Two in One Tag

Deeps tagged me to put my favourite photograph up in a post.

As you can see below both pictures are taken at the same spot but 3 years apart. Both my daughters for some strange reason used to love loitering around the water dispenser trying to figure out how the water came gushing out.

Sometimes when they thought nobody was looking they would crawl away at super speed to the kitchen, catch hold of the bottle for support & pull themselves up. After a few minutes I’d go behind them & pretend I cant find them…..I'd call out their names mournfully & then act most surprised that they were in the same room all the time. All that while they’d stand so still, watching my every move & when I pretend to find them they’d be so tickled & laugh delightedly.

Even today when I look at these pictures their infectious chuckles echo thru my mind :-).

I tag…

Ersa

The Idle Devil

Maddy

Ramesh

SJ

Sakshi

Savitha

Swaram

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Since the topic of the 2nd tag was related to the subjects in the 1st tag I thought I’ll finish it off in this post itself.....

Sindhu tagged me with a list of 20 some questions that you ask your kids, then you write up their responses as they say it & display the answers in your blog.

Mama: What is something I always say to you?
Nikita(8yrs): Talk softly.
Naina(5yrs): We must not interrupt when you are talking on the phone.

Me: Bingo ;-D

Mama: What makes me happy?
Nikita: When we eat all the food on our plate.
Naina: When we finish our holiday homework

Mama: What makes me sad?
Nikita: When we are not well-behaved.
Naina: When we don’t finish our holiday homework

Mama: How do I make you laugh?
Nikita: When you dance we want to laugh.
Naina: Yes chechi’s right

Me: Yep, I have two left feet

Mama:What do you think I was like as a child?
Nikita: You were responsible, correct????
Naina: You came first in class?????

Me:They have no clue;-D

Mama: How old am I?
Nikita: 30 years old
Naina: 30 years old

Me: For the past 5 years I’ve been 30 & intend to remain so for the next 20 years. After that if they insist I’ll be 31.

Mama: How tall am I?
Nikita: 75 inches.
Naina: taller than me

Me: Just like me, Maths is not their strong point.

Mama: What is my favourite thing to do?
Nikita: You like to work on the laptop
Naina: You like to watch “Burrey bhi hum, bhale bhi hum” on Star plus

Me: These kids I tell you, will let out all my secrets....ummm anybody here who watches that serial;-D????

Mama: What do I do when you’re not around?
Nikita: Cook
Naina: Work hard

Me: Heeeeeeee………I work hard to keep that image.

Mama: If I become famous, what will it be for?
Nikita: singing
Naina: for watering plants

Me: Huh…….

Mama: What am I really good at?
Nikita: you know the wonderfulest songs
Naina: you are good at working hard

Me: Nikita is talking about the silly songs I make up on the spot to the tune of popular nursery rhymes;-D

Mama: What am I not really good at?
Nikita: You are not good at waking up in the nights.
Naina: You are not good at playing with us.

Me:Heeeeeeee……:-D

Mama: What is my job?
Nikita: You used to have a job once a upon a time but not now.
Naina: working on the laptop.

Mama: What is my favourite food?
Nikita: Laddoos
Naina: Chicken biriyani

Me: They had a tough time deciding coz I eat everything with the same intensity

Mama: What makes you proud of me?
Nikita: When you do everything for us
Naina[cunningly]: When you buy toys for us

Me:Opportunists;-/

Mama: What makes me proud of you?
Nikita: When we are well-behaved
Naina: when I do my work well & teacher gives me 3 golden stars

Mama: What do you and I do together?
Nikita: Taking photographs.
Naina: Cuddling

Mama: How are we the same?
Nikita: We are both the same colour.
Naina: We both love to eat chicken at Nando’s

Mama: How are you and I different?
Nikita: you wear glasses & I dont.
Naina: you have dots on your face & I dont.

Mama: What is one thing you wish you could change about me?
Nikita: I wish you had longer hair.
Naina: I wish you will change your mind & give me some more Nutella....without bread.

I'd love to read…...

Butterfly

Karmickids

My space

Renu

Roshni Mitra Chintalapati

Sadiya

Suma

Umas &

Vinoo John's

............kids' answers to the questions.

My very first attempt at poetry…..

In my little world, they love me most,
Even when I’m at my very worst.

The kids, I tell you, they too much boast,
That mama makes a good chicken roast.

The ever-hungry kin insist I play host,
Dear friends, this weekend I’m going to be toast.

Yes its Nancy writing, no not her ghost,
Trying to wriggle out of writing a post.

©Nancy

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

P.s: Tune it to“Twinkle, twinkle little star”....the last line must be sung at super speed to get maximum effect.

p.p.s: Dont mind all the extra commas & fullstops…all cunningly employed to make poem look important.


p.p.s: For the curious, I will divulge how I wrote this...I took the word chicken roast, then lined up all words rhyming with it & voila'
p.p.p.s: Dear serious poem-writers, I beseech you to forgive my impudence. Umm....how do u guys make that c in a circle sign next to ur name????


Edited to add:
Thank U Doli & Preeti Shenoy for helping me out with the © sign.Blogging is so much fun...I learn new things everyday;-D!!!!!

After dinner.....

Characters: A middle-aged Malayalee couple

Time: Between 10-11pm

Place: Bangalore
**********************************************

Husband[settling himself in to sleep]: Have you let the dog out???

Wife[switching off the lights in the kitchen after final inspection]: I was just going to do that.

Husband: Don’t forget to keep the water bowl outside the verandah otherwise I’ll tripping over it when I open the door tomorrow.

Wife: Don’t worry, I’ll kept it near the plants.

Husband[adjusting the pillows to his satisfaction]: Did you lock the gate???

Wife: Yes I did that at around 8.30 itself when the boy from the shop brought the groceries.

Husband: Did you close all the windows????

Wife[a bit impatient now]: Ofcourse I did otherwise we would have been chewed up by the mosquitoes by now.

Husband: Hmmmmm.

Wife: The tap in the small bathroom is leaking, we have to do something about it.

Husband: Ah yes just keep a bucket underneath, will you.

Wife[sighs]: Ok I’ll go do that now.

Husband[settling deeper into the covers]: Did you lock the doors????

Wife[takes a deep breath]: No I didn’t.

Husband[senses undercurrents & backs off a bit]: So many robberies happening in the area, the world is not safe anymore.

Wife[attention diverted]: Yes Valsamma[church friend] was saying that the double storeyed house opposite the electricity board office was robbed in broad daylight 4 days back.

Husband: Did you lock the garage after the driver left????

Wife: Oh I completely forgot to……..[half-annoyed now] Why cant you do all this while I’m doing my work in the kitchen???

“You could do all these things quickly during the ad breaks” She adds pointedly.

Husband slides himself deeper into the folds of the coverlet.

Wife[gathering some clothes to fold]: In every house it is the man of the house who does all these things. Just yesterday Ponnamma[chatty neighbour] was telling me how Thomachan gets all the groceries home & she didn’t have to run to the shop for everything.

Husband[wisely]: That’s because Thomachan knows that Ponnamma will bring the whole shop home if he lets her shop.

Wife[not acknowledging husband’s effort to make her laugh, folding clothes in super speed]: Whereas here, you’ll just announce that we have people coming over for dinner & I have to run helter-skelter organizing everything….buy vegetables from the corner store, travel 1/2km by foot to buy chicken for the curry & beef for the cutlets, then go ¼ km in another direction to get the fruits. Get back home & spend the whole day slaving over the stove.
Finally after sending the guests back home, you'll very considerately tell me to leave everything where it is & do it in the morning. Huh…what kind of logic is that????

Husband[sticking his head out of the covers & bravely defending himself]: But I don’t tell you to make so many dishes. Just make plain rice & 1 or 2 curries, work is finished…what is the need to spend so much time in the kitchen????

Wife[looks outraged]: That’s it…invite people home & serve them rice and dal. Your logic is something I haven’t got used to even 20 yrs after marriage.
Do you know, I get up at 6 ‘0’ clock everyday & from then till now I haven’t rested even for a minute. By the time you get up at 9am I would have finished making breakfast, made separate food for the dog & even fed it, got the clothes washed & would be half-way thru making lunch but you have no sympathy for me.

Husband[knows the conversation does not show him in shining light, tries to tactfully end it]: Calm down, its 11 ‘0’ clock, do you want to wake up the neighbours….switch off the lights & lets get some sleep. You have to get up at 6 tomorrow.

Husband turns facing the wall & pretends to sleep.

Wife stands there furious, her eyes digging deep holes into the back of her husbands head.
____________________________________________________

Somewhere far away in the heart of Dubai…

After dinner…

Husband[watching tv] calls out: Have you fed the fish??????

Wife[sounding most apologetic]: Just feed them off please. I’m already in bed. Also, lock the front door before you come in to sleep, & oh don’t forget to get a glass of water for the kids just incase they get up in the middle of the night.

[The daughter of the middle-aged couple had more of her father in her than she ever thought]

HAPPY BELATED FATHER'S DAY PAPA!!!!!!!!!!!

Emotional Ecology

This TAG by Spontaneous Mini which wants me list out 10 things which emotionally tax me, has sapped me out totally…coz I thought & thought & thought for a looooong time before I wrote this much:

1. I detest people who spit on the walls & make them dirty.

2. I don’t spare anybody who dares to interrupt when the climax of a movie or the last over of a cricket match is going on.

3. I get very upset when I find out 2 people I introduced to each other have ganged up & are talking behind my back.

4. Parents or guardians who leave their children/wards loose in religious places, malls & parks to create mayhem are not being very responsible in my book.

5. I cringe when I’m forced to watch certain laughter gags on TV which cross the line of decency. There is a difference between playing a prank & ridiculing people in public.

6. Rigid People who see everything in BLACK or WHITE scare me. What about shades of grey, I ask??????

7. Tears come to my eyes every easily…..a rainbow, a tiny ladybird on a blade of grass, a premature baby, a breath-taking view, melodious music coaxed out of an instrument, an intricately carved figurine all make my eyes sting but I still stoutly maintain that its very hard to make me cry.

8. Sore losers put me off. It’s ok to cry in disappointment but don’t hold everybody & everything responsible for your loss.

9. Will somebody please tell a few people that it’s very rude to keep continuously talking while a wedding or a funeral is going on. Both these ceremonies are very sacred & important for the people concerned & families involved, so can they just hold off the idle chit-chat for sometime & give due respect.

10. I have a strong aversion to ‘devout’ Christians who waylay me on the streets & proceed to preach, what they think is, the right way to attain Salvation. After much trial & error, I had perfected my own way of getting back at them. I enthusiastically agree with all what they preach & interrupt them to add my 2 bits worth to everything. After a while they start looking a bit puzzled, then dazed & I get major CT’s watching them trying to wriggle out.
The last time I was in India, one of them was standing at the gate, I almost knocked my mother[who was politely telling the woman to go away] over in my eagerness to invite the lady in………. I spent a very happy hour refreshing old memories.


I tag…..

I scribble here

Lostworld

Pujathakur

Prabodh

Rakesh

Sara

Shalom

Thethoughtfultrain

Wanderlust

Mango Memories

I opened the refrigerator & reached for the mangoes. My hand fumbled around & finally found a small squashed one. I hesitated for a few seconds wondering if it was worth the trouble cutting just one for the kids. They were sure to make a huge fuss for more. Instead I could make some chicken mayo sandwiches for them & they didn’t have to know anything about the mango. Yes I’ll do that.

While I was toasting their sandwiches my eyes returned back to the lone mango sitting forlornly on the middle of the counter. It was the last of Pakistani mangoes which we had picked up last week. For those who haven’t had Pakistani Mangoes till today I must tell that they are so sweet that you must eat one to believe the saccharine flavor. After my throat infection & fever, food was tasting like sawdust but this cold, sunny looking mango was sitting there & making eyes at me.

I picked it up & scrutinized it for any unsightly spots. It was a bit squashed but didn’t look bad. It reminded me of my childhood holidays in Kerala where all of us cousins used to ceremoniously sit in front of a sackful of mangoes, pick the squishiest ones out, squash it some more by gently hitting it against the wall, then make a small opening on the top of the mango & suck the pulp out…….I involuntarily swallowed in remembrance.

I washed the mango, then gently beat the mango against the counter to smash the insides, made a slit on the top & put my mouth against the tiny cut & the sweet taste of childhood spilled into my mouth when….

Nikita[from behind]: What are you doing Mama??????

Mama[spins around guiltily, shielding the mango from view]: Nothing

There is no hiding from Nikita. She is like my conscience. Just last week I made cookies & then spent 20 minutes wondering where to ....ahem hide them. Nikita walked in after school, sniffed the air & announced “You made cookies!!!!!!” and proceeded straight to the place where I hid them & pulled the box out. I stood there wondering why I even bothered to hide them….nextime I’m just going to leave them on the counter, maybe then she’ll search the whole house & give up.

I show her the mango & half-heartedly ask her whether she’d like to eat the pulp like I was going to.

“Eeeewwwww” She shudders

I look enquiringly.

“Mama, it looks like its spoilt, throw it away” advises Nikita.

“No, its not…here, taste some, its yummy. I used to eat it like this when I was really small” I angle the mango towards her mouth.

“Didn’t you have knives to cut them with, in your childhood???” backing away, Nikita asks in pity, like as if we lived in pre-historic times.

“Don’t be silly, when I was little we loved to eat them like this....here just try some and see” I try to convince her.

Nikita does some quick thinking & says generously “Mama, you have it, we’ll eat the sandwiches.”

She hurries out of the kitchen with her plate of sandwiches just incase I change my mind & make her eat it.

I could hear her voice in the living room telling her sister “Naina, you know when Mama was small they didn’t have knives to cut the fruits with”.

I resisted the temptation to yell out that we did & stood there wondering whether to feel happy that I got the whole mango to myself or sad that my children don’t even want to know about the kind of fun I had when I was small, tearing the skin of the mango with our teeth, getting our hands all gooey with the sweet juice running down till the elbows, gnawing & extracting the last of the flesh till we saw the white of the hard seed, with the teeth tingling in remembrance long afterwards.


What is your favourite Mango Memory??????????

Plagiarizers I have a bone to pick with U......

Yesterday I came across this post where a blogger is accused of stealing a whole post from another blogger & pasting it as her own. There were some 90+ comments from a lot of people across the globe all indignant & ready to show their muscles. This intimidated the faker so much so that she[or was it a he] deleted the whole blog in remorse or was it humiliation.

And I felt so sad…….for myself. I’ve been blogging consistently almost 2 years now & have a lot of material which can be put to some good use. If you notice I don’t even have ‘creative copyright fundoo license whatever’ written anywhere in my blog. Anybody is free to plagiarize, borrow, steal anything they want from here but I have to face upto this reality glaring into my face……the honest truth that nobody wants to. Booohoohoo……..nobody wants to copy my stuff.

It seemed like an all too familiar scenario……I’m transported back to when I was in school, where once in a while I would learn up all the material for the exams & find the question-paper very easy to answer. While writing my paper I would keep a sharp eye out for anybody who wanted help. As expected, slowly heads which were bent over the question paper would rise & try to get the attention of the intelligent people in the class. I would attempt so hard to catch the eye of these people & smile at them with assurance…you know like winking & miming that they can ask me whatever they want. All I got in return was a raised eye-brow or a kind smile before they turned away to concentrate on the first-rankers. Huh!!!!!!

Good thing I had a thick-skin otherwise just imagine how much my father would have had to shell out in the name of counseling.

And you know this reminds me of another incident………..I used to go to college on a Hero Puch. Even my dear papa used to take the public transport but he got me a bike coz I used to be sick all over the fellow-passengers.
I took to the bike like a duck to water. I loved to stop at the local bus-stand & invite fellow college-mates so that I could save them a bumpy ride in the local transport. And I used to thoroughly enjoy the ride…you know its always great to have company….we sort of reached college faster. Soon I started noticing that as soon I was within sight of the bus stand, a few of them would rush into the middle of the crowd & try to make themselves invisible. The heights of it was when I saw my father trying to make himself as small as possible so that I wouldn’t notice him. Ofcourse I confronted him. He went all belligerent about not wanting his daughter taking control of his life & then when he saw I was hurt he said placating “Maybe if you focused more on the road in front of you……..”.

That familiar feeling of worthlessness is creeping up on me.

My posts……..what do they lack????? I’m so proud of them. Unlike yours, all the ideas are original…….each of them have been painstakingly written from scratch and elaborated on, each sentence is scrutinized atleast 5-6 times to see if it in sync with the rest of the matter, even the title of each post is decided upon only after much deliberation. I ask you……what is it which is lacking here????? Am I not worthy of atleast a teeny–weeny bit of it…does nobody want to copy-paste into their blogs my "Rat-a-tat” post or my “If you cut your nails on Tuesday, you’ll get money” post or the “I was stalked” post.

I’m sure it can't have escaped your notice that I too have got 41 followers, so many kind people have blog-rolled me & I get an average of 30-40 comments per post…….then why?????????

Mujh mein aisa kya kami hai, mere blogger saathiyoe???????*


*A dialogue usually voiced shrilly by the heroine in Hindi Cinemas & it roughly translates to "where am I found lacking, my blogger friends?????

Dead End

The day before yesterday, Bins father-in-law passed away. He was around 67 years old & suffered from Parkinson’s. Yesterday I found out that a neighbour who we lived opposite to our apartment for 23 years had passed away. Mr. Jalal, a Pakistani national, maybe around 50 years of age, complained of feeling uneasy in the morning. Not heeding his wife’s advice of consulting the doctor next door to his office, he drove all the way to a hospital. He was found dead in his car infront of the emergency building entrance.

The above is actually my secret nightmare. Dying in the middle of nowhere. When I used to go to work there was this huge main road with 4 lanes that I crossed everyday.......the zebra crossing was 5 minutes away, the sun was too hot & I was always running late. So it was easier to cut across…..I would wait to find a break in the traffic & run across, carefully ofcourse. Running across a main road is actually a traffic offense here but since there were no visible policemen around many of us did this to save time. But everyday while cutting across the road this thought would cross my mind “What if some vehicle hit me & I died today??? Nobody would know who I am. I could be lying in a pool of blood & my family will have no idea.”

Till the age of 30 I hardly gave death a thought. Death happened to old people. Whenever I heard that somebody was suffering from cancer or kidney failure I would wonder why people had to suffer so much. Why couldn’t death be quicker???
But now at the age of 35 when I hear that a 38 year old died of a heart-attack or a 45 year old died of cancer I have this vague feeling of panic. 35 is not so far away from 38 or 45. Death was no longer something which happened to very old or sick people.

Frankly speaking, Death scares me. It is so final. I wonder what goes on in the minds of people who suffer from incurable illnesses like cancer & Aids???? Where do they get the courage to live knowing that they are soon going to be buried under the earth or charred to ashes???? How do they feel about having no say…no choice about their living, or should I say dying?????
I was so upset when I watched the video of the Last lecture by Randy Pausch. When I see dead bodies of little children in Iraq in the newspapers I’m filled with anguish. I want to hold my children tightly & not let them out of my sight. When Winnie blogs about her mother who passed away I feel so terrible for her that I sit there for ages wondering what I could write to console her….. but I know no words of comfort can obliterate the grim truth that her mother is no more, which inturn reminds me that my parents are growing old. I didn’t feel so bad when my grandfather passed away at 98 but when I hear of people, even strangers dying in their prime I’m terribly upset. Even death scenes in movies & soaps depress me…..especially when the protagonist pleads that he doesn’t want to die.

Long back when I was blogging from Windows Live Spaces I used to visit the blog page of a Pakistani teenager, living in London. I don’t have the link otherwise I would have put it here. She was very attached to her father & had watched him die in front of her eyes. A few weeks after his death she put up a heart-breaking post on what happens to a body after it is buried. Till then I had no clue & infact didn’t even want to know what happened to dead bodies. That post was terrible….her anguish at her inability to save her father from death & the graphic descriptions of after-death deterioration were horrifying. I know I can google & get it but I don’t want to. I just cant bear to do it.

Religions give us hope of a beautiful place like Heaven & actions like rebirth. But I find no solace in any of them. This is where I question my faith in the Lord???? If I really believed in the Father I should be comfortable about going back to him. But I’m not.
Does anybody know what really happens????? All I know is that if I die I’ll be taken away from my family…….my parents & husband will be inconsolable & my children will be bereft. And I………I don’t want to go anywhere, period!!!!!

Then again I think.....maybe as we grow older our mind also grows & accepts death like how we embrace all the other stages in our lives. At first the people around are shattered but gradually they pick up the threads again. The dead person finds a place on the wall. And Life goes on.

Have I spooked you with this post????? Actually was not planning to write a post of this kind at all. Its a topic I generally am content to push under the carpet. I just concentrate on living Life on a day-to-day basis. Its only when I’m confronted with bad news, all these depressing thoughts come & make me feel terrible. Didnt mention it earlier but even the Air France tragedy sort of contributed towards all these morbid contemplations.

Is there anybody who shares these kind of thoughts?????
Or maybe a different point of view??????