Home, 150 PM, 29 January 2011
The sports day of Bombay Scottish has just got over..
The young kids, dressed in white and multicoloured caps finished PT at 12 sharp.
I saw the parents leave enthusiastically, with their kids in toe...
The labourers are now at work, piling up the chairs and dismatling the pandal...
The three kids from the slums have just walked into the ground excitedly now..
they are getting ready to play gilli danda..
they probably study in a different school.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Silly Mistakes
Home , Raheja Vihar, Mumbai
On a lazy Saturday afternoon 1255pm
I am sitting to blog in over six months now..primarily because I realized I was writing in between for others and not for myself and secondly because in a long long time.. after 1.5 years, I am home, with my husband and cat..settled, to be able to think of what I should do next.
But that being besides the point..I write today as Bombay Scottish celebrates its annual sports on the ground right opposite our apartment. Found myself looking down sleepy eyed at the hundreds of kids pour into the ground this morning. A few flags fixed right in front, for the view of the enthusiastic parents.
Took a stock of the time that has passed between now and the last I was there..enthusiastic one morning, dressed in my green tunic, well below my knees, parted hair tied at two end of my head, hair which was thankfully not oiled, looking forward to the time when my parents would walk in and as the captain of the school I would receive my flag , looking ahead with pride and responsibility. I don't know why, but I would always develop a lump in my throat and tears would well up in my eyes everytime I saw my parents encouraging me from behind the barricades.
Coming back to now, yesterday a few colleagues (also parents) were talking excitedly about being there. It hit me that actually many years have passed when we’re talking about our kids being out there in the sports days and that in no time, I’d be taking my own kid.
But for now, my thoughts are drifting back to my school, carmel convent, the yeallow building, 10th standard, the desks in which we scratched our names, flowers, shapes and patterns when bored , the teachers,Venu madam, Awasthi Madam, Girija warrior madam..
The math result.. I had scored an 89, lost 7 marks that I lost because of a silly mistake. Would have got me to 96, most that I expected from myself. Warrior mam told me that day that I was focusing more on the extracurrics and therefore losing out on hitting out on my potential. My teachers believed my abilities more than I did myself..
My silly mistakes have come with me all the way.. I still make them.. worse now.. I make them at work.. In the compensation of a person last year which I fixed later…need to slow down as a person.
On second thoughts I think I have brought along from school much more than silly mistakes with me…
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Monday, July 19, 2010
To Maa and Papa on their Thirty First Anniversary..
Here’s to you Maa and Papa..
17th July 2010.
Have been thinking of writing this for a long time now and it has finally come a month after your anniversary but here it is! Sometimes when Subin asks me this- “So, tell me how is it between your mum and dad, as in, what kind of equation do they share” and I start to wonder which aspect of it I should describe to him… That ever since I can remember, I have seen them have their morning cup of tea together and talk about a million things under the sun, as if today were the only day they had and I would wonder how they don’t ever run out of topics !!”
or that when they are fighting and yelling at each other, the exasperation still betrays the affection they so try to hide. This in no way goes to say that my mumma and papa are in anyway custom made for each other!
While Papa’s gregarious nature and glib talk endears him to the world, mumma’s resilient nature, makes her family and the thousand animals she has adopted, her best friends in life..…Ironically, while mumma can best express her love and affection for the family and has kept it closely bonded by communicating and expressing relentlessly, papa can’t spell out some beautiful love words even to save his life! And would become flush red in the face while posing with mumma for a photograph!
And yet, despite these difference, or shall I say ‘inspite of these differences’ I have truly understood the meaning of the word ‘complement’ from what they share between them.
Mumma’s logic and analysis to complement papa’s steadfastness and determination,
Papa’s initiative and childlike innocence for Mumma’s contemplation and wisdom,
Mumma being the anchor in the relationship and yet so emotionally dependent on papa,and Papa, out there, a man of the world, with a grand career to his credit and yet looking up to what mumma says. And how one just knows it’s best to shut up when the other one has lost the top!
Again this is not to say that their togetherness has been a smooth cruise without any turbulence and not to undermine a hundred compromises that each of them may have made to make it, what it is today , and a thousand moments when each one of them would have desired just a little more!
May be mumma being the traveler at heart would have loved to travel a lot more and I see her at times holding back her love to do so, as papa loves to come back home every single evening. But she doesn't stop before she tells me that though she would have loved to travel everywhere with papa, that may not be the only way love is expressed. According to her the way papa calls her ‘mamina’ (papa’s copyright) she knows all’s well and that papa needs her most in his life. I have neither the memory nor the patience to put down all those infinite events, incidents, observations and anyway it will all just go to reiterate the same thing!
Here I am not only referring to ‘care’ which is the most natural outcome of habit and of staying as a family but of a much deeper connectedness which emanates only out of a strong involvement with and interdependence on each other.
This is manifest in a million ways- The way papa held mumma’s hand to take her up the escalator in the mall the other day, when all of us went on our own or the way she reprimands papa over things and he listens like a child.
I tell Subin these days that 30 years down the line I will want to have what they have for each other. The other day, it was another 18th June when I called them up to wish an anniversary and mumma told me that although she remembered it the previous night , she forgot to wish papa that morning and needless to say , papa would not have remembered ( given his greatest inability to remember birthdays and anniversaries even if it meant his own!). To me, it was both a case of a relationship so deeply entrenched that celebration of anniversaries was both frivolous and redundant but also a day taken for granted , lost amidst so many others, birthdays, kids’ marriages, exams, and all the daily chores.
For me too, 18th June was just a day where I would wish the both of them a happy anniversary..., till now, when I am married and as I sit here in a coffee shop writing this note and I see Subin playing games on his cell phone I know 18th June to me means more than most other days. It represents to me a manifold of emotions, of togetherness, of sacrifices, of mutual respect and admiration, of friendship, honesty and transparency, of fortitude, of valuing the little and the big things in life.Overall, it means to me, going on that roller coaster ride together and knowing helluva lot well it couldn't have been with anyone else and this just had to be it!
Papa and maa,…
On this thirty first year of your wedded life, a daughter wishes to remind the both of you that clearly, a lot of water has flown under the bridge and the two of you have experienced a lot together in your life and that it’s no mean feat to be as involved and as strong partners as you are.. to this day.. I don't have to look too far for the inspirational, ubiquitous, ‘true love’ that they all talk about..:)
Love
17th July 2010.
Have been thinking of writing this for a long time now and it has finally come a month after your anniversary but here it is! Sometimes when Subin asks me this- “So, tell me how is it between your mum and dad, as in, what kind of equation do they share” and I start to wonder which aspect of it I should describe to him… That ever since I can remember, I have seen them have their morning cup of tea together and talk about a million things under the sun, as if today were the only day they had and I would wonder how they don’t ever run out of topics !!”
or that when they are fighting and yelling at each other, the exasperation still betrays the affection they so try to hide. This in no way goes to say that my mumma and papa are in anyway custom made for each other!
While Papa’s gregarious nature and glib talk endears him to the world, mumma’s resilient nature, makes her family and the thousand animals she has adopted, her best friends in life..…Ironically, while mumma can best express her love and affection for the family and has kept it closely bonded by communicating and expressing relentlessly, papa can’t spell out some beautiful love words even to save his life! And would become flush red in the face while posing with mumma for a photograph!
And yet, despite these difference, or shall I say ‘inspite of these differences’ I have truly understood the meaning of the word ‘complement’ from what they share between them.
Mumma’s logic and analysis to complement papa’s steadfastness and determination,
Papa’s initiative and childlike innocence for Mumma’s contemplation and wisdom,
Mumma being the anchor in the relationship and yet so emotionally dependent on papa,and Papa, out there, a man of the world, with a grand career to his credit and yet looking up to what mumma says. And how one just knows it’s best to shut up when the other one has lost the top!
Again this is not to say that their togetherness has been a smooth cruise without any turbulence and not to undermine a hundred compromises that each of them may have made to make it, what it is today , and a thousand moments when each one of them would have desired just a little more!
May be mumma being the traveler at heart would have loved to travel a lot more and I see her at times holding back her love to do so, as papa loves to come back home every single evening. But she doesn't stop before she tells me that though she would have loved to travel everywhere with papa, that may not be the only way love is expressed. According to her the way papa calls her ‘mamina’ (papa’s copyright) she knows all’s well and that papa needs her most in his life. I have neither the memory nor the patience to put down all those infinite events, incidents, observations and anyway it will all just go to reiterate the same thing!
Here I am not only referring to ‘care’ which is the most natural outcome of habit and of staying as a family but of a much deeper connectedness which emanates only out of a strong involvement with and interdependence on each other.
This is manifest in a million ways- The way papa held mumma’s hand to take her up the escalator in the mall the other day, when all of us went on our own or the way she reprimands papa over things and he listens like a child.
I tell Subin these days that 30 years down the line I will want to have what they have for each other. The other day, it was another 18th June when I called them up to wish an anniversary and mumma told me that although she remembered it the previous night , she forgot to wish papa that morning and needless to say , papa would not have remembered ( given his greatest inability to remember birthdays and anniversaries even if it meant his own!). To me, it was both a case of a relationship so deeply entrenched that celebration of anniversaries was both frivolous and redundant but also a day taken for granted , lost amidst so many others, birthdays, kids’ marriages, exams, and all the daily chores.
For me too, 18th June was just a day where I would wish the both of them a happy anniversary..., till now, when I am married and as I sit here in a coffee shop writing this note and I see Subin playing games on his cell phone I know 18th June to me means more than most other days. It represents to me a manifold of emotions, of togetherness, of sacrifices, of mutual respect and admiration, of friendship, honesty and transparency, of fortitude, of valuing the little and the big things in life.Overall, it means to me, going on that roller coaster ride together and knowing helluva lot well it couldn't have been with anyone else and this just had to be it!
Papa and maa,…
On this thirty first year of your wedded life, a daughter wishes to remind the both of you that clearly, a lot of water has flown under the bridge and the two of you have experienced a lot together in your life and that it’s no mean feat to be as involved and as strong partners as you are.. to this day.. I don't have to look too far for the inspirational, ubiquitous, ‘true love’ that they all talk about..:)
Love
Friday, July 16, 2010
8 by 8
To you baba....
4th August 2009, Goa Guest House, 6 30 PM.
Those stray thoughts …seem surreal now…
I got a whiff of you in my hair…
right now as the ceiling fan blew the
Curl behind my ear onto my face..
Stray thoughts… almost surreal…
8 by 8, when there was no tomorrow..
I woke up once, to the smell of freshly brewed coffee
Wafting through the kitchen door..
Some stray thoughts… almost surreal …
8 by 8, where fingers ran on my back.
A game of anticipation
Of where the trail would follow next…
I burrow into darkness, into comfort…
I cant hear no one breathe..
Some stray thoughts, almost surreal..
8 by 8 and a Secret Malayalam…no one understands,
No idea what was said…Knowing well though all that was felt…
Those words that seem familiar now…
Some stray thoughts, almost surreal…
8 by 8, Fresh mint lounge on a Saturday morning,
I point my toes to you…
Master at the mercy of the slave…
How I wish the neighbors didn’t hear what was uttered.
Some stray thoughts.. almost surreal..
8 by 8 and those dark nights..
When nothing would ever seem right,
In the throes of guilt, having wronged…
The tears that drowned me and left you hapless..
The perpetual fear of being watched…
Our look over our own shoulders….
The million lies to make this happen…
We were in it together…
It’s all behind us now.
I miss our 8 by 8.
4th August 2009, Goa Guest House, 6 30 PM.
Those stray thoughts …seem surreal now…
I got a whiff of you in my hair…
right now as the ceiling fan blew the
Curl behind my ear onto my face..
Stray thoughts… almost surreal…
8 by 8, when there was no tomorrow..
I woke up once, to the smell of freshly brewed coffee
Wafting through the kitchen door..
Some stray thoughts… almost surreal …
8 by 8, where fingers ran on my back.
A game of anticipation
Of where the trail would follow next…
I burrow into darkness, into comfort…
I cant hear no one breathe..
Some stray thoughts, almost surreal..
8 by 8 and a Secret Malayalam…no one understands,
No idea what was said…Knowing well though all that was felt…
Those words that seem familiar now…
Some stray thoughts, almost surreal…
8 by 8, Fresh mint lounge on a Saturday morning,
I point my toes to you…
Master at the mercy of the slave…
How I wish the neighbors didn’t hear what was uttered.
Some stray thoughts.. almost surreal..
8 by 8 and those dark nights..
When nothing would ever seem right,
In the throes of guilt, having wronged…
The tears that drowned me and left you hapless..
The perpetual fear of being watched…
Our look over our own shoulders….
The million lies to make this happen…
We were in it together…
It’s all behind us now.
I miss our 8 by 8.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Memory Sake
5th June ’10, Goa
Dusk speckled evening..
A bench along the roadside that has remained there forever...
Sitting there as life whizzes past us...
Cold coffee in our PET bottles...
Yeah..the small kicks of togetherness..
Dusk speckled evening..
A bench along the roadside that has remained there forever...
Sitting there as life whizzes past us...
Cold coffee in our PET bottles...
Yeah..the small kicks of togetherness..
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