Erma Bombeck

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me".

Fringe benefits of Failure and the importance of imagination

I have been hearing about Rowling's address to the Harvard university graduates. It was only by accident that I chanced upon it here.

I simply enjoyed reading it and couldn't stop. The end did not disappoint me either. I am sure you will enjoy reading it too.

While I read the papers a few days back when Jeffrey Archer was in India, I remember the bit where he said 'Rowling made it after 14 attempts, but very few know that I (Jeffrey Archer) had to visit close to 17 publishers before my first best seller'

At the end, all I need to say is 'perserverence pays'

Oh I miss the nanny...

Right now all I am thinking is ....was I in my right mind to make a bold decision of a holiday with Li'l T sans the nanny. Gawd! what was I thinking??!!!!
Gawd! Gawd! Gawd! never thought I will miss baby's nanny so much.

As a youngster I distinctly remember a write-up I had written. It was titled "The Ps in my life" - one of my first and foremost was Pamam - the ever endearing uncle. The second P was the Hobbes I have mentioned in my profile description and the third was my difficult boss and finally now it is the baby's nanny. The P's in my life have always made a difference - whether it be xtremely positive or xtremely negative....but they could never be ignored.

This holiday has only taught me how indispensible THE nanny is!...the most important P in my life these days

Slice of my life these days (now that I am on a holiday!!!!)
-Get woken up by a wailing hungry baby
-feed her
-change her
-motivate her to crap so I can then lie low during the day (I feel more relieved when Li'l T has clean bowels, than when I do....I guess that's what motherhood is all about)
-make sensible conversation with her (as sensible and meaningful as it can get with a 5 month old)
-watch over her while she busily flip flops all over the bed (she does not like the floor)...simply to ensure she does not flip flop off it.
-give her a rejuvenating oil massage followed by a bath routine (which she simply looks forward to)
-bathe her
-dress her
-feed her
-put her to bed
-console her every time she wails
-change her
-feed her
-change her
-feed her
-change her
-omygosh did I forget taking her around to all anxious relatives homes
-change her
-feed her
-remind myself that this is all my doing
-change her
-feed her
-and finally at the end of day crash after putting her to bed.
.........I am looking forward to getting back home. I have promised myself a good holiday after I dutifully handover li'l T to THE nanny. That is when my holiday actually begins .....

Discussions...

Earlier the discussions (read arguments) between me and P were primarily centred around household tasks. One such conversation ....
G: P can you please keep things back in place once you are done with them
P(reading the papers) : hmm
G: Please do it after you are through with whatever it is you are doing now
P(still reading the papers)....
G: I hope you heard me
P(still reading..) : hmmm
An hour later, are still lying all around the place
G:P for God'ssake pleaaase keep that back in place. It is quite tiresome for someone to be constantly tidying after you
P(now at the lappie) : hmmm
G(frustrated completely), tidies up : I dont understand why it is such a difficult task to simply put in place something after it has been used and is no longer needed
P:well, I may need it anytime later - today, tomorrow or the day after
G: then you can take it out again
P:it is so silly to keep taking it out and putting it back in place
G:why do you take a bath daily, anyway you will get dirty again!!!!
P(continues to work nonchalantly at the lappie)

Now with a baby at home, the discussions continue but this time round the conversations take a different turn.
G: P, I am putting Li'l T in the pram while I complete my chores
P: ok
G: are you going to be exercising today?
P: hmmm
G:is that a "yes" ?
P (no response)
G:P can you hear me
P:hmmm
G:so, will you be exercising today, if yes then Li'l T can be busy watching you while you exercise (Li'l T, now 3 months old, finds it entertaining to watch P exercise. Frankly I do too!!!)
P: ok
G(places Li'l T in her pram next to P) : P just keep winding her mobile once in a while. That will keep her busy when she can't see you while you are doing your push-ups
P: k
After a while Li'l T is irritable, she can't see P who is busy doing push-ups since she is higher up in the pram in an almost horizontal position.
G:P, mobile?
For those who don't know much about T's mobile. She has two mobiles attached to the pram. One of them is a little bunny whose eyes roll ; ears and hands move up and down while the music rolls on. Unfortunately one of the internal mechanisms has gone bad and so the sound is a little warped
The second one has sweet music ...but no movement. So although it is soothing to our ears, it does not hold much interest to Li'l T
P(as expected, winds the latter....sweet music with no movements)
Li'l T continues to scream
G:can you please wind the bunny please
P: that has gone bad
G:no not really. It is a little out of tune but T likes the movements
P:I don't think so...
G:will you please quit the *discussion* and just wind the Bunny up
P:k if you insist. But I still prefer the former
G(wonder whom the mobile is supposed to entertain - us or Li'l T????!!!!

Broken marriages

Who or what are responsible for these? I am no authority on this subject but I often wonder given the stream of broken marriages that I have been hearing of off late.

Why would anyone want to break a bond as strong as marriage, specially when they thought so much before getting into it.

A few thoughts that cross my mind :
1.Low tolerance limits and impatience
2.Sheer unwillingness to adjust beyond a point
3.Financial independence on both sides
4.Societal acceptance of singledom
5.Trend
6.High expectations vs reality
7.Disparate interests with changing times
8.Infidelity

I was talking to a friend who mentioned that her ma-in-law who has raised ~9 children, mentioned to her the other day, that actually there is only one reason why a marriage fails and that is because of dissatisfaction on the sexual front! Hmmm...I said, after having mothered ~9 children, I am sure she knows best ;)))...that's how she hung on to that husband for eternity..

But coming back to what I was discussing the reasons given for marital problems of late :
1.In one case infidelity.
2.In the other 2 cases I was told the woman is insecure......insecure about what? One of the cases actually went so far as to label her "psychologically instable".
3.In the third they said the woman had not been truthful and tucked away certain facts about herself which were discovered only post marriage.

In the first case it was the wife's perspective that I had received and in the other 2 cases it was (quite obvious I am sure), the man's side story. So in neither of the cases was I witness to both sides of the story and so it is really hard to tell.

While the first marriage despite all it's drawbacks continues to "function" ...simply because of the kids. While in the other two, the parties are doing the rounds of the courtroom.

Don't tho...don't tho...don't tho

This one is about my little nephew Dhruv. He is now 16 months old and practising his newly learnt vocabulary. It's so interesting to watch him pronounce and mispronounce words. He gurgles and gabs a lot but most of it, if not all, is quite difficult to comprehend to the normal human cerebrum!

He almost knows which alphabet stands for which word...viz D for bow wow (dog...for you and me), C for meow (cat...for you and me), D for dum dum (drum for you and me), P for hmm hmm (pigeon...for you and me), S for ...is followed by his little hands repeating the twinkling action of the stars....and so on.

I met with him on Saturday. The minute he saw me he remembered 'Bat'. He meant his newly acquired 'Hockey stick' which was gifted to him by my aunt. He goes completely berserk with it. The stick is almost as high(if not higher) than him and he wiggles it and moves it at random much like an adult man who has lost his sanity :). So I thought I better ignore that offer for a game. The last thing I wanted was to be bruised because of his sheer excitement at moving the hockey stick.....yelling "Chak de...."

He's quite a monkey, imitating almost every action that he sees around. He walks around the house with the hockey stick much like my granny uses her walking stick. He then picks his toy phone and goes rushing to the window (lest the signal break)...and talks in hushed tones like his mom usually does.

My aunt has recently gifted him a chalk and board so he can practise his alphabets :)))) He usually scribbles in his note pad with a pencil. After the chalk and board were gifted to him, there was some confusion - he tried writing on the board with his pencil and with the chalk in his little notebook. Until he was corrected and figured that these adults are a useless bunch of people who have wierd set of rules!

I have told my mom that if he is taught things at such a rapid pace then it will be only another 5 yrs before he takes up a corporate job and ends up retiring the same time as my sis (his mom). Infact his parents have bigger plans for him. His dad has decided to put him onto a job in the next few years so he can help them pay up the EMI. Ingenious eh?! That's why we make kids now :)...specially with the floating rates escalating...more the merrier...faster repayment.

Now coming back to the heading of my post "Don't tho...".Well that in Dhruv's words means "don't throw". It took me all day to figure out what he was saying; when later in the evening my sis clarified. She said "He has a bad habit of throwing everything around (my interpretation - he was given a ball at very young age and told 'throw', and he now thinks he can "throw" anything and everything" He throws books, pencils, his toys....anything which he thinks he can hold and spin and hurl. It's now a regular phenomenon to hear "Dhruv don't throw" around home.

What the little one has not yet picked up is that he is not supposed to throw things around instead what he has picked up is that "if you throw something, then it needs to be accompanied by an exclamation 'Don't throw". So now what you find is little Dhruv hurling things around the house and exclaming "Don't tho" :))))...don't tho...don't tho.

So much for Generation Next!!!

The "sobre" kid that I was

For people who know me today, may be it would be a little difficult to visualise the kid that I was!

These were a few words that never existed in my dictionary back then - silence, discipline, responsibility, obedience....and mind you! these were just a few.

I was born in Mangalore and raised for a whole year in Mumbai by my parents. Towards my first birthday, my dad contracted chicken pox. My maternal granma then stepped in and offered to take me to Mangalore so that I don't contract the infection. Funnily my parents were game! (may be they just had enough of me in a year) So there I was a piddly one year old (starry eyed or what!) all set for Mangalore; to live with my maternal grandparents.

Now, like most small towners, they too owned a huge villa, with yards in the front and the back, huge plush garden lined with several (close to 100's) coconut palms, mango and jackfruit trees, bougainvillae....to say the least a botanical delight. There also was a cowshed, driveway, outhouse....and the works.

My grandparents lived in this huge villa with my 3 uncles - each equally eager to have a piddly 1 yr old around to shower affection on (read : pamper). I spent a year of my life amongst them, away from folks and interestingly I don't think I ever missed my folks, since I don't remember my uncles or my grand parents complaining that they had a tough time managing me.

Ever since then I always was more attached to my granma and uncles (especially one of them) than I was to my own folks. But well, fun times don't last forever, and by the time I was 2 and a half I was brought back to Mumbai by my parents who had now decided that they missed me :)....(back then whoever took a two and half year old's opinion anyways!!!)

When I was three I was enrolled into Kindergarden since I was already too smart for nursery ;) My school was called Little Angel's High School (not that it enrolled only angels.....it was more those aspiring to be angels...am not sure it helped that much)

My memories of KG go back to a teacher who was called "Zilla" (at that point I didn't realize it was short for Godzilla!!!....sorry just kidding) She had enough of me from day one. She complained that I was a chatter box and almost everyday changed my seat. She tried seating me besides the quietest and most silent of students, to only realise that I was a good conversationalist even if it was a monologue :)))

Between classes 1 to 7, I made several good friends, only to have them relocate, shift schools etc...within a short span of time...leaving me to look for more like-minded people. The teachers declared that I was intelligent and had it in me....but extremely careless, unbothered.

Until Class 7, I was pretty much a wild child. I hated getting up in the mornings to rush to school - my perpetual question to my mom "why do I need to go to school" (what I meant was - am I not smart enough?!!!!...schools are for those who don't already know....and I DO!) and she thought I was just plain lazy. I did not believe that hours after school had to be spent uselessly doing homework, revising or in preparation for exams. Infact it was only after the exam timetable came in and the exams were lined up for the next day, that most of my studies began (that too, since mom got onto my case and threatened dire consequences if I did not clear my tests).

As a little girl, I participated in all contests, dances, skits, story telling competitions, christmas singing and the works (anything to keep away from those boring classes!). Infact when back home, I gathered kids round about my age from our block and organized functions - dances, dramas etc... We actually created little tickets so we could go invite the 'poor unsuspecting' inhabitants of our block to come and be audience....and yes they relented(he he) We used the little ones for doing the running around - more like spot boys and stuff. Most of these programs were organized by me a little prior to my exams. And each time I used to get a big piece of mind from mom who finally wrote me off as - someone who was only fit to open a naatak company (I would choose to call it a production house in today's lingo). Although I was not much of a sports enthusiast at school, we used to cycle around, play cricket and whole lot of outdoor sports in our block....so these were some of my other activities outside of school.

I also enrolled in dance classes while still in class 6 and danced so much in 2 months, that my dad got worried that I would use that as an excuse for not studying, and called it off. Believe me those 2 months were fun - I danced all the time - in my class, at home, on the stairs, in the playground......as if no one's watching and there was no tomorrow. I guess that's what actually had my dad worried.

Come class 7 and my mom announced that I would be henceforth solely responsible for what I would become in the future. She had decided to wash her hands off me. She said "you can make or break your future, I am no longer party to this irresponsible behaviour". Now that was the turning point in my life.

Overnight these words which I had hardly bothered with got added to my dictionary discipline, responsibility, obedience....and I buried my fond carefree childhood..........

Dramatic eh?! that's what happens to most of us sooner or later. What's new?!

Since then, I have been different. Although Pari always tells me that he often sees a well hidden wild streak in me.......I would say am waiting for that day when it comes out of hiding :))))