Living Life to the Fullest

Last day of half-day working at the office and I'll be working full day after a gap of one and a half years. Not that I've really been working half day actually. Now that I've got a reliable internet connection and can work from home, I've just been taking unnecessary pressure and advantage of my dear mother's indulgence. Not that it's great work either but there is lots of it for sure. But I've decided that I'm going to work only for 8 hours in the office, not more. And I want to stop working at home afterwards too. My son has only a month of holidays left now and he's restless all the time. We've put him into swimming and started him off on badminton too but we are not able to do either on weekdays thanks to the fact that it is only my husband and I that can give him coaching in these two things respectively. So over the weekdays he's mostly irritable after finishing his daily quota of TV and ends up caned either by mother or me after having exhausted us. Promises follow but the same story the next day. Today finally I thought of fulfilling my old promise of joining him into a library but we were too late to step in. Tomorrow I'll try again, even my father hopes to find some useful books there.

I've become a Dale Steyn fan thanks to this year's IPL. Though his team is doing abysmally, he's doing a fantastic job and most of the times, all I remember is not the winner but his bowling. He's just being terrific. Of course Dravid is playing very well too and I watch only his matches regularly, may be partly because this is the last time I'll get to watch him play.

My daughter is growing up quickly, talking a lot of gibberish and making us all very happy by doing many intelligent things. She's a very loving and lovable kid and seems to have a good temperament, at least for now. She's very fond of her brother, though he treats her with a lot of indifference many a times. Of course he showers her with bursts of love often and gets upset that she's not reciprocating enough.

My son who's a huge fan of Chota Bheem stories and Panchatantra asked my husband the other day how many gold coins his boss was paying him!!

May His Soul...

...rest in peace!! I seem to be mostly writing obituaries on blogger but it's only fair considering the fact that I've lost yet another relative - my youngest uncle this time. This time it's been less painful, even to his siblings, because he was an invalid for the last four years, having fallen along with an arecanut tree and broken his back irreparably. I remember how I went cold when I heard my mother over the phone telling me about it and I still anguish over that moment when he went on an impulse on a rainy day to climb that damn damaged tree and fell with it. Life changing moment, if ever there was one and if it's so nightmarish to me, I can't imagine how he would've cursed himself and the fate throughout the agonizing, almost vegetating four years of his life.

My youngest uncle is my mother's younger brother and elder to my twin aunts though they always referred to him as 'Tamma', just like everybody else. He was the only son to remain with his parents and work in the plantation as others had all found work in the cities. I always remember him as a very hardworking guy, always either going to work or coming from it. My earliest memory of him must've been taking 20Rupees from him for collecting the fallen arecanuts from the 'tota" everyday. This was my mother's idea who knew how much I liked the idea of helping my parents with some money and how the arecanuts were being taken away by passersby when they weren't picked by us. But I also remember being chided by Manjanna how shameful it was that I was taking money in spite of being one of the family. Of course I got ashamed and was all set to return the money but I remember my uncle shut him up well and praised my 'help' and I stopped feeling guilty.

Next...must be the coconut breaking and drying season in which my mother and Gangakka were the breakers, my uncle carried them up the hill to the drying area and it was the children's job to watch over them while they dried in the hot sun for a week or so. We always accepted it as our rightful duty and did it with enthusiasm for most of the time. Our uncle erected a small hut of 4 sticks covered with some coconut leaves and tarpaulin and we played, talked, sang and slept under that. Occasionally we would hear the summons from home below, asking us to bathe one by one, fetch our 10 a.m snacks or other errands like calling an uncle/field hand for food. Only at lunch time we would all be relieved from our duties by one of the uncles and we would trudge uphill with a full stomach to take turns in sleeping under the shade with a cool breeze in every direction. Monkeys were the biggest pranksters around and once one of them even jumped on one of my cousins and threw us helter-skelter. I had found a green snake on one of the trees one day and after that everytime I passed that tree, I couldn't help feeling that it would be there again, looking at me.

Then....a toilet was built with a lot of fanfare when I was around 10 years old and it was a great relief for all the visitors and natives alike who were either womenfolk or people living in well-to-do accommodations. But my uncle gave us all a scare by declaring that he wouldn't allow it for 'public' use - it would be only for the creamy layer which consisted of his four brothers, two brothers-in-law, 3 sisters-in-law and a couple of my high-flying cousins. We actually believed it because one could never be sure with our stubborn uncle but this one turned to be one of his jokes, after all.

Then...I guess I lost touch with him once I grew older and also, I must've come in for a sharp criticism from him for marrying outside my caste because my uncle is a hardcore Brahmin. On one of the visits after that, he even asked me if my husband beat me up because he was sure non-brahmins couldn't be trusted with their 'culture'. I did my best to control my temper then. It was also the time he fell out with all his siblings thanks to his obstinacy with respect to the design of the new house and rude behaviour to some of his sisters-in-law and sisters. He seemed to carry some resentment about their 'city-bred' status and visits by close relatives became rare. Then the tragedy struck and when I went to see him at the hospital, his only desire was to be able to walk at least like an unsteady toddler. That was not to be and ...

Life as they see it...

As the expenses of running the house are increasing, we are trying to teach our son the value of money. He's taking them very selectively, though. On one hand he is still crazy about chocolates and ice-creams, gifts and toys and on the other hand, when we go to buy something for ourselves or others, he exclaims loudly "oh, how expensive!" embarrassing us in front of salesmen! But in our mundane lives, often it is only children who provide the refreshing laughs and smiles. Here is a sample of a conversation between my husband and son -

Baba - "Son, I want to build a house just like that one for you some day".
Son - "Why not now, Baba?"
Baba - "I'll need to make lots of money before that."
Son - "No worries Baba, I can give you 50 Rupees!"
Baba(laughing) - "Son, 50 Rupees will be hardly enough!"
Son - "No problem, you can sell off some of your old clothes, I guess you'll get a lakh for them."
Baba(laughing more)
Son(very seriously) - "Now don't tell me you need some more!"

My daughter is becoming stubborn and demanding. She hollers badly when I take a toothbrush near her and my agonized son curses the entire household for that. I hope she realizes soon that she cannot escape the ritual, already I can see her teeth turning yellowish.

It's surprising sometimes how little one observes even while seeing something regularly. I mean, the road in front of our house finally seems to be getting laid and they've cleared some space and made it wide.The area is looking different suddenly but however hard I try, I cannot recall what was there before they cleared it. It's as if I was galloping along that path everyday with blinkers on!

Days are galloping too! Just the other day I was talking about last weekend having come so quickly and there is another one waiting tomorrow.

The Year Gone by...

My daughter is a year old! It's as if I saw her first only the other day and now it's a joy to see her walking all around the house mumbling some cute nonsense. She's trying to imitate what we say and do, she loves her father a lot, though I must admit she loves me the most. :-) Her relationship with her brother is not very consistent so far; vice-a-versa is true too.

We had a low-key celebration on her birthday which in itself was only thanks to the insistence of my son whose real motive was show off the new toy that his grandfather gave to his sister. But very few friends turned up thanks to the holiday season and were a little taken aback with the lack of any kind of 'real' ceremony. But they were decent enough not to express it in words and I think the off-season mangoes that my father bought made them happy enough.

The apartment living reminds me of my hostel days at times. But time is not in abundance as it used to be in those days and you see activities only during certain times of the day - like the mornings when kids go to school, next after an hour when most go to work, afternoons when kids are back from the school, then after a long gap, around evening when ladies group together to talk. But typically each floor is an island; you know there are people living elsewhere but they are not visible to you so you sometimes forget that they exist. So most of the occasions are celebrated among the floor-mates and the ladies follow that pattern too. Actually I hardly knew even these people before my daughter was born. After being at home for a year, I'm glad that I've socialized and made at least some friends along with my son.

Dazed and Drowsy

If last month I thought my life was hectic, I would call that life very decent now. Things have really taken a worse turn. My husband now travels to Whitefield everyday and is almost a visitor at home except for the weekends. And predictably he's very tired over the two days or wants to read some more about the work so they are almost gone too. So days are passing like a whirlwind for me managing my time between the schedules of the other three. My husband leaves home at 7:30 and does not appear back before 9 in the night. He sleeps around 10:30 and we keep each other company till then. My son wakes up at 7 and leaves for the school at 8:15 and returns at 3:15. He sleeps around 8:30. My daughter wakes up anywhere between 5:30 to 6:30 in the morning and goes to sleep in the night around 7:30. So I, forced to wake up with my daughter, see my husband off after breakfast, get my son ready for school and cook his lunch, put my daughter to sleep and rush to office around 9:30. Life in the office is hectic too, what with the damn list of never-ending issues. I rush back home around 2, reach home and gobble my lunch and give my daughter a bath and put her to sleep. Then I take stock of his school activities from my son who's back by now and make something for him to eat/drink. By this time my daughter typically wakes up and I put her back to sleep and if I don't sleep off in the process, I get to write my blog,read newspaper or go to the shop to buy something that has been missed out over the weekend. But those days are rare and most of the times I write imaginary blogs and mails and have monologues with my friends while I'm putting my daughter to sleep.

The evenings are even more hectic thanks to the swinging moods of my maid and her health. I feed my daughter,play with my son and her, also get my son to study and rehearse it, cook food for the night, feed my daughter again, get my son to finish his dinner, put my daughter to sleep, accompany my son to sleep and then, finally get to sit quietly on the sofa and wait for my husband to arrive.

The only silver lining, if I may call it so, is that the stock market is pathetic and my serial, worse than that. I mean, otherwise I don't know what would have happened to my spare time at all!

End of an Era

My dear grandmother is no more. I knew when it happened we would all feel very sad and it was inevitable someday but yet because it has happened so soon it is making me feel worse. I may take no real solace in the fact that I met her in October because that was hardly a meeting. In fact my last few meetings have been on similar lines owing to the fact that I'm always in short supply of time when I visit my native place and especially my maternal grandmother because I have to dedicate more time to my paternal grandmother's place which, to be frank, I have no interest in visiting. So I hardly remember what I said to her but I do remember that she wanted my daughter to be a big doctor just like one of the ladies from Karki who had made it big abroad. She was irritated that she could not find the newspaper to show that lady to me but she was mighty impressed with her.

That was my grandmother always. She was so active and alive to what was happening around her, in the world. She came from an educated family, all her four brothers very well read and doting on her. As far as I was concerned, I think I always loved her dearly, intuitively, even before I really understood anything. I lost my grandfather when I was five and the loss was felt more in the bitter tears that I saw my mother and aunts shedding. So it was my grandmother for us after that, like a mother hen in that big house which would be so full during two months of summer holidays. My family, sans my father who always managed to keep himself busy in holidays, would be one of the first ones to reach our native place though my paternal house was invariably the first destination. My mother was very clear about it and I spent my time there mostly with my father's cousin sister's family and always facing my grandmother's ire for it. But there was nothing to do for me in my father's place; there were no books, no magazines, nobody to play with and nobody to talk to. All my grandmother wanted to do was to oil and comb my hair and my grandfather, well, though I have seen him in his very good and really bad moods, was hardly at home. Compared to this, my aunt's place just below our own was heaven; it had books and though I laugh at them now, my idle mind devoured all those cheesy criminal stories and pathetic melodramatic plays that used to be stacked up in that house. Of course there were better options too; all of them played chess very well and I learnt my chess just by watching them play. And my uncle was a very good storyteller and could make us laugh to no end with those silly stories and he was very patient with us too. So when my grandmother's angry call pierced my happiness, I would sulkingly run to curse my food and again run off in the evenings to another happy destination - my mother's friend's place. More about it some other time.

Now, coming back to my maternal grandmother - so it was after spending some 2 weeks of this life that my mother would permit me and later my sister to go to her place, when one of my aunts/uncles/cousins came to fetch us. I was always very glad to see them and was impatient to leave but my joy was mostly shortlived, because I could not bear to spend the nights without my mother. It sounds very childish now, but even till my 9th standard, I remember crying bitterly in the nights thinking of my mother who looked so near yet so far(it was 8 kms distance between the two places) and my sister and I alternately would cry and console each other. My older cousins tried hard to help, Manjanna tried to get me out of it by making royal fun of me but it was no use and once my finally exasperated grandmother asked me why the hell I came there at all. I think that shut me up for that season.

My grandmother was not the kind who was mushy in her love for children. I don't remember her ever cuddling me, hugging me or calling me with any of those sweet names. But she was that way with all her 18 grandchildren and I didn't mind it at all. I do remember the occasions she was upset with me - she rarely had the time but once when she combed my hair, she got angry with my tantrums and gave it up never to do it again and once more she was really angry with me for insulting Goddess Lakshmi by cutting my nails in the evening. But I always knew she loved us, even when she called me plainly, 'Tangi', as was the practice. She was busy in those days, cooking this or that for the clan and the visitors but she always asked us about our studies and about the people in our place she knew. There was general freedom for the children which we did not misuse as such and there was so much to do. Children were entrusted with so much of work like seeing the cows off for grazing, overseeing the calves, calling one or the other uncle from the coconut plantation, bringing something from the nearby shop, posting letters, guarding the huge load of coconuts when they were cut and dried, picking arecanuts, being proxies in some mandatory ceremony in the neighbours' place and so on. We always felt proud in discharging these duties and we were pampered with delicious mangoes after we returned.

I could go on and on like this because some of the best memories of my life are built around my grandmother's place of which she was the backbone. We were financially struggling in those days and the 20 Rupees she used to give me meant a lot to me. When I joined college, she was worried because she had read about ragging in the newspapers. Engineering gave me offseason holidays so for the first time I spent time with her when nobody else was around and helped her in the only Ganesha Chaturthi I attended there. She was eager to know about college life, was irritated because her vision had slightly deteriorated so she could not read easily. My marriage must have given her pain but she never spoke to me about it. I never felt her love change because of that and it meant a lot to me.

I think the best thing about my grandmother was that she never forced her views/herself on anybody. Her children adored her and she had a cordial relationship with all her daughters-in-law and a very close alliance with the daughter-in-law she stayed with. I've never heard her quarrel or talk cheaply about anyone. Even when she criticized someone, she was always smiling as if to say, life is like that. She saw the world change and took everything in her stride, even when all her brothers, a loving son and a dear granddaughter passed away. I think the biggest blow to her must have been when her youngest son broke his back and I had thought he would die in front of her very eyes and that would kill her. But she didn't let that happen and passed away quietly. I wish there were more like her. I wish I could be like her.

Addicted to....

Trading! I knew people in my office traded even during working hours and I used to think quite low of them but now I wonder if they are just not able to come out of that addiction. Because I've got hooked to trading in the past one year and I know how bad it can be. Nowadays the market is swinging like a pendulum so my obsession has receded a bit but a couple of months ago...

Suddenly in my life I find myself doing things that I never thought possible. I've started watching a serial, that too not a serious, issue-based one as such. I think I'm a diehard romantic and added to that, I also realised that I'm quite a fan of Mohnish Behl. And yes, I've got addicted to cooking!! I mean, I want to cook something new every weekend and I must say I'm enjoying it. The results have been mostly good and at times not so but it has not dampened my appetite for more. My son is the biggest beneficiary of these experiments and the biggest critic too!

My daughter is walking and walking well. My maid has a terrible cold for the past month or so and the kid has been the victim. Well, the only solace is that she's eating well, almost everything that we eat and seems to be loving it. In fact, if we eat anything not giving her, she protests and comes to eat us!