Long overdue updates

I have hardly been blogging of late, but decide it's high time I wrote down what the kids have been up to. Chubbocks has finished Class 2 with his usual effortless performance so far ( brags moi :)) and moved up to Class 3. He's now 8, supposedly grown up. But the boy is a marshmallow inside.

We were giving up our Photon connection because it gave us dismal connectivity. Chubbocks mounted a full campaign asking us not to give it up. Finally he came down to begging us that even if we disconnected it, we should keep the modem somewhere safe, "else it's feelings will get hurt." I was cleaning out the kids playroom recently and came across a box full of soft toys, which the kids have hardly ever played with. I had the maid put them into a bag, preparatory to giving them away. That night I found Chubbocks, soft brown eyes full of concern. "Please don't throw them away. They are my babies!" Now that bag has been transported into an attic, half the contents piled on Chubbocks' bed, with barely enough space on the bed for him to be able to turn over.

Puddi is another thing altogether. She's crazy about art and runs riot with paint, crayons and colour pencils. She spends hours every day quietly engrossed in making a new work of art. I get the distinct feeling she is artistically gifted, going by her efforts so far. She's also an enthusiastic performer on stage. Her puppet dance came in for an encore on the day that we had PTA meetings, and she performed with the same gusto as she had done on stage. Last week she had a ballet performance. Her bit was pretty minor, but she was hilarious. The child next to her had forgotten her steps and refused to stand up on cue. So Puddi just reaches over and hauls her to her feet, gesticulating wildly to remind her of the steps :)

She's also growing into a lovely sister and a great middle child. She's equally happy running riot with Bojjandi or with Chubbocks. She plays board games, argues with Chubbocks, has long arguments and nonsense conversations with him. They fight all the time and irritate each other, yet her eyes well up when he gets scolded. He gets rather hyper at bedtime and competes fiercely for who will get Abba to sit on their bed first, and she's so quick to give in to keep him happy! Then, with Bojjandi, she's riotously running and tumbling around the house and making him laugh. We were out for dinner the other day, and Bojjandi wanted a bite of her dessert. Not only did she readily agree to share but she maternally and responsibly told him to sit down neatly next to her and fed him with such loving care.

And then there's Bojjandi, the most mischievous, rascally urchin in our house. His speech, both in English and Hindi, has grown by leaps and bounds, and he rattles off long sentences, even paragraphs. His communication skills are terrific and he is easily understood by all of us at home, even if newcomers find it hard to figure him out. That's because his 'r's and 'l's are still 'y' sounds, which is adorable and I really want him to stay that way fro as long as possible.

He's like a dashing movie hero - dashing around the hosue at all times. One of the loudest voices in the house too. Very fond of opening the fridge and scavenging for anythign interesting that he can find, from dahi to chutney, chocolates to cheese. Stubborn as a mule, he still hasn't touched milk after we threw away his bottles six months ago! Assertive and more than capable of holding his own against either Chubbocks or Puddi. And when he gets really affectionate towards you - watch out. He'll come and 'kench' you ( pinch) realy hard, with a fierce expression and gritted pearly teeth. or launch himself at you like a missile and pound away with his chubby fists. He loves his Noddy scooter and his favourite thing is, at night after he's changed into pajamas, to come riding into the family room on the scooter, long, unruly curls blowing behind him, like those old-fashioned Bollywood hero-introduction shots :)

Bojji Rap

Chubbocks one night at bedtime: Abba, I wish Bojji would stay a small baby forever, he's so cute.
Bojjandi, sleepily from his crib: I yam big boy!!!
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Bojjandi, speaking on his pretendphone: Hayo mamma, what aayu doing? I'm pyaying baybayade. ok bye

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Bojjandi is busy sorting and arranging his toycars and books on the sofa while A reads his paper quietly. I enter the room, and Bojjandi suddenly turns to me and says, "Abba dishturb my whole game. I am very upshet!"

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Bojjandi imperiously demands music: Abba, I wan Beayit ( Beat it, Michael Jackson) shong fulltime!

Bedtime Tales

Bedtimes at our house are getting increasingly complex, with three children of different ages and tastes to account for. It started out with Chubbocks getting three stories a night, followed by some singing. Chubbocks also has the same strange affliction I have - when he gets sleepy, his back starts itching and he has to have his back scratched for a bit.

Then along came Puddi, and we had to split the story-telling and back scratching/ patting between the two. And now we have Bojjandi, who's a pretty demanding little fellow. And we have sibling competitions on a nightly basis. Just to give you an idea of how a typical bedtime goes...

First we have a race up two flights of stairs to the bedroom floor. The first one to reach always has to proclaim "I win!", while the other two protest about cheating or how they had a stomach ache or had fallen down two weeks ago and were still nursing a stiff knee. Then, while A or I, or both, are turning back quilts and making the beds ready for the night, the three have a scrimmage at the bookshelf in their room, each picking out the book they want to be read from. Bojjandi, who has no concept of fairness, usually pulls out three or four books, while dropping half a dozen others on the floor, and insists that he wants to listen to them all, while we try to dissuade him.

Chubbocks and Puddi argue about whose bed the hapless parent will sit on that night to read the stories. Since this is supposed to happen on a rotational basis, one of the kids will always insist on having a convenient attack of amnesia about the previous night. Thankfully Bojji still sleeps in a crib, so he's not part of this competition. Then Chubbocks and Puddi will argue about whose story gets read first, while Bojjandi insistently yells out the name of his story, "Abba, yeed mine!( read mine)". I try to avoid this mess when it's my turn at bedtime by insisting that I choose all three stories or narrate them from memory/ imagination, and the strategy works some of the time.

Finally, somehow I settle on one of the beds, Bojjandi on my lap, while the other two try and squash in as close as possible, crib about how they can't see the pictures/ words and how it isn't fair. We try and read Bojjandi's story first, most nights, because that's the only way to shut him up while the other two stories are being read. Halfway through the story, Bojjandi tries to skip ahead and look at other pictures in the book, while we haul him back to what we're reading. We then read out the other two stories.

Once the stories are done and kids tucked in to their respective beds, Bojjandi starts his nightly queries about everyone on the house. "Where'sh abba?" "Where'sh ayoopa didi?". Then it comes to his playmates. "Where'sh miaow (his stuffed toy tiger)?" "Where'sh Gob the bildo ( Bob the builder)" He also answers many of the questions himself, which makes me wonder what the point is. "Gob'sh sh'eeping ( Bob is sleeping)". "Ayoopa didi'sh sh'eeping" and so on, till I issue a ultimatum about not singing until he keeps quiet.

Then come the song requests. Puddi usually wants 'a few of my favourite things'. She's also become fond of 'Wouldn't it be lovely' from My Fair Lady ( I think the phrase 'lots of chocolate for me to eat' had something to do with it!). Bojjandi used to ask for the Karadi song - 'The Bear went up the Mountain', which I sing in English and Kannada. The 'kookabayya' used to be another favourite earlier. Lately he's hooked on to 'Chim chimenee' from Mary Poppins, and keeps asking for repeats. If I start singing something he doesn't care for particularly, he's pretty direct about it, "Mamma, shwitch the shong off!" Chubbocks has no music requests and takes pretty much anything I sing in a sweet spirit. For instance, tonight I sang The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel and asked him if he liked the song. He said he didn't care for it because of the bit about boxing and 'cut him till he cried out' but generously stated that he liked the way I sang it. That's so much a part of his personality - not wanting to hurt the other person by any criticism...
After the concert, during which Bojjandi will talk continuously, along with requests to 'shcat my bat' - which he just says to copy his siblings, you could tapdance on his shoulder and he would think you were shcatting his bat, he will turn to his side and keep repeating your name over and over, a sure sign that he's sleepy. He's still pretty alert to any signs of wrongdoing, though - tonight, I started patting his forehead, hoping to make him nod off sooner, and he reprimanded me sternly, "Mamma, don't bang me!"

The other two wait patiently while their noisy and fussy junior gets to sleep, sometimes falling asleep themselves in the process. Then comes the argument about who gets their back scratched first and whose back gets patted first. Finally, when I think these two are sleepy enough to go off on their own, I tiptoe out of their room, wishing them, as per family joke and tradition, 'gooda nayatoo, sudarimasu. I love you cherry vammu...

Desi Mom

I just finished reading Amy Chua's book, and it was compulsive reading. Well written, fast-paced. At the end of it, I realised that I was made very uncomfortable by the WSJ article that came out and the book, because we share many of the same values when it comes to parenthood. I believe that kids shouldn't be raised to become praise-junkies. They should learn to take a fair amount of criticism. They shouldn't be given the option to opt out of any activity as and when it pleases them, because often they give up too easily at a young age. They need to be forced to practice various skills, because it's much more fun for them to play beyblades than do their casio routine. There are various skill areas or subjects in which rote learning lays a great foundation for life, e.g. maths, the scientific table. They need to be taught how to raise their own bars rather than having whatever level of performance they turn out being acceptable. They need to have a certain amount of their time structured. They do need to have and demonstrate respect for their parents, family. They need to know that family is one of the most important things in the world. I agree that parents, rather than looking for popularity with their kids, need to ensure they are doing the things that will equip kids better for the future, even if that means your kids hate you from time to time.

I started wondering if I was a Chinese mother underneath my ghunghat, but then I realised that there were a whole set of other values I believe in that Amy Chua doesn't seem to. I also have a fundamental disagreement with her methods - scolding a child or giving them negative feedback is a far cry from the kind of excoriation she seems to specialise in. It's kind of sado-masochistic, the way she humiliates her daughters in the name of helping them, and then talks about how bad it makes her feel. She's actually downright nasty in her conversations with her husband - surely parenting is meant to be a joint activity, rather than one where one parent takes control and runs everyone else down all the time. Judging purely from the book, I got the feeling that their household really is all about her - what she wants, how she feels. Even when she's speaking about getting her daughters ready to play at a concert, she says, "I had just a month and I was so tense", not "My daughters had a month to prepare and I was tense on their behalf". It's as if she is living vicariously through them, which is something I have a huge problem with. The other thing I have an issue with is how she feels that Chinese children 'owe' their parents their lives.

Coming from an Indian family, which up until my parents generation, used to be run on similar lines of thinking, I have seen the kind of havoc it can cause. Some of my friends have gone through those situations where a parent just decides to oppose a particular decision by their child, for reasons that have everything to do with the parents' happiness and nothing to do with the hild's happiness, and I feel it is just wrong. I'm much more of a believe in Kahlil Gibran's philosophy of how parents shouldn't make the kids feel they owe it to their parents to make them happy with their life choices(exact quote below, I paraphrase wildly!). First of all, making anyone but yourself responsible for your happiness or lack thereof is a lovely shirking of responsibility. Second of all, what a nasty burden to put on someone that you supposedly love!

I can understand parenting along similar lines as Chua is one if a first generation immigrant, struggling to survive or from a lower income background. I know that in such a case, the urge towards survival and the climb up the ladder of success would seem such a guarantee of stability, security and therefore happiness, that it would be the most important thing for the parent to push their child towards. But surely, those of us who are now in the privileged position of having become upper middle class or higher can have different dreams for our children.

Surely our dreams can move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs to look for self-actualization, rather than merely social esteem and success by society's standards. because if people don't evolve and move up to higher order needs, there will be no art, no social service, no community spirit, nothing apart from the kind of jockeying for success, status and more-self-important-than-thou spirit that one sees in Delhi and other Indian cities today. We ourselves will need to evolve and look for higher purpose and more spiritual satisfaction in life, once we achieve material security, so how could we deny our kids that?

They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday

Kahlil Gibran

Heil Chinese Moms, but I'm a desi girl!

Read the article on Chinese mums in the WSJ, and all of a sudden that whole foot-binding thing started making sense. Daughter cries - oh, my foot is really hurting, it feels like it's going to break. Chinese mum - you wuss, stop snivelling and start tightening, it should break at least twice! Just kidding...

There are a couple of points that made sense to me, but on the whole, the article smacked of a dictatorial, parent-oriented style of bringing up the kids that doesn't bother seeing the kids as individuals and wants to push them through a cookie-cutter of some kind.

Okay, on the whole, I'm not very liberal with praise. I don't think everything my kids do is wonderful or fabulous ( well, that's not true, I do but I keep that to myself!). No, kidding again, I tend to be quite critical and objective when I look at what my kids are doing, and sometimes, I'm honestly surprised when someone else praises their efforts because I didn't think what they had done was praise-worthy. I don't want them to become praise junkies, and I want them to be able to take honest criticism and build a desire to improve. I have high expectations from them at school, across subjects including gym, and I make it clear to them. I don't think it's ok for my kids to give up on some activity after checking it out a few times, because at this stage, I think they don't know enough to take that call, and may just be wanting to take the easy way out. I make sure that they give an activity enough time and also, to be honest, I picked the activities that I thought they showed interest and aptitude in, and I do push them to practice and excel in those.

But I'm also a firm believer in extra-curricular activities, in playing with friends, in having unstructured free time to just chill - and heck, yes, I'm a lazy mom, I like to have my free time too, so I believe in a reasonable amount of benign neglect, after ensuring blunt instruments and sharp knives have been put away. I cannot believe the amount of micro-managing that the author of the article believed was necessary - not allowing kids to play any other instrument than piano/ violin? why on earth? Why not have them participate in a school play - they'll learn about emoting, public speaking, working with others...and besides, school is the one time in life that they'll actually have the free time to be able to do it.

I do see a lot of parents around me who seem pretty stressed out by the efforts of competitive parenting, and it freaks me out. I attended a school event and spoke to Chubbocks' classmate's mom. She said that her daughter had been going to dance classes for a couple of years and loved it but now the kids were in second grade, she felt there was too much academic pressure and had pulled her daughter out from all activities! There are kids who do kumon and music, sports classes and tuition, in Class II. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being a slacker but I don't want to structure their life so much that they're busy rushing around from class to class while life passes them by.

My dad was pretty Chinese-mum-like when I was growing up. He always expected me to be studying and I remember if he ever entered a room unexpectedly and I was reading or doing something else, I'd jump. We moved overseas when I was 12 and I attended American schools, but he was so concerned about me learning 'american' ways that I was very restricted. Extra-curricular activities were not allowed - I of course rebelled and participated in the school play anyway, much to his displeasure. (His argument always used to be that I had to focus on studies and that there would be plenty of time in life for those activities. Well, guess what, there really isn't any time, after you start working, even in a liberal/ creative field like advertising, to run around acting in plays, singing in bands and so on, unless you choose to make those activities your work.) No sleepovers, ever ( strangely, my sister was allowed to go for them!). Very rare visits were allowed to friends' homes.

And when it came time to attend college, he forbade me to study anything other than Economics. I did Eco Honours, was miserable, barely understood the subject and scraped through with a IInd Div which gave me an inferiority and stupidity complex for years. So what exactly did I learn from the hyper-controlling?

I learnt that I don't want to be so in charge of my kids life that they don't fart before asking me (pardon my french). I want them to grow up and be mature adults who can weigh the pros and cons and consequences and make choices for themselves. I want my kids to have their own opinions, even if that means we're at loggerheads sometimes, because it means they are thinking. I don't want them to be mediocre, but I want them to define success on their own terms, not society's. I want my kids to have free time and friendships that last, and the ineffable pleasure of being able to curl up on a fine day and do...nothing at all. I want my kids to have a life, not lead one. Most of all, I want my kids to be individuals in their own right, who aren't dictated to by society as to what work they should do, whom they should love and what they should think.

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.