The emotional backup

Do you feel used at times? Like an emotional backup?

Sometimes i do... and i don't exactly like that feeling.

When the going is good,i do not exist.I could be anything, anywhere, another insignifiant thread that makes up life. But when faced with adversity, i become relevant? i become an anchor to shore issues? To listen/ to advice..

...much like that invertor at home.

No power, switch on the invertor. Else, it is just another device that gathers dust in some confine, till power goes off.

Unfortunately, i am not an invertor. I am a human being who can think and react. Makes things a lot more complicated. And makes me wonder how people treat relationships with so much objectivity- like it is another device that helps you get through life- with an on/ off switch!

Dinah Shore said " Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough". Personally, i think the measure of a relationship is not how much they share during adversity, i think it is how much you share when nothing of significance is happening in each others lives.

THAT, is the true measure of a relationship. And i think some of mine score on a negative scale on this!!

An update

To all of you who expressed concern about how the child will stay away so many days from ze parents, we have a solution....

...errr.. a situation, more like.

Ze child returns this weekend, because the parents are chicken. They almost cried over the phone, prompting the grandparents to quickly ask for return tickets.

So the child will be back, and we shall stop sulking and brooding.

The pseudo bravery mask just flew out of the window.

For all of you who thought we were setting a trend/ example- now you know better. You know who NOT to trust.

It is that time of the year...

When we send the child off for holidays and sulk and sulk and whine and act like teenagers who have lost their marbles.

Yes! the kid is on annual holiday with both sets of grandparents, and an additional week with his aunt thrown in this year.

We do not seem to learn from out last years experience, surprisingly. We promise ourselves and each other that -"This is it- it is absolutely the last time we are sending him away", and promptly book his tickets and send him off.

I then make grand plans about what all we can get done, in the interval that the child is not there and i have lots of time to spare.

Lists made, plans worked out..

The only thing i have managed to do from that list is to move the microwave from point A- point B in kitchen. Apart from that, i have finished 4 books, vegetated on the couch for hours, and watched some utterly boring shows, including one where they showed how cutlery is made!

But then, i should not complain right? He is enjoying holidays with real people, spending time outdoors, than stay back here are spend it with the cartoon characters on TV.

And ze husband? Sulking more than me, missing the kid terribly and downright depressed. .

Sulking is my job- he is supposed to make me get out of that mode.

Obviously he missed reading the manual before marriage.

All in a weekend..

Saturday .....

Couple 1: Young, married for maybe 4 years, one baby. Arranged marriage...Can't stand each other. Can't live with each other..pursuing their own lives. Child too small to understand implications.

Couple 2: Beautiful couple...about to begin life as a family, dealing with a fatal blow life offered them...she- trying to pick up pieces of that dream she saw fall apart a few months ago!

Couple 3: "Fell in love at 15, married at 19" couple. Married for about 15 years, now handling a bitter seperation and dirt throwing that is getting muckier than mumbai sewers...teenage daughter caught in between....and who has not smiled in months now.

You want to have a life..and throw it away for something smaller, something as insignificant as ego....

You have a life built over years, and tear it apart by trodding over your loved one's and harassing them...

You want to have a life, and work for it, and life plays spoilsport and brings you back to square one, but this time, with added responsibility and fewer resources...

Somedays the whole world seems to be conspiring against people who just want to have normal lives...

Times when one almost feels guilty for having a fairly normal life....

Sunday....

Couple 4: The girl who walked out of an abusive relationship.. her baby who cried for years together in memory.

The guy- best friend, who pulled the girl to the shores and turned her back into the swan she really is...and became papa to the baby. Who persevered months together to convince the girl and her parents to give him a chance.

Her ringing laughter makes me realize that life does not always happen to be a failed test...sometimes, it is that dream that one gets to live...

Work's worth

That time of the year has come and gone. The time of appraisals/ reviews and all the drama associated with it.

A few years ago, i lived that life. Work was defined by the numbers on the scoreboard. Did i make it, or not? and life was a stress test, that built up from december on..and ended in explosions in early april.

Can't complain, they have not been bad. But the very thought of having to to go through this process was very undesirable! I made it through well, every year, made money, earned increments, but none of them left a smile on my face.

The last 3 years have been different. I work , stretch deadlines, slog to finish work, leave late at times, but never because i was asked to. There is never a score board to fill, nor a target to cross for the incentive. Nothing to stir up the non competitive soul in me. But surprisingly, it works!!

I do it for myself. For my practice and the client who pays money that runs this small firm that i am a part of. I have had no formal appraisal/ review in 3 years. Everyone knows what each of us do. Excel sheets need not be filed to proclaim what is already known.

In an exceptionally bad year that we left behind us, we all took a salary cut without a wink. And did not brood over it for even a minute. There were extreme lows for a small firm like us , but we sailed through. There were times when morale was low, some of out senior talent left us, and we were ready to kill people.

But then, all this is forgotten, when the person that matters , she of very few words, sits next to you on a beach, and says " You did great, and not just today. All through last year. Thank you for having faith".

For me, that was my appraisal, and it meant so much more than the data that any excel sheet could ever get out.

Sometimes, one line judges our "work's worth". This one appraisal, made me smile.

Yearly summer musings

Summer is here. In a very, "you cannot ignore me" way. I hate bombay summers. The humidity , the sweat, and the sun that tries to pierce a hole through my skin and get under it. No fun!

I think with age, one's intolerance increases. I do not recollect ever disliking any seasons as a child, summer in particular.

Apart from the fact that it was vacations, there were a lot more associated to summer...

-Waking up in the morning enjoying the last cool breezes before the sun bore down...

- Enjoy that summery smell- hay heating up, and the leaves drying out.

-Shifting with the shadows , sitting guard over the drying vathal/ kondattam's, and blaming the birds for the one's that get eaten in the process..

- expertly catching the mangoes that dad used to drop down from the top most branches.

- Walk 3 km to the river to take a bath. That river, where one has to lie down horizontally to wet the torso.

- Catch fish with towels, put them in horlicks bottles and get them home as pets.

- Bury the poor fishes the next day in a grave dug by all cousins, and decorated them with flowers. Mourn for the fish one day, and get back catching more fish that evening:-)

- Look forward to the day the palm fruits get harvested, chill them, eat them, and catch a cold.

- Feed all visiting cousins tonnes of jackfruit and realize their stomach could not handle it!

- Fight for the space on the cool black floor on a summer afternoon.

- Wind up on the favourite mango tree with a book, and the radio for company. A raw mango with salt and chilli powder on the side. Bliss!

- Compete with mom to make the longest strand of jasmine in the evening...

- Lying down under the clear starry sky and listen to all the elders talking, the dog trying to push us off the cot periodically.

- Tracking the clouds, predicting rains and waiting for them eagerly!

I wonder what happened to summer, my summer? I wonder if anyone anywhere is having so much fun during summer anymore?

I hope someday, my son understands what summer meant to me.

Found my marbles

I think after losing all that sleep and endless worrying, i have found my marbles. I think i'll take things as they come and live with it. No more fretting.

A lot of you wrote to me and said- " it will all work out eventually". I am great believer.

Thank you all:-)