Reliable Mechanic

if anyone knows of a reliable mechanic (and not this is not an oxymoron, they do exist !) in London, preferably East London, then please do let me know.

A Hiatus

See you on the other side... Hopefully......

Edited to add - a dear friend of mine, bless his heart, mis-interpreted this post and just called me in a utter state of panic to find out whats going on. All i meant to say was that I am taking a break from writing and will hopefully be back soon.

Did any of you interpret it to be anything different than I am taking a break from writing ?

You can relax now C, panic over...thanks for your call..

Of visiting friends..

A dear friend of mine recently visited us from the far east a few weeks ago. I know him for a reasonably long period of time now, yet we havent met that often, in fact this was only the second time that I was meeting him.

I met him 'virtually' under rather strange circumstances - strange for me, because i normally never do things like that. I met him on a internet singing site - i know, how lame does that sound ? I can assure you though that such a site did exist and stranger still, it was fairly popular. What I was doing there ? Well, it was my pre-London student days, when I needed an inexpensive hobby to while away time and at the same time feel good about it - what better way to do it than to sing to a group of strangers ? These said strangers even made you feel good , who out of sheer politeness and goodness of their heart egged you on and appreciated your music using their keypads to offer words of encouragement. You could choose to sing different genres of music on different days - so if i was feeling particularly classically inclined, i could join a classical music room on one day, a ghazal room on another, film music on the third - well you get the picture.

My friend, lets call him L, used to be (we have both since outgrown this hobby) one of the regular listeners of the forum. The forum itself had its own groups and subgroups with a small, dedicated core group of people running the show and L was one of those and slowly, over time we started chatting. I dont even know how or why it became a habit, but it did. Looking back, it sure was strange as he is in a profession which, though I am supposed to have a degree in, i know absolutely nothing about and have no inclination or interest in whatsoever. Yet we discussed it a lot, mostly L quizzing me on stuff that I was supposed to know and he having a good laugh when i did not.

Bald (and you thought i would not mention that L?), a great dancer, generous to a fault - he makes quite a character. Yet he is one of the warmest people i know and has been there for me through some tough times.

I think its fair to say that L taught me one of my big life lessons - thats it not always necessary to have a degree to do well in your profession. I come from an old school of thought, and so in my books education is the only path to success. L is very successful in what he does now. I am more qualified than him on paper in that subject but know next to nothing about it. He has risen to great heights entirely on his own merit and its fair to say that I did give him a lot of grief initially with my questions about how we got there. In my defense, at that time, I thought such a thing was impossible and so he must have used some good old 'influence'. Laugh all you want, so i was young and impressionable.

L is awfully fond of children and one of his reasons for coming to London (his words, not mine) was to see my little one. I have been giving him snippets of information for him to be sufficiently interested and so he decided to take the plunge and make a trip. The little one refused to go to him initially because she seems to have a strange, (ir)rational fear of most men. My uncle is an exception, but she normally starts crying when other men visit. She is fine with women, its just the men she is fearful of. So she has to be cajoled into going and saying hello, playing with men (if only this habit lasts !). L was confident that he would be an exception, even though I had warned him to not expect any different. As I predicted, she refused to go to him, yet he persisted rather sweetly and eventually she went to him (which is a big deal for her, because she normally would not go even after they have stayed for a couple of hours). It was wonderful seeing them play together with L behaving like a long-lost schoolchild, eager to please.

It was a wonderful, albeit short trip. He got me an awesome gift, one which I was awfully embarrassed to accept, yet I did gracefully (his words, not mine). Thank you L. I have a memory like a sieve when it comes to dates and so I thought i would write all this so that I at least remember the year and month of his visit a couple of years down the line.

Update - continued...

I forgot to add that the little one has completely outgrown her pacifier. Phew, I have somehow never liked them and I never thought that i would use one. But babies are born to defy your wishes and choices, sometimes.

I had this huge mental debate whether we should give her a pacifier or not when I was pregnant. I was ambivalent at best and left it at that, reading up loads of material on the internet about it. When the little one was born, we got given 2-3 pacifiers with some of the other stuff that we bought (bottles, steriliser etc). We tried it one day when she was a bit unsettled and she seemed to love it, so we stuck with it. She would also sleep longer at nights when she used it and so it clearly became a no-brainer to continue using it. She only used it while sleeping though, more frequently at nights rather than in the daytime.

And then one day, soon after she turned about 14 months, she stopped using it. Just like that with no conscious effort on our part at all. She refuses it consistently now and tells us to put it away. I am so relieved because I had these visions of having to force her away from it, with her screaming away and me being mean and stick to my ground. But none of that..

The resemblance of her taste in food to mine is really uncanny. I can almost predict what she will eat and what she will refuse straight away :).. her favourite vegetable seems to be ladies finger / okra.. She will eat that at any time, even after she has just had a meal. Of course its not in the same league as say a papad, but its pretty close.

ALERT – This post talks about my child’s bowel functions in detail. If you find this vile or disgusting or too much information for your liking, please feel free to skip. Normal programming will resume after this post.

Somehow motherhood makes you cross the barriers of discussing distasteful topics and things like poop and pee become quite important, specially the lack of.

We had quite a rough weekend as the little one has been constipated. It had been like that for more than a week but since she has been alert, active, happy, playful and has more or less retained her appetite, we were not that concerned. She would strain a lot with her face going rather red from the effort and produce two-three hard pellets.

We tried loads of home remedies which we had read/heard about – giving her boiled, cooled water with raisins and omam (ajwain in Hindi), bananas and no bananas (there is this debate if banana is good/bad for constipation), an entirely liquid diet, lots of orange juice, getting her to eat raisins, more water in her diet, prune juice (which was a real challenge because she hates the taste of it).

On Saturday, she still wasn’t feeling any better. So I decided to call NHS Direct. I have never been happy with the service levels within the NHS, but NHS Direct is one service which I recommend whole-heartedly. It is a phone service run by nurses, who take down all the details and then get an emergency doctor closest to where you live to call you back for specialist advice. The nurses are so friendly, helpful, reassuring, caring – a far cry from the ones I have seen at the hospitals. The emergency doctor called us back and prescribed Lactulose – all on the phone. That’s how advanced the system is here in this country.

By Tuesday, after continuing with the home remedies as well as starting her off on the medication, we still had no luck. There was hardly any change in her pooping pattern and I sought some gyaan from a wonderful network of other mothers that I am a part of. One of them mentioned that her son had to be hospitalized for constipation and so I should not take it lightly. That freaked me out completely and also the little one passed some blood, what with all the straining.

We took her to our GP straight away and his diagnosis was that we should give her melon, avoid bananas completely, give her lots and lots of fruits and vegetables, water and double the dosage of lactulose. She seems to be on the mend, but is not fully ok as yet. The doctor said that as long as her abdomen is soft (which it was), we should not worry too much and go back to him after a week. Its been more than a week but she has not fully recovered as yet. Fingers crossed, wondering what this long weekend will bring.

An update on the little one..

The little one has grown so so much since the last time I wrote.. Its hard keeping pace with her now, since she learns new things everyday.

My parents arrived around the first week of April. The 'change of guards' as Calculus refers to the grandparents-changing-over ritual happened then. There was a day's overlap between one set of parents arriving and the other leaving and it was good fun. The little one was quite amused to find that she had two sets of thathas and paatis in the same room.

Calculus's father was very very upset to leave the little one behind and it was awful watching the separation. It is times like these that make you wish you lived a lot closer to home. My parents already talk about how upset they will be when they leave 5 months later !!!!!!!!

The little one took to my parents quite well, my father especially. He has a way with children and has always been good with them. She took a little more time to get familiar with my mother, and now she is very attached to both. She took a lot more time this time around to get adjusted to my mother feeding her, changing her nappy, bathing her, to name a few. She has my father wrapped around her little finger - also she needs to do is whimper and my father will go running to her.

She loves playing catch catch with Calculus. She throws the ball and Calculus has to make a big fuss of catching the ball and she is so so amused by that. She also loves watching him throw the ball on to the wall and catch it. That can keep her amused for a long time. Our terrace is indeed proving to be a real blessing, now that it is summer time - she spends ages walking there on a nice day.

If we ask her 'Who is N baby', she points to herself.. rather sweet..

She loves playing hide and seek.. She has to be carried by paati and thatha has to go and hide. No other combination works as well nor is she satisfied by any other.

She spends a lot of time sitting by the french window in our bedroom and looking out. My mother says that she sits there a lot during the day too, amusing herself and chattering away.

She keeps herself amused a lot by her VTech Alphabet desk. It plays musical tunes and she has clear favourites, which she listens to over and over again. Another favourite is putting on her signature tune and dancing endlessly - stamping her feet, waving her hands, swirling like a dervish, doing sit-ups - all variations of her dance routine.

She loves to smear body lotion on your hands, legs.. She also understands some basic commands - like get me my socks, get me my cream.. With her always willing temperament, I see a good errand girl in the making :)

She had her first alphonso mangoes this season. I dont think she particularly cared for it, if i am completely honest. She ate them, but not with as much passion as I would have liked her to. Ah well, am sure there is still time.

She doesnt let anybody near her when she is pooping now. She has her designated corner and if you go near her, she shoos you away. Only when she is done are you allowed to go near her.

The other day while I was giving her a bath, she suddenly became very distressed and started crying. Initially, I could not figure out the reason and was trying all sorts when I realised that she wanted to poop. My reasoning was that she did not want to poop in the bath and so she was distressed. I was nearly done anyway, so quickly towelled her, put her nappy and dress on. Only then would she do her job. Maybe she is ready for toilet training !!!

She still has a strange fear of most men !! For instance, the man who came to read the electric meter, window cleaner, our conceirge downstairs (not the lady, just the man even though he is very friendly to her), my male friend who visited recently. My friend persisted in winning her over and eventually succeeded.. Mind you, am not complaining, merely pointing out.

She still has not interacted much with other children her age, something which I hope will change soon.

Of spending habits...

It’s quite obvious that I have middle class blood flowing in my veins, which surfaces ever so often, reminding me to save money. To not spend anything, especially not on non-essentials and stock up on stuff that I can during our regular trips back to desh. So for instance bags, contact-lenses, dental work, kitchen gadgets would fall under this category in this classification that I have devised.

This list used to be much longer than it is now, but over the years, it has reduced considerably. Calculus thinks I am mad and nearly disowned me once because he had to pay excess baggage for getting a wet grinder with him from India on one trip. Thankfully, I was not with him to bear the brunt of his anger and by the time he got home, he had mellowed down a lot and though he was still annoyed, it wasn’t all that bad probably because of the joy he felt on seeing me (or so I like to think).

During my first trip abroad (on work) in 1997, I would hesitate to even drink a cup of coffee because it cost the equivalent of 80 rupees. Probably at that time, it made sense because I was still earning in INR and was getting a daily allowance in the local currency of the country (used to be Dutch Guilders, but that’s all changed now). With each trip, my hesitation gradually reduced at least when it came to buying food. With other things – clothes, electronics I was rather careful, doing the math frantically in my head each time.

The converting habit has largely remained with me to this day. I have this horrible habit of converting pounds into rupees for selected things that I buy. The keyword here is selected as I don’t do any conversion whatsoever for clothes. For everything else I still do. I recently bought a rather expensive designer label bag for an astronomical sum (after much convincing from a dear friend, I must add) – a sum which would have probably sufficed as our food budget for an entire month (but hey food is cheap in this country – not eating out, but grocery wise). I was doing the mental math, thinking that I will probably be able to buy 10 such bags in Dharavi for that price. I felt guilty for days after, not using the bag at all, but admiring it from a distance. I finally succumbed and started using it – its also strange how I have suddenly started noticing the type of bags other women carry. I can now see how easy it is to get addicted to the good things in life.

Why was I reminded of all of this suddenly? Because I got a haircut last week and my mother gasped when Calculus mentioned the converted rupee figure to my mother, (in jest) because he knew it would bug me and it sure did. My haircut’s great though and calculus noticed it immediately as I walked in, which is saying a lot.