An update and a bribe :)

You know the most amazing part about trying to fix something? It's your best chance to experience an out-of-body feeling, one where you're watching yourself first break and then try to mend stuff.

Nino's Dad and I are mending stuff these days - and I've consciously stayed off the blog because I won't be able to not write what I feel: and I know that he would hope that these revelations come to me, in a well, less public way. But we're getting better *fingers crossed*.

In between all this conundrum, we've grappled with several illnesses between all of us - including Nino, who went from a completely toilet trained individual to someone who would wet his bed more than a couple of times in the night. Docs thought it was juvenile diabetes, and that was quite a scare, but that's been ruled out now. Then it was a urinary track infection in the sense that his foreskin was way too tight for him, and now, as of last week, he has been listed as a possible suspect for ADHD.

I must admit I haven't been the most ideal mother. I haven't stood up for my son. I have panicked, got him poked and tested, convinced my upbringing was wrong and had harmed him for life. ADHD took the cake, literally. I was looking at my bright, boisterous, opinionated boy and wondering if he had internalised all our troubles, stuff that we tried so hard to shield him from. And then a few sane voices reared their heads, including a friend who has worked with ADHD kids. She listened to me, poked big gaping holes in my fear psychosis, and then told me point blank that she thought Nino could have HD, but not AD, given his absolute concentration when he's doing stuff. But there's no denying he needs more time from me - absolutely needs it.

So, I'm quitting my current job. It's a huge thing for us financially - considering we're the worst example of credit security you could ever give anyone - but there. Ofcourse I'm going to try and work part time. For the money and the sanity of it. As I took the decision to quit last week, I felt this incredible sense of relief wash over me - like I knew, really really knew, what I was doing. I've been working since Nino was 9 months old, and several of you are aware that I've grappled with guilt a lot. It's not a great job, not even creatively, but I did it for the money. And well, like that really helped :)

Some of the good things? Well, we've been partying like... like... when we were young! Diwali brought friends and family from abroad, then Halloween brought Nino's friends and ever since, we've promised to entertain atleast twice a month - and not let routine wear us out.

As a bribe, I'm leaving you with some pix from Nino's Halloween party. We had proper monster food, a sit-down 'three course dinner' (menu decided by Nino ofcourse), some games and a reading of our current favourite book, Where the Wild Things Are. It was soo-per fun!

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on an aside, hope you've noticed my updated 'Top Clicks' section *sheepish* . I did that a few days (or was it weeks) back - and it's our (Mine and Nino's) ode to the Cauliflower. Yes. We've a chef in the making here, so what if mumma can't cook to save her life!

Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize

I remember shadowing Hillary Clinton for a race that - even with its most obvious diplomatic connotations - did not matter to the average Indian me. And how I was a bit bummed when this chappie called Barack Obama eventually won the Democratic nomination. Then I got to know him better, read him a bit more, understood why people got goosebumps everytime he spoke, had stingers in my eyes everytime I saw him and when I realised what he stood for: for America, for the world, for every individual, if you looked at it in a really intent way. When he won, I was proud - proud unlike how I've ever been for any Indian election winner - and I cried.

But I felt no pride or tears of joy today when I read that Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. There was shock, disbelief and anger. Shock at how much this puts into perspective the fact that what he signifies to me and the world and his country has done little actual, real-time difference, when compared to those who won the Nobel before him. Disbelief that Oslo, one of the world's few 'fair' awards, would spark such a massive international debate, honouring a serving president, one whose country is waging three wars currently, someone who has yet to cross even one major foreign-policy milestone. Anger, because there were far more deserving candidates: peace means and demand much, much more today. Anger, because this award has stinted Obama's chances of making real change happen - he has been stymied by this medal, which will take his every future effort to the bottom of the diplomatic cess-pool.

Give the Nobel back, Obama.

We've got incoming!

The cat-lady's just gotten a baby girl! yay!

Please head over and wish her, and the adorable Veeru and Basanti, a very very happy first step into motherhood!

I'm celebrating with lemon tea shots (Gujarat is a prohibition state - well, what the hell, actually I can't drink at work), but jeez, join me!

*skip, hop, skip, hop, skip, hop, wheeeeeee*

A breakthrough, and some thank-you's

"Remember, the desires that are in our souls do not come from the nothingness; someone put them there. And this someone, who is pure love and only wishes our happiness, only did it because he gave us, together with these desires, the tools to make them happen."

- Paulo Coelho

I've, for a large part of my life and perhaps subconsciously, without giving it much thought, tied my 'identity' to what I seeked at that particular time. Seeker of wisdom, then love, sometimes strength, often patience.

Some searches seem eternal, overlapping with other things in life, sometimes they lie hidden underneath circumstances, coming up for air just when I'm concentrating on other things. That is why perhaps I feel like I've always been a mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law. My searches transcended my social or cultural status - and they remained, even when tags changed.

Love, of all these searches, remains one of the most perplexing ones. It's not easy to seek it, neither to ignore it, neither to remain unaffected by it. All of us give love our heart, our soul, our best shot: I give it my rage too.

I've been raging in love for what seems like forever now - actually if I read my diary it'll number in years, but I'm too scared to look back and actually acknowledge how long - and I've raged against and for, both.

I seek it all, in one person. Not an easy burden to bear, but one that Nino's Dad wore with ease once. Somewhere I changed too soon, and I felt he'd remained the guy I dated and fell crazily in love with. Perhaps that was the beginning of the rage, of my search for what I perceived as understanding of my changed self. Perceptions of change, change more frequently than change itself, so it was a flawed premise to begin a search on. Something like using multiple compasses, when often, it's the milestone on the road that you miss.

Over these last few months, the rage turned from supernova to black-hole, eclipsing my other searches, bits of things that make me the whole that I am. There were several precipices, and last week, a turning point like never before. But there was a breakthrough - one in which we resembled silhouettes of the same two people who'd first started out, acknowledging our differences and attracted by the learnings in them, sharing a cold kota-stone bench on a windless night. And we remained there sitting together, even though the silhouettes had changed so much in these eight years.

I wouldn't call it a truce. Far from it. My rage to fight for love remains stronger than ever. I don't know the directions ahead as well, but I know that for now, I'm in an oasis, after a blistering journey. One where I learnt to take the wisdom of the wise, and pick the lessons that fit me - not the lessons that were guaranteed to work, just the lessons that let me remain a seeker, and yet, sane.

I don't believe the breakthrough was co-incidental. Read Paulo Coelho above? In these last few months, unacknowledged searches had come to the fore - searching for purpose, for meaning, for friendship, for spiritual guidance. And I'd found my tools too: both within and those outside.

We call them different names perhaps, tools or angels or friends or guiding spirits or the yings for our yangs. And while I found a few, a few found me. T. Suj. MinM. Nitya. Swati. Dipali. Sole. And also Anjali, Chox, Ra, Alty, Broom, Neel Kamal, OJ, GonTB. And me.

I thought of some of you during the 8th day of Navratri, before the breakthrough (I like how I call it!) on Saraswati pooja day. A 28-year-old who din't need her pens, books, laptop blessed as much as she need some names on her blog-roll blessed. Blessings of the divine spirit for these givers of the wisdom that I've needed to remain who I am truly at heart: a perpetual, tireless, seeker.

Thank you. I wouldn't have made it this far without you.

Goodbyes

Sometimes it's the most unexpected things that can bring you down... like the every night ritual of popping Femilon. Yesterday I just stared at those pills wondering at the automation of the routine, willing them to defend their existence in my life, loud, threatening-to-be-thunderous sobs racking my body.

And sometimes, it's the simplest things that can prop your defeated soul up... like two heads entwined, gurgling with guffaws, a male bonding that I can never possibly recreate with Nino: and understanding a lesson that is painful but pertinent - that there is a purpose in being lost and lonely as well.

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We gave Sneelock the snail away yesterday... actually I did. Sneelock laid over a hundred eggs last month and nearly half of them popped out into tiny, beautiful, awe-inspiring babies. The terrarium would eventually be very small for all of them - and snail babies need a lot of calcium for their growing shells... something they best get in the wild. Nino and I'd spoken about the babies: I thought we'd keep one or two and put the rest away, carefully, in a place where they'd be safe. But Nino turned around and said very matter-of-factly that we'd have to give Sneelock away as well - Why, I asked - and he said, Well, the babies need Sneelock, right?

We thought long and hard about where to put Sneelock - snails are pests, technically speaking, so they wouldn't be very welcome in someone's garden. They needed to be safe, where the earth is moist, but where water is not very close - because they can drown, safe from dogs - because dogs can crack their shells.

So yesterday, when Nino was away at a b'day party, I picked up my gentle friend, and his/her babies, put them in a tiny box and drove a morose five minutes to Sundervan, a beautiful haven in the middle of Ahmedabad's concrete mayhem, where snakes and porcupines, geese and crocodiles make for one happy family. Trudging through the dense vegetation, in a area where visitors are not allowed to step in, as my dear father-in-law kept a watch, I settled Sneelock and the babies by a fallen, hollow tree trunk. I felt foolish at the sting of my tears: and I muttered a hasty goodbye, but I did take a picture of this beautiful creature that came home for a few days, and its babies, who'd climbed all over its shell, ready, for yet another adventure.

I will miss you, brave Sneelock, soo-per, stoo-pendous, mighty Sneelock. Just like your namesake, you were an unexpected entertainer and friend.

'Things to teach your sons about women'

I remember reading an email (years ago) by a friend who said that people must all opt for the gender detection test during pregnancy and abort the foetus if it is male, to set off the female foeticide guilt, and I remember telling her (no, I did not tell her she was off her rocker, because I know she din't mean it as it seemed, and she's a very kind woman, thankyouverymuch), that I would be glad to have a son, so that I can hopeful make sure he's a sensitive and non-chauvinistic male.

Well, so I got one. And now CNN's telling me the 18 things that mothers must teach theirs sons about women, and while it's a very trendy (read superficial, but very feel-good) read, they have a couple of good points:

1. Pick your battles. - Oh SO true.

2. Walk on the outside (closer to the street) of your female companion.

3. Saying "You're being crazy" is never an appropriate response, unless you want her to go postal on you.

4. Cooking, cleaning, and taking care of kids are things men can actually do as well as women. - Ditto

5. Keep backup supplies of quality chocolate in the house for her to raid.

6. Buying tampons and other feminine products shouldn't embarrass you: everyone knows they're not for you.

7. Women like compliments and gifts.

8. Earning less than her shouldn't be emasculating. - You know this seems like the simplest thing, but its a complex so deeply hardwired into their brains that it almost seems like part of their DNA.

9. Be on time, even if she usually isn't.

10. Don't be a pouty puppy when shopping with her.

11. Find out what her favorite flower is. - Mine's Daisy. What's yours?

12. If you like her, then don't buy her shoes; it's bad luck. - Damn. Nino's Dad's bought me tons and tons and tons of shoes. Seriously, how difficult is it to say Red, Size 5, Heels everytime there's an occasion to celebrate? Nino's learning this one for sure ;)

13. Smiling and nodding aren't the same as listening.

14. It's OK to cry in front of her, but keep the blubbering to a minimum.

15. Personality goes a long way.

16. At some point she'll be more important than your mother.

17. You will never completely understand women.

18. Oh yeah, and no woman will ever be good enough for my baby! - no way
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I'd add a couple more, but right now they'd be pretty morose, so instead why don't you tell me which ones work for you and which ones don't.

You know you're raising a foodie when...

... Nino, dressed as a little brahmin, invited to a shradh feast at a relative's place, gingerly picks up a nice, ghee-dripping malpua and says, 'Can I have a regular puri, please?'

... your three-and-a-half-year-old takes a spoonful of the salad that mumma made, then runs to the table to add a dash of salt and a big squeeze of lemon to his bowl, and tucks in, wordlessly.

... your son's favourite toy is a cardboard kitchen with mud-utensils and lots and lots of Ikea ladles and stirring spoons.

... the first word your son wants to learn to write is sss-ooo-ppp.

... he can tell you that you made doodhi three days back, and that only bhindi is welcome twice a week.

... Doctor J, who's trying to keep Nino occupied while trying to find the softest part of his bum to jab, asks him what he wants to be when he grows up. I hate that question, but I think Nino is likely to say Superman. He doesn't even take a minute and says Mongilal.
Mongilal is the name of our maharaj.