My first guest post ..

A fellow indiblogger – Pramod Lohia, is trying to revive one of his two blogs. So when he opened Marriagebook.in for guest posts, I could not resist writing for his blog. As the name suggests the blog is on marriage and I had an interesting story to tell.

Do have a read and let me know what you think of it.  

http://marriagebook.in/total-filmy-2/

Cheers,

Sangrywords

At the end of the day ...

Since my little one started school, we've been falling sick. I am told it’s a regular feature in every household when the toddler goes to school.  So when I fell sick (yet again), my husband decided to give me some break and took up little one’s entire responsibility over the weekend. I have to say he is very helpful even otherwise, when it comes to helping me with Smera. The daddy daughter duo love to spend time with each other- be it 4am or 10pm.

A recovering child and my extreme cold and cough – didn’t sound like a wonderful combination.  I didn’t want Smera to again contract the flu that we have been passing on to each other. So when my man offered up to help me with in through this difficult state of affairs, I couldn’t help but to take up that offer with relief.

The weekend started off really well, they fed each other breakfast, played in the pool, went out to the aquarium– leaving me home alone recuperate.  Back after sundown, after a packed itinerary, all Smera wanted to do was to sleep. The ever-helpful husband took the little one to sleep and managed the task effortlessly.

Then came Saturday and both of them had fun again. Feeling proud (and a little smug!) of the two-day achievement, the Daddy offered to help her put to sleep again.

With a bottle of warm milk for Smera, daughter and daddy retired into the bedroom. Ten minutes must have passed before I went to check on the progress. As I got near the room, I heard two distinct yet familiar sounds – one that of baby talk another of a heavy breathing.

As I walked in to the room, I saw a restless Smera with the determination of a Duracell bunny, trying to wake a fast asleep Dad !

Guess Dad was so tired keeping the little one busy over a packed weekend that he slept off instantly while Smera had the charge to go on for some more time.

But hey, I could not have asked for a better weekend given the circumstances. It’s been a great two days of daddy daughter bonding and I got another story to tell Smera when she grows up. The day baby put Daddy to sleep :)

Super long wait !!

Childhood is really the best part of one’s life. I spent most of my childhood wishing to be a Super-girl. Time when most kids would aspire to be doctors or engineers, I had something entirely different planned out for myself. I could have taken the regular route – being doctor or engineer. A tradition followed by most Malayali kids, but then there were two problems. Number crunching was never my forte and then biology really sickened me. 

I tried a number of things to test out if I had it in myself to be Super-girl.

• Jumped from stairs, boundary walls to check if I could fly.
• Ate spinach hoping to release some extraordinary muscle power to bash up my brother.
• Walking after lights out at night – hoping that my X-ray vision will guide me through darkness.

Alas, all that came out of those escapades were a few broken bones and shaken confidence.

Soon I realised that I am just another girl, feeling dejected and disappointed - I decided to pursue other things in life.

When parenthood dawned upon us, I had a new found desire to try my hands on becoming a Super-mum. I thought just like my mum, I too would be a super-mum at managing our little Smera, our white tiled house, my family, work (which I do not do) and our life.

It’s no secret - everyone knows about my obsession with squeaky clean house and for the most part I managed pretty well except on some occasions.  My first eight and a half months of motherhood were fine and then Smera started walking! Suddenly my neat house suddenly started looking like a war-zone.

Tell you very frankly just like most mothers I tried to resist getting angry since that is what every kid does. Just then I started giving in to my evil side, while that had very little effect on my angel. With a sheepish smile and impish look from the corner of her eyes she would continue on her rampage. From spilling to crumbling, smearing food and even rubbishing the house with minutest pieces of torn paper.

After months of hard-work and patience, I finally have the power - my extraordinary Super-mum power. My 2 month-old power has rescued me from numerous panic attacks.

I am now unflustered even when I see her crumble a cookie, attack the tissue paper box or when she empties the detergent powder box on the couch. My little power machine can tackle all this and much more, leaving me with the Super-mum feeling.

It’s my hand held vacuum cleaner – cordless, bagless wonder. It’s so handy that I am going to be taking it on my next vacation!

Image courtesy: Corbis.com 

Dream, Do or is it the other way around?

Yesterday, I met a young girl from Sri-Lanka. Let’s call her Chandrika. She’s must be in her early 20’s and is working as a maid with a cleaning company here in Dubai. I can’t exactly place what it is, but I took an instant liking to this girl. Chandrika was accompanying my life-saver (aka my part-time help). We chatted up over a cup of tea and thus I became drawn in to her story.

Growing up, Chandrika wanted to be a doctor.  Yet, she was happy to settle for becoming a nurse.  She passed her nursing course with a first class and was overjoyed when she got a job offer from Dubai. The placement agent promised a position with a clinic and a salary which she could only dream of back home.

Shortly after that, Chandrika landed in Dubai to take-up the promised job. Quickly, she found out she was not going to be working in a clinic, but a cleaning company.  She had two options – to curse her luck or to make the best of a bad situation; she chose later. The silver lining is that she would be earning more than she would earn as a nurse back home, even if it meant cleaning toilets.

I know of so many people including myself who didn’t utilize the opportunity that was available for us. I am sure I could have been a doctor or something big, if only I’d put my heart to it. And here was a little girl, struggled to studying nursing and ends up working as a maid.

Life feels unfair to all those wanted to study and do something big life and didn’t have the opportunity to do so.  I feel the world would be a much better place, if some of us who are fortunate can help such people who have a burning desire to succeed.

Back to Chandrika, she is working on improving her English language skills. She spends her weekends preparing to write the nursing test that’ll help her get a nursing license in Dubai.

I am saying a prayer today for Chandrika and her dreams.

I’ve also signed up for helping a doer to dream – English Language Tuitions.

I am back !!

Just incase if you were wondering where Sangrywords has been for over a month, well then I have come back to the blogosphere unfortunately with nothing really exciting this time to tell. My family has been playing pass on parcel with viral flu. For over a month and boy it has been absolutely tiring. 

It’s different when you are sick and miss your mum, but what would you when you are the mum and your little one is sick. Little over a month back, Smera started pre-school and just like most kids, she too fell sick with this change in her routine. 

All was well when she recovered in a week, but then duhddudy aka daddy fell sick, the little girl who was well recovering from the flu fell ill again. And yes not to forget the mamma and then back baby again for another 2 weeks.

While this month had been plagued with the flu but it was just as bad as it sounds there were few highlights too:

• Smera started her play-school  and made her first painting in school
• My mum us visited twice this month and each time she cooked us a sumptuous meal and some more to last a week
• We celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary with a wonderful weekend getaway to Hatta ( a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of the city)
• And we got the first complaint from Smera’s school for excessive use of the word daddy which reminded other kids of their dads and made them cry!

Image courtesy: Fotolia 

Dear daddy ...

To my Daddy,

A week in and I still cannot find the right line to start. Last week went by re-living my childhood memories thinking of the time we spent together, the jokes we shared, the fights we had, the lessons I learnt and the times you’ve been there for me (that would be all the time!).

You and I are so similar – when it comes to getting angry or having fun. I miss those days when we would watch Malayalam movies on weekend together without knowing the name of the movie and more recently when you and ma were here last year on Smera’s arrival. I miss those days when you would wake me up and rush me to get to school on-time, picking me up after college and discussing politics over tea.

Even then, it took me my first stint of living away from home to realise how much I love you and amma. But the best was yet to come - my admiration for you both are unexplainable in words now that I am a mother to Smera. It’s a tough task and you have all my sympathies now for all that I have put you through.

Of course there are numerous things I still need to learn from you. The one that tops my mind first is being disciplined, in life and more particularly about my health. Someone asked why are you so fixated about your weight?  Without a slightest bit of delay my answer was – “You have not seen my mom and dad”. Sometimes I really feel ashamed that I can’t even match half your energy at my age. Another thing I truly love about is your take it easy attitude, I know how much you hate the word tension, and just on this one occasion I wish if I was not like ma. 

Dad, I know I don’t say this very often– you are the best dad I could have asked for and I can’t thank you enough for giving us a good life.  You have given me a great mother and a wonderful brother and on your 60th birthday, I just want to say – I love you.

Happy Birthday!!

P.S. – I remember you got very emotional watching the movie Baghban and had tears in your eyes. Well that’s not going to happen to you, we are going to take good care of you. But instead you and me can author a hilarious comedy writing our life stories. Tell me what you think of it?  

Image courtesy: corbis.com

God-fearing? I don’t think so

What does the phrase “God-fearing” really mean?  I have heard these in a number of different contexts – in the devoted religious sense of the word, in the parents telling children how to behave situations and how I can miss, the ubiquitous Indian matrimonial advertisements that typically starts with something like “We prefer proposals from God fearing professionals of good families…”

The reason for this sudden philosophical reflection is once again my little one, Smera. During our recent trip to Delhi to see her G.Pa and G.Ma, she developed a particular fondness to the Barbie-doll-sized idol of Ganeshji (one of Hindu deities) that was sat in our living room.  She would at first touch his nose and playfully hold his hand. Later, when she musters enough courage, she would put her arms around and lift him up and go for a stroll.

Being the dutiful grandma, fearing that Smera would break the idol, and risk the God’s wrath, my mother tactfully took possession of the deity and placed it in our more secure puja-room (prayer-room).  This of course was followed by a fitting grandmotherly advice on respect for all religions and fear of God.  We left it at that and moved on with our lives.

A few days later, Smera got her first chance to get in to the puja-room when she tagged along with her Grandma for her early morning prayers. I am sure she must have found the setting of the room itself amusing – walls plastered with murals of deities, lingering aroma of the incense and soft lighting from the flickering diyas (oil-lamps). 

Then she spotted the idol of Ganeshji who was earlier moved to safer grounds. And in no time, her face lit up in excitement as if she had bumped into a long lost friend.  Leaping from her Grandma’s lap and cutting through the consonance of the prayer hymns she said “Hi!” She then continued with her mono-syllabic conversation with the God throughout the duration of the prayer. 

God-fearing? I don’t think so. But something tells me (or should I say my little one taught me) befriending someone is better than being fearful, be it mere mortals or the God. Don’t you think?  

Another trip back home with my travel buddy

My recent Delhi trip was nothing short of a roller-coaster rider and the credit goes to my little one. As my husband says “adventure and you can never be apart”. There are few things I wanted to leave for you, Smera to read when you grow up, considering my memory is not that worth mentioning. So here it goes, buckle up my love and read on what you did.

§     Baggage belt is meant to move baggage. Baggage does not include us humans, darling. Hence it’s not meant for you to run on. This was your second attempt but your super-alert mamma caught you!

§   To make up for the lost opportunity, you made me and Grandma run through the entire terminal 1 at Dubai and very conveniently lost your shoe.

§     I somehow managed to retrieve the shoe but you preferred to walk without it. Am I am thankful on that bit since I didn’t have to run again searching for the shoe, but unfortunately the socks had to be discarded.

§     You slept like an angel through the flight, like you always do and if you are not sleeping you do make sure the fellow passengers are thoroughly entertained!

§     Your baby food bottle broke in my bag soaked my voice recorder which had become a constant companion for me to leave voice notes for my next big blog idea.

§     Grandpa patiently took charge to clean up the mess and separating sticky lactose from high-tech electronics.  It’s currently under repair, but let’s pray that we can fix it.

§     Next time you are visiting Delhi, we will make sure that Rani di (aka our help) gets her annual vacation, since your clothes give the impression that you’ve been busy doing her job.

§     Considering the amount of beating and fighting you did with Grandpa and Uncle Sanju, wrestling could be a good career option for you.

§     But if that’s not good enough, you could try what Grandma thinks – athletics, given that you are always on the run.

§     Aunty Veda taught you new dance steps this trip, so you make sure you practice it well. And her bangles are not meant to be worn on your ears they are meant for hands.

§     And an interesting encounter with the God, more on that in the next post.

P.S. - Incase you've missed Smera's escapades on her first trip, you can read it here.

Image courtesy: Corbis.com 

Oh my…emergency!

On a recent weekend, I woke up listening to a familiar tune. I reached out to my phone to figure out if that’s my daily alarm (which I regularly ignore) or a call from of one of my 4am friends. Trying best to hold-up my droopy eye-lids fighting the brightly-lit screen, I realised it was a call, not from a friend or a familiar number.

“Strange”, I told myself sliding my finger across the screen to answer the call. “Salam alaikum” - I was greeted by serious sounding Arabic male voice on the other end. Before I could think of the correct Arabic response (which is of course, Wa-alaikum–salam) came some additional information from the other end “This is Dubai Police, Do you have an emergency?”

A call from the police, first thing in the morning – boy didn’t that wake me up! Quickly gaining my composure and switching the lights on I replied “Sorry Officer, I think…it must be a mistake…err…misunderstanding?”

Listening then to the officer who continued “We got an emergency call from your number”, I quickly scanned the room to zeroed-in on a tiny target, a sheepish looking Smera. I knew by then what had happened. A profound apology from my side for the early morning trouble ensued.

But the real trouble is that my fifteen-month-old is an early riser and I am not. Once she is awake, she would try every trick in the book to get me out of the bed. On that day, she obviously got bored and called the police to get her mother out of the bed! You have to give credit where it’s due, she did manage to wake me up early on that day.

You may remember from one of my earlier posts Smera’s love for the phone and that she wouldn’t take anything less than the real thing. We have had a number of call backs from friends who thought we were trying to reach them, when in reality, it was Smera checking out the speed-dial function!

All these antics mean we are usually very careful to lock the phones when they are left alone. But as it turns out, you can make emergency calls even when your phone is locked and it is no match for a toddler’s random experimentation.

I hope the only disruption that was caused by this whole episode was to my sleep and not to anyone who was in need of a real emergency attention during that time.

For now, Smera holds the record of being the youngest member in our family to call the police, by a long margin. 

Chapatti-nomics

I am an expert at making chapattis. And my husband loves to tuck in freshly made hot chapattis with curry by the dozen. It is however, a lot of hard work to produce the version that our in-house-aficionado devours – one that virtually melts in your mouth.

It starts with choosing the right flour, the right proportion of water, at the right temperature and a fair amount of time spent kneading the dough. Then making the dough balls is easy, but rolling the pin to flatten the bread and baking it to get the balloon-effect requires some skill.

Overtime, my husband and I have developed a neat division-of-labour arrangement when it comes to chapatti production. I would choose the flour, oversee the mixing, he would then make a mini-workout of the whole kneading process and finally I would come back to roll the pin and make it hot.

By way of what I call the muscular-arm and skillful-hand partnership, all was well in our tiny bakery. Okay, that was only until our little one popped-out. With lesser time on hand and frequent interruptions, we were now using Smera’s sleep-time to carry on our family tradition.

One evening when we were both tired, hungry and on the ritual, Saju asked a very profound question. “What is the economic cost of making chapattis yourself?”  Before I could utter a word, he sputtered out an impressive mathematical equation.

I do not remember the exact numbers but it included the cost of the flour, water, salt, wear and tear of the rolling pin and kilo watts of electricity used. He then paused for a bit and asked me for an estimate of the most valuable ingredient, our time.

While I was trying to make sense on where the whole conversation is headed, he said “Let’s use the time cost of our part-time help” After a moment of what appeared to be an exercise in mental mathematics, he came up with a number of two-dirham and fifty-fills.

“Two-dirham and fifty-fills, that’s how much each of our chapattis cost” he said with a stoic-face. Faced with the prospect of heavy-duty-math standing between me and my dinner, I said that it made sense hoping he’ll forget about it after a good nights rest.

Alas, we were soon researching our in-house chapatti replacement options. Those who made it to the short-list were the ones from the open-food counter at Lulu, the wafer thin kind from Saravana, heat-and-eat version from Chiotrams and the tawa-parata from Bombay Tadka.

Of all the options, Tawa-parata from Bombay Tadka (BT) stood out for couple of reasons. It was made of whole wheat flour (atta) and it was at least twice as big as what we would normally make. It costed us three dirhams a piece and it was right next to the place where we would do our weekly grocery shopping.

Now, even I can figure out that is a good deal. And thus we started another family tradition – weekly shopping of chapattis by the dozen. It straight goes into our freezer and gets a microwave treatment just before dinner. It sure doesn’t taste nearly as good as our in-house version but all things considered, it is a steal.

The reason why I started writing this post is because of a recent development in our chapatti strategy. Last weekend when we called BT to place our regular take-away order, no one answered the call. Thinking they must be super busy serving the hungry, we walked in there, only to find out that they have shut the shop.

Looks like someone got their math wrong.