MOTHERHOOD MEANS…

1. …getting to smell that ineffably sweet mixture of Johnson’s baby powder-cum-curdled-milk emanating from my little baby’s downy softer-than-a-petal neck, which is my favourite snuggling spot. I am doubly lucky to have a double treasure of snuggly-soft back-of-the-neck spots.
   
2. …having two extra pairs of helping hands in the kitchen in the holidays. Although I am not too sure about the helping part. But the best thing about these two pairs of small (and smaller) hands is that I just love how they hold tightly on to my hands sometimes, when we cross a busy road or when we walk into a dark room. Whenever.
   
3. …giving a contented sigh when I see the two little fast-asleep faces. I find it so amazing how they manage to fall asleep in a jiffy. One moment, they are wide awake - demanding a glass of water/ a new story/ an answer to some unfathomable question, then their eyelids droop, the stare becomes fixed-yet-unfocused, and the next moment they are fast asleep. Blessed and Glorious Peace reigns. And I rub sleep away from my own tired eyes and get up for some me-time: reading books, blogging, what-have-you. I am really happiest when they are sleeping!!!
   
4. …sitting two seats away from the spouse with the kids hogging the seats in-between. We are just back from a week-long trip to my brother’s place in Bangalore, and at the airport, a newly-married couple was sitting all lovey-dovey, hands-entwined (to put it mildly), side-by-side. And all the oldly-married couples saddled-with-children (like us) were looking at them enviously as if at a distant memory. That life when we could gaze into each other’s eyes uninterruptedly for hours on end seems to belong to a past life. Now the daily clock has been hijacked by two little terrors. And romance is a few stolen moments spent remembering the old together-days or discussing – guess what? – children!
   
5. …a job with a 1001 responsibilities, round-the-clock duties and NO OVERTIME PAY. The boss (or bosses, two in my case) are perfect little tyrants – very demanding, moody, ungrateful, tantrum-throwing divas. It’s funny - in this job, I have LOST a lot of things: my sleep, my hair, my happy-go-lucky care-freedom. And all the nice things that happen usually happen to my two BOSSES – the first smile, the first rolling over, the first crawl, the first faltering walk, the first lisping talk, the first day at school. I (and the spouse) are just the foolishly-happy witnesses/caretakers/cleaners. But though motherhood is such a tough job, I wouldn’t have it any other way, actually.
   
   Thank you, SDG at Whims-and-Wishes for this wonderful tag about the 5 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BEING A MOM. I thought hard and deep, but could come up with only two (the neck-snuggle and the hand-clutching). The other three points are THINGS THAT ARE BOUND TO HAPPEN IF YOU ARE A MOM - WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!
   
   Instead of passing the tag on to specific victims, er…parents, I leave it open for all mothers and fathers to comment or write a post about their own 5 favourite parenthood moments. Enjoy!

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM A FRIEND…

...I’ll try to come up with an HONEST POST. A ten-point honest (no fingers crossed, no bite-my-tongue) confession:

1. I love shopping. And even more than that, I love shopping all by myself, without the family tagging along.
   


2. I may moan and groan about being overweight, but I love eating too much to be serious about any weight-loss attempt. Whenever I lose a bit of weight, I put it right back by eating out in celebration.
   


3. I always read the frivolous Mumbai Mirror before the serious Times of India, much to the chagrin of the spouse. I’m a Page-3 junkie, and I get my fix before educating myself with the Page-1 stuff.
   


4. I love frothy, no-brainer chick-lit books, especially the ones written by Sophie Kinsella. And I can keep re-reading my tattered Agatha Christies forever and ever.
   


5. I hate it when something I cook turns out to be not-so-good, and when people (myself included) refuse to eat it.
   


6. I hate being compared unfavourably to anybody, especially the MIL.
   


7. I am really, really scared of lizards.
   


8. I am happiest on Saturday nights, when there’s the w—h-o-l-e of Sunday still remaining before week/work drudgery begins again.
   


9. Deep-down I believe that overpopulation is the root cause of all our problems.
   


10. I cry really really easily, even in front of other people, much to the spouse’s embarrassment. And when I just can’t stop, I have to pretend that something has got into my eyes and is irritating my contact lenses.
    
11. And here's a bonus confession, because honesty is addictive: I have not watched a single IPL match. I OD-ed on cricket long back. Give me a Federer-Nadal tennis match anyday. On second thoughts, any match where Federer wins. Because if he loses (as he so often does nowadays) it just makes me cry all over again.
    

A big thanks to Sayani, who has tagged me to write this post and has given me an award to egg me on...

So, here I am, cheering you on, trying to spread honesty, now do come up with an honest confession about yourself.

TWICE TAGGED, NEVER SHY!

Nancy has tagged me, and so has Mystic Margarita. In the true spirit of a teacher and dealer in questions and answers, I take up my tag-tasks:

Nancy’s tag, which, she says, got started at http://annagain66.blogspot.com/ is like a class test. Short, probing but pithy.

1. Where were you 10 years ago?
A decade back, I was a carefree, yet-to-be-a-year-old-blushing-bride, working in a swank bank in Kolkata.
2. What's on your to-do list today?
The usual – rush to work, rush back to kids, cook, teach, feed, clean. And chat with my mom (she’s on her annual month-long trip to my place) and the spouse (when we manage to sit for the 30-minutes post-dinner talk, post-the-kids’-bedtime). Very mundane, very me.
3. What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Travel round the world, get a liposuction, save for later, buy a house in Bandra (but that would take up my billion, I guess, with the sky-busting property prices in Mumbai).
4. Name five places you've lived.
Barrackpore, Kolkata (Kaikhali, Jodhpur Park and Jadavpur), Mumbai (all in India).
5. Name three bad habits of yours.
I forget things; I argue a bit too much, I’m a control freak.
6. What's your favorite snack?
I am trying to diet, so I’ll be pious and say “fruits”. (Snickers bars and jeera/kokum/hing/imli golis, actually).
7. Who will you tag next?
Sidhubaba.

Margarita’s tag is longer, like a Honours Paper. It grills me extensively on various emotional why-s and fantastic what-ifs. My time starts now.

The rules for the tag are:RULE #1 People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.RULE #2 Tag 6 people to do this quiz and those who are tagged cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by and cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by continue this game by sending it to other people.

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?

Tears, idle tears. I’m a leaky tap when heartbroken.
2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?

To see myself and my loved ones safe, sane and happy (and rich and famous and slim, is possible).
3. Whose butt would you like to kick?

Anybody who blocks my way when I’m in a hurry.

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?

Though I’ve already done this, let me add, I’d splurge half and save half.
5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?

I did, although he sometimes feels it’s like sleeping with the enemy.
6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?

I’m greedy, I wanna have both.

7. How long would you wait for someone you loved?

If he loves me back, he’ll come to me ASAP.

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?

Mope and move. Triangles are stressful, pointy, troublesome things to be trapped in.

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?

Population control - the snowball effects of overpopulation freak me out.

10. What takes you down the fastest?

Lack of logic.
11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

I don’t really want to take the fun out of my future by limiting it.
12. What’s your fear?

Losing those I love.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

A lovely person – very capable mom, very readable writer, and a really sweet long distance blog-friend.
14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?

Since I’m already the second, I’d rather not wonder about the greener grass on the other side of the matrimonial fence.
15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

Wish I could sleep for a few hours more.
16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?

That’s a ‘loaded’ question!
17. Would you give all in a relationship?

I already have. I also get back a lot, which makes it all worthwhile.
18. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?
Forgive perhaps, but not forget.
19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?

I love my emotional crutches.
20. List of 6 people to tag:

Sidhubaba, Sukku, Koel, Scatterbrain, Jaquanda Rae, Gappa.

AH - WARD

Hey, I'm so thrilled it took me 3 attempts to type this out.

Mystic Margarita has so, so graciously given me an award for being a BRILLIANT WEBLOG (I've always thought so, he-he, but I had my doubts). Well, doubt no more shall I because, as Shah Rukh Khan so immodestly sang, "I'm the best, I'm the best, I'm the be-ee-sst" (along with a host of others, but then, it's a lovely feeling, nonetheless.

But with this great reward comes great responsibility.
Here are the rules for this award: This award is for blogs whose content and/or design are brilliant as well as creative. The purpose of the prize is to promote as many blogs as possible in the blogosphere.

1. When you receive the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back

2. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs (or even more) that you find brilliant in their content or design.

3. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing they were prized with ‘Brilliant Weblog’

4. Show a picture of those who awarded you and those you give the prize (optional).

5. And then we pass it on!

And, this award goes...to...(DRUMROLL)...to...(AGONY OF SUSPENSE STRETCH---ED) ...to... (AFTER A BREAK FOR A ZILLION ADS)...

Sidhubaba - wit and wisdom, a heady cocktail.

Gappa - wit, wisdom, warmth and a woman, another heady cocktail.

Scatterbrain - she writes straight from the heart.

Paul's Daily Postcard - wordsmith with fabulous, fictional ideas.

Jaquanda Rae - skintingling, mindblowing poetry, and great prose, too.

Fleur de Aleta - a lovely warm person and a lovely slice-of-life blog.

Nancy - An afficianado of good food, wine and books - it can't get any better than this.

Sukku - amazing energy, globe-trotting repertoire.

So, let's roll the red carpet and pop the bubbly! Wheee....

YOURS INTROSPECTIVELY, TAGGED (AGAIN)!

Sukku, the multi-faceted, globe-trotting, corporate honcho who can cook a mean rasam/sambal/omlette, has tagged me with a meme which required some amount of soul-searching and number-crunching. Thanks Sukku, and here goes:

5 Annoying Things (as in things that annoy ME):

The inevitable wait as my obsolete dial-up net connection blinks and flashes and STRUGGLES to open and move from one site to another

Getting mud-splashed by thoughtless cars while going to work during the rainy season

The didn’t-dry-properly smell of clothes inadequately dried under fans on sunless, rainy days

Going to my fourth class of the day with a mouthful of lectures, only to find that the students have run away after the tiffin break

Being refused by autorickshaw drivers when I’m pressed for time.

8 Habits (that I have):

Waking up reasonably early even on holidays (The Pavlov-effect of weekday alarms at 5.30 a.m)

Snacking on sour/sweet stuff in the staffroom when I’m not taking classes

Blogging post-midnight

Sleeping even later

Opening the refrigerator door and wondering what on earth I wanted to take out from there

Packing more clothes (in the suitcase) than I end up wearing (in the holidays)

Buying loads of stuff that is on sale to ‘stock up on kitchen-essentials’ (my kitchen is a hoarder’s delight)

Working best under pressure (which I self-create by leaving many things for the proverbial last minute)

6 Quirks (of Myself):

I always play Microsoft Solitaire when I open my PC before moving to worthier pursuits

I always carry two bags when I go out

I compulsively straighten bedcovers which are not laid neatly

I love to sprinkle salt on my cola

I cannot stand the sight of unwashed utensils in the kitchen sink piled untidily and always pile them neatly or wash them immediately

I always read books when I’m eating out alone.

That’s it. A whole lot of info about I-Me-Myself. Please feel free to help yourself to this meme if you want to dig deep into yourself. I enjoyed the self-dissection and the dissertation!

TEN TAGGED CHARACTERS, STANDING ON THE WALL…

Thanks to Mystic Margarita, the many characters who leap off the pages of books and take up residence in my head and heart, now have a reason to display themselves. And so here are ten random characters I have long-loved, straight off my memory-wall:

Hercule Poirot: Agatha Christie is one author I never get tired of re-reading and I just adore the pompous and poised Poirot – from his egg-shaped head with the genius grey-cells, to his shiny-patent shoes; from the dapper-waxed moustache to the heart which conceals a sneaky fondness for robust, overdressed femme fatales.

Rhett Butler: Another hirsute hero, though with a completely different appeal. Since Mystic Margarita has appropriated Heathcliff, I lay quick claim to Rhett – his swagger, his swarthy-manliness and his persistent passion for the fiesty Scarlett. The impact on my swooning senses was all the stronger because of Clark Gable’s dashing portrayal – it was the first time I realized that mustaches could be so sexy!

Bridget Jones: Totally feckless, totally madcap-romantic, obsessed with weight-issues, and a wholly freaky-funny peril-prone thirty-something damsel like you and me. What’s not to love? And to top it all, she gets to bed and wed a reincarnated Darcy (another fave-figure appropriated by Mystic…Gaaah!)

Precious Ramotswe: The founder of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency – the first of its kind in sunny-sinful Botswana. I love her weight (she is ‘traditionally built’) and her wisdom (she solves her cases through observation, intuition, common sense aided by endless cups of bush tea and by diligently referring to her detection-guide-bible) and her wide, all-encompassing, placid acceptance of life.

Karna: The Mahabharata’s anti-hero is my favourite underdog: forever strong, unshakably brave, fiercely loyal, but always dealt a cruel hand by the Fates. I cannot stand Arjun, Righteousness’s poster-boy, and I always root for Karna, although he is Fortune’s eyesore and always at the wrong place at the wrong time – right down to his death when his chariot wheel gets stuck in the battlefield.

Seymour: Seymour was the unnamed narrator’s elder brother in J D Salinger’s short story, Seymour: An Introduction. He had an enormous impact on his brother’s (and my) psyche and he killed himself almost before (or because?) he was thirty. Way out!

Charlie Brown: It’s impossible not to love the round-headed kid, eternally optimistic at baseball, eternally incapable of expressing his feelings to the red-haired girl, and eternally heckled by the crabby Lucy and by his kid-sister. I chose him over Calvin (him and his tiger Hobbes), because I’m a sucker for wistful losers!

King Lear: Another loser who has impacted me greatly (sorry for the irreverence in placing him next to Peanuts). Lear’s impetuosity, his royal arrogance and ignorance, his very human foibles and hamartia, his ability to forgive, accept and embrace and his free-fall into unplumbed depths of suffering – this is the only Shakespearean play which ACTUALLY moves me to tears.

Harry Potter: I’m unashamedly Potter-maniacal. Brave and balanced but not boring, smart and sensible but not smart-alecky, I loved the whole trajectory of his growth through the seven Potter-books. And he is not a loser. He is the boy who lives. And wins.

Winnie-the-Pooh: So what if he’s not human? I love the Bear of Little Brain and the Big Stomach always rumbling for honey. I love his winsome-ness and his wonder-at-such-simple-things and his whole-new-perspective-on-things. Once he entered Rabbit’s hole, ate too much honey and got stuck while coming out of the hole. That’s the way he is, forever stuck in my heart.

This list can actually go on and on and on…Thanks MM. Anybody who wishes to make their own list, please consider yourself tagged. The pleasure of reading will be mine.

I'M TAGGED...AND THRILLED TO A T!

This is the first time I've ever been tagged and, obviously, I'm totally thrilled...like Alice when she entered the magic garden of flowers!

Mystic Margarita has tagged me and I owe her big-time, because this is a tag that I've seen on some other blogs and had wished that I could also play this tag-game.
Ok, here are the rules:
Pick up the nearest book.
Open to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the next three sentences.
Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you .

The funny thing is, I always sit with a book when I'm using the Internet, simply because net traffic moves so slowly (I have a pre-historic dial-up connection) that I always reach for the book when I'm caught in a net-traffic-jam (while it's loading, I'm reading).

At present I'm reading Dorothy L Sayers' Have His Carcase starring her adorable, aristocratic, amateur- sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey and his will-she-marry-me detective-novelist girlfriend, Harriet Vane. Most of us have read or heard about the popular Agatha Christie, D L Sayers was her contemporary crime-fiction writer in the Golden Age (Inter-war Britain). Her novels are much more allusive and erudite (and so, less popular), Wimsey is quirky, self-deprecating, well-read and very, very amusing. The plots are convoluted (as they should be), the setting is always vividly re-created and the Wimsey-Vane relationship is a working-comedy-of-manners.

Though the sentences I'm posting (from Page 123, sixth sentence onwards) sadly do not demonstrate Sayers' wit, tag-rules are rules. Here's Inspector Umpelty (I just love the name, don't you?) detailing the mysterious actions of the murder-victim, Paul Alexis, (a few days prior to his murder) to Lord Peter Wimsey (another delightful name!):

"To cut a long story short, they went to the Seahampton branch of the London & Westminister and got the O.K on the notes, after which Bennett handed over the gold and Alexis took it away in a leather hand-bag. And that's all there to it. But we've checked up the dates with the bank-people, and it's quite clear that Alexis drew his money out here for the purpose of changing it to gold as soon as ever he saw the account of Ann Bennett's death in the papers."

Now, doesn't that fill you with suspense - WHY and WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? As I've not finished the book yet (my pagemark's on Page 252), I don't know the answers myself.

To finish my tag-task, I'm tagging
sidhubaba
nancy
scatterbrain
jyotsana
sayani
Happy reading!