Day 26 - A day with our grandmother

Each morning, we awoke,
To a gentle noise
That became more and more insistent,
Until we reached out to turn it off,
And discovered we couldn't
Because it was our grandmother's voice
Raised to a pitch that got us
Somersaulting out of bed.

Rumbling tummies were fed,
With soft white steaming idlis,
Dusty shoes polished to a shine,
Dowdy uniforms still warm from the iron,
Unruly hair magically oiled
And combed and straightened,
And neatly coiled,
Into two neat plump plaits,
Finished with ribbons
Tied up in pretty blue bows,
Like presents packaged for a party,
That wasn't quite a party.

At the door, she checked us for essentials,
And we turned back for the
Most essential thing of all.
She inhaled our cheeks,
(Because we hated slobbery kisses),
And breathed us in,
Sucking in our fears and tears,
Our gloom and doom,
And releasing them
Into her seventh cup of
Coffee of the day,
Strong enough to take them,
Hot enough to burn them to dust.

When we skipped out, we were
fresh-smelling happy little girls,
Neat and clean and well-fed,
Ready for a punishing day at school,
Which we got through
Knowing that at the end of it,
There would be hot food,
A listening ear, a bedtime story or two,
And another cheek inhalation at night,
To release our fears and drift us off,
Into the sweet world of childish dreams.

Day 25 – Diary to my unborn daughter

This is a series of diary entries that I had maintained for you, Dhwani, written during my pregnancy. I am astonished that through all the things we have misplaced since then, this set of tattered pages has survived! That, in and of itself, should tell you how much you were and are loved!

September 8, 1999

Today I discovered I was pregnant! I feel a rush of emotions overcome me – joy, pride, doubt (Would I be a good mother?) and above all, an urge to share this lovely moment with your Dad who came home that evening with bouquets in both arms – fresh roses for his radiant and happy wife in one hand and longer lasting paper ones to mark that special day for years to come. I hope they will remain as sweet and beautiful when you are old enough to understand what it means to us, what it stands for, and how special you are to us. (Update - Unfortunately, we don’t have those roses any more – we have moved around so much in the last thirteen years though we did keep them for quite a long time. But the memories of that day are still as sweet as ever!)

October 10, 1999:

I go in for my first scan and see you for the very first time on the monitor – a squiggly little pulsating thing. I can’t begin to describe how I felt - a blue line on a pregnancy stick had been somehow transformed into a living, breathing (?) human being – ours – you! Once again, I wish that your father was there with me (What, he wasn’t there on our first scan, I am so going to kill him for this and you are welcome to help!) and vow that he would come along with me for anything that remotely concerned you. He is more than ready! (You bet, don’t ever argue with a pregnant woman!)

The next few weeks are ones of excitement and planning, telling thrilled grandparents about your existence, buying and reading books to find out more about this little miracle that is happening inside me, praying and enjoying even the tiredness and nausea that come with carrying you!

November 6, 1999:

We move into a bigger 2-bedroom apartment in Lonavala, Mumbai with bunk beds in the children’s bedroom though it would be years before you would be big enough to use it! (12 years to be exact!)

November 13, 1999:

Your Dad carefully picks out and cuts and pastes (the scissor and glue kind) photographs of the family in a montage photo frame that someone had given us, mentally reserving the space in the centre for you. (I have no idea where that photo frame is now! See what I mean about all the stuff that was misplaced?)

December 7, 1999:

Today, I felt you move and kick for the first time and I feel closer to you than ever! Late mornings and early evenings, I’d be rushing around busily, catching trains, attending to domestic chores and Bam! You’d kick me as if to say, “Hey, don’t forget me!” No matter how busy or overwhelmed I was, it never failed to make me smile!

Daddy is excited too, but I can tell by the look on his face that he is feeling just a little bit left out. You see, he couldn’t feel you, only I could! Perhaps in later years you’d team up against your mother and have secrets among yourselves and giggle together (or not!), but for now, we share something very unique, very special, just you and I.

December 16, 1999:

Today we got the second ultrasound done. (And Dad was there with me!) We saw for the first your little face (yes, you were facing us, posing for the shoot, camera-happy even back then!) I wonder if you were as curious to know what your parents looked like, those two people whose voices you heard all the time. The technician counted all your little fingers and toes and showed us your heart thudding rapidly away. We still don’t know what you look like, whether you’re a little boy or girl, but it gives us immense relief to know that you have ten fingers and ten toes, that your heartbeat is comfortingly fast and normal.

January 1, 2000:

By now I can feel you leaping around within me. We move on into the New Year and the new millennium together, all of us. I look at the pictures of all those babies born on New Year day, the first babies of the new millennium and wonder if, a few years from now, you would be upset that you weren’t one of them. (I’m glad that you have the sense to not care about all that – always knew you were a smart one, even back then!)

Maybe, in years to come, you will understand why I did not want you to be born in an over-crowded hospital competing with other super-babies, jostling for the attention of doctors and nurses who would rather have been out partying and praying and hoping that the computers would not crash, the whole Y2K hooha that never actually happened. No, you were far more important to us than that and far more precious even without being the millennium’s first baby. Because you were our first.

January 6, 2000:

Today I was grinding something in the blender. I must have disturbed you, because you protested vehemently with a few hard, purposeful kicks. I try to explain to you why I was doing what I was doing but you are furious at being woken up! (Yeah, I know, some things haven’t changed all that much!) Sorry sweetheart!

I’ve been hogging these last few weeks and raiding all the neighborhood bakeries. Your athai predicts you’ll turn out to be a real heavyweight. Sure enough the doc takes a look at the scales and freaks out! Well, of course I blame you for it (and still do, you and your brother, I hadn’t been fat a day in my life before the two of you came along, can’t be coincidence!)

February 14, 2000:

Valentine’s Day. This year, there is no time for a relaxed candle-lit dinner. Hectic preparations are on to travel to Bangalore tonight. And yet, it is a strangely appropriate way to celebrate Valentine’s Day for it is our first step in getting ready to receive you, the best gift of love that either of us can have ever receive.

February 15, 2000:

Midnight. After a 24-hour long journey by train, I am exhausted and visit to the bathroom and discover a single spot of blood. Apparently, that is a spot too many. For the first time I fear for your safety and realize how much a part of me you have become.

February 16, 2000:

The alarm is sounded. Phone conversations both local and long-distance run furiously back and forth. Prayers are said, medicines are taken and I am all but strapped to my bed.

February 17, 2000:

With no recurrences of the event, everybody is breathing easier. We celebrate the “Seemantham” function where you are the guest of honour though you don’t know it!

February 28, 2000:

After an uneventful journey to Chennai, I await your arrival.

By now, you have become so much a part of me that I have long since started referring to us as, well, “us”. I have been taking your kicks for granted but I rapidly realize that it is not so for everyone else who go into hysterics every time they touch my tummy and feel you moving.

I have noticed certain traits about you: that you are at your most active early in the morning (believe it or not, very unlike you now) and late in the evening. I have noticed too that classical music lulls you to sleep (as it still does!), but film songs and rock music get you prancing away energetically. I interpret it to mean that you don’t like the fast music but everyone else insists that you do and that you are trying to dance with the music! (I guess I was wrong there!)

March 02, 2000:

We visit Dr. Shantha, the gynaecologist who is in charge of my last trimester and would be responsible for getting you out safely. She declares that you are too small (believe it or not!) and order that I gobble up as much food as I can. Which I do. Faithfully.

April 6, 2000:

I have my third ultrasound. And see your little heart and bladder working away busily inside you inside me. The sonologist assures me that you are quite big enough. I am excited though you still look like ET. I am a little upset that no one can share this moment with me since the doctors in their infinite wisdom have ordained that no one be allowed with me.

April 7, 2000:

The doctor agrees that your size is not an issue and that you may actually be a rather big baby (make up your minds people!)She says I should prepare myself with physical activity and every once in a while I go down on all fours, sweeping, swabbing, mopping. Of course with doors closed – what on earth would the neighbours say?)

April 8, 2000:

Your Periamma arrives with your cousin Aditya (age 4 at the time). He sees me eating curd rice that he loathes and is absolutely disgusted and pities you as he imagines all the curd dribbling all over you in my tummy! He is very excited and makes plans to play with you as soon as you are born! Your Periamma has brought you a large blue comforter that she has made herself as well as a pink cloth mat with a cheery sun and rainbow stitched on. (You might remember those!) She has also brought a water melon pillow and carrot bolsters, all of which she has made herself. I am touched at her thoughtfulness and happy that we have introduced you to health food so early (unfortunately that didn’t quite stick!)

April 13, 2000:

Periamma and Aditya have to fly to Mumbai in a hurry as Aditya’s grandfather is taken very ill. We are all quite upset and worried.

By now we know it is only a matter of days before you make your grand entry into the world (or so we thought!) The house is gearing up. Walls have been scraped and painted, the fridge replaced as well as the water purifier. The lights in our room are made brighter and better, supposed to help allay any possible post-partum bluesJ.  A cook is appointed.

We pack a hospital bag, we go through baby names, we go shopping. Dad books his tickets. We do whatever we can to prepare for your arrival. And we wait. And wait. And wait. Finally on the tenth day (after all of Dad’s paternity has been exhausted without a baby yet) I storm into the hospital purposefully (a little hard to do when you look like a beached whale), and demand that you be removed from my womb. Pronto. Finally you are coaxed and induced to come out, and finally almost pushed out – so cozy were you in that little world that the two of us inhabited.

April 28, 2000, 9:14 PM:

You are out and about time! You gaze curiously at me and through the glass door of the nursery at your Dad and your grandparents. All 3.5 kgs of you, fair and pink and squashed and soft, you are gorgeous – a little loud but gorgeous!

So Dhwani, you were waited for, wished for, hoped for, prayed for, and loved. And still are. And will always be. Whatever you do. How could you not be, after all that we went through together?

Day 24 - How to interrogate a lying child

Kids lie. Period. Any parent who tells you that their angel never did is a bigger liar.

I don't have any homework. I've finished all my homework! He started it first. I never said that! I didn't eat the last cookie! These are some of the most common lies that kids tell.

There are some tried and tested ways to get the truth out of your kids especially when they're little.
So, if you've run out of veritaserum (trust me, you can never have enough) and if you don't want to resort to torture (though you may be sorely tempted to), there is one surefire technique you can use, the art of deflection. Asking Junior with a stern face, "Did you hit your sister?" is going to elicit only a stubborn No. No matter how many times you ask it. Try this instead, "Honey, did you hit your sister with your right hand or your left? This (Demonstration) is your right hand and this is your left. Now tell Mommy which hand you used to hit your sister." Chances are the response will be the right or the left. See, Artful deflection.

My mother was an expert at this. There is an old story that is now the stuff of family folklore about a cousin of mine when she was about 3. Now, when we were young we were forbidden to eat in anyone's houses without explicit permission because a lot of our neighbours ate a lot of stuff that we didn't. And besides, someone had to control what we ate, else we would eat till we got a bellyache. 

Now, there came a day when this 3-year-old cousin was very hungry and from the neighbour's house drfited aromas strange and delicious. Well, the kid succumbed. But she couldn't tell the adults. So she lied. That she hadn't eaten anything. No, she didn't want a snack or a glass of milk. No, she was absolutely sure she hadn't eaten anything.

That's when my mother stepped in with the subtle art of deflection. "So did you eat idli or dosa at Sabina's house darling? That's all they make, isn't it?" She asked the stubborn little child with the suspiciously round tummy.

"I didn't eat either!" She should have stopped right there. "I ate Puttu. They don't make only idlis and dosas!" she said defending their culinary honour. Then, realizing that she had just incriminated herself, she tried denying everything, "I didn't eat anything."

The story should have ended there, but it was so much fun that a little later, my mother let it slip quite casually, "So, did Sabina's grandma serve you or was it her mother?" Pat came the response, "Her grandma of course, her mother is at office!" And a little later, the realization and then again the denial. 

"So did you eat the Puttu with bananas or gravy?" "Gravy, of course. They always make gravy with Puttu!"

Needless to say, the rule banning outside food was soon relaxed in our house. People were getting a bellyache anyway. From laughing.

Now, there's an old saying that the hardest kids to wake up are those that are pretending to sleep. There's a tried and tested technique for that too. Just look down at the supposedly sleeping tot and say, "You know, I think he really is sleeping. I know he's sleeping, because kids who are really truly deeply sleeping will raise their legs way up high and then put it down again." Now watch the leg rise and catch them out.

Of course, kids are smart and if you try the same tactic one too many times, they will start to faintly smell a large furry rodent, but you can come up with any number of these tactics. Because as devious as kids are, their parents have twice as much deviousness naturally built in. Comes with the package. So go ahead and trick those shysters. They deserve it!

Day 23 - Postcards of Varanasi

Varanasi or Benares,

The city of contrasts,

The paradise of paradoxes,

Where life

Slowdances with death,

Grab a bite

Or burn a body

You can do either

Or both.

Crassly commercial,

yet profoundly mystical,

The city through which

Flows the mighty Ganges,

Polluted and putrid,

Yet powerful and pure,

Where you can cleanse your soul

Amidst the all-abounding filth,

And take the direct route to heaven,

Provided you pay your way.

The city that no one can know

In its entirety,

But only in bits and pieces.

Presenting a brief cameo of that city of contradictions - Varanasi - with haikus based on some fabulous pics clicked by my friend and colleague, P. Vijay Kumar, with his kind permission.



Sadhus in saffron

Launder their muddy souls and

Hang them out to dry.

Meandering through the

Pious river, a boat that’s

Made in India*!

* Phrase courtesy Sid Chatterjee

Death waits its turn to

Climb Manikarnika Ghat’s

Stairway to heaven.

Bridal wear or shroud,

Benares silk is the key

To eternal bliss.

The power of prayer,

Races through high voltage wires

In God’s waiting ears!

Day 22 - Communication in the twenty first century

They say that communication is the key to the success of a family. Keep the doors and channels of communication open at all times, say experts who have studied this subject for many years. At least that's what it said on the forward I got recently from an acquaintance.

Now, we are all at different points on the communication app scale - for me the dial veers between "I like the potential" and "Gosh, I am getting too old to keep up!", my husband is at "Don't really care as long as I can call and send messages...and play online bridge". My almost 13-year-old is at "Yup mastered that too, bring the next one on!"

She can hold her own in an electronics store about cookies and cakes and gingerbread and other things that ought to be on a bakery menu, not in a store that sells high-end gadgets, half of which, I am not sure which end of the anatomy to connect to. They all sound as if they would add several pounds of cellulose, and I should have banned them from the house. Instead, turns out they are the brains and muscles of our cell phones. I should have banned them anyway. The only person who knows how to use them all is my daughter. When any of us needs to install, troubleshoot, or learn how to use something on our cell phones or laptops, we call her.

My 4-year-old, thankfully, is still happy merely listening to songs on the phone and hasn't yet discovered any apps that would help him to colur within the lines and write cursive small letters within the boxes.

As you can imagine, there is no dearth of gadgets in our house that enable effective communication. Everyone except the 4-year-old has a laptop each on which we keep in touch with our colleagues and classmates whom we just saw a few hours ago, our next door neighbours whom we hardly ever see, our friends from many years ago, and a few people we don't really know but could - maybe.

Our birthday gifts over the last few years - especially for the kid - has inclined to move from roller skates and bicycles to articles more electronic. We got her an iPod a couple of years ago to encourage her appreciation for music. She has since been using it to belt out the latest and greatest hits from pimply boys and girls who still wear braces and probably need to be driven by their parents to recordings. Fortunately, however, the iPod has no other hidden talents - it plays music and that's all. The Kindle, on the other hand, which we naively got her so that we did not have to stockpile books that seemed to be reproducing at an alarming rate, we discovered to our horror can be used to access Facebook, chat with various friends on Google Plus, all in the middle of the night. This, we realized a little belatedly, is the twenty first century version of the old reading-in-bed-with-a-torchlight thing. I now do an electronics raid in her room at bedtime to make sure she actually sleeps. But for all I know, she's probably rigged the light switch to beam some bits of incoherent teenspeak to the ceiling of her best friend a few miles away.

I can't wait for her to turn thirteen. She would finally be old enough to use Facebook legally and I don't have to feel guilty about it any more. She would be, at least in the world of the Net, a mature and responsible adult! Hah!

So yes, as far as communication goes, I guess our family is doing quite well. Oh wait, you meant communication with each other? Now why didn't you say so before? Well, we do on occasion, chat with each other on Facebook and gmail across the dining table, and we're all each other's friends on Facebook. At least until we're unfriended. Does that count?

　

Day 21 - The school that launched a thousand books

I always thought my old convent school was a sadistic institution devoted to the art of killing all possible fun for people under 15. But now that I have had a couple of decades to think about it, it was probably the inspiration for some of the greatest books ever written, the muse for generations of authors.

The school, which has been standing for what seems like centuries, is a forbidding Dickensioan place with dark niches and gloomy passages. The walls were a dull whitish grey and your footsteps echoed mysteriously when you walked through the corridor. On the walls were mournful paintings of miserable and waif-like children, a few of them with tears rolling down their cheeks. Maybe because they couldn't stand the sight of our drab and ugly blue uniforms with our oiled and tightly braided hair topped off with blue ribbons. Every once in a while we would see a ragtag group of children march through the grounds, with dreadful haircuts, skinny frames and huge hungry eyes and too-long patched  hand-me-down uniforms, orphans whom the convent 'sponsored' in their infinite magnanimity.

The Dickensian ambience of the school was further enhanced by the Fagin-like characters that populated it. Once a fellow student had a fainting fit after she was made to stand out in the heat due to heaven recalls what minor transgression. The teachers splattered a few measured drops of water on her face and watched her until her eyelids finally fluttered open. She was just blinking as various wimples and canes and rulers swam blurrily into focus when the principal admonished her severely, "We spent 10 paise on a call to your parents to come and get you. Please ask your parents to refund that money tomorrow." The poor sick child sank bank onto the cold floor in a coma.

There was also something distinctly Hogwartsish about the school. Nuns in white habits floated by and legends abounded about the wiccan activities that took place in the convent in the dead of night. Stories were told of potions being brewed and cackles heard long after lights out by the resident boarders, those doomed souls left by their parents to survive in the dubious environs of the convent. The sisters held rulers aloft like wands that cracked down on unfortunate palms at regular intervals. They also apparated at the most inopportune moments, especially when school fees were due and disapparated the moment you needed a little extra help.

The bathroom was a separate building altogether, to get to which you had to cross compounds and climb down long flights of stairs. It was a veritable Chamber of Secrets in which all manner of creatures were reported to have been seen, from snakes to rats to a ghost that was believed to float around and moan when too many people visited. We had our own resident basilisks and Moaning Myrtles and never knew it!

The there was a select group of children who went for the same competitive exams, performed the same dances in the same contests and won the same prizes year after year. Any newcomer, however talented, was looked upon in a distinctively Matilda-like fashion. The principal, the one who asked for the ten paise back -come to think of it - bore a striking resemblance to Miss Trunchbull.

My all-abounding nostalgia for the school has never taken me back even once since I left it more than twenty years ago, but I have heard that it is still an institution which one presumes will continue to inspire children's authors to write more grim tales of school for years and years to come.

Day 20 - The Man With The Golden Heart - A Tribute To My Thatha

I shudder to think how close I came to never knowing my grandfather.

The first time I remember seeing him he was flat on his back - I was five years old and had rushed back with my family from the UK where we were living because he had just had a massive heart attack and for a while hadn't been expected to survive. I thank my stars everyday that he did - for twenty five years.

Thatha was a sweet soft-spoken man, whose actions spoke much louder than his words. The kind of man who told you stories and took you along on walks and let you comb and tie up his smartly cowlicked hair (when you were five!). The kind of man who you just knew would quietly but relentlessly move heaven and earth for you.

He was a careful prudent man, having struggled hard his entire life to make a good living for his family. The first windfall he ever saw was his superannuation. It turned out that he was a financial wizard, he just never had the money before to know it. But a lifetime of frugality cannot be undone by a few years of relative prosperity. He still wouldn't dream of taking an auto when he could take a bus and wouldn't take a bus if he could walk. And yet, on his way back from wherever he went, he would buy his granddaughters 'goodies' from the neighbourhood bakery, samosas or puffs in brown paper bags, the sinful goodness leaking out in delightful moist patches, the sight of which still makes us nostalgic.

He repaired everything till there wasn't any more room on it to patch or darn or glue. Nothing could be thrown away, an old envelope became practice sheets to work out sums on and old calendars became book covers. Tiny old pencils would have pen caps stuck on them to make them easier to hold. Pieces of cardboard, the brush from an old pot of glue, bits of brightly coloured rope, everything had the potential to be turned into Something Useful.

He once created a weighing balance with a long pencil for the stick, light plastic plates for the scales and tiny ten paise coins, which according to his research weighed exactly a gram each, for the weights. With this contraption he weighed newly bought gold jewellery, so he could be sure the jeweller hadn't cheated us, and mail to be posted so that he did not have to stick on a single extra stamp.

If you had a refill pen whose spring was broken, Thatha could be counted on to have a tiny spring handy in his trusty box. Was your text book coming apart at the seams? Out came the large needle and the thick twine and Thatha got to work. School bags, shoes, umbrellas, dreams, hopes, there was nothing that Thatha couldn't put right.

Thatha once fixed me up with an ugly old umbrella  (after I had lost many beautiful new ones) that had lines of white stitches crissing and crossing its decrepit grey expanse, keeping it from disintegrating. My initials were darned into it indelibly in bold orange thread. This umbrella quickly became excruciatingly loss- and theft-proof. No matter where I left it or what I did with it, it always found its way back like an ugly puppy. I left it behind on the bus, at school, in people's houses. Not deliberately, at least not consciously so. But the next morning, on the bus or at school, there it would be. It lasted me all the way through school, through thunderstorms and scorching noon walks. How I wish I had that ugly old umbrella now with the lovingly embroidered veins of stitches running through it and the big bold initials!

My grandfather didn't believe in band-aids or band-aid solutions. When we needed some quick help in solving a Math problem that just wouldn't get solved (with the school bus due in half an hour), he insisted on starting from the beginning, from grilling us on our tables, to making us hold our pencils straight, to lecturing us on our handwriting. (His own handwriting was tiny and print-perfect.) We shuffled our feet impatiently, we whined and we protested. Buses have come and gone a thousand times since then, but every once in a while, when we pencil something on a piece a paper, it could be a list to the kirana store, or an address on a card, but inevitably an old memory kicks in and we feel an invisible hand holding our hand reminding us of the importance of holding our pencils upright.

This month Thatha would have entered his ninetieth year. He died eight years ago - his good old heart just literally gave out. This is a poem i had penned for Thatha on behalf of all four of his granddaughters for his 80th birthday a couple of years before he died.

To Our Dear Thatha

THATHA
You didn’t just tell us bedtime         
Stories, true and imagined,
You opened up discussions about      
Life and living.  

You didn’t just take us along
On your long daily walks,
You showed us the world
Beyond our front door.

You didn’t just teach us to
Hold our pencils upright,
You taught us to live
Our lives that way.

You didn’t just fix our broken
Umbrellas and shoes,
You taught us never to give up
On anything—or anyone.

You didn't just teach us algebra
And physics and geography,
You taught us to count
Our every blessing.

If we haven’t told you recently, thatha,
How very much you mean to us,
And thanked you for all you’ve done,
We’d like to tell you now, that we
Count you among our greatest blessings,
And thank God you’re in our lives.
And if you don’t remember so well
Any more, each little instance
Where you made a world of difference,
It’s all right…

Because we do!
Happy 80th Birthday Thatha!


 

Day 19 - Learning WithOUT Stories

Using stories is the most effective form to teach, we've all heard that. A million times. I agree.
But, but, but...

My 12-year-old daughter was studying Civics not too long ago and was grumbling indistinctly under her breath. Now that is not an entirely uncommon occurrence, so I ignored it until the grumbling got quite loud and quite coherent - "Why must they invent these stupid know-it-all characters?" was part of the grumble. I peeked into her textbook and she was perfectly right. The chapter starts with a girl asking her grandfather the question that all children wonder and worry their little hearts out about- "Oh, how, but how, are rural townships and villages governed, Grandpa?" Grandpa dips into his agonizingly boring brain and digs out the facts and figures in the chapter entitled (surprise! surprise!) Government in Rural Townships and Villages.

The chapter contains complex organizational hierarchies to be memorized and remembered. It doesn't really matter if the information is imparted by a supposedly wise grandfather to his cocky and precocious grandchild. What my daughter actually used to learn the tiresome information were mindmaps and charts. The story approach was not just redundant, but actually irritating.

The other day, a few colleagues and I attended a mandatory 'training', yes, you know the kind that need the quotes to qualify them. The trainer peppered the session liberally with a pungent overdose of personal memoirs concerning herself, her husband, her sisters and a fractious but oh-so-good-hearted-when-you-get-to-know-her ex-boss. While I recall with vivid clarity that this trainer almost got divorced, that she hated Bangalore at first but then grew to love it, that she loved to good-naturedly play pranks on her team (hopefully not in her 'worstest' English), I can't for the life of me recall what points those stories were used to make.

What I'm trying to say is, if you have a great story that illustrates the point intelligently and coherently, then by all means bring it on. But if you don't, if your content does not warrant it or you just can't think of one, that's okay, we can take it. We're all big boys and girls and so are our learners. Why, even my 12-year-old daughter would have preferred it that way.

Bottomline, if you don't have a good story to underscore your point, for heaven's sake, please spare us the bad ones.

Day 18 - Of fairy tales and horror stories

If her target audience had been anything like me when I was a child, J.K. Rowling would still be waiting tables.

I still don't know how too many children's stories end, I never could quite get that far. The moment the conflict in the story began, something happened to me - my brain went all foggy, my cheeks got all soggy, my eyes misted over with vicarious tears, and my heart filled with someone else's fears. In short, I crumpled and collapsed in a useless and emotional lump.

When my grandpa regaled us with the story of the Ramayana, I refused to let him continue past Sita's abduction. In my version, Rama and Sita lived happily ever after frolicking with non-marichaesque deer and of course with no troubling feminist issues to contend with. I recall an evening when my grandmother came hurrying into the bedroom hearing heart-wrenching and blood-curdling cries of distress to find a distraught granddaughter and a sheepish grandpa who had picked the supremely violent tale of Kovalan and Kannaki as a bedtime story. Needless to say, he got more than an earful for the thoughtless choice.

My sister recounts a day when she came to my second-grade classroom to pick me up and drag me to the school bus. She found me a blubbering mess.I was gulping and sobbing so hard I couldn't even explain the source of my grief. Panic-stricken and fearing the worst, she interrogated my little classmates. "Chechi, Anandam is crying because Pavizham got hurt," was the matter-of-fact and cryptic response she got. Over a cup of milk and much pampering at home, it transpired that the fresh tears were for the hero of a story in my Malayalam reader, a parrot called Pavizham that ended up with a broken wing and unhealed scars because of the ill-treatment meted out to it by the neighbourhood children. I don't quite know how that story ended and I somehow got through the second grade despite such traumatic setbacks.

So many of these stories were probably written to teach young children some valuable life lessons - for kids that got that far. My motto was, just skip the whole sordid tale and tell me what it is I'm supposed to know. I'm not supposed to throw stones at hapless birds, fine. My family learnt one lesson though - to make sure that my bedtime stories were laundered of all violence and sadness. Oh well, as long as someone learnt something...

Fortunately for Ms Rowling, her audience is much more sophisticated and take injury and death with consummate ease - as long at's happening to someone else of course. Dark wizards, hippogriffs, dementors - bring them on, and the more pieces their souls are in the better. Me, I would never have made it past that cupboard under the stairs.

Day 17 - Do You Speak Hospitalese?

Those relentless hospital forms that ask you to tick off the languages that you speak, read, and write (in triplicate) don't quite ask you the really useful stuff - do you speak/read/write Hospitalese? If you say No they ought to send you for remedial classes before hospitalizing you. Here's why.

After my son was born nearly five years ago, I had legions of hospital staffers who trooped in after my surgery asking me weird questions.

Imagine this scenario, if you will:
"Have you evacuated?" asks a resident gynaecologist.
"Why, is there a fire or an earthquake?" I ask dimly alarmed.
"No, have you evacuated, voided, passed flatus?" she asks impatiently. I sigh. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good word game at three in the morning as much as any woman who has just had a baby ripped from her uterus does, but my inner thesaurus is not particularly at its best.
"What does that mean?" I ask admitting linguistic defeat.
She clicks her tongue at my unbelievable imbecility and gestures meaningfully towards my nether regions and then in the vague direction of the bathroom several times until I finally get what she is asking me.

Soon after, another girl wanders in wanting to know if I am in a consanguineous marriage. I recall vaguely that sanguineous has something to do with blood - I reason that she either wants to know if my husband is related to a con man or if he is my blood relative. I shake my head no to both.

Now if there's one thing you need to know about medical histories, it's that they're top secret and no one ever divulges anything they have heard to anyone else. So you have to repeat the same things to doctors, nurses, ward boys, florists, plumbers and other mysterious people who drop in to ask you about your fascinating evacuation, voiding and flatus habits. I am also woken up and asked if I am still in a non-consanguineous marriage. Well, unless I have accidentally married a long lost cousin while in the throes of a childbirth-induced midnight delirium, I guess I am.

Anyway, in my five days in the hospital, I pick up these words like a pro. So when I hear a knock and a girl enters I launch into the by-now familiar litany. "I have evacuated, voided, and passed flatus multiple times," I tell the startled girl and as an additional bonus offer up some helpful nuggets of history that no one has ever thought to ask me, "Oh and I have been regurgitating regularly throughout my pregnancy, though i had no issues with sanguineous discharges. And talking about all things sanguineous, I am still in a non-consanguineous a marriage," I add for good measure.

The girl stammers, "Umm, I'm from the Nutrition Department and I just wanted to know what you'd like to eat."

Eat! I'm sure she has violated basic hospital protocol. At the very least, she ought to have asked me what I wanted to orally ingest into my abdominal cavity. But maybe she is new here. I look at her, my heart filling with newfound maternal compassion. Why, she's a mere babe in the clinical woods just learning to babble hospitalese! No matter little one, you'll soon learn!

Day 16 - Old School or New School?

Schools have changed dramatically since our time - the way they look, the way they work, and of course the way the kids dress, eat, work, and talk.

But one thing remains just the same - they still send parents to the ends of the earth to get weird stuff that isn't available in any normal store. Just a few weeks ago, my son's school teacher wrote in his trusty almanac that he needed a pair of silver pom poms. 

"So what are pom-poms anyway?" I overheard one baffled father ask another while dropping my son to school the next day.

"Oh, you know, it's those things that cheer leaders hold in their hands, yaar!" replied the more enlightened of the two.

"Cheer leaders, what are cheer leaders?" the first dad was still bemused.

"Arre yaar, those girls in skimpy outfits that dance at the T20s. Don't tell me you've never seen them!" He added as the first dad still looked baffled.

"Yes, yes, of course I've seen the girls. But, who was looking at their hands?"

Fortunately for him, this dad had come minus his better half, and unfortunately for me, I couldn't stick around to find out how that conversation ended because I had my own pom poms to get.

In my own time, I recall my folks chasing after the proverbial 'kalyanasougandhigam' as my grandmother acerbically put it, those endless out-of-print books, the graph papers that had to be just so, a dinner plate of a certain brand to be taken for a trip, the list goes on. But the most creative demand that I recall was for my sister's biology class - bring a dead mouse to class, the expressionless biology teacher had intoned without a trace of humour.

Though we regularly came face-to-face with these creatures, they must have got wind of the scholastic summons - for on that particular day, there wasn't a single mouse in the house. The maid was dispatched to her own rodent-rich neighbourhood to procure one. She returned with a rat instead of a mouse, the zoological nuances being quite lost on her. After a few panicky phone calls (remember, there were no texts, Google Pluses and what have you) it was finally decided that a rat was as good as a mouse and would do just as well. So off went my sister to school the next day, a song in her heart and a dead rat in her bag. Oh, the things you have to do in the name of education!

Yes, some things never change. And in case you were wondering, I did get those pom poms at long last, after encountering many many such blank stares and no, I did not repeat the T20 story. I finally got them from a shop that, according to another dad, sold everything excepts cars and phones. Which is perfectly fine, as schools almost never ask for cars and phones. Not yet, anyway.

Day 15 - How to become someone important

The first important thing you need to understand  on your quest to importance is that doing something important is far less important than being someone important. If that sentence didn't make any sense to you that's because it's all-important, and important things are convoluted.

So, let's get you started. The first thing to understand is that important people always seem to be getting a lot more done than the rest of us. Being important involves a lot of hard work and you have to be prepared to do it.  But the operative word here is 'seem'. Being important is 99% the art of creative and artful misdirection.

So first, always have at least fifty chat windows open on your laptop and have one person on hold on your phone waiting for you to put another person on hold while they wait for you to put yet another person on hold to get to talk to you, because that's how regular people talk to important people, they get in line. And yes, once in a while you should type something like - "Had a great time at the Grammies last night' or some such thing into all the chat windows and quickly follow it up with "Oops sorry, wrong window! Smiley face." Guess how many people will spend the rest of their day wondering who was in the right window.

Second, drop names liberally. In the midst of a conversation, you could say something like - You know, when I was visiting the United States a few years ago, Clinton actually pulled my skirt! Of course, the trick with this is you have to know when to stop - all will be lost if you explain that Clinton was your neighbour's cat who pulled the said garment from your clothesline! Or - you know I was on a call with the President yesterday - well, you were actually whinging to the president of Unimportants Anonymous, whose name you don't know, but let other people think what they will.

Third, know how to act more important than others when you have to wait. For instance, when you're in a traffic jam, never honk and yell - that's for the insignificant hoi polloi. No, wind down your tinted windows and yell into your dongle or your state-of-the-art phone for all to hear, "Can you ask New York to ask London to wait for a bit - I'm stuck in a &%$#& traffic jam!" If that doesn't shriek IMPORTANT, nothing else does. The only thing you could have done better was to call God to hold the earth a bit on the whole rotation thing while you got out of the jam.

Fourth, be fashionably late for everything including your own wedding, no important person worth his or her salt has the time to be on time and everyone knows that.

Fifth, be a sesquipedalian, excogitate and exercise those neurosensors to conjure up important-sounding words like antidisestablishmentarianism and usufruct. Simple, monosyllabic words that convey the meaning is for sissies.

Sixth, always use words like 'and so on', 'etcetera', and 'among other things', so that you convey the impression that what you are deigning to divulge is just a miniscule portion of what you actually know.

Seventh, always try to appear that you don't want to be recognized - wear large dark-tinted glasses and cover your face artfully but not completely with your hand taking care to flash that diamond-enscrusted Rolex and platinum charm bracelet. That's what all important people do - they try hard to become rich and famous, and then spend the rest of their lives trying not to be recognized.

The mathematically alert reader would have noticed that all the points above talk to the 99% of being important - the art of creative misdirection. What about the remaining 1%? Well, I'll assume that I'm already important enough for you to be reading this and will divulge the rest of the Secret.

Dear reader, I'm afraid you may not want to read this - but the remaining 1% of being important entails actually doing something important that really makes a difference to people. But if that's not your cup of tea, no problem - if you get the other 99% right, you should be well on your way.

Day 14 - Proof that aliens once existed - and travelled by Indian trains

If you have ever taken an overnight train in India, you would have asked yourself the unpoken question predominant in most travellers' minds: Was the average Indian train constructed for the average Indian traveller? The answer to this is an emphatic NO. This manifesto moves to prove this point.

Firstly, take the width of the average Indian berth. The proportion of the width of the average berth to the average Indian rear end is about 0.75:1. This means that a quarter of all Indian bottoms are designed to hang out of an Indian berth. Obviously, turning over in one's sleep, which the average human is prone to doing naturally and many times a night, is impossible in this situation.

Next, take the height of an upper berth in an average 3-tier train. The upper berth is designed to be a full head above the head level of the average Indian traveller. Divide this by the average fitness and monkey bar climbing finesse of the average Indian traveller and multiply by the steep difficulty of the rungs, and the probability of the average Indian managing to climb up on that berth without misadventure is a pretty pathetic 0.001%.

Clearly, the berths in which we have to squash ourselves into and perform inhuman acrobatics to climb up on were not designed originally for us, but for a species that is at least a quarter slimmer and much more springy than the average human, and perhaps has a cylindrical torso which makes somnombulent rolling over easy and fun.

Now, take the taps in an Indian train. You have to keep pressing up on the tap to start the flow of water. If you take away your hand to wash your face or anything else that needs washing, you run out of water. Evidently, the taps in a train were designed especially for a species that either had its face in its hands or had a long antenna that could keep the water going while it washed its other essentials.

Has it ever occurred to you that the bathrooms, sorry latrines, in a train look like they were designed as kind of an after thought? I mean, four latrines for roughly seventy humans designed to answer nature's persistent calls roughly every four hours, latrines that are actually large holes that empty out into the tracks? Yes, they were an afterthought, because obviously, the trains were originally built for a species that nature never once called. Think about it, why else would we have latrines that have a total of about two square inches that a human can actually stand on where you can close the door without having a shoe fall through the hole?

Now about the food, or what passes for food, that you get on trains, how often have you complained that it wasn't fit for human consumption? Exactly! The food that you get was originally flavored oil intended for this alien species to lubricate its springy joints.

Next time you get on that train and are tempted to whine and whinge about any of these things - just remember. Indian trains are the way they are for a simple reason. They weren't designed for the average Indian, not even the average human. There, doesn't that explain a whole lot?

Day 13 - Labels

I hate labels - until I employed a cook whose intelligence was not particularly off the charts, (well, maybe it was but in the other direction) tea was often in the Coffee container, sugar in the Tea container, and coffee in the one marked Sugar. I still have pickles in jam bottles, masalas in pickle bottles, and pepper corns in sauce jars.

I am a woman - I can't argue with that having given birth to two human offspring and being forced to shop regularly for feminine products. But that's the only label I allow myself.

I believe a woman can do anything a man can do and in some cases, maybe even do it better. But I am not a 'feminist'.

I used to take care of my home and kids for many years and enjoyed my time with my family, my children, and myself. But I don't like calling myself a 'home-maker'.

I work in a large organization and enjoy working, learning, and mentoring others. But I don't like calling myself a 'career woman'.

I do speak Tamil but I don't like calling myself a 'Tamilian'. I also don't like calling my family 'Tam Brahm', especially as the other three quarters of it speaks abysmal Tamil and we don't do too many things that are considered to be Brahminical.

Why don't I like labels? Because the moment you plonk yourself in a neat container, you become a part of it. You are no longer an individual but simply a part of a whole. You become sensitive to any comments hurled (or you imagine being hurled) at that group. You become a geometric shape with defined vertices, characteristics, and rules, and are no longer a delightful abstraction.

When someone cracks a joke at Mallus I laugh heartily though I speak Malayalam fluently and am a Mallu on occasion (usually Vishu or Onam). When someone makes a good-natured joke about Tam Brahms I laugh at that too. I laugh at - and make -jokes about women drivers and working moms and home makers. Because there is a little of all of these in me. And because I am a little of everything, I don't laugh at anyone, I laugh with them, and I laugh mostly at myself.

My marriage was arranged, but we found love along the way, and I'll be damned if I get into a debate about which is better.

My daughter gets good grades, but she is not a 'nerd', she learns classical dance, but she is anything but traditional'. She is weird, wacky, emotional, funny, and smart, and though I am often tempted to call her a 'typical teenager' I refrain from doing so.

Because she is so much more than a label, or even a collection of labels - she is herself, that is all. And that is everything. And I stick to my guns even if I end up eating rice with jam or idlis with coffe powder.

Day 12 - Why women put on weight - A scientific analysis

You may remember a scene from Desperate Housewives - I know what you're thinking, those 'housewives' (not my word, that's the name of the show) may have been desperate, but they sure weren't overweight - but bear with me for a minute. In this scene, another woman, a desperately dumpy one for a change, appears after a hiatus apparently having put on mounds of weight.

"Oh my God, whatever happened to you," shriek her desperately skinny friends.

"Oh, you know, I had two children," she responds. I nod finding that a perfectly acceptable response.

"For what? Breakfast?" retort her skinny friends.

But it's a scientifically proven fact - women put on weight after marriage and kids - I know enough women to form a statistically significant group - and both of them agree with me! Okay, just kidding. But jokes apart, there are scientifically proven reasons why women put on weight after marriage and kids.

For starters, as years go by, there creep into this woman a daughter-in-law, a mother, a sister-in-law, several kinds of aunts, friends-in-law, and so on. Where do you think all these people will fit? Volume and surface area and all of that. Basic mensuration. And no, that's not a typo.

Then, as her family grows and the woman becomes wiser and more experienced, everyone needs a piece of her, to show the kids the food on the first shelf in the fridge in that box marked "Food for Kids", to tell the plumber exactly which flush doesn't work in case he didn't quite get the hint from the flotsam and jetsam, to help the kids with their homework which she pretends to understand, to get the kids out of bed so that they can sleep through history class properly, to remind her husband of the names of his friend's wife and kids (Okay so she doesn't remember either, but who's going to know, certainly not the friend!). And if a whole needs to be cut up into so many pieces, the mass of the whole has to be sizable. See, once again scientifically proven. Basic physics.

A woman with young children is a portable dustbin and a model of economics. That food could feed so many hungry kids! But if none of those hungry kids are around, well she has to do the heroic thing. And
when you eat for two and three, then, well, your body weighs more - basic physics.

A woman has to be like a bank locker - people tend to tell her juicy, meaty things that she isn't supposed to let out. So many secrets about so many people, all in one body. And no one wants a tiny locker to stuff all those secrets in. So her frame expands to accommodate them all. Scientific fact. Basic economics.

A woman needs to be decently large to be taken seriously. No one's going to pay you any attention if you look like an anorexic school girl. You can look much more threatening and menacing when you're larger. It's a basic evolutionary need. Basic biology.

Besides, a womam needs to have a cushioned lap for her toddlers to jump up on if there's no room for a trampoline, her shoulders need to be padded to cushion the many broken hearts she will need to heal, and she will need to have a padded bottom so she can bounce back up every time someone knocks her over. Because she's fat. And well, you can't have a skinny woman with a fleshy lap, shoulders, and bottom. That would just look daft. Basic biology.

So, all you portly women out there. Head for the gym if you must, but do it knowing that you are going against how science intended you to be.

Day 11 - Just Because

Why must I eat my breakfast? Why can't I have chocolates for dinner? Why must I get up early? Why can't I beat my sister up? Why must I brush my teeth? Why can't I wear my new pants to bed? Why do clothes need to get washed? Why can't we have all the clothes in the store? Why do other kids have so many birthdays and I only get one? Why should I say Thank You when I get a present I don't really want? Why can't I marry mommy? Why can Daddy sleep with mommy but I can't? Why can't I eat potatoes everyday?

Why can't I have half my class over for a sleepover? Why can't I get a cell phone for my birthday? Why do I need to learn History of all things? Why do I have to be good at everything?

When the questions far outnumber the answers, when their energy far outlasts my patience, I do what parents the world over do. I say "Just because!"

Why do so many children go hungry everyday? Why do fathers rape their own children? Why are women looked upon as fair game? Why do politicians seem to get away with so much? Why is everything always so expensive? Why must we go to work everyday? Why do we work so hard to earn so little honestly when so many others make so much by dishonest means? Why do women have to work so hard to stay pretty? Why are teachers paid so little? Why is everything that is delicious so bad for you? Why are there so many diseases in the world?

So many questions, so few answers. I can't help thinking that maybe, just maybe, somewhere in his heaven, an irate God is crossing his arms, wagging a finger, looking down sternly, and saying, "Just because!"

Day 10 - The True Test of a Marriage

The true test of a marriage is not in how you stand by each other in sickness, health, richer, poorer, blah blah blah. No, the true test of a marriage is in how you work from home together - on the same day.

Many employers think they are doing their employees a huge  favour by allowing them to work from home. And it is indeed a great boon. But what if your spouse's employer decided to bestow the same largesse? That's when things start getting sticky. You see, most households are not built to support two work-from-home people.

Take our case. On days that we both decide to work from home, there is raw turmoil in the house. We bicker over who gets to work out of the bedroon that boasts unparalleled luxuries like a door that can be closed to drown out the noise of the television and kids singing at the tops of their voices. The loser has to establish herself in the dining room, bang in the epicentre of the noisy everyday life that happens in our home. We quarrel over who gets to charge his/her laptop where, we bicker over who needs to drop the kids to school and over whose turn it is to entertain the sundry relatives who drop in "because we heard you were at home today".

Then there are other issues too. I can't work in my pyjamas. He will lounge around in t-shirt and shorts all day in a day-old salt-and-pepper (more salt than pepper I might add) beard. I take quick short breaks for my meals and then return to my desk. He drinks his tea, eats his breakfast, gobbles his lunch all while staring into the screen. He refuses to use any kind of headsets or mute his laptop forcing me to work with those irritatingly loud pings, crackles, and pops that can be heard from the next room. And if the wi-fi on his laptop freezes, he decides to unceremoniously reboot it - while I am in mid-mail, mid-chat, mid-something.

So, to those starry-eyed young ones who want to know whether it's for keeps, try this sure-fire test: work from home together for a few weeks. If you can survive that, you can survive anything. And add this line to your vows - In richness and in health, for richer, for poorer, through work from home arrangements and vacations..."

Day 9 - Is This Patriotism?

This Republic Day, we had a chief guest in our apartment, a Colonel in the Indian Army who had won several national awards for bravery. He was of course welcomed into our midst with great fanfare and excitement, and admonitions about posting photographs on social networking sites.

He spoke articulately and volubly about his experiences in Kargil and Siachen. The low pressures that could be fatal if not dealt with properly, the severely low temperatures that could cause hypothermia, the high altitudes that could make you go crazy. The separation from family, the palpable fear that one could very realistically leave the barracks and never return. The normally hyper-bratty tots listened in rapt attention as we all tried to imagine all these conditions sitting in our comfortable apartment surrounded by food and sun and fun and friends and family and freedom.

One piece of information was demanded, shared, repeated many times, and applauded. "We killed 23 Pakistanis in one takedown, and then another, and then three more," he announced and talked of a letter received from a 4-year-old boy beseeching him to kill at least one Pakistani for him. Applause and indulgent smiles. And the Colonel announced that he had obliged the child- 28 times over. More applause.

And then some time later after, a question from one rather inattentive child in our complex - or perhaps he had not learnt how to add yet - "Uncle, how many soldiers did you kill totally?" Applause again. "Well, let's see 23+ 1 + 4, that's 28." Deafening applause.

Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm not patriotic enough, but I found that exchange very very disturbing. Granted, securing our borders and keeping our troops safe entails killing - I know that. But I always thought it was a means to an end, not an end in itself. And sitting in our little amphitheatre, surrounded by chortling and well-fed children whose greatest worries were report cards and getting their hands on the latest gadget, hearing them baying bloodthirstily for the blood of another human being was deeply unsettling.

But not more unsettling than the applause that these questions received from the adults who are supposed to teach them respect and love and tolerance.

Day 8 - Maybe Would Be

Picture this - a young girl bearing trays of sojjis and bajjis towards an awkward and gawky young man flanked by his hyper-critical relatives. The sojjis are eaten as are the bujjis, small talk is conducted (and probably big talk too), and finally the all-important decision is made - It's a yes from both sides.

If you are anything like me, the gawky young man will want to drag you to meet everyone he has every exchanged a word with who happened to be in the city on that day. Which was fine, except that he hadn't the remotest idea how to introduce me - this is my, my, my...

We thought at the time that there was no word coined to describe who I was at that moment in time, not a fiance, certainly not a girlfriend, not even a friend yet come to that!

But we were wrong, there is a word - well, not really a word, it's just a modal auxiliary paired with a verb, not even strictly grammatically correct, but it exists.

Would-be: The pair of words that has so much hope buried in it - One day we 'would be' friends, lovers, fiances, spouses - not today, not yet, but someday. It is an expression that doesn't exist in any dictionary anywhere else in the world, but here where a marriage follows this trajectory...

1. Can be: Relatives, aunts, uncles, and grandparents exchange horoscopes of relatives of relatives of relatives hoping against hope that somewhere somehow a pair of horoscopes will fall in love.
2. Maybe: The horoscopes are all set and all the mathematics, economics, astronomy, geography, and history make sense, but boy needs to meet girl...
3 Would be: Yes, wedding bells will ring - and in some months they 'would be' man and wife.
4 Is: Wedding happens after a great deal of hullabaloo with invitations that never made it through the post, several lost items, and sleepless nights
5. Has been: Well, everything must come to an end whatever that end may be even when the relatives, horoscopes, and the people in question fell in love at one time...

For all those occasions where things don't go as planned, it gives a new spin on those reminiscences of the life that 'might have been'.

Day 7 - Me Versus Myself

Being an instructional designer has sucked the enjoyment out of life - Oh I don't mean my work-life balanace and the existential issues of being a working mom and all of that - that's fodder for another blog. No, I mean that as a learning developer, it is my job to demystify and simplify material and make sure it is put forth creatively and effectively. This is what interferes with life, which is neither intuitive nor simple.

Take an example. I go to watch an eminently watchable movie like Barfi. But can I enjoy the multi-media challenged comic hero who more than makes up with his super-kinesthetic prowess? Oh no. Throughout the movie I have two devils sitting on each shoulder bayoneting each other through my head.

"It's chronologically confusing, so when exactly was Jhilmil supposedly kidnapped and murdered - In the distant past, the not-so-distant past, the present or the future?" the learning developer in me rants.

"That's poetic licence," the other me responds.

"It's inconsistent - Barfi can engrave names of customers on stainless steel vessels using a steel gun, but can't write his own?" the learning developer pouts.

"Oh, don't be such a damp squib and a nitpick," says the other me.

"It's blatantly plagiarised, calling it Chaplinesque is one thing, lifting whole scenes entirely another! By that logic, we can all write Shakespearesque poetry," thunders the learning developer.

"But it's good, clean fun," whispers the regular me in a small voice.

No points for guessing who wins these shoulder-level diatribes every time.

When my daughter regales me with the scarily complicated love triangles, quadrilaterals, and other nameless polygons in her seventh grade class, can I just smile indulgently at these silly little pre-teen romances? No, draw me a visual flowchart I hear myself saying, I can't keep up with who has a crush on whom any more!
When my mother tells me a recipe, my mind does not accept vagaries like "as much salt as needed". It needs a precise amount. I need to know whether to use skimmed milk for a pudding or regular - 'whatever is in the fridge' isn't good enough.

Typos on signboards irritate me (except when they're hilarious like the 'multi-cousin' restaurant we saw in Mount Abu recently - you know the one where you take the numerous cousins who descend on you during Diwali), obscure and incorrect menus, web sites that make me click and click to no end, pixellated images all aggravate me.

Oh well, every job has its hazards, and these are mine. I just wish I had read the fine print.

Day 6 - Apps I'd Like To See

Now that I have progressed slightly beyond pigeon post and have bought myself an android something-or-other phone, here are some of the apps that I'd like to see on my phone. Some of them may already exist, and perhaps I, in my infinite ignorance of all things mobile-related, probably have not heard of it. If that is the case, please enlighten me, and perhaps not on Google Plus or Whats App, neither of which I use.

So here goes my list of Must-Have Apps, Nice-To-Have Apps, and Wish-Upon-A-Lonely-Star Apps:

Must-Have Apps:

1.      An emergency call button that does the following:

a.          Activates GPS and the Internet automatically

b.         Makes a call to the nearest police stations complete with GPS info

c.          Posts an SOS message on all social networks possible again with GPS check in

This would reduce complete dependence on strangers and the police in case of an emergency and allow friends to take action.

2.      A block feature in our phones like we do with messenger requests so that we can block tele-stalkers and tele-marketers alike.

Nice-To-Have Apps:

1.      An alarm that will surprise me by playing my favorite radio station - everyone on TV seems to wake up to it, but I can't seem to find it on my phone.

2.      A birthday registry app for those endless birthday parties that you have to attend if you have kids. Parents, please sign up for all the birthday gifts that you would like to see your little darlings receive till age 5, princess, geek, cowboy, winnie-the-pooh, outer space, garbage segregation, whatever theme you like.

Wish-Upon-A-Lonely-Star App:

E-wedding receptions: Oh people of the world who insist on tying the knot in some obscure part of the city - please go ahead and tie that knot and tie it tightly by all means- but do me a favour, invite your immediate flesh and blood to the actual smoke- and food-filled event and let us outer-circle members attend an e-reception. Our avatars can air kiss each other and exchange polite pleasantries and hand over e-vouchers to your avatars.

You don’t have to stand up there for hours smiling brightly at strangers and we don’t get our lungs filled with the smog of Bangalore's roads! Talk about win-win!

Day 5 - The Art of Shopping

I have just one rule when it comes to shopping, especially boring grocery shopping - keep it as simple as possible! If the veggies are neatly washed and bound into pre-measured packages, that works for m. If they're chopped up and ready to cook, even better. If they're pre-cooked, awesome! I go to only all-under-one-roof supermarkets even if the prices are said to go through said roof.

Contrast that with an aunt of mine who has perfected the fine art of frugal shopping. She and her friends know exactly where one can buy tamarind and rice and various dals for only half the normal price. There are a few catches to this miracle of economics of course. One, you have to visit several parts of the next state to get the stuff and two, you have to buy enough to feed half the country.

No problem, they have a system that will put the most sophisticated of SAP systems to shame. They set a date when all the aunties are relatively free, then hire a van, conscript a set of volunteers who will share the loot, pack an array of gunny bags, and set off on their expedition. After a day of going from Tamarind Town to Coconut County to Vegetable Valley, they divide the stuff and its cost into halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths, depending on the pre-planned number of takers for each item. They divide the cost of the van as well as the tip for the driver equally by the number of people, and add the cost of the tender cocunt water that they bought en route (taking care to subtract it from the share of the aunty who declined thanks to her unpredictable bladder). All financial transactions completed, it's up to each aunty to decide how to transport her share up to her home (or whether she prefers to build a new apartment around the sacks in the basement since that seems to be easier at the moment).

Once the sacks are all in the house somehow, they have to be sun-dried to fend off various zoological specimen that threaten to march in. So out to the balcony they go where through weeks of poojas and chanting, the aunties have already made an airtight agreement with God so that it will not rain for the next few hours.

Now to make space for all the stuff, the kitchen and pantry have to be completely cleaned out, during the course of which several long-lost treasures are re-discovered - some ancient spare parts of a mixie used by an ancestor long since gone and some blades of a fan that nobody recalls. Obviously these priceless possessions cannot be thrown out and new equally loving homes have to be found for them. Finally after a week of planning, designing, and implementing, the groceries are all in place.

No wonder the meals we have in my aunt's place are so much more evocative than the ones in mine. Each chilly, each seed of mustard, each grain of rice has a story to tell.   

And it isn't just the vegetables and the pulses and rice either. A bottle of mango pickle demanded by one aunt in Bangalore from another in Chennai makes its tortuous way from Chennai to Delhi to Gujarat to Mumbai to Kerala and finally to Bangalore carried by various aunts-in-law, cousins twice removed, friends of friends, and strangers on buses, trains, taxis, and bullock carts. Fortunately the pickle is made to last for all eternity and is packed so tightly that even airport scanners can't get a glimpse of what's inside. One lick of that pickle and you can tell that it is a pickle of character, one that has seen life, unlike the insipid ones that I buy from my all-under-one-roof supermarkets with the fancy nutritional labels on them, the bottles that have seen nothing but the inside of the factory and the warehouse.

Note: To protect her privacy, pulses, and pickles, I have left my 'aunt' unnamed.

Day 4 - Games Kids Play

Caution: The following poem may conjure up some disturbing images.

She wrote a letter to her friend
And on the way she dropped it,
We added text and graphic pics,
And then we photoshopped it.

we loved playing Duck Duck Goose,
Because of the way she looked,
It didn't matter if she ducked or not,
Her goose was pretty cooked!

We sat in our closed circle,
Secret codes pressed through our palms
But no one would catch us out we knew,
No one would raise alarms!

We played Doctor Doctor and treated her
With our own brand of meds,
We even turned her inside out,
Because you see, we're only 'kids'!

And kids just need to have their fun,
That's what the docs and lawyers say,
It doesn't matter whom we hurt,
But kids just need to play!

Day 3 - Magnetite

They say that pigeons have 'magnetite'
Hardwired in their brain,
That help them find their way someplace,
And go back there again.

Me, when I try to go somewhere,
I'm quickly 'mained' and 'crossed',
A left, a right, an about turn,
And I'm completely lost!

I think I'll get some magnetite,
But if I go looking for a store,
I'll find myself in Alaska
A few thousand miles out or more!

So I'll just search for it on the net,
You know, just in case,
I click and click and click some more,
Oh my god, now I'm lost in cyberspace!

Day 2 - Ode to Garlic Bread

Oh how I love you, garlic bread,

Antipasto of the Gods,

Your aroma makes my nostrils weep,

(Though friends are often hard to keep),

Your pungent flavour goes to my head,

Leaves speechless my (usually) vocal cords.

Like a vampire sinking his fangs

Into his victim’s choicest part,

I imbibe your cheesy buttery ooze,

Until I cannot see my shoes,

Ah! My frame further droops and hangs,

Drive a stake right through my heart!