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?

Temples and wealth

At lunch today, 2 colleagues and I were talking about money and temples. The discussion started with today's news that India would be giving money to bail out Europe's economy. And the thought was anyways our politicians have so much money in Swiss Bank accounts which are black (unaccounted). This is a golden opportunity to convert it to white. May be they will have a red book in which they will maintain these transactions - ki kisne kitna diya hai operation Europe Bailout ke liye and what should they get in return.

Our conversation turned to the Padmanabhaswamy temple riches of 1000 Lakh crores. Concern - how sure are we that our greedy bereaucrats and politicians will not "eat" into this pie? How sure are we that the riches will still remain with Lord Padmanabhaswamy and will not decorate a neck of someone's wife? Or kith or kin?

Sample Tirupati - a ticket to expedite the darshan time used to cost Rs. 50/- several years ago. Now, they have introduced another ticket priced at Rs. 300/- but the darshan time today is the same time that you would spend on a Rs. 50/- ticket 5 years ago - 3-4 hours. Considering a lakh devotees take the Rs. 300/- ticket on any day, the amount Tirupati gets to make is Rs. 300,00000/- and this is purely based on 1 single type of ticketing. Other than this, there is the Rs. 40/- and Rs. 50/- tickets and the several special darshans priced high (above Rs. 1001/- and above, upto Rs. 25,000).  Despite this, there is bribe everywhere. While you are standing in the line, someone will come and give you kumkum and say it is directly from the God. you are excited that this should come to you, of all people and you start feeling special. But this feeling lasts only for a fleeting second - that person forwards his hand and asks you to pay for it!!! :(
There is bribe even to get a glimpse of Lord Venkateshwara for a moment long, bribe for extra laddoos, bribe for lodging, everything ... And right in front of the Lord's eyes... Where is this going to end? Or is there an end?

I guess, only Lord Padmanabhaswamy and/or Lord Venkateshwara can answer this question!!!

Bed Time Stories

Every night, I have to tell 1 (or 2) bed time stories to my daughter. She will not sleep without hearing at least 1.

The challenge is, i have to tell her a story of only animals and that too of her choice. She might say, tell me a story of rhino and tiger or zebra and monkey - i have to let my imaginations fly, concoct a story and tell her, lest she starts crying... sigh!!! I just cannot see her crying...especially seeing tears in those beautiful eyes breaks my heart :)

So, what do I do? Tweak the stories that I know, replace characters and tell the same to her in various ways. Like last week, she wanted to hear a story of crow and fox. And this is what I told her:

"One day, there was a thirsty crow. He was looking for water to drink. Enroute, he met a fox. He asked the fox if there was drinking water in the vicinity. The fox, since is very cunning animal, decided to fool the crow and said, "Yes, a little further from here, you will find a pot filled with water". The crow was happy and flew in the guided direction. It did find a pot with water underneath. And what did it do? Started dropping pebbles in the pot, and once the water came up, it drank to its content and flew away. The fox had followed the crow and saw how intelligent the crow was. It felt extremely ashamed of its behavior and apologised to the crow"

How is that for imagination?

Life

Anything that is being born is beautiful,

Why do we like spring?

 All the trees are giving "birth" to new leaves, flowers, fruits. We get to see them right from their birth till they grow up - isn't nature beautiful?

There is a new life being born and it is beautiful. I was so excited when I came to know I was going to be a mom!!! I did not mind losing my shape and look dowdy, I was so looking forward to seeing the cutie pie that was gonna come out of my stomach (well, not literally!!!)

Against all the anger, cribs, madness - I still love my kiddos... every night when I kiss them good bye... it makes me feel SO good !!! Giving birth to a new Life - and see it grow and flourish in front of your eyes - is so blissful experience

Such is Life :(

We have a colleague who had gone on maternity leave. She delivered a healthy, chubby baby and the baby is currently 6 months old.

Yesterday, a friend pinged over IM and said, "Did you hear about this team member?"
And as usual, any goss at office, I would be the last one to know... I responded, "No, what happened?"

Friend typed, "Her husband, apparently, expired in an accident on Saturday"
I:  oh..God...what happened?
Friend: Apparently he had gone out on a team outing and they were returning by car. And the car was hit by behind. Sadly, he was the only one who was hit and died on the spot. Nothing happened to the rest of the occupants..

I could not respond - what kind of fate was this that snatched a loving dad from a 6-months old baby? A loving husband from a nice, beautiful girl? A son from old parents?

No answers!!