Spare the child...

My little one is forever full of questions! Maybe all children are like that. I was cooking dinner, when he strode up to me, his toy zebra in one hand, and tugging my dress with the other.

“Mamma”

“Hmmm…?”

“Why do animals live in the jungle? Why can’t they live in apartments like us?”

I will save our conversation for some other day, but I remembered his question in context to a news that I saw on TV a couple of days ago.  A live-in maid inPune, who took care of a couple’s 11 month old baby girl while the parents worked in night shifts, was tossing the baby in air, kicking it with her feet and terrorising it in every possible way! How on earth can anyone be so heartless, was beyond my comprehension. To say I was shocked, would be an understatement. I felt repulsed just watching it. The contents of my tummy did a flip, every time she threw the child in air and played with like it were a toy! Luckily for the child, there was CCTV installed in the house, and alerted by the little ones reluctance to be alone with the maid, the parents decided to check the CCTV footage. And this is what they found out! Was the woman mentally sick to have been so ruthless with a toddler?  

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Wanting what is not!

For the past two months, there's been no difference between my house and the fish market!

Summer vacations+ kids at home+ neighbours' kids= one deadly concoction + terrible headaches!

And the most irritating aspect of this holiday is the constant ringing of the door bell! Ting tong- "Aunty, can S and S come out to play?" Ting tong- "Mamma I wanted to take my skates" Ting tong "Mamma, take these skates, give me the cycle keys" Ting tong "I'm thirsty" Ting tong "Aunty, I want water" Ting tong-" Can I take monopoly?" Ting tong"I'm hungry" Ting tong "I want my bat" Ting tong "Susu"...ting tong...ting tong.... the entire day,the bell keeps chiming and I keep marching to and fro, leaving whatever I'm doing, to open the door! Like precision clockwork, they keep ringing that bell, leaving me feeling like a doorman! Enough to drive anyone insane! And god forbid if it was our house that was chosen for indoor games! I swear, I could see the walls shake, the floors tremble and the doors creak on their hinges, and the windows just about stopped short of cracking their glass!

I complained to my mother, how this was affecting my concentration, and how I haven't been able to write and submit my work on time because of it. Mom's answer? She laughed, "Are you under some false impression that you were a quite child who only stayed indoors all day and helped me with the housework? You created the most racket, my dear, and added to that was your incessant chatter! You drove me nuts! All kids are like that! And it's just a matter of a couple of months." Couple of months seemed like light years....at least the kids ensured that I felt so! Mom wasn't really being helpful, so all I could do was grin and bear it! I just wanted some quite and peace.

That time has now passed! The holidays are over. Today, the school reopened and kids are back at school. I think that I might even hear a pin drop, if it falls anywhere in the apartment! But there's an eerie silence too, and it's like I'm suddenly missing all that cacophony of the sweetlings! (Oh wait.. did I just call them sweetlings?!)

Someone said it right, "As a rule, man is a fool, when it's hot he wants it cool, when it cool, he wants it hot, always wanting what is not!"

Apron Strings..

“Mom, see what I drew in class today”, my elder one chirped as he came back from his drawing class.

“What’s this, it looks beautiful.” I said taking the sheet of paper he so enthusiastically put in my hands.

“Sir wanted us to imagine that we had turned into ants and have crept into mummy purse. We had to draw what we saw inside.”

That sounded cool! ‘Let me see how far his imagination had run’, I thought.

He had drawn an open purse, brown, just like mine, and the contents inside. I couldn’t really make out what they were so I asked him to explain.

“See, that’s your lipstick and that, is your eyeliner”, he said pointing out to two familiar looking shapes in brown and black, “and this is your hanky, your comb, your mobile, your keys, vehicle license, and see I even drew your book.” He sounded quite pleased with himself. Actually, I was quite pleased with him too.

I didn’t realize an 8 year old knew all that! There, I could make out, whatever he had just described, and yes! the book….a red cover with ‘Danielle Steel’ written on it! (Spelled correctly too!)He knew what I was currently reading! 

 I was touched.  

When had my little baby grown up?

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Temple run....

It had been quite some time since I visited temples. Not that I am an atheist or something…I am a firm believer in the Almighty. But it is the crowd at the temples that makes me stay away from them. There is no space to sit and meditate and have that conversation with the Lord in peace. In most of the famous temples that we have here, you’d be lucky, if you are able to have as much as a glimpse of the Lord after those long hours of waiting. Push comes to shove, and you are out of the sanctum sanctorum even before you realise you are in.  I would rather have my quite time with my God in the tranquility of my home!

Well, at a recent visit to a temple, I was pleasantly surprised to see lesser crowd than usual and I decided to have a quick “parikrama” or “pradakshina,” which means going around the deity thrice and seeking his blessings. But very soon I realised,there would be no quick parikrama, as an elderly lady walked slowly ahead of me, presumably with a friend. “My daughter-in-law is such an awful cook, I tell you,” the elder woman complained to her friend, as the other lady nodded sympathetically, “wonder how my son manages to eat what she dishes out!”  Nice place to nitpick! “He seems to have lost a lot of weight, I remember he used to be so chubby as a kid,” remarked the friend, while the elderly lady let out a ‘tch’.  The idiom, “adding fuel to fire” must have been invented by observing someone like her friend, I assume.  As for me, I itched to just get past them. As the conversation continued, I politely asked to get ahead of them, inviting cold stares. Not that I cared!

I had not even walked half a dozen steps, when I passed a couple discussing where they should head for dinner later that evening. Good lord! That couldn’t wait till they got out of the temple? That was not the end, because next was the world’s busiest man, talking on the phone while doing his parikrama. The phone call couldn’t wait until later,I presume! So while he robotically went round the lord, he kept talking loudly on his mobile, oblivious to the fact that he was disturbing everyone else! 

A group of girl’s excitedly discussing their results were next. By the time I finished my first round, there were few new faces, and among them a couple, the wife chiding her husband for not wearing a dhoti. “You could at least wear dhoti when you come to the temple,”she said, a marked disapproval on her face. “Don’t start again,” warned the husband, as he inched past her leaving her fuming to complete her parikrama alone. Not all were like that though, some were seriously lost in their world of prayer, and I couldn’t understand how one could achieve that state of meditation amidst all that chatter!

I decided to stop right there after completing one parikrama. I had hardly been able to concentrate on praying, my mind being distracted with all the drama going around me! There was no meaning in doing something just for the sake of doing it, or because it was the norm, when the body and soul were not in tandem, each going their different ways!

I looked at the idol of the Lord as I bowed before him as I left… He must be having the last laugh! 

From grieving to obsessing......

How much can one grieve over a lost purse? I guess grieve would be a wrong word..I guess I should say, obsess! That's what I have been doing since my purse got picked at a railway station. It is not so much about the money that I lost, it is more about the pride that was hurt. I have always been proud of being a very careful person when I travel. I don't recall having lost anything ever, not even a small key chain. God knows when, but someone managed to open my bag and flick my purse. I was horrified to say the least! The thought of a thief stealthily picking my purse without my knowledge, was insulting! How, where, when, my mind tried to analyse, but found no answers.

It is in situations like these that we are most likely to jump to conclusions. Could it be that lady who sat close to me on the platform as we waited for the train? She did look suspicious! Maybe it was the strange looking fellow who almost pushed me as I boarded the train? Who stole my purse? With no answers coming forth,my mind would not be at peace!

Writing has always helped me channel my mind whenever I have been lost. And that is when the first piece came up, “The sighting”. I couldn't let myself be judgmental, because I didn't know for sure. No one could be guilty until so proved. I couldn't think ill about someone, I didn't know if he or she was indeed the culprit.

But that didn't end my misery. I still missed that old purse. With that was born the second story, “The search”.  And I tried to convince myself, that true happiness and love lies in the confines of our heart and not in materialistic things. So why get attached to something as worldly as a purse? That did make me feel a little better!

The way my mind flowed from one theory to another, from one story to another, sifting between possibilities, made me write the poem on the fickleness of the mind, "Flowing like a river"

And then came the last story, “Labour of love”. That was based on the thought that, what if there was a mistaken identity due to a purse being stolen? There were a few more stories being churned by my imagination, but suddenly it felt enough.  Like writing about it, and then turning a negative feeling into a positive one had me redeemed. I no longer missed the purse and decided there would be no more stories on it! The obsession ceased to exist!

I think we all have some way to get over bad news, bad feelings, or bad events. It is about convincing yourself that it is ok! And that it can happen to you too. No one can do that convincing job better than yourself.  For me, writing always helps. It is like a catharsis to my emotions and feelings.

How do you deal with it?