Karva Chowth at Phoenix House

I am very ambivalent about karva chowth and I wrote a post last year stating my reasons which readers found hilarious.  Well I am like that anyways ….

My kids want to celebrate each and every festival with gusto, even the all female ones like karva chowth. I would doll up, do the mehendi, new dress and bangles and trinkets thingy, and then we would eat drink and be merry.  Now I have happily handed over baton to DIL

I’ve told DIL she has the option to do away with the fast if she wishes. Its cool with us …

Flashback two days ago ………………………..

Kid#2 : Mom are you gonna get mehendi and stuff done?

Me : Reclining on my bed with laptop : Nah, I have done away with peripherals

Kid#2 : Why????

Me ; Astonished at such a strong reaction : I never keep the fast anyway, and am not in the mood for dolling up

Kid#2 : Launching full blown drama : You never do anything, you are not fun anymore, festivals dont feel like festivals when Bhai isnt around ………………….

Me : ??????!!!!!!!???????

Then Godji sent inspiration (Thank you Godji Phewww!)

Me : Beta Bhabhi will do all that, its her time

DIL came home dancing : See my new suit that I bought for Karva Chowth! Isnt it pretty? Kid#2 you better be home on Karva Chowth eve since you gotta take me to get mehendi done

Kid#2 : Looking much happier : Jee Bhabhi, do you also want to go to the parlour? I am so glad someone is celebrating! (The last said snidely)

DIL : After consideration : Nah parlour will be too full, besides I’ll be working full day

Me : Heaving a quiet sigh of relief : Beta, tell me what you wanna eat for sargi, I’ll cook that.

Both of them seriously discussing possible options for the early morning sargi

I never knew handing over all the stuff was so liberating!!!!

She can do the mehendi and dress and fast if she so desires!

I AM OUT OF IT!!!!

 

We had sargi together at 5 a.m. which I cooked early in the morning.  Kid#2’s craving for some festival celebration got satisfied, DIL and I left for work!  I think I narrowly escaped the dog house!!!

The Breakfast Wars

Old readers of my blog would know that at home Kid#1 and Moi are the ‘cookers’ and Kid#2 and DIL the ‘eaters’. Works well for us, more since DIL (smart goil) threatens to feed us meals made by her. Mercifully she hasnt made good her threat. Hmm Yeah she made Egg Onion Bake which was okay. She made chicken once and it was HOT. We had to call the fire brigade Phew!!! It was tasty though. 2 dishes in three years – she needs to make one more dish, to make it one dish a year. Must tell her! But I digress

My attitude towards cooking is : Meal is on the table. I am eating. You guys can eat when you want to. I finish my meal and get back to my computer or TV or whatever …..

Kid#1 is harmonal. I am not kidding at all. He freaks out and when he is cooking no one hangs around the kitchen. He is holy terror. Once he has laid the table and put food, you are, at the pain of death, supposed to drop everything and hot-foot to the table, or he will sulk, throw a tantrum and make life unpleasant.

Yesterday I wandered into the kitchen and decided that I would have a sinful breakfast. Yeah I get that mood, and when I get it, I never get to eat anything good, fattening and sinful. Sulk Sulk

I checked the freezer and there were these thick yummy looking hot dogs lying there, and I pulled them out. Kid#1 landed up

Kid#1 : What you doin?

Me : Breakfast time, I want something that takes time digesting. I dont want oatmeal today

Kid#1 ; Snatching the packet out of my hand : Those are not sausages, they are chorizo

Me : Trying to unsuccesfully grab the pack : They look like sausage and I wanna eat it.  I like eating stuff I dont know how to spell

Kid#1 : Shoo! Shoo!  I am doing breakfast

Me : Not liking being shooed out of the kitchen : Okay I’ll make me some chow mein.  Want some ?(while picking up the packet of fresh noodles fm the fridge)

Kid #1 : Snatching that damn thing out of my hand too : This is unhealthy, throw it

Me : This was tantrum time : I LIKE IT.  I wont throw it! (and I huffily stomped into my room)

5 minutes later the most divine smell came from the kitchen.  I landed up there, and seeing that Kid#1 wasnt around I decided to taste a slice of the whatchamacallit sausage look alike.  My bad luck, Kid#1 caught me in the act and freaked out.  He stopped cooking and went up in a huff.

I ate a slice of bread with a glass of milk – told ya about the “wanting to eat sinful stuff and not getting to”.  Kid#2 wisely stayed in his room.  DIL scolded Kid#1 for being harmonal and me for …… being me I guess

I went off to spend quality time with an old female friend.

Today the maid packed some of that scrambled egg with sausage thingy in my lunch.  Dahlins it was delicious.  Well I cant let it go – can I?

Rang up Kid#1

Me : Hey that thing u made for breakfast was yummy

Kid#1 : Its called chorizo and I am not gonna talk about it

Me : The maid packed it in my lunch box – its delicious

Kid#1 : (Coldly) I did not eat it and we shall not talk about it

Me : Your bad luck.  Its not as though you got your chums or are preggers.  I am menopausal and even I dont throw such tantrums.  Tell you, its yummy

Kid#1 : We shall not talk about it, like I said

Me : But we are …..  Its yummy

Silence …………………….

Me : Have I irritated you enough

Kid#1 : Wish you were my age and I could curse you

Me : You wanna use the F word?

Kid #1 : Phone disconnected

Man!  Sometimes having kids to torture is such fun!!!!

Spectator Sports

There are some type of spectator sports I have never seen much point in.  I had a friend who used to watch exercise videos over and over again, and then nod and grin happily “Work Out Over”.   May be he liked to watch the PYTs waggle their tush at the camera.

I never much understood the craze for blue flicks either.  I would take pointers from them alright in my young age, but why watch some one else have all the fun?  I just did not get it.  I mean how about getting those eyes off the TV screen and on me?  A woman has the right to feel neglected you know.  Besides those women are some fierce competition.  Imagine having to do such intense gymnastics in bed!  I am sure men would not agree to this point – but this is a woman’s point of view.

That said and done, sitting and convalescing in bed has introduced me to another kind of spectator sport – one that is totally enjoyable and tax free.  Watching my children living their lives.  It is bliss.

You know, I started blogging to get over the empty feeling as the kids grew up and the real fear of becoming irrelevant to my children – which I assure you, I have.  They tell me, quite happily, that I am old and my time has gone.  What they do not know is that my time has come NOW.  I dont have to change diapers, wash white school uniforms and tennis shoes (who on earth told schools they could use that color for uniforms BTW, certainly not a mother!), tolerate rock music at volumes that dislodges dental fillings, pick up wet towels from e v e r y w h e r e.  I am like the President of India, the TOPDOG, the Big Momma and I do not even have to do anything to secure my position.  Snigger Snigger – I even have veto power.  :)

I wake up to hear some whispered conversation.  It takes me time to get off the bed post surgery … but I still soldier on valiantly to eavesdrop investigate

Kid#2 : Bhabhi please …..

DIL : No, I will tell Mom

Kid#2 : Bhai, please ………….

Kid#1 : Dude, convince HER

Kid#2 : Bhabhi, Mom is ill.  We cant upset her …….

DIL : You should have thought of it before bunking so much

(This world lost an awesome school marm the day this girl joined the field of interior designing!  The kind that makes kids pee in their pants)

The volume of their voices drops for a bit while I strain my ears at the door

DIL : I dont always get my own way, ask HIM

Kid#1 : Rising nobly to the occaision : I let her get her own way    ;)

Aha, such delusions LOL

Kid#2 : Exactly Dude, you let her get her own way, and I have to listen to her

Laughter all around 

Me : Walking in to the living room : What’s the joke?

DIL : Quickly pouring me a cup of tea : Nothing much Mom, how do you feel.

While I sit down she adds :

We are going with Kid#2 to his college ….. I wanted to meet the HOD

Me : Why?

DIL : Just like that ……, besides I wanted to see the campus.

They quickly changed the topic

Me : Oh while you are there, will you check his attendance?  I got a call from the college, while I was in hospital.

Stunned silence from the conspirators

 

Hyuck Hyuck

A feel good, romantic myth

My father was a very indulgent husband and a cool parent.  He married my mother when she was barely sixteen and was often known to remark that he brought up three kids.  He always added Jee to her name and addressed her as Tussi or Aap.  Karva Chauth was big in our home.  Two weeks to D-day he took Mom shopping and bought her new clothes, a day earlier, matching bangles and trinkets etc were purchased.  He would wake up early and have sargi (breakfast before sunrise) with Mom.  On that day, we were told to curb our energies and tip toe around because Mom was fasting.  He would come back early from office and depute us on roofs and trees to keep a watch and holler when moon was sighted so that Mom could break her fast.  Sigh!  It was sooooo romantic.

Naturally I also kept the Karva Chauth.  And naturally it did not go too well for me.  I just dont have that kind of luck you see.  During my harmonious freakingly stormy wedded life, there were wars, and there were short intervals of I’m too tired to fight uneasy breathers.  We had a biggggg fight on one Karva Chauth when ex said something majorly caustic and rushed out to work.  He is King of Sarcasm.  I totally lost it.  In retrospect, I think it was because I could not top that one as he had left.  It was so frustrating, you know.  I could think of a dozen things to say which could top his lines, but he had effin left!!!  I did not want to keep the fast for him.  In fact I felt majorly martyrd by the entire concept of being hungry and thirsty for the entire day.  I had cooked a sumptious feast for the sargi which was still lying on the dining table.  So I sat down and ate.  I was not hungry (I had already eaten sargi)  but I ate the paranthas, the sewian, the gulab jamuns even though I felt sick.  Yes I am a spiteful cat if you rub me the wrong way. 

Stop pretending to be shocked, its all a myth okay.  Nothing bad happened to him.  He is still alive and healthy, and being tiresome.  It takes more than a couple of aloo paranthas eaten by an angry wife on Karva Chauth to kill a person.

Stop laughing!!!

DIL asked me the first year of her marriage about what to do for Karva Chauth and I told her “Beta keep it for one year, after that, if you dont want to, dont.  Doll up, apply mehendi, pamper yourself.  The fast is optional” and I told her this tale of mine.  She found it insane and repeated the damn thing to her mother and sister.  I know I know, I shouldnt have told her!   Her mother told me, “Both you and my daughter have the same nature”.  Ah well, I have decided to take that as a compliment.

She looked lovely all decked up last year (It was her first Karva Chauth) and has just informed me that she wants to keep it again this year. Awwwwww, sooo romantic.  I am so happy that she is keeping it for her own sentiments and out of her own free will.  Of course I am also so happy that I dont have to keep it.

Edited to add: Both the lovebirds are keeping the fast – for each other.  I am so impressed!

Anticipatory Retirement Blues

What can I say, here I was, walking the air nicely like the cartoon network character I talk about when I came upon this post and plummetted downwards AAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE.  I am totally freaked out – am reminded of ex’s caustic remark when I was home for a long period on maternity leave.  He told me ever so sweetly “Get yourself a job – any job.  Dammit I’ll pay your employer salary to keep you busy”.  All I did was clean his cupboard and give away all his old clothes.  Oh yeah, I also fumigated the entire house, cleaned the kitchen etc etc.  The thing is – I’ve got to keep busy.  I can not sit and do nothing at a stretch.  It makes me bitchy and temperamental.  I also like earning money (who doesnt heh!) and being independent. 

I think that this so-called retirement concept is total bullshit.  A mother never retires and neither does a housewife – and they do more laborious stuff than a normal office worker.  Even actors dont retire, they become Moms and Dads and such like stuff.  So why should we? 

In our culture, age is respected.  Greying hair and daughter in laws/grandchildren give us the aura of wisdom (never mind if we colour our hair and go ahead and blog about boobs and wrestling heh!) I feel that we should be given a chance to work until we are ready to call quits.  Of course I have no retirement plans or funds (I never plan) though I have a vague idea of packing bags and baggage and moving to Punjab or Kasauli or someplace cheaper and more friendly than the NCR.

I have seen how the elderly live in the NCR.  Its a lonely life and its boring.  Get up early, go for a walk, bring milk for the family.  Then go to the temple, spend time there, come back with vegetables from the vendor.  Then sit and read the newspaper, watch television, while away time.  Then its lunch.  After lunch, take a nap, wake up and spend time with grandchildren (if the grandchild is in the mood to spend time with you), then evening walk in the park, come back home.  More television and then sleep.  I guess it would kill me, if retirement did not.  I think life in a smaller town or a village would be better – where life is slow and people are more approachable.

I am not even talking about money – I have this belief that if you are educated, you can look after your own needs.  No one ever could make enough to fulfill the greeds any way – so why get into that.  It is things like the fear of being redundant, being irrelevant and lonely that are scaring me.  For many years, I have been at the helm, both at office and at home and this is a feeling that is new to me.

I would welcome inputs from others reading this blog …… what does one do when your employer thinks that you are old and do not have to work, and your family has grown up and does not need you?  How is one to cope with being sidelined after being on centrestage for such a long time?

Parents Giving Up Children?

Whatever will they think of next?

I saw this news article – its a small article.  Just hop across and read it – this page can wait.  These people have it all – they have a system which is ready to take infants from parents if the parents can say “I can’t cope”.  Now I wish we had a system where we could discard the following :

• Politicians that can’t control their rhetoric
• Government servants who think they are the damaad of the public
• Moral Police – specially guys who banned smoking (May they rot in hell!)
• People who give unsolicited advise
• People who love to say “Can I tell you something? Nah forget it!”  drives me crazy Gah!

As for the losers who want to turn in their own kids to the state – they deserve a special place in hell.  What were they thinking when they had those kids, anyway.  I actually studied for 9 years after my first kid was born …. I know how difficult it was.  I spent many sleepless nights doing assignments or nursing a colicky infant.  Then there was another one on the way ….

Never in my wildest nightmares did the option to abandon my children occur to me.  I was short tempered, tired, broke but even then my children were my comfort zone, one smile, one giggle destressed and recharged me. 

How can people even want to do this?

What Price Parenting?

This is not a politically correct post – but then I am a politically incorrect person who has lived a topsy turvy life – so you can’t expect me to be prim and proper, and only talk about socially accepted issues.

I got a call yesterday from a friend of mine and we talked late into the night.  This lady has grown up children and a husband …. and she was depressed because her mother was coming to live with her for a week.  She is uncomfortable because her mother has always shown her disapproval of the kind of person this lady is.  Now, this lady is over 45 years of age, well educated, has a good career and has raised and educated her children who are decent kids.

A very young colleague of mine was widowed last year.  She moved in with her parents (which I had thought was a big mistake) and now hates her mother completely.  Her mother finds fault with everything she does, and then snoops into her cellphone, mail box and even her accounts.  She has bought herself a flat and is planning to shift during Dussehra.  Her parents are fuming because they hate the idea of a 30 year old woman living alone with her children.

The closest bond in a family is perhaps the mother and daughter bond. A bittersweet relationship, it goes through many ups and downs but you know that no matter how much you fight, when you have to face the world, you will be one!  Some mothers and daughters like me are not so lucky though. They end up with strained relationships, which either get resolved years later or never at all!

Mothers are very critical of their daughters and tend to be relaxed and easy going with their sons.  My mother would criticise my cooking, my weight, my choice in clothes, the way I talked, sat and walked.  She would openly talk about the bad choices I made in life (given the life I’ve lived, I sure made it easy for her heh!) with every one including my sons, colleagues, friends and even my maid.  We were at war most of the time with a bit of uneasy truce thrown in.  At first she gave me hell for getting married (she was absolutely right).  She blessed us only when I was smart enough(?) to have a son.  Dont ask me, I still havent understood how my brain got involved in the process.  Humph.  Any way ….. and then she gave me hell for my divorce.  She pushed/cajoled/bulied me and ex into having the second baby, knowing fully well that the marriage was breaking up.  She used tears …. we had lost a young boy (my brother) and we needed more family members etc etc.  Afterwards she blamed me for having two kids and then leaving them to go and work.  I had to – who would feed them?  She lived with me for the last 12 years of her life, in which I supported/funded … whatever ……. and she was never grateful or even decent about it.  It hurt her ego as a parent to acknowledge that her daughter could be capable of supporting a family.  Especially the daughter who, in her opinion, was a disaster.  Her basic tragedy was that her son died and her daughter lived.  She said it very openly in the first few months after my brother’s death … and then showed it in countless petty ways later.  I guess she would have been able to make her son dance to her whims – her daughter she never understood or approved of, and so could not manipulate.  Bullying never worked with me ever ….

Why is it that some parents do not realise that the umblical cord is cut at birth.  The child you give birth to is not a mindless clone or puppet to ape you or dance to your tune.  He/she is another person with ideas, dreams, drives that can be very different from yours.  Why is it that some parents never realise that all the child actually needs is parental approval of his/her worth as a person and unconditional love and understanding.  Some parents withhold their approval of the major decisions in their childrens’ lives i.e. the choice of career and the choice of mate.  Many young people do get married or pursue their chosen path inspite of all that.  It creates such a big wedge in the relationship.  Who ever gave parents the idea that they own their children dammit?  We are at the best guardians, and at the least caretakers of these young people who share their lives with us.  We as parents are blessed to have these young people sharing their energetic and vibrant selves with us for a part of their lives. 

Dont get me wrong, my mother was a very nice lady.  She was an excellent home maker, great cook, a very affectionate and caring grandmother and had tremendous leadership qualities.  In another age, she would have been upper management in some corporate set up.  Her problem was that she never realised that I was not her clone and would never be so.  She also could not accept the fact that women can live a perfectly respectable and healthy life without a husband and that divorce does not automatically make a woman cheap.

There was a movie starring Rekha called Khoobsurat.  The mother (Dina Pathak) in that movie reminded me of my mother.

Cartoon Network and Life

You must have seen those old cartoons – the ones in which a character runs off a cliff and keeps running?  He doesnt fall and keeps going on until he looks down.  And then he plummets to the ground screaming.  That, people, is the perfect depiction of life in general, and parenting of grown children in particular.

One is told in school that as long as you get good grades, be polite, honest and true, you have it made in life.  So one hunkers down, works hard, deals with boring subjects, doesnt kill fellow students or bash up idiosyncratic teachers.  “Padhega likhega banega nawab, khelega, koodega, banega kharab” was what we were brought up to believe.  So one played by the rules, studied hard, got good jobs…. and thought ahh now we are in control – - but are we?  Providence does have a corny sense of humour and just when everything is going absolutely right, Providence throws a googly. And like the cartoon network character – one runs off the cliff screaming AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE

Parenting is also somewhat like this. There I was, running along on air for all these years, thinking that, so long as I raised those kids “right,”  I was big momma, in control.  And then, after all that time of living with this nice cozy illusion, mine became teenagers and with all the sassiness of teenagedom, they shook the stuffing out of me.  I started realizing that I’d been living a lie and there are no guarantees.  Not their safety, not my sanity, nothing is really under my control (except maybe the car keys, but I had to keep hiding them in newer places all the time.   And then I kept forgetting the latest new place, and they would obligingly fish them keys out and give ‘em to me.)  Gaaaah!!!

Now I have three young adults at home, and I normally don’t even know what time of day or night it is, since they are in and out all the time.  I have started feeling kind of disoriented.  They keep wierd hours.  Yesterday they decided that they would have dinner at home with me.  I have got so used to them picking a bite on their way in or out of home, that I have tailored all our meals into take-aways.  You know – like rolls of roti and sabzi or Idli+chutney.  Yesterday was full house, I was mother hen and all my chicks were around me.  Such total control.  We had a sumptious regular dinner, and after that, Kid#1 and wifey went out for a movie, Kid#2’s friends came over and he left with them. Ah well – that is routine now with a half-way empty nest.

I wonder what life brings next.  I was reminded of the cartoon network analogy.  My big question is, when do we stop screaming AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE ?

My little girl ain't gonna grow up …. EVER!!

Seriously people, I am having a big attack of giggles.  It doesn’t help that people around me think I am bat-shit crazy and scrunch their noses at me as though I stink like cat’s pee.  It began this morning in the car park at office. One of the perks of being senior management is that I get to come to office sedately at 10 am while the lesser mortals have to clock in at 8:30 am.  I noticed that one of my subordinates came in just after I did.  So I beckoned him to read him the riot act kindly ask him if all was well.  The young man looked as though he had not slept well the night before.  Apparently all was not well.  His little girl, about 8 years old had been given a love letter by one of the dashing boys (also 8 years old) at school.  The love letter was discovered in the child’s bag at home-work time and it led to major commotion in the house.

Alright I admit, I was curious to see what kind of literary masterpiece 8 year olds exchange.  So I was sweet, understanding, sympathised with him and even overlooked the late coming and asked him to show the love-letter to me.  At 11 am he came to my room with a outsized envelop, dropped it on my desk as though it was some half eaten bone the dog dragged in, and left.  I opened the envelop and found a folded sheet of note-book paper.  It had no stick figures holding hands, no ILUVUs, no crayoned flowers, just the name SANDIP written some 30 times or so.  Apparently the beau was so hung up on himself (or knew no other word in written language) that he wrote his name out and handed it to the object of his affections calling it a love letter. I found it funny and kind of cute.

I picked up the intercom and rang the agitated father, trying to appeal to his saner, rational side.

ME : The note is kind of sweet, and the boy is just eight. 

HIM : I dont regret bringing it to the Principal’s notice.  Such action should not be encouraged.

ME :  They have no idea what this romance shomance is.  Bacche hain ….

HIM : Madamji, you are lucky.  You have two sons.  My little girl has to be protected.

Hunh!? Freaking out like that won’t be of any help whatsoever.  The girl has to grow up – and hopefully develop better taste than narcissistic little boys like that one.  Made me wonder what I would have done.  Well, I guess I would have done a smear job.  I would have just taken the girl aside and explained to her in a serious voice

That SANDIP of yours ? He doesnt wash his hands after going potty and kisses the back side of the dog.  He doesnt even brush his teeth! You need to get yourself better friends

and left it at that.

Phew!!! Protective Dads are crazy!

Of spell-check and fantasy

In the good old days of yester years, my parents used to spell out things so that us lesser beings would not comprehend. Otherwise they used massive words. That worked out well in the end any way since my spellings are excellent and I have a massive massive vocabulary. That is quite understandable if you had parents who would say “Shall we pause to deliberate on the reactions of juniors if we procure tickets for the latest entertainment on celluloid?” Well, that was my Dad. Thanks to him I figured out what copulation meant long before I should have. It is also thanks to him that I chose English Literature as my chosen subject for graduation and post graduation. Mom did not have such a huge vocabulary, so she would spell stuff like I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M and M-O-V-I-E.

I opted for a more creative style. The parents and in-laws used to frown heavily on drinking, so when I caught Kid #1 raising his glass of milk up and saying Cheers with a happy smile, I gently corrected him and said “Cheers nahin, Kursiyan” and of course Gin would never be gin, it would be accompanied with its cousins Bhoot and Pret. So it would be, Papa Loves Ber but Mama likes Gin, Bhoot and Pret. Don’t knock it, it actually worked for a while. If we needed some alone time, I would put them to bed with a lovely story about how the poor stars were being overshadowed by the moon, and so were tired. They needed the boys to go sleep with their grandmother while they rested. Mom and Dad would ensure that the stars got enough sleep. I know, terribly lame, but hey, it worked and we got a kid-free evening .

Of course, when Kid#2 came along, the stories got more fantastic and full of extra terrestrials and universal wars. They grew older and so did the tales. Now Kid#1 is training to be a pilot, though in his imagination, he’s flying a spaceship …… Kid#2 has just got into engineering and wants to be a researcher …. Bio-bombs anyone??

It is also the reason why both the boys love anime and have taught themselves enough Japanese to follow all the fantastic plots that their latest purple/pink haired TV playmates live in. AXN ki Jai Ho

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