Wagging Away

I have always been decidedly average. Above average in my doting parents' eyes... but average to the rest of the world. Which basically means I didn't fail any classes, kept my head above water and responded when my name was called. What it also meant was that I was always compared to my rather smarter sibling, supposedly smarter cousins and other random people as they showed up in my life by well (or not!) meaning friends and relatives. And now I have two of my own to nourish and nurture and make sure their fledgling emotions don't take the beating mine did while growing up. I therefore promise I will not: 1) Point out that one eats just five-times better than the other. For after all what does it matter? Maybe a few years of my life can be saved from being whiled away at a dinner table saying, "Eat!" in various threatening tones. Only to be met with boredom, smarminess or both. No! I will not compare...just be grateful for the one that DOES eat! 2) I will not wi...

Like I said, the wag is back to her original blog...riffing (sorta) on life with kids... So, those who know me will know how I hate that most phallic of symbols ...the banana!!! Not just the way it looks (though that grosses me out anyways), not its colour not its texture...its smell. The blasted stuff can't ripen without one wanting to run away ...and God forbid if you leave the skin lying around!!! Sheesh! I have famously asked a roommate to please ripen her store of bananas in another friend's room (who if she's still reading this blog will instantly recognize herself!!) because goddamnit I will tolerate a lot of stuff and clean our room but I will not have that stuff around...luckily for me my roommate and the aforementioned friend were both sweet people who agreed to my rather mean request!! And I will not touch fruit salad...brown pieces of sticky banana!! Why this rant you ask? And what does it have to do with either Poo? Well, both girls love the stuff...big, yellow...

It's been a while since I wrote as a mom and as the wag since I've been a trifle busy with amma's tales. But life with two kids is finally taking its toll and the need to vent has manifested itself again. Maybe that way, the overwhelming urge to give away children will work itself out of my system. Now don't get me wrong, they're both adorable but life with two is crazy compared to one and followers of the blog will know of my incapacity to deal with one!!! An update: The wag now has two kids having succumbed to the temptation of "cuch a chweet baby" despite her posts about D-Poo being a warning, flashing, blaring siren!! And so I am now the proud, slightly desperate owner of two cuddly pink girls...the second who shall go by the moniker ...hmmmm...for simplicity, let's say K-Poo. The Wag is also now "between jobs (a euphemism for unemployed)" and has moved to the blessed land called Switzerland!! In these terrifically changed circumstances t...

I was reading an article in the NYtimes (yes...despite my conservative attitudes, I am a liberal at heart) and this article caught my attention Basically the idea is that when you're supposed to economize you o to "budget" stores and end up spending way more than you planned while saving that 3c/can of chick peas...because you bought 7 cans of them when you needed just one. And then the 5 bags of chips and the 13 cases of washing liquid and 5kgs of tomatoes (which are rotten at the end of 1kg/two weeks) ad nauseam...literally. So what happens is all these penny pinchers are truly pound foolish resulting in a system of people who think ooking at th price of cauliflower in a shop is actually a good thing. Unless the price difference is like 100X it's truly not worth it. Europe, especially Switzerland, is liberating!! Everything is expensive and so when you have the chance don't buy it. And when you buy it you cna only afford a little and are loth to waste any. So al...

All I wanted to say about my previous post is in the title of this one....

...is not really anything in particular a satisfied person would notice or even really complain about..after all what could be bad about being satisfied. Living in a "satisfied country" I have this to say of that state of being: 1) It induces complacence. You are satisfied so you are immune. You are satisfied so you don't need anyone else. 2) It induces dullness. Where there is no need for anything why would you need anything different? Everything has always worked the way it is so why change? So everything is fixed to be the way it always was. The end result: dullness. 3) It kills dynamism, ambition and creativity. For where is the need for change. #2 induces number three. Where there is chaos and flux arises great creativity, and life changing moments. Dullness leads to more dullness. 4) It kills curiosity. When you're completely satisfied there is no need to look outwards. For what can it hold for you. So you look within and lose out on the beauty and variety that...

Well, being and out of work hausfrau I have decided to finally try and write my elusive book...the one I think I can easily shoot off while reading another's pathetic attempt at prose...the novel I think I could easily have written just like JK rowling did...easy isn't it...? just a plot, write a few paras a day and voila my masterpiece is ready to break publishing records...and so we shall see...I will write and I will publish chapters for reading and reviewing and people can tell me what they think of what I have written and if I have a book at the end of it... this experience will be my blog...

I was full of anticipation. It had been a long wait for 5 months but I knew the ultrasound would show me what I wanted to see...a sweet little baby boy..a little brother for my daughter to complete the family picture I had held so dear for nearly all my life...I even had a name picked out...this was my baby...and it felt so right...the way I felt, my dietary tastes, the way I was carrying...everything!!! So here I was at the doc's watching pictures of my unborn baby...nodding absently as she pointed out fingers, toes, brain, heart, lungs...all normal thankfully..but was it a boy or girl? I asked. And she said something I had never imagined in my wildest dreams...it's a girl, she said. 99 percent sure, she said. My world came crumbling down. I walked out that door as if in a daze...it couldn't be true, I thought. No way I could have two daughters...how can I split my love for my oldest one? She was the planned one...the princess we would be so proud to have. This was suppose...

My life was good....get some food, hang about a bit, get some more food and the day's done. Sure there were a few work related hassles like the occasional fly swatter or so that landed on target, but all in all, it was a good life. My home was a small patch of manure near a group of apartments. A lot of people turn up their noses at the smell maybe, but for me nothing quite says home like a whiff of cow poop!!! Mom,pop, and my brothers three...we were family. Noisy, whirring,flying all the time...but life was fun. I liked my circle of friends too...we'd just graduated to flying by ourselves and I was quite the guy ..even if I do say so myself. We hung about where people could see us just to get them thinking they'd got us at last and then just before the swatter could land we'd take off whizzing past their ears for the fun of it. Everything was a competition...who could whiz into the grumpy man's trash can and right back out before he could shut us in..who could tak...

The faces came closer, each one blending into the next. Ramu felt a deep haze settle over his mind when the first blow came. Things had started normally enough that day. In his small house the same sounds had woken him to the new day: the carts selling their wares, the nearby temple mingling its tolling bells with the call of the muezzin from the mosque. He heard the toilet next door flush just as his clock told him it was 6.30am. Late, late, late!!! His throbbing head, the only evidence of last night’s indulgence with his friends at the local adda. He should be grateful, he supposed. Small bribes and hitting his wife for dowry had at least paid for a separate toilet of his own. Otherwise he would have had to wait in line like all the others at the end of roadway for their turn at the smelly pot and a small tap with a weak trickle of water. He stumbled to the bathroom almost stepping over his youngest son. That reminded him… fees for school were due that day. No doubt his wife would re...