Ten Commandments of the seemingly underprivileged!

As I opened this document to write, I was completely blank. Where did all the topics go? I mean I sacked a lot of them just because it may 'unknowingly' refer to some readers ;-) But thanks to Facebook and Whatsapp, I am well connected to everybody at the meager cost of broadband internet. If it were not for internet, would we reach out for our landlines to talk to our friends we interact with everyday on Facebook? No, not in a thousand years. 

Today, I am going to highlight some of the weirdest misers I have heard about and others, I have personally encountered. I am sure this will ring a bell somewhere as you read, because chances are more that you have come across one. 

To save money, and how!

1.Thou shalt not make phone calls. 
Local, STD, any calls. 

They do not even use the 100 free local calls facility available in the landline hoping that it will be en-cashed one day and it can be used to fund that square plot near Infopark. But when someone else calls them, the caller is not spared for a good hour with the most mind-numbing conversation, ever.

2.Thou shall miscalculate on purpose.

When a group of six friends buy similar dresses to wear on graduation day, the total amount Rs.6500 is divided by 5 and each one has to pay Rs1300, says this little devil. When you dig deep into the bill and ask her, the perpetually shrewd friend admits having made a 'small mistake'. But you know it wasn't, even though you have to pretend otherwise.

3.Thou shall not go on vacations. 

They do not plan nor do they participate in any group excursions simply because pitching in the total expense can be avoided by sitting idle in the comforts of one’s own home. There are others who actually come and have fun but play evil procrastinators when it comes to money.

4.Thou shall attend all parties but never host one. These weirdos can be found in corporate corridors and are as common as dirt. When there is a birthday or anniversary of any kind, they will be the first ones to initiate a treat or demand a party. However in all the years you know them, their birthday remains a mystery or there are enough reasons to embarrass the ones who ask for it.

5.Thou shall not buy anything new. 

These are people who were born to use second hand items. In all their lifetime they do not have a concept of a new car or a phone. It has to be second hand or Chinese make and they are fulfilled to their heart's content. 

6.Thou shall act innocent. 

These are our friends who consistently forget their purses or cards and reveal the same when the bill arrives. Someone covers for them at the moment, and it is forgotten. Dignified corporate friends find it cheap to remind their forgetful friend about the 200 rupees from 'last week's party'  and thus ignore it. Mission accomplished.

7.Thou shall car pool. 

Car pooling could have been introduced to save the environment but this was a blessing for many cheapos who keep their precious machines under covers in the garage. You always have that guy who tells you where he needs to be picked and dropped in a team outing.

8.Thou shall criticize.

These are the same people who own acres of land and runs highly successful family businesses but act very modest. When the comparatively poor you save for a million years and afford to buy a new phone they criticize you of being very rich and extravagant. In most cases these people use mobile phones which have black and white displays.

9.Thou shall eat free lunches. 

These are the ones, who suggest getting together for lunch when it is not on your schedule. They persuade and suggest a restaurant, eat lavishly, burp and pass on the bill to you as if you are his single parent.

10.Thou shall calculate. These are the ones, whose outing day summary looks like this on their phones: 

Public Toilet – Rs.1 

Bisleri Rs.15.75 (when that 16.75 has gone from his wallet). 

However when you pay Rs.1200 at KFC it is not counted but instantly overlooked.

 Tell me, have you met any one of these annoying creatures ?

Caption Contest Results !

When I started the caption contest on my blog I had no idea that so many contestants would actually participate in it ! And lot of others who wished me on my Blog Anniversary... seriously guys..it was overwhelming. Anyway, I passed on all the entries to Papa, who by the way has read over 200 books and always has some by the bedside and at his study table. Well the genre of books he reads is something like a facebook relationship status - 'It's complicated'. It cannot be understood by mediocre brains like mine, so I never really interfere or borrow books from him. I am not a fan of philosophy also ;-) However he was happy to go through all the entries and gave me his top three favorite captions, and logically the first one is the winner, who will win a Rs.200 gift voucher for her next purchase from Flipkart!

And the winner is...

is..

is..

Preeti Dhingra !!! Congratulations !!! Here is to you!

Her prize winning caption was.. " Let me fly before I sink."

Papa also liked the below captions, which he thinks are worth a mention. Unfortunately I have no gifts to give them. Sorrie :-( But thanks a ton !

Flight for existence and a search for sustenance !  - Antony Fernandez

A bird learns to fish not because of talent, but because of hunger  - Karthikeyan Ravikumar

You can see the contest details here. 

So how was Easter, folks? Mine was good....ate a lot of food until the button of my dress around the tummy burst and landed into one of the curries. We had Appam and Beef stew for breakfast - authentic recipe followed through ISD call from the MIL ! There are no free recipes, people, just like there is no free lunch. 

 I have taken a pic of the stew (just in case you are hungry right now :D )

First day at Playschool : excerpts from an anxious Mom's diary.

Every Mom dreads that day. The day their little one goes to a daycare for the very first time.

Mine was no different; given that anxiety is my middle name. Thanks to my parents who abundantly bestowed the most exquisite gene pool to me, anxiety and tension being the two most prominent traits. 

My baby was at home from birth until he turned 20 months old, and I was at a stone’s throw at office visiting him at regular intervals and a housemaid managing him when I was not there. My mother visited a couple of times too, and things were going smoothly until one day, my maid got enlightened from the other world. She decided to play hard-to-get, increased her wages, and started being irregular for lame reasons. This was unacceptable and we started thinking seriously and browsing aggressively for good daycare centers.

And we landed one.

So my next step was… to get anxious. I started chatting with all Moms I have on my chat list asking them what was the ripe age to go to playgroup. Given that my kiddo gets hyperactive around other kids his age was a sure sign that a forty year old housemaid is no company to him. Many of my friends were happy to help me get myself together over an endless list of queries and worries I had. I got a sense of reassurance from them. I visited the daycare center a few times, and shed some tears while talking to the teacher in charge because I am an emotional mess most of the time i.e whenever I am not sleeping.  I ensured the daycare was certified, made careful observation about cleanliness, the children to teacher ratio and most importantly how engaged the kids appeared whenever I visited. I noticed that none of the kids including babies were crying and they all were engrossed in something or the other, as the big bright room had enough toys and stationery to keep tiny tots busy for a long time. This boosted my confidence a little bit. I must tell you, I’d been at the crossroads of life many times and in do-or-die situations (read examinations) too, but I've never been through such emotional stress, ever.

As weekend falls on Thursday and Friday in this part of the world, Saturday was the first day of the week. Then came Saturday, February 23^rd 2013.

Before that, I will let you guys peep into how February 22^nd went. Complete disillusionment. Yes we went out to buy lunch and snack boxes for him, during which I was still in a state of complete delusion. I did not sleep that night. My mind wandered around his playschool and I pictured him in the worst scenarios. I was not helping myself in the belief and faith part of prayer. Soon my alarm went off, and I realized that nights are very short when you are preoccupied. Nights are also short on examination eves, but that is a different story.

So on that day, I woke up at 5:00 a.m, that’s when my working day starts. The kitchen schedules were completely reoriented to pack his lunch, thus pushing our breakfast into a second priority. Diapers, dresses, napkins, lunch, snacks, milk, water – Check. Around 9:00 am, we left from home. My hands were sweating like crazy, while my son was humming away a random tune.

Soon we reached the nursery and were welcomed by smiling teachers and a lot of kids of different age groups and nationalities. The bigger kids had assembled there before going to their classrooms. As they left the play area seemed bigger and brighter with all sorts of toys and little rides. Four other toddlers almost the same age as him stood there playing among themselves. When he saw the big bright room, he struggled himself out of my hands and walked towards the toys. He got into one of the rides, and turned and smiled at me. I stood there for a while, and he occasionally turned to look at me, not knowing that I will not be there for long. I fought back tears. Seeing my constipated expression, my husband intervened and asked.. “So you think the parents of those kids dumped them here because they don’t like them?”

“No..”

“Then what? See how happy he is now. He may miss us, but this is where he wants to be during the day. Not at home watching those useless serials with the housemaid”.

Okay that went above my head, and the teacher consoled me that he will be fine and that they were all there for him. She also told me not to stay there looking at him too long.

I slowly left, with a heavy heart, wiping tears. I also called up the nursery like ten times and they said that he was not crying. However the nursery being a new place for him, he did not sleep on the first day.

I picked him up in the evening, and he was little tired but still smiling. He came home and caught up on sleep.

The days after, for around two weeks, he cried when we dropped him, and clung to me refusing to go. This literally broke my heart and I cried excessively on my way back to office every single day. I wailed, hyperventilated and became the loudest drama queen ever in the history of motherhood. Not to mention the levels of productivity at office on those days.

It is his fourth week at playschool now, and my prayers have been answered. Since last week he looks forward to go ,  has made new friends, sleeps and eats on time and is happy by the grace of the Almighty. The day has come that I can wave to a happy face when I drop him in the morning. The day I was praying so badly for, is finally here. That smile, and the way he waves at me is directly proportional to my sanity and presence of mind that day.

This is for all the mothers, working or not, who dreads a nursery or a playgroup and cannot imagine sending their precious child to one. I assure you, from experience, kids always love to be around other kids than with us. 

Blog-anniversary and Contest !

March 2009. It was when the Tsunami of corporate world hit worldwide - Global Recession. People who lost their jobs, people who dint know they lost their job, people who are on the verge of losing their job were some of the main catastrophic categories that software people fell into generally. It was only two months into my wedded life, my husband was then an employee of the most controversial Indian software company of that time, and I had changed my job and location as well. It was a difficult time for me as the mind needed time and lot of pampering to come to terms with a life that had lot of first’s to offer.

One fine morning as I walked into my plush office I met a group of girls seriously in discussion right there at the reception area. Their expressions screamed panic. That was when I came to know that the guy we were reporting to had been fired. Not just him, twenty five others. It was happening. We were a group of new employees who were practically unassigned to any project of course due to lack of it. We were the ones who could be chucked out any moment of the day. The fear had actually set in.

Even though we were on ‘bench’, we still had our own workstations and computers to browse. I was mentally disturbed about the state of affairs and this led me to reading light and entertaining blogs. I loved reading and relating easily to the whole load of creativity that floated effortlessly in various blogs and increasingly grew jealous of them. I had a lot of things to write as well. Why don’t I start a blog of my own? I thought. This thought materialized itself and my first post was born on March 30, 2009. Since then there was no turning back.

It has been four years and no one ever told me to go home, people only tell me to ‘keep blogging’! Is it not an achievement in itself? In June 2011, hours after my son was born, I was chosen for a fifth prize (Rs.10,000) on the topic ‘ The Real Beauty’, a contest conducted by Dove and IndiBlogger. That was probably my first and only prize but it still gives me a high like no other! I made it a point to update my space thrice or more every month and it was always welcomed with oodles of encouragement and criticisms in the form of comments, which always gave me the push to come back and write more.

I recall the days I made every effort to feature in the school and college magazines. My vocabulary was not great, ideas were not new, creativity lower than mediocre, but to see my name in print was the only motive I had in my life (despite the other motives my parents and teachers had for me).

When the blog was kick started, it was topped with consistent support from my parents, husband and sister. Altogether I can tell you, it was a success recipe, though it was the recession which was actually the driving force behind it.

So this is the month of celebration, of four years of existence on blogger. Now it is up to hubby dear to decide whether it is going to be Damas or Joy Alukkas :D

Cheers to all my fellow bloggers and some awesome people who have made it in my facebook and gtalk as well !  I am indebted to you and also jealous of your blog! ;-)

So as a token of appreciation I am conducting a small contest right here.
Suggest a caption for the below picture, in less than 15 words, which by the way is a click by my hubby. I am giving away a prize too, which is a gift voucher worth Rs.200 for your next Flipkart purchase.

The prize is sponsored by Coupondunia, which also has discounts on Flipkart coupons, Dominos coupons, Snapdeal coupons and others. It is a boon for online shoppers. Visit their site to know more so you may save better on your next online purchase.

But first things first. Send in your captions in less than 15 words to anitajeyan@gmail.com with the subject #Caption. Or you may even put your captions on the comments section of this post. I am not going to be the judge, don’t worry, there are better and well-read people who have agreed to shortlist the winner! Send in your entries, please participate, multiple entries allowed !

Contest Closes on March 31st.