Mea Culpa.

Money is single sided sword.

We nurture, save, grow and double it with lots of care- all on the blunt side. What if we lend our money to a friend, a housemaid or a relative? The moment we loan it out, we do it with the sharp side, and it kills that relationship forever. We all know what is definitely bound to happen but we still loan out money. Because we cannot say NO.

Sometimes it is okay to say NO. Like you know your maid servant has a husband and son who earns enough, and she is also going to few other houses, which means she is earning enough. She is definitely not starving. So when she comes to you asking for a ten thousand rupees for some reason that sounds lame, do not give it. It is easy to write this but it is very very difficult to say that on her face. Like me. I gave a pretty decent amount to my maid eight months ago when I sent her away because my son started preschool, and now she does not answer my calls. Well she answered once and talked like I stole something from her house. Well let’s not discuss that.

This is how shit happens. And when it does, it breaks out loose and is all over the place. My better half had warned me against this loan, many times before I did it, and now has washed his hands clean of it. He reminds me of getting the money back, like a pending assignment due from my side, but has put his foot down when I asked his help to do it. Well I cannot blame him, it is completely on me, and I am pretty sure I am not getting it back. However it is not easy for me to get in terms with the truth, but I continue to message and call this woman, who claims that she is out of work to pay me back.

Before judging me, it is only fair for me to have the benefit of doubt. This maid was basically a good person. She was not the evil, cunning types, and looked after my son for a year at home. My son was also okay with her, and never cried when I went to office, which suggested that she did take good care of him. I had checked in on him hundreds of times without informing prior, and have never found him crying or ignored. I had informed my neighbors to check in on him and they never complained. I did not install a camera at home because I would not have a cctcv behind my workstation with my boss looking at it all the time. I still bathed and fed my son at all times during the day, my work being a stone’s throw from home. This is the reason why I gave her that money. She did take care of my son, and did not harm on him even once even though it was for a few hours. After a year when she asked me for that money, of course she was taking advantage of my weakest point, but I believed that despite the regular pay we gave her, she could have mishandled her job in frightening ways. That is not logic, it is sentiments which played the lead and I am paying for it now.

There is no room for sentiments in this world. Like if you sit and self-pity nobody consoles you because the world is competitive. If you pity yourself, others pity you more than you do. When was the last time someone gave you a push and said ‘I know you can do it’?

I had once given off the sari I wore at my wedding reception to the daughter of my mother’s maid. That maid also took a massive loan from my mother for the same purpose which still remains a loan. My mother called to remind her about the loan but she was yelled at and even cursed. I do not regret giving off my saree because I came to know it was worn by her on her wedding day. This saree was not something I dint want. I would never have worn it for any occasion after that, but it had a sentimental value attached to it. There is no selfless good deed, but I cannot think of myself as selfish for any reason by giving away that saree to a bunch of thankless people.

I now think of that loan I gave my maid, as an act of charity. I gave it to her succumbing to my weakness, completely aware on a sub conscious level that I am not going to get it back. And it was a pretty decent amount which I could use. Talking of charity, most of us give away what we don’t need and call it charity. Is that really it? If we wanted to help the less privileged we should give them what they need, and not what we don’t need. Right?

Take for example this woman, who paid for a cheap tee shirt online, which did not satisfy her expectations. Look at how she has commented on it. Is it arrogance or do we have some other word for the last line of her comment?

There is no hard and fast rule that can tell you who is reliable and who will return your loan. Why do people pay their EMI’s to the bank promptly and not to the person they took money from which has no written record? If we have an answer to that may be it will help us decide in future.

I do not have an answer to that yet. Do you?

Do you care for the balance amount?

Like most people, I have also come across store keepers and sales persons acting like they actually own the store and that people who walk  in are actually beggars in disguise.Hence I do not seek help finding anything in any shop. I prefer malls to shop with the sole intention of avoiding these ego heads in uniforms. However, I recently had a very different kind of experience.

I walked into a mothercare store to get a spare part for my son’s Avent bottle. I picked a set and went to the billing section. This item was priced at 2.9 rials and I gave the cashier 3 rials. He then packed it and handed over the item to me in a mothercare signature cover. I waited. The cashier looked at me and at the customer behind giving me a cue that I should move out of the queue. Had he forgotten basic mathematics, or basic rules of a cashier is not known so I continued, ‘Balance?’ And he gave me a look. A look that said ‘How cheap can you be to be waiting for a 100 baiza balance!” and hesitantly handed me the 100 baiza note with a smirk.

Obviously the other celebrity customers at mothercare do not care about 100 baizas. But how can this birdbrain think that ALL customers fall into that category? Please, 100 baizas are important to me! If it was a hotel and he did some kind of service, fine, we have a very humane concept called a tip. But definitely not in a regular retail store. It was enough that this was a branded store and each and every single piece of thread was overpriced here. And what was that look that this guy gave me? I mean, does he deserve to give me that look? Does he? If he did, would he be trying to ROB a customer for a mere 100 baizas? And for your information, 100 baizas in Oman is a good 16 Rupees in India! I walked out of that store, fuming. I just wanted to take one of those potty chairs at mothercare and slam it on his head. I wish there was some used potty chair for that. Or one which was in use.

The incident reminded me of a bus ride in Bangalore when I handed over a twenty rupee note for a 2 rupee ticket and the conductor told me that he will give me the balance ‘later’ and when the LATER came, he refused to have any eye contact with me or anybody. When my destination stop came I asked him the balance and he refused to give it to me. This was one sick moron. People like this are everywhere. And the mark of these morons is that, they are completely shameless.  

Another disgusting thing about these sales persons is ignorance about the product or service that pays them. At apparel stores, whenever I approached the sales person for another size or color of a dress I liked, they always sluggishly said ‘Ma’am this is the last piece’ and I always end up finding the second last and the third last pieces. Lazy donkeys. I believe that the line ‘May I help you’ sarcastically written across their shirts is as good as writing ‘Maintain Silence Please’ inside a pub. Oh how cute are the street vendors who go ‘madam madam…. Look at this dress… it will suit you so well…madam 100 rs less just for you..’ even if they don’t mean it. 

I know I have already written about the same subject recently but sorry L I had to mention this mothercare incident.

And in other news, popular(!) Bollywood actress Kangana Renaut launched a website to connect with her fans. The good news is, she will also be sharing style tips! Check out her ultimate fashion sense from a birthday bash that happened last week.

Apparently, eyebrows are out of fashion. Too bad, I just got them shaped last week. 

P.S: Getting style tips from Kangana is completely the reader’s choice. 

I will not be responsible for any damage to eyebrows, eyesight, etc.

Playgroup Files..

Few days ago we played the songs from ‘Kites’ at home. Just like that.

 The next day I spotted my two year old on the sofa, laid back and legs crossed, singing ‘Zindagi…’ ! The only thing missing was a bottle of beer for that Devdas effect.

 

Zindagi....Do pal ki...

The transition from daycare to play group has been obvious in the verbal front. Like potty time and bath time are infused with enchanting nursery rhymes( not very apt to the situation, though). But we are not complaining. That however doesn't mean that everything is fuss-free. Taking off the pajamas before bath is the toughest part which usually the hubby handles. Mostly Kolaveri Di takes care of it. (More power to Kolaveri Di. I don’t know what I’d do without it).But there are days even Dhanush fails to entertain. That is when the bunnies at Bunny party arrive. We have different songs for the varying degrees of fussiness, which in turn proves that we are masters of the art, in raising tough babies whose main motive is to make life difficult. No offense to any babies whatsoever by why do they fuss!

Dropping him at school on mornings is a strength test between my clothes and his fist. Letting his fist win is turning up at office in torn clothes. That wouldn't have any effect on my appraisal though. There are no cries or screams accompanied with this pulling of clothes and clinging on, but it is only a ritual he practiced since his first day there.  In the evenings, the hesitation is to go home. By this behavior his nanny might have thought that we are subjecting him to child labor or something.

When he was in daycare, he had a cute female play mate. Her cute face was only a guise- she was in fact a female baby goon and my son was scared of her. The very sight of this girl made him go WAAAAAAAAHHHH which burst the eardrums of a few sleeping babies. He thought of her like a ferocious Rottweiler. But one day I sneaked in at snack time and found him eating French fries from her tiffin. Obviously there seems to be no fear while stealing junk food. End of the day I look like the bad, bad mother who packs scrambled eggs and steamed bananas in his tiffin. Damn good eating habits. I was told by his nanny that the little female goon was very fond of my son's lunch which generally consists of rice. End of the month the goon gains height, weight and intelligence like the kids in bright orange t shirts in those Horlicks ads. My son is that kid in grey t shirt who never grows because he generously distributes his lunch to junk food eaters.

Waking up at 5:00 am and packing a wholesome lunch to – God knows who. That must be some destiny I am living.  Anyway I pack a bit extra food so that no one is hungry after lunch time. Sigh. Babies are thankless. Really. They take everything for granted. Wait till I send him to hostel when he is 20. I will NOT be answering any PHONE calls either.   

So today morning as I dropped him at school, the teachers were warming up the kids by singing action songs. It was a song that my son knew too.. soon he joined them, but later walked to the side of the room and started hanging out with few other toddlers and laughing. That is an early sign of a backbencher syndrome. Oh well, considering the fact that both his parents were notorious backbenchers I don’t expect an Einstein of him.

The goodbyes that are painful...

If I refer to all the females in my family (including me) as ‘drama queens’, it would be an understatement. We strongly believe that if a daughter to goes on a picnic she may never come back, or buying a two wheeler to a son is like gifting him death. So you get an idea. Every single thing is blown out of proportion and every event like marriage, birthday, and graduation is laced with tears and filmy dialogues and thus dampened. I grew up in such a fiercely loving yet slightly dramatic home, and even though I am way better in terms of drama, I seem to carry traces of what was generously bestowed upon me.

However I was married into a family where people are not as dramatic as us. Goodbyes here are more matter-of-fact and met with more smiles than tears. So my belief that my family had the most complex DNAs which made them brutally sensitive and that they were the first of its kind to have ever walked the earth only got stronger. I reach for the tissue during any movie that has got anything remotely to do with emotions. I fought tears and lost when my son got vaccination shots. The first two weeks of my son’s first daycare was when I ran short of words and tears or even breath. However I was strong enough to hold my own and not broadcast it to the rest of the family for obvious reasons.

This morning I dropped my son at the playschool when I heard loud wails from outside. A boy, around four, had been enrolled and it was his first day there. Two people had to stop him from running to his mother, who walked away hesitantly with her two younger kids. The child refused to pay heed to any act of consolation, and got too wild and loud to handle. Other children including my own stood perplexed and helpless.  We slowly left, even though my heart went out to the boy, who was evidently kept home till that day. As I stepped outside, the mother waited with a miserable look on her face. 

She asked me,’ Is he still crying?’. 

I said ‘Yes’.

She went up to her car, placed the youngest baby carefully on a car seat, fastened the seat belts for the other child and got on to the driver’s seat. 'Wow', I said. 'She must be the iron lady or something'. As we started the car to go to office I took one last look of the mother who was still in her car. She held a ball of tissues and was crying profusely. She kept wiping her eyes and slowly rested her head on the steering wheel. 

My heart melted.

The mother. Her undying love. Care.  Tears.  Worries. 

 You do not call that sensitive. It is what mothers are all about. 

I think I misunderstood my family.  

Oprah Winfrey : The costly refusal.

Last time Oprah Winfrey made news, was when she visited India and met the most accomplished people here who are none other than the ones in Bollywood. As she sat across the table for dinner, she famously asked ‘I hear that some people in India STILL eat with their hands?’ Then, it was a terrible shame that Madam Winfrey dint know that a majority of us Indians STILL cannot afford food.

Today as I glanced through the news, I came across this racism controversy of Ms.Winfrey. A shamefully ignorant clerk at an upscale store in Switzerland refused to show a purse worth $38000, (named after Jennifer Aniston), to her because he felt she may not be able to afford it.

This is 'that' bag!

This is completely believable. I have always told my friends this, when you go to buy clothes, that is when you should be dressed your best. Because wood headed sales guys often assess you with what you are wearing and your chances of finding an attire of your taste depends on that.  This was during a time before malls came into our lives and allowed us to choose what we wanted. When I was younger there were shops in which clothes were neatly stacked in cupboards and sales guys across a counter would pick them and display based on their mood.  If you are not very attractive in their eyes, you will end up buying a reject. This is a painful truth. Storekeepers measure you by what you wear and how presentable you look.

So Ms. Winfrey was not talking on her show and therefore might have turned up at this unfortunate Swiss store dressed for comfort. This is not about the ignorance of that guy who was unable to recognize her. Whether she can afford it or not is not the point either. It is the question of the basic right of a person at any store that has stuff on display. Anything should be accessible to the person who has walked into the store - without having to meet any prerequisites. The customer needn't arrive in a limousine walking like it was a red carpet event.

I have met rude and highly self-esteemed teenagers and young adults who literally have grown head phones from their ear lobes working as sales persons and delivery boys at various brand outlets. They are veterans in belittling customers and treating them like dirt. I have also seen sales persons at showrooms passing their comments and giggling at potentially vulnerable customers who try on the clothes displayed. I am a programmer by profession, and my codes do not expect me to smile at them, but I know the basic code of conduct expected of a person who is in the sales business. Do you or do you not feel like stepping into that store once again, where you were treated like a King with faces around that smiled gracefully and talked politely? Is it so difficult to show minimum civility to any person for that matter? You may not sell a Chanel or a Louboutin, but people are drawn to you by the way you treat them. And they will come again by how much you care about their purchase.

I am sure that poor guy at the Swiss store might have been fired and made to go through a list of Celebrities alive as on August 2013. It is not about being a celebrity. I may not be Oprah Winfrey or Jennifer Aniston, but today if I walk in to a Hummer showroom and ask to be shown a H1, I should be granted the opportunity.

 So this time, I guess Oprah was right when she said that she was snubbed.

Alternatively, she could have asked,’ Do people in Switzerland STILL find this bag expensive?’

A night in the jungle !

As soon as the rumors started floating about an upcoming holiday, I immediately opened my otherwise boring work mailbox. There it was! The holiday-memo email.. yoohoo! I unlocked my mobile and dialed the hubby. The phone rang. “Hello?” I breathed an air of tension into that word. It met with an excited “We have an off day Monday! Let’s call them and plan” response from him. And yayyy went all the happy hormones in my system. Long weekend! The heavens had finally opened up to shower the holiday starved working class with some extra beer.

I rang up my partner-in-crime since my school days, Santa and her husband Banta (names changed to save my ass) who live in Bangalore as well. I could almost hear Santa’s couch breaking under her weight as she was jumping on it because she had just received the news about the weekend plus one. We talked to Santa and later to Banta and zeroed in on Wayanad for the weekend getaway. Why Wayanad- the drive through the jungles appealed to Banta and the hubby, whereas Santa and I were focused on finding cool jungle resorts. Logically the only jungle resort that can be available at the eleventh hour was that one which had free accommodation and additional facilities like sleeping with wild elephants and boars under the star lit sky. Trip with Santa and Banta meant death by laughter. As we were couples who were just couples without babies at that point in time, we were even ready to sleep in the car in the worst case. Sigh! Those were the times!

So my early bird husband woke up even before the ghosts did – at 3:00 am. He shook me awake and rang up Banta and woke them up as well. We started from home around 4:00 am and headed to Santa’s apartment and waited outside. Soon two policemen came in a white jeep and stopped next to us. The police gestured hubby to walk to him. Soon the hubby was seen talking and pointing towards me. The potbellied man got out of the vehicle and walked towards me. “What’s your name?” He asked. ‘Anita’ I replied. “Whom are you waiting for at this hour and what is your relationship with this man? “He demanded. Seriously these Sherlock Holmes wannabes are really ambitious. I opened the dashboard and produced a copy of our marriage certificate. Suddenly his expression changed from a high profile detective to that of a scared rabbit. I also produced copies of our identity cards, which he was not interested to check. He then said, “You cannot park the car here. This is a main road”. Oh, that is why he wanted to know my relationship status. If we were not a couple we could park the car on the main road?  Soon enough, we spotted Banta and Santa sleepwalking towards our car. The spicy narration of the policemen incident woke them to hearty laughs and active conversations thereafter.

The drive took us through the spectacular woods along the Bangalore-Mysore-Wayanad route. The picturesque locations and thick jungles with occasional sightings of wild elephants, boars, peacocks and deer were serene and peaceful to our senses which were otherwise abused by the polluted city lives we led. Even the animals, as we spotted them seemed to be extremely at ease and it was the reflection of freedom they enjoyed in the environment where it actually belonged. It was a striking contrast in comparison to the misery and helplessness we often see in the eyes of zoo animals. We slowed down and clicked many pictures, even though there were certain restrictions about doing that. Finally we reached ‘Jungle Hut’ where Banta and hubby had made a reservation (without our knowledge) and checked in. The resort lived up to its name with lush greenery all around.

Jungle Hut consisted of various tiny cottages set in the real forests of Wayanad. The staff said that most guests are greeted by herds of deer in the mornings as they opened their doors, but we really did not believe that. This came as a joke to people like me who've not seen even a dog in like, ages. The jungles which were close by are said to have a remarkable tiger population too, and the national animal had marked its presence a few times to the lucky few who happened to be driving at that time. The staff therefore warned us to not hang around outside the cottage at night. They stressed this point several times to Banta and hubby, as they pretended not to hear that and kept clicking pictures when the dos and don’ts were explained. They also reminded us that once we were settled in cottage and needed anything we should dial the reception and not answer the door even if it is being knocked at night. That line was a bit spooky for Santa and me who were already scared listening to tiger tales. We received our keys and walked to Cottage no:29, which had two bedrooms separated by a door.

It was almost half past ten when we found certain brochures on the coffee table by the window. The last page of the brochure said, that many people have had unfortunate encounters with wild animals, especially tigers in that area, and therefore one should not venture outside at night. Thoroughly city bred kids like us could not digest the fact that there were real tigers outside. That’s when it started raining. It started with a drizzle and strong breeze but soon evolved into a heavy downpour. The noise it made against the cottage roof was so deafening that we couldn't hear each other anymore. The lights in the porch went off, and those inside the room flickered. We just stared at each other wondering what could be the next plan of action in case the lights were to go off. The only weapon for last minute planning to a jungle trip power outage was mobile torches. And we knew how long that was going to last. I hurriedly took the land phone to dial the reception, but it also had succumbed to nature’s fury. The mobile phones struggled and failed in its attempts to find a network so we could call the reception. Altogether, we were trapped in a cottage in the middle of a jungle, weaponless. Our lives hung around the strength of the door knob that locked us in the cottage. Even though we were snacking and talking, the fact that it had started to rain and that we lost any contact with the hotel authorities sank in on us. Our conversations started losing color, and in some time, we were just snacking and plainly looking at each other.

Soon, headlights from a distant vehicle pierced into our room. We tried to peep through the window, but the downpour allowed us only to see the two headlights that blinded our eyes. We came back to our motionless existence.

In a few minutes, there was a knock on our door. To open the door was foolish. It was almost midnight. There were groups of drunk bachelors in other cottages. The knock sent horrific chills down our spines.  

After a few moments of discussion we asked, ‘Who is it?”.

No answer. We kept our ears against the door, as we weren't sure if we were audible to whoever was knocking. After five minutes of knocking and intense trials to make ourselves heard, the knock stopped. And soon enough the headlights were switched off too. We gathered our heartbeats and tried to sleep.

The next morning, we headed to the reception and gave a peppery account of the knock-knock episode from the previous day. The staff was as clueless as we were, because they were not the same guys we saw last night. They obviously worked in shifts. We continued to breakfast and proceeded to Soochippara Waterfalls, adhering to our instant itinerary. 

This was a place which was untouched by commercialization. It was at least a fifteen minute walk through a narrow stone paved path with lush greenery alongside, to reach the falls. As we walked through, a very familiar face turned to look directly at me. “Lanta!” I exclaimed. Santa knew her too, as we were all batch mates of the same school. It is such a stark coincidence to meet someone you know, that too a batch mate, at a random tourist spot! The encounter progressed with loud shrieks and excitement. Lanta was on a weekend getaway too. As we walked we talked about everyone in our batch who were married, engaged, divorced or making babies. The time we spent at the falls with our new company was priceless. We walked back with lots of memories and were exhausted from all the laughter and exhilaration. By the time we reached the car it was time to bid goodbye to Lanta and the wonderful time we had with her.

“So, where did you stay? I asked in curiosity.

 “Oh. This resort…”.she said carelessly. “We were supposed to check out yesterday. We tried to move our car out of the parking area, but because of the rain one of the tires got stuck in the mud. We tried every possible way to get it out. There was another car parked adjacent to ours. If that one could be moved a little bit, there were chances we could get ours out”

“Then?” Santa and I asked in unison.

“Then what! In an attempt to not disturb the tourists we tried to get the tires out of the mud hole in the incessant rain. Finally drenched and tired we went to reception and they accompanied us to the cottage of the tourists whose car it was”

 “Those cowards did not respond despite us knocking for at least ten odd minutes. The staff tried to contact them on their mobile phones but after the rain started, the network was screwed as well. So we went back to the reception and extended our stay. As we were supposed to be back home yesterday and couldn't be contacted on mobile, our parents were terrified and had a sleepless night” Lanta turned to her husband ..’Honey, which cottage was it?’ 

“Cottage Number 29. Jungle Hut’.

Lanta drove her way back to Kerala.

Back in the confines of our car, we felt amused and terrible at the same time. We were too surprised to express our confused emotions.

Our extended weekend was over and we drove into our respective busy lives. That same night I took my mobile, and messaged Lanta.

“We were the ones in Cottage 29, Jungle Hut. You're welcome. No mention”.

Comedy of Errors

I can't remember myself laughing out loud watching any movies from the recent past. After all laughing out loud has reduced to ‘lol’ and lasts even lesser than that. And I cringe by the supposed comedy which exists in movies these days.Cast a fat person, a dark person, a frail person, another with a peculiar accent and you have a whole movie under the humor genre.

The Asylum

In many futile attempts, portrayals of an asylum or people who have mental illness are used as objects of humor. To be honest, miserable people who live like animals are not to be laughed at. I've never found that funny, ever. 

The overweight friend of the protagonist.

Many a times, the hero’s friend is a guy who is overweight and his weight actually forms the base of many jokes in this movie. Whatever he says, be it a joke or not, gets people laughing.

An exotic animal.

Parrot, orangutan, dog, cat, chimpanzee, you get the idea. Illegal possession of an animal or making one the protagonist forms the basis of humor (or so they think). It gives an insight into the absence of creativity of the script writer. 

Physique and appearance.

A dark skinned person, a person with a cleft lip, one with bunny teeth, and another with some physical disability or dwarfism aspiring to be in show business or the like becomes the premise for two plus hours. 

I wonder why the good old situational and observational comedy does not feature in scripts of these times. I can say that people are more light headed today as compared to our serious and confused ancestors . But I must say that good comedy existed in the 80's and 90’s after which it has somehow deteriorated. Sex comedies and sarcasm are on the rise, punch lines with double meanings are in and a humor movie hardly gives us a laugh or two, not more. For an average movie loving Keralite, the classic Mohanlal-Srinivasan comedy from the 90’s, will top their list of favorite humor. Even though there were traces of black comedy in those, the evergreen classics guarantee many laughs even if we watch it for the umpteenth time. The dialogues are popular among the kids who weren't even born during at that era. 

It is easy to make you cry, but it is difficult to make you laugh. And in the process when movies try too hard to get a laugh out of the audience it shows. They end up being unintentionally funny.

So to sum it up, I am going to just cuddle on my couch and watch one of my most favorite movies, ‘Godfather’ (Malayalam), over a cup of tea and biscuits. And laugh like I am watching it for the first time. That is my idea of light, genuine comedy and the most inexpensive form of stress relief.

When tomboys are born..

I am pushed to write this post, after having read the one at Shobhaa De’s and another from fellow blogger Sowmya. Here is one more to add to the one hundred and one articles you've already read about YJHD – Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani. It doesn’t matter if you are a lover or a hater of it, but you cant just say that it wasn't entertaining.

When Deepika started the journey through this movie as a nerd, she’d been wearing short skirts and frocks, especially in a train where she had to climb an upper berth. The bespectacled one, who cannot think outside her textbook, ventures out on a trip with total strangers for trekking at Manali. This was a scene where the inappropriate dressing of her character caught the attention and criticism of the most amateur of movie goers. From then on, I completely ignored her and focused on Aditi, the brilliant and yet understated character portrayed by Kalki Koechlin. I cannot think of anyone else who could get into the skin of that character the way she did, and her side of the story kept the viewer guessing,  because the future of the protagonists Ranbir and Deepika was indeed the inevitable cliche. I appreciate the writer of this movie who knowingly or not scripted that scene in which Avi, played by Aditya Roy Kapoor cuddles with a random girl and Aditi gets fiercely possessive. The part where she hides her feelings and chooses not to talk about her love brought depth and reality to her character. This character is a slice of real life. Because that is how it is for a majority of girls.

Aditi is also realistic. Her love, Avi, doesn't even consider the fact that she is a girl. Neither did he look into her eyes even once. She was the quintessential girl pal, the one who is wooden at heart, at least for him. So there was no point in craving and waiting around, and she settles in life with the potbellied rich guy, for the reason that he loved her. Not for his BMW or the Antilla type home he probably lived in. And for this choice she made, we should applaud her, because tomboys are realistic. They live in the present and not in lacy dreams.

Why I am vouching for this character is because once upon a time I was Aditi too. I had those pretty girls for friends, and the boys asked me for their phone numbers. I was a wooden bridge that connected them to a book of phone numbers of pretty girls. However I was realistic too. We girls are born attention seekers, so am I, and I got the attention, albeit in a different light. That was when the tomboy in me was born. I am guessing that’s how tomboys are born everywhere.

There are no tomboys by choice. Tomboys are born when some level headed girls, who don’t think that wearing nail polish and getting manicures is the sole objective of life. They are the ones who dare to think beyond the men’s hostel. They are the ones who are logical. That doesn't make us less feminine. That doesn't make us feminists either.

At some level Kalki was the Anjali from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Except that, Anjali ran away when her feelings were not reciprocated, whereas Aditi was rock strong and dared to choose her own life without any regrets. 

Let there be more Aditis.


P.S: After I wrote this post, I tweeted the link to Kalki Koechlin, impulsively. Just like that. And see what I got ! And of course, I've been screaming from my rooftop about this ;-)

Photo Courtesy:Google.

The curious case of the missing credit card.

It was a lazy weekend. Kiddo and I woke up late and by the time we finished our routines it was closer to noon than to morning.  The hubby was not home. He is an early riser. Yes even on weekends :-O. Even that early bird which catches the worm stretches a bit on weekends. Sigh so much for me whose idea of weekend or any holiday for that matter is just sleep.

I placed myself comfy on the couch and the toddler got busy dismantling the toys he was recently gifted with. That’s when my phone rang . It was him.

“Hello?” I said.

“Where did YOU misplace my credit card !!!??”

I've been asked this question each and every single day of my existence with him that I get worried if he doesn't ;-) Honestly, this question and all the exclamations which translated itself into high frequency emergency tones did not even bother me. Because ever since I've known him, when something went missing, it was always ‘Where did YOU keep it…” .It is never “Do you remember seeing my credit card somewhere” or “Can you help me search this” or “Where did my credit card go I wonder” or anything in that category. It is always ’Where did YOU MISPLACE my credit card’ with an emphasis on YOU and MISPLACE.  Because he thinks my favorite hobby is to misplace things. Especially credit cards and other valuables.  

I continued, “I don’t know. Where are you? ”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Where are you? ”

“At the supermarket! My Credit card ! I used it yesterday at the …oh yes! Go check in the car dashboard… NOW!! And call me back.”

*SLAM*

I got up slowly…really slowly, picked up the toddler and pressed the lift buttons and went to the basement.  I walked towards the usual parking slot and did not find the car there. And then I realized. 

The phone rang again.

“Did you go to the basement? Did you search in the car dashboard or not?”

“Dint you go to the supermarket in that car?”  I almost yelled. 

Silence.

“Hello?’ 

“Okay I will check from here” he softly said, and hung up. You will not believe the sudden transformation in the tone of speech :D

P.S: Of course I sounded intelligent when he came home and said that I knew that the car was not here. I did not mention the part where I carried the toddler to the basement to search for it.

For those who are curious to know whether he found it finally, yes. It was safely sitting in one of the 6757325 pockets of the cargo trouser he was wearing at that time.

Our new, extended family !

So basically there are four people in our house. Hubby, toddler, myself and the TV.

Because, when the new TV arrived over a month ago, I was told that it had the ability to listen and obey (unlike the others in the house) and hence it will be considered as a person, and treated like a new born (like other gadgets and cables and wires and the dust sitting on them).

This new age television was obviously bought on an EMI scheme, because hello, we do not believe in selling kidneys to buy television sets. So coming to the TV, it is sleek and huge. It has got a remote control, but as they say, remote controls are hard to find and getting up every time to get a hold on it may even result in drastic consequences like movement of bones and loss of calories. So the television makers have eased our lives and increased our risks of obesity and heart disease by enabling the voice recognition software. So we just sit on the couch and say, ‘Hi TV, Power on’, or ‘Hi TV, power off’. 

Mind-blowing :D 

And when you raise your hand by just sitting on the couch, the television instantly brings the volume controls and we can adjust it there itself. This is not an excellent feature for people like me, because if I raise my hand to scratch my head, all the volume controls appear and I have two pairs of eyes rolling at me. I mean- to use hi-fi televisions like these, one should be well groomed . The TV does not entertain people with dandruff watching it.

Then of course it allows you to watch 3D. Like on weekends you have bloody  eyeballs from Final Destination3 rolling into your lap or the T-Rex eating your brain.

Now the good news is, that was also the first sentence my toddler said. Hi, TV power on. Praise the Lord, he talked to the TV first! I was moved to tears . Thankfully, the TV does not obey him because of course TV is TV and it doesn't understand baby language. (Neither do we).

But believe me the clarity is like a dream. Then of course it helps indirect means of communication. Like when there are  lots of chores pending for the weekend, and everybody else act like they are completely oblivious to it and place themselves on the couch, saying 'Hi Tv, power on', and from the kitchen I go 'Hi TV, get lost'. 

Hey, I do not disrespect anyone; I am talking to the TV! But a hint is taken ;-).Am I smart or what.

And if we talk aloud, the TV thinks that we are talking to it and brings a small bubble on the bottom of the screen which reads ‘Is it noisy around you?’ and ‘Try saying that again’ and then I want to yell…hey we have life going on here, so please! And to that usually it takes a Manmohan Singh stand. Somewhere inside a maze of wires and capacitors, it might be saying to itself ‘Theek Hai’.

Oh I almost forgot, I will soon be inviting you guys for the official christening ceremony. ;-) Of course it will carry a surname, and you know what that will be :D

Angels in Disguise.

Actually I wrote this article for Blogadda's contest on 'Soldier for Women' and missed the due date. The other participants actually got lucky :-P Anyway here goes...

It was a pleasant Sunday evening. My mother, the single alto singer in a choir that comprised of at least fifteen soprano voices, never missed the choir practice at 4:00p.m. My father always dropped her at the church premises before time, parked the car, and went walking. He would walk around one hour, come back and wait for her, reading his favorite Reader’s Digest. The choir practice usually went on for an hour and a half. I never made calls to her mobile at this time, mainly because the choir master hated mobile phones, and also because my mother was not an expert in setting it to silent mode.

One Saturday, I called my mother casually and she mentioned about the charitable concert their choir was about to conduct and how the choir master made the attendance of all singers mandatory. She went on to explain how annoying the he had become over the week, due to the upcoming concert and related pressure. She spoke like a child, scared of her new teacher. Then she said, ‘But Papa has to go to see his mother tomorrow. It is important. He tells me to go in an auto’ she paused and took a deep breath. 

Then she continued with an unexpected energy, out of the blue ‘May be I will drive to church tomorrow!’

‘But Mummy you haven’t driven in a long time’, I elaborated my concern.

‘So what, it is not a peak hour, and there is not much traffic’ she retorted. 

Papa was hesitant in the beginning, but later decided to go with her decision. Miles away, I cut the call and sat disturbed in my hostel room. To be honest, Mummy drove like crazy. She bakes the yummiest cakes, stitches her own dresses, makes stunning bridal bouquets and flower arrangements, but when it comes to driving she is definitely not the best.  ‘People learn through experience. Unless you drive on your own, alone, it is not possible to face the road’ said my hostel-mate just for the sake of saying.

On Sunday evening, around 4:00 p.m. my mobile rang. It was Mummy, and she squealed in delight to say that she reached safely, and that the car was parked parallel to another one, in the same compound. She also told me not to call her for another two hours, as the choir master was already angry at a few people who hadn't turned up. After this call, I got lost in my routine hostel activities.

Around 9:00 pm I called Papa to know whether he reached home, when my call reached a rather noisy place. ‘Hello? Where are you? Why aren’t you home already?’ I asked in a single breath.

Papa said, ‘We are at a hospital here. Mummy met with a small accident…’ he paused.

‘WHAT!’ I screamed.

Papa continued, ‘Mummy is fine. As she was driving back after choir practice, her car hit a two wheeler. A young guy who was riding it fell down. He is also fine now, we are going home. Mummy is paranoid, we will call you tomorrow’.

The next day as soon as I woke up I grabbed my mobile and dialed Mummy. Mummy answered my call in a voice which clearly sounded like she cried herself to sleep the previous day.  ‘Mummy!’ I said.

She narrated the incident like this.

“Yesterday, I was driving home after choir and had reached halfway when there was a left turn. I switched on my indicator, honked a little bit, and turned just like the vehicle in front of me, when I heard a loud thud on the side of our car. I stopped immediately, and so did all other cars behind me. Some people came running at that point and many others on the other side of the road also came running. Next I know, some onlookers were banging on my window, using abusive words, telling me to come outside. I was numb, shivering and completely oblivious of what happened. I saw people trying to open my side of the door angrily. My hands sweated and heart beat faster. I felt like I was losing my eyesight as everything was blurred. Then I slowly slid into the passenger seat in front and got out through that side, as some angry people were standing near the driver’s side of the car. I saw a young man on the pavement, unconscious, and a scooter lying next to him. It was then that it occurred to me, that I was responsible for the life of this man. He looked hardly 27. At least 50 people had gathered around our car, a traffic block was thus created and there was noise and havoc. I still dint know what to do, as fifty pairs of eyes were on me, and none on the victim who lay on the pavement. I froze.

Suddenly an auto rickshaw drove into the scene and its driver walked out straight to the victim. He checked the young guy and screamed ‘He is alive..!’ and lifted him with difficulty. None of the onlookers helped, neither did I! The driver put the young guy at the back seat of our car, strode to the driver seat and started the car! I stood watching, when he yelled ‘Madam what are you looking at? GET INSIDE!’ I quickly got into the front seat and that guy sped through the streets honking like crazy, signaling emergency. I called Papa and mumbled something. He drove to the nearest hospital. The driver stopped at the porch, called the staff of the hospital and put the guy on the stretcher and rolled it into Casualty section. The driver accompanied me as we walked towards the Casualty section, and a doctor emerged. They exchanged certain details, while I answered Papa’s call as he was on the way back, and I told him the hospital name. As I cut Papa’s call and turned, the driver was gone. I ran to the porch where our car was parked, and the security said that the driver had parked the car in the hospital parking area, and handed over the keys to me. I ran to the hospital entrance and searched every possible place, but he was gone. The doctor emerged from the casualty after an hour, during which Papa also managed to reach as we waited with bated breaths.

“Good that you brought him here at the right time… that guy is perfectly fine and he can go home tomorrow” said the doctor. Soon, an old lady and a pregnant woman reached the corridor where we were, and a nurse told us that it was the mother and wife of the accident victim. They did not recognize us. If not for the help and presence of mind of that auto driver, this mother would have lost her son, and a young woman, her husband. It would have changed their lives and mine, forever, for worse.

This auto driver, who stood up for my mother who was in a helpless situation, is a real soldier. The world needs more people like him. For me, he is a faceless and nameless person, who dint even stop to be recognized for his good deed.  

When the whole world prefers to point fingers and accuse, there are this few who actually make us believe that humanity still exists, at least in traces. 

Living the Sun's wrath.

Sorry for the long gap. I was at God’s own country over the week and couldn't blog due to lack of time and electricity. The week was mostly spent on taking baths and wiping sweat off our foreheads. Here are a few excerpts from my week long trip.

Cochin was like an oven, and we were all like pieces of chicken marinated in sweat waiting to be grilled. And it doesn't grill and finish us off. The pessimistic summer believes in the concept of slow death, wherein one is bestowed with the luxury of waking up and going to bed completely sweating like a pig, no matter how many baths one takes in between. And this, I am talking about a place few kilometers away from the city or the main road, in a compound with ample trees and greenery.  And to add to it I was exceptionally blessed enough to attend a function in the city, made to wear saree, in a hall where the air conditioner did not work as expected. By the end of the function, the heat had almost deprived me of all the water I ever had in my body and reached a stage where I was unsure of my existence.

I am writing all this, from the Middle East. When I landed here few years ago, I thought I was condemned to death just by the heat. Honestly, as compared to Kerala, Middle East is a paradise.

Another incident worth mentioning was my visit to the Lulu Mall at Cochin. The much hyped mall is said to be one of the biggest in India, and shopping was considered very economic. And people turned up in such huge numbers, that if you believe in the theory that there are seven people like you in the world, you could easily find them there.The mall became nothing short of a gas chamber. The centralized air conditioners had resigned themselves to their fate.Adolf Hitler would have considered this as a cheap method of mass slaughter. We regretted driving into this mall and got out of there by walk, later in a bus and an auto rickshaw to visit other places in the city, because driving in the city is a distant dream. Or if we had to get the car out of the mall it is likely that we'd have grown old by the time we reached home.

And another fateful day, I entered the bathroom to take a shower, when a spider decided to climb up my arm. I shrieked and shook my hand aggressively only to land that aggression on the nearest tap and bruised my wrist. The pain did persist for a few days. Guess who had the last laugh? The spider. Mothers of toddlers, please check your bathrooms for any spiders or other deadly animals before you lock yourselves in. Carrying or controlling a toddler with a bruised wrist in the scorching heat is not fun.

In short the trip was nothing short of sheer awesomeness. ;-)

Just a random working day.

As I work at a five minute walk from home, my working hours starts at 7:00 am ( I chose this shift to be able to reach earlier in the evenings ). Till 9:00 am, hubby takes care of the toddler. The child would be sleeping, so you can guess the amount of work that goes into it ;-) . Jokes apart, he does wake him up on time, gives him a bath, dresses him up (in the most obnoxious tee shirt and shorts combination which I later have to replace) and gets him ready for his playschool. I visit home for breakfast soon after and one day I found the house incredibly peaceful. No TV, no screams of the toddler. Occasional cute giggles of the toddler were coming from my room, and hubby humming a random tune was emanating from another. Something was terribly wrong.

I proceeded to my room and realized that my worst fear was happening. My toddler had caught hold of my ipad, and was playing Angry Birds in it. He had wanted to touch my ipad ever since I owned it, but by words and actions I had made it clear that it was not a toy. 

Don’t judge me, I cannot afford to buy ipads and give them to my toddler to play.  But he was so happily playing that I stormed to the bedroom where hubby was ironing his shirt.

“Dint you see that he is playing with my ipad ? With music on?”

“Yes . I gave it to him. See how cheerful he is! Awww”

“WHAT ! It is not a toy! Why dont you give your ipad instead?”

“WHAT? My ipad? I paid for that through my nose!”

“Then what about my ipad? We dint steal it ! We paid for that too !”

“But that is YOUR ipad no? Its okay” he said.

I mean what is the logic of that. My ipad is a toy. His ipad contains high security political information of the country’s Armed Forces.

I left the room fuming and snatched the ipad away from the toddler and replaced it with something else. This cant be happening. Do I look or behave like a cartoon to be treated like this. How can all my stuff be considered as toys. Hmph.

So we started from home, and the kiddo was dropped at playschool, and after he waved goodbye, I waited some more time watching him play with his girlfriend (who comes to playschool in a Hummer and I am not complaining )during which he gave me a look which translates roughly to ‘Please leave!’ On our way back I casually told hubby how the summer was catching up. I missed my sunglasses which were resting comfortably in some dark corner of hubby’s home in Cochin – I left it there last Christmas. I sighed aloud.

“Yes for your forgetful behavior, you should feel some sun this time, so that next time you won’t forget” preached the hubby. “Before misplacing this, you lost another one, remember?” he added.

“Whoa! You lost one too ! This is your second!” I argued.

“ Mine was stolen” he defended himself. “But yours was not, it is there somewhere but you don’t know” he said.

“Mine was stolen too!!!”

“No your sunglass just went missing it wasn’t stolen” he insisted.

“Oh I see? Did you see somebody stealing yours? It also went missing right?”

Silence.

"Your sunglass went missing, and you believe it was stolen. Mine is missing too, and I believe it was stolen as well."

“FINE”.

Silence ruled the car for some time, and I decided to break it. I thought of ways to change the topic and the mood and came up with a mind blowing one.

“You know, Ray Ban aviators are cool.”

I am really bad at changing topics.