About Me

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I can write about disparate things, but when it comes to describing myself, I often fumble for words. To know me better, stay tuned to my space and share my world with me. As my thoughts unfold, the 'real me' will surface. Till then, I leave you with my favourite quote "Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable."......Khalil Gibran.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The wedding band

“You know what?? this is not how it was meant to be” I mumbled as I removed my wedding band and flung it on my hubby. I said this not so modest statement a couple of years ago to which Max replied “I guess you’ll realize the value of the ring only when it is gone”.

A couple of days ago, while at work, I realized that my band was missing. I looked around and couldn’t find it. I was in a different office when this happened. I immediately called my colleagues and asked them to look for it. They looked around and so did I. I can’t express what I went through that day. I contacted the security and gave them a description of my ring. I felt utterly helpless. I called up mom and with a heavy heart told her about the ring. Mom said it was not auspicious to lose a wedding band. She said, it is better to get another band done and get it blessed asap. I came home and pulled out my drawer and started looking for the ring high and low but of no avail. I then told Max about what had happened to which in a boy like glee he prophesized “Oh! I think that kind of ends our marriage”. I turned a deaf year to what he had to say.

Eight years of my marriage started playing in front of my eyes that night. I looked at my barren ring finger and thought if only I could get rid of a crazy cultivated habit of moving rings from one finger to another; I would still have my ring in my hand. I could barely sleep.

I said three Hail Mary’s and continued praying profusely. The next morning, I had a quick word with the security who threw up their hands and said that the cleaning committee had finished duty and now it was close to impossible to locate the ring. I pressed them to look for it. I got into the office shuttle and continued praying. With absolutely no hope, I continued staring at my empty finger. As we were passing by the St. Antony church, I prayed, “please God please, I’ll light three candles I promise, I will never take anything for granted”. I reached my work place and pulled out the chair, I saw something roll and daintily fall on the floor. I ignored it. Something made me turn back and look again. I was amazed. Lo and behold! My ring was on the floor. I can’t express what I felt. I was elated. I thanked God and promised to pay up the bribe asap.

That evening, when I got back home, I pulled Max closer and told him “I guess, you are not that lucky, you will still have me for your wife, in good times and in bad….” As I trailed off with the half-baked wedding vows, I could see my husband smile his boy like smile perhaps thinking, ‘What luck!!!’

Monday, September 27, 2010

Eri's pearls from last week

A dear friend of mine jotted down Eri's animated conversation to one of his friends. He shared the excerpts of that mail with me.
Thanks pal! Makes me wanna write.

On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 3:37 PM, Hemanth Pradeep wrote:

Cres and I were yakking when Eri starts tugging at her for attention, saying something
Cres: 'Eri.. ..how many times I've told you, when two adults are speaking you shouldn't interrupt...'
Eri: 'But I'm also speaking like an adult only no mama...'

Eri gleefully doodles on the door with a crayon. Her Dad screams in horror. Mom is still blissfully in the shower. A while later, the little princess is being coaxed by the maid for dinner while Mom happens to pass by the door and throws an understandable fit. The little lady is immediately engrossed in her dinner and tv, turning a deaf ear to all the screaming.

'Eri, who did this?', Mom presses for a confession. 'Am angry with you Mama, am not speaking to you, go!', comes the googly out of nowhere....
Cres stands helplessly akimbo saying 'Excuse me Madam, you don't tell me what I'm supposed to do...I'm the one who should be angry!'...... I couldn't help being in splits!

Maxim was to take Eri to the doc and everyone was tricking her into putting on a sweater.
I tried my way 'Eri you look pretty in the sweater..'.
She wasn't really buying it and yanking it off, said, 'No uncle, I look hot hot in the sweater!'...
I managed to look away and guffawed. Cres was on the chair cracking a smile. Maxim couldn't suppress his grin and corrected 'Putha, you feel hot hot in the sweater!'

Monday, July 12, 2010

Penny thoughts

La Familia

So, my beautiful life in Mangalore, I will have to let you go. But, I will fondly cherish you, hold you dear to my heart. If I had to have my way, I wouldn't have let you go but life is calling.

I don't write often. I write when I feel like and that kind of explains the delay. I grew up in the 'Monteiro' household. A house, (correction home) named 'Nandan' where my identity exists. Where I remember growing up with my grand parents. The best days of my life.

The house was always full, with Dad's brothers/sister and their families. My life although revolved around the visits of my cousins which I so looked forward to. We shared a love-hate relationship. We often tried to outdo the other. We played endlessly in the busting heat of Mangalore. We were mean and manipulative; at the same time caring and protective. Since we are sixteen grandchildren on my dad's side we were divided into various groups. Within these groups we liked some and hated some. At the end of the day all was well and the next day we started on a new note. I can't forget the trips that we made to my aunt's house in Urwa, or taking orders from the ring master my eldest cousin, or bullying the smaller ones, carrying them, flaunting them, or singing lullabies for the little ones, or making every uncle who came down from the Gulf buy ice cream from Classy, or praying for the thunder storms to stop, or dosing off during prayers, or going to my aunt's house for Kannada tuitions or playing seven tiles and endless other outdoor games. The tears, the joys, the list is endless.

Why-o-why am I writing about all this? Perhaps because my little girl will not have all this. Her life will be a hankey dovey 'I-ME-MYSELF'. She will grow ignorant typical of the generation next. I can only try to tell her that Mamma's cousin this one and that. Nothing beyond that I guess.

I love the idea of a joint family. Yes, I do. I kind of grew in one.

I speak for myself: It is very different now, we are such a nuclear setup, all of us engrossed in our own little world. Acknowledging or rather failing to acknowledge each other. Waiting for the other to make the first move. Well, the ego trip is endless.;-).

I wish I could re-live a few golden moments with my grandparents and cousins
again. I can write pages and pages about my growing up years, but then one cannot cling on to the past forever. So dear-ole-me, close your eyes and I will kiss you; tomorrow , I will miss you...

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Talk: That is changing

When Boy Dylan sang 'The Times: They Are A-changin', he definitely meant it in a different context, but the line has always caught my eye. The reason being; whenever I meet my friends, I realize that so much has changed. I remember the talks we had when we were in our teens, it always revolved around studies, future, parents, lecturers, clothes, food, books, shopping, movies, and boys. That was an age that called for such talks. When we reached our final year of education, we started dwindling with what to do next. Do we further our studies, or work? The next three months we busied ourselves in finding out the admission process to different colleges, and universities. So quite obviously our talks revolved around admissions, entrance exams, fees, etc.

As time passed, our talks started getting a little more serious; we discussed about marriage, love, career, expectations out of life, and much more. Often in a very philosophical sense. Our curiosity for what life probably had in store for us never ceased to exist. As each one of us settled into marital bliss, our talks steered towards the art of home making, cooking, outings, and above all husbands.

Gradually, we discussed about pregnancy, the different stages of pregnancy, and the anxiety that came with it. Then it was babies, burps, bottles, sleepless nights, diapers, vaccination, maids, doctors and a whole lot of things that revolve around them. Today, when some of us are dwindling with schools, and admissions; some of my friends have new born in their midst when some of their children are well settled in school.

What next? I will update as time passes (optimistic approach). When more than a quarter of my life is over, I look forward to the other bit that may possibly include studies, raising kids, the so called mid life crisis, job, finances, health, and the scary bit of life; old age.

I remember reading in one of the editions of 'Readers Digest' many years back and this has stayed with me ever since; that if anything changes it is the circumstances around us and as people we respond to it differently and that itself is 'change'.

P.S: The various talks that we discuss always cross paths. According to me, it is at a particular phase in life that we tend to delve deeply on a few talks(a little more than the rest).

Monday, May 10, 2010

Too big for her boots

The little lady starts school next month. I know I'm sounding silly, but the fact that I have to now send her to school is overwhelming. No adventures off late; thankfully!!! But a lot of chitter chatter fills my day and my night. She loves to narrate stories. It is a different thing that her stories don't get past the 'One-dayyyyy....one-dayyy' mode. But when you tell her that she is being captured on a camera, then her talent for telling stories unfolds. "One day there was one Ali Baba....he went to the jungle...to meet a ferocious lion....he said 'open sesame' and the door opened.... Drrrrrrr dish"; yes, with sound effects, two different stories clubbed into one et al.

Oh yes, she wants to get married. We attended a cousins wedding for which Eri was the flower girl. I guess she is just carried away with the nice flowy white, the flowers and glitz attached with weddings. When we got back, she announced "Dada, I want to get married". I chocked on a small piece of bread, while Max couldn't suppress a smile and added "We'll start looking out for one".

She knows how to get her way out, but then most children these days are smarter than what we were as kids. I guess its in their genes. This reminds me, One day my cousin told her "See Erika, don't pull out the kitchen utensils, mamma will shout"; to which she replied "These are not mammas vessels, they are Renu's vessels". Renu is our domestic help. Well, she is not wrong in saying so, Renu spends more time with her and in the kitchen than I do. That's observation.

Eri now realises the difference between good and bad. 'I'm a bad woman, mama. Sorry mamma!!! I won't do it again'. If she is being admonished, she is quick to check:

Eri: Are you a nice mamma?
Me: I can be bad if I want to Eri, you know Ms. Cruella.
Eri: You are not Cruella, you are Bougainvillea mamma. I can't even spell the name correctly and she can say it clearly. I guess that's rentention.

She loves the uptoten.com website, in one of the sing songs, she points out at the big duck and says "This is dada duck, this is mamma duck and this is bebo duck". That's information mapping. Something that comes to kids naturally.

The other day, I just wanted to cuddle her, so I told her "DOlly, I'm going to eat you up, I start from your head",just then her dad called to check on her. She has to answer her dad's calls, she has an uncanny way of figuring out his calls. She sprints to the phone picks up the receiver and says "Dada, mamma is eating up my head". Now what does that convey?


Well, such are kids. What goes with the goose does not necessarily go with the gander. SIGH!!! When she starts school, I'm sure I'll have more interesting tales to tell, a lot to listen. Soon she will have her set of friends, her priorities, and something that as a mother I wish for my own selfish reasons, doesn't happen too soon, her own life.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Girl in me

I look at the mirror,
Reach for a wet cloth,
I clean it with vigor;
It seems like a black spot.
I bent a little closer,
And strain my eyes to see,
I step back in horror;
It is not the mirror but me.

It is hitting me hard now,
To see a passing phase.
The charm that I once wore,
Has now been replaced.
I see fine lines on my face,
That makes me look demure;
From within I feel like a girl,
Wearing a mask that is mature.