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!

Essays - Standard 4th

I am posting a couple of essays written by Pari in the school --because they are really imaginative, so much that they are almost hilarious and because I want to preserve them for eternity!

The child certainly needs some help with the languages- predictably more in Hindi than in English. At the same time, it is the Hindi essay on 'my dear mother' which is truly remarkable. To begin with, I do listen to everything she says, and encourage her to share things with me, but I don't necessarily give in to all her asks. She has a field day every time I travel for work. And I travel way too much to get her books or toys everytime. I do get her stuff as and when I find something nice and the time to buy it, but not always, not even often. And going to work at 6 am? On most days I wake up only after 8 am. Also, offices don't start that early unless you're the maintenance staff. Again, I don't help her in studies regularly, and when I do, she doesn't appreciate it one bit. Mostly, she resents it.. which I think is normal for a child who has limited interest and inclination for any kind of structured education.

Coming to the English essay, a training in maintaining a correct tense is much required. What really cracked us up is the 'watch the news' phrase. Really, which 8 year old turns on the TV on a Sunday, or any day to watch news?? Perhaps, she thought mentioning Doraemon will take away the formal air  of the essay. And then, 'my lawn'! We live in an 880 sqft carpet two-bedroom apartment on the 9th Floor in Mumbai.. so again the only plants any of us can water are the ones in the common gardens in the building complex. But again.. my little Pari, I give it to your imagination child!

A prize for every thing..

Pari comes home and tells me that she has won the ‘constipation’ prize. I am completely bewildered.. even if there is a competition for it, she is unlikely to win because she is not the least constipated. I probe further, and she says that she’s come fourth. I think that she’s received the ‘consolation’ prize.

Once in a while..

..everyone is entitled to a temporary bout of insanity. I exhausted my quota last night!

A grand comeback.. or so we pretend!

I have been contemplating a grand comeback post for about 16 months now, and it never gets past the planning stage. Mostly, when I log in, my overflowing reading list attracts me like a fly to fire, and my intention to write sadly succumbs to the temptation every single time. I am bursting with stuff to share though. Life has been rough to us at times, but lets just focus on the good stuff today. And the good stuff is always always related to Pari. Our little girl is such a blessing, we always have something to smile about. As you may have guessed, Pari is full 2 yrs older since we last met, but the fun only grows. So back to Pari'isms.

About an year ago, cousin E was visiting us. Pari was using the toilet while E sat outside the door waiting for her to finish. Finally, she ran out of patience and knocked at the door.
E: Pari, how long will you take?
P: I don't know. I am not a palmist, so I cannot predict the future.
Future? Really??

Pari has a huge interest in my official matters, and it doesn't help that I work from home(mostly at night after working in the office the entire day.. gah!). She keenly listens into my phone calls, reads my official emails and also goes through the power point decks. And so, her knowledge about my organisation is exceptional. And it is obvious in our conversations. For instance, our company M has acquired another company C, and I am working on the integration of the entities. We are out on some errand, and she spots an office belonging to C.

P: Mumma, look-- you office!
Moi: No, this isn't my office. This is C. I work for M, and you've seen my office, right?
P: Well.. it is the same thing now.. merger to complete ho gaya hai na!
Notice, how she knows that the transaction takes time to complete!

As part of the restructuring, our region is now reporting to Asia Pac team, which in turn reports to the HQ. Earlier, we used to report directly to the HQ. So effectively, my boss's boss has become my boss's boss's boss or his super boss. Not sure if you understand that, but really, I want to post this today and can't spend more time explaining! I am making org charts and Pari notices this change. She knows the hierarchy really well, and I must give her credit for that.

P: Mumma, OI(super boss) is not your boss's boss anymore?
M: Yeah, the structure has changed. He reports into a new boss, and that person in turn reports into OI.
P: Oh, I get it. OI has got promoted!
OI is already the global CEO.. but full marks for positivism, Pari! The rest of the world thinks my boss has got demoted.

OK.. there are so many more related to my workplace, but I will relate just two more. I am making some status report and marking items as red, yellow and green.

P: Mumma, what do the different colors mean?
M: Well.. Status of the item.. Green: OK, Yellow.. Red.. blah blah..
P: OK, but how will the other people know what you mean? Shouldn't you include a table saying Green=OK, Yellow=delayed.. etc?
I justified saying that these are commonly used colors and people usually know them.. but proceeded to add a 'legend' to the slide all the same!

The final one.. my company has a tag line saying that we improve a life every 3 seconds. So the other day while I am working, Pari stands before me.. counts 1,2,3 and screams-- M has improved another life! And this continued till about 25 lives were improved and reported as such.

Pari.. I must admit that you improve our lives every moment!

The rabbits defeat the wolfs

I've copied the story below, verbatim-- spelling/grammical mistakes included, from Pari's notebook. As always, vacations leave the child terribly bored, and with nothing better to do, she turns into this prolific story/poem writer. I returned home from office one day, I think it was Apr 20th, barely a couple of days after her school closed for summers when I first saw this story. And it reminded me of the ones written during the diwali vacation. I must admit that there is a marked improvement in the writing skills. However, it also reminded me of how lonely and miserable she had been during those holidays and so I bundled her off to the grandparents' place before she could churn out more stories.

Once upon a time there lived only four rabbits. They always were very hungry. One day they saw a large wolf. The rabbits thought that if they could kill the wolf’s Pack, they could eat them forever. But they could not do so. One rabbit had an idea. She told them that there was a river near there burrow. She also told them that the river was dangerous as everybody knew it was full of electric eels, tiger sharks and razor-sharp tooth piranhas. Nobody even dared to fish in the river. She said that one day to kill the wolf Pack they must tell the Pack to fish in that river and whey they will (catch) any eel, shark or piranha they will bite the pack and in the meanwhile we will run away. When then Pack will be dead, we can eat our fill. They were pleased to hear this. The next day they tricked the pack to eat goldfish. They told them the river was full of goldfishes. They caught lot of sharks while the rabbits ran away. When the rabbits returned the Pack was dead. They were very happy.  They ate the wolves but they never were sad. The wolves never even finished. The four rabbits lived happily ever after.

THE END

Some observations--
1. Halfway through the story, the child realises the plural of wolf is 'wolves' and not 'wolf's'. Enlightenment indeed!
2. The 'Pack' always begins with a capital P, not sure why?
3. The logic in the story is as always.. impeccable :)

I am calling her the 'Kalam ka Sipahi'!