From tears to smiles

I walked down N to the bus stop or car stop (he goes to playschool in a car). I let him walk at his own pace today - stopping on the way to admire the red, puhple (that's his version of purple) and lellow (that's yellow) flowers.

He ran behind the butterflies and climbed onto stones. He shook hands with the perplexed security guard and waved bye to the daily wage labourer.

When his pick up car came he calmly went into the maid's arms. He then made himself comfortable in the rear seat, looked up at me and said "Bye mama". There was no smile ~ yet. I am hoping it will be there soon.

Cut to the first few days of going to school in the car. Neil bawled with big tears rolling down his cheeks and was upset about leaving mommy behind.

As time progressed (almost a month) the big tears gave way to smaller ones and then sobs and then just a sad face and then a straight face. Hoping to see a smile soon!

These little ones take time to trust someone but then they eventually do trust you wholeheartedly. He looks forward to going to school with "Driver bhaiya".

30 ROCKS!!

Atleast it wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be.
I turned 30 today err technically yesterday - 20th June. I was dreading turning 30 as if overnight I would have more gray hair, I would have more wrinkles on my face, I would add a few pounds to my already out-of-shape body structure. But none of that happened!

I didn't feel any wiser or more patient either. I was still running behind and yelling at N. I was still feeling crabby, irritated and short tempered when my birthday lunch plans went awry!

But then when I look back at 30 years of my presence on this planet... life's been great! I have taken risks, used my heart more often than my head. I have studied hard and made sure that I could support myself (the credit for that goes to my parents).

I have travelled, made friends, tried new cuisines, shopped like crazy, partied, read a lot (I want to read lots more and have a library at home), laughed and loved with all my heart.

I have had my share of heart breaks, have seen beautiful sunrises and sunsets, walked over sandy beaches and icy mountains.

I have no regrets in life. I am happy ~ thats what matters!
And I look forward to the next 30 years of my life.

Round chappatis anyone?

There is a section of our society that judges women on how good their cooking skills are.
So if you cannot make round chappatis or cook a meal for 4 in a jiffy or cut beautiful salad like they teach in cookery classes then you don't quite fit into the "good-housewife/perfect-bahu (daughter-in-law)" mould.
It doesn't matter that you are an individual with other talents or maybe you are a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. 
If you belong to this club of "not-the-world's-best-cooks" then the aunts will roll their eyes and look at you in pity, the baaju-wali-aunty shall offer unsolicited advice on how to roll out round-perfectly-fluffed-up-pooris, moms and moms-in-law shall try to pacify you by appreciating the one dish you can make well aka the bread sandwich, the rest of the relatives shall tsk tsk and try to lighten the situation by saying things like "Its OK! after all she works" or "These days there is so much else to do, where is time left for cooking" or "Taking care of the kid is such a big task in itself".
What no-one says is that it is OK if you can't cook or don't like cooking. Not every lady likes to read or dance or play tennis or drive or fly or work so why does every lady need to like cooking?

Broken yet enough

My son N is 20 months old now. His vocab is increasing by bounds and leaps ~ almost  3-4 new words everyday. He has started broken sentences too which is kind of fun. S (my husband) and I need to put together a joint effort to figure out the meaning of some of these sentences though.

So the other day he came back from playschool and me being the average-curious-about her-kids-progress-mom asked him "What did you do in class today?" In response he looked at me with big round brown eyes with an expression which seemed like "How do I care ma? I go there to play" 
And then he said animatedly "Mam", "No cry", "Driver bhaiya" "peep peep".

All I could figure out was his teacher told him not to cry (which means he is still crying at class) and the driver pressed the car horn (which N loves doing in our car and his masi's scooter).

Am looking forward to more of this.... Even though the words are broken yet they are enough for us to communicate.  

My best friend!

I never had "one" "single" best friend throughout school, college and work-life. I used to fit people in my ring of concentric circles. The outermost circle being acquaintances aka the "hi-hello" friends, The next inner circle was made of people somewhat closer than the acquaintances - people whom I shared some common interest with and hung out once in a while. The next inner circle being "close" friends - who knew my secrets, with whom I could be my self and hung out most of the time. The innermost or core of this ring of circles was never occupied by a friend - not because I couldn't find someone to fit in there. It was because I already had someone who couldn't be replaced - my sister.
                                            She has been there for me from as far as I can think of. My earliest memory of this goes back to when I was 5 or maybe 6 years old. I used to be afraid of the dark. One day while we were playing hide and seek - it was my turn to hide. I went into the corner of the farthermost room in our colonial style army bungalow and hid myself behind a huge trunk. My parents were sitting outside on the terrace sipping their evening tea. Suddenly the lights went out and I panicked. My sister who by-the-way was 3 or 4 years old that time ran into the house. My dad followed her into the house, worried that she might hurt herself in the dark. But she was quick, she looked into all the rooms and found me crouching behind that trunk, eyes shut and ears closed. She sat down next to me and hugged me saying "Didi OK". I am not afraid of the dark any longer but this incident will stay with me forever.
Whenever I have been down and out through college - I was in a hostel during my engineering days - she was one person who could cheer me up and bring me back to my exuberant self. She just knows which buttons to trigger.
She has excused and ignored my shortcomings. She sometimes does not agree with what I say or do. And she has voiced her opinion in those cases. But she has the maturity to understand that it is OK for us to have separate opinions and ways of doing things. We can stay together and yet have our own space. We share common interests - going out, watching movies, eating and window shopping. She is my stress buster, my unpaid babysitter, my masseur (she is so good at a pain relieving massage along the back bone and shoulders), my 3 am pillow talk person, my confidante and my partner-in-crime. My sister - my best friend!