Swings & Roundabouts

Ahh! I love this place – my blog. It is back to being a blog again and I cannot describe the relief!  I love to fiddle with the themes and make subtle changes so I can figure how things work – kinda like the child that breaks its toy car apart to learn how it works. But recently, when I promised uber blogger The Mad Momma that I will help move her into a brand new virtual home, all her own, I decided to live with a new theme so I can debug it as and when. Because – how do I put it politely – the chit is technologically challenged!

Then I sorta kinda fell in louw with the layout and kept it on. And decided to use it as the base to write about different topics. To expand, if I can put it that way. But there was a big snag to this way of thinking – I ain’t no uber blogger! Thoughts do not flow at the speed of light from my nimble fingers. All the magazine-type layout did, apart from looking sexy as hell, was put pressure on me. And the more it built, the more I froze and couldn’t write. (Yeah yeah I know this was all in my head but as I am the one that lives in my head, what I say goes.)

Now that the pressure is off, I can write again – yayy! Even if the result is an inane thing like this – or worse, which my follow very soon. But no pressure, cos this is not pretending to be something it ain’t and so can be as inane as it wants. Cool or what?

Anyhoo, life’s good now. You can all breathe a sigh of relief at that proclamation and go forth and be merry.

Jasmine flower

When I was a little girl growing up in Madras, I was mad about flowers. Jasmines of all variety, the multi-coloured kadambam, the orange kanakambaram, even the dahliahs used to find space in my hair and not allowed to leave it till all that remained of their presence were the thread and stalks. Normally, by the time I get home from school, my head would bear more than a passing resemblance to a badly constructed nest, deserted by its occupants.

By the time I reached college, things had changed quite a bit. I had to firmly bid my curd rice days bye bye and embrace the coolth – or at least, try to, in the very best way that I can. So that meant no more draping Draupadi-length tresses in flowers. As reducing the Draupadi-length involved possessing inhuman strength I could never lay claim to, I didn’t even consider the silly notions of getting a hair *gasp* cut. So, the flowers had to go. Along with them, the days of the bindi – they had no place on my forehead on my jeans / skirts days. Embracing the coolth, see?

All of this got a bit confusing for my poor gran, who still proceeded to keep the neighbourhood flower lady in luxury by buying enough to cover four granddaughters’ hair with jasmine instead of just the one she had. So we made a deal – the days she saw my mug sporting the bindi, she’ll whistle for the flowers. In short, bindi = flowers. All waz well.

Fast forward a few years  when I moved to England. I could whistle for all the jasmines in the world but none came my way. So of course, I proceeded to hanker after them like a Weight Watchers patron pants after a McBurger. Visits home meant the flower lady could now afford her yearly holiday, which she had given up temporarily during my college and working years. All izz well now.

But see, this I don’t get. What happened to my fellowwomen who sported flowers in their oiled hair? Presumably they developed some sort of code for flowery days but here’s the deal – the only ones I see festooned in flowers are at the airport, bound for far-flung phoren places like USA, UK, Australia and the like. Didn’t the newer crop of girls turn up to take our places? Even at my brother’s wedding last year, no one was handing out flowers and no one turned up smelling of jasmine. Every girl with hair had straightened it and let it loose, code for “you can stick your flowers wherever!” or sported boyish cuts that pooh-poohed the jasmine.

So, I ask, where have all the mallipoo fans gone?

My daughter

I suddenly realised that it has been ages since I wrote anything about the kids. There were so many posts I compiled, especially about Her Mintness but they just never saw the light of the laptop screen. But after a new reader read a post and stated they didn’t know if I had children, I thought it was high time I did an update on the kiddies before my loyal few forget about them!

First and foremost, The Mint is fully potty trained. I am real chuffed about this because in less than 6 months she has completely got rid of the diaper. I started after she turned 2, in September, just like I did with her brother. She used to go to nursery at the time and the staff taking her regularly helped a great deal. Recently, we stopped using the night-time diapers too after they were dry for the third night in a row. She now wears them only when we go out, but even then, she doesn’t wee in them and we end up taking her to a regular toilet nearby.

On our anniversary, for instance, we went into the city and spent the cold day wandering beside canals and she drank fruit juice after juice and still the chit didn’t wet her nappy at all. Then we went to this restaurant for dinner and she insisted on weeing then, refused to listen when I reminded her she was wearing a nappy and wee-ed like a horse when her dad took her to use the toilet! How she managed to hold it in the whole day I’d never know!

In other news, she is a pucca chatterbox! I was termed one when I was 5 years old by my teacher but my daughter has beaten me to it. Right from the minute she says “morning!” she is vocal. She decides if she’ll drink milk that day or not, what she’ll have for breakfast and so on. No is a word that is dropped frequently – not by us, but by Her Highness.

Conversations such as this abound in our house:

“Minty put away the guitar  and eat your breakfast!”

“No Minty no put away geetah, Minty and Kola (her koala stuffed toy) eat bekfast!”

She has firm views on EVERYTHING, from shoes to whatever she is told to do. At 2, there is already no “you do it cos I say so” with her. She will calmly parry with a  “no…..” and proceed to do what she wanted to do in the first place. She is, in one word, exhausting! But she is also free with the ‘magic words’ – if she knows you’re hurt, she’ll say sorry even if she didn’t cause it. When she’s in the mood, she’ll happily dispense hugs and kisses.

I don’t know if it is thanks to her brother but she loves music – and dance. She can hum the tune of whatever song he is playing on the violin and is always at him to practice! She will hound him to play her favourite tune by humming it fully and will proceed to accompany him as he plays it on the violin. She also loves to swing her hips – be it while watching something on the telly or brushing her teeth!

Pratik, on his birthday

Of course, her favourite person is her brother. She’ll fight with him tooth and nail, labelling everything of his as ‘pappa’s’ and her indignant screams rent the air every few minutes but when he isn’t around, she is the one counting minutes till he comes back. The one night he went away for a sleepover, she nagged us to death to bring back ‘Anna’ (elder brother, in Tamil)!

Speaking of, my little boy turned 9 last week. I don’t think I can get away with calling him a little boy anymore. He is such a lovely child, as different from his tempestuous sister as the proverbial chalk is from cheese. He is very happy with his own company; in fact, after being an only child for more than 6 years, he is extremely adept at making up his own games and I have never heard the dreaded ‘I’m bored!’ from him, ever! He is the quintessential all-rounder – he does so well at studies that all his teacher had to say about him was that she was extremely pleased with him. He also excels at football, swimming, running and is playing violin so well that his teacher reckons he will be ready to take his Grade 1 exams in June! Of course, as we will be in India by then, I’ll have to find a way for him to take the exams in Chennai!

Both his head teacher and class teacher had such lovely things to say about him that we were bursting with pride. The former went on to ask me if the school we have chosen in India for him will nourish him and foster his spirit! His class teacher  had tears in her eyes even as she said she will miss having him in her class. I sure do hope we are doing the right thing by taking him away from people that so obviously care for him!

He is a serious kinda chap but he has a wicked sense of humour. Typically of boys his age, the words ‘pee’, ‘poop’, ‘fart’ etc send him into paroxysms of giggles but he is also capable of spinning a good yarn. An extremely affectionate child, he is also the one  for impromptu hugs – but never a public kiss!  He floored me completely two days back by making me an origami heart for Mother’s Day!

So anyways, that’s my two. Totally maddening but utterly lovely, in my eyes.

Edited to add: I broke one of the golden rules of parenting yesterday and my daughter made sure I paid for my sins. I proclaimed to the world in no uncertain terms that a child of mine does something, in this case, not wet herself and is totally potty-trained. Well slap me and call me silly because last night she wet the bed not once, but two flipping times. I am off now to eat my words. Or is it crow?

Yes I know I should find better things to do than constantly move things around here. But hey, I can’t help getting brainwaves, can I?

Anyways, I have decided, as I get more serious about fitness & health, that I shall spin it off as a separate blog and those posts can now be read at my new diet & fitness blog. In its place, I have some new and exciting plans in store.

As my loyal few will know, we recently decided to move back to India. In order to mine for info on this subject, I have been trawling the Internet but though there are many forums, they have been written by people that returned to India after living in the US. So the content is geared for that audience and there was nothing for us souls that make the same trek from UK. (If there is and I am mistaken, do write so in the comments section.) So I decided that I will chronicle my efforts here. Good eh?

Also, to compliment all those R2I articles, I also decided to start a new column on Living in England. This will be geared at Indians moving to England, what to expect in terms of food, schooling, general living based on my 10 years experience of living here. I hope that it helps. Anyways, that is the plan.

Let’s hope I do justice to my rather ambitious plans. In the meantime, I am also involved in this rather fantastic initiative of blogger Kiran Manral‘s – April has been termed as “Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month” and we are going to do a blogathon, ie various bloggers will write on different topics under this rather broad umbrella. Will post more details on that soon. Meanwhile, send an e-mail to this address if you’d like to participate.

So I booked our tickets to India today. Our one way tickets. One way tickets that mean we cannot get back to Brentwood 6 weeks later. Tickets that mean there’s NO COMING BACK! *gulp* And so, R2I (Return to India) is ON.

I am thrilled at the prospect of returning to the motherland, chaat at Ajnabee, gorgeous sarees, dropping in on family on random days for lunch and so on. I am also nervous at learning to live in tandem with the family again. After being adrift for a decade, coming back into the fold will be quite unnerving, to say the least. And of course, there’s the small matter of how it will affect the children, my son, primarily. At 9, he will find the changes – new place, new faces, new food, new educational system – overwhelming.

But, the plans are not set in motion. Change is around the corner. Good ones, I hope.

I love Brentwood on Sunday mornings.

The air is crisp and clean smelling. As you walk up Queen’s Road, you can hear the church bells pealing in the distance. And all around, there’s a sense of “all’s well with the world”.
Last Sunday, we were up with for a special purpose. We were going to sign P up with the Brentwood Beginners Strings Orchestra, a part of the Brentwood Orchestra for Young Musicians. Understandably, the boy was extremely nervous. I think it helped that we had forgotten all about it till 30 mins prior so he didn’t have much time to psych himself out.
As we walked to the music room, we could see a few girls and boys his age tuning their violins and a couple of them practicing. There was even a girl with a massive cello. The ladies who run BOYM are such a cheerful bunch! They had P’s welcome pack all sorted and ready and before he could absorb that, he was measured for his tee and told it will be ready for him soon. Off we went to the music room where he fidgeted nervously.
“I am not sure this is a good idea”, he muttered.
But we got his violin tuned and he took the seat farthest from everybody else and smiled wanly at us, making motions for us to make ourselves scarce. After hanging around for a wee bit more (where the son couldn’t catch sight of us), in the vain hope of hearing them play, we finally beat it.
We went back couple of hours later to pick him up and the first sentence he uttered was “I wish they practiced every week. I enjoyed that!”
PHEW!
The orchestra is composed of local children that are working towards Grade 1 and beyond. After they turn 11 and pass Grade 2, they can move to the Junior orchestra. They get together one Sunday every month for two hours to play and learn together. It is a wonderful opportunity for these children and I, for one, am chuffed to bits that my son got to give it a shot.

It has been less than 48 hours since I declared I shall stay away from Facebook for a month. One. whole. month. Ye gods! Why, you ask. It isn’t part of a charity drive (“Keep Her Away from FB, We’ll give you Money!!”) or a dare. It all started when I got tired of keeping up with the latest FB privacy option / assault. And despite assurances the myriad options were buried deep inside the privacy vaults that I need a new degree in E-publishing to decipher. Between this muckery and my near-addiction to checking the status messages / comments of what people in my list, I realised, to my shame, that I was spending more time on FB than with my own children.

When that realisation finally hit, it was swiftly followed by a “I need to be with my children more!”

So, in an effort to wean me off my deadly facebooking, a month-long moratorium was declared. It is hard going, I tell you. My flat is quite small and the living room, where I spend most of my day with my daughter, is one long open plan area. After the spouse and son leave in the morning, the only adults I speak to are the postman and the Sainsbury’s guy. The laptop, sitting on my dining table, is my only link with the external world. And I think that made it even a bigger crutch than it should have been.

High time I turned things around then. I can use the time I save by playing with my children, spending time on my LSJ distance learning course, concentrating on my writing…. boy there are literally so many productive things that I can do. Let me see how I fare.

And here’s hoping I don’t get addicted to Twitter next!

Breakfast time in our household and the kids and I were sitting around the table. Pratik was having his porridge, I was drinking my morning cuppa and Minty was continuing her sleep, koala-style. Pratik wanted me to quiz him on his body parts – in Tamil. So I went through the usual “where are your eyes, nose, teeth etc”, using the Tamil words and he pointed them out.

Then he decided he will test me in French. “What is la tête?”

I scratched my head a bit and said “head!”. I got a regal nod in return.

“What is le brah?”

More head scratching ensued and as enlightenment didn’t dawn even after help from caffeine, I shook my head.

“Your arm. You know how you remember it?”

Alarm bells pealed faintly but I took the bait.

“How?”

“Your bra! How do you put it on? Over your ARM! That’s the easiest way to remember – my French teacher taught us that!”

Once my mind has finished boggling, it will be able to formulate better thoughts on French teachers using bra as a teaching aid to 8-9 year old boys. Right now I am too busy coughing and wheezing and trying to forget that my not-yet 9 year old spouts words like “bra” with ease.

The last time I posted here was around the time my daughter turned two. So much has happened since…..

1. My daughter is a bit more than a newly minted two. She talks non-stop, has become a holy terror.

2. I have started on a new diet and fitness regimen. Typically, even started a new blog to chart my progress!

3. I also started a writing course at the London School of Journalism. So if you see an improvement in the quality of my writing, that’s the reason!

Let us hope now that I am back, I am back properly!

Edited to add: Just so you know, I have been maintaining a fitness journal on the sly during this time and I will merge it with my main blog asap so you lot know I am not lying!

Episode 1

Time is the morning rush hour – Pratik’s about to get dressed for school when I arrive with body lotion to massage onto his limbs. As I stand there impatiently, he looks at me, grabs his vest and gives me a meaningful look, accompanied by a “AHEM AHEM!” My boy, my ickle baby, wants me to turn around so he can get changed!
I found it super hilarious as I obligingly turned my back.

Episode 2
We are standing at the bus stop with the various parents and children, awaiting the arrival of the school bus. I am thinking about the jobs waiting my pleasure, look into his ears, notice they need cleaning and tell him I’ll give him an oil bath on Sunday.
He looks at me and goes “MUMMY! Not when we are in public!”
I am suitably chastened, I am!