Swings & Roundabouts

Inba tagged me to do justice to this. I think one tag post is all that is needed for me to prove to her how hopeless I am at following instructions.

A – Available?
Bwahahaha! Er, no.

B – Best friend
Don’t believe in having a ‘best’ friend. Have a handful of close friends and that keeps me happy.

C – Cake or Pie?
Cake, cake, cake! Esp the inhale-able kind from Taj Cake Shop.

D – Drink of choice:
Coffee to kick start the mornings; margarita when out on the tiles

E – Essential thing used everyday
My lovely MacBook. God bless Apple.

F – Favourite color:
Red

G – Gummi bears or worms:
Gummi bears, yay!

H – Hometown:
Madras, nalla Madras

I – Indulgence:
Designer perfume

J – January or February:
Feb. Dunno why.

K – Kids and names:
A boy – P and another baby (a girl, hopef) on the way

L – Life:
“Life is a roller coaster, just got to ride it!”

M – Marriage date:
A day and a year before P’s birth!

N – Number of siblings:
One – a brother, who, funnily enough, is all growed up now!

O – Oranges or apples:
Hmm depends. Gimme banana or mango and no doubts there!

P – Phobias:
Reptiles. Enough to make me wet myself – seriously.

Q – Quote:
“What goes around comes around”. Kinda doomsday-type philosophy that I believe in totally.

R – Reason to smile:
Er, life’s good? You see so much shit nowadays that I am like ‘count my blessings and keep plodding on’. So yeah, so far so good and that’s reason enough to smile.

S – Season:
Autumn, def. We once went to Bath during October and almost crashed the car during the drive cos we kept gasping at the foliage.

T – Tag three people:
Hasn’t everyone done this thing already? If anyone’s out there who hasn’t, pls do take it up.

U – Unknown fact about me:
Er, kinda defeats the point, methinks but well, let’s see…. I have no special skills to speak of – singing, dancing, playing instruments, crafting, even driving the frigging car – nada.

V – Vegetable you do not like:
Broccoli. Blech.

W – Worst habit:
Too many to list here.

X – x-rays you have had:
Teeth, chest.

Y – Your favorite food:
TamBram, Gujju, Tandoori, Italian, Indo-Chinese, Mexican

Z – Zodiac:
Cancer

Phew!

Ever tried selling one of the stories from Ramayana or Mahabharata to a child today? Especially one raised on a PG or U certificate rating anywhere else but in India? Hair-raising, I tell you. For one, the stories are all way too gory for their bland tastes. Tell them so-on-so chopped the other bloke’s finger or head off and watch young eyes turn into saucers. The whys and whats and loud gasps would take days to stem, leave alone the increased Nightmare Alert.

If your child is not raised on an Indian filmi diet, then the damage is manifold. Stunted far-fetched imagination, refusal to accept outlandish suggestions and the uncanny ability to put their finger on the one point of niggling abnormality are all just a few of the side-effects.

Take Krishna, for example. The whole baby Krishna- Bhoothana story was declared no-no the minute breastfeeding as a concept was introduced. Being an only child, P has led a much sheltered upbringing and the concept of a baby feeding off a lady’s er, chest, brought forth series of shrieks from my young lad. The Kalinga nardhan story also suffered a similar fate, when the gravitational forces (damn the school’s Science week) and the inability of the parents to keep an eye on their child (Krishna, that is) were brought into question.

I actually managed to sneak in a story of Chathrapathi Sivaji during yet another problematic mealtime, in an effort to make him eat his pasta from the corners of the bowl. This did work for a while and then disaster, in the form of Rajini’s super-dooper hit film hit and now the Chathrapathi got mixed up with ‘Vaaji, Vaaji’ and we were back to Square -1.

I am nothing if not persistent. So tried a different tack and told him the story of Ekalavya over breakfast cereal this morning. Buoyed by the fact that I wasn’t met with rapid fire questions that blew holes into the story, I bravely plodded on. Till I came to the part where Drona asks for Ekalavya’s thumb as guru dakshina.

That was when my luck ran out.

“He asked for the boy’s thumb? Why? That is so gross! Did the boy die?”

“Er, no. It was just his thumb.”

“Why did the teacher want it anyway?”

“With the thumb gone, Ekalavya cannot use a bow and arrow anymore and Arjuna would be the champion shooter, that’s why.”

“Eh? So what if he can’t use a bow and arrow or his right hand? He can use his left hand! Or he can use a gun! Pow pow pow! Easy, see?”

Sigh.

My gran and her kind did not know how lucky they were with us, I tell you. Seriously.

So the shaky tooth fell earlier this morning. The first one! WAHEY! Tooth Fairy, armed with a gold coin no less, is expected to put in an appearance around midnight. In the meantime, here’s my little man with his gappy smile.

This morning, P came up with this startling statement:

“I am so happy  I am not a girl – so no one can put babies in my tummy!”

Speechless is what I am.

Premalatha tagged me to put baby (ish!) pix of self and the Hubby. I wondered for a while at the sanity of such an act. Then I thought ‘what the heck!’ and decided to give in.

The babe in brand new undies is me. I must’ve been 2-3 months old at that time. Check out the hair!

This innocent (ish) looking child is the Hubby. No clue how old he was at that time – 6 months or thereabouts, I guess.

And this is P, when he was 4 months old.

Now, who wants to take this up? All brave souls who comply, please put the links in the comments section for my viewing pleasure!

My son will grow up to be a great interrogator, am sure. He gets down to the res immediately, no faffing around. Last weekend, I was ten minutes into my weekly phone call with my mum when she mentioned that my dad has now taken this job of becoming a grandpa all over again so seriously, he has decided to go in for some false teeth. Apparently, there was some minor disagreement with a tourist bus and the car he was in somewhere on the Madras-Tirupathy highway re whose right of way it was. The car got pranged and thanks to being badgered by P last summer into wearing his seatbelt, he had it on and escaped with minor injuries – knocked a few of his teeth, hence my mom’s remark.

P was sitting beside me when I was getting these details so he was pretty up-to-date. His dad, however, walked in sleepily when I was asking my mum if dad had lost much blood and typically, went “what? what? what happened?”

Before I could react, P quipped: “Thatha had an accident, Daddy. It’s okay – he’s not dead.” Succinct, I call that.

Later that evening, we spoke to my dad. Before we did, though, P wasn’t too sure of his grandpa’s talking abilities.

“He has lost his teeth, Mummy, how is he going to talk? He is just going to say ‘ba, ba, ba!’”

So when my dad came on the line, he was met with a barrage of rapid-fire questions.

P: “Why were you so careless, Thatha? Why didn’t you wear your seatbelt properly? I can!”
My dad: “er….”
P: “So how many teeth did you loose?”
My dad: “…” (inaudible reply)
P: “Oh that many? You can still talk properly. How is that?”
My dad: “er….”
P: “I know why. It is because even though your teeth have all fallen out, you still caught them all in your hands. I know it. That’s why you can still talk. I know these things.”
My dad: “……”
P: “So how much did the Tooth Fairy give you?”
My dad: “???”
P: (exasperated sigh) “You know the Tooth Fairy gives you gold coins when you loose your teeth? How many coins did you get?”
My dad: “er, I don’t think India is on the Tooth Fairy’s radar, P!”
P: (shocked) “really? That sucks!”
My dad: “!!!”

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Now that lots of the older children in Year 2 are coming to school with a gappy smile, P has learnt that he too would start losing his teeth one day. Thanks in equal parts to his teachers, fellow students and Disney, he firmly believes that if he hides the fallen tooth under his pillow, the Tooth Fairy would leave him a shiny gold coin (curse you Disney!) the next morning. True to his Chetty origins, he swiftly calculated that he had 20 teeth in his mouth – a veritable gold mine! He even decided how he was going to put his new found wealth to use!Imagine his dismay when he learnt that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t visit kids in India! As we had been murmuring about returning to the homeland possibly once he finishes Infant school, he is quite frantic! He is busy hatching a plan to lose his teeth by the time he finishes Year 2 and net some profit before setting off home. Last I heard, he is still open to ideas! Anyone has a suggestion, please feel free….

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Conversation this morning ran somewhat like this:S: “Come on, P, hurry up now – wee and brush your teeth quickly!”
P: ……
S: “See you better go to the toilet right now and finish your job. You know your friend is waiting for you!” (He has a play date later on)
P: “What? Where? In the toilet?”
S: *groan*

I spent some jolly 10-minutes reading about young Max, 19, who’s off to India and Thailand, in a bid to discover the world and himself AND blog about it for Guardian. Normal? Harmless? Well, the entertaining commenters (451 at the last count) thought not, especially as it seemed more and more probable that Max’s daddy might be the Guardian’s travel writer. Comments ranged from a fairly normal ‘tut, tut’ to more vociferous ‘shame on you, a pox on you!’ kind of curses. Most Brits are getting their knickers in a twist over the gross unfairness of it all and the obvious nepotism. Like I said, pure entertainment.

What was even more hilarious is this kid’s take on India. He’s ‘scared shitless’ of the place, right? Then why’s he going there? Good q. He has to take a gazillion shots / pills to be deemed fit to travel. As soon as he lands in Bombay, he’s gonna take off ‘pretty sharpish’ to Goa, and civilization, to ease himself into the land of snake charmers and elephant rides. Ooh, what a lark!

I tell ya, economic boom, one of the world’s viral job markets, exporting some of the best brains to all parts of the world post graduation day and still, the world’s yuppies still think we sleep on nailed beds and have pet monkeys. Tut, tut! I tell you what, I bet ol’ Max would probably piss himself the first time someone speaks to him in English. It may not be the Oxbridge he is used to but hey, totally serviceable, mon. I, for one, am going to bookmark his blog and keep visiting. If not to keep abreast of what shenanigans he gets up to in Goa or Bangalore, most def for the bollocking he’s going to get in the comments section.

Good times, people.

You know they say “be aware of what you tell your children; it may well come back to bite you in your ass”? Well, it happens to me many a time but the ninny that I am, I keep spinning my web of lies and flounder as my son ties me in knots using the same slimy thread.

For instance, when P was very little, he once asked me why we got married. A thousand replies weaved through my head:
“To shove a thumb up your paternal grandparents noses”
“To have hot, monkey sex at the drop of a hat (or any other apparel)”
“To get away from your maternal grandparents when the GRE route got blocked”
but as none of them were U rated, I decided to plumb for a tamer reply and fed him some jazz somewhere along the lines of a megaserial maa:
“so that we could have you, beta!”

When I had just found I was pregnant, I tried to test P’s reactions in a roundabout way. I did not want to give him any concrete idea about the imminent arrival as he is somewhat of a blabbermouth. So I tried my hand at subtlety and asked him:
“would you like to have a baby brother or a sister, kanna?”

To which, he replied:
“yeah, but I don’t cos you wanted only me and nobody else!” (another web I had spun earlier when he first asked for a sib.)

“Er, what if?”

“Well, then you’d have to get married again!”

“What? Where did you get that?”

“You only said, mummy, that mummies and daddies have to get married to have children. So if I should have a brother or a sister, you should get married again. Daddy would be so upset; he would leave!”

Next time around, I shall stick to the tried-and-tested-truth, shall I?

Oh yeah, I’ve got a bun in the oven – again. Am only at week 9 or thereabouts so am probably jumping the gun in putting the news on my blog (but who reads it but my loyal 4 anyway?!) but then, think of all the lovely posts I am missing – runs, projectile vomiting, nausea and other deep joys that my life is so full of now. So I thought, what the heck.

A friend forwarded me this hilarious article from Times Online as it would appeal to my quirky sense of humour. Well, hell, it did. It is so droll I loved every word of it. How can you not, when you find beauties such as this:

“about discovering how comprehensively a mixture of hot
water and detergent can reduce banknotes to an indecipherable squidge of
papier-mâché, while leaving tomato-sauce strains entirely intact elsewhere
on said garment.”

or,

”
Nor about realising that I may need to work until I am 89 because my pension
has shrivelled to the size of a hamster’s testicle.” Amen to that, ol’ man!

He sagely adds “Still, far be it for me to complain about
the state of Britain. Not while I wear this wristband, anyway. I’m giving it
until lunchtime, incidentally, then it’s going in the bin. The strain of
being so bloody nice is making me feel ill.”

I can sooo get behind that sentiment tho’ no one in their right minds would ever accuse me of being bloody nice! Go on, read it – bet it will make you crack a smile!

The Mad Momma asked: “Is there any quality more cherishable in a man than gentleness?”

While most of her loyal legion said “of course not”, I wonder what else is there that makes the list.

1. Chivalry: What happened to good old fashioned chivalry? When men opened doors for you, said “after you”? I think they are using feminism as an excuse to behave like yobs. For the record, we like being our own women, yes but it doesn’t mean we wouldn’t appreciate it if the menfolk did stuff like opening the hefty door of a restaurant and letting us in first, rather than watch on while we risk an aneurysm wrestling with the damn thing and then  sail through the open door  first, making us feel like a dwarapalak!

2. Kindness: I like it when men are kind – sort of goes hand in hand with being gentle, I think. There is something about the bloke that helps a doddering old woman cross the road that tugs the heart strings. Giving up seats for preggie / old ladies in crowded buses and train don’t come under this category: they are just purely sensible things to do and shame on you if you don’t!

3. Patience: There’s something irrepressibly charming about the man who is calm and holds onto his patience even when the person opposite is driving him nuts, being inexplicably mental. I’d fully understand if he imagined beating said person black and blue whilst being excruciatingly polite. Even more understandable is taking it out on the poor cushion after said person has exited the scene.

4. Humour: Huge dollops of it. There’s nothing to top someone who can take a joke or see the funny side of any situation. Absolutely!