Easter Weekend

I cant believe that the four-day weekend has almost come to an end. I wonder where it went - why does time fly when you are having a good time ?

We did not do much, in the end. I had big plans to catch up with 3 people I have been meaning to catch up for a really long time now, but managed none in the end. One of them was not in my hands - because my friend's child was not well, but the rest were and yet I did not manage to meet up with them. The weather wasnt great - it was just the kind of weather to sit at home, snuggle under the covers with a good book and a hot, steaming cup of chai. We had some snow flurries but not bad enough for the ground to be covered in snow. It was fun all the same, sitting and watching snow fall from our terrace.

I also found out this weekend that one of my friends is moving away to a far, cold place not too far in the future. I have not known her for too long now, yet I was really hit hard by it. I feel close to her on many different levels, but I know for a fact that she doesnt, yet I havent been able to take my mind away from the fact that she is moving so far away and so soon at that. Calculus is probably sick and tired of hearing about this topic - I have been going on and on about it.

On Friday, we ventured out to take the little one to a city farm, not far from our house, to show her some animals, but unfortunately the farm was closed. Since she was asleep in the car by that time, we managed to finish off our grocery shopping.

On Saturday, we went to a shopping centre as the weather was not too good to go anywhere outdoors. Since this shopping centre was covered, we decided to go there. The little one had a blast - she was keenly observing all the people milling about, fascinated with the crowds. She seemed to love it and was content sitting in her stationary pram and observing people walking about. She walked around quite a bit too, holding mine and Calculus's hand. She has to take almost 3-4 steps for every single step that we take, so its slow going but still great fun. She also loved the ELC - from where we have bought a lot of toys for her. She kept pointing to the ones she had at home and was running around, picking up things, sitting on the floor, playing with them. Kids are great in that sense, they have absolutely no inhibitions.

Sunday and Monday were spent at home, lounging about, watching old video footage of the little one. Shehas come such a long way. From her taking hesitant little steps, holding on to the sofa for support, she literally runs now. Climbing on to the sofa is so effortless now and she is becoming so much more independent in different ways. She wants to eat on her own, eats more, is so much more interactive, mischievious and playful.

Time for vegetable cutlets (which are my FIL's signature dish) and a hot, cup of chai. See you on the other side.

Rough Weekend

We had planned a nice, relaxed weekend at home with the little one - just some time to rejuvenate our tired our batteries. I had a Buddhist meeting to go to on Sunday and so had planned my weekend around that, finishing off my weekly household chores on Saturday. Calculus has a bad bout of the flu - with a throat infection, blocked up nose all thrown in for good measure. He was off work on Friday, a real rarity for him !

Just as we had finished dinner, fed the little one and cleared up getting ready to watch some television to gently ease us into sleep, the phone rang. It was my uncle (the one who lives in South Wales and whom we visited over Christmas). I was pleasantly surprised to hear his voice as I knew that he would have just about landed in Heathrow after a 3-week holiday to India with my aunt. He sounded quite tense, nervous, anxious and panicky.

Apparently they were waiting for the bus to take them home to South Wales when my aunt's nose started bleeding. This has happened many times in the past and my uncle being a doctor, has always managed to treat her and stop the bleeding. This time though, in spite of packing her nose with bandages, the bleeding would not stop. The bus officials did not want to take a chance with her and so called an ambulance. He had called me from the ambulance, giving me the name of the hospital they were rushing her to.

There was no question of not going to see them. We were not sure of their plans, how serious it was, but of one thing I was certain - we had to go. My uncle is a worrier at the best of times and just the thought of him in that hospital A&E, with all his luggage around him unnerved me. The time being well past 9PM, Calculus would not let me go on my own and so he came along.

Our trusted sat-nav got us to the hospital without any mishap. My aunt was quite uncomfortable - imagine having something shoved up your nose and having to breathe through your mouth, when all you wanted was to go back home and sleep after a long flight home. All she kept telling me and my uncle was to ask the doctor to get the pack removed.

Her blood pressure too was sky-high and the doctors wanted to admit her to a hospital in North London, which had an ENT department. Both my aunt and uncle were quite uncomfortable with the thought - my uncle being a doctor knows a lot of the doctors in his local hospital and all he wanted to do was go home. The A&E doctor wasnt very happy with my uncle's suggestion when we told him that we wanted to take my aunt home, but he eventually relented.

Then began the paperwork and we started driving for South Wales around 11.00PM. It was around a 3-hour drive, but the circumstances made the whole drive so difficult. Calculus was sick and groggy with all the medication, my uncle quite tired with the whole ordeal and so both of them were unable to drive. I had not slept very well the night before and I was not sure how i would manage. But we did fine, stopping for coffee on the way and reached home in around 3 hours, inspite of the rains lashing like there were no tomorrow.

We drove straight to the hospital, got my aunt admitted in and finally left for my uncle's at around 4.30AM. She is still there, though its not anything serious. That particular hospital has bad memories for us - my aunt had her operation for the dreaded C disease a couple of years ago in that very same hospital, with me and my uncle pacing the corridors.

We visited her the next day and the vision of my poor aunt in a lonely, hospital room, crying her eyes out (she is normally such a strong person), wanting to go home, just wanting to breathe normally again is one which is not going to leave me for a very long time.

New Year Thoughts..

• This past year has been a very eventful one. It started off with a bang with the birth of our lovely daughter in January. She got a wonderful welcome with her grandparents, my brother and his wife from the US here on the day she was born and my uncle and aunt coming down from Wales, making it a full house. Overall motherhood has been a very enjoyable experience. The little one is a fairly content, ‘shaant baccha’ so I cant complain too much (I should probably not say this to jinx the J monster!). Yet I would be lying if there haven’t been moments where the sheer enormity of it all has overwhelmed me and I just want to curl under my warm duvet and sleep. These moments have been few and far in between, but yes they have been there.

• This was the year where my patience was tested to the limit. Just when I thought I was going to lose it, I have had to go deeper and dig into my frugal reserves. I hope I can be more patient this year too.

• I started this blog, which has been a great ride so far. Made some very nice new friends and also discovered that there are so many people out there who are so similar, just that I haven’t met them as yet.

• I met some incredibly nice people in London, connected instantly with them and now feel like I have known them for a long time. For the first time in the 3 years that I have been in London, I feel grounded.

• I have had family visiting and staying with us for the large part of the year. I am a very people person and love being surrounded by lots of people, so it has been good fun. Of course it has its downside too, but again on the whole a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I would not hesitate for a moment to do it all over again.

• We have gone through the tough task of finding a house to buy. We started off with great enthusiasm, narrowed down places, saw a lot of houses but nothing which we both liked instantly. Then came this sub-prime crisis and so we decided to wait. But this last year has really really made me miss having my own place.

• I managed to stick to my resolution to buy fewer clothes for myself, mainly because I want to consume less. I still did buy some, but not as much as I would normally have. But hey, this is a new year and so I am going shopping tomorrow to stock up again !!!!

• I don’t have any specific resolutions for 2008, mainly because I know I will not stick to them for too long. Instead, I resolve to resolve more often and not just at New Years and stick to them.

• The one thing which comes to mind instantly is to keep the house cleaner. I tend to leave things scattered around the house and it always gets Calculus’s goat. I also want this to be the year where we finally move into our own place so that I can decorate it my way and buy toys for the little one without worrying too much about where we are going to put it. Hope it works out.

Have a great New Year 2008.

Turning One..

My little one had her star birthday yesterday – her first birthday !! It sounds so clichéd and overused – but time has flown past this last year. After debating a lot about what to do for her first birthday, we settled on something quite unconventional. Traditionally, in a Tamilian household, the first nakshatram birthday as it is called is celebrated with much fanfare. A huge homam – ayusha homam, for the child’s long life and health is performed with loads of well-wishers present and as always, an elaborate meal. Most of the relatives on both sides of the family and friends would attend the celebration and it really is a big deal.

Calculus and I both don’t believe in all these rituals and ceremonies. He is an atheist and is much more opposed to these rituals than me and has not believed in them for as long as he can remember. For me, it has been more of a gradual process, with me losing faith in these rituals over a period of time. When we were discussing about what we wanted to do for the little one’s first birthday, the first thought which came to my mind was the homam. Years of attending these homams has conditioned my mind to think that that was the most logical way to celebrate her first star birthday. When I said this aloud to Calculus, it made me realise that I wanted to do it only because that was the norm and not because I believed in it at all. Moreover, his parents are with us now and I was not sure how they would react to a celebration which did not have a homam and so thought it might be foolish to suggest otherwise. When we mentioned it to them though, both his parents were quite cool with the idea of not having a homam at all. They are quite unconventional and most importantly non-interfering that way.

The next step was to find something else that would memorably mark the occasion. After a lot of deliberation and a lot of help from the in-laws, we agreed upon feeding the poor at Tiruvanamalai. My MIL’s sister lives there and is very active in the ashram there, so she could oversee the whole process. Also for the same amount of money (converted in rupees) that the homam would cost here, so much more could be done there. Added to it is the thought that we are contributing in our own little way.

The little one is sporting a fresh, brand new bruise for her first birthday. Her first fall !! She fell yesterday and managed to injure herself on the edge of a small soft plastic cube meant for children her age. And she has certainly picked her spot well – right on her nose. Her nose is bright red – reminded me of the times my acne used to choose its preferred spot – right on my nose. The little one seems to have forgotten all about it though and now its only us adults bemoaning her state. Though this post is a day late, the sentiment is still very much there. Have a great birthday, my little princess.

Second Child Dilema...

Broaching this senstive topic to Calculus is proving to be so hard for me. I know what his thoughts on the subject are, which are very different to mine. But I know, above everything else that this has to be something which both of us want and that there are no in-betweens.

I have been pretty clear from the start that if I have children, then I want more than one. I have not been overtly maternal - its not that I dont like children. I love kids, but did not want any of my own when I got married. I was perfectly happy to lead a life without any and in our conversations before we got married, we had both agreed that having children would not be a big priority for us. However, after 7 years of married life, my maternal instincts blossomed and I wanted a child at that very moment. I am not entirely sure what brought about that change, or if anything triggered my feelings to alter but change it did. Calculus was rather surprised by my transformation, but to his credit he was very supportive with my choice. We were very fortunate to discover that I was pregnant, very soon after we decided to have a child.The pregnancy went along well, we have a beautiful daughter who is nearly 10 months old and is good as gold.

Now I want another one. My reasons are many - I have thoroughly enjoyed motherhood. This of course, is a large part because of the little one. Even though I should probably call it quits when I am ahead, my body craves another child. Also I have such a fulfilling, close and wonderful relationship with my siblings that I want that for my daughter too. In these days of small, nuclear families, siblings are all the more important. She does not have many cousins either - just a brother from my side of the family, who is 16 years older than her and nearly from a different generation. Not to mention the fact that he lives in India, which makes it difficult to begin with for them to form a bond. Things might have been different, had we been in India, even though the age gap would still be a factor.

Calculus has just one brother, whom he is not close to at all. His brother has one daughter, about 3 years older than ours. Yet I dont see them being close at all, mainly because we dont meet them. They stay on the other side of the pond and the chances of us meeting often seem very remote. That means she will not have any cousins whom she will be close to, from Calculus's side of the family either. I worry a lot about how things will be for her once Calculus and I are not around. It would be so much nicer for her to have someone she pick up the phone (or even better meet) and share joyous news, or could be just the fact that she has somebody to whom she can moan about Calculus and my annoying ways, when she is a bit older. Close friends do fill that gap to some extent, but I would be much more at peace with myself if I know that she has a sibling whom she can be close to.

Calculus has never been close to his brother and his argument is what if our children turn out like them. I have no concrete response to that, of course one can never tell how things will turn out, but I am hopeful that with the right environment at home and our influence, our children will turn out to be close to each other. There are no guarantees in life, but this is a calculated risk I am more than willing to take.

All the online resources on the net suggest that I should NOT nag Calculus - something that I know already and hence am doing the next best thing - blog about it. Jokes apart, I am old already and am not doing myself any favours by waiting. We need to plan so that I can get the whole baby thing done soon. I dont have any illusions about how difficult things will be - specially because both our parents are old and so we cannot expect them to help us out again. But we are in London, fortunate enough to be in a city where we can get help. It is undoubtedly expensive, yet it is an extravagance which we now can afford.

In the past, we have spoken about adoption. But now that we have a child of our own, I am scared of this option. I am not entirely sure if I trust myself entirely to treat both children (adopted and the one of my own) equally. I have a friend who is in a similar position - she had a baby boy of her own. When her son was nearly 6 months old, her partner's brother's children were put up for fostering and subsequently adoption by her partner's brother. Both she and her partner did not want the children to lose contact with the other siblings as well as their family, so she and partner adopted one child and the partner's parents adopted two children. My friend finds it extremely hard to treat her adopted girl and her own son equally and I have seen her struggle through my own eyes. She is committed to change her attitude though and is working hard on it, yet the fact remains that treating the two children equally does not come naturally to her. There is always a feeling almost of over-compensating the adopted child, to ease off any guilt. Having seen her struggle through it, I am in two minds now. Its not as if to say that I will feel the same way, but the seeds of doubt have been sown in my mind.

So what do you 'only child' readers of mine think ? of course, others too are welcome to add their thoughts.

Caraway

When we moved to South Wales (in the UK) about 8 years ago, we did not have a proper Indian restaurant in the city that we lived. We had loads of restaurants of the Bangladeshi/Nepali/Pakistani kind but none that were really Indian. Being new to the country and not really knowing so much about the existence of these different kinds of cuisines being passed off as Indian, we tried a couple of them, only to be disappointed each time. We used to be surprised at the terminology they used too on their menu – ‘balti’ for instance. I had never heard that word being used in the context of cooking before, for instance.

Soon we learnt from our experiences though and eventually stopped going out to these places. The mind does not learn though and the cravings for different things Indian never stopped. So we had to innovate and do the next best thing – learn to make them ourselves. So I learned to make at least some of the dishes that I missed most – ragda patties, idlis, vadas. (I used to cheat for vadas and drive some 30 miles to my uncle’s to eat some great medu vadas – he makes them really really well and any day better than any restaurant !). Eventually, even the suggestion of going out to eat at an Indian restaurant was enough to drive me mad and Calculus knew better than to suggest it. On the few occasions we went out to these places with friends (who would insist on eating out at these places and then complain about them), I would moan and whine to Calculus.

This attitude of avoiding Indian restaurants has changed considerably since we moved to London, for obvious reasons. One of my favourite Indian restaurants in London is the Punjab – in Covent Garden. After the Indian restaurants in Cardiff, this was a welcome change. The restaurant has been in existence for a very long time and the décor is quite outdated but nice and they have some lovely pictures on their walls. The food has a home-cooked feel to it, is simple and flavourful. The owner is very friendly and mingles around, talking shuddh Hindi, which is always a pleasure to hear.

So when I read about Caraway, I was vaguely interested to try it out because it’s closer to home than the Punjab is and I could drive to Carway as opposed to getting the tube to get to Punjab (which in itself is a reason for me) and most importantly, Caraway have rumali roti !!!. So we decided to try the restaurant last night and came away, fully agreeing with 30in2005. The food is wonderful, authentic Delhi food and incredibly well-cooked. We had vegetable Manchurian, malai kofta hariyali, onion kulchas, rumali roti and some dahi bhalle for starters. The dahi bhalle wasn’t great, but was nice. The vegetable Manchurian was awesome – I am definitely going back there for that. I have to say that I was disappointed with the rumali roti though. I was expecting them to be like what they are in India – but this seemed like a really big thin chapatti to me rather than a rumali roti. Their onion kulchas were great though. This place is definitely a find with the food too far better than Punjab !! The only drawback though is finding parking around there is quite difficult. We had to park a few streets away and walk, which with a baby is not ideal but we can live with that.

The little one behaved admirably in the restaurant and was happy with us giving her pieces of rumali roti and onion kulchas that we were having. She kept happily calling out to the waiters with ‘aa aa’ or signaling to them and they were only too happy to keep her amused by talking and playing with her. On the way home though, we seemed to have brought home a different child ! She started crying (for no apparent reason, at least to us!) the minute we strapped her on her car seat and kept going at it pretty much all the way home. I finally had to break the law and keep her on my lap, yet she would not stop wailing. I tried everything that I could think of – sing to her, talk to her, play with her but to no avail. I am ashamed to admit this but I was so so annoyed with her then and instead of even trying to console her any more, I just ignored her. Calculus could tell that I was irritated with her and kept talking to her while he was driving, but that did not help either. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, we got home and she stopped crying just like that. The strange thing is we still don’t really know what bothered her. Once we were home though, she forgot all about it and carried on playing happily. I, on the other hand, was sulking that she had been so annoying. I know, I know I am a bad mother to probably even feel this way, but it’s the reality. She has been a fairly good baby so far and I have been just been spoilt I think. Yet it made me realize how much more patient ( I like to think I already am patient) I need to get to deal with her yet-to-begin temper tantrums.

Mistaken Identity

A colleague from our offshore unit in Pune (India) is here in London, arriving on Sunday. As always, when somebody arrives from India and more so from Bombay – I go into a strange questioning mode – almost as if a part of me would be transported to Bombay just asking all those questions and listening to the person speak. This colleague happened to stay in airport Centaur for a night before flying out here and as soon as he mentioned the word ‘Centaur’, I was reminded of an incident which happened years ago, but one that never fails to crack us all up. To this day, we tease my sister over it.

My sister has always been a book-worm. All through her school, college and working life. It did not help her case either that my brother and I used to frequently play pranks on her, while she was studying. Instead of chastising us at the time, she withdrew more into her books and kept more to herself. Because of this and also a lack of interest, she is not very familiar with the geography of Bombay, in spite of being born and brought up there. During her college life, she has many a times taken the wrong train to come home, ending up in a different suburb altogether. As a result, my parents used to always worry about her when she stepped out of the door and still do. They would breathe a sigh of relief only when she walked through the door. These were the pre-mobile phone days, so contacting her to check up on her was not possible.

From a very young age, I used to love going out and used to go on my own to a lot of places for shopping, concerts etc. My parents never worried about me when I was out and I used to be a regular chaperone for our host of relatives visiting us from all over India and abroad. During one such visit of my aunt and cousin who live the UK, I was in the midst of my study leave. They were in Bombay bang in the middle of my study leave and so chaperoning them anywhere was out of the question. Since they were leaving before my exams finished and had a couple of errands to run, my sister had to step into my shoes.

One of these errands was to meet a friend of my cousin’s. At the time, my cousin was studying in an international school in Kodaikanal, on an experimental basis. One of her friends L was stopping in Bombay, en-route to the US and so they decided to meet up in Bombay. L was staying in one of the well-known hotels in Bombay called ‘Centaur’ at the airport. The plan was for my aunt and cousin to pick up L from her hotel, go out for lunch someplace and then drop L back to her hotel. I had briefed my sister on how to get to Centaur, suggested some nice places to eat around that part of town beforehand. The first part of the plan went off well; they met L at Centaur and took her out for lunch to a nice restaurant close by. They dropped her off to the hotel in the lobby and came home, about an hour and a half later.

When they got home, we were discussing their day and the places they went to. My sister mentioned that they had taken bus number 777 to get there, as I had suggested and bus number 888 to get back home. I was quite surprised when she mentioned 888 because I knew that that bus goes nowhere near the airport. So I started asking her more and then she told me about their whole day. After reaching airport Centaur and picking her up, they took a taxi and went for lunch to a restaurant in nearby Juhu and took a taxi back to the hotel. My sister told the taxi driver ‘Centaur’ when she got into the taxi and drop them off at Centaur is what he did – just one at a different location !! Anybody who has lived in Bombay for a reasonable length of time knows that there are two Centaurs in Bombay – one at the airport and one in Juhu. Since they were in Juhu already, the taxi driver just assumed that that’s the one they want to go to. When they got to the Juhu Centaur, L seemed a bit perplexed and commented that the lobby looked different. My sister pacified her saying that this was the back entrance to the lobby and so it looked different. They then said their goodbyes and came home.

I realised that my sister had dropped her off at the wrong hotel straight away and then began the frantic phone calls to make sure that L was ok. Apparently L went up to her floor and even tried her key to her room number, but the door would not open. So she took her key downstairs to the lobby and complained to the receptionist. On closely examining her keys, the receptionist realised what had happened and explained it to L. The hotel being Centaur, they dropped L off to the right hotel and made sure she could get into her room before leaving her. Poor L was brave enough to laugh it all off at the end of it, but understandably, kept to her hotel room for the rest of her short trip.