Of 'behaving nice'

What do you call parents who go around exhibiting their kids, at every given opportunity?
What gives people the right to quiz anyone else's kid, without being asked to?

I can't handle either....and 'queen of sarcasm' in me shows up most of the time. Like yesterday, at the pediatric clinic.

There was a couple who came in with a almost two year old, the dad insisting that the kid wish all the people in the room" bhaiya to hello bolo", " aunty ko namaste karo", " switched on some song on the mobile and said "singh is king karo"..etc; and the poor kid wondering what to do. From the looks of it, no one else in that room could figure out the drama too...

Then the dad proceeded to quiz V on his picture identification prowess and another 6 year olf boy of general knowledge"wheredo you stay?where do you study? what all do you study? and such insignificant crap

Mind you, all these to kids who were there because they were- Unwell- and wanted to just curl up to their moms.

I kept up my zen state for a while , counted till 10-25- 50 and turned to the dad and helpfully pointed out that

"maybe he should be more bothered about his offspring's fingers being squished between the doors while he was trying to benchmark other kids educational progress"
" that while his child maybe a born genius, we were not exactly in the mood for a recital"
" that this was a hospital and could he please leave the sick children alone?"

V butted in to make sure all was ok and asked"What happened amma?" I told him " nothing".

The 6 year old helpfully added " You mama is telling uncle how to behave nicely in public". I grinned....that said it all.

The ups and downs of friendship

Scene 1/ 10.30 PM on a weekday

V :"Amma, you're my best friend"
Me: *swoons* "TB, you heard that? So cute of him...yes kanna! you are my best friend too..."
V:" Acha is my best friend too!"
TB*does a very proud papa, tribal dance*"Yo"
V: "Can we play car now?"


Scene 2/ 8.00 PM, just before dinner

V: " Amma you're my friend , na?"
Me: " Of course yes Kanna, why ?"
V: " I want that" *Pointing to jar of strawberry jelly drops kept high away from him*
Me: "no"
V: " You're not my friend...Katti"

Scene 3/ 7.30 AM on saturday, like two seconds after waking up

V: " Amma, you're my best friend ever"
Me: " Ok kanna, you are my friend too"
V:*eager expression*" We'll go and play in park now, na?"
Me:Huh!

Scene 4/Anytime of the day

Me:" who made this mess here?, how many times have i told you blah blah....." *rolls eyes*
V: " You are my best friend, i want to hug you" holds onto leg amidst protests*.
" I will give you a kiss also"

Scene 5/ After a week of being best friends

V:" Amma, you are my best friend!"
Me:" Ok kanna, tell me what you want , NOW"


People...i see a future PR guy here.

Today

Plucked a 4 year old from bed and shoved him under the shower in the wintery morning, despite the bawl.

4 year old was fresher and better behaved than usual.

Verdict: Should do again.

Nursery admission saga

First the news….

V has got admission into Junior KG!!! By Mumbai standards, it is bigger than making it into a professional college, or so I was told.

For what it is worth, Mumbai just does not have enough schools, and not just reputed schools, just any school. I could say that again and again. I meet people who refuse to move to Mumbai, because getting admissions is Mumbai is a pain in the a**. I had colleagues who were still fighting for an admission in February last year and had resigned myself to the same fate, mentally. It has been a year of angst.

Thankfully we stay in that part of Mumbai which has more schools that the rest of the city. I have been calling up schools, picking up forms, filling them out like we are applying for a PG abroad, and wondering why am I doing so much for the admission of a 4 year old????????

TB and I have studied state board till tenth, and personally I think both of us have done decently in life. It was a little difficult to absorb the obsession about school/ brand / status etc. I still don’t get it. Schools here prefer children with non working mothers, so that they have a family support system. So what is my education worth? Peanuts? I could be a post PhD and a doctor, but………….
“Sorry maam, the school policy prefers to have one stay in parent”. That was the exact line said to my senior colleague, who is a Harvard Business school alumnus, by a “reputed” south Mumbai school. The next time around, she was wiser, she got through, by “lying through my teeth, because that is what they wanted to hear”.

I did not want to lie; I did not want to play down my status and achievements in life. Neither did I want to compromise on his education. The biggest gift that our parents have given us was our education, and we want V to have the best, always. This school was one among the two that I secretly hoped V should get into. It was closest to our house, and the bus comes into our complex, and the review is quite good. And above all, it has a mix of kids from all walks of life. I firmly believe that what we learn in early years form our personality and social foundation, and i definitely do not want him to feel like a very " priviledged" child. He should be able to distunguish between his 'needs' and 'wants'....and i wanted a school where he will learn to appreciate what he has in life and not take it for granted.

Before we walked in, TB said” I am nervous”, and I replied “So am I, but let’s just go and be ourselves. And leave the rest to almighty”. Thankfully, this interview was much better that I expected. Of course they asked everything about me and TB except our horoscopes (which even we have no clue about), and both of us were equivocal.

TB was asked what he had heard about the school and why we chose to apply there. I could almost hear him say “because my wife says this is a decent school and because you called us for the interview”. But the man rose to the occasion and fed them some bull shit about how he has heard from some of our neighbors’, who send their children here about all the good feedback some crap like that. I can vouch for the fact that he does not even know one of those “so called neighbors” he has quoted. But anyhow, they seemed to have bought the story.

The star of the day, however, was the boy himself, who has been showing all the signs of a stand off minutes before we entered the interview room.

He sat where he was asked to, answered all the questions, shied away from singing a rhyme and looked down (!). The clincher was when the principal (I am assuming so) asking him

P: " Why do you want to come to this school?" (Tell me, how does a 4 year old boy respond to that question. I can’t imagine!!!!I was quite sure he would say something in lines of I don’t want to come here)
But surprise, he says” This is a big school”. So what does “princi the porcupine” do? Stop there? No. she goes on….

P: Which school do you study now?
V: “xyz” (current school name)

P: Is that not a big school? Why you want to come here? (I could have strangled her; she was asking all this to a 4 year old!!!)
V: “No, that is a small school, this is a biiiiiig school”*complete with actions*

Then P the Porcupine called him around and gave him a chocolate. He took that, and asked for more, for” papa and mama”. They laughed as they told us that he was admitted! Considering they told most of parents to come back and check the list for admission later on, I re checked again, to make sure I had heard properly. We had made it…..yippee

Phew! That was close. I had thought we had lost out on the rhyme part. It could not have been so simple? We walked out grinning like fools, and very very relieved. We still have to fork out a huge amount as fees, but for now, we have a seat to send him to next June, and better still, at a place we wanted.

Right now, I am feeling like V has made it to Harvard, or Leeds or Princeton…trust me, the paperwork is as much, and so is the relief.

Presenting--- Mr Ladybug

We did our first craft project last week, and how!


V had a school fancy dress wher he had to go as an insect of a flower. We had got the information about this long ago, but in my usual procrastinationg mode, i just let it be.

Having done this last year, i decided to chicken out and take the same route- hire a costume. In mumbai, you can get anything, for a price. So there i was, ready to face this event, all mentally prepared.


What i did not anticipate though, was a healthy overdone of parental guilt!. The weekend before last, i started getting guilt pangs about my non participativeness. I had a horrible feeling that i was turning into one of those moms who have all the money and material pleasures , but no time for their children. Aaaarrrgh!!
So i went to office, and took advice from my colleagues at office of what i could do. And man, i did get tons of advice. Experienced, practical advise.


Armed with all that, i asked V what he wanted to be "flower" or "insect"? Of Course..he wanted to be an insect. Good- what if i had turned him into a flower and he disowns me 15 years later because of what i did?
Then we took his insect book and looked at all the pictures...and decided on Ladybug. So ladybug it is..Errr..is there a Mr. ladybug? Never mind.


I spent two evenings after work collecting the things i needed for the costume. I decided to make him wear black from top to bottom and make a wing( bump??) on his back ,coloured red with black dots on it. The plan sounded perfect to me.


The show was on Saturday and friday evening, back from work, i started on the costume. For the wing, i made the frame with thin wire and made the antennae with a metal hair band and red balls , that was available everywhere for christmas decorations.Just when i hit a mental block on how to cover the frame with paper, TB walked in. Wonderful!


He covered the entire frame with paper and covered the top with red felt paper. By the time we were done , it was much past midnight. We crashed after leaving it out to dry. The highlight of the night being V slicing off a part of my finger along with the cellotape, and wailing because he hurt me:-)


In the morning, i added the spots on it with black felt circles, attached strings to tie the wings around his shoulder and did the finishing touches. And we were ready to roll.
The fancy dress was nothing spectacular..
-Parents sauntering in at their wish, holding up the event.
- Most kids refusing to pose and clinging onto their parents.
- The principal asking the parents to stop talking to each other so all of us could hear what the kids had to say..
- As usual, chaos.




V went in second, enjoyed every moment of the attention and said his lines. He went around telling his teacher that his mama and papa made the costume * heart swells with pride*.
So we have figured out that we are not so bad at this fancy dress thingie after all. I have been asked to safekeep the costume by all my colleagues, so they can use it sometime.
Recognition!makes you feel good and want to do stuff all over again. Maybe not! my finger is still sore and painful. I'll give it a while.


Attaching some pictures of V in his costumes. The honey bee was the last years costume, the hired one-*smiles sheepishly*. The other one , behold - is the in house creation.

Now again....He does look a little impoverished, doesn't he?...Impoverished ladybug!!

Remembering a little boy with oodles of attitude

I came across an old acquaintance very recently. Someone i was not in regular contact( which is very unusual for me)for about a decade now.

I could not have come at a worse time than now. They were a very typical nuclear family, father, mother and son. The son, who was the world to his parents , lost his life in june in an unfortunate accident. Read about it here. I remember the boy from ten years ago, he used to walk into dad's office with his mom and looks exactly like the dad. And an attitude to die for .

While there are several theories going around about what really happened, there is no denying the pain and loss the parents are going through. I have seen the pain at close quarters, nineteen years ago, on a sunday morning. The date was July 9th , 1989 and it still hurts for all of us. The pain never goes away, especially with the parents. It just starts waning, along with their life.

Being a mother now, i have this urge to just hold onto V and not give him up to the world. Keep him from everything that is not right. Alchohol, drugs, lies, hatred, road rage, jealousy , everything. I know it is impossible and impractical. I also now that as he grows older, he will have a world of his own, his ideas, his views about life, and they may not agree with mine or TB's most of the time. It will be upto him to find his balance, all i can do is point him in the right direction and trust he has the faith and conviction to choose what is right.

While the legal battle is being fought out to find out what really happened, if the boys were under the influence of alchohol, who was responsible, who is to be punished etc, i wish with his parents that he comes back, and make their lives complete. R I P Curran. May God be with you and peace be with your parents.

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!

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.

"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.

Sleepy ..and croaking!

We have caught the virus...V and myself. I am quite convinced that this one came in from V's school and firmly planted itself in his nose and throat.

In between the numerous slurpy kisses and half chewed stuff he lovingly offers me everyday, some of the virus found way into my throat too( if this description sounds too yucky! to you, run far away from this blog).

So now i am croaking, and dreading the thought of eating. My tonsils are giving food a hard time to go by and testing my endurance levels.

V is in the next stages... he has coughing fits and it scares the hell out of me. And they always, note always, start after you have finally put him to sleep and have just crashed. So last night, i was up at 1.26 AM, trying to figure out what to do to stop his cough( i couldn't even stand straight, forget thinking straight). So i gave him warm water and cough syrup, no luck!

If you have parents like mine, they will tell you little gems of information like "the best way to cure a dry cough is dry heat"- Which means heat pads on the chest. For the lesser souls like us, ironed towels on the chest. That is precisely what i was doing up at 1.26 AM. Ironing towels( trying not to iron my fingers in the process) and applying them to V's chest. This went on till about 2.18 AM, when V decided to call in a night( day?) and fall asleep. So did his mom, who still had to unplug the iron and put it back before crashing. And then struggle to get back to proper sleep.
So here i am today, sleepy, groggy( after 6 lozenges!), croaky( despite the lozenges) and quite ill tempered.
For those who are curious to know where the other parent was , all through this???.....He was RIGHT THERE!!!. On his side of the bed, which is about 10 inches away from all this action. He woke up to find out what the commotion was all about, appreciated my efforts on childcare with a 'huh?' and promptly went back to snoring. I am now wondering what made me keep quite?I am pretty sure i wasn't capable of thinking.

Next time, he gets to iron. He irons his shirts better than i do...guess it is only natural that he gets to do what he is better at. Even if it is at 1.26 AM.

Today is.....

International Girl Child Day, not another of those innumerous days invented and promoted by greeting card companies. A day to promote very special cause.

I would like to believe that we do not need a day to promote a cause like this, but I am wrong , I know it. In a country where you can still read posters that go” Spend Rs. 600 now and save Rs. 50000 later”- referring to foetal sex determination test and avoidance of dowry in case of a girl child, I call myself fortunate.

Have I been a victim of gender discrimination? I have, though not a deliberate and forced one, it still did exist. My mother is the only girl in a brood of 5 that my grand mom had. When all her grandchildren turned out to be girls, she rooted for the grandson who was born the youngest. And in the process, she made us realize that gender discrimination was a reality in our lives. It would not have made a difference if he was treated especially because he was the youngest; it was always because he was a “boy”.
I still hold the discrimination against her. I guess that my strong feeling for being treated as a ‘girl’ had a lot to do with changing a slightly bewildered 12 year old to someone who stood up for my mother against the elders in out family. I was not a rebel; i was just asserting my identity. And till date, I know I was right in doing that. Mom does too.

I grew up in a generation of girls. 7 on my mother’s side and 8 on my father’s side. Each one of them completely different, capable, independent, successful, and over everything, special in their own way. Between all of us, we have a chemist/ a researcher, two bankers/ two engineers/ one consultant/ an entrepreneur/ a teacher/ and two wonderful women to prioritize family ahead of profession. I am proud, to say the least. Each of them have gone through their share of darkness in life and come out fighting,

Here are the women in my life I adore, love and cherish…

My mother is one of the most resilient women I have ever come across in my life. She was brilliant at maths, and regretted all her life for not having completed her education , and not being able to work. Life happened to her too fast. I was born when she was 21. She reminded me at every opportunity in life that I need to be independent, that I need to stand on my feet before anything else in life. I thrived on that. It was my single motivation at times. Who I am today, is because of her.

My sister is completely different from me, but is regarded by her family and friends as the one they can fall back on, anytime in life. She is gentle, compassionate, and very, very loving. And very good at what she does. She is just not as vocal. She approaches everything in life with meticulous planning. Having her in my life taught me to share, love , be compassionate, and above all, gave me a best friend for life.

TB’s mom and her sisters. They are most strong willed people I have met in my life. The four sisters are fighters, In true sense. They fought against life and each of them today, are retired professionals who came up from the most difficult circumstances in life. Their dad died a very proud man, that much I know. He could not have asked for better children. And I could not thank them enough for TB.

It would be unfair to stop this post if I do not talk about…..

My father, who stood up for me when I needed most- when the family wanted me to be married at 18, he chose to let me go away and study what I wanted to. We always had arguments when I was younger, I now realize (which my mom said long ago!) that it was because I was like him, in all senses. Where I am today in life, is because of him.

TB, the one person who gave me complete freedom in life to be myself, chose what I want to do, and never asked me why? Even when things went horribly wrong. He just stands by and tells me to get up and start again. He did not have an ego problem having a wife who was earning more than him at some point in life. Who has never imposed on me any of his personal interests. Growing up in a joint family with his mom and sisters is a lot of influence on a boy’s life. He respects women in a way that that is very rare.And loves me for the person I am, appearances never mattered to him.
My persona, my strength and individuality today, is because of him.

I know I have drifted considerably from where I started, but….It just seemed the day I needed to thank everyone for making my life so wonderful. I can’t help but feel as a fortunate girl child. There needs to be more of us. And none of those posters.

One more?

I have written here , several times over that TB and me would love to have another kid..a girl, maybe?

But the question is when?I can never seem to put together a good time for that. As always, there are these million questions that come to mind....
1. How do i share my time with V???
2. Where is my support structure to maintain another kid..and this does not in anyway mean money.
3. What do i do once i have two kids? Quit working?( unthinkable!)
4. How will we manage home/ kids/ work and commute!!
Invariably, it all comes back to time....which we have in hand in very scanty amount.

I completely feel V should have a sibling- to learn to share, to love, to be responsible for, to be loved, to be adored, to be looked upon and just to be there for him, when all else has passed. I just don't know when. Every evening, when the door opens and V flies into my arms, i completely fail my resolve to have another kid someday , and share my time with him.

We have so much love to give him, and so little time to tell him that. For now, being a perfect family can wait..i need V and his hugs, unrestrained.

Whats in a name??

Whats in a name?...maybe everything, or nothing at all.
I read a post which commented about the names of Brad pitt and Angeline Jolie's latest twins, it said" while the son has a name that is as weird as that of a lot of celebrity kids , the daughter for a change , has a normal name"...hmmmm.... this topic intrigued me.

Lets start from the beginning. I was told that my name came out of a disagreement between my father and my grandmom, who could not agree on each other's choice, so they just combined both and named me. I should thank my stars that the word means something and does not sound as disjoint at a lot of names of my generation. It is traditional as it can get, and quite modern too.
For many years when i was a kid, i never liked my name( the fact that a very popular C grade actress had the same name caused much heartburn and ridicule). It took a very old Bishop lots of patience to talk me out of it. Maybe it has something to do with his talk, but names intrigue me. Sometimes, when i only have the name of a person, i try and put a personality to it. Why was he/ she named that ? what did the parents think? Sometimes it tells you a lot about what to expect..and something it turns out to be a complete blooper.

I think my generation suffers from having some of the worst possible names i have come across...the one's before that was very traditional, so they has names with meanings, and the current gereration seems to have returned to sanity after the brief experiment with our generation. I has classmates with the following names " Rasna"/ " Lorry"/ " Dreamsweetie"/ etc..and countless others with names that combined the elements of both parents names( this was the fad/ the IN thing), and sounded weird!The trauma of living with those names must be awful!
One of my little cousins almost became a victim of this...her parents realized before the naming ceremony that when they combined their names, the word that was formed exactly translated into....errrrrr" moustache"!!!!!!!!!!!and quickly found an alternative.

How do you classify a name as good and another as bad?At the end of the day, a name is very personal,as i have my own likes a dislikes when it comes to it. One of the reason's i said "yes" to TB , may also be because he has a very traditional sounding name..i just liked the ring of it. I love names that have a meaning, that are musical,and signify something. It just helps me associate that person with something tangible, maybe.

When we were expecting V, we dicussed names , as any parents to be would, ....i was quite sure it had to be a single word . We had a penchant for traditional Indian names, so V was called " Vishnu". I could not think of a more " all encompassing name",and thank fully, the family loved it.Between three cousins, we have four boys, and all their names mean the same. Says something about the family!

I wonder at times if having another name would have affected the course of events in my life? Probably not......Would it have affected the kind of person i am? Maybe yes...and i like mine exactly as it is today- name and life. I'll have to ask TB if he would have proposed , had i been known with a different name.... And then i will know if a name has any effect on course of life too....

Not quite the weekend....

It's not a nice feeling t0 end the weekend at the the casualty with a howling child at 2AM . Which is precisely what happened. After a decent saturday and better sunday where we thought V was getting better, we were back to square one last night. The virus just refuses to go away!

At 3 AM , TB and me are driving back from the hospital and wondering to ourselves the drastic change that one 1.2 metre person is making to our life. TB would have otherwise killed anyone who woke him up during his sleep.....all it took yesterday was one feeble" mummee" to get us jump out of bed, ready for any adversity.

V is bored with himself, with TV , with having to lie down and generally with everything around. All he wants is to is go out and play, and eat jelly and mixture. Can't let him do any of those, at least for now.
And i hate to see him look so low, hate to see him lose that 1 kg accumulated over last six months, and can't live through his tears.

Mixed bag of life...

Its been a seriously crazy week...some heartbreak, some exhilaration and absolutely sleepless nights.
We are proud owners of a "house" now. The entire clan is thrilled( me and TB are just a little wary of how this affects our finances- bottom line in corporate parlance). For sure, it is the best thing we have done in some time. I have suddenly developed this fancy for all those home magazines, the interiors in them loook fantastic! and completely unaffordable:-)

V caught hold of some stray virus and came down with the worst fever and loosies i have even seen on him. And right before the day we had to go to for the registration. At 2 AM was still making up my mind whether to take the 6 AM flight or call it off. But we had to..and we did go.
I always find that when i tell "V" the truth, he understands and accomodates..he's a gem of a kid. Has more sense than me most of the times.
So i told him we had to go and why we had to..and all he said was" You go, and come back fast". I cringed- which mother leaves her kid when he is sick and goes off? and on top of that i am trying to reason it out with him? I had the most guilt ridden day of my life!
I gave him the keys to the house in the morning and told him it was his house keys. He refused to let go of them and said he wanted to come to buy the house. So did i ....I am definitely taking him to show him his house very soon..for now, he keeps flipping through the pictures of the house and is thrilled to see the room that will be his.

Hopefully my weekend should be better..looking forward to some sleep, some self pampering( read- time at the parlour), time with V and TB and of course, the British GP.

Its monday again...and i am back after a very brief gap. Lots of not very important things happened in these few days. The only one's worth mentioning are...

1. We are finally buying that house( one part of me will refuse to believe it till i actually see the papers..this is the more optimistic part of me writing). Hopefully in another ten days will will be able to register the same and be proud owners of a home. In a conventional sense i am still trying to figure out what have i bought
(1)...a home?considering i am not going to be staying there at least for a while, it is not home yet. (2)....a house? Yep, maybe but will be lived in by some stranger(s) who will pay us for using the place. So whose house is it anyway?
(3)....my own piece of the world??aah, here it gets a little tricky. What world? I only have 1600 sft of space in air. See, i actually don't own the land it stands on. So do not even have a piece of the world to call my own.
So what do i own ? my guess is as good as anyone else's. Let me know if there is a more sane explanation.
When i have a piece of land to myself, then i will be more confident and say that i own a piece of this world..till then, i have my castle in the air( literally!)

2. V got a new cycle:-)- this was an all weekend event. Ever since he managed to break his second cycle in 2 years( as in break into two halves- handle bar seperate/ seat and back tyres seperate), he has been diverting that energy into running behind cycles at the park- not very safe at all.
So after a brief poll at home ( 3-0) we decided to get him a new cycle( bi- cycle as V calls it) now, and not wait till rains get over. So he was told that we will buy the cycle on sunday when TB is off. The buildup started from friday evening and by the time it was sunday, he had a very clear idea of what he wanted- bigger red bicycle with trriiiing bell to ride with buntu( his playmate). So that is what he got..Bigger red cycle with bell and a rear view mirror. Some pics of it should follow later. He refused to park the cycle outside in the common area. So we lived through a sunday with a cycle being rode in and out of bedrooms/kitchen/ bathrooms annd incessant ringing of the triiiing bell!!! But he is thrilled, and the kiss we got said it all. I can live with a cycle on my bed for its worth:-)

3. Rhymes session for parents at V's school: Must admit i was feeling very stupid when it started, but by the end of it I was dancing and doing all those kiddie actions. I had a ball....though i got some very quizzical looks from the more conservative parents and a very admiring dancing partner in V. This one was deadly!..i came away feeling very much like a kid, and loved it.