When my little one was really little, it was very difficult to completely enjoy her. Don't contradict me unless you have experienced the endless cries for what seems like no reason, throwing up as soon as new sheets have been put on, giggling endlessly looking at the roof or daddy, not to forget those plots to not let you have a good night's sleep!!. If you still wish to contradict me, I am left to assume that you are the person I have just described.
Right now, my 16 month old is so completely different. She has graduated in many ways from what I have said - She is polite enough to give us some good sleep every alternate day, throws up after a couple of days after the new sheets, is much more verbal in her requirements. Seriously, its a much more enjoyable phase. She understands most of what I say to her. That she chooses to not listen or ignore is a different point:) but at least she makes an effort, unlike the other person in my house!
She has a good vocabulary of words - Nooo( for nose), Nooo( for NO), Na - na ( for NO) and so on. By far her favourite word has been Na-Na , accompanied by a virgorous nod of her head!. That's pretty much my conversation with her most of the time:
Me: Do you want your milk?
She : Na-Na ( headnod)
Me: How about some food?
She : Na Na Na ( head nod more)
Me: Ok, let's go and take a nap
She : na nanananana
On the days I feel like, I turn this to my advantage!
Me: Do you like appa more than amma?
She : NANANANA( headnod and hand gesture).
Me: Do you think we should let him sleep on the bed today?
She : na na na
Oh how much I love her on such days!
Her latest obsession , besides her dad is the youtube nursery rhymes. She actually pushes any of us inside the study, closes the door behind us so we don't escape, then points to the chair, climbs on our lap, then pulls our hand to the keyboard and goes : " ba Ba". She can actually say the beginning of a few words in the middle of a rhyme if we stop. Its really so much fun making her do that. She is completely in love with it and refuses to get up even after playing the set multiple times. It breaks our heart to see her cry every time we pull her away from it, but I know it would break our hearts even more to see her wear her first pair of glasses at 5!
Like my husband says: " Some have test-tube babies, we have a u-tube baby"
If I could, I would like to hold time for a little longer to enjoy this phase of joy with her!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Book Review : The Glass Palace
" The Glass Palace" is by Amitav Ghosh, an Indian writer born to Burmese parents. This is a historical novel and that is something that attracted me to pick this up. Another one was the fact that it had a palace in the title and from an earlier post you can see how much I like that!
The book begins with the capture of the Burmese kingdom by the British and the story of the Royal family. With the capture, the royal family is sent on exile to Ratnagiri, a small town near Goa in India.
The story essentially runs as a foreground background duo, with the world affairs, right from the exile, to the world war continuing onto the current modernized era. The author narrates the story of various characters in the foreground. Rajkumar is a young orphaned indian boy who lives in Burma. He spots Dolly, one of the royal family assistants during the riots followed by the capture of the Burmese Kingdom. He instantly falls in love with her.. then she goes to India to live with the Royal family and he goes on to make a living in Burma. They eventually meet through a friend and get married. The story is about all characters before and after their marriage and the intricacies of their lives.
I liked the book for many good reasons - its depth into another culture, the history of it so well articulated. I also liked the book for the multiple dimensions that it goes into ... Olden time Burma, Political connections, British rule in India, Independence movement, the Indian Army and even simple lives of commoners. The author gave me the impression of a very well travelled and well educated person. The story was never unconnected at any point and it was quite captivating in all.
Although I did like to read about a different culture, many words and references, that were pertinent to that culture were not elaborated. It almost assumed your basic knowledge about these and I completely lack those ( I slept through world history in school:)). Sometimes I also found chapters needlessly verbose and elaborate.
Disregarding the two minor points mentioned above, I would recommend this book for anyone who has some patience and love for history and culture.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Potty Training - Chapter 1
Just like all first time moms ( well..ok, some first time moms), I panic for a variety of reasons in the life of my toddler. So naturally, when my daughter had her first diaper rash a few weeks back, I was a panic-monster. At first, I tried to be cool , but when I saw it was not getting any better with her creams, I had it. The fact that it turned out to be fungal dint really help much to ease my tension!
I blamed myself for neglect, blamed my husband more for his, I blamed the concept of diapers, the diaper company, the store that sold these diapers and the list went on. I dint spare anyone :). I googled, read all about diaper rashes, went onto read forums about cloth diapers users and the goodness of getting babies potty trained early on.
Now I was excited and motivated. Well. if some moms out there can get their babies potty trained before 12 months, I should be able to.. especially when I have a 3 month time advantage over them. So started my PT obsession.
I took my little one and all my optimism to babiesrus. I pulled out 3 different potty seats and started examining them. My daughter got very excited as well and started running from one seat to another. Just when I started to pull the 4th one from the shelf, I heard a sound next to me. I turn to see my daughter pushing one of the potty seats and park it right at end of the aisle, comfortably blocking any little space for people to pass by. I also noticed that she was making a " brrrrrr" sound that she does to demonstrate a car ride. That should have been my first clue:) but I dint catch it.
I managed to bring a seat back home. So I put it in the living room and show her to sit on it. She smiles at me and I think to myself " this seems easier than I thought ". I clap to signify her achievement, and she claps as well. As I am going over the next steps in my mind, I see her stand up and run towards her toys. She pulls her favourite doll , Monali and runs back with her to the potty. I was still optimistic since I thought she needed company to remember the rules:) What she did next sealed any little hope I had in this process. She put her doll flat across the potty seat , patted her and began to sing to her!
The seat is now sitting in our bathroom, bright and pink, starting at me in a condescending way! I do hope I can get to it someday and then I can have the last laugh, but for now everyone else is definitely having more fun.
I blamed myself for neglect, blamed my husband more for his, I blamed the concept of diapers, the diaper company, the store that sold these diapers and the list went on. I dint spare anyone :). I googled, read all about diaper rashes, went onto read forums about cloth diapers users and the goodness of getting babies potty trained early on.
Now I was excited and motivated. Well. if some moms out there can get their babies potty trained before 12 months, I should be able to.. especially when I have a 3 month time advantage over them. So started my PT obsession.
I took my little one and all my optimism to babiesrus. I pulled out 3 different potty seats and started examining them. My daughter got very excited as well and started running from one seat to another. Just when I started to pull the 4th one from the shelf, I heard a sound next to me. I turn to see my daughter pushing one of the potty seats and park it right at end of the aisle, comfortably blocking any little space for people to pass by. I also noticed that she was making a " brrrrrr" sound that she does to demonstrate a car ride. That should have been my first clue:) but I dint catch it.
I managed to bring a seat back home. So I put it in the living room and show her to sit on it. She smiles at me and I think to myself " this seems easier than I thought ". I clap to signify her achievement, and she claps as well. As I am going over the next steps in my mind, I see her stand up and run towards her toys. She pulls her favourite doll , Monali and runs back with her to the potty. I was still optimistic since I thought she needed company to remember the rules:) What she did next sealed any little hope I had in this process. She put her doll flat across the potty seat , patted her and began to sing to her!
The seat is now sitting in our bathroom, bright and pink, starting at me in a condescending way! I do hope I can get to it someday and then I can have the last laugh, but for now everyone else is definitely having more fun.
Monday, October 6, 2008
A comdey of errors
I have sometimes been a victim of practical jokes, sometimes been the initiator , but I have thoroughly enjoyed my role in every one of these. I also have a fair share of goof ups that I initiate and hence am a victim!..
1996, BITS Pilani, just before april1
-------------------------------------
A group of 6 , 4 girls and 2 guys decided we need to have more fun and the fool's day just gave us that opportunity. Usually we have a group secretary for the discipline( field of study) who organizes event dinners, once a semester. This person has a letterhead with his/her name printed on it and this is the notice that hangs outside our mess board , when any such event occurs.
We decided that this time, we would give out a fake invite and make people actually arrive at the venue and then we would gather and clap around them. To make it look authentic, we needed the letterhead!. So we took an old invite notice ( thanks to someone who had it with them), pasted a blank paper to cover the old details , leaving the top of the letterhead, then photocopied this notice and wrote out the new fake invite.
The amount of planning and the excited late night meetings that went into this simple thing was probably some of our precious moments:) The invite did go on the boards as scheduled and that dinner was that evening. Oh boy, were we scared to death or what!.. we had the nerve to do all this, but we were certainly not going to show up at the venue and get thrashed! So we all sat inside our respective rooms, dying to know what the reaction was in the boy's hostel.
I don't remember if the boys believed it or not, but we tasted our success when one girl came to our rooms around dinnertime, all decked up , and wanted to know if we wanted to come with her! Even as we were letting the cat out of the bag, our dear friend P wanted to carry the joke further!
We laughed our hearts out that day, but can't forget the look on her face!:)
1997, BITS Pilani
--------------------
We were like cavemen when it came to new technology at BITS. So when we discovered the Internet and the various tricks it could go, we knew the Gods were crazy, but we were crazier:)
Someone discovered that we could send emails to a person from our account by masking our original name , but using an alias ( Till date I have no clue what they did then!). So we decided that our friend P was going to be our target. So, with the help of experts, we sent her an email under the name of H M sakshi( manasakshi stands for conscience and H M stands for Hotmail ). I think the first email was something like this:
" Hello P
You probably know me very well. but I wanted to tell you that I exist, you cant ignore me and that I know exactly what you are doing.
yours
HM sakshi "
P came running to us that evening and started confronting a bunch of us. She was positive it was one of us who was playing a trick, but she dint know who. Then we tried to get her to think about our fabulous knowledge of computer technology and if she really thought any of us would be able to do this. She was partly convinced and we were confident she would never find out the Hows of this trick!
She then went to the guys and declared she knew what they were doing. The guys feigned ignorance and played their part so well that she completely believed them!
The emails started on a daily basis and they would be full of information on all the events in her life. The emails would question her actions and conscience. She was sure it was one of us clearly, but she just dint know who. So when she told us this : I will guess who this person is, but if I am right, I need a grand feast from that person, with desserts( Going out to eat at Pilani was really a big thing those days), If I am wrong, I will treat the entire crowd to Gulab Jamuns, we readily took it for we were sure of our gulab jamuns!. She had 3 guesses and even if she came up with the right name, someone else was readied to take the blame. We did have a great time enjoying our gulab jamun, while P was still throwing invective at us:)
1999 BITS Pilani, Girl's hostel
-------------------------------
This was our final year at BITS and some of our friends already had good proposals for marriage, one was engaged, one was flirting with her to-be-fiancee on the phone and certainly all our parents were atleast thinking about it.
So when my mom called to tell me about a proposal she received, I brushed her off saying I was not interested. She still went ahead and mentioned that he lived in California and his name was V. I dint want to hear more, so I slammed the phone down and came back to P's room and made the mistake of telling her about the phone call. She nodded with what seemed like a lot of empathy, but now I know her evil mind was making little plans that would unfold into a huge practical joke, where I was to play the lead role.
When I called my mom a few days later, she casually told me that she has given my number to V and that he might call. I was mad at her, but she said he insisted on just a casual talk and that I could tell him myself what i thought. I did what I always do... go and confide in my friends. The phone call did come and I was quite shocked. This is how the conversation went:
After the initial hellos ...
He : So what is your course at BITS? I dint catch what your mom said.
Me : Its a kind of engineering management, with basics of engineering the first couple of years, followed by management courses the last couple of years
He : So is it like an MBA?
Me: Not really, but you could say long those lines.
He : hmm.. I guess not my cup of tea. ( laugh)
Me ( thinking) : whatever!
Me : So what do you do?
He : Oh I study at Purdue
Me: But my mom told me you live in california
He : really? Maybe she is mistaken... So what are your plans after graduation?
Me : Well, not marriage for one. But I plan to work for sometime to begin with.
He : Yes I do get your hint... but I am not ready for anything right now as well. Why don't we start out to be friends and then take it from there? No pressure of any kind
Me : Well.. ok, but I am quite positive about what I said.
He : Yes, I can guess that.. my email id is .... what is urs?
As soon as the conversation ended, I came back to my room to find the entire crowd waiting in anticipation, like we always do when there is gossip!, So I narrated the word by word exchange and saw the excited look on their faces! " he seems nice"." hey V is a nice name".." Purdue , wow.."
The next day, I do get an email from his id, saying that he was looking forward to being friends with me or something like that. As I looked at the tail of the email, I saw that this was an internal email sent from within campus !!. To say I was confused would be an understatement. When my friends started unfolding their trick, I was gobsmacked. Here is how it went:
They called my mom and told her about the trick and she decided to go along with it.. hence the phone call. ( In my defense, this is what prompted me to believe the whole act). The person who called me was my very good friend G, who has gone with P to a phone booth outside campus. They had requested others there to leave for a few minutes, so that there would be no Hindi conversation heard in the background. G then used a cloth to cover the phone and spoke to me. In fact G belonged to the same field of study as mine , but he played the part of trying not to understand what I said about Engineering management, to perfection! They realised the goof up about Purdue and California after the call, but decided my geography was as bad as theirs, so I would not find out.
I ended up taking everyone out for a dessert treat, while playing the part of the " fooled" hostess very well!
1996, BITS Pilani, just before april1
-------------------------------------
A group of 6 , 4 girls and 2 guys decided we need to have more fun and the fool's day just gave us that opportunity. Usually we have a group secretary for the discipline( field of study) who organizes event dinners, once a semester. This person has a letterhead with his/her name printed on it and this is the notice that hangs outside our mess board , when any such event occurs.
We decided that this time, we would give out a fake invite and make people actually arrive at the venue and then we would gather and clap around them. To make it look authentic, we needed the letterhead!. So we took an old invite notice ( thanks to someone who had it with them), pasted a blank paper to cover the old details , leaving the top of the letterhead, then photocopied this notice and wrote out the new fake invite.
The amount of planning and the excited late night meetings that went into this simple thing was probably some of our precious moments:) The invite did go on the boards as scheduled and that dinner was that evening. Oh boy, were we scared to death or what!.. we had the nerve to do all this, but we were certainly not going to show up at the venue and get thrashed! So we all sat inside our respective rooms, dying to know what the reaction was in the boy's hostel.
I don't remember if the boys believed it or not, but we tasted our success when one girl came to our rooms around dinnertime, all decked up , and wanted to know if we wanted to come with her! Even as we were letting the cat out of the bag, our dear friend P wanted to carry the joke further!
We laughed our hearts out that day, but can't forget the look on her face!:)
1997, BITS Pilani
--------------------
We were like cavemen when it came to new technology at BITS. So when we discovered the Internet and the various tricks it could go, we knew the Gods were crazy, but we were crazier:)
Someone discovered that we could send emails to a person from our account by masking our original name , but using an alias ( Till date I have no clue what they did then!). So we decided that our friend P was going to be our target. So, with the help of experts, we sent her an email under the name of H M sakshi( manasakshi stands for conscience and H M stands for Hotmail ). I think the first email was something like this:
" Hello P
You probably know me very well. but I wanted to tell you that I exist, you cant ignore me and that I know exactly what you are doing.
yours
HM sakshi "
P came running to us that evening and started confronting a bunch of us. She was positive it was one of us who was playing a trick, but she dint know who. Then we tried to get her to think about our fabulous knowledge of computer technology and if she really thought any of us would be able to do this. She was partly convinced and we were confident she would never find out the Hows of this trick!
She then went to the guys and declared she knew what they were doing. The guys feigned ignorance and played their part so well that she completely believed them!
The emails started on a daily basis and they would be full of information on all the events in her life. The emails would question her actions and conscience. She was sure it was one of us clearly, but she just dint know who. So when she told us this : I will guess who this person is, but if I am right, I need a grand feast from that person, with desserts( Going out to eat at Pilani was really a big thing those days), If I am wrong, I will treat the entire crowd to Gulab Jamuns, we readily took it for we were sure of our gulab jamuns!. She had 3 guesses and even if she came up with the right name, someone else was readied to take the blame. We did have a great time enjoying our gulab jamun, while P was still throwing invective at us:)
1999 BITS Pilani, Girl's hostel
-------------------------------
This was our final year at BITS and some of our friends already had good proposals for marriage, one was engaged, one was flirting with her to-be-fiancee on the phone and certainly all our parents were atleast thinking about it.
So when my mom called to tell me about a proposal she received, I brushed her off saying I was not interested. She still went ahead and mentioned that he lived in California and his name was V. I dint want to hear more, so I slammed the phone down and came back to P's room and made the mistake of telling her about the phone call. She nodded with what seemed like a lot of empathy, but now I know her evil mind was making little plans that would unfold into a huge practical joke, where I was to play the lead role.
When I called my mom a few days later, she casually told me that she has given my number to V and that he might call. I was mad at her, but she said he insisted on just a casual talk and that I could tell him myself what i thought. I did what I always do... go and confide in my friends. The phone call did come and I was quite shocked. This is how the conversation went:
After the initial hellos ...
He : So what is your course at BITS? I dint catch what your mom said.
Me : Its a kind of engineering management, with basics of engineering the first couple of years, followed by management courses the last couple of years
He : So is it like an MBA?
Me: Not really, but you could say long those lines.
He : hmm.. I guess not my cup of tea. ( laugh)
Me ( thinking) : whatever!
Me : So what do you do?
He : Oh I study at Purdue
Me: But my mom told me you live in california
He : really? Maybe she is mistaken... So what are your plans after graduation?
Me : Well, not marriage for one. But I plan to work for sometime to begin with.
He : Yes I do get your hint... but I am not ready for anything right now as well. Why don't we start out to be friends and then take it from there? No pressure of any kind
Me : Well.. ok, but I am quite positive about what I said.
He : Yes, I can guess that.. my email id is .... what is urs?
As soon as the conversation ended, I came back to my room to find the entire crowd waiting in anticipation, like we always do when there is gossip!, So I narrated the word by word exchange and saw the excited look on their faces! " he seems nice"." hey V is a nice name".." Purdue , wow.."
The next day, I do get an email from his id, saying that he was looking forward to being friends with me or something like that. As I looked at the tail of the email, I saw that this was an internal email sent from within campus !!. To say I was confused would be an understatement. When my friends started unfolding their trick, I was gobsmacked. Here is how it went:
They called my mom and told her about the trick and she decided to go along with it.. hence the phone call. ( In my defense, this is what prompted me to believe the whole act). The person who called me was my very good friend G, who has gone with P to a phone booth outside campus. They had requested others there to leave for a few minutes, so that there would be no Hindi conversation heard in the background. G then used a cloth to cover the phone and spoke to me. In fact G belonged to the same field of study as mine , but he played the part of trying not to understand what I said about Engineering management, to perfection! They realised the goof up about Purdue and California after the call, but decided my geography was as bad as theirs, so I would not find out.
I ended up taking everyone out for a dessert treat, while playing the part of the " fooled" hostess very well!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The colorful variety
When I was pregnant, I asked my mom : " Ma , how do you think my baby will look?". She said : " However she looks, I hope she is healthy." I stared at her while I took my pregnant pause, trying to savor her words, surprised. As I thought to myself - my mom has finally given up her color bias and I cannot believe., her voice interrupted me : " .. and maybe she will have Srikanth's ( my husband) color". Aha!, now things are back normal. " Why ma, can she not have my skin color?" By then my mom has already gone to make me saffron milk ( Saffron apparently can go and polish your baby's color in the womb itself)
Where I come from, a person's color plays quite a big role , especially in the matrimonial market. When my parents were trying to give an Ad for me, they wanted to write : " Very Fair, Slim, tall, well educated female seeking..." . I confronted them one wrong wording at a time " Ma, I am not very fair, why do you say that? " " Priya, that is what everyone says. Very fair does not mean very fair" Uh really ? then what does it mean? I am the color of charcoal , but if you rub your eyes really hard and take a good look, I would be shining like moon!
My parents then agreed to take Very Fair off the table and put Fair instead!. NO i could not argue myself out of this, for it was supposedly the basic minimum requirement even for the newspaper to let your Ad pass through.
" Sir, you have not marked anything in the color column"
" Uh. yes we dint want to mention color"
" Sorry sir, its a compulsory box, I will just mark the default ( Fair) option for you"
This is also a common topic of conversation in our family circle. " When Priya was born, she was so pink and very very fair. What happened over the years?" As I look around the room, I can see some sad nods and a few sympathy clucks, but not a single fair skinned face. That is when I want to bring in a huge mirror and point out a factor called Genetics!. But that conversation would be so not worth it.
" paati, its in the genes"
" Really?See, that's why I told you not to wear those"
When my daughter was born , the first thing my mom told my mother-in-law was this : " Baby is of very good color". I am sure my mother-in-law had been praying coconuts to every God for 9 months to hear these same words! and I am quite positive she finally slept a whole 8 hours that night.
Recently my daughter's skin is getting darker and this is the constant worry between my parents on yahoo. My dad to me : " Amma says sonali looks darker than the snap you sent yesterday" " Appa, both were taken on the same day" " Oh oh, then maybe its the lighting, I will tell amma".
Next day : " Amma says she seems darker on the webcam too" " Yes pa, she is finally beginning to look like our family:) " Dad , clearly not happy with my answer " why don't you try some coconut oil? All the women in our family have used it and have gotten results?" REALLY? If that's true, can you imagine how my clan would have been earlier?
This obsession is not specific to my family and I know that for a fact!. My mom-in-law has told me this, only about a million times : " My son was called a pink baby and my daughter was a white baby". When I take a good look at my husband, she is quick to add : " He has been drinking too much coffee, so he has lost color on his face. But you should see him with his shirt off, his skin is the color of milk".
Well you should have mentioned this in your Matrimonial ad for your son : " 28 Yr old Male, fair with shirt on, white with shirt off, seeks an equally colorful female.......". You bet I would have responded, besides a few peacocks and parrots!
Where I come from, a person's color plays quite a big role , especially in the matrimonial market. When my parents were trying to give an Ad for me, they wanted to write : " Very Fair, Slim, tall, well educated female seeking..." . I confronted them one wrong wording at a time " Ma, I am not very fair, why do you say that? " " Priya, that is what everyone says. Very fair does not mean very fair" Uh really ? then what does it mean? I am the color of charcoal , but if you rub your eyes really hard and take a good look, I would be shining like moon!
My parents then agreed to take Very Fair off the table and put Fair instead!. NO i could not argue myself out of this, for it was supposedly the basic minimum requirement even for the newspaper to let your Ad pass through.
" Sir, you have not marked anything in the color column"
" Uh. yes we dint want to mention color"
" Sorry sir, its a compulsory box, I will just mark the default ( Fair) option for you"
This is also a common topic of conversation in our family circle. " When Priya was born, she was so pink and very very fair. What happened over the years?" As I look around the room, I can see some sad nods and a few sympathy clucks, but not a single fair skinned face. That is when I want to bring in a huge mirror and point out a factor called Genetics!. But that conversation would be so not worth it.
" paati, its in the genes"
" Really?See, that's why I told you not to wear those"
When my daughter was born , the first thing my mom told my mother-in-law was this : " Baby is of very good color". I am sure my mother-in-law had been praying coconuts to every God for 9 months to hear these same words! and I am quite positive she finally slept a whole 8 hours that night.
Recently my daughter's skin is getting darker and this is the constant worry between my parents on yahoo. My dad to me : " Amma says sonali looks darker than the snap you sent yesterday" " Appa, both were taken on the same day" " Oh oh, then maybe its the lighting, I will tell amma".
Next day : " Amma says she seems darker on the webcam too" " Yes pa, she is finally beginning to look like our family:) " Dad , clearly not happy with my answer " why don't you try some coconut oil? All the women in our family have used it and have gotten results?" REALLY? If that's true, can you imagine how my clan would have been earlier?
This obsession is not specific to my family and I know that for a fact!. My mom-in-law has told me this, only about a million times : " My son was called a pink baby and my daughter was a white baby". When I take a good look at my husband, she is quick to add : " He has been drinking too much coffee, so he has lost color on his face. But you should see him with his shirt off, his skin is the color of milk".
Well you should have mentioned this in your Matrimonial ad for your son : " 28 Yr old Male, fair with shirt on, white with shirt off, seeks an equally colorful female.......". You bet I would have responded, besides a few peacocks and parrots!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Growing into and like each other
My parents are a very peaceful couple - at least for the 8 hours when they are sleeping. The rest of the time, well that is a totally different story. When a roommate of mine once told me that her inlaws' place was like a Malayalam award movie, I was stunned!. " You mean they don't talk at all? Even when they pass each other? " Mine don't even need to exist in the same room for an argument. Its also funny how they miss each other so much when they are away. My dad is with us now and mom is back in India... he needs to talk to her on yahoo everyday. I think this is what they mean by growing into each other as you grow older!
Earlier my mom would complain that my dad never takes interest her in family. " You should have seen your dad when I told him about how my sister's daugther-in-law's mom's brother spoke at that function. He dint care! He simply told me not to bother about such things as well. How can I let my folks down like that?" Another constant complaint would be how he never helps her in the kitchen. " Have you seen how your friend Mr. X came back from the US a changed man? He cuts vegetable for his wife , cleans the dishes, even obliges to eat her food! You have made 2 trips and have learnt to do nothing for me.! "
Well, now things are a little different. When my dad asks my mom how her folks are and if they managed to finally settle the last argument between her sister and her brother, my mom goes : " You wont understand all that. Its different. I think its best you don't interfere. "
Yet another time my dad was helping her dry the dishes and put them back in their place . " OH My god!.. what are you doing? what is the hurry to do that? I told you never to come inside the kitchen. Is there no cricket on TV? U should go and read the paper again".
I guess this is what they mean by growing like each other!. It does seem like my parents have become more like each other, and that only makes the equation worse!.
I have also heard married people begin to look like each other when they grow older.
SCARY!. If that is true, I need to stop blogging, start working and save money for my plastic surgery later. Ciao!
Earlier my mom would complain that my dad never takes interest her in family. " You should have seen your dad when I told him about how my sister's daugther-in-law's mom's brother spoke at that function. He dint care! He simply told me not to bother about such things as well. How can I let my folks down like that?" Another constant complaint would be how he never helps her in the kitchen. " Have you seen how your friend Mr. X came back from the US a changed man? He cuts vegetable for his wife , cleans the dishes, even obliges to eat her food! You have made 2 trips and have learnt to do nothing for me.! "
Well, now things are a little different. When my dad asks my mom how her folks are and if they managed to finally settle the last argument between her sister and her brother, my mom goes : " You wont understand all that. Its different. I think its best you don't interfere. "
Yet another time my dad was helping her dry the dishes and put them back in their place . " OH My god!.. what are you doing? what is the hurry to do that? I told you never to come inside the kitchen. Is there no cricket on TV? U should go and read the paper again".
I guess this is what they mean by growing like each other!. It does seem like my parents have become more like each other, and that only makes the equation worse!.
I have also heard married people begin to look like each other when they grow older.
SCARY!. If that is true, I need to stop blogging, start working and save money for my plastic surgery later. Ciao!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Book Review - A palace of Illusions
If you like reading mythology, I am confident you will be taken by this book as I am
A Palace of illusions is the story of the great Indian epic, Mahabaratha as seen from a completely different perspective - one of Paanchali Alias Draupadi, who was the very reason for the great battle of Kurukshetra.
The story begins from the birth of Draupadi and her Brother Dhriystaduma from the fire. The story of the various characters in her life and her own story have been beautifully juxtaposed by the author. The entire novel is a narration of how draupadi feels about things that happen in her life, how she believes herself to be no ordinary girl , how women in generally feel helpless many times and how she is determined to make a mark in history.
Draupadi feels she is wronged when she is not allowed to learn the skills her brother Dhri gets to practise everyday. She hopes, like any other girl to find love in her life. So when her father decides to arrange her marriage by promising her hand to someone who can prove his skill in archery, she is furious that she is a mere pawn in this whole game. She is less than excited when she discovers that she is to be shared as wife among 5 brothers ( pandavas). She blames her mother-inlaw Kunti for such a garish proposal and for the fact that her real husband Arjun does not even have the courage to stand up for her.
She goes through her life and slowly begins to realize her dreams when she gets a palace of her own in Indrapastha. - the palace of illusions. Her good companion since birth has been Krishna, whose talk throws more riddles than her own life. Yet he is her companion when she needs help the most. The rest of the story goes through how she is defamed by her husband's cousins, the Kauravas and how this goes about bringing the worst battle in history of Bharat - Kurukshetra.
A very interesting point in this entire novel is Draupadi's secret desire for Karna , who is the eldest brother of the Pandavas, but by circumstances befriends the Kaurava head Duryodhana, thus becoming an enemy to her and her husbands. When you finish reading the book, you cannot escape this clandestine desire that transpires between these two ( At some point, Karna also confesses his love for Draupadi to someone else). A very well deserved twist in the tale, that I found very captivating!.
The book is really beautiful and I found it very difficult to put it down every night. I have read the Mahabaratha earlier and I love it.. but this is even better. Yes it is a figment of the author's imagination, but isn't Mahabaratha Vyasa's imagination as well?
Are you still reading my blog?! C'mon, go and grab this book now and you wont be disappointed:)
A Palace of illusions is the story of the great Indian epic, Mahabaratha as seen from a completely different perspective - one of Paanchali Alias Draupadi, who was the very reason for the great battle of Kurukshetra.
The story begins from the birth of Draupadi and her Brother Dhriystaduma from the fire. The story of the various characters in her life and her own story have been beautifully juxtaposed by the author. The entire novel is a narration of how draupadi feels about things that happen in her life, how she believes herself to be no ordinary girl , how women in generally feel helpless many times and how she is determined to make a mark in history.
Draupadi feels she is wronged when she is not allowed to learn the skills her brother Dhri gets to practise everyday. She hopes, like any other girl to find love in her life. So when her father decides to arrange her marriage by promising her hand to someone who can prove his skill in archery, she is furious that she is a mere pawn in this whole game. She is less than excited when she discovers that she is to be shared as wife among 5 brothers ( pandavas). She blames her mother-inlaw Kunti for such a garish proposal and for the fact that her real husband Arjun does not even have the courage to stand up for her.
She goes through her life and slowly begins to realize her dreams when she gets a palace of her own in Indrapastha. - the palace of illusions. Her good companion since birth has been Krishna, whose talk throws more riddles than her own life. Yet he is her companion when she needs help the most. The rest of the story goes through how she is defamed by her husband's cousins, the Kauravas and how this goes about bringing the worst battle in history of Bharat - Kurukshetra.
A very interesting point in this entire novel is Draupadi's secret desire for Karna , who is the eldest brother of the Pandavas, but by circumstances befriends the Kaurava head Duryodhana, thus becoming an enemy to her and her husbands. When you finish reading the book, you cannot escape this clandestine desire that transpires between these two ( At some point, Karna also confesses his love for Draupadi to someone else). A very well deserved twist in the tale, that I found very captivating!.
The book is really beautiful and I found it very difficult to put it down every night. I have read the Mahabaratha earlier and I love it.. but this is even better. Yes it is a figment of the author's imagination, but isn't Mahabaratha Vyasa's imagination as well?
Are you still reading my blog?! C'mon, go and grab this book now and you wont be disappointed:)
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