Finally.. a note on Mumbai.

I have not been writing for the last few days.. nothing new in that except that this one time it wasn't inertia. I did not write because I did not want to write about Mumbai. There was nothing to share.. nothing that I knew and the rest of the country did not know already. I followed the news on the television and in the newspapers, discussed it with family and friends, called up relatives in Mumbai, expressed my shock and grief at the loss of innocent lives, and felt as bad as everybody else. Having spent some of the most memorable times of my life in the city, I have always liked it so much.. and one of the fondest memories is standing at the Gateway of India and admiring the Taj Mahal Palace in the night lights. It saddened me to see this magnificent piece of history go up in flames. As for the precious lives lost, this one picture here explains it. This little girl, the same age as my own daughter, has blood all over her tiny body. Somehow I feel it cannot be her's, how can somebody have the heart to hurt a baby.. What touched me even more was the compassion in the cop's face. Aren't policmen supposed to be tough, and if this was how the toughest people reacted, how could we be any better. Sorry for the digression, I chose not to write about it. Firstly, everybody and anybody who ever blogged wrote on the subject. They did add different dimensions, perspectives and helped the 'government' with ideas on ways to tackle terrorism, but there is a limit to novelty. After which, it was repetition and only that. But I seriously do not think that blogging can help a cause that 200 agonizing, untimely deaths failed to. It might help the writer to ease his pain, but it revives it for the readers who go through it all over again. Off course it is not forced on them, you can always skip the post that you don't wish to read, just like you switch the channel if you don't want to watch that telecast. Secondly, I don't think that not writing on the subject doesn't prove that one is indifferent to it, just like writing doesn't necessarily mean that you are very sensitive. I was surprised to see readers condemning bloggers who did not write on it. This post for one. It really did not make sense to me.. But I certainly appreciate the approach taken by a Mumbai resident. He made the headlines today by carrying a loaded pistol at CST to expose the security loopholes. It is just so in-your-face! The pen is mightier than the sword, no.. not when it comes to tackling terrorism.

We often meet our destiny...

on the road we take to avoid it. As mentioned in the previous post, it is plagiarized. But true all the same.. I am writing this post to explain why I haven't written any for such a long time, and people have already started popping up the famous question. No, not that one, sigh! Actually it is just one person, but I am flattered beyond limits with that comment. So much that I could barely stop myself from posting here the document that I created for the office intranet wiki last week. There were 2 things that held me back - 1. The document is confidential and at this time, it will be Godsend to my manager, who I suspect is already eyeing me 'pink' and 2. It is total crap, a figment of my imagination and written intentionally in a manner which makes it impossible to comprehend, completely unworthy of my mostly sensible blog. Btw did you notice, how I love ambiguity! I say 'people' and any lazy butt who visits my blog and doesn't bother to check the comments section would start imagining that I have a fat readership, and end up going through the previous posts to find out why on earth:D Come on, it is 4am in the morning, do you really expect me to make sense???? And why am I awake at this unheavenly hour? Is it my avid passion, an overwhelming sense of duty, single-minded devotion and total dedication towards my blog and its niche audience? Actually, it is all that coupled with 'a little too much' chicken the whole damn weekend, specially in dinner last night.. I am not sure how to frame that, it is still night by my standards. Off course I had fish too, but I think it will be a shame to blame those quiet, innocent creatures for the current uproar in my tummy, unless I ate a shark or worse still, a piranha.. Whatever it was, I feel really uneasy and pukish and at such times, all my husband can manage is a very sympathetic 'Its ok, go to sleep', grrr.. Off course it is ok for him, it is me who can't sleep cause that damn chicken is wreaking havoc in my digestive tract. Can't believe, he is the same man who complains that he never gets any sleep on the office trips, 'coz I am not there.. you should hear him snore now! Anyways, I will help him make up for this sin by letting him dropping me to office tomorrow, that is, if I go at all. Pray for me, all ya sleepy souls..

p.s. I missed the explanation. There is none actually. I have been bursting with stuff that I want to write about, it is just laziness that held me back. Also, with the yearly appraisal just round the corner, the last thing I want to get caught with is reading/updating blogs!

Can't sleep..

I am an early bird. Getting up a little late in the morning, which loosely translates into noon and post lunch afternoon siesta do nothing to spoil my routine. The fact remains that I grow very drowsy around 10 pm and come-what-may doze off by 10.30 pm. There are a few exceptions, my wedding for instance. I took the wedding vows at 4 in the morning, and you don't expect anybody to be attentive at that unheavenly hour. No wonder, I forgot most of them the next morning :P But tonight, it is different. I cannot sleep. I have witnessed what looks like the onset of grey hair, on my own head. And I am unable to get it off my head, quite literally :( The hair hanging off the edge of my forehead, scraping the arc of my left eyebrow look such light brown in colour. I actually have quite dark hair, bit too dark for my complexion. Now is it possible to have few hair in lighter shades of brown betraying your all black head? Or do hair start fading, losing color gradually as you age till some of them turn completely white to give you a grey head? Am I on my way to wisdom?? I really don't know.. and this confusion is enough to keep me awake through the night. But then, we often meet our destiny on the road we take to avoid it.. (it is plagiarized just in case you were beginning to appreciate my ability to coin adages), even if I do not have any grey hair already, I might get some by morning if I keep worrying about them all night. Good God nooo.........am off to sleep!

Back in action!

In my last post, I cribbed mentioned something about how some men prefer to be babied comforted by their spouse when they fall sick. I may have sounded otherwise but I strongly believe there isn't anything wrong with this. It is completely justified and even if your mate ends up catching the infection, big deal.. We are married to be together in rain and in sun, and to share each other's sorrow, and well, at times.. illness. But I guess the Lord did not take my innocent banter in good humour, no no.. I mean I failed to convey it properly and got punished royally for that slight of mine. Hours after I posted that one, I caught viral infection and was in the same bed, under the same quilt and on the same medication as my dear husband, albeit with a much higher temperature. All this just a day before Diwali!

Now that Diwali holidays are over and a couple of working days have been missed as well, I am back at work after a cool fortnight(remember wfh etc..) and no doubt, it feels so good. At least till 4 pm after which I grow drowsy and bored and hungry, sigh! The day has been good so far, I have read blogs, chatted with friends, exchanged emails, played pool, took a stroll on the office terrace, relaxed in the cafetaria, caught up with colleagues and worked whenever I had the time and inclination. This is in stark contrast with, and so much more exciting than my life at home on weekdays, especially when the husband is at work.. it is dull, uneventful and my little daughter ensures that I do not get too much of either rest or peace.. She is a lot of fun but I still enjoy her father's company more :)

As parents..

My husband is down with viral fever, and I am working from home the whole week to double up as a nurse. There is not much actually that I am required to do, to nurse him I mean. We have a full time maid, who looks after the baby, and can take care of him as well, but these men I tell you.. they simply refuse to grow up. All he wants right now from me is to sit next to him all day, stroke his hair every 10 minutes, enquire after his well-being every half an hour, offer him some eatable as frequently and argue and insist every few hours that he takes all his medication in time which he would have done as punctually, minus the fuss, had I gone to work. So while I put my precious life, and career to some extent at stake, the baby is deemed to be more vulnerable to the infection and put out with the maid. She is presently talking to her Auntie, as she is taught to address the lady. Let me clarify, she is blabbering away merrily, making little or no sense to us. There are few words that we understand, and she uses them continually to make the conversation interesting if not very intelligent. I hear her through the door left intentionally ajar, and all I get is umpteen repetitions of 'Papa' & 'Mumma' laced with gibberish. I point this out to my husband and we eagerly watch out for a third word, which never comes up. And suddenly, a realisation dawns on us, rather reinforced since we ought to know it already, as to how important we are to her. Her life completely revolves around us, it fills up with great pride, and a greater sense of accountability to know we mean the world to this charming little person who mentions us no less than a hundred times in a 10 minute long conversation. It is an absolute bliss to have somebody all for yourself! But, as my husband remarked with a perceptible quiver in this voice, or was it the fever, it is for a really short period. In less than 6 months, she will start with a play school and then she will have lots of things and more importantly, many more people to talk about..

Switching places..

It is a Saturday evening and we are back after an early dinner. The day was lazy, an uneventful one and we are not the least inclined to sleep. Somehow that always happens to me, I am never drowsy when I have nothing to do. Not surprisingly, the converse is equally true. So me and husband decide to play cards. Daughter dearest has had her meals and is playing contently with her set of blocks. But as soon as we get the cards, even before we can shuffle them, she loses all interest in her blocks and takes away the pack from us. Now, anybody with a 20 month or older kid would agree there is not much that can be done in this state. We simply leave her with the playing cards and start thinking of alternatives. Not a big issue, really.. we settle for monopoly. I acknowledge it is not much fun with just 2 players, but then compromise is the way to peaceful co-existence, ain't? We start dividing the paper money between us, and before either of us reach $20, baby Ninja strikes again! Our little lady mixes business with pleasure, quite literally. She takes the paper money, and title cards and shuffles them both with the playing cards. We exchange furtive glances, the big question looms large before us. What next?? Surely, as parents we cannot accept defeat, at least not this early in life. Husband suggests that we play carrom, but even before he finishes the sentence, we both giggle in a knowing way and drop the idea. We know that will not work. My daughter has a slightly different way of playing carrom. She simply climbs on the board and sits in the middle, with the carrom men all around her. Then she showers individual attention on each man and knocks them all out very conveniently, without as much as touching the striker. The battle is getting serious. And exciting. Rockband is actually a nice option but for the fact that it is almost 10 pm, and the neighbours are not that understanding. Not that we care for such uncooperative neighbours, but the closest one happens to be our landlord as well.. and so you can imagine.. sigh! Both of us sit grimly, on the verge of an imminent defeat when my husband comes up with an idea. The best he has had in a long time.. or so I think :P We decide to beat the little kiddo in her own game. Yes, literally again. So while our daughter plays with our pack of cards and monopoly set, we settle down with her set of blocks. We bet on designing the weirder stuff with those blocks. Since it requires little creativity, no brains and a lot of oddity, my husband invariably wins :) The picture attached is that of the 'Train Tower', I am not sure what that means, that he made. A closer look, and you can see our little imp too, submerged in a sea of cards..

A Golden Moment..

It is a moment which has the billion strong nation basking in a golden glory. India has won its first ever Olympic gold medal in an individual event, and the first since 1980. Abhinav Bindra has made us all so proud! It was just yesterday that I was thinking of writing a post on sports, and how both my father and husband were going gaga over the Olympics when there is hardly any hope for us, especially after the dismal performance of our shooters on the opening day itself. Procrastination is really not the big evil it is made out to be :)

I am sure each of us is feeling like a winner at this hour. India couldn't have asked for a better Independence Day gift!