beyond inception

Every day is a new birth. Every thought is the beginning of possibilities. There is hope and positivity in every second of everyday. Inception is, actually, easy. What is hard is the afterwards, the later-on, the middle of every battle.

I am now, in what can safely be called, the beginning of almost everything. My marriage is inching towards the seven year itch, and hoping it will go on for a long time. The kids are in kindergarten. I still feel a novice in the kitchen, and it always feels like my first day at the job whilst juggling the mundane chores, everyday.



Yet, there are moments, hours, days, when the tedium, the sheer repetetiveness of everyday gets demoralising. Telling myself that had I been an editor, I would be doing pages or issues over and over like every other job is not making me feel better anymore.

What has happened, I feel, is that I have reconciled to the nasty truth that I will not be working outside the house ever. Sure, everyone tells me that being a teacher is the best for me. I don't want to be around kids 24X7. God knows I am with kids, about kids, for kids all the time, just that they are mine and they are just two, so there really is nothing to feel great about.

Financial independence is not as enticing as the fact that I need to interact with adults, take on some responsibility and feel good at the end of the day that I have not neglected myself or the kids and chores.

But, what's scaring me at the moment is that I have yet to reach the middle with the plodding without results nowhere in sight, self-doubts and those of the path chosen and the call for higher qualities of patience and perseverance and faith. I cannot decide between wanting to see the future and marching into it unknowingly, unwaveringly.

I am sure by then, I will not have the courage to start again. No way, and let all these years go waste! The way I am, I think I'll just pick up the burden, adjust their weight so I am as comfortable as I can be under the circumstances and continue the journey.



There will be new friends cheering me on and old friends standing by me, strenghtening me, giving me solace. The 'middle' might not be the most pleasant place, but I would be less confused, more focused and experienced, and much more contained.

Giving birth is easy, not just because I had two C-sections. You are buoyed by anticipation and high on expectations. But, when the charm of mystery is gone and reality stares at you and ages of it, really, it takes much more than courage and strengh of character to look it back and give it all.

Wishful thinking? A girl's gotto dream :)

the mood before the rain

its 10.59 pm

thought it must be very early in the morning when I couldn't sleep.

something must be on my mind, but, when I think of it nothing comes to mind.

garbha music still playing in the neighbourhood!

what time is it?

get up from bed to look for my phone, which I found in the living room.

what! its just 10.49 in the night.

why don't I log on, maybe someone sent me mail or a message on FB...

nothing.

feeling worse now.

might as well shut down.

yesterday

... was when my three year old woke up early. Very early, even before the milk was dropped by my door. So, we coochie-cooed, then played with the blackster and then when I went to boil and then cool the milk for him, he did "peentig," as he calls what is seen in the picture below.



That, sadly, is also my 2010 diary. Yes, I should have have kept it back in its proper place. And, then, after sometime I saw corainder flowers for the first time. Did not expect them to be this soft shade of lilac, ever.



Just one more day to the weekend. On that happy note, I'll get back to making lunch.

Saturday soiree

I was bubbling with excitement Saturday morning as it was Minu's birthday and Harish's day off. I had been hoping it would be, because Minu and I wanted to go clothes shopping in Crawford market and this had been on the cards since forever. At least, the going clothes shopping part, the venue changes from Bandra to Colaba to Kala Ghoda to the then showing exhibition and so on.

Minu is my best friend (and would-have-been soulmate, but she's too elegant and proper for me) since almost five years ago. But, I have known her since the tenth standard. There was definitely a connect then, but she had her circle and I had come to the school too late to have any circle, but fit-in-and-stood-out as always, everywhere.

Now, she lives just three stations away and by Mumbai standards we are technically neighbours. But, then today was Minu's birthday. That was never on the cards. Anyways, our plan was to start at 10.30 am, and as is the case with all mommys snucking out, it didn't happen untill one-and-a-half hours later. Now, at 12.30 pm, with rain looing darkly, thunderingly close, both were sceptical of the hour long train ride to Crawford Market.

So, we went to the nearest mall, just two station away and first, she treated me to kababs and afghani biriyani at Kareem's and we sat and talked and laughed and talked and sat for three hours. After noticing the waiters giving us the 'hate' look we hurried off to the numerous stores and tried on a lot of things that mommas shouldn't be seen in, giving each other the thumbs-up.

Sauntering through the busy mall, we came upon this store that sold jaipuri cotton clothes and nick nacks and well, yeah, this we had to buy. And, it being in a mall and all, it was quite pricey. But, then since we are best friends, we think alike and like alike and we zeroed in on a soft cotton material in blue and green not unlike the colours on a peacock feather and decided to split it half and half and get kurtis stitched. We are so house-wifely thrifty, blah!

After the leg-aching walk in and out and through stores like westside, fabindia, guess, esprit (came to know that the 't' in esprit is silent just a few months ago), we revived our flagging selves with iced mochas. Gee, it was painful getting upto leave costa's, I could have slept in those cushions that sunk in deliciously under my weight.

Luckily, her husband picked us up so we didn't have to do the rick-train-rick stint again and he was kind enough to drop me home before he took his beautiful wife out to dinner. It was a beautiful day, like perfect.

Cut to today, three days after.

This afternoon at lunch, I was thinking, why can't the kids just shut up and eat and I knew that I had had the taste of freedom, of laughter and conversation and that unhibited feeling of being, well, young (for want of a better word)... after a long time. Suppressing the desire to rush out and ring Minu's doorbell so that we could both run away from the domestic humdrum forever, et tu sensible brain, I sat through the messy lunch and the baby talk, resolving to do this again.


one of the things I bought. yes, we use dettol, what with a dog and a parrot and a three year old menace.

of nomenclature

I love names. Names always have a meaning, a story, and I wonder how and why the name, at times. I love my name, too. My mom was so happy when I told her that because she doen't like her name, Suma. I was named from a name in a Malayalam magazine. Shilpa was not at all a common name then, states mom.

Harish was named by his elder sister for a character in her textbook. I read in Shah Rukh Khan's interview in a second-hand Filmfare in college that he'd love to have a daughter and name her muskaan or suhana. Now, muskaan was too sweet to be "my" daughter, so I hoped I'll be able to name her Suhana, and I did.

Abraham is also my father-in-law's name. Since my son is technically the heir (how very serial-like na), my ma-in-law insisted he be named Abraham and not just in the church. Well, lovely daughter-in-law that I am, I complied, not in the least because she had had a heart-valve transplant only three months ago.

Ahem, the reluctant homemaker was first named 'raving and ranting.' Renamed, after I found some balance in life now that the son, too was out of his diapers. I think I used to be raving mad those days. The blog was actually where I wrote and fretted over posts to the kitchen window, bless its soul.

The kitchen window (I swear I typed gently, there's something about your first blog, job, child that makes you voice soft, eyes moist or makes you bang on the keypad ever so softly, like with respect) was the title of a short story I wanted to write. Inspired by the considerate bonding (very rare) my cook Fathima had for my house maid Farzana. I was pregnant with Abi and I had this crazy idea of getting Fati married to Farzana's son. But, by landlord intervention, we had to move house and that was that.

There are poetic instance of naming, too. Like my cousin Veena named her daughter Shruthi. An aunt of mine named her son Abu beacuse he was conceived on holiday at Mount Abu in Rajasthan. And, now after staring at the screen and listening to the generator for seven minutes, I am convinced I have no more names with interesting stories to share.

But, I'd like to know your anecdotes and stories to your names. Do tell me.


PS
Last week, as Suhana did her homework, I was advising her on how she should do her daily studies and blah and more, when she screams in her sweet voice and tells me that I am making her lose her "contraction." :D See, A muskaan could never have said that!

October wish

Wanderlust beckons, and I am having urges to go out of the house... to see, feel and explore. And, am adding more such landscapes to my flickr favourites!


1. F L Y I N G. Essaouira, 2. Allepey, India [explored], 3. Boathouse, 4. alright, let's halt for the day..., 5. one fine evening, 6. Morning Mist, 7. fence friday (Explore), 8. Foggy Daybreak

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

the first time

Hello October and autumn and all that comes with it. While everyone's thoughts are on nesting, my feet are itching to travel and do something different, not radically, but something out of my restraining routine. Easier said than done!

But, this Friday morning, in stead of visitng the local market for fish and vegetables, my neighbour and I took a "sharing-auto" as it is called in these parts to the next station, Panvel... and walked down to the market there and bought our weekly stock.



It was my first time in such a rickshaw and I'm glad I did it on the first of the month. For me, it was as exciting as the rides in similar rickshaws in Thailand.



And, I have a good mind to try something new for the first time on the first of every month!