You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2006.
My phone lights up. I look at it with anticipation. Probably an sms from a friend, cousin, husband(hardly ever), or even old flame, and not necessarily in that order. I press ‘Open Message’, and the smile slowly disappears from my face. Its an sms from HDFC bank. Exclusive offer..blah blah blah…
A little later, once again the screen lights up(i’ve switched off the beep sound ), and I look at it, almost forgetting about HDFC bank. Great! Its NOT from HDFC bank. But its from Airtel. Download free tunes…Dr. Rajkumar tunes….New offer for Airtel subscirbers…Full TalkTime…if there was a visual version of screaming, I would have done it. Huh!
As clichéd and melodramatic as this sounds, there are some people who come into our lives and change them forever. And if we’re lucky, they change them for the better.
Seventh standard was a strange time in my life. I was faring very very badly in school and I realised how much trouble I was in when I got zero marks for algebra, kannada and geography all at the same time. Even today, I can’t look back to those days and laugh over it. Its not funny at all I think, despite what a few people might think.
My father was very insistent about our education and I had heard him say a hundred times atleast that if either jun or I failed, we were straight away going to boarding school. When I got the zeroes, I realised it was time I did something or else, next year, I would probably be in boarding school. Whatever the fear was, I managed to communicate to my parents about my dismal performance in school. I remember, I had to write a note to them as I was scared to speak about it. Now when I think of it, I remember the terror and fear and think it would be as much terrifying if I had to tell my parents about a boy friend!
Anyway, good did emerge from that note(although that note got me into a VERY embarrassing situation in school….material for another blog surely!) and when I came home, abbu looked at me grimly and said that we’ll switch tuition teachers and I would have to work very hard to improve myself academically. I agreed to everything they said, short of pledging my life to them, so happy I was at being let off without much remonstration.
The new tuition teacher would come home and teach me and Junaid and I waited for her after school, a bit eagerly, but also rather anxiously. How would she be? I was surprised when I saw her enter our house. She seemed very young, almost just as if she was out of college. I warmed to her immediately, and because of her age, we became good friends. I was so surprised later when I learned that she was married and had a son, about Sidra’s age, who was one and half then.
Indu taught me much more than just the subjects at school. She was one of the first persons to treat me like an individual with thoughts and feelings. With her I learnt how to understand concepts and then learn them, instead of mugging mindlessly. Her influence on my studies showed when I got such improved marks in the following tests that my teachers were totally surprised.
We used to sit together in Junaid’s room, going over whatever had been taught daily, she helping me and Jun with my homework without ever raising her voice at us. Sometimes when I’m screaming at Saboor, or when I nearly strangled Sidra when I taught her ICSE maths, I wonder why I couldnt be more like her.
Anyway, Junaid troubled her a lot. I think he behaved quite like how Saboor behaves now. She taught us both for two years, and when I was in ninth, she said she couldnt possibly teach ninth standard physics as it was totally out of her league. By then, I had become much more independent at studying on my own, and I fared pretty well in school.
I give her full credit for helping me pass my ICSE. Even though she wasnt there physically, I studied the way she taught me to study, did deep breathing whenever I panicked, and realised that there was no fear of boarding school whatsoever, although the source of those threats(my father) was no longer with us.
A couple of years later, I finished my II PUC exams and passed by her house in Koramangala. Back then, I didnt know it was her house. She also didnt have a phone. I saw her leaning outside a circular balcony and told ammi to stop the car. It was a joyful reunion, because I hadnt met her for quite sometime. She called me upstairs, we spoke of a few things, my impending engagement, of which I had been hearing a lot of talk at home, but refused to believe that it would actually happen….
Then, ten days later our family went to Chikmagalur for a vacation.We came back exhilarated and happy. A day after we came back, we visited one of my uncles who lived in Koramangala. My mother was talking my uncle and aunt and I felt bored, so I picked up the paper to do the crossword. I dont want to make this sound theatrical, but I was shocked when I saw Indu’s photo in the newspaper. In an obituary. She had died when we were in Chikmagalur.
I started crying immediately, and my mother drove us to her house. Her mother explained that Indu had gone with her husband and son and her son’s friends to a river side place, (I think sangam). One of her son’s friends had fallen inside the water and she had rushed in to save the child. Both of them were swept out and drowned.
It took a long time for me to believe that she was no more. Sometimes I cant imagine that she’s really dead. I wrote something about her in an old diary with a paper cutting of the obituary. Dont know where it is.
I will always remember her smile, her beautiful kohl-lined eyes and the belief she had in me.
Remember that famous scene from Dil Chahta Hai where Aamir, Saif and Akshaye splash paint on each other laughingly, making everyone think it must have been great to have globs of pain dripping down their face? Yeah, my son Saboor was 2 and a half then and in the middle of his most expressive stage of terrible twos. DCH was one of the earliest films we took him to.
The big screen paint splashing episode had a deep effect on him. We came back home to excited chattering of ‘paint’, ‘paint’ and more ‘paint’. I realised that thankfully we didnt have any paint lying around at home. Saboor would just have to content himself to imagining what it would be like to splash paint on someone. Oh, but for the ingenuity of a two year old! Some days later, I was sitting at my dressing table combing my hair and Saboor came running towards me. I didnt realise he held an open bottle of moisturiser in his hands. “Ammi!” he shouted and I turned to look at him. Splat! He squeezed the bottle hard and moisturiser came flying out in an arc and settled on my face.
After that episode, the paint splashing scene was taboo at home. No one, I repeat, no one spoke of it, or mentioned it when we saw the movie at home, hands hurriedly fast forwarding the scene, quicker than one would fast forward a lovey-dovey scene which would embarrass aunties and uncles sitting and viewing the film with us.
Ofcourse, now its all forgotten. But a couple of days back, the movie was on cable and Sidra quickly changed the paint splashing scene and looked at me, wiggling her eyebrows pointedly at Saboor. I laughed it off…he’s almost eight now, I told her. Dont be silly. I should have known.
And yesterday, I was sitting down with him, making him practice his sums for his math test today, explaining to him(more like forcing myself not to strangle him) as to why he can’t add two numbers in the middle of a subtraction problem, just because he felt like it. Yeah, so I got a phone call, and I stepped out for a minute. I came back, and he was sitting there at the table, looking so angelic that I knew there was something he had done. I just couldnt figure out what.
Then I noticed the pale white streaks on his hands and his forehead. Whats this, I asked him. Nothing, nothing he said and continued working on his sums diligently. I wasnt satisfied, but since I couldnt figure out what it was, and since he wasnt telling me, I kept quiet. Then, I lifted his hand and sniffed the streak. Thats it! I had to drag him all the way to Sidra who was doing some work of her own.
She had carelessly left her roll of anti-perspirant outside, in my room. And Saboor thought it would be fun to rub it all over his hands and his face. Yuck! I made him wash his face,
gave him a proper whack and yelled at Sidra for leaving things outside.
I wonder what trials and tribulations I will have to undergo as Azhaan grows up. My lipsticks, moisturisers, creams and lotions cannot decorate my dressing table for another eight years I think!
A few months after I was married, my mother and I were travelling in an auto and going to my in-laws house. The auto driver was old and the auto weaved precariously through the lanes. About ten minutes away from my house, the auto stopped in a lane. Ammi and I were anxious. Why had he stopped here?
He turned around and started crying. He told us about his mother who was very ill, and that he had admitted her in the hospital just that morning. He said he wasn’t able to concentrate on his work because he was worried about her. Ammi and I didn’t know how to respond to that. What could we possibly do? Then he started asking us, pleading with us for some money so he could use it in her treatment.
The whole story sounded rather implausible. When he himself look so old…his mother, I wondered at even the existence of the mother. He kept pleading with us, and he continued crying. Ammi was very taken aback. We didnt know what to do.
What does one do in such a situation? Our worldly wise relatives and friends said that we should simply get out of the auto and hail another one. But in the face of a grown man’s tears, could we do that? No, we couldn’t. I’m afraid we are not that worldly wise. Ammi handed him some money and he offered to pay it back soon. Ofcourse we never heard of him again, and ammi felt that maybe we had been conned.
I remembered this incident now, because as Junaid was backing out the car now, a grown man stood outside the gate. Clad in a kurta, lungi and prayer cap, he apparently looked mentally unstable. Ammi thought he was asking for money but he kept refusing it and crying, saying that he wanted to go to his ammi, and he wanted to return to his village. Junaid wanted to buy a ticket for him and see to it that he got on the right bus. But it was getting late to pick up Saboor and so he had to go. He asked papaji to speak to the watchman next door and ask him to do that. Worldy wise papaji dismissed the man as a probable ‘chor’ and told Jun to go his way. Jun, adamant as ever offered to pay the watchman money too, to see to it that this man got on a bus.
I didnt know what happened after that. Just now I went and asked Papaji what happened. He said that the man took three hundred rupees and went away. Papaji started off about how ‘experience’ makes you look at the truth and see these people for the ‘chors’ they were.
I had heard the man speak, his voice loud and quavering and cry for his mother, but knowing the world as I know, maybe it was a sham, but even then, I am glad that Junaid gave him money. Maybe he’s laughing over it now with other cronies about how he fooled a young fellow, but even so, I’m glad. Or maybe he was indeed an afflicted person and the money will help him out. I sincerely hope he reaches his destination safely. And despite this, if we have indeed been conned…then so be it. Its better to be conned and have a good heart than to be worldly wise and turn away someone in real need.
Yahoo messenger was somewhat of a revelation for me when I first started using it many years ago. I was fascinated with the immediacy of an online chat and was truly caught in its web. Now, its all I can do to show myself online to my friends and colleagues on yahoo messenger. In fact, I switch on yahoo messenger rather furtively these days and always in invy mode. And with yahoo’s stealth settings, can safely stay invisible for some people and visible for others.
Ok, this isnt the point of my blog. I started writing this because of google talk, the messenger service from google. When it first came, I found it rather rudimentary and the emoticons were non-existent. Compare that to yahoo’s ‘rolling on the floor helplessly with laughter’ smiley and you would never use google talk again.
Then I realised that google talk had a really good voice chat feature. Much much superior than yahoo’s. But there wasn’t anyone I could have a voice chat with. I contemplated calling my mother and asking her to come online on google talk so we could chat for hours without feeling the heat of the phone bill. But it kind of never worked out..:D Seemed sort of silly when I could just hop in an auto and come home to talk to her if I so wanted to.
Anyways, a few days back I discovered a rather disturbing feature of google talk. I’m sure everyone knows that google talk is a part of gmail, meaning if you’ve opened your gmail you can chat with your contacts on google talk without having the google talk application. What I realised was that people whom you havent invited on google talk, total complete strangers(maybe clients with whom you may have interacted on gmail) are added on your messenger.
I had interacted a few times with a client from my gmail account, and she too had replied back using her gmail account. I opened my google talk and plonk…saw her online , the green dot flashing in my face. I dont know why, but I felt like it was impinging on my privacy and impinging on her privacy as well. After a while I decided to use the feature to turn her off from my google talk.
Anyways, what I wanted to convey was that unlike yahoo messenger where you are intimated before someone can add you to their messenger or vice versa, google talk is open ground!Anyone with whom you have interacted once or twice will suddenly be a part of the elite group of people in your messenger and google talk doesnt even let you hide like yahoo messenger! No signing in invisble mode…no watching from the sidelines as to who’s visible and no speculating on who could be there in invy mode!
So, if you’re not already aware of this…be careful folks before some forgotten vestige from the past decides to look you up and chat with you!
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Well! I dont know why baking always seemed so much more glamorous to me than other types of cooking. I\’ve been fascinated with baking ever since I was twelve. My experiments in the kitchen often led abbu to bring a hammer to the dining table. The cakes wouldnt budge with a knife you know. Then there were the awful comments I had to listen to from everyone, as well as abbu\’s recriminations about how much money I waste each time I make these stone cakes!
Ahem…Fast forward many many embarrassing moments and years later. I\’ve finally become some sort of expert at baking. Without making it sound like a self-trumpet orchestra…I can safely say that I have finally got it right!
Chocolate cakes, biscuits, banana bread and now chocolate cream pie!!! Wowie me!
Talking to a 7 year old child…scaring the daylights out him so you can bully him into taking an afternoon nap…explaining exactly ‘why‘ he needs to eat his dinner with gravy and not just Amul cheese….all this is so much easier than getting a 6 week old baby to sleep.
Sometime last week, I penned a blog that rambled on about how much more equipped I was to handle motherhood. Yeah….while I’m able to look at Az and not palpitate with worry each time he soils his nappy or throws up his milk…I’m still unable to get him to sleep properly.
The next time you meet me, take a good look at my eyes…in fact, that will be the first thing you notice about me. Not because they’re exceptionally beautiful, but because of the enormous dark circles under them that look quite like I’ve applied eyeshadow under my eyes and not over my eye-lids.
I can count on the fingers of just one hand, the number of hours I’ve slept in the nights this past few weeks. While my nights have been mostly shot feeding Az and changing his nappies, I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since March. Yes!
There are many more months of sleepless nights ahead, and I look forward to it with resignation, waiting for Az to grow big enough until I can scare the daylights out of him, so I can bully him to take an afternoon nap too.
