Suggestions sought..

..on new and exciting blogs. When I started this blog back in 2007, there were so many blogs that I used to follow. Somehow, most of them are inactive/closed now. Many of them were mommy blogs. The children of said mothers have grown up, and the mothers have gotten so busy raising the kids and living it up with them, that they perhaps have no time left to chronicle the journey. Also, I feel that babies provide the most fodder for blogs. As our children transition into teens/pre-teens, the content and the urge to share it just reduces. I am one mother who has resolutely held her ground and continues to write about the child - like I always say, more for my own remembrance sake than for really sharing.

We digress, but I wonder what happened to the other set of bloggers - folks who wrote about everything under the sun. Apparently, they too have lost interest in writing. Also, times are changing fast, and I realise that blogging is not the 'in' thing anymore. Paucity of time and more importantly, patience has led to the rise of twitter and FB over blogs. Again, I wonder about the paucity of time. With greater longevity, and greater-than-ever time-saving techniques(air-travel, domestic appliances, emails, cellphones, e-commerce and another zillion!) at our disposal, shouldn't we have more time than before? As it turns out, many of these have served to fill in more time than they have helped save. Talking of changing times, I was casually going through some really old emails from the year 2002-2003 and was amused to see the number of email forwards that we used to share. Of course, that was way before FB & whatsapp happened. And we did have orkut but no smartphones. Gosh.. I feel like a dinosaur!

We digress again, but the purpose of this post is to lament on my dwindling reading list, and request the kind people out there, who still visit this page, to suggest some worthwhile blogs to fill in my hours at work. I am open to all kinds, but the funnier, the better! Gracias :)

The Resident Philosopher

Last evening was rather special. After a long time, we witnessed Pari studying, and by that, I mean actually 'studying' and not pleasure reading, which is what she spends most of her waking hours on. I peeked in her notebook to realise that she was doing math, and my eyes almost welled up. This is such a rare sight in the household that the doting mother in me decided to feed the child and allow her an additional hour to finish her homework. I continued to insert roti and bhindi in her mouth while she toiled on HCF & LCM sums. While working out the HCF of 541 & 445, she decided to get a few things clarified.

Pari: 'Mumma, do all babies come from the mother's womb?' 

Me: (wondering what prompted this.. perhaps the stupid sum) Yes, that's right.

P:  (giggles) 'Oh this word is funny, sounds like 'bomb'.'

M: Corrects the pronunctiation

P: (smile disappears, grows comtemplative) Ah.. now it all makes sense. Before birth, we are in the womb, and after death, we go in a tomb. 

Hence Proven.. Math does make kids philosophical.

PS. HCF of 541 & 445, really? Either there is a misprint in the book or it was written by a complete moron who takes huge delight in torturing gentle little souls - whats the point of working all the way through it and discovering that the answer is a piddly 1. Pari now believes that the HCF for most pairs of numbers is 1 and I suspect that she is writing that as the answer to all questions without even comparing the factors, and still clocking 90% success rate!! 

TV tales

We are a very TV loving family. Our parents - mine, husband's and now the child's are all big time TV-watchers. However, there is a difference here. My parents & parents-in-law have 3 television sets each in their houses with 6 & 3 members(2 after my sister moved out) respectively, while we have just 1 set with 4 people.  To our credit, we manage this abysmal TV:viewers ratio fairly well. Firstly, we supplement it with our 4 laptops. Also, fortunately, the timings are different for us. The child watches from 3.15(or as soon as she arrives from school) until 7.00 pm(or as soon as I reach home). The husband comes in by 8.00 pm and watches tv until 10.30 pm, which is when my sister returns from work, and takes over the control(remote). I don't get much of a window, and therefore prefer to stream and watch TV on my laptop. Yes, we are a cooperative bunch!

Coming to content, Pari, like her Dad, loves to watch pretty much anything as long as it is on the TV. Presently she is hooked to the Shiva cartoon. Last week, I just casually asked her about it, and she spent about 45 min just narrating Shiva's special powers. As much as I like hearing her talk, I got really bored after the first 3 min, at which point I switched off mentally and just pretended to listen to her. You know kids.. they don't really understand that tv shows are only enjoyable when you actually watch them, not when a 9 year old retells them. This brings me to last night's episode. We got in the bed really early, all set to sleep. 5 min in the bed, I started giggling. The husband asked me to share the fun.. BIG MISTAKE on his part! I had remembered this funny episode from the old show Dharma & Greg(am currently watching the entire series)..  and so went on to relate the entire episode, punch lines et al! The man had to literally ask me to stop, and allow the two of us some sleep. This morning, while driving to work, my mind wandered off to last night and thinking of this incident made me feel really foolish and worse still, so puerile. Then I thought somemore, and suddenly remembered the time when the husband had narrated an entire episode of Bhabhiji Ghar par hain  to me. This was about a couple of months back, when we used to regularly watch the show, and I had missed that particular telecast. I immediately started to feel so much better, and absolved of all guilt. I am not juvenile, we just happen to be a family of storytellers!

मेरी माँ के तीन सवाल..

१. क्या खाना खाया?
२. क्या खा रही हो?
३. क्या खाना खाओगी?

Standard questions asked every day, on every call, except ofcourse when she is here with us, overfeeding us. I may sound irritated over the phone, but I love you so much, Mamma!

Blame it on the genes..

I return home early from work, and am feeling particularly benevolent. The sight of Pari watching the TV with her nose touching the screen doesn't perturb me, and I pick up small talk with her.

Me: Pari, how was your day at school baby?

Pari: It was awesome, Mumma. We got gulab jamuns for dessert in lunch. And you know, they served poori-bhaji in the breakfast! I ate 2 pooris.(Pari is obviously much delighted, and the memories of poori's & gulab jamuns seem to tickle her tastebuds.. she makes a slurping sound and goes back to watching TV.)

Me: uh.. OK.

Pari is served breakfast and lunch in her school, and as much as I dislike the school, look down on the standard of education, and resent the lack of discipline and the quality of the teaching staff - the child-friendly meals and the proximity of the school to our house keeps me from doing anything about it. 4 years on, I still remember Pari's excitement on discovering that her new school provides food, and good one at that. At the end of the first day, she had exclaimed --'Mumma, is this a school or a restaurant?' The excitement is yet to wear off..

So, we digress.. Soon after, the husband arrives from work. I recall that he had mentioned something about a meeting today, and ask the rhetorical question once again..

Me: Hey, how was your day? How did your meeting go?

Husband: Oh.. it was a long day. Aur kya faltu meeting thi.. ek dum thande samose aaye tha, aur peeli -dheeli jalebiyaan thi. Mumbai me logon ko karaari jalebi banana kabhi nahi aayega!*

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

*Translation: It was a useless meeting. The savories were not fresh, and the sweet was not good. They can never learn to make crisp jalebi's(sweets) in Mumbai.

Ye moh moh ke dhaage..

I watched the movie 'Dum Laga kar Haisha' on a flight last week, and this song has been playing non-stop in my head & on my phone since. Apart from the fact that it is indeed a soulful song and that I really loved the  movie - so much that I downloaded it and watched a re-run in less than 24 hours after the first viewing, the reason that I feel so connected is because it is also reflective of our circumstances. We are all so tied up with 'moh ke dhaage' or 'the strings of attachment'. Most of these are by virtue of birth.. with the parents, grand-parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, even with the children. The other set arises out of love/marriage. We complete 10 years of marriage today, and I continue to be so tied up with the 'strings of attachment'. I am as spell bound, as enchanted, as smitten, and as head-over-heels as I was a decade back. This guy still has me wrapped around his little finger!