Where have I been?

Well, I have been around....doing more of the same. Working a little, but mainly raising two kids, living each day as it comes, soaking up all the little moments...and some big ones too.

The husband has finally finished his MBA program after two and a half long years. For the first time after two and a half years, I have him all to myself over the weekends. The feeling is yet to sink in and I am still exploring the myriad range of possibilities with this one ;)

What started as a playful 'let's see if we can get in' kind of thing became much bigger than we could ever have imagined. Life has changed substantially from the June of 2008 when the husband first decided to get into the program. The loss of a parent, birth of a child, a job and house change. I doubt if anyone less level-headed than the husband could have handled it and made it look so easy. Still, I am glad it is over and hopefully, we can look forward to the next phase of our lives.

I dont know what he learnt at IIM. But now, weekends are spent doing management-y and strategic things such as this.....

Yes I am still alive!!

I know, I know!! After the last break, I really do not deserve to be back at all...What can I say? We are all fine and everything is as good as can be. Attribute it to sheer madness of running a household with 2 kids, a hyper mother, an even more hyper grandmother and a poor sane voice of reason aka the husband struggling to be heard in all the shrillness.

I intend to be impressively regular with my blogging from now on. And intend to put on more pictures - of the kids, of the house, stuff we see, things we do and so on....Promise!!

As a little preview, here is a beautiful snap taken during lil princess's birthday last June...

Night owls, anyone?

Be very careful what you ask for, you might get it. How many times have you heard this? Countless...I know I have. And yet, I never learn. When I first heard about it, working from home seemed the coolest thing in the world. Imagine being able to have your kids around all the while working in the comfort of your own home.

Imagine a world where you don't have to drop them off at daycare, crying and screaming, every morning. Imagine not having to trust your life in the hands of a maid while you drove off to work. Where you don't have to sit in your office at 5 in the evening, dying from the tension of whether your boss will let you leave on time today. Where your heart breaks at the thought of a small face looking out the jail-like windows at daycare as you get held up yet again because of some useless bug or issue. And yet, I went through all that trauma with kuttan. Left him with a maid. Left him at daycare. And in the process, I screwed up my career irrevocably too, taking breaks when things got too tough. Taking one too many breaks.

When the princess was born, I was pretty sure I did not want to make the same mistakes I made with kuttan. This was my last chance to enjoy my children's growing up days and I was NOT going to relegate it to a maid or an impersonal daycare. I was all set to quit. And this time do it a little more gracefully.

Then a well-meaning friend who I have known since high school got me into a project which allows me to work from home. Full time. I dont have to go to office. Ever. Imagine my joy. Paycheque coming into the bank every month while I stayed home with the kids and worked at the same time. It seemed like christmas, Diwali and every other festival had come together all at the same time. Aha, but there was a catch. The project required me to work nights. Till 3.30 AM to be precise.

'No problem', I breezily told the husband when he looked doubtful. 'I can manage on very little sleep. This is what I have ALWAYS wanted', I fervently told him. And sure enough, it was dreamy in the beginning. I was new and there was very little work to do. Technically, I was online but went to sleep at a decent hour on most days and got a full night of uninterrupted sleep. 'See, this is easy peasey', I gleefully told the husband.

And then the Gods laughed. And gave me work. While I would earlier login and be running all over the house in the evenings, I now had to sit and work. Or answer calls. Who would feed the princess? Who would help kuttan with his homework? Who would help amma with the dinner? The times when the husband's call timings clashed with mine were mayhem. And yet, somehow, the family managed. Pulled on. Kuttan was plonked in front of the TV. The princess was sent to amma's room to be looked after.

And then the calls got longer. There were calls at 1 in the night. At 2. At 3. And work to do before that. So while the husband worked on his MBA stuff, I work on my office stuff in the evenings. Kuttan wanders in looking like a lost soul into my office room and asks for something and gets soundly thrashed by amma and appa for his efforts. 'Why cant you cooperate? Look at all the stuff we bought you. Play with it and learn to amuse yourself', we say. Yes, we really say that!! And he goes away looking scared and heartbroken. Cerelac gets poured into the princess' mouth in a hurry to get back to work.

The worst part is the time spent with the husband. I sleep at 4 in the morning and the husband leaves for work before I wake up. And in the evenings, I am logged on to the system long before he returns. Weekends are stolen by his MBA. 'Hey, what about, you know, time in the sack?', a friend asked. I smiled sadly. Libidos are down. Needless to say, tempers flare up. Angry glances and mutters are exchanged. Communication is limited to bare-minimum functional stuff like, 'pay kuttan's fees' or 'buy Princess' formula'.

Health is deteriorating. The body cycle is completely altered so that I am unable to sleep during day or night. 'Stress', screams the doctor for everything from irregular periods to bronchitis. 'Quit' begs the mind. The ego refuses to let go. It is the easy way out, coward, whispers a scary voice inside.

I got what I wanted. Now, how do I get myself out of this? As I type this post at 3 AM, any Wise owlish souls out there, to help me decide what to do? Suggestions are most welcome and desperately needed!

Bedtime tales

First it was just the two of us. Snuggling deep into the quilt and in the middle of the bed with a looot of space left over on both sides of the bed. Then kuttan arrived. Happy baby that he was, kuttan peacably slept for about a year in his crib after which he would try to get out of his crib in the middle of the night.

It became too risky to let him continue in his crib after that and the queen size bed became too small for the 3 of us. So we moved the mattress to the floor and the cot to the guest bedroom. Made a cozy little mattress in the corner for kuttan with quilts and assorted sheets and thus it continued till the sight of dirty unmade beds and sheets on the floor got to us and we bought a HUGE king sized bed. The three of us settled down comfortably and there was actually place to spare.

Out came the princess. Considering she is only 7 months old she has a few more months of crib life left in her, if she were anything like her brother. But the little firebrand that she is, she refuses to sleep in the crib and has deigned to move in with bag and baggage into our cot. So now we sleep breadthwise on the cot instead of lengthwise. Kuttan on the far end, alongside the headboard, princess next to him, me squashed in between and the husband on the other end.

Making sure kuttan does not crush her, while at the same time not crushing her myself has led to serious sleep deprivation. Four crammed bodies into a small space does not make for a restive sleep. The husband cribs and threatens to evict both the kids out of the room every night.

And yet, it does have its moments. Turning around in the dead of the night to find a small warm bundle sighing against me. A normally physically VERY undemonstrative kuttan waking up in the middle of the night to cuddle princess and go right back to sleep. A rushed school morning when we are all trying to SHOUT kuttan awake and the little princess wakes up and climbs softly over him waking him up with a smile. Four of us cuddling together on weekends under a blanket. A bigger bed? A separate room for the kids? Nah...I think I will live like this a little longer....

Insightful conversations

With my delightful first born. Conversations which amaze me, make me laugh, make me think and errr...make me want to bang my head against a brick wall sometimes.

Conversation 1
Kuttan and I have stopped at a traffic light. Kuttan is chattering a mile a minute. A beggar woman comes to my side of the window, her palm containing a few coins, stretched beseechingly. I shake my head saying 'no'. Kuttan watches wide-eyed as she waits and walks away.

Kuttan: Amma, amma, why did'nt you take the money she was giving you??
Me: ????????

How many of us have ever thought of something like that? Out of the box, isnt it? ;)

Conversation 2

I am deep asleep on a cold saturday morning with kuttan next to me.

Kuttan: Amma, amma (pokes me awake)
Me(sleepily): Hmmmm?
Kuttan: (pointing to his book lying on the edge of the bed) Will that book make a noise if I push it off the bed?
Me: Yes
Kuttan: Will the princess wake up because of the noise?
Me: Yes
Kuttan: Will you be angry with me if she wakes up because of the noise?
Me: Yes

A pause while I drift to a dreamless sleep.

Kuttan: Amma, can I push it off anyways??
Me: (Gritting my teeth and calling myself ten kinds of a fool for ever having had a kid and then compounding it by having another one) NO
Kuttan: (in a small voice) Why?
Me: #@$#$%#$%$%$^@@@!!

Out with the old...

..In with the new seems to be the order of the day, does’nt it? For everyone except me that is. Me, I cling to the old- tried, tested and comfortable-even after it ceases to be comfortable. And weep tears of sorrow when it is taken away from me.

Circa 2003. One year after our marriage and 6 months into my first job, I got very, very tired of going around Bangalore without a vehicle. Since amma and appa flatly refused to let me ride my two-wheeler in ‘crazy Bangalore traffic’, there really was only one option. ‘Let’s buy a car baby’, I told the husband. ‘We have no money’, the man said succinctly. ‘No problem, let’s not buy anything fancy…something really basic would do’. And it was as basic as it got.

Our first car was a second hand 3 year old Maruti 800. Appa came from Coimbatore to work out a loan for us (yes, yes, that’s how much broke we were. We had to take a loan to buy a second-hand M800 which we repaid over the next 3 years!!). But we had our own, our very own car! No more filching daddy’s car. We could do what we pleased with it.

I did not even have a driver’s license when I started driving her. She was small, easy to manage and I had no fears or qualms about driving her anywhere. There is’nt a single road, lane or by-lane to which I have not taken my beloved car. She would dutifully oblige, turning and twisting and maneuvering herself into narrow parking lots and wait patiently under sun and shine, hail and storm as I went around.




When we first bought our car, we lived in a house which did not even have a parking lot. Three houses, each consecutively bigger, and 5 years later, we still drove the same car. This was the car kuttan came home in. This was the car which had sticky candy, gift wrapper and water bottles strewn all over the back seat. Where the seats contained scruff marks of tiny booted feet. And none of it bothered us too much because it was old and comfortable and we did not fuss too much about keeping it in tip-top shape.

Our friends had moved on to snazzier, bigger cars and we were the object of much leg-pulling and laughter on account of the car we drove. We took it all in our stride but I stood firm. ‘No new car. This is doing just fine.’ When the husband would talk about some new car taking the market by the storm, I would hear him vaguely, my mind elsewhere, not really believing I would ever drive anything else.

Then, after 9 years of existence, 6 with us, the old girl started giving trouble. She would stop bang in the middle of the road. She would not start. The repair costs were mounting. And so, after a lot of thought, we gave away our first car and brought home a new car last month. I bade farewell sadly as they drove my beloved little car out the garage, knowing she gave me the kind of freedom and mobility that I would never experience again.

Boys will be boys. And men will be boys too. The man and the boy in my life are totally taken with the sexy, bold woman in their lives. ‘Look at the alloy wheels. Look at the engine power and the pickup’, the man gushes. ‘Look at the windows rolling down on their own. Look at the beautiful seats, amma’, the boy squawks, clapping his hands with glee. I nod my head and smile sadly, all the while missing the comfort of my torn seats and the slow, steady sound she would make as she sleepily started.

I refused to drive the new car for a month. Because I still missed my old car and because this one was too big, too new for my comfort. Finally, for practical reasons and urged and tormented endlessly by the husband, I drove her last week. Driving my old car felt like talking to my spinster aunt. She was slow, comforting, easily controlled. I could count on her never to want to run away from me. This new one was like a headstrong, sexy young girl. Sure of her powers and attraction and her place in my man’s heart. Taunting me, challenging me, chafing against the tight leash I put on her, wanting to release all the barely controlled energy and fly.




I may become friends with my new car. She may gentle against my control with time and learn to take my instructions more obligingly. Maybe it’s just a matter of time…but till then, I don’t like her. I don’t like her at all.

Unrequited Love

All of 4 years old, kuttan fell in love over the summer. 'She is so pretty amma', he said. 'I like her a LOOOT', he said, his eyes widening. He hid under my dupatta and blushed painfully when she smiled at him. 'Why don't you cut your hair like her amma?', he asked, looking down his nose at the few wisps of hair that still cling to my scalp after all the hair pulling. 'Why don't you wear sarees like her amma?'

'She' is his class teacher. The love affair happened over the summer as he joined LKG and went to class, all apprehensive and nervous. June was a busy month for the Bangalore household with Kuttan's new school and little princess's arrival. I was worried about how kuttan would adjust to so many changes at once. As it turned out, I need'nt have. Ms.B smiled at him gently as I led him to class on the first day and kuttan took one look at her and I knew things would be ok, in school at least.

He would come from school and sing Ms.B's praises. If I said anything contrary to her words, I would be summarily shot down. 'You dont know anything amma'. And when we went for the PTA I could see the feelings were entirely reciprocated. Kuttan seems to have shared all his feelings, his joy and sadness and fears with Ms.B. A cheerful, warm young woman who was sensitive to my baby boy's needs and knew just how to deal with all his childish fears and anxieties.

Last week, kuttan came back from school and said 'Amma, I have 2 madams in class now.' The husband and I exchanged glances, fearing the worst. 'Maybe Ms.B is going to leave kanna', I suggested gently. 'No', came the explosive shout. I wisely kept quiet.

Tonight the husband had a call from Ms.B who said she was leaving. She called because kuttan was so attached to her and she was worried about him, about how he would adapt. Could you please explain to him, she asked. What do I say, I thought to myself all the while thinking how graceful it was of her to call in the first place.

Husband and I called kuttan and told him Ms.B was going away. When is she coming back, he asked innocently. She isnt baby, I told him. And watched realization slowly dawn. And tears fill those big, soft eyes of his. Call her amma, I will tell her not to leave, he begged. A long talk followed. About how people sometimes have to go away and new people come and we learn to love them as much. About the need to adjust to changes even though it may be difficult at times. At the end of it we ask, 'So are we ok honey? What are you going to tell Ms.B tomorrow?'

Pat comes the reply, 'I am going to say I love you and don't cry too much when you leave me and go, ok?' Someday, my darling, you are going to find someone who cant resist that charm of yours and who will decide to stay back with you. Forever. Till that day, well, you have your mom and dad.