Those Emersons

Reading Wodehouse's "Something Fresh" and he's put one side-character's name George Emerson. Wonder if it's just a coincidence or did he take it from Foster's "A Room with a View"?? 

Lessons

I'm worried. Next week sometime is going to be my daughter's 'interview' for the next class. I tried giving her a crash-course in fruits and vegetables, some sentences in English. We had a session for about 10 minutes and after that I asked her which fruit she liked the most and she says, "Vegetable fruit!" with glee! I suspended the lesson after that.

Golden Voice

I just can't get Rafi's voice out of my head. "Chahoonga Main Tujhe Saanzh Savere..." Lovely! Nobody could sing like that, ever.

When did poor people vanish from Hindi movies? Not even middle class anymore. All heroes and heroines are troubled with is lack or abundance of love or lovers. That's why I prefer old movies any day.

Reflection

I guess one of the signs of getting old is the urge to look young.

Destination 45!

I think 45 is the age I should look forward to, for a variety of reasons. Only problem is that it is too far away at this moment.

Profit and Loss

Of late, we are receiving a steady stream of visitors almost every week. Children have been happy and elders have been busy but it's been nice on the whole. But yesterday a cousin of mine came after a very long time, I hadn't seen him in ten years. I was surprised and touched also that he was taking trouble to visit us in spite of his short trip to Bangalore but when he opened his laptop and started asking us if we could take a policy - he's newly enrolled himself as insurance agent - I was not very sure why he came. Left me with an unpleasant feeling.

New Loan of Life

I'm engrossed in work and happily, the kind of work I like. This is a collaboration between us and the consulting folks and as far as I'm concerned, could not have come at a better time. We have three 'factions' in our world and we are most of the time at loggerheads with the other two. But so far, I'm impressed with the two specimens that I have seen from the other side. And as for them, I hope at least they get impressed by what we have developed and what we can.

My dreams these days are infested by the lines of code, so many of them that too. We've got lots to do till December.

Need of the Hour

I wish I had at least 36 hours in a day.

At Last

Andy Murray wins Wimbledon! And convincingly too! The sweet victory may have consoled Ivan Lendl also to some extent.

The Serious Case of Operators

In our world, one of the biggest trouble-makers are the AND and OR operators. People take them lightly or get confused and interchange them and create embarrassing or sometimes interesting(!!) bugs. It's all the worse when the creators happen to be veterans - as if the confusion is compounded over the years.

The kid has not taken the school well. I had to meet the teacher today who told me they would like to reduce her school hours from 3 to 2. I said fine. Actually it's my mother who is taking her crying very badly. When I was young I must've cried for one whole year but all I remember is the soothing words from Evelyn Teacher and not my mother. But now she's acting as if I'm the most insensitive mother in the world.

One of our friends is in the same boat - they went to the USA for a year but the kid is not getting used to the playschool. After hearing her father say that he would work from home, she said she too wanted to go to school being at home! Very sensible. :-)

Thinking out Loud

Office must be the only place where you see hundreds of people everyday for years together and not know a  thing about them.

Sheltered

When you feel tired or feel sick, all you want to do is go home, the thought itself is soothing. Thinking about all those thousands of people in Uttarakhand who are suddenly finding themselves homeless...

The Buck Stops Here

When I was in 5th standard, my class teacher was Leena, a young, stylish lady who was also our sports teacher. One fine day, we went out to the ground to play and just as we assembled there, she called me aside and asked me to get the 'buck'. Now, I had just started learning English and my vocabulary had no word named buck yet. But being the topmost student of the class and all, I didn't want to sound ignorant and lower myself in Leena Teacher's eyes. So I kept my doubts to myself and set out to get that unknown object called buck. What in the world could it be? Then the thought struck me that it must've been mug that she was asking for and I had heard it wrong! This was a happy thought but only for a minute. I didn't know where to find a mug now! The only mug that I knew existed in school was in our toilet but I couldn't imagine she would want that anyway. So fully troubled by now, I went to the place where I thought I could get some help; the headteacher's room where I knew sundry things existed. I peeped in and saw the headteacher and Sharada teacher, the senior-most in school. I excused myself, went in and told them Leena Teacher had asked for a mug. They were baffled too and asked me why she wanted it. No explanation was forthcoming so after some serious thought, they concluded that the object in question must have been a jug! What could I say!

When Leena Teacher saw me coming back with a jug full of water and presenting it to her, she was aghast. What in the world is it for, she asked. I believe all she wanted was her leather whip with a whistle. Even after so many years, I can't help blushing when I recollect how the whole class laughed at me.

God knows why she called it a buck!

Buenas Noches!

Last week, I got a brainwave and learnt some Spanish. It happens to me once in a while. May be a salute to Rafa who showed resilience as usual.

25th June, 2013
--------------------
 My late celebration of Rafa's French Open and his early exit in Wimbledon have strangely coincided! :-) Will miss watching him, of course.

Taking Sides

People give me disapproving glances when I tell them that I don't like our cricket team but am a fan of South Africa. It is all the more when I tell them even when the two are playing against each other, I would support the latter. I don't understand, I'm not a fan of anybody in the team, that's all and it's a game after all. If India were to be at war with South Africa, then there are more chances of my feeling guilty for not supporting my own country. With conditions, of course.

Parting Joys

I am amused by the way people behave when they are in notice period. They wear a look of total benevolence towards the humankind and smile as if they are the luckiest people in the world to be going out soon. I guess even if they meet their enemies on the way, they would kiss and make up in that frame of mind. It makes me smile too.

Our big fellow is going or gone already, I'm not sure. He hasn't sent any parting mail so I'm assuming he's still there for some time. It's strange; till last month my boss used to scare us using his name and now he's going to be just another name to us. How would he be feeling? People say at that level nobody really cares about leaving and all but is that so, really?

Disturbing Images

Watching Arun Jaitley and other political bigwigs on one news channel and a documentary on Endosulfan victims on the other. Before coming across the documentary, Jaitley's wit and humour was very entertaining but after seeing the plight of people where almost a generation is wiped out, I can only feel angry at the lawmakers' apathy. The sight of the helicopter spraying the chemical profusely is eerie to say the least.

Thrilled to Pieces

How much does one want to get thrilled by watching TV? That too, it's not about the content but only about the picture and the sound of it. Looking at some of the ads, I wonder who would keep upgrading themselves with all this 'never before quality' things. Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451, though.

I'm a fan of Tommy Robredo after this French Open. Impossible as it may seem, I wish he could have a fairy-tale end to his campaign...

Washed

Monsoon has galloped into Bangalore and how! I'm going to buy a raincoat now, to be 'independent' of the auto-wallahs who chicken out at the sight of half a centimetre of water on the road. We haven't had a glimpse of the sun for two days now and Rishi says the sun has covered himself with sheet of clouds and we are shivering!

Anu is all set to join Montessori school this Wednesday and it has not sunk in yet. God, why did someone invent schooling? She is more intelligent than the school can ever make her.

I slept and slept for the last two days and my nose and eyes are in some shape after that. Sleep is a wonderful thing! I can't do without two things - food and sleep! :-)

My cousin's son got 36th rank in CET and we are all very proud of him. Apart from my classmates in Engineering, I don't know anyone who did so well. Of course it was an expected thing from him after his tenth standard performance but I have seen many who get troubled by college in more ways than one and lose focus. They are going through tough times as a family and though this cannot compensate for that, will definitely bring some cheer.

Morning Blues

I hate it when people let the elevator close even when they see people coming through the door. How inconsiderate!

Slices of Life

Wish we had ex-employees meets just like we have alumni meets. I would very much like to see how some of my old colleagues are doing, especially the ones from my first company.

I'm almost done with the 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'. Very engaging for a monologue. Throughout the book, there is a tone of "I know you well but you don't know me" which sounds vaguely familiar. I'm curious about Pakistan somehow. For one thing, they don't go gaga over our great 'culture' that is the typical theme that others indulge in. To me that sounds so hollow and makes me cringe.

I've got a lady colleague of mine who is under the scanner for being irregular regularly. You give her something to do and you never know when it will get finished because she's just not in the office half the time. People obviously get upset but even my boss says he can't do anything because every time he decides to be tough with her, she bursts into tears and tells him about her sick child or father. All of us are human beings after all, with young children and old parents of our own and so one ends up uttering words of moral support and hoping her situation improves. But it does put more pressure on the already struggling team and thanks to someone like this and some more incompetence from others, I end up going home late, feeling guilty towards my parents and my children.

I read somewhere that hope is one of the hallmarks of youth but I don't understand why they should lose it so easily to take their own lives! I look at old women begging on the road - women who can barely walk, who seem to have nobody to care for them and who should have really nothing to hope for - and they seem to want to live more than some of these younger people!

Beehive

Testing of our new release is about to commence and the whole floor is buzzing with quiet activity. The other day when there was a short period of network disconnect,you should have seen how the busy-bees came out of their cubicles. There was smile on everyone's face, movement, chatter and everything and once the lines were restored, it was as if someone had switched off something; all back to their seats with their heads bent.

This kind of distractions are hard to come by. Everyone is hard pressed for time;I don't know how we manage to be that way every time! Today there was our quarterly fire drill. Even for that half an hour, people came out as if fish out of water, lazily out of their cool cocoons to fill out the ground. When the 70-year 'young' fireman's voice boomed and echoed around, it strangely made me lose focus by its sheer volume and took me back in time to the days of Scouts and Guides, Independence Days and Republic Days, and the speeches that echoed against the walls of the Taluk Office.

Realignment

Of course there is no rule that a fellow who is religious should also be virtuous. Then why does it bother me when I see someone who sports vermillion mark on the forehead doing all sorts of nonsense?

Ruffled Feathers

I wish I were a guy! If I were, I wouldn't have to be morally responsible for anything - for example, if a guy takes care of the kids, what a good father he is, and if he doesn't, anyway it is his wife's job by default!

I was supposed to attend a wedding reception last Saturday - not in Kerala or anything, right in Bangalore, mind you! - but I gave up and it's still smarting. It's frustrating, I mean, do I have to fight for even such a thing as that?? And not that I attend every wedding that someone invites me to!

Life is such a mad rush these days that I can't remember whether I saw someone today, yesterday or last week!!

By the way, today is my official birthday!

Mirror Mirror on the Wall...

Over the time, does it happen that you look better in the mirrors at home than elsewhere?

Side Effects

I lost twenty rupees thanks to election results today. Got too engrossed watching it on TV, got late and reached the back-gate two minutes late to find it closed. Had to reach the office by auto.

I love watching election results always. The numbers dip, jump, swing, stabilise or whatever and it's a lot of fun.

Moody

Sometimes I miss an elder sibling. Just like that. Just wondering if they would've pampered me.

Endangered Expressions

My first big camera was Canon Rebel 2000 given to me by P in 2002 and I just love it. I still remember how Shab and I went berserk for the first few days. But the problem is that it is a film(can I call it analog?) camera and I'm worried that soon I will stop having studios who develop the photos. In Bangalore, nobody has refused so far but this time I went to BCR, I couldn't find anyone who sold a roll and it was very annoying. But I did read somewhere that analog photography is being revived so I guess sooner or later India will also come a full circle.

Being in the circle of people who speak the language is very important for it to retain its originality, right? Take my own case for example. My father migrated to South Canara where our friends and neighbours were mostly non-Havyakas and even where we met Havyakas, since their flavour was different from ours, we spoke in regular Kannada and not Havyaka. As a result, my parents themselves stopped using certain words spoken in their native place and replaced them with regular words and so V and I never had them in our vocabulary. Of course I know them because I hear them when I go to Honavar but if I use them, they sound strange. The question is if I should let it be or get them back into our life.

I cannot vote tomorrow because today I found that my name is no longer in the voter-list. I'm feeling very silly and angry with myself for not checking it earlier but I assumed that it would be there anyway since I voted the last time!

Played chess with P after ages and it was good. In the year we got married, we used play it very often and with the kids, the frequency fell badly. We have vowed to play regularly so as to make Rishi pick it up. Coming to think of it, I just can't recollect who taught me the basics of it. I give up and think I learnt it by watching Pappa and Shankarmaava play it every summer. Shankarmaava is the best I have played with so far and even today if I visit him, he would want to have a round of it. I must play with him next time!

Here is a snap of Hyderabad as seen from Golkonda, again making me wonder what Nizams saw from there .

Life's Like That

People are leaving in numbers and you feel odd for some time and then you move on. What choice do you have anyway! These days when I go upstairs for lunch, I don't even feel like looking around because there is hardly anyone I can recognise even if I do. You build acquaintances over the years, you become friendly with some, you have a good working relationship with others and when they leave, you become upset. With some of them, I suspect it's only because it is going to put you into some inconvenience but with others, you feel bad because you'll just miss seeing them around. But of course I can't expect people to stay back just to say Hi to me and so life goes on.

Rishi asked me yesterday if God existed and if so, what proof was there for that. I said while I personally believed in God, he was free to choose for himself. Probably I would've given a defensive answer but he kind of caught me off-guard. Though he religiously adorns the photos with flowers and garlands, makes sure to light the lamp everyday and draws pictures of Ganesha etc., I had suspected that this question would come some day.

Rishi, by the way, is happier these days. We fulfilled his wish of seeing around Hyderabad this time by visiting some of the places in his textbook - Golkonda Fort, Charminar, Salar Jung Museum and Mecca Masjid, albeit in a single day. I was thrilled to see Golkonda somehow, though it's my second visit and the time was woefully short. Charminar gave us some anxious moments thanks to the narrow, dark and steep staircase and also made me sad just to look around. Wonder how the landscape would've been once upon a time!

For Posterity

One of my favourite videos...

Rishi when he was two and odd.

Grounded

It is a different kind of happiness to see your home after a gap, even if it means the house is a mess and needs two days of hardwork to bring it back to shape. And as it happens with me, when I woke up after an hour's drugged-like sleep, I just couldn't make out where I was and I finally went back to bed not caring in whose house I slept, so tired I was!

Just when I was beginning to worry that I was becoming a laptop-addict, we went to P's place and I don't feel like entering the office tomorrow. These two places have nothing in common between them and both cast their charm on me and get me frustrated at times as well. But after a decade, I'm beginning to believe that I can really make my life in P's place, in a small corner somewhere in that wast farmland, if only it remains that way.

Rounding Up

One week has vanished and I'm almost done with my visits to...what shall I say...old connections? It's not that I'm averse to meeting them but if I have five days of holidays and I end up spending each evening visiting people, that too at the cost of feeling unhappy at leaving others, it's a bit unfair. But my mother narrates their kindness to me in my childhood and successfully makes me feel guilty enough to drive me to try and repay it. Anyway, this time it's been pretty satisfying that way - I met more or less everybody I thought of.

Never form your opinion of a lady by overhearing two other ladies' conversation involving her, you know what I mean? You'll be baffled to hear one of them speak an entirely opposite thing to another lady another time!!

Enlarged Past

Every time I go out these days, my worry is that I may end up meeting some brother of my old classmates. When I do, I'm mostly embarrassed, first by confusion as to if and how I should be knowing them and next, by the fact that they remember my name. But sometimes, I don't think it's my fault either; I have more or less retained my thin structure whereas they would've added many layers to their frame since they left the childhood. So when the image that I have is of a thin boy in shorts, it's a paradigm shift to adjust and recognise the healthy, goggle-clad smart person in front of me and I fail more often than not.

In fact, I don't think there was any fat kid in the entire school of more than thousand children while I was studying! Just comparing that to what I see in my son's school...

P.B.Srinivas passed away today. One of the most melodious voices I've ever known.

Archaic

I sometimes think it's not a bad idea to keep women out of work for three days a month the way they used to in old days. If only it didn't make the women and their situation so conspicuous to outsiders and if only they didn't have the 'untouchable' rule, I would endorse it any day, especially today....

Loss of Memories...

We went to my old school yesterday. I was actually looking inside the place after a long time because there would be usually badminton players around but yesterday there were none. But there was not much remaining to be seen anyway. Except for the old stage that was also my balawadi and 1st 'A', my 6th and 7th standards, all other rooms are gone, concrete ground slowly inching towards the remaining. Even what is left looked like a carpenter's workshop only and I was trying hard to go back to the bustling days where I spent nine years of my life, the longest for me in any institution away from home. Each of those filled with memories, some fresh like yesterday and some only awakened when someone reminds me. Looking around those sorry rooms, it was as if I had lost the pegs to hang my memories on....

I have to visit two houses tomorrow. One on a happy occasion - to see a newborn - and the other, very difficult for me - to call on Baby Auntie. May be I'll visit Baby Auntie day after tomorrow....what will I say?

I sometimes wonder how Auntie feels after leaving the comfortable and peaceful DRDO area where she lived for 30 years and moving to an area which is totally unlike that.

Wishful Thinking

If wishes were horses, I would tie mine up somewhere lest they invoke longings in me which I cannot fulfill.

I've been telling some stories from Phantoms in the Brain to my mother and she asked me if I could translate the book to Kannada. I said I would see how to go about it.

I'm all set to embark on a series of journeys for the next two weeks and am a bundle of anxiety as usual. Hope to see the good old beach this time. Wish Bangalore had one too! Though I can imagine it to be damn crowded, it's worth it I guess.

Sweating it out...

Why can't it rain everyday?

Random Thought

Isn't self-esteem really out of what you think of yourself rather than what others do? Then why does one attach so much importance to others' approval and appreciation?

Graffiti...

...everywhere!!

Zombie in the Brain

Why does it happen that we develop a strong dislike for someone just at the first glance? Why do we recollect some strangers easily and not others? What invokes the random thought processes? Wish I had studied the brain rather than the Electrical Engineering for four years. But then all I wanted to do was to get a job...

I read somewhere today that one should cut down on processed food and go for wholegrains instead. But it seems to have triggered an opposite reaction in the brain - I helped myself to two pieces of pizza and half a piece of cake. Then better sense prevailed and I also ate red rice and my usual sambar and curd and everything. May be I shouldn't look at myself in the mirror tomorrow. 

Agni mattu MaLe

Yet another temple got built and inaugurated today, just behind our building and you can imagine how much of peace we would've managed for the past couple of days. Some ladies were using full advantage of the mike even to crack jokes with their friends! For the last three days there has been lunch and dinner for all the 'devotees' and just when all the ceremony got over successfully, it is raining heavily now!! Don't know what all mantras the priests had chanted but they surely seem to have pleased the rain gods. The hot currents have been swiftly replaced by the cool breezes and I'm looking forward to a blissful sleep. If only we had a stream nearby and I could hear even the frogs croak and the crickets chirp, I would be happier...just like the days of yore...

On the Boil

Rishi scored 92nd rank in the state in IMO Round 2 and he was disappointed that he wouldn't get anything - only the first 25 ranks do. Nevertheless, P and him are geared up for the next year but I wonder if he'll be able to sustain the drive. He's into a lot of things of late - he plays tennis thrice a week, goes swimming every other day, plays badminton when he's not playing tennis, doesn't want to miss Mahabharata on TV and I have a secret ambition of making him learn some form of music because he's singing pretty well. And his teacher told us the other day that fourth standard is loaded so much that they themselves are anxious already. Let us see.

Anu will also start with her playschool this year and though I had informed her teacher that she has no background of English whatsoever, we have slowly started to introduce her to some words. She used to hate it in the beginning but now she's treating it like a game and asks us for new words on her own.

Bangalore is boiling and I just don't want to think how May will be. We are travelling in the second half of April but may be this time the temperature difference anywhere will not be too much. It is a given that we will have water shortage soon but the only question is, how bad will it be? Till only two years ago, I used to be annoyed with the fact that it rains in Bangalore anytime and everytime but now I'm praying that it restores back to that situation soon. Even children have been told in the strictest of terms to be careful with water but I hope others are doing the same too. Imagine having water crisis!

I'm in general friendly with the security ladies in the office. The other day I was talking to one of them and she  asked me if I was married. I told her I had two children and she was literally agape and it made me very happy. Do I worry about looking old?

Stages

Mooru Mattondu

Before I forget, Rishi won bronze in his school in IMO round I and made us all happy. He was thoroughly proud of himself for some time, till the next round came in which he says he's done reasonably well. Of course his coach, P, is much happier than the rest of us because it has given him a chance to prove his merit as a teacher. The other two where he didn't focus much, NSO and IEO, haven't given great results, by the way.

The majestic trees in our area were all suddenly looking cut to size and then I realized they were shedding bagful of leaves everyday. But the whole area I walk in the morning is so beautiful now, including the tech park itself - trees are full of pink, yellow, red and purple flowers and I just don't get tired of looking at them. This must be a happy season for the bees too; the other day they swarmed outside our open cafeteria causing panic among the young and old to run with their lunch plates. I heard someone commenting that she had seen such a thing only in Tom and Jerry before!!

Why is it that in our long-service mails, rarely you'll see anyone in formals - people would typically give their holiday photos or something like that and if you see the driver-identification card in the autos, most of them would be decked up in coats and ties?

Finally in my life, I've started putting on some weight and unfortunately, it is manifesting in the wrong places too. After having spent so many years being noticed for being thin, I had hoped that I would spend the rest of my life eating anything I wanted, but my hopes are dashed. Of course I haven't had to change anything so far, not even my dresses, but may be that will come sooner than later.

I think I've also become more irritable these days, because the other day I saw this sticker on the back of a car and got thoroughly annoyed. It said, "I am cute, my Mom is also cute and my Dad is lucky!"

The Catcher Mode

Went to the MalenaDu MeLa the other day and we bought 'todedevu' which was wonderful. I'm so glad there are still people who aren't as lazy as I am and make these things, taking all the trouble, for us to enjoy. It is one of the things I would recommend for anyone to eat at least once in their lives.

How would life be if everybody spoke their mind? I guess it would shock me in the beginning, no doubt, but I would prefer being told that I'm being a snob, I'm being pretentious, hypocritical, useless, careless or whatever else which must often be the case, than just being praised or smiled at all the time. Very few do it to me; Rishi in his limited exposure to my faults, mother for domestic failures, P mostly for all the wrong reasons and M whenever he can. Of course I would like to give my piece of mind to a hell lot of people too.

I hate it when guys shake your hand like a vegetable or something, I mean, limply. It's worse when people extend the hand themselves first only for you to hold it firmly and shake it. May be it's because I'm a lady or something, but for God's sake, I'm not going to eat them up or anything! Treat me like just another human being, damn it!

I attended my first session of OWL and it was very disappointing to say the least. The session was on effective waste management and the speaker from Mumbai was an entrepreneur in that area and I was thinking she would tell us something useful. But by the end of it of all, I only came to know what her father-in-law does, how her mother died, how her last daughter was born and even that she had a big birthmark on her face!! Please!! We all waited that she would come to the point eventually but alas! and finally the conference ended after three hours sharp, not even giving us a chance to ask anything and kind of shocked that we had managed to waste two hours of precious time!

What happens to the turtles in the BTP lake when it gets too dirty? Does someone take them out and put them into a different place or did the old man who was removing the weeds just eat them up? I saw two turtles last week, their backs covered in green dirt, sitting on the tree just above the water but now they are nowhere to be seen.

When I Became Alexander the Great

When we were in fourth standard, we used to have extra-curricular activities happening in the shade of the old jackfruit trees(there were three of them but none exists today.) every once in a while. In fourth standard we had a lesson(it was a play I guess) on Alexander's encounter with the Indian king Porus and our teachers decided that we should enact it under the trees. I would've very much liked to be Porus because he was the real 'hero' but M was the teacher's favourite and so he became Porus and I was to be Alexander. I was disappointed but there was one solace, though. When I went home and told Pappa, he suggested that I modify my accent so as to sound like a foreigner(Imagine Alexander speaking Kannada!!!) so I adapted a wooden variety, like a robot I guess. So I became happy with the prospect of showing off my acting prowess but the happiness was short-lived. In the end of the play, when the two became friends, they hugged each other. But it was unimaginable for me and I'm sure M would agree with me that it was for him also(being shy and all that!!). Now I'm not sure if my horror stemmed from the fact that I had to hug a boy or that it was to be in front of everyone or that my friends would chide me about it forever after. May be it was all of these. So I refused flatly and teachers also could understand; they said we could shake hands at least. I don't know why we didn't agree to this but I know that was the case. So finally the friendship had to be indicated only by the touching of the swords which was quite funny right there actually. 

Sunset

A dark day indeed. Gattimaama passed away just like that. But the more I tell myself that he is no more, it is only sounding more unbelievable. He was a part of my entire life, the most beloved of my father's friends, and he loved us all so much. I wasn't asking him to live forever or anything. But for someone like him to go off in a flash is too much to take. Imagine not to be seeing him when I go to Modankap, not to be seeing him when I visit his house, not to have him as a part of our lives anymore...the thought is bizarre. Dear people like him when they go, they leave a compartment of vacuum in my heart never to be filled by thousands of people I may meet henceforth. So I just feel poorer today.

I don't know how Baby Auntie will get on. She will have to do that as quickly as she can may be, because they had a grandchild not even a month ago. Poor Gattimaama loved children so much and it is so cruel that he hardly spent any time with the baby. I don't know how his friends are taking it. Pappa won't tell me and I won't know what to tell him...

All I Want is a Room Somewhere....

...to lie in Anu's lap, to get patted by her little hands and listen to all the sweet nonsense that she utters...

Self Doubts

If people break into humming songs when you are near them, do you take it as a compliment or should you pay attention to what the lyrics really say?

Damned if You Do...

I had never spared much thought for death penalty till Afzal Guru's hanging. I had always believed it was necessary and had wrongly understood that as such we found it very difficult to hang someone anyway. In fact, I didn't even care to know anything about Afzal either, though he was supposed to have been involved in our Parliament attack. The attack had looked more like our failure than someone else's audacity to me. But after his death, suddenly I've realized that killing someone like that does not call for celebration; it is sad and sad only. And there is reasonable doubt in my mind as to whether he is the culprit at all and that is making me feel guilty everytime I see his eyes on the TV, in the newspaper. Of course, a pseudo-secular person like me can't do anything else about it. Tomorrow I will feel like asking Aslam, my lone Muslim teammate, how he feels about the whole thing and if any worse thoughts cross his mind. But no, I guess I will end up talking to someone else about it, not Aslam. And just to compensate for my guilty feeling, I will end up being a little extra nice to every other Muslim I come across, who I have no complaints against anyway. But today I'm unable to shake off that feeling of having done something wrong and I hope the guys who have been coming on TV saying it was better late than never also feel like me when they go to bed. 

Being Mobile

My mother went to her native today and gave my father some anxious moments by not picking her mobile phone even after more than an hour. It seems that the presence of mobilephones has made people more jittery as if they are dependent on the device for signs of security.

Two decades ago we didn't even have a landline in our house and father being involved in so many cultural activities, the time he returned home was never consistent. He also had many friends around and many times he would be talking to them till 8-9 in the night and I wonder if he had thought about his family waiting back home then. There was no way to inform either with no phone in any of the homes in the neighbourhood too. Anyway, I don't think we children worried about it much because we would be asleep by 8 and it was mother who used to complain occasionally but she had resigned herself to this routine.

I was 13 then and those were the days our own house was being constructed, about 200 meters away from the rented house, if you took an imaginary straight path. But we didn't have one in reality and the two routes were longer; the longer one taking the narrow path below Akkamma's house and then next to Machado Sir's house and hitting the tar road in front of the SC/ST hostel and the shorter route circling the paddy fields and then across Marianna's frontyard, risking his ferocious dog Prince which he always let lose. Those days father would typically come home straight from school, then go to the construction site after tea to water the house and then return home around 8. One night I was asleep as usual when my mother woke me up and from the silence around I could guess it was pretty late. She told me father hadn't come home yet and she wanted us to look for him. I had never really seen her alarmed about father before, so it got the sleep out of my eyes immediately. The plan was to lock the sleeping 8 year-old V at home and go out with a torch to the construction site. It didn't strike me to ask my mother why she thought father would be still there at that odd time. May be she didn't know where else to go and I don't know if she had any other thoughts running. Anyway, we set off silently and the night was dark and the mini-jungle around our house was looking darker. We decided to skip the shortcut because there would be snakes in the night and reached Akkamma's house only to be greeted by her dogs. We literally prayed to them not to bark too loudly to get the whole household awake and thankfully they answered. We hit the road hoping to meet father on the way but even till we reached the site there was nobody along the road. But it was obvious father wasn't there too and I even looked into the well! I still remember the relief first and next the embarrassment of even having looked there, when my torch just reflected the water below. We were clueless now and we didn't even exchange a word on our way back, this time risking both Prince and the snakes. My only hope was Mayya Maama, father's friend staying half a km away but thankfully my father saved us that journey. As we reached home, we saw the door was open and my father was standing there sheepishly telling us that he was in Mayya Maama's house all along talking and it got just a bit late. We were too exhausted with relief even to complain.

Swinging

A very engrossing Davis cup match between the Czech and the Swiss and no sight of an end so far. I have a soft corner for Berdych so I'm supporting the Czech but it's getting a bit on my nerves now, this match. I can only think that had it been the best of three, Czech would've won long ago! Of course imagine the level of stamina one needs to have to play on like that and that's an inspiration to lesser mortals like me. Score currently is 8-all in the fifth set.

Days are rapidly vanishing into the horizon and my daytime is filled with loan interest calculations, accruals and provisions and the nights with songs, various colours, flowers, stories and all other assorted stuff which have filled my children's imagination these days. So the walk to the office is all the dearer to me now because it gives me time to think about myself and imagine how my future will be and how I would want it to be. May be it's doing me some good otherwise too; in a world full of recurring and enduring coughs and colds, my nose has been a rolemodel so far. I caught cold after a long time and it subsided from the very-bad level to zero within three days! Or is it the fact that I reluctantly kept the books aside and slept in time and filled my eyes with all the lost sleep? Or is it my Chyavanprash which I gulp only when I catch cold? Anycase, I'm feeling very good about it right now.

Ever since I had read about a lady who grew very tall because of some hormonal imbalance, I was a bit worried about Rishi's height. He is only 8 and a half but already 4 feet and 10 inches tall and always people add at least 3 years when they guess his age! So when we went for Anu's immunization today, I asked the doctor about it. He said nothing to worry considering the fact that both P and I were tall and he also added that Anu was a tall girl too! Now I'll have to closely monitor her height also....

A Muddle

Outside my circle,it is very difficult for me to praise someone directly and also to receive praises or any favours without feeling uncomfortable. Not that I get into that situation daily but of late it has become more frequent and I'm not liking it much. One thing is that if you keep on hearing the praises, it gets into your head and another is that I'll get into the mindset of repaying their 'generosity' in some way and that is something I could very much do without. SK is giving me some anxious moments nowadays while being very nice to me and I hope not to get into any sort of trouble.

Reading The Last Mughal, I couldn't help thinking again how religion has got so many people into trouble. But though everything happens in the name of God, it is not really Him that people are fighting for but only to preserve their interpretation of Him. And nobody who died for it or got killed for it has come back to tell us if God really appreciated what they did. So it looks so futile that we are all taking exception to every small thing that is being done by the members of other faiths and go on a spree of one-upmanship. But now we've come so far that I wonder what can take us back. It's like people are running a race and we tell them to stop and the race is to be cancelled. Some do but one crazy guy doesn't and now others will stop believing you and run because he may win otherwise. God knows!

Winter is drawing to a close and it's a pity. I love the chilly mornings and though the evenings are even better, I seldom get to feel them. Very rarely when I do, it takes me back to the winters of 2001 and it feels like yesterday. Anyway, other things that I love about the season are slowly vanishing too; the Himachal apples and Nagpur oranges that I crave for the rest of the year. Actually we are already feeling the heat(or the other way round!!) of summer in our building; this week one or the other of our geysers is not functioning thanks to the water shortage and lukewarm water for me has become the order of the day.

Nameless Feelings

We went to Cubbon Park over the weekend and Rishi's excitement was obvious considering that we were going there after a long time. It was funny how Rishi, who was just a while ago complaining that we were not buying skating shoes for him, suddenly became nervous when I asked him to try it out first in the Park; there you have an instructor, the shoes and a place to skate also.  He started giving all sorts of excuses but I prevailed and in the end, though he fell 20 times in as many minutes, he looked like an achiever. Nearby, a couple of young girls sang folk songs and danced Bharatanatya so Anu and I became part of the audience.

Actually, living in Bangalore East, where one would wonder if it is really Karnataka or any of the more dominant neighbouring states, I'm used to a sense of pleasant surprise everytime I hear my mother-tongue. When I moved newly from Hyderabad to Bangalore, it wasn't obvious that I had moved to my state as far as my interaction with my neighbours was concerned because hardly anyone spoke the native language. So when the kid in Cubbon Park sang so beautifully, that too with an impeccable diction, it made me so proud and happy somehow. I know there are many who feel this way and no wonder when I asked Abhi what he liked the most about Mysore where he went to study recently, the first thing he said was that everyone spoke Kannada there.

There are various mazes for kids at the park and kids are very good at them but what surprised me was that I never saw anyone trying to climb the trees on the opposite side. I mean, I know there are few guards and they may not allow it but I don't know if that stops kids from having a shot at it anyway. I want to try it out myself some day just for old days' sake; Manjanna and I would climb the old white Hibiscus tree in front of my grandmother's house every morning and while Manjanna(and even Shashi!) was very good at dangling and jumping down like a monkey, I found it surprisingly hard to get down. The boys had to pump me in with confidence with multiple demonstrations and I felt I had mastered the art once I got down but the butterflies would fill my stomach again the next time. Though the tree itself died one summer before I conquered it, it served as a good foothold for my future climbings.

Doesn't it happen sometimes that there is someone you see everyday but hardly pay any attention to until one fine day you discover by accident that that person has so much in common with you and so different from the image you have built and you regret not knowing it before? That is happening to me now.

Vows and Woes

This year is the year of weddings for our team and as of now, all of them will be Kerala weddings. We have four of them involving 6 of our colleagues, all lined up in the first half of the year and my neighbour will start the proceedings next week. In fact, another one also sits in my bay of 3 people and you can imagine the excitement around me. It is one thing to pull their legs and smile when they blush but another to be extracting any kind of work from them, though thankfully I'm not their boss. Throughout the day they do nothing but plan their wedding attires and mehendis online(as if it's for ten weddings!) and do all sorts of chats. One of them will move to the US after marrying and I told her she'd better show that she could work independently if she wanted to work from home. Don't think that has made any lasting impact though.

In another coastal area, my native place, desperate efforts are on to secure a bride for my cousin of 28 years, who is not into a white-collar job. These days guys who are looking after their plantations and parents/grandparents are finding it really hard to get married there because typically girls are studying well and becoming at least teachers easily and expect to get relocated to a city after usually marrying an engineer. We as a community did not have the concept of dowry but now we have one. Guys are looking far and wide for a bride and in some cases as far as Jammu and Kashmir also, with the only condition that the girl should be a vegetarian. The lucky ones end up paying anywhere between 50k to 2 lakhs to the girls' parents, apart from bearing all costs of the wedding. It is just the opposite of the general trend of guys getting everything and my aunt says that the situation becomes really bad if the grandparents are also at home, the girl's family treating it as an additional burden on their daughter. Even the unaffected families are bewildered by the novelty of the situation and ladies are often seen lamenting on how respectfully guys used to be treated once upon a time.

Actually my mother tells me that this is only an aggravation of an old story and reminds me of Kumudakka, wife of her father's cousin, who hailed from Kerala. I saw her in my grandmother's place on the occasion of my grandpa's shradhdha every April and she provided a comic relief to the children and elders alike, though I guess only ladies, on account of her funny Kannada. She had assimilated well into the family and acquired a reputation of a hardworker but as if she had got tired of it all somewhere, mixed up the masculine and neutral genders all the time, making it very hard for us not to burst into laughter right on her face.

Great Expectations

Never was the weekend more welcome than this time. My daughter has caught the habit of sleeping fitfully in the early mornings when my sleep is very dear to me. As a result, my eyes are always drooping these days and it's not a nice thing to be yawning when your manager calls for a meeting. So I hope to catchup with some sleep though we are expecting guests both the days. Today's ones are P's school junior and his family who have come from Mumbai.

I'v left Phantoms in a lurch and moved onto The Last Mughal, the book on Bahadur Shah Zafar. After reading these books, I've lost all illusions of my knowledge of history and I think my reading comes at the right time because my son has started asking a lot of questions on all subjects, history also among them. And he is not the one to hold back his disgust if I'm not convincing enough.

Why do we, or say myself, expect someone to be a good human being just because they are good at what they are doing? I do that all the time and feel disappointed though I don't know if it's a fair expectation at all. One can't be perfect I agree but I also find it hard to admire someone who can spend thousands on luxuries but can not part with a rupee for an old beggar.

Life of Pi is in news but I didn't find it great and that is not because my daughter used my 3-D glasses for most part of the movie. I didn't find any emotional connect between any of the characters and I blame Suraj Sharma for it. Actually the only ones I liked are the writer fellow and Ifran Khan. Though Suraj may have done well for a debutant, I strongly believe that had Ang Lee taken an experienced actor, the movie would've been a much better one. For example, when the tiger left him and went off, I didn't feel anything at all though the visual was in front of me and I felt sad only when Irfan was talking about it. Tabu's English sounded so out of place and artificial. So except for few stunning visuals of the ocean, there was nothing in it for me and it was a letdown. 

Phantoms in the Brain

This one is possibly going to be the next book I'll read, now that I'm done with White Mughals. "Phantoms in the Brain" is the kind which I generally keep at an arms length but now that someone has gifted it to me, that too saying it's one of the best books, I'll venture into it.

6 days of homestay has come to an end and tomorrow when I enter the office, I'll feel like I used to when we would return to Modankap after 2 months in my grandmother's place. I know that I enjoy the thought of being with kids all the time but as someone said, office is a place where you can get some rest to your body, especially if you have active kids at home. Also, "I do all the work at home on my own and I don't need any maid" is a very feel-good statement but the execution is not easy. You'll have to leave your dear post-lunch naps, late-night movies etc and you must have a huge reserve of ...self-belief to be able to complete cleaning the kitchen even if your eyes are dragging you towards the bed and telling the brain that the sink looks clean enough. The only question that pops up in my mind is how a person like me, who does not heed the call of sleep even at 11 to complete the chores, can behave like a helping guest the moment my mother is at home and be happy playing with the kids. Part of the blame I shall shift to my mother herself who thinks I'm doing a great job by working(in the office) but it is a shame on me that I let her do so and I'm going to change.

My son enjoys my cooking and he's asking almost everyday when I'll quit and be with him at home. I told him it would be next June. Whenever this topic comes between us, I remember my old landlady who had admonished me when I quit the last time; when my son was 6 months old. She had said, "Don't you feel sorry for the kid and leave such a good job just like that! Daycare will do fine for him. Anyway these boys don't remember a thing you do for them and happily go behind their wives!"!! In fact, it was her son who had just then got engaged to a girl outside her caste and I could see that anguish reflecting in her warning.

I'm in awe of storytellers. Sometimes the things they write are exactly what I would've felt and I cannot imagine someone else can feel that way too, they are so odd. And they write about so many other thought-processes and feelings...how would they know all of them?

Busy

Both my husband and son have left for work and school and the house resembles warfront. My daughter and I are enjoying assorted songs on internet and her latest favourite is "Take My Breath Away".

Very soon we'll have to look for her admission in a playschool and the thought is dreadful, especially from our previous experience. I know there are many children who love going to school but neither myself nor V nor my son have had such upfront affinity and we got along after being pushed to school day after day. Going by my daughter's responses to our teasers about school, hers won't be a different story either. I wish we could tutor her at home for some years at least. The other day I saw a little girl being dropped into a daycare/kindergarten facility by her father and hardly had she alighted from the bike when a young lady, may be the caretaker, started complaining with a very stern face that the kid was talking too much and she was not at all interested in her 'studies'! Felt so sorry for the poor thing.

We did a good thing on the kid's birthday and the satisfaction that comes with such a thing has made us determined to do more.