Berry Weird Post

Made strawberry jam at home today. Turned out better than I had expected and was surprisingly easy to make. At least easy for me, not having made jam or even thought in that direction before. Had wonderful visions of serving only homemade fruit jams like strawberry, apricot, peach, plum, etc to my children and gifting them to people in pretty jars during Diwali, X-Mas, housewarmings, etc.
The dream ended right there of course. Because my version of gifting goes somewhat like this: I know in my mind it is Diwali/X-Mas/Whichever event demands gifts of jamlike proportions four weeks from now.

Week four: I keep thinking.
Week three: I think some more.
Week two beginning: I pass shops that could possibly stock suitable gifts but give them a miss because there are still TWO WHOLE WEEKS left.
Week one: I pass shops that could possibly stock suitable gifts and have a SALE sign. I give them a miss under the excuse that the older child needs to be picked up from bus stop (two hours from now) and the younger child is alone at home with the maid (and has been since 10 in the morning and not for the first time but still, you can never be too careful, right?). I have 7 days after all.
D Day: I rush to store I passed by earlier. Buy gift at full price when similar version was on sale only a week ago. Rush home. Realize have forgotten wrapping paper. Dig out Fabindia paper bag, put fear of God (and no TV for three weeks) into the older brat and make him paint it. After which we spray it with glue and then glitter, the boy having tasted the fun part of the activity now. Spend an hour doing Fabindia bag makeover after which I have barely 10 minutes to get ready. Realize as I'm leaving house there is glitter in my hair and the boy has some on his nose.

Now you know why I can never gift jam. Or, given the highly organised way in which I work, ever make it again.

This piece appeared in a parenting column I sometimes write for an online newsmagazine in Bangalore. And just because I mentioned parenting don't think that you will find anything of great importance here. Just the regular vent of a mildly neurotic mom.   

Good morning and welcome to the Mummy Pick Up & Drop Off service. I'm the chief operating officer cum chief pick up girl here. The job description fits me to the tee as I am always picking up things -- clothes from the laundry, toys from the floor, soap from the bathroom basin, child from swimming class, bus stop, playdate, skating class and so on. We welcome all sorts of applicants as long as they have spawned at least one offspring, possess a reasonable ability to be on their toes for the large part of the day, have a suitably haggard appearence while trying to appear cool and collected in standard 'Mummy Chic', i.e.,
one loose kurti/long top and slacks/capri. Please note that at least one of the above garments need to have pockets to carry napkins, house keys, car keys, wallet, lollipops and so on.

Applicants also need to be good multitaskers and skilled in one-handed operations such as folding stroller while holding baby, bag and other paraphernalia; feeding banana to baby on the hip while speaking to other moms about the older child's fussy eating habits and instructing maid at home over the phone; typing an email while reading bedtime stories to child; skateboarding while balancing the child on one hand and four tea cups in another. Ok so I made that last one up but I am quite sure there is some super multitasking mother somewhere in the world who can do just that.

For details regarding timings, rates and job satisfaction about the Pick up Service you could speak to some mommies themselves. They are found quite easily in parks, school bus stops and if it's holiday season near the swimming, art, craft, tennis and a million other camps. The perks of the job include almost nothing, unless you count hanging around aimlessly or finishing up your grocery shopping while junior does his training as a perk. Be warned that the job also has a good ability to play havoc with your mind as the brat whines about not wanting to go for Karate class, making you wonder if you are being the pushy mommy type. So you pull him out of it only to have him complain that AAAAAAALL his friends go for Karate and he is the only one left out. This of course makes you wonder yet again if you are a good mommy at all and if you understand your child. Our suggestion: Do not think. It interferes with the core job on hand which is to be shuttle service for child during school days AND vacations, along with in house chef, emergency playmate, boredom reliever and anytime cleaning service.

With such a massive job profile, when is the time to think?

What I would really like to say to some people I know.

What is an issue with you, a huge, life threatening, emotionally twisting issue with powers to wreck havoc with your mind, relationships and spirit could be an entirely non issue with me.

Not everybody is cut from the same cloth and even if the cut of that cloth may not fit or flatter you or not even appeal to your eye, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. It may flatter me. Suit my purposes. Make me adjust my world. Stay happy.

So don't get yourself in Gospel mode everytime you spot something in my life that doesn't quite match your expectations of how my life, and for that matter, everyone else's should be.

Just be. And let me be.

If only...:)

Doing nothing and other stories

This piece appeared in a parenting column I sometimes write for an online newsmagazine in Bangalore. And just because I mentioned parenting don't think that you will find anything of great importance here. Just the regular vent of a mildly neurotic mom.


 It takes you so long to write a 700 word story! Said the horrified editor friend of mine. I counted sheep in my head (helps me stay calm. Another good alternative is the in-your- head-grocery list) and waited for the one question that I hate hearing ever since I gave up working full time to be a stay at home mother: So what do you do all day? Really, what was it that I did the entire day? And what was it that the other mothers did, staying in this mysterious place called home where there really wasn’t much to do except manage a kid or two, keep them clean and well fed and keep the house looking like it wasn’t rummaged by a tornado. It didn’t require excel sheets or meetings so how tough or time consuming could it be? If general opinion is to be believed, there isn’t much that is done all day except for the above mentioned cleaning/feeding bits, along with copious TV watching and (gasp) even visits to the salon! With eight luxurious hours stretching before her, what’s a woman to do! Since I fall in the above category of moms with nothing much to do but still do not get the time to finish a 700 word article in 7 days, I decided to do some stock taking with other mummy pals of mine. Clearly I was a failure in time management and had it all wrong. I was sure they had it all figured out. So I decided to ask them them the question: So what is it that you do the whole day? “Umm...you really want to know?” Asked the friend with a four month old. The edge in her voice should have warned me off but I ploughed on. “At 7 I clean the baby’s diaper. 7.15 is feeding time. 7.30 there’s a diaper change again. 8 there’s some feeding again. By 9 I grab whatever food I can see around the house as I am so hungry I could eat an entire buffet and possibly even the baby. Happy now?” I hang up, longtime friendship at stake. The other one is better behaved but has no time to talk. “Sorry dear. My daughter’s friends are coming over and I need to make some nutritious homemade pizzas or else nobody will send their children over to our fast food consuming house again.” The third keeps it short and to the point. “Cannot talk. Filing the husband’s tax returns. After that need to take the car for servicing. Busy day. In fact this is how all my days are. I am the secretary cum driver cum housekeeper cum babysitter.” The fourth cuts my call. I had made the mistake of texting her my question. Amen.⊕

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain There was a time when I loved that quote and thought I lived my life according to it. Do I do that anymore? I don't think so. I am too caught up with day to day life, domesticity and the web of homed-in haze it can sometimes create around you. And of course the children are there. I want to be where they are. Very consciously. It means not catching a certain amount of the trade winds passing you by but it does not also mean letting all of it go. Did I become what I thought I would be at 20? Maybe not. Maybe yes. I did become happier I am sure. But then happiness at 20 has a different meaning than happiness at 40 right? That was a different kind of happiness as perhaps, is this one. So why the complacence? Passing phase? Perhaps yes.

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.

Five

The biggest development has been the little man sleeping in his own room. It has been decorated with planets, stars, rockets and aliens and has worked its magic on our man. He still finds his way to us from time to time and curls up in between though the days he wake up in his own room he's rather proud of the feat. I'd thought getting him a fancy new bed would do the trick but it's the simple space stickers (some made by us in joint mother-son collaboration) that actually did. You can never tell what works with kids!

North Indianizing

The American woman sweetly asks if I am celebrating Karwa Chauth. I smile sweetly and tell her no. She seems surprised and I decide to use the limited time we have in the lift to tell her that it is a festival mainly celebrated by women in the North of India, while I come from a family that is from the East, where we don't celebrate it. She is extremely surprised and perhaps a bit confused. The papers this morning (Bangalore papers to be precise) have informed her that this is the day when women across the country fast and pray for their husband's long life.
Really?
I grew up in Farakka, Orissa, Goa surrounded by my parents and their circle of mostly Bengali friends. Karwa Chauth was as alien a concept to me as it is to the American lady I met in the lift. Of course we had enough Punjabi friends and neighbours so over the years I did hear about it, though the first time it probably made an impact to make me remember it enough was in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Thanks to that movie, every year on KC day when I get the inevitable call from a hungry friend asking if I can spot the moon from my balcony, I have DDLJ's Karwa Chauth track running in my head (complete with the sickening line: tere haath se peekar paani, dasi se ban jaoon rani).
KC is also alien to a lot of my friends from the South or from Gujarat or Assam. So I absolutely do not get it when newspapers declare it a festival celebrated by women across the country, unless their version of country doesn't extend beyond Delhi and NCR limits.
I'm not speaking against Karwa Chauth though I couldn't fast to save my life and don't exactly agree with the basic thought behind this festival. However, to each her own. I do know many women from other communities who do the KC fast voluntarily. A friend from Shillong keeps it for her Punjabi husband, despite him urging her to eat every year for the last 15 years. A Tamilian friend fasts with his Punjabi wife and a Bengali cousin fasts for her longtime boyfriend who of course thinks she is being dramatic and influenced by Yash Chopra. But I do wonder how a festival that's essentially limited to certain parts of the country gets a national assumption? It's like saying every Indian groom comes dressed in a sherwani, sitting on a horse with a dancing baarat. Or that Jamai Shashti is a festival celebrated across the country. If you don't know what that is, it's absolutely alright but it does make me wonder since when KC became an 'assumed' national phenomenon.
Is it because we have several uninformed newspaper editors? Or is the Johar-Chopra gang more deeply entrenched into our national psyche than we believe them to be?

The Great Man's Wife

An old post I wrote after meeting someone. It was lying in draft. Had forgotten to post it, God knows why!

The Great Man's Wife spoke with the faintest hint of an accent. All those years of first doing her masters in the US and then spending a considerable amount of time living and working there had left their mark on her speech. Her home was open, big and for the want of a better term, earthy. Red brick walls on the exterior, limewashed walls with the right niche hollows in the interior, plants spilling tastefully into the living area and the lawn giving a view of the greens outside. The outdoor furniture was simple but possibly expensive and you couldn't miss the discreetly kept but too prettily painted to be missed terracotta kitchen waste composter. The drink was organic as were the biscuits.

I nibbled on all that health as she told me the story of how her business came along. Though it wasn't as much business as 'economic empowerment.' as she repeated. The Great Man's Wife enlisted women from villages in the outskirts of Bangalore to transfer her much researched creativity onto silk stoles, blouses and on special customised requests, usually from her expat friends who 'understood and appreciated these things' sometimes even on a jacket, a wall hanging on a sari.

Thanks to the soothing combo of the garden breeze, juice and often heard words, I may have been part asleep as she spoke but did catch words of vital importance like 'at the grassroots level,' 'self-sustaining' "at the ground level,' 'preserving heritage,' and so on.

It's good work no doubt but I do wish it was done without the congratulatory self-pat on the back, that is meant to be invisible but yet, is visible enough. And then I thought perhaps I am getting too cynical, that even with the kids abroad, the huge house in the middle of the city and the works of art dotting the walls, she does mean it when she says that at heart she still is very middle class. That she belives in giving as much as she has got. That even now, everything she does is centred around the Great Man and his approval.

And somewhere through the chink, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I spotted a rather lonely woman.

I'm listening to Alanis and crying my eyes out. Sometimes life turns out so different from what you expected or imagined it to be. It doesn't mean that you are unhappy or dissatisfied with what you have and the bed is probably of your own making but yes, it does make you sad at times to imagine some things that could have been. Some things that you have stopped being.

Yes the setbacks are temporary and there's no other way to go about it but that doesn't stop the sadness from creeping in sometimes.

Don't be alarmed. Just a bit low, it's one of those days and the only way to deal with it is to write it out. Otherwise in many ways this should be and is a very happy time.

Random

Was happily watching Aisha with friend, drooling over Abhay Deol and generally enjoying the froth until she, Sonam Kapoor that is, appeared in the hospital (having apparently rushed there because her sister went into labour) wearing a jacket and mini dress with a Dior bag. Forgive me if I goof on the details here because I was laughing too hard to concentrate. Yes I know this is a film where style is what matters but a hospital? And that too when she rushed because her BIL poked his head into her room and said the 'drop-everything-grab-wallet-car-keys' word It's Time!
Couldn't they have shown her at least in skinny jeans or jeggings or whatever they are called and perhaps a loose top? Who wears a party frock/mini to the hospital in a hurry? Unless she packed her designer tote along with sister's hospital kit? Or perhaps rich, super stylish Delhi girl do these things. Who are we to know. Anyway forget that bit and the punchless end and the endless L'oreal and Dior ads and it makes for quite an entertaining film. Especially if you've had a bit of experience of the party hard, bitch harder Delhi chics the film talks about. Teeeheee ;-p
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When some long lost acquaintance sends me a friendship request on FB, I assume they at least wish to say hello if not share their lifetime secrets. Was quite surprised to receive one such request from a former colleague I rarely interacted with. While accepting the request I sent a message to the ex-colleague asking how she was, saying hello, etc. Got this in return: 'Oh hi, it's you. I did one of those Find Friend things and I guess FB emailed all my gmail contacts. Never mind!'
Thankfully it was a message and not a wall post or it would have been public mein dhulai. I was a bit taken aback at first and did find it rude though as I thought about it, I couldn't help but be amused. In a world where friendships all but skim the surface at the click of the mouse, it's good to have a reply that's forthright. In whatever manner that may be.
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Watched Tere Bin Laden. Badly shot funny movie. But not as funny as expected. Or pehaps my filmi streak is diminishing. Don't seem to love things as I used to earlier and usually find some fault or the other with everything. Age takes your blinkers off when it comes to Bollywood I guess.

Yikes, now they are demanding the Kohinoor back. What if the Brits demanded all the stuff they built back from us? We'd have to dismantle legendary things like Howrah Bridge and pack it off among other things, thus depriving future generation of Bongs to enjoy the priceless joke, 'I'm enjoyeeng the breej on the breeze'. Though must say, good of Cameron to admit that Brit museums would empty out in a flash if they started to give our antiques back. At least he was being honest. As for the Kohinoor, remember standing in queue to see it at the Tower Museum and coming back utterly disappointed. It looked lost in the hideous purple (or is it blue, can't be bothered to google) crown and much much smaller than expected. Instead what moved me and made me want to write patriotic comments was Tipu Sultan's automated tiger at Victoria and Albert museum. Was feeling patriotic enough to write 'Wapas Karo' type stuff in the Visitor's Book while going out. Have no idea why, perhaps it's because I devotedly watched The Sword of Tipu Sultan (Had strange taste in those days), whereas nobody ever made a serial on the Kohinoor diamond. That figures.

A friend of mine went to her alumni dinner some days back and came back rather disgusted. My friend has not been working for the past few years because of illness and other crisis in the family. She's what you would call a housewife and Femina would stylishly call homemaker. At the dinner, teeming with ex-friends and ex-batchmates who are now AVPs, VPs, CEOs, GMs, TLs and suchlike my friend says she felt like shit. And it wasn't because she realised what she had been missing all along. It's because most of the her ex-batchmates recoiled in polite horror when she came up with an honest answer to THE question: So what have you been doing?
Nothing much, she replied. I married soon after we graduated, had two kids and have been basically at home with them.
"Their look said it all. It's almost as if I was nothing. Not being a working woman or having had a career," she said.
You can't blame her, given the super achiever CVs that were dropping off people's lips the moment THE question was asked.
Why is it that achievement is always measured in such tangible terms? Where do you work or what do you do and how much you make? Why do we tend to look at a woman, label her a housewife and think she has done "nothing with her life" simply because she chooses not to work?
It's a tricky argument I know. With no side doing anything right or wrong. What really matters, and this took my silly brain years to figure out, is what you enjoy doing. And if it is setting up your home, taking care of it and being there, so be it. If it is being at work, getting things done, getting a high when you take over a new team, touchwood.
My friend married her boyfriend right out of the institute whose alumni dinner she attended. The boyfriend-turned-husband was setting up his own business and had a family that was on a rather rocky patch due to several reasons. Without being asked or pressurised or being forced to as is generally assumed, she decided to help him set up his thing and be around for his folks at home till the rough times were over. Before she knew it she had one kid, followed by another and in her own words, never found much time to get herself a job she liked.
But instead of just lounging at home watching serials, baking pancakes and chasing the kids to eat (as the popular cliched image goes), she has been going about a lot of work. The kind she liked doing, without anyone asking her to.
She has been the husband's unofficial consultant/telephone operator in the arly years/brochure designer/content editor and the family's anchor, financial planner, head chef, travel guide for many many years. She's one of the most content people I know and one look at her and you know she is no pushover. Doesn't that count as achievement?
Apparently not. You need to be earning a salary in multiple figures to qualify for that. In the process you may have ignored your home, kids and relationships but who cares? You earn. You hold an important sounding designation. That's all that matters. And before anyone jumps on me, I'm not saying working women ignore their homes and children. If you think that you are missing the woods for the trees so stop reading :)
My friend did try to take up a job once, after her first child. She had a supportive family and good help so she gave in to everyone saying 'Don't waste your talent!' and started work. She lasted five months. "Because this is where my talent was. I loved being home. I loved doing craft with my kids, taking them to the park, cycling. I loved all that," she used to tell me, when the monkey was smaller and I used to be perpetually confused about to work or not to work. "I see myself doing this all my life and still being happy and if you can't see yourself doing it forever, you should get a job."
It settled my mind and I decided to freelance. Because I couldn't get away from the child and I couldn't see myself enjoying craft and staying away from work either. Even if it amounted to almost nothing in terms of money. And today my mind is settled. I know this is what I'll be doing. Working from home. Perhaps increasing the volume as time goes on but perhaps never taking up a fulltime job, unless circumstances demand it.
But this isn't about me. It's about my friend who is very clear in her mind about what she wants. She has good degrees, she has intelligence and the required amount of smartness to get some kind of a job if she wants. She's a favourite in her family. She's built bridges between broken relationships, mended illnesses and done a thousand other things many of us are too timid or indifferent to attempt. Yet in her hi-profile alumni dinner she feels like nothing because she doesn't hold a job, an enviable salary and a blackberry. Not fair, this achievement calculator.