I recently added a dear friend Broom's birthday party in a lovely, posh Indian restaurant in one of the most fashionable parts of London. It was a surprise party and her partner had gone to great lengths to keep it secret. The group of people she got together was lovely – a bunch of her cousins and a couple of her friends. The evening was perfect – there was good chemistry between the group even though a lot of people were meeting for the first time, a lovely setting with exquisite food, lots of drink and a delicious cake with all of us joining in to sing the customary ‘Happy Birthday’ song. I get embarrassed quite easily and I was so glad that it was not my birthday. I came home, feeling a wee bit melancholy in spite of having a wonderful time.
Broom had such a nice group of cousins - who all happened to live in the same city, got along so well, had so much fun together and had such a great feeling of camaraderie amongst themselves. It made me think about my own relationship with my cousins and I could not help but notice the drastic differences.
I have just one cousin from my mother’s side of the family, who lives in this country. We share a strange relationship – I don’t consider her close to me at all, yet she chooses to tell me stuff about her own life which nobody else in the family knows about. I am not sure why she does this either because I don’t think she considers me close either. For instance, when she went on a gap year trip to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, I was the only one who knew about Vietnam because my uncle would not have let her go otherwise. So for the time she was away, I used to keep in touch with my uncle on her behalf and pray that she would return safely, because my uncle would have undoubtedly killed me if something had happened to her. And now, I am the only one who is privy to the fact that she has a boyfriend. Yet she will never make any effort to come and meet me or speak to me or for that matter keep in touch when she is away.
On my father’s side I have numerous cousins, but none that I am close to. Most of them live in India and within a fairly small radius of each other. My father was the only one among his brothers who ventured out of Tamil Nadu and I think that had a big part to play. All my other cousins met much more frequently than we did and are far closer to each other. Though we went to our ancestral house for almost every single vacation when we were younger, that stopped as we grew older because of increased workload from school and other commitments. Also as we grew older, we realised that we did not have that much in common with my cousins anymore and my brother and I would insist that we did not want to go to our hometown anymore for our holidays. We preferred to spend it in Bombay, with our numerous friends. Eventually, over time my parents stopped taking us there and our already fragile relationship with our cousins only deteriorated.
Another reason is none of my cousins ventured out of their homes for work either. They are all still confined to the places they grew up in. None of them made an effort to come to Bombay to spend time with us, it was always us going there. They are still very warm when we go and visit them, but we just don’t share anything in common. I know they care for me, but they probably don’t get me either – we are just too different. I would not be able to have a conversation with them where I could discuss what I am doing because they would not understand. I have tried in the past, but they don’t get it.
My friend’s cousins were so attentive to her and were really interested to find out all about her friends. They seemed to genuinely care for her happiness and were quite upset to find out that there were bits of her which they knew nothing about. They wanted to be a big part of her life and had no qualms in quizzing us about her to know more about the aspects they did not know about. Above all, their protectiveness and love really surfaced all through the evening and I could not but help think how lucky my friend is.
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
Monday, 15 October 2007
First Words
My little one, all of 9 months old, today uttered the words any parent desperately longs to hear – mmmaa, ammmaa, mmm.. It is like music to my ears and sounds so so sweet and innocent. Calculus has been trying to teach her to say appa for days now, yet she chose to say amma first and I am so happy. I am in cloud nine and literally dancing around.
My parents told me while I was away at work that she has been saying this all day, but they did not know how to operate the camcorder to take a video. They were hoping that she would utter those magic words even after I got home and yes she did. Once you start her off, she keeps saying it over and over again. I am not sure how long it is going to last for or even if she is going to say it once she wakes up from her nap, but for the moment I am just so happy and ever so glad that I caught it on camera.
She has started getting a big clingy to me now and apparently misses me when I am not around. My parents and Calculus tell me that if I am away during an evening, she looks all over the house for me and is a bit unsettled and cranky. I am not entirely convinced this is because of my being away, but all of them are positive that it is. She loves to stand and play between my legs while I sit and work away on my laptop.
She has not yet mastered the art of crawling, she only crawls backwards. She is rolling away to go to places she wants to and that seems to keep her happy. She walks a few steps either holding on to the furniture or to us. I think this little one is going to forget the crawling milestone and just get on with walking.
She has nearly 7 teeth now – 4 on her bottom jaw and 3 at the top. We have started brushing her teeth and its quite a task to cajole her into it.
She has begun to identify a few things and looks at them when we ask her – for instance the light, banana, apple, a pound city shop which is across the road from our apartment etc. She has learnt to look at aeroplanes and birds flying in the sky and seems to be fascinated with it and keeps pointing to it, making noises like ‘ Aaaa Aaaa’.
She is learning to eat new fruits and vegetables everyday – even ate a piece of cooked karela or bitter gourd, something which even Calculus doesn’t eat. Her facial expression did not change at all; she even seemed to like it. Atta-girl.
She points to the door ALL the time, indicating that she wants to go out. When she does go out, she squeals with delight, kicking her legs vigorously to express her happiness. Of course, if she displayed the same enthusiasm in the swimming pool, it would be so much nicer, but that’s another story.
We have a nice morning routine where she comes to the door to say goodbye to me. My father then brings her to the stairwell where she waits patiently in my father’s arms. As I go down each floor, I look up and say bye to her and am rewarded with a big laugh. We follow this ritual religiously for each floor and so far it has worked very well as she does not cry when I go to work.
My parents told me while I was away at work that she has been saying this all day, but they did not know how to operate the camcorder to take a video. They were hoping that she would utter those magic words even after I got home and yes she did. Once you start her off, she keeps saying it over and over again. I am not sure how long it is going to last for or even if she is going to say it once she wakes up from her nap, but for the moment I am just so happy and ever so glad that I caught it on camera.
She has started getting a big clingy to me now and apparently misses me when I am not around. My parents and Calculus tell me that if I am away during an evening, she looks all over the house for me and is a bit unsettled and cranky. I am not entirely convinced this is because of my being away, but all of them are positive that it is. She loves to stand and play between my legs while I sit and work away on my laptop.
She has not yet mastered the art of crawling, she only crawls backwards. She is rolling away to go to places she wants to and that seems to keep her happy. She walks a few steps either holding on to the furniture or to us. I think this little one is going to forget the crawling milestone and just get on with walking.
She has nearly 7 teeth now – 4 on her bottom jaw and 3 at the top. We have started brushing her teeth and its quite a task to cajole her into it.
She has begun to identify a few things and looks at them when we ask her – for instance the light, banana, apple, a pound city shop which is across the road from our apartment etc. She has learnt to look at aeroplanes and birds flying in the sky and seems to be fascinated with it and keeps pointing to it, making noises like ‘ Aaaa Aaaa’.
She is learning to eat new fruits and vegetables everyday – even ate a piece of cooked karela or bitter gourd, something which even Calculus doesn’t eat. Her facial expression did not change at all; she even seemed to like it. Atta-girl.
She points to the door ALL the time, indicating that she wants to go out. When she does go out, she squeals with delight, kicking her legs vigorously to express her happiness. Of course, if she displayed the same enthusiasm in the swimming pool, it would be so much nicer, but that’s another story.
We have a nice morning routine where she comes to the door to say goodbye to me. My father then brings her to the stairwell where she waits patiently in my father’s arms. As I go down each floor, I look up and say bye to her and am rewarded with a big laugh. We follow this ritual religiously for each floor and so far it has worked very well as she does not cry when I go to work.
Of Dreams and Aspirations..
The books which I read at any point in time greatly influence me. If the book is captivating, I always think that parts of the book are written specially for me. It could be on any topic, but I always think that the author writes a certain portion of the book, keeping me in mind. I felt this about two books that I read recently and parts of it completely resonated with me.
The two books are both written by Preethi Nair – ‘Colour of Love’ and ‘One hundred Shades of White’, which I read in that order. ‘Colour of Love’ is about a second generation Indian living in London, who leads a double life, because of her parents’ expectations, dreams, and ambitions. She wants to be an artist but because her father would not let her, she studies to be a lawyer. She puts her dreams on hold and works as a lawyer making her parents immensely proud of her and her achievements. Eventually though, circumstances force her to give up her day job and she begins to live her dream. Yet, she is unable to tell her parents this and continues to live a lie by pretending to go to work everyday but all the while going to her studio to paint. Her parents only find out about her paintings when she wins a prestigious prize.
I liked the book a lot as I could identify with a big part of the book. Though my parents never pressurised me to top my class or get into an ivy-league school (in fact quite the contrary – my mother worked full-time all through her life, raised us three children and so she did not want her children to undergo the same trouble, in her own words), I have personally seen friends of mine go through this. A close friend of mine would be so upset if she did not score 100% in mathematics as she knew her parents would give her so much grief about the marks that she lost, not seeing at all the great marks that she did get. And this girl was not an average student – she was consistently among the top 2 in our class, yet it was not good enough for her parents. Nothing but coming first would ever make them happy. I have seen the enormous pressure that she was under all through her schooling and how she looked forward to going to a hostel so she could not have it as a constant reminder in her everyday life. I saw her change from a really studious, docile, shy girl to an extroverted, rebellious, outgoing girl who did not really do well in college, but was happy. And for me, that happiness was above all and what mattered the most.
Calculus himself was a victim of this parental pressure. He never did well in school, fluctuating between topping the class in subjects that he cared about (read Mathematics and Physics) in certain exams and barely managing to scrape through those very subjects at other times. I think he was not interested for the most part of his schooling life and since he is not one to do anything for the sake of doing it, he never bothered. Also he tells me that his parents focussed a lot of their efforts on his brother, who was consistently doing well and as a topper and never really cared about his education. Somewhere during his IX standard, he became genuinely interested in a few select subjects and there was no looking back. He got a very good rank in JEE for the IIT and was inclined to study Physics at Kanpur. His parents though were not too happy with his choice because he would easily have got admission into the more favoured Engineering course and so they talked him into taking it. He was not that interested in doing an Engineering degree since his passion was physics, yet he did an engineering degree because of parental pressure. Of course its another story that he eventually moved into Physics after doing an engineering degree, yet he always says that he should have just joined Physics straight after his XII, rather than taking the more circuitous route.
I would be heart-broken if I found out that my daughter lived a double life like the main character in Preethi Nair’s book. Though Calculus and I have both aspirations and dreams of our daughter going to Cambridge, we would never force her to do something which she wasn’t interested in. Inwardly, though I do harbour hopes and if I were completely honest with myself, I would be a tad bit disappointed if she did not do a professional course. I am probably prejudiced to a huge extent in this because of the way I have been brought up. More than anything though, I want to ingrain a love for reading, a passion for a field in which she can excel, expose her to the wonders of learning, enable her to develop an unshakeable conviction in herself and so much more. Probably I am over-dramatising events in my head when I expect things in my life to turn out in a manner similar to Preethi Nair’s book, yet I never under-estimate the fact that children pick up vibes from our thoughts, and actions and sometimes that will tell them a lot more than we bargained for. I just hope that she can live her dream and be in a profession that she loves.
The two books are both written by Preethi Nair – ‘Colour of Love’ and ‘One hundred Shades of White’, which I read in that order. ‘Colour of Love’ is about a second generation Indian living in London, who leads a double life, because of her parents’ expectations, dreams, and ambitions. She wants to be an artist but because her father would not let her, she studies to be a lawyer. She puts her dreams on hold and works as a lawyer making her parents immensely proud of her and her achievements. Eventually though, circumstances force her to give up her day job and she begins to live her dream. Yet, she is unable to tell her parents this and continues to live a lie by pretending to go to work everyday but all the while going to her studio to paint. Her parents only find out about her paintings when she wins a prestigious prize.
I liked the book a lot as I could identify with a big part of the book. Though my parents never pressurised me to top my class or get into an ivy-league school (in fact quite the contrary – my mother worked full-time all through her life, raised us three children and so she did not want her children to undergo the same trouble, in her own words), I have personally seen friends of mine go through this. A close friend of mine would be so upset if she did not score 100% in mathematics as she knew her parents would give her so much grief about the marks that she lost, not seeing at all the great marks that she did get. And this girl was not an average student – she was consistently among the top 2 in our class, yet it was not good enough for her parents. Nothing but coming first would ever make them happy. I have seen the enormous pressure that she was under all through her schooling and how she looked forward to going to a hostel so she could not have it as a constant reminder in her everyday life. I saw her change from a really studious, docile, shy girl to an extroverted, rebellious, outgoing girl who did not really do well in college, but was happy. And for me, that happiness was above all and what mattered the most.
Calculus himself was a victim of this parental pressure. He never did well in school, fluctuating between topping the class in subjects that he cared about (read Mathematics and Physics) in certain exams and barely managing to scrape through those very subjects at other times. I think he was not interested for the most part of his schooling life and since he is not one to do anything for the sake of doing it, he never bothered. Also he tells me that his parents focussed a lot of their efforts on his brother, who was consistently doing well and as a topper and never really cared about his education. Somewhere during his IX standard, he became genuinely interested in a few select subjects and there was no looking back. He got a very good rank in JEE for the IIT and was inclined to study Physics at Kanpur. His parents though were not too happy with his choice because he would easily have got admission into the more favoured Engineering course and so they talked him into taking it. He was not that interested in doing an Engineering degree since his passion was physics, yet he did an engineering degree because of parental pressure. Of course its another story that he eventually moved into Physics after doing an engineering degree, yet he always says that he should have just joined Physics straight after his XII, rather than taking the more circuitous route.
I would be heart-broken if I found out that my daughter lived a double life like the main character in Preethi Nair’s book. Though Calculus and I have both aspirations and dreams of our daughter going to Cambridge, we would never force her to do something which she wasn’t interested in. Inwardly, though I do harbour hopes and if I were completely honest with myself, I would be a tad bit disappointed if she did not do a professional course. I am probably prejudiced to a huge extent in this because of the way I have been brought up. More than anything though, I want to ingrain a love for reading, a passion for a field in which she can excel, expose her to the wonders of learning, enable her to develop an unshakeable conviction in herself and so much more. Probably I am over-dramatising events in my head when I expect things in my life to turn out in a manner similar to Preethi Nair’s book, yet I never under-estimate the fact that children pick up vibes from our thoughts, and actions and sometimes that will tell them a lot more than we bargained for. I just hope that she can live her dream and be in a profession that she loves.
Monday, 8 October 2007
Random Thoughts..
-- Caught in the throes of a particularly bad PMS where the world at large seems bleak. Everything seems like a chore, a drudgery. It doesn't help either that the sky has clouded to a dark, dull shade of grey which seems to be an epitomic of winter in this country.
-- Came out of my office at lunch time to see a sea of black all around - people turn to wearing navy blue and black as soon as winter arts in. None of the crisp, summery dresses or vibrant colours, which compounds the misery even further.
-- Spent a frantic morning trying to locate my missing wallet. Was picturing having to cancel all my cards and live on cash for the next few weeks till replacement cards arrive. I hate to carry cash around and normally don't have any on me (drives Calculus up the wall). I have not learnt to carry cash, despite having to drive an extra 20 miles or so once to get money to pay for the toll bridge in Bristol. I had to get all the way into Bristol town cente, find a cash point, pay the toll and then get home - all because they don't take cards, which I think is stupid. Anyway, I was cursing myself at having to order new cards so soon - after having my wallet stolen on Oxford street fairly recently. Fortunately my wallet was in my uncles car - he had come to visit us yesterday and we had gone out together for some grocery shopping. My wallet must have dropped off from my coat pocket. It is going to be difficult all the same because of the postal strike, the fact that they live 250 miles away and they are going away on holiday soon. Ah well, at least I found it.
-- All our rosy plans of having our parents over in turns, till the little one turns an year and a half have gone out of the window. My MIL has been diagnosed with high BP and increased sugar levels – nothing that cannot be controlled by medicines though. Yet, she feels that she cannot travel in this condition, as she doesn’t want to fall sick in a foreign land. I understand her point of view, its just that the timing is awful for us. We just don’t have enough time to look for a childminder, get the little one adjusted to her/him before my parents leave. My parents already find it cold here and will find it even more difficult as the months go on, so their coming back is not viable. Anyway, such is life. We are still looking for options and hopefully a favourable solution will present itself.
-- Came out of my office at lunch time to see a sea of black all around - people turn to wearing navy blue and black as soon as winter arts in. None of the crisp, summery dresses or vibrant colours, which compounds the misery even further.
-- Spent a frantic morning trying to locate my missing wallet. Was picturing having to cancel all my cards and live on cash for the next few weeks till replacement cards arrive. I hate to carry cash around and normally don't have any on me (drives Calculus up the wall). I have not learnt to carry cash, despite having to drive an extra 20 miles or so once to get money to pay for the toll bridge in Bristol. I had to get all the way into Bristol town cente, find a cash point, pay the toll and then get home - all because they don't take cards, which I think is stupid. Anyway, I was cursing myself at having to order new cards so soon - after having my wallet stolen on Oxford street fairly recently. Fortunately my wallet was in my uncles car - he had come to visit us yesterday and we had gone out together for some grocery shopping. My wallet must have dropped off from my coat pocket. It is going to be difficult all the same because of the postal strike, the fact that they live 250 miles away and they are going away on holiday soon. Ah well, at least I found it.
-- All our rosy plans of having our parents over in turns, till the little one turns an year and a half have gone out of the window. My MIL has been diagnosed with high BP and increased sugar levels – nothing that cannot be controlled by medicines though. Yet, she feels that she cannot travel in this condition, as she doesn’t want to fall sick in a foreign land. I understand her point of view, its just that the timing is awful for us. We just don’t have enough time to look for a childminder, get the little one adjusted to her/him before my parents leave. My parents already find it cold here and will find it even more difficult as the months go on, so their coming back is not viable. Anyway, such is life. We are still looking for options and hopefully a favourable solution will present itself.
Saturday, 6 October 2007
Perceptions
A colleague (B) of mine said that I was intimidating last week ! I did not see that one coming at all. He did not think I was but he said he could understand why newcomers would say that. I was quite shocked because I do not think I am intimidating at all.
This whole talk started because we have a new girl in our team, who started working here recently. I have been trying to get a girl to join for absolutely months now and have been actively campaigning for this for ages mainly because there is no other girl in my team. I get along well with all my team but its just nice to have some girly talk occasionally. So I was really excited when this girl joined. She is an Indian but is so not my type. I know I am being very very nasty and judgemental when I say this but I don't have any patience for people who cannot string together a sentence in English properly. In spite of that, I tried speaking to her for a few days but it has seemed so tedious because they were like question and answer sessions each time I spoke to her. Also she got on a really wrong foot on the very second day when our conversation went something like this. (am paraphrasing her bits..)
She – How long does it take you to commute to work ?
Me – About 30 minutes door to door.
She – That’s good. I take an hour and a half.
Me – Oh, that’s quite long
She – Where do you live ?
Me – So I mention the place.
She – Do you own your place ?
Me – No
She – How big is your place and how much rent do you pay ?
Me – {shocked} – blurt out something and make a quick exit
I don’t know what it is about us Indians (am generalising again, but hey this is my blog) who think it is ok to ask such details, so soon after meeting someone. I mean, if she was genuinely interested in moving closer to work and hence considering the option of where we live, surely there are better ways of approaching the issue. Why do people launch straight into asking about figures and not even consider for a minute that it’s rude ? I don’t ask my close friends such questions. Also if you wanted to find out such information, the internet is a treasure-house of knowledge. There are multiple websites which indicate how much a property has sold for, if there are houses available for rent in the area etc. So use them instead of asking people you have met so recently, because its not ok to do that. I digress though.
Anyway what B said got me thinking and I can easily see (in hindsight) why people would think that I am intimidating. I sometimes chair our weekly team meetings and these meetings are simply not the most exciting of meetings to attend. My aim, therefore, is to keep them as short as possible and in doing so, many a times, I might have come across as quite matter-of-fact and stern. B tells me that some of the team are really scared and say yes to any action that I assign to them !! Of course, he is exaggerating but even so… I just like to assign an owner, decide a date before which it can be sorted and move on. Now if that’s being stern and intimidating, then maybe I am. But its so much about perception. You never know how people perceive you and this was quite an eye-opener for me.
This whole talk started because we have a new girl in our team, who started working here recently. I have been trying to get a girl to join for absolutely months now and have been actively campaigning for this for ages mainly because there is no other girl in my team. I get along well with all my team but its just nice to have some girly talk occasionally. So I was really excited when this girl joined. She is an Indian but is so not my type. I know I am being very very nasty and judgemental when I say this but I don't have any patience for people who cannot string together a sentence in English properly. In spite of that, I tried speaking to her for a few days but it has seemed so tedious because they were like question and answer sessions each time I spoke to her. Also she got on a really wrong foot on the very second day when our conversation went something like this. (am paraphrasing her bits..)
She – How long does it take you to commute to work ?
Me – About 30 minutes door to door.
She – That’s good. I take an hour and a half.
Me – Oh, that’s quite long
She – Where do you live ?
Me – So I mention the place.
She – Do you own your place ?
Me – No
She – How big is your place and how much rent do you pay ?
Me – {shocked} – blurt out something and make a quick exit
I don’t know what it is about us Indians (am generalising again, but hey this is my blog) who think it is ok to ask such details, so soon after meeting someone. I mean, if she was genuinely interested in moving closer to work and hence considering the option of where we live, surely there are better ways of approaching the issue. Why do people launch straight into asking about figures and not even consider for a minute that it’s rude ? I don’t ask my close friends such questions. Also if you wanted to find out such information, the internet is a treasure-house of knowledge. There are multiple websites which indicate how much a property has sold for, if there are houses available for rent in the area etc. So use them instead of asking people you have met so recently, because its not ok to do that. I digress though.
Anyway what B said got me thinking and I can easily see (in hindsight) why people would think that I am intimidating. I sometimes chair our weekly team meetings and these meetings are simply not the most exciting of meetings to attend. My aim, therefore, is to keep them as short as possible and in doing so, many a times, I might have come across as quite matter-of-fact and stern. B tells me that some of the team are really scared and say yes to any action that I assign to them !! Of course, he is exaggerating but even so… I just like to assign an owner, decide a date before which it can be sorted and move on. Now if that’s being stern and intimidating, then maybe I am. But its so much about perception. You never know how people perceive you and this was quite an eye-opener for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
