I await the results of my Triple Marker Test. A test that will supposedly warn us against birth defects, if any, of our little yet to be born baby. While I wait in my car for my driver to return with the test results my mind races through memories of all the underprivileged children I have come across. I am yet not sure if they should be addressed as underprivileged so I prefer to call them special, in many a sense I guess they are special!
I think about Dilip Kaka and his wife. They have a mentally challenged teenaged boy and a girl. Both husband and wife took good care of their kids, yet maintaining a healthy environment in their house. A rare feet I would say, their relationship was far more mature and cordial than most normal couples I have met. He would rarely fail to mention the lack of proper testing at the time they had decided to extend their brood. I recently heard Kaka was no more...I wondered how the frail lady must be managing her household. She was regular with her religious practices and had strong belief in God, I guess that'll take her through.
I shift from memories of such children in the park to others I had met during my brief encounter with social work, psychology classes etc etc... to PINKI! Yes my dear friend PINKI.... Now this is someone my mind wanted to pay more attention to....
I had met Pinky when I was in standard Nine. I was new to the school and she was one of the first friends I had made. A very kind, pretty & wide eyed Mangalorian true Aryan blood types, at least that's what her grandparents believed! As all south Indians are supposed to be, she was extremely intelligent and came from a highly intellectual family. Father was a senior professor at an esteemed University and mother was also a lecturer. Apart from being highly educated, they were highly unconventional. A classic example of how a bunch of totally dysfunctional beings could live together and yet be happy.
Her little blue eyed sister had been in love ever since I've known her. As a child she was in love with our best friends boyfriend. Correct...in love with the boyfriend of her sisters friend!! She spend in-numerous years praying to his pictures and hoping that one day he would leave the girl and come to her chubby arms. Leave the girl he did, but never came to her. Her first heart break. After many such heartbreaks she fell in love with a woman who was already in a steady relationship with another woman. Yes, yes you are reading right...pls. continue...There we go...again she was the third one i.e. the mistress! Currently she is still seeking love - gender, caste, qualification NO BAR...anyone interested pls apply....
Coming back to Pinky, her love life was no less of a disaster...correction...catastrophe. After her wild experiments with the birds and the bees, she fell in love with her first cousin! So much in love she was that she decided not to pursue her studies. She was intelligent and had the right contacts, both resources she decided against using. After much resistance the match was accepted as the cousin was paternal.
No, no they were never happily married.....to top it up she delivered a child.....a special child. A strikingly handsome boy....soon the family discovered the challanges. God functions in strange ways....he hurts the best people he makes. This kindest girl had probably never said a mean word to anybody, well except her parents...and this is what she gets!! As any other predictable man, our man in question simply washed his hands of the mother and child duo...citing “hindrance in my progress” as a reason. Well she took the challenge up herself and decided to do everything possible to bring normalcy in her son's life, including moving to a bigger city for better treatment.
This is not where it ends....Till now I have only narrated how she fell from the sky....the next part is how she got stuck on a tree.....
Yes...my dear friends...she fell in love again. This time around with a boy some 20 years her junior, still in college..still struggling to make ends meet....well that does not take away the license to mate!!!! She was pregnant again!! Much after complete resistance from the entire living family & society she knows, they got married. OK now here's the list of people she has to look after...her challenged son, her still at college husband, her heart-broken sister, her perpetually angry mother, her reformist dad...and the latest addition... her recently born sweet little sugar. Good God!...nothing else to add here!!
As her profession she does past life regression to cure people of their “ailments”. In one such seminar that she herself attended, she was told that in her last life she was an "Egyptian princess", married to a "cruel ruler" i.e. the husband she divorced, who had killed "her lover" i.e. the man/boy she is with now.....
Boy I truly wonder how she's going to climb down this tree???? Any suggestions??
OK...got to go...my driver is back!!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
HOW I WISH CLOTHES WERE MEN!!
It's strange, the relationship we women share with our clothes. It is not necessary that the ones you love the most will return the favor. They have a mind of their own and can behave just the opposite.
While getting ready for work today morning I had one such combat with my clothes. The irony is they win every damn time. Unlike my husband who I have magical powers to triumph, my tears...the same just doesn't work on my clothes. If they have decided for me to look fat, I will look fat!!.. I wish they were as manageable as men!!
My current tussle is to fit in my clothes without looking fat. I am not yet big enough to look pregnant and not slim enough to look slim. Except for my stomach all my other body anatomy has changed, which includes my posterior and my horizontal span. I can still justify the expansion of my butt, "oh, my lil' one likes my butt more than the stomach". But how do the justify the growing arms??
After multiple changes I emerged out of my closet and bumped into my son, who by the way was supposed to be at school. I already know I shouldn't but I can't resist the temptation and ask him “Do I look fat??” And the answer is...... YES!! Young man, has not learn't to lie to women as yet, an art he'll eventually have to pick up.
And so I was, back to the grind. When I entered the closet I almost heard my clothes speak “not gain, she has totally lost it !!”. Well fighting with clothes has it's few advantages, for instance they can not walk out on you, you can dump them in the bin, you can tumble them in the dryer, you can totally walk all over them and last but not the least you can chop them up if they decide to misbehave. With these thoughts in my mind I felt victorious, I think I actually muttered, I SHALL WIN!
No..no..I did not win, they did. With little time left to fuss about I wore not what I loved but what loved me, I mean what fitted me. I stepped out and yet again I bump into my son. After a repeat of the same question and answer session, he suggested why don't you just cover your face...in that case no one know who the fat lady is! OK now I wish Men were clothes!!
While getting ready for work today morning I had one such combat with my clothes. The irony is they win every damn time. Unlike my husband who I have magical powers to triumph, my tears...the same just doesn't work on my clothes. If they have decided for me to look fat, I will look fat!!.. I wish they were as manageable as men!!
My current tussle is to fit in my clothes without looking fat. I am not yet big enough to look pregnant and not slim enough to look slim. Except for my stomach all my other body anatomy has changed, which includes my posterior and my horizontal span. I can still justify the expansion of my butt, "oh, my lil' one likes my butt more than the stomach". But how do the justify the growing arms??
After multiple changes I emerged out of my closet and bumped into my son, who by the way was supposed to be at school. I already know I shouldn't but I can't resist the temptation and ask him “Do I look fat??” And the answer is...... YES!! Young man, has not learn't to lie to women as yet, an art he'll eventually have to pick up.
And so I was, back to the grind. When I entered the closet I almost heard my clothes speak “not gain, she has totally lost it !!”. Well fighting with clothes has it's few advantages, for instance they can not walk out on you, you can dump them in the bin, you can tumble them in the dryer, you can totally walk all over them and last but not the least you can chop them up if they decide to misbehave. With these thoughts in my mind I felt victorious, I think I actually muttered, I SHALL WIN!
No..no..I did not win, they did. With little time left to fuss about I wore not what I loved but what loved me, I mean what fitted me. I stepped out and yet again I bump into my son. After a repeat of the same question and answer session, he suggested why don't you just cover your face...in that case no one know who the fat lady is! OK now I wish Men were clothes!!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Wish Kids were born with an instruction manual
Wouldn’t all the mothers out there agree with this? We evolve and grow as mothers, we learn with time how to deal with problems and situations, wouldn’t it be great if we could do it right the first time?
I have never been able to figure out the right approach. Combined with this are the pressures from all these so called physiatrists, for you never know 10 yrs down the line they’ll relate my by then adult Child’s mental state to how he was brought up or treated as a child. OMG!! I do not want be held responsible for how my children deal with situations when they grow up!!
My current trauma is related to a situation my younger son is facing in his class. A typical “Bully in the class” issue, who is not willing to include my son in his “GANG”, a strong word for an 8 year old don’t you think?? As a mother I am left with two choices, not to interfere and let him learn to deal with his own problems or to interfere and follow a course less known to me. I choose the initial, not because it’s the best but because it is the easiest. I just gave him a little gyan about being strong and letting go of people who do not wish to be his friends.
To my disappointment the problem does not disappear, it only grows and stares me in my face. If only it could vanish in thin air!! What to do I wondered, How do men handle such situations? With many unanswered questions I retire to bed, only to wake up at 4am with unruly memories of my childhood. Isolation was known to me. As a child I had faced it many times. Ridicule was my friendly demon…it rarely left me in my childhood. I was a fairly easy target…an Indian in a British Colonial School in Africa. To top it up was my accent, my nicely oiled braids, my lunch time “Muli Ka Paratha” and my hairy legs. With little support system at home I was left to deal with it myself. I had a tough time getting accepted but I figured my way out. For sure I had to get rid of all my Indianness in fact sometimes I had to go a step further to prove my so called Westerness. Unable to get any sleep I finally woke up with a resolve to help my son.
Now the biggest challenge lay ahead, How to help this child? Should I talk to the teacher, should I talk to the “bully”, or should I talk to his mother? At 5 in the morning I had only one option, to write to the teacher. With help from my husband we pinned down the sternest letter we could. It read more like a threat than parents requesting for teachers intervention. Well it did it’s work. The teacher summoned the little one in question and threatened them with dire consequences. Even his mother was called in, I can only imagine what was told to her. Honestly, I was quite embarrassed with the attention this incident drew and the way it was handled. But being a mother the joy of seeing my son happy far superseded any feelings of guilt.
I don’t know if this was the right thing to do or not or how this incident will impact his behavior. Will he become strong or weak, dependent or independent only time will tell…that’s why I say “I wish children were born with a guide book”
I have never been able to figure out the right approach. Combined with this are the pressures from all these so called physiatrists, for you never know 10 yrs down the line they’ll relate my by then adult Child’s mental state to how he was brought up or treated as a child. OMG!! I do not want be held responsible for how my children deal with situations when they grow up!!
My current trauma is related to a situation my younger son is facing in his class. A typical “Bully in the class” issue, who is not willing to include my son in his “GANG”, a strong word for an 8 year old don’t you think?? As a mother I am left with two choices, not to interfere and let him learn to deal with his own problems or to interfere and follow a course less known to me. I choose the initial, not because it’s the best but because it is the easiest. I just gave him a little gyan about being strong and letting go of people who do not wish to be his friends.
To my disappointment the problem does not disappear, it only grows and stares me in my face. If only it could vanish in thin air!! What to do I wondered, How do men handle such situations? With many unanswered questions I retire to bed, only to wake up at 4am with unruly memories of my childhood. Isolation was known to me. As a child I had faced it many times. Ridicule was my friendly demon…it rarely left me in my childhood. I was a fairly easy target…an Indian in a British Colonial School in Africa. To top it up was my accent, my nicely oiled braids, my lunch time “Muli Ka Paratha” and my hairy legs. With little support system at home I was left to deal with it myself. I had a tough time getting accepted but I figured my way out. For sure I had to get rid of all my Indianness in fact sometimes I had to go a step further to prove my so called Westerness. Unable to get any sleep I finally woke up with a resolve to help my son.
Now the biggest challenge lay ahead, How to help this child? Should I talk to the teacher, should I talk to the “bully”, or should I talk to his mother? At 5 in the morning I had only one option, to write to the teacher. With help from my husband we pinned down the sternest letter we could. It read more like a threat than parents requesting for teachers intervention. Well it did it’s work. The teacher summoned the little one in question and threatened them with dire consequences. Even his mother was called in, I can only imagine what was told to her. Honestly, I was quite embarrassed with the attention this incident drew and the way it was handled. But being a mother the joy of seeing my son happy far superseded any feelings of guilt.
I don’t know if this was the right thing to do or not or how this incident will impact his behavior. Will he become strong or weak, dependent or independent only time will tell…that’s why I say “I wish children were born with a guide book”
My pregnancy and Michael Jackson's death
My pregnancy and Michael Jackson's death
What's the connection?? Well a very deep one...
Having A Third Baby!! OMG!, Are you sure!, Really, WOW you're Brave !!! Yes, these are exactly the reaction's I have been getting ever since I have become visibly pregnant. It's almost like having committed a crime, at-least for those of us who understand the implication of a growing population in India. Having a third after two girls is still a more comprehensible proposition as compared to having a third after two boys!!
Accident it was, a huge one. Actually speaking it was my gynecologists fault...totally, FOR SURE! She had told us that due to hormonal reasons I never understood, there was no way I would conceive any more. This was the best time of our life. Done with two kids who were also now grown up, we had something to look forward to every evening -:) ...life was perfect....Then Michael Jackson died.
Sorrow was followed by in-numerous number of nights spent with friends dancing away to Jacko's numbers. We were all young again, were transpired into our growing up days...that's what triggered the damn hormones. Had he not died the cycle of drinks...dance....and the deed would have never been set in motion.
Well now the deed was done. After much contemplation about reasons of my sickness I finally did the test. God Bless Home Pregnancy Tests! They never existed when we were growing up, at least not in Rajasthan. Yup...positive it was. I was left speechless. Although my husband tried to sound and look sympathetic, I figured he was very very happy deep inside. It was almost like he had won a trophy. I know him, he must have told himself WOW, Well done my Boy!! I can still do it!!
Next day we scheduled a test, Pelvic sonography!! What the hell was that..we never had to do this with the earlier kids!! We decided to behave and go with the flow. The hospital environment and the undressing both freak me out. I remember when I was having my first one I would invariable leave my undergarments behind, was too nervous to even put them back on. With the second one I got smarter...I never wore any for a scheduled appointment.
Oh well, the doctor was in and we saw the first glimpse of our baby. We could hear the heart beat foot race like a wild horse chasing wind. If I had wings I would fly. I do not remember a moment of more serene excitement in our lives. I was going to have a baby and this time I was doing it just for myself. We managed to steer our way through the initial embarrassment, the if's, the but's, the age, the fear of sleepless nights, diaper changes, the works and got settled with the thought of a special one growing inside of me.
Now that I am one the other side of thirties I am more at peace, more in control of my emotions, my moods, my apprehensions and also my desires. I hope and intend to devote as much time and energy, as I can. Given that's a constraint at my age!.
Oh wait a minute....this is not where it ends. Is it Blue?? or is it Pink?? Is it Blue, is it Pink?
What's the connection?? Well a very deep one...
Having A Third Baby!! OMG!, Are you sure!, Really, WOW you're Brave !!! Yes, these are exactly the reaction's I have been getting ever since I have become visibly pregnant. It's almost like having committed a crime, at-least for those of us who understand the implication of a growing population in India. Having a third after two girls is still a more comprehensible proposition as compared to having a third after two boys!!
Accident it was, a huge one. Actually speaking it was my gynecologists fault...totally, FOR SURE! She had told us that due to hormonal reasons I never understood, there was no way I would conceive any more. This was the best time of our life. Done with two kids who were also now grown up, we had something to look forward to every evening -:) ...life was perfect....Then Michael Jackson died.
Sorrow was followed by in-numerous number of nights spent with friends dancing away to Jacko's numbers. We were all young again, were transpired into our growing up days...that's what triggered the damn hormones. Had he not died the cycle of drinks...dance....and the deed would have never been set in motion.
Well now the deed was done. After much contemplation about reasons of my sickness I finally did the test. God Bless Home Pregnancy Tests! They never existed when we were growing up, at least not in Rajasthan. Yup...positive it was. I was left speechless. Although my husband tried to sound and look sympathetic, I figured he was very very happy deep inside. It was almost like he had won a trophy. I know him, he must have told himself WOW, Well done my Boy!! I can still do it!!
Next day we scheduled a test, Pelvic sonography!! What the hell was that..we never had to do this with the earlier kids!! We decided to behave and go with the flow. The hospital environment and the undressing both freak me out. I remember when I was having my first one I would invariable leave my undergarments behind, was too nervous to even put them back on. With the second one I got smarter...I never wore any for a scheduled appointment.
Oh well, the doctor was in and we saw the first glimpse of our baby. We could hear the heart beat foot race like a wild horse chasing wind. If I had wings I would fly. I do not remember a moment of more serene excitement in our lives. I was going to have a baby and this time I was doing it just for myself. We managed to steer our way through the initial embarrassment, the if's, the but's, the age, the fear of sleepless nights, diaper changes, the works and got settled with the thought of a special one growing inside of me.
Now that I am one the other side of thirties I am more at peace, more in control of my emotions, my moods, my apprehensions and also my desires. I hope and intend to devote as much time and energy, as I can. Given that's a constraint at my age!.
Oh wait a minute....this is not where it ends. Is it Blue?? or is it Pink?? Is it Blue, is it Pink?
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