Windows

A thing of beauty

A picture speaks a thousand words...so for a change, am letting these images speak for themselves. Simple every day knick knacks from around the house...little things of beauty...joy forever!

A Srilankan Mask



Jewelry boxes from a flea market

Antique swing

 

Brass lamp

Yet another brass lamp

Painted wine bottle

A table full of memories

Wellness at a cost

I walked into my hairdressers’ for a long overdue haircut. Sorry, the word is no longer hairdresser. The humble hairdresser morphed into a unisex salon which morphed into a spa which currently stands in its mutated avtaar as a wellness centre that promised everything for the tired city slicker’s senses.


Soft piped instrumental music, liveried attendants, and the mandatory frangipani flowers that one associates with such places lure me in.

My immediate need for a haircut is brushed aside. I need much more, I’m told ominously. The sales pitch of wholesome rejuvenation combined with the fragrance of essential oils and scented candles begin take effect on me. I surrender to the place.

I have to answer many objectionable questions before they can decide what to do with me.

All I need is a hair cut, I begin to protest … Does it really matter how many ounces of alcohol or water I have consumed in the last one month. Or for that matter whether I suffer from anxiety or depression or carpel tunnel syndrome? My meek protests about intrusion of privacy fall on deaf ears and the next thing I know, I am filling out a form in triplicate with the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

‘Ma’am your hair is too dry…too brittle. What you need is a hair spa treatment that uses marine algae for infusing life into dead hair.

'..Er isn’t all hair dead ?', the partially awake rational part of my brain wants to question.

And algae! Since when did this lowly unicellular life form attain such an exalted position in the wellness world? These questions never leave my lips, as by now the irrational part of my brain has signed me up for the signature algae hair treatment.

After hair comes face. I’m made to peer into a seemingly innocuous looking monitor and what stares back at me is a grotesque surface with giant white, black and blue spots and craters not unlike what one sees in telescopic pictures of the moon. The haircut I came for is suddenly rendered unimportant. Its more critical to address the craters on my face.

They start with a de-tanning treatment. I should have told them I was dark skinned, not tanned. But then I had already surrendered my senses (and wallet) unto them completely. They cleanse, tone, exfoliate and subject my facial tissues to various other processes. I dont recall how long I had been in that state of suspended reality... till suddenly, I am jolted out of my seat, wincing with pain.

'What are you doing to me ?'


'Ma'am we are removing a stubborn blackhead… '


'That is not a blackhead you moron. it’s a birthmark I was born with'.

And as you may have guessed, that ended my session at the wellness centre. The place was good neither for the wellness of my senses nor my self esteem. The only wellness I saw was that of their ringing cash registers.

 I had decided to make peace with my facial craters, dead hair follicles, dusky skin tone and all my other imperfections! It was all in the larger interest of my longterm wellness!

I love my India

This list was brewing in  my head since Independence Day, nearly a month ago... here it is, though overdue and ill timed!

I love being an Indian in India because...

1. We don’t need an excuse to celebrate – we can choose from 258 festivals each year, one for each god we worship and love.

2. When we run out of gods, we have festivals to celebrate harvest, spring, monsoon, colour, lights, etc.

3. If that doesn’t satisfy us, we can choose to celebrate the birthdays of freedom fighters and regional icons

4. We can choose from 300 different items for breakfast, not one of which includes bread or body parts of animals

5. We can have pizza with chettinad chicken or kadai paneer topping and save ourselves the guilt of having sold our souls to the west.

6. We have a unique name for every relationship in our extended family as opposed to the ubiquitous uncle / aunty. Only complete strangers are addressed uncle/aunty here.

7. We can live -in with our parents even after the age of 35, and not be branded dysfunctional

8. We can pass the onus of finding a spouse onto parents and extended family, and not spend every weekend prowling the marketplace for a suitable date and hoping it turns into something of consequence

9. We can always blame the parents if the marriage doesn’t work (most often it works or we make it work!)

10. We don't need to take our children to zoos or farms to see cows, goats, horses and monkeys (Sometimes even leopards can be spotted in our backyards).

11. The vegetable vendor comes home, so do the fruit seller, milkman, tailor and the friendly neighbourhood chemist if we make a call.

12. We don’t need to be Oprahs to ride in the back seat of our own car or to afford an impressive array of domestic staff that includes a cleaner, dishwasher, chef and butler (all rolled in one at that)

13. We have Hinglish, we have Gobi Manchurian, we have Paan, we have Vegetarian Hamburgers and Chicken steaks

14. We can call Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bachchan and A R Rehman our very own

15. We make 5 times as many movies as Hollywood in 15 different languages and unapologetically surrender our brains to them for a good 3 hours every Friday evening.

And finally

16. We have something in common with every fifth person in this world – he/she is also Indian.

Weekends

The weekend is finally here. Its that part of the week we eagerly await right from the beginning of the week! It seems almost as if we spend 5/7th of our lives in anticipation of the remaining 2/7th.

I plan my weekend as I plough through the week, enduring rough commutes, breakfasts on the run, unfinished domestic chores, sick children and ambitious deadlines. My weekend must-do list that starts off as a lazy Saturday evening movie with friends and a relaxed Sunday afternoon at the spa has slowly expanded and before I realize, the post-it I started scrawling on is now an A4 sheet staring at me menacingly from above my desk.

Saturday morning starts early. Unlike adults whose idea of a good weekend begins with staying up in bed late, kids don’t see the point in wasting their precious weekend on insignificant pursuits such as sleep, (which they are happy to do on school days). So I’m jolted out of my wits and sleep by a couple of livewire tiggers pouncing on me and reminding me of what a glorious day it will be when day eventually breaks.

With the tone for the day set, my pursuit of happiness for the weekend starts by pursuing an elusive plumber across the remote bylanes and gullies of the unfashionable part of the neighborhood before the leaky faucet is fixed. Beaming from the success of this mission, I move on to change fused lightbulbs and burnt mixer cables. Bills are paid, at least one of them overdue and one of them wrongly charged, which leads me to the now ritualistic weekend call to the nameless faceless call centre executive whose calm through the one way shouting match angers me even more.

Before I know, it is evening. There is dinner party to attend, which means there is hair to be fixed, skin to be polished, and long overdue new shoes to be bought. Parties are no longer simple fun get- togethers for friends. They are well managed and at times outsourced events, and need to showcase the host’s creativity and guest list. Today’s theme is Hawaiian, yes, right in the middle of our concrete jungle. I have no problem with that except now I need to procure new clothes that not only match the theme but also my well proportioned Indian frame. Add to that a creative gift for the creative hosts. Too many things to do, too little time, I’m already palpitating.

We finally make it to dinner, at 10 pm, after having dinner at home. My mom calls just as I get ready to leave for the party, wanting to know how the party went! There was no point in explaining to her that the party wouldn’t begin till a little later! She would never understand why I go to parties where the hosts don’t serve dinner before1 am, where the success of the party depends on how late the last guest leaves and the ones who eat at 1am will be branded losers who want to head back home early. We are no losers, so we eat at home and even manage a power nap to put up a brave front and party hard till 4 am.

Sunday morning… the tiggers are up before daybreak again, giving not so gentle reminders of the promised family outing. I see the relaxed Sunday of my dream fading as quickly as my sleep. A lot is achieved on this Sunday. An outing to fun-city, a not so fun experience for anyone over 15, an elaborate cake making project, an even more elaborate cleaning project and a 11th hour shopping trip to buy school supplies.

The weekend is over and I note  that there are still two items waiting to be crossed off my to-do list. Maybe next week, when my list is just a harmless post-it note and not a menacing A4 sheet, I will be able to catch that movie and go to that spa!

City of Hope

Enough has been said and written about this glorious city that I have chosen to call home. If you haven’t lived in Bombay, you might even think these are exaggerated claims. You might just dismiss it off as media hype when you hear about the now famous spirit of Bombay and the so called Bombay culture. What can after all lie beneath that sheath of pollution, traffic snarls, teeming slums and prohibitive living expenses? I have seen many a young white collar executive throw away  a prospective career after a less than brief affair with the local trains and cramped living spaces of Bombay, taking refuge in the comfort of safer havens like Bangalore and Hyderabad.

 At the same time, I am amazed at the trainloads of people who descend on this city every day from hinterlands all over the country, their life possession clutched compactly in the crook of their arm, armed with little else but hopes in their hearts. Legend has it that if there is one thing a person can be sure of in this city, it is the comfort that he will never go to sleep hungry at the end of the day.

I see this hope on the face of every Mumbaikar as I travel to work every day, come rain or sunshine, night or day, joy or sorrow.

Today the rain gods were mercilessly wrecking havoc on the city, but for the Mumbaikar, it is business as usual...

I see a hopeful salesman on a motorbike, his crisp ‘salesmanly’ attire covered from head to toe in a transparent two piece rain suit, a gear custom made for the two wheeler bound Indian male. It makes him oblivious to the lashing rain and the rage of passing 4 wheelers.

I see a beefy lad as he hangs onto the footboard of a bus, his t-shirt tight enough to show off multiple packs, his colored hair gelled and styled after the latest Bollywood heartthrob, a serpent tattoo adding more menace to his already menacing looking bicep. I wonder what he does for a living…a bouncer at the upmarket night club in town, a celebrity’s personal trainer perhaps, or maybe a personal bodyguard to one of Mumbai’s glitterati…I don’t know… but I know see hope as he hangs in there, a hope for an easy day at work.

I see an aspiring model/starlet, as she hops out of a local train and into a taxi, guarding her painstakingly put together ensemble of clothes, shoes, make up and accessories from the slush and rubble around. If the yellow in her stilettos and skirt scream for attention, the city doesn’t seem to notice. Its a city where everyone is chasing his dream, with no time to stop and stare!

I see an old man, straight out of an insurance ad, running…folding his umbrella as he runs, hoping to catch the bus that is rumbling at the traffic signal. Will he or won’t he make it… I crane my neck….I forget to breathe for a precious few seconds…the driver sees him just as the signal changes… I do a high five with myself as the old man makes it inside safely.

I see countless others…all of whom make my own problems in this city seem insignificant.

I see those people whose fortunes depend on the sales pitch they make in the 30 seconds it takes for the signal to change from red to green, as they hawk anything from cheap Chinese toys one day to the Indian tri colour the next and mobile phone accessories the third.

I see the woman who travels 30 kms by train, getting ready to set up her plastic knick-knacks stall outside the station gates.

I see those roadside salons where shaving services are provided under makeshift plastic roofs. I think this is one city where, if there is anyone willing to offer a service, however bizarre, there is someone out there waiting to avail that service. The service provider and the receiver go about their business out in the open, with utmost ease and comfort.

Then there are those numerous shacks along the highway, made of tin, wood scraps and every other conceivable material, homes with one room, shared by 5 people and their ubiquitous dog and chicken.  I see these people cook and clean, bathe and wash, fight and make up all out in the open, and wonder how they manage to do all of this with their dignity still so intact.

It is a city that gives me hope every time I step out…hope in hardwork, hope in honesty, hope in the dignity of labour and hope that my hour long journey each day will teach me something new about life and the people around me.

An evening at the park

It was a beautiful Sunday evening. It was one of those days when even the least outdoorsy of people would find it difficult to say no to a walk in the park.

A group of young mothers are in animated conversation, seemingly oblivious to the kids that have accompanied them.

A new mom, pushing an oversized pram in one hand and carrying the pram’s 6 month old occupant in the other, is looking harried; the words ‘first-timer’ are written all over her face.

Nearby are a couple of dads, indulging in quality time with the offsprings they barely get to see during the week.

A bunch of tween girls, too old to play on the slides and swings and too young to join their college going seniors at Mocha for coffee-conversations-and-more are looking bored as they hang out on the fringes of the park.

Domestic helpers are squatting in random groups, some on the grass, some on the strategically placed rocks and boulders, originally conceived as landscaping elements, but now just convenient perches for the bored squatters; their expressions alternate between boredom and irritation, waiting for that 7 pm deadline when they could ferry their wards back home.

Everyone is out in the park…Everyone has thoughts on his / her mind….

The 24X7 mom envies the working mom who gets to dress up, get out of the house, and meet people her own age every day, escaping the madness of household chores and errant kids. If only she could trade places with her….

The working mom envies the full time mom her uncomplicated and fulfilling life at home in the company of her innocent little children and not having to deal with errant subordinates and demanding bosses every day. If only she could afford to give up her job….

The new mom wonders how her life has changed and if she has what it takes to give her child the best…

The baby wonders why he cant be left free on the grass to explore and learn….

The dad in the park is eyeing the yummy mummy and wondering what her fitness secret might be. He makes a mental note to make this outing a weekly ritual….

The tween is wondering when she will grow and be able to dress and hang out like her teenage role-models…

The teen-age role-model is hatching a plan to make her coffee-conversions-and-more outing last beyond the 9pm deadline…

The teen-ager’s mother, no longer regular at the park, is sitting in her empty drawing room worrying herself sick about the ‘more’ in coffee-conversations-and-more….

The young maid can’t wait to deposit the kid to his parents, so that she can hook up with her driver boyfriend before heading home for the night….

The driver boyfriend in the meantime is waiting to show off his employer’s gleaming new sedan to the maid and a daring plan is taking shape in his mind. Maybe he could take both for a spin before the boss and his kids get back from the park…

In every way,it was just another Sunday in a leafy suburb of the city…

Maid in Mumbai

In all the years she spent with us, P could never see what the fuss was about this city, variously referred to as ‘maximum city’, ‘city that never sleeps’ or ‘city of a million dreams’. She was after all a Chennai girl and a reluctant immigrant to Mumbai when she first came to work for us. 'People here don’t speak Tamil, how can it be a great place’ summed up her attitude to any city outside Tamil Nadu.

First thoughts

Her first reaction to Mumbai after stepping off the train at CST was not very different from that of any first time visitor to the city– where are the all these people going and why are they in such a hurry. Dirt, squalor and a sea of strangers was not exactly a welcoming sight, I guess. The two hour long drive to the suburbs where we lived took us past slums, gleaming skyscrapers, more slums, 5 star hotels, plush residential towers and then, more slums. We even pass the largest slum in Asia (if you know Mumbai you’ll understand that no statistic about the city can be modest, everything has to be prefixed with biggest, most, longest and so on).

A home with a view

We live on the 27th floor of a high rise in a posh suburb, far from the city, with a view of the lake for which we have paid a handsome sum. Only now, the view is a mere glimpse, that can be had only from a demarcated 10inchX10inch spot in the living room, provided we crane our necks at a 45% angle to get past the new high rise in front. P is amused that we pay a premium to get this high from where everything looks like an ant, we can’t call out to vendors from our doorway at will, and it takes longer to get in and out. And it is not as if you escape the mosquitoes at this height - she has already seen a few buzzing about. ‘Did they take the elevator with us?’ she asks in her own inimitable, wry style, something we get used to in time.

‘In Madras, people pay a premium for a ground floor flat which comes with a small garden.’ I knew right at that moment, this was only the beginning of the Mumbai-Madras comparison saga.

Food and culture
She looks at us as if we are traitors who have sold our souls to the enemy when we eat rotis instead of sambar and curd rice for dinner. She doesn’t buy the fact that for even ‘Madrasis’ in Madras have switched to rotis for one meal on health grounds. As for her, P made it clear that neither would she eat rotis nor would she learn to make them while she was here.

Over time P had mastered the art of communicating in sign language with the milkman, dhobi and driver. She had even managed to teach the cleaning lady a few words in Tamil, but not a word of Hindi had entered her system yet. She was a great source of entertainment for friends and visitors who called on us. She always assumed they knew Tamil because they were our friends and unleashed a barrage of greetings on them in fluid Tamil. Anyone who knew even a smattering of Tamil got to sample P’s extra special filter kaapi.

Bollywood
I remember the day Shah Rukh Khan came to our building for an ad-film shoot. There was an air of nervous excitement about the entire building. Everyone from the security guard to the grandmother with arthritis and the blackberry thumbing honcho was dressed in his/her Sunday best, hoping for a photo or at least an autograph opportunity with the superstar. After all, it was not every day that the badshah of bollywood paid a visit to a leafy, peaceful suburb.

If there was only one person in the midst of all this action who was truly unmoved – it was P. In Madras, between the movie stars and the movie-star-turned-politicians, there is enough going on for the average Tamilian to give Bollywood the cold shoulder.

P’s reaction to Bollywood’s undisputed superstar was thus :

‘he’s not dark (=not good looking), he doesn’t have a moustache (=disgusting),he is dressed in jeans and t-shirt like normal people (=hardly the garb befitting a superstar)    'What sort of superstar is he? Give me a Thalaiavar (Rajinikanth for the uninitiated) any day' she says with a shrug and gets back to her chores on the 27th floor, completely unimpressed.

It took a while for me to realise how culturally alien Mumbai was to P. We could have well been living in Papua New Guinea for all she cared. To her it would be just another place that was not Madras.

I realised I had taken P out of Madras, but hadn’t succeeded in taking the Madras out of P. She’s gone now, while all I can do is hope and pray that I find someone half as well-meaning and endearing, to fill the huge void left by her.

The Perfect Holiday

Every summer, when the heat reaches insane proportions, when the kids are school-less and agenda-less for what seems like an eternity, when newspaper supplements and magazines are overflowing with ads for holidays to distant and exotic locations, our family, like every other urban family that is readying to escape the hectic pace and daily challenges of city dwelling, religiously packs up and leaves for a good two weeks, with hopes and dreams, of new adventures, new experiences, quality family time and most of all, change.

This time we choose an exotic country with rolling hills, lush meadows, balmy weather, a lot of history, culture and food that promised to be nothing short of sensational.

Despite how alluring all this sounded, I knew I was being ambitious. The itinerary looked challenging. We were four - a three year old who doesn’t understand instructions, a 9 year old who doesn’t care much for instructions, a 37 year old who doesn’t stop giving instructions and a 38 year old who usually doesn’t pay attention, instructions or otherwise.

But, we each resolved to overcome our faults and make this the perfect holiday.

The first problem of a long holiday – being cooped up 24x7 in the company of the family, sharing living, sleeping, brushing and bathing quarters, can get to you after a few days, even if yours is a lovey-dovey family such as ours!

The second problem – the proverb ‘no more than 5 hours sleepeth the traveller’ does not apply to travellers such as us. The husband is happiest when reclining in bed till the sun is directly overhead, preferably with a blackberry in hand , the kids are happiest when there is a functioning TV within a 500m radius, and as holiday planner and executer I am happiest when I get to live my ‘Discovery Travel and Living’ fantasy. With such diverse demands from a holiday, the immediate future looks rather bleak. Still, we have to complete what we have embarked upon.

Ruins : The first few days are spent in a city with a glorious past that is steeped in culture and heritage. My heart begins to race, not at the thought of walking the very grounds where chariots once raced and where valiant gladiators once tore lions to shreds with their bare arms, but from trying to keep a certain 3 year old from reducing the carefully preserved ruins of centuries past to rubble by alternately climbing, stomping and poking the fragile structures with bare limbs. I feel the urge to flee the eternal city if it is to stay that way for posterity.

Museums are not free from risk of damnation from us too. The details and imperfections of the human body, masterly recreated by renaissance artists and sculptors are sniggered at and mocked at without discretion. Reason – “Mom! Why are all these people nangu? Why did the artists forget to put clothes on them?” We are left with no option but to flee scene, lest the entire Indian race be seen as philistine.

Forts are dismissed as drab, churches are branded as garish, monuments are written off as repetitive and identical by know-it-all 9 year old. By now my heart has begun to bleed at the hours of research and planning gone to naught, and the pointlessness of the funds sunk into this holiday already.

Ruined limbs :
Museums and ruins are not for us. It has to be the glorious outdoors then. We hike, we bike, we walk, we jog just as the fit anchor on the travel channel does, without messing her make-up or even a strand of hair on her head and after a hard day even has the time and energy to change for dinner. I hold her entirely responsible for the state of ruin we find our delicate limbs in. We city slickers are better off watching the travel channel, exercising our thumbs on the remote and leaving the hiking and trekking to those anchors. They atleast get paid for it.

By now we are whining with nostalgia about home, the comforts of separate rooms for adults and kids, the friendly neighbourhood masseuse, the driver who ferries us all over and above all the din and bustle, smells and sounds of home. Did I say we wanted change? Nay!

Holiday Resolutions
Every year we end the holiday by making a new resolution each.

Husband : Will never do a family holiday again (he finds board meetings more relaxing!)

9 year old S : Will never do a holiday with N again

3 year old N : Will never stop rebelling, mostly without a cause

Me : Will continue planning family holidays...A day will come when holidays will be filled with fun, relaxation, enjoyable family times, picture perfect family photos...till then I shall persist!

Happy Mothers Day

I remember reading Oscar Wilde saying ‘All women end up becoming like their mothers – it is their tragedy; and no man does – that is his’. I can’t comment on the man part, but if someone told me during my growing years that I would end up like my mother, I would have scoffed.

I grew up wanting to be as unlike my mother as possible .Those days I felt everything about my mother was either too much or too little – too much love, too much control, too little freedom, and so on. The onset of adulthood left little time to think about mom – grappling with career choices, managing the widening circle of friends, and the ponderous thoughts of choosing a life partner. But mom continued her relentless micro management of my life – ‘your hair was better when I did the washing’ or ‘your clothes are not appropriate for this occasion or that’ or ‘if you eat like this, you will not be strong enough to bear kids and raise them’.

Marriage happened and with marriage came new relationships and new responsibilities. Yes! This could be the turning point, I thought, where mom lets go of her iron grip. I was after all in safe hands now as she herself admitted – (It baffled me, how she’d rather trust new son-in-law than old daughter).

But habits die hard – my marital status didn’t deter her! She was now constantly coaching me on how handle to each new relationship, especially the ‘other woman’, also known as mother in law. To be honest, I found it easier to handle new mother in law than the old mother.

Was it just my mom or was there some underlying behavioural pattern to all mothers? I simply had to find out, so over a quickly put together crib session cum lunch with gal pals, I discovered that it was indeed a universal phenomenon – moms had to control and daughters had to rebel against control, and they keep getting drawn towards each other for more of the same.

Time took me to the next stage in my life cycle - motherhood. Please note, no amount of reading up or pre-natal classes prepares one enough for the first mind numbing wails of the new born, the first hiccup, the first signs of colic, the first vaccination....the list is endless. I noticed my wall of strength who vowed in the presence of god almighty to stay by my side in sickness and in health and in good times and in bad, was fainting and crumbling outside the delivery room when I most needed him; he refused to hold the baby for the first three months for fear of hurting her.

Suddenly I needed mom. I could think of no one better to turn to but her. Mom’s word is gospel now. I follow her instructions to the t, however archaic they may seem in comparison to the numerous fancy books on childcare I have read in the past 9 months. I bathe, feed, medicate, and even eat as she instructs, all in the interest of the baby’s well being. I exchange notes with her on how she handled my own infant days, what thoughts and emotions went through her then, what dreams she had for me and so many other things that I hadn’t bothered finding out all these years.

As my child grows, I find my dependence on mom only increasing. I start looking forward to her visits more than ever, venting my anxieties, frustrations and fears within minutes of her arrival. The husband points out gently that I have become everything I have always accused my mother of being - hyperactive, paranoid, worrisome and controlling. I shrugged – what would someone without a uterus know about how to raise a child.

Pondering later, I take what husband says as a compliment - if I turn out to be half the mother to my daughter as my mother was to me, I will have achieved something. I feel (with all due respect to Oscar Wilde) it is every woman’s tragedy if, in fact, she DOES NOT end up becoming like her mother.

Happy mother’s day to all the mothers I know.

Separation Pangs

She has finished a year of school already. It seems like just yesterday that we were busying ourselves for N’s first day. She was all of 2 years and 4 months....

The entire household is a bundle of nerves. The husband has taken half a day off to participate in this momentous occasion, his longest break since an over-zealous attempt to connect with the younger lot at an inter-office cricket match went wrong 5 years ago. The only connection made on said occasion was with the orthopaedic surgeon at the friendly neighbourhood hospital.

Today is a much more traumatic day. Everything little N may need for her 2 ½ hours away from home is packed and ready – finger food, spoon food, health food, junk food, favourite toy, neighbour’s kids favourite toy, first aid kit (like a school with 200 kids would not have considered getting one!), our only family photograph in which all of us are smiling (lest she forget what her parents look like in those 2 ½ hours), and change of clothes that may be considered rather excessive even for a child stranded on a deserted island.

Had N been a little older or wiser she would have suspected us of packing her out of our lives for good!

Despite months of planning and rehearsing this day in our heads, we are running 20 minutes late and accusing fingers are pointing in all directions. With two MBAs and proven organisational capabilities and time management skills between the three of us, the only who appears anywhere close to capable or skilled is the one without the degree or track record. She watches her animated parents in action with the same rapt attention she pays a Tom and Jerry show.

All attempts at creating the impression of responsible and respectable parents are defeated, crushed and thrown out of the proverbial window when we eventually walk into school, 35 minutes late, all nerves and still arguing. To top it, we scrutinise the teachers, staff, other kids, their parents, their hair, their toe nails, spoken language and body language with the same paranoia that one might display when trapped in a roomful of convicted felons.

While we were in the midst of being reassured on the high standards of hygiene and the capabilities of the staff for the 77th time, N has decided to make herself comfortable in a corner of the classroom and was already experimenting with the play-way method of learning : she was studying the combined effect of glue and poster colours on her taste buds. My own taste buds were going into spasms right then. I think I will need to give home-schooling serious consideration.

We are told to leave and to be back two hours later. We don’t. We lurk, first outside the classroom, then outside the corridor and finally outside the gates, till the security guard, not the friendliest I have seen, forcibly removes us from the vicinity. We are left with little choice but to circle the school block in our car. We are lucky no suspicious neighbour had alerted the cops by this time.

Two hours and a empty fuel tank later, we return to pick up what we imagine would be a distraught and crying N. But out walks little Ms Sunshine, after planting a kiss here and a hug there, in no seeming hurry to rush into the arms of the nervous wreck her parents are.

Well, I don’t know what troubled me more – the extent of my separation pangs from the child or the child’s lack of the same!

I had a lot to learn about my kids, but am not sure if  I am ready yet.

Hospital Horror

It is my third visit to the friendly neighbourhood hospital in as many weeks. It is becoming a habit of sorts these days. N has managed it again - the proverbial molehill has morphed into Mt. Everest -an innocuous insect bite has turned maliciously grave. We press the panic button, and faithful driver D who knows the grind by now, weaves past construction rubble, nonchalant workmen and stray animals that have become permanent fixtures en route to the hospital to reach us there in record time. I can’t be blamed if Schumi and his ilk appear like boy scouts to me right now.

Lesson no. 1 : Whether you storm into a hospital unannounced (like we did this time) or with an appointment secured after getting past 2 IVRs with 5 submenus each, 3 operators asking you the same set of 4 questions each, and 10 minutes of instrumental music along the way (like we usually do) – the waiting time is the same. The doctor will see you only when he will see you.

Warning no 1 for potential visitors : if you were not sick before securing the appointment, you most certainly will be in need of critical care by the time you hang up the phone – your BP will soar, your brow will sweat and muscles will be ready to go into spasms (learnt from multiple previous experiences with operators and IVRs).

We wait. We observe while we wait. Doctors in white coats shuffle purposefully in and out of consulting rooms; nurses without white coats shuffle even more purposefully than the doctors. A flat screen television repeatedly plays images of the hospital’s 5star facilities and imported equipment and a voice over tells you why this should be the preferred choice for all your healthcare needs. Those FMCG marketers could take a tip or two from these business savvy doctors.

Well, there is good news and bad news for us. The good news is that Mt Everest would after all be sorted with a course of antibiotics and a preventive TT shot. The bad news is that N  doesn't take to injections well. She usually brings the roof down even before the injection is unwrapped. Today was no exception. A small crowd has already gathered outside the treatment room and diminutive, edgy Dr. D, having experienced the wrath of this phobic child in the past was praying for an emergency in the labour room or even a phone call that would take him away from situation at hand.

When gentle pleas, authority and good old fashioned humour failed to cut ice with the insurgent child, the seasoned mother in me recommends the use of brawn power. It takes four healthy nurses 25 harrowing minutes to pin down one limb each, before the deed is done.

I’m surprised that the doctor hadn’t collapsed in a heap yet. Now, if there is one person who deserves a wellness holiday in the Himalayas, it is Dr D from the friendly neighbourhood hospital.

The doctor checks our vaccination calendar and heaves a sigh of relief that there isn’t one scheduled for another three years. He has enough time to think about his course of action for that day in the distant future. Maybe one of us would have relocated by then or a well-timed flu or a well-planned holiday would keep him away.

Till then, peace and quiet reigns.

Right and Wrong

Right from childhood you are taught the difference between good and bad; between right and wrong; how important it is to make the correct choices, not necessarily the easy choices in life. You diligently teach your kids the same values.

You are a darn good preacher. Are you a good practitioner?

Commandment no 1 : ‘Do not use bad words’

It is a Monday morning (not the best part of the day or week for you) and your under five is already running late for school. Just when you think you are going to make it past that last signal and through the school gates in time, a wretched #%*#*$ auto rickshaw springs out of nowhere bringing you and a strings of vehicles behind you to a screeching halt. About the same time, the signal turns red. The first commandment is broken, and how! Years of carefully controlled emotions and words that have never gotten past the tip of your lip gush forth with unstoppable speed and clarity. 5 year old gets a first-hand experience of the choicest expletives, straight from the perfect-until- this-moment parent’s mouth.

Someone sure had a lot of answering to do to a certain 5 year that night.

Commandment no 2 : ‘Do not lie’

It’s that time of the day when you are just about to hang up your boots for the day and go in for some well deserved me-time. The phone rings. Oh no! it’s that 9 pm caller who is certain to stretch the call until midnight; taking a hint has never been this caller’s strong point .What choice do you have but bring out unsuspecting 5 year old to the rescue.

‘Tell her I am not at home’ you instruct, standing right in front of the phone, in full flesh and blood.

‘My mom tells me to tell you that she is not home’ the bewildered kid parrots, in all sincerity.

Later that night, an anxious parent will be heard frantically explaining the concept of white lies to an already confused 5 year old.

Commandment no 3 : ‘It is the participation and not winning that matters’

This works well for normal everyday events...but don’t anybody dare remind you of that on sports day when you are screaming out from the stands to your first born on the field, ‘Kill him! Cream her! Faster! Faster!’.

Next to you in the stand is your second born, who has had no trouble understanding the third commandment, but is suddenly struggling to understand who this new monster sitting next to her is.

Commandment no 4 : ‘Share your things’

But all hell breaks loose at home the day child puts this to practice by generously distributing her lunch to friends and enemies alike in school; caveats and clauses are added – thou shalt not share lunch; thou shalt not share school books...

Commandment no 5 : ‘Do not cheat’

If greasing palms, fudging forms, deflating income, evading tax, buying pirated software, watching pirated CDs, breaking traffic rules when cops aren’t looking, binging on chocolate cake when family isn’t looking etc. can be excluded from the list, then you are doing fine on this commandment.

Point to ponder

You wonder why that 5 year old looks confused, distraught and world-weary most of the time? And you think it is because of the faulty education system, corrupt political system or perhaps the inescapable peer pressure (seriously? at 5?)

Maybe it’s time you added a new name to that list. No prizes though for guessing who!

The little ironies of life

This morning’s newspaper sparked off the idea for this piece. The city’s leading divorce lawyer has given a two page interview on how to keep a marriage together. Seriously, how ironical is that? The day I have to take marriage tips from a person who has made her name and money getting people separated, I will have seen it all.

Life is full of such ironies. Here are some I encounter fairly often, like..

Food, Fitness, Shopping

When I am sitting at Mcdonalds with a happy meal and a crying kid for company;

When I am sitting at a fancy restaurant and discussing diets with fat friend, thin friend and a full plate of French fries for company

When I am told to run a mile a day on the treadmill to get fit; and realise that I need to first get fit to be able to run a mile on that treadmill.

When I read an article that says shopping is therapeutic; and learn the hard way that what fits me makes me look 15 years older and what I think will make me look young and sexy never fits me. My conclusion – shopping is depressing. I need therapy post shopping.

When my own research tells me that the best remedy for post shopping blues is a box of chocolates (the gooeier the better); while being fully aware that the more of those I have, the lesser my chances of finding something I can fit into on my next shopping trip.

Life in the city

When I am sitting in the comfort of my Mumbai home, cursing IPL and its inventors and hysterically supporting Chennai Super Kings in their match against Mumbai Indians.

When I am caught in a traffic pile up on the 6 lane high speed Mumbai-Pune expressway;

When I see an under 12 who has never set foot inside a school selling children’s books at a traffic signal.

When I see that billboard painter suspended precariously 100 ft above the ground, creating magic with his brush, but will never be able to read or understand a word of it himself.

And finally the biggest irony of them all :

When it dawns on me that I slogged my entire student life to make a decent life for myself; and that life today is to slog twice as hard so that my kids can make a life for themselves.

Would love to hear about the little ironies in your lives too, people.

Ben10 Vs. Barbie

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. The twain meet on earth to produce little alien boys and little alien girls, whom neither can understand. Right from the time they can walk and talk, these little boys and girls show clear signs that they are as different as chalk and cheese and when put together in the same room, contrary to the laws of physics, don’t attract, but try to repel each other back to where they originally came from.

So, when I get together a bunch of 3 year old boys and girls for an organised play-date at my girl dominated household, there are bound to be a few revelations. There is initial awkwardness and silence when the visiting boys realise the room is pink and filled with pastel coloured stuffed clones of every animal species imaginable and delicate Barbie dolls in a variety of avatars and colours. (There is even a brown toned Barbie in Indian bridal costume). There are no cars or guns, which is what I presume little boys play with.

But kids are resourceful creatures. Within 15 minutes, the Indian bride Aishwarya and the American Princess Elina are seen racing each other on the polished marble floor and engaging in revoltingly un-barbie- like acts such hand to hand combat, guerrilla attacks and somersaults, much to the horror of the girls present. Beauty and Jasmine, two other elegant Barbies have now mutated into Ben10 warriors with a mission to save planet earth from alien life forms in the guise of cuddly teddy bears, fluffy puppies and cute bunnies.

When the mission ends, Beauty has one arm less and Jasmine has exactly three strands of hair left on her head. Sarah the bear’s gut has been wrenched out and Esmerelda’s pink hair dryer wielding hand is now a mean machine gun toting one.

The girls manage to salvage the last of the surviving dolls, Belle and Rose, from the evil grip of the boys and have retreated to an imaginary kitchen to engage in tamer activities such as cake baking and dough kneading. Sarah’s gaping gut will be nursed back to health by my doctor daughter, while her hairdresser friend will make fervent attempts to restore Jasmine’s coiffures to its original glory.

Where did these stereotypes emerge from? Surely the cake baking wasn’t picked up from me as I haven’t as much as touched a baking dish in all my years of motherhood. (It is another story that even pre-mixed cakes turn out to be disasters at my touch!) As for those Ben10 warriors, I am certain their fathers had little to do with their sons' trigger happiness. One is an artist and the other a straight-laced banker, which is about as non-violent as professions get!

Maybe the answer lies buried somewhere deep in the craters of Mars and Venus or some unknown planet where little kids originally came from.

 

The Circle of Life

I wrote a post on the tension and drama that unfolds when my parents take a flight out of my house. I usually call them paranoid, over-cautious and needlessly edgy, among other things.

Now in order to complete the picture I need to put on record what usually happens when I take a flight with my family, i.e. husband and kids.

6 30 am:

Me - Wake up kids! We have a flight to catch!
Them - The flight is only at 9 30. The airport is only ½ hour away! Don't be paranoid! (rings an uneasily familiar bell)

6.45 : Another attempt to wake up kids

7.00 : The laborious process of rising and shining commences

7.30 : Debate on the merits and demerits of jacket A vs jacket B ensues between kid A and kid B. It doesn’t matter that we are going to a place where the heat makes jackets redundant.

8.00 : Books, toys, puzzles, travel games and numerous other things that have never seen the light of day in our house are packed in the hope of seeing the light of day in another city.

8.15 The last of the stuffed toys still remaining in the kids’ shelf is stuffed into the already overflowing suitcase.

Did I mention it is a 1 week holiday? Seeing their empty room and the size of their suitcase, one would never guess.

8.30 : Merits of drinking milk vs. threat of being left behind are weighed before milk is drunk

8.35 : All set to go. Door is finally shut. Oops, one large suitcase is still inside

8.40 : Suitcase is successfully retrieved, along with 1 kid, who we guiltily realized had also been left inside.

8.45 : We are ready to depart, finally!

Did I mention the flight was at 9.30  ?

Whether or not we made it to that flight is irrelevant. The obvious take-out from this story is that no flight in my life has ever been and will ever be uneventful.

The less obvious but more important take-out is my realisation that what goes around comes around this quickly.

I thought I had reached that 'know-it-all' stage in life which allows me to go around telling my parents what do and how to do it. But what I had no way of knowing is that my children would beat me at my own game, some 30 years too soon.

I need to take urgent lessons from my parents on the fine art of tolerating impetuous and reckless children. After all, they have had over 35 years of experience at it, haven't they?

The kid who never learns

I have a disciplined, retired Government servant for a father who extends that discipline to all walks of life – be it drinking his morning cuppa at 6 am sharp everyday, maintaining a record of telephone bills paid for the last 15 years, or something as mundane as taking a flight.

I, on the other hand am a reckless being, and a particularly reckless traveller - mishaps and misadventures of every kind have a personal bonding with me. Talk of missed flights, wrong trains, wrong dates, expired passports – name it and I have been there, done that.

What happens when said disciplined father and his wife spend a few days at reckless daughter’s place? The tension in the air is palpable most of the time and reaches volcanic proportions as stay draws to a close.

The preparation for their departure usually starts two days before the actual journey, about the same time I think about booking tickets, if I am travelling. Clothes are packed. Clothes for the journey are set aside. Speculation on what food might be served on the flight and whether it will be palatable or not constitutes a substantial part of the day’s conversation.

The atmosphere on the morning of the journey is nothing short of a mini-event. The lights are on at 4 30 am. (It doesn’t matter that flight is only at 11am). Sooner or later, willy-nilly, the entire household is up. Endless cups of coffee have already been consumed by 6 am. Breakfast is consumed at 7 am, as there needs be a decent gap between this and the meal on board.

At 7 15 they are all set to leave

‘But the flight is only at 11 and the airport is ½ hour away’ I try to reason

‘We don’t mind being a tad early’ comes the firm reply

‘ You are not early. You are paranoid’ I bite

‘We are not like you. We don’t like missing flights’ comes the stinging response.

Oh! A raw nerve has been touched. Small fight ensues, but I should know that is not about to alter decision. The sequence of events that follow :
1. 6.30 - Bags are out of the room.
2. 6.45 - Bags reach the front door.
3. 7.00 - Disciplined government servant and his compliant wife reach the front door.
Between 7.00 and 7.15
4. Tickets that have been re-checked are re-re-checked.
5. Bags that are locked are unlocked and relocked for better safety.
6. Kids that have been kissed are rekissed.
7. Last minute advice that was previously doled out is re-doled out.
8. Finally, there is just enough time for a quick last minute fight.

Now they have to be let go, for everyone’s sanity.I shut the door after them, only to realise that the tickets after the nth recheck are left behind on the dining table, thanks to my last minute fight!

Sprinting skills (non-existent so far) are put to test before tickets are somehow reached to the over-cautious travellers. Whew!

Parents reach the airport as intended -  2 hours early.

Parents happy.

Me fuming : why do they prefer airport lounges to the comfort of my home?

Kid wondering (aloud ) :Why do you always fight with your parents when they are here? And then why do you cry after they leave? If you fight so much, shouldn’t you be happy when they leave?

Its because some relationships are beyond logic and reason...And some children, however grown up, will never learn...

The Homecoming

I returned for a long overdue holiday to the city I still inadvertently call home, although it’s been 15 years since I spent more than 2 days at a time there. This time I was on a holiday with no agenda and was all set to go on a trip down memory lane. I was curious to find out if my favourite haunts from the past had managed to hold their own in a decade that had put India on the global map for all the right reasons.

The first thing I notice about Chennai is the number of flyovers that have sprung up all over the city, each having brought along with it a slew of new vehicles and fresh traffic jams - yet another city has fallen prey to the perils of progress and development, I presume.

The next thing I notice is the familiar sight of the larger than life cut outs of movie stars and politicians all over the city. It is a sight so uniquely Chennai, and one that never fails to bring a smile to my face, just as it never fails to baffle a first time visitor. It is a comforting reminder that over the years, Madras may have become Chennai, but some things would just never change. Thalaivar, Amma, Superstar, Kalaignar, Thalapathy and numerous other ordinary mortals with extraordinary titles would jostle and find their place amidst the flyovers and sea of vehicles.

I hail an auto rickshaw to take me around my old haunts, but not before I am forced into a mutually abusive altercation in fluid Tamil (enough to make a truck driver swoon). The autos in this city don’t carry meters any more and the fare is based completely on the auto driver’s audacity and/or the passenger’s desperation level.

My three wheeled transportation for the day takes me past my favourite video cassette renting parlour but I notice with a tinge of sadness that the place is now selling mobile phones and accessories. Further down the road, my friendly neighbourhood grocery store of 25 years has been replaced with a steel and glass structure, bearing the familiar red and yellow signage of a national supermarket chain. This chain alone is responsible for wiping out half the mom and pop stores from the map of urban India. Everything about this place is templated – the layout, the display, the uniformed staff with their mechanical greeting and impersonal plastic smile.

I recall with nostalgia my friendly grocer, who, in the good old days knew not only me, my brother and my dog by first name, but also what brand of soap we bought, how many kgs of rice we consumed or even which teen age boy fancied me. I saw him then as an overtly curious painful intrusion on my privacy, but realise now that what we were getting back then was personalised service at its best and a dose of free gossip for those interested.

I passed the post-office, a huge landmark then, but now a desolate structure, visited only by retired people collecting their pension. It was just another run-down green building next to the swanky new mall, the newest attraction in the neighbourhood. As I moved on, I couldn't help but wonder how the postal department managed to stay afloat and pay salaries in these times.

I notice there are more internet browsing centres in Chennai than commuters on a peak hour Mumbai local. Pizza joints and swanky coffee shops had sprouted like mushrooms on a rainy day all over the city. Thankfully, the traditional udipi hotels and tiffin bhavans were doing sell-out business too. The humble Tamilian has decided to eat and spend with a never seen before vengeance. In fact, he was no longer willing to even make his own idli batter at home, a chore that used to consume 6/7th of a tamil housewife’s life in those days. Today the batter is out-sourced from the convenience store across the road and all the spare time is spent watching back-to-back soaps on any of the 20 different Tamil channels, or better still in the gleaming malls that lures families in with the promise of fun, food, films and fashion for one and all.

As I soak in the sights, sounds and smells of an i-age chennai, I am interrupted by a text message from my newly-tech-enabled mother, wanting to know if I would be home for dinner, because dad was going to order Pizzas, coke and brownies to celebrate our little family reunion. Wow! Whatever happened to the good ol days, when celebration meant that the usual meal of sambar and curd rice was finished off with home made payasam. After dinner, my father reminds me that we are scheduled to chat with my NRI brother on Skype, the internet-phone that enables us to make long distance calls for a lark. I must confess, never having using anything but graham bell’s invention for communication, I felt like someone from The Flintstones in front of my tech-talking jargon spewing parents.

I came to Madras wanting to catch up from where I had left off, but the Madras of my childhood is history. It exists no more. The genie has been let out of the proverbial bottle and has taken the entire city including my parental home into its vicious grip!

I had a lot of preparation to do before my next trip home!

Phone Stalkers

Remember the time when telephones were considered a luxury ? When there was an 8 year waiting period for the telephone connection? Those were the days when the communication needs of the entire upper middle class neighbourhood I grew up in were well taken care of by 4 phone owning households and one public phone at the street corner.

We have come a long way since then baby.

Today, between 2 adults, 2 kids and the domestic help, we have 5 phones in the house and at any given point in time, one of them is ringing. The ring tone is no longer the simple ‘tring tring’. Mine resonates to the tune of ‘Hakuna Matata’ as that’s what pleases my 3 year old. The domestic help has a different Hindi song for each category of caller -my knowledge of Hindi songs has widened thanks to her constantly ringing phone. Many a time I have been caught humming along with it. The telephone is the single greatest leveller of Modern India.

I have now reached a stage where I feel insecure, unwanted and unimportant if the phone remains silent even for a short period of time. But in all honesty, 90% of the calls I receive in a day are those I can live without.

A sample of my callers, my ‘phone stalkers’ as I call them :

1. Twice a week, I get a call from an insurance company soliciting me to insure my worthy life with one of their 200 existing products or one that can be custom-made to suit my requirements.

2. On Sunday afternoons, when the entire house is at peace, a certain bank calls me, tempting me to take a documentation-free, hassle-free, (but unfortunately not interest- free) personal loan from them (can loans and troubles be anything but personal?).

3. Else, the call is about yet another unbelievable offer from a credit card company that wants me to spend more than I currently am, just when my last bill makes me think that is impossible and has me seriously considering a lifetime of austerity.

4. And then there are the calls from those high-end departmental stores requesting me to visit them for their bi-annual sales (maybe they are aware I would never buy their over-priced products at their normal rates) or that spa I visited over a year ago in another city that calls me religiously every month to remind me that it’s about time I paid them a visit to rejuvenate my tired body and soul.

5. My very own phone company calls me almost on a daily basis, suggesting that I change my plan as the current one is sub-optimal (translation : ‘you are not using your phone as much as we want you to, so please choose this new plan that will double your bill ).

Not all calls are a nuisance though. I am grateful for the call from the car company that reminds me that my vehicle is due for service. But what I dislike is the phone call the morning after asking me how my experience at the service centre was. The ill-timed call comes precisely at the moment I am reviewing their two-page ‘itemised bill’ that has fleeced me of a sizeable portion of my monthly earning and has me fuming over why parts that I didn’t even know existed in my car till that minute have been replaced, while the noisy A/c that I specifically complained about continues to drone.

Sometimes I long to throw my phone(s) away. Go back to the days of trunk calls, STD booths and snail mails; the simple days when I could escape into oblivion and be truly untraceable; when a bank meant a brick and mortar structure that I visited whenever I had a need, and took a loan strictly if and only if I needed one, and not because some nameless faceless peddler relentlessly stalked me on the phone!

'Age'itation

Its nearly dawn and we are just back home after a rocking time at dear friend GK’s 40th birthday party. He is a cheerful, exuberant old guy and has invited everyone he knows, has ever spoken to, smiled at and been in the same lift with, to bring in his birthday.

We all have different ways of reacting to the magic figure 40. Clearly GK was celebrating the fact that he has touched this landmark and chose to share his joy with his entire world (probably the best way to deal with it).

Some we know are in denial. They are perennially 3 years away from their 40th.

Some others start the backward spiral just before touching 40. Their clothes and behaviour get progressively younger, a la Shah Rukh Khan in ridiculously tight t shirts mouthing ‘yo’ and ‘cool’ in his avatar as a college student in a Karan Johar flick.

And then there are those who are seen strictly in the company older, fatter and balder people, so that they themselves look younger in comparison.

To each his own.

But you sure know you are past your prime when:

1. You celebrate your birthday at home with a movie, chilled milk(trust me, it is great for acidity) and bottle of pills for company

2. Your annual health check-ups are no longer just annual. Between you and your friends, you have most of the documented ailments in the medical world

3. Your receive compliments such as ‘you don’t look a day over 42’ or ‘this is how I would like to look 10 years from now’

4. If you are woman, your husband has stopped gifting diamonds and pearls. This time it is ‘La Prairie intensive night repair cream’ that promises to defy the ageing process and restore lost confidence. When did I lose it for it to be restored?

5. You have difficult choices to make before your next birthday - its between botox shots, blepharoplasty (trust me, it is a real word – it helps remove eye bags), brow lift and face lift.

6. You child is talking about crushes and heartbreaks with you, no longer about tooth-fairies and Santa. Where was I when she grew up. Probably too busy trying to fight ageing.

7. You are considered experienced and worldly wise by your cousin who has two children of his own? What! How much younger does he think he is? has he forgotten we sat on the same mango tree and threw rotten mangoes at our grandmother’s balding neighbour not too many years ago

8. You find discotheques noisy and cannot identify even a single song.

9. If you do (manage to identify a song), then it must be retro night – when they play music that you till that minute thought was current and trendy.

10. You are in Goa on new year’s eve and haven’t been to a single beach party. You are having champagne and caviar instead with a few close friends at the exclusive private dining area of a 5star hotel.

11. While sipping champagne all you can talk about is the parties and wild binges from your past.

12. You have started reading self help and inspirational books and recommending them to friends too

13. You see your friend’s grown up kid and say precisely the kind of things that made you cringe as a child:  ‘Oh dear! Children grow up so fast!’ Or ‘ Do you remember me? the last time I saw you u were this small and crawling all over my carpet ’

And the kid thinks ‘Yeah! The last time I saw you still had some hair left and you were not popping out of your clothes like this’

As for me, I still have some time before I hit this landmark (really!) . And my recommendation to those of you who are close is to stop thinking and go after all those things you wanted by the time you turned 40, with a vengeance. So,

• Go get that big car you can’t bear to see in your neighbour’s garage
• Go for that expensive hair weaving treatment that you so badly want (and need!)
• Join that salsa class before your joints stop cooperating
• Get that painful tattoo (well...if that’s what you really want!)
• Trek up to the Himalayas (ok, got a bit carried away with this one...its best to keep the list objective and manageable; Those BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOALS, taught in management school are for companies , not people pushing 40s)

And till you cross off all those things from your list, keep postponing your 40th. No one will know.

Celebrating womanhood

It is international woman’s day today (the remaining 364 are for the men).

It is the day I receive SMSs and emails from women friends all over congratulating me on being a successful fellow woman. I am told to celebrate the occasion by forwarding the sms/email to 7 other women I like. (now if these women liked me, there is a high chance of them liking me less after I send them the chain mail)

Today a lot is said about me and my clan:

I am a woman of substance

I am the better half

I am the fairer sex (doesn’t matter that husband is three shades lighter than me, today I am allowed to be anything I want)

I am a diva

I am a ‘Yummy mummy’ (one more to join the long list of phrases like 'paradigm shift', 'page-3-person', 'middle class values' and 'quality time' that I keep hearing often but never quite understand)

Usually I rubbish special days like mother’s day and friend’s day as a conspiracy wrought by savvy marketers to make more money, but this time I feel like playing along. A spa session, followed by lunch with other ‘yummy mummies’, culminating in a chick flick directed by a fellow chick seemed like a good way to celebrate womanhood, even at the cost of indulging a few exploitative marketers.

‘Today you have a new mom; used to be called Dad till this minute’’ I announce to the kids as I get ready to leave for my official day of decadence.
4 of the 6 yummy mummies are able to make it.

We debate on where to eat – one is on a see-food diet, meaning she only sees the food, doesn’t eat; another is on a see-food diet of a different kind, she eats everything she sees. The third eats only organic food and the last is on a fast today to appease her favourite god (I'm not telling you which one of these I am). It is nearly tea-time before we arrive at a decision on where to lunch. No wonder we are given just one day to celebrate!

Lunchtime conversation is about the men and kids we have been trying so hard to get away from.

Spa session turns out to be an expensive indulgence.

Chick flick turns out to be a drag.

Kid calls to say I was missed sorely because mom-of-the-day has not been of much help with the science project, has served milk in breakable cup (that was tested and declared broken), has forgotton to carry a water bottle to the play-park and has almost forgotten one kid while returning. Old mom is wanted back asap.

My day turns out ok. But thankfully, for everyone’s sake, tomorrow we will be back to men’s day and the world will be normal again.

Urban truths

S is back from an English exam at school.

'How did it go sweetie?' I ask

'Good' (that could mean anything ranging from ‘not great’ to ‘slightly better than terrible’)

'What went wrong?'  (I assume it was slightly better than terrible)

'Today we had to write an essay on ‘A visit at the bookfair’' S says with disappointment

‘What was the problem with that?’ I ask

‘Mom I have never been to a book fair’ she stuns me.

(What!) ’Didn’t you have choice?’ I ask after regaining composure

‘Yes, I did; the other topic was ‘My train journey’. (Another one that would have stumped her).

I realised my daughter, like most of her city-slicker friends, would have been at her expressive best had she been given topics such as visit to the mall, visit to a birthday party, my experiences at a slumber party(I didn’t know what that meant till mine got invited to one), trip to a foreign country, visit to a gizmo shop or a day with my computer.

She even stood a fair chance with ‘The rise and fall of the Berlin wall’ or the ‘Culture and traditions of ancient Gaul’ But tell her to write about a book fair, she draws a blank!

Train journey? Another blank. I don’t remember the last train journey we took as a family. There is no place we want to visit that is less than 2 hours by flight, or more than 5 hours by car from Bombay, so a train is virtually redundant in our lives.

Coming to think of it, there are many other ‘classic essay topics’ that would draw a blank from these kids – ‘A visit to my native place’ would be one (but in all fairness, our native place is a small town in the hinterlands of Tamilnadu where no one from our family currently lives. Even the ancestral home has been auctioned off).

‘My garden’, ‘Visit to a post office’ and ‘A letter to my grandmother’ would be others.

Right until this moment I was very proud of my achievements as a mom. I read to my kids every night, buy them encyclopaedias, ration their TV viewing to an hour per week, make them watch classics like ‘Sound of Music’, make sure they know the Ramayan, I even take them to the friendly neighbourhood bookstore often enough...

Yes,the bookstore, where the stocking pattern is 60% toys and 40% books. Children’s classics are usually relegated to the missable top or bottom racks. The ones at eye level are stories about princesses and fairies or beautifully packaged Disney books, most of which come with a free DVD, just in case the kid doesn’t want to read the book version.

I felt like a complete failure right now. It was time for some urgent course correction.

I know what my project for the coming weekend would be. I will hunt down that book fair in Bombay, even if it in the remotest corner of the city’s boondocks and spend a day with my kids there.

And come summer, native Tamilnadu is where you will find us (Sorry kids, that holiday in the Alps is not going to happen anytime soon)

‘But we will be spending 2/5ths of the holiday in the commute’

‘Nobody we know lives there, what will we do for....’

Sorry, I am not about to be bought with logic or facts. My mind is made and I stand by it (for once!)

This summer is going to be all about building character, as Calvin’s dad might have said.

If not, it will still be worth the grades in the next English exam.

Madvertising

I remember reading somewhere that only sex and Shah Rukh Khan sell in India, and not necessarily in that order. I know of at least one marketer in recent times who must have read the same article and put it into practice as well. Maybe SRK was unaffordable or out of the country at the time, so our marketer opts for the next best choice to hawk his wares.

The brief to the ad agency must have been rather brief, something to the effect of ‘Make my brand stand out in the clutter and use sex to drive home the main message'

Not a bad thought, considering the target audience is cricket watching Indian male. At the same time it is one that throws out all the conventional lessons on communication strategy, brand promise, creative cut through etc. learnt in b-school and the early years in marketing. All of these suddenly blur into irrelevance.

Product category in question : Cement (going by the execution, the ad could have been for anything ranging from sun-block cream to cars to deodorant)

Brand name : Fails to get cemented to my mind in the first few attempts, despite best intentions at staying focussed.

Execution : Simple and direct . In fact it was so direct that it hit me like a moving train the first time I saw it. It still has the same effect, except now I choose to turn away whenever the ad is aired. Being a  non-cricket-watching non-male, it doesn’t take me too much will-power to do so.

Storyline : A red swim suit clad anorexic and/or bulimic model who bears a striking resemblance to every other anorexic/bulimic beauty pageant aspirant/participant /winner, emerges out of a beautiful but non-descript body of water that could have been Mauritius, Phukhet, Bali or our very own Andaman islands. Not that it matters. The defining elements here are water, girl and swimsuit.

As the camera pans in for a close up of said model, the voice over mutters something like‘there is something special about this one’.

If you dont focus (difficult under current circumstances for target audience) you will never realise they are referring to the cement here.

REACTIONS FROM THE CRICKET WATCHING TARGET AUDIENCE

Post ad : Tsk-Tsk! How objectionable! How could they undervalue women thus? Why do women allow themselves to be reduced to passive beings and mere objects of sexual fantasy? Did the cement maker expect us (men) to fall for this?

During ad : Silent, open mouthed state of suspended wonderment

MOOT POINTS

1.  Will they watch the ad again :  Definitely
(every time it is aired, which is once every 15 minutes, or once every wicket/four/six/over change whichever is sooner.)

2. Will they remember the brand name : Probably not

3. Will they buy the brand when the family is in need of cement :  Quite unlikely, unless the civil contractor found an emotional connect with either model or brand; and

MOST DEFINITELY NOT if the wife has any say in the brand of cement!

FaceBook

Conversation overheard in a salon between two women sitting across each other:

Woman 1: Hi! I'm Manisha (names imagined )
Woman 2: Hi Manisha! Nice meeting you. I'm Preeti. You have kids?

Woman 1: Yes, 1 daughter. What about you?

Woman 2 : Lucky you, I have 2 boys!
(fairly common comment from moms of two boys who assume that all little girls do is to dress up in pretty pink and lace, carry pink dolls and have fake tea parties with other pink frilly dressed little girls. For all these moms, I send an open invitation to spend a day with my little girl and her friends)

Woman 2 continues: Well, Manisha, are you on facebook?

Woman 1: Oh yes! I'm quite active. Can I send you a friend request?
(I have a feeling collecting friends is her hobby, like collecting stamps used to be in my childhood; even there I applied more discretion than our lady seems to be applying here)

Woman 2: Thanks, please do. I'm just getting started with this FB thing
(this one is a novice, but she shows promise of getting there soon)

Moving on to a scene at the play park. Two 6 year old kids swinging side by side.

Kid 1 : I wish I could get a FB id of my own. My mom says I can’t get one till I'm ten.
(What! 10! At that age kids should be thinking of stomping in puddles, chasing pigeons in the park and learning to cycle. Why would they want to be on a social networking site )

You know my mom has 311 friends on FB.

Kid 2 : That’s nothing. My mom has 439!
(this particular mom has a profile for her dog, maid, driver, and has all of them on her list of friends, in addition to her daughter, daughter’s friends and their friend’s friends).

It appears that one’s social standing today is solely determined by the number of friends one has on FB.

If people weren’t facebooking, they were talking about their facebooking. I needed relief. I jump at the offer when a new friend I made invites me to her place for some ice-breaking over coffee on a muggy monsoon evening.

Coffee, food and animated conversation was already underway when I reached. I figured the animated conversation was about what each one was in their previous birth:

Guest 1 : You know, I found out I was Cleopatra in my previous birth.
(my question is did she still think she was Cleopatra, because that would explain the dress three sizes too small and stilettos that hurt my varicose veins by simply being in the same room as her. )

Guest 2 : Oh! I was Marilyn Monroe. And you would never guess what Annie was.
(What, the pope? Because each was outdoing the other)

By now my curiosity has got the better of me and I am desperate to find out a little bit about my own past. Maybe I was the Helen of Troy, or Florence Nightingale (Anything to help me earn a little more respect / authority at home).

I ask for details of this psychic who has given all these people the gyan on their previous avatars. To my dismay, it turns out the psychic is none other than the latest FB quiz. You answer 5 random questions like your favourite colour, least favourite food, movie you enjoy... and FB tells you what you were in your last. There I was! Caught once again in the manic world of FBookers.

Animated conversation continues. Everyone present seemed to know what the other had done that weekend, where they spent the last holiday, if their children had had a haircut or husband had missed a flight. ‘Must be a very close knit group of friends’, I thought. I was wrong. It turned out their lives were open books, thanks to FB status updates and photo updates. New friend even clicked a few pics of this get together to go up on her FB page the next day.

I hate to admit, but later that night, I did take the previous birth quiz. I wouldn’t have been able to get a good night’s sleep without knowing my past. I found out to my dismay that I was a RABBIT. There goes my sleep...for the rest of the week! I resolved not to breathe a word of this to anyone, especially new friend.

Annoyed and wide awake, what better way to kill time than to take a few more FB quizzes? Maybe my luck would turn. Many different quizzes later, I found out I was Cinderella, the planet Mars, the colour yellow, the ice cream vanilla and my celebrity twin was someone I didn’t know.

‘Ok, this is it...one last quiz and no more’ I promise myself.

‘What will be your last words when you die?’ flashes on the screen

Ok, I didn’t need to take that one, I know my last words would definitely be ...‘I will destroy FB and face book quizzes if it is the last thing I do!’

Return to Innocence

Am stuck in a bad traffic jam. (are there good ones?)

I blame the heavy shopping bags for my decision to drive the 750 mts to the supermarket. The traffic which is always bumper to bumper, is bumper to bumper, window to window and door to door today.

Pearl of Wisdom 1 : ‘Switch off the ignition. Don’t you know you can save upto 10% fuel by keeping the engine turned off' says my 8 year old companion S.

I am proud of her. I oblige.

Traffic inches ahead. In the 2 ½ nanoseconds that I take to restart the car, the restless jerk behind me starts to honk. It seems like the longest 2 ½ nanoseconds of my life. Doesn’t he have an 8 year old in his car to explain the ill effects of noise pollution on the fragile environment?

It is 2 days to Holi. Daughter and friends have pledged to celebrate a water-less Holi.

What! Holi! Without water?

I was raised in Madras where Holi is not a recognised festival, but I have spent enough time in Bombay now to know all about rain dances, pool dunks and the full lyrics of ‘rang barse’.

Pearl of Wisdom 2 : ‘Of course, we can’t play with water. Do you know the kids in our neighbourhood slum pay Rs 12 for a bucket of water that an entire family of 5 has to share?’ she says.

Ok, I resign. Have to be politically (and socially) correct. What next?

The children want only home-made, non-toxic vegetable colours. There goes my holi – I could see myself spending the next two days preparing vials of colour out of spinach, beetroot, turmeric and anything else I am able to lay my hands on in the kitchen.

It’s the same story with Diwali that just went by. A small fortune has been spent on crackers by uncle and aunt who are thrilled to have us over for the day.

8 year old is aghast.

Pearl of Wisdom 3 : ‘Do you know they employ children in those cracker factories? And what about the pollution?’

Now I am aghast. When we were 8, our only worry was whose door front will have a greater pile of rubble the morning after diwali (our social standing depended on it). I probably couldn’t even spell pollution back then.

Now, I'm a mixed bag of emotions. Is it wrong to want my children to enjoy their childhood the way we did – footloose and fancy free? Later that night, as I'm deep in thought about how to balance this with their social consciousness, I hear a loud wail coming from the kids’ room.

I hope they weren’t fighting over who will save mother earth from the evil  grip of mankind.

Thankfully, one has kicked the other over a Barbie doll. The victim has packed her life’s belongings, namely 3 stuffed toys, 1 musical pencil case and a bar of kitkat to shift to my room permanently. Right then she didn’t look like she cared if the environment collapsed or the entire water from the ocean evaporated.

I was overjoyed. Yippie! My kids had a kiddy fight! ‘Aalll izz well after all’. I make a high five in the air with god almighty!

Pearl of Wisdom 4 : Kids love the environment; but they love their barbie dolls more. Thank god for that!