Turning over a new leaf - Part 2

Two lines. And pink at that. How scary can they get? Right?

Wrong!



Yes, it takes only these two parallel pink lines to throw you into a tizzy. To tell you that those hallucinations you were having the previous night in bed, sleeplessly tossing and turning,somewhat excited,somewhat nervous, somewhat anxious,somewhat unsure have actually come true. No wonder those butterflies in your stomach couldn't stop fluttering all the while.They already knew what was up over there.

That's when you realise all of a sudden, that you are not alone, even in that restroom where you're standing staring at them.

I mean, these home tests are great, aren't they? For one, they make something as mundane as going to the bathroom first thing in the morning, so eventful. You see them, smile at yourself in the mirror while clutching your belly when you suddenly remember there's another stakeholder involved who is snoring away to glory in the bedroom,blissfully unware that the world has actually changed inside that restroom not too far away. You pause for a second and think of breaking the news to him in a much more fanciful way. After all, when would those "101 awesome ways to tell your husband the big news" you so diligently read in Cosmo come to any use?

"Who are we kidding?", you think. You know you haven't been able to keep the lid on anything for more than probably a couple of minutes your entire life. You barge out and wake up a rather sleepy husband who thinks he is sleepwalking when you lead him holding his hand to the restroom. You walk all the way with a broad grin, surprised you haven't blurted it out to him already. You show him the test half expecting him to break into a jump-up-and-down sort of jig. That grin on your face is still on. He's still not fully awake. He just looks at the test.Keeps looking. Doesn't seem to comprehend the situation, let alone the hysteria. Not a good thing when the frenzy has reached a fever pitch with you. You realise you are this much away from whacking his head and yelling "Look what you did!". But, just in time, you know it has finally dawned upon him when he smiles from ear to ear and responds with a hug. Sigh. No jumping up and down, but you got to take what you get. You both return to bed deciding 6:00 am in the morning is not the time one should ever have to wake up from sleep, no matter what. Somehow you drift off to sleep. I'm guessing that grin was still on. This time though, on both faces.

The fact that the baby news came close on the heels of my MIL's passing evinced all kinds of responses from the family. As one can imagine, there were quite a few who would comment about my MIL "returning" through me or how pleased she would be to have known it had she been around. My aunts, specially the one who had set me on this race against my biological clock was ecstatic. L'il sister couldn't stop shouting "Really?" when I called her, despite my threats to hang up if she said that one more time. And needless to say, dad was all too pleased. I saw a genuine smile lighting up my FIL's face after days of grieving. The pall of gloom that had descended on the family had finally, begun to fade.

They sure printed that right on the test. The result was Positive. In more ways than one.

And once the delirium died down, the waiting began. For those visible signs of pregnancy. But there was none to be. No morning sickness or food aversions/cravings. No aches and pains and not much fatigue either. It wasn't really easy for my hypochondrial self to deal with this situation. I mean, come on, everyone should be granted atleast one true "filmy" moment of their pregnancy. That throw-up-and-everyone-smiles-coyly scene or the get-dizzy-and-fall-safely-into-your-husband's-arms scene. However, I wouldn't call my pregnancy a cakewalk either though. There were those sleepless nights and backache issues in the final two months. But what the heck, this was a pregnancy, not a common cold.

And while the smooth sailing was going to last, it dawned upon me and G that we should have this one last vacation before the baby arrives on the scene and all hell breaks loose. So, we packed our bags and got on a plane to Dubai. The land of extravagance. Where everything is larger than life and built to breathtaking proportions. We drove through the deserts amid endless sand dunes and also felt the sea breeze in some of the blue-est waters I have ever seen. And of course, what better therapy to soothe a hormonal pregnant woman than the retail variety? Just like oil, there's no dearth of malls in Dubai. We soaked in the aromas of the Spice Souk and cursed the obscenely huge sizes of gold ornaments in the Gold Souk. Oh yeah, that's what you do when you can't afford them.
I think it was right after this trip that we picked out the name. "Smriti" (meaning remembrance in honor and memory of both moms). Yes, only one name. Female. My sixth sense had never wronged me. Both of us so wanted a girl and knew we were going to have one. In fact, we pretty much spoke about 'our daughter" everytime we discussed the baby.

Not long after, the baby decided that the parents were having too much fun and decided to intervene. Those were the days I went to bed every night with a prayer that labor doesn't kick in at midnight. Guess the prayer wasn't good enough.For I realised that God had different plans when I discovered at 2 in the morning on Sep 10 2008 that my water had actually broken. And lo, there it was! My very own "filmy" pregnancy moment - the-husband-dashing-to-the-hospital-at-midnight-with-a-wife-in-labor-cursing-left-and-right scene.

Twelve hours of screaming my guts out,and one huge push later, the gyanec finally pulled out and plopped her on my belly. I was all set to smile that triumphant "I-knew-it-would-be-a-girl" smile when the gyanaec announced. 'Male baby - Born at 2:35 pm". My sixth sense had been kicked in the ass.

My Smriti was a boy!

I reckoned "Dang it" wouldn't really be the nicest first words from mommy to baby. And smiled an exhausted smile to him while hoping that he hasn't realised how awful mommy can be.

Truth be told, there were no tears of joy or anything even remotely close. I guess, it was the exhaustion and relief (that the ordeal called labor was over) that totally overshadowed the overwhelming joy bit. I held him close for almost the whole day there after. Yet, the signs of extreme joy or fulfilment seemed elusive. You hear about other women speak wonderful things about how they felt when they first held their babies and you think they are such awesome moms. And when you seem like you don't exactly fit the bill, you start doubting yourself wondering if there's something amiss.

Who knew that it would take jaundice and a phototherapy box to dispel those doubts?
It was only a day after his birth that the baby developed jaundice. "Happens to every baby" said the paediatrician, almost callously. They brought a huge contraption with fluoroscent lights and placed him in there. With a blindfold and no clothes on. And that just broke my heart. The waterworks which were missing at the time of his birth showed up now. I must have cried for hours into my pillow just watching him lie there rather helplessly. And then, I knew. I was in love with this little fella. Madly.

The story of the besotted mommy had begun.

(To be continued...)

Turning over a new leaf - Part 1

Death.Birth. Rebirth. A New Beginning.

They all happened. Right here. In my life.

I have written of my mother in this blog. As much as that post was a celebration of the amazing person she was, it also spoke of a sense of void that has been left behind in my life with her passing.
Only people close to me know the cause. Or rather I choose not to talk about it to everyone who wants to know "what happened" due to reasons, some obvious and some not so much.

Cancer.

Some years ago, when my husband G and I were on the brink of starting our wedded life together, I'd sometimes open up to him about how my life changed forever after she was diagnosed with a Stage 4 case of the kidney. He, who had never met Amma, would patiently listen to my heart wrenching account of her suffering and offer that much needed shoulder of support ,all the while sympathizing but never truly perceiving the magnitude of impact on the entire family when a member, more so, the mother falls prey to this deadly monster. I was thankful enough I'd found my sounding board in him that I never cared or even wished that he be able to empathize.

Little did I know then that the monster would return. Yet again.

A couple of years after our wedding, when G and I were in the middle of our respective professional assignments in the US , we learnt about his mother being diagnosed with a Stage 3 malignancy of the stomach. When we returned to India immediately thereafter, the doctors assured us that all hope wasn't lost and there were realistic chances of a recovery.
Usually, just a malignancy diagnosis is enough to devastate you . I half-expected to see a totally bogged down person weakened both physically and mentally, but a surprise is what I was in for. She did look a little emaciated from the surgery but I'd never forget that smile lighting up that rather paled down face as soon as she saw her son and her daughter in law at the doorstep. The surgery and the diagnosis was probably all forgotten that one moment as she melted into her son's arms.
Later that day in the kitchen, as she poured coffee into cups, she said "Its your father in law I am worried about..I can totally handle this, but I am not sure how he's going to. I don't want to hassle anybody in my family". As she looked at me, I could see half a tear at the corner of her eye. Eyes of a beautiful middle aged woman that I'd seen teary only when she bade goodbye to us on our onward journey to America. Those tears weren't the "heavy" kind. They had a rather flimsy purpose, lament about someone you're going to miss for a year or two. You vented and you were done. You would even forget you were teary eyed a while ago.
But this tear was heavy...With fear. With uncertainty. With sadness. With guilt.
The last I saw it was in my own Amma's eye when she had to undergo a major brain surgery at a time when both her student daughters were in the middle of their grad level exams.
I had hardly lived with my mother in law to know her well. It was just about three months after our wedding that we traveled to America. But that day, I knew this. If there was anyone going to be her tower of strength through this entire ordeal, it was herself.

Dozens of chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions ensued thereafter. She amazed the docs themselves with her never-say-die attitude and resolve. She made the hair loss issue seem like a minor cosmetic change that she was going through, making no qualms about hiding it under a wig. She avoided discussions about the disease with anyone who brought it up even by accident. She was cooking, traveling, attending family functions, gardening..doing just about everything that had made her the energetic and enthusiastic person she was.

She so wanted to treat this whole episode as a nightmare that she will one day wake up from and heave a sigh of relief realising it was all just not real.

That never happened.

Our relationship though only went from strength to strength through the entire ordeal. We were talking more. We were sharing more. We were learning from each other more. We were being grateful for each other more. I am not sure if we would have bonded any better otherwise. I sometimes wish we hadn't.
One particular day, when most days had turned miserable, she lay there on the hospital bed looking at me rather wistfully as I massaged her feet. It was a time when she no longer had the strength to talk much or be mobile. Those days, my eyes had become weary of making contact with hers to avoid becoming teary . I felt a nudge on my elbow and I moved closer.

"Did you need something? A blanket? Something to drink, maybe?"

As she nodded, I felt her frail, almost shivering palm stroking my cheek. I managed a slight smile clutching her palm in return, but somehow they rolled down, the damn tears. And right there in that hospital ward, in absolutely no words at all, she conveyed to me something so clearly that words couldn't. I had become to her, the daughter she never had.

And then her battle was over. Cancer proved itself invincible yet again.

Another loss. To me, of a mother, yet again.

It has been well over a year and a half now. Her spirit lives on though. In the warm, wonderful home that she built for her family...

...And, in the smile of one certain person she never could meet. A newcomer.A debutante.

(To be continued...)

The Mars-Venus dialogue

The 22 questions tag has been doing the rounds across the blogosphere for quite a while now.
Almost every female blogger worth her err..estrogen has given this one a shot.
So why be left behind eh?

For the uninitiated, these are 22 questions asked my men to women to better understand them.

1. How do you feel after a one night stand?
Zilch. You don't get into one night stands with people you have "feelings" for, do you?

2. Do you ever get used to wearing a thong?
Why bother about another pain in the butt when we already have you ?

3. Does it hurt?
D-Uh!

4. Do you know when you are acting crazy?
Of course.. we plan it to the last detail. And the best part? Make you apologize for it at the end!

5. Does size really matter?
Tell me it doesn't really matter to you if its 36D or 32B and I'll answer with a "No" to this question.

6. When the bill comes are you still a feminist?
I've already been generous enough investing my time in you. Don't expect me to invest money as well!

7. Why do you take so long to get ready?
Try mentioning the word "Shopping" next time. Drastic improvement guaranteed.

8. Do you watch porn, too?
Well, it's a lot more fun watching you try to hide it from us, what say?

9. Will something from Tiffany’s solve everything?
Of course, honey. Just don't forget to slip in the the gift certificate. And at Tiffany's, they do store credit, don't they?

10. Are guys as big of a mystery to you as you are to us?
When you have mastery over something, it ceases to be a mystery, mister!

11. Why do you sometimes think you look fat?
We never do. Just giving you enough practice to rehearse and re-rehearse the "No". You don't want to invite catastrophe by answering otherwise, do you?

12. Why are you always late?
'Coz we don't do things that are not fashionable.

13. Does it bother you when we scratch?
Not if you use it on scratch cards and win me jewellery or cars!

14. Do you wish you could pee standing up?
Don't think so. All that aim-and-shoot in a day is no fun unless you're an archer or something!

15. Why do so many women cut their hair short as soon as they get married?
You know how life after marriage is. They just want to keep their bad hair days short, I guess.

16. How often do you think about sex?
This question somehow reminds me of the Mountain Dew slogan.
"Thinking...is such a waste of time" :-P

17. What do you think of women who sleep with guys on the first date?
They probably chose falling-madly-in-bed over falling-madly-in-love with those guys!

18. Would you?
I ain't a fallen person, either ways.

19. Do you realize every guy wants a girl just like his mom?
They say it takes 20 years for one woman to make a man out of her son and another, just 20 minutes to make a fool out of him. Wonder who should be like who?

20. Why does every woman think she can change him?
Well, if change is constant and the man in her life's also gotta be constant, shouldn't they both go together?

21. Does it matter what car I drive?
No. As long as you don't bore me to death with details of how it's so much better than your neighbour's.

22. Do you ever fart?
Nope, I believe in the burp-and-taste rather than fart-and-waste policy. (Sounded almost as gross as you, didnt I?)

So all you ladies out there who haven't done the tag yet, what are you waiting for?

Go ahead. Educate the (hu)man race.

It's about time..

..I returned.

To this nondescript yet comforting space of my own on the cyberspace.

Here's a long overdue 'Thank you' to everyone who checked on this space regularly and left notes here, on Orkut and in my mailbox(I make it sound like I have half a million visitors thronging this page every day,don't I?) . And a special 'thank you' goes out to Lavs for bestowing the "Thinking Blogger" award upon yours truly. I wouldn't be surprised if she has forgotten about the award herself , now that it's been sooo long! But trust me Lavs, it's truly fulfilling to know my writing appeals to you. I must also thank you for your subtle slap on my wrist for not posting consistently :)

No, it wasn't a case of the much talked-about Blogger's Block. Just a matter of my incapacity to squeeze some blog-time between 11 hours of slog-my-ass-off-at-work-time, 3 hours of commute-to-work-till-eternity time and 7 hours of sleep-like-a-log-out-of-sheer-exhaustion time. So you see, it was rather a case of Slogger's Slack!

Sometime in June,when my new manager offered me this hard-to-refuse role in a high visibility project in the organization , it didn't take me long to accept. The fact that it was driven by a crazily aggressive deadline and on a technology platform that I knew about as much as Laloo Prasad Yadav knows about Molecular Nanotechnology didn't deter me either. But once into it, it sure felt like sitting in this roller-coaster wondering whether my mind was on a vacation when I signed up for it. Hectic, it was. Draining, it was. Exhausting, it was. And now, after its success, I feel exactly the same way as one would after the roller coaster ride is over - Exhilarated. And Proud.

So while my sanity was still intact and to keep it that way, G and I decided that a really long-in-the-planning beach vacation in Malaysia couldn't have a better timing. And boy, did it turn out to be a vacation of a lifetime..
The idyllic beaches of Langkawi and the vibrant city that's Kuala Lumpur offered the right mix of serenity and joie de vivre that was just what the doctor (and the travel agent) ordered for the stressed out couple.

The resort staff, tour guides, sales girls in malls, museum curators, restaurant waiters, air hostesses..practically everyone we met asked us if we were on our honeymoon. In the beginning, we did nod sideways and say the honeymoon was three years ago.

I leave you with glimpses of a vacation so memorably delightful that left G and me nodding in agreement to the same question on our return journey!

All about (S)mi

One of my favorite bloggers has tagged me! To list eight little known things about myself. And ofcourse, the license of having one little lie 'camouflaged' in the list for the readers to identify, comes with the package.

So here we go..

1. I have a couple of "bunny teeth" that is in all probability the first thing you'd notice if you met me. My mom and other "concerned" family members tried all they could to get me to wear braces, in the fear of not being able to find suitors!!
Well, nothing came of that. And the irony? G thinks they are adorable!:)

2. There's a max lapse of 10 seconds between the plopping of my head on a pillow and deep slumber. I can sleep at the drop of a hat and not be awakened even with the loudest of noises.
A few years ago, there was a fire in a building hardly 100 metres away from home, at 2 am and apparently there were fire engines, loud sirens et al for a good couple of hours before the fire was finally extinguished. No wonder my neighbour couldn't stop rolling his eyes when he heard my response to the story that kept the entire locality awake through the night - "Really?"

3.I am a neurotic hypochondriac. I've spent many a sleepless nights worrying if my nagging headache is brain tumor only to be told by the doc later that all I need to do about it is to reduce the brightness of my monitor! Or wondering if I'd have a tetanus attack just 'coz I fell from a couple of stairs and ended up with a hardly visible bruise and having the doc laugh out loud on my face when I tell him why I'm asking for an anti-tetanus vaccine.

4.I never leave home without my Asthalin inhaler. I swear, that amazing little invention is the best thing to have happened to all asthmatics of the world. And just to clarify, there’s absolutely no connection between this and the previous point! :-P

5.I got drunk on red wine(!) once and confessed to G, my co-worker at the time, that I had a crush on him. That, was the first and last time I tasted alcohol.

6.I’ve attended five different schools, all in Bangalore, through ten years of my schooling.
A couple of those were real crappy and had teachers from those very schools summoning mom to advise her to get her "kid with so much potential" out of there asap!

7.I have a knack for making really really really soft chapatis ( a tortilla like bread) . My husband can never have enough of those.

8.When I was 15 years old, I’d punched a guy in the nose, when he’d tried to slip his hand under my shirt in a crowded bus. By the time I was 19, the number of ill-fated noses had climbed to about 10.

9.I bought a 3-bedroom apartment in a swanky locality in Bangalore when I was 23 years old.

Hmm..I'm starting to think the "lie-detection" job isn't really going to be too hard. Or is it?

The rule is to tag eight more people. But then when the total number of bloggers you are familiar with, on the blogosphere is about that same number, and half of them have already done this, two shouldn't sound like too bad a number eh?

So, Shyam and Accidental Diva..Go for it!:)

On Amma's Day

• She is the walking Webster’s English dictionary. Every time an unfamiliar word would cross my path, I’d just have look “her” up, instead of the big fat lexicon.
• She is the compulsive book worm. Tidying up a house so messy, that it looks like a war field or doing the pile of dishes forming a little mountain in the sink would figure nowhere on her to-do list when she would be in the middle of an interesting read.
• She is the in-house Deccan Herald Daily Crossword champ. Cracking the toughest of ‘em in record time and having only one person in the household to better it. Herself.
• She makes the most delectable Mysore Pak in the entire universe. Somehow or the other, it turns out the best only on my birthday!
• She weaves magic on her knitting pins, crafting the most exquisite of sweaters for Dad and the three of us. Turning us into show-offs amidst awestruck friends who just don’t seem to believe that the sweater was actually created from scratch, on our living room sofa.
• She carries off a salwar kameez with utmost elegance. Leaving her much younger perpetually-clad-in-a-saree sisters go green with envy when their neighbors mistake her to be their younger sibling!
• She and I yap for hours on end, standing in our balcony. One way or another, we never run out of topics. Whether it’s having a good laugh about dad’s goofy ways or a serious discussion about what career should choose for myself.
• She is the one I run to, every Sports Day after coming last in the Running Race,Skipping Race,Obstacle Race, well, every goddamn race and she would be ready with her line. "Never mind, Participation is important, there's always next year". Never mind that next year would be the same miserably sad story, yet that line somehow works like magic when she says it.
  
• She tells me very matter-of-factly that I look like Tabu and l’il sister looks like Karisma Kapoor. Lying all bandaged up in the ICU after a major surgery.
• She is a huge fan of Dev Anand and his histrionics. She must have watched every single Hindi movie produced in Bollywood, including those that the producers themselves never bothered to sit through. Yet cannot carry out a decent conversation in Hindi for nuts!
• She is “Amma” to not only us but another little cousin. Whose mother went back to work, entrusting him to her every day, knowing a smart post-graduate woman who chose to stay at home to look after her three kids, could never go wrong when it came to raising kids.
• She just won’t step out of the house without doling out atleast 65 instructions to me and L’il sister. Rattling ‘em off at 120 kmph, she knows we ain’t paying attention, yet never gives up.
• She knows it’s me, her 12 year old, who has rummaged her wardrobe when she wasn’t home and tried on all her sarees and left the wardrobe looking like a laundry basket. Yet, when she’s back, she just rearranges the wardrobe neatly without a whimper, leaving the nervous 10 year-old thinking her mom has no clue.
• She accompanies me, her jittery 10th grader to the exam hall every day, advising throughout the way, to take it easy and how getting "tense" could ruin my performance. And when the exam bell rings and it's time to get in the hall,suddenly I am the less "tenser" one around!
  
• She walked out on her father who objects to his post grad daughter marrying “just a graduate”, entering into the first love marriage of the family.Years later, all three of her children follow suit.
• She never fails to say "You won't understand now..You will when you're a mother yourself" at regular intervals. Invariably, l'il sister and I utter the second half of that sentence in chorus with her, as soon as we hear the first half from her. Yet, the line somehow never changes.
  

It's been six years since Amma's gone.

Yet, it doesn't feel like she's gone far enough to not hear when I say..

"Happy Mother's Day, Amma!"

World Cup Gupshup

It’s curtains for the Caribbean Calypso. And I bet I ain’t the only one heaving a huge sigh of relief. Phew! It’s finally over.

Sure, Ponting and Co are reveling in the glory of their hatrick triumph. Over a brave Sri Lankan side. Yes, “Brave” – that’s what the newspaper called the Lankans. Guess that’s as far as you can get when you’re playing Australia these days.
Seriously, are these guys for real? The way they bulldozed over any given team in the tournament, was there even an iota of doubt in anybody’s mind about who would win the cup in the end? Even if there was, one look at Ponting’s play and that’d be enough to dispel any.
The team will go down as the greatest in the annals of cricketing history..yada yada..yada..But hey, they’ve made the game so monotonous and predictable. All thanks to them, we don’t have the nailbiting, nerve-racking games anymore, that used to keep us all at the edge of our seats. I mean, is there any fun watching a match with them, when you know they’re just going to saunter in and annihilate the opposition , in a rather business-as-usual manner?

Lata Mangeshkar volunteered to step back and let others get a chance to win the coveted Filmfare trophy after there were countless of those bestowed upon her year after year. How I wish the Aussies take a leaf out of her life , lest there be “ho-hum-it’s-Australia-again” endings to the next 'god-knows-how-many' World cups!

Remember the classic Lance Klusener retort at the 1999 World cup when asked about how he felt about screwing up the semi final match for his team?
“(So what?) Nobody die(d)!”
True, that's the worst that could happen.
This year, sadly though, someone actually did. What was initially surmised as a succumbed-to-stress death turned out to be a murder most foul. A respectable coach murdered in the middle of a tournament and all that happens is the players just have one extra black ribbon to wear before they resume business again. What can be sadder than that?

Of course, lesser said the better about our (beaten black and) blue brigade. Their World Cup debacle prompted our irate junta to burn their effigies. But then, it also ended up burning holes in the pockets of many a sponsor! When the “Ladega toh jeetega” Pepsi ads or the “Mind and Body,Heart and Soul” Visa ads proved to be nothing more than money invested foolishly. And these ads being aired like a zillion times before the exit, just added to the sponsors’ expense and to the cricket viewers’ annoyance.
So, when the sponsors realised that they’re just maaro-ing the kulhaadi on their feet by airing their ads calling the team hilarious names like “Team Reliable” , someone in the ad industry came up with this even more annoying idea.
Of churning out ads showing random gully-cricket playing bachhas as future World champions! If you’ve seen the enormously irritating Pepsi gold “Agla World cup hum layenge” ad or the Surf Excel “2015 mein World Cup” ad, you’ll know what I mean!

Like our desi team, Mandira’s cup of woes has been overflowing as well. As though, she didn’t have enough troubles of her own already, making herself look like a complete nincompoop amidst the whos-who of world cricket on her show, the enraged “activists” find a new effigy to burn. Just when she thought she could manage to have everyone’s eyes glued to her noodlestraps and get away with wearing the tricolour on her saree. It quite did not turn out that way, did it? I suspect a certain Shilpa babe is now sulking at the Mandira babe for diverting all the attention of the activist junta away from her!

I wrap up, with my favorite World Cup 2007 anecdote.

G and I are watching a world-cup match where the hapless Bangla boys are being battered mercilessly by the mighty Aussies in a grossly one-sided affair.
A few overs into the match, I turn to him with a “What’s the point?” look on face. My hands stretched out, in the hope that he would probably surrender the remote that he , the compulsive sports freak, would otherwise usurp during the entire length of a cricket match.

The man looks back at me , with a “Don’t-even-think-about-it” glare.

I yell back at him as fiercely, “Come on, it’s not even like, India’s playing” .

Still fuming, he reasons with a straight face,

“ See, that’s exactly the problem . If India wouldn’t have exited the tournament, I wouldn’t have to watch these matches, would I? All thanks to our useless players, I am now forced to watch a team like Bangladesh!”

I don’t exactly remember tying him to the sofa or pinning his eye lashes open with a stapler.
Yet, what do you do when your husband, a full grown adult, makes an argument as “valid” as that?

I, for one, almost fell down from the chair, laughing! :)

The 'Phone' Identity

At work, the cubicle right across mine is shared by a couple of new joinees from another team. One of them is this jumpy youngster who can be often seen having outrageously loud conversations on the phone. When he’s not on the phone, he keeps himself busy with free coffee and snacks in the cafeteria. Both ways, ensuring he utilizes the office resources to his fullest capacity, of course. His repertoire also includes top-of-the-line acting skills, which is at its best when he swings into action, staring really hard at the monitor or typing away on his keyboard, at the sight of his project lead approaching his desk!:) Interesting bloke this huh?

But this is not about him.

This is about his cube-mate - the really quiet and unassuming Tamil girl, M. One would hardly notice M in that cube, except maybe on days when she’s wearing that extremely fragrant posy of jasmine flowers in her hair. Those are the days when the maintenance guys breathe easy, considering that they have one less task on their hand –of spraying room freshener in our floor.

M and I do exchange smiley hellos everyday and there’s the occasional small-talk about work. But, nothing beyond that.

So this week, as I headed home from work, I met M in the elevator lounge. As soon as we stepped into the elevator, her cellphone rang. And what I saw when she held up the cellphone to see who was calling, left me stunned!

“Husband” said the caller id display.

Husband? HUSBAND??

Alright,in my defense, I didn’t really mean to snoop or anything. But then, all thanks to the horde of over-enthu people wanting to run home, squeezed into the elevator , I had her standing right in front of me. And in the extremely small distance that separated us, if she held up something to her face, it was as good as holding it up to mine!

As I picked up my jaw that had dropped to the elevator floor by then, I wondered for a second if I’d misread the display. It couldn’t be that, could it?? Sadly enough, I hadn’t.

My first thought was this - You’d probably store your plumber’s name as “Plumber” in your phonebook, just because he’s identified that way a little more quickly than by his name, if he called. But surely, your husband deserves a better deal, doesn’t he?

And then through my daily bus journey back home, as I wondered what on earth made her refer to her husband by a name as cold as err.. “Husband”, a particular ritual in my wedding came to mind..
That was when the new bride (that would be me), was welcomed into G’s home for the first time after the wedding. The ritual is to stop the bride at the doorstep and “taunt” her by asking her to pronounce her husband’s name.
The rule is that the new bride has to act all demure and blush till her cheeks turn a dark shade of red and keep refusing. And the “taunters” will have the question on loop until you decide to give up.

Not meaning to sound curt, “G” , I blurted out immediately, in a tone that asked a “Didn’t you know that?” to the aunty who asked. Of course there was this cuteness factor associated with the ritual and most of them had a good laugh and all that. But still, I’m sure there were a few aunties and grannies in that room who’d frowned upon the rather audacious bahu.

Of course, we all know scores of women who don’t call their husbands by name. Most of our grandmoms and sometimes, even moms don’t. In fact, its commonplace to refer to one’s husband as one’s “yejamanru” (literally translated to “master”) in many a household in our state.
I ain’t no rabid feminist, but then this one still gets my goat.
Clearly, the term “better half” for a wife, wouldn’t sit well with people who coined this term.
I don’t even see them agreeing to “half”, let alone “better”.
To them, it all probably stems from the thought that your husband is someone you put on a pedestal. Someone you look up to and believe is only second to God (“patidev” after all eh?).

Does it sound a little too archaic for our times? Maybe, it does. But then, for M, it probably doesn’t.

I hope, things change soon with time and M gives a nicer name to her husband in her phonebook
For all we know, maybe I am just over-reacting to an innocuous phonebook entry or probably that’s her nick for him(it's possible, you know) or maybe she’s just being funny!

But seriously.. “Husband”??

Sur'prize'..Sur'prize'!

My earliest memory of receiving a prize goes back to the time when I was six years old. I was at this Annual Day event at school where the agenda, apart from the “cultural programs” (read song and dance numbers from kids made to wear make-up of at least two inches thickness!) also included a prize distribution ceremony. The idea was to reward kids who’d scored the highest in every subject in the curriculum, individually. A jolly good idea to avoid one smart ass namely the class topper, walk away with all the glory!

I was slated to receive three prizes, for English, Science and Social Studies. I was summoned on stage three separate times and was given three different books and some coloring pens. Well, the reality was that the only rewards I could ever dream of reaping were strictly restricted to academics. It was a distressing sight every Sports Day , when I'd get thrashed black and blue in all "races" I competed, by kids with far superior athletic abilities!

As I sat there with my friends, proudly showing off my heist, I was caught unaware, when I heard my name being called out yet again! Much to my surprise, I found out I'd found out that I had the highest scores in all three sections of 2nd grade! The management had decided to award a special prize for that particular feat as well!
The prize was a cool kiddy story book, a Russian publication that had this really amazing wrapper and lots of pictures. I remember L’il sister being particularly besotted with that book. So much so that, at the age of four, she’d mugged up the entire book and would compel everyone in the house to listen to her recital (both backward and forward!) at least once every day!

As for me, it was like being announced “Man of the Series” soon after you’ve been announced “Man of the Match” , the perfect icing on the cake! No prizes for guessing that I grinned from ear to ear during the rest of the day.

To think of it now, I feel it’s purely the surprise element or rather the shock element that’s left this incident etched in my mind, even after all these years.

So the last week at work, as I stared at the monitor pretending to decipher a complicated software architecture diagram, while actually surfing the net for the best spots to holiday in Malaysia in another window, I spotted my manager walking towards my desk. After the initial "how's it going" small talk, he went on to ask me to attend this meeting the next day with a different team(that he manages, apart from mine), in order to help them out of a major crisis that they'd landed themselves in. Now, this was not something that I was not used to, since I'd helped the same team resolve some issues even earlier.
Although I muttered a “Damn!Not Again!” under my breath, sending out silent curses to the goofy guys in that team, who messed up so regularly, you can't really refuse when your manager makes a personal request, can you? And I agreed.

The next day, as I walked into the conference room, expecting a room full of glum people, I noticed my manager looking a little too cheery for a crisis resolution meeting. Considering that he'd described the crisis situation as really colossal, I wondered how on earth this guy even managed a smile, even if it was fake!
But then, the smile only got bigger, as he rose from his seat and proceeded to deliver this absolutely fancy vote-of-thanks kind of speech, acknowledging my earlier contribution of having resolved some rather unnerving issues in that team. All praise for my effort, he went on to say how those issues had the team vexed for weeks and how I was able to resolve it in a matter of hours. As I sat there, feeling rather embarrassed, he dished out a cool backpack, and presented it to me, amidst much fanfare and applause.

After the meeting, he explained to a really-taken-aback me, that the whole crisis resolution meeting was just a decoy, and he'd called the meeting to ensure he recognized my effort in the presence of the entire team. The unjustly cursed 'goofy guys' hadn't really messed up in reality.

And I thought to myself - A "nice manager" is not really the oxymoron that I thought it was, after all! He very well could have let me know beforehand, but then he'd meant the whole thing to be a surprise, just to make me happier! What a darling eh?

Déjà vu! The surprise element had done it again! Enhanced the pleasure of being rewarded, many fold.
Whether it’s the story book or the backpack, they will be remembered fondly as two of the most memorable prizes I’ve received, all thanks to the happiness they’ve brought, when you least expected it.

Even then, it’s never about what prize you’ve been rewarded with, Is it?

It’s always the memory of the experience, that turns out to be the prized possession!

Turning Twenty Seven

When I returned to work this week, after a blissful trip to my l'il sister's at Hyderabad, I heard many a ‘what-i-did-over-the-long-weekend’ conversations in the elevator.

So, what did I do?

I turned 27.

As a child, my birthday was always the best day of the year. That was the day when mom would make my favourite Mysore Pak. Doting aunts and uncles would arrive to wish their neice. It’s another matter that the 50 bucks they would gift interested the neice way more than the wish! And for once, dad was not allowed to yell at me for anything goofy I did that day.
The only thing that peeved me was the date, that fell during the summer break in school. I could never be the gleaming kid in her brand new dress, distributing Nutrine pineapple flavored toffees to her class, while they sang the birthday song in unison. Funny how I was relieved about the exact same thing ,no-school-on-birthday when I got to high school though!

But then, the picture is not quite the same, when you are older, is it?

“27?? Oh you don’t look that old” said my visibly surprised co-worker, after she’d wished me.

And I thought about the “that” in her sentence. Should I be smiling about the fact that there are people who think I look younger than I am, or should I read into the way she stretched it making it sound more like a “thaaaat” which makes 27 borderline old-age?!

And then there’s my really really concerned aunt.

“27?? And you still don’t have a baby? Don’t you realize time is ticking away? Atleast, give me the good news by your next birthday!”

She's set me on a race against time now. Timed by not just one, but two clocks- biological and regular.Sheesh.

If that wasn’t enough, I recently saw this mentioned in a skin care article in my favourite mag, Cosmopolitan. They’d sectioned the advice by age group and of course, I had to look in the (26-30) age group.

“We hate to break the news to you. But your skin is no longer going to be as naturally radiant as it used to be when you were younger.”

Et tu Cosmo? Life can suddenly get so cruel once you fall outside the (21-25) bracket . Sigh.

But what the heck? Birthdays are for celebrating right?

It was the first birthday I spent with dad, l'il sister,brother-in-law and G, together.
Li'l sister and BIL played perfect hosts when they took us out for a midnight buffet(!), a first for me. I did have my suspicions about whether this was the restaurant's ploy to get rid of leftover food, but I was soon proved wrong when we were asked to wait for 20 minutes for a table when we arrived at the place at about 12:15 am and the food turned out absolutely delicious!

While at the buffet, we did click a few snaps. But here's the one that takes the cake, well, literally!

Courtesy the worst photographer in the world - my sister. So much for the enthu G was posing with, for this snap! :)

And in the morning, I woke up to a barrage of phone calls from friends and family. And my Orkut scrapbook, abound with messages from friends near and far. L'il sister and Dad made sure there was abundant supply of Mysore Pak at home. How sweet is that?

And yeah, G's promised an air conditioner(!) for a gift. Considering that he's gonna be sharing the room with me, I am trying hard to ignore any hidden agenda here. And to believe that this is going to be my gift and not ours! :)

Oprah couldn't have said it better when she said this.

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. "