Wagging Away

Funny thing they are, tears...for when you're happy and when you're sad... always there and only missed when they don't flow. For over two years now, I've not cried...at least not much and never for myself...I've felt no grief no anger no feeling... when they came I would look away and try not to cry...a weakness, a foolishness... except, the dam... it's broken... or certainly sprung a leak...uncomfortable...little dribbles at happiness, in full flow at grief, a wobbly smile at an emotional movie, sorrow at memories...I cry for love, for the lack of it..I cry for songs and for battlesongs...I cry for symbols of hope, for lost souls...I cry for myself...as I am for who I was and for what will come...I cry for what I want, what I have...I cry because I am loved and I cry because I want to love and yet cannot...I cry as I write, I cry as I think...I am brave and yet I am not...cowardly and yet not...soldier I am and victim the same...words that want to come but w...

Travelling at 40 So as my trip slowly dwindles into a lovely haze of distant comforting memory wanted to jot down a few more things before general senility took over... It's funny how the trip evolved actually. I got on the flight from here to Dubai and onward to Copenhagen fairly uneventfully (thank God!)...I ended up sitting next to the only other Indian who was flying to Copenhagen! A young thirty something chap from Gurgaon on his way to a training month in Copenhagen courtesy his company. Never flown before, never left India before and straight to Copenhagen in Oct armed with nothing more than the most redoubtable of armour...lots of ready-to-eat Haldiram's meals...As he earnestly explained to me, "wahan khane ko kya milega pata nahin" so he was prepared to beat out the 7-year famine if need be. A very helpful chap and sort of clinging on to the last vestige of home and a familiar face, we shared  a cab and he dropped me off at my hotel and went off to hi...

So i am finally writing about my long planned journey alone...to Europe because I am a coward and don't want to face random trials and tribulations on a holiday! But the key point of that last sentence was ALONE! After 15 years of marriage, 40 years of a vanilla existence I finally decided to have a me-moment. And that resulted in 10 days away from home...not anywhere particularly brave or particularly exotic...Western Europe is nothing if not the antithesis of those two things... but for me, it was more than that...it represented a frontier hitherto unthought, untouched and certainly not breached... So bear with me while I rewind a bit... June 2013-June 2014 was a bit of a red-letter year for me...consider this: Got a job in something I knew nothing about Kept a job and learnt what I previously knew nothing about Turned 40 Worked with personal turmoil Worked through parenting guilt Came out fine after parental guilt Didn't resolve personal turmoil More importantl...

said in a homer-simpson voice...If I had waited 5 more days to write the tale of the lady's fingers it would've been 4 years since my last post...which itself would've been a year after the previous one...will I last? Only time will tell no ya? :)

So another day comes to an end...but am feeling rather euphoric today...crazy kickass workout session tends to do that after fat ass lazy weekend. Today was a happy memory lane kind of day too...so here's what happened... Once upon a time three FOBs (to paraphrase my email to other concerned parties...and FOB is fresh off the boat for those STILL not in the know) in PA, USA somewhere were enjoying frozen and thawed tiramisu...as general reading material, we turned the box around to find the ingredients only to discover an astonishing truth..tiramisu contains lady's finger. Now, we were pretty savvy FOBs mind you. We knew of okra and eggplant and wrenches and the lack of fortnights in the land of the brave and free...but here was truly proof on printed packaging that lady's finger was known (we did ponder why they hadn't written okra but didn't waste too much time on that lead)...but how had they managed to disguise the sliminess and strong flavour of okra/bhindi/...

This is a rather random post after about a year of inactivity...but I thought a 6-yr-old's take on an old fable was fabulous!!! Here goes: One day three little pigs were having tea. Suddenly they heard a knock on the door. The door was translucent (! clearly random thoughts run in the family!) but people could see through the door. The tallest pig cold see through the door. So he looked through thte door and saw something brown. What could it be? It was the big bad wolf! So they locked the door and got on having tea, The wolf blew the house down. The three little pigs were screaming and ran away so the wolf didn't get any dinner anyway that day!

Today a friend sent me something quite precious and thought-provoking. In a time, she said, when all around her was bad news, she wanted to stop and reflect. On things that gave her joy, made her rediscover herself and those around her, love this one life we are given. A beautiful thought that she was kind enough to share...It is an example I am going to borrow...to count my blessings and be happy! So to celebrate 2008: 1) I am glad for a year that allowed us to restart our lives in a brand new land and swept the wind of change through our lives. 2) I am grateful for a year that allowed me to slow down, suck some air and look around me with a new pair of eyes. 3) I am glad to have had a year that allowed me to be daughter and sister for a while after a very, very long time. My parents and brother have been such an essential part of my life, I have taken them too much for granted from afar. 2008 let me do that for a while being close to them! 4) I am thankful for a year that allowed me ...

So, the family moved en masse to the land of fresh white snow, yodelling and clean freaks called Switzerland and it's our first winter here. And because the silly country works and functions and teaches in a language useless west of its border, we had to enroll D-Poo in one of those fancy, private, "international" schools. And yes, it is overpriced. With that out of the way, I have to admit it's been a really good school thus far. Yes, I do have to deal with too many rich people living in respective expat bubbles, but on the whole the teachers are nice, kids seem less than psychotic all of the time and the teachers don't look like they would rather be a hundred miles away. All good signs. And then the benefits of a fancy private education (welllll...actually even the free public school education here in Switzerland) is the nice set of extracurricular activities she gets exposed to. D-Poo will be the first in the family on any side to learn ice skating and then her...

When I was pregnant the second time, people would nod knowingly and say "you know, no two kids are ever the same." Bollocks was my thought, oh really was my spoken comment! I mean come on...once you've handled the whole peeing, pooping, privacy-invading, peace-destroying experience of having a child, what can be different the second time? Turns out the nattering masses were right after all. I have spent the last two days with my second daughter with ample time to reflect upon the fact that god was laughing his gob off watching me drown. The whole experience the second time round is cool... until the baby is born of course. Body used to stuff and baby is all fine. And the sibling is over the moon at having "a friend to play with." Until of course, said older sibling is told, please don't pinch the baby, don't get into the baby crib while the baby is still inside, no you cannot help change a poopy splattery diaper and spread the mess around, no noise pleas...

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...

Funny things one learns from kids... how to deal with difficult situations for instance... when to talk and when to flat-out refuse to incriminate oneself!!! So D-Poo is generally a mild-mannered child ouside of her home and isn't wont to seriously misbehave... usually all I hear are the "oh, she was running around screaming with some friends" sort of remarks from teachers at her school. So imagine my surprise when her teacher sidled up to me one evening when I was picking her up and said, "D-Poo had an incident today." Caught off guard I nodded rather hesitantly and she recounted the afternoon's events. Apparently the non-eating progeny of mine had decided to take an aversion to broccoli cheddar soup that was on the school menu for lunch. Instead she decided to make up a healthy meal of croutons for lunch and was proceeding to decimate everyone's share of the goodies, when her no-nonsense teacher suggested that maybe she would get no more croutons till ...