Loneliness..

Loneliness is a depressing feeling, but I find the concept rather interesting.. Something which is with you when there is nobody.. so you are never actually alone.. 'main aur meri tanhai..' I have actually experienced this phenomenon, talking to my loneliness or rather myself. And now I see my daughter do it so often. I guess most of us do it as kids, few continue it after growing up, and fewer after they are married and have kids. I still do it at times.. and when I do it now, I sometimes write it down. That explains the considerable number of unpublished posts in my blog, infact, the published ones also are sorts of soliloquy. It is not that I am lacking for company.. mostly I feel pressed for time, have always so much to do and so many to attend to. But at times, I like to be with me, just myself.. and enjoy my own company. Another thing that I really like and have been doing since I forget when, is stepping beside my ego, and observing myself as a third person would do.. It provides me with such surprising insights. Writing down my thoughts and reading them at a later point of time, in a different mood is an exercise with similar results. All help me in getting closer to myself, knowing myself better. And vain as I may sound, it is actually important. At times, it really surprises me to see how little people know about themselves, things that are so obvious to everybody around but to the person himself! And then, I think they are so much like my daughter, who knows her parents, her nanny and the dogs in the neighbourhood, but wonders who the baby in the mirror is..

Another of my trademark, uninteresting to all but me posts...

It is midnight, a lovely Saturday just over, making way for a not-so-promising Sunday.. and I am at my laptop desperately trying to catch up some of the work which I have been deftly procrastinating all through the last week. Flexibility at work is a double-edged sword. It works wonders for sincere people and plunders the less fortunate, the kind I belong to, folks who would give their right hand to avoid work. My employer allows me to push off early and pick up work from home. I do follow the first half of the term stated religiously, but mostly miss out on the remaining half. And there begins my misery.. 2 weeks into the job, and I am already overloaded, work piling up on my not so capable shoulders, and an ever aching back. And here comes the cause of all my tribulations, my little bundle of joy, and my big bunch of trouble. Active and alert as she always is at all such unheavenly hours, she approaches me a wide grin, flashing all of her 4+4 teeth, crawling at an impressive pace. She has successfully put her nanny to sleep, and is probably paying me a courtesy visit.. 'just came to check on you mom, still working, eh?' And following suit is my husband, tired and drowsy, asking me to take charge of the baby. He has been taking care of the baby all evening, he gently reminds me. I am mincing words, but you get the idea, right? I refrain from refresing in his memory the fact that I have been doing the same for the last 5 evenings leading to accumulation of my work, while he sits late in the office, finishing off his. It wouldn't help either of us.. Rather I timidly request him to kindly bear with me for another half an hr or so, after which I shall resume my nightly motherly duties. These involve pacifying the baby at all the odd times she decides to scream her lungs out for reasons completely unknown to me, preparing formula for her whenever she looks and sounds hungry coupled with other trivial tasks like pulling her back everytime she threatens to jump off the bed, putting her under the quilt the umpteen times she kicks it off and protecting my rather delicate frame from plausible damage whenever she gets down to practising some kicking and punching.. I am so glad I get to escape all these 'pleasures of motherhood' during the time of the day I spend in the calm interiors of my air conditioned office. But then, this five-day-a-week liberation comes at a price. That which I am paying right now, burning the midnight oil, rather electricity in my case. Gotta run now.. lest my husband blows off his fuse.. Mom reporting for duty, Madame..

Its my first birthday!!!

Yeah.. you read it right.. today is my first birthday, as a Mom. Last year, this very day I made a fresh beginning as my daughter entered this world. It was as new and unpredictable to me as to her.. Though she got born at half past ten in the morning, I gained consciousness only in the evening, and thats when I saw her first.. she was all wrapped up in sheets, only her tiny face was visible. And I could recognize her immediately, thanks to the numerous 2D and 3D scans that i had been through. She was actually the baby I had carried around for so long but it was altogether a different feeling as I held her in my arms. I would be lying if I say there was a sudden surge of motherly love when i first saw her. What I actually felt was more of confusion coupled with some disappointment. New-borns are seldom pretty and mine wasn't even round n cuddly.. And then, all that I had undergone to have her, right from the quesiness that I felt the first day of my pregnancy and which persisted till the last, to the fluid injected throughout the last month, and the planned ceaserean, all made me wonder if she was really worth all the effort. I certainly wasn't a very proud mother.

We both have come a long way from there. My daughter, we call her Pari, has grown up from a tiny newborn to a bright and completely amiable toddler. And I am now an exceptionally proud and indulgent mom. What an eventful year it has been! I lack the words to put down my thoughts, so I would rather put it in pictures. But hold on.. there is something we are missing..

'Happy Birthday' Pari, you are really my little fairy..

In Bangalore..

Two weeks from now, it will be 4 yrs since I came to Bangalore. It has been the most eventful period of my life, and probably the most important too.. I came to bangalore as a naive girl, just out of college, and for the first time, away from the family. From there, I have literally grown in stature and experience, and I don't mean it just professionally, though professionally too it has been quite an experience. I have already worked in 4 different companies!! On the personal front, I got committed, married and had a kid. All this happened during my stay in Bangalore. And yet, I am still not completely at home here... I guess it has been my fault all along. I am the one resisting change.
There are several things that make me feel like I don't belong to the place. The one that really alienates me is food. It is so different from what I eat, rather can eat.. as in spicy food never goes down well with me.. I sometimes wonder, when I can eat Chinese, Continental, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Afghani, Malaysian, even Korean food, why can't I eat rasam-rice. It should be easier.. probably coz' I never gave it a good enuf chance. The only other significant element is the language. I can pick up words, and bits n pieces, but when people talk fluently, I get completely lost. I have got plenty of friends who are Kannadiga's, and can help me overcome at least the language barrier. As for the food, lemme give bisibele baath and Mysore pak another decent chance..

For Him..

Why do we always end up hurting people we love the most? Those closest to us get the best and the worst of us. Probably the fact that they are so very close to us works against them. For one, if we are lucky enough to be geographically close, we spend most of our time together and that gives us ample opportunity to mess up stuff. Then our deep interest in each other's lives and wellbeing, often without an equally deep understanding leads to more issues. And then there are expectations... Expectations out of each other, expectation out of a relationship.. You can really expect them to ruin your relationships.

Yesterday, I had a bad fight with the person closest to me.. the fact that I am married makes it a giveaway. You can not actually call it a fight since I did all the talking and believe me, I am truly disappointed with myself. I still strongly believe in all that I said, and am willing to fight for it again... it was the manner in which things proceeded, that left me feeling so guilty. I practically waited for things to pile up and then tried clearing it off, all in one go. I had tried, but probably not hard enough to nip it in the bud. Some more sincere effort could have certainly helped. Also, we treat strangers and people who-do-not-matter with more respect and consideration than those who mean the world to us. Somewhere in our subconscious, we very well know that the person is so attached to us that come what may, he would never turn back on us, and we use it to our advantage. I did just that, blurting out just anything that I felt like saying, without giving any thought at all to his sensitivity. And in the end, after two and a half hours of playing the blame game, whose loss was it? Mine, and mine alone! That is the irony of the whole thing. When we hurt someone so dear to us, it is us who suffer the most. I was sad because he was sad, and sadder because it was me who was responsible for his sadness. Anyways, that is really no excuse.. And I wish to apologize, more for the sake of my own peace than to make up for his agony. I am sorry nonu, I really am!

Early morning blues..

It is 8.30 am, tuesday, friday still so far off morning and here am I, sitting in the office with a persistant headache and no inclination whatsoever to work. My headache can be attributed to acute shortage of proper sleep, not surprising considering that my daughter has just turned 8 months old, and still has trouble sleeping at a stretch. She wakes me up thrice every night and thrice I put her back to sleep when finally at around 5 in the morning she gets really worked up. She begins by purring softly in my ears followed by some rough kicking in my tummy accompanied by pulling at my hair. Now that she has grown 2 tiny teeth, she uses them to her advantage dexterously. Usually I am too drowsy to take notice, and if it actually starts bothering me, I tactfully turn her legs towards my husband. It used to work fine till last month, my husband would snore off peacefully oblivious of all the thrashing going on. However, now that her motoring skills have improved quite a bit, she re-orients herself to target me again. Also, if all that fails, she resorts to her good old screaming which is a proven success. Whatever it takes, I am not allowed to sleep past 6 am. It may not look so early to some disciplined people out there, but believe me, it is excruciating for me.. more so coz' I go to bed only after midnight. Babies have an amazing sense of time.. My daughter is a 'whenever to sleep, early to rise' person. I just hope she continues being this way when she starts school :) Anyways, 6 o'clock I get out of the bed and make a nice big bottle of formula for her only to realise that she is not all that hungry. She eagerly takes the bottle only to refuse it some two-and-a-half minutes and half-an-ounce later. All she probably wants is some quality time with me before I get ready for the office. For some reason, she is extremely playful and lively in the mornings, though she has the same amount of sleep and rest as me, and considerably less than that taken by the rest of the family. She is so bright, almost scintillating, smiling just too often, and giggling even more, delightfully throwing her little arms and legs just anywhere. Quite recently, she has learnt to wave her arms, both in sync when you say 'bye' and some other forms of greeting as well, so she gleefully begins the practice right away... all this until another hour passes by and it is time for me to leave for work.. The mood suddenly changes when I pick up my purse and put on my shoes. Her antics stop abruptly and she looks so lost and out of sync, probably trying hard to figure out what takes me away from her for so long every day. She does not wave her arms when I say bye.. rather she stretches them out, her tiny fingers trying to hold my sleeve and her naughty grin replaced by a look I lack the courage to pen down. But I move into the car swiftly ignoring my little daughter, fighting my own guilt laden conscience..

Driving woes..

I am learning to drive. After an initial crash course by an instructor, which literally got my car crashed and some not-so-useful driving sessions, my husband has taken over the charge. I now go driving my own car, where unlike the instructor's car, all the controls rest with the driver. The rider has no control whatsoever. A small confession, I have very little, if any at all, aptitude for driving. It took me over a month to drive properly an ungeared two-wheeler. A car has twice the number of wheels, is four times as bulky and a hundred times more difficult to drive. The fact that really scares me and makes it all the more difficult is that it has the potential to cause serious injury to others if I make a simple mistake. Keeping this in view, we go driving late at night, generally past midnight when there is actually nobody out on the streets, and I need to ensure the safety of just the 3 of us-me, my husband and my car. Offcourse there are still a few stray dogs loitering around, who make it a point to come in my way everytime I drive. I really don't know how to get rid of them, and my futile efforts at honking at them have only infuriated my husband. Anyways, the idea behind this post is something entirely different from discussing my driving. It is going down the memory lane, and remembering my dad's herculean effort and mammoth patience when he taught me to drive.
After finishing school, I joined MNNIT, then known as MNREC, Allahabad for a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engg. The college was around 6 km. from my home. For the first year, I really din't have much trouble commuting. I had a friend living very close to my place who was also pursuing the same course, and she drove a two-wheeler. So I just went with her. However, she moved to the electrical department after the second semester. That is when I seriously felt the need of driving my own vehicle. My father went ahead and got me an automatic geared Hero Puch. My mother was quite against the idea of my driving it, which was in great contrast with the faith she usually puts in me. Her inhibitions were not all that baseless since I could not even ride a bicycle properly. But papa had faith, more in his training than in my ability to learn. He would take me to a sports ground every morning, all thru' the summer vacations and make me drive the bike with him as the pillion driver. I fell down several times, and he also came down crashing with me, but he did not give up. He simply accepted the fact that I lack the aptitude for it, and I would need additional training. Not once did he mention the fact that my brother drove his mobike, a Hero Honda when he was in the ninth standard without any training. But deep down, I did realise that and at times, I would be quite ashamed of myself. But I did not let that deter me from learning to drive.
Summers over, I had a reasonable amount of control on the bike. The college reopened, and I went on my bike the first day, eager to show my friends my vehicle and my ability to drive it. I was half my way when I noticed somebody following me rather closely. I brought the vehicle to a halt, and turned back to find papa who had been following me all thru' the way. He wanted to make sure that I reach the college safe and sound. I found it rather irritating at that point of time, but now that I realise his concern, I feel so obliged. My dad would never read this post, unlike mom he never learnt to use a computer, but still I thank him, now and here with all my heart. It was much more than driving that he taught me those summers.. He taught me to have faith in myself, even when those closest to me have doubts about my abilities. Now, at times, my husband nearly gives up when I drive badly. A number of times, he has told me that I can never learn to drive properly, but I refuse to leave it at that. Every night I pull him out of his cosy blanket and request him to take me for my driving classes. I know I will get yelled at, but at the same time, I know I would learn.