what i miss most... and am making peace with...

...the touch

...the feel

...the smell

...the baby-saliva laced kisses

...the tug at my nightdress

...the chained feeling while on bed when one can't move even if one has to

...the hugs

...the demands on my time

...the baby cries

...the sound of baby feet

...the rooms with toys strewn around

...the bed jostled

...the madness of wakeful nights

...the pining for my time

...the queer look in one pair of eyes if i decked up

...the smile when i came home, almost running, after work

...the tiny hands that could pull me out of every low feeling

...the silence of the house when she slept

...the joy in her small steps, first words, first call, first solid food...

...yet, i know this is what i wanted, FREEDOM... to be my own self, to be mistress of my time, to be able to read and read without interruption, to be able to sleep peacefully, and at one go, to be able to go shopping without having to stop since someone was hungry.

this is possibly what human nature is all about. it is all about missing what one no longer has but pine for something else when one has it, without realising that the empty feeling is more difficult to deal with than a 24-hour day when someone else calls the shots...

tragically, i feel my ribs crushing when she comes home and goes into her room without making eye contact... clearly an indication of telling me "leave me alone", of a silent way of asking for more space, of the silence she does not want to break, of the embargo on hugs, of, at times, angry moods, of limited periods of loud laughter, of slipping into a book which, i know, she is not concentrating on, of slouching in front of the tele without telling me how her day has been, of so many other small nuances, which only affects me since possibly i know her the best (or do i?)...

these are not really problems, these are not really issues, considering that many other kids give a tougher time to their parents, but these are things which, when one has to live through 24x7, 365 days, one gets sentimental about, and expecially a problem for someone like me, who tries to be reasonable and rational most of the times, cutting out emotions, trying to find reasons which explain a particular behaviour, alter the instigator (if i am the cause), make peace with what comes, if not the first time around, at least slowly... and it is this "slowly" that is causing so much of a problem since the phase of creating a distance is just not ending... what began as one-off has really become a pattern, with the one-off being the very occasional thawing of the ice that solidifies as soon as it has melted...

it is lovely to be able to spend a whole evening with books, but quite painful if one has to do it because there are just vacant spaces everywhere to deal with...

what the Grand Old Man had said...

... i get to know after 18+ years...

The man in question is my paternal grandpa who was a doctor, had nine children through his two wives (my father being the eldest of his children and I am his first born)... this man was the only man whom i have seen my father love and love unconditionally. he was the man whom my father told everything; even things my Mom did not know, this man knew... so when my wedding with B was fixed, my Dad told B, "I have one request to make and that is, you will need to meet my parents."

i had never heard my Dad refer to his step-mother so. He always called her endearingly, "Ma-go" (which literally means nothing, but means 'My Mom', and meant a lot to LM, my step-grandmother).

now, i was not particularly fond of Dr M because he was extremely patriarchal, a quality i detest and detested from birth. another reason i did not quite like was the fact that despite having three sons (my father and his two younger brothers), he remarried when my grandmother, SM, died of child-birth of placenta previa, something i had after R was born and i had never seen two men, B and Dad, as worried...

al these are not the point of this post, but what the Grand Old Man told B when he went meeting them is. and how did i get to know this and when is what this post is about...

i was cooking a while back... and B comes to the kitchen and says, "Minus SM -- your grandmother's -- attitude, you are quite a good wife." This is not B, i thought... Has chicken pox infected his brain?

I turned back at him and asked, a little stunned, "Have you met SM?" He was in no mood to answer but i would not buy his silence. after much cajoling, he said, "your grandfather had told me when i met him before our wedding, 'You are marrying someone who is the apple of my eye. My eldest grandchild, she is a lady of strong likes and dislikes, very much like her Grandmother, my first wife, the lady who shared my life for six short years, sired three sons but who taught me what value honesty holds in life. She was a lady of attitude and this lady you are marrying, has inherited this trait in full measure. Take good care of her...'"

i was stunned since in 18+ years, B has never told me what went on behind the closed door meeting that he had with Dr M...

many thought have passed my mind since then...

1. have i correctly juged my own Grandfather? or was i harsh on him in my mind?

2. does B know SM better than i do? I had never heard anything about her from Dad who never mentioned her. whenever he talked, he talked about his Ma-go, never about his Ma... though the three brothers were wholly reared by my Dad's maternal grandparents, SM's parents. and the closest i got to seeing her was in the lone photo of hers in Dr M's bedroom, a photo which still hangs there in loneliness...

3. what more did Dr M tell B? I did not want to ask any more questions... my heart was already heavy with what i heard...

4. why did B keep this to himself? had he promised so?

one comment... but so very heavy...

wonder recipe

honey-laced cornflakes dipped in condensed milk... super duper taste...

if i could...

1. i would become a carefree girl again
2. i would get wet in the rain
3. i would eat roadside food and fall sick
4. i would think about the man i would love
5. i would not write any exams
6. i would visit each of the houses i have stayed in as a child and see if they are the same as i left them
7. i would sleep late every day
8. i would throw my mobile without a care in the world
8. i would own a library and just spend my days reading
9. i would stand on Mt Everest and look at the world
10. i would become a space tourist and not come back to Earth
11. i would reverse the clock exactly 11 years back and not let go of my Dad...
12. i would have a baby again and i would just go on cuddling her/him
13. i would be on perpetual leave, but go on getting the salary
14. i would stand in snow
15. i would get drunk and remain that way without drinking
16. i would think and it would get written
17. i would be on a perpetual holiday
18. i would swim the English Channel
19. i would live in Paris
20. i would have all the upmarket perfumes
21. i would wish a dress and it would be mine, with accessories
22. i would love without any expectations
23. i would have young parents
24. i would go home for lunch everyday to Mom's shukto, dhoka, chitol macher muitha, gokul pitha, pati sapta
25. i would watch all the soaps and not find them ridiculous
26. i would be less critical of people
27. i would weigh my ideal weight
28. i would run on Corniche every day, without fail, for half an hour
29. i would meet all my childhood friends and chat away
30. i would make international calls for free
...may be continued

trying to play the perfect woman

... is not my cup of tea... i am more un-feminine than feminine... i speak my mind loud and clear, i do not really love cooking, i do not "show" care (if i do care for someone, s/he knows it), i am very independent, i am strong, i rarely break-down and even if i do, it is very very private... in a word, i do not seem to show emotions at all, except my anger...

but some situations in life are such when one has to switch shoes and become a lady... (i know i sound funny)... and here i am, cooking all meals, cleaning, washing, tending to the dreamer, keeping a bored R company, and all this, while i am working from home...

believe me, it is difficult to see the person whom one has known for the entire adult life (more than half of my life really!) suffer, suffer silently and not complain, trying to be as independent as possible, giving me as much cushion as he can...

it is difficult... not because i need to be doing all this alone, not because energy levels are low (i am a born fighter so when circumstances are difficult, i am perfect), but because i cannot concentrate on the three books that i am reading, i cannot do all that i love doing... foremost among them, think, look at the sky and get lost, drive around the city, sit at my work-station in office, sip wine, laze around... in a word, being MYSELF...

and guess what, my Mom made out that something was wrong with me when she called to check how we were, since i had missed calling her... and though i flatly denied that something was wrong, she hung up, saying, "my gut feel tells me that something is wrong, but if you do not want to say, i respect that as well."
didn't i say, Moms are Moms...

PS: one major source of support have been our colleagues... mine have sent across food, called umpteen times to check how we are faring... as they say, in an alein land, it is a new family that one gets...

fascinating tale, told well

The Mahabharat is no mean tale... it captures every single emotion of life and what strikes is its applicability to this day and time... it also has the Bhagavat Gita within its womb...
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a master story teller... she weaves her logic, her viewpoint and her world view into this novel... that, of course, is the storyteller's perspective, but what one loves about this tale is its interpretation...
this is the Mahabharat from Draupadi's perspective, in her first person... and what a tale she tells... nothing is new, we have heard about the story, the various phases of her life and death... but every page is gripping and one really lays down the book after one is through...
i am not a lover of mythical tales... i would rather stay away from these... but this one was an exception.
two things struck me the most: one, Draupadi's first and unfulfilled love, Karna (and the interpretation in my mind till i read this, thanks to Nathbati Anathbath so long was that Draupadi was in love with Arjun); two and more important, that Draupadi from birth was a lady in her own right (she did not believe that women deserved any less in life)... whether the latter is a matter of Divakaruni's view, I cannot say, but i loved the novel more for that... read it, sure!

unlike any other

it takes deep deep maturity to churn out something like Mister Pip... the first confession i have to make is that, this novel is totally unlike any other i have read... it is a different writing genre altogether... it talks of a different geography, it talks of different types of people, it talks of a different lifestyle... but that is hardly what sets it apart...

Matilda, the narrator, could have been any girl, anywhere... her love for language, her love for Charles Dickens and her respect for her teacher, Mr Watts... all of this is global, perfectly identifiable... in fact, her whole relationship with her mentor could have reflections in our own lives... touching is what the description is, but nowhere mushy, nowhere gone overboard...

storytelling is an art and all do not have it... that Lloyd Jones has it in abundant measure is just the tip of the iceberg... in Matilda, he has captured a timeless individual who is not trapped by geography to appeal to anyone who loves the printed word...

my tribute to Mister Jones is that I am already on Chapter 3 of Great Expectations, the first time after I read it in school... and i can see Matilda all over... i am also retreiving so many fragments, so many bits of the story i read long back...

how i escaped a fight

... with B, who else?

had been to the exchange to send some money, somewhat a fixed routine at the end of the month. and most of the times, B is there with me...

this time around, since he did not need to send, i went alone... and B was not aware. i walk in to the scheduled counter and it was empty... "I save 15 minutes from my set time," i thought to myself and as i was taking the last transaction paper, for the man at the counter, to get my account details, he said, "Yes, Mrs A...".

i was surprised, nay stunned. how the hell did the non-descript man, doing a boring job, remember my name, amongst the all such people who come here much more regularly?

he looks too routine to muster up the courage to flirt... and certainly not with me... i went on with the transaction, with a look of not having noticed that he mentioned my name, a matter-of-fact expression...

but for once I was happy that B had not accompanied me, though i sometimes do mention that there have been times when i have handled things alone and routinely do... for once, i thanked his almost-12-hour job, five days a week...

had he been there, i know his instant reaction would be a hardening of the jaws, followed by the cool jibes later...

can there be silent tears?

yes, very much... and today, i experienced this...
and it is she who brought in the tears... of joy (at having met a rare human being), of connection (with a woman of substance) and of pride (that i had spotted her while having gone for an innocuous Press Conference, one more of them that i keep attending regularly), .

She is a Robotics Professor, at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg and was here on a special mission, though she does run a Lab here in the Doha campus... that is her profession, something she felt impelled to do right from childhood...

what touched me was two things: her pride (possibly because i have it in liberal doses myself) and she did say, "I do not like being told what I am not good at... so when men at the University told me women are no good at Science, I had to do it simply because I had to prove them wrong."
her love and passion for doing good to humanity at large (here, i have a firm belief, if one is not innately good oneself, the doing good feeling will never ever strike)... as a Robotics Prof, she could just have stuck herself at the Lab (s) and been a great professor, there are umpteen such profs... but the fact remains, she has moved beyond that and has been involved in helping blind students across less developed countries, to name one of her projects... and she is not ashamed to "beg" (her own words) for getting funds...

that she has done these is because her mission was in her marrows... her Mum told her six children, "I want you all to change the world"... so she is oath bound to her Mum...

I am happy to have spent 35 minutes with her and thank my job for giving me the chance to come in contact with great human beings and indulge in their company, journo that I am...