If only.

We are excellent candidates for the "TATA SKY" ad that has been doing rounds for a while now. Only thing i am not too sure is " if it is going to keep us together" at this rate.

For a family of three, we spend way too much time in front of the idiot box. That stupid thing, along with the DVD player, and now the X box, has completely taken over our family time. TB comes back, plops in front of the TV and starts watching something on either of the first two, or more recently, starts playing some game( add son who is catching on very fast). All this, while we get about 2 hours in a day, as family!

No niceties, no playing with kid, no asking each other about the day, to talking to each other. I might as well have been living in another house, i might as well have been non existent. I see V trying get our( i use the word "we" very loosely here) attention by doing something he should not. So that we at least notice.

I am not sure how this works with others.Of course, all of us work hard, come home to unwind and DEFINITELY need some form of relaxation. I do not disagree with that. I see us turning into one of those houses that we look down on...buying love with money and materials, and never through quality time with each other. I could watch that movie again at some stage in life- these days with V and each other will never come back again.

If only we learn to appreciate what we have in life when it is still there....

Not really the nuclear family types

There is something very comforting about walking into a house filled with loved one's. I just had to say that.

In our early days of marriage,the worst part of the day was coming back from work and opening the door to an empty , dark house. It always depressed me, till TB came home, or something equally interesting happened. I think partly the reason why we decided to have V is because it became too much( or too less) to handle after a point in time.

After V happened to us, one thing i always look forward to every working day, is the smile that breaks on V's face when he seems me on the other side of the door.I can remember that moment for the last three and half years-the toothless grins and gurgles, the wobbly unsteady legs holding my hand and walking me to the sofa from the door.

And now, as soon as i ring the bell---i hear all these noises in the very same order. It is like the tonic to all my ailments
-a very audible gasp
- a loud " amma has come!"- in that very excited "OMG- i can't believe it!" tone
-noise of numerous things falling all over the house
-little hands fumbling with the locks
-shouting at valiamma to help when the safety lock is on
- chuckles from behind the half open door, waiting for me to act surprised and find him.

It feels like home!and all the troubles of the day magically dissappear.

The last few days, i go home and see my parents and V sitting around the room, drawing , painting, cutting and doing whatever a 4 year old would want to do. I just feels so nice to have loved one's around.

I have figured out i am not the type who really enjoys being a nuclear family..i need people around, my family, loved one's, and - the more the merrier!

Yet

There is a dialogue in the movie Spiderman 3 where Aunt May asks Peter Parker why he has not proposed to Mary Jane yet.He says....

"You said a husband's gotta put his wife before himself. I'm not ready. "

I wonder how many men even think about this before they get married? If they did, we would maybe have 80% less marriages. They are just incapable of getting this right.

I am a coward

Like zillions of other people in Mumbai, who spent yesterday in the safe confines of their home, instead of doing what they should have been doing- only, i was not at home. I went to work, not because I chose to be brave and defy fear, because I did not know the situation till I got to office. I was in the train, when I started receiving calls from colleagues and family asking if everything was fine. That is when I knew what to expect for the day, and panic set in. Walked out of the train to a station teeming with cops and called myself lucky to get a cab.

At 11.00 AM, we had three men walk into our office, asking us to leave and down the shutters for the day (modern building that we are, we do not even have a roll down shutter!). We spent the remainder of the day in an office, with doors and windows shut from outside, lights dimmed out and the TV on, watching mayhem break around the city.
All of us made numerous calls to family and loved ones, checking they were safe, and planning our strategy to get back home. We saw cabs being stoned at , auto’s being stopped and vandalized and miscreants ruling the road. At two thirty PM, when the road outside was safer to travel, we left office, and reached home- all the while feeling- like an absolute coward.

What should I be doing? Take this fear lying down? This is the second time this year that Mumbai shut down due to fear…and frankly, if it repeats – I might just do the same thing again------------ Be meek, scared, avoid confrontation, run away from the truth and act like it is none of my problem till I am directly affected by it, even when rage boils inside.

This entire series of events over the last few months have eroded my faith and affection for Mumbai as the cosmopolitan city it was. The public have been made into puppets…it’s a game out there, and I do not know who is right or wrong, who I should support, or better still, Who will support public in times of need?. Public here does not refer to marathi’s or bihari’s or UP’ites, or bengali’s . It is just ALL OF US. The entire bunch of people who call Mumbai their home.

Who says it is the prerogative of a native community to exercise control over the local geography? If so, we should have not even welcomed modernization, leave alone globalization. For the last 50 odd years, we have accepted people of all geographies, caste, creed and community across cities in the country. Where did this “love for my state” arise from? Does that mean the rest of the cities in the country follow suit?
So we will have Delhi/ Bangalore/ Chennai/ Kolkata/ Hyderabad / Pune revolting against non locals working there? Insane! Should we also have the Non local business houses / institutions shut shop and move to their home states?? Now that would be a pretty picture!

We are going back to pre independence era. If anyone ever wants to take over our country, now is the right time.Come on all of you-we are too busy fighting with each other to even take notice.

I have ranted, vented out my feelings here and am running away from the problems with my tail tucked under, as cowardly as ever. I am one of those faceless mumbaikars who are angry , but too scared to stand up for what is right. I hate myself for that!

I take the first step...

It was parents meeting at V's school today. I have to mention here that there were more mothers than fathers present, even if both parents are working...says something?

- Mothers job not important??she can afford to take off from work and spend two hours in school! Fathers are running the world?

- Fathers do not want to be the one's representing the child? They chicken out on responsibility? Just to note, there were no "fathers only" who had come in.....

I have my own views on this..and it is a dicussion for another day, a very serious one.

Back to the meeting, it went quite well. I dread these meetings. With new age schools, i keep getting worried, never know what feedback they have about our kid. When we put him in last year, he had difficulty getting used to two new languages, english, and hindi. This year, he's been speaking in both, plus his mother tongue, so that's sorted out.

Then came his teacher last year who commented that he needs to improve his fine motor skills( read- holding pencils and writing/ drawing). Scared the shit out of me at first. If our walls are any testimony to go by....he has mastered the art this year.

All has been fine this year, and his teachers have been kind enough to tell us that he is a pleasure to have in class( initially i thought it was a general comment they make to all parents- till i overheard some of the grilling other parents were being subject to. I mentally thanked my stars, thanked V , and quickly exited).

She left me with one comment- V is not very proficient in identifying alphabets, while he answers most of the other questions first, when it comes to identifying alphabets, he takes a while,and someone would have answered before him. She told me that he feels a little let down if his friend identifies alphabets before him, and i need to work with him on that. She also mentioned that by the end of the year he would have definitely picked up most of them, but maybe i should start now, so he can feel better about it.

Frankly, i have not worked on his alphabet reading. While i read out to him, we spend time of general knowledge,paint/ draw etc, i have not really started 'teaching ' him. Maybe we should. I feel i have not invested time on this, and i am going to correct it.

So we are embarking on a "know your alphabet" mission , starting this weekend. Hoping to make it as creative and enjoyable for him...

And for me..this is going to be the first proper teaching activity. Wish me luck, and i hope to be at least half as capable as my mother.

Just some stuff about our life

Realized that i completely missed talking about of extended , eventful weekend. it was... very eventful.

TB and myself had taken the weekend off to show dad around the city. We went on a long drive to Lonavala on thursday. It was such a pleasure to get out of sveltering mumbai. We even had fog on the way back!Bought loads of chikki for the family and candies for son( and father, though he'll never admit that in public- remind me to tell his colleagues in the next party).
We came home by early evening and V started a temp. Got worse over night..i was dreading the convulsions and kept sponging him. Ran to the doc, who promptly told us to keep him home.
That was it!All our grand plans down the drain!

Adventurous couple we are, took the feverish, recovering child along for a small trip since we were feeling too guilty of having left dad all by himself last few days. V came home and crashed. The kid could take no more. The crash helped..he woke up the next day all bright and smiley, so we did most of our pre planned trips then. After a long, exhaustive day spent on the road/ rail and sea...V 's fever showed up again!!And he stayed home for the next two days..recuperating( theoretically..the term really does not apply to kids of his age).

I'll take a minute here and retrospect. Quite a lot of people will find it completely unacceptable that we carted around a not so well child for two days since we wanted to travel. Does that make us bad parents? I knew it was risky, but hey, we know where to draw the line...Moreover , i'd rather him have a not so protected life. Bad parents? Never! Risk takers? Sure, but planned one's. I''m just justifying our actions here. In case anybody is even remotely interested.

Back to other stuff..................
The next day morning, we dropped of dad at the airport for an early flight. We had to promise V bumper car rides to keep him from being a stowaway. He was even ready to sit inside his bag and go, if dad would as much agree with a nod. Well, bribery always works at this age, and we still have our kid at home:-)
Having a kid at home can be very useful when you need help ....

"s'il vous plaît répondre à mes commis de cuisine"( please meet my commis chef)




He's a fantastic commis, till he discovers that objectionable black thingie with buttons mom had hidden away!!!

Then he is of no help...he turns deaf and non existent in this house...."ye ther,c'mon fella..we've lots of work to do"



I swear i could almost hear him say" buzz off!"

Some other day...more about that "black thingie" slowly taking over my life.

I wish...

I am fairly egoistic! I have to admit that..i put my foot down on what i believe to be right, with anyone. I may not be right always, but who is anyway? TB is equally egoistic. The man runs his share of the world and it is quite normal to be so.
The problem usually is , when there is an argument- most of the time- the real reason for the argument dissappeares over a spate of accusations and then the egos clash. And when egos step in, it stops being a argument , and morphes into something very personal, and both sides refuse to give up.
I hate that! Arguments should remain arguments. Is it beyond common human nature to wish that we stick to the problem in perspective and not add dimensions to it? I hope not...
That is my wish for the day! For us to be able to seperate our arguments and egos. Life would be so much simple!

"Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild" Welsh Proverb

We have granddad at home. Granddad and kiddo are thrilled to be with each other and are over the moon. And our status is life has taken a considerable beating!

TB has been reduced to being the driver of our car and me the in- house cook. Valiamma has been told by V to pack up and leave for her house.

Snooty little worm, this son of mine. I will let him have the pleasure of ignoring us till dad is here and them show him who the boss is.

Unfortunately, just about when realization will dawn on him, the other set of grandparents will land.

Then we (TB, myself and valiamma) become non existent.
-I will not even have the in house cook status -mom will take over kitchen!
-TB does not have to be driver-my parent’s idea of a vacation is staying indoors with V, indulging him. We’ll have to manhandle to get them to step out.
-Valiamma can vanish into thin air for all V cares- she is currently going through this depressing phase of “I think V does not like me anymore, because he does not need me to fuss around all the time”…now again, who is the kid here?

V wakes up asking for granddad, eats sleeps, plays- with grand dad, and is right now contemplating going back to Kerala when he returns next week. He does not even talk to me when I call!

Sob..sob! ………..Please excuse the cook while she sulks at her current state of affairs.

Driving away the blues...

Swamped by work and attacked by unrelenting cough/ throat pain and that " i think i'm going to come down with a temp" feeling. Horrible!
I do not like the idea of having to stay curled up on the sofa over the weekend. Here's hoping it is only a feeling.
TB's dad is here on Sunday evening, so we have lots of news and goodies to look forward to. He called up in advance to ask what we all wanted and V , in all his elements gave his list

1. Dosa(*dumbfounded*!!WTH. As it is, in betwen TB and me, he looks like we eat his share of food also, and then he goes and does this!!)
2. One chocolate( Dad asked him which one? so he said " the brown one")- very clear. Not brand conscious Y.E.T
He is here for a week, and this is his first time in the city. We have taken the next weekend off to show him around and hopefully, catch up on some places we have never managed to see yet.

Before that i have three action packed working days, where i am to manage three weeks worth of work. Good luck to me!

I am going home and popping an paracetamol, and building up my reserves for next week.

I prefer it this way

Everyday, when I get home, I get greeted by general pandemonium. There are toys on the floor, on the table and every part of the house. You cannot walk without tripping over crayons and a million other knick knacks strewn around. On top of that, there is a 3 and half year old flying out of the door to jump onto me. The radio is playing, so is his keyboard, where he has managed to press a key so far down that the single note is playing non stop.

All I need by then is some rest. I am dying to sit down, take off my footwear, take a shower, and feel like a human being again. All hopes of that get quashed when V decides that now is the opportune moment for him to bring out the coloring book. I am forced to sit down with him, and comment on each picture.
There are days when I wish V would sleep before I reach home (that sounded quite mean, even to me) and I could get some well deserved r.e.s.t

Two days ago, V was asleep when I got home. Just my luck!. I did all that I wanted to, took medicines for my bad throat, which my doctor has affectionately labeled as follicular tonsillitis, and warned as contagious.
I settled down and waited for TB to arrive, and instead of feeling quite relaxed about having all the time to myself, I was MISERABLE! .In about half an hour, I went from miserable to desperate and was contemplating waking up V. I just could not handle the silence.
Thankfully TB arrived soon. We had dinner and settled into the sofa and watched TV for a while…After some time, TB said ‘the house is so quite , and lifeless’. Totally so!

I would prefer the pandemonium any day, as opposed to this silence. Being a parent has rendered me incapable of a sedentary lifestyle. …..and I am not complaining.