Form Morning

Puddi had a performance at her form morning at school – she was part of a puppet dance. She showed us a couple of steps at home, singing the song out loud. Cuute, we thought, and in our usual proud-parents style, looked forward to her performance. She had to go dressed in a very pretty red and yellow costume, with make-up on. Shyly she confided to A while he was dropping her off at school, "Abba, I like make-up! My parents came along for the form morning and we settled in to a long loop of kiddie songs. The show theme was 'A few of my favourite things', meant to encapsulate all the things little kids love.

The first dance was full of kids dressed like bears and monkeys and so on, gamboling and prancing on stage. Very cute but nothing unusual for a kiddie performance. Then came the puppet dance. These kids waddled onto stage exactly like Indian puppets, and once the performance began, we were spellbound. Of course, we were helped by the fact that Puddi was centerstage. But the thing that truly astounded us was how Puddi just upped her level of performance to an unbelievable level – she was the puppet to the life (pun intended!)! She held her body stiffly, moved jerkily, didn't smile and didn't once wonder where we were and try to trace us out. Her entire concentration was purely on her performance and she did it to perfection.

Once the entire form morning was over, all the kids filed out one by one, Puddi amongst them. Very orderly, again she acted like a professional performer and didn't wave out to us or try to catch our eye, even though she knew where we were sitting. And then, just as she was getting off the stage, she turned to us and made a spontaneous gesture with her hands as if she were taking a photograph of us, and jumped offstage.

What had us electrified that day and even today when we think about her performance is how she upped her game at the right moment. She was cute and competent when she showed us the steps at home, but up there, she was something else. Every fiber of her tiny little being was concentrating on the dance and the music, nothing else.

Not only the dance and her talent for it, but the performance showed us many other things about this little girl whom otherwise we just see as a cute, loving sprite. Her power of concentration, her goal-orientation, the perfectionist streak in her, the ability to hit the right level of performance when required…all coupled with a deep sense of fun. We started seeing her in a whole new light all of a sudden, and while of course we adore her, it gave us a new sense of respect for her. Hats off, Puddi!

Chubbocks big words

A to Chubbocks: How are you feeling?
Chubbocks: Given the circumstances, I am feeling ok. (???)

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Chubbocks observes Bojjandi practically running up the stairs and exclaims, "Fancy that!"

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At a spelling bee, Chubbocks observes the 6-8 year old contest and says scornfully, "That's hardly what I was expecting. It's too easy!" ( well, he is a 7-year-old who can spell 'circumstances' and 'pursuit'

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I made Chubbocks read Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. Chubbocks disdainful remark, "There's too much romans in it. I don't like books with romans!" ( he means romance!)

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Bojjandi wails that he wants to sleep downstairs with Didi. I insist he come up with us, so he says tearfully, "Didi yoygee" ( royegi, i.e. didi will cry!)

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I put some make-up on the Puds, as instructed, for her school form morning. Says she, confidingly, as abba drops her to school, "Abba? I like make-up!"

Gombe-Dussehra 2010

I'm not a very ritual-observing, religion-maanoing person on an average day. I do have a very strong belief in God and have my chats and spats with him ( sorry, feminists, it's a him in my mind!) but don't really get all observant on a daily basis. But come festival time and I get all serious about the rituals. In some ways, I see the rituals as cultural, even more than religious and I'm desperate to embed my children in Indian culture. Be it the festive food, or dressing up traditionally and dressing them traditionally, following the cultural rituals that my family followed since I was a child, I feel it also gives them a link back to the past. Particularly since my kids are Mundus and city-slickers, I feel I should make an extra effort to teach them things that link back to their maternal side and that connect them in some way with all their ancestors and traditions. I'm of course equally happy if A were to take on teaching them about traditions from his side of the family but I don't think they were raised particularly traditionally so that hasn't happened so far.

This year I decided to start the tradition of gombe koodusode - golu, as it is known in Tamil. Dad says the tradition began as a way of worshipping God and teaching creation to young kids. I see it as a way to celebrate and thank God for everything he has created in the world today - be it transportation or make-up, travel or animals...The display is put up by the first day of Dussehra and in the south, people are invited to each other's homes every evening for arshna-kunkuma ( haldi-kumkum), where they gather, sing classical devotional songs and eat traditional shundal. I and my sis used to have loads of fun at dusehra when we were kids, as mom had heaps of southis friends and we'd be out every evening doing this. Mom even had a friend known as 'dollmaami'( also called nannoottu-rendu maami because once upon a time she had lived in flat # 402!) because she used to decorate and dress up dolls as a hobby and set up a massive display every year. Setting up the gombe is meant to be a fun, interactive process with lots of participation from the kids in deciding what we should display and so on.

As it turned out, this year the process was short-circuited quite a bit. When I began, my parents were a bit under the weather. By the second or third day, a full-blown epidemic of typhoid and dengue was raging at chez parents, with grandma included, and we were running daily trips to the emergency at Max Hospital and others. One of those days, somehow I managed to take out an hour and put the display together - that was before we knew what the ailments were and were hoping it was just a viral of some kind. I shamelessly foraged and pillaged all possible display-ables from my parents' house, and culled the few toys at home that weren't in a hopeless state of destruction and put something together with a few sheets of chart-paper and an hour to spare for the task.

Eventually everyone wound up being hospitalized and we were being hospital attendants since the hospy said they didn't provide attendants so haldi-kumkum was given a grand miss. Thankfully everyone started recovering pretty fast and finally a few days ago, a full ten days after Dussehra, since I hadn't yet had the time to remove the display, I called Chubbocks's and Puddi's neighbourhood friends over, had them see it and gave them all some shundal. I'm happy I finally started the tradition and hopefully next year will be less dramatic and more fun! Here are some pix of the display:

The lowest tier was where we performed the puja on the few days that we could. The books are from Saraswati Puja - when I was a kid I always used to keep my Hindi and Maths books there so I wouldn't have to study them during the holidays!

The top layer always has many statues of Gods and Goddesses, with the woden dolls in the middle. These are typically given to girls when they get married and represent Vishnu and Lakshmi.

The middle Tier was a display of some of the countries/ places we have visited - Thailand, Toronto, Singapore, Italy, Switzerland, Venice, London, France( see the Asterix), New York, South Africa...

The thing on the left was meant to be a conservation message about saving our forests. In all the chaos, Chubbocks never made the poster stating that and the gardener forgot to water the 'trees' so that by the end the forest did look in dire need of rescue! On the right is a transportation display!

Shundal recipe:

Soak black chana overnight, then pressure cook until soft. If you want it very soft, add a little baking soda. Make a tadka with mustard seeds, green chillies, curry leaves, lots of heeng. Add the cooked chana and stir for a few moments. Turn off the heat and top with freshly grated coconut and lime juice and salt to taste. Tastes heavenly, hot or cold!

Bojjandi grows up too fast

It seems to me that Bojj is growing up too fast - much faster than either of his siblings. Maybe it seems that way because I'm clinging on to my baby and don't want him to turn into a boy, I'm not ready for it. Though I say sometimes, just to scare A, that it's time we had another baby since this one's growing up, I know that Bojj is my last and I'm jealously clinging to every moment of babyness. Probably we're going to end up spoiling him a bit - we're only too glad when he clamours to sit on our laps or asks to be carried here and there, which also happens too rarely already.

From barely lisping two-three words, he's already jabbering away in full and long sentences. the other day when I was taking the kids to Dilli Haat, he asked me 'whey ay u going?' and when I threw the sentence back at him, he replied, "I'm goin to office". He asks intelligent questions about things he sees, remembrs and comments on stuff, recites full poems instead of being able to pipe in the last word of each line...yesterday I was holding his hand and realised with a pang that from being soft, dimply, cuddly little things, his hands were turning into hard, boyish paws, all capable and coordinated and everything.

He's already fully into playing with his siblings and they spend all day giggling together, playing silly games and fighting. He's also learning empathy. yesterday Puddi was crying after being scolded for not eating her vegetables at dinner. Bojjandi, who's usually quick to give her a thump or a push, came up behind her, all concern. "Kyo yoyi ho?" ( Kyon ro rahi ho - why are you crying?) he asked, and then without being told, pressed a warm kiss into her back.

I'm hanging onto the last baby things about him that I can, given he's going to start proper playschool from next week, i.e. without a parent accompanying him, and all five days of the week. I'm resisting getting his soft baby curls cut off, even though A says he looks sissy. I love the way those curls dance in the air when Bojjandi runs with his head down or shakes his head in a vigorous Okay. I love twining them about my fingers and feeling the soft downiness of his baby hair...Time goes by too fast when you have a baby in the house!

Progress Reports

We had a back-to-back session of PTA meetings for Chubbocks and Puddi last week. Chubbocks has always loved schoool, from his playschool days. And he took to Shriram School like a duck to water. But this year, he has a teacher that I sensed was strict and even I felt scared of her on orientation day, so I was not surprised when he later told me that he didn't like school as much any more because she was too strict. Plus he and his gang of 8-9 pals who have all been together since nursery have been split up into different sections, so he's not been altogether happy. Moreover, this year, he gets homework every day but Wednesday, so he has been feeling burdened. I didn't know what to expect from his teacher as a report.


It turns out I didn't have to worry. She has given him such a wonderful evaluation, as have most of his other teachers. In fact, she had written, "A gentle and caring child, he has earned the respect f his peers and teachers alike," which I thought was really amazing. I remember when he was younger, he used to get bullied/ occasionally beaten by other kids and A and I used to have this violence/ non-violence debate, so it feels nice to have his peaceful stance appreciated. And of course, since A and I are at the receiving end of his hair-trigger temper, it was quite a giggle to read that 'it is a pleasure to have such a well-mannered child in my class." As proof of living vicariously through my kids, I exhibit my inordinate pride in having Chubbocks's sports teacher point him out as one of the 2-3 kids talented at soccer - I suck at most sports but soccer was one of my few loves.


For Puddi, Shriram is the third school she's attended, since playschool days, but it's the first one which has such a long day. She goes off with Chubbocks at 7:45 am and they both return at about 3:15 pm, so it is a big change from going to school for 2-3 hours or so. She had a few adjustment problems for the first couple of days but soon got over crying on her way in. An even bigger milestone for her is that she also goes in the school bus along with Chubbocks. The school had asked for parents to volunteer to ride along from time to time to keep an eye on how systems are working, and the afternoon I rode along, I saw her in full action. This 4 year old marches into the bus with all the confidence of a much-older kid, finds a seat for herself and best friend Rehaan, and chattily says hi to the much older kids walking past. A 14 year old boy gave her an embarrassed and somewhat reluctant Hi Alena, as he went past, in response to her enthusiastic and loud greeting, so I guessed Puddi was doing all right. But this was the first formal PTA meeting we'd ever attended for her so we wondered what her teacher would say.

I was blown away by the teacher. First of all, the teacher says Puddi eats all her food fast and then walks around the class chatting with her friends - Puddi who's famous in her family for keeping one morsel in her cheek for as long as 45 minutes!!!Apparently it's a common sight for her to walk around with cheeks smeared with chocolate from her Nutella sandwich at snack times. Then the teacher raved all about Pud's dancing skills saying she moves so beautifully, so rhythmic, have never seen such coordination in such a young child...Some remarks: The 'singing nightingale' of her class; "P's glowing smile in the morning definitely makes one's day'. And the clincher - her teacher said with a wistful tone in her voice, in October, with some 6 months to go for the school year to end, that she's really going to miss having her in class!

The Little Ironies of Motherhood

Disclaimer: I am Not!!! expecting a fourth baby, and no such plans. Am done with the baby-making. The first three instances are what happened to me with one or other of my 3 babies,

1. You finally lose all the maternity( or so you tell the world) weight and rush out to buy yourself a new wardrobe...and then find out you're unexpectedly pregnant again!
2. In the same vein( as a mother of 3)...you give away all the infant clothes, stating "I'm done with the baby business...' when ( for the ironical part of situation, see tail end of above!)
3. You just land a job you have coveted that involves late hours, lots of travelling and lots of challenge, when...a.( look up pt. #1); b. you are told you cannot travel/ exert yourself during your pregnancy!
4. You have 8 bathrooms in the house, 7 of which are free, but the kids insist they have to use the one you're sitting in RIGHT NOW!
5. You've just been enjoying a long stretch of domestic harmony with spouse when spouse's parents breeze into town and your smart-alec son says, "Mamma and abba fight a lot'!
6. You spend the first two years praying they'll start speaking soon and the next 10 trying to find the 'mute' button.
7. You find yourself saying, "If you hit her again, I'll murder you", with no sense of irony!
8. The spouse who was so broody he could have given birth long before you got married turns to you in the middle of a fight-to-the-death between your monsters and says, "So, whose idea was this whole parenting thing, anyway?"
9. Your evening with the spouse consists of a series of disjointed phrases interrupted by the kids. And when they're all finally asleep and you have all his attention and he turns to you and says, "What did you want to tell me, darling?", you can't remember.
10. You think of yourself as the most unmaternal woman ever. And once you spawn the brats, you just can't get enough of them and will walk up to strangers to bore them with the latest Bojjandi story ( exhibit 1: this blog!)

This is to add to Rohini's collection of The Ironies of Motherhood!

Bojjandi turns two

Wow, it's kind of unbelievable that this kid is already tw, almost ready to be a little boy and not my bab-looest baby any more.

It seems like just yesterday that A and I were struggling with the decision of whether or not to allow this darling dumpling into our lives.

I can still remember the crazy time I had when pregnant with him - working 18 hour days, with low BP and anaemia and all-day nausea. I'd turn up at work, white as a ghost, barely able to heave my heavy body up the stairs, and my colleagues would rush out to help me, pulling out a chair and getting me some water, worried that I was going to faint. I travelled like a loon when pregnant, for about a month, I'd get home only to unpack and pack a fresh set of clothes and take off again.

I remember the weekend before he was born, how much A and I partied. we were at madmomma's 30th birthday party saturday, me barely being able to climb the 3 floors up to her house. The next night we had a karaoke evening with friends that lasted until 2 am. Even at the hospital, when we checked in on Monday evening, it felt like a holiday. The older two were safely in my parents' care. And that meant a last night of chilling out sans baby for A and me, and we watched old movies on the laptop and fell asleep much before the nurse came in to wake me up with a sleeping pill. The only hard part was not drinking water all night.

And Bojjandi helped me breach the barrier of fear and go for a spinal anaesthetic, rather than the general one I'd had the past two times. I could hear the doctors as they went about their business, though I tried to block it all out. And I called A from the OT as soon as the last stitch went in, to reassure him that I was fine.

And then I went into my room and saw Bojjandi for the first time, all pink and white and soft...It was the fastest that I'd felt a surge of love for any of my kids, maybe because I knew he would be the last baby I would have. Every little thing I did for him seemed to and still has an added poignancy, whether it's teaching him 'incy-wincy spider' or giving him a bath.

I'm a little scared that I'm going to end up spoiling him, me, the strict martinet of a mother. Because I keep feeling like holding on to every moment of baby-ishness. If he asks to climb into my 'yap', I rarely say no. Or if he asks to be carried up the stairs at night, I'm the first to say 'let's'. Thankfully he seems to be a pretty independent-minded baby and wants to do everything his siblings do, so hopefully he'll manage to grow up at the usual speed.

Even if I'm clinging with one hand to him and trying to pull him back, slow him down and say, hey, let me keep you my baby as long as I can.

Ever since he's entered our lives, he has filled it with so much joy, laughter, fun and mischief it's unbelievable that we might have considered saying no to this gift of God. Watching him run round and round the house and then fling himself with careless disregard for safety of life or limb onto me or the sofa, with an intrinsic trust in the softness of the world seems to soften the edges of our own adult world. Having him grow and start speaking long sentences and communicate so clearly at barely two is just amazing. And best of all is having him hug me, folding his whole cuddly, roundd little body into me, arms around my shoulders in complete surrender - it's as if the whole world of stress and tension has disappeared for those moments and I'm in a wonderful cocoon of love and comfort. He has already given us far, far more than we expected, despite having two other kids who do the same. And he's only two!

Roohi (June 1995 – Sep 4th, 2010)

Roohi came into our lives in 1995, by accident or happenstance. Our servant had adopted her from someone, as he had always wanted a dog. She was just a little puppy when she came, about a month or two old, a small ball of fur. The name Roohi suited her, because she looked like a piece of cottonwool. It was later that we realized that the other meaning of Roohi, soulful, was also apt.

Roohi soon made friends with us, as she gambolled through the extensive lawns of our home, and we grew to love the frisky little thing, eager for everyone's affection and so playful. My sister, always an animal lover, famous for having wanted to adopt a 2 day old kitten when she was a little girl of 8, was in love with her, since she had always wanted pets. A neighbour's Spitz, Pepsi, also became a frequent visitor to our house, as his owners used to be away most of the time and the servants used to illtreat the poor guy very badly, beating him and starving him. He used to crave affection and had a lovely temperament. All too soon, the inevitable happened and we realized Roohi was going to have a litter. It was too early for her, because she was less than a year old. My sister took her to a vet recommended by a friend, all the way in Noida, and we got her whatever treatment was possible by then to ensure a healthy pregnancy. Roohi gave birth to 8 pups on Republic Day in 2006, 2 male and 6 female.

Our servant said he would gift us one of the male pups (Jackie), and the other one sadly died, the runt of the litter. The pups were full of beans and it was a tough task to keep all of the pups in one place. We found a cardboard box, lined it with cloth and made the pups comfortable inside, where they would sleep all curled up on top of one another. The minute they saw Roohi, they would clamber out of the box with shrill cries and Roohi would resignedly feed them, irritated at having to sit still for so long, because she was just a baby herself. The vet had prescribed several medicines for Roohi as the pregnancy had weakened her since she had not been given the right vitamins when she was a pup, and our servant began looking more and more doubtful about being able to care for Roohi. Finally, he told us that he had decided to give her away to someone.

Dad, while appearing hardhearted on the surface, had long ago lost his heart to Roohi, and since we already had one of her pups, he said we would keep Roohi too. "This is the only home she has ever known. It will break her heart to go away somewhere", he said. And that's how, with no planning or forethought, we ended up with two pets!

Roohi was an incredible personality. Extremely loving and affectionate, the minute anyone entered the house, she would hurl herself at the person's feet and paw at them to give her a thorough petting. It got so that for the first fifteen minutes after entering the house, no one could do anything but give her her quota of caresses. Very often, we almost tripped as soon as we entered, because of this habit of hers. We had a family joke that if anyone ever tried to burgle our house, they would be brought down by the two dogs. Roohi would make the burglar trip and fall by throwing herself at his feet for petting. Once he fell, Jackie would bite his face off!

Very active, in contrast to her snoozy son Jackie (who by a bizarre genetic accident turned out to be a Samoyed with two Spitz parents), she always wanted to play. She would often worry Jackie awake from one of his dozes and bully him into playing with her. It was a very funny sight to see her put her front paws on Jackie, who was twice her size, and make him run around the room, yipping away at him. She would leap three or four feet into the air, like those Seaworld Dolphins, to catch a biscuit. She loved mangoes and would busily lick the seed until it had become almost bleached white. She also adored oranges and one couldn't peel an orange anywhere in the house without feeling a cold nose at their knee and a gentle yet insistent paw pulling at their arm, saying, "Where's my share?" She had to have her food very soft and mushy and would approach it with great delicacy.

She was a very dainty creature who almost appeared to dance along on her elegant legs. She would never soil herself, being fastidious to a fault. She had some very funny quirks and was very, very possessive about her belongings. If you gave her any piece of cloth to play with, she would growl if you tried to take it away. Every year, come winter, the first couple of days after the winter coat was put on her, she would sit and cower in a corner as if it weighed a couple of tons and she was unable to move. But once she got used to it, she would growl when we took it off. If we hung it out to sun it, she would keep leaping up and trying to take it off the line.

When we shifted homes from Delhi to Gurgaon, we thought it would be very difficult for us to manage the two dogs while arranging the house, so we left them in the care of the servant while we organized our new home. Suddenly, on the second day, we received a distress call from the servant and rushed home. Jackie and Roohi had not eaten in the last two days, fretting away for us, even though they were in the home they had always known, in the care of the servant whom they were very familiar with and who had always looked after them. Regardless of our plans, we had to take them back with us the same night, we couldn't bear to see their sad faces.

Roohi was so fluffy and frisky and full of life, it was only when she was all wet for her bath that one would realize how tiny she was. In her last few days, we had to have her hair shaved off because of an acute tick attack and she looked like a shadow of herself, not a wag left in her formerly permanently turned-up tail. Her illness flared up suddenly, and left this lively thing too tired to even look up. But she used to feel a sense of great contentment when we sat with her and petted her. Dad and I were fortunately with her as she took her last few breaths. It was very difficult to look at her, gasping for breath, in her death throes, in contrast to the livewire we think of her as. It was and is unbearable to think that no one will ever trip us up again, asking for a petting, as we enter the house. Once she passed away, we had to switch on the AC and then put her on ice overnight, as the cremation was to be this morning. And all night, I couldn't help worrying, because Roohi always felt extremely cold, and here we were, putting her on a chilly ice block…

I think that's one of the tragedies of the final ailment – to look at the patient and contrast that with the way that person has always been, full of pep and dash and opinions…

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We were fortunate to find a pet crematorium, which had been inaugurated very recently, the day Roohi fell ill, in fact. Conceptualized by two pet owners who had faced the dilemma of how to ensure a dignified farewell to their beloved pets, this is in Chattarpur Farms area, and has the option of burial and cremation. Owners can preserve the ashes, if they wish, or have them buried in the garden, and plant a tree in memory of their pet. They can also hand over a photograph and a write-up about their pet. Charges are Rs. 3000 for the service.

A Quiet Evening at Home!

Last evening started out great. We’ve been short-handed in the domestic staff department for the last several days, as seems to be the norm this year, as our live-in help had to rush off to her village for a family emergency. And between A’s manic work schedule and mine and then coping with three lively children at home, life has been pretty hectic. So yesterday when all three of the kids seemed sleepy by 7, we were pleasantly surprised. A put them to bed and was thrilled when all three were knocked out by 8.

He came down in a triumphant mood, looking forward to us sharing a drink and getting some downtime together, maybe watching a nice movie or something. Only to be brought down with a crash when I said I had a conference call scheduled for 9 pm. Not to mention I had some pending work to finish off before then. Anyway, I wasn’t about to refuse a drink so I sipped on a tall glass of Amarula as we both laptopped away in companionable silence. Then of course came the conference call, and it was past ten by the time we went up to bed. We watched an episode of The Lucy Show which was hilarious, and during the second one began our nightly routine of dozing off by turns. Suddenly a loud shrieking sound jolted us both out of our stupor. No, it wasn’t Lucy, caterwauling away, it was Bojjandi, yelling for ‘mama, mama…’

A rushed to the kids’ bedroom, hoping to quiet him down before he woke the other two. After half an hour, he came back, defeated, saying, “He keeps asking for mama”. I wearily crawled out of bed to the kids room. First thing I did was lift the poor li’l guy out of his crib and give him a big cuddle, assuming he’d had a night terror episode. Then I sang to him sotto voce, his favourite lullaby, ‘Taarammaiyaa..’ After a good ten-fifteen minutes, he finally seemed to have quietened down to a sleepy state so I put him down in his crib and patted his back for a while. I thought he was finally asleep and decided to sneak out of the room.

I had barely put my hand on the door handle, when a sleepy yet anxious, “Mamaa?” came from the crib. Back I went again and patted away, crooning to him from time to time while my arm got numb from being draped over his crib in a funny position. I thought he was finally asleep and decided to sneak out of the room. I had barely…you know the rest! This happened a good three four times over and I decided my arms were getting punished for no fault of theirs.

I picked up Bojji and brought him back to our room, hoping he’d fall asleep on the spare mattress that’s become a perennial installation thanks to the kids. I tried lying down next to him for a while and patting him, hugging him close…No luck. Then I gave up and called A to the task. He tried…He gave up. We switched off all the lights and tried again…Finally, finally, I thought I understood Bojjandi’s problem. He had been very fussy at mealtimes, as he tends to be these days, now that he’s nearing his terrible twos, and had not eaten much. And given that this strongwilled baby has given up milk for the last month since we decided to wean him off the bottle, he was starving.

A trekked wearily down three flights of stairs to make a ‘dam sannejj’( jam sandwich) at past midnight. This, needless to say, was not what he had had in mind when dreaming of midnight feasts!He came back up and I started feeding Bojjandi a small bit at a time. He eagerly opened his mouth for each bite and I felt a little like a mama bird feeding a vociferously hungry baby bird. After four-five bites, Bojjandi had found his stride again, so he peacefully leaned his round, chubby little body into A’s, resting his head on A’s stomach. He’d slowly chew each bite and then sit back up and lean towards me for the next bite.

A and I were sprawled on the mattress, Bojjandi wedged between us and a bedside lamp illuminating the room, watching as his face went back from being screwed up full of angst to peaceful and smiley with his hunger dissipating. And suddenly, despite the flurried and frenzied hour or so we’d just spent, these moments seemed so very poignant and precious. The joy of being able to understand what your child wants and to provide it at exactly the right time. The joy of watching him go from being agitated to calm and peaceful. The exquisite happiness of feeling your child just curl up into your body with the certainty of unconditional acceptance and ownership. And the peace that steals over a parent’s soul when he or she watch their child going trustfully to sleep, the curly eyelashes fluttering shut as the small body gives in to the overwhelming demands of Morpheus.

Of course, the fact that he woke up at his usual time of 6 am this morning, while our middle-aged bodies had not even half finished their quota of sleep made all that less poignant!!

Long overdue updates

I started this blog because I thought it'd be great for the kids to see my memories of them laid out over the years once they got older. Of course, that only works when you are laying out those memories at regular intervals instead of practically once a year as I have been. Suffice it to say it has been a hectic time for several reasons so I've hardly been blogging this year.

But it's high time to update everyone on what's going on. To start with, I can proudly say that Chubbocks is a reader! I kind of had the feeling he would be, what with us owning (yes, I have to brag about this) over 5000 books and having set up a library at home, and the fact that he used to mug up his favourite books from the age of two and a bit onwards and pretend to be reading them out, but still...now he's a bonafide member of the reader's clan. I gave hima reading list this summer, of books that he could read over and above the stuff he was into anyway, like Horrid henry etc, and I'm delighted to say he has made great headway, and he loves some of those books and is dying to read them again, if only the list of new reads wasn't so exciting. I have also started a book club for kids his age, and plan to have a meeting this weekend if possible, so i'm looking forward to it.

Puddi has as always made a smooth transition, as butter-soft as her cheeks, from playschool to full time school. We were a little worried the first couple of days as she would go in crying but that passed really fast and now l'il madam comes and goes on the school bus. A rode along the first morning she went by bus, and apparently Puddi confidently marched to a seat, sat down and began chattering away with a boy from Class III or IV, much to his embarrassment! Poor thing, she does have a long school day for a four year old - from 7:45 am to 3:15 pm when she returns, and there are days when she gets cranky from being tired. But on the whole she's taken to it like a duck to water.

And now Bojjandi is also in school! He's in playschool twice a week. It's a parent-accompanied class so I go once a week and my maid goes with him once a week. And this little kiddo just loves it. We were lucky enough to get the same magical teacher who first taught Chubbocks and Puddi ( Jimmy is famous in Gurgaon), and Bojji has really taken a liking to him and to school. Now every day, in fact several times a day and even at odd times like after dinner, Bojjandi will start plaintively demanding, "ecooy jaana hai"( school jaana hai). Within two sessions at school he was singing along to 'Three little monkeys' and his English is growing by leaps and bounds. Now it's become a common sight around our colony to see him marching along wearing an empty old school bag on his shoulders, in imitation of Puddi and Chubbocks.

It's quite interesting to see the dynamics between the three siblings. There are times when they play very well together and it's lovely to hear three giggles pealing out through the house. Chubbocks is really protective of Puddi if anyone, including we, threaten her, and they have also reached the stage where they can play some board games together - Snakes and Ladder, Ouch etc.

But Chubbocks has reached a stage where he thinks he should be able to boss Puddi around because he's older, and my spirited gal ain't having any of that. So last night at the dinner table, I was telling Chubbocks to be careful not to get any food stains on his father's white shirt as he was perilously waving his dinner spoon around. As usual, Chubbocks tried to be contrarian and say, "The shirt isn't even white". So Puddi puts her oar in with a contemptuous, "Don't talk rubbish, ok! It is white." And she does it so nonchalantly that it has A and me in fits of laughter!

Then she and Bojji have a very different equation. She loves him but he's a bit jealous of her so he'll come up to me and complain, "puddi puchin"( Puddi pushing). Or he'll demand the exact toy she's chosen to play with and cry his heat out if she doesn't hand it over. Sometimes she'll reach out to hug or kiss him and he'll shy away. But then there are the times when they both go whirling around a room like dervishes before falling down bang! on the carpet, in a crazy game and laugh together for hours...

The Secret Language of Be's

Puddi: "A star be's like this!", drawing imaginary points in the air

Puddi, arguing with me about something, "No, mamma", emphatically, "It doesn't be's like that!"

Bojjandi, after spotting us buying litchis on the way to the club, piteously, then stridently from the back seat, "Gimme teetu! I wan' teetu!"

A Very Funny Tantrum

This is a family joke cooked up by father and son – whenever someone sits down to eat in our house, they solicitously ask, "Is your food cold? Shall I vomit (warm it) for you?" and both of them go off into fits of laughter.

Today Chubbocks was really getting it from me for making various promises he had not kept, including reading a particular book within a certain timeframe. I told him I wouldn't hand over the book any more, so he started with his usual tantrum – caterwauling, making wild promises and refusing to eat dinner till he got the book back. It carried on for some time while A and I joined Puddi and Bojjandi for dinner.

Tired of being ignored, Chubbocks would periodically come into the dining room to remind us that he wouldn't start eating dinner till he got the book back. We continued our stoic program of royal ignore. Then Chubbocks came back for yet another pass at dinner, so A told him, "Come and have your dinner now. Enough sulking. See, it's getting cold. Shall I vomit for you?"

Chubbocks was in such a rage by this stage of the evening that he burst out, "That's not a funny joke" and in sheer temper hurled himself out of the room, banging the door shut behind him.

Well, you know what a house is like when there's a baby loose? Sure enough, there was a door guard on it to keep it from banging shut, so the door just bounced a couple times and reopened. The climax of the tantrum was when Chubbocks had to come back, remove the door guard and then re-bang the door to achieve the full effect!

Bojjanji status update

It's been a long while since I had time to blog, one of the perils of working from home. Every minute that you spend on something apart from work is a minute you could have spent with the kids, so nothing else gets done except the absolutely essential.

Bojjandi is turning out to be an absolute delight, and we think God gave us a pretty great present by gifting us this unexpected baby bonus. He is, ( touch wood), a very happy baby, much like his siblings, and has an endless ability to amuse himself. He thinks he is as big and capable as them so whatever he sees them doing, he must follow suit. Climbing up the slide rather than its steps, jumping off from the center table in the drawing room, feeding himself...He's also a very physically active baby so he spends the whole day running around, now jumping, now climbing, now sliding down a chair..

He has latched on to Teletubbies like his siblings had, so every morning after he's had his milk, he imperiously waves his fat, chubby fingers and makes beckoning gestures at me, "Mamma! Yaya-po, c'mon." If I continue to ignore him and read my paper, he gets more impatient. "Mama! gi'up, c'mon, Yaya-po c'mon!" He watches the Teletubbies portions in fascination, though he gets bored with the bits wherein they show other children. For a while, he imitated the baby sun, and he'd say, "Baby! Erghhh" like the baby sun says in the show, and chortle madly. He is quite obsessed with teletubbies and left to himself would watch it all day. If the powe rgoes off while he's watching, he comes running out of the family room with the TV remote in his hand, saying 'Yaya po finish!", asking us to switch it on again.

He has become quite the communicator, out of sheer self-defense in this vociferous household. He is very clear about what he wants and will belligerently ask for 'paani' or 'dudh dido', 'totti dido' (toffee de do), 'duy' (dahi) at all times of day and night. The other day he was creating a fuss over his breakfast and then suddenly started screaming, "Bangu" when the maid put down a cut melon on the table. It took us a while to figure out that he thought it was a mango. Given his hectic prancing around, he tends to get hurt quite a bit so all day you can hear plaintive "kag gai" ( lag gayi) from him. But before you can do more than kiss the hurt, he's up and off again.

He was pretty frantic when I was away, because unlike the other two he's not old enough to understand what happened and where I went. So he would spend the day endlessly asking where I was and running to the door each time the bell rang, "mamma aaya!" Whenever I spoke to him over the phone, he'd get all excited and then refuse to hand over the phone to anyone else, partly because I think he expected me to appear out of it anytime, as if we were playing peekaboo. He'd keep saying "mamma, hayo mamma" over and over, and it was heartbreaking for me to have to end the conversation.

It's really been wonderful to watch each new stage of his development and I don't know whether we were like this with each of his siblings or because we know he's the last baby we'll have, but each new thing seems to be so poignant, I keep wishing we could freeze time and have it last a little longer.

My Birthday

A few days before my birthday this year, A and I were rushing throug a mall for some work when I spotted a yellow straw bag in a shop. I casually commented that it looked like a fun bag to carry around for summer and that maybe I would buy it some time later. A immediately said, "Why don't I get you that for your birthday present? I haven't got you anything so far."

I had been hinting since last year that I would love a surprise birthday party on my 40th birthday but things had been really crazy around the house, with one maid missing, me serving as cook and general factotum and kids being sick one after another. So I figured any kind of party would be impossible. But a straw bag as a 40th birthday present? Sorry, but I'm more materialistic than that. And when he followed it up with "We can at least go out for dinner to Olive", I thought it was shaping to be the worst birthday ever. I mean, going to dinner at Olive is something we do for any old birthday or anniversary, not for a milestone one. So I just grouchily said that we could just order in pizza and eat it in our pajamas as I didn't feel up to making an effort.

I grumbled to my soulsis at length the next day, wishing that she still lived in Delhi so we could at least take off for a spa day together...But I got my cool back and decided anything was ok. Around Wednesday, when I asked him where we were going for dinner, A said cryptically, "Don't ask too many questions and just play along as the evening unfolds." I thought he must have cooked up some romantic surprise at the dinner - maybe a violin serenade, or he would get up and sing one of our songs, "tere bina zindagi se koi shikwa..." or "Bade acche lagte hain...".

The night before my birthday was pretty grotty as Bojjandi had a reaction to some medication and started throwing up. We spent the night cleaning up after him and changing his clothes, hoping the medicine would stay down. When he finally got to sleep, on our bed, we discovered we couldn't sleep because each time one of us would nod off, Bojji would turn towards him or her in his sleep and kick them in the nuts. I finally traipsed to his room at about 4 am and put him back in his crib before we could finally grab some shut-eye. I was starting to feel thankful for my lowkey birthday plans.

My birthday began with the traditional hoopla - I was crowned with the birthday crown and we sang the silly birthday song ( hurray, hurray, it's mama/ whoever's birthday, sing a happy song, sing along, it's a happy happy day). We normally make a crown out of chart paper or wrapping aper stuck onto a headband but we had't been able to find the headband. So A had actually gone to the trouble of trawling kids' stores and gift stores until he found the perfect, tackiest little crown imagineable - it even lights up!

Dad dropped in soon after we came down and gifted me an IPod nano from mom and him - a wonderful hot pink coloured one that I'm dying to charge and use. He passed on gifts from my sister and brother in law and their card which all too appropriately wished for me the three things every mother of kids in single digit age needs, especially one that's forty and has three kids - a little playtime, a good poop and a long nap!

It shaped up to be a great day, with A working from home and both of us actually managing naps in the afternoon for a change. I figured I better cook something nice for dad and the kids since they'd be at home while we were out celebrating and put together a simple Kerala-style meal - Kadala curry and cabbage thoran. A was hurrying me on to have my shower and get ready by the time I finished in the kitchen. I was chatting with Chubbocks while getting ready for my shower, and he suddenly said, "Mama, there's a birthday surprise for you." So I said, "Where?" Chubbocks says, "In the house. But I'm not going to tell you what it is." I thought it must be another birthday present but didn't want to pump him for the details, so I carried on with what I was doing. Just then I got a call from a friend about my business problems and I had a fifteen minute chat with him while A practically danced on his toes rushing me to the shower. I wondered what the hell had happened to him since I'm a 5-minute-shower girl.

I finally went up to get ready and that was another process...I had planned to wear this lovely and sexy black halter-neck dress that we had bought when we visited the US in 2005. I hadn't been able to fit into it since and now that I finally can, I wanted to prove to myself that i could look sexy at 40. A was a little iffy about it, which really surprised me because he's always the most encouraging person around. As it turned out, I thought the dress was - what else - making me look fat, so I begged off. Then I tried on a one-shoulder black top that was incredibly chic and which I had bought in Italy years ago and never worn. So A says, "Are you planning to wear a wrap with that?" I finally decided to give up on sexy and just go for cover-up and dragged out a wrap dress my sister had gifted me a couple of years ago. I pulled on a necklace that was conveniently within reach and serendipitously found nice evening shoes handy - see, it pays to be messy!

I had heard dad and the kids arriving so I A and I started walking down. As I opened the drawing room door, I saw that it was dark but figured Bojjandi had been doing his usual thing of playing with the light switches. As soon as I entered, people jumped out at me and yelled "SURPRISE" and the lights came on, and I saw my soul sis and several of our closest friends gathered in our living room, along with dad and the kids. It was an incredibly wonderful moment, and despite all my hints, a true surprise. But more was in store.

As we popped the bubbly and everyone got their glasses filled, A invited everyone into the family room to watch this amazing video he had put together. He had got friends and family from all over the world to make little videos and send them in and edited them with photos of me from various stages of life to make a tribute film which I am going to cherish forever...He had even ordered the food catered in, from Iram, which specialises in Hyderabadi food and which i am going to blog about on my food blog sometime. And he had ordered a special cake from a friend of ours who recently began catering desserts. All friends who were on the video but unable to make it for the party had been under strict instructions not to call me before 9:30 pm asking how the party and video were :)

It was an amazing night, which I am going to remember for a long, long time, and it felt truly wonderful to have such loving friends and family. Most of all, I was just blown away by all the good things people had to say about me, and especially by the amount of trouble, time, effort and thinking that A had put into it - he had been planning it since the previous September! A - you now have a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rest of your life :)

Chubbocks' Birthday

Blogging about this almost a month late !

We've always managed to put in a lot of effort into Chubbocks' birthday parties, but this year was an exception. A was going to be in Bombay for his company launch and not even sure he could make it back on his birthday. Our maid was away on leave. My parents were in the US and not likely to be back. I had some on-going trouble with my ex-employer who was bent on harassing me. And the two younger kids were down with a viral and throat infection as well as me.

All in all, not the most festive environment to plan a party. A suggested that we just throw principles to the wind and host it at a mall nearby or a Pizza Hut. But I hated the idea, always have...Then I realized that there were so many of Chubbocks' school friends having birthday parties that booking the date was also brcoming critical. Finally I remembered that one of Chubbocks' close friends also has his birthday a day before Chubbocks, and that it happened to fall on a sunday so I thought the best thing to do would be a combined party.

L offered to host it and I gratefully accepted, and we agreed to have two cakes, one for each child, for me to bring macaroni and she would make the sandwiches. I'd pay for the bouncy, we'd each contribute return gifts ( a copy of Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree, which i have always loved) and she'd organise everything else. Truth to tell, she did organise everything and I felt that I had taken advantage of her enthusiasm since she did a superb job.

She lives in a beautiful farmhouse with lots of open land around, and she had worked very hard on her garden. Every nook was filled with lovely spring flowers, and the weather too was perfect. Apart from the bouncy, L had organised a chaat stall and worked on a pass-the-parcel, complete with silly punishments, hired a magician who was really good, hired dune buggies which the kids could ride around in the large open spaces, and set up musical chairs. When I saw what all she had organised, I felt worse than ever that I hadn't had the energy to invite some of our personal friends and their kids, but I'd been so exhausted I had just not made any effort.

The kids had a wonderful time between the bouncy, the buggies and the pass-the-parcel. Best of all, despite the hired entertainment, it had just the feel I wanted of a party held at home. On the actual birthday, I took the three kids to the mall nearby and fed them McDs, so I guess I did succomb to the McDs birthday party syndrome too :)Happy Birthday C!

PS. Just wanted to post about a little incident with Chubbocks.
A few days back, he came home from the park in a flaming temper. I figured it was best if I let him cool down for a bit so I carried on with cooking dinner while he sat and fumed. Just as I was getting dinner on the table, he asked if he could just go and meet his friends for a few minutes. I was a little reluctant to let him go at that time and asked what was so urgent. He said his friend had been teasing him and he got upset and punched him. So he wanted to go over and say sorry! I was so impressed that he had realised he should say sorry without any prompting from me because he does tend to have a bad temper inherited from me, and hates to say sorry.

Okay, so the big 4-0 is upon me. I will have officially reached middle age tomorrow. So...well, don't really feel all that old or middleaged. While grey hairs abound, no signs of wisdom/ maturity yet. Of course, for some strange reason, I am feeling compelled to do all kinds of things, from getting a facial/ pedicure to buying myself an expensive gift, which I can't afford, in my current jobless state.

But on the whole, while as usual life caught up with some of the goals I had set for myself, I am pretty happy with where I have reached so far. I wanted to lose enough weight to fit into a sexy black halter dress I bought five years ago, just before I got pregnant with Puddi and have since been unable to fit into...Thanks to my now regular gym sessions, that's a check.

I always have a dislike for twilight - it gets me depressed unless I am in the company of friends/ loved ones...thanks to A and the kids, that's a check.

I wanted to be working in an interesting job...I am now working for myself. I love my boss. So that's a check.

I guess one of the things you realise, the more milestone birthdays you have under your belt, is that as you grow older, you change in ways that you want to change, if you are a generally happy kind of person. So those changes don't sort of creep up and make you shout out in horror and say oh no, who have I turned into. On the whole, I am turning into the me I imagined being...hapy birthday, me!

Seven already...

Dear Chubbocks,

How time flies...I can't believe my little chubbu-bubbu is seven years old already. I still remember you as a baby, flashing that lovely eyes and heart open grin that captivated everybody - even strangers on the street would stop, ruffle your hair and smile back. I remember that diapered baby-butt shaking fiercely to Jee Jee Doh - the first sign of your musicality. I remember what a shy boy you used to be, and how slowly, gradually, Jimmy, manu and the other teachers at Julia Gabriel drew you out until you truly became a confident communicator. And how, at every class, the minute Manu pulled out the Casio, everyone knew you;d ask for the Monkey song. Your first ever complete sentence was so characteristic: "Abba, what are you doing my face!" And the first word you learnt the spelling of, from hearing Abba and me saying it in code, when you were merely two years old - M-I-L-K!

You have become such a wonderful little boy and I constantly marvel at you. I know, on a daily basis, we just get exasperated with your early morning dawdling and your teasing of your sister, forgetting little things and eating too slowly. But when we sit down to think about you, there are just so many things I love about you and that make me proud of you.

One of the most endearing things you do is the way you look after your pandas. Even Puddi's one that you adopted after she stopped caring for it. Every night, you make sure their heads rest comfortably on the little herbal cushion and that they are as well covered by your blanket as you are. Even on family sleep nights, you make sure they are made part of the family.

You also look after your siblings pretty well. While you love to tease Puddi and certainly have no dearth of tiny complaints against her almost every hour of the day, let anyone else scold her - even us - and you become her tender protector. Whenever Abba and I threaten to punish her, we have to forget it because you plead with us with your brown spaniel eyes. And you play with her very nicely when you want to, and help her so beautifully with her activities. I love to see the look of genuine pride in your eyes when she does an activity correctly. You're also very good with Bojjandi. You're very gentle with him, and on the rare occasions so far that I've yelled at him, as usual, you've dashed to his rescue. You look out for toys and books to give him and don't mind him trailing along behind you. You're so excited when he learns something new!

I love the way you concentrate on your work. On Republic Day when you played the Casio for the National Anthem and the National Song, what amazed everyone who watched you was the focus with which you did it, oblivious to the crowd staring at you. Even when you're reading you're the same.

And I love how passionate you are about everything you do, whether it's dinosaurs or ben 10, pokemon or cricket. Last year you were convinced that somewhere in America, I could buy you the real Ben 10 watch and you could turn into ten different aliens. This year it's all about Pokemon and how calvados evolved into rampados and who stole your 'legendary'. Your telephone conversations with your friends are very cute, because they are so innocent, to-the-point and so focussed on Pokemon.

Despite all your reading and your activities and exposure, by and large you are still a wide-eyed little boy. You still believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus and all manner of fairy folk. I'm sure you really hope that one day you'll find the magic Wishing Chair and the Magic Faraway Tree. You still snuggle up to us, even though you've become too big to be unselfconscious about kissing us anymore.

It makes me so proud of you when moms of your classmates come up to me and compliment me on your reading ability, or the facts you come up with in class, or say that you're one kid with whom they can have a proper conversation about anything, or that their child says you are his best friend. At the moment you have an aversion to girls which is mutual, so no girls are making a best pal of you yet...but I'm sure that'll change!

Chubbocks baby, on this and every other birthday, I have the same wishes. That you keep this enthusiasm for life. That you wake up each day feeling excited to start a new day. That the world does nothing to destroy your illusions and innocence.

I love you with all my heart.

TWMITU

Soul satisfying

As the days go by and the kids are growing up, we find that each and every moment where we are able to completely focus on spending time with them and exposing them to the good things in life are becoming more and more special. This year, without making any grand resolutions about the same, I thought it's high time we began taking advantage of living in a vibrant metro full of culture.

Last weekend, I took them to art galleries around the city which had different types of exhibits. The ones in habitat center had new artists, experimenting with shapes and forms and dabbling in both painting and sculpture. The kids were fascinated by some bronze sculptures which depicted slices of Indian life - one showed a typical tea stall, with the stall owner busy straining tea from a large vessel, while some of his patrons sat sipping tea from kullads. some others were engrossed in debating the news from a newspaper...Another sculpture showed a wall with a hole in it, and a crowd had gathered around it, the way crowds do in India. Some of the people carried implements - spades, iron rods...some were trying to peer through the hole. The sculptures were beautifully detailed in miniature - none of the figures was over a foot tall - and captured the moment in such intricacy, one almost felt one was there. There were some lovely paintings too, of a range of subjects ranging from the figurative to landscapes. Chubbocks fell in love with a gouache landscape of a city gate - I have noticed this about him before that he tends to love gouaches. His favourite painting at home is a JMS Mani of a small little temple - he says it looks 3D, as if he were there.

We then went on to the Krishan Khanna retrospective, which was fabulous. It captured snippets of his entire oeuvre and many of the titles referenced the classic poets. This was followed up by tea at Triveni, where the kids got to work off some of their pent-up energy by running up and down the aisles of the amphitheatre while I caught up with an old friend. Sunday morning was spent having lunch with family friends at the club while being entertained with live western music. The club usually has live Indian film music, and all the old favourites by Rafi, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar and Kishore Kumar are sung with great gusto.

This weekend we decided to head for our annual winter treat of fondue at Diva. A used to laugh at my liking for fondue earlier, but became a fan when we lived in France, so now it's on our must-dos. The only thing is Delhi's span of really cold winter is so brief that it becomes a challenge, but somehow we manage to make it happen. The cheese fondue was as divine as ever, preceded with some wonderful fresh-baked Italian bread and by a starter of shaved parmesan and roast asparagus served on grilled polenta - simple and awesome. We then tried out a new dessert place called Whipped (read my review on food and laughter) and headed home. The evening was spent playing with the kids and managing the time for a quiet walk for just A and me, and topped off with a flavourful, wholesome dinner of Zuni Stew. After the kids went off to bed, A and I also managed to head out and watch the Sherlock Holmes movie.

On Sunday afternoon, we went to the winter carnival held in our colony. Various residents had done tremendous work in putting this together, and several of them were hosting food stalls which had simply delicious things to eat. Sunday evening, we decided to head for the Bonjour India celebration at Select City Walk Mall. This was a mix of opera, burlesque and circus and was part of a Festival of France organised by the French Embassy. The traffic was murderous and we almost had thoughts of heading back but somehow managed to park and get out.

As soon as we entered the Mall grounds, we beheld the spectacle of 7 or 8 crimson giraffes constructed of vibrant red cloth stretch out over hoops. Each giraffe was operated by two people - one sat in front and managed the head movements and the front legs while the other one sort of lay in the stomach cavity of the giraffe and managed the back legs. The gait of these giraffes was pretty true to nature, and they swayed as gracefully as their natural cousins as they ambled across the grounds. Then the celebration started.

A diva dressed in a white costume rose high up on a craned platform and sang her heart out in an operatic aria, while the giraffes moved close to her and formed an arch overhead.

The music mingled with the poignant light of sunset and the colours of the spectacle to create the sort of divine moment when your soul is moved and lifted. Then the clown who had been lying at the diva's feet on a high charpoy began his act, singing and dancing in a frenzy...

The parade continued throughout the grounds of the mall complex so that people in any of the four malls could see it properly. We carried on for dinner at the Spaghetti Kitchen which was superb. It's been a while since we really relished Italian food, since we have by now had it so often, but the SK surprised us with the quality of food and the service. We headed to the Haagen Dazs for icecream and by sheer serendipity, caught the tail-end of the parade.

The troupe played an assortment of songs - french, tamil, Hindi, Bollywood, fusion and the like, foot-stomping beats which had us dancing right there in the grounds of the mall and then culminated in fireworks...Thus ended a weekend which combined family time, culture and great food…my kind of weekend!

Here I go again…

I just finished watching Mamma Mia, the hit musical film based on ABBA music. Yes, I'm about a year behind schedule, but it was wonderful to finally get to watch it thanks to the power of my new DVR, and as A and I belted out the songs to the assembled audience of a dance-crazy daughter and a slightly embarrassed six year old son, it brought back a host of memories from college days.

My college friend Bhavna has her birthday on the first of January, and every year she'd host a birthday bash at her house on the first. She used to have an all-day party for all her girlfriends, and in the evening the 'formal' party would be held with family friends and so on, cake cutting etc. We'd all land up there bright and early, since our curfews were quite early in those days. There was a gang of about ten of us from college who used to be close friends and we'd all land up together around eleven. Bhavna stayed in a government flat which boasted a large living room, and as soon as all of us got there, she'd dig out her ABBA records and all of us would have a blast singing along at the top of our voices, dancing, gossiping…

It used to be a real feel-good of a day and cast a pleasant spell over us. It was such a wonderful way to start a new year off – hang out with friends, warm sunlight flooding in on a clear, cold day, listen, sing and dance to great music and eat good food all day!

Time for me

As you have kids and life becomes ever more hectic, it's so easy to forget about making time for the things you want or like. After a while, as a mom, it almost becomes second nature to deny yourself what you want and opt for what the kids want instead - trips to the park instead of to an art gallery or museum, eating at the McDs instead of a restaurant, skipping movies, opting for family time instead of time as a couple...

For me somehow, right from the beginning, it's been important to have time for A and I as a couple. We've had good help at home, and my parents living close by so we've managed to go out for movies, out for meals or parties once in a while. But time to myself has been something I've been pretty stingy about, maybe also because I work fulltime.

In the beginning it was so bad that I would put off nature breaks if the kids wanted something, not realising I was hopping uneasily from one foot to the other while getting whatever they needed. Now it's a rare occurrence for me to go out for so much as a mani-pedi, a once in 3-4 months thing. Haircuts have become an annual event. (Of course, the mani-pedi-haircut thing may also be because I'm naturally lazy about things like that - have been even before I had kids.) Reading is once the kids are in bed or while I'm getting ready or commuting. Writing tends to happen late at night or during occasional breaks at work. Worst of all is that I've fallen off the fitness wagon.

I used to work out thrice a week with a trainer when Chubbocks was small. But that was a time I felt I could permit myself since I worked only halfdays. Then, after Puddi came, I started really rationing my me-time so I began working out with the trainer at 5:30 in the morning, as that one hour was a spell during which the kids and A were fast asleep, so I wasn't 'robbing' anyone of that time. And after Bojjandi came along, I just didn't have the bandwidth or the energy, between breast-feeding, pumping, working and making time for the other two and A.

It's only when I took a break from work, starting July, that I felt I could make a commitment to one hour of working out, and enrolled in a nearby gym. It's been a great thing for me, because I'm not a do-it-yourself yoga type, I either need a tape/ DVD or the energy of other people that bounces off the wall at a gym, to push me. I also have always loved weight-training and working out on machines and the gym has more than enough for my needs so I love working out there.

More than everything, though, when I was doing some thinking about life directions as one tends to do at the end of every year, it hit me that being fit and healthy and energetic went beyond just going back to my original size - before the hypo-thyroid and baby-making caught up on me. It was to do with the sense of empowerment I felt just by taking action against something I saw as an issue. And also, it was about becoming healthier, having more energy to do things for myself and for others. That's when it hit me that one of the few changes I feel called upon to make this year onwards in my attitude towards my own health and fitness, and me-time in general.

I have to start thinking of it as an investment in the family, rather than something I'm robbing them of. Just like I try and think of working as something that builds assets for the family - more money, yes, but also a more patient me. My being fit and having more energy to hang with the kids and being more healthy is likely to keep paying off longterm dividends for the family. I'll be around longer, for one thing. And healthier more of that time. And happier, with a better self image and more positivity and a better attitude about how to cope with life's troubles, big and small.

I think a lot of women make this mistake of treating anything they do for themselves as an indulgence and therefore either of secondary importance or 'robbing' their family. Sometimes it is, let's face it. But a lot of times, it is something that's necessary for their physical and mental wellbeing, so let's stop Nirupa-Roying ourselves!

Looking back at 2009

The Good:
Getting to take a break from working
Visiting the US and seeing my sister and family twice and meeting my new nephew; while on business
Having a rare few hours of just my parents, my sister and I - not a spouse or child in sight :)Setting the stage for a great next job
Finding out I do have balls, just like I always thought!
Finding some true friends through a time of crisis
Catching up with lots of old friends anew
Holidaying by myself
Learning to discipline my spending
Getting back to gym-ming
Spending time with the family
Houseguests, including unexpectedly, because he lives just down the street, Dad
Getting the house just the way we want it
Losing some of the baby weight - hallelujah!
Visiting new places - Seattle, Minneapolis
Starting a book club
Reading some amazing books
Sharing lots of laughs with Ali over our bedtime viewing of Friends, Frasier and The Cosby Show
Products we designed getting launched
Alena getting into Aman's School

The Bad:
The sound of the two kaudi I have left in my bank account clinking together
A lapse of judgement and values
Health in general
My ex-workplaceAli's film production gig not working out due to the slowdown

The Ugly:
Armaan's hospitalisation
Armaan and Alena's frequent coughs and colds
Finding out how low some people can sink
An egomaniacal exboss out for revenge
Dealing with cops and lawyers

All in all, a year in which the good and great outweighed the bad and ugly, by far. God - thank you for this, and all the laughter, tears and learning you sent my way last year.

This year, what I wish for:
To grow
To learn
To be more patient and more accepting
To stay true to my core values
For my family and friends to stay healthy, happy and stable...

And for me to get back into shape :)