My son goes to a school where they place a lot of emphasis on Indian culture, festivals, etc. While I'm glad that he learns all that there is to about Holi, Diwali, Dussera, Id, Janmashtami and Christmas, that is not the reason we decided to send him to this particular school. It therefore amused me no end to hear someone mention that this school was perfect for him as on his own he would not have learnt about our cultures and customs so much. The underlying text being that with a mother who doesn't create too much of a fuss about rituals or fasts or temple visits, the poor boy would have missed out on his stipulated dose of Indian culture. Confusing culture with rituals and religion never fails to amuse me. Did you imbibe more values and culture if you grew up watching your mom and everybody around you fast during Navaratri? Is your culture quotient zero if your parents never really visited the temple or kept fasts or rushed you to Kolkata during every Durga Puja season? The more I see around me, the more I believe that people confuse the two. So I never visit temples unless there's something within prompting me to step inside one. Does that make me less of a believer? Why is belief and faith confused with your willingness to be first in the queue to get the charanamrita or prasad or pay hundred bucks extra for an express darshan of star deities at the country's five star temples? Yes I know rituals have a certain comfort in them and all of us have our favourite ones. I love the Aarti, especially one I watched on the banks of Ganga years ago as a child and the Dhunuchi naach during Durga Puja (though very smoky and not very comforting if said Durga Puja is being held in a closed community hall). I also love the gesture of 'cupping hands over the arati flame and raising it to the forehead.' To me it comes involuntarily and there's something about the lamp, fire and smoke combo that makes it alluring. But does it increase my faith and believer ratings than earlier? Don't think so. I remain as much of a believer or as much of a non believer as I was.

Inky's posts are making me nostalgic these days, especially when she writes about evenings in Paris and the waterways of Amsterdam. The nostalgia isn't because I miss spending my evenings walking the cobbled lanes of phoren lands or staring wide eyed at unending perfume stores in Rue Je ne sais quoi. It isn't even for the heady whiffs of weed or the drool worthy sight of crepes and freshly baked baguettes.
You see, Inky's posts are making me remember a time when I could just pull the door and walk out (which is exactly what I did in those lovely cities). More importantly pull the door and walk out with nothing but a set of keys and wallet. No diaper bags, no water bottles, no squabbling over coke or chips, no wipes.
Before you lynch me for such unmotherly thoughts, yes I dearly love the kids and am thrilled to bits that I produced them but a girl is allowed to indulge in a bit of nostalgia isn't she?

Principals in delhi university colleges have decided to up the cut off marks to 110 per cent to prevent students from getting admission and colleges getting overcrowded. When reminded by rampaging parents that no student in history has ever got 110, except for that Apsara Pencil boy on TV who got ‘Sau mein se ek sau panch’ in Maths for good handwriting, the principals retorted that they were very well aware of that.

“What are we to do?” said one principal who was being shouted at by an irate host with high BP on a TV Channel (real reason behind shouting: host was once denied admission in said college and now found great opportunity to vent his anger). The principal’s logic? Since students are getting higher and higher marks every year, they decided to raise the bar. “This will help us in many ways,” said the knowledgeable principal. “First of all, we will hardly have any students as barely anyone will get admission with such a cut off. Secondly, the ones that do get admission (for instance, my niece, the college librarian’s daughter, the science prof’s grandson, etc) with get complete attention of the lecturers as the ratio of student teacher will be 2: 20.” According to the principal, lesser number of students will be great for the teachers as they would get more time to ‘ideate in the staffroom’ (i.e have cups of cutting chai and read the newspaper). In fact, there may be times when the classrooms would be empty as everyone knows how many classes students bunk. This would be great for the classrooms as these would stay clean, saving us on sweeping and maintenance bills.”

When questioned by TV channels on his chances of admission with a 110% cutoff, the Science topper of this year who has the now useless score of 99% said he was extremely thrilled. “I now have the perfect excuse to reject the education system and take up DJing, something I have wanted to do for long but haven’t because of my overbearing parents.” He added.
Meanwhile the Sau mein se ek sau panch Apsara Pencil boy received mixed reactions across the country. While DU principals applauded him for giving them the idea of increasing the cut offs and planned to start an Apsara Pencil scholarship, students and angry parents blamed him for setting a “bad precedent of impossibly high percentage” and vowed never to use pencils again.

You know you are losing it when...

You go on eBay and feel the thrill of life when you spot the Electrolux Cordless Vacuum Cleaner on sale at the Global Easy Buy. Worse it leads to a series of fantasies in which you imagine situation where you remain calm and collected (like foreign woman doing yoga in white threadbare kurta that looks good only on her) even when the maid calls to say she is sick and therefore unable to come for the next three days. You imagine yourself cleaning the chocos off the sofa, the bits of craft paper off the floor and the various discarded pieces of parantha your son has artfully hidden around the house in a jiffy, because ta....da..this vacuum cleaner is a cordless one and moving it around is a breeze.
At some point you give yourself a mega shake and come out of your vacuum induced reverie. You even recover enough to open a new window and check out the latest fool-the-world gizmo Apple has on offer. But old habits (or recently acquired strange habits you thought only old people had) die hard. You return to the household appliance section and order a mini accessories basket for the dishwasher. Along with a wall mounted kitchen scale and swim diapers. And you feel the thrill of wonderful shopping wash all over.
Like I said. Help is surely required here.

Being Indian

You feel absolutely authorised to comment on anything and everything be it your neighbour’s son’s constant refusal to agree to an arranged marriage or your irritatingly slim gym partner who never seems to put on a pound despite the energy and chocolate bars she constantly consumes. Indians feel they have the birthright to comment on anything and everything all the time. It could be your appearance, you weight, your choice of school, hospital, lifestyle, brand of beer, the number of children or lack of it. We should replace unwanted comments as our national sport instead of kabaddi, which nobody seems to play these days.

You brave traffic, screaming toddlers and rampaging crowds to visit discount sales in a far off mall. All because you spotted the irresistible offer of a melamine dinner set free if you shop for Rs. 3000 in the morning paper.

You want Bollywood to get original and esoteric but would still pay good money to watch Band Baaja Baarat than Love Sex or Dhoka.

You spent your twenties dating ‘fast’ and ‘modern’ girls (read smokes, drinks, swears, thinks nothing of wearing a mini to work according to your mental dictionary) yet when it comes to getting hitched, you depend on Mummy and ask her to find you the gharelu seedhi saadhi type.

You crib about the lack of hygiene and cleanliness in trains, stations and even airports, yet think nothing of chucking a candy wrapper out of the window of your car. After all, there’s no trashcan inside and you just got the car cleaned and serviced.

Weddings are completely Bollywoodised events in your mind thanks to Yash Chopra, Karan Johar and clan. In fact, you cannot think of a wedding without band, baaja and baraat or the mandatory mehendi ceremony, even if weddings in your community are a completely different affair altogether.

You believe in being eco-friendly, saving the trees, stopping eve-teasing, helping Tsunami victims, cleaning up the streets of your city and saving the tiger. In fact you believe in many causes and champion them all. As long as they require you to sign a petition online and forward an email.

Friendships are very important to you. You spent several of your formative years trying to ‘make friendship’ with the girls from your local college and now you have 475 friends. All on Facebook. In fact, you can’t even remember meeting some of them.

You may not know who’s the new telecom minister or the name of our Vice President but like everyone else, you believe that politics is a dirty game and love to rant against money-hungry, land grabbing politicians. In fact, you are absolutely certain the country is going to the dogs. You just don’t know the names of the breed.

The Second Coming

One of the advantages of being sleep deprived is you can always blame your slightly erratic and weird behaviour on it. For instance, thanks to the wonderful Vodafone network at home, I received a friend's congratulatory message at 4 am the other day (night? dawn?). She had sent it the previous day. "Thanks a ton." I immediately texted, thrilled to have something else to do apart from being a human rocker for baby and making mental notes on the vegetables to be ordered the next morning. And then, just to demonstrate what a thoughtful friend I was (the ideal 4 am kind), I also added, “And how is little A? Fever gone yet?”

Big mistake. Little A is her son alright but the fever happened to Little B, son to yet another friend whom I had spoken to just that evening, a time that at 4 am seems million light years ago. Then again, I had the best excuse in the world. “Sorry,” I texted (and lied), “message meant for someone else. Blame it on the lack of sleep.”

The sleep deprived state also comes with other advantages. For instance you could always avoid boring dinners with the excuse that you need to be up and about a bit and night and therefore need all the rest you can. “Oh of course we completely understand,” says the not so interesting acquaintance before launching into an account of her own nigh time feeding schedule and how she always slept when the baby did, when he was born 10 years ago. “I do the same,” I say in my well practised heavy with sleep voice and go back to reading some enriching literature like Julia Quinn, which I plan to finish through the two mandatory wake up calls at night.

In the meantime, being a human rocker is fast becoming a habit. Went for a regular baby check-up at the hospital and had to remind myself that it was a) the nurse who was carrying the baby who b) was fast asleep and therefore c)I needn’t go back and forth on my heels.

Need to also stop posting baby pictures on FB, though can’t help myself with some nice ones. Since baby photos invite the mandatory coos and awwws after a point I run out of things to say apart from Thanks. Now would you ever do that in offline life? If a friend came over, looked the little bundle up and down and said awwwww, would you say, hey thanks? Probably not. So there.

I spent one of the most uncomfortable evenings of my life sitting in Gladys Staines’ living room in Baripada, Orissa. The discomfort was not because of Gladys, who was a wonderful host, taking me around the leprosy clinic that her husband had set up in the morning and inviting me over for tea in the evening. The discomfort was all mine. I couldn’t just get it out of my mind that here I was sitting in a house that had once seen three kids running around, two of them boys who must have played football, chased the dogs and done all those things that boys generally do. All that was left of that for this woman were memories, haunted by the worst possible end any mother could imagine.

Sitting there, I didn’t have the heart to interview Gladys or remember the list of questions I’d prepared. It seemed enough that she had shared the work she and her late husband had done at the leper clinic with me in the morning; that I had seen her interact with the people she was caring for and the people who worked with her. It felt normal to sit there and simply talk to this amazingly strong woman who shared memories of her husband as and when they came to her, smiled if an object in the room associated with the memory caught her eye, spoke about her daughter who was then studying in Australia, spoke of her ailing father back home and the support she got from people around her in India and why she forgave the fiends who committed that heinous crime. She never mentioned her two sons. I never asked. There are some things you just can’t intrude upon. It feels like slapping the person awake from a stupor that's probably keeping them sane.

I wasn’t a mother then. Very far from the thought actually. I’m one now and cannot even think of what Gladys as a mother must have gone through after that horrific night. How would you feel if your husband and kids who weren't even 10 were burnt alive as 50 men with sticks ensured they couldn't escape the inferno? Would you feel they were converting people into their religion forcefully and therefore deserved it in some way, something the court judgement reeks of when it calls this crime not the rarest of rare and comes down heavily on conversion, completely ignoring the work done by the same man in other areas altogether?

So when I heard of the Supreme Court verdict that has removed the noose off Dara Singh’s neck, I thought of Gladys Staines. And prayed that Dara Singh’s conscience, which apparently tells him he’s innocent, gives him an equally horrid death within the walls of the jail where he will hopefully spend his life term now, mentally, physically or otherwise.

Happy New Year

To all those who still come here. Spent New Year's Eve at home with friends having potluck party. Had plans of making exotic food with complicated name as a gourmet type start to the year but realized most people I know prefer paneer makhni and butter chicken to pesto sauce and prawn croquettes. Eventually had the table laid with very odd combinations that included dal makhni, pulao, gobi mussalam, dahi bhalle and chicken biryani courtesy me and my friends. Have become complete behenji type and will never be employed by Brunch or Mint where recipes are only about interesting sounding things like onion tarts, honey glazed pork and apricot ginger cake, best had in a French spa type ambiance.
Chances of employment though are very weak this year as have baby number two coming soon this February. Yup, I seem to be a sucker for staying up nights and going in the cow mode again. Jokes apart, we really are excited and that includes the young man who alternates between wanting a baby brother and a baby sister. Though am not quite sure if it's because he expects the baby to emerge ready to play with him.
Speaking of babies, what a difference the first time and the second time is! The excitement is still the same but the preparations are different, mentally and otherwise.
The first time I had a list of baby names by now and had shopped at every baby store I could find in Bangalore. I had also memorised What to Expect When you are Expecting and by this time had started practising my breathing exercises.
Have since then given away my dog eared copy of What to Expect to a friend and between reading out Cat in the Hat to the tyke and trying to finish my own review copies have had little time to read anything else. As for shopping, I have a lot of the tyke's stuff that I could use for the little one and some lovely generous friends. Oh of course I am shopping for new stuff but I am older and wiser and no longer fall for 'this is a must have for baby' spiel by salespeople and books written for American readers.
The names? Perhaps it's time to get started on that.