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 :)

9 down...

Wow, time flies when you're having fun! It really doesn't seem like all that long ago that A and I were dating and hoping that one of these days we could get married. And now we're just an old married couple with three kids, all the drama behind us.

All?

I suppose when you have three kids in the 0-6 agegroup, drama doesn't quite leave you alone. There's the daily struggles to ensure none of them dies of malnutrition by just waiting you out at the dinner table, the fights-to-the-death over some random toy that lies forgotten until one of them decides to make a bid for it, the tantrums and so on.

But apart from those inescapable scenes, life has taken on a wonderful, peaceful hue. It's something that, growing up, I never aimed for - I was a drama kind of gal. But having mellowed, I find it's wonderful to just be happy with your personal life, to be in a place where every day you're grateful to God for having been this generous, to find completion in your life partner.

A wins the Husband of the Year award all the more this year than every before. For always getting my back. For always looking out for me, in big ways and small ( including reminding me to shoe-shop in the US!!!). For being such a great dad. For being one of my guiding lights. For being the love of my life. For just being himself.

Thanks, and here's looking forward to many more years together :)

Rites of Passage

Every family has its traditions, right? Some carry on from generations, some are created by the family and so on...My kids have started a really sad tradition of making sure each of them gets hospitalised before the age of two, it seems like. Hope that's over now for Bojjandi, as we've had a rough few days.

I got back from the US Thursday morning to find that Puddi and Bojji were both down with a cough and cold. That's standard issue for winters here but given Bojjandi's tendency to breathing trouble, I always get a little worried. Plus the scare of swine flu which has been going around...

We immediately began giving Bojjandi his usual medicines and nebulising him but By saturday we felt he hadn't improved much and it was heart-breaking to hear him struggling for each breath. I've had asthma all my life and I know exactly how he felt. The normally dancing-on-the-furniture, ever-chuckling baby had turned into one who just wanted to sit or lie down listlessly in someone's lap, too tired to even smile.

We took him to the paediatrician thinking maybe she could give him an injection or change his medication and he would get better but she was so alarmed she nebulized him on the spot and told us to rush him to hospital at once. We were in the emergency for four hours, with Bojjandi getting nebulized every twenty minutes. The place was a madhouse, because it seemed flooded with patients of all ages and descriptions, and the hospital was too full to have any beds free. Mind you, this wasn't even one of Delhi's affordable hospitals but a new and expensive one, so God alone knows how the mango people (aam junta) hospitals are functioning under this rush...There was one poor guy lying in the waiting area on a gurney who had been waiting for a bed to be free from the previous evening!

We finally got a bed around 4 pm, mostly because we wanted a single room, for fear of infections and so on. With incredibly bad timing, Dad had left for Bangalore that morning. Usually my parents have been around to pick up our slack when stuff like this happens, and it made me realise how spoilt we are. I wonder how my sister and BIL cope with it in the US, where they don't have people that close by.

I had had no time to recover from jet lag since I had sat up for the past two nights with Bojjandi, so I went home that evening to hang out with the other two kids, and A stayed at the hospital. The next morning I went, and he came home in the evening and so on. It was acrazy time, because Bojjandi was getting nebulized every hour on Day 1, then every two hours. Finally by Day two evening, they started nebulizing him every four hours.

True to form, the minute he felt even five minutes better, he reverted to being his sunshiny self, grinning with his cute four teeth and wanting to wander all over the room. He had cabin fever by day three, and frankly, so did we. It was getting very difficult for us to keep him busy since he's such an active child, and I was petrified of the hospital beds which are so high and have such short siderails.

Finally on Day 4 morning, the doctor said she felt he was 70% better and that while she felt she would like to keep him there another 2-3 days, she would release him at our request. We came home heaving huge sighs of relief. It was incredible to see the look of joy and comfort on Bojjandi's face as soon as he entered the house, and saw his siblings. I think that gave his spirits such a boost that he must have moved up to 80% better right way.

He's doing quite well now, though he's still being nebulized four times a day. Hopefully he'll be fully recovered by the weekend. And so will we!

Our Home

Labours of love always take time. I mean, pregnancy takes a whole 9 months, right? And then the rest of your life to screw up your kids in your own particular way:). Our home has taken more time than it has taken for me to give birth to Bojjandi, and for him to become over a year old.

Last year was a crazy time - I was expecting for the third time, I was working on a huge project at work - in terms of scope, what we were trying to achieve for people and in terms of time and money ( we designed the world's first solar-powered mobile phone, among others), and we were getting to rent the whole house, but first it had to undergo serious repairs. The old neighbours moved out in April, and we found so many things that needed to be repaired/ reconstructed and so on. The kitchen had been infected with borer and ants and the neighbours ad refused to get anything done about it for the past three years, so first of all the kitchen had to be dismantled and the wood treated before the kitchen could be put back together. The outside area, which had been left as a sea of mud had to be paved over, as it never gets any sunlight. One bathroom had neither been used nor cleaned, it appeared, for the 7 years they had lived here, so that required ahandyman with a strong stomach to get fixed. Pipes were leaking, walls had seepage, the floor was stained...

The repairs began around April, supposedly to get over by end of August so we would have a month before the baby came to get it back together. In the immortal and universal manner of workmen world over, the work stretched and stretched until we finally threw the workmen out of the house in mid-November. The baby had already come, we were staying at my parents' house and A was on a break from work so he got to do some bits and pieces slowly and methodically - clasifying the library, for instance. For the rest, we really didn't have much time since my sister was going to visit mid-December and we had to be moved back in before that.

With much huffing and puffing, we managed to at long last get everything more or less together and moved back in Dec 10th. We still had some finishing touches to add - one room had lots of bits and pieces shoved in for later addressing, many paintings had yet to be hung up, but we figured we'd get to it in time.

Well, time has a way of rolling on and it wasn't until the time came for our annual party that we realised we had better get a move on and put our laziness/ life as parents and human beings aside and become slaves to the house. A whole lot of banging, hammering, cleaning, pushing and shoving later, we finally have the house almost as we want it. There are a few finishing tuches to come, as soon as we have any money again...though in some ways I think it'll never be 'finished' finished, since I love to keep changing things around. Want a tour? Here goes...

The entrance hall

The living room

The living room - another angle

Our pride and joy - the library

The Chinese-themed guest room

The Travel wall of the staircase

More travel pictures

Restaurant on the roof of the world - our terrace

The jungle...otherwise known as the kids' bedroom

More friends of the children

The School Thing

For any of you that haven't ever followed any of the school admission posts in Indian blog/ news land - let me inform you - it is a big, big thing. If you never do anything else for your child - become a politician so it can get paroled easy, start exporting lead pipes or some such unglamourous thing so your child never has to worry about where it can find money for the next snort of coke, become a Bollywood star so your child can star in flop after flop for crores...do this - get your child into a good school. And let me tell you, it may be more difficult to achieve than any of the aforementioned.

In Delhi, the courts finally decided the handful of good schools had had a party for way too long and established a point system - so many points for living within 5 kilometers of a school, so many points for girl children, so many points for being a sibling of a child already in that school or the offspring of an alumnus and so on. So you would think the whole process is simple and transparent, and the stress is off. Right? Well, no. It turns out Delhi had too few 'good schools' and parents living farther off were ina real quandary. add to that the limited number of seats available at the good schools and the levels of stress are reaching stratospheric levels. Especially for those who have recently migrated into Delhi, live more than 5 km away from the school of choice and whose elder son is eligible for admission.

We live in Gurgaon, where the number of good schools is even more limited, so we weren't sure how stressed we should get when Chubbocks had to apply for admission. I decided that we were going to be the stress-free type of parents which then meant that thanks to not subscribing to the Times of India, which is where all the admissions open ads come out, we were late for almost every school's list. In panic, we even shelled out an obscene amount of money to book Chubbocks seat in a school which I really, really dislike. Thankfully, we were on time for The Shriram School admissions and Chubbocks managed to get in.

This year, we have to try our luck for Puddi. I can't imagine any school not taking her - can you? but then, I imagine that's what all parents feel about their offspring. In any case, we decided, both for emotional and financial reasons since this year has seen our bank accounts get wiped out, that we're going to put all our eggs into the Shriram school basket. Word has it the school has a friendly policy towards siblings and Chubbocks has been doing pretty well in school. So fingers, toes and all our moveable body parts crossed until our interaction next week!

Learning behaviour

Bojjandi is really my last baby and while on the one hand I grieve that he’s already one year old, on the other hand, I can’t help enjoying each and every minute of his growing up. Much more than either of the other two, perhaps because he is the last or because I have chosen to take a break from a much-hated workplace, I am able to enjoy each and every antic, each stage of his growing up and my sense of marvel at the human brain only grows.

Two weeks before his first birthday, Bojji took his first staggering steps, about two of them, in between my mum and me, and then fell about, flailing arms and legs. Just ten days back, he walked like a high-wire artist strung miles above the ground, arms akimbo and body swaying from side to side perilously. Now he’s not just walking but trying to run all over the house on his stumpy bow-legs and flat little feet. The only time he crawls is when he knows speed is of the essence, i.e. the nano-second that the door to the staircase or front door is open so he can practice his Houdini act. He’s walking splay-legged all the way from the backyard through the kitchen and into the living room, even pausing mid-stride to stoop and pick up something he’s not supposed to and pop it into his mouth, and then carry on with his perambulations!

The other day, when he was walking out of the dining room, I thought I’d surprise him and shout out a Boo! I did and for a split second his face froze in surprise and then he broke into a delighted chuckle. What astonished me a minute later was that he went back into the dining room, waited for me to walk in and boo-ed me in turn! I just find it amazing how their tiny little brains churn and process the amazing world around them and then figure out what they should do and when and how.

He’s also made progress in talking, and can call out A’s name in the sweetest voice possible. He also learned to say mama three days ago and it never fails to get him a hug from me. He knows his thatha very well and any time he spots him, starts saying thatha, at first softly and then more and more loudly until thatha turns and picks him up and plays with him. He is extremely interactive and now is good company for anyone, between his crazy antics, his habit of dancing to The Wheels of the Bus and the various games he likes to play.

All in all, every time I look at him, I can’t help but be glad for the accident and God’s grand design which gave us this wonderful gift.

Puddi ke nakhre

Yesterday we took yet another irrevocable step on the way to Puddi’s becoming a little girl and not my puddilicious tomboyish looney-child any more. We got her ears pierced. It was a pretty momentous occasion, not least because it had been in the works for close to two and a half years.

Since we city-slickers live in Delhi or its neighbor the Millennium city, we didn’t manage to do what people in small towns do to their daughters soon after birth, i.e. ear-piercing. Typically in a small town, and the way I and my sister and assorted female cousins got it done was within the first 3 months of birth. The family jeweler came home with a fine gold wire on which he had strung tiny seed pearls, poked a small length of said wire through the ear lobes and twisted it together behind the lobe to create tiny little earrings that the baby wouldn’t have the hand-eye coordination to disturb for many months by which time she wouldn’t even remember that she wasn’t born with those little gold appendages. Yes, the baby probably cried a little bit but infants are remarkably immune to pain, it’s the being tightly held bit they object to, so they would recover pretty fast. The mother would apply a poultice of turmeric powder every day for a couple of weeks until the ear healed and was free of infection, and make kheer or some other sweet to celebrate the first rite of passage.

Well, we didn’t have that option at the hospital where Puddi was born and nor did we have a ‘family jeweler’ in this city, so we figured I’d try and get it done if I traveled to Bangalore with Puddi sometime before she turned one. That opportunity didn’t come up as I was working full time by then, so around her first birthday we decided to try and get it done here. We went to South extension, as the market with the highest density of jewelers per square meter, but imagine our surprise when jeweler after jeweler said they don’t provide that service. Finally we met one youngish jeweler who had a small daughter of his own, and he suggested we try a paediatrician, since jewelers themselves now get ear piercing done for their daughters by qualified doctors.

We promptly called our paediatrician, who said she did do ear piercing but she didn’t have a supply of ear studs on hand right now. So we waited and waited. Then we waited some more. When our patience ran out, we checked with friends, including Madmomma, who passed on the phone numbers of their paediatricians. But somehow or other the ‘’muhurat’ of Puddi’s ears had not arrived and we went from year to year not getting it done. It was never important enough – there were throat infections and birthday parties, swimming at the club and convivial evenings with friends to occupy our weekends.

Then, finally, A and I thought we had to make a final push to get it done. Puddi has been lusting after every piece of jewelry I own for ages, and especially coveting the earrings. And each time I had put her off with, “As soon as we make holes in your ears, you can wear XYZ…” I didn’t want another festive season to go by with her ears bare or covered by glittery stick-on bindis. We googled, and found a paediatrician in practically our backyard who did the deed. A took a full download of how the process worked, and we spent Friday evening and early Saturday morning briefing puds in great detail about it as we didn’t want her in shock and awe, not to mention pain. I was chicken as usual, and got mom to accompany us – she would sit in the room along with a and Puddi while the deed was being done, and I would sit outside chewing my fingers to the bone in quiet panic, stash of candy handy to dash to Puddi’s rescue at the first teardrop. That was the plan anyway.

The doctor applied an anaesthetic solution to her ears and we waited for the anaesthetic to take effect for about twenty minutes. Puddi strode into the doctor’s room with her usual confidence, A and mom following, while I unwrapped an alpenliebe and held it ready. The door closed. No sounds emerged for a while and I sat, insides twisting at the thought of any possible pain to Puddi. Suddenly, there was a high-pitched scream followed by a whimper, “dard ho raha hai…it hurts”. I sprang to my feet, before realizing it came from the examination room next door where a young boy was being examined by the other paediatrician. Five minutes later, it was all over and Puddi marched out, beaming from ear to ear, each ear sparkling with the tiny flower shaped studs we had chosen.

Summer Holidays

Chubbocks summer holidays just got over this morning, and Puddi goes back to playschool tomorrow. This time around, my parents were away in the US with my sister and we had charge of the family dogs, so we couldn't go out of town till my parents came back, not to mention that A has a new job and I was in some job-related turmoil so we were kind of stuck in situ.

My kids do have cousins - one in the US, the other in Canada, and will have one more, when my sister has a baby in October this year. But sadly, they hardly get to meet them, since they live so far away. Once in two years is the best that can be managed. My sister and I did have a plan to meet up in different corners of the world every year so we could fulfil both wanderlust and family togetherness, but at least for the present, the recession has put paid to that. She made a visit here for three weeks in December which was great, and the kids had a blast, but all in all, it seems too little.

Of course, it's not like she and I met our various assorted cousins too often. We lived in Delhi and most of them down South in Bangalore or thereabouts, so we met them annually, at best. But I always think of cousins and family reunions when it comes to summer vacations. I don't know if those were merely simpler or poorer times, when people didn't have the money to go stay in fancy locations in fancy hotels, and so visiting relatives was the default option for vacations.

We used to make an annual trip to the South, without fail. I still remember the lo-ong journey through Madras on the GT express. There used to be an 8 hour or so stop at Madras before we shunted off to Bangalore. Madras station would be stiflingly hot and humid, and reeking of fish. I used to loll around in a petticoat ( slip) and jump from berth to berth during the wait. Sometimes mom and I would get out and she'd souse me under the station pump to cool off.

Then later the KK express was introduced and we could go direct to Bangalore, and it seemed like the time was magically 'cut short' to some 40 hours. By the time we crossed Jolarpettai, I'd start wheezing. We'd pull in to Bangalore and one of mom's brothers or sometimes Thatha would be there to receive us and take us home. Enormous amounts of luggage would have to be managed - a brass tiffin carrier, a holdall, a big water jar and assorted suitcases.

Bangalore was a somewhat boring destination for me because there were no kids my age near ajji-thatha's house. I spent most of my time reading through thatha's extensive book collection and had waded through the unabridged Oliver Twist by age 6, out of sheer lack of alternatives. Thatha also had back issues of Reader's Digest dating back to the 50s and 60s, and I loved reading all the humour columns. There was a lovely club with a swimming pool just opposite their house, with a beautifulyl landscaped garden but I was not allowed to swim thanks to the asthma so I had to content myself by wandering around the lawns and making up stories.

We would do a round of visits to various relatives, including my aunts. My elder aunt, Vasanthi, loved to cook and would get so excited at seeing us she'd cook up a storm, But she was also absent minded. once when we were over, she was so busy chatting while we had lunch that she kept grating coconut for salad to go with lunch right until we were through with our food! She always had some interesting new food for us to try - like a Banana dosa - and always, but always had a stock of gulab jamuns on hand, because she loved them and knew I adored them.

My other aunt too was an enthusiastic cook, but more prone to making health food, so various kinds of leafy greens and salads would parade themselves before us at their place. Born with a green thumb, she had an awesome collection of Bonsais. Various relatives would offer that particularly Bangalorean beverage both to us and our parents - Bournvita/ Horlicks, in lieu of tea/ coffee.

But the real high point of summer holidays was going to Mysore where my paternal relatives stayed, including my cousins Nirupama and Kalyani. Nippu, as she's referred to, is just three months older than me and Kalyani was 6 years older than the two of us. We used to love the train ride to Mysore, especially the Maddur vadas that we stopped for enroute. My sister and I always used to pester to go home by horse cart rather than autos because they were so much more novel. The cart would trundle along to the clip-clop of the hooves down roads carpeted with bright red gulmohur flowers.

As soon as we reached my uncle's house, there would be a glad pandemonium, as everyone rushed to greet everyone else. The grownups would make as much noise as we kids. One aunt or other, or a cousin or uncle was always visiting. In the evenings, any one of a number of relatives would drop by as usual and spread the word that we had arrived. Then every day someone or other would land up, and there would be a spate of conversations, with old family skeletons and anecdotes being trotted out. At night, there would be sessions of '28', a strategy based card gamne, for penny points, interspersed by family gossip. Nippu used to curl up and go off to sleep at her usual hour but I used to stay up as late as possible, to be part of the action.

There would be a mandatory trip to the famous covered market. We usually had at least one expedition to Brindavan gardens, where we'd all pile into a rented van and go off for the day, and one outing to Chamundi Hills. A satyanarayana puje at the Raghavendra Swamy Matha was also a must, and we kids would dress up in our finery and keep making aimless trips from home to temple until the puje was over and we could relish the truly awesome food served there.

We kids had any amount of freedom to wander around by ourselves - something that I look back upon with envy, from the perspective of my poor city kids. We went off for picnics, including a mandatory outing to Kukkarahalli kere, followed by a meal at Ramya restaurant. We once went to a temple garden for a picnic and were chased by a bull - that was a famous incident where I fell under a moving car. We'd go to Jagan Mohan Palace to see the paintings, and to the Mysore Palace to look around. We'd go down 100 feet road to buy all manner of little knickknacks, and to the Technical Institute.

We were usually taken out by my cousins' next door neighbours, as their kids and we and my cousins all played together through the summer. They would take us in their Fiat, which made us feel very rich, to Lalit Mahal Palace grounds which were quite overgrown and had a wonderful view of Chamundi Hills, and then on to a meal at a restaurant where for some reason I always had Chhole Bhature.

My cousins and we spent the summer in all sorts of games, either in the temple opposite our house, or on the rooftop, concocting plays and dance performances that never saw the light of day. I'm not really sure what we did but the television was something that was never ever turned on. At mealtimes, the adults would eat first and then leave the table to us because they knew that given our habit of chattering and playing about, we'd be at it for hours.

They were wonderful summers, something we still reminisce about when we get together - so carefree, so aimless, so devoid of any structure or purpose nand yet so full. We used to weep when the train pulled away from Mysore station, and my uncle and cousins would also have brimming eyes. We looked forward to those summers every year and they never disappointed.

My kids had a rather sacked out summer this time. They went briefly to a summer camp of yoga and art, and then basically lazed around at home. A and I were at work and without ajji thatha to keep them busy, they had to find amusement for themselves - from drawing on doors and windows ( Puddi), to being prodded to complete summer homework( Chubbocks), to fighting with each other. We went swimming as often as we could, and all our weekends were spent in a pleasantly aimless manner.

I was happy for them to have an aimless summer sans any structure. I think it's so important for people to learn how to use their leisure time and to cherish it and it's best to begin when they are young. Chubbocks has now learned how to keep himself occupied, especially with his favourite occupation of reading, and I think it's been a fun summer for them.

Snippets from a mini-Break

Puddi, recalling a recent nosebleed she had had: "Chubbocks was really scared when I was blooden"

Puddi, regarding Bojjandi: "Bojjandi is a cu-uute baby. He's ho-oorrible cute"

Chubbocks, on me pressing him to try bacon: "What if I get swine flu?"

Puddi, after watching a performance by Banjaras: "When I grow up and become a man, I'll become a fire eater"

Puddi, in tears, observing A and me arguing: "Why are you scolding Abba? He's my favourite abba!"

Staycations

I have been pretty stressed out at work for a while, so it was nice to get away for a couple of weeks. Not too far, though. I took a staycation, as much due to the recession as to the stress of traveling with three kids.

Two whole weeks. Pretty long time for me to chill out, right? Wrong. It turns out three kids have a way of fast-forwarding time faster than any time machine yet discovered. I can't say I got much done. I did have some hazy plans for finishing the mural on their playroom wall...buying some sequins for the blue front wall...getting our modern chandelier repaired...putting up some of the paintings we've been too lazy to put up since december...being a little more active on my blogs...

Well, I achieved none of the above. I did manage to take them swimming almost daily for 3 days, and then I fell ill with a septic bad throat. I recovered by Friday, and we went swimming twice on Saturday, then chubbocks fell ill. He passed it on to Puddi who then passed it on to Bojjandi and so it went. A welter of impatient, cranky kids and cranky and impatient mum, glued together in one room with the AC perpetually on thanks to the heat.

A big chunk of my day went in yelling at them to behave/ eat/ wear their slippers. A tiny but blissful chunk went in curling up for a siesta in the afternoons. A small chunk went in helping Chubbocks have fun with his holiday homework - a concept new to me since I went to school in the dino era when there was no such thing. I spent a teeny tiney amount of time reading - was too tired to read most of the time. Don't really know where the rest went, but I can tell you I found no window aimless and big enough to persuade me to put away the pile of ironed clothes.

I got back to work today, and it feels tough to give up that aimless, rambling, snapping, yelling existence and come back to the relative sanity of a workplace. To not have little bodies hurling themselves at me precisely when I'm painstakingly painting a toe nail or updating my facebook status, to say, "I lou you mumma" or "Fimming pool". To not watch puddacious hurl herself at the furniture in a frenzy of joy at sheer existence twenty times a day. To not applaud Bojjandi carefully drool and crawl his way through an obstacle course of cushions set up by his big brother to cushion his fall. To not be around to answer Chubbocks' twenty million existential questions. "What if there was a number bigger than infinity?" "Are you older than infinity?"

On the other hand, I don't pay for the air conditioning bills at work!