Economist - 0, Farhan Akhtar - 1

I love listening to music. Perhaps good music might be the only thing in the whole world that the same affect on everyone (except my husband, more on that later) and today’s post is all about Sangrywords having fun at Dubai Music Week.

Saturday night was the most spectacular concert night that I have been to in a real long time. I was almost going give this concert a miss with us the house shifting, the other headaches surrounding it and the hubby travelling, there was no chance. But the lady luck smiled on me - The one sms to City 101.6 with an answer to a question got me premiere tickets to the concert. But the biggest surprise was the chance to meet Farhan Akhtar in person.

Even with tight schedules, the event manager in me made sure hubby landed just in time to head straight to the concert. In my anxiety to reach the venue on time I ended up 45 minutes early - as the saying goes, better early than sorry! Wearing a 5 inch stilettos waiting for the gates to open for concert must be easy-breezy for most girls but for a mum of toddler who is always in snickers or flat pumps, that was really a tough ask.

Once we got in of course there was another customary an hour and half wait before it all got going. So we managed to find a place to sit down and thankfully it was not on the floor. After a while, I saw my hubby plugging headphone to his iPod, and was nodding his head appreciating some good music, or so I thought. The truth is hubby is musically challenged, I mean it’s something that he does not really enjoy, he’d rather watch news channel.   The curious devil in me got me to ask him what was it that he enjoying so much and it turns out that he was listing to "The Bo Xilai trial: End of the road?" from the latest audio edition of the Economist. I can also reveal at this stage that my hubby is the arguably the only person in the entire universe with out even having a single song in an almost full 32GB Ipod.

The fun had just begun, when I was swiftly escorted back stage to meet n greet Farhan Akhtar followed by a photo opportunity. I did not miss this golden opportunity to shake hands and hug him. Feeling ecstatic I ran back to the darling hubby like a child who got her favourite gift.

Image: 7days.com

Pritam was a bit late coming in and hence he really was the cause for the delay, however it is understandable since he was wearing sunglasses at night, must have found it difficult to find his way to the venue.

Image: City 101.6

Image: City 101.6

Arijit Singh’s Kabira song and Neeti Mohan’s act, kick-started the night and even my musically demur hubby too was caught dancing (this time without the Economist audio edition in the background). Next was Benny Dayal, my first time watching him perform live and it was worth waiting every second of it. Benny and Farhan Akhtar are two supremely talented boys and add up to that, these pappus can really dance. Unfortunately we had to leave before Mohit Chauhan came on but it’s was for an even more priceless reason Smera. It was past 1:20 am and I was worried if she found us still missing from home then the baby-sitter would have had a tough time to placate her.

Thank you City 101.6 for making the evening so special for me and my hubby, it was a pure prodigious night to cherish!

Silly Saturdays: Turns out even good is not so good

For the last three years I have been on medication for hypothyroidism. One of the side effects of hypothyroidism is weight-gain among others.  And so from the day I was diagnosed with it, I have been religiously taking my medication just as the doctor ordered. Not only that, I even started regular workouts scared of putting on weight.

Once every three months I am due for a routine check up. The fact is that I have always had problems maintaining good habits and routines. I was really looking to hear good response on my recent visit to the doctor, the doctor reads the reports he asks me the following questions.

Doctor: Ms Sangeeta what is the dosage you are taking?

Me: Doc thyroxin 50.

Doctor: You seem to be really regular with your meds?

Me: (Grinning in my head) Yes doc, I don’t even miss a day.

Doctor: Then I would recommend you to skip any one day of the week, since your report is slight bordering towards hyperthyroidism.

I was thinking that he is going to commend me on the great job that I have been upto, while it turned out that I got into trouble for a being so consistent. Feeling silly ! 

Out of focus

On a bright sunny morning, we decide to head out for breakfast under the shadows of world's tallest building. With warm sunny rays falling on my face, my heart yearned to get a click under the picturesque Burj Khalifa. I asked my hubby who was armed with his camera to click a nice picture, for my facebook profile and so he took a trial shot before getting me into the frame. This it looked!

Looking at the brilliant trial shot I swiftly went and stood right in front of it to get that all important perfect profile picture. This is what eventually came out courtesy my hubby’s creative and inquisitive eye for details.

Balancing Mr. George and my urge to purge

One of the biggest tasks in living in a rented place is the trouble of moving out. After three years of highs like having our daughter and lows like having our estate agent doing the vanishing act with our deposit, now its packing time. Our landlord sold this place to take advantage of booming property prices in Dubai and we have to move out of the place and make way for the new landlords who’ll call this their home shortly.

Now there is a huge task waiting for me at the end of this week. The last time I was subjected to this ordeal was three years ago (obviously) and I remember everything like yesterday. We had about 46 boxes, furniture and an assortment of bags and suitcases of different sizes. And back then we were moving out from a one bed room place and the size of the family was 2 – and this time around, each of these parameters as my hubby would like to put it has grown by 100 percent (that would be a 2 bed room house) and 50 percent (our little devil, Smera) respectively.

The packing bit is still easy (as we’ll have some help from the packers!) but it’s the unpacking (which I have to do on my own) that scares me the most. I hate it the very idea of putting things in the cupboards, making sure everything is set out right. I have to confess I have a bit of OCD, for me everything has to be in order or else I won’t let live anyone live in peace.

If hoarding is an obsessive trait, then mine is the exact opposite - that is purging. I am most certain, even this time around I will have much more to discard than to pack.  Initially I thought of asking the hubby to a day off to help me, identify things to keep and things to chuck. But then I realised we might end up at some counselling session to patch things up as he loves to hold on to certain stuff which is unlikely to be used ever again.

Having said that, my purging habit has occasionally caused me heartaches, I once donated my precious little black sweater by mistake and on many mornings have deposited hubby’s Financial Times into the waste bin even before he even got a chance to open the fold.

Please keep me in your prayers as I take on the battle to ensure that we do not go over-board, hoarding at the same time keeping my ‘urge to purge’ instincts at check.

Mammamorphosis

Every mother goes through different stages in her motherhood journey. Every mother is different and this by no means is a set classification on motherhood. That’s one thing about my toddler she does not give me the time that I could research on such a probable classification.

1. I started as a mother, who would cry louder than the baby if she got hurt or had fever or any other discomfort.
2. Suddenly switched to a panicky mom, when she started walking and reaching out to pull things from everywhere
3. Then became obsessed mom with experimenting unique ways to make her eat healthy food.
4. After that there was a slow transition to becoming a troubled mum, trying to coax her to get potty-trained and get rid of her thumb-sucking habit
5. Now I am currently at a stage where the little one is trying her best to push her limits, and I feel I have become a monster mom. So there would be frequent shouting, time-outs and then lastly I would resort to the silent treatment. While little Smera is much smarter than I would have speculated, there is some one who predicted this pattern a long time ago, the great Mark Twain.

Smera has learnt the trick of using the word ‘SORRY’, she would apologise with her most innocent face, fooling me to believe that she has learnt her lesson.

Maybe it’s just the troublesome two’s stage for her, but for me it’s most difficult as I feel guilty of being too strict with her. Just this morning, I got extremely angry just before dropping her at school. The whole morning, I was miserable and then a little conversation with husband, that still didn’t help much.

As I went to pick her up, she had forgotten the entire morning’s incident. She came running and hugged and asked me for lollypop. It just made me relieved to see her smile. It’s not that I have never got scolding or maybe even occasional spanking, but I find it really tough on myself to be so strict with her.