Children's Day

As if we didn’t have enough festivals on the Indian calendar!

It was ok till it was a fancy dress party in play school. Yes the costumes and teaching them two lines took time, but they enjoyed so much that it was worth the time.

And now….

Same time last year, one day before the Children’s day celebrations in school, I am in office and get an urgent call from the day care:

Mamma, Ma’am has given us the dresses for tomorrow. We have to get ready, put on MAKEUP from home....

Wow. What fun! Ok so I get up 15 mins earlier fine..

And she said we have to shampoo and blow dry our hair…

Ok. 30 minutes*2

And we need to wear bangles

I hope that's all. …oops..I’ll have to arrange them before going to bed today

And…

and what?

She said we can’t wear sandals or shoes because it is a Punjabi dance, so we have to wear jobhris

…what on earth was that??

Ok, the teacher must have met Mojris but how on earth was I going to manage buying them before tomorrow morning?

My husband was in a conference. He could not go out Mojri shopping, neither could he baby sit in the evening if I went out..

And then if I went shopping after office, with these two in tow, how do I manage making dinner, tomorrow’s lunch and breakfast?

Where in Bangalore would I find Mojris?

Should I ask Mom to send them by courier? 

Half a dozen calls later, the Grand referee to the rescue.  He found someone whom he could send to Commercial Street. The only catch-wasn't sure the guy understood what Mojris are….

I did an image search on Google, sent an email, and kept my fingers crossed….

Two hours later, I got a call saying the Mojris were with him, I had to wait till night to see if they were Ok.

….there was nothing else I could do

Thankfully they worked.

I still made a big fuss about the teachers dropping it on us at the last moment so this time both girls got their costumes and shopping lists two days in advance.

So all I need to do this time is: 

• Stitch Zebra ears on Elena’s costume for the Animal dance
  
  
• Fold and hem half a mile of Aurora’s ball gown which is way too long for her.
  
  
• Buy matching ear-rings and sandals and ruffled socks and gloves….
  (….and Mamma can you PLEASE buy some eyeliner and blusher also, everyone else will be wearing them)

 Oh….

• I need to teach them and two of their friends a dance too........ for the Children’s day celebrations in the apartment complex.
  
  
• Yep. And then I’ll have to organize the costumes for that too… 

As there isn’t any time left over for blogging, I am just posting this list…..just in time to rush out and buy the matching thread for stitching her gown.

Growing up, going online..

While I wait for the day when the kids will have grown up, there are these moments when I look  at them and wonder if it isn’t it happening too fast!

Flashback..

Me naming each object I took out while cleaning the fridge, and Elena repeating them with a baby lisp…Eggsh, Tomatoess, Butterl, Juice, Papa’s Juice…noooooo..it is called Beeeeeerl

When did she learn that?
I stand corrected.

Cut to present…

She is just feeling her way around a keyboard, playing games, and asks if I can create an email account for her…

Days later,
I see she is online and ping her with a cheery Hi!
My chat window blinks:
Elena: … the red circle with a bar means I am busy. I can’t chat with you now.
Loverna: Your Internet time is up, please log off
Elena: Ok.
Her status changes to offline.


And I am really not sure whether she’s offline or “ invisible”

Am I being “Hyper” in feeling scared and wondering what next and deciding to supervise her net activity more actively, to talk about the need to chat only with “approved” friends?


And then I read this article on what can happen to any kid:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6899975.ece

It’s on us to keep our children safe, and if I need to get hyper, then I’ll do that too…..

Do words work?

Most of my posts are frivolous and fun as I deliberately avoid writing about serious issues, about things which matter most, about things I cannot change…..

This is because even though I find writing cathartic, I am really not convinced about its power. When we try to create awareness through words, does it even reach the right people?

As I was going through some really thought-provoking posts on Domestic Violence Awareness month, this was what I thought-are the women who are victims, even reading these? Will they start believing they have the right not to put up with it? Why do they endure it in the first place?

And violence is not always physical.

Some firmly blanked out memories crept out…

Yep.  I am an Engineer and a M.B.A and I have put up with a whole load of stuff from my MIL which no woman should.

Why the hell did I do that?

Because I hate confrontations and nastiness and I was afraid it would inevitably lead to more nastiness, because it would upset the whole family, because I still wanted to cover up for her…

Because I was a wimp!

There comes a point when enough is a lot more than enough, when you have to wake up and realize that things will not change until you change them. The sooner you start the better.

I hope some more women out there start fast.

Coming back to my original thought, yes I guess “just writing” may not be enough to bring about change, but maybe it just starts a ripple somewhere…

This Mom has her day

I had to pick Aurora from a birthday party.

She took one look at me and forgot the excitement of showing me her return gift: Mamma you are wearing my earrings again! Last time you wore them to office and broke one..

Well, I didn't have much time to get ready and her stuff was scattered all over my dressing table-including earrings in the exact shade of pink as my top, so of course I borrowed it.

What’s a pair of earrings between a mother and her daughter?

Remember all the lipsticks you broke painting your face, including my favorite one which my best friend had given me, right upto the day we got a carpenter fit locks on my cosmetics shelf?

And all those “sticker bindis” collected from across cities which you stuck all over your forehead, all at the same time?

And the "heels" you broke while practicing to walk on them?

The “zari” dupatta you borrowed for dancing on the bed and returned with a big vertical slit?

The mascara you used to play “ghost”?

I may have to wait for some more time before I can borrow your bracelets and stilettos, but surely I can use a handbag if it matches my dress, or nail-paint, or a beaded necklace, or..

Another Diwali

I always loved everything about Diwali-the razzle and dazzle, the lights, the clothes, the puja and the noise.

I have always loved crackers too.

Yet when my kid came back from play-school all those years ago and said she doesn’t want to burst crackers because they are made by little children who are forced to work and not go to school, the perspective began to shift.

It was just one of the truths we brush aside because we’d rather not face it.

Over the years, as the skies grow darker with every festival of lights, the smoke has become even more difficult to ignore. We drastically cut down the amount of crackers and just burnt a few to keep the tradition alive.

This Diwali, I saw a Dad coaxing his “stubborn” fourteen-year-old to stop being a spoilsport while she refused to join in the Diwali tradition, and realized that our generation just does not get it.

It is time for us to move on, to learn a few lessons from our kids…They do know better. (Sometimes!)

Exercise in Education

The Theory:

I always look on our trips together as another opportunity in education

So I always try to draw them maps, provide a background of what makes each place special and tell them what I know about the society, language, food and culture of the place-and yes all the interesting bits about geography, history and mythology too.

The Practice:

They always managed to have questions for which I have no answers.

Like: Why couldn’t Lord Rama just fly his army over to Lanka-He was God wasn’t He?

Or for that matter: Why did He let his wife get kidnapped anyway?

And there are times they don’t even wonder “Why” and just find things to absurd to even ask about.

Like Aurora’s reaction to the world famous temple carvings:

They wear so much jewellery and they don’t wear clothes! How D……..

Hey I can see an Ice-cream shop! Anyone interested?

Education will have to wait till Mom does some more homework or till they are old enough to find their own answers (and probably educate me).

Back home

We are back-tanned, tired, and triumphant.

……..after spending the last eight days traipsing through the towering temples and bewitching beaches of southern-most India

The travel tales probably deserve another blog-but I am not sure whether I’ll be able to do justice to another one, still mulling it over…….

For now the highlights of the trip:

• Spending eight complete days as a family without the distraction of school, office, grocery, laundry and the never-ending logistics of managing house 

• Travelling by aircraft, train, taxi, and ferry all in one trip-a bus trip got missed out (Thank God-the kids say)
  

• Viewing the Rama Sethu at Rameshwaram before it gets dredged out by the power of politics and commerce

• Watching the sun go down at the southernmost tip of India, the confluence of the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean

• Me and Elena having a full-scale Mom v/s Pre-teen kid raging row, with she calling me the most autocratic Mom in the world (I know-she’s probably right ) and I calling her …well some strong names-both of us refusing to talk to each other for fifteen whole minutes as Aurora and Dad coaxed us both out of out tempers. We did hug and make up but Phew! What next I wonder?

• Getting the scare of our lives, when the Grand Referee of our family was knocked down on menacing rocks, trying to record the unleashed fury of the waves; relieved beyond words as he managed to come out with only a minor bruise on his foot, while his camera, phone and iPod weren’t so lucky!

• Managing to find a non-digital camera (I wasn’t sure they still made them) and waiting for rolls to be developed

• Coming home exhausted and exhilarated - and finding it still the best place to be in!