbles, the mini cars and gasp gasp, pant-puff..and the offspring is truly in his element and blossoming more every day.

For the record, this child hasn't faced this kind of humidity before and neither is he being kept in an airconditioned bubble. But he's happy and his happiness cools him a lot more effectively than the ac can. Although he doesn't hesitate to drag me by my hand/clothes towards the bedroom and say imperatively, "Mamma AAYCHEE!!". Nor does he mind declaring happily, "THANNA (thanda)", when he enters an airconditioned room and is soothed :)

And where does the maternal uncle come in finally in the whole tale? Well, since the maternal uncle is symbolic of summer fun and bonding with far-off relatives I guess the symbolism has been understood good and proper!
I used to look forward to summers in Calcutta (yes I did, and no I wasn't suffering from humidity or sun-strokes) because people made a fuss over me. My grandmother (the galactic ameba bless her nearsighted, chubby soul) would be in a festive mood and literally scold me if I didn't eat everything that she'd made for me expressly; there would be the childrens' classic books awaiting me as gifts from my grandfather and the time would go by very well without a phone, a t.v. and definitely without AC.

As I got older, the kind of time I spent with them changed too. Although my grandfather's stories of what all my mom and her sibs did as kids didn't change at all. And he enjoyed telling them each time SO much, you couldn't sit with a passive face even though you could preempt him word for word, pause for pause. One had to smile and be pleased with the antics his kids were upto.

My grandmother didn't go out of the house much after her eyesight deteriorated but she was still very fond of everything new. But what she really liked was knowing I was in touch with my Bong roots. So after lunch, she, my mom and I would end up on her huge four-poster bed and sit with the Geetobitan (the complete one- songs, lyrics of Tagore) and yes, yours truly would sing. My grandmother would join in and after a while that would lull her to sleep. Yup, kind of like singing to a baby :)

Cut to circa 2011, my son sings his gymboree songs (his own rendition of course, the child is TOO talented by half!!), wants Chilaaa (Sheila ki Jawani) and does a tandav  when the mood takes him. And this fatigues my mother to no end. And yet, the very next moment when he's up, she encourages him again by reminding him of all the fun he had. And that, in essence is the 'mama'r baadir aabdaar'.

Am sure there'll be more aabdaar (indulgences) as the years go by. And Calcutta will get known to MLM as the land of the grandparents, the place of fun, glass figurines at every bend and most importantly- as the land where Mamma has no sway at all :)

That's all folks!

There's something about one's hometown...

am guessing that of course. I merely have a birth place but no properly defined hometown as such. My life was nomadic right from the start and Calcutta had remained a place where I visited my grandparents or went for the yearly family Durga Puja.

Now with the grandparents gone, the puja coming at a time when it's tough for Red to take leave, the only draw towards this city are my parents. But part of me still thinks of them back in Hyderabad :(

So I needed make a fresh connect with the city I was born in, visited practically every year that I've been alive but strangely (and sadly) know so little of. And what better way than take the summer vacation route? Of course that's stretching things quite a bit. With a kid not attending any school..it's vacation 365 days a year (for him..never for me alas) and whatnot!
But I digress.

MLM and I arrived in Calcutta on Saturday afternoon sans Red. After the usual kacharbachar on flight and while collecting the luggage, we made it to my parents' place. Let me add here that my turning up was a total and complete surprise to my mother who literally jumped for joy seeing us.

And we've been here since...with MLM feeding the birds each morning with my father, and getting acclimatized and introduced to his Bong roots via mishti doi in the khullad and fish curry as of this afternoon.

And he's been eating it all up. The food, the attention, the works!

Now it just remains to take him out and show him the city. And in the process get to know it myself.

These are my things to do-

• take him to the zoo and the aquarium right opposite.
• get him to taste a good singari aka samosa to the uninitiated.
• a meal at Tangra.
• pastries at Flurys
• take him to meet with a few great-grandmommies viz my nani's sisters.

But am sure, since the best laid plans do often go awry, so might mine at some juncture...but I'll get a Calcutta darshan out of it for sure!

Bongily Yours....