My Little Sister..

Today, she will be appearing for her 1st board exam.. All of 15 years, she is 6 inches taller to me, and quite naturally few pounds heavier too.. But I seldom see this gauche lanky teenager when I think of my sister. Probably because its been almost 5 years since I left home when she was a too much of a kid, partly 'coz I don't get to see her often now, and mostly coz' I don't make an effort to. I relate better to that tiny imp I used to tease to tears than this rather grown up girl. This post is meant to be a quick trip down the memory lane..

I saw her the day after she got born, and wasn't actually impressed. I was in the 6th standard and some of my classmates had little sisters who were in the kindergarten of our school. They were all pretty dainty things in pink and blue pinafores. My sister was too tiny for me to even hold properly, let alone having fun with her. I had not seen any newborns till then and was hugely disappointed with her.
But she did grow up fast, and in around 6 months she had us all wrapped around her little finger. I had little to do apart from attending school which would get over around 2 pm. Post school all my time, attention and energies were devoted to dear sis. Now, when I look at my daughter, I fervently wish I could spend even half of that time with her.

Vatu, as we call her was an extremely active baby, and me and my brother share the credit jointly for it. We always kept her overly busy with our pranks. One particularly favourite one was that which we played when she had just learnt walking, less than an yr old... we would lie on the bed, and dangle some part of the body in the air, and then call out for her.. 'My arm has fallen off, can you please pick it up'.. she would come running to our aid and by the time she would put the arm back on the bed, we would dangle a leg and repeat the trick. This might not make much sense now, but we enjoyed it immensely as kids. And our pranks did graduate to a higher level. Sample this one, we opened a bank called 'Didi-Bhaiya bank' and led Vatu into depositing whatever money she had got in our bank. We maintained an account book and also provided her with a check book for withdrawal! Offcourse, we never returned any of her money. And then, we made her work for us as was her duty towards revered older siblings. If we dropped a pencil under our desk, we would not get up to retrieve it. Rather, we would summon Vatu who would be in the other room or the next floor, we couldn't care less, to pick the pencil for us. Or we would lie on the bed, and call Vatu to put off the lights and the television. Sounds kinda outrageous now, but believe me, it was so much fun!

There is so much more that I can put down, like the time when she wore a brown silk frock with a creamish underskirt on her birthday and we told her that she looked like a 'gulabjamun' or preparing her for her first day of school by teaching her how to become a 'murga' and to do sit-ups holding her ears.. the list is just endless.. Lemme sign off for now, may be some later day I shall share more about my adventures with my little sis..

Jodhaa Akbar..

A disclaimer before I begin- This is not a movie review.

Frankly, I don't think highly enough of myself to play a critic to somebody's creativity, more so when the person in question is a master of his craft. I loved 'Swades' and was simply bowled over by 'Lagaan'. But for some reason, I couldn't quite connect with A.Gowarikar's latest offering, 'Jodhaa Akbar'. It can be hugely attributed to my attachment to Mughal-e-Azam, having already watched it for God-knows-how-many times, I can watch it twice daily for the rest of my life without having enough of it..(I intend to keep the 3rd show slot for Sholay, and given the length of both the films, there is no chance for a 4th show :D). Even my POTC loving husband has been made to watch it so many times.. it is one of the important things he does to express solidarity with me.

I can talk endlessly about Mughal-e-Azam but it shall be wrong to do so in a post titled Jodhaa Akbar. Returning to the movie, it would have been easier to relate to it had it been named ambigously or probably after some lesser known blue-bloodeds. Even Roopmati-Baaj Bahadur would have done the trick. Akbar is too prominent a figure to be wrapped in total fiction, and all of us have preconceived notions about his larger than life persona. In an effort to keep with times, the plot gets too contemporary to be relevant.. Before long, the movie loses credibility and the viewers lose interest. Also, the lead actors being the best looking people we have ever had, look truly amazing but sadly, they do not look their part.
Still, I must admit that I had a nice time watching the movie. Firstly, it was after a long time that I sat 'just-like-that' with my otherwise busy-as-hell husband for so long at a stretch, full three-and-a-half hours, and the movie not being so interesting, we got to spend some quality time together. Also, I must thank fellow bloggers for putting some salient points in the movie in an altogether different light, making it enjoyable. There was no trace of humor in the film but we still got to laugh heartily whenever some of it came up. Thanks GB for that gem of a review..

Just Another Wedding? Nah!!!

I am just back from 'the wedding'.. and in soaring spirits despite dropping energy levels, a constantly hurting overworked body and an inflamed larynx. It was a wedding we had been looking forward to even before the match was made. And I have seen this one from the inception.. my shy, hesitant, not-sure-if-I-should-marry brother-in-law meeting the girl in question for the first time.. and consenting to the alliance half an hour later! Gosh! Wasn't that quick? A hurriedly arranged ceremony the same evening, most appropriately called 'roka', sealed their fates. The wedding got planned in Feb, less than 6 months from the Roka, but it looked like a rather long wait! As I finally discovered last week, the wait was truly worth it..
We enjoyed every moment of the weeklong celebration.. Also, it all reminded me so much of my own wedding which took place exactly 2 years ago, in the same venue. We had nearly the same set of people as in my wedding, the only significant addition was my little daughter who had everybody wrapped around her little finger. She enjoyed the event immensely and was a source of joy to all of us. The plummeting mercury failed to bring down our enthusiasm and we are back with memories to last a lifetime..

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..