Life comes a full circle

What goes out always comes back - I guess we have heard this umpteen times. I have had at least 3 examples that this actually happens:

1. A close friend of mine had fought with me because I had decided to marry my husband. He was not willing to accept that I should be marrying this person and we had had a bitter fight. With that he stopped talking to me completely. I accepted it and let him be. Though I had personally gone to his house to invite him for my wedding, though he was there in the house when I went, he chose not to talk to me. All the while, I did not understand that he was not talking to me because other common friends had dropped in at the same time. It took me several minutes to see that he was not talking to me, not even acknowledging my presence. Anyways, I gave him my wedding card and left - obviously, he chose not to attend. This happened in 2001

2. Way back in 1997, I had a very close friend during my masters days. And she had heard from someone that I was spreading wrong rumors that she was in relationship with another classmate of ours. This actually made her angry and not want to talk to me.  I explained to her that it was not I that was spreading the rumors but she chose not to listen to me

Fast Forward to 2 years ago

1) I receive a call from this person that I dont recognize. This person asks, "Vidya, will you be at home this saturday? I want to come over and give you my wedding invitation". I am like, "who is this?" And this person says, "someone you know, but I dont want to reveal now".

Eventually I found out that this person was that close friend who had fought with me over my decision to marry my husband. Immediately I called him and asked him not to come to my house and meet me. I told him very clearly that friends should accept you who you are and be there through thick and thin. He had chosen to desert me when I needed him and now, I had moved on. I did not want him in my life any more. So, this time, I chose to keep him away from my life for ever.

2) A year from that incident, this friend during my masters days came back and apologised to me. She said she had realized that it was not me who had spread those rumors. Though I was glad she uncovered the truth sadly, I had moved on. I had closed her out as she had no trust on her friend. She had chosen to trust someone else over her friend.

The third instance is more of self-guilt situation I guess. I had taken my son to the park. And habitually I had carried his water bottle with me. An old lady approached me and said that her grand daughter was very thirsty and asked if I could share some water with her. I said it was not possible and that my son had drunk from it and he was not well. I fumed as to why people never came prepared when they brought kids to parks. - Now, I wait for the day, when this will come back to me in some form :(

With these three incidents and many more - I am now a firm believer of this adage - what goes out always comes around !!!

Meaning of "Annu"

In Konkani or Amchigele, we call our father, "Anna or Annu". Today, as the priest was performing the 12th day ritual at my uncle's house, he explained how the word "Anna or Annu" was derived. Apparently, the word was derived from "Anna" or Rice meaning food earner or Anna (Rice) earner of the family.

As usual, we use or follow so many of rituals blindly and wont even know the meaning behind each of them... Glad I found out this one :)

Kids !!!

My father and his brothers and the extended family had gathered at my uncle's place to pray for my uncle's soul to rest in peace.

While the priests were performing the rituals and chanting the mantras, we all cousins used it as an opportunity to sit in the adjoining room to catch up.

We started talking about our kids and how it is impacting us and difference between how we were and how they are...

My sister complained that my niece seldom writes down the homework, even if she has noted the homework to-do, she leaves behind the respective book back in school. Just does not want to own up her school work and do it herself..

Not to be left behind, my cousin's wife mentioned that her daughter had lost the diary in which she had to note down her daily homework.

And we were discussing the laughs, rants, cries of our children. My aunt came in excitedly and said... hey do you know what Manya said? (Manya, is the latest entrant into my big, fun-loving, awesome family. She is all of 2 years old). We asked enthusiastically, "What?"

Aunt apparently asked Manya, "Manya dear, what do you call your father - annu (in my mother tongue, konkani) or Daddy?".

Pat came Manya's reply, "I call him Sunder" (is her dad's name)

All of us were ROFL

Inquisitiveness?

I dont know if I should say people are inquisitive about your life or are they just looking for "something like me or my life in yours" kind of an experience.

I know this girl who wanted to get married very badly. And she did. The last I heard was that she was having MIL issues and is now contemplating moving into a separate house with her spouse. People have so many advises to her - what cannot you adjust with your MIL? Why are you breaking a family? etc. Do we ever stop to think what this girl may be going through? Are we not concluding on a 1-sided story?

There is yet another one that eks out a living working at a Bank's BPO. She took her father's place once he died and has been supporting her family. She has decided to sacrifice her life to support her aged, ailing mother and un-married, studying brother and never get married. She is financially backward, no-doubt. But why do people think she does not have self-respect? They do not invite her for ceremonies within the family circle and other people who dont know about this expect her to attend these ceremonies. When she shares the cause with them, they just raise their hands and walk away...  Why even trigger such conversation in the first place and hurt her sentiments and then raise your hand and go away?

In any family, there are fights. And I have had and continue to have my share of them - with myself, spouse, kids, what not. There are times when I really get frustrated and recently posted couple of outbursts on a  much more public site - Facebook. Immediately, someone from my family read it and called someone else wanting to know if all was well between me and my husband... and i was like, "What the hell"... You may not post it on FB like I did...but does not mean you do not have your fairshare of such fights/arguments with whosoever in your life. Does this mean you have the right to conclude on someone else' life without talking/verifying with them? Why dont you just read it for what it is and move on? Like the post if you like it, leave a comment or just move on!!!

Aditi - isms

Aditi is my 4 year old daughter. I named her Aditi because per mythology, Aditi was sage kashyapa's wife who gave birth to all the devas. :)

One day, Aditi came to me and asked, "amma, what is Pai". I was thrilled that she was asking about "Pai" (Pai, being my maiden sur name and family name, I take real pride in!!!) I sat her down and said, "Like your appa is an Iyengar, my family is called Pai. Her next question stumped me. She asked, "Then, what is Jama". That was when I realized she had split the word "pyjama" into "py" and "jama"...LoL

*****-----****

Aditi, lets talk about the alphabets. A for Apple, B for Ball, C for Cat, D for?
Pat came the response, "Rabbit"

****-------*****

Appa: Aditi what do you call an Eagle in Tamil?
Aditi: Urla-Kalanga
Appa: Laughs out loud... ille di, Eagle is Kanaga; Urla-Kalanga is Potato and Eagle is not equal to Potato
Aditi: Blinks

*****--------****

Amma: By the time you guys grow up, I would have become old
Aditi: Then, how come I am not seeing any white hair on your head?

*****---------*****

Of Highs and Lows

Life has come a full circle for me this week. I have seen death, blood, and tears...

Through all these incidents, I learnt a lesson. Life gives us only so many opportunities to rectify our faundering ways and to make amends to those people we love so much. But that's to it. And if you do not use these opportunities, you will see time passing by and the person passing away - leaving behind you and the guilt of not making your loved one happy. Trust me, this can be one heck of a situation to be in.

As children, we make so many mistakes. Imagine a situation where you have made a terrible mistake and hurt your parents. What happens when your father or mother passes away? Here you are with the realization of the hurt you gave them... but no means of making up to them whatsoever.

I remember a time when I deliberately hurt my parents over small things like talking to boys (my father, in particular, is very orthodox and he hated that his daughter speaks to boys at college), going to movies with boys (even if that gang had a good number of girls and boys) or go for a cup of coffee with a "boy" friend). I did so deliberately for two reasons - one, I saw nothing wrong in having friends who are boys and did not want to hide from my parents that I do talk to boys because I think it is ok to do so... two, it was my way of rebeling against him for sending me off to stay at my granny's place for 2 years during my high school period.

But as I grew up, started understanding them better, I realized what a dud I was to rebel against them. They were only trying to protect me from this big, bad world... sigh!! Luckily, Life gave me a chance to make amends and reciprocate their feelings/thoughts by studying well and doing well in life. Today they are proud of their daughter...

However, we need to remember that we will never know when a loved one will be taken away from us. So, why do wait to make amends? Why don't we do it now?