Valentine’s Day

I’ve decided to dedicate today to loving the one person in my life that needs my love the most…me. 

Don’t worry, there isn’t any domestic strife, B and I are as much (if not more) in love as before. Our love is shown daily in small little things that we do for each other. We don’t need Valentine’s Day to celebrate our love, we have our anniversary of falling in love, our engagement anniversary and our wedding anniversary to make the day special for each other. So I’m sequestering this day to express my love for me. 

Self love is something that we should all give attention to. That doesn’t mean that we love our partners, spouses, children, parents, friends any less, it just means that we acknowledge the importance of our own self in our lives. 

We know ourselves better than anyone else in the whole world. We know our flaws, we know our strengths. We know the struggles that we have faced, the figurative mountains that we have climbed, the times we have fallen, the times we have dusted our selves and gotten up and many a times that we haven’t been able to and have just curled up into a ball on the floor letting the misery flood and drown us. We need to be loved by us. We need our own validation, let the world and its brother go spin around spouting love or hate or advice or remonstrations…we need to love us. 

Wether we are tall or short, dark or light, fat or thin, whatever be our physical attribute, we should love ourselves as we are, because we are unique. There is no one else like us, unless we have a doppelgänger somewhere in the world, but since there are minuscule chances of meeting her/him, we should believe in our uniqueness and love ourselves for it. 

People around may adore or criticise, may advise or censure, we should not let that affect us. That happens only if we have faith in ourselves, if we have trust in ourselves…if we love ourselves. 

Over the years I’ve learnt to love myself. I’ve learnt to become kinder to myself. Ive learnt to love myself inspite of my flaws, I’ve learnt to love me with my flaws. I’ve learnt my strengths and I love me for my strengths. I’ve developed a confidence in me, a strength in me that allows me to let what people say not affect me as much as it used to. I’ve learnt a very important lesson…my peace and happiness are more important than anything else and my peace and happiness are dependent only on me, on no one else but me. Hence the importance of self love. 

So I raise a glass to me, myself and I !!! Cheers Love 🥂

Do I work or do I not work, that is the question

The other day I met an acquaintance that I had not met in a long time. Pleasantries exchanged, she asked me where I was working these days. On being told that I am mostly a stay at home mom who sometimes writes, sometimes draws and sometimes bakes, she raised her pert nose in disdain (that’s how I interpret it, the poor woman may have a runny nose and was probably avoiding an embarrassing drip), and said, “Oh, so you don’t work, hmmm.”

The ‘hmmm’ did it. The red flag was raised, my nostrils flared and the prehistoric barbaric warrior self that I hide in some corner of my brain, took over my imagination. With a stupid smile on my face, I saw my reaction in a movie playing behind my glazed vacant eyes. I saw a leopard skin clad warrior woman give a war cry and swing a hard punch at the lady’s face. The pert nose was punched in and an eye ball had to pop out to make place for this drippy pert nose. A chirping ring of cute birds flew around her head (the pert nosed lady’s head, not our warrior woman’s proud head), and the barbaric woman punched the air and gave another yell of glee, words yet not being a part of her vocabulary. Don’t forget, this is prehistory. She may have gone to her cave and drawn some stick figures to indicate her vindication of the pert nosed lady, but that would be later, for now, she was expressing her joy with ear splitting yells and some sort of ungainly weird dance around the lady.

The movie was brought to an abrupt end, the brakes were applied and my imagination was reigned in. My brain has a very well designed braking system which is constantly upgraded. You see, my run away sarcastic tongue and my strange imagination do need to be curbed often, to avoid the looney bin, or worse, the judicial system. The brakes stop the errant part of my inner self from projecting for too long, and bring in the sane part of my brain to the fore. The sane part of my brain now having taken over, the stupid smile was wiped out, the glazed vacant look was replaced with an intent one, and I turned to the offensive pert nosed lady.

The civilised, good mannered, well brought up daughter, that is the pride of her parents took over, and I gave a sweet smile to my tormentor. Before the vigilant brakes were applied, my impish self whispered a few choice words of advice to this model of decorum that I now was and with a Monalisaesque enigmatic smile I said, “Well, dear, I must say your definition of ‘work’ needs to be redefined, don’t you think?”. I turned and walked away before my barbaric self broke the brakes and emerged out of my imagination, swinging her stone club and passionately yelling something in her language which would today translate to… “Don’t work, eh, is that what you think I do, you snooty woman? Is that what I do all hours of the day and also some hours of the night?” … and a few expletives that I dare not put here.

I am sure many of you have been in this situation where someone judges you for being a stay at home mom. This isn’t a debate about working mom vs stay at home mom. Hell, I’ve tried at being a working mom. Tried real hard too. My high expectations of what I wanted to do in my career and my even higher expectations of what I wanted to do as a mother unfortunately didn’t match, mostly because I am from Earth and not Krypton, so I made this difficult decision of leaving my profession and being a full time mom, and trying to find things to do from home; where I could juggle my roles of a mom, with that of a baker, or a writer or a doodler or any other role my creative fancy adopted. It is important to find different labels for yourself, other than that of mom or wife. I was privileged that this decision was available to me, as my poor husband agreed to take on the added financial responsibility that I was casting aside to stay home with my girls.

I call this decision difficult because a small part of me was the snooty pert nosed woman who did not know the true worth of a stay at home mom. I had also once upon a time thought that staying at home would qualify as ‘not working’. I had totally forgotten the hard work my mom did to run the well oiled establishment that we called home. Oh god, how did she do it???

This transition was also difficult for me because all my life, even in the summer breaks during college, I had ‘worked’ and earned and been financially independent. I had even waddled my pregnant self to work till just a week before I delivered my elder daughter. So not working at a paid job had not been in my system. And since the job of a mom or a home maker has no salary attached to it, it was a blow to my self esteem that I was no longer a contributor to the bread and butter on the table. Thankfully the poor stooping husband of mine, bent double carrying the financial burden, huffed and puffed and reassured me that he was okay being the beast of burden as long as I took charge of our daughters and home. For now, the loving hugs and appreciative smacks at the dining table are payment enough. But I also know that I’ll have to look for alternative employment once the girls leave the roost.

So yeah, coming back to where we started, yes, I do indeed ‘work’, as do all you stay at home moms. Next time someone looks down at you disdainfully for not ‘working’, feel free to borrow my fantasy of the barbaric woman and slug them in the face in your fantasy. And more importantly, have confidence that you are doing a great job and there are people who appreciate the ‘work’ that you do. Also remember that what is most important is that your self worth is so damn strong that no raised pert nose is able to shake it. That would be possible if you keep doing something for yourself, other than the duties of a mom, a wife or a daughter in law. Keep a special ‘me’ time to work on a hobby or to do something that makes you happy. You deserve that free time for all the ‘work’ that you do on the job.

This was my experience, I am sure there are many moms who have had similar and also many moms who have had different experiences with this decision of quitting work to be at home for your child. I would love to know your thoughts on this and if you like what I’ve written, do follow my blog.

The Domestic Goddess

This morning I found myself ruffling through my mental drawer looking for a pencil and a pad to pen down this story of a domestic goddess that I want to share with you. Why mental drawer one might ask, well, as usual I was multi tasking: my hands were dicing cucumbers for salad, my ears were pulled back waiting to hear the third whistle of my pressure cooker so that I could turn off the gas, my eyes were trained on the tapeli on the other burner of the gas to ensure that the milk didn't boil over, my legs were taking turns at pushing my weight from one to the other (it's a side effect of trying to control my bladder) and my mouth was muttering and uttering profanities that I dare not pen down.

I had been up since the crack of dawn, actually much earlier, as I heard the loud crack when I was midway through preparing the tiffin for my daughters, and I hadn't been able to visit the privy and hence the battle of the bladder. Finally, my ears heard the shrill whistle, the hands quickly turned off both the burners of the gas, the legs together bore my weight as I ran to the loo to finish my unfinished task. Relieved, I was back in the kitchen, ticking off the mental list as I filled each small container: rotis, subzi, salad, sprouts, snack container for later with veggie appams ;now the second tiffin for my younger one: appams, chutney, dahi ; their breakfast: bournvita shake, pancakes......phew....done. Now back to my story….

Having bid adieu to my cook two months back, the kitchen had now again become my domain. Earlier I used to enter the kitchen only for the pleasure of baking or if the girls or husband dearest wanted something special cooked and not the mundane RSDB (rotli shaak dal bhaat), but now the afore mentioned mundane RSDB has also found a place in my mental to do list. I was ok with that as I do love to cook, it's just the clean up after cooking that I detest. (Let me be frank here, not just cleanup after cooking, but cleanup in general, I hate it. I hate washing dishes, I hate sweeping and mopping, I hate the laundry. I hate it all.)

Till last week, life was going well, kids taking pleasure in my cooking, husband dearest becoming extra romantic (let me confide in you that the way to a man's heart is indeed through his stomach), weekends became a pleasure ride of eating out as "mom needs a break from cooking" (aw, I'm so loved), kids gave me special head massages when their tiffin was extra yummy and showered me with warm hugs and sticky kisses after having their favourite pancakes for breakfast, and then to spoil the fun and take away the feeling that I was THE Domestic Goddess, my cleaner went AWOL.

I told myself that it's a test of my endurance that God has set and I should just show Him that I'm unbeatable, the will of God will not take you where the grace of God will not protect you...and so on and so forth I gave myself a pep talk and set about doing the needful. Husband dearest did counsel me to ask the neighbour's cleaner to come for 'rokdi' for a few days, but I'm TDG, out to prove my worth, why, pray why, would I ask for anyone else to intrude in my realm. I can do it, I will do it. 

So for two whole days I attacked the hateful tasks with a smile on my face and a song on my lips, as I wanted my girls to see how much TDG was enjoying folding the laundry, doing the dishes, sweeping and mopping the house, so that they would come help me. But the literate smarties had read their Tom Sawyer, and my plans failed drastically. No help was coming my way, neither from my kids, nor from husband dearest. The smile on my face became a molar grinding mad axe murderer's insane grin and the songs on my lips became mutterings and grumblings of a mad woman. Alas! THE Domestic Goddess became THE Mad Muttering Domestic Witch!

The kids and husband dearest who used to shower me with love and envelop me in warm hugs, ran for shelter as soon as they saw TMMDW coming towards them waving a broom or shaking a duster and god forbid, sometimes doing both, the multitasker that she was. Hair uncombed, hanging in sweaty clumps, face speckled with dots of sweat, a cobweb or two hanging on her shoulder, plodding pair'o podia, frowning forehead and muttering mouth, TMMDW was a sight to behold. No romance for her, no warm hugs and no sticky kisses, no weekends out (who wants to be seen escorting TMMDW on a date). Not wanting to cross TMMDW, meals were gulped down without any urging, assigned tasks done without a reminder and school work done without getting up from their seat (no one wants TMMDW to get on their case). With the change in management, when TMMDW took over from TDG, the sweet words of yore had now become harsh shrill commands, which had to followed and followed now, or else, or else some cleaning task would be heaped upon your innocent unsuspecting head and you had to do it, no buts, no arguments. 

Missing her sorely and wanting to restore TDG back to her rightful throne and oust TMMDW, the kids and husband dearest had a midnight conclave when TMMDW was snoring away her overworked, painfully tiring day. Gia: Should we send her to Nani's house, better still should we all move to Nani's house? Anoushka: Should we report to the police that the evil woman has kidnapped my mom? Brijesh: Should we go to Rajasthan and bring back Harishbhai (the AWOL cleaner)? What to do? 

After a long night of whispered brainstorming session, my baby, little Gia came up with THE solution: 'I saw in the movie Frozen that only true love thaws a frozen heart.' Husband dearest and my elder daughter were gobsmacked. Lightning struck, oh my god, WE have created this monster like TMMDW. Of course, why didn't we think of it earlier? We could have saved ourselves (and let's not forget the poor woman) a lot of heart ache (and bone deep body ache for the poor woman). All we had to do was love her, help her and give her our unstinted support. So the three musketeers vowed to put this Eureka moment to good use.

The next morning TMMDW woke up to the smell of ginger tea, waddling to the kitchen (her tired aching feet were not ready to bear her sad weight), her astounded eyes saw the table set for breakfast, husband dearest was waiting to welcome her in the kitchen with a warm hug. The dough was kneaded and the veggies chopped. TMMDW rubbed her eyes to awaken herself from this pleasant dream that she was having, but it wasn't a dream! Her senses awakened with the strong smell of ginger, her eyes saw the prep done for the tiffin, her ears could hear some giggling and suddenly her person was enveloped by a huge group hug by the three musketeers. "We love you and we want to help you, what do you want us to do?" The ice around her heart cracked and melted away in the warmth of the loving hug. TDG broke through the shards of broken ice, and emerged in triumph over TMMDW. Indeed true love can thaw a frozen heart!

Moral: If you want your domestic goddess to remain the way she is, L O V E her and H E L P her when your cleaner goes AWOL.

Devils on my shoulder

           My shoulders are drooping with the weight of the two argumentative devils that I’m carrying around with me these days. My head aches with their constant bickering (which they call talking sense) echoing in my ear. My neck is stiff from all the swinging to the left and right following their voices. They came to establish residence after a deep soul searching talk I had with my better half about how I was overwhelmed dealing with my kids. The final conclusion to the soul searching talk was that I should bow out (the words used were butt out, but I prefer to keep my dignity intact) and let my girls deal with their work by themselves, thus hoping to encourage a sense of responsibility in them. STOP mollycoddling being the gist of the conversation.
          
           We all sat at the table the following morning and held another soul searching talk with the girls this time. “Now both of you are big girls and can take care of your stuff yourself. We are sure you can manage the homework on your own without having mumma hold your hands while you are at it. If you don’t understand anything, mumma or papa will help you out, but we won’t clean your mess or take care of your stuff. If you forget to take a book to school, so be it. Next time you won’t forget. If an assignment is due, mumma won’t remind you and keep on reminding you ad infinitum. It is your work and you do it.” And many more such laws were laid down and served up with toast and oats at breakfast that morning.

           Thus started a new regime, where I put my foot down and stopped running at their beck and call to look for errant pencils and books which were ‘just here’ but now apparently weren’t, or trying to intervene when I heard “I didn’t take her eraser, she took mine, no she took mine, this is mine, no mine”. I shut my bedroom door firmly and mentally ordered my feet to lock down. My mind too helped me with this mission. I could feel my mental fingers poking me in the eye when I tried to see how neatly (actually how untidily) they had done their homework. Let their teacher tell them in front of their peers how untidy their work was. My mind ordered my tongue to be paralyzed when I tried to remind Anoushka to put her English notebook in her bag. All that came out was a strangled ‘gooo oo gooo oo’. Let her forget it today so tomorrow she’ll remember to take it.  When I saw Gia’s pencil box under the bed instead of being in her schoolbag where it was supposed to be, my mind ordered my kidneys and bladder to take over and that sent me running to the loo. Let her look for it herself, or not, if she so prefers, and then she’ll  never loose it. Imaginary ropes tied my hands down when I tried to put their socks in the laundry basket. Let them not have clean socks to wear if they don’t put them for washing on time. The toughest time my mind had in controlling me was when I saw Anoushka running down to play without revising for her test the following day. All the troops were in action this time: tongue paralyzed, imaginary wad of cloth stuffed in mouth to stop me yelling for her, mental fingers holding my ankles lest I run after her oooing and aaaing with the wad in my mouth and the notorious bladder making me change direction of trajectory to the loo instead of after Anoushka. Let her make mistakes if any. Then she’ll learn to revise on her own.

           That night we all retired to our beds, the girls feeling a sense of liberty with their mumma off their back, my husband with a sense of deep calm, nothing new in that, he always went to bed with a sense of deep calm, leaving all the real and imaginary mental duels to me, and me with a sense of anticipation that now I may get some time to call my own. But Alas! that was not destined to be. The next morning…..Poof….Two devils suddenly materialized out of thin air and took residence on either side of my shoulders. Each had an opinion and a strong one at that. Lets call them A and B, any resemblance to them being mine and my husband’s initials is just a coincidence. Here’s an excerpt of their never ending babble.

            My head whips to the right, A:” How can you let them be? They are your little babies who will need your presence in their life, especially at this tender impressionable age. Your advice and your voice of reason is a foundation stone to what they will become.”

           Head to the left, B:” You aren’t dying, you know. You are not leaving them, you are just going to stop hovering over them and overseeing all that they do. Is it really so important for you to get them to improve their handwriting and to keep their room tidy. A little untidiness never hurt anyone.”

           Head to the right, A:” Good handwriting instills in them a practice of being neat and it is a reflection of what they should aspire to be: neat, organized presentable. Untidy work just reflects an attitude that says I don’t care. I think you should indeed teach them to be better organized and to care for their work. Looking over their shoulder and nudging them to do well is not hovering.”

           A stiff neck trying to turn the head to the left, succeeding and, B:” Letting them learn from their own mistakes is a lesson well learnt and not easily forgotten. Let them fall, let them get up.”

          Creaking sound from the neck which never saw so much exercise in so many seconds barely turns the head to the right, A:” There is a long life ahead with many pitfalls. If you don’t teach them how to take care of themselves, how will they ever pick themselves up from a fall. Giving them a helping hand now shows them how to get up. Teaching them how to be observant, helps them avoid the pitfalls.”

          Neck has finally given in, holding its neutral position, the baton has now been passed to the eyes, which henceforth do the swinging, this time to the left. B:” You can’t monitor their life for them. Let them be strong enough to take care of themselves without turning to you all the time.”

           Eyes to the right, A:” If not you, who? You can’t monitor their life, but you can reassure them that no matter what, you will always be there to support them in whatever they want to do. There will be a time when they will fly the roost, but there is no point in pushing them off the precipice when they haven’t yet learnt to fly.”

           Eyes to the left, B:” How will they ever learn to fly if you never let them? “

           The bickering is still on while I pen this down. My imaginary fingers are poking my eyes every time they try to turn and an imaginary cotton ball is stuffed in my ears to stop the argument from disturbing me from expressing my woes. A part of my mind is indulging in this fantasy where my shoulders droop so low that the tenacious buggers slip off, while the other sane part is trying to understand the arguments put forth by the devils and to come to a workable conclusion to the matter, so that both the devils are appeased and leave me for greener pastures. I leave you now to go aid my brain for the sake of my sanity.

On welcoming Goddess Laxmi

           “Tarey Diwali thai gai?” This question greeted me sometime last week as I was going down in the lift. I scratched my head in bewilderment…then the hammer of comprehension knocked me between the eyes. Shoot…its THAT time of the year…. Everyone I know will be working their posterior off to clear out the mess of the previous year and make their abodes clean and pure to welcome Goddess Laxmi. How I hate this time! It is so difficult to work against my innate messy nature to clear out my home and life. I hate to sift through the piles of stuff hoarded by me and mine. Having to decide to chuck away what we haven’t used in a while (which happens to be most of it) is very difficult and since I’m unwilling to pull the plug, I have to rearrange it, or should I say ‘stuff it back’ again with the promise to wait one more year to decide. Oh God I cannot do this. I am no Hercules and this Augean stable is not for me to clean.

           All year long, there are knicks and there are knacks and there are brics and there are bracs that have found a place in our heart and thus our home. Be it a funny stone that my elder daughter picked up at school or a few sequins and pom poms that my younger one picked up from the navratri ground…we have a place for them all. I am prone to collecting colourful, plain, hand made, machine made, textured, smooth, shiny, dull…all kinds of papers that I see…wedding invitations, colourful advertisements in the newspaper, coloured pages from magazines…etc. That itself is not so much of a problem, what creates a lack of space is the cuttings left over from any craft project that I attempt…I just CANT throw it away…it stays in all its shapeless formless snippety stringy glory for further explorations of art in the form of collages or if nothing…then to be made into a pulp for papier mache…and believe me, a year long worth of this collection is humungous.

           So anyways, last week, on being interrogated about my progress through the mess, I gave a noncommittal shrug and quickly stepped out of the lift at a floor I had no intention of visiting, and waved good bye to my tormenting inquisitor. Brooding over it, I thought I should definitely bite the bullet and attack the mess, if nothing it will set a good example to my kids and they in turn will not face such an interrogation with dread. Not that my mom didn’t set a good example. Her home is so spic and span all year round that I wonder what she does in the week of Diwali cleaning. Neither dust nor mite dares to step inside her home. Her cupboards and wardrobes are so well organized, though I haven’t actually caught her at it, I’m sure she uses a ruler to set things straight. Comparing it to my wardrobe, my wardrobe is a cascade of love. You open it and my pile of clothes, with an embarrassing public display of affection, engulf you in their group hug. The only way to escape this is to open the door partially, pull out what is needed or stuff in what needs to be in and slam the door shut, all in a fast count of three. Voila! Her store room is a sight to behold, so organized: a place for everything and everything in its place, you could get stuff out of it blindfolded. Whereas if an adult steps into my storeroom, he or she would beg to be blindfolded, a totally different reaction from a kid, who would pull up his sleeves and have a ball in the mess without making any difference whatsoever to its condition. If I didn’t look and sound like her I would be sure that I am a changeling.

           Let us come back to the floor where I disembarked.  With the flight of stairs paved with good intentions, I started on my uphill journey back to my floor and each step that I took weakened my resolve. By the time I reached home, I had decided to maintain the status quo. I loved my home. I loved my possessions, all of them. I’m not being selfish. I know that my neighbours clear out their homes and give the discarded stuff to the needy…I don’t think anyone in this world needs my collection of trimmings nor would they appreciate the baubles collected by my magpies. In our little apartment and our big hearts we have made place for everything we have treasured over the years. Maybe one day I’ll find it in me to part with it all, and maybe not. I’m happy either ways and I’m no longer ashamed of it too, infact, I’m proud of it.

           Today , after sending away the spiders adorning my ceiling with their beautiful intricate webs on a short vacation, my family and I are ready to welcome Goddess Laxmi to our humble abode in all its cluttered glory. We wish her and you a HAPPY DIWALI.

Multi Avatar Award: MAA

           I have decided to bestow upon my stooping shoulders, the much coveted, ‘Multi Avatar Award, the MAA’. I believe, even though I hear no cheering or claps for me yet, that I deserve this award. Maybe at the end of this ranting, there would be a thundering round of applause for my quick transformations.

           My ‘oh so dependable’ cleaners have been on leave since Holi, and the usually shunned chores have fallen into my unwilling lap. Usually I run scared from the dusting-cleaning-mopping-washing duties and get a temporary cleaner, willingly paying close to a month’s pay for a week’s job. This year I decided to take the bull by the horns and face my demons on my own. The truth be told, I couldn’t find a temporary help, even though I was willing to empty out the coffers. So coming back to the point, it’s been a week now, a long tedious week, that I have been zealously dusting, vigorously wielding the zadu at the dust that dares to enter my house, bending on my knees to the persistent dust that dares evade my trusty zadu and mopping the unsuspecting bugger off the floor. As if this was not enough, the beds need to be made, and however inviting the newly made bed may look, enticing me, asking me to play truant to my chores, beckoning me with its softness, doing a Menaka to my Vishwamitra, I have to strongly turn my back to it and advance towards the bathroom, equipped with the bottle of Harpic and my other cleaning weapons that are the arsenal of my cleaning lady avatar, to bravely fight the mould and scum. Half an hour later, the battle won, I emerge with a triumphant smile and a sweaty brow and take the troops to the kitchen. The first day I stood aghast at the mountain of vessels that the cook had left in his wake. Do I even own so many vessels? Did I order a meal for the entire building to be cooked chez moi? I lift the lid of one of the vessels with apprehension, my mobile in hand, thumb almost pressing the speed dial for my mom’s to ask her to not cook today, possibly for a week, when I see a just about enough quantity of sabji staring at me. So many vessels used to cook this dainty amount of food? Well, since I did not want this task to fall in my lap too, I just shut up and picked up the scrubber. Now I’m immune to the mountain of vessels and tackle them with enviable speed.

           Today, these routine tasks dealt with, I get into the shower and emerge in my working woman avatar, quickly don the working gear and head off to the office, fantasizing about a nice cup of hot coffee and some time to myself resting my toosh on the comfy chair, maybe swiveling it and staring out of the window. But reality hits hard. I stagger into my office to see an irate hubby. Yes we work together. Our marital vows of 50-50 sharing of work load are unfortunately restricted to the office, the household work slipped through the crevices when we were planning our future together. And of course due to the biological potential that I have, the child bearing and rearing too kind of ‘obviously’ became my domain, hence was born my mommy avatar. I had this amazing brainwave when I was carrying my second daughter. It would bring about a social revolution, and  I am going to present this idea and try and sell it to the Almighty when he calls me over, wherein the husband and the wife both are blessed with this biological potential and it is simply a matter of luck and high fertility that either one gets to carry the baby! Whoa, I can already feel myself swept off by a tidal wave of ‘ayes’ from all the harried mothers that I know. But I’m digressing, as I was saying before I flew off the tangent to this lovely fantasy of mine, I stagger into my office to see an irate hubby entertaining my clients, those very clients who I was supposed to meet, I checked my watch,  half an hour back to discuss the house that I was designing for them. With a smile pasted on my face and my fingers crossed, a mental apology to my parents who raised me to be always truthful no matter what, I launch into a detailed description of the traffic jam that delayed me. I could see that no one was taken in, and with a sheepish smile pulled out the drawings of their dream house in my dream weaver avatar. Midway through the discussions my phone beeped its daily ‘kid’s pick-up’ alarm and with a leap and a bound I was out of the office, thrusting the bemused clients and the drawings towards my better half ( I grumpily question the half) and hurried into my mommy avatar.

           Homeward bound with my chattering magpies in the car, trying to make sense of two garbled accounts of the day from two tired and hungry girls, both extremely excited to tell all and both wanting to be the first to do it, I smartly turned up the volume to an ear blasting level and let ‘anjaana a a a anjaani e e e’, or whatever crap was pouring out from the radio, diffuse a potentially volatile situation. Believe you me, after the day I had and the day that was facing me and the whole last week added to it, I was in no position whatsoever to slip on my arbitrator avatar, a diplomatic diffuser of fights. With a mental pat on my back at these bright ideas that were helping me still retain the ‘bestest mumma’ title, I decided to take the help of the TV, my Moriarty when it concerned the kids, to make lunchtime a surprisingly peaceful event for me and a surprise treat for the girls. The kids settled in for a nap, I donned my washer woman avatar and attacked the pile of laundry hiding its grubby self in the basket. Leaving the washer dryer to do its tumbling, having an hour on hand before the folding and ironing would start, I slipped into my gardener avatar and tackled the pots on my balcony. Soon a cry of ‘mumma’ brought out my favourite, the mommy avatar, and I was hugging my little one, who has this lovely habit, that I hope she never gets out of, of hugging me tight, with arms and legs, like a koala and showering my face with kisses as soon as she wakes up from her nap. The elder one, not wanting to be left out of the hug, joined in with gusto and we all tumbled on the bed. I thank God for such precious moments of the day that help me keep my sanity and set my priorities straight. My girls provide me with surprise hugs all day long, I would be in the middle of one of my tasks when, with a synchronized shout of ‘one-two-three’ they would launch themselves at me and enclose me in a ‘tighty huggy to recharge mumma’. I count myself amongst the luckiest of beings. The mommy duties of supervising homework, chatting about the day, listening to grievances and trying not to advise( a phenomenally difficult task) et al dealt with I nudged them out of the door for some outdoor play just as the phone tinkled. Premonition, intuition, hunch, omen, call it what you want, I knew it was my runaway cleaner. Bingo! ‘Bhabhi, avi gayo chhun, kaal savaarey aavish’…….too overcome to say anything, the news not penetrating through my thankful brain, I just mumbled a ‘hunh’ and hung up. Slowly the news sunk in, the day seemed to brighten though it was close to sunset, the warmth spread into my shocked body and I punched the air…I did a jig…i danced around the hall with the phone clutched in my hands like a mike…I sang a song…I guess I got full fledged into my batty avatar.

           So now I leave it to you to decide if I get the award or not.....Yippee…Oh thank you for giving me this award…I share this award with all the hardworking and under acknowledged MAAs…

Nostalgia

I often think about the girl who had fun,

Who got wet in the rain and burnt under the sun,

Who did what she wanted, when and how,

Didn’t care for anything that had to be done NOW.



Read to the moon till half past three,

The girl who was born to be always free, (but was she?)

Woke up secure in the love and care

Of her always dependable Mère and Père.



Her parents gave her wings to fly

She learnt to always win and to never say die.

Took life by the horns and bent it her way,

Lived not for the past, nor the future but TODAY.



Will of iron, heart of gold

Mind on fire, tongue never on hold.

Never believed things could ever go wrong,

She was clear, confident, her spirit very strong.



I miss that girl who got lost one day,

Followed a pied piper and went astray.



Her wings cropped, her spirits broken

Caged by life with a gold ring as a token

Of a promise to love till death do them part,

But it was life itself that finally drew them apart.



I often wonder will she make it or not?

Will she get up and go or sit and rot?

The girl I once knew, I miss her a lot

Oh I miss her a lot, I’ll always miss her a lot.