Matters of my heart..

Cards, Kisses and the giving season

2012-02-14T17:27:00.000-08:00

Valentine’s day 2012.

This weekend we had a quiet and early Valentine’s Day dinner to beat the crowds. We vowed not to buy each other gifts or exchange chocolates keeping in consideration the sizes of the thinning wallets and expanding belts. We didn’t need one more stone to say the unsaid, and we didn’t one more note to hide in the dresser. It is romantic to get a gift, or to write a note, but such has become life, and it ends up being a chore to do any of those expected activities on special days. So this year, we decided to keep it simple. Expect nothing, accept everything that is done out of love and move on.

After spending the whole day at a friend’s house to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday yesterday, we came home late and realized that we hadn’t signed the cards yet. I started the day writing Valentine’s day cards to the friends of my children I didn’t know much about, telling them “you sparkle” “you are special” “you are a princess” “be my valentine” and sealing them with a heart shaped sticker. I was done in fifteen minutes, and sipping coffee at the breakfast table I shared the pain of writing over a hundred Valentine’s last year when both of the kids had to share cards with the entire class, and the preschooler went to two different classrooms. Life is getting easier as I age, I boasted to my husband, running my fingers through my gray and black hair.

At the school drop off zone, I realized that even after Christmas and New Year’s the “giving” was not over yet, and everyone was holding huge heart shaped red chocolate boxes for the teachers. Not to be the one left behind, I ran from store to store trying to find a perfect gift, or a perfect box of chocolate. Rusell Stovers were littered across the aisles, and so were cheap cheesy finds like #1 teacher Hershey kisses, but to meet or exceed the efforts of parents who had already delivered those red boxes, I had to run to a special store that would hand pick the chocolates for our really-truly “#1” teacher. Finally bought the chocolates, and then realized that I had to get the cards also, and gift bags for nicer presentation.

The store was full of romantic cards, funny cards, sexy cards and Taylor Swift's singing cards. But they ran out of teacher cards. A quick Google search told me that teachers get the most Valentine’s in US, and I think I had live data to prove that fact after I searched through the aisles of two big box retailers of the area. Drooping flowers were half off, small tulip plants were still holding their price, and there were some teddy bears too, but no sign of the teacher cards. I settled to 'someone special' generic card, and packed everything nicely, made it to the school in time to deliver the gift.

I rushed from school to school for pickup, and just when I thought it was mission accomplished, came the moment of truth.

R1 asked me where her chocolates and card were. Yes, she expected. R2 expected too, because she told her sister that they will be home. If mommy brought them in the car, they would melt and lose taste, she added. I will admit the truth. I forgot. I dashed through the aisle that was littered with sappy Taylor Swift songs that the little one loves, and the team Edward cards that the older one adores so that I could find the teacher’s card. I bought chocolates boxes that looked and tasted truly special compared to the red hearts that everybody gifted. But the thought of loading a box of Ferraro Rocher in the same cart didn’t cross my mind.

I don’t know how it happened, but the teacher became special to me this Valentine’s Day and I put in my best efforts to get her a box of chocolates and a card to go with it.

I promised to bake them something truly special unlike the store bought item that didn’t have my love as an ingredient. I lied, but still it was true, that when I baked, I baked with love, I baked only for them. Chocolate covered strawberries would do the trick too. Already forgetting the lure of the store bought chocolates in heart shaped boxes and pastries in the shapes of hearts, they run upstairs happily to change while mom bakes a treat.

I sit at the kitchen table wondering how did I let this happen. It is one thing to say everyday is Valentine’s day when you love the people you are with, but it is another to take them for granted, spend a special day without expressing your love and affection for them in a worldly way. I have aged. Not as in age as a number, but in experience. Life started early, and life has come to a fulfilling circle prematurely. I have successfully made a chore of everything that comes with life.

I start everything with a mission to give me pleasure,to make me happy, but somewhere as it progresses, the obsessive monster takes over, makes a task out of it, creates a checklist, and detaches the heart from it slowly.

It is mundane, for a woman at this stage of life to rinse-repeat the actions of buying cards and chocolates, pack them with gifts and wait for the special someone's face to light up as they open it, because I have been there-done that-seen it all, almost. But them younglings, it's their turn to celebrate everything as the world does - fitting in, blending in, buying cards, chocolates and waiting two hours for dinner at a place they usually walk in for dinner over a random weekend. My mundane needs to be magnificent for their sake.

I should have bought a Taylor Swift card. I should have added that Breaking Dawn card too. A couples card would definitely been fun to open and read together for us. I didn't write a note, but I could have sent an email, left an offliner wishing on Valentine's day, telling all the special people of my love how blessed I feel for their presence in my life. I would have- I could have, I am troubling my heart over a day that hasn’t ended yet. It's only the start of a lovely evening, and if the heart is into it, there is a lot to be celebrated.

Cinderella needs to drop the chores list, and dress up to sing and dance, and to celebrate love. The fairy tale awaits. The step mother will never be pleased but the Prince Charming will not always wait.

Chasing Happiness in January

2012-02-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

Keeping up the "goal" for 2012, I have started "Chasing Happiness".
If you want to read the blog regularly, this is the address: www.joshini.wordpress.com
If you want to follow my blog through Facebook, here is my page: Meghana Joshi

Below is the summation of how I chased happiness in January. There were enough ideas to write for all the 31 days, but there wasn't enough time. From writing one blog post a month to writing as many as ten (I posted only nine here), I have come a long way. One of these months, I will learn to make time, and write something each day of the month. If I counted my Facebook statuses, I would still have 3-1 statuses to share, but that would be desperation to reach the finish line, and I am not competing. Not even against myself.

Bit too long, 7000 words to be exact, but I didn't want to import 10 different blogs. So here you go!

Chasing happiness #1

Compared to the well planned layouts of the houses now, it was a weird house. It stretched good 1-6-0 feet in length, but there was only a forty feet width to it. The front door and the back door opened to different streets. I called it a train, with no private room, there were two attached houses with inter-connecting room, running a hundred feet long. Living room opened into the “room” and the room into the dining room, dining room into kitchen, kitchen into smaller kitchen and to the bathroom before it exited to the backyard. If you sat on a chair in the living room, facing the door, you could see all the way to the bathroom, provided all doors are open.
Every summer when the rich and famous retreated to their vacation homes, we retreated to this weird house called “grand ma’s house”.

There would be a reunion of sorts, unplanned. My grandma’s sister would drop in with her daughter and grandkids in tow, her brother would drop in sans wife.. and my only aunt lived next door, with her three kids. All men would be at work, and all who that didn’t share the same blood line would miraculously be busy with something else, in this case that only woman being the brother’s wife.

As if by order, the older group, two sisters and the brother sans wife would be in the kitchen, talking in hushed tones, mostly the sisters and the brother nodding and trying to say something. In the “room” between dining and living, the first cousins, my mom, her sister and her cousin would sit, all of them talking animatedly, giggling, and being the people they couldn’t be with us. I would always wonder, this laugh of my mother’s, I didn’t see it anywhere else. It was always a controlled, sophisticated behavior outside that room. May be the fact that she was born and brought up there, lived a carefree life laughing like that.. before she was a wife, a mother, a writer and more over, a lecturer- who didn’t have the privilege to laugh like she meant it at job.

Outside, in the living room, and in the patio would be us, cousins, first and second. I was the youngest and the oldest was eleven years older than me. She thought she was too cool to hang out with us, would sit and read a book with a provocative (at that age, a man and woman looking into each other’s eyes holding hands was provocative enough) cover, with a romantic title. The rest of us would be busy playing, sometimes splitting into even smaller groups and sometimes as a team.

A typical summer afternoon from my childhood.
It’s been thirty years to that image I have stored in my heart, like a thousand others.

Yesterday, I was talking to my mother, and she mentioned that she is going to the death anniversary of her uncle. He is the man who nodded to everything his sisters said, when he visited us sans wife. One fine morning last year when I was baking waffles for breakfast, my mother called me and gave me the sad news. As required by my religion, I took a shower, then lighted a lamp at the altar, prayed for him to find peace in death. After that we went out for lunch, and forgot all about the departed until my mother brought up the death anniversary.

I realized, all the people from the kitchen are no longer with us. My grandma, her sister, and their brother.. his wife too. Except for the memories of the vague afternoons from my childhood, that floods the mind on days like this, when it’s a death anniversary, or festival that we celebrated at their place, we hardly think about them. We don’t mourn their loss, or grieve for them anymore. May be they lived a full life, may be we were prepared to lose them, may be the end of their lives had a proper closure.

The “room” has only my mother now, my aunt had a heart attack and left us soon, and so did their cousin who left us too. I lived in a world far away, woke up to the news one fine day, and as I should, took a shower and lighted a lamp, prayed for them.. but this loss, I mourned, I grieved.
Long after the grieving period was over, I still remember them, miss them sometimes, miss them mostly because they made my mother a different woman. A happier woman. These days I see her share the same uninhibited happiness with my daughters, but it’s not the same.

If it’s all doom and gloom in the first room, with only a ray of sun shining in the room, the living room and patio are flooded with light, and sound. A group of eight kids, we have grown into eight families, almost each one of us with two of our own kids. I think that’s the reason we light a lamp when someone departs, to indicate that a lamp somewhere ran out of the wicker to keep burning, but there will be new lamps, there will be light..

Happiness today is knowing that there will be light.
Happiness today is knowing that all the memories of those departed are colorful and vibrant.
Happiness today is meeting those cousins, moving on with the compartmentalized life to the “room” while my mother moves to the kitchen, and letting our own children occupy the living room and patio.

Chasing Happiness #2

I am expecting a package. No, there are no diamonds in it or anything expensive that would need my signature, nor is it so big that I will need help transporting it to the garage. It’s a Kindle!

Two years ago, I put in a request to the technology department head of the household to buy me a Kindle. Yes, all requests technical go through the boss man, him being a certified technologist, it’s hard to bypass the authority. He thought it was a simpleton in me who wanted a e-ink reader, and upgraded my request, stood in line at the local apple store to buy me an iPad. Very lovely, the nicest and newest piece of technology that can also read books. It wasn’t meant to be. I didn’t read a single book, but downloaded game after game, paying for the apps with the book fund. I couldn’t read in the sun, I couldn’t read by the window, and it was a little heavy to hold and read in the bed.

Today I plan to get back to serious reading. With a tool that is for reading only, not a tool that reads also. A hot cup of tea, and a stream of day light from the window, a chair to cuddle, and any book at my fingertips to read. That is a luxury. It only helps that the work week was over an hour ago, children won’t be home for two more hours, and I have decided to look past the dirty dishes and floor that could use a good sweep. I can do all that later, but reading, I cannot. Prioritizing my happiness is the goal this year, so I will put me ahead of my maniac clutter conquering habits.

I look at the bookcases filled with books and wonder where they will go, in a few years when no one wants them, when the people who love the smell of real paper, the feel of it between their fingers are all gone. Can clouds make a wall of books of décor and instant inspiration to pick one up and start reading? Walking into Barnes and Nobles, I have found books that wouldn’t have searched for otherwise and fell in love with them. What would the future generations do? Read only things that are recommended based on their previous purchases and interests?

I walk into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, realize it’s been ages I brewed one for myself, it’s always the daughter who makes a cup, steeping the tea, adding honey and milk and handing it over. I open the dark wood box of special tea.. and find some flowering tea leaves. Watching the tea bloom and make swirls of brown in the glass pot, I remember my grandmother, who didn’t have the luxury of drinking tea.

It was religious, it was political. Her father had banned the use of tea leaves in the household. But the lovely lady was so taken by the habit, and especially when it’s forbidden, it’s even more tempting to take that step against the rule, and do everything forbidden stealthily! She would smuggle the tea leaves on the corner of her sari’s end, and make a cup of hot water for herself, dip-dip-dip the end when no one was looking and enjoy her tea. I can only imagine the high it gave her, to sit in a house full of people and enjoy that drink without a care for them. Sort of the cigarettes in our generation. I do hear that she got caught and lectured later. But in our household, we firmly believe that she gave someone the idea of “tea bags”!

It’s 12.30 already, I have surfed the internet for an hour, reading threads of conversations in a group about books we want to read, shared pictures of my reading nook, and still no sign of the package. I will leave in a few minutes, and it won’t be here till 2 pm, and I won’t be home till 6 pm. I still won’t be able to rip the package open and say hello to my new reader, because we will head out for dinner. It will be 9 pm and I will still have the package in the back of my mind sipping a glass of red, as the ritual is, for Friday evenings. It will be 11 when I want to open the package, and dear husband will tell me to calm down and do it tomorrow, as no one else would want a kindle in the household. It will be 5.30 am and when everyone is deep asleep, I will wake up bound to my regular schedule, and tomorrow I won’t call my mom, I won’t head out for a walk around the lake, and I won’t clean the house. I will open the package and read..

Happiness today is getting something to read, not something that will read too.
Happiness today is making time to read, not reading when I have time.

Chasing happiness #3

It’s Day 6 of the 3-6-6 and I have only chased happiness thrice.
Time and again, I commit into something I really feel passionate about, and then, time and again, circumstances are such that I have to give up, and move on, with a little bit of guilt in my heart that heals with time. Making lists of my dreams, organizing my goals and putting all that aside because life called. No, it wasn’t anything urgent, it wasn’t life threatening. But I answered that call, broke a promise, and wandered around. Like smoking a cigarette and counting the rings, getting lost into the act and then wondering what was so mystic about those rings floating in the air, dissolving, disappearing as if they never existed. Except for the faint burning smell of nicotine, there won’t be a trace in the air, and except for that momentary high, there won’t be a trace left on the mind. That moment, it felt important, it was pleasuring.

Today was such smoking day.
I spent the whole day doing a thousand things that I can’t report as an accomplishment at the end of the day, no matter how hard I tried to look at the extraordinary in the ordinary. The fifty mile ride in a five mile radius, the random other mothers that I met in the parking lot, the new found knowledge that there is a lock for that tiny appliance that goes with braces, the sweet mocha freeze that lasted till it melted away, the macaroons that were so loaded I decided to be happy that each one had a gram of protein, the discipline of one daughter to sit and attend to her undone homework while the other was at piano in the music school, I don’t know what was extraordinary in them, and I didn’t see any rhyme or rhythm in those moments that would inspire me to write.

Tiger’s wife bulldozing the house did make me chuckle. I am not a psychiatrist, so I don’t know what her issues are, but when half the country is under poverty line, struggling to keep the roof on their heads, and food in their plates, this woman decides to raze down a property because she didn’t like it. She has the money and she has the mood, and I have an opinion. Caterpillar found work, so will a few architects and a couple of contractors, city offices will take a bite out of the new construction fund to issue some permits, like is all good, she might in the end, save some homes, and feed some people. She did create work, like the Stimulus fund creating work in my city, reconstructing the constructed. Last month, they repaved the street in front of my house. There were no pot holes, and no, there wasn’t even a fade in the parking lines.

Today, I picked up my phone and video chatted with my mother across the Pacific (this when I was parked!), marveled with her about the ease of communication these days, and compared it with the two day mail that she relied communicating with her mother, and together, we decided that technology has blurred the distance. Today, I picked up my children and heard about everything that they wanted to share, which included knowing that a friend’s friend didn’t invite another friend of hers to her birthday and that was so wrong, and that a friend is already turning six, lost his tooth in Kindergarten, and that was so unfair! Today I heard the romance of Bach rendered by the tender fingers of one daughter, while the other counted ten in her mind and four on her fingers. Today, I saw the first Linkedin mail from a recruiter, about a real position, with all the information to make it see legitimate. I did want to apply, had it not been the high of the four figure riding the January wave, or the pessimism that there are thousands over qualified and unemployed who will do anything to grab this opportunity. End of the day none of that translated into anything, but the rings of smoke that pleasured when they were blown slowly.

Happiness today is blowing rings of smoke, getting lost in those tiny circles and seeking a nicotine patch at the end of the day because the mind already forgot the pleasure of that smoke.

Chasing Happiness #4

Ten brown tin canisters lined up the top shelf of my grandmother’s locked supply cupboard. They were interesting, mainly because they lacked interesting features like a bright red background, or a bright yellow stripe, or a picture of the celebrity endorsing them. So uninteresting was the brown background and the words written on them, they became an interesting addition to a house filled with shiny copper and brassware.

They were Ovaltine canisters from the early 1950s, used by mother when she was a child. A quick background information check on the canisters revealed that Mother Superior was born a skinny tiny girl who just wouldn’t put on weight. Much later in life she would struggle to lose every little ounce of fat that she added effortlessly, but then, when she was a little girl, a doctor had suggested using Ovaltine to help her stay healthy and add some flesh between the skin and bones.

I never tasted Ovaltine at all, grew up to be a Boost faithful, the bright red and yellow canister with my favorite cricketer Kapil Dev’s signature “Boost is the secret of my energy” endorsement. When I was young, the health drink with chocolate flavor was just used to break the dullness of the white milk and make it more exciting to drink, and promised some energy unlike today’s health drinks that promise to make you grow, make you the strongest. My generation wasn’t really that competitive. We just enjoyed our food, and our drink, did not make it a war against nature.

Last December I volunteered in my daughter’s school on the “Winter wonderland” day. We Californians are blessed with the sun and sand, but we do like the feel of fresh snow melting in our fingers. It’s a two hour drive to the snowy lands from where we live, so we decided to bring the snow where we are. I don’t know if the kids will ever appreciate the beauty of nature in it’s true form if they are spoiled like this, but sometimes, as a parent, all you want to do is give everything you can to your child. Winter wonderland was one such day. A snow blowing machine came to the premises early in the morning, and while the kids watched, blew snow on the playground. The kids were so excited, to play in the snow on a sunny day. Later when they were done, we had planned a hot chocolate-marshmallow-movie party for them to relax on the last day of school before the winter break.

We brought in slow cookers, and ladles, and hot chocolate. A mother had sent “Ovaltine”. I had never tasted Ovaltine before, and the closest I ever came to tasting was in my thoughts, worrying that the canisters my grandmother actually had twenty year old Ovaltine in them, and I would be served it with milk some day. That never happened because they were all empty, filled with knickknacks from my mother’s childhood my grandmother couldn’t part with. In them was a piece of history, coins that were outdated, small bangles that my mother no longer fit in, the face powder that she used. I made fun of her for saving all those good for nothing items, but now, as a mother I understand that she was not saving those things, she was saving a piece of my mother’s childhood in them.

We mixed the Ovaltine, and I was a little excited that my daughter would try something my mother enjoyed as a child. Like grandmother, like granddaughter.. she instantly fell in love with it, and when we called home and told her grandma about it, a simple chocolate flavored drink became a bonding moment for the two. They could make up an advertisement for Ovaltine, spanning generations. As I mix the powder into the white milk and watch it swirl around, turning the whole glass into a light brown liquid, I wonder how it would have been when my mom was a child. Did her mother also remind her a thousand times to drink her milk? Did she threaten her that if she didn’t she will have crooked bones? I don’t know, the older I am, the easier it is getting to imagine my mother as a little girl. There was a stage when I wouldn’t believe that she was skinny once or young once, unless presented with photographic evidence. May be as I am aging myself, getting to the middle of life, it’s getting easy to see on both sides?

Happiness today is knowing that life is not limited to “Like mother, like daughter”.
Sometimes it can be “Like grandmother, like granddaughter”.

Chasing Happiness #5

“What’s the news?”
“All good, fit and fine”
“Congratulations, I am so happy for you”
“He said I can resume all exercises”
“Walking, jogging and err.. Bicycling too?”
“Yes, bicycling too!”
“Will you?”
“What will I?
“Bicycle?”
“Of course I will! The clear blue sky and the California sun are calling me to come out, roll the wheels, and explore the contours of the road, breathe in the freshness of the air and forget the misery of being cooped up in a car.”

Ugh, sounds very romantic, but this conversation between my husband and I was nothing but romantic. I am not a nag who wouldn’t let my man have his own sweet heaven, but after his accident and subsequent surgery last year, I don’t think I still have the mental courage to deal with the bicycle. It’s not that I am a chicken, if the risk is limited to only me, I can even attempt to climb Mt. Everest without having second thoughts about my lung capacity.

When it comes to people I love, I can’t. Last week, I was worried when the five year old daughter sat on a horse meant for seven year olds. She enjoyed the ride so much, went for a second round, but till she came back, I wasn’t myself. I have issues letting go. Control issues. In a conversation with a friend, I told her that the key to my happiness is thinking everyone belongs to me, and I belong to no one. That is happiness when everyone and everything is in control, under control. Usually it’s not. That’s when the same key to happiness unlocks pain and misery, and stress.

“Have your Doctor’s number on speed dial and call him if you injure yourself again”
“Will you pick me up after I am done with the appointment”. He surely was in a mood to tease.
“No. If you need to be in the bed again, arrange for a nurse”
“The Nurse, and I”
“You make it sound like an exotic and forbidden affair”
“Imagine her.. giving me a sponge bath..”
“Somehow that didn’t imagery didn’t translate to a very romantic occasion when I was giving one”
“That’s different”

I didn’t have time to argue about the lack of romanticism in my sponge bathing skills, more pressing matters needed my attention. We declared an end to that conversation, so abruptly that we knew it would be revisited very soon, as soon as I gather all my ammo. International support/help line was dialed, and mother superior was consulted. As usual, she played both sides and gave an almost excellent suggestion, in theory.

Stationary bike.
Bike in front of the TV she added, to keep boredom at bay. Put it in the backyard, and bike under the clear blue sky, and lush green surroundings. She tried hard to sell the idea. But husband dearest this time was smitten by the wind against his body. I could put a commercial grade fan in the backyard, but it won’t be natural. In the end I had to make a decision. A favorable decision that would please everyone, wouldn’t be too much work, wouldn’t have any risk.
Full-size long bed.

Yes, answer to all my concerns would be in a full size long bed. Sure we are conservative people, wouldn’t want to be caught in a long bed, but we have to roll with times and do what suits the occasion. I don’t know how I will convince him, but if all he wants is to enjoy the sun, rain, and wind against his body, I will give him that, and have the peace of my mind too. Load the stationary bike on the long bed, and drive at the speed he desires. End of all problems.
Happiness today is finding unreal solutions to real problems and trivialize them.

Chasing Happiness #6

Peace.
Ideally peace would be walking on the wet sand by the ocean, leaving my foot prints, watching them disappear as the wave crashed into them, alone, feeling the warmth of the sun above my head, and the cold ocean water under my feet..

Ideally peace would be standing on a cliff, watching the sunrise, sweat still trickling from my forehead from the strenuous trek that brought me to the piece of heaven, nature surrounding me, nature singing to me.

Ideally, a lot of things in life are not ideal. Such are the chaos of the times we live in, we try to survive in, peace is not exactly serene. Peace is not exactly nature. Peace is just a state of mind, peace is just a happy space that mind rests in, before we move on.

Yesterday I found peace walking in the aisles of Target.
Yes, walking the aisles of Target, listening to a vague loud song my tween plays on her itouch, interspersed with “hello” “bye-bye” “one-two” “yay” from the baby toy section, and the beeping of the scanners. There were no birds chirping, waves crashing, but to listen to any sound that didn’t say “mom” while pushing a cart with a list in hand was therapeutic. White noise is therapeutic than silence sometimes.

I walked into every section, without a list, without a time frame, without anyone interrupting my thoughts, I looked at every different sheet set they had, I looked at every little accent table they had, and I looked at the gardening section. It wasn’t the same as looking at the green and gold of the leaves in sunrise, but the amalgamation of colors that didn’t make sense actually soothed my eyes.

I went into the kitchen section, and without anyone reminding me that I am not the cooking and cleaning Domestic Goddess, I explored every tool in the baskets, wondering if I ever cooked, would it make life easier. Wondering will I ever cook for the sake of creating a beautiful edible color palette, or will it always be something to sustain life, no matter how tasty it turned out, it won’t be a piece of art I created.

I bought things that I didn’t need, it was peaceful, to know that none was expensive enough to bother about a change of mind warranting returns. I talked to the store clerk, asked the old man how his day was, how business was after holidays. I walked out of the store, without holding anybody’s hands, without pushing a giant cart full of stuff to load in the trunk, without plotting my exit path. Peace was shopping without baggage to weigh me down.

Happiness today is finding peace in the chaos, not waiting for peaceful atmosphere to help me be at peace.

Chasing Happiness #7

This morning I woke at 4.30 am, gave a quick shower to the little one, put a load of laundry into the washer, and sat on the bed playing Word on the Street with her. Those without children yet will probably think it’s the super mom syndrome being kicked up a notch, but those with kids know the scene. Sick child. Husband was on an all night care-giving mission, and I had to take over early in the morning. The fever is down now, and she is sleeping, and I am all energized, with a fresh and early morning start for the day.

I picked up Redbook and read an article about “Child No.3”.

This has been on my mind for a long time. When we got married, I wanted a big and beautiful family. Three girls to be exact. I always saw myself as that mother at the school drop off zone zooming in with a giant black SUV, and when the door opens, three girls with matching backpacks, hair bands and shoes get out, waving bye to their mom. But then, happiness came in between. Yes, happiness. New city, new beginnings, and new turns in life came exactly when we wanted to have our second baby. We were so happy in that new space of life that we didn’t want to make room for another person, especially someone who would disrupt it.

Then came the second one, and the new job, and the new house, and the brand new recession of the decade that it never felt like a good time to have another baby. Also, the second one was such a baby, we didn’t even feel we should have another baby. We didn’t cancel our baby plans, but we didn’t work on it. Last winter, the baby fever kicked in again.. one of my Facebook status read: Today I feel like.. holding a freshly bathed warm and fragrant baby wrapped in a towel.. walk in no particular direction till my feet hurt without the worry about returning.. eat a three course meal at that restaurant on Green in Pasadena thoroughly enjoying each bite. On second thoughts I will just wake up my senses, smell the coffee, drink some with Kahlua and get on with life, as is…

Second thoughts won, needless to say.

My birthday last year became suddenly special. I turned thirty five. Not an age that I should be sharing with people, but then, when you want to have a kid, it becomes an all important milestone. So many of my relatives, and my friends went on to have children after thirty five, some even had their first one, all healthy, but long ago, my husband and I had decided that we will draw a line at thirty five. Probably because we started so early, and we didn’t want to be parenting almost all our life. Probably because we are not prepared for the stress that comes with late pregnancies.

After my birthday, we went to India. With two girls, it’s not easy even in a very progressive family where all the women work, and almost all of them are postgraduates. Everybody told me to have a third one, a boy. One of them, a shrill and annoying woman that I met for the first time, told me that I should have variety in life. I did tell her that we were talking about children, not spice jars jokingly, but she didn’t get the point. She kept insisting that this time it will be a boy, she knows. Probably she was an expert in some kind of a chart. Something about everyone asking for a third child, preferably a boy, totally turned me off. I no longer want to have another child, more so for the fear of it being a boy, looking like those desperate baby machines that won’t stop until they have had a boy.Being a girl has never affected my life in anyway, and I don’t have to have a boy just because that’s the only thing I don’t have right now. Oh, I don’t have that two hundred thousand dollar sari either.

Summer cleaning followed, and a vague Facebook status read: In the dark corner of the closet, behind the dresser is a disassembled crib, nuts and bolts in a ziplock bag, tucked between the dresser and the wall. Lost in time, remembering my newborn babies that slept in a corner of the crib, my toddlers that climbed out it and one day grew out of it, and the unborn that never slept in it. It’s almost five years after my last, I list the item for donation. Content yet undone for unknown reasons.

That was the end of the baby fever. With the crib gone, and everything baby donated to deserving people, I declared the mission incomplete, but done. More than any other year, this year, during Christmas I missed having a cutie patootie baby in the house, the ones that I had are all grown, independent. They are still cute, still adorable, still my babies, and forever will be, but they won’t smell like one, ever. Smell of children now is a mix of monkey bar metal and black top, with some sweat, and with some fading deodorant and a fruity-flowery mix of shampoo and body wash that still left it’s scent somewhere on the body. One day when they grow up, when they can understand better, I want to be the “mom in the middle”, a foster parent, but as of now, this is it.

This year is a dragon year, I am a Fire Dragon, and the older one a Metal Dragon. My husband teases me, have a Water Dragon, it will be fun to see all your energies clash, but I won’t give in. At this age, when I should be finishing up my eat-pray-love moment and start being me, I won’t be a mother again. Yesterday my little one sprayed Victoria’s Amber Romance on me, and all night I kept smelling my hand.. smells almost like a baby. So much that I wanted to wake up my husband and tell him, it’s not Johnson and Johnson, it’s Amber Romance.. Guess I have found the fix for the smell of the baby.. now if only I could find a baby to hold whenever I felt like and give my unconditional love to.. without making my kids jealous, that would be perfect motherhood for me.

Happiness today is knowing my two girls complete me, and complete us.
Happiness today is knowing there is Amber Romance for those who miss the sweet smell of a baby.

Chasing Happiness #8

Fourteen years ago, a new bride would be sitting at her desk, engrossed in research to complete her thesis, perfecting the perfect, and the dark clouds would fill the sky, distracting her from the mission of her life, to be an Architect before she joined her beloved seven seas away. You miss him more than you love this, the lightning would say, lighting up that corner in the heart she would try to hide from the world.

She would push aside the hardbound Time Saver Standards and the stack of books she used for reference, and pick up a bond paper, or a parchment, or whatever caught her fancy, and using the best of her inks, would write a letter to the person brought the moanful misery to her life. I miss you, she would write, then tear that paper, do you miss me, she would ask in the next.

Passion would fill in the pages sometimes, agony of separation sometimes, it would just be a factual tale of happenings sometimes. Pages and pages that could make up a novel were written, sent across the world relying on the postal service, without backups, without copies of what was written. The trust and faith that this too shall reach surpassed the doubts that it would be lost somewhere in transit.

Some reached in a week, some reached in a month, some never made it, and there was one, a passionate one, that she regretted writing came one fine day when least expected, when the passionate moments she used to long for were already relived, when words were no longer used to convey the meanings. It went into the box, a box full of letters that would one day become a treasure, to be opened and read on the rainy days, sitting on a ledge near the window, forgetting the world.
Soon, the series of passionate mails were replaced by the longing of a mother and daughter. They wrote to each other about everything happening in their lives, including stacks of recent pictures, even though they talked to each other every day. There is something about the written words that makes you say more than the words that come out of your mouth. The unspoken, unsaid was traded across the oceans.

Life got busy at some point, sticking only to the verbal conversations, slowly replaced by the video chats that took over the letters like never before. Pictures were traded over the internet, and words exchanged with a face to relate to. The letters sit somewhere deep in the boxes, only things that I sign and date became the city hall application when I filed for my client’s permits.

Forgotten art of writing had to be revived, not because I had time to write, but because I had time to keep the art of writing alive, especially the glory of my beautiful handwriting. Beautifully calligraphy adorned the Christmas cards, each alphabet written with precision, with love, to the person I sent it to, to tell them that they are important, as important is my handwriting to the envelope. Once a year ritual, but that held on, mailing handwritten cards, and receiving handwritten cards.

All that frenzy over now, life is reset to the next year, only mail I will receive will be the Tax 2011 papers and the various bills. An envelope of a different color surprised me, as did the handwriting on it. There was a Christmas card that came from a land far away, from an Island Princess. The delight that it brought, the reminder it gave of the holidays that just passed was so simple and so special. It came on a day that I had taken all the cards off of the refrigerator, and stowed away all decoration until the next year.

Suddenly, by arriving late, it became special, special than the ones that came on time. I left it on the refrigerator, perhaps it will be there, with a handwritten message in it, till the Valentine’s day frenzy begins. Stacks of pink hearts will be traded between friends, and stacks of them will be all over the fridge, until I declare spring cleaning.
Reminded me of the passionate letter that came late, igniting the passion that only separation could bring. Reminded of the letter that my father wrote to a pregnant me, asking me to stay away from junk food, not because it affected me, when my daughter was already a year old. Reminded me of the proposal my uncle got for an arranged marriage, when his daughter was already two years old.

Happiness today is reliving that joyful moment the letter was written for long after that moment has passed..

Chasing Happiness #9

It’s raining where I live.
There isn’t a storm alert, nor are we going to see snow at any neighboring altitude. Just rain. Pitter patter of the rain drops hitting the roof tiles at same interval, creating a constant white noise. The windows got a power wash, all the dust languishing in the net washed away, clearing the view of the world.

The trees surrounding the house were thinned and pruned last week, there was noise all morning, sometimes so loud the ears hurt. But the pain of that moment is justified, standing near the window, I can see the line of cars parked in front of my house, black-gray-white like the moods of my mind.

I want to step out in the rain, and receive the shower from the heaven with open arms. I want to get drenched, feel every drop of the pure water on my face. I want to see the water drip from the ends of my sleeves. I want to step into the puddle bare feet and feel the cold water on my soles.

I want to awaken me, like the thinned tree in front my house. I want to forget the fallen leaves, and busy myself to prepare for the impending birth of new ones. Beautiful rain, I want to submit myself to you, forget about the sunshine, forget about swaying with the winds, and just let your surround me in your white noise.

Instead I walk around in the house, close the doors, windows, and turn on the heater. Maintain the temperature. Maintain the silence. I step out, with the hood of my jacket covering my head, tip toeing into the backyard to pick a fresh orange off the tree. I wonder if I should wash it, and then laugh at my silly thought, zest the skin, fold into the batter, bake Madeleines to bring the smell of heaven to earth.

I try to forget the smell of the first rain, the excitement of the first rain. With two sick children in the house, I didn’t want to set a bad example. It’s hard, being a mother sometimes. There are little eyes, little hearts that are guided by you, by your actions. Now was not the time to tell the children how beautiful the experience of dancing in the rain was.

I remember my childhood. Coming home in the rain, drenched head to toe, forgetting to open the umbrella, forgetting there was a raincoat, enjoying every drop of water around my being, and getting a good scolding by my mother while she wiped off the water from my hair, and made me a hot cup of chocolate while I changed into something warm. It was fun, no matter how hard it was to deal with the medicine that tasted like cow pee when the body rebelled against the rebellion of the mind.

I smile, thinking of the special moments associated with the drops of the water that got recycled for a million years, creating a million unique memories. If the droplets could remember, someone danced in the rain. If they could remember, someone kissed in the rain. If they could remember, someone cried in the rain. They coated each moment, framing them and sealing them tightly, disappearing into the earth with them, as if they were burying them for eternity.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come, walk with me in the rain, we can get your car inside”, he said.
“No, the children are waking up, and I am baking”, I said.
“Go on, I am awake. I can turn off the oven”, she said.

I hesitated, but clutching his hand I stepped out into the rain, feeling the drops of water on my face, watching them fall in the hands that were clutched together, and then coating the love between those hands into a drop of water, vanishing into the earth. It was a moment of love that just got sealed into the earth.

It was a moment of our love.
Happiness today is walking in the rain because it’s not always dancing that brings joy.
Happiness today is baking in the rain because not everyone can smell the first drop of rain on the parched earth.

Chasing Happiness

2012-01-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

^Chasing happiness.

That’s the goal, not a resolution for the next 3-6-6 days to come, one day at a time, one moment at time… through architecture, writing, trading, parenting.. through family, friends and strangers.. through everything that brings me joy.. searching for extraordinary moments in an otherwise ordinary life, finding poetic control organizing the dishwasher, enjoying the genuine peace of hugging an innocent child, losing self in sometimes cluttered, sometimes compartmentalized life.. Someone wished that this New Year I should be thankful for the thorny bush I cared for has grown a thousand rainbow roses in a season where as the orchard has shed its leaves, baring it’s bones.

The partying of sorts that kicked off with Diwali, and included two birthdays, and an anniversary, along with the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New year ended yesterday, and tomorrow life will reset to normal. I documented, I didn’t dramatize as I did before, the life that we live, the pain and the pleasures that came with it, talked about some because there were so trivial, they were perfect to be shared.. talked about some because they were taking up so much space in my heart, I had to share.. forgot to talk about the ones in between, that gave me happiness and joy. Between the mundane and the magnificent, the merlot moments fell short of words to be the matter of my heart.. This year, the first toast of red is to the moments like that.

Last Wednesday, between Christmas eve and New Year’s eve, we celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary. So weird was the number, we insisted on celebrating the day we got married fourteen years ago. The sparkles and sparklers aside, we took a trip to Pasadena, the city that we matured in, the city that we spent our last carefree days in, the city that we left as we stepped into the great housing depression. The mere mention of the city still brings memories of different kind, starting from the fifth anniversary’s sapphire ring, the first one of it’s kind, that served as my mood ring, developing a crack when the heart felt the cracks, and turning a deep blue when happiness overflowed. Deep blue was mostly the color, because there was only a little girl with us, no mortgage, not many assets, and not many liabilities, material and emotional. We still think that it was the city that brought us joy, not the state of life.

It turned out to be a journey of a different kind. The houses with character have become the abandoned houses covered with graffiti, the busy streets lined with people expressing themselves in every color and every style are replaced by the grey and whites that have still saved their jobs, the restaurants usher you in as you open the door, no one is overbooked, no counter busy to serve, no women stepping out the boutique stores with blinding shopping bags. Some of the restaurants that I loved, the stores that I frequented they all wore the same sign, for lease. It’s not the life we lived there, or the live we saw there. Worked in our favor still, with two kids in tow, we didn’t have to stand in line for lunch, and didn’t have to keep circling around to find a space to park.

We drove in front of the apartment we lived in, sort of a town house, once surrounded by tall, and dark green trees, now out in the open, we almost wondered why they tore it down, until a quick check on google revealed the recent fire.. it would have been our house. It was our house actually, and I wondered, if something had happened when all of us were at work, we would have lost a lot memories. This was the house where R2 was born, where R1 began her schooling, where I finished my masters, where I sat at my desk, pregnant, staring at the squirrels eating acorns and wondering what was the point of all this chaos, if all it was to life was eat, drink and sleep. This was the house where I turned thirty, turned the chaos of my mind to early midlife crisis.

There was a project that I did, a quarter of the size of my other projects, but needed double my efforts. There was nothing beautiful to add, there was nothing significant to be design, but it was all reading the city planning guidelines and finding the fine print. Yes, just finding the fine print, the loopholes like a lawyer and executing the design that we wanted to, the client wanted to. A lot of money was spent, a lot of meeting were conducted, I spend so much time at the City Office, I knew almost everyone in Building, Planning, Fire, Health, Transportation departments, and they knew me, by my first name. End of the day it all worked out, the happiness the opening day balloons brought almost equaled to the happiness of stepping into my new house. The store is empty now, the window awnings with the logo that we had three meetings for, because we were not conforming are cut and machinery is broken, some parts hang freely into air. The people that I worked with have found new niches, new avenues, the person that taught me how to read the fine print was forced into retirement., the company that I worked for was bought over.

Life has moved on, half a decade has been erased, leaving me a few pictures, a few documented memories and a lot of people to hang on to. Life has moved on, the crisis of the mind is over, I have moved mentally into the new home, embraced the new roles of my life, become the woman I never thought I would, and actually thankful that I didn’t end up with purple hair and a torn jeans at thirty five. Life has moved on, from just the two of us with a baby in tow, we have become a family of four, a cat would complete us, but what’s the hurry to complete a life that is only midway through. Life is at a happy space, though I am in the middle of everywhere.. end mark is far away, but so is the beginning. I can see neither..

Coming to the committed part.. of the things that brought me happiness.. of Merlot and me.

This winter vacation was the most productive winter in the past several years. I would run around like a headless chicken, trying to feed the hungry mouths, wash loads of laundry, help them brush their teeth, arrange their baths, schedule my work around the nap schedules and park schedules, reading my magazine in the bathroom while husband took over when he returned from work, drinking coffee to just keep me awake. Even watching a TV program was a hassle, with each into a different genre. I felt so lost, that I always wanted a vacation after the vacation with them.

But this year, both of them were home, mostly conversing among themselves, sharing things that they could, playing board games, watching the same TV programs, listening and singing along the same songs, reading their books by themselves while I read my own, on sofa, with a cup of coffee in my hand, a luxury for any mother, without needed me constantly.. Independent. That’s the word I am looking for. But so many things fall under that word that I couldn’t justify their importance in my life just by one word to express them. Just a few months ago, in summer, I would do anything to trade for a few minutes in peace, and now I have peace, even with them around me.

The wall full of handwritten cards from the people I met in the lost half decade is happiness.
Life in the city that is not filled with “for lease” signs and torn awnings is happiness.
The children who sit next to me reading books without snatching mine is happiness.
Being able to spend an hour to write this blog while kids watched Harry Potter is happiness.
Spending thirteen years with a man I love is happiness.

I will be chasing happiness in 366 ways (that's the goal) for 2012 here: Chasing Happiness

In retrospect, 2011

2011-12-18T07:10:00.000-08:00

My first Facebook status of the year said “Year 2011 initiated. Honor the first day with a promise of turning perfect. Reset on 01/03, bask in the glory of being the virtually irreplaceable only daughter, wife and mother. Revert to normal life, take everyone for granted and juggle that …..”

It had all the makings of a Stepford wife, only the year couldn’t be. With still three weeks to go, I have the audacity to add a post script to it “Year 2011 concluded. Having perfected the art of being a super woman, almost, I retract from the statement of taking everyone and everything for granted. From this year on, I will respect and value every person in my life, no matter what their role”.

This year, by far has been the most volatile and most eventful year, bar none. Good events, bad events, ordinary events, they all happened, some made me jump with joy, and some trampled all over my being, leaving me undead like a hollow branch with moss on it. The brief period of unemployment, the depression of losing an unborn, they all paled in comparison, and no, nothing broke us, it made us only stronger, redefining the threshold of pain endurance with each event.

The year began with the thud of our dresser falling on the then four year old daughter, her whole body blue and black for days to come. That fraction of the minute when I heard her scream to when I removed the huge six drawer dresser that had covered her whole body will be the most nightmarish moment of my life. Frankly, I didn’t know what was below that, because all I had heard was just one scream. Emergency crew came within two minutes of calling, and after determining that there weren’t any fractures that needed immediate hospitalization, stayed on for a while until we were all a little controlled, and normal.

Many sleepless nights followed, and when we barely recovered, after a few relaxing and rejuvenating trips to the North and South of the state, I had my own trauma. A random visit to the Dentist revealed that the headache bothering me was not a migraine, it was my wisdom tooth practically sitting on my nerve causing the migraines, and the vision confusion. Several root canals ensued, followed up by wisdom teeth removal, with the highest risk of permanent numbness in some facial areas. Such was the state of confusion, I didn’t know what mattered more, being able to eat my favorite baby mango pickles, or kissing my husband.

The sound of the dentists’ drill, the back massaging chair, the headphones while the water machine whirred on, the sunglasses to protect my eyes from the glare, they all fit in perfectly in my mid-morning session for the whole month of May, after finishing my work, and before picking up the little one who one day decided to press my cheek hard just to ask me why I wasn’t talking. When it was done, I was just thankful that it was over, and it didn’t even matter that the migraines were gone, I was just happy I could feel my lips.

Career and green back harvesting took a back seat, health became the priority, and these are the moments when I am thankful to have a spouse who can support. A Bohemian at heart, the diamonds that he gifts, and the trips that he books do little to lift my spirits, constantly go unaccounted and undocumented compared with the need for my personal space. I haven’t admitted it for a decade, but today I will admit it. I am thankful to have a husband who can provide and support the family while I deal with my own experiments in life, be it having a baby, going back to school for Masters, unemployment, or even taking it easy because of health reasons. Never in my life have I worked because “we” have to make a payment. Whatever I have done has been done purely for my own satisfaction and personal development, be it architecture, poetry, writing or even parenting.

I thought it was over, and began the second part of the year with the India trip. There was no time for us, there was no time to reconnect, there was no time for me, there was no time for anything at all when we returned. Schools started, with both the kids joining a new school, things got even more interesting, and as much as I wanted to sit down and tell my husband how I “feel” after all the things I endured in the past few days, the depression that brought at times, the pain that hadn’t eased still, the womanly issues of playing mommy, taxi and the career woman all in a single day, I never got to say it. The pain of all that happened was masked with a bigger pain, my husband fell off his Mountain bike while he was on a routine ride in the city. It was a simple fall, and we thought he would recover in a day or two as we loaded his bike on the bike rack and drove him to the urgent care, and not the emergency room.

There were no fractures, we were thankful, but we weren’t given a chance to be entirely thankful, he had damaged his ligaments and that needed a surgery called ACL, and grafting. Sleepless nights ensued again, and before I could complain that I was doing more, I had a bigger role to perform. I wasn’t allowed to show my frustrations, or find a shoulder to unload my pain on, because the mood of his parents, my parents and our children depended entirely on how I dealt with the situation. As much as I hated it, I had suddenly become the leader of the pack.

The day of the surgery I broke down. Not in front of my parents, but on Facebook. Just when I thought that I was strong enough to deal with everything life throws at me alone, I failed, with a failed google chat with my parents and a failed anesthesia. At that moment, when the doctors wouldn’t tell me why the forty five minute surgery was still in progress after four hours, and when the nurse mentioned that there were issues with the anesthesia, but not anymore, I didn’t have any energy to deal with it myself. Memories of my aunt’s first heart attack when she was on the surgery table flooded my mind, and as much as I wanted to avoid it, memories of a very distant relative who died with an overdose of anesthesia came back to haunt. I was not ready to imagine a situation in life where I would be alone. It didn’t matter that I had questioned the existence of God, that day I prayed, I prayed that no matter what happens with the knee, or the ligament, I should be able to see him alive, end of the surgery. Suddenly there were no expectations that he should fold the laundry, he should do things without being asked to, and he should sit with me and talk about how I feel. I was ready to move on from that point in life, and just be happy with his presence.

A few minutes later everything was alright, he was in recovery, the doctor came out and happily announced that the surgery was successful. There he was, the overly drugged husband, trying to gain consciousness, flirting with the nurse, coaxing her into drugging him even more, and thinking that I was the daughter, totally failing to recognize me. All the sympathy went flying through the doors of the windowless recovery room, and I brought the man with a swagger and slur home just in time for Halloween. A headgear and moustache, he would put Johny Depp to shame, so authentic was the look! He would sleep when he wanted to, he would wake up when he wanted to for the next few hours, his daughters wondering when he was going to be normal. They had learnt the same valuable lesson of not taking anything for granted as their mother, but sitting in front of him, waiting for him to wake up and smile, they were probably as strong as their mother mentally.

Life went on. While he recovered, we didn’t miss anything. We attended all the classes, went to trick or treating, and resumed work and school not because we didn’t care, but because we wanted to tell him that everything is normal, and nothing can break us, his girls were stronger than he thought them to be. Sure, we go crying to him because we can’t resolve our shoe wars, sure we go whining to him because we can’t respect each other’s personal space, sure I call him to come home and take over because they drive me over the edge sometimes, but when it’s time to be strong, we are strong. We were our own rocks, not even assuming that the other one might be crumbling. The little one had the job of icing his knee, fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off, the older one became one of his crutches when he had to move around in the house, not once whining , not once complaining. I dropped them off to Taekwondo and took him to physiotherapy, and they would sit there waiting, hungry, happy to eat a pizza I had picked up, not once wishing that dad could take them to their favorite restaurant again. They are not used to my cooking or quick fixes, but they dealt with it, even making Maggie one fine evening when they thought their mother had had enough.

Birthdays rolled in, and without someone to watch our back if our plans failed, or we got overwhelmed, we dashed through everything, and then came the holidays, even taking the holiday picture became an event, with no one allowed to take the liberty of sitting in dad’s lap, or even going too close to the knee. It was always me, center stage, and it was always him, setting the timer and running to the setting before it clicked, but this time the pictures told a different story. The ladies of the house flanked him, like his bodyguards, his protectors.

The little one would wish upon stars that weren’t shooting, would make a wish blowing a dandelion that she wants daddy to lift her up in the air again. I never told gave her a hug and told her that it’s ok, mommy is here. I never shed any tears that my kids were without dad’s physical pampering for three weeks, but on the day when he came home walking on his own two feet, and lifted up the younger one in the air, I couldn’t control my tears. Now that he was back on his feet, he was ready to lend the shoulder, and we were only glad to accept the offer.

We are all blue and black, scarred in the mouth, on the knee, lost our teeth, our ligaments, and sometimes our patience, this year has become the year of pain, and year of endurance, setting the bar to a new high that we hope we will never ever break in our lives again. Oh, the diva! I forgot the pain the diva has to go through. The eleven year old little monster has braces, there by banning almost all the food that she worshipped and putting her on a diet of things that she hated for a whole year, and as she likes to put it, it’s a great experience, doing things that you don’t like to do and enjoying it, because you don’t really have any other choice.

Year is almost ending now, all the pain behind us, we are making fun of the way mommy talked, or the way daddy walked, enjoying the winter and the holiday season, being thankful for a thousand and one things that I can’t really name. Moments like this redefine life, and redefine relations, some mend for good, some you discard because you realize there is no point in pursuing. There is a person thousands of miles away from me, who became my guiding force, who became my mentor, even while dealing with her own set of problems, keeping us in her prayers, and genuinely caring for us. She was the gift of the “Year of Pain” to us, otherwise we wouldn’t have known.

And oh, how could I forget the biggest pain endurance event of all! I survived seven days of mother superior and MIL under the same roof, both trying to tell me that I need to care more for the children, for the husband, and cook! Past all that, I expressed my desire to adopt a black cat I fell in love with, dearest husband said no, you already have enough people to take care of, you don’t need a cat.

Home for the Holidays

2011-12-13T08:01:00.001-08:00

Fall was supposed to be all about drinking coffee under the shade of trees that change colors while exploring the many moods of the mind. At least this year, now that the daughters have officially reached an age where they can assert their independence, demand their own space and respect mine, I thought it was time I zoned out within the zone, without any thoughts of running away. Last of the last boxes were opened, things purged, itemized and organized, and even if blurred out minds planned new moves, they were declared null and void come next day morning, a few hundred square feet of real estate not worth the headaches of moving again, changing the life again.

It is time we called our house a home.

It is time to settle down. It is time to make me that cup of coffee that has the finest selected beans ground to perfection, filtered well enough to fill the whole house with their aroma, stirred with the sweetest creamy milk, and sipped while watching the changing colors of the trees that line the street to my house. The house that finally got the honor of being a home.

Having moved all over California in the past decade, it felt a little strange that we decided to stay put, and make our house our home. As excited as I was, I thought I will take it easy, and even with that policy of taking it easy, I texture coated the walls of the house, decked the walls with family pictures, and took up gardening too. “Took up gardening” would sound a little over the top when speaking of a two fifty square feet space filled up with eight dwarf fruiting trees and a few varieties of roses and jasmines, but that is a lot where we live. You see, we Stepford wives of the Unicorn Land (nickname for my city coined by a resident) rarely have time to open the doors of the yard, and let children play there. Our children are too precious to be playing in dirt and deck, what with closets filled with Mensa games, and the city filled with parks and trails of all sorts in every which direction. Of course I am exaggerating, but then there are times, and there are people that prop up even my sarcasm. If she hasn’t been outside to explore her surroundings, my little one wouldn’t know the number of legs that isopod had!

My gardening is jinxed. Every time I have touched that dirt on the ground, we have moved, like it’s a curse. I still remember the Jasmine I planted in front of our first house. A beautiful lawn, picket fence, and the corner location. I made it perfect with an arbor at the gate, and trained the jasmine along it. All the while dreaming about the beautiful summer when the arbor would be weighed down with the Jasmine blooms smelling heavenly. It wasn’t destined to be so. Every time we were in the vicinity, I would drive to the house, as if I still lived in it, park my car, sit and watch the Jasmine, the Pomegranate, the Calalily that bloomed, and spread out so well into the yard as if they were searching for the hands that planted them. Then there was this brick patio that we laid out, my parents and us on a long weekend. There was this Tulsi that didn’t sustain the tender loving care of the new resident and stood wilted in a corner.

It’s not that I didn’t love moving. As soon as I unpacked, and we settled down, the feeling to move grew strong. I have managed some moves single handedly, some when pregnant, some when my carpel tunnel was at its peak, and some when I was adjusting to my baby. Every move has sapped my energy out, but just like a man is lured with the smell of fresh leather of a new car, I get drawn to an empty house that I can claim. Ideally I would love the empty canvas of a loft that I can space plan, but for now, a house will do. It’s the Architect in me, I can’t help it. Except now, mostly because moving four people and two schools, two jobs need a lot of energy. The slowing economy and growing family.. it’s easier to stay put than to move. Stagflation, and stagnation.

Anyway, life moves on, people change, not just superficially, but also internally. A decade ago, it would have been impossible to imagine us as a typical suburban family, “settled down” even with a child already in my arms, but now, there is an urge to fit in, to be one of them moms who really have a control on everything their children do. I am a low maintenance mother, as long as they don’t lie to me, or cheat me, and can stand up to themselves, whatever that might be for, I am happy. Everything else that I do or they do comes as a bonus. I am not saying that their recitals and good grades, or even the good public behavior is something we don’t work on, or talk about, but it’s not something that would make me lose my sleep.

Every room will be dipped in a color that I love, every room filled with furniture that I love, and every wall will tell the pictorial story of our life. I remember, my grandparents house had a ledge, and on it were several degree certificates, of the children, and their spouses, and then on the wall were pictures of every married couple, and then all the grandchildren, and there were old pictures too, of my dad and uncles, and aunts when they were young, when they were carefree. I won’t go to that extent, but all those pictures lying in Picassa will finally get collaged, framed and propped against the wall. There will be nothing impersonal and formal about the décor anymore. Transitioning, literally to the next phase of life, where comes a moment when I can sing “There is no place like home for the Holidays” literally meaning my home, not just the walls and ceiling that shelters the people that are capable of making any space home for me.

Speaking of which, Christmas traditions are expanding slowly in my household. I remember, when I was a kid growing up in a city with just two churches to boast, and only two Christian friends in that long list of thousand friends, things used to be very simple. We would go to the friend’s house, eat fruit cake, and give her very simple gifts that didn’t require breaking any bank. The mass would be televised and telecast next morning as if some religious tolerance event. My Christmas mainly revolved around eating the cake. Those days I wasn’t surrounded by girls who starved themselves to maintain a size with no digits of importance to boast of, and I didn’t have to justify eating anything to myself, or to others. Girls these days are a different animal! Barely eleven or twelve, they are already dumping their lunch boxes in the trash can because someone told them they are fat. They starve themselves, or sustain on juice, totally unaware of the disaster their diet will bring to their body.

Our first Christmas after wedding, we were invited to one of my husband’s friend’s house. They had a huge tree, and then there was a present for us below the tree. While the tree, the ornaments, the dinner layout, it was all magnificent, I mostly remember that Christmas for different reasons. I had barely started cooking, and in my enthusiasm, I tried making Gulab Jamun for the party. It should have been really simple, I had observed my mother make them a thousand times, I had even tried my hand at making the tiny balls. The instant mix came with instructions, but guess what, mom knew how much milk to add in. I added more, I think only a drop more than what they said on the box, and it was a watery mess. Every store was closed, and we spent an hour in vain looking for a store to buy some milk powder to add to it. Finally we went home, but by then the mix had dried a little and reached a dough state that I could use. I ended up making around thirty Gulab jamuns even though the box said fifty, with a bonus ten. These days I know to reduce those claims into half, and use my intuition rather than the instructions on the box when it comes to Indian cooking.

Anyway, that year, except for a few potlucks and office parties, we didn’t have much to do. Even the potlucks that we attended were mostly with other newly married couples, or the soon to married ones. No one had the time to pay attention to the disposable plates they were served in. If the food was good, it was good enough. No, if you didn’t have to enter the kitchen and someone provided the food, that was good enough. There were no comparisons between husbands, there were no kids to compare to, there was no house or school district to boast of, and no, we rarely talked about stocks and investing because we barely had any savings then! It was a different world. We talked about missing our families during the holiday season. We talked about our parents, our home mainly, for most of us home being the parent’s house. It was all so casual, we never had to come home and talk about who said what in the potluck, and there were no Joneses!

It was so to me until a couple a years ago. There was home, where my parents lived, where I grew up, where memories were made, where I colored the walls with crayons and markers where my parents couldn’t see, broke the chip off of the kitchen counter because I wasn’t careful enough while getting something from the cabinet above, scratched the plaster off the wall when I brought my two wheeler inside the patio. There were cabinets filled with my books, with my doodles on them. There were clothes that I could use when I visited. There was a Diwan with the entire storage unit filled with my Architectural supplies, and my presentation models and sheets. All neatly rolled, and tucked in. That place felt like home. Where I ran from the school bus stop to give a hug to my mom when in Kindergarten, where I ran to receive a call from someone special I had talked only a few moments ago. That was home. I could never adjust to the bare white walls of a condo in California when I moved, bag and baggage. Even when we bought our own house, and I had my own child, home was still where my parents were.

Then happened the unexpected. My parents moved, and they gave all my supplies to someone who could use them, all my books to someone who could read them, and all those “special” clothes of mine to someone who could actually wear them. When I visited their new house, there was no trace of me. The Diwan was still there, there was furniture from my childhood, the table that had a slightly limp foot because I had jumped on the edge, broken and repair had only fixed so much. I had studied using that table, written letters using that table. Oh, I had taken a pen and written on the legs of that table with a handwriting that would embarrass me now. But it was not the same. What didn’t help was, my daughter, who was only eighteen months old had gone ahead with her grandma for a couple of months before I visited, and brought her home with me. She knew the house more than me. She knew where she could sit and spot a squirrel, what time the mail man would come, and more importantly the name of the housekeeper. I was an alien in my own house where I didn’t know anyone other than my parents. That place didn’t feel like home anymore. I noticed that when I was talking to people, when I meant “at my place”, I meant my home in Lalaland, and not my parents house anymore. I had moved out, finally, but it took five more years to move in into my current house mentally.

When I returned, I started celebrating every festival. Celebrating without whining about how it would have been if I were home. I started my own traditions, set my own standards, and with two little children and a husband it felt like we had family enough to celebrate. We wrote cards, we reached out to friends that left behind every time we moved, we reached to people who have touched our lives in various ways at this time of the year to tell them that they are missed, they are remembered and they hold a special place in our lives. We didn’t put a tree, or bake cookies, but we brought cakes, and lighted up the windows and doors. We didn’t make our kids believe in Santa, but we bought them every gift we could afford. We don’t pray on Christmas night, but we let them sing songs about Christmas, Hanukah and Judah, Santa and anything that they enjoyed. We go to the mall, we let them pick gifts, but they usually go to the poor, underprivileged rather than the friends who have everything. I make them clean their closets, get rid of every toy that doesn’t interest them, every piece of clothing that they didn’t fall in love with, because there are people who will find them interesting enough, and they are not privileged enough to buy them.

I don’t know what my children will remember about growing up with us, but whatever those memories will be, I want them to be of happy times. When they say home, they should mean this house. At least till they make their own house a home. I don’t know about me, I am a nomad at heart, as much as I would want to settle down, it will be a long road ahead, full of roadblock emotions asking me to pack up, at least move North or South of the street without disturbing the harmony of school districts and freeway webs.

Eleven already!

2011-12-01T20:24:00.001-08:00

Dear daughter,

Today is your eleventh birthday, in the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the century. On days like this, mothers use their power on words and weave articulate passages about the day their little angel was born, and the joy that filled their heart when the little child clasped their finger. I wish it was that easy for both of us to go back to that day and fill our eyes with tears of joy. The moment you were born, you locked your eyes into mine, stopped the induced crying, and looked at me like you belonged to me, and only me. But before my heart could process that emotion of being a mother to a real child, they took you away. You were small. You were early. You were not ready to deal with the world, just yet. Like a tiny little angel with a halo on her head, you were in a glass box all dressed in white while they shone a bright light on you, sort of like a spot light, and even if you opened your eyes, it was a miracle we were waiting for, and if you moved your arms, we lifted ours to thank god! Today you are an inch shorter than me, and a few pounds lighter than me, and like I had written in a poem a decade ago, you are a mirror of me, but still, to me you are the same young fragile thing that the doctor put in my arms eleven years ago.. I don’t know what to write.. I am not speechless, I am wordless mostly. As much as I would love to write a poetic prose to you in my beautiful calligraphic handwriting and tie it in a red ribbon, gift it to you to treasure always, I know you wouldn’t be able to appreciate it, just yet. There are so many things I want to tell you, but I don’t know where to start, or how to share.

Where do I even begin? You would be amused, but the day you entered the growth chart, even though it was a measly five percentile range, your dad and I celebrated. I bought a pile of clothes, and even the preemie ones were big for you, so your grandmother had to make clothes for you. They looked exactly like the ones she made for my dolls. We were so happy that you were finally coming home, but they wouldn’t send you because you didn’t fit in the baby car seat. Your grandmother stitched a custom pad for you to use in the car seat and in your crib, and in the crib you looked so tiny and fitted sideways! The day you found your voice and cried, we were all up, singing, talking, and celebrating, little did we know once you began you would never stop! I would get yelled by your grandmother whenever I mentioned that you look my grandfather, what with that skin, and the bald head, and weird gaze. You weren’t cute at all, pretty girl, you became pretty only after you were a month old and grew some skin!

For years, I repeated the story of your birth to every doctor, every teacher and every care provider that we had. You were so special. We measured you, ounce by ounce, and it’s nothing short of a miracle when you scaled the heights, inch by inch. I didn’t imagine one day we would have a normal life, that we would be fighting over my shoes that you stole and stunk up with the sweat. I didn’t imagine I would be Mother Gothel scaring you about the oddities that exist in the world outside my door step, while you will do everything you could to take that step when I am slacking. You have no idea how happy I am that things turned out to be so normal, and you were not special anymore! This was the normalcy I had always dreamed of. This is how I want you to be, the rest of your life. Every mother tells her child that she is special, but only those with special children know how special a normal childhood is. If you coughed, there was a nebulizer mask, if you sneezed, there were vaporizers all over the house. You have no idea how it feels today to just measure some over the counter medication and use it only when needed. Be this way, dear daughter, never become special to me, again. Not every mistake is capable of auto-correcting itself!

All I wanted to do was brag about the beautiful angry bird birthday party that we had and I cooked up a senti-menti sepia picture frame. Sometimes I sit down to write something, and I end up writing something else. Mostly that’s why I will always be a blogger never an author. Writing to me like an emotional cleansing exercise. I don’t weigh my words, nor do I plan them, just like I parent you. Sometimes I want to order that Magical Zen Bamboo stick that helps children get a four GPA till they graduate, and sometimes when you are sick and home, instead of helping you print out your worksheets and get on with your work, I paint your nails in beautiful colors and designs, and eat pastries with you for lunch. That’s what makes life beautiful I guess. If everything happens as we expect it to, and plan for, it becomes a compulsive and controlled boring life. The fun is in trying to control the things that get out of hand and get a reign on it!

I would love to tell you a hundred things I want you to do, or not do in the next hundred years, but I will be just be happy if you stay away from alcohol, smoking and unsafe practices! You can graduate, you can marry a man of your dreams, you can do whatever you want to, I will always be happy for you, and all I pray is you have a normal life where only things like weddings, babies and careers get celebrated. I know things will not always be as you plan, or I plan, but I wish you to keep your head held high, and make your own decisions, never come crying to me, just like I never go crying to anyone, no matter what the issues in my life are. Be your own rock, be your own support, use me only to vent your anger, your frustrations. You can empower yourself with education, with money, and with a loving family, but your power will come only from your heart. You haven’t even started your life, but you are a survivor already. Don’t let anyone ordinary tell you otherwise.

Signing off, because you have been reading Breaking Dawn and it’s been four hours that you haven’t taken a break. I have to come and talk to you about vampires and werewolves, and about falling in love with them.

Till next year,

Mother Gothel.

This is the cake that I customized for her Angry Bird Theme birthday party. The cake is from Costco, told them to skip all the decor, and just give me the white background and the writing. They did an awesome job. Ordered cake toppers from Amazon. Actually ordered everything else from Amazon- Angry Bird T-shirts for her, Angry Bird Backpack clips for the goody bags, and an Angry Bird set for her as my gift.

11.11.11 and eleven moments

2011-11-10T16:42:00.001-08:00

“Tomorrow is 11.11.11”

There was 1.1.1 and there will be 12.12.12.

“You know what’s special next Friday?”

There is no way I can forget the frenzy that happened on the day you were born, our first daughter, and the first grand-daughter for your grandparents. But I will humor you, and continue my silence which you will take as an affirmation to keep speaking.

“I will be turning 11 in the 20-11!”

Thank you dear child, you opted for a shine in your eyes that conveys your emotion rather than “OMG, I am like totally freaking out!” with an eye roll that could have made me roll my eyes and gone freaking out with an OMG status on my Facebook profile. Sorry, but I have to burst your bubble. This mother operates without the caffeine sometimes. You were born in 00, effectively making your current age and current year the same number. Every birthday you have will be special, even your one hundredth. You were the millennium baby after all! You were smart enough to cover and correct, stating you were turning eleven in the eleven month, but the twinkle in the eyes was gone already and you were just ‘totally-freaking-out’ over nothing.

Now that you mention, let me make my 11.11.11 special by writing about eleven random things. Under the cloak of the aspiring Stepford wife and Zuck-mom, there is a different person that has voluntarily lost her emotional identity. She used to laugh, she used to cry, she used to do what made her happy without thinking what the other person would think, what her family would think. She doesn't anymore. With the new normals life has been resetting to, it is hard for her to be herself without hurting someone, without letting down someone, or without being judged. Talking about those events would be "de-cloaking" ( a friend today mentioned that women wear a cloak of dignity) and I am not ready to reveal the emotional trauma that I sometimes go through to the unsuspecting souls that think I am made of steel.

Eleven things about eleven intimate moments I spent in the closet wouldn’t be the same as de-cloaking myself though. Some metaphorical, some literal..

Standing in the center, I stare at the stark white walls and ceiling of the dull and drab room that has no character of its own. Not a single window that I can slide open for a breath of fresh air, hear the joyous sounds of the kids at play or fix my eyes on the distant mountains getting lost in thoughts. Not a dot of color on the walls that defines my taste or soothes my eyes.

This is my closet, a room without a soul, playing host to my many moods and memories. Warm and steaming from the bath, my naked feet touch the floor, and the mirror on the wall shows the real me, without the war paint, without the hats and masks I wear, a small space in the house where I am me, before the flowery fresh perfume dulls my essence, and the mood of the day sets a hangar free.

Loads and loads of clothes in there, some too big, some too small, some too bland, some too gawdy, only a few fitting my form, I blame poor judgment for buying them duds. A ritual every season, I pull out the ones I don’t feel the love with, wash them, iron them, give them away to someone who might fall in love. Purge and proceed, the mantra of life.

Cleaning is on the mind, extreme organization too, a quest to make life easier, a quest to make it simpler, unknowingly ends with the space that gets filled up within days, bringing me to the ground zero again, organizing and cleaning again. No dirty linen, I am a clean person. There aren’t things that I hide, there aren’t skeletons that tumble when door is ajar. There are corners, and only four of them. Some clean and tidy, organized, some well lit, some with a basket that catches them all.

Enough with the running, enough with the fearing, I tie my hair in a bun and steel my hands, ready to face the things that spring. Organize and clean today, I decide, I pulled out the boxes, some big and some small, some filled to the brim with things I love most, some with things from people I love the most, each with a story, each with a promise engraved in the heart so deep.

Jewelry box opens first, the metals gleam and the gems shine. In there is a velvet pouch, blue with strings of yellow, I open it, wondering what lies in, been so long, I forgot the imprint. I slide it out, a ring it is, ruby red in a cage of gold. Not my own, it’s an inheritance, of a woman that lived in days of yore. She didn’t own it, wasn’t a gift from her mother, she didn’t live long to make it her own. Invisible feet led it to me, I tried to own it, make it mine, but the ring still loyal to its owner slips away farther from my finger.

A broken crystal heart, one morning it broke without a whimper, it didn’t bleed, it didn’t need my care, move on it said, it’s only a symbol, but I couldn’t let go. Today comes the moment I bid adieu to it, with a promise to keep it in the memory, always. There was no poem with it, nor was a poetic prose, all there was was a memory of a hike up the hill on cold and foggy February evening from a man who couldn’t buy the stones so big then.

Neatly stacked in a wooden box is a set of pouches, all the same size, all the same blue color, all with the same yellow strings. Blue, white, pink and black, pearls that I love packed in there. Unadorned, I pick up a beautiful string of peacock blue pearls in my hand, twisting and turning and looping the hundred inches of them, around my waist, around my neck, then on second thoughts, I remove them, not today I promise myself, another day, when the feeling is beautiful, not just the pearls.

Deep under the sweaters is a note that survived several moves, folded and tucked in neatly, telling me that I am loved, written in a sloppiest yet most beautiful handwriting by a girl that was seven. Did you miss me, she asked, it’s the first day of the school, I surely miss you she said. I couldn’t reply to the note, tell the truth I make her weak, lie to her, I become a stone heart.

In the dark corner behind the dresser is a disassembled crib, nuts and bolts in a ziplock bag, tucked between the dresser and the wall. Lost in time, remembering my newborn babies that slept in a corner of the crib, my toddlers that climbed out it and one day grew out of it, and the unborn that never slept in it. It’s almost five years after my last, I list the item for donation. Content yet undone for unknown reasons.

Enough with it, I wear a shower cap and a dirty old dress, and pour the colored liquid in the tray. Rolling the roller in the tray, I marvel at the green the blue roller turned into. A green for my lush desires, a green for the abundance of dreams, a green to wipe the pale white of someone else’s lifeless dreams that stick to the walls of my closet, haunting me sometimes, reminding me sometimes that there was someone before. Quart by quart, the paint hugs the wall, quart by quart, my stamp goes on the wall. Smile by smile, I own the wall, I own my room.

Eleven on 11.11.11 by Anitha Murthy: Eleven (http://thoughtraker.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/eleven)

The clock and the cutoff date

2011-11-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

The clock moved back an hour this morning, and the brains of the people in my house got automatically updated to the new waking hour, except mine. Not ready to wake up and assume my Cinderella role, I curled up on the bed, in my blanket, without a coffee or an iPad that keep me company in those rare moments of solitude. It’s been a rough month for all of us. R’s accident, his surgery, R1’s slipping grade and R2’s slipping piano practice, and her GATE test, all rolled into one have left me little or no space for my own whining. I have been discouraged, strongly to whine about things less complex, and I get discouraged to whine when things do get complex. It’s been a complicated life!

Speaking of moving the clock, this year has been the year of cutoff dates for R2. Next year, California moves it’s cutoff date for Kindergarten to November 2nd, and R2 will be one of the last December borns to make it to Kindergarten.

This March, I went to pick up a registration packet for Kindergarten, and I was so strongly discouraged from enrolling a child born on the cutoff date..I almost had second thoughts. Had it not been to the positive experience of sending R1 (born exactly two weeks before cutoff date) my confidence would be so shaken, I would have bubble wrapped my baby and saved her from the misery called education.

“She was born ON the cutoff date, doesn’t that tell you something?

Yes, it tells me that she made it in time, and would want to be enrolled.

“She is little”

Yes, she conforms to the desi brown and scrawny code, and she is in the eighty percentile height range.

“She will be bullied”

I highly doubt that, what with the yellow belt and her life experiences of surviving an older sibling.

“She will have a shorter attention span”.

We play piano for thirty minutes a day, without break.

“She need to know sight words”

Bunch of flash cards could be taught to a kid who already knows her legato from her staccato.

“She will be bored”.

Try her!

“She will be the youngest, and people have been holding back their children if they were born after September”.

Not my problem if others don’t have confidence in their children.

“We strongly discourage”.

I strongly insist.

In the Stepford community, schools and scores drive the home prices, and home prices drive the property taxes, and the richer the community, more the donations, and more the educated stay at home mothers who donate time to the school, as well as their children’s betterment in school. I understand your fear, dear Mrs. Anon, but no, not at the cost of my child’s year. She will have to be let in. I filled out the form, got the necessary vaccinations, and made sure the package didn’t miss a single required thing, even optional ones.

After a long vacation in India, we came back to the beginning of the school year, what with one starting Elementary, and another Middle School on the same day! I was worried about R1 because now she had to be independent and responsible, two traits that she has clearly missed learning, and more worried about R2 because now suddenly she looked tiny and scrawny, a bullying target, zero-attention spanned too young to be in school baby that should be kept home and taught with flash cards. Last minute jitters, as usual. I read up a thousand and two parenting articles that talked about sending the children to school early, and thousand and three parenting articles that suggested holding back a year. Friends and well wishers gave firsthand accounts of how a friend’s friend’s child, or a relative’s relative’s child started early and were sent back home because they couldn’t cope with Kindergarten. But the decision was done, and preparing myself for the disappointment if I had trusted my child’s abilities too much, I sent her to school.

October, the month of Parent Teacher Conference brought back the jitters again, but what a wonderful teacher she has! Encouraging words, and a good report card for a child who doesn’t write a word beyond her stipulated homework, sometimes even struggles to finish it, and a placement in “advanced” reading group. The battle was won, almost. My child wasn’t bullied, my child wasn’t left behind in studies, and she did have the attention span to sit and perform in a classroom setting. Mommy mind started racing and dreaming within no time.

I had to bring it up. GATE testing.

Like I said, R2 has THE best Kindergarten teacher, who didn’t strongly discourage us, but only warned the over enthusiastic mommy to keep her feet grounded and not expect too much of a performance from a Kindergartner because they get distracted easily during testing. I agree. But the trader mode kicked in. The kids can test from K to 8. They can’t take the next year if they fail. If I let her take the test first time in first grade, she would be able to take it again in third grade if she failed. So keeping an failure rate, the number of times she can attempt the test would be four -1, 3, 5,7. But, if I let her take it in Kindergarten, the number of times she can attempt the test would be five- K, 2, 4, 6, 8. When it came to R2, I twisted the theory of “boon of an extra year” from Outliers. I decided R2 will get the boon of an extra chance to test. Her teacher was supportive of my decision luckily, and we filled out the form.

I didn’t want R2 to think it was a big deal. It couldn’t become a big deal.

As soon as I filled out the form and sent it, R fell off his bike and things got completely haywire. My beloved R1 got her very first B in life, because she hid the fact that she had a test to study, and chose to help me take care of her dad. I slacked, didn’t check the Aeries portal to see what was due, what test was coming up. She was fine with it, a borderline B that she could make up if she did well in the next, but I felt really guilty. R wrote a letter to the teacher, and she agreed to retest.

But the GATE test had no such provision. I had to work on her critical thinking. So in between all the doctor runs, I ran to the Learning material store and bought the book “Building Thinking Skills” as suggested by a friend. The book was so thick, it would probably take her several months to get through. Undeterred, I tore off two pages from each chapter, gave them to the now immobile husband and asked him to prepare her. I don’t know what she did because when I took the papers to recycling, I saw only dad’s writing on them. He did explain that he kind of did the work so that she could just sit on his lap and know the concept. Whatever! That was the most we could do, and anyway, GATE testing is not something you can prepare for- it’s a test to see how different your child thinks.

The day of testing was finally here, and early morning I tried to feed a big fat Punjabi paratha to the baby to give her the necessary energy, but she chose to eat half an idli and declare that she was full. The car was stashed with Halloween candies, so I thought I will feed a few on the way to get that burst of energy. Turned out I trusted the wrong car- the man car doesn’t have food or supplies, and the Santa Ana address lured me into taking the man car. Anyway, we were still fine, we drove to the school and found a parking in front of someone’s house, and as soon as I could say “YAY, we did it!”, I heard sobbing.

My bravest, smartest, littlest Kindergartner was crying. Because she wore the black sparkly shoes that slip when she runs around and she forgot to wear her stinky Cinderella sneakers. A case of lucky shoes I would think, but she quickly showed her concern about the “height” of the gate. What gate you ask? I asked too. Apparently that morning I mentioned that we were going to GATE testing and told her to do well, but forgot to mention that it was a paper-pencil test. She assumed that it was a test where kids climb a gate. A gate to nowhere it is, metaphorically speaking, but we have to do what we have to do to get where have to get to. Life is complicated that way.

I carried her to the venue comforting her, because there was no time to stop, sit down to her level, look into her eyes and have a talk. With an achy breaky back, when I finally made it there, it wasn’t anything like I expected it to be. All the schools in the district sent their kindergartners and first graders to be tested there, and after being strongly discouraged to test their children, more than a hundred parents had decided to take a chance. I was not alone.

Suddenly I felt I was attending Amy Chua Clone Convention. No, I am not speaking about Chinese parents, but parents who have adopted Chinese style of parenting. It is cool to learn Asian martial arts, attend Indian Yoga retreat, sip Green Tea and eat Greek yoghurt, but sadly same can’t be said about the Chinese style of parenting. We in India had a similar upbringing too, but I hear parents these days are cool in India also. I don’t know. With the population bursting at its seams, and engineers cropping like mushrooms, if you don’t push your child to excel, it will be hard for them even satisfy their basic needs. Like I tell R1, for a million drop outs who struggle to meet the ends, there is one Steve Jobs. And I think he dropped out mainly because there was no school good enough to cater his intelligence. Also, he could read by age three.

The test was about to begin, and the proctor, a lovely lady, came and lined up her kids, assuring us parents that they were teamed up according to the age, and questions will be read out, and took our kids away for next two hours. We sat there, swapping notes on how we practice piano, how our curriculum fares against the private schools, the parking facility in school and of course real estate. Then came a very lovely statement for one of the fathers..”I brought my child here to have fun, I don’t care if he makes it or not”. I couldn’t resist. I had to ask him “Why didn’t you go to a park then?”. In my view, any parent who wakes up a child early in the morning and drives them to a two hour test on a Saturday morning is clearly not there for fun, and has expectations about the child’s performance. The fun seeking parent would have taken the child to Disney. It’s only ten minutes from where we were. It’s one thing to be prepared to disappointment, it’s another to tell the child to go have fun at a test and not worry about the result. Sure, no one has any control once any test is given. But I don’t understand the logic behind telling the child to have fun. It is something that they treat seriously. It might not be of much importance to us who have passed that stage and many more crucial ones, but for the little ones it sets the stage for many tests that will come later in life.. Go have fun and don’t worry about it sound strongly discouraging to me. I am practically saying “Go and mark something. I know you are incapable of knowing the right answer”. No, I wouldn’t say that to my child. I didn’t even tell her what to do if she didn’t know the answer. At her age, she is so confident, she thinks she knows everything. I like her that way, and want her to be like that always. As a trader, that’s the attitude that helps me every morning.

The test was over, and all moms and dads clamored around to ask their children what the questions were, did they do them before in the practice, and all that blah. I asked her too. She told me how beautiful the teacher was, how good was she, and how she took a restroom break, and lost her way because all the doors were same and how a parent helped her, and oh, she also mentioned something else in passing. They had a separate sheet to bubble their answer. She was on question 18 when she left, and when she returned from her restroom break, the teacher was reading question 23. It got very confusing for her to bubble in from 19. It got very confusing for me to understand also, but now I have understood that she started bubbling in from where she left off rather than from where the teacher was.

I am in denial, as always! I still think there is a 25% chance that the answers she filled in are correct, and assuming some other kids also took such restroom breaks, or had distraction issues, there is a 50% chance she can make it. Come April, I am ready to face disappointment when I receive that letter from the school district, but in my heart I am happy because I know she has four more chances just like the kids that have waited to take that test in first grade. Also, I know I have to carry another snack in my purse, not in the car. I have to take her to the restroom right before the test, and tell her what the test will be about without her wild imagination scaring her of the heights of the gate!

Oh, I still need to buy that pink gift that I promised her. Yesterday, after I explained the “gifted” part, she asked me will the gift be pink. The things a mother has to do!

Silence calling White Noise

2011-09-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

Dark clouds fill the sky and the sweet aroma of the first drop of rain after a long summer surrounds us. The grass blades, tiny leaves of the trees, creepers hugging the wall.. they all spread their arms and soak in the shower of unconditional love from the skies above. This Friday, romance, thy name is weather. A cup of coffee is always a pleasure, but it’s divine when it rains and it’s handed to you in your favorite mug by the now-she-loves-now-she-doesn’t daughter. Conflicting sentiments and emotions being mutual, I decide to share the meaning of my name with the now-your-friend-now-your-baby girl, trying to explain that it is not literal, Meghana being dark clouds. Sweetly, eyes fixated into a distant cloud, I explain to her, it’s about the first drop of rain, it’s about the unconditional love, it’s about the beauty of giving, and of receiving. Making a paper boat for her sister with what was a Math test prep paper, she says.. your name means rain clouds. No wonder you rain on my parade.

Thank you dear daughter. And I forgive you for branding me so. Life wasn’t like this, and I wasn’t like this always.

Weekends weren’t like this either. Barely out of teens, I was looking forward to “Friday Missed Calls” and “Friday Romance Calls” with R, thanks to my mother who thought that I should be entitled to safe romantic liaisons and not waste my days worrying about the insecurities that arise with noncommittal relations that I could otherwise get into. It was so romantic to go to a movie, and then to dinner, and talk uninterrupted. It was so romantic to go on a long drive and not for once check on the back seat. It was so romantic to open a bottle of wine, leave the bottle and glasses on the table, and sleep on the couch without having to worry about anyone walking in on us. It was so romantic to listen to the thousandth time that I was beautiful, no matter how I looked.

You guys stepped in, and life changed. But there were Friday Romance calls, each week, only the idea of romance changed.

The people that we were, were lost. The person that I was, was lost. I don’t know where. I did loads and loads of laundry trying to look for me in a Size four jeans. I cooked every kind of curry in the cook book to find the flavor of me, quirky and eccentric, nothing like the cookie cutter mother I had become, full of expectations. I tried to find me on the streets, but didn’t identify me in those long lines of mothers picking up the children after school. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, no, they didn’t manage to contain me, as I was. Not even my soul could hold me intact. Motherhood, a decade of committed relation, and the impending sixties on parents.. No, that’s not all, the recession. More than anything else, the recession has made me a different person. I have lost the carefree woman in me. There is not a single day, or a single moment in my life that I remember where I could spend a minute free of thoughts about people who surround me. Today I wait for a Nirvana of sorts. Meghana that can bring joy, Meghana that cook up a storm and flood the world, change the map wants to be the Meghana that melts away in the sun, drift away with the winds like she never existed.

This Friday I am feeling romantic again.

No, romance today has nothing to with sex, wine or sweet nothings.

This Friday I want to take a train.

A train to nowhere.
A journey without a destination.
I don’t want to read a book, I don’t want to write one.
I don’t want to think, neither do I want to share my thoughts.
I don’t want anyone to hold my hand and tell me I am beautiful.

I don’t want anyone to hug me and tell me I am needed.
I don’t need a zipless fuck.

I need me attending to me.
Serenading me, singing me sweetly to be me.
Not a mother, not a daughter, not an architect, not a trader, not a wife or a thousand other things I become every day.
Just be me.

It’s always been my dream to just get lost somewhere into the world where no one knows me, where no one wants me, loves me, or has any expectations from me. No, it has nothing to do with the people or circumstance that I am surrounded with. I was three when I first expressed this desire. I was thirteen when I wanted to do it again. At thirty five the desire has grown arms and legs, R says go ahead, just take the facetime phone with the glympse app loaded on it, and enough credit cards so that he knows I am happy and I am safe. Thank you, some type of escape that will be! There is a monastery close to where I live. One day I might check in there to find peace among the peaceful surroundings. Or there is Las Vegas. I might just check in the find my voice in the loudness and lewdness of that world. I don’t know. May be if I tried, I might get in touch with me sitting on the couch. That sounded wrong, but I will try to think spiritually. Mother Superior says that will be life, after retirement, right now enjoy what your day offers you, the kids, the chaos and the clutter, because one day you will miss it too.

The restlessness of the soul in the past month has resulted into a couple of lovely-ugly uggs, rhinestone studded high heels, Karmic tops in vibrant colors, chocolates and cuisines of different kind, coffee with friends, coffee with me and the painting the walls into accents of my mood. All this internal turmoil while the my real world deals with its own turmoil preparing for back to school nights, shuttling kids to classes, dealing with disasters with the portfolio, and the misery of not getting that call from 777 about project 999.

Life is not fair, especially when I have decided that it’s not!

Surrounded by white noise,

I have forgotten what it is to drown me in silence,
making inaudible conversations with the invisible.
Arms open, eyes closed, the heart is filled with a shower of love,
but forgotten is the beautiful pain of emptiness,arms closed, body crouched, eyes open
staring at the white ceiling in the faint midnight light.

Mundanely random

2011-08-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, when I was at the Taekwondo center waiting for the kids to finish, I decided to read the guidebook for sixth grade. Just opened a random page, and stumbled upon Maya Angelou’s poem “Women Work”. (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/woman-work/) Next thing I know is, I had my own version of my own “woman’s work”. No rhyme, no rhythm, but just a free verse, skimming thoughts here and there, randomly mundane or mundanely random.

I have children to tend

Nordstrom clothes to mend

Stain-resistant carpet to be laid

Groceries to buy,

Again, I ran out of money to eat out

A company to fund, and a leveraged fund to buy

A garden with no illegal weed, medicine closet I trust,

Outdated Shirts to donate, Tots uniforms to buy

Lucky bamboo to be replaced,

I gotta clean up the Night Bloom.

Then refinance my mortgage

See if I save money for when I am sick.

Shine mildly on my head sunshine

don’t even think of visiting, rain

Melt away, fog and dew

Keep the road clear and traffic free for me.

Storm, don't blow on my land

Ten days is all we can take

Float across the ocean

Coast on the other side is your prey.

Fall gently, brown leaves

Don't clog the rain gutter and drain

I don't have time to clean

Let me clear my mind and rest today.

Unconquered to do list,

unorganized house,

Undone dishes and loads of laundry

Ungainful employment

Death cross looms on Russell

Eventful yet eventless is the life I live,

Mundane, Middle class,

Rinse, repeat, everyday looks the same,

Buy-sell, Pick up-drop off,

Cook-clean-feed-work

Insult to injury, the day still ends unproductive.

(Inspired by Woman Work - Maya Angelou's poem)

Oh Lover, Where art thou?

2011-06-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

A moment of peace, to surround myself with things I care the least about, to forget that I am a mother, a daughter, a friend and a wife. A moment of peace to let go of my commitments, disappear from the life I lead. A moment to be me, the one I have forgotten, but the one I keep alive. A moment to crash and burn, without lighting up. I just want to run, to a place where I won’t hide, but just stop tired, sweaty and panting, remembering the life I ran away from and return in peace. A moment that feels like a dream when I am wide awake. That’s all I need to come back and restore the peace around me every once in a while. No, it’s not the husband and the kids, or the job, or Greece. I have been like this from time immemorial. Too much love and attention suffocates me.

It used to be simple before.

One fine morning I would take bath, get dressed and then when everyone’s ready to leave to work and school, I would suddenly decide that I needed a day off. If I declared that I was bored of the pace of life and wanted a break, everyone would take a break and try to make me feel special. I don’t want to break down in front of R or show my children that it’s hard for me to handle things sometimes. I don’t need a massage. I don’t need another gift or another dinner out to appreciate everything I do. Just a few hours, six or seven to myself without doing a planned activity or having an agenda helps me recharge and get back on track to the chaotic life I lead. A movie of pretty Manolo Blahniks and the wives of the Upper East Side. A romantic book where the very handsome Harvard educated rich hero kisses the heroine and then spends an hour listening to her, and then takes her to an art museum, and after they grab a pint of her favorite ice cream, they sit on the steps of some building and talk (He doesn’t need anything more than a kiss for all the nicety). A very unhealthy snack is welcome too. The one that has white and fluffy stuff. Cupcakes! Music that is not Mozart or Beiber. All little harmless things.. I am at a stage in life where it’s impossible to pick up a sketch book and fly to Rome on a whim, just because I always dreamt of taking a perfect time out there. The dream has to wait. But the day doesn’t have to.

A few years ago, when I had taken a day off like this, Mr. R had called me every half an hour, asking me to run errands, one at a time, each time explaining that it would be the last one and after that I can enjoy the whole day. It went on from morning nine to three in the afternoon. Experience is the best teacher! I started sending an email at 9.15 saying that I will be out for the rest of the day. Of course, the phone would ring, but went to voice message. When we had spotty T Mobile coverage, I could just tell him that it didn’t ring. I was off the hook. Also there was a low battery excuse. Honey, I was about the take the call, but the phone discharged and no one would ever know the truth.

Sounds so selfish, but a woman’s gotta do what she’s gotta do to save that girl in the heart. The one that has no attached identity with anyone but her own adult.

But of late things are changing. My private day isn’t private any more. I will blame Apple. Adam and Eve ate an apple and a whole world was born. Steve Jobs created an Apple that changed the way the whole world lived. So the bitten fruit comes with a price tag. Of invasion and intrusion of personal privacy. These days, I have to declare everything. Where am I? What am I doing? When will I be back? If I am at Fredericks, send me pictures and I will pick a color. If at manicurist, show me what you got. At Starbucks? Which one? What are you drinking? Thank you high resolution. If doing nothing at all, why-o-why are you doing things that only depressed women do?

No, it’s not just the husband. Tech savvy mother who has made my life equally miserable. Where are you? What are you doing? Really? Send me pictures. I am online. When it was only a call, I could tell them anything, or it was just a missed call. When it was spotty coverage, I was in heaven. A phone that can email, text, take pictures and videos, send them instantly has opened up the world so much that sharing has gotten a new meaning. And like a toddler, I refuse to share my world, at least sometimes. That wasn’t enough, anyone can ping me for a quick video chat if they know that I wasn’t working. R and Mother Superior ask me to send them a Glympse of my whereabouts. Umm.. that thing is a meance. Monitors my route and speed, and of course my exact where abouts. I like it when he sends a glympse, but I don’t like sending one, especially on my time out days.

I am not the first one to take these time outs. My father’s aunt lived in the same city as us, and would just walk to our house whenever she felt like it. After the husband and kids went off to work and school, she would give the keys to the neighbor and tell them that she will be back, soon. She would come to our house, my grandma and she would go out, watch movies, have a good girl time and when they returned to our house there were no reminders. No calls to tell her that she was late. No one wanted to know how long it would take. When it got too dark, her husband would send the kids, and the kids would sit at our place watching TV while their mom chatted away. Then the husband himself would come on his scooter, load up everyone and leave. She could enjoy every minute away from them. A few years rolled by, everyone had a landline. Aunt would be sitting and the phone would ring, and her husband would ask for a return time. My grandma would coyly say that aunt just left, should be there any minute. After she kept the phone, they would chat for a good thirty minutes before she left. There can be a number of reasons. I missed the bus. I was walking and met someone on the road. This and that. Excuses. Life was so easy then.

Not that I only whine and don’t complain. I have complained enough..Mother Superior tells me that she gets worried if I don’t reply. I understand. You are still the same woman whose heart would jump to the mouth if I was late from college and the phone started ringing (she always assumed that it came from the hospital that I got admitted into after that freak imaginary accident that played in her head right when the phone started ringing). You gave me my set of wheels at eighteen, but always worried that I would get into an accident. R is R. He is worried in his own way. A woman died making a left turn, a teen died coming home after a party, a young boy on his way to school was run over by a SUV on the street that I take everyday, for almost everything. Two hundred thousand miles of driving and he still thinks something went wrong if I don’t mandatorily stalk him every two hours.

I don’t know. May be working from home is taking a toll on me. Maybe it's the dishes in the sink or the drty carpet and unmade bed. May be it's the garage that never gets clean. Or may be it’s the summer vacation. Or it’s just the impending trip to India. I am so ready to take a time out. And I refuse to lock myself in the bathroom for my time out! I want to be a fly on the living room wall and let life go on for a few hours, without my active participation…without any of my gadgets screaming "Oh lover, where art thou!!"

Of Legato, Staccato and Horse Sense

2011-06-01T14:50:00.000-07:00

Dearest and youngest daughter of mine never gets the privilege of being written about, be it birthday or Mother’s day. May be because she is overshadowed by the dramatic character that her older sister is, or her sister manages to outdo her in seeking mommy’s attention. Of course I am stuck with the second baby syndrome when it comes to R2, guarding her innocence and letting her live a footloose fancy free life, now that I know little white sugar won’t do any harm to her, nor does a little bit of Disney Princess, or playing in the sandbox with unknown children that sneeze and don’t wash their hands after they use the restroom (probably).

I was shocked when R1 walked up all cutesy to me and asked “When are you going to die?” (So that she could be a Disney Princess and marry a Prince, happily ever after and all that). When R2 asked the same, just told her, may be not for a good thirty years. I didn’t ban Disney, nor did I try explaining the complexities of the characters called Disney Princesses, of how they all are motherless, and of how miracles like that don’t happen in real world, and that no guy can ever bring the all the happiness a girl needs, and the big truth of all.. there is no happily ever after. Happiness is, will always be just the state of your mind. Now I know, it’s not worth it. She will outgrow it, in less than a year. May be because nothing shocks me anymore about her other than the gutter mouth that she has inherited, but that is not for me to write about. The Teen Queen, Drama Diva sister who gets cursed to get a Z- on math test should probably write about the things she hears.

Anyways, R1 and R2 are participating in a piano recital in less than two weeks.

While R1 has been learning her keyboard for the past two years, on and off, this is R2’s first brush. This March, when I made a decision to send R1 to a professional pianist for a private lesson vs group lessons that she took before, R2 threw a tantrum during the admission. She insisted that she wants to join the same class as her sister. Well, me too mania is nothing new. I didn’t think $35 for 30 mins was a justified expense when it came to the little one. R thought I should let her try and overruled my decision of starting with a group setting.

Thus we started. Books were bought, time was set and she sat next to the teacher, listening to every word she said. For a four year old, it couldn’t get worse than this. Sitting still in a small room with just a piano and two chairs and listening to just one person who will spend the entire thirty minutes on you is just too much for a girl her age and temperament. The teacher also set the expectations very low, telling me to just expect her to sit through the entire class for the first six months.

I am tone deaf. I am even called Aurangzeb by my family for my intolerance towards all things musical. But as I have said a hundred times before, my children teach me more than what I teach them. They hold my hand and help me accept their world just like I hold theirs as I lead them in my world. R1 used headphones, learnt her notes by herself (she was eight when she started, so she could read the book and follow the instructions) and never bothered me unless she wanted me to listen to a song that’s all prepared. Spared me!

R2 didn’t. A day after her first class, when she saw her sister practicing her music sheets, she came up to me with her books and said, I want to do my homework too. Eyebrows raised, I opened the book. 1,2,3,4,5 were finger numbers that I didn’t know much about, but she did. I read, re-read and taught myself to teach her. I had to pull up a chair, sit next to her, and answer her questions. She expected me to know the answers. Remember, at their age, mother knows everything! We learnt our first song “Left hand playing hear the low notes, right hand playing hear the high notes”. The efforts that we put into that song made the music almost equivalent to Beethoven to my ears! At her age, learning comes easier than me. Also a desire to learn makes it easier. After that, I had to spend a few minutes before she practiced practicing what I had to teach her. Then came a “good job, you previewed” from the teacher, which was a stamp of approval she was seeking. Just like R1! That’s her motto, most of the times. Other times, a complete opposite of R1 does it.

When she had to use both of her hands, and play “The Zoo”, I thought we hit a road block. She proved me wrong. Then we had to learn the notes. Treble Clef and Bass Clef. Since both use the same alphabets, I thought this was it. It did get hard. We would spend twenty minutes learning the notes, she would identify each one of them and then suddenly she would give up and all that she learnt would disappear in thin air. We would be back to square one.

It happened for three good days and a friend suggested putting her favorite iPad to work. After all she has managed to trace her alphabets, read most of her books, and know her numbers via iPad. I downloaded the app to teach her the notes. It was cake walk! She would play the games almost 30-40 minutes a day without getting stressed at all, sometimes asking me if she was right, sometimes asking the sister. The score, the good job – you are the champion approval seals all helped her a lot.. and she managed to surprise me.. within a week she could identify any note on the staff, treble or bass, without getting confused at all. I was floored! As a person who finds it hard to relate to anything musical, this is probably amazing, but may be as a person who loves music, it was easy for her.

Then came a small meeting with the owner of the Music Institute. She is not special, he said, but there is only one other kid that is as smart as her in the institute now. She is not smarter than her sister, he said, but she has time, and age is on her side. She may not play in the concert he said, but you can try, he said. Be with her during the class, he said, listen to what teacher says and teach her those things. I agreed. He parented the parent in me. He told me that it was time to be responsible about the baby, now that the baby has openly declared the end of babydom.

R1 picked Red River Valley and started practicing with little help and guidance. I still let the baby off the hook. Like the movie stars say that being nominated is pride enough for an award, I thought playing in a concert is big enough for her, she didn’t have to deal with extra stress of learning something new. Surprise-surprise, I flipped through the pages in her book casually and asked her to pick a piece and she picked up her sister’s old book, went to the last page and said “this”. It was Horse Sense. Needed the knowledge and expertise of playing with both treble and bass together, knowing all your notes, and legato, and harmonic and melodic intervals. We were nowhere near that.

I wanted to tell her otherwise, but something told me not to. I run around the first born all day trying to make her do stuff that I think she is capable of, and here is the second born, asking me to challenge her, asking me to pay attention to her talents, telling me that she is capable of doing more than I think she can do. I started working with her. First we practiced the treble, then the bass, then staff by staff we put together the whole song, while going to theory, practicing our legato from Schumann’s books.

The first day was good, but the second day she was ready to quit.

I know, preparing for a concert is not an easy task when you have picked a song two levels away and your mother is in vocal rehab. With all the wisdom extracted (thank you dentist!), I offered bribes that ranged from two hours of TV (Gasp! She said it will get boring) to a pretty pink dress replete with tiaras and wands of unknown powers, but all it took was "mommy would love to see you play" to have R2 play the song. After two days, she was ready.. playing each note exactly how it should be played, and got the approval stamp from the teacher to play it for the concert.

Whether she will perform on stage on the grand piano is a whole different story, but this battle is half won as long as I am concerned! What amazed me about her is not her skill to switch hands, or to even know her notes so well. I am amazed by the drive, the dedication to achieve things that she set her eyes on.. the girl doesn’t know much of writing or reading, isn’t anywhere near the expected two line writing skill for Kindergarten. I haven’t tried to teach her either. I don’t trouble my kids until they are in fifth grade. That’s when the fire breathing begins.

The way she puts her heart in learning her piano, mastering the songs that she picks, perfecting the tune with each practice session just leaves me surprised.. I don’t know what she will do five years down the lane, all I can say is more power to her, and her power to push herself beyond the limits of age and finger size. I don’t care if she is learning her alphabets or her musical notes, as long as her heart is set on something, and she doesn’t quit only because it got harder, I don’t care..

(On June 19th, there will be a video of R2 playing Horse Sense on this blog. If she freezes at the recital, I will post the practice video I shot at home)

A decade..

2011-05-31T17:54:00.000-07:00

Holding the picture of us in my hand, I amazed at the way life has changed. A decade it’s been, a few lines in my face, a dust of silver on my head, a lot of wisdom, a heap of patience, life an experience…that’s all to me. A tiny speck you were, that I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t feel, but a beautiful feeling of love. I nurtured, played along with nature, and like a seed sprouting from the ground, growing leaps and bounds, here you are, a mirror of me.

Today is Mother Daughter Tea, and you want us to dress alike, not just look alike. A swollen face post surgery notwithstanding, I spend an hour with you at our favorite store, picking out a dress, and when we are finally done, surprise but no surprise, we have a baby pink ruffled knee length dress for you and a dust pink ruffled knee length couture for me.

Styling your hair for the Mother Daughter Tea, I hold your curls, trying to calm down them down with a thousand bobby pins. Standing almost as tall as me, make me look just like you, you remind me, I smile and wonder, when life changed so much. Wrapped in a pink towel, warm from the bath smelling like lavender, your dad would put you in my arms. Like me, I knew, but I still didn’t know. You wear the same pink, but you smell like a thousand things that I don’t know about, talk about a thousand things I don’t know about. You are known, yet unknown. Then your smile in my arms was a miracle, now my smile in your presence is a miracle. I will blame only me, I have a fear, a fear of failing that makes me so stern.

Petite cakes, swags on the chairs, the white, the blue, the chocolate covered strawberries and the unspiked sparkling array of juice. Then Martha talked on Puberty. A change that we should embrace, a womanhood we had to celebrate she told us. Hugs were a plenty all evening. Eight hugs a day says UCLA, quoted Martha, and out came the arms for another one. Celebrate the young lady’s womanhood, she said, and it’s been twelve hours after the show, you are still not done joking about Robinhood and womanhood. Celebrate growing up with your mother, she said, you are still not done sharing the walnut and pear references with your dad.

Mother daughter, she emphasized, but forgot probably, the new age father is not what he was fifty years ago. Not even my father was unaware of the changes in me, and your father is another mile ahead. Archaic, I would say, but something never change, she would have replied. A father that accompanied his daughter for the tea should have been a reminder for her.

Martha waxed eloquent on BO, I drifted into my own world of smells, some good, some bad.

There were no unicorns, but riding in a pink cloud from unknown land, you stepped in my world with your soft and tiny feet that I loved to kiss every night. They grew, and grew.. and one day you started walking, they had shiny sand sprinkled on them. I thought I would stop kissing your feet, but I ended up dusting off the sand and kissing you lightly, because you asked, pointing the foot to me. Then I would kiss them only after you had taken bath, and pointed them to me, asking for a kiss. One fine day, after an hour’s soccer practice you declared that the kissing would be inappropriate now that the stink meter was pointing to red. I stopped. Then everything about you had a certain odor. Lavender and peonies faded away as the fragrance of black top and soil mixed with sweat and laced with iron of the equipments surrounded you. You hugged, I asked if you used the stick. You hugged, I told you to change. You hugged, I told you to shower. I don’t know why she said, mothers, you haven’t noticed.. you blinked and they grew.

I don’t know..Probably I didn’t blink, probably I kept my senses open.. all through the decade.

She talked about celebrating womanhood, and I wondered how different it was from a similar celebration in India that you own grandmother around Martha’s age detested. A feminist without a flag, she hissed when someone mentioned a party, convincing them that it was a natural change that was supposed to be private information. Here I am, seven seas away, an equal of sorts to every man that I have worked with, mostly better than them, listening to Martha’s Oprahtic sweet talk about celebrating womanhood, listening to PMS poems and mood swings. All the things that were supposed to be a normal and natural transition in a girl’s life when I was growing up were suddenly blown out of proportion and given new names and celebrated.

We survived the evening. I agree, we became two individuals we are not. We pretended to be females that were supposed to have mood swings, PMS and deal with all worries with a hug. We forgot that we were the made of iron will that a certain hormone change couldn’t alter, we forgot we took our vitamins, we didn’t eat salt or drink carbonated drinks, nor were we couch potatoes. We forgot it’s different, for every woman. We forgot we were not the type that celebrated something that didn’t come with a reward or need perfecting.

You looked pretty, dressed like a big girl, standing tall, smiling faintly and nervously at her weird jokes about things that you didn’t experience, and my heart kept telling you.. You don’t have to be that woman that she is describing, you don’t have to be anyone at all.. just be your own person. With curly hair, with a cute smile, with a giggle, with a peace sign shirt and jeggings. A phase of life, a normal part of life, this too shall pass. Just be yourself, accept yourself. A little fat here, a little breakout there, it’s all normal, cherish these moments..nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing to be ashamed of..

I don’t know why, but I came to your room at night, not to yell at the clothes that you left on the floor, but to see you cuddled up in your pink and purple flowery blanket.. a dream made you smile, and a dream for you made me smile. I plan a future for you.. you plan a future for me, changing my life, changing my thinking one day at a time. Life is so poetic when there are no state tests, a graded mile run, belt testing for Taekwondo or piano recitals that we need to prepare for. Life is a dream when we have to wake and just live.

Of documenting, and dramatizing..

2011-05-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

A thousand moods, unaccountable finger strokes, falling in and out of love, sometimes forgetting the whole world for you, sometimes forgetting you for the whole world, sometimes taking pleasure in being someone I am not just because you gave me the liberty to be me, and anyone I wanted to be, speak my heart, speak my mind without worrying that you would judge me for what I have said and unsaid. It is hard to accept but time does fly, and it’s been ten long years. My affair with words, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes lukewarm.. we have been together, in a world that was unreal, virtual but finally managed the courage to accept each other graciously in the real world. They all ask me for the truth, but the truth is, even I don’t know where the boundaries blurred and contorted facts embraced imaginative fiction and blended to make a hue so perfect and so natural that even I get confused at times. A dramatized documentation of my world, glorification of my whining about mundane life, whatever it was, it does tell me that life has changed, for good and for bad, and it has been a fun ride so far.

More importantly, Elizabeth has kept Mr.Darcy alive through various phases of life, in pregnancies and babies, mortgages and equity sales, car loans and insurance write offs, changing indices of affordability and the ever important roommate phase via these writings.

Inspired, I pick up the laptop, and start tapping the keys.

But what do I write about? Friday Romance Calls like I did long long ago, where we would eagerly wait for Friday evening to spend some quality time with each other? The root canal that I got the other day where I was on the verge of joining the Caribou Barbie in chanting “Drill Baby Drill”? Swollen lip that R spotted a hundred feet away? About the investors who are not worried about Greece sneezing anymore or the attractive Lincoln Pandit promised in lieu of my loyal holding? Ticket to India that cost an arm and leg thanks to gas prices? Egypt and Syria? Obama and Osama?

The past decade comparatively was a whirlwind. Two very individualistic personalities (even now, I don’t think we fully know each other, and never will. A little enigma is always good) started a life, and expanded it by leaps and bounds, so there was friction before it all became a smooth well oiled machine that could be cruise controlled. But now life is at a comforting and complacent zone, everything seems just beautiful the way it is and I don’t want to change anything unless it’s a natural change. I have become comfortable with who I am, a dress size doesn’t define my hotness quotient any more (OK, I hear you mom- you are not comfortable with the bigger better me, but really, all I have is a deaf ear to offer for your criticism). I have weathered the worst in my career and have redefined and repathed my whole career, breaking free from the conventional. I find R to be the sexiest man around me, six pack beer belly, receding hair line and stubble and all. My children are far from perfect, but they never give me embarrassing moments in public. I don’t get “Yes mother” when I call them, but really, I am happy with “ya mom”. Occasionally they play their pianos in public, they move to the next belt level in their martial arts class, and rile me up with a singular A without plus sign adornment. But every kid around me does that. So yes, everything is so normal, and uninteresting if I were to write about it.(R2’s trash talking is getting dirtier every passing day, but you wouldn’t want to know that) I feel like a Stepford wife married to Mr.Truman living in their own perfect suburban heaven where everybody’s children are so perfect, even when they are naughty and misbehave. An undocumented lovely phase of life that I can’t dramatize even for the sake of dramatizing!

A few months ago, when the children celebrated the second birthday of the house, I thought it was finally time to unpack the last two boxes in the garage that have stayed unopened. Frankly I didn’t even know what was there, but then there was a reassuring fact that whatever was inside wasn’t useful in the past two years. Highly probable that I didn’t need any of the items in the near future too. So one morning while I was putting together things for Salvation Army, I pulled those boxes. I opened them just to be sure.. and what did I find!? A VCR (fourteen years old), our wedding video (thirteen years old, almost, and we still haven't gotten it transferred on a DVD) and a couple of video cassettes- R1's first birthday, our carefree days before children,. So many moments documented into videos unlike my highly factual writings! It also had the videos R1 watched as a kid- Cinderella, Snow white, Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmations and Aladdin. And a teddy bear Mr. Darcy had given me at the airport when he came to receive me because I had told him that flowers don’t excite me. I hid that in this box to save it from destruction monster R2.

R2 walked me and was amused to see my stash. The Sony recorder, the VHS, the VCR all looked alien to the kid born around four years ago in a post iPod cloud world. She didn’t identify any of their uses. Thanks Steve, for decluttering and compartmentalizing my world in your own style! While I won’t complain about the twenty books and thirty board games that I would step on every night until you invented that little iPad, I will complain that you made a lot of my treasures obsolete. Like that brick of a phone that I spent a fortune on.

We plugged the wired, played the cassettes and the geek child of mine wondered how to know the precision rewinding and forwarding point without visual pointers. Ahem, approximate them darling, I told her, which will be a skill you will need in kindergarten. There was a look ma, daddy had hair moment. Life comes at you fast ala the advertisements before Namaste America. And life comes a full circle. As a little child, I would be very excited when my grandma opened her cupboards, or the huge wooden chest that she locked always. There were things from my mother’s childhood, crafts that my aunt made, and saris of the days of yore. There were pictures of my mother in tiny skirts, my aunts in a size that would be unbelievable now. We were allowed to touch, feel and marvel at them, but not allowed to use them. My grandma would carefully put everything back, like she preserved a time capsule.

Where is my time capsule?

These days when I open my jewelry box, my kids come running. They know there is a story for everything in there. About a person who gave it, about the occasion, and the celebration. Everything has a story, everything has a promise. I am wearing a pair of twelve year old earrings today. They have a story of their own. Long long ago when we lived apart, a surprise package came in mail around Valentine’s day. I knew he would surprise me, but looking at the excitement of people around me, I had kept my fingers crossed that R had sent some G material.. Inside was this beautiful box with a pair of Tahitian earrings. Being a man of few words, he has always expressed himself with an intricate piece like this. My grandma had joked.. since he is across the pacific and can’t give you a real mutthu (kiss), he has sent you a mutthu (pearl) as a token of his love. According to her, this was my own Meghadootam. It was so romantic when she put it that way, I didn’t take them off until I got the real mutthu.. (mutthu is my language is pearl and kiss). Then there is the ring my mother-in-law gave me, that was a gift from her mother-in-law. R’s grandmother died so early, even my father-in-law doesn’t remember how she looked. She didn’t write anything. She didn’t make a time capsule because she died at a tender age of twenty one. All we have from her is a ring, and wearing that I try to imagine her feelings, and her story with the ring.. maybe it was a gift from her father, or from R’s grandfather.

We will never know.

Like the Tale of Three Sisters, may be I should one write the Tale of the Ruby Ring one day...Till them I write about nothing, celebrating nothingness, at times glorifying it..

Of Dragon Mother, Dragon Daughter and Tiger Grandmother…

2011-05-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

Of Dragon Mother, Dragon Daughter and Tiger Grandmother…

A few months ago when I had my essentials up in a bunch like all loving, caring and controlling mothers, all worked up about Amy Chua and her unique style of mothering, my dear daughter, the one that is mini me in looks, but diametrically opposite in views got me a book at her school’s fundraiser where they sell books 2 (Amazon $). No brownie points for guessing, it was “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”. I could see R smile that crooked smile and may be snicker also. He has always been the parent I am not. If I am the Dragon Mother of the house pretending to be the Zen of Motherhood, he takes the title of Teddy Bear Daddy without even trying. The kids can walk to him anytime, hug for no reason, cry about their failures, and be sure that daddy dearest will be there for them, no matter what happens. OK, OK, this is Mothers day, not Fathers. I will leave Teddy Bear Daddy gossip aside.

Back to the topic, about the book.. Inside was this note.. "From Dragon daughter to Dragon mother- let's spit fire till I got to college". Now the Teddy bear started shaking the whole house with his laughter, but really honey, it’s OK. As long as she knows and understands that she has to go to college, and that her mother won’t quit till she does that, I am fine. One day she will understand. A budding writer that she is, she might even write a tribute to me. (Dreams, dreams and more dreams- thank God there is no harm in super sizing those dreams) Whatever it is, I am pretty sure it won’t be “When I was in fourth grade and had a high fever two days before reading points quiz closed, my mother read 122 pages of Deathly Hallows to me so that I could go back to school and take the test right away and make it to Platinum”. Weird sense of humor sprinkled with sarcasm and cryptic, I had told her that I didn’t want to bring my thousand dollar canon in its own bag to the awards night and warned her that if she stood in line with forty kids who made Gold reading level, my Blackberry probably wouldn’t take good pictures. Well, my cryptic message was decoded into something else by the gifted and talented girl who gets rewarded for thinking differently always. “This Mothers Day I would like to buy my mother a Smartphone with a very good camera with amazing zooming capabilities. My mother complains a lot about her Blackberry’s blur”. Sparks fly between us, everytime we open our mouths. Teddy bear gives both of us and hug and tells us to calm down and get along, but hey, we like it this way and the fire on the tip of our tongues has nothing to do with the warmth in our hearts for each other.

There! I said something nice about my daughter on Mother’s day. I can no longer write a sappy poem about motherhood when we wake to a war zone every morning where the grown ego takes up on the growing one, while stoking it gently.

That was the Dragon daughter. Now, about the Tiger mother..

She is no Amy Chua. She let me quit whatever I didn’t want to do, as long as I didn’t feel ashamed about being a loser. She talked about feelings. It was mostly about the ones that had to keep a grip on. She told me that women in our house were all rounders. Before I looked at her well rounded ahem-ahem, she told me that it meant going to college, having a career while having family. She gave me lectures about how my aunt got married at sixteen and after three kids went back to college and didn’t quit till she got her Masters. She told me about the supportive family system we had in place to let our women achieve more. She talked about her own career where she chose to take a job as a lecturer that gave her more time with me, and more time to nurture her writing. From the moment I could hear, she has made me listen to her, listen nice and clear that family and career aren’t mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive, and she would be there for me as long as I wasn’t a loser. Her parenting was simple. She didn’t draw me a plan on a marker board using a blue, green and red marker. She just told me to go ahead and live my life without blaming my children, or my marriage for my personal failures. Point taken. During my brief unemployment, I never told anyone that I took time off to be with R2 as a lot of mothers do. I never gloated that I could have a run thirty people strong company if I didn’t have R1 at a young age. I am what I could have been without them. I have made adjustments, but I will never ever give them the false guilt that if not for them, I would be running Citibank instead of Mr. Pandit.

That was the good part. Now coming to the criticism.. (blame my age- nothing is perfect and no one is perfect anymore!I am becoming my mother!!) Well Mother Superior, I think it’s time for you to say that I am off the hook, and you are done perfecting me. I don’t need a constant reminder about my weight that’s twenty pounds over your perfect vision of me, a voice few decibels higher than you could take when I talk to your grandchildren, and of course about the perfect art of proper care and feeding of the Teddy Bear. I have made peace with whoever I am. Accept me as I am, and move on. Like Teddy bear says, more to love. I am happy with the person I have become, you should be too. Agreed, at fifty you nourished your writing back to life, and gave it a back bone, used technology like you were born with it just to connect with your grandkids, but you took a break too. You had your own eat, pray and love moment too. Let me enjoy mine. I promise, I will eat everything brown and whole in a few days. For now, let me have the pleasure of interpreting that food item as a Brownie.

While I am lost in my own world of mythical Dragons, toothless Tigers and cuddly teddy bears, the world outside has changed. A few days ago, one of my friends sent me a yahoo link that talked about the ‘disappearing girls of India’. Tell me, how many of you have been to a wedding and wondered why there were more boys than girls in the younger generation? While the article in yahoo talks about a rural India that many of us have never seen, just like many of us never saw the city Danny Boyle saw, it would be too ignorant to say that you haven’t heard about female foeticide. Whatever be the reason, I can’t sympathize with those women who kill their fetus, or starve their girls to death. For any mother to put herself or her other interest before her child’s life is simply incomprehensible to me.

A little digression on the topic, when I was around 18-19, a distant relative who had two girls, had gone to a “baba”. Rumor had it that the baba would administer some oral medicine, and the lady would be blessed to have a boy. She ended up with twin girls. If gender can be changed via oral injection of liquids, things would be different. It ended up being the butt of all the jokes for a long time. On a lighter note, if these people really understood the dynamics of XX and XY, life of the rural male would be reduced to a laughing stock. Beta, eat this, you can produce a boy. Beta, make sure that you don’t wear tight undies, your little boys will die. Or the girl’s mother will get very mad her son in law, challenging him to be a man and give a son to her daughter in those overly dramatic afternoon TV soaps. Some baba will come up with a “blessing touch or a twist” that would let only the Ys survive. Enough already! We don’t need Draupadis in the land of Sitas. The government gives them free food, free education and the society gives the same career opportunities as boys. Let them take charge of their own life. Don’t write their fates.

A blog of R2 will follow soon. She is not part of this crazy equation, just yet. My cute puppy still deserves my sappy feelings ridden rhetoric, and she shall get it..

Note: I wrote this blog in a hurry. My quest for greenbacks leaves me exhausted and drained mentally. But I didn’t want to leave a lot of things unsaid as I have in the past two years.

Blast from the past:

http://meghanajoshi.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-metamorphosed-irvine-housing-blog.html

http://meghanajoshi.blogspot.com/2009/05/diamonds-poem-irvine-housing-blog.html

A lot of them were lost when I moved houses, computers, or lost passwords to the places where I wrote those, or forgot where I posted them. Here is one I could find..Sorry, not time to edit it, but I should, one day..

http://meghanajoshi.blogspot.com/2011/05/mothers-day-2003.html

Mother's Day - 2003

2011-05-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

(This is one of those direct from heart writes that I write on notepad and don't spell check- read at your own risk)

Not been long that I have had the pleasure of celebrating motherhood and the joys of it. My daughter is three and a half. While first two mother’s days were celebrated wholly thanks to Daddy’s efforts, past two years she has put in very own creativity and hard work to make me feel glad to have her in my life. Last year R1 made a nice spray dyed scarf for me and signed the card with her hand prints.. The card had her cute picture. Of course her teacher helped her do that! Then she had baked a muffin for me and gotten some juice.. It did feel special. Next day she helped dad prepare my Bru coffee.. Yeah, coffee is something both my husband and daughter hate. I like to drink coffee in liters and it lasts till it loses its heat in the thermal insulated cup. My husband hates it for the caffeine intake and daughter for the time I spend holding the cup. So coffee is my luxury..

So this mother’s day started as usual on Friday evening and lasted till Sunday late night.. Or should I just let the secret out and tell you that it started last Monday itself? Last Monday when I went to pick up R1 from school, I noticed the pink color on her hands .Yeses- everything has to be pink- if she can, she will paint dad pink and make him wear pink shoes too- Her Easter eggs were pink, bunny was pink, most of the dresses are pink, her sandals are pink, shoes are pink, bike is pink.. Let me see what is not pink. Nothing! Even the Legally bond set would have non-pink items, but not anything belonging to R1! I asked her what is that pink color.. She told me (quoting her very own words)

Mamma, that is a surprise your Belle (When she wears Yellow, she is Belle) is making a rose for you. See, it is very easy. Miss. Alinez is going to teach you how. First you put pink color on a paper. Then it dries. You fold and give it Miss. Alinez. She pastes it on a pen and that is your Surprise!! *When she says surprise she opens her eyes and mouth wide enough to indicate that it is meant to be a surprise* And when R1 gives it to mommy, mommy will say “Oh R1, you are such a good girl.. Your mommy is so happy now! Thank you for making a nice flower for me” and you will hug me.. Right mommy??

Who said only parents prepare kids for the big moments? My daughter prepared me for mother’s day all week! Next day she told that she is making a surprise card for me.. It will have green flaps like leaves. Teacher Alinez is going to write “Happy mother’s day” on one side and “Loving daughter R1” on other side. When I open the card “Surprise”! I can see a pink rose inside.. I will be so happy when I see that, and I will hug her and say “Oh R1, thank you for the nice card!” And then she would forget all about it while I would imagine the card and the rose pen I was to get that Friday! Knowing that there is a surprise, knowing how it is and not being to see it is hard. You imagine so many things. And you want to imagine things that your kid is capable of making. Not to mention, you under estimate most of the times..waiting for the gifts was liek waiting for her to be born. I knew its’ going to be a girl (no matter what any one called the unborn, I always made sure I talked to “her” not “him”) I knew she will be like me or him, I knew it will take just a few months before I can finally see her, but still, I knew nothing!

So I went to the school Friday all geared up mentally, physically and emotionally... Before even I entered her classroom there were “happy mother’s day” wishes pouring everywhere..I went to my daughter, she got the rose and card and believe me, I did under estimate her talent! She has done a great job making the card and rose.. The rose had sparkles and glitters all over, it was her favorite pink and the card had a pink crayon filled rose with black printed outlines.. It was hidden in two petals exactly as she mentioned before, but it still managed to surprise me!! I did hug her and told her exactly what she wanted to hear and added a few more words that my heart wanted to say..They were pretty. They were beautiful , but they were delicate. I didn’t her to break them like she broke Easter eggs before I could take a picture of them. So I tried hard to save them..

”Mamma, you are not being good now! I made that flower. It is mine!! Give it to me..”

“But, you made it for me- For mother’s day. Lets show it to daddy first. Then you can take it and play with it..”

“I want to save it here in my hand- I will show it to Daddy”

“Let me put it on the dash board- everyone will see and they will say Wow R1- good job”

“Let me hold it and show it to everyone”

She grabbed it from me.. And thank God! Cars are almost sound proof when you roll the windows up.. Or everyone in South California would have known that R1 made a flower to M! Finally distracted her before we got home and left the card and rose in the car to save them.Then we showed it dad.. Dad asked where is my flower and my card. She gave them to him! I was like, hey- its’ mother’s day, not father’s day.. But then “share” has a new meaning when your three year old uses the word.. So I ended up losing the flower to dad.. Next day spent half a day searching for the perfect sapphire earrings to match my sapphire ring, but looks like sapphire the in-thing. There was nothing I would settle for!! When everything fails, thank the internet.

R promised to cook, but memory of the past culinary experiences almost compelled me to put that idea off! Ended up eating delicious Mughlai (The mango chutney is absolutely delicious!) food for lunch, left overs for dinner..Sunday went to Disney as usual (If not every weekend, we are there almost every other weekend).. All moms got flowers. But when I entered, they were cleaning the table in California Adventure park! Never mind.. Had fun in the rides.. And when we went to Disney for parade, there were flowers for moms. R1 got one for me enthusiastically and took another one for herself.. But I couldn’t trust the open pin with her delicate skin. We ended up having a small and uncomfortable difference of opinion on Mother’s day! She didn’t talk to me for a few minutes, but was back when she saw a lost boy trying to find his parents in the crowd..She put her flower on the side and sat on my lap watching the parade.. Two desi kids sitting next to us tore her flower to pieces. Don’t ask me why!! You never know that answer with kids.. Then I lost my flower too..

Thus ended out Mother’s Day weekend!! And I forgot to add.. Saturday evening she wore a black Karantaka style langa blouse, while I wore a black sari! We did have a tiff when she noticed that I hadn’t out grown the bangles we brought from desh while she has..We had another almost small difference when dad got me a cake and she had to be happy with strawberries.. Kept on asking dad.. “Why did you give the cake to her?” even though we shared the strawberries and the cake..Hmm.. It was a mixed celebration. More like Kabhie Khushi Kabhie ghum. One moment you are thankful to God for such a daughter and another moment you are fighting it dirty to save a flower. One moment there is no one she would love more than her mom, next thing you know is she is not talking to you..

Like we end all our celebrations, here is one for Mother’s day:

Rose pen and the card that kiddo decided not to share with me: Priceless
For everything else R bought, there is Master Card!

Valentine's Day 2008

2011-02-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

February 14th, 2008

Valentine’s Day

February 14th is a day set aside to express our feelings of affection to friends and family and to celebrate the spirit of love.

While shuffl ing through the pages of yet another run of the mill magazine that nags average American to lose ten pounds in next six weeks, my eyes were stuck on a pink and hite heart with red letters announcing the “Love Letter Contest” for Valentine’s Day. Hmm. Should I participate in this contest?

I can write well, and I do have experience writing love letters. This should be a piece of cake for me. I start a document in Word while simultaneously running an AutoCAD session, an Excel session and iTunes on my computer. Not to forget Gmail messenger.I type in “Dear” and Boom! The animated Offi ce Assistant popped out offering assistant.But, Mr. Gates forgot to add a “Love Letter Template” in his Word package. I temporarily shut down my Offi ce Assistant to help me focus on the contents of my letter. Unusual,but I found myself sitting there at my desk staring at the computer for more than fi fteen

minutes till I got a pop-up “You have got mail- Open now?” It was from dearest husband, and I opened it quickly to seek some inspiration.

From: Dearhusband@offi ce.com

Sub: None

Content: Pay the bills hon, it’s already the tenth. And buy the printer ink on your way

home.

Thanks,

Dear Husband

Offi ce Phone number

Offi ce Address

Huh? If this inspires me, I am a die-hard romantic, and the Disney Princess brigade that waits endlessly for the Prince charming to come and take them to the far-far away land to live happily ever after is defi nitely no match to me! I drop the idea of using the Bill Gates tool to write my letter, and I also declined using Larry Page’s Gmail to be mythical messenger of love.

Thinking it would be easier to handle such tasks in a peaceful and quiet nook of the house, away from the freaky gadgets, I went to the bedroom. I decided to write my letter using the traditional approach- a paper and pen that won’t let me be

informal and let my automated signature add on at the end. Royal blue ink and Taj Mahal imprinted stationary that were neatly stashed in a box under the bed came out of hiding after almost nine years. Along with my stationary, around

seventy of the love letters that we wrote to each other ten years ago were neatly tucked in the corner of the box.

Love letters. A simple handwritten “I love you” is a treasure. While the “I love you’s he whispered on the phone don’t exactly remind me of that every time I hold the phone,reading a letter he wrote ten years ago immediately transforms me to a magical land.A land of romance where there is no one but him and me. No email can ever bring that enchanting feeling back. A Hallmark card hand selected and stamped and sent across the shores is priceless compared to the numerous online cards that get lost in the jungle of junk and spam mails.

Old letters filled with emotions that have changed over time, old letters smelling of love that has grown hundred folds, and old letters that want to be old because something new came by. I don’t know why I refer to them as “old letters” since I don’t have anything new to call them old. For me, they are not old. They are timeless. They are dated forever. I try

to touch the fading alphabets softly just enough to feel them, but not to disturb them. I unfold the creases just enough to read what is hidden inside, being careful not to tear them off where they were folded. They have aged with travel. Ten years. Nine houses. Two continents. My memories wrapped me warm on the cold and rainy weekend. I didn’t write

a single word on paper, but I didn’t fi dget thinking of what to write either.

For a few things in life, virtual cannot be real. What you see is not the same as what you can touch. I miss having a garage where I can sit and open a box of memories and touch them and feel them and go to a far away world of forgotten things. While I haven’t treasured the letters in a sandal wood box with intricate carvings and velvet lining, I don’t

believe that I am doing any justice by stashing my treasure in a plastic shoebox under the bed either.

This Valentine’s day, I resolve to write a letter to my special someone, and to write a note on all the cards to the special people in my life. In return, I would love a musical box as a gift, but the person who knows the volume of letters I have collected hasn’t thought of getting one custom made for me. A lacquered delicate music box with a dancing couple on

top!

Happy valentine's Day!

Villian of a mother

2011-01-13T17:22:00.000-08:00

If you are an Asian parent, chances are, in the past six days you have read, forwarded, or discussed Amy Chua’s WSJ article “Why Chinese Mothers are superior” either in real, or virtual world. I have too, I am no different. A thousand blogs have blossomed either supporting Amy, or against her.

I wanted to say a few things, but held back considering my Indian mommyhood. We believe that we have the most beautiful, well behaved and extremely talented children. We would also like to believe that only western women and their teenage children deal with petty parenting challenges like hormones, break outs, rebellions, and technology abuse. Our children are too superior to go through all that. Our only challenging moment in parenting will come when our child with a perfect SAT score will come with two acceptance letters in hand, one from Harvard, and another from Stanford and ask us what we have decided. Ah, the power of dreams!

I will go ahead and accept that my children are nowhere near the Kumon-Carnatic-Bharatnayam combo kids that represent the perfect Indian child that ends up as an Investment Banker in Goldman Sachs while being a snob of purest forms of music and dance, nor are they being raised by an Indian mother who has perfected the art of parenting by sacrificing everything she loves in life to devote herself to parenting.

Parenting didn’t come naturally to me. I didn’t hold a baby in my arms and magically learn how to do the best for her. Over the years I have developed my own parenting plan, learnt a bit from my parents (both have advanced degrees in education and behavioral sciences), a bit from my in-laws, learnt a lot from the people around me, from their mistakes, and their achievements, and most of all, learnt that just like every mother is different, every child and her needs are different. If parenting were a business plan, my statement and purpose would be to nurture individuality and build a value and virtue based character.

On the eve of my daughter’s tenth birthday, my mother told me to be her friend, but I have told my daughter that she can have all the friends she can have, I will be her mother, and only the mother, nothing else. Also, she is reminded constantly of the ground rules that Mother Superior has the right to go through her emails, every folder of it, text messages, every archived one as per her wish. Oh, backpack, purse, and closet too. There is nothing private till she lives under my shelter, and lives the life I provide. Trusting her to make informed decisions is different from trusting that she will not make a misinformed decision. I have the right to know every decision she makes because it's me that's responsible for it in the end.

I am no Tiger Mother, I am a Dragon Mother, and the fangs come out and I hiss sometimes.. it’s only natural! Though I make efforts not to roar and corner them..

I am a normal immigrant mother at times, demanding the acceptance of the standard no sleepover-no cheerleading-no girl scouts package from my child without questions or arguments. Make up not allowed, biking only under mommy’s eagle eye. No TV shows that celebrate loserdom. Homeworks and assignments shall be completed, rain or shine, birthdays or anniversaries. Good grades and complete immersion learning techniques are expected for both academic and extracurricular pursuits. Always respect elders, whether related or not, and even arguments can be had within respectful boundaries.

I know she thinks of me as the villain of the household who has issued the commandments for her, but what’s wrong in it? I do it for her own safety, for her own future and well being. Sure, it hurts when I don’t give her a hug for a test she got an A because I had expected A+, sure I don’t call her the prettiest child in the whole world when she is not one, but who better than her own mother to provide her constructive criticism? It hurts a little now, but she will not grow under an illusion that she is the best. She has to know the difference between being the best, and being your best.

That’s where the discipline and Asian parenting stops though..

Like a Western mother, I have accepted the power of hormones, and the power of communication. I know, and always want to know what my daughter is up to. I have also accepted that age and environment will compel them to do certain things, and irrespective of my objections to them they will still happen. The only control I have is, is in educating her of the consequences of the little actions. I have put technology in her hands, and I have informed her of the quirky ways of the world wide web where virtual is not virtual and can be real than real.

I have accepted that she will not live my dreams, and she will have my support, and guidance in pursuing her own, even if it meant a degree in arts and entertainment (gasp!). As long as she gives all she has to the purpose she has chosen, my mission is accomplished.While the revelations are on, let me also accept that there are times when I just want to be an American mother who has the ability to enjoy and let enjoy life regardless of grades, accomplishments, and awards. But there is a deep seated worry that if I end up being a way too cool mother, they will never realize their true potential and take things too easy and end up being someone too ordinary.

So I will take the bait, be the villain who will only chill when I attend their graduation :-)

A few days ago, my mother was summoned to a webcam chat by my daughter (can’t believe it, she thinks I can be tamed by my mother) after hormones raged and we fought over disciplinary issues. My mother asked me to take it easy, slow down let the kid enjoy and went on to tell me how she let me have a life when I was in school. I had told my mother "You have no idea what I am up against here"... Thanks Amy! Now the world knows how hard it is for an Irvine mom to let the kid enjoy the precious time without responsibilities.. I agree, and I disagree with my mom and with Amy.

The age is to make memories to be enjoyed and cherished, but at what cost? While other kids are learning and paving their ways to Ivy Leagues, should she be wasting time cherishing something she might not remember much about if she were to make it to one of those schools? Oh, someone once said "Fifth grade is the most important grade. If they make it to the enrichment division here, there will be a recommendation letter sent to middle school about the kid's achievement, and based on that and the grades, the kid will make it to enrichment in middle school and the same follows in high school, and if they continue the same standard in high school, they will get a recommendation to college and so on" I didn't sleep that night...

What's your parenting style? How do you compare with Amy Chua? I would love to know how you find the fine balance.

One last confession: I repeatedly told my mother that I will be not be parenting like her. Turned out to be true- she was a cool mother who let me be me and learn from my mistakes- I can't afford to do that with my own daughter in this cut throat competition to excel! She has to make do by learning from others' mistake..

For those who haven't read the article yet: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

A different take on parenting a few years ago: http://meghanajoshi.blogspot.com/search/label/Parenting%20dilemma

Seperation

2010-09-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

A seperation of ten working days and two weekends.

Plans were to enjoy and make the most of this time. I had planned to bake delicious breads with loads of butter and drink coffee till I got jittery and spike it up Kahlua if I needed shaky hands..Love that state when coffee won’t let me sleep Kahlua won’t let me stay awake. It’s like making love with dear husband when dearest children are awake! Planned to read a lot. Supertrader was on the non-fiction list. Eat, pray and love on the fiction list. Planned to watch chickflicks. With dear husband around, it’s almost impossible to watch the girl movies. He will either sit with a book in hand but mostly watch what I am watching and make fun of the movie ruining it for me. So yeah, this was the time!

So I thought.

Like all good kids who try and test their parents for patience time and again, and rain on their parade, my kids got sick. Cold, cough, congestion, fever.. you name it and they had it. With it came tantrums suitable only to Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. I was made to prepare a just warm tomato rasam at night, and buy oatnut bread because someone didn’t want to eat the beautiful bountiful orange bread that I baked at home. I couldn’t refuse the request because it didn’t matter as long as she ate something. That was not all. She had to throw up everything she had eaten along with the medicine I had given.

I changed her, changed the sheets and put them in the washer and went to take a shower to clean myself. The dear pink fluffy comforter decided to fluff up and get tangled in the washer only because I didn’t change the setting for the load size. It flooded! Now the garage floor was in need of a hose down. But I usually ask dear husband to move some of my supplies before doing that so as to preserve their quality. When the washer flooded, it really didn’t care for all that..fresh out of the shower at around 3 am, I was in the garage moving stuff around.

Missed dear husband dearly, but not enough to give him a call and tell him my sob story. We are strong enough to handle this mess, right? But mommy dear is right there when I need her, or at least I thought so. Parents surprised me by not picking up the cell phone and returning my call a good forty minutes later with an excuse of being at some random literary function. When did literature start getting prioritized over dear daughter? I haven’t found the answer yet, but my mood had totally changed by then and I didn’t unload any of my frustrations on them. By then I had spent a good twenty minutes telling my facebook friends my saga of separation and they had happily lent me a shoulder to cry on. My parents had missed a wonderful opportunity of seeing me whine like my little one. Their loss!

The whole weekend went into cleaning up, sanitizing and giving medications on time, and on Monday morning one the dear daughters went to school. The other stayed home and chewed on my brain asking me to take her skating, bicycling and what not just because she felt a little better and fever was down. By Tuesday all I wanted to do was an hour of separation from the kids. I wanted some me time, some adult conversation and adult interaction.

By Wednesday life was normal. House was clean, kids were problem free and it was show time! Between all this mess, kept calling dear husband and dear parents twice a day without letting them know of my issues. We have this weird way of making a conversation, dear husband and me. Right from the time we were in a relation, we would call each other, and talk nonsensical things and hear each other breathe. When my father got a phone bill of 35k and thought telephone dept had a mistake, I had hard time explaining that it was not a mistake, and I had called that number every other night from 11pm to 4 am. Next question obviously was, what do you talk for so long. We did talk to each other during the day also. Those were actually conversations since there were people around us. But between the two of us, silence spoke volumes on phone also. I don’t know why and twelve years down the lane we still let silence speak on the phone and the heart gets the right message.

A week later, we video chatted. Our first time. I talk to my parents via video all the time, and always after an hour it’s enough and I can go back to my life happy. When I talked to dear husband, the inability to reach out and touch the other person bothered a lot. When I saw his face, all I wanted to do was give him a big hug and let him hold me. I wanted to the silence to speak. But even with eyes reading eyes, it was impossible to peak into the heart. I didn’t like it. It was not romantic at all..Sure we talked for the mandatory five hours, he stayed up all night just looking at me, telling me how much he misses me on his side but still, good old phone did what the technological advancement didn’t do.

He will be home in around 78 hours and I can’t wait to see him. I am getting a mani-pedi, bought a new dress and got the house cleaned and what not! It’s like being eighteen again! Staying away from each other isn’t new for us. We had to stay away from each other for almost eight months immediately after our marriage because I had a 1.5 semesters to go. Actually got married in such a bad time, I had to go for viva two days after wedding and spend the night doing last minute editing on my work. It didn’t bother much then. May be the relation wasn’t as deep as it is now. Seperation is getting hard as years roll by. I think years and years of waking up and going to bed with the same person forms such a bond, it's difficult to live without each other..without seeing each other at least for an hour or two everyday. I can totally understand why my mother or my MIL won’t leave their husbands home for longer than two days. It’s not the food silly, it’s love!

Enclosures

2010-09-21T21:41:00.000-07:00

Life is an enclosure

Of barbed wires on the front

And a retaining wall on the back

Everything I covet lingers within my sight,

But reaching out is not an option.

Fear of the barbed wire as tall as me holds me back

Images of the hurt it will cause,

The bleed of the gash that will take forever to heal,

And the scar I have to live with

They all sap my enthusiasm to cross the barriers.

I turn around and wonder if I can climb the wall

A dark tall wall of bricks and mortar it is,

Invisible are the surprises and shocks waiting on the other side

Fear of heights remind me

That it’s not a task for my weak heart.

Nightmares of barking dogs

Salivating predators making me a prey

Visions of loneliness amidst all the hullabaloo

Losing the safety of the wall when surrounded by voices

Paint a gory picture of the life outside the barbed wire.

Get out or stay in, the dilemma continues.

Liberate me of all the bindings, I can manage,

I think, but I am not sure yet.

Is it the fear of barbed wires or support of the wall

I am not sure yet, I haven’t found me yet, I don’t know me yet.

To market we go..

2010-02-23T11:24:00.000-08:00

“Wake up sweetheart” she whispered in her ears,

Let’s go pick that dress for the party, let’s go to the mall,

Sky blue with silver motif, or a shade of red with gold

It’s your choice, it’s your day, and you decide what you like,

But you have to make it to the market before it’s too hot.

“Hurry up sweetheart” he nudged her gently

Today is our wedding anniversary,

Let’s celebrate the day, let’s hit the mall

Relive the moments of passion we shared in that aisle

Of clothes so big that we were sure we won’t be disturbed.

“Dad, let’s go” she jumped up and down on the bed

You promised to reward me with a new game

Let’s go to the mall now, let’s buy me a new chess set

Of queens and kings and knights and bishops

Of pawns and rook all doused in my favorite shade of pink.

It’s a world of love, it’s a world of hate,

There is every color of thread in the mall,

There is every strain of emotion in the heart,

Sometimes they live together, complementing each other,

Sometimes they clash, sinking the worlds of one another.

It’s almost noon, I stand alone in the parking lot

Syed will be here soon, and give me a suitcase

It will be my treasure, it will be my path to God

I know my family will be taken care of,

Soon a martyr I will be, seventy two virgins waiting to take care of.

I see the little girl in pink hopping out of a car,

I see a pretty young one walking with her mother

I see them lost in their own world,

I see them all, walking past me, lost in their thoughts

Should I? Shouldn’t I? The question disturbs my mind.

Who are they to me, asks my inner voice,

My job is to please my brothers of faith, reminds a deeper voice,

My feet are glued to the tar, they don’t want to budge

My heart is crying loud not wanting to be torn

It’s for my people, I steel my heart, my brain and feet.

I walk into the mall, with a tiny suitcase in my hand

Syed outside knows when to press the remote

The mayhem will begin then, violence galore

Hands and legs and heads will be strewn on the floor

Blood will write my glory on the walls.

Choices, choices, and more choices,

As they all walked from store to store,

Only one choice, to sacrifice your life for others

Only one choice, you have to help your brothers,

Syed repeated as I prepared to say my prayer last.

Choices, choices, and more choices,

I made mine then, I make mine now,

I run out of the market, I run back into the parking lot

I escape the colors, the heaps of stuff to sell

I close my eyes, I pray to God.

I ask him to stop me now,

I ask him to stop the madness now,

I see Syed so confused, I see him searching for an answer

I ran faster and gave him a hug,

Brother for you, I said, brother for me.

Brother for you, and brother for me,

Let’s a make a new choice, of love and life.

Look at the life full of colors inside,

Look at the happiness that surrounds their thoughts

I don’t want to kill, I tell him, let’s live in peace.

Sure he said, and hugged me back,

Let’s go to the mall and see them all,

Let’s see the faces that you saved,

Let’s see the glory of peace,

Happy and relieved, I walk back with him.

There was the girl, there was the couple,

There was everyone, and there was us.

Syed cried in the name of God, hugged me tight

And pressed the remote,

Hearts were torn, and a choice was made in a colorful place.

Happy Valentine's Day, Dear Husband

2010-02-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Husband,

Happy Valentine’s Day! Hope you are buying me a dozen long stemmed red roses, and bitter dark chocolates and have already booked a table for two at my favorite restaurant. Knowing how well you plan things, I am sure you booked a baby sitter that I approve of, and have hidden my surprise gift packed nicely and neatly in a red heart stamped gift bag, and topped it with pink and white raffia somewhere in the house. I did check our credit card statement, Amazon account history and space under the bed, over the closet for any clues, but you have improved. There were no messages on the phone confirming our booking at an exotic location either. This perfection scares me sometimes.. Knowing you, you might have forgotten the big day all together.

Why a letter, you might ask. In the past few years, I have made it known to you that I need flowers, chocolates, diamonds and dinner dates just like any other girl through my letters. I have relived the loving moments we share through my letters. You put on the show just because I like it, and even though I know that it didn’t come from your heart, I appreciate the fact that sometimes you do things just to please me. I am not tired of any of the regular stuff, but this year, on Valentine’s Day, I want to tell you things that I wouldn’t dare to say otherwise in your presence considering the fact that we are at a stage in life where we won’t leave each other till death parts us.

You have watched Lion King with me already. So you know about the Circle of Life. So darling, one day, I will die too. I am not saying I will die tomorrow or in a month, or in a year, but eventually I will. Even though you don’t like the idea of me writing a living will, I will be bidding good bye to everything and everyone I love one fine day. Like I always do with everything else, I want to be prepared for my grand moment. Be prepared to face it whole heartedly without worrying about what will happen later. Not to you, or to my children who might be grownups with their own families by then, but to the memory of me.

A few weeks ago, when I was in India, I was talking to someone who went to char-dham (holy hindu places) so that he could do shraddha (homage to dead people) of his wife and make sure she was well fed in her other life. While I don’t believe that someone can be fed in their after-life remotely by chanting some mantras and sending the food via crows, but I did fall in love with the gesture.. it was so sweet of him to travel all over the country and do something special in the memory of his wife.

So what will you do for me when I am gone? I know you will have my shraddha done once a year, do something special on my birthday, but what about Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Holi and Diwali? We have to plan and prepare..

You remember the days when we were home for summer and we would take long walks with the children at the nearby trail? I know, we reached the main street on the other end only once, we never made it to the ocean, and we spent more time taking breaks than walking. But those days, we talked so much. We shared so much. We were each other’s pillars of strength in an unknown way. We were past the stage where we would be judgemental of what the other person said, or we would think twice before saying anything sensitive. We were past the stage where we were seeking each other’s love and approval, and we truly meant whatever we said. We have taken hikes on bigger mountains before, set our goals and reached them.

That was before we had our children. Or when the children slept cozily with their grandmothers at home while we scaled new heights. What makes the walk on this trail with the children special is, that we were there as a family, we talked as a couple, not as lovers. We shared our lives as friends, not as counterparts. We talked, we listened and we supported. Even emotionally it was a different kind of atmosphere. There weren’t new jobs to be taken, new places to be settled into. No news babies planned, nor moves to different communities. As far as I am concerned, those were our “settled” moments in our twelve year old companionship.

So, when I am no more, dedicate a bench in my memory at the spot where our younger one had thrown up (I know, TMI) when I kept feeding salted crackers so that she wouldn’t interrupt our talk, and gave chocolate soymilk to top it off..Just write “In memory of my loving wife who lives in my heart forever”. Don’t write my name or the years that I lived. No matter which part of the country or world you will be living in, on Valentine’s day I want you to come to that place, leave a dozen long stemmed red roses with a box of Ghirardelli caramel chocolates (Some crazy teenage kid who will take those chocolates later might not like the bitter ones). Leave a handwritten note for me. I know! There is no escape from writing that note, ever again in your life. I will keep asking for it forever and ever. And sit there for a few minutes. If there is something called after life, I will come and kiss you. Later you can go to the food bank that I volunteer at, and donate one thousand boxes of chocolate. Hopefully our investments will be good enough to carry out that act. Sweeten someone’s life.

There! I said it! Now that I have said it all, I am all ready to go to a spa this afternoon, get a facial and prepare for Sunday. I know that when you truly love someone, every day is Valentine’s day, but I also know that unless we celebrate everything we are lucky to have in life, we will soon take our relationship for granted and look for excitement elsewhere..

Love you,

Your dearest wife.

Footnote: A few things inspired this post. First one is a novel called "Anchu" by S.L. Bhyrappa. It's a novel about a woman called Amrutha who is neither able to love completely or is able to live without love. Suicidal thoughts, hurtful talk come as a second nature to her. Experimented thinking like her, and wrote this post based on another event that happened last summer. At a trail that we go to, there is a bench donated in someone's memory. One day there was a yellow rose plant with a small card on it by the person who still loves the one that died. This trail is one of the many beautiful family friendly trails in my city. If I happen to go out this weekend, I will post a picture of that bench. I was so fascinated/ impressed by the idea of someone leaving something for a person they love even when they know that it won't reach them.

Of course at home we are strictly not allowed to talk about death. Not that we are charvakas, but the thought is not allowed for purposes of emotional blackmailing. Even this creative exercise of mine didn't appeal to the sensibilities of dear husband...

Love your work, not your job

2009-09-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes my commute is extremely boring. Everyone I meet is dressed in black, gray or olive green. Everyone is sensitive to each other’s needs. Everyone comes across as the nicest person on the block. Everyone thinks they are underpaid and overworked (OK, that’s my analysis). All I hear is “FDA approval will drive the prices up for that stock” “I lost more than twenty percent on my portfolio since March” Repeat what Roubini said this morning. Analyze what Robert Shiller mumbled. Trade options while discussing the option with someone on the iphone. Plain Finance and Real Estate and Wall Street.

I am not in any of these industries, but being a mother of young children, I start my day early like these people, and my career and industry are highly dependent on how their industry performs. I never hear love talk. I never hear anyone talking to their covert lovers. Forty boring minutes of my life, wasted colossally on the train, only because my car is still being fixed. I don’t know how boring these people might be to the ones they live with if they take this work home too.

Their company wouldn’t think twice before sending them home when cutting jobs, still they are all so dedicated to their jobs. I would rather be dedicated to my work, than my job. But the line is so thin and blurry, many people don’t realize that they have crossed it until it’s too late. It’s Friday and with the long weekend ahead, I expect normal people to work on last minute details of their trip with family, or at least golf with their friends. Like Stepford wives, the Wall Street spouse is a new breed. Disturbed, depressed, distracted and distanced from every day happiness.

I close my eyes trying to tune out from my surroundings, trying to prepare myself for the upcoming weekend and three relaxing days at home after a long tiring summer. Kids had gone to their aunt’s house for the weekend, and we had a chance of spending some quality time with each other without any interruptions. None of us were bringing work home, and none of us had any scheduled activities with our respective friends.

R picked me up at the station, and headed home. Speaking of surprises to show his love, he is not the guy who is interested in surprising me anymore. Almost all of his plans have backfired. He bought me a Hakoba sari online after he heard me rave about them. He ended up ordering two of the same color, same design and the person in charge of processing the order caught the error and called me, there by ending the surprise. I couldn’t act surprised when the package came though. He bought me a heart pendant with olive engraving, but someone spilled the beans before he put it around my neck. I did try to act surprised.

Oh, but I have told him that a surprised me will say “How did you ever get a bow so big?” when he parks my new Lexus in the drive way and wraps it in red satin, with a huge red bow on top on my thirty-fifth birthday. I am too curious about things. I kind of go through all the credit card statements, check our Amazon shopping carts to see what to expect on all important occasions and kind of ruin my own surprises.

Anyway, we talked about work, kids, this and that and ourselves. We always do that. When we are at work, we talk about love. When we are with kids, we talk about work. When we have alone time, we talk about kids. We have to make a conscious effort not to end up talking about kids almost on every date night. Suddenly out of nowhere I told him that I no longer liked my job. It’s very common to hear an Indian woman complain of her job, but I was one of the rare Indian kids who got to choose what they wanted to be when they grew up, and when I started work, being a citizen gave me the privilege to walk out on any job that I didn’t like without worrying about immigration status. I am talented and hard working, and love my work more than my job. So it was almost never that I complained of my job, or didn’t want to go to work on a Monday morning. There were days when I wanted to sleep in late, spend time with R, or stay home with kids, but not going to work because I didn’t like my job was never my reason.

Of late something at work was off. Pay and perks were great, but the sense of achievement had gone to an all time low with so many cancellations of budding projects, and morale was low because of the layoffs that affected the near and dear ones in the team. I did try my best to challenge myself at work, and bring out my best because it’s in times like this that the true worth of people and talent shines through. But still, I looked forward to days when everyone was happy at work again.

R asked me if I wanted to quit. Financially we are well off, so that wouldn’t be a problem. Kids will also love mommy home, so that wouldn’t be a problem. I don’t feel at home if I were to stay home all day. I am not cut out to make chapatti-bhaji in the morning and send everyone to school/ work and enjoy the rest of the day watching reruns of my favorite sitcoms polishing my nails or drink coffee reading the latest in Desilit. I like to have a purpose in my life, have my own life even when I am the prime and binding member of my family. I can quit, I told him, but what next? Find another job, and repeat the cycle? Wherever I went in this economy, things will be the same. There is no company that can match my expectations. R and I discussed all weekend if taking a break at this time was worth it.

Cubicle slavery sucks. I refuse to be a part of that society. One fine day when the sun, moon and stars were perfectly aligned, I decided to move to a new place, and start everything anew. I took three months off to return if I thought I made a wrong decision, but deep down I knew there was no coming back. My job is not my lover that I will keep going back to, I told myself. With several ideas in my bouncing in my head, I walked home with a box full of stuff that I had worked on, been proud to be a part of, and bid good bye.

R brought me to a new city, bought me a new house, and told me to do whatever pleased me. Then came my first book to distance myself with Architecture, my first love. The book did well, people who read it gave me good reviews, and I had a TV interview and all that. It gave me a chance to explore the other side of my creativity where I built with words. It gave me a chance to talk about things I had seen around me growing up, and also about my own growing up as a person. But after a month, I wanted to go back to what I did best. Architecture.

It is like loving someone for a long time and walking out of that relation just because you didn’t dare to reinvent yourself. Just because you weren’t able to convince yourself that to be happy in a relation, you give something too. It's not a one-way street. Nothing in fact is a one way street. Sitting in a bath tub, I was mad at myself for letting things go so easily. Would I leave R if we had to cross a hurdle together? Agreed I don’t have to suffer for someone else, but would I? Then why leave Architecture and jump into something else just because the industry had slowed down?

I am back to what I do best, this time with renewed love, reignited passion. Still there isn't much happiness to be shared in my industry, salaries have gone down, but there is so much else to do. There are books to be read, technology to be learnt, and interesting architecture to be seen and admired.

Sure, I am day-trading financial-stocks-on-crack to keep my side of the books in black, but at least I am not sitting in cubicle staring at its gray covering wondering what I was doing there. R asked me if I am happy now. I told him that I am not. I told him that I am in pursuit of happiness and would always want to be. He smiled and kissed me good luck in my pursuit.

A step back, a little letting go, and a little planning that involved next ten years, not next few months helped me spice up, or rather rethink my priorities in my life, when it came to career .. Thank God for the three months I could stay home biking and hiking the nearby mountains with the kids, roll chapathis and bake bread, eat cakes for afternoon dessert and have coffee for lunch, wear pajamas till evening only to shower and wear pajamas again, and crave to go back to do what I am destined to do.

Someone I admire and respect a lot used to share his career changes during the last recession in the 80s and how he ended up coming back to his first love after working in jewelry design for almost a decade. "I made a lot of money, earned respect from the people I worked with, but I was not happy. Even if it meant less money, buying my own pencils and erasers for a while, I jumped back in to Architecture at the first chance once the industry started hiring again".

I heard him then, but I listen to him now.

Footnote: Last week while driving on Fair Oaks in Pasadena, I compulsively turned to have a look at a building I had worked on. I had spent almost three afternoons every week at the Pasadena permit centers to get permits for this project. I almost knew everyone in the office by the time we were done with our approvals. The store had closed within a few months of opening owing to a merger with another company. All the efforts went down the drain. Sure, I was paid for the job I did and my karma there was done, but it left me with a weird feeling.. couldn't get over it for a while.

Life, when it comes to death

2009-08-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

“Darling, you need to prepare your living will/ Advanced health care directive before you check-in. I suggest you do it as early as you can since you are already 2 cm dilated. You might want to focus more on your contractions and baby rather than signing out some forms when it’s time”, the nurse nudged casually as she handed out a package to fill out before I delivered the baby.

Thirty-six weeks pregnant, I turned to my husband and told him to fill it out, and sign as me. I ask him to take a few decisions on my behalf, often. He has invested my 401ks, cashed out my weekly $200 from my bank accounts, paid off my credit cards, and a lot more. So this shouldn’t be hard. And also, he is the one who would want to decide what to do with me in case I became a vegetable because he will be the one to deal with the situation.

“Kill me”, I tell him looking into a Parent’s magazine with size zero moms and super clean babies.

“What? I am not going to kill you”, he said with a hint of sadness.

“Why would you want to keep me?”

“Because I love you”

“But I will be a vegetable that won’t know love, lust or anything else. I wouldn’t even know you exist, and I am a part of your world”

“Doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t be able to live after I let you die”

“That’s being stupid”

“Why is that stupid?”

“What will happen to our babies? What about our parents that love us so much? They don’t have to lose both of us just like that!”

“That’s why I will keep you alive”

“That will cost you money”

“Your life will be important than that”

“You will have a long life ahead, so many expenses. You can’t blow it on me just like that!”

“Would you kill me if I ended up a vegetable?”

“Never!”

“Why so?”

“Because, I love you!”

“You are a hypocrite!”

“No, I am not!”

“Oh, please! I can’t keep you alive, but you get to keep me alive”

“It’s not that”

“Then what is it?”

“I can’t explain it”

“Whatever! I am not killing you. I will keep you”

“No, that’s not practical”

“So what do you suggest?”

“You know, let’s not be emotional. Let’s think rationally”

“Hmm”

“I say we keep each other for ten days, if that day ever comes in our lives, and then say good bye?”

“Fair enough”

“You promise”

“If that’s what you want. Do you promise?”

“We will think when your time comes”

“I am not signing till it’s a deal”

“Okay”

“So, ten days it will be?”

“Yes, ten days”

“Do you want to pledge your organs?”

“Yes, I would like to”

“Do you want to donate your body?”

“Yes”

“I don’t want you to”

“Why not? What’s the use of me after I die?”

“I want to see you till the end, till you turn into ashes”

“Okay, keep my body”

“You know what, why don’t you go and set up your next appointment while I finish this and join you”

“Okay, remember, ten days”

“Sure”

A month later I delivered a beautiful girl without getting into any complications or anywhere near becoming a vegetable. But with my going home package, I saw my signed Advanced health care directive that said (b) choice to prolong- I want my life to be prolonged as long as possible within limits of generally accepted medical treatment standards. My designated agent, my dear husband had made an end-of-life decision for me that I didn’t agree with. It was a moment of mixed emotions for me as I saw my mother standing with him, talking in distance.

For my mother, it would have made sense to keep me as long as I lived. For my kids, it probably didn’t matter, but financially it made sense to kill me after a few days. But for him, it was a hard decision and he had clearly let his heart rule over his head. I didn't understand how would it be love to let me suffer in a state where I had lost all my senses. Love would be to release me from that hell and always remember me as a beautiful person full of life. But if I were to make the same decision, I would term my cruelty love also, and let him live, even if it meant suffering indignantly. I don’t ever want to sign such a form for him, or be responsible for anything like that, but life throws surprises and shocks whenver it pleases.

We recently made our wills/ estate plans. And Advanced Health care directive or a living will was a part of it. We signed our own forms, not relying on the other liar to promise something, and decide something and chose ten days of vegetable status before we bid good bye to the world we are so attached to.That was all the suffering we were ready to go through just for our love for the ones that were witnessing our fall from grace..

Identity crisis

2009-06-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

“Would you please tell me where he is?” I ask them, trying to end the mundane conversation that did nothing but waste my time right now. She appeared miffed, but said, “I think he went out with her, probably to a restaurant. It’s almost dinner time. They will be back in an hour. You can wait here, if you want to”.

I have no choice but to sit there and wait for him. The woman went on and on about the weather, the housing market in her zip code and Obama, and of course Asian immigrants buying all cash properties in her neighborhood. She is in her late seventies probably, wearing loud and garish clothes at home complete with a red lipstick that probably made her look hot thirty years ago. Talks from her local TV news based knowledge. She thinks of immigrants as exotic beings who have landed on earth from a different planet.

I start playing with my hair while she talks, immersed in my own train of thoughts. She disturbs me again, asking “Would you want a cup of Tea”. I agree, thinking that the woman will vanish into the kitchen for a while I get to focus on my issues. She pops another question “Would you like to come to the kitchen? We can take our tea to the backyard and enjoy the nature as well. I have planted the lavenders this year, and they are blooming. Smells heavenly with a light breeze”. No choice again, except to agree, if I want to catch them together.

We sit sipping tea, and like the lady said, the fresh air was refreshing and soothing. I wished to open up my hair, kick back my shoes, and lie down, closing my eyes, waiting for nature to nurture my soul. May be it’s just an indication that I spend way too much time in a built environment. We never have had the pleasure of sitting in a garden sipping tea on a summer evening. We were always running after the ever elusive green backs, sometimes to pay the loans of our education, sometimes to pay the mortgage of the beautiful house on the hills. Probably when we retire, we could do this every day. If we are "we" till then.

“How do you know him?”, she asked out of the blue.
Should I tell her the truth, or should I make up something? “We are good friends, went to graduate school together”, I say, to avoid further questions on the matter.
“Did you call him and let him know you were coming? He is a decent fellow. I don’t see why he would go out when he is expecting someone. But then, he is here only one night a week. May be it slipped from his mind”
“One night a week.. right. Must be hard”
“It’s hard for her actually. She works during the day, but evenings are so lonely. We talk, we watch TV, but at her age, she needs something else than stick to her old hostess in the evenings”
“How is she?”
“You mean the wife? She is a wonderful woman. Very friendly, extremely intelligent and understanding. He is lucky that she has agreed to this arrangement. I wonder how they will manage when they have kids. They have to settle down in a house before they begin a family, and one of them has to let go of their career, or at least take it easy till the kids grow up”
“Is she pregnant?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I never ask her about her personal life. I just listen to whatever she says. You will see her in a while. I am sure you will like her”
“Let’s see”
“They make a very cute couple. I just wish they spend more time with each other, and show each other how much they care. But I guess I am old fashioned. I spent all my time taking care of my husband and children, and still it was not enough for them. Girls these days put their aspirations and their priorities before the family”
“Well, even now there are a lot who sacrifice their careers to make a relation work, to mother their children. It’s just that the number has gone down”
“What about you?”
“Oh, I am struggling to keep the passion of my work, and love for my children both as my priorities”
“And the husband?”
“Yes, of course the husband. If not, I wouldn’t be here”
“What does that mean?”
“He is my husband. We are married for fifteen years, and we have two boys. A house in the hills. Picture perfect”
“He is married to you?”
“Yes, he is my husband and father of my two children”
“I can’t believe what I heard. He loved her so much, and she loves him too. Her whole world would crash if she were to know of you, or your kids. He is an impostor!”
“Yes, he is. He works late, everyday. Sometimes he tells me that he sleeps at his workplace and pulls and overnighter. Since he is into research, I have no choice but to believe him. It is probably those days that he comes here, and probably they spend the early part of the evenings together. He comes home, plays husband and dad to perfection after he is done playing lover”
“How did you know of this?”
“Oh, I have been stalking him on the internet these days. Not too many people with the same name, and definitely not in the same profession. I got to know of this woman and when I stalked her on the internet, I came to know that both of them are lovers”
“How can you be so sure of everything on the internet?”
“Information these days comes only from the internet”
“I am sorry..”
“Don’t be. I am here to catch him red handed, and to walk out of his life forever with my kids. I don’t need a strayer to parent my kids. What values will that teach my kids if this person is still in my life after I knew everything he did to me”
“You are right. I agree with your decision. Why don’t you call him and see what he has to say about where he is”
“I called before we came to drink tea, he gave me the usual I am busy at work excuse”
“Oh, that is a pity. That liar!”

Next few minutes went in silence, probably none of us knowing what to speak without being judgmental about anyone. Then came the click of the door, the there they stood.

The old woman looked at him in disgust, and at her in pity, and I looked at him, shocked, and pleasantly surprised. I was wrong. There can be two people by the same name, in the same profession, in the same city, having same interests in life. I excused myself after I explained my presence there, and on my way home, called my husband. Yes, he was still busy at work, and will probably pull an overnighter. But tomorrow morning when the person I just saw tweets about his night with the lover, I won’t worry about being cheated.

Energyexia it is then..

2009-06-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

“You know, every time we buy groceries at Costco, my head hurts looking at the waste we generate unpacking the material. We almost fill up half of our recycling box with it. To tell you the truth, very little in that recycling box gets recycled. Most of it ends up in the landfill anyway”
“Aren’t you supposed to be shopping at Whole Foods or someplace sane?”
“Well, they are all the same. Under the organic label, they avoid pesticide, but get the produce from a distant country there by contributing to carbon footprint. At least at Costco you can buy in bulk and save gas and money”
“So why are you complaining?”
“Well, why shouldn’t I? I am the consumer. I will want to have the best of both worlds. Cheaper prices and organic, ethical produce at one place”
“Good luck with that. Change is here, but where is here? When you find it, let me know too”
“Oh well, we will see about that. Lets’ get dinner ready first, otherwise we will have a terrible two meltdown before we can address global warming issues”

“Mommy, what are you doing?”
“Scooping ice-cream”
“Why did we buy so much ice-cream?”
“Because that will save on packaging, and anyway, you will just eat Vanilla”
“But will we finish that much ice-cream by the end of summer”
“If we don’t, we will invite all your friends for an ice-cream party”
“You know what mommy, you can be green eating ice-cream”
“How?”
“Well, you said that fruits come with lot of unnecessary packaging, and often from a distant country. And they aren’t even cold”
“Huh?”
“Yeah.. Ice-creams are cold, and when everyone eats ice-cream, they can beat effects of global warming. We should dump ice on the earth- that way it cools down too”
“We will talk about this later. Finish your ice-cream and go to bed”

“So, what is the ailment again Doctor?”
“It’s energyexia”
“Never heard of the term before”
“Well, it’s relatively new. It’s been affecting affluent and urban mothers of young children mostly. But it’s spreading wildly, thanks to social media”
“Social media spreads it?”
“Oh yes, even a small tweet can attack its reader and grow in their brain”
“Oh, is it dangerous?”
“Not yet. But the day you fall down the stairs because you switched off all the lights in the house to save energy, it will be very dangerous, and we will have to address it at a National level. Or who knows, us being citizens of global community now, it might spread all over the world faster than I can snap my fingers”
“What are the symptoms?”
“First it starts with being a little green, recycling cans and bottles and sometimes paper, next it will make you reduce consumption. You will eat less because it is good for you, and good for the planet. If you eat, you will only eat something green, or mean and lean because you know that the healthy person’s carbon footprint is lesser than the overweight person’s. You will take a quick shower as opposed to a long romantic bath because you want to reduce your water print. You will sit in your pajamas and work from home because you made your company agree to telecommuting as a part of Greening the corporation. The third stage is reusing where in you will not want to throw anything out of the house. You will find some use for everything. Like plastic bags from grocery stores will end up as your trash bags. You will invest in an expensive Kindle to save trees and read your books and newspaper on that little screen. The fourth one is the known last phase where in you will drive yourself crazy trying to squeeze every bit of energy saving from everywhere in house. You will use CFL bulbs even when you can’t read in the dark. You will turn on lights only when needed, and if you have to, you will only use task lights. It’s serious at this stage and we have termed it has energyexia”
“So, it’s not a disease. It’s a blessing to save the planet”
“You may say so”

“So, my green girl, how was your day?”
“Well, it was mixed. There are things I can change, and there are things I want to change but don’t have the time to commit to that cause, and there are things that will not be changed, whatever you do”
“Did you shower?”
“Why do you ask?”
“No, just asking, how the water saving mission is going?”
“Oh, I have this song that I listen to, and before the song is done, I have challenged myself to come out of the shower, all clean”
“Sounds good… Smells good”
“Uhmmm”
“Hold on, I need to get the rubber- it’s still in the grocery bag”
“No problem”
“You know, a wicked thought, it won’t surprise me if someone came up with an organic rubber”
“Yes, organic and biodegradable”
“What it it degrades while in use?”
“It won’t”
“It’s organic. Like the organic fruits that go bad in a day or two, this might very well you know..”
“I think I got the idea…. Can we stop now?”
“You know what would be fun? If they have the paper or plastic option..”
“That’s enough greening for the day now! We will only bring the change we can, OK?”
"BTW, what's good for the environment? Paper or plastic?

Locks of love

2009-06-21T18:23:00.000-07:00

Dear God,

It’s a pity that I have to write you a letter today. Blessed they are who believe that you exist, and you listen, and respond. I, on the other hand, do understand that you are the supreme force guiding our lives, but still don’t see any point in writing or talking to someone who will not hear me. So, the reason, you ask? Emotional overload. I have too much baggage, or at least I feel like, and I do not want to dump it on anyone who happens to be the next one to see me today. In all probability it’s going to be my husband, and I don’t want to ruin my image of a strong woman who is indifferent to everything that doesn’t interfere with her success and stability in life.

So, today is my birthday. Thirty three years on earth to be exact. Usually on birthdays I like to see Tahitian pearls in a black velvet box, with a small card and a hand written note. On anniversary it is the Akoyas straight from Japan. He knows it. He knows that I don’t like going to shop and trying them on, and I don’t like buying them all on the same day. If he buys earrings this year, he has to buy a ring the next, and other pieces the next so that I build a set slowly, and be proud of him that he remembered what to buy next. Enough said of the husband. You know, and I know that I am a pampered wife and a spoilt daughter. OK, OK, a pampered mother also. You should have seen terrible two tell her grandma to carry her the other day when we went out. Grandma was so happy that she was chosen over mommy. Terrible two had to open her terrible mouth and say that mommy’s hands hurt since Tutu is heavy, but grandma can carry her.

Anyway, back to my point. Why am I beating the bush here? Well, I don’t want to say what I want to say.

A few months ago, I had a terrible time managing a colleague who was out sick almost every week. Being promoted only recently, I didn’t want to show off my power, but I couldn’t ask others to share her work load on regular basis either. So, I took her out for drinks one day after work, to see what ailed her. Turned out she was healthy, but the mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the dutiful daughter was taking some time off from work accompanying her mom to the doctor for her scheduled visits for various tests.

I could sympathize with her issue as my own mother would leave under my father’s care and go to take care of my grandma who was suffering with breast cancer as well. She would arrange for extra classes so that the students didn’t miss on the studies while she was gone later, and catch with everything on the other side of her life. She did that for almost four years till my grandma gave up, at last. The cancer returned, and nothing could work when it grew faster than the medications could control.

She was not the only one in the family. After she returned to you, my other grandma also succumbed to the same giant. Same things all over. Mommy taking time off to be with grandma, taking her to the doctor, daddy playing Mr. Mom taking care of me. It was one of those times when daddy dearest told me to get a cute haircut that didn’t need so many efforts to detangle every morning.

I told my colleague that my grandmas had breast cancer and I was at high risk too, according to my doctor. She talked on and on about her mother’s emotional roller coaster, the effect of medications on her mental health and all. I did my best to make her feel better.

The next day, her mother came to our office, more to see me than her daughter. To talk to me and understand how other people across the globe dealt with breast cancer. Well..I took her to a nearby Starbucks, and as we talked, I realized, I knew nothing about how my grandmothers dealt with breast cancer.

How did they react to losing a breast?

Did they want to get a surgery to have an artificial breast?

What did they feel when they lost almost all their hair?

Did they want to get a wig?

If they did all cosmetic surgeries, were they happy with how they looked?

If they didn’t, were they happy with how they ended up?

What was your grandfather’s reaction to the changes?

Oh, I just didn’t know answers to anything. While mommy went to take care of them, I was a pampered princess in daddy’s care who didn’t have to study in the afternoons because daddy would play chess, who didn’t have to do homework because the teachers understood the situation, and who would get away with nightly ice-cream demands because daddy dearest would willingly give in. I did call my mom every night to see how my grandma was doing, and when was my mom returning.

That was all I did for the two wonderful women who would cook up delicacies for me, who would try to guard me from mother’s evil eye when she wanted me to study, who would shield me from my mother if I was naughty, and tell me hundreds of stories that they cooked up.

I couldn’t go back in time and do amends. I blame it on my age, and my lack of worldly views, or even my selfishness for thinking that the world revolved around me. I still do sometimes.

She talked, and being a smooth talker, I concealed my personal failure of not reaching out to my grandmothers at the time they would have needed anyone and everyone who would listen, and gave her a good impression that people do forget everything and enjoy life later. At least I thought my grandmothers did. None of them complained about their looks or their loss of sexiness to me.

Just when we done with our formal hugs of goodbye, she held my long silky hair that leave open between her fingers and said, you have lovely hair.

That night, I was combing my hair and felt guilty about it. All I could remember was my grandma’s hair that was almost all lost, but she still oiled, and combed them every day and put a few jasmine flowers tucked in a pin to keep them smelling divine. They can’t hold anything more than this, she would say. Before she was on medication, she would spend half an hour to untangle her hair, and then braid them, and then adorn them with the pretty flowers in the backyard. It was her evening ritual.

I opened up my laptop and looked up for places where I could donate my hair to cancer patients. There is Pantene beautiful lengths, but then I highlight my hair, and sometimes color during the summer. On further investigation, came across the website www.locksoflove.org and that seemed perfect for me.

Two days before my birthday, I told my husband and kids that I am going out to do something and when I return, I want them to be happy and supportive, no questions asked. I didn’t know how they would react. But as I sat in the car, I realized that this is something that they should support knowingly, not forcibly. Came home, talked to them, and fifteen minutes later, I was on my way to the salon, with my cheerleaders. The lady at salon asked me twice if my decision was final as there was no coming back, and I told her to go ahead and do it.

Fourteen inches gone in a ponytail, I have a new short hair cut, and I look totally different. They say I look good, and I want to believe them. There are moments when DH wants to run his fingers through my hair and it comes out a little too soon, but he is getting used to it. He is trying tugging my hair, or pulling it sometimes till I scream. He still misses first grade, I can tell. Terrible two brought a scissor and cut Mulan’s (Disney Princess) hair and said she donated hair. Mighty eight wants to grow hair and donate. Everyone has interpreted the event in their own way.

Oh, I made a pledge to donate my hair every year on my birthday as a tribute to my grandmas. It grows, anyway. Or I will do it, till it grows. Yesterday we prepared the package for donation, and holding my cut-off ponytail felt so weird. But knowing that three more such donations and someone will get a head full of hair is a good feeling.

God, just wanted to thank you for giving me an opportunity to make amends. I might not set things right, but at least I will get closure from my side.

I can't ask you to eradicate Breast cancer from the face of earth because then you will start talking about circle of life, suffering, this and that, that I wouldn't understand, but I will ask you to give the light of knowledge to every human being so that they are compassionate to the other person's suffering. Indifference is bliss, but making a difference, even in small ways is happiness, unlimited.

Meghana

06/17/2009

Love in the time of recession

2009-06-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

“Click.. click.. click..”

The door opened and Rajiv walked upstairs, asking “Done with your dinner? Why are you sleeping here? Go to the bedroom. Otherwise you will end up with a backache later”, there by awakening Rashmi from her little nap on the couch.

“Not yet”, Rashmi woke up, wiping her eyes, and said, “I was waiting for you. We need to talk”.

Rajiv turned around, smiled at her, and walked to the shower to freshen up.

“Something important”, said Rashmi, sensing that he didn’t understand the urgency and importance of the talk they were about to have.

“Give me two minutes Rashmi, I will be there before you say Rajiv again”, said Rajiv as he closed the door and turned on the tap.

Rashmi went to the kitchen to get the dinner plates ready so that they can eat in the patio, under a clear and starry night of April. The second floor kitchen with a patio as an extension of dining room was something Rashmi and Rajiv fell in love with instantly when they decided to buy this house. Though unusual, but having the living and dining spaces upstairs, and bedrooms downstairs had a appealed a lot to Rashmi and Rajiv, who rarely cooked, and rarely had to enter the kitchen or living room from the garage. Being busy investment bankers in a hot-and-happening investment firm, the husband-wife due had led a life that reduced the house to a hotel room, unless it was a long weekend and they had to entertain a group of other yuppies.

A little bit of fresh air, a wholesome homemade food does wonders to the body after a long day at work. Today, Rashmi craved for homemade food. There was no special romantic occasion, but of late Rashmi and Rajiv are so stressed with their jobs that they hardly spend time together. Rashmi’s work needs her to travel a lot, and Rajiv’s needs him to work late. If she has to wake up early morning to catch a flight, he had to sleep late because he returned from work at 2 am after what seemed like a 16 hour day. It was normal for people to work like this, these days. With almost all of your friends being gone holding a pink slip, you learn to be happy with the fact that you were saved.

And you had to do whatever it takes to stay happy. After all, the spacious house and the European car don’t know that they still had liens attached to them. Life gives you the freedom to pick and choose whatever you want at one moment, and then threatens to take away everything the next. Only then you realize the importance of things you take for granted. Including life itself.

Rashmi was immersed in thoughts as she opened a bottle of Scotch and poured it into the glass. Collecting aged scotch had been one of the passions of Rajiv last year when everything was going great. But of late, after the subprime meltdown began, it wasn’t the same. The million dollar house and those his-and-her Audis seemed like someone else’s treasures, waiting to slip away from their hands like fine sand. Every moment that they spent in the house, and every day that they drive the car, they felt it was temporary. It’s not that Rajiv and Rashmi didn’t save for a rainy day fund, but the rainy day fund wouldn’t be able to withstand the hurricane that came. Rajiv had take three years off to finish his MBA in one of the Ivy League colleges, and as expected, he had gotten a high paying job in one of the leading financial institutes on Wall Street as soon as he finished. Then started the new life, and the new life style. The new pay check and the new social group warranted a bigger and better house. How happy they were on their ability to buy those matching Audi’s for each other as fifth marriage anniversary gifts. How jealous every one of her friends had been.

“Hey you”, said Rajiv, walking into the patio, “You look very tired. Why didn’t you sleep? We could have done all this over a weekend, when you didn’t have to go to work the next morning”.

“Don’t worry, I will sleep on the plane” said Rashmi “besides, I don’t know when was the last time the weekend was really a weekend. You have been working weekends from past three or four months”

“Sorry.. But there isn’t much I can do. You know how things are shaping up..just yesterday I heard that our bank might be the latest to close down. I don’t even have a clue on what happens next if FDIC takes over. It’s not that I enjoy working on weekends, leaving you alone at home” said Rajiv, kissing Rashmi.

“There is something I need to tell you”, said Rashmi moving away from him.

“Sweet heart, whatever you say, don’t tell me that you fell in love with someone else while I was working and you want to move out on me”, said Rajiv jokingly to lift Rashmi’s spirit.

Rashmi smiled and sat down in her chair.

“I am very hungry”, said Rajiv sitting down “I don’t know when was the last time I had anything other than pizza and sandwiches that I order to eat at my desk.. this Biryani and scotch look heavenly to me”

As they continued eating, Rashmi said “I am thinking of quitting my job”

Rajiv stopped eating, paused for a minute and exclaimed “You what??”

“Thinking of quitting my job”

“Rashmi, you know what it means to us, right? The house, the cars, the future”

“Rajiv, stop. At least ask me why I want to quit”

“Rashmi, it doesn’t matter. It’s not that my job is a bed of roses. I have my own stress too. There is a manager who won’t see eye to eye. There is a client who thinks requirements run until the project runs. And there are developers who can’t think of anything beyond the paycheck. Do I quit? No! Because we have a mortgage, we have car payments and credit card bills that we have racked up with our Hawaii trips!”

“Rajiv, please, listen”

“I am sorry”, said Rajiv calming down, “I know you thought of all this already before you made your decision, after all, and you have a reason”

“I am pregnant”

“What?”

“It’s already past that time of the month”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There was no chance to tell you anything. You are always busy with something. If I call, you tell me that you will call me later. If I stay up, you don’t even show up. Early mornings, you don’t even say goodbye to me when I leave. When am I supposed to tell you Rajiv?”

“So, when are we going to the doctor and get the procedures done?”

“I am not due for the next few months”

“No, we can’t have this baby at this stage”

“What are you talking about? We have waited so long, and I am not getting younger! And besides I am not killing a baby that already might have a heartbeat.. It’s a baby! Not a foetus that you can’t get attached too. Rajiv, you are being cruel and heartless now!”

“So what you do propose? We have the baby without anyone’s help? We won’t be able to afford you a nurse, and I won’t be able to take time off. I am not sending you to India to have a baby either. It should be a happy experience for all the three of us. Otherwise it is not worth it”

“I don’t know about you Rajiv, but I am ready to have this baby, with you, or without you”, said Rashmi as she walked away from the table, in to the bedroom.

Rajiv didn’t feel like going to her right then and telling her that he was with her, and it was just a little doubt he had before taking a big leap in life at this point in time. It’s not that he didn’t want the pitter patter of little feet in the house, but what kind of life would the baby have if both parents are unemployed, surviving barely on government benefits, with the house foreclosed and cars repossessed. Babies are expensive. How will they be able to afford baby formula? What about diapers? He didn’t understand how Rashmi could be so irresponsible. Besides, he wasn’t ready to be tied down with life just yet.

He kept sipping the scotch till it was empty and went to sleep on a couch. He thought they will rethink the issue tomorrow. A little time would help both of them come to terms with reality.

The next morning, when he woke up, he was alone. Rashmi had already left. For a moment, he thought she walked out of his life. Or worse, she did something to herself. Women in this stage of life are supposed to be emotionally unbalanced. He tried calling her on her cell, but it was switched off. Her office phone went directly to voicemail. He tried a couple of other numbers of her friends, but no one knew where she was. As a last resort, he called her boss, and it went to the voicemail.

The next one hour passed like a long day without any news of Rashmi. He remembered every single moment they spent together, and broke down crying, and wailing and told himself that he deserved the worst of the punishment if anything happened to the baby, or to Rashmi. Yes, he had said if anything happened to the baby. He didn’t realize, but his heart had already accepted the unborn as his baby, and prepared to be it’s savior in life, come what may. What can be worse that the thought of losing your loved one? If the house is foreclosed, you can still rent a roof over your head. If the car is repossessed, there is always public transit. But if something happened to Rashmi, or their baby, there wouldn’t be another one. It is irreplaceable.

He went to the little temple Rashmi had built in their house, and for the first time, opened the doors and closed his eyes in front of God, and just asked for one thing. Rashmi, back. He pondered over whether to give a police complaint or wait for Rashmi to come back to him by herself in a few days after she realizes that he didn’t mean anything he said. He looked all over the house for any clues, or any note that Rashmi had left for him. He logged on to the computer and saw no notes for him. Life had come to a standstill.. and he didn’t know where he would go from there.

His phone rang and he sprung to pick it up, hoping it was Rashmi. It was from work. He had been laid off. Someone from HR just told him that he, along with several others were laid off, and the firm was taken over by FDIC. He was told to come and pick up his stuff in the next 48 hours, before the government locked out.

For some reason, this didn’t feel like the biggest blow life had to offer. For some reason, the house, the cars didn’t matter anymore. He hung up, and stood there frozen. Rashmi had quit her job, and he was laid off. The house will be gone before they know it, and the half paid cars too. But the worst was that Rashmi was gone. And he still didn’t have a moment with Rashmi to tell her how much he wanted that baby.. and that it mattered more than anything to him at this moment. The whole empire that he built all these years with careful perfection tumbled like a house of cards for someone else’s mistakes, and there was nothing he could do about it. His love, Rashmi was gone without a trace and there was nothing he could do about that either.

Dejected in life, he thought of suicide, but he didn’t have the courage. His parents, Rashmi’s parents, and all of their friends. Everyone will have questions and no one will believe that even he had the same questions. Life crashed. Much louder than the stock market and shook his very existence. He turned on the TV as if to get away from life, and he saw the live coverage of breaking news. Some plane crashed into the Hudson. He watched people climb out of the plane on to the wing and felt that they were the luckiest people in the whole world. Their portfolios may be sinking, but at least they weren’t. They were God’s chosen few that were given a second chance in life.

Just when he picked up the phone to call 9-1-1, the phone rang, and it was Rashmi.

"Rajiv, will you pick me up? I went to the doctor, and my car isn't starting"

"I will be there in a minute"

Rajiv knew that Rashmi had the option to call AAA, but she decided to call him, just to show him that he is still needed in her life.

Months later, Rajiv and Rashmi celebrated their second chance at life at their rented apartment, they moved in after selling their house and cars, short. Rajiv found a new job at a different company, and so did Rashmi. Pay wasn't what it was before, but it was enough to provide them a shelter and food. Life moved on, with or without the materialistic pleasures whose attainment was the sole purpose of life once.

Markets happen, marriages happen, ups and downs in life happen. But quitting is not always the solution; though floating on a low tide might not give the same high as being on a high tide. You just have to be thankful that you didn’t sink.

Skeleton Woman

2009-05-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

I love him, with all my heart, and nothing in the world will ever change it.

Clichéd it was, for the ones who lived long enough to hear it again in their lives

Bliss it was, peace it was, happiness at last it was for my parched heart

Little did I know, I shouldn’t have done that, I should have listened to them.

You can’t separate us, I warned them, or I will kill my soul and cremate my being

They didn’t want to listen, but my heart filled with his love heard none

We will wish, they said, for happiness even when we know otherwise

We still will, they said, for sometimes wishes have the power to turn real.

I ignored them, prejudice, I decided blinded their hearts, and minds.

I will take you to a distant land he said, you will be a queen,

I will be a king, and together we shall rule our pretty little nest

I trusted, I believed, delightfully I let him take control of my life.

Color my dreams, color my world, color my today, and color my tomorrow

My life is an empty canvas, use your imagination, bring me to life

I begged him to love me, and give me the honor of loving him back

Blinded in love, I stepped out of the line drawn to save my honor.

My pride and my dignity I forgot to pack on a long and lonely trip

He led, I followed, he morphed, I held my breath and hurried to catch up

Wait for me, I shouted, hold my hands, I begged, but I didn’t give up

He didn’t turn around to see what happened to the queen of his nest.

Animal he became, monster he became, and an alien to my heart at last

Lost on a way to nowhere, I forgot the road to where I came from

Everything blurred and the deep blue water looked like my only solace

Standing on a cliff I made a decision, I jumped in a hole that he swam into.

I didn’t know who awaited me, I didn’t know who were his mates

They swarmed around, bit my flesh, ate every piece through my soul

Living dead I was, I still looked at him to help me get my skeleton up

He morphed into someone else, this time he had no eyes or ears.

He didn’t hear me, or he couldn’t hear me, he left me alone to live

Die she shall, someone in his clan said, if she still some shame left

I was not brought up to die, I wouldn’t give up my fight

I chose him as my mate, I suffered because it was written in my fate.

Swim to my kin, I would not, hatch a plot of my revenge, I could not

Skeleton woman I became, with no one to save my soulless frame.

He came, a human he claimed to be, one of my own kind,

That shall not morph, that shall not alienate my heart.

Will you save me from this, I asked? Will you let me live with you?

He was scared at my sight, naked skeleton reeled in thoughts

Half eaten flesh clinging, he didn’t know if I was alive or dead

But he gathered courage and carried my skeleton in his kayak.

He took me to his house so bright, and dumped me in a corner dark

Dance, he told me, singing a tune of gleeful birds in flight

I can’t, I said, looking at the bunch of bones in disgrace

You shall, he said, because I trust you to, I imagine you to.

I cried, I screamed, I fought, but then the skeleton did stand up

Dance, it couldn’t at first, for it tumbled all around in his nest

The sound is awful, she looks dreadful said the housemates

Throw her out, you deserve better, and we will help you get the best.

Whatever she is, however she is, she is mine, and I love her dance

He said, I love her the way she is and nothing will change my love for her.

Clichéd it was, they said they had heard it before, you soul will be cheated

Remember we will still be here, when your heart is betrayed.

I heard it all, and stood up to dance, I made some noise

It was bad at first, but my bones have been through worst,

He liked it, and I did not give up, I did not give in, it wasn’t love for him

Respect it was for his trust, for his faith that my skeleton could dance.

Miracles happen, broken beaten skeletons with dead souls do come to life

I grew some flesh, I grew a skin, I became a beautiful being all around

I was a human, I was a woman, I had a body again to cover my frame

I loved him, he loved me, but the skeleton still had some pain.

It an author’s job to construct, but a reader’s job to deconstruct. This poem is open for different interpretations, but I wanted to give my own anyway. I read this Inuit folklore about Skeleton woman, and decided to write my own interpretation taking extremely generous creative liberties.

I metamorphosed (Published on Irvine Housing Blog)

2009-05-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

I opened my eyes to the serene blue skies that threatened to fall on my humble existence, the gushing waters that would sweep me away to a distant land with them, the graceful mountains that intimidated me and deepest creeks that sunk lower with every passing moment. I trembled not understanding the purpose of my life. Scared, I looked at her.

So beautiful she was, she wore green and gold, with a lively splash of red. She hugged me, and said that I was a part of her, and her world. We will coexist. We will cohabit. She put me on a leaf and told me it was my home. When it was dark she comforted me that it was only mother earth worshiping her inner self, the Goddess that lived deep inside her, without the bright sunlight disturbing her.

The green leaves cradled me and the branch held me close to her when I lifted my head up to explore the world around me. Nibbling on the leaves, I saw the shadows of elements larger than me. Threatened by the roaring thunder of the blue skies, buried myself in her. She wove a cocoon of love and warmth around me and told me that spring was right around the corner. Listening to her, I grew, I changed, and I metamorphosed.

One fine day, I was ready to face the world- pink, purple and every other color painted on my soul. I pushed myself out of the cocoon and peeped out to the see the sun, the sky and the earth.

Nothing much had changed except that I wasn’t an ugly black caterpillar anymore, and I wore colors of green and gold with a splash of red just like her. The high mountains and low canyons didn't scare me anymore. I didn’t want her to wrap her arms around me, or soothe me in a cocoon of constant care anymore.

I had wings. Wings of desire. I tried to flutter but they didn’t open up. I could feel them sticking to my body as if refusing to open up and let me fly. Don’t give up, she said, try harder each day. And one day, I fluttered around her showing off my beautiful and colorful wings.

She smiled at me and told me to fly high, reach for the stars, and remember not to be burnt by the sun. She told me to smell the earth and graze by the flower field, but make sure that I didn't sink in a canyon. She told me that butterflies are enchanting, but their charm attracts evil too. She told me to keep my head high, flutter with all my might, but make sure I pick the right flower. She told me to live life on my terms, but stay safe. She told me to explore my inner-self, find my true purpose in life, and live it. She took off the last piece of my cocoon attached to my back, and told me to remember that I was a part of her, and her world, but not her.

With her blessings, I set my foot beyond the leaf that cradled me and the branch that held me. Highs and lows, evil and excellence I tasted them all, and survived all through her love and care, and a little support here and there.

On this Mother's day, I thank her for inspiring me, and metamorphosing me to dare the April showers to enjoy the various hues of the dark rain clouds and the band of seven colors of the rainbow that occasionally comes with it, and wait patiently for the May flowers.

(Die)monds - A poem (Published on Irvine Housing Blog)

2009-05-11T14:14:00.001-07:00

An hour of solitude, a moment of peace

The luxuries of a mother’s life,

But it’s your chaos that I love the most.

Not the same old box of chocolates,

Not some flowers killed in a bouquet,

I want something unique on my day.

It took me months to shape you up

It will take me years to mould you up

Be creative my darlings, ask daddy to help.

Lovely it should be, your work there should be

I shoo the kids out, as I get back to work,

They vanish with dad till the sun says night.

“For the world’s best mom”, they scream in unison,

“Be dazzled, be surprised, and be shocked,

It’s your best friend we brought home”

A tiny little hand covers my face

A loud giggle echoes in my ears

A cold little metal touches my fingers.

“A diamond ring is forever,

Our love for you is forever”,

They sing and they dance, make merry for a while.

“Do you like it mommy”, they later stop to ask

“Yes, my love” was what the heart wanted to say,

But sorry, the diamond shone like a child’s tears.

His sweet innocence muddied in blood and sweat

His growling stomach searching for a stone

An innocent victim of an organized crime.

No shoes to cover his tiny feet

Nor does he have a hard hat for his head

Gloves and flashlights don’t guide him to safety.

Soccer and school unknown to him,

Death and despair surround his life,

He grows in a land where he is sold for food.

Soldiers by day and smuggler by night,

Killing was a game, lives of others trivial

Merciless masters, they throw him in a mine

Mother Nature trembles under atrocities,

Landslides, mudslides are a regular fare

Buried alive he might be, but does the world care?

Majestic mountains and lush valleys

Miles and miles of farming land

All is lost, shall never be replaced.

Shed lives and loves they will,

Mining for a rock of shame

All for some woman’s two minutes to fame.

They stare at me with tears in their eyes,

He stands at the door with a sullen face.

That’s not all my darlings, I tell them more.

Smugglers trade weapons for rocks

They got a bigger power game to play

The war never ends so do the war crimes.

Childless mothers and motherless children

The cycle continues, and the circle widens

All for a glowing form of a carbon dark.

Plant a tree in a distant land

Adopt an animal losing habitats

Spend the money, but make it count.

It’s mother’s day darlings,

Make us mommies proud,

Wipe a tear, feed a mouth, show that you care.

It’s not me baby, it’s the economy (NRI Pulse Featured Blog)

2009-04-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

"It’s not me baby, it’s the economy"

No, I didn’t tell these infamous words to dear husband when he put his second request for a Rolex sub-mariner. If I had, I would have been happy for saying so. I told this to my little darling.

This weekend, I finally made the heart wrenching decision of keeping Terrible Two (my second daughter- two years old) home after careful consideration of my current economical status of being ungainfully employed. All invoices lead to bleak signs of recovery in the next two quarters at least, and it only made sense to cut down on something like that. Terrible two would probably wonder why she isn’t going school come Monday, but wishful thinking says she will probably forget all about it in my tender loving care.

I feel like a failure today. Six months ago, I had to let go my well paying job to stand on my own two feet and free myself from cubicle and paycheck slavery. First few months were great, and I thought I had it all covered. Then came a lull where invoices weren’t paid, and projects were cancelled. I still hung in there, volunteering for a few religious projects and keeping myself well connected and networked. Then came the harsh reality of seeing my trusted people file bankruptcy and lose it all, along with my promised projects.

Now the time came to cut down expenses. Of course the first one in sight in the $1350 Montessori fees for my little one’s amusement and enjoyment. On the sly, I haven’t signed up mighty eight (my first daughter- eight years old), for color-me-mine, chess and golf classes this quarter. She hasn’t noticed yet, but will notice very soon. And probably throw a tantrum. But she will understand that she has a long life ahead to learn and unlearn many things. Hopefully without much drama.

Out of guilt, I went to Lakeshore learning center and bought a whole lot of preschool learning puzzles from Melissa and Doug to keep her learning. For those who don’t know, they are the toys mostly used in schools. They are a little expensive, but made of wood, so sturdy and there is no worry of lead unlike the Made in china toys.

Mighty eight asks, "Is Terrible two going to be home-schooled for preschool?

"Yes, probably"

"Oh, you are increasing her chances of going to higher studies by 12%"

"Huh?"

"I saw it in a movie. But don't home school me. Anyway, I go to public school, and after school color me mine, chess and golf classes aren't so expensive. Oh wait! You didn't sign me up for spring quarter!!"

"Yeah baby, it's not me, it's the economy"

“I understand. But can I keep at least one of them?”

“Yes, you may”

I need to vent more about this, but I will refrain from doing so. I will hurt me more than anyone else. Everyone tells me to cherish these moments with my daughter, and enjoying seeing grow up. But deep down, I am not at peace knowing the truth that I didn’t quit a career to be a mother. The guilt of taking this step purely for financial reasons bothers me. I have always maintained that the time you spend with doesn’t matter as much as the quality. Now suddenly to think otherwise is not possible.

One of Mighty eight’s class parents bought a Porsche Carrera yesterday, other drives a yellow Lamborghini, and everyone has euro SUVs that are hardly a year old. My neighbor shines his Bentley every morning as I pull my Honda out of the garage. No one seems to be worried about the economy. To top it, none of these women have ever worked! Their husbands probably earn as much as my guy does except for the Bentley neighbor who is a lawyer. I don't know how they are managing it.

There is something that I am not doing right, or there is a lot they have got wrong.

Coming to think of it, they might as well be living a lie. The lady who walked out on the house that I live in had such expensive furniture, the car, the closet.. Everything was so sophisticated. So much so that I wondered if I will ever be able to match her taste in decorating the place. She had stacked shoes so high that Carrie Bradshaw would never be able to. But in the end, she had to walk out and live in a dingy apartment. No one would rent her a decent one because of her credit score. Her kid had to go to community college even when she was accepted in good colleges, and the other one had to shift schools in high school.

I might be using this example to just feel better today, but hey, whatever works! I will have to hit the stores today and stack up on preschool supplies so that come tomorrow, terrible two feels home. Till September, it will be mommy-daughter time at home. I will have to discipline my little darling, I will have to teach her manners, and I will have to be a mother, not a buddy that I am right now, and still be able to let her love me the same.

My mother told me to send her to her loving care, but I brought my child in this world to mother her, and she needs me more than she needs her grandparents. She is my responsibility, not theirs. I had to say no thank you, and that I am a grownup who can take care of her own issues, and in this case, her progenies, and my worries shall not be yours anymore.

I shouldn’t have gone crying to her, but I am bound by habit. She has to know everything about everything going in our lives. She mothered me, and I am her responsibility, at least emotionally! I needed someone other than my dear husband to tell me that it’s OK, it’s not a big deal and life will be normal, very soon. Oh, I needed her to tell me that she believes in me and that I will succeed very soon, and I shouldn’t go back to cubicle slavery out of desperation.

Wawona is down (Serenelight)

2009-04-23T13:16:00.001-07:00

(Image from the internet)

“Wawona is down!” they exclaimed,

Two tons of snow and she crumbled

She was old, she outlived many others her age,

Twenty one hundred years isn’t too young they said,

She grew two hundred feet, and reached the heaven,

Though God had to work hard to take her in,

And let her be one with the elements, they said.

She woke me up from my slumber,

She shook the ground beneath me

I saw her toss rocks mile high in the air

Fifteen miles away tucked in a mine, they said

She scared me to death, when she died

Killing her kin when she splattered her trunk.

I am not old enough to die, you killed me.

You came to see me, you wanted to conquer me,

You are a man, but you are a beast,

You think you are the supreme best.

She is worth the money, you said

Cut her open, let’s see what makes her special.

She is ugly, she is hideous

Standing there with a scar on her heart

Growing wildly, like no one can control her

Chop her off, there are ships to be built

There are houses to be built

And the tiny trinkets for our kids, they said.

No, said someone else

Let’s traumatize her

Let’s make tiny incisions in her

Bore augers, drill holes

Let’s see if she still lives, if we cut her core

Let’s see if she still stands tall, if we dig her roots out

The loggers surround me on a bright morning,

Drilling holes, they look scared,

I screamed in pain

No one heard me, their fear bigger than mine

I fought a war, they said, but I fear the fall of this tree,

I have heard people scream, and this is only a mute tree.

They cut my core, they let people walk through me

May be in reminds them their journey through their mother’s womb

They made memories

Shared the first kiss under me

Drove their carriages within me

Amuses them, to do things like this, they pay actually.

I felt hollowed in my heart

Standing there like an entertainer

Naked, and lifeless

I didn’t want to lift my branches

And ask the almighty for mercy

To let me die a graceful death, for my life was already disgraced

My friends laughed at me

They told me, you ridiculed us

You made us feel small,

With your towering height

You thought you were beautiful

They said, we pity you now.

They cut your core to beautify you

Now we all laugh louder at the scar on your heart

You fought nature, you stood there like a warrior

Taking a stab at your heart, but still strong,

Undeterred by the blazing orange monster

But you let a few men dissect you, and stand there crippled for life

Unashamed, shame on you!

I cry, but my tears don’t dry our my roots

Mother of the forest stands there bare, like a zombie

Father of the forest is dead, and lying down

My sisters have cabins carved in them

My brothers have become hollowed out spaces

They think they are above God almighty, and his creations.

He came by stage, he built a lens for me

To capture my beauty, he said

To bring me to life, he said,

I fell in love with him,

I thought he was my savior,

But he only came to make a living, for himself.

Leave me alone, let me fight with the almighty,

I screamed at the top of my lungs,

But he was busy, taking notes

Writing about me so that people would know

So that they come to see me,

So that I will be popular,

He didn’t have the heart to hear my unsaid words.

He came one day, like an ordinary man

He fell in love with me,

Unconditionally, if I may add

For he neither wanted me carved as a showpiece,

Nor did he want to take my pictures

Nor did he want to own me, and display me.

Man and Nature complete each other he said

Preserve sequoias, he screamed

He broke my silence, and said the words unsaid

They listened, they heard him.

I smile at the sky when I saw him hug me,

I asked the God to take me in, and relieve me of everything, for I was done living.

He heard me, he snowed on my burning soul

Is this enough he said, to quench your thirst,

To whet your soul.

I told him not to stop, until I ask him to

I am tired of the abuse every day,

I want to take it all at once, and see if I still strong.

Two tons was what I could take,

My roots were already weak, my scar on the heart made me weaker

I bid goodbye to my friends,

I smile when I imagine the ugliness

Bestowed on me by man,

And the ugliness that will surround my death when I lie lifeless.

Today I am dead, I am a martyr

But my brothers and sisters stand tall

Majestically touching the skies, reaching the heavens

Close to the almighty, spreading their branches,

We are preserved by man, from the man who wanted to murder us.

Men stand guard to us, from men who want to devour us.

Seasons change, people change, atmosphere is changing,

They call it unnatural, they hug us

They call it a process, they kill us

Lord, what do I do now, ask my brothers and sisters,

And he who knows all says, stand there tall,

Whatever happens will happen, according to my will,

For I am still the guardian of earth, trust me, and trust my love to you.

About the poem:

Wawona tree was a sequoia tree in Yosemite National Park. It was also probably the first tree to have a drive thru tunnel. During those days, people didn’t value the environment, and didn’t probably realize that they were harming a 2300 year old marvel of nature. The tree stood 227 ft tall, and had a circumference of 90 ft. The tree became a tourist attraction, but the tunneling left it weak, and it died after receiving an estimated two ton load of snow on its crown in 1969. After the incident of Wawona and two other trees created lot of furor, the land policies were made, and government began playing a role in conserving environment. Later, Lincoln signed the Yosemite Land Grant to preserve the wilderness and saved other giant sequoias and redwood trees from the greediness of man. This poem is a tribute to Wawona tree that fell.

Fire (Serenelight)

2009-04-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

Oct 20, 2007.

Flames rose from a neglected power line and triggered a monstrous blaze that grew by leaps and bounds swallowing everything that came its way. Fire fighters, the heroes of the nations as always packed up their gear and stepped into the awe inducing orange red fire to save.

Blame it on my Indian attitude of taking things easy, or blame it on my ignorance in understanding that catastrophe that was going around me, I didn’t deem it necessary to prepare for anything other than watching the live and breaking news and express my sympathy to the affected and evacuated. By night fall, the TV channels assured that everyone realized the seriousness of the calamity repeating Gov Schwarzenegger’s words of “perfect storm”. I dragged my husband to the gas station and filled up the cars full tank fearing a surge in gas prices and ringed the ATM for some quick cash. Not ready to be totally irresponsible, stacked a few protein shakes and infant formula in a paper bag. That was my preparation for evacuation.

Ignorance is bliss, but ignorance is the ingredient for panic.

Monday didn’t bring any change in life other than a smoke filled, hazy sky and muggy air that induced a weird cough. My elder daughter kept worrying about the fire, and asked me thousands of times what would we do if there was a fire. I assured her that till the San Bernardino Mountains that greet us so majestically every morning are fire-free, we have nothing to worry about. That was self-assurance too.

Afternoon the stories started pouring in. The couple that went to work leaving their twin daughters with a Spanish speaking Nanny had to rush back from two different destinations in the City to the fire-struck sub-urbs and evacuate before the fire touched the yards of the new expansive single family home that they bought with a mountain view. Sipping margaritas watching the beautiful sunset in the mountains still remained in the memory of those who were logged on to any and every traffic and fire updating website and radio station to help the couple get back home in time and save what they could of their paradise. The house lived for the couple to share the story of how the fire was a few feet away from their house before it decided to take a left turn. But another couple’s house that was being decked for Thanksgiving with expensive Thomasville furniture didn’t survive to tell the tale. It succumbed to the changing course of the orange-red devil.

Then came the story of another couple that made me rethink my strategies. The husband worked in Pasadena and wife worked in Los Angeles downtown. When the evacuation orders were received, the little girls were home with their nanny who understood the orders and communicated to the couple and eagerly awaited their arrival so that she can go home to safety. The wife made it, the husband didn’t. He was stranded on the I-5 while wife went home, released the nanny and took the kids and drive of in the safe direction. I-5 opened, but the direction that wife and kids took closed on both sides. It’s been three days since and the wife is stretching out thin financially and emotionally with an infant and toddler and on the run with no juice in the cell phone.

I came home and asked my husband how would we handle such a situation. I work close to home, but he lives on the mercy of the mood swings of I-10. It was disheartening that an educated couple that would prepare for future with 401ks and 529s had no clue about their disaster plan. The next few minutes were spent planning for the disaster, an earthquake, or a fire.

I searched online for a comprehensive list and pictures figured on the top. Being a techie’s wife, I had no albums to carry. I transferred everything in the “MB” drives to the 4 GB drive and my memories were safe. In fact water proof according to the manufacturer. I scanned every important document that would help us prove our identity and move on with life and put originals in a fireproof safe. Formula, diapers, clothes, tennis shoes and supplies that lasted for seven days minimum was the next priority. Gas tanks are filled promptly, cell phones are kept charged. Cars are clean from inside, and their registration papers are stashed in the glove box. The first aid kits and a second road emergency survival kit will be bought tonight. We have come to terms with the fact that we may not be together in case of evacuation. We have promised each other not to miss each other, be responsible and do what we have to do, when have to.

In case we lose it all to the flames, houses are four walls with a door and window to live in. It can be rebuilt. True that if Harappa and Mohenjodaro were mere walls and entrances they wouldn’t tell the tales of a civilization and culture that were long lost. . But when disaster strikes, homes matter. Houses don’t. It is merely a risky piece of real estate investment in your portfolio…

That is life after all. We learn to live it, or it teaches us how to live.

An excerpt from my book "Transition"

2009-03-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

“Mrs. Medha Rajiv”.

I try to introduce my new self to me for the hundredth time today, and I still lack conviction. Something is not right here. Thousands of shared moments on phone doesn’t help me justify the change. I fail to convince myself that I am ready for this, and I am scared to ask anyone to help me. Wedding jitters. That’s the official name for this turmoil, that apparently every bride and groom standing on the threshold of a new life face.

Here he was. Not the tall, dark and handsome that held my hands while we walked and kissed each other on the beach in my Mills and Boons inspired dreams, but a real good looking guy with an excellent resume of sorts to give me a good life later. A perfect guy to be a husband, a son-in-law and a dad for my kids later. And I don’t see myself falling in love with him and filling my dreams with him. What dreams should I fill him in? Do I picture myself in a sari shivering and dancing with him in snowy Alaska? Or do I dream of us shopping for groceries in a shady Indian store in San Francisco? Arranged marriage gives you a deal in the name of a marriage. Here is a boy, this is the resume, and this is a outline of his capabilities. Make it work for you, and you will be in heaven. There is no romance. There are no promises of eternity to be made. There are only commitments. To live together in sickness and health, in dreams and reality, till death parts you, or irreconcilable differences.

“Medha, are you done? The ceremony begins in the less than five minutes”

My thoughts are disturbed by my mother whose sole purpose in life from the past two days is to deck me up like a Christmas tree with the auspicious colors of red, green and gold, and hanging tinkling pieces of gold jewelry on my arms, neck, fingers, feet, or let’s just say, literally any place she can.

“Mom, I am scared”, I tell her.

Patting my cheeks, she tells me it’s OK, and I see tears in her eyes welling up. I nodded my head when she told me that she understood my fears, but like everyone else, I would live happily ever after, and hugged me lightly. “I am so proud of you”, she said as she looked at me with the rare affection in her eyes that I only saw when I accomplished something. In this case, I should be saying that to my parents later one day, if and when I have a happy marriage “I am so proud of you for finding me a good family and a good husband to spend the rest of my life with. I would have died a spinster if not for you”.

My uncle walked in, hurrying us up, and held my hand to lead me in to the marriage hall. I follow him, with my head bent, avoiding everyone, and go sit next to my soon-to-be husband in front of the sacred fire. My father sat on the other side, and the priest started the vedic chanting, often stopping to ask my husband and my father to repeat after him. I am told that my father asked my husband to take care of me in my new life, and lead me with all good virtues.

I bent my neck in front of my would-be husband while he tied the sacred mangalsutra and took the sacred vow of “Magalyam tantu nanena mama jeevana hetuna, kanthe badhnami subhage, twam jeeva sharadam shatam”. He promised me that by tying this mangalsutra around my neck on this auspicious moment, he would bind our hearts and souls together for the next hundred years. I could neither confirm, nor deny that he understood what he just did, and he did it willingly. He was still a stranger to me who deserved the best of my manners, and best of my words, even though he is officially husband now, and we are taking our oaths.

I never fell in love, and now, I will deny myself one of the pleasures in life that has inspired art all over the world. Love. I will learn to love my husband one day. But I don’t know if I will love him for the person he is, or I will love him for the person he means to me. I touch the sacred necklace and in my mind, call myself “Mrs. Medha Rajiv” again to see if the hollowness before had vanished and it sounded genuine. No. I failed again. Medha is still not bound to Rajiv to be uttered in one breath.

“Stand up Medha”, told the priest and asked my husband to hold my hand and take seven steps with me, making seven promises.

By taking the seven steps, you have become my dearest friend. I pledge my unfailing loyalty to you. Let us stay together for the rest of our lives. Let us not separate from each other ever. Let us be of one mind in carrying out our responsibilities of our family. Let us love and cherish each other and enjoy nourishing food and good health. Let us discharge our prescribed Vedic duties to our elders, ancestors and gods. Let our aspirations be united. Let me be the upper world and let you be the Bhumi or Mother Earth. I will be the life force and may you be the bearer of that. Let me be the mind and let you be the speech. May you follow me to conceive children and gain worldly as well as spiritual wealth. May all auspiciousness come your way.

Soon, there was the Akshata program where everyone showers us with the sacred grains. We hold each other’s hands and we are officially husband and wife, now that we also signed the required legal forms for the Government of India to legalize our wedding.

“Mrs. Medha Rajiv”, I said to myself, aloud.

My husband looked at me and smiled. I looked at him for the first time, half an hour after we got married, and I smiled too. It still didn’t sound real. For me, and for him. We didn’t know each other’s interests, our aspirations, our views on how life should be, but we promised each other to live it together. In short, we had no clue if we were compatible, which would be the only word to define us, and our relation in the future. All it was, was a lavish wedding of two strangers between thousands of unknown people arranged amidst a mysterious Vedic chant session. Not a marriage of hearts that would bind their hearts.

I bid goodbye to my family in a vedic ceremony, repeating after the priest that my husband’s family and honor will be my priority in life and that I will fill his life with happiness and joy by taking care of his parents, and carrying his progeny. My family had bonded with the stranger’s family to assimilate the two into one, and grow, through me, the daughter. I look at my relatives and friends surrounding us, cheering and supporting us that like them, who had an arranged marriage also, we would live happy.

Happiness is overrated. It is defined by what you have, what can’t have, and how much is enough for you. For me this was not enough. If I had a chance in life, I would correct this step in my life. This was not a wedding I wanted, and I am not happy about it. About my marriage, I am still clueless. So is my stranger husband. Time will tell us if we are happy or not.

I enter his house full of strangers, everyone staring at me like a newly bought piece of furniture and discussing in murmurs, my resume for marriage. I developed a thick skin, and a deaf ear, and focused on being independent. I am told that that is the first step towards a happy marriage. My husband and I talked rarely, in monosyllables even though it has been almost six hours after our marriage, and we are husband and wife, who pledged to share lives together. It was difficult. You can either perceive everything as unsaid, or silence. It is your choice.

“Medha” “Medha” “Medha” I heard strangers take my name and assign me duties as if they have all accepted my new role in life and moved on. Mrs. Medha Rajiv, or Medha- Rajiv’s wife was a new facet of my persona, already legal and accepted. My teenage days, when a bunch of friends and I would call ourselves “Mrs. Tendulkar” “Mrs. Dravid” for humor are put behind me, and forgotten as history that never happened, while the reality of being Mrs. Medha Rajiv sinks in.

That night, lying down next to each other in a room decorated with the whitest of white jasmines, we made an effort to truly know each other. And, we made a promise to give “us” a chance, in our words, devoid of any Vedic chants and hovering parents. I was glad that he shared the same fears that I did about our new life. Just like me, he had a thousand dreams woven intricately between his eyes and heart about his life, that didn’t involve me. But, from this day onwards, we would make conscious effort to be a part of each other’s dreams and lives, together.

We talked about us, we talked about our upbringings, we talked about our friends, our dogs, our cats, our neighbors, and everything that mattered to us under the sun. We talked about us, our new house, our new family, our destinations for honeymoon, our plans in career, our yet-to-be-born kids, and our feelings. The next morning, when I woke up, I saw his face. He was not a stranger anymore. He was my partner in life. I wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t know if he would like it. I wanted cuddle with him, but didn’t know if he would be comfortable. I lie down, close my eyes, and dream of him, dream of us, doing things that we planned doing together. Of us living and loving, together.

Thatha's Betrayal (Dadi Nani Foundation)

2009-03-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

It really broke my heart when Thata (mother's father) decided that the rightful heir to his name and home was his grandson, and not me, his granddaughter. Only because he was a man and I was a woman! Thata and Ajji (mother’s mother) had no sons – their only children were my mother and her older sister. My mother herself had no sons. The only male progeny that Thata had was my aunt’s son.

Thata

Shri Bindacharya Havanoor (1905-1992) of Dharwad was a highly regarded and revered Sanskrit scholar (Vidwamsa), and received several recognitions in his field. He had read, and recited Sudha Grantha to several of his disciples. He was also known as a Dashagranthi vidwamsa for reading ten prominent Sanskrit granthas. He was a regular at the Sanskrit Sammelans held in places like Tirupati and Hyderabad. He also contributed extensively to the Sanskrit magazine Shri Sudha. Every Saturday, he organized a meeting for Sanskrit scholars in and around the city to discuss Sanskrit literature. He was also a close friend and trusted disciple of the Swamiji of Uttaradhi Mutt of Bangalore. He toured with the Mutt troop sometimes during Chaturmas (Sacred four months of the year). His life was dedicated to the enrichment of Sanskrit language and literature. His vast collection of rare Sanskrit books and granthas was donated to Uttaradi Mutt in 1992 after his death.

I am not from a family that is biased against girls. In our family, wombs of prospective mothers were not screened to decide if the baby would be a welcome member of the family. Nor do I come from a family that choked the newborn girl on husk to save her from the ungrateful world that had nothing good in store for her.

To the contrary, women in my family were treated as avatars of Laxmi and Durga, and given every opportunity a boy could get. My mother is a highly educated woman herself, born and brought up in Thatha's house. Thatha believed that women should be educated so that they could lead a dignified life.

Thata was proud of my education and my grades. When I wrote my first letter to him in Sanskrit, he proudly replied to me in Sanskrit. And he sent me a gift of some of his Sanskrit books, along with a box of Dharwad Pedhas. Not everyone got the gift of Pedhas from Thatha. It was only reserved for the best of his students, or for academic excellence by his grandchildrern. He would show my Sanskrit letters to everyone he knew and tell them that I had inherited his literary genes. When I showed him my report cards, he would shower heaps of praise! Yes, he would fill me with pride when he told my parents to provide me everything they could for my education. He did not want them to marry me off early, like my aunt, because I had the potential of being a high achiever. "Become an IAS officer when you grow up," he would always tell me.

But, before I could truly enjoy the moment, he would add a regretful comment such as, "If only my daughter had had another son." Or, "If this girl was born a boy, things would have been different." It was Thatha and people like him who made me feel underprivileged and undervalued for being a girl who is destined to end up caring for someone else's name and family than her own parents and grandparents.

My cousin sisters did not fight Thatha's attitude towards the girls in his family. My parents also didn't care much. They all accepted Thatha for what he was. Whenever I complained to my mother that I was unhappy that Thatha was forever harping about boys, she would tell me to just ignore an old man who had not changed when the world around him changed. "That was the way people of his generation thought," she would say. Sometimes she would tell me that Thata had similar things to her when she got started studying for her MA in Literature. She had just ignored it, she said.

It was just me who felt the need to be recognized by Thatha as a person as good or better than his grandson, my cousin. I wanted Thatha to tell people, "Look at my granddaughter! She is the one who inherited my genes. She is the one who will uphold our family's name. I feel proud to be her grandfather." And say it without any ‘ifs' or ‘buts'.

My mother would tell me that even though Thatha craved for a grandson, he was more than content with having me in his life. But, it didn't feel right to me.

As Thata had only one grandson, his wife was Thata's only granddaughter-in-law. She managed to convince Thata and my mother that as the sole granddaughter-in-law, she was the right person to light a lamp in the house every night in Thatha's name, and preserve the name of his family and family home. She was the right person because Thata's other granddaughters and I would marry someone chosen by our parents, and not carry his name. Worse, we would sell Thata's house for profit later, if that is what our husbands and in-laws - who had no sentimental attachment to Thata's home - wanted.

As expected, my cousin sisters did not fight this suggestion. I wanted to fight but not because the property was valuable. I wanted to make sure that all of Thata's grandchildren had equal rights. I would need my mother's support to succeed in this fight. But, my mother did not like the idea of a dispute. She treasures emotional bonds and family harmony more than materialistic pleasures of life. So, she agreed to let her sister's son and daughter-in-law have complete rights to live in Thata's house. I had to keep quiet, much against my wish.

Before he passed away, Thata made it clear that he wanted his grandson to have his house, the grand daughter-in-law to water the tulsi plant that Ajji worshipped every morning, and his great-grand children - yet to come - to play in the backyard where varieties of jasmine and mango trees grew. By this time, I did not care much. Neither did my cousin sisters. Perhaps, age had matured me. Because Thata had not left a formal will, all the family members signed no-objection certificates for the deal.

All of us moved on with our lives.

Five years later, a bulldozer came to Thata's house. The jasmine creeper that Ajji had planted, the jasmine creeper that gave snow-white flowers for Ajji's snow-white hair was pulled out by its roots. The Tulsi plant that Ajji worshipped every morning all her life was planted in an old and rusty bucket. The big pedestal right at the entrance was broken into tiny pieces.

Thata's grandson and granddaughter-in-law demolished the old-fashioned house they had inherited and built a row of houses in its place. Gone were the promises of lighting a lamp in the pooja room, or not letting the Tulsi plant shrink. Gone was the backyard where my mother and my aunt spent time playing, where my cousin sisters and I would sit in the evenings and talk about all things under the sun.

It was all over. Thata's home had just become a material possession that that the inheritors had claimed it would never become.

With Mother's day approaching, my husband asked me if I wanted to buy Thata's house and gift it to my mother as a memory of her father. I said that Thata's picture was all we needed, and would ever need for his memory. The place that had housed all the memories of my mother's childhood was already gone, making it just another investment property. There was no reading room in the house with a small Krishnajina (deerskin that Brahmins use to sit and read religious books) and a small table lamp. There were no longer any wall-cabinets stacked with Thata's books, with his handwritten notes on them.

Now, the Tulsi seeds that my mother brought from Ajji's Tulsi plant spread their fragrance all over my mother's house, every morning and every evening. That's all the blessings my mother and I want from her parents. Perhaps that was the only blessing Thatha meant to give wholeheartedly to the women of the house.

But, I cannot help thinking this. If somehow, in his afterlife, Thata had heard the news of his house being sold so soon after his passing away, would he have tossed and turned in frustration, and perhaps repented making a gender-biased decision?