Philosophical

L gave me Living with the Himalayan Masters as my birthday gift last year and I was more curious about why she gave me this book than its contents. I had left it alone for long but because it was from L, read it out of guilt one day.I still think she gave me wrong one.

I said okay to be part of this whatsapp group of school moms yesterday and am regretting it already. So many messages, mostly questions and I think if they ask their kids instead, they have a better chance of getting quicker and more useful answers.

I bought leggings from Amazon in a first for me. I don't like them yet but I guess it will happen out of necessity.

Nervy

I called up Pappa and he just said "Puttu!" lovingly and I got all teary eyed without notice. I don't know.

Reading Crimea by Orlando Figes. 

Succour

You never know who may cheer you up on a tough day. Mine came today in the form of the message below when my laptop got disconnected for some time. It was a double delight - realization that the web thinks so much of me and of course the few free minutes I got till the connection was restored.

By Design

Bad design is like a lie. The cost of maintaining it is very high often and all it takes is just one firm step to set it right. But one keeps postponing it because one is not sure what it may entail and sometimes it just gets too late. All in all, some faith helps.

For Listless Weekends

Yesterday was a long day and today promises to be longer. I had some six things on my to-do list today, apart from the regulars, and I have finished only two so far. I'm curious to know how many I end up with. I may be over-ambitious with Saturdays, like the anonymous gourd that is trying to grow in our flower pot, but if not on Saturdays when else! Anyway, I finished the long-pending LIC work.

The French know how to pronounce Padukone right and we don't! But I don't think Deepika cares, though. I would! 

At Arm's Length

I called up home and both my parents and I kept politics out of our conversation, which is unusual considering that there is so much happening around. I desisted because I didn't want to take out my entire frustration on them and I guess they did because they wanted to be kind to me.

True Blues

I could never be in politics. Forget failures, I don't have the strength of character to handle disappointments.

The Mean Reds

The spectre of future is the biggest impediment to a happy present...

Tomorrow is a big day. Karnataka delivers the verdict. I don't have a clear favorite this time.

There is a nightmarish numbness in my thoughts that I'm struggling to shake off. I should visit the office more frequently. I just wish there was a lot more happening there, though.

Keeping an Eye

My immediate goal is to be able to wear kadige(eyeliner) regularly. No big deal but my eyes look better with eyeliner when they are their natural size and not small and fluffy. So to be that way, I need to sleep well in the night and for that I need to organise my days better. So...

On Mother's Day, I'm getting choice insults from the kids - that I should look like a mother instead of  grandmother, that at least today I should be kinder to them and Anu was even advising Rishi that tomorrow he could do what he pleased but today he should spare me.

Culinary world is so much skewed in favour of meat eaters!

Loaded

I seem to have put on some weight in the past few days. My face looks bigger by an inch. Not that I mind it. It's just that I want to know why, how. I don't like being kept in suspense for long.

The other day I was waiting for P to finish billing in the superstore and an old man who was buying vegetables suddenly caught me to talk. He asked me in English if I spoke Tamizh and I said no but he nevertheless continued. He asked me if I was working and when I said yes, he said that was good. It seems his daughter stood first in MCA in her university and now that she was married, didn't want to work. His question was why they, including himself, had to take all the pains for such a qualification and then not use it. It felt like he was appealing to a wrong person but I said it was a matter of choice ultimately and a good education was enriching as such. I don't think I made him happy. But P wasn't happy either. Ever since a Korean old man asked me(in 2004 I think) if P was my uncle, he hates the sight of old men talking to me. I tell him it can't get any worse than that but he's not convinced.

I worked late in the night yesterday after a long time. It strangely felt like homecoming.

No Choice

Election fever in Bangalore and it's a tough call to make - whether to vote or to vote NOTA. The main political parties seem like the devil and the Vartur lake(deep blue sea feels too good to be used here).

Anu is the most enterprising child I've ever known. I don't say that because she's made me a Mother's Day present already or because I'm blinded by motherly love but really I haven't seen anyone like her. She's more like my mother's daughter that way, though they hardly get along already.

Counting My Stars

Saturdays are precious. To be spent in post office queues. My foreseeable Saturdays all seem booked for such purposes.

There are people who start off believing that the world is bad and have a small circle of people who they believe are an exception. And there are others who trust people by default and exclude people based on bad experiences. P and I belong to these two different categories and have already got into many arguments over how we advise the children in situations.

I'm unhappy. But I don't even want to begin to ask why because I suspect the list will be long.

Zindagi...

Like Audrey says in Breakfast at Tiffany's, no matter what I do, my account balance doesn't seem to increase at all. In my case it's no matter what I don't do also and when the salary message comes every month, it can be less than last time but never more. I mean, I get a monthly salary, I'm not expensive and my account doesn't have a hole. How do I manage to have this state of affairs! And everybody's favourite goal these days is to get me off the job! Whenever my mother feels guilty about leaving Bangalore she asks me to resign immediately and same with P when he feels harassed about anything connected with home.Resign and do what! What of all those things that I wanted to do with my money? I remember the soaring feeling when I got my first salary at 21 and I don't want to feel caged now, not with respect to money, ever. There is only so much frustration one can bear.

I had somehow always thought that Pakistani women didn't wear a saree. You know, one of those things you intuitively know for sure and never want to validate. They sure look beautiful in it!

May 31st is nearing. I don't care where I go as long as I continue working from home.

I'm an escapist. 

Down the Line

I visited Gracy Auntie whilst at home this time. Until a couple of years ago, she would visit us to meet my mother but now she's confined to her compound, that too with the help of a walking stick. So my mother asked me to meet her(it seems she sent V too) with the instruction that I visit when Auntie is alone. She stays with her son's family and there are some complications in their relationship and even my mother had got mixed up in it once unnecessarily so I wasn't sure if it was a good idea but I nevertheless went around 11 in the morning, when she was supposed to be alone. But her daughter-in-law was late to work that day and I met her briefly and gladly. Once we were alone, I wasn't sure what to talk. She looked much weaker than last time and it was obvious she spent most of her time alone at home. I started by asking her about her daughter's children, who I know from childhood and who Auntie was very fond of. She said they were doing good but I had touched a sensitive spot; she said her daughter and the kids didn't care for her anymore. She went on to lament how she cared for so many of her near and dear ones when she was healthy and now that she was in bad shape, all of them behaved as if she didn't exist already. I have heard of some of her early struggles and I know how she literally raised some of her grandchildren so I didn't know what to say. It made be sad, it made me introspect and blush with guilt and I could hardly comfort her. Whatever little I managed to say only increased her anguish and tears.

I sincerely hope I do better as a daughter. I imagine all of us think that way so why do we fail? We are nice to so many people but we always end up taking our parents for granted...