MellowDrama

Just now the relevance of doing a theme reveal, revealed itself to me. But such is life and so am I. Everything in retrospect. So without much ado and coming back to the present here is something of revelation about my chosen theme. I am a big Bollywood fan. Music has played a big role in my life, at times as an accompaniment to joyous moments and at others as the background score to disastrous decisions and bad moods. I can always hear it playing. If you ask my friends I have always had a song for the moment we are in. And so using that super ability, I am going to attempt 26 posts.  Lekin, picture abhi baki hai dost! Music is set but what about the script? The screenplay, if I may, is the parenting years with their ups and downs, the tears, sweat and blood I shed and hugs, kisses and laughter that I gained. ------------------------- A. आगे भी जाने न तू, पीछे भी जाने न तू  जो भी है बस यही एक पल है  I have been a mother for 12 years now. With my two children...

तबस्सुम कैसी हो? हम सब यहाँ बिकुल ठीक हैं।आशा है की तुम भी सही सलामत होंगी। आज मैं ये चिट्ठी इसलिए लिख रहि हूँ की तुम्हे बता सकूं की मैं अक्सर तुम्हारे बारे मैं सोचती हूँ। सोचती हूँ अब तुम क्या करती होगी, काम पे जाती हो अब भी? कोई मना तो नहीं करता? सास बच्चे संभाल लेती है तुम्हारे पीछे से? वो तो अब बड़े भी हो गए होंगे न? स्कूल जाते होंगे? मुझे अब कोलकाता मैं रहते हुए ६-७ साल हो गए  हैं। जब चंडीगढ़ से निकले थे तो उम्मीद न थी की इतना समय इस परायी नगरी में निकल जाएगा। नेत्रा को याद करती हो कभी? वो इस साल १२ की हो गयी है। उसे तो तुम्हारी याद नहीं लेकिन आज भी जब वो ज़िद्द करती है की मैं उसे खाना खिला दूँ और मैं बहुत थक गयी होती हूँ, तो झट से तुम्हारी याद आ जाती है। तुम होती तो मुझे चाय का कप पकड़ा कर उसे प्यार से फुसला के ले जाती और खुद ही खिला देती। कहती, "मेरे पास आओ नेत्रा, माँ को रहने दो। आओ मैंने तुम्हारे लिए कुछ स्पेशल रखा है।" कितने सारे अंग्रेजी के नए नए शब्द सीख गयीं थी न तुम. कुछ तो तुम्हारे ख़ास बन गए थे। जैसे बॉय, गर्ल, र...

Generally age is counted according to the number of years that you have been on this planet. But then  how do you know what your age is when the role that you are accounting for is a not as old as you? The simple answer would be to say that it would be equal to the number of years you have been in the role.  So, this is one of the most important lessons that I have learnt as a decade old mum. My daughter Netra, more commonly referred to as BhindiSood on social media, was born in 2007. Ah! your eyebrows go up. She bluffs, you think, to keep up with the theme. Dear reader but that is not the case. I might be being generous with myself when I m saying that I am a decade old mummy but I am not really bluffing. I did not (and maybe even now) know how to be a mother to a child who I was desperate to get but knew nothing about raising her for all the unaccounted years in between. But then fear not, this isn't either a self pitying sort of a post nor I intend for it ...

Dard. Pain. This word in English language doesn't probably deliver the force which a parent feels when the child is hurt. Moving on. Physical pain goes away but the memory of many such physical episodes lingers. There are times when this memory hits you with a surprising ferocity like the way I just now remembered Netra's ear incident wherein the lock part of her earring had lodged itself in the pierced part of the ear, stretching the skin and how she screamed when the doctor had to make an incision and took it out with tweezers.

Dard. Pain. This word in English language doesn't probably deliver the force which a parent feels when the child is hurt. Moving on. Physical pain goes away but the memory of many such physical episodes lingers. There are times when this memory hits you with a surprising ferocity like the way I just now remembered Netra's ear incident wherein the lock part of her earring had lodged itself in the pierced part of the ear, stretching the skin and how she screamed when the doctor had to make an incision and took it out with tweezers.

To begin to like your own cooking is also a way of evolving. You are your own best judge and you are very well conversant with your graph. The ups and the downs. The highs and the burnt lows. Acceptance from family members is definitely a bonus but not an assured one. So I cook for myself now and the others in the house have to go along with it. I am liking what I am making more and more (like yesterday night's paneer paranthas) and that is quite a happy place to be in. ******* I went to the loo. Before I sat down on the pot Abir followed me in with 2 Peppa Pig books and sat down on the floor. Rather settled down comfortably in his striped pajamas. Then he gave me one book and asked me to read it to him. He never tires of these. So again we did Peppa's family loves different things. And we did them again in the morning when he was following me incessantly with those two again while I had to do Netra's tiffin and lunch and breakfast related cooking. 

Dear Netra From time to time it seems that you do not like the drawing classes that I make you take once a week. Maybe now you do after doing them for some 4-5 months but I still have my doubts. First your grandfather and now your father have also pointed out to the same fact and like I said I also do realise that you do not like it much  but I think that your thing is against homework and thwarted freedom to draw as you like. So here are some of my reasons for making you stick with the drawing class: 1.        I believe that it will give you some sort of artistic sensibility of which I and your father are bereft. And I think it is important to have a leaning rather an understanding of things beyond the mere necessities of life to be able to enjoy all that God has blessed us in the form of nature and art. 2.        I insist on these lessons because I feel that having learnt to draw will someday give a mega boost to you...

A neighbour has nicknamed Netra Miss Hindi. This was done because Netra insists on speaking Hindi with her friends. She is beginning to understand Bangla and can very well understand and converse in English yet she chooses Hindi to communicate. Its only when forced to use English, she prattles in the said language. Teaching English is mandatory. We do understand why that is today but we do not know who made it that way. Speaking with your kids in English to familiarise them with the language is great and all but Hindi, our own language, our mother tongue should hold a place of pride, first in our eyes and head. Hindi is sweet. Hindi is more effective in terms of giving you the exact word for any emotion, moment or feeling than any other language maybe. Hindi is vast. And while we are talking about children, Hindi is far more easier to learn than is English with its confusing phonetics. Though I admit that English wins hands down in being an adapting language that has not shied a...

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/05/19/childrens-books-for-grown-ups/ http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/10/chus-day-neil-gaiman / http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/07/charles-addams-mother-goose/

After all the fairy tale drama that is ensuing in our life and honestly some of it before  (we- me and the daughter are very melodramatic people) there have been questions and often random statements by Netra that make me wonder how she must have concluded this one or that one. Like when she said very matter-of-factly  Love to bhoot hota hai (Love is a ghost) or when the husband and I are arguing heatedly, she will coolly walk up to us and depending on her current favourite, threaten the other one, Main thunder ko bolun ki aapko le jaaye? (Should I tell thundering clouds to take you away for making such ruckus). She plays with the bottles- her nanhe bachhe - for hours together and can come back with an episode that happened to her in the previous school and ask for an explanation about being bullied or left out of a game in the neighbourhood. These are the ones that I particularly find hard to answer. Human behaviour is difficult to explain, no? But then maybe she can ...

So the summer holidays are here. We are not headed to either naani's house and we have time to spill. After a couple of days in this spilling I realised that Netra should now be introduced to the princesses. Who else is good at bringing those countless princesses to life than Mr Disney. So I downloaded all the princess movies that have been made under the Disney banner. Starting with Cinderella to the current rebel and if I may say, my fav, Brave's Princess Merida. There were some after effects that I knew of and expected to occur after so much royalty being doled out to my 5 year old. But there were some more, which nothing could have prepared me for. Her Highness had been insisting on being called Princess for some time now but after seeing Cinderella, she responds only when addressed as Princess Cinderella. When I told her that Cinderella was not even a princess to begin with, I was told "Ban gayi na wo, jaise main ban gayi" (She turned in to one, like I did)...

I am back at it. Though on second thoughts I haven't really had to do it uptil now. She would go to the best montessori right across my office was decided the day I started work with the Chandigarh Administration. When the husband got transferred to Kolkata he found a school for her that was willing to take her and was closer to a residential complex that met our 'must-have' list After a year that she has been going to this school, I am looking at others for Netra and I have no qualms at accepting that I am lost. So I am taking my father's advice and putting down things on paper. (I realise that there is an e in paper here) To apprise you of the situation. Netra is 5 years old (OMG I have been a mommy for this long...hmm no option but to grow up now). She currently goes to a school where there are 60 children in her section. (I sent chocolates for her birthday). To top it all there is only 1 teacher for those 60 princesses. Now on to why I am all worked up about ...

I could only go to the Kolkata Book Fair that ended yesterday... well yesterday.  I had made promises to myself and the husband that I will just go and look. I believed in my promise earnestly whereas he gave me the all-knowing smile and the nod of head which when I later ruminated over was meant to convey 'yes, yes we will see'. Anyway, there I was at the book fair sans the husband and the child. I entered the grounds with the stroll of someone who was on no agenda and was free to turn back and go any moment. Instead (and I do not really know how it happened) I spent around four hours bought 12 books of various size, colour, shape and subject. I did not realise when that aimless stroll of mine gained purpose. Maybe it was the need to cover every possible hall and stall or maybe it was the intention of checking out all the offers of the last day. I got drawn in by the books would be an understatement. I should probably say I was under the spell. This does not mean I regr...

Dear Netra You are about to turn 5 and I have started to plan a party for your birthday. The first one probably in the actual meaning of the word. We will have a theme- purple- the colour you are obsessed with. Asked anytime about anything that you would like to have on any occasion, you dole out a list and then add “in puddple”. It doesn’t matter to you that Disney intended Cinderella to wear a pink gown, you want her on your cake in, yes, puddple. You even have the birthday song ready for the theme- Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday Netra Sood, Purple Flower. May God Bless you, purple flower Netra Sood. I once asked you what you wanted to become when you grew up and your answer was a purple butterfly. Both your father and I have asked you many times the reason behind this fondness for colour puddple and in your reply you have pointed out the simple fact of life, which I have just gripped. To answer our question, you always say- because I like it. There are no further explanatio...