Awards!

People have been always been quite generous with praising me! I find it so admirable that they are able to find so many admirable qualities in me!

I remember that my kindergarten teacher was the first one  to
recognize my hidden (no, not really!) talents and to start with this award thing. At the tender age of four, I was honored with the "Most Talkative girl" award! On the progress card, she wrote in large red letters - "Stands first in class, but very talkative!" You tell me, how many people can yap away to glory at such a tender age and also manage a get a mention of it in their progress cards? See the point?


My mom continued the tradition. It is from her that I got the "Miss Kumbhakarni" award for being able to sleep like a log. Again, that was pretty special. Being able to sleep peacefully, undisturbed, and for the right (okay...for longer) duration needs special talent, doesn't  it?  You need to know how to detach your worries from your head and store them away for later use before you hit that pillow. Needless to say, I could very effortlessly not worry about just about anything. Exams never gave me sleepless nights, neither did anything else! I  peacefully slept through most of my worries!!


Yep...this award was given to me by Hubby dearest! The "Most unorganised person" award. Now THAT is one award I am proud of receiving! I'll tell you why.  I read some kind of study somewhere which says that creative people tend to be a little unorganised. And this award just goes to show that I might have that little creative side to me!! There you know now! So if I'm forever misplacing things and hunting for things thereafter, you'd know that my creative side is trying to burst out of my highly unorganised side!

A friend's husband gave me the "Miss Wikipedia" award. If she's ever stuck with something, he'll casually remark, "Aren't you asking your Google?" I'm not sure if that is meant as a compliment or otherwise, but I believe, awards are awards, and must be treated as one! 

A friend gave me "The Drama Queen" award. And true to the drama queen that I was, I gave this beautiful teak jerking speech afterwards, thanking him for thinking me of being worthy of this award. I also made sure to thank everyone from mummy and daddy, to my kaam wali bai for their unflinching support because of which I got this much-coveted crown! 

 Yet another friend gave me the "Chashmebadoor" award because I wore a huge pair of spectacles back those days (and that makes it sure, he did not know what chashmebadoor meant!) There have been some more awards, but it would be highly inappropriate for me to make a mention of those here! So I'll leave it at that!



By the way, here's another addition to my list of awards- Top 15 short stories Blogs in India. Just when I was beginning to worry if it meant someone thought I can 'spin tall tales', hubby dearest said, 'Eat the mangoes na, why worry about the seeds?!!'

Of Moms and Sons!!

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 54; the fifty-fourth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

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The other day, a friend commented about how I frequently change the pictures on the wall, “You must have a great collection, and even greater patience,” she said.

“No,” I told her plainly,” I’m a mom of two boys!!”

Moms who have only boys will know what I’m talking about. After a while, you just get used to damaged property and replacing and repairing, like that is what you were born to do. A cricket game that ends triumphantly with smashed window panes showering down like a meteor, broken picture frames that hang precariously from the wall begging you to get them off their perch, broken bones and bruises which teach you how you can get blood almost out of anything, patches of greasy palm prints and grafitti all over the walls, which by the way, reflect the sheer wastefulness of getting your home painted; I think you get the drift...yea, that’s what being a mom to only boys is all about. The whole house is their playground, and you will become an expert at ducking before the ball knocks you down...after having been knocked down a few times before! By the time the boys are able to walk about on their own feet, you would know the phone number of the carpenter, mechanic, plumber and any other repair person by heart and they would know your address even as you place your call and say hello!

Toys under the coffee table!

and graffiti on the walls!

You will also learn how to walk without tripping on the umpteen things on wheels that adorn your floor that you so painstakingly just cleaned a few hours ago, and after a few years, cars perched on sofas, trains hanging from the corner of the bed and trucks sitting where the flower vase should have been, no longer seem unusual and cleaning the house does not seems like a necessity anymore! By the way, the flower vase would have by then become past tense and after replacing it for the nth time you will no longer have patience to waste your hard earned money to buy a vase that will soon be broken again.

You will also learn how powerless you become when the cricket and football seasons arrive.  You will have practically no control over the remote, with the boys ganging up on you 3:1. And added to that, they will be perennially hungry, and you will spend most of your time stuck to the stove.

 ‘How do I look’, will always be met with a stony silence and a stare as if it was the most stupid question to ask. Men anyway have no idea how to answer that question, whatever their age! There is never a comment on what kind of makeup looks good on me or what clothes I look good in. The answer will always a ‘hmmm…’ whatever that means!

These are the times I sorely miss having a daughter; a daughter with whom I could share my makeup and jewelry and clothes. Without her, all my years of experience as a girl and woman seem so wasted! My sister’s daughter, all of 8 years, has already laid claim to large part of her mom’s inheritance she tells me, and I look at all the stuff that I have been collecting over the years and worry what will become of them?!

All the stuffed toys that I brought in expectation of having a daughter lie untouched, gathering dust. The teddy bear(s) that should have been cuddled up in the arms of my kids sit high up in the attic! You will learn early on that boys have this fascination for cars and anything that moves on wheels, right from the moment they are born! That and video games. Whatever their age!

But all said and done, I wouldn't trade my boys for anything or anyone in the world. Because some relationships are forever. Can any feeling compare to the way the younger one buries his head into me as he sleeps or the way the elder one curls up on my lap after a tiring day out? The little hands that lock into mine and the shiny eyes that smile at me, the animated non-stop chatter, and the palms that cradle my cheeks, are priceless. And to top that, you get all the attention that only boys can shower you with! 

Ah! the perks of being a mother! 

That's how he sleeps with his face buried into me!!

And those little palms are forever on my cheeks!

Being a mom is forever!!

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The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. Participation Count: 10

Be a child again!

Playtime with my kids has always ended up teaching me more than it teaches them. We were making a craft project, a home, fence and trees using ice cream sticks, and I had stuck three sticks together to make stems for shrubs and trees. I had laid them out to dry, when my younger one said, “Ma, this looks like the footprints of a bird.”

It indeed did look like one!
The elder one then rearranged it and said, “See, now it looks like the legs of an insect or like the pattern on the flag of UK or Australia, New Zealand or US.” Yeah, he was right. It missed a line, but it was similar though.

Read more at parentous.com..

Reflections of the A to Z challenge

When I wrote my theme reveal post for the A to Z challenge, I was not sure what it would be! I knew it would be something to do with “love” but beyond that the idea was a blur! I toyed with various ideas before I decided I wanted to write about different “manifestations of love”. Being obsessed with the Mahabharata I wanted to write stories weaved out of little-known tales of love from the great epic.

There is a saying that whatever is present in the world, you will find a mention of it in the Mahabharata and if it is not mentioned in the epic then it is not present in the world!! I wanted to see if it holds true for different manifestations of love!! As I wrote the first one, it kind of opened up my mind and set the tone to what I wanted to write for the rest of the month.

I experimented with the emotions and thoughts of the protagonist in the stories, rather than retelling the story itself. This challenge drew its thoughts from my own experiences, relating my feelings and emotions with various people in my life and equating it with that of the protagonists in the story. As I wrote each post, I thought about the kind of love I shared with different people and my feelings for that person would flow out in the post through the main protagonist!

I loved the challenge because I wrote stories I didn’t think I was capable of writing. It made me think, it made me live the story, it made me get into the heads of the character. I enjoyed those glorious 26 days! I took a vacation in between, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to complete. But I did! I guess people do give priority to things they think is important!

My favorite posts in the challenge were Q for Quiescence, P for Platonic love and W for worship. Which one of my posts did you enjoy? Did any of my posts leave an impact on you? I would love to know.

There were other bloggers who shared my love of mythology; Suzy with her Ramayana, Sundari with characters of the Mahabharata, Fee with her Scottish mythology and Zalka Csenge Virág with the epics around the world! Cynthia, Vishal, Soumya, Shantala, Shilpa, Janaki, Rajalaksmi, Deepti, Aathira, Vinay, Susan, and Devika brought colour and variety to the challenge with their lovely tales, while Prassana and  Swati entertained us with a 26 episode series and Chicky gave a wonderful tutorial in blogging! Ajay, Kavi, and Beloo, and many other friends kept my morale up with their comments even though they did not participate in the challenge.

It was fun to read the posts by the fellow challengers, and it was encouraging to see their comments on my stories. A writer’s greatest fulfillment comes from her readers and with so many friends not just commenting but also sharing my posts on Facebook, Google+ and twitter, it felt like I was part of a community. I wasn’t alone, and I felt really loved!

Thank you so much for making my journey all the more worthwhile and fulfilling!

See you again at the challenge next year. Until then, Ciao!

Z for Zen

Zen is the art of supreme meditation that can be achieved through a conscious love of everything around us and the realization that we cannot conquer our circumstances. It arises from an unwavering love of the Lord, when we concentrate on just doing our duty and not worry about the consequences. When the mind knows and absorbs this, it is at peace, it is in a state of Zen.

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“Maadhav, I have understood that this war is for the establishment of Dharma, but what will be the consequences of my actions?” Arjuna wanted to know. His mind refused to accept that going to war with his cousins was the only way out. He was afraid of the consequences of the war, he was scared to think about the future, and he turned to his master for help to clear his mind.

The Lord chanted a sloka-

"Na Cha Mam Tani Karmani, Nibandhanti Dhananjaya,
Udaseenavadaseenamsaktam, Teshu Karmasu."

“Parth, let me tell you a story,” said Krishna proceeding to explain the meaning of the sloka to him.

“In a forest, a pregnant doe is about to give birth. Her labor pains have begun and she knows that her little one is expected any time now. She settles in a clearing close to the river and readies to deliver the fawn.

Just then she notices a hunter staring at her, his arrow strung up in his bow, ready to make its kill. She turns to the other side, but there is a lion, waiting to pounce upon her and satiate his hunger. To add to her woes, thunder and lightning shake up the skies and start a forest fire. There is no way she can escape. Even if the hunter and the lion miss her, the fire will surely kill her. She will be hunted either which way. What can she do?”

“She must think of a way to escape,” said Arjuna, his mind wandering aimlessly, and mentally trying to find a way to save the doe and the unborn one.

Krishna smiled. “No, Parth, the doe did not attempt to do anything. She let Prakriti take care of everything.”

“How?”

“She concentrated on the job she had at hand. There was no way in which she could control her circumstances. There was no way she could influence its outcome. She trained her mind to concentrate only on delivering the fawn.”

“Who finally killed her?” asked Arjuna, already feeling sorry for the doe.

“Just as the hunter was about to release his arrow, lightning struck him, killing him at once. The arrow that released from the bow missed its aim and hit the lion instead, killing it instantly. The thunder gave way to rain which doused the forest fire.”

“So the doe was safe.” Arjuna smiled, relieved and happy.

“Not only was the doe safe, she gave birth to a beautiful fawn that lived to see the day, because its mother had decided to be at peace with herself and her surroundings. She concentrated on giving birth which was her first priority, without worrying about the future or the consequences. Her mind was in a state of Zen.”

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When the heart trusts the master entirely, and the love for the Lord pervades everything else, it achieves a Zen-like state, when it is at peace with itself and the circumstances.

This day...last year... Z for Zen 
(I didn't realise until now that I did the same word last year too!!)