Life and Times in Bangalore

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2010-05-23T23:11:00.003+05:30

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A new puppy

2010-05-21T12:38:00.002+05:30

is a child and is not as tough to manage as a human one. She is easier to toilet train, mine is much smarter than all other inhabitants in the home, she understands, gives some serious unconditional loving, sleeps for 22 of 24 hours and does not back answer...silence is an option when we spend time with her!

Kids take 1 year or two to toilet train, have to have bums washed and tuition fees paid, test your patience and knowledge and can hit out right at the core into your self esteem. People generally get really upset when I compare kids to dogs but in my mind, they are one and the same. In fact, if you have two of the former, one in the latter category will help you thrive...err...survive!

Animal rights is a topic really close to my heart. And it kills me to see the situation world over and especially in India. We really, really suck taking care of our animal citizens. We speak of the God Bhairava, mess up on dog population control (a commonality with humans, yet again!) and then decide that Animal Birth Control (ABC) is too expensive/labour intensive/slow and try to have 'animal free' cities. Yes, we will kill our animals to make up for our irresponsibility.

I remember a really hot debate with a friend before our return to India. The argument was that we actually take care of our animals because people feed them on an individual level (some of them, nowhere close to what is required, still no sterilization!) and because there are so many starving children/people in the country, there should be no time/space/funds for animals.

The first argument I buy a bit. Some people (very few) take care of the strays in their neighbourhoods. They feed them....giving the animals less reason to forage and take bites of children (Bangalore has had quite a few child deaths from dog attacks). These people care and could be empowered to do more by support from government programs/NGOs. We could help them sterilize their friendly neighbourhood guards and vaccinate them to ensure health and hygiene. Of course we don't do this.

One of my relatives was a real animal guy, as well he would be as a qualified vet and having risen up to manage one of the best veterinary colleges in the country. He would ensure that animals were fed and had enough fresh water for them always at his home. He passed away suddenly recently. I was not there but heard that around 20 - 23 animals came, circumambulated his body lying in the hall, went outside and sat in a row, none of them even looked to where the food had been kept for them. Goose flesh.

As for the second argument, a country has to take care of all its people, all its enviroment, all of it at the same time. Tough job? Absolutely. So take your mind off corruption, you corporators and people in public office and get to the task of governing. Funny how education and righteousness is a disqualification for the most important jobs in the country. Poverty should not be. People should not starve. Grain should not rot. Okay, fix it. Sure it's easy when the eyes are on the right ball.

Animal rights, environment....equally important and at the same time. We can't wait around to feed everyone and then wake up in a world where the animal population is raging out of control and trees have disappeared. This human versus animal debate has to end here. No country can afford to take causes chronologically and solve problems one AFTER the other. This hold good even if government/social sector machinery are efficient and lean, mean machines.

The NGOs in the animal rights sector - that is a subject for another post. Or maybe they are not even worth mention. The Indian population is largely anti animal rights, in almost all areas in any ways that matter. So any organization has an uphill task to start with. Then what do they do? Stick to ideological positions so isolating, idealistic and extreme that they won't forge partnerships with the few options that exist and make it really difficult for anyone to help/support/empower.

If you support animals, you have to go vegan. So, it's okay to hurt plants? Then what does one do? Starve to death in the name of animal rights? I am vegetarian, mind you. Any product in today's world (including plastics!) has some animal parts in it. Do we have the time and resources to study EVERYthing we use and find substitutes? These organizations have to get real. Yesterday. It is sad to see the ambassador damaging his own cause!

I am often asked who I would pull out of a burning home....my kids or my pet. I can't choose. It is all or nothing for me. To live after not watching out for either kids or pets is not even a life. It would not be worth living to me....I wish the choice on this was more black and white to me.

Just like losing a child can't be replaced, losing a pet comes with its pain. Do we not have children foreseeing sorrow in our future? We would be nuts to give up the fun and life that a home gains when a dog enters it. Yes, I know that I will survive Loopy. And know we will all be devastated. But I would not give up this time with her to save myself from future pain. She already brings so much joy to our lives and it has only been two weeks!

Animals rock....dogs for sure and Loopy, especially so!

Until later!

Living below your means

2010-05-17T22:53:00.003+05:30

The mall lights dazzle, the crowds seem to surge endlessly, mall rats (today's teenagers) stand in line at the McDonalds, distance is measured from one store to the other, people arrange to meet at the Westside west entrance. Cut to school drop in the morning - maids and drivers emerge from luxury vehicles to bring the young prince/princess to be educated, the 3 year old wears a Benneton t-shirt to play mud cakes, the moms who attend wear designer wear at 8:00 am, the afternoon pick up is high fashion time.

I am retro on this topic, ooh, this radical thought of living within reason and below your means. My problem is that development in Bangalore seems to be equated directly to conspicuous consumption. Birthday parties at the Leela for a 3 year old? I mean, come on. In our hurry to show off and keep up with whoever the heck we need to keep up with, for whatever the heck reason, the values children imbibe are 'ask and you shall receive'. Behaviour and consequences? Those are for the outdated middle-class people who can't afford that foreign trip.

How about living below one's means? I mean, when one makes a lakh a month, my puny little imagination can not even comprehend how they can live beyond their means. When did 'middle class' stop being about some human, decent values and come to be known for being 'regressive'?! Travel is great. We did it and love it. Exposure through travel and living in other lands is what opens minds up. But this 'we only go on foreign trips' attitude is hardly healthy?!

My kids know nothing of my growing up days of 'twice a year good dresses shall be purchased.' They also do not think that everytime we go out, something will be bought for them. We actively discourage gifts at birthday parties and do book and clothes exchanges. We gave on my daughter's birthday this year - requested gifts to be books to donate to the Hippocampus Reading Foundation, went to the HRF offices, where the person in charge gave them a cd and annual report, pointed out some children who might be reading the books we gave and said 'thank you'.

I am not asking for any kudos here. We are quite okay with being looked at as ogre parents who do not allow their kids any gifts on their birthdays. We get them stuff - they are well clothed, have nice cycles and games, have activities and friends and tons of books. They also have our time and joint family activities and a school they love to go to. Are they deprived? Hell, no!

My point is that people who have seen money suddenly act like it will run out tomorrow and ensure that it runs out today by buying, charging like crazy. The best things in life are free. And can't be charged to Mastercard. And are tougher to get than anything in a store. Retail therapy within limits has its place. But having a comfortable home (not 'house with marble floors', mind you) to come back to, the sleep that comes with no debt and the satisfaction of having children who are decent human beings is way, way better.

I feel sad for the 20-somethings who pooh-pooh their super conservative parents in the heady days of the first job, seeing pay packets in the first month that their parents did not at the peaks of their careers. Okay, these parents could loosen up a bit. But the real sense in their words is missed - form over content....that is the problem with this mindless aping and cell phone/car/job switching.

How about trying to empty out an ocean with a bucket and take responsibility for our children, teach them that everything comes at a cost and ensure that they are prepared to pay this cost, fair or not, as they live out their choices?! And that living below your means is just good common sense, not some new 'get-rich' scheme (though it will get you rich in the long run!). I am a follower of the Louise Hay school of thought - the Universe shall give limitlessly, act like it will always be and come back down to earth with your lifestyle.

G'night!

Gardening for the soul

2010-05-17T09:02:00.002+05:30

My garden has been my refuge for years now. Growing up, we had gardens wherever we lived. Huge ones in those public sector quarters and then my parents bought two plots of land, one for the house and the other for a garden. As children, we played in the garden at all times of the day....there was a badam tree to chip badam seeds out of and irrigation canals (tiny little rivulets connecting different plants) to play pretend picnic with mudpies near the 'river'. We learned seamlessly about sedimentation and water conservation. One summer, water was rationed and we could not water our gardens. I remember sharing my drinking water with the marigold plants I had planted....they were the only plants in the garden that were green and flowering. Of course, that got my mom's antennae up and we ended up having to choose human over plant welfare.
Had two plants in the US....gardening there on the East coast is a royal pain. Between the fact that you have a plot of land in a community garden and have to frost proof plants et al, my enthusiasm was low. Reserved for my lovely terrace garden in India. We chose a first floor home because I am scared of cockroaches. Easier to cockroach proof a non-ground floor home, which we were able to do, about 90% of the time. And then began my hours of planning, placing, reading, sighing over garden books....fast forward 8 years to my around 150 pot terrace refuge, complete with bench and birdhouse....lotus pot and herbs, strawberries and some tomatoes, jasmine of different kinds, pomegranate and fig plants, a lavendine branch donated by a friend when pruning, raat-ki-raani near the window, sending whiffs of pure decadence at night into our bedroom, a sicus that began with two leaves, growing SLOWWWWWWLY to give out 25 - 30 leaves this past year - my centerpiece.....I can obviously gloat/brag on for paragraphs.

We get to have tea in our garden, forecast rain and plan my wash cycle thanks to my bright rain lilies, see crows and tiny birds bathing in our lotus pond, squirrels sitting up and eating the strawberries like human beings with their tiny hands, run excavating earthworms that decided vermi composting was not as much fun as we thought it should be for them, exclaim at butterflies of vivid hues, see the children toddling away in their walkers to today when they proudly show off gerberas and our double colour rose that start off pale pink and finish up falling off close to black in colour. We have bees and wasps and have to look out for centipedes after a garden cleaning.....wade out in the middle of a downpour to unclog the drain, sweep away leaves and leaves and leaves, ensure that we have plant care for vacations...the advantages outweigh the work.

On days like this after a downpour, my plants are laughing and happy. You can sense the nonverbal body language....everyone is up and cheerful and sprightly. Hot, hot days see them drained and exhausted, limp in an eerie reflection of how you feel...except you have a home to get into for shelter. We talk to plants and sing to them. Needless to say, we have lost a few that preferred rap music. The others deal with pop music and classical with the same appreciation and polite deafness. Very laissez faire in attitude.

If I have a garden in the ground, the complexity will have me gasping, I am sure. I am able to limit the bugs considerably and still my purple cabbage looks close to white. Organic farming is fun and non-intrusive. We plant thuja in between and garlic to keep away the vampires, dust turmeric on ants (we consume a few gallons a year, it seems like!) and spray lemon grass spray on the naughtiest of bugs. Between the daily dump composter on one terrace and the garden on the other, I would like to be responsible for zero waste from my kitchen. One day, it would be nice to eat a summer meal totally sourced from my garden. Addition to bucket list.

By the way, all the pictures on my blog are from my garden.

G'day!

Adoption and Biology

2010-05-16T10:40:00.002+05:30

The more I thought of adoption, the less I revelled in biology. This was where I was when I began the adoption journey. I did not pooh-pooh being a mother through a pregnancy, just could not glorify it like common culture does (the 'mere paas maa hai' part is still too much to palate....much as I love my mom!). The tough part starts where labour ends!
Then as you walk the adoption path, you see that biology is important. I will always believe that nurture is way more important than nature. But there are some gene-pool things that will not change just because I close my eyes. For example, the importance of bonding and breast feeding in the first few hours following birth. The intangible benefits that come from having a whole, willing adult take care of you when you can't. I can see now and speculate.....my daughter is more secure, less influenced to seek attention of all kinds, able to stand steadfast to her opinions and be less 'flying with the direction of the wind' than my son. Is this due to more biological bonding? I can't tell, can I ....unless I am in the position to compare how he would have done with this bonding, a path his life diverged from. Also, there is personality....mostly biological influenced heavily by upbringing?

Adoption has an effect on the child, regardless of how young the baby was when he/she came home to a 'forever' family. It is easier to see the tough effects...they lurk and come up in some unrelated context in the most unexpected ways. Adoption parenting is different, parental denial notwithstanding. Imagine a young plant that was denied some nutrition at a critical growth phase....it can bloom and flourish, that scar of deprivation at that point will still show. Not good but not horrible either, if you get my drift. Just a development that we try to understand, acknowledge and work with and around.

The nature-nurture debate will continue on. For today, it is close to 50-50 in our household...meaning we can't tell if we are doing a good job or it was done for us already! The pendulum has swung between 60-40 and 40-60 so far. Darn, can't take credit for the good and have to take responsibility for the not-so-great! Life and parenting show the way! :-D

When one's children begin reading......

2010-05-11T15:46:00.001+05:30

and we have a room full of quietly reading people, and a kid who begs for bedtime to be extended to finish the last page, I consider it a job well done. For that day. It is really cool to see my daughter pick up chapter books by choice and read Enid Blytons. Bimbo and Topsy, the Naughtiest Girl series, The Secret Garden, Roald Dahl (for children), Six Cousins. I remember reading like a fiend and hating to study because it was time taken away from reading for fun. Also remember my mom's striking sentence, "Remember that it was the studies that taught you enough to read stories." And we had to balance out one with the other.

Summers and reading go together. Even now, it is not a holiday worth looking forward to, if there is no anticipated, unread book. I stopped from buying a few years ago, because it is okay not to own every book. It HAS to be okay for those of us whose homes are measured in square feet and love for books is not.

Libraries in India are still a luxury item. After my 'circulating' library in Trichy town....we would circulate, the books stayed in one place....the US public libraries were like fairyland. You could take a book, keep it for a good amount of time and read it for free. Oh, there is better still - say your library does not have the book, they will place a transfer request and get it for you from any library in their network. Yes, for little ol' me. Still for free.

I have seen public libraries with books stacked to the roof, with scarce people using the reading room for newspapers and pages torn out randomly. I have not been to the public library in Bangalore, because it is tough to see books be abused. The building looks really good, though. Maybe it is time to give it a visit.

Anyone been there?

Bucket list is coming along real well

2010-05-10T15:29:00.001+05:30

and for once, the bucket list updates are also coming along real well. We brought home our third child, a sweet little cocker puppy called Loopy Maya Samarawardene Pintu. You ask why the one foot long name? The first one explains it all, we are all loopy....only one of us is officially named that!

She is adorable, as expected of every pup. Black with very few white markings, she is 54 days old today. We went through upset tummy and loss of appetite already with the move and my lack of sense in asking which kind of food. I got the weaning food, she was already on puppy chow. Some trial and erring...we are back to the 'just-had-child-think-that-poop-consistency-talk-is-okay-anywhere' days. In a jiffy, just like that! Yes, we are working on the talk part - we try to seclude ourselves in the bathroom or use code. Just until she stabilizes, we promise!

I think we have one of the smartest puppies in the world. Loopy but real smart. She figured I was mom on day one (not tough one, that....I was s'mother'ing), figured out that we wanted her to pee outside on day 2 (only three accidents in three days....come on, when you were 53 days old, you were peeing on people who could not afford that diaper!), ate my hair to wake me up and take her outside at night and asked me for food by taking me to the kitchen last night. Not bad for a 3 day old loop, don't ya think? Not made up...not creative enough to expect so much from such a widdle one.

The next few months will be about puppy day care coverage and some rushing around. It is all absolutely worth it to see that little docked tail wagging away to see you. Why does it take only a minute to fall in love with a puppy? Or talk nonsensical sentences in your mother tongue quite automatically? She has no issues and remember, we are loopy?! :-D

Life is complete!

Books for the soul

2010-05-06T21:19:00.003+05:30

Got home today, rough day....a nice shower later, my books and music refueled the soul. And a hot cup of tea. And sufi music. Nusrat, Abida, you don't rock....you are better.

What is it about books that comforts? I don't know and don't really want to delve deep and mess it up for moiself. Books I always go back to reread and regroup....

- Little Women, Jo's Boys, Little Men - Louisa May Alcott
A preacher's daughter, she took up writing to feed her family. Jo in the book is modeled on herself. The fun, relationships, trials and challenges, romance and tears of a family with four girls. And a neighbour's 'nice chap' grandson who joins in the fun. This is ideal with real mixed in.

- As The Crow Flies - Jeffrey Archer and Kane and Abel and Prodigal Daughter
I love the way he does these series of paragraphs and punches in the last sentence...witty and unexpected. History along with the personal. So what if it is sneered at as 'mass fiction'? Maggi with eggs is mass food and super comforting at the same time!

- My secret trove of historical romances. Several authors who make you laugh, cry and happy at the same time. And no, this is not about the 'scenes'. The ones who write with humour and pathos...you guys regenerate souls out there!

- Erma Bombeck. Anything by her. Esp. 'If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Then What Am I doing in the Pits?' or 'Family - The Ties that Bind....And Gag' or 'Motherhood, The Second Oldest Profession'
My hero, you make my sides ache with laughter - you have me at the title, every title. My stunned husband comes running in from the other room to see me hysterical on the bed. Our neighbours don't love you because I read at weird times. What a gift to take daily life and convert into food for the soul!

- Dennis The Menace. Need I say more? I love you. Between pages. Did not realize that loving you this much would make one such as you materialize in real life.

- Asterix and Obelix. And Vitalstatistix. And a ton of other cleverly worded names and words and dialogues. Google celebrates your 50th...need I say more?

- James Herriot. All the 'All' series. One day, when I can still walk and talk and see, I want to go to North Yorkshire and see your 'Darrowby'. And drive through the country you describe. The animals are not in my destiny in this lifetime....that's okay, the way I am travelling through this life, I have a few more coming up. Maybe then! God, you listening?

- P G Wodehouse. A colonial hangover right up there along with Enid Blyton. On a side note, those who call her racist, your argument holds little water with me. A few small PC changes later, I think her series of books for all ages....almost a graduation from summer to the next are fantastic.

PG, another rock star. This one is the 'intellectual' read, until you get the understated humour and are howling right along on Erma's lines. His aunts and butler, his pigs and weird situations. Works for me everytime.

My readers, please add your favourites. I would love to dip into your soul food reading bowl!

G'night!

Book review: Dear Birthmother, Thank you for our baby

2010-05-03T19:13:00.002+05:30

When the Universe knocks on your door, it sometimes throws a book at you! I found this book in the used books on sale section of a magazine store....they try not to deal in books! The book is an Open Adoption classic called 'Dear Birthmother, Thank you for our baby'. The edition I have was published in 1991 and the book's authors are Kathleen Silber and Phyllis Speedlin.

The book advocates open adoption and makes its points very lucidly. The myths it addresses are:
- the birth parents don't care, otherwise why would they have given their baby away;
- secrecy in the adoption process protects all parties;
- birth parents forget about the child they adopted out; and
- if the adoptee was well taken care of and really loved his adoptive family, he would not have to search for his birth parents.

The book has letters written by birth and adoptive parents, mothers and fathers and even one from a birth mother's sister and is based on more than 20 years of practitioner experience. This book was ahead of its time then and unfortunately, it is at least a century ahead of where India is on adoption laws.

The authors' description of social work thought and its development - they could be talking of the current Indian adoption and social work thought. They are talking of the 1920s - 1960s in the US. The points made hit home really hard. I strongly advocate open adoption. I am glad to have found this book with its depth of the thinking. It revealed my innate assumptions, unfair ones for most part and fostered by current adoption thinking in India. The term 'open' adoption still sends chills down almost every one's spine...there are those who will weather it and those who will choose to stay away, but the concept is far, far from being anywhere in public debate.

For example, we tell adoptees 'they loved you so much that they ensured that you had a good home and a wonderful family'. In the same breath, as adults we also say to other adults, "I don't know how they (mostly 'she') did it. If I had a dozen, I could not 'give away' one!" So, the birth mom is adulated for unselfishness and funnily, immediately after the 'act' of adoption, her choice is couched in language that is judgemental. Damn right, we don't know. We really don't. And anyone who calls bringing a wonderful child home 'unselfish', what do you say to the birth parents who truly are that?

As an adoptive parent, I have the child in my heart and home, to see and love. As a birth parent, they love and wonder and worry. And never know. Is this a crime they are being punished for? Keeping a parent in ignorance of their child's well being is a punishment that far exceeds any crime I can imagine (except if they harm that family, I guess). Even criminals in prison are allowed family visits and these birth parents are just unfortunate at that point and unable to offer complete care to the child.

I have always wondered if I tend to romanticize what a birth parent thought. Maybe a child of 16 or 18 does not really get it. Okay, they don't get it. They do still get the shame and guilt and have to bury it as a secret that can at any and all times come up and destroy whatever they have built since. And when they become parents, I am sure that tug on the child they never saw would be strong to unbearable on his/her birthday.

The other concept that really struck me is that The Search is one for roots, not different parents. And if as a parent we are secure that we did our best, then search or not, the children can drift away or stay close....this is a situation of our making. I cannot be supplanted in my child's life. Even if I was mean and nasty and did horrible things....this little child will still use me as a barometer to weather any situation he/she faces.

In our personal scenario, my son finding his birth parents is almost impossible. I wish we had that option for my son to choose. It would help his identity building and give him a lot of strength and self esteem. Two of the main questions adoptees are looking to answer by searching for biological roots are "who do I look like?" and "why was I given away?"

And the only person with these answers are his birth parents. I can suggest, support, comfort but can't answer these two questions, however much I would like to. How awesome it would be for him to be able to authoritatively answer these questions for himself and then put these issues to rest for most part.

Here's hoping that the open adoption thought does percolate down to the middle-ages and hence to India!

G'night!

Adoption and some of what it entails

2010-05-02T12:01:00.001+05:30

When Shankar and I adopted, we had done some reading. And the emotional part that is personal to us, we had sorted out long ago. Actually, it was not a formal processing of the act....we had independently decided and kind of negotiated our way with this 'requirement' in mind, before getting married.

And then we met people, read some more and asked questions. Along the way, we met people in the US and in India who were friendly and supportive. We had some well-wishers who asked us the tough questions to ensure that we knew what we were doing. And a ton of people who told us that they wished they could but did not think they would be equal in treatment in a family built both biologically and from adoption.

To digress a bit, that last sentence is the one thing I have consistently heard from 80% of the people who have spoken to me with adoption in the conversation...be it prospective adoptive parents, friends, relatives, whoever. People give themselves real short shrift. Or they use this as their excuse. Everyone does not need to adopt. Everyone should not adopt. If everyone could take care of a child, adoption as a way of building a family would itself not be possible.

When you get married, you adopt. When you bring home a pet, you adopt. When you care for an elder in your building and go bring them their medicines, you have made a place for them in your heart. When you have a maid at home and give her less work because she is sick, you are thinking like 'family' thinks. Adoption in all the ways that matter. Are you mean to your children's friends when they come home? Are you so horrible that you are incapable of being nice to another being in your home? Then you are right, you 'should' not adopt. Please don't.

But if all you do is open your heart....you don't even have to consciously set out to love someone or bend over backwards to overlook the warts (all of which we do at sometime in EVERY relationship!), just open up your heart and do your routine thing....the child that comes home will take care of the rest. That said, I do not promote adoption...it is not a 'cause' to promote. It is a state of being a family. Just please don't say that to me again. Just by the act of being a nice person and my friend, you are capable of adoption. And it is very okay to choose not to do it! No justification required!

Okay, digression over. Some reading and association with people that helped us are:

www.sudatta.org - SuDatta is an association of incredible families, all of whom are touched by adoption. Living in Bangalore, we were quite privileged to have this organization to give us information and help us listen to the experts who speak about adoption in India.

A couple of yahoogroups - those interested can search in the yahoo groups pages with 'adoption' as the key word.

Books that spoke to us from the adoptees' perspective, told us about the process, our agency that was really friendly and like family in their approach, websites that gave us insights that we did not have or could have come up with before the fact, publishers like EMK Press which specialize in publishing adoption books and are nice enough to put up some free material on their website, the Hallmark Channel's series on adoption, even books like Chicken Soup for the Parents' Soul (there is one with a whole section on adoption), the resources we consulted were all helpful, even if one contradicted the other.

I think what the reading did for us was to bring home a more open viewpoint. The overall Indian mindset is very much still keeping within its caste/community/religion barriers (self set lines that makes it even sadder!). To read about a person's open adoption experience, whether or not your's will be one, gives you perspective of what people do in life. If you want it to, it can make you feel small. For us, it showed us what paths exist out there and how very middle of the adoption path we were. And that is fine. Because what we considered 'adoption' then was only bringing the child home and that is only the start of the journey.

Something that every adoptive parent and any responsible person needs to know is PAL or positive adoption language. This evolves with time....kind of like being politically correct, except much deeper than that. The point here is not to skirt around the facts but phrase them sensitively. You will be surprised how much one change in one word makes to a child's self image and how much it can be damaged with thoughtless usage. Like 'real' mother, or 'own' child. Everyone is real and belongs somewhere. Every one has 'birth'parents and not everyone lives with these birthparents. Everyone adopted 'was' adopted....they do not do that life changing act of becoming part of a family every day. Every day, they are children just doing their thing, whether it is whining or backtalking or grinning and giggling or both in very weird child like combinations.

PAL challenges stereotypes. We never questioned why parents are 'real' or not until we adopted. Then there is a personal angle that drives that point home. All parents are real and giving birth does not change that in any way. An open adoption is not shared parenting....so that works for some people too. A small unselfish percentage who are not encumbered by prehistoric laws....the child's need to know his/her history is met, identity is not such a mysterious puzzle anymore.

If you are a prospective parent or thinking about adoption in any way, please go out and learn about it. Books worked for me, as did talking to people and asking those niggling questions. For those who prefer talking to people, please do that....just talk to enough people and ask all the questions you need to. There is no 'too much' here when you are starting from close to scratch. And there is no substitute to this when the child comes home. At that point, there is no going back. "I did not know that" is an okay excuse for the small stuff....not the big issues in adoption.

Please learn about the 7 core issues in adoption - loss, rejection, grief, guilt/shame, identity, control and intimacy. Please read up about attachment - not to the point of paranoia or self-diagnosis but to be able to identify issues when they arise and know where to go for help/techniques. And if you are a friend, the following links have some useful points.

http://babble.com/parents-adoption-advice/

http://babble.com/mom/health-relationships/ten-things-adoptive-parents-shouldnt-say/

My personal experience has been that this journey is worth every bit of effort I have put into learning. And as a parent, I learn every day....about the process of growth and development, about how a little human becomes one hulking adult and about myself - my strengths, limits and areas of improvement. The lovely thing about parenthood is that death is the only way out....thank god. My life would have been quite empty without this experience.

Until the next one!

Adoption intersection: Homo Sapien and Puppy Sapien

2010-04-22T18:29:00.001+05:30

It was a regular evening, the sibling fight had blown over with some tears and lots of whining from all parties, the whole family was listening to music and reading in the same space (small problem when one member is still reading out loud!) when the intersection moment happened.
My son (he joined our family through adoption some 5.xx years ago) looks up from his book and says out of the blue," You know, Amma...when Loopy comes home, I will be very nice to him. I will take care of him (Loopy is a girl..). He will be so sad, no? He had to leave his mother and all his brothers and sisters."

Very sweet thought. Why then is my mind racing ahead to the next sentence? We are waiting for the axe to fall (metaphorically only...all axes in the house have been confiscated long ago!:-)) because among the first things my son said about the puppy was "yey, Loopy will also be adopted!"

Identity building is a gradual process. Which is why some of us do still ask, "but now he is with you, na? why should you talk about his birth parents at all? He is now in your home and you are his parents. And that is that." Yes, we are his parents. And will always be. Even when he is pondering a birth parent search. Or not. Both are equally possible options. And ones we will deal with as parents and support, regardless of our emotions. We have to be grateful to have the opportunity to have him in our lives and can't neglect the fact that his gene pool is different. It does not matter to me. It does to him, sometimes.

There was a time when he was upset that he was not born from my tummy. "I only want to be born in your tummy, Amma." Now he has adjusted, atleast as far as I can see, to being from another part of the state. I see identity being formed when he asks,"April 14th? Is that MY new year too?". I am Tamilian and my husband is a Kannadiga, so our kids straddle two languages/states, regardless of whose tummy they come from.

Now, he will experience the joy of adoption himself. Quite a priceless side effect that wipes out the stress of another toilet training journey coming up. Any child bringing a puppy home is over the moon. (If they are not, I would worry!) To a child like my son, the puppy will help in a myriad ways. One major way will be to see how adoption happens and how bonds grow and strengthen - it will be very personal to him walking this path and I know it will be a positive experience.

G'night!

When your life is work and 'life'

2010-04-22T08:33:00.002+05:30

why not have both roles overlap consciously? A complete life is when you have time in the day for everything of importance - yourself, your family and work. In the order of importance depending on which hour you take.

The culture of keeping things 'professional' and not 'personal' has been on for a few decades now. Actually, it was all about work with the personal almost a shameful secret for our fathers. As more women entered the workforce, it was not possible to keep the personal out of the work life, much as many bosses and companies might have liked to.

Now, my life is a overlap of work and non-work tasks....my 'life' part actually has work in it! So how about bringing the personal into the professional? Only professional has not worked very well...if anything, it has made doctor's appointments and children's sick days/vacations become 'situations' to be 'managed'. And as much as we try to be 'professionals', we are humans first.

So if I can be where I need to when I am needed to be there - on time, with a mind that is also fully there, why should the non-work part be pushed under the carpet? It should never be a choice between parenthood and being a professional. The 'work'force needs 'de'structuring!

And it is only morning yet! :-D

Quoting Jackie Kennedy....

2010-04-09T22:50:00.003+05:30

who said, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever you do matters very much."

I have been reading 'Living History' by Hillary Clinton. I always liked her, even when I did not agree with some of her decisions. She is a really bright woman, who is solid in how she approaches issues. Unfortunately, she is not as likeable as required to be in top offices. I mean, Barack is talking Hillary language from when the Clintons attempted to clean up health care and this is a good 15 years after.

She was among the panel that worked on the Nixon impeachment. Some solid credentials as an individual, in addition to the exposure and having the world at her feet as First Lady for two presidential terms. She was good friends with Jackie O and has quoted her about raising kids in the public eye, parenting in general.

My dilemma is of course way smaller, not in any way on the same page, not even in the same book! My struggle with work life balance is more selfish. I can balance work and kids, just end up losing myself to the end of the neverending list. Around January this year, I looked back and ahead at my life and found some stuff wanting. Time, lack of stress and a PhD.

I had a cobbled together career....stumbling into it and along with it and really loving it most days. But somehow, it was not working for me in the big picture. So far, I had not come across a job that was difficult to leave. I guess when passion combines with a career, it is quite the combination. So here I was at the cross roads, seeing myself crumbling with the strain of doing all that I had to do in part-time hours, doing the physical stuff that comes with two kids, giving some time to maintaining a relationship with an equally busy husband and here comes the kicker, staying calm, sane (and losing weight, maintaining health and a healthy diet) through it all. The first three were kind of okay most days, the last one was a nightmare ALL days! Especially since reaching for chocolate came with quite nasty side effects.

So began this whole soul searching. On top of the list:

- kids need time. Not 'quality' but quality of time, quantity of time and all in between. They don't care that they have you for a perfect moment, they want that perfect moment and every other moment they can get. Look at it from their standpoint, I enjoy spending time with this person, even when I act like I am pushing her away. I want. And this is the person who shall deliver.

- we have another four years before their already hectic social life gets more independent and less forgiving of our participation. Two years after that, they are at teenage (when you have kids as close as I do, teenage comes to the home with the first one and leaves with the last one....regardless of when it begins 'technically'). Another four years after that, they are thinking college and a year after they are gone. Now this may seem like a lot of time to me right now, but from what I see of parents with college going kids, this part just flies by. So my chance to be there, enjoy them, influence them and choke some values down is NOW.

- children do as they see you do. And for that, they need to see you do. Not just point no. 1 repeated, but point no. 1 on steroids....they need time with you doing stuff with them. You want them to be socially minded, they need to have an open mind. How do you open a mind? Jackie O quote coming up...."there are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all."

So they need to see you reading books, being active, taking care of yourself, seeing your self esteem, seeing you treat people with respect, taking stances to contribute, taking socially useful steps....anything that I need to instill, I have to role model for real absorption. This means taking the time to calm myself down and doing it all just the way I hope is ideal for them. This also means NOT doing things like rushing them along (opposite of 'smell the roses'), shouting at them, interrupting them or others in that infernal hurry to get things done, and I am sure there are a thousand others that I will not scare myself with today. So now, I not only need limitless time, I need it along with grace, dignity, patience and self esteem. Now we are talking about me. In order to have a healthy them.

- This is the time that memories are made. They can remember and will...the good, bad and ugly. Hopefully mostly good, some inevitable small bads and just enough of the tiny bit of ugly somewhere else to make you appreciate your many goods and put your little bads in perspective.

Memories don't come cheap. They come with participation, enthusiasm, genuine love and energy. All of these qualities get quite worn out after a day, week, month, year's worth of work. At some point, enjoyment becomes something you store for the evening when your feet are up, instead of recording the fun as it happens. The 'sitting on the kitchen counter after school with a snack when I work on something on the stove' time....quite priceless in seeing their world from as close to inside as you get. And keeping lines of communication open for when you will require it. This means being there when they come home from school. No amount of outsourcing works here...unless it is okay with you to have a substitute parent. A maid/creche/television that will be there when you are not.

- well, one thing I do want them to see is that they can be whatever they want to be. And how will they see it if their mom is home waiting on them hand and foot? I want a daughter who can grow up knowing she can and will have a real career in whatever floats her boat AND have a loving family at the same time. I want my son to be as participative as his father, as comfortable in the kitchen AND respectful of a woman in the workplace. Will he be able to get there if he sees his mom at home all the time?

- now, the moi part. Again at the bottom of the list but this is the clincher. Why do something that stresses me out, is losing some of its glitter because of this stress, deal with people wasting my time when I have all this to come home to AND neglect myself in the bargain? What did I really want when I entered this sector? To contribute and a PhD. Two half-hearted and aborted attempts later, this is do or die time. In some ways, I thank God that the attempts remained just that....I know now how little I knew then. And while I am sure I will be saying that three years down the road, I think I know enough now to get a really good doctoral degree under my belt.

Why a PhD? My turn....I want. I am sure there will be psychological reasons that lie layered under this want but to me, it is very simple, black and mostly white. It is what I want....not need. I am fortunate to have most of my needs met comfortably and a few being worked on for the near future.

I am definitely exchanging one part-time job for a one and a half time monster of a life changer. In addition to family, parental commitments that will come up more and more in the future, still with weight loss and health and exercise in the need picture. This is to me the right thing to do at this time in life. This blog shall hopefully be a happy witness!

G'night!

Right to Education

2010-04-04T00:09:00.001+05:30

I amend my post on the Women's reservation.....the part that talked about no justification for choosing some people to educate. The Right to Education bill is here! At long bloody last! I guess a few decades late is still okay for us in India. Our politicians are only now getting to power before knee surgery times. Take as much reservation as you want, people....now regardless, you have to educate everyone. My stance of reservation is cancelled. To me it is no longer a relevant discussion. What are we reserving? A seat at a JNU? Okay, no problem. Educate the rest and they will give us JNUs all over the place. So long as we give the law the implementation it deserves.

I have always been corny patriotic and quite naively optimistic about life in India. Working at an NGO, visiting a police station and seeing a cop thrash a guy around to show his power (to us!), I came back quite disillusioned one day. But there is something in the air and water that just tells me that it is not possible for India to not thrive....hope springs eternal. Don't ask me how or why. It just is and I love it.

The attitudes that build pessimism in this country are galore. Personally, I have seen all kinds of attitudes from reaction to the tamil-kannada family we have built, with genes and adoption ('They' have genes too, guys!!), our non-religious 'holidays, ahh, we can sleep in!' mindset, I will not name it all because we have to have SOME privacy! :-D

What stuns me is the definite and authoritarian tone - 'we know it does not work' or 'In India, this will not work' or 'yeah, yeah, you young people will change when you get hit a few times' or even 'we are like this only!' At long last comes some fresh air - Right to Information, Right to Education, public discussions on BT Brinjal....I am liking. High time, if you ask me. I mean, what the heck were octogenarians doing sitting on education? Between the MM and AS(S) factors, they have to have a few centuries of prejudice to break through to even see the other side, much less join it and lead it forward. Kapil Sibal can be the next PM - I will even campaign for him.

He has taken an 'establishment' everywhere and shaken it upside down. Educators get stuck too. And now the ideas can come out of the woodwork and our kids might finally get an education....even I can teach them to be literate and I should be nowhere near teaching!

This fresh breath of air was flavored by today's news of Dinakaran going on leave. Guys, time to take pessimism off the national flag. I am saying - optimistic and proud of shedding tears at the National Anthem, we are like this only!

G'night!

The 100th post

2010-03-20T11:03:00.002+05:30

It is almost two years since this blog started and this is Post no. 100. Like our car and low mileage, it took me time to get here. To me, the journey has been worth it.

The way blogging has changed my life? Oh, several.
The journey has been

Sheepish to Defiant - 'why should I let it all hang out' to 'it is my purge, my opportunity, read if you like, tough if you don't'!

Personal to General Opinion Building - I began writing about my life but have since seen how similar my life and problems/opinions are to so many others'. We are all mostly similar....except when we are different? Yes, I love Yogi Berra.

I see blogging as a tremendous opportunity to connect, say it as it is in my opinion, figure out and make changes to my positions based on other's comments/blogs, as a creative outlet to satisfy my writing urge, a safe place to vent without hurting anyone and just generally be myself.

The challenge has been to retain some privacy....everything IS not hanging out, ensure that my family's privacy is maintained, still keeping things personal and connecting to real people (my friends and the fun of physically hanging out cannot be exchanged in any way with an online presence) and I am sure there are a few more that are not registering with me now.

As an accounting type, getting some semblance of creativity in my life and retaining it over the years has been a struggle for me. Before the advent of the blog. Reading back, I see how far I have come on some issues and how similar some thoughts are....kind of like a thought diary that is published....and therefore committed. It is out there, so no going back on that position unless you formally change it!

It has been useful to do some evangelising for my cause. I find raising funds (the asking part!) really difficult. And this is a non-intrusive way of doing it. It has helped me save time....a lot of my friends that I have found on FB after long years go here to know what I am up to, what I think and how things are now. This replaces my long emails that said mostly the same things to different people.

Would I do this again? Absolutely. Would I have started earlier? Probably not. I believe things happen to you when it is right for them to happen to you. So no regrets, ever. And no what ifs.

To my loyal readers, the select group of 10 -15, thank you. The fact that someone reads my blog makes me feel like what I say is worth something....even when it just might be another rehash! Or hash up. Whatever, thanks for sticking.

To another 100 more. Sometime in the next decade. Why compete with myself on this?! :-D

The Women's Reservation Bill

2010-03-16T14:09:00.002+05:30

I have been trying to figure out what I think about the women's reservation bill. Straight off, I am anti-reservation. I see it as a choice being made to educate/develop only some of the whole. And I fail to see what justification there is for any education initiative not covering 100 per cent of our population. Funny that there is no talk anywhere about expanding the education system to cover EVERYONE versus having the education of a few be a basic assumption and the talk is of 'now, who gets those opportunities and how we choose who get to progress in life?'

So in general I am anti-reservation. Also, Brahmin but my objections to the reservation are not due to being born without choice into a caste. I did not know we had a caste for a long time, though looking back, I should have known. It was not spoken about or made anything of. I was teased endlessly for my version of Tamil but figured it was par for the course since I did talk different. As we know, different is not good in our society.

The women's reservation sticks in my craw. Yes, I know I don't need it. Could not get more privileged - not poor, educated well, got opportunities and took them and made choices that I can now live with. I do not need anyone to give me any concessions....not even in a queue. I refuse to use 'ladies' queues. And those are disappearing fast. A good development, in my opinion. So this is my personal stance.

Then you look around and see everywhere how entrenched chauvinism is. So with my privileged background and feminist views, I walk out into the world and end up dealing with people calling about to buy a car wanting to talk to my husband. People who telemarket, call and find me unreceptive and have the gall to say, "May I speak to Mr. ____?" Little do they realize that any chance of marketing for the next century just flew out of the window.

Women still have it bad and the piddly examples above are not what I am basing my statement on. Laws are patriarchal. And acknowledged as such by those in the field. Social systems are definitely patriarchal, no need to even question this sentence (unless you are delusional!). With this, I see women rising to the top and wonder how they do it. I have not ever been told I can't do anything because I am a woman. Having some one dictate anything, much less personal choices like dress, education, working or not, is not in my personal experience. So who am I to take a call on reservation? If a woman who needs the opportunity gets it and is interested in doing something with it, why not?

Except that a woman who will rise up enough to stand for election is herself not the population that needs to be helped. Maybe she will help that population that needs help? Maybe she will know what the population goes through and actually do something about it, because it hits her personally? But what if she is just her husband's stooge, put there to save the seat for their dynasty for the next decade?

I guess all this will happen. Every woman in politics that I know now is there because of a family presence - father/husband. That in itself needs to change. And I think the dynastic system probably exists because it has been the only way for interested women to actually get in the political door. It used to bother the heck out of me...actually still does. But if the women in power now are finally thinking beyond themselves to open the door for others, then why not?

I know that woman who is the husband's stooge will get highlighted by the Lalu Prasad Yadavs. And I know that the women who are true rags to power stories will get highlighted by the Rahul Gandhis. If we shout long enough and hard enough, that one woman might become an army?

I don't know. I go back and forth on this. Reservation is still not okay. Personally, whatever I do will be general quota. The current system is not working. Women are not getting empowered. I can see that they can't do worse than men. If anything, expectations are higher of them...I know they are capable of more, mainly because their egos get put on the side when the issue is supreme. They have enough practice, a pragmatic approach that is willing to defer or forego credit if the task at hand gets done.

I am sure they will be as good or better than men. May be as bad, but honestly, how much worse can it get?! I still am unconvinced and uncomfortable with the women's reservation. But as an experiment, why not? Something has to be done....status quo is definitely not enough.

A hectic cleaning spree

2010-03-14T19:55:00.002+05:30

and putting away tons of long overdue laundry. There was a time that would have been the most boring day ever. Now, staying home that long to finish stuff like this off with no pressure to 'fit' it between 'appointments' is luxury.

Tomorrow is my daughter's 'hindu' calendar birthday. Found out because MIL told me. Said daughter asked me after her classmate celebrated his 'gujurati' birthday and I had to hem and haw because I don't even have the apparatus to find out. And if I did have the almanac, would need a reader to read the language and a translater to figure out the technicalities to the gregorian calendar! Can you say 'western'? Yes, we are.

The kannada-tamil combination in our family has not messed anything up. It was all messed up way before! Born to kind of westernish parents, I saw poojas and ate the food associated. Did the basics of sitting/standing/prostrating as applicable before escaping to do whatever else. Husband's family does more in terms of pooja with a functioning pooja room that sees some serious action (my parents' is the basic one diya model!). Still, I don't see too much in terms of rituals that have made their way down.

We picked a few festivals that we celebrate with lots of fun and every other one is an opportunity to sack out and/socialize. These days of scheduled friendships means that it takes a lot to see a good friend enough times in the year. Diwali has always been a big one for us - we put ourselves through a lot to get people together. In the US, we plodded through freezers of meat to lay hands on that Looooooong amazonian banana leaf for a huge dinner at home. Yes, with a crate of kingfisher. We were going 'native', were we not?

I wonder what my kids will pick as their 'culture'. It seems to be so important to so many people. I wonder why it leaves me cold. I see the same pooja samagri toting culturistas having barely functioning human relationships, that sathyanarayana homam seems to be to appease for some sin rather than for the sake of doing it with piety. Oh, the silver giveaway shows mercenary goodwill? Yeah, because I went for the silver....either to receive it or be at the point of show-off?

The rituals of any religion leave me disgusted. Because at the end of the day, people seem to be okay with killing to 'uphold' that principle of inclusiveness. Yeah, there is only one God but that is MY God!? So we have been talking to the kids of not asking God for anything but thanking Him/Her for what we have. The chance to make a difference another day in another's life. If we are so lucky.

My kids understand several languages in bits - Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and Bengali. Tamil and Kannada to the extent that we can't speak it and depend on them not understanding, Hindi just enough to do damage. And Bengali enough to know if they are being called names (which they are not :-D)! To all languages, they react in English. This pisses the culturistas a lot. Again, I am proud to show you off as my 'whatever is the relationship' so long as you do, speak and be the way I want you to be. I will use English as the distinguishing factor to show my 'superiority' when I so choose. This hypocrisy really gets me.

My 'culture' is to be humane. A cliche? Absolutely. Now try and live up to it. My religion, absolute kindness. And I fail at this everyday. And yet, dust off and live to fight another day in this cause. Oh no, I am not mean. Not even close. Just not absolutely kind. And language - who gives a....oh, sorry, family blog. I don't really care, so long as they can make friends and keep them. And talk enough to communicate and function well in society. Simple things that sound so corny, except when you try to practise it.

G'night!

Totally burnt out and ready for a vacation

2010-03-10T22:35:00.002+05:30

with none in sight. Only school fees! :-D

Was talking 'puppy' with a friend today and it is its own world of toilet training and house breaking and socialization. Crate training or not? Where will the pup sleep? How will we figure out day care? Mentioned to the friend that I was nervous and excited about becoming responsible for yet another life on top of the two I have on hand. And that is already a game of self-doubt day in and day out.

She said bringing up a pup is almost identical to having an infant in the house, except that pups get toilet trained faster, trained for behaviour faster, do not throw temper tantrums and don't talkback. Phew, maybe I can deal with this after all.

Talking of the two legged kids, had a few of my son's friends over for lunch and playtime for a couple of hours today. Planned things out well ahead of time, even ran away to my parents' in the morning to help them set up, drove five kids back home from school all by myself (yes, am having some mindblock problems after years of serious driving about rush hour traffic and rulelessness), fed them and they took care of themselves. My son is the man about town today - he is so chuffed and is all blown up with pride. Funny how little it takes to make their day and memories. And how little I had to 'give'. Took the day off because I need to stop and breathe or have something drastic happen....so did not do this for him.

I was able to keep my cool the whole day, get stuff done at home and work on a day off without resentment and all that was different today was that my presence was not required at ONE place at a certain time. The difference it makes to my mindspace is quite phenomenal.

Also got to polish up some lifeskills for my mentee....my helper's son in Std. 8. We have been working on his Math skills since July last year. And it is final exam time. The poor chap is so diligent. If I give him four exercises to do of 15-20 sums each, he will have it done, doubts marked and ready for the next exercise. He is a pleasure to teach - another one of those 'give' situations that feels like 'taking'. Two evenings a week and we have steadily brought his confidence levels and marks to dealable heights. Not nosebleed yet...but hey, today, anything's possible!

Off to websearch doggy products....kind of like setting the nursery up. I know what I don't want. And a list of what I need. I want my pup to be happy to come home...kind of like the kids are now. And that is an achievement that sounds ordinary but is the most phenomenal of them all. I know - I went back to my parents' today by choice to work to set them up (very little - only a couple of hours worth) on my day off. No duty this....more of the 'give'-'taking'!

G'night!

Another back track

2010-02-22T21:36:00.002+05:30

To go back to my intuitive decision to have a puppy. Besides the fact that it is on my now very important bucket list, it will go a long way to help my kids learn very important life skills. Growing up with an animal in the house, esp. one that is so full of unconditional love means that we all know what it is, even if as humans, we are quite incapable of the same level (or even any!) of this devotion.

So a bit of web surfing got me to a cocker breeder who aims to help the breed by responsible breeding, uniting good homes to good puppies/dogs. Just because. They got back to me in a couple of days - got the email today that there is a litter with a good breeder. The puppies are golden and orange roan, meaning a combination of white with either orange or golden or both. We will not know until we see these pups that are two days old today!

It feels a little like waiting to adopt. When you know you are in the process but don't know when what will happen to make your family complete. Just that your turn will come. Maybe that day is tomorrow! We can visit these pups after they are about a week old, at least. If it works out, they might be home the same time as I can manage it - mid - end May. We would 'book' the puppy and then do what we can to get ready. Get it stuff, a bed/crate, collar leash, dishes, toys. Puppy proof the house. Figure out the whole toilet training thing. And settle in to enjoy the ride.

We already have a vet picked out, a boarding kennel for when we take our vacations (if my parents can't doggysit). Even a name. That has been ready for about as long as our daughter's name....both of these were picked way, way in advance of the event.

I hope this adoption works out as great as our human one! :-D

G'night!

Bucket list update

2010-02-19T22:23:00.003+05:30

Okay, so I checked off one thing on my bucket list today. Cracking the breathing while swimming laps. Learned to swim when I was around 10 in Trichy in an Olympic size pool. Dived off the highest platform, shaking and shivering, et al. And then a long break meant that the skills that were just-learned-but-not-really-used rusted away. The weekend I got engaged, I almost drowned. Sheer arrogance, was swimming along without a life jacket after a whole day of tubing with one, couldn't find the bottom with my feet (we were in shallow water the whole day), panicked and froze and almost drowned.

Since then, the recovery has been a huge thing for me. Got into a pool because of the kids - didn't want my fears to become theirs. The cockroach thing has already transmitted itself to my daughter....why saddle her with my fears, when she will need to have a few of her own?! Visiting my parents, with nothing else to do, I took the kids into the water with tiny, cute swimsuits and floats. The kids totally switched personalities - the quiet daughter would sing. Loudly. And the ever moving and loud son was so stiff and still that even his hair stayed in place. The pool had parts that slipped away beneath my feet and I would cling to the sides, quite pathetically, especially for someone who could swim. Hard to explain unless you have been there.

Got a pool membership and the kids began their classes. The little one imitated the elder one so much that the coach decided to co-opt him into the class, underage, within the first month. Now that they were learning to swim - like really swim, I had to get my act together. So began with baby steps. Literally steps. And slowly did breadths. The day I did one breadth easily, I celebrated. Then got into this psycho thing, yes, another one about only being able to do breadths. So limped away at lengths until it got easier and easier....both mentally and physically.

Today, I figured out the breathing. Tried a few things when the kids were in their class and two things worked. One, breathing out through my nose underwater and two, coming up for breath every other stroke instead of every two strokes. Suddenly, felt myself gliding away and doing 8 full lengths and 12 breadths. The breadths were a pair at a time, to and fro, slightly more than one length!

Am finally hungry after a swim because I have expended enough energy to justify hunger. And the exhilaration from surpassing a physical/mental barrier makes me want to dive in again. Now! :-D

G'night!

The bookstore feast

2010-02-17T11:04:00.005+05:30

Last week, I ran away to my favourite bookstore in Bangalore - Blossom on Church Street. Anyone who has not been to Blossom needs to go, just to live a little more. If you are like me whose idea of shopping starts with a bookstore, then you absolutely have to go here, again and again. They have used books in good condition, nicely organized in sections. You will find out of print books here. Some even signed by the author! They are reasonably priced - a factor paramount for bookcrazies like me who are also trying to eat. And best of all, they will buy books and give store credit. Is there a more perfect system anywhere?!
I thought back to all the awesome bookstores I have been to in life. The first one was Devathi Bookstore in Singarathope, Trichy. Used books and a library. He could and would source any book for you. And this was a small shop with books piled in neat columns.....all the shop assistants knew which book was where. They knew to ask "Shukla? Cost Accounting or Financial Accounting?". They also knew about the latest Nora Roberts.

A really cool and quaint bookstore near Tenleytown metro station in DC. I forget the name. It was in an old house, run by a woman, had a resident cat and several comfortable chairs. Picturesque, with gable-y towers, everything that a bookstore could be in my imagination. The owner let a poor student just sit and take in the ambience....read without really buying as much as both might have liked, sitting in an armchair on a rainy Washington afternoon with a book.....this one was on the free shuttle route and I could have a soul refreshing outing for no investment except time. For someone penniless, living away from country and family, with a room mate with a penchant for throwing knives and tantrums, whose dog-sister had just died, this bookstore was a haven beyond mention.

The Kramer Books in Dupont Circle and Barnes and Noble in Georgetown were parts of so many weekends. More homes away from home. If I don't have a fortune, this is why. And for an accountant to admit to not using 'the power of compounding', these stores have to be pretty spectacular. It is the eternal development versus flavour debate - these were the ones that made up in book selection/service/location/glitz versus good, personal service by owner type small indie bookstore. The 'You Got Mail' story. These stores were part of my life as a newly working professional, who for once had a couple of coins to her name. Still scarce resources and all the more precious for that. They were part of my romance - the first weekend with my internet-romance-to-turn-husband started with a visit to B&N. He had the worst haircut of his life that weekend....appearances did not matter because he knew his way around a bookstore! :-D

And then I moved. Boston with its universities had one good thing going for it - lots of bookstores. Without that, I might have totally moved out....again, a move away from friends and all that was familiar and comforting to a place that was cold in weather, with society that needed an ice pick to get through to. There were bookstores everywhere. On Beacon Street - a tiny little basement book store. A travel bookstore nestled on Mt. Auburn Street. A downstairs book store on Newbury Street. The biggies in Cambridge - the Harvard Coop, the world newspaper stand where all newspapers from around the world were available, scholarly used books at Raven ( I only saw this store....not the scholarly type, so passed this one quite easily!).

The big store bookstore I really liked for being comfortable, convenient and combining the good features of big stores and the indie ones was a few streets further from Harvard Square. A corner store whose name I totally forget now. They had these out of the mainstream type recommendations for books and I remember liking and being able to read the recos of one guy called Pete who I only knew from the label ' Pete's Picks'. My thoughts on adoption came together here with books that ranged from the how-to to the finer aspects. Thank god I bought some books then. Adoption books are not that easy to find and now, converting from rupees to dollar, I have to pause and think "Do we really need to eat for the stomach or the brain this month?!"

One winter trip was to my most favourite book store of all was to The Montague Bookmill. Set near Amherst and Smith College (general vicinity - it is really close to nowhere in Indian terms!), it is located in an old saw mill or something of the sort, some industry that used hydel power and is located on top of a river. Yes, a river really runs through it! It has wooden floors and these tall ceiling to floor book shelves. The tag line is "Books you don't need in a place you can't find". I don't know how we came across it - we were planning a bike ride and I think we were researching the area for that. Of course, once we read of it, we had to do the weekend drive over. It is my best book store to date. There was an artist's studio space below where there was a potter and a weaver when we went. I fell head over heels, splashing into love with this place. Used or 'pre-loved' books. What's not to love?!

Homesick for the Book Mill now. Teleporting, anyone?

5 years and going strong

2010-02-15T00:34:00.007+05:30

It is 5 years today since my son joined us through adoption. A valentine like no other. It is quite something to look back on where we were as people before him and all that he has brought into our lives. We now laugh and shout more easily....I didn't say it was all good, did I?! :-D

We worried about such different things then. How would the sibling relationship be? Would people differentiate? What could they say? Would he be hurt? How do we tell him about adoption? Would we be able to bond....yes, we think we can, but will we? And the whole boy thing. Never had a boy in our family growing up that we were close to or really saw growing up. Would he be okay with our food? Our habits? What would it be like to have two kids?

I think it was good to worry or atleast think about these things. If we had pushed things under the carpet, we might have created a different reality. And we are quite happy with the one we have today. He is a cheerful, really smart, fit and happy child. I am biased but can list an equally long list of his not-so-fun characteristics too.

The children get along great - which means they fight, thank god. I would have worried if they didn't. Their world is also only complete when they are both in the same space at the same time with very few separations. They compete like crazy for attention. The sibling relationship is strong. Even on those days that my daughter comes and tells me," I feel like kicking him out of my heart." He wormed his way in and what she does not realize is that it will be quite impossible to kick him out of anywhere....she needs to have kids to REALLY realize that! We know. We have tried and quiet time is not something he gets as a concept. Sorry, obviously not as smart as we initially thought, huh?! :-D

People might differentiate. I know some relatives did. And they have come around in the day-to-day sense. For people of their generation and thinking, this seems to be a tough concept. I can't understand that....but then, I did adopt. In our circles and our lives, in all the ways that matter (and don't), people have been only supportive. We are surrounded by nice people and they also probably figure out we wouldn't stand for it. There are some hurtful things one person has said and repeated as heard. This is par for the course, given the 'relative' tag. The exception does prove the rule.

No one has said anything to him or my daughter. So I will deal with that if it happens. Now, I have the confidence that I know how to deal with it. If I don't overreact, they will not.

We have told him about his adoption. My daughter was also told - she was only 22 months when he came home. He has asked questions, including why 'the woman in whose stomach he was born' did not take care of him. "She could have tooken care of me, no, Amma? Was she bad?" We have shown him his story in pictures. It is personal to him. I think he gets some parts of it. And he relates to adoption...."will the puppy be adopted? YAY!" "Is this XYZ (name of adoption agency)? YAY, my baby place!" We know other children who are adopted and he knows too through an association we belong to. And so far, it seems to have been internalized by him as part of his story. Not too special but not too ordinary either. The story of every kid - my daughter thinks of herself the same way. As does my neighbour's son. So far, so good.

The bonding thing was a bekaar ka worry. I guess, I just needed something to do until he came home. I am not the Bollywood maternal type...tears don't start running when I see my kids smile....maternal urge took a few months to kick in for me in the biological turn. The adoptive turn actually took me less time. Now I was a bit more seasoned and confident that holding a baby does not break it! Full bonding for me took as long as it took for him to get our 'home' smell. You know, when the skin smells like a combination of the soap you use, the lotion you put on, the food you give and all that? That smell took a couple of weeks to fully set in...you will be surprised that one bath does not do it! And the baby step bonding from the first toothless smile on Day Zero to that fierce 'try and rip this kid from my arms' maternity took the same two weeks.

The boy thing is a totally different matter altogether. And goes way beyond which way you wipe when diapering. Boys make noises that you can't match if you try. Which you wonder why you would want to try! Boys are also much more interested in your presence. You can be there and then be ignored but that coming over once in a while to push your buttons or check what you might be doing that can be disrupted does have to happen. Boys are way more simple in general. A few hugs, food, cars and time. A few kisses for all those bruises and falls. Sleep. And they are great to go. No complicated mind games. No guessing between the lines and interpreting. Just simple - will be around, will make weird noises, will play. Our household is heard (more than needed!) because of him. Lately, my daughter is getting herself heard....by the whole street. So maybe it is time for tables to switch.

So what do I know now about adoption parenting that might be useful to others?

- It is different. And that is okay. "Same but different" is a phrase that is used by parents to keep themselves comforted. There are shifts in daily parenting that might be needed for your adoptive child. Easy shifts to make if you are aware that the parenting experience can be different. Like how they deal with rejection, how they might internalize guilt and shame, how important the first few months of care is and how we might never know the effects. How the fact of adoption WILL be something they will think about more and more as time goes on and might never be totally reconciled to in all its entirety. And how we can empower, enable and help them manage these feelings through life and please god, be there for them as long as we can. And that different is OKAY. It does not reflect on you as a parent to admit it. In fact, embrace the difference and it is possible to move on. Denial of the fact of adoption ("we don't even remember she was adopted") rarely gets one further in the path of being totally comfortable. Or to get the wisdom that we might never be totally comfortable. And that is okay too!

- Adoption parenting is about putting the child up front and center. And doing what it takes to make sure the child is okay. The fact that your child is adopted is just that - a fact. So let us incorporate our feelings into the picture, always keeping that child in the center. Sometimes the fact of adoption is in the spotlight. And often, it may not be. My lesson in this is to get out of my comfort zone and do whatever it takes to ensure that my kids are okay. I will get there in due course. And have so far.

- "Equality" between children (any flavour...biological, adoptive, foster, step.....are there other flavors?) is not possible. It is futile to try. And it is unfair to the child. Since all children are different, they have different needs of you. So doing the same thing to one as the other is almost neglect! Almost. What I have figured out is that I can only be fair. Or can try to be fair. My kids would swear that I am totally unfair to them at all times. To my credit, they are both 'equally' vehement in these protests! :-D

G'night!

The 'time out' revelation

2010-02-09T13:55:00.007+05:30

I have been introduced to the concept of 'attachment' at long last. Something every parent needs to know about, in these days of 'quality time'. And found validation for my beliefs on the 'time out' tool in parenting.

My belief - time outs don't really work to solve the problem. A typical year in my life as a parent with time outs:

Week 1, month 1: Blow fuse on one problem, thrilled to give a time out. Child not happy, does the first time out without really getting what this is.

Week 2, month 1: The time out concept has set in with child....now he/she knows that they have to be there. They protest a bit but do it.

Weeks 3 and 4: The children now have lots of time outs. We don't spank/smack/hit. And are turning up noses at people who do. Judgement galore on all parts. The children rack up the hours in time out corner/naughty chair....whatever cute term we decide to call it.

Month 4 - The initial 'issue' with child is gone now. Time outs continue for new problem.

Month 7 - Now time outs are routine. The child sees your face and walks to time out corner. That mat needs replacement....two butts on it for hours and several hands pulling coir out....they have to do something!

Year 500 - Time outs happening. The household is quieter comparitively (this one my neighbour will dispute!) but the problems are not gone. The ones that are gone are those that would have gone with the general passage of time and the end of that phase in any case.

Time outs work to reduce shouting, give the kids and us a break at that point when things are all heated up. What they don't do is solve the issue. What they also do is reduce the sense of attachment much faster than anything we can do to build it.

My experiences with time outs were that they are not that effective in the long run. They seemed to work in the short run. My personal opinion in this is that it is not worth the pain and power struggling that they end up being in the long run. We are actually only able to do it because as a parent and an adult, we are in positions of power.

I am able to do much more with the kids when I am playful, use humour and listening and flex to somethings. It is easier to accomplish the results of months of time out 'conditioning' over a few hours of games with the family. It is also much more fun and I can finally enjoy the children for who they are, not what I want/think they should be.

For those of you who believe in time outs, this is not criticism. Just my personal opinion on something I feel very strongly about. Mainstream parenting techniques are parent friendly for most part and not as child friendly as they should be. And if time outs were really effective, they would not have to be used so much. They are also not easy on either party in the picture.

For both my children (biological and adopted), this technique has hit at a part of their self-esteem. This has been part of making them conform....when to us parents, that level of conformance is like beating the originality out of a child.

I had a phone slammed on me a couple of times by a person who I am quite happy looking through now. The rejection of that gesture from a person who is not even really close was enough to turn a generally accommodating me into the wrath of hell. I have come to believe that time-outs are just rejection spread over time. There are other parents who have seen the same effect on their kids.

The results are enough to say 'not on my watch'.

Salutations on a good 60 spent and wishes for excellent centuries ahead!

2010-01-26T12:42:00.007+05:30

I am one of those corny Bollywood kind Indian patriots...the kinds who would not have any trouble kissing (a cleanish) part of Indian earth getting back home, the kinds that would carry the flag and run through enemy territory and collapse on Indian soil (give life for a useless cause in the name of India)...and so on.
It is not cool to shout that out on rooftops and much cooler to highlight all the wrongs and 'might have beens' in our 'system'.

So I want to reinforce some amazing achievements...achievements that are truly world class and recognized as such by the world (except our over critical/cynical selves!). The first election commissioner Sukumar Sen. An accomplished mathematician, he was responsible for bringing our millions, literate and otherwise to the polls. What did India in the '50s do? Gave universal adult franchise (or suffrage) in one fell swoop. France was the oldest nation to give male suffrage (they called it universal, guess the 50% who hold up the sky were doing that job when the males were posturing in politics!) in 1792....precipitated by a bloody revolution and a few guillotined monarchs. Their women voted in 1944. India as a nation came into being in 1947 and brought a pretty progressive constitution into being in 1950.

So we decide, despite crumbling infrastructure, poor to no connectivity, a tiny literacy rate....like I said, the limitations are and were galore...to ensure that every adult voted in our first election. Coming back to our hero, Sukumar Sen brought in voting stations, assigned personnel (I am sure had to get some intensive training done), gave us all a simple and usable system that covered people who wanted to band together and become a party (elections symbols that were recognizable to all), achieved a 45% turnout.the list goes on and on. And all this in one election.

8 million ballot boxes were made. Indelible ink was developed by Indian scientists and manufactured in bulk (how inadequate that word is to describe 3,90,000 phials of ink!). To ensure that people did not make a mistake in casting their vote, each party had its own ballot box. In each polling booth!

Sukumar Sen faced problems like women not wanting to give their names, preferring to be called Ramu ki Ma and the such. The first election saw 2.8 million women's names being struck off the lists for this reason. This is a more acceptable reason to me for outdated voter lists. The last election saw my name being struck off the list for 'political' reasons! By the way, how the heck do they know how you vote? The BJP worker in the poll booth knew I didn't vote in their favor!

It was in essence a leap of faith by a whole bunch of people and managed and run by Indians who were sincere, if almost barefoot in terms of infrastructure. The EC as an institution is a visible and toothed organization. I mean, to get those asses who masquerade as politicians to be wary of you, you have to be quite the rockstar!

And this is only one hero. I learned of Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, the child bride turned feminist, an aristocrat who truly worked for the people disadvantaged by centuries of abuse that her class perpetuated, the person who established Cottage Industries, the National School of Drama, Sangeet Natak Academy, the Crafts Council of India. She was the first Indian women to be arrested in the freedom movement (she took packets of contraband salt to sell at the Bombay Stock Exchange and got one whole year in prison!). She founded Faridabad at the time of partition as a township where refugees from the North West Frontier could rehabilitate themselves in peace and dignity.

This is only half of what she did in her life....I can feel myself running out of steam just describing what she did, much less take on and do one task that she did in her lifetime. I always thought I would have wanted to be alive during the freedom movement and do some damage to some institutions that keep us enslaved. This Republic Day (and my almost 40 years of life experience) has taught me that it is infinitely more difficult to build, nurture and cherish than critique and tear down. We still need the critique, just enough to ensure that our institutions are robust.

I love my India! Fade out into the sunset, still running around that sole, still standing tree......

New Year's Resolution!

2010-01-08T08:51:00.003+05:30

No sweets and moderate fried foods for six months.

On Day 8 and going strong. Root for me, people!

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T17:19:00.003+05:30

A favourite song to wish you a wonderful year ahead!

Forever Young
May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.

May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

Another adoption - this time of a four legged one!

2009-12-22T17:27:00.005+05:30

And no, am not talking of crawling babies. My family was fostering a one month old pup for a few days. It began with someone's desperate call to help with five little puppies...four one month olds and one two month old. This brave and slightly crazy (in a nice way!) person had put herself out to take care of a young litter that really needed the fostering.

So we put our hands up for one male pup (we called him Bisleri - he slept in a Bisleri dabba and seemed to store a bottle inside of him....in any case, it was the final destination's job to give him a 'real' name). He was tan and black and white and a total cuddle bug. He peed once every 20 minutes (conservative estimate) and already had the makings of some toilet training...he would paw at the outside door to be let out to do his thing.

Bisleri turned out home inside out....literally and figuratively. All our carpets were folded away, our home had newspapers on the floor and we all walked gingerly to ensure that we did not step on the little guy by mistake. He liked to walk between our feet! He had his tiny set of rice like teeth, that were itching to get blunt and he would try to use them on anything of interest. In came a cloth bone, teething ball and ring....the day after he tried to eat my husband's hair. My brave mom was kept on her toes by this little guy, years after her work of raising kids and another puppy. This one reminded us of the other in many ways...he liked to poke holes in her sari too.

The deal with my mom was that if she wanted to watch him during the day, I would take the nights. And I did. And what nights they were. We (of course, marriage means 'I' becomes 'we', esp. when work is involved!) were up in frustration, groggy and slit-eyed in the middle of the night, woken up by a mewling puppy. He wanted to pee or eat or just not sleep. In moments, he would have us laughing at his antics....pouncing on the bone, creeping up on the ball or prancing towards our toes.

We began on Wednesday night and our agreement to foster him was until the following Monday evening. Days turned into nights into days and we all had no clue what we were doing between work, kids and Bisleri. Our idea of bringing our own cocker pup home in January took a beating when we realized that we were absolutely not ready to add another baby to our family of four. We needed space and someone at home full-time to ensure that we were fair to the new puppy.

The decision from the heart was vetoed by the head...a postponement for another year (at least!). The children did not fight. Except one mild skirmish that had no serious intention....a kind of formality to ensure that we parents didn't get used to a whine/fight free home, they were a team with Bisleri at the center. Everyone entered the home asking about the little peeing brat. All the work was so worth it when the little one crawled into our laps and fell fast asleep when we were resting our tired feet!

Monday night came and the transfer did not happen. The desperate friend was too tired out to even consider taking this one back. It was kind of panic time - we were going away for a week and needed to get this guy to someone who could take care of him....asap. So telephone exchanges and logistics arrangements later, it was time to get the baby to Achala Paani. She runs Life on the Street, an NGO that uses street pup adoption as a humane way to safeguard animals AND human rights at the same time.

We were to meet on MG Road in the morning to do pup transfer - a foster home was located. On the way, I asked the taxi driver if he liked pups. He loved them, his family had had 4-5 of them in the village and had only not had a dog companion in the city. I immediately asked him if he wanted to take little Bisleri home and he joyfully agreed. Touchdown!!!!!

We still met Achala, who has a pup adoption form that people sign, promising to respect the animal and take responsibility for it at all times, promising to spay/neuter the pup and pay a nominal Rs. 400 to Life on the Street for all its work. Muthuraj, our Hero of the Day signed and paid the money - I had offered to sponsor, thinking it could help him out. He refused, saying it was his pup and that he would take care of him this day forward.

We left Achala, all of us pretty thrilled....Bisleri had a bag three times his size with food, toys, a vaccination card, 'Power Pup' (lactogen for pups) and his plate from our home to keep some things constant. He also left us clean and smelling of 'Adidas Team Four' shower gel, my husband's contribution to making him smell masculine and like a 'kutti stud pup'! This pup has a good home and I know I can enquire about him and know of his antics....we have not lost all contact with the little guy.

Day one of my vacation has been wonderful. Mom found her apartment - once she signs, I have another place to go in the same city. Imagine that luxury. We celebrated at Ambrosia. A Flambe festival there rounded off a really awesome day.

I marvel at Achala, who braves naysayers and cynics to speak up for these mute best friends. I marvel at pups/dogs who can crawl so effortlessly into your laps and hearts at first sight. Their complete faith in us, their caretakers is so humbling. As a society, we fail them every day. These pups' mother was beaten to death in a very posh part of this city. We failed in curbing populations (human and animal) and we fail in taking care of these world citizens, whichever species they belong to, however they have been brought into this world.

So many people hate the fact that 'adoption' is the word used in both human and animal 'home finding missions'. I believe it is totally appropriate. An animal lover knows that of which I speak!

G'night!

A photography workshop this weekend

2009-12-14T00:16:00.003+05:30

Am doing real good with the bucket list. Hope to add some more as I go along, it will not do to get it all done and lie down, waiting to die! :-D

Got a DSLR after 8 years of wanting one. Tried to take some pictures of son's 'graduation' from kindergarden to primary achool and could not even get it to focus right! This time, I can't blame the equipment. Have signed up for a photography workshop this weekend....since I barely know which end of a camera is to be pointed and which to be shot (yes, the effects of the point-and-shoot lingerrrrrrr), it will be good to get the basics straight. Hope it is not too much on concepts....I need just enough to be dangerous and lots of application knowledge to TRY to be any good.

Learned Pilates from a DVD and began to do it some days. Need consistency, as in all things. Finally, the stress in life is coming down - maybe now that memory will finally improve. I plan on trying very hard to keep stress levels down like this. Now, all I have to work on is the stress of keeping up on all my hobbies and accomplishing all my bucket lists! :-D

G'night!

Adoption

2009-12-06T23:03:00.007+05:30

I have blogged a bit on adoption but have stayed off the subject more often than not. Something recently changed my mind - a workshop where it seemed really important to the speakers and the audience to hear that adoption parenting was the same as 'regular' parenting. "With an additional facet from adoption."

I have so many problems with this view - for one, it is denial. With a different way of building a family come different parenting requirements and challenges. Those relating to adoption fall in this category. Different is not bad, people! It is just that - different and totally okay in its difference.

Two, adoption impacts the identity of the child in question. It is integral to the adopted child's being, as much as his/her gender is or their nationality. For some, as important as religion....for our family, not as important as religion....who knows how our son might see it. He might actually become a 'born again' Hindu, god forbid! Yes, my biases show.

So to deny the difference is denying the fact of adoption. And why is the difference so terrifying? And why is it super important to several adoptive parents to qualify the parenting experience 'just the same as if the child were biological but different'? It is as if the adoptive parent wants to fit in and retain some uniqueness, in the same breath. If adoption was truly only a means of building a family, the parents should neither want to fit in or stand out because they adopted!

My position on the 'same but different' angle is now set. Adoption parenting is different. The areas of parenting are universal - the routines of feeding, educating, clothing, disciplining, etc. and the emotional part of parenting that entails bringing up a secure, well adjusted individual. However, how we carry out adoption parenting is different.

Feeding can differ from feeding a young child used to an institution who may not cry when hungry to a toddler who eats like they will not have another meal but this one to an older child who uses food and not eating to gain attention....it is now boring to eat and has become routine. Educating may mean a more flexible school atmosphere for one child and the need for severe routine and timetables to another. Disciplining is the part where I believe adoption parenting differs most from 'regular' parenting. Conventional parenting techniques suggest 'time outs' versus adoption parenting that recommends a 'time in'. A time out could be another rejection to the adopted child. I am not even talking about telling the child about the fact of adoption.

The messages an adopted child receives are really important - the seven core issues of loss, rejection, guilt/shame, grief, identity, intimacy/relationships and control feed into every aspect of their lives. Whether their parents like it or not. Whether we can identify it or not at the time it happens. We have to accept it and assist the child, not stay in our own ignorant zones of denial.

So in the interest of the child, it is time for parents to move out of their comfort zones. It is more important for the child's interests to be addressed than for parents to feel comfortable. With a level of imbalance/out of comfort zone feeling comes learning. Hopefully, this learning can translate into day-to-day parenting solutions for the parent and the parented. Hopefully, any vicious cycles in operation can be broken by empathetic parenting, with love. Unconditional love is not possible without someone getting out of their comfort zones!

So let's embrace the difference in parenting that exist in adoptive families. And see what we can do to enhance the experience for the child and the parent.

G'night!

My Bucket List

2009-11-12T16:45:00.004+05:30

Okay, so every month seems to bring me closer to the big four oh. In earth time, still 30 months away but lately, I seem to be hearing more about the cons of crossing 40. For someone who still feels 28 was just yesterday (okay, my knees alone are a bit further along!), it seems quite ridiculous to see the major sentiment attached to being 40. It has been my experience that I own my years a lot more now than before. That confidence is a real state of mind, most of the time. Very different from the late 20s when maturing in relationships and career was happening....at the same time...and sometimes with the same amount of pain! :-D

So decided to put up my bucket list. The initial 10 for the next decade. To be added to as and when the mind prevails!

1. Build a home.
2. Adopt third child - a puppy named Loopy.
3. Travel atleast once a year to fun places....longish trips.
4. Spend time laughing with kids. More time, that is. And less shouting.
5. Spend time with aging parents, in-laws and all kinds of friends. This too shall pass.
6. Contribute everyday to one social problem in India.
7. Get a massage atleast once a year.
8. Run away to movies and dinners with love of my life (no, not the puppy this time!) a few times in the year.
9. Learn Italian.
10. Finish another stained glass piece for that new home.
11. Get private lessons to perfect breathing while swimming.
12. Lose that last, bloody persistent 10 kgs.
13. Buy self a new wardrobe when that 10 melts off.
14. Learn Pilates.
15. Consistently DO pilates.......

Okay, the mind prevailed. Funny how so little is related to work...maybe except no. 6.

Later, folks!

The school update!

2009-10-12T23:34:00.003+05:30

Always thought that parents talked too much about schools in our times. Before and after becoming a parent! And now, I know it is fact....we all do compare notes and do all it takes to get comfortable that the kids are getting a good education.

I think this is because

- as a generation, we are over involved parents. Be it getting into homework assignments, school exhibitions, play dates, birthday parties or school talk, we are over involved in our kids' lives. A throw back of the nuclear family or a change in parenting approaches? I don't know. Child centric for sure, maybe too much in some ways and not enough in others...like wanting them to do what we want them to do, yes, the engineer/doctor pressure still exists, maybe with more professions joining the list. Finally, accounting/commerce/economics are on the A-list, but I digress.

- we have more exposure to best practices in several fields and make this apply to kids' day cares, recreational facilities, schools, extra curriculars, you name it. Either through travel or reading or word of mouth from others, we know more of what we want and what we can't compromise on. Ergo, more talk of schools and kids in general!

- we are aspirational for our kids in things we did not have. Like many generations before us. The only difference being we are able to put our wallets where our mouths are much better than previous generations, for most part.

- we are thinking mch bigger for our kids than we did for ourselves. Parents tend to do that, again that cusp of prosperity, opportunity and thinking means that our kids have better access. What they do with it is anyone's guess!

- schools and systems in general are bursting. The confidence our parents had is less these days for us in all systems. Before a good quality english medium school was the criterion, people found one and stuck to it until they had to move home/city/town. Teachers mostly stayed put in the school, maybe progressing from one class to a higher one. Today's kind of teacher turnover was not a given. Schools do not now come with any assurance that their history will be an indicator of their future....they are also aspirational and why not?! The level of change, however, eats into parental confidence levels....leading to more involvement....and the cycle continues.

I am happy to report that my little one is thrilled to go to school and so excited and charged up when she comes out. She is exposed to so many activities in school consistently and is tired out at the end of the day with a solid session of sports, every day. Her appetite has increased, her level of enthusiasm has got to almost boisterous....something that is a stunner for people who know her.

I don't know if this move is an amazing long term one. Just know that today, it is a good one. And that the makings of a good school are worth supporting and strengthening. If the thinking is in the right direction, the school will do well soon enough. To me, they already are doing great.

2009-09-30T00:18:00.003+05:30

Okay, a tagging I took up voluntarily from Starry Eyed, if only to atone for not doing two of her previous tags. Supposed to put a star next to every book you have read. Here goes.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte x
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling x
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee x
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell x
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
Total: 8

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
Total: 4

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell x
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy x
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll x
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Total: 3

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy x
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens x
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen x
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen x
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini x
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden x
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne x
Total: 7

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell x
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown x
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery x
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
Total: 3

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel x
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth x
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Total: 4

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas x
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie x
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville x
Total: 3

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens x
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett x
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray x
80 Possession - AS Byatt
Total: 3

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker x
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry x
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White x
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom x
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton x
Total: 7

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute x
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas x
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl x
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo x
Total: 4

46 in total. Some are cheating type reads - non detailed in school, french lessons (no. 100), substitute Hamlet for Merchant of Venice and it would have been 47. I remember my literature teacher in high school, she encouraged us to read up on writing styles and contexts and connect them all in critical appreciation. Long live, ICSE English curriculum setters!

Exciting, this means there are atleast 54 windows to worlds out there for me to read! My library delivers and I can see some serious reading up ahead!

Thanks, Starry!

G'night!

Eventful week!

2009-09-19T12:24:00.003+05:30

Found out this week that my sensibilities are not conventional. That education really does not mean marks or discipline or activities to me. That I strongly want the joy of learning for my kids and unhindered creativity. That a lot of schools around me fall short. That I am super picky in ensuring that the childhood experience is good for the kids. That this is pretty much all I can contribute to their life. That we are lucky enough to live within travelling distance to a school on my wavelength. That a longer commute is a small price to pay for the quality of the content. That we will not be eating in order to pay school fees! :-D

Moved older one out of a reputed conventional school today. After a year and a half of agonizing about the two options, making a decision that was the right one at that time, husband and I pulled daughter out to go the montessori route mid term. We were pretty lucky that their old school embraced the kids back into the fold.

At peace with the school decision at last and more committed than ever to get lifeskills onto the national curriculum....the only way the conventional system will think right is through mandate (the exceptions only prove the rule, people!).

The Me Time!

2009-08-27T08:33:00.003+05:30

Report of me time....going really well. Spent a ton of time last night upto 1:00 am getting my favourite songs onto the iPod. My gift to myself....the song putting and the iPod! Workshop over the weekend - self development, pretty intense full day two day affair. So am happy to note that the self focus (refuse to call it selfish!) is going well. Am running alongside incredibly self motivated son trying to get his balance on his kutti non-training wheels 'two wheeler' as he calls it. Am swimming during their swim class and getting my exercise quotient. Eating healthy, did I mention that the organic veggie place has a website and home delivers (!!)....this week, I have it down. Daughter got off to school today in such a infectious upbeat mood...no credit to me, that. And have even got my smile on most times - really, people! Am thrilled to get this far and test this boundary.

Saw a movie at home over the weekend. Crappy movie called 'New York' - need to give up hope that Bollywood will rise beyond that name. Got to hang out with stressed out hubby after a long time. Louise Hay has done a lot of good in this household.

What is it about music that takes you right back to those times? Was listening to music from the 90's (my time in DC and university) and time travelled there in a jiffy. The songs that were on 97.1 Wash FM!! Great week already! :-D

Wish you all the same!

Dream A Dream is 10 years old! Do join our dream!

2009-07-29T08:53:00.003+05:30

Two down....now to convert!

2009-07-26T21:50:00.003+05:30

Over committed is a fact of life for me now. A fact that I struggling with and am fighting against, but a fact nonetheless. And I look around to see that this is the general lifestyle for a lot of people. Right, wrong, I don't know....do know that this is not sustainable for me.

The kids go to different schools - a friend who has the same situation by choice has no issues with this....school buses exist for both schools! Not so in my case. So in between 5:45 am wake ups to run around until 7:30 - 8:00 pm every day (recently, even including the weekend!), I am run ragged....sometimes by personal choice, because I can't let go of some little things. Can't even blame others! :-D

So this week has been consolidation and letting go week(end). Let go of an opportunity that I would have loved to do - write a blog for NGOs on finance/economics relates topics. I have to say that I waited till the last moment to let go of this one - really wanted to do it but have to understand and accept that I really don't have the time to manage two blogs a month on top of the original one article a month commitment.

Also managed to transition out a office bearer post into more capable (and obviously more willing) hands today. Funny how tough it was to talk about the challenges of the year - my hands were actually shaking and I laid the paper with my speech down to ensure that others did not see....didn't realize I was that affected deep down. And this in spite of serious work put in - I know I did my best most of the time. Man, when will I learn to stick to some comfort zones?!

Now it is time to focus on the fun stuff. Weekends off by choice to ensure that I am not a workaholic - a genetic condition that needs serious reprogramming. Movie dates with my husband....we start and then get busy, restart only to get busy again. I guess the fact that we restart is in itself a blessing?! Anyways, more of this every week/month.

More introspection and me time, however selfish that sounds. Have to regroup and get back to equilibrium....this state of affairs can't go on. To those who know what I am talking of, hang in there....'this too shall pass' is not my favourite saying for nothing.

G'night!

Hilarious story of Thievery 101....true story!

2009-07-20T21:13:00.004+05:30

A colleague at work S tells this hilarious story of thievery 101. A few thieves landed on her roof last night. Neighbours were shouting, the police came and these guys went from terrace to terrace over the same four houses. The police stayed downstairs and shouted out to the thieves to come down! S and her family were armed with lamps....yes, lamps, presumably to kill the thieves with enlightenment, in case they broke through the terrace door.

These thieves were in thief school - learning course 101. Because they hid in one of the terraces until first light, thought the police had left and tamely came down to be escorted to the police station. Not only did they steal nothing, they actually left their slippers at the house they came to steal from! Laughed guts out at work today. We really need those long belly laughs every now and then!

G'night, people!

The blame game.....

2009-07-08T22:08:00.003+05:30

Am getting really annoyed with people passing the buck. Am trying hard to not do it myself, but lately some experiences have been really out of the ordinary.

The crowning experience of it all was my maid. She has not come to work for two months and 1 week and counting. She placed her sister with me as stop gap and it could have been a really bad experience otherwise. So we start off with typhoid just before my 2 week long vacation. Not a problem - my plants would be watered by sister. Come back and call from Delhi in concern and find she has had surgery. Some thing removed from the back of her neck....major surgery but required only a day in hospital. Concerned now, still like an idiot, no concern for self.

It is now a month, convalescence time has been amply used. People have seen her chatting and gallivanting away in town, still no sign of beginning work. Now daughter is in hospital for high fever, think it is 'piper' flu (belief is that 'panni' flu is in papers and therefore in our neighbourhood!). Then it is a month and a half and now school has started for the kids, am working my behind off and coming home to find it in the same state in which I left it. Not pretty.

Now, we can't walk....so tired that we are in bed all the time. "I am coming on the 1st" - guess what today is Monday and 1st is the next wednesday. "Houdha? Okay, I will try!" Now it is the 7th and I find out that she has been 'possessed' by a ghost/goddess for two months. Driver has been scared out of his wits by her baring her teeth at him, growling and making like she would bite! Slowly, the fraternity/sorority comes out with it...."she is possessed", "that amma will come and destroy us all", "we thought if we told you, you would get scared"....now, this is a humdinger. Never heard of a 2 month time off for being possessed. Reality is closer to 'work in order to possess'!

Now, what do I do? One part of me is pretty upset that a person like her with self esteem and the inability to accept charity ("I will not take unless you give me some extra work"), a single mother with three kids, who walked out on an abusive relationship, who was working hard to educate her kids and ensured they did their homework and went to tuition because she was not literate, is now at seeing this low point in life. Wonder what being possessed really is in medical terms - hallucinations? schizophrenia?

The other part is also upset to see my own state. Pay very generously, take care of them as much as I can, in return expect really basic service and put up with less than that, deal with absences without notice again and again (despite clear instructions, a cell phone being available and the offer to reimburse for calls made) without blowing my top - this is more than my husband gets....

We all want to help and be good employers. We also have to expect of help value for money. It is almost irresponsible to not expect this (my fault!) because then we build in them the understanding for professional behaviour, much like is expected of us. If I were to be out of touch with my employer for a week (maybe three days in todays' times), my job would have been so far gone, it would be funny!

I finally fired her. Cut my heartstrings and decided that charity begins at home, in this case with myself. Two kids in two different schools, a job (that allows me flexibility, thank god!), car pools and kids' extracurriculars, a couple of additional NGO responsibilities.....I need help too. Now I have someone coming in at 5:45 am and sweeping my floors. She does half of what the other person did for almost the same money. The time slot is a crucial thing for working people and this person is supposed to be reliable. Hence the premium....market economics at its best.

The old maid's sister was to take up another chunk of the work - she has the keys, is reliable.....except she now has typhoid. And I wonder how much of that cycle will repeat itself. Two possessions in the same household, both of whom worked for me.....that ghost must be mine!

G'night!

And the results are.....

2009-06-26T19:44:00.005+05:30

wonderfully surprising. Following my idea on researching fatalities involving women drivers, got into many sites with data. The FARS site (http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx) even allows you to query the data (husband's current passion is multi-variate data analysis....life is coming one full circle for me with math working its way back into daily life!) according to your variables.

The result - in 2007 (the last year for which data is available), 61,700 male drivers caused fatalities while the comparable statistic for women drivers was 30,700 (rounded up numbers). Even with allowances for women driving less, shorter distances, et al, the number will be equal.

So then what are the MCP reasons people spout? Oh, the data is not complete because it does not count how many accidents women cause. Just putting it out there to be fair to the opposing side....there are stupid arguments and this is an example.

The driving style argument is one reason for more male drivers causing fatalities - men drive more aggressively and therefore the chances of accidents involving male drivers turning into fatalities is greater. Okay, so drive safer - moral of story, testosterone behind wheel is not good for you.

Some funny findings - parents drive safer, men AND (the already safe) women. That would be men between the ages of 33 - 55 and women 28 years and above. I guess women can't stop being parents, even with kids out of the car! Life sentence, this one! :-D

Van drivers were also found to be safer....reason, they are duller! I will run and hide now from my friends who drive vans. Remember people, shooting the messenger will not make your life more fun! :-D

G'night!

A Proud Feminist!

2009-06-26T08:56:00.005+05:30

For years, I used to shy away from using the word. Yes, I believed that women were people, equal to (and even better at times than) men. That was my buckling down to Indian society saying 'Feminism' was a dirty word.

No one in my circles would imagine not educating their kids, were even rabid about women's rights, except they didn't call it that. Because then, it is out there too much and would scare men (several of whom by the way, believe in the same values and ARE feminist in thinking....god forbid using THE word to describe them though!).

Then I saw this bumper sticker in the US that said "A Feminist is someone who believes women are people". Love the bumper stickers in the US - they have mastered the art of using just the right amount of humour to put across some amazing (and unpopular) ideas. Also in the US, was part of an International Women's Group - a bunch of us started the first batch out of an international orientation session. Oh man, how it freaked the guys out. The jokes wore thin very quickly (because one could see the almost fear inside!) and I began to wonder why reasonably stable secure men (at least on surface) would be so threatened by a group of women talking of issues totally not related to men in any way.

In India, of course feminist is almost a swear word. The other really disgusting stereotypes are 'women drivers!' (several women are pretty brainwashed to believe they are genetically engineered to be bad drivers and perpetuate these myths!), 'kitty parties'.....am sure I could go on with other examples if I had had the patience to stick with the people who think on these lines!

Am going to do a small research project backed by data to see how many accidents involve women drivers and figure out what percentage (so that volume is not an argument!) of women drivers are bad drivers. And I bet that it will be about the same as men....good and bad are gender insensitive in all performances.

Now I plan to be a card carrying feminist. It still means women are people and equal in all ways. It still means giving people a choice to figure their own lives out, regardless of whether they are men or women. It definitely means taking women's rights forward by being the best person I can be and doing things I want to, regardless of whether these things are 'acceptable for women' in society or not. And it positively means bringing my kids (son AND daughter) up to be bleeding heart liberals who can take care of themselves...cooking for themselves shall not be life threatening and working to stand on their own feet shall be the given.

Thank god I married a feminist....yes, he might wince to hear himself described this way. Funny huh, the power of words?!

It is one week.....12 years and 51 weeks to go!

2009-06-16T22:18:00.003+05:30

It has been one week of M's new school. Graduated from montessori to big school...big in terms of convention, size and independence, I guess. She goes by school bus really early and gets back before you know it. Soon that will change and it will be decent chunk of time....enough for a part-timer at the office like me.

So in between getting things ready the night before to getting them to bed in the evening (yes, 7:45 pm is still evening...there were times before when 9:00 pm would be when life started!) and then waking up before the alarm in fright, I am a walking, barely intelligible zombie! When I have to figure out a washing schedule for uniform, I consider myself grown up (and straitjacketed!). Okay, I am grown up now. Young at heart....but grown up! :-D

She has already made friends - three of them, a big deal for a kid who makes few but fast friends. She had one BESTEST friend all through 3.5 years of montessori. I was a bit worried about the transition - would she get back on the right bus? Would she be okay asking for help when she needed it? So far, people looked out for the kids and things were taken care of.

I am pretty impressed with the school - this 'Big' school is pretty organized. In the middle of chaos with their new campus not ready, a shift system to manage all the kids in a smaller space until the facility is ready, they still find time to ensure that the kids take the books to school in parts and believe in leaving the books in school. No lugging around heavy bags, something that was a given in conventional schools in my day. They have camping and pottery, art and yoga, hands on science and Hindi....quite a bit of fun in general. The kids on campus seemed pretty happy to go to school daily and so far, M is showing the same interest.

It helps that there are kids from her old school in her bus, her class and friends from where we live, her dance class, our friends' kid....enough familiar faces. I was worried if she would strike out on her own. Three friends...she knows their names and actually reached out. Why am I so thrilled and stuck on this?

I have a friend in town from my UKG days. We talk every other day, our kids play together and in some ways, she is my conscience...we have never ever fought as far back as I can remember. Maybe this is why the friend angle really thrills me.

Academics-wise they are doing very, very little. From multiplication and adjectives level language in montessori, pal has been assigned the alphabet of day one. I hope it is only because it is day one! Some drawing, coloring and basic words.....way below their 'KG' class work. One part of me wants to go out and buy some books and see that all that Hindi vocab is not lost (she already has a better vocabulary than me...though that is not saying much, maintaining this now will mean less learning work for me later!) and the other part says "chill, the pressure will come in a few years, why worry?" Will probably do a bit of both! :-D

G'night!

A peaceful weekend

2009-06-13T08:31:00.003+05:30

Finally a weekend with little scheduled! With a week that has been all about early morning awakening (5:45 am from Wednesday for the next 12 years!), the two hours extra sleep this morning was so valuable. Daresay that we will get used to this new routine, it definitely has its benefits. Kids are out early and end up getting back early....they have play time et al in the afternoons. I can get to work early and actually get a lot done because I get a good hour with few distractions/interruptions there.

So the fact that I can make a trip to Blossom bookstore in the center of town this morning (even with two brats tagging along!) is luxury. Blossoms is a new and used book that is a Bangalore institution. They buy your old books and give store credit to buy more books. For a reader with little space at home, this feels like being a kid in a toystore with a gift cheque!

There are chores to be done and some work.....funny that the concept of peace has become a couple of hours of browsing to last the next few weeks! Got a hanging swing for our living room to get that vacation feeling at home....we all have to find out corners where and when we can!

Big milestone tomorrow

2009-06-09T22:19:00.003+05:30

Early in the morning tomorrow, husband and I will take 6 year old to the bus stop for her first journey to 'big' school. She starts first grade and in typical filmi fashion, her first days on earth are floating around in my mind. She can't be 6 already!

Funny how I have wanted to have this milestone approach for a long time now and now that it is here, it is quite bittersweet. Somehow, the 12 years left to college seem too close for comfort!

Next year, when the both of them get away from home super early in the morning, I will actually have time to exercise and chill out a bit before taking off to work! Imagine that! Am going to try hard to keep that stiff upper lip tomorrow...can't dampen the excitement she has with getting to wear a uniform and go in a school bus by weeping my guts out.

Oh man, now I know what my parents mean when they treat me like a kid who can't wipe her nose! :-D

G'night!

Part 2- The Ladakh Story

2009-06-02T21:37:00.004+05:30

Well, day one was all about sleep. Eat and then back to sleep again. The pain of getting out of home (sometimes the week before and after vacation can negate the whole thing!) was so great that we had no issues with sleeping it out. The reason: to avoid altitude sickness. Felt breathless in the middle of the night - like there was no oxygen, even the five stair stretch to the room would make us pant. Putting and taking off the heavy shoes, walking carrying the jackets (hot and cold - within minutes of each other!), all this was enough to tire us out.

Day two - the nice Mr. Tsering at Hotel Omasila allowed us to go out and explore without climbing. So we took off on a trip to Alchi - a three hour drive each way. Saw the mountains, Indus river as soon as we left Leh, amazing snow clad mountains, brown/green/rock all over. The 360 degree views were amazing. We drove off road to the confluence of the Zanskar and Indus rivers - the rivers stay distinct with their blue and green colours a mile after they merge. Touched the river, collected stones from there and continued on to Alchi.

We caught the place a week before tourist season. Heaven in that it was not very crowded, the downside being that a lot of the bakeries are not open, some shops are just opening up, et al. Our plans to take off on day 4 to Khardungla hit the brakes - the road was closed for elections (security? about 200 kms from Kargil) and only opened later. Also snow fall had made the roads tough to pass....remember this is 18,380 feet! And a one-way road. So one day it is all traffic going to Nubra Valley, over the pass and the other day is vehicular traffic coming back. They do allow the smaller vehicles to break this rule - so there are some traffic snarls because there is no space for two cars to pass up there!

They had declared Section 144 (mild curfew, I think with people more than 4 -5 in number not allowed to congregate or something like that) on election day - my birthday. We didn't really know this and took off after the hotel guys checked with the authorities...or so they said. When the driver saw the election commission cavalcade out to check on the booths, he rushed to park in a lot. Figured out that then it was not such a great idea to be out!

Went anyway to the Stok palace...the king and his family still live here. His family had been exiled to Stok some 200 years ago or something like that. The three room museum there was pretty cool - the queen in the 60's and 70's was quite the world traveller and hob nobber. Went around to Matho Gompa, closed for the elections. The picnic lunch was awesome. The kids had a ball trying to pick the few plastic covers out of the stream with 'fishing rods'. Nice day...back with headaches, yes, we had not slept our quota of 10 hours that day! :-D Nearly got used to that lifestyle!

Time to sleep my 6 hours today! G'night!

Typical Ladakhi home in Alchi

2009-05-31T23:12:00.001+05:30

The Ladakh story

2009-05-26T23:21:00.006+05:30

Well, the trip was an adventure from start to finish. The flight on Sunday got cancelled - bad weather in Leh. Of course, it was 45 degrees (that's centigrade to the interested) in Delhi. We got back to our acco and begged for a room. And wondered what we would do if the flight was cancelled yet again on Monday!

We made it on Monday with a heartstopping flight - ate idli sambhar airline breakfast flying over the Himalayas. So much for my admonishing the kids to eat what was available, 'we won't get idli/dosa there'. My credibility is already looking tattered and we were not even there yet! The flight lands if there is a hole in the clouds and they actually follow the road to navigate. The flight landed with 200 meters to spare of the runway and when we saw some crew high-fiving, figured it was a tough touch down.

It is moonscape, with a heavy armed forces presence. Think brown, rock, barbed wire. And snow tipped mountains everywhere. Set down in a valley at 11,000 ft above mean sea level...from pretty much sea level! We got picked up, were seen to suite rooms with amazing views and unbelievably affordable rates (early booking rocks! a 50% discount and we had a living area and a bedroom...with two children, this is a blessing that one can pay a million for!) and told to sleep the whole day. Warm soup came to us without asking - found out later that it was a mistaken order that we consumed! We thought it was the hospitality...which was pretty good.

Our friends S, S and their daughter T were with us. And the adventure began.

More later! G'night!

Check out the blue and green waters of the Indus and Zanskar.....

2009-05-25T01:32:00.003+05:30

Ladakh is out of this world

2009-05-25T00:49:00.002+05:30

Almost literally - the almost highest motorable road on earth is here and the landscape is almost moonscape. And we were on it, holding on for dear life. Stuck and skidding in snow. The most picturesque and adventurous vacation to date.

I shall upload some pictures, since words are superfluous.

G'night!

A Nobel Peace Prize winner for sure!

2009-05-22T17:32:00.003+05:30

Read 'Three Cups of Tea' by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. A great book describing the real life fairy tale (ish...with actual ups and downs) and the continuing happy ending of Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer who found his life's work of building schools in Pakistan/Afghanistan out of a failed attempt to climb K2.

An American nurse (yes, the surname could have been Focker/Stiller!), he has built more than 50 schools in isolated villages that barely showed up on maps years ago. I think this guy is a Nobel Peace Prize winner sometime in the next decade. The funda was to educate and provide options other than Jihad. Ex-Taliban fighters are his advocates, warlords have seen the value of his non-religious work in educating boys and girls in his schools. A simple idea anywhere else but quite radical for the region it was achieved in.

Tells me that secularism works....that 'pseudo-secular' is a curse that only the communalists use and that most often, the rigidity of organized religion is the root cause of most conflict (dare I go far enough to say 'most evil'?!)!

Off to Leh and the Nubra Valley.....

2009-05-08T21:41:00.003+05:30

tomorrow. I know I will be thinking of blog posts as and when experiences happen. This is a new twist to my thinking after beginning to blog.

Need to finish off a couple more tasks for work for the holiday to really start tomorrow morning. Bangalore is rainy and nice but I think Ladakh will be better! Hee, hee!

Bye for two weeks and g'night!

The Last Lecture

2009-05-04T23:57:00.003+05:30

Randy Pausch's very successful last lecture is a book now, a nice one. Read it recently, had already watched his lecture on Youtube. For those who do not know, Randy Pausch was a Carnegie Mellon professor who found out he was dying and chose to spend his last few months embracing life rather in addition to planning for his family in his absence. His last lecture is a father's way of compressing into a few pages what he would have done with his presence for his children over several years. Really young kids. So I hope they get a hefty part of the royalty that his very successful book should earn. I almost feel like I know his wife and admire her to bits.

So I figured I did not need to die to live, if you know what I mean. Started out today with a long needed clean up of the kids' playroom. Had commissioned a conversion for them - we had an old table that we got fitted out as an art cum mechano set table for the kids' play room. Now, since space is a major issue, planning for every piece of stuff we have is crucial. And a lot has to go elsewhere or out to fit in new stuff. The table came this morning as I was rushing out to work. The kids and I spent a wonderful time chatting, sharing, helping and cleaning out the play room after dinner today.

A lot got thrown - my son loves to MAKE paper rockets that look like space shuttles. He makes and makes and makes....we have run out of rough paper, one-sided paper, newspaper ....you get the drift! We found paper rockets in several unusual and totally impossible places. Also got a lot of junk out. That is not the story.

I have a drawer which is not accessible to the kids. This is where birthday party return gifts go, art supplies that are too advanced for them are stored, spares of toys/things that are duplicates....basically a drawer that is my back up for sudden birthday gifts and this place where I store kids' stuff for a rainy day. For 'NOT NOW'.

Today, we went through the drawer and got out replacements for the nubs of crayons that they had faithfully used, broke out spinning tops that get to be loaded into another gun type mechanism and spin with lights, found stationery supplies for two years of school and organized stuff for 'not now'!

The art/mechano table is set up, the play room is clean, the kids were so transparently happy and I feel like I have broken out of that middle-class-let's-hoard-for-when-we-will-not-have mindset for today. That drawer still has stuff because it is not good to show abundance as a way of life to kids (or adults!) but for today, we did live and laugh and have a great bonding evening together as mother and kids.

The other rooms are next....and people and things will not be spared! ;-D

G'night!

Relationships that are sacrosanct

2009-04-28T22:42:00.007+05:30

And I am not talking the obvious here - husband, family, children, friends, maids/driver/home helpers of all kinds...of course people come first! I am talking of the daily/monthly/yearly other relationships that add meaning to my life.

My library - online, well-stocked, owner of the same wave length who is angel enough to get books delivered home (and picked up!) for close to free. The library is set up to ask for recommendations and then when they procure the book, to give it to the recommender first. Can this get any cooler? Way to go, Easy Library.

Satish, the Pest Control guy - because without his monthly herbal intervention, my quality of life would equal cowering on top of surfaces, terrified of cockroaches. I can stand and walk because of you - thank you!

The neighbourhood store that delivers - Cannot say more than THANK YOU....you know what you mean to me. Mere words can't do justice!

My neighbour as day care supporter - my neighbour rocks in general. She especially rocks as my pillar of day care, when I am running that 10 minutes late. Our kids are good friends and I will never forget her coming up with a cup of tea the day I was sick, husband was in hospital, maid was on leave, it was son's birthday and I had no day care for him (my closest day care option here starts at 1 year and 1 day) and it was still only morning. I burst out crying because something nice had happened! I said people come first but people cum carpoolers/daycarers come before that! :-D

My car pool - the reason I can work and remain sane without worrying about my kids' safety. And my constant source of fun early in the morning and the stress buster after a morning's worth of work. The kids rock and their parents rock more! :-D

The internet connection - I will be of no use without that. And will know nothing, see nothing, do nothing....'no use' summarizes me quite nicely without the internet.

My garden - This list is in no particular order of preference. Because my garden cannot be categorized. To me, it is part kitchen and all wellness. I get excited by the little birds that come and bathe in my lotus pot (yes, it is a terrace garden, so lotus pot has to do the work of a lotus pond!), the pomegranate fruit that is uneaten by the squirrels in its pot (the 10th one from that plant and the only one to get to any level of fruithood), the rain lillies (I knew it was going to rain two days before it did, people!), my frangipani flowers competing with the scent of the Raat ki Rani...no I am not talking of myself here...I have the whole blog for THAT!

My work - again, in no order of preference, it gives my time and life meaning. It is non-corporate in look and friendliness and corporate in feel (professional and wonderful to work in, most days!). I quit work when I left the US 7 years ago. Meaning corporate, well paying, over worked, under excited career. To be fair, all the companies helped make me who I am and I do appreciate that. Just not enough to keep at those jobs for life. Then a few doors shut on me....I groped, diaper changed and struggled to stay sane. Began volunteering with an NGO, found there were options for me.....got the CFO-on-wheels idea, kicked myself for waiting for a thunderbolt like that and began working. Part-time and a consultant at first and then part-time in name, full time in nature. I struggle all days to keep the balance going, miss my trips to bookstores in the middle of the week day (that is when you can browse in peace....no kids, no crowds) and meeting friends for lunch at a whim. Would not change it for anything in the whole wide world. It is better to wish for a month of nothing to do than to get it! :-D

My organic veggie person - who takes me whether I am regular or not, refuses to sell me palak every week ('too much uric acid is not good for you!'), who works directly with farmers and helps them help themselves, gets me organic atta enriched with soya and fibre, patiently holds my hand when I rant about the lack of good lavender plants and ask for parsley seeds (I found both!) and gives me all kind of information just because. I love you man!

Life in India rocks, with all its downs and mostly ups. Keeps life interesting at all times....Namaskara and g'night!

Parzania!

2009-04-27T00:09:00.003+05:30

Saw a movie on Thursday night. First luxury - Thursday night movie. Second luxury - time to talk with husband (lately time is a super luxury!). Third luxury - nice movie system and well made movie. Parzania - among Sarika's comeback movies, Naseerudin Shah and a true story from Gujarat.

Okay, so this is why idealogy has to triumph. I can't hear of anything good about a party that perpetrates Godhra on a people. Police was penetrated by the saffron rage....little children on the run, atrocity on a scale that is mind boggling. Dynastic politics aside, I can not take the argument that it is okay to lie with the communal devil because it allows some brooms in to sweep. These are the Republicans in feel, taste and style....religion and weapons everywhere.

Felt a bit unsafe after seeing the movie - can see Karnataka going the Gujarat way and compound walls don't feel as high any more. Wonder at the world we are building for our kids! What irresponsible parents we are. Compare to our parents and we are almost negligent in the society we have built for them - despite all the corporal punishment in our days, we had funner, safer, more social childhoods. Our kids are smarter, they see more and can do more but also deal with way much more in terms of deterioration.

Recommend the movie for a thinking, discussion rich aftermath. Wipe the tears away first and keep any firearms out of reach until the intense reaction period is done.

G'night!

D Day tomorrow!

2009-04-22T20:06:00.003+05:30

It is election day tomorrow and I am thrilled to be part of a constituency that has a couple of viable candidates to vote for. Mine is the constituency where the high profile independent Capt. Gopinath is standing. Mine is also the constituency where a junior from AU is standing for election.

Am not going to put down in writing how I will vote tomorrow - it is a secret ballot, even in these days of blogs. It has been such an exciting time with the candidates making a bid to gain our votes. For the first time, I feel like my vote counts. Maybe ground reality is different (no maybes about that?!) but all I know is that with the current wave of political consciousness among the literate class, my vote could be part of that wave that changes our system, one candidate at a time. If nothing else, the major parties will have to stop and rethink their selection of candidates. Atleast that.

Am taking the kids along to see us vote and impress in their minds the massive strength of the Indian democracy. Not sure how we are all going to wait until May third week for the results...a nerve wracking wait, with lots at stake.

G'night!

Bangalore 10k - raising money for Dream A Dream

2009-04-20T12:26:00.003+05:30

Am participating in the Bangalore 10k, supporting Dream A Dream.

The 'Donate' button can be used for funds from outside India. Domestic donors, please mail your contributions (made out to Dream A Dream) at 11/17, 3rd Cross, I Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore 560 011.

Thank you! Your contributions are valuable to our children - do check out www.dreamadream.org for more info.

Am knee deep in numbers

2009-04-08T22:28:00.007+05:30

And after a managerial day (people management is for the Buddha alone!), it is such a relief. I am an accidental finance type. Even here, the less literal aspects of numbers interest me - like the underpinnings of why numbers end up the way they do AND the interconnection. The world of finance is still one where you can predict something and get the thrill of good deduction when you do see that result - like a low repaying capacity remains that despite how it is cut, diced and distributed, you math/derivative/investment banker types!

Quite a switch this, from a childhood that had a consistent calling. I was one of those kids who never changed their mind on what I wanted to be. Was the one child who stood up last, among the 'other miscellaneous' category in class, when the teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Can you believe they did that?! Do they still do that in schools? I hope not.

But my mind was super made up - a Vet....not the vietnam variety but an animal doctor. I devoured James Herriot and to date, can happily curl up with old friends from those stories.....have to visit his Yorkshire and I am sure I will go nuts in a way only Herriot fans will understand. I was devastated when he died in 1995 - have written him fan email, hoping to get a response as a teenager. Yes, Hannah Montana pales before my teenage crush! :-D

Life happened and it was not the done thing for women to become vets in Trichy. Fought the good fight and lost....shall always be an animal rights person to death, even if not a qualified vet. Who knows, in today's times, I could go back to school at 50 (30 years from now, wink, wink!) and become one in my second career!

The numbers substitute somewhat. One of my favourite (if immature) lines was "Can't stand people, animals don't need to talk to communicate beautifully!" I can stand people better now...some days, my tolerance levels amaze me (and the people around me!). So after a tough people management day, am immersed in numbers, rupee anna paisa and LOVING the non-attention grabbing nature of the exercise. My boss's eyes will bug out to see these but hey, that is another week! The three day weekend and fun visit coming up with friends from out of town shall take care of me before that!

Signing off in spreadsheet heaven....g'night!

Captain Gopinath's campaign

2009-04-07T07:12:00.003+05:30

The ultimate new age campaign. I get alerts on facebook, emails from friends of friends, micro posters at auto stands from volunteers.....targeted. Bangalore South is the part where the majority of the software companies are. New businesses and apartments to house these new business employees. His is a known name and it is totally possible that he will win, if he gets his name out to the non-apartment dweller, poor people (domestic workers and lower middle class), etc.

My maid and her large family now know about Captain Gopinath. And I plan on talking more about him in any of my circles. When you get into the details, you find that a 'delimitation' exercise has happened - meaning constituencies have been redrawn all over India. Am sure this is an off-shoot of vote bank politics that has benefited some and disadvantaged others. Heard talk that Deve Gowda's vote bank was reduced in his constituency.....will he actually have to work this time to keep a seat? Wouldn't that be super cool?! After all the machinations and behind the scenes political gaming, it will be poetic justice for him to lose in the elections!

I am clear on my destiny in this elections....thanks to my in-laws starting the process for us before we returned to India, we were some of the very few returning NRIs who got a voter ID within a month of landing here. And we have used it so far....to vote and as photo id. More as photo id, but that is the nature of the game.

Thanks to that, we actually vote in Bangalore South. I found out that a lot of geographical Bangalore South is actually Bangalore Rural for voting purposes. April 23rd is the V day - anyone interested in DOing better be voting...otherwise, our other national pastime of complaining is called 'whining'! :-D

The facebook experience

2009-03-30T23:48:00.005+05:30

Okay, I change my mind on facebook. I have seen it only as a real distraction (and it is!) before and resisted putting myself out there for a long time. A friend told me on good ol' email that my entire school gang was on facebook. These are people I am not in touch with through email, so I registered and began adding friends. How wonderful this last long weekend has been - I have gotten back in touch with people I last met in the mid to late-80s. Wonderful people who knew me from those days and who still remember! The beauty of it is that they range in distance from me - 3 kms t0 a few thousand. And I get to know something about their lives daily....or weekly - even monthly is a huge positive difference!

I have found that I have intersecting friend groups with one school gang having common college credentials. Well, with the size of my hometown, that is not really that amazing. With the size of my state, kind of amazing.....these people found these friendships far from home in engineering colleges, where perhaps the 'quaintness' of Trichy was one common nostalgic conversation point! When we were there, it was quite the norm to try and 'make' things 'happen'! :-D

It is a bit scary to be 'out there' as much as this entails. I guess people still have to be a friend to see your wall and all. What happens when your boss is your friend on the wall and taskmaster at work? Not my boss but the concept of having all parts of your life so interconnected.

My plan is to keep this phenomenon under control....no more than a half an hour every day. The scary question when I deactivated an old account (started up just to see one friend's pictures) was - why do you want to deactivate? option a: I am getting addicted to facebook and have to quit for the sake of my sanity (or something like that!)

It is good to have a presence on the net, I think....it provides the space that elders say temples provided in villages in olden days. Just that our definition of a village is kinda different now! :-D

A meeting point to gossip and get entertained while getting on with routine life. Technology does make things interesting....this weekend was magical with my getting back in touch with atleast 10 people I lost touch with. Vive la technologie! :-D

G'night!

The year of the Independent!

2009-03-29T14:19:00.003+05:30

Looks like this is the year of the independent in India's political history. I am thrilled to see some intelligent candidates standing up and talking as independents. One is Meera Sanyal, an executive of a leading bank who has thrown her hat into the ring as an independent candidate from Mumbai. The other is a Captain Gopinath from Bangalore. I am sure these candidates have their weaknesses, but they can talk, they have acted to do something by just standing for election and they can't do worse than the corrupt jokers in power. At least they have made their money! Yes, that is how cynical I have become.

I have decided in line with what seems to be popular opinion in my circle that the only option is to split the vote. Both the main parties are full of crap. I used to be a congress voter because it seemed like a better option than communalism. Now, I see Jagdish Tytler given a ticket after managing the massacre of sikhs in Delhi - not just a ticket but a clean chit and a ticket. The congress is also the party of inaction, talking independence some 60 years later, ensuring that THEIR sons and daughters are taken care of and so on. The BJP was never my cup of anything....I love my tea, so can't use that expression here.....and even if I were to tend right, Babri Masjid, Godhra, Mangalore and now Varun Gandhi would have cured me forever of that disease.

My vote has the chance to count as never before. Independents (the right ones!) can make the difference. And I want for the major parties to see and take the feedback that it is only by listening and actually doing something about people's outrage will they get into power. So many years of coalition politics only seems to have made them all efficient wheelers and dealers. So everyone, please vote and consider my suggestion of going the independent way.

The day I forgot my son's clothes!

2009-03-19T17:28:00.003+05:30

Okay, I know things are hectic for me. This is the price of wanting to have some kind of a career and be there for the family. It does not help that my personality type is 'go-go-go'. I am in a managerial position in my day (part-time but working full time hours) job, have two kids and a household to manage with a hectic extra-curriculars schedule AND am involved in an adoptive families' association, writing for a NGO e-zine and teaching a financial management class for NGOs.

So in the day that dawned hectic (though I was flush with the success of the 'vision board' from the night before), in the middle of meetings, prep for board presentations, car pool school pickup turn, resume interrupted work day at home with workmen negotiations, prep for boss' month long trip, kids' swimming class......I forgot my son's clothes.

Worked out when the kids were in their class, had a moment to sit down and breathe, did more phone calls....and I go to get the kids dressed again , horror of horrors, open the bag to find no clothes for the littlest devil. This kid is so good natured that when I apologize for not bringing his clothes, he says with a sweet smile, "It is okay, Amma." This is the kid who throws a regular tantrum when he is told he can't do something he has never done....this would have been the best opportunity for him to get on my case and make me regret the day I was born. The sweetness of this kid, just getting over the pool shivers and having no clothes to wear!

So managed it with his sister's t-shirt, (thank god I had packed his undies!) and a towel wrapped tightly....carried the kid and he had a ball in the different situation. Learned lessons in a flash today -

- SLOW DOWN, you idiot mom (me);
- get out of a few responsibilities;
- say 'NO' to new ones in order to be able to enjoy these opportunities;
- learn to have the same sweetness as my kids....they are way nicer than I am, in general; AND
- handle situations like they do....having fun when things are different.

Thank god, I am rolling off one major responsibility in June. Have to make sure that that time stays uncommitted to anything but unwinding.

It is a long day for me tonight....won't say G'night yet! :-)

A Vision Board

2009-03-18T23:15:00.004+05:30

I made a vision board today. I have been reading Louise Hay after a friend recommended it and she talks of healing lives in general. While this sounds radical for lives that don't need deep healing, there is a lot that can be incorporated in everyone's lives.

The real radical thought for me has been the one about the Law Of Attraction...meaning what we think about gets us more on those lines. i.e. if we are thankful, we get more to be thankful for.....negative thoughts breed negative circumstances.

I am not sure how much I can jump to bridge this gap - have to say my logical mind is skeptical. What does convince me is how good I feel when I am thinking positive thoughts, and for that reason alone, this way of thinking works for me. So I spent an hour or two this evening cutting away from old copies of Good Housekeeping and Inside Outside to put together a personal vision for the year ahead.

And the creative work, seeing the physical evidence of my creativity (wielding the scissors - judiciously is an extremely creative process!), some nice pictures instead of a mess of pictures/miscellaneous movie stubs/run bib numbers and an already set up spot to use are all great by-products already. Now if everything in that vision comes true (in my lifetime....forget one year), I will be even more thankful than I am now. The possibilities are SLIM, in the right way - everyone who knows of my 'diet/exercise/drink water enough to require a personal bathroom on rent' program will know exactly what I mean ! :-D

And in that thankful, centered and peaceful state of mind, shall go and do my performance appraisal form for the year. Repeating in my mind.....'thankful'. The word echoes in my skull....reminding me of the new office that is not full enough to absorb sound yet! :-D

G'night!

Working to do good to the country for less!

2009-03-06T01:26:00.003+05:30

As an NGO, we ask/beg/plead all the time. The professionalism is coming in but the money is still scarce. And when there is money, capacity building and such admin/organizational stuff is still not where we can spend at today's rates.

The Dream A Dream retreat is a residential three day event....it will cost us more than we expected. And we expect to pay as close to zero as possible.

Same with a voluntary organization that I work with - an event that is super necessary for parents (Will writing), if unglamourous, is being organized. The real tough thought in this for me is not 'oh-my-god-what-to-do-for-the-kids-if-we-both-die' but 'oh-my-god-where-can-we-find-a-cheap-location-in-Bangalore-for-the-event'! The past couple of events had to be cancelled because we could not get enough numbers to make the costs feasible. So now, we are going for broke....well, we are broke! The event needs to be organized in a freeish hall in the center of town, with parking. Speakers are not paid....they are 'volunteers', with some arms twisted in unfeasible angles....man, will a day come when the VO can organize an event in line with the reason for its existence and not worry about numbers in an existential way?!

Real estate costs and inflation/cost of commodities has made it next to impossible to manage it. Especially organizations that collected low life membership fees 10 years ago!

The retreat is a bit stressful....lots of talk and planning, lots of ramp up required ( I am sure that will be the case), some team building exercises that will put us out there....and two nights away from home. My second time after the two-nighter for the Mumbai Marathon....ever. After this, I would have spent 5 nights away from the kids in almost 6 years. Not bad or not good? Can't tell.

G'night!

Ahhh...exercise at last!

2009-02-25T21:53:00.005+05:30

I am on my way to becoming a regular exerciser. When I was super young, athletics and a thousand other organized games helped. Never had an ounce of fat and never thought of what I ate, when and how I got it off. Then I got married and gained the first year pounds....a couple of health problems later, even a marathon didn't get my weight off. I guess I unconsciously matched the calories that I was losing. S&S Deli breakfasts, the way only Jewish Delis can, nullified the 10 mile run before. Winters in Boston are good for eating and not so great for rigorous activity like running....the ice and my tropical blood are the problems.

Got braces at 29 to get one recalcitrant tooth out of its hiding place deep in my gums and lo behold, lost a ton of weight. Can't eat junk with braces and still be friends with the dentist. A kid a year later, and it was back to the lose/gain pattern. It really bothers me to not fit into my thin clothes but somehow, life gets in the way of my health requirements.

Not any more. Lisa Sarah John is a famous nutritionist in Bangalore - she has worked with the cricket team. Don't get me wrong, I love and stand by Rahul Dravid but don't want to look like him (except in lack of weight!). She has put me on an eating plan that makes me eat more than I normally do, cut out the bad stuff, drink water up the wazoo and walk for 30 minutes a day. Apparently, any one of the three elements not being done can mean no perceptible change in weight - people then drop off, thinking that this way is not working.

My husband has been out of town, making 'my exercise in the morning when the kids are in bed' routine impossible. So I have watered myself and been reasonably good with the food. Am seeing changes but did not realize that my body missed the kick that regular exercising brings. The kids started swimming today for a 21-day stretch that stretches all the way to April. I got a chance to go to the gym today to walk on the 'mill while they were swimming and man, how good I feel now! Positive, ready to take on the world, with a new perspective on several issues that have been troubling me. It was also funny to try and figure out who was more excited - the kids with their new swimming class or moi with gym plans. The 'I trust the coach....will watch from the gym....run now before something comes up' walk might have given it away!

Okay, some retail therapy to get a couple of nice Urban Yoga pants and t-shirt helped...tons. Endorphins, I am a convert. My iPod with arm band and new togs make me feel cool and athletic....I don't look in the mirror for conflicting views. Now, if only the alarm can become a friend!

Saw a little baby yesterday!

2009-02-23T19:48:00.005+05:30

In the middle of organizing events and contributing indirectly to the issues close to my heart (mostly child related), I have lost touch with the real reason for doing what I do. All the work, juggling, dealing with politics in an organization, people who are painful, all of that is to make sure that some difference is being made in the lives of the real beneficiaries.

Those beneficiaries are the innocent child who has no control over the circumstances of his/her birth and the adoptive parents who want a child in their lives. And hopefully, to some degree, comfort in the birth mother's heart that that little scrap of humanity is well placed to have a good life.

Saw a little baby who has joined her family one week ago through adoption. Her level of activity and engagement, the obvious difference that one week has made to her growth and care, the parents and their pride and the difference a child makes in a home - I got back in touch with that yesterday. It gave strength to my conviction that my personal contribution has not been in vain.

I am done with voluntary stuff now, though. The politics and the jostling for power/control has never been of interest. Also, I am finding out that sucessful development in Indian groups has to be done with an understanding of the politics . Otherwise, however well one intendes/executes, the end result does not end up being close to the one envisaged. Since the politicking is pretty painful and personal - people can't seem to separate the problem from the person in the non-corporate circles, I figure that retiring is a good option. 'Head down and work without any talk' is going to be the policy from now on - uniformly. That way, maybe the credit may not happen but at least the constant pulling down will not be heard!

Thank God that the place I work at is an oasis from this attitude! And thank god I found a place to work that values my inputs, allows for the flexibility that I need to juggle home and work AND pays me to do it! Those places do exist!

Arya Samaj

2009-02-22T10:03:00.003+05:30

Went to a beautiful outdoors Arya Samaj wedding yesterday. They ended with a Zorashtrian prayer to truly represent all parts of the family over the years. Wish I had known more about Arya Samaj type weddings before I got married - it is meaningful, Hindu without being religious, the vows are said facing each other, looking into each other's eyes, with explanations so that everyone knows truly what they are saying (may not be what they are getting into, but hey!).

I have been to an Arya Samaj funeral before and my will is going to say this is what I want. The person was truly remembered, with their favorite songs being sung and with the family not being traumatized with supplies/arrangements to the point of forgetting what they are doing, without time to think about the departed soul.

This to me, is the beauty of Indian culture. Inclusiveness.

My Focaccia - fully loaded with organic veggies

2009-02-17T15:47:00.002+05:30

My focaccia, by way of Aimee from Montreal (she has a really nice blog on baking of all kinds) and my baking guru close by, Asha. You can call me Domestic Goddess for today. Offer open for one day only! :-D

It has been four years!!!

2009-02-15T07:59:00.006+05:30

Valentine's Day is special at our family for the past four years. And this is not related to the 'pink chaddi' movement (no doubts on that - I vociferously stand up for my right to be Indian, not Hindu AND on my own.....I have been grown up and taking care of myself for more years that I care to admit and don't need the freaks telling me about 'Indian culture'). I digress.

Our son Mr. S is 4 years and 7 months old. He came home to us on Valentine's Day, 2005.....it has been four glorious years. Overall notwithstanding some individual days in the terrible twos, tormenting threes and fearsome fours! He is a charmer with a super smile and the much mentioned dimples. Smart and athletic....his birth parents must be pretty special, if this kid is anything to go by. He is generous beyond belief - yes, he will give you the chocolate out of his mouth. And I can't imagine how we managed without him in our lives. I hope he grows up one day to say the same about us.

I think about his birth parents and send a few prayers their way every year, this time and on his birthday. And often during the year when he does something amazing. They were good enough to ensure that this kid got a family that loved him. And our much maligned system actually followed through and implemented their wishes.

Cannot begin to imagine the emotions that they might be going through....would not want to romanticize this too much either. Who knows what their circumstances and personalities are like. This kid is a little beacon of hope, though. A true survivor - more than that, a Thriver. He can figure it out, adapt and truly blossom. All kids must be like that. To me, my brats are special.

His sister (elder by some heartburning 15 months - his heartburn!) is another beacon in her sweetness. She is a kid - she fights with him for a toy and after some time, can't deal with having it when he is so unhappy for not having it. Mind you, that toy was lying around with no one interested just 10 minutes ago.

I have gotten around to believing that the Universe entrusts us with the kids. That they are of our genetic make up (or not) is just incidental. They are not ours to control and command. If we work really hard to build that relationship and are lucky, we hope that they come back to us at all ages. And if he and/or our daughter choose to adopt, I will know that they had a good time with us and that they validate our choices. The validation is not important....the joy of their experience in a family is paramount.

Mitr Sanketa and the movie

2009-02-08T21:55:00.005+05:30

Saw a movie on human trafficking on Friday and learned several things. I agreed with some, disagreed with others and was surprised/shocked with some info. So here goes:

- the 'commercial sex worker' tag tries to dignify the 'flesh' trade. It is precisely that - a trade with people in it who are by and large trapped. There is no concept of choice anywhere here - like one of the speakers said, free choice would be "I can choose to be a pilot, doctor, prostitute, accountant or nurse. And yes, I choose option three!"

- The 'sex worker' tag seems to be for people like me who find it tough to use the word prostitute, which implies indignity to the person. I don't believe that the tags should dignify the trade. Politically correct can fly out of the window here for maximum impact.

- The person actually selling his/her body is not the criminal according to the Indian Penal Code. It is the person living off the wages of a person in the flesh trade. So legalizing prostitution would mean that criminals would get off the hook. I can't buy the argument that health services would reach the victim (which is precisely what anyone selling their body is....they are not having any fun, people!). If he/she is not the criminal now, what prevents government and other formal help from reaching them today?

- The argument of supply and demand is primitive and I do not buy it one bit. This male bashing and equating a man to a 'beast' is simplistic. When people understand that there are thousands of 'beasts' who do not frequent brothels, maybe there will be a more developed and sensitive debate on the reasons behind the flourishing of prostitution. Also, several perpetrators there are women - madams, who see the torture and participate in it enough to break up this argument. No benefit of doubt to gender when crimes are being committed, right?!

- Countries that have legalized prostitution do not see a decline in human trafficking. Enough said to the pro-legalization brigade.

- NGO attitudes border on paranoia sometimes. If we want public outrage and a mass movement, we have to use modern technology and mass tools. Two people talking to 10 more is a commendable and useful effort but will not get the message across to the optimal mass to tip the balance. And this balance has to be tipped to get the policy makers to sit up and take notice.

- I will watch my kids really carefully. I will know where they are at all times and how they travel and which adults are responsible for them. 200 women and children go missing in one day in India and that 200 shall not include mine except in the worst of my nightmares.

- Rehabilitation will accomplish what punitive measures can't. We do not hold the prostitute as the criminal legally but for all practical purposes, he/she is one to society. And while the laws punish harshly, rehabilitation is tougher to come by in our system. 'Jail Bharo' does not work in this (and most other social crimes) case.

It is heart rending to see little girls - barely 16 years old talk about how they were enslaved into the flesh trade. They don't see the money, have been tortured and psychologically broken and still say to other children - Don't leave home, don't make the same mistakes we made, friends are only friends, trust with caution......

Watching a movie and pledging to watch my kids makes me as much of an ostrich as the rest of society!

G'night!

-

The school decision is made for once and all!

2009-02-02T15:45:00.003+05:30

The little one, soon to be 6 has been admitted to Kumaran's, a good school in Bangalore. The approach of the school works for us. After months of agonizing about which school to admit her, montessori versus 'conventional' school, etc. , it was a major relief to get the admit letter in hand this morning.

Rush, rush to get back home and work on a few projects....yes, in the middle of it all, have to work....the one thing I do solely for myself and to keep my brain alive. Wish we had some time to go off and celebrate. I barely remember being pregnant but totally remember the day she was born. Remember rushing off to a bookstore with Shankar after the doctor told me that I was in labour. We were saying goodbye to our days of carefree bookstore browsing (thankfully we did not know the extent of time we would be giving that up for!). She came and despite having an infant in the home, we were able to continue on with some adjustments. She was so good that she would actually look at us and listen to us. I could study with all my books on the floor and she would know not to touch at a very tiny age.

She has been a joy all along and it is tough to see her going off into the big, real world. It looks like the school figures this out and is supportive and friendly. I know I will be a wreck on the first day of her taking the school bus. She eats really slow and I hope she will finish her meal in time. We have been car pooling to school, so I will actually have time now to exercise and do my thing in the morning before work from June. My thrill at this is quite unmaternal, I am sure!

But this is kid number one brought to 'real' world stage in a sense and it feels like an achievement when she is the easiest kid. Imagine my little devil of a son getting here....would I be crying to have gotten here or that someone else would be dealing with the pleasure of his company in school?! :-D

Only in India!

2009-01-31T21:59:00.005+05:30

Only in India will you find someone to come and change your Tata Sky box at 9:30 pm on Saturday evening. I remember waiting for the cable guy within the extremely precise "anytime between 8 am to 4 pm" time frame in all cities I have lived in before moving back home.

When we came back to India, things were super slow. This was 7 years ago...of course, some things have changed and most have not! We would feel apologetic to ask the maid to do the job we have paid her (generously) for....feel indebted to the delivery guy for bringing us that priceless half litre of milk for our late night chai (we would request it from the campus grocery store at 9:30 pm....they close at 10:00 pm)....the list goes on.

This gratitude for not having to move our butts too far was regardless of the level of service we received. For the most part (if you discount the '10 minutes sir, nimme mane hathraney ithini, bartha ithini' or 'I am staring at your house from my perch 10 minutes away, I am jumping as we speak...'!), we have got really amazing service. With a smile and at all times of the day and parts of the night!

Our surprise has been at how much it matters to people that they be treated nicely. Sure, most people like that. But the dignity of people I have encountered in the service sector has been such that they happily replace monetary rewards for courtesy. Small things like apologizing for keeping the taxi waiting for that extra 15 minutes, asking about their kids, remembering names and faces of people who you have seen before (like the local cab drivers), sharing parts of your life/general opinion (my mom told the cab driver on the way back from the hospital that Laiku was born and reduced him to tears....he actually said that he was happy to be thought worthy of this sharing!) with people means a lot to them.

The sad part is that it seems that enough people don't value the service and start off on a cynical and confrontational attitude. Even sadder is the plight of the service person...being yelled at is an occupational hazard in India for them. So it is not that we are doing anything amazing (we don't deserve any credit for treating people humanely!) but that it is unexpected to be treated right!

All in all, our tata sky box that died completely within the guarantee period (yes, that does happen sometimes!) was replaced for no charge by 9:35 pm on Saturday night. Roof climbing for dish tinkering, all inclusive. Rocks, no?!

G'night.

Blast from the past.....

2009-01-28T09:41:00.004+05:30

Found out that an old friend is getting married. He is old in friendship, not age. My parents and his were close friends and I remember their warmth and love for kids really well. They passed away, way before their time in a train accident near home, leaving a little son behind. He was the apple of their eye, born over a decade after they got married. It was so horrible to see it happen....this little kid was so small and seems to have grown up well.

His family stepped in and it warmed my heart to hear staff at their hotel describe him as the Director's son. Whichever person was being refered to as the Director, he was their son....by birth or upbringing.

Called and spoke to him and was thrilled to find that he remembered us. He has always been in our hearts and prayers and that little boy is getting married this weekend. So happy.....not totally sure why, since we have not met in years and years.

I need to take the kids home to see my childhood haunts. My school, our homes, my teachers.....while they are still around. Bouncy steps this morning! :-D

Republic Day musing!

2009-01-27T14:20:00.003+05:30

It was an eventful day yesterday. Began with the flag hoisting and the regular quota of patriotic songs. The flag went up and it was so beautiful to sing the anthem along with the crowd. The power of one song is self-evident....songs have electrified protests, strengthened independence movements and unite with meaning. I always tear up when hearing it and singing along....yes, total weirdo!

After a trip out to the real world, got back to campus and watched a movie, watched the NDTV Indian of the Year program in parts. The heros of 26/11 were honored, posthumously. Loved it when Aamir Khan asked politicians to field candidates deserving of our vote. Advani said it was their job to do so....obvious failure there! Which other job has the same amazing power and sheer opportunity to make a DIFFERENCE (it is a shout out loud word)? But no, what does it end up being? An opportunity all right, to play political blame games, one-upmanship and some amazing money making!

In the spirit of equality with my kids ( I ask them to list out 5 things they are thankful for before complaining), I came up with
- a vibrant, warm and alive society
- examples of people who make a difference or at least try daily
- location, location, location in Asia
- the famous billion people
- open with the freedom to express opinions (even if you are the Sri Ram Sena!)

Lots to fix but a pretty great foundation to work with! I love my India!

The Run on Sunday!

2009-01-20T11:28:00.005+05:30

It was a wonderful trip in total - got to hang out with friends, be part of the Mumbai marathon party atmosphere, walk and view other participants (NGO central for that morning!), see the Trident and watch its staff stand with dignity to cheer on the participants (it was very touching to see some staff stand right below the parts where there has been damage boarded up from the terrorist attack....salute that spirit and dignity), hang out with my roomies from college after 7 - 8 years, see their kids (!!! can't believe we are all grown ups with kids!) and then be part of another adventure....the Indian Railways for 24 hours, non-AC.

I am ashamed to say that I could not recall a time after my childhood when I 'trabelled' (in Siddhu's words) non-A/C on the train. It was pretty good - with the team, the time passed quickly. The last couple of hours dragged since everyone was ready to get a hot bath and hit their beds at home....eager to get back to kids and family.

The romance of train travel exists in the second class - with open windows. Will put some pictures up soon....there was ginger tea, elaichi tea, 'special tea - best tea' marketed by the vendors, goodness for Rs.5! Reading by the open window with that ginger tea was pretty awesome. Wish I had had the sense to charge the cell phone before leaving - most people's phones died and with a long line for charging it up in another compartment, used a colleague's phone for a couple of minutes to call home. Thanks, Bobby.

The run was an eye-opener. I have raised close to 80% of my goal of Rs. 50,000. And hope to see some more come trickling in by end Jan. I plan on the half-marathon next year....the Bangalore 10k in May can be one of the starters.

Now it is time to buckle down and work/organize/get back to schedule. For the finance geeks, this is crunch time with planning/year end et al.

To my donors, thanks a lot. Will be sending individual emails with a triumphant picture at the finish line soon. The official receipt will follow by snail mail.

Byelamos!

The morning walk/run

2009-01-15T06:01:00.003+05:30

A horrible dream and I was up before the birds this morning. Decided to get the run prep over before the rest of the day got on my case and it was an awesome decision.

Campus was calm, serene - security is good and now there is lighting in all corners. With sufi music and Shubha Mudgal on the iPod, pedometer recording 95% aerobic steps, campus all to myself, it was a spiritual experience. Saw two rats chasing each other through thickets.....funny sight from far enough!

Saw the film crew shooting on campus at one end. The whole process looks pretty unglamourous in real life - hats off to them for making it look so amazing on screen. It was cold and windy and can't be fun day in and day out for the crew....the lights were so powerful that the rays radiated out in the sky, over the trees when I saw it from the football field.

7,553 aerobic steps including 2 running rounds of the 400 mt track. Good day and it is only 6:30 am! Wonder if I can be ambitious enough to make this a daily thing, regardless of the marathon. God know I need the peaceful time to myself, this feeling of well being AND the weight loss! :-D

G'morning!

Reality Bites!

2009-01-13T12:10:00.002+05:30

We got back at 2 am on Monday morning....after 4 hours of a sick child on the last leg of a journey, it was bliss. What struck me is the vibrancy of India, with its smells and all, there is pulsing life to enjoy. I am biased, we had a ball in NZ - Home still rocks.

Despite all the years in the US and trips to other places, I am spoiled by India for its unique combination of joy, friendliness, inefficiency, corruption, humor, talent, diverse experiences in unlikely places (yes, our maid saw Madhavan - the movie star on her way to our place!) - the move to India helped me understand what people meant when they say "feeling comfortable in your skin". It is more like exulting in tanned skin....thanks to the wonderful beaches in NZ. We actually went to the one in the movie Piano....cliffs, rivulet and glorious ocean.

Day 1 involved a family haircut (one each and different ones!)....and we were in business! :-) Work is going great - Dream A Dream is moving to a new location. Can you believe we have a patron who has offered her second home in Jayanagar for a pittance in rent? No deposit. Besides the fact that admin expenses remain low (yes, for me the CFO function, that matters a whole heck of a lot!), it warms me to see the faith in our work. The new year has started off so well....thank you, God! :-D

Mumbai marathon dominates. Please help me raise my goal - every rupee/dollar/pound/euro/peso counts.

Byelamos!

Mumbai Marathon dominates all thought....

2009-01-09T15:03:00.002+05:30

Our almost month long vacation is over - we leave on Sunday to get home. It will be a straight slip into real life, quite a switch from the real vacation we have had. I have not had to make any decisions lately - the worst of them had a straight 'yes' answer.....like, yes, please, I would love that awesome southeastern australian merlot! Yes, rocky landing likely but it will be good to see home and my people/plants. Have lots of resolutions this year from home building to health building - if 25% happens, I will be better off at the end of the year.

Mumbai Marathon - here I come. My loyal readers and forced readers, please do pledge to my effort. The funds will go to Dream A Dream - my pet NGO and employer. I have donated as well, so this is not a 'employer mandated' event.

We are now just a week away and I am woefully short of my goal - only 25%. With the financial downturn hitting harder in the months to come, I am sure Dream A Dream will feel it. We have come too far to let something as small as this downturn affect us - yes, you scoffing corporate types - the problem we have set out to solve is equal to a 1000 downturns and the surety that my cause will probably outlive me. So please do give - Rs. 100 is not much for anyone (but do not limit yourself to that number!).....we will take a 100 in other currencies as well! :-D

New Zealand rocks with its beauty and options. We were lazing around in a beach today where there were people able to teach you to windsurf, kayak.....you name it in the water and it could be done. Water cycling, water scooters......but what got me most of all was the confidence in the kids' eyes. They are able to laugh without shadows and try for fun and keep at it, no inhibitions.

Oh for the day that all the children in India can do that - not just our 'privileged' kids who get exposure, education and most importantly, a childhood!

NZ Trip

2009-01-06T16:27:00.002+05:30

NZ Trip,
originally uploaded by sangithak.

Mt Ruapehu - an active volcano that we passed on our travels to Tamaranui.

Countdown to the Mumbai Marathon

2008-12-30T12:14:00.004+05:30

Am training by walking in beautiful Cornwall park (One Tree Hill to the TV savvy) in the center of Auckland and running after my bratozoids at the Auckland Zoo/Kelly Tarlton.

Countdown to the marathon starts, tickets are booked and running shoes shined....so please contribute, people!

G'morning....am close to the date line and ahead in time of everyone I know.

God's country

2008-12-27T16:16:00.002+05:30

In New Zealand...truly god's country. In the week after we got here, we have seen volcanos, bubbling mud pools, geysers, snow covered mountains, amazing beaches...vistas that fill the horizon every moment. Farm lands dotted with sheep, goats, cows and even deer farms. Would not like to dwell too much on the last one!

The maori song with the amazing beat is ringing in our ears - we have played it 'infinity' times according to the kids. Enough times to have them singing along. :-)

The icing on the vacation is that my sister does not want me to wash dishes and her husband (also Shankar) knows to (and DOES) make any dish on earth. Well. It is a true vacation...don't need to say more! :-D

G'night!

Life is short!

2008-12-10T23:07:00.002+05:30

A colleague had a heart attack in the office today. My team mate in the finance team of two. He was talking just fine one moment and was giddy/sweating the next. It was quite a scary experience. We were able to take the right calls and get him to the hospital in time - 15 minutes....thankfully the hospital was close and the nurses took him in straight to the Cardio Care Unit for intensive and specialized care. A 20% functioning heart with BP of 40....angiogram and angioplasty happened and he is fine now. Apparently, he will be kicked out of there in 3 - 4 days.

Lessons learned -

In case of a heart attack,
- if the person is sweating, says he is sleepy (easy in the middle of the day!), feels giddy, complains of pain in the chest region/arms/shoulders, vomits in combination with all this, it is likely to be a heart attack. Nearest CCU immediately.

In general,
- life is really fragile and one can never tell what the day will bring. Work hard, play hard and stay healthy.
- trust your instincts....it was funny how my instincts were screaming that something was badly off, though the brain wanted to calm things down.
- part on a good note...never know what the day brings!
- health insurance is a MUST. Advocate it to everyone you know....otherwise be prepared to pay a ton and have that be a stress factor at a time when you need to focus on other things - like staying unstressed!

Am glad he is okay....while he survived the heart condition, he may not survive me. I have been after him to stop smoking and get insurance. Very frustrating to see this happen despite that. Can we say group health insurance?!

G'night!

India Coffee House on MG Road

2008-12-05T20:50:00.002+05:30

It was an amazing afternoon - Shankar and I actually got away for a few hours to browse in our favourite book stores in the center of town and talk over cold coffee at India Coffee House on MG Road.

Now, ICH is an institution in Bangalore and has all the ambience from Malgudi Days and RK Narayan. Walls that were barely painted a couple of years ago, 24 benches and tables which will comfortably take one person per bench, a half page one-sided menu (if a price list can be called that!).....apparently some of the best dosais in Bangalore are to be had here.....so we did. Have to check quality ourselves, again and again. :-D

The crowd varied from a trio of retirees endlessly debating the local newspaper to the foreign tourist in search of the non-touristy experience. Not sure if that exists - they got a good place to check off on the 'off beat' Steve Ricks' type travel check list.

The cost of a dosai was Rs. 18 and of the cold coffee was Rs. 19.....the whole experience was full of contrasts of all sorts. A Cafe Coffee Day versus Indian Coffee House, a Blossoms Book Store (new AND 'experienced' books!) versus the mall experience of a Landmark.....hot kadalai (peanuts) crunching from old magazine paper cone packaging on a December afternoon.....the simple things in life versus glitz. Both have their place but this afternoon was fun. Reminded us that we need to take off and enjoy the simple things as often as possible.

Also, am 6% there on my marathon fundraising.....wooohoooo!

G'night!

SuDatta at Sattva

2008-12-03T23:34:00.000+05:30

Two of my interests in life merge in November.....

http://www.itihas.org.in/SattvaNovember2008.pdf

More talk....enough is enough, really?!

2008-12-03T00:05:00.002+05:30

Have been watching the news channels - on one hand, enough is enough- let's not forget and on the other, let's see Leopold Cafe getting back to business, spirit of India. There are media channels that lag and others that sensationalize. "Who is taking sides?" by one such tabloid channel is taking sides in the middle of accusing Pakistan's press of doing the same.

In the middle of all this, there are few sane voices and lots of emotion. Emotion has its place but not if this means that we make the same mistakes as the US did in the wake of 9/11. I see a couple of solutions that might work, in the long term.

One is following the world's example in the case of South Africa. For long years, they were boycotted in all aspects for their policy of apartheid. Enough actually was enough and it stopped being rhetoric when they rejoined the real world. It was like magic....slow working but magic that sticks. Can you see them slipping back into apartheid any time soon?

The second one is the economic solution.....pragmatic but hits where it hurts. Help Pakistan's economy, come down hard on corruption (in OUR country), beef up security and stop the rhetoric and we can get past this - get things right and do it the right way. Both are equally important.

And we might want to stop glorifying the Bollywood movies that show violence. How many plots have we seen like this when terrorists/army/police 'takes' a hill/secures a location/sanitizes terror? Funny how hard that strikes in real life.....Bombay film industry, are you listening? Can you think beyond Dawood's money?

Two questions for Pakistan: When will you change the name of your country to "The ineffective terrorist State of Pakistan" and can you please define 'evidence'? Can you really believe that the mumbai terrorist attacks have no links to Pakistan or is it that you can't sleep nights if you admit it? Denial just delays the inevitable!

To the BJP: Want to relive Kandhahar and hostage negotiation? The arithmetic does not work - 154 + 25 hostages saved in 1991 for how many lives lost since then! Thank god, we didn't provide the funds for that. $200 million that day would have given immediate credit to terrorists. Maybe Masood Azhar should replace the BJP lotus.....he will help them win this election. Irony of ironies!

Can't say g'night.

Mumbai Marathon

2008-12-01T21:50:00.002+05:30

I am running the 'Celebrity Run' part of the Mumbai marathon. Actually, limp-hop-walk-grimacing is probably a truer description. But finish I will.

This run is for Dream A Dream and I hope to raise Rs. 50,000 in total. Lofty sum? I hope not. I plan to use the blog to update people with run day preps....something I can do on holiday as well.

To those who don't, which has to be very few people (I do brag a lot about this!), Shankar and I did finish the Rock 'n Roll marathon in San Diego - it has been around 8 years now. We trained in snow and sleet around the river in Cambridge/Boston and understood exactly how much one mile was....intimately. Got introduced to the pleasures of running with a partner and running with music. Pre-ipod days.....did those exist?! :-D

Deb, my running partner is a good friend.....anyone you shared those running aches with has no choice! So do watch this space, if you are interested in running/prep details. The run, by the way, is only 7k....in case the preamble gave you another impression!

G'night!

It has to be India's 26/11!

2008-11-29T21:03:00.002+05:30

What else can anyone think of....the images are too horrible to internalise. We were in the US when 9/11 happened, close enough to NY and the feeling of hopelessness is something I will never forget. Driving back that evening around 6:30 pm, the toll operators waved people on, not collecting the money. At that point, it felt horrible and we were all glued to the television to see what had happened.

This is very different. For one, the tragedy was itself protracted.....with action. Not a couple of events and the fall out attached to it. Not to trivialize 9/11 in any way, but the impact of having live terrorists in the heart of your country and seeing army style guns/combat language on TV, explosions inside a heritage building is way stronger. It hits home.

So when the press calls this 'India's 9/11', it makes my blood boil. Why can we not value ourselves to call this INDIA'S 26/11? It was harmless when we called it 'Bollywood' - we copy enough cinema for it to be almost a true statement. But this is something else altogether. Let us please value Indian lives as lives first.

In shock and sorrow!

NEO contest

2008-11-29T10:07:00.002+05:30

The contest on neo.org is a different one. The pot of funds available to social enterpreneurs (some 10 of them) is fixed at around 20,000 Euros. The top three people with the most number of 'signer-upers' to their declaration (of why the NGOs exist) will split the money equally.

With the famed Indian population, one would say that this should be a breeze for us. The estimate is that 400 sign ups to support Vishal Talreja's declaration will do it for Dream A Dream. We are at 315 or so this morning. This is an easy fundraising effort - make as much as running an event (which is WAY more work!) and make Rs. 4.5 lakhs! This means so much to small organization like ours.

So, my loyal readers (if you exist!), please go to neo.org, sign up for an account (yes, it is a pain, but all they ask is an email id and name/birth country/place info), search for 'Vishal Talreja' and click on 'Take up this declaration'. And Dream a Dream gets Rs. 4.5 lakhs. I help manage the funds and can vouch for its efficient and effective use. Accounts et al are up at www.dreamadream.org.

In the meantime, hearing the sorrowful police band playing at Hemant Karkare's funeral. To the terrorists out there, how does this help your cause? I am really interested in knowing.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. We are halfway there now.

Onward ho!

2008-11-26T21:40:00.002+05:30

Planning for that long awaited vacation now. So many factors were potential 'cancellors', but this trip is actually going to happen. I plan on getting pictures and actually keeping up with the blog. God knows, I will need to have something else happening to keep me sane - have not had so much time to ourselves as a family in a long time.

The kids don't know and I don't plan on letting them know until we are on the plane. With Amma leaving, it will be easy to pass off the packing as hers. I hope. A day's worth of Hong Kong seeing and then off to Auckland for almost a month with Ami (my sister). She has a 6 month old black Lab puppy....I think we will both be very happy to exchange...quickly....two kids for a puppy, going once....! :-D

Went curtain shopping today for her. I had not realized what a blessing it is to not own a house. I did not know the niceties of mounting curtains onto their fixtures....really not such a huge gap in my education! Today, that was taken care of with detailed info on the various ways that curtains can hang. Yes, there are several. And of course, the simple option would not be the way to go for me. Luckily, I have found a nice shop that will take the info and take care of it.....thanks to Ami, I have pictures of the hooks that are the culprits of this level of complexity. Anyone out there pondering the benefits of window fixtures, I have one word for you - TAB! Go figure that one out!

G'night!

The workshop is over....after months of planning!

2008-11-21T21:54:00.004+05:30

Funny how it takes months to set things up and then it is just gone in a few hours....poof! The speakers were good - strong in their views, sensitive in their approach and clear in the message. The message is the same as SuDatta's common one, so one really can't ask for more.

The skit with different situations was very well done....funny, positive and suggesting the right direction for educators. The LD question kept coming up....sometimes our speakers mentioned it...I guess, people will take more time to get their heads and hearts around that.

I got so much from working on this 'project', if it can be called that. This is more of life's work....for most of us. Learned, matured, learned to delegate and step back....except in registrations, could not get away from logging into the registration email account despite having a cool, efficient and understated person handling it.

Hopefully the ripple effect is wide enough to impact a few children. I know now to be pro-active with my kids' teachers, listen and involve myself more in school, have realistic expectations of children/teachers/schools AND have a life elsewhere......!

G'night!

Night before the workshop.....

2008-11-20T22:19:00.003+05:30

and instead of searching for red ribbon to pack the booklets for release, I am blogging! Am I finally addicted to something? Email for sure!

Everything is in place for tomorrow - the speakers are quite fabulous and we have a nice break with skits. We hope to show the direction we would like educators to take with the skits and have it be some fun and not all serious talk. The subject is serious enough, as it is.

120 registrations, 140 people total at the venue - even if 20 people dropout, we have done what we set out to do. Next time, a better date - Guru Nanak's birthday (holiday but not a serious one down south!) would be ideal. If tomorrow works out well, that is.

In the middle of all this talk about educators and their classroom strategies, et al, I can only remember going to V Adoption Agency and seeing that toothless smile. The kids are total entertainers - their questions have been so funny, logical and thought provoking.

"I was tooken care of at V" is how my son describes it when asked about his birth. He is 4 years old.

The logic of "old people go to heaven, old people have grey hair, people with grey hair go to heaven....my father has grey hair, he has not gone to heaven, Gandhiji had no hair....why did he go to heaven?" is unbeatable. You know, S, I don't know why Gandhiji went to heaven....in an ideal world, he would not have! :-D

His sensitive little sister takes our breath away in different ways. Like asking "if there were no strangers in the world, Amma, it would be so peaceful, nah?" Where did this come from...for all that we are genetically connected to her, neither of us is so NICE! Nature/nurture? The debate rages on!

Have to get beauty sleep and red ribbon for tomorrow......

G'night!

Countdown.......one more day to D Day!

2008-11-19T16:54:00.010+05:30

Thursday is the only whole day before Workshop Day on Friday, Nov 21st. We are at 100 registrations - a bit over, actually. The whole team is ecstatic - given that this time last week, we had 20 registrations......very understandable!

We have such good speakers and a nice set of skits planned. It looks like we have lots of counselors and teachers with interest but little exposure to the topic. The best crowd to have - all ages of children will be impacted....pre-school onwards to PU colleges (+2 - last couple of years of school).

We have a nice team that has been working their...working very hard for the past two months. We have a nice website up at www.sudatta.org, a booklet as a resource for educators and the workshop. After the 20 registrations expectations were set (in my mind only....the seniors seemed very confident that last moment registrations would pour in!), I was getting ready to write-off all the work as 'investment with no return'! So the walking on clouds feeling now is very welcome.

From the nit-picky detailing in the invitation/press release/booklet/skit to the actual organization of the venue, time/date details, this has been a great experience. In some ways, it is maturing for me as an adoptive parent and event organizer. The seniors in the team have been there and done this....so the support was great. Looking back, it seems like I did so little.

Regardless of how the workshop goes, I think I would do this again....and again...with breaks! If we begin to work with stakeholder groups like this - doctors/hospitals, lawyers, government/policy setters, educators/counselors and of course, primary among them all adoptive parents....there is a chance that the scene will tilt into the plus side...children being brought LEGALLY and ETHICALLY into the adoption process, children being informed, secure and supported in their young lives, children being assisted in the search for birth parents (by adoptive parents and the State) and completing their biological circle with their little children - biological and adopted.

It strikes me how much people want to contribute back to adoption as a cause....not because it is a social sector 'cause' for us but because it has brought so much joy into our lives. At the end of the day....it is our need to have children in our lives and family building, however it is done, is joy. Most days....without sick children. Thankfully that is only one day for me this week....it would have to be the day of the workshop! :-D

Sattva - a social sector ezine

2008-11-18T00:17:00.005+05:30

Since life is not busy enough with two kids under 6, a part-time day job, a night time volunteer job and general life and fun, I began writing for Sattva, a social sector ezine. It is at http://www.itihas.org.in/sattva.html

The articles are there and self explanatory...duh! But the feeling/inspiration/elation is not. 500 words is not much....my editor may not want to be a friend! :-D

The real fun in writing is the content and the passion it evokes in you. For me, the social sector does that....yeah, I get off on other people's work - it does take all kinds! But seriously, the fact is that we have a Dr. Sudarshan who has in his quiet way worked away diligently for three decades and can say "I have enjoyed every moment of these years". He is the winner of the Right Livelihood award also known as the Alternate Nobel. He has taken over primary health centers in Karnataka because his organization has a proven track record for running them professionally and for cheaper than the government. 'Work within the system to make it better' can't have a better example. The pains of working within might explain his silver grey head of hair....but the smile on the face is sure and serene.

People like Dr. Sudarshan inspire with simplicity....I wish he could be publicised as an MTV style icon - inspiration for common good! Simple, humble and efficient...an anomaly in the noveau-riche software culture in Bangalore today. He prepared himself at medical college to do more than the average MBBS doctor - he took on extra surgeries, learned how to be a dentist and planned for poor infrastructure (to provide quality care regardless of surroundings!)....in this day and age, can we sprout educated doctors who rush off eagerly to rural areas? And who stick to it for a few decades....without regrets? I actually have faith that we will see a few of these types in Dr. S's organization. If a lowly scribe can get so inspired, imagine what can happen to the qualified and willing!

Three whole days before the 'Adoption and Education' workshop. We have 70 registered participants from all kinds of schools. A wonderful website at sudatta.org that a friend was generous enough to do for free....a resource booklet for educators that will speak when we at SuDatta take time off for that full night's sleep! I am proud to be part of a group as passionate and dynamic as this...I think I am a positive person to be around these days because of the people I work with/meet to interview/opinions that jostle for expression and the feeling that I too contribute....in my little way.

If one more child is impacted positively somewhere in India, my job is well done! G'night!

Workshop for Educators - Adoption and Education

2008-10-31T09:32:00.001+05:30

Must attend for educators of all kinds - principals, teachers, counselors, special educators, etc.

Free of charge and lunch will be served.

Go, SuDatta! :-D

Can't read the paper anymore

2008-10-01T08:22:00.004+05:30

Have to do something! The headline in the paper yesterday shook me up. 'Nun gangraped' - as someone who fondly remembers my school education governed by the 'Fathers' and 'Sisters', this somehow shakes me at my core. The service done by the Church in India is, in my opinion, has covered people who have fallen through the cracks in society. They are into education, health, income generation, you name it. And to see the dignity of a young nun ripped apart like this makes me repudiate our not-so-civil society.

It seems fashionable to bash institutions that do good work that can't be questioned. So when you have an irrational hate, you will try and dig up dirt wherever you can to justify this hate. And any big organization will have some things people don't agree with....with all these decades of service with such a broad base, come on!

But then, do I agree with fringe elements in my religion? They scare me and tar Hinduism - a religion that is based on the freedom to choose and follow with no rules, in whichever way one wants. Do we let that work in this way? Absolutely not. We have to invent poojas and chant shlokas - if the meaning of the shloka were to be examined, it could very well say something like "be good and things will work out!"

Hello, all religions also say repect women...not worship the devi at the temple and stamp the one at home with your boot!

So with the church, there could be sticking points. Forcible conversions are not a palatable possibility - not because people choose to convert....no problem with that. If the choice is taken away, there is a problem. And to my mind, I have not seen enough proof of that. So what do they do? Lock you up until you convert? And hope to have that religion stick? The whole thing stinks of irrational hate to me.

I think what bothers people most is that there is a lacuna in the current religion's systems that makes people want to change, even if that means they lose favour in their personal society. This makes each one question their own choices and when these choices seem shaky, it is easier to point outwards instead of the tough work of figuring out our own lives.

So now, the fundamentalist monkeys want to forcibly 're'convert people, if they want to go back to live in their own homes in Orissa. I am sorry, this is justified how? An eye for an eye makes the world blind....blind sounds like a better option right now to seeing nun gangrape become part of our reality.

Signing off on Gandhiji's birthday.....how did that guy do it in this society?!

Originality in media

2008-09-18T22:15:00.002+05:30

In the past 48 hours, I have heard the phrase "If Wall Street/US sneezes, the whole world catches a cold/cough" at least 25 times. Lehman is history, AIG is nationalized for all intents and purposes and global financial markets are going berserk. I get that it is difficult to be original in this context. But media people, could you please try not to use the same cliches? Several times? At least mix it up, can ya?

And then Abhishek Bachchan...suddenly he is opening up on his marital affairs ON EVERY channel. So if you miss the mush on one, click over and sure enough, within 5 minutes, you are swamped in it. If not, you can sue!

My whole grouse with more TV channels and radio stations has been that despite the numbers, they all sound/look and feel alike. With 3 -4 radio stations, we had some variety. It was good to know that one channel was mostly western, another Bollywood music, another regional in flavour. Now, they all speak 'Kinglish' with a fake american accent and play a weird mix of music that is trying to satisfy everyone and catering to none! Thank God we have satellite radio - dedicated stations for the various genre of music and no advertisements.

If you ever heard the commercial of a car honking suddenly while driving, you will know why no ads is a great idea! Media originality of thought seems to be a lost cause....if it was even a cause in the first place. Our film makers are 'inspired' by Hollywood but can't bear to be clubbed as Bollywood....preferring the "Hindi film industry" instead. I vote to rechristen it "We dub, you mindless goons watch". And me mindless goon will still watch, in hope that this will change sometime this century! :-D

Parenting....a lifeskill!

2008-09-09T22:31:00.007+05:30

Have been reading a lot about the 'soft' skills required for life. Life skills is really a much abused word...swimming to patience seem to fall under this umbrella in people's minds. I have been attending a class called Lifeskills and Parenting. It started off with this desire to try and build lifeskills in my children - they already go to swimming class....and has ended up being an all encompassing parenting class.

With the way things seem to go with my kids' generation, we as parents are highly likely to be flood victims in the sea of issues....holding on tight to that branch of sanity....and slipping off every so often! Already ...and these kids are just 5 and 4. Going on 40...but that is a different story!

So the parenting class has this question that recurs. "Whose need is it?" Not sure if this is a general psycho babble thing or parenting specific....my sneaking suspicion is that this is so with all things in life. So everytime an example comes up, the individual is encouraged to ask questions to deconstruct the situation/problem/issue. The first level deals with the feeling and then we are to analyze the need and whose need it is. An example:

Hapless trainee: My child back answers. And I lose it.
Gleeful trainer: SO, how does this make you FEEL when your child back answers?
HT: Upset, angry, scared that he could become a criminal and back answer all his/her life.
GT: What could the child do to gain your approval?
HT: Say "Yes, Amma" and do what I ask!
GT: So whose need is it for him to not back answer?
HT: (even more haplessly) Mine?
GT: Bingo! (Grins like a banshee.....could be mistaken to be pride at their smart pupil!)

Joking aside, the class is a great one. And despite my shamefacedness at going to a parenting class, it is really useful. Yes, you doubters out there.....everything in life is not gained only by experience....some of my experiences with the kids could not even loosely be called 'gain'!

The deep answer to all the problems is introspection. I mean real problems, not ones where the drivers are on the wrong side of the road. That answer is clearly violence (relax, just ....really....kidding!). But any problem requiring thinking/social interaction can be solved by simple introspection, courageous internal change and acknowledging the feeling (mine and others'). So when my son cries for his candy, I can say, "I know you are feeling sad. It is alright to feel sad!" and run before he figures out he is still not getting it....the candy, I mean!

G'night!

The Magic Drum

2008-09-07T23:53:00.002+05:30

Please attend 'The Magic Drum' - a play by Bangalore Little Theatre with proceeds going to Dream A Dream, my NGO. Do forward this along to any one interested in Bangalore or visitors to Bangalore between September 16th and 21st.

So what is your word?

2008-08-20T14:37:00.005+05:30

I have been reading this book called Eat Pray Love. Have resisted reading this book because it was on the bestseller list and hawked by a bunch of people. The last time that happened, it was "The Secret" that listed out what had never been secrets for centuries. This book seems okay at 100 pages, kind of chick-lit meets travel (and food!) meets spiritual seeking. Elizabeth gets a divorce and begins her seeking - through three months in Italy, India and Indonesia. Three months in Italy obviously deals with the food (pretty amazing stuff!), India with spiritual seeking and Indonesia with balance. Honey, can we book our tickets to Indonesia, please?! :-D

The one thing that got me thinking was what she had to say about the word. The author's surmise is that every place, person and thing has one word that characterizes it/him the most. For example, New York's word is Achieve versus Los Angeles' Succeed. Elizabeth Gilbert agonizes about what her word is and ends up with lots of words that are not!

I think my word is 'Contribute'. Not Fame or Power or Success. While I hope to have the last be part of my life in general, I find I am contributing more than being an Architect of anything. Sure, set up systems....but these are also systems that contribute, not life or death....great to have and kind of difficult to live without systems.

Contribute is positive, even if it is not glamourous and hit-you-in-the-face for attention. Contribute works....really hard! :-D

The kids and their classes!

2008-08-13T20:03:00.003+05:30

I have two kids and they are as different as can be. I made a pact with myself to never push them into anything they did not want to do. Now, the tables have turned. They want to do so much that I need to make a pact with them that I should not be made to do things I don't want to - for their classes! :-D

Spent three hours today picking out red chiffon and sateen, gold and beaded lace and another hour the other day picking out ornaments. Anyone who knows me will be rolling over and laughing their gut out by now....ornaments and dance stuff are pretty far out there for me.

The kids wanted to do everything they do now....and since it was productive stuff that they are willing to continue and showed consistent interest in, figured this was probably my parental responsibility anyways. Now though, between tabla, kathak, singing, art and swimming classes, I am being put through my paces. The kids each have a couple of classes that they love and then swimming that is a required lifeskill. They are absolutely not stressed out.....if anything, they are stressing me out with their enthusiasm!

Not only am I becoming culture central, I am also relearning Hindi, my personal bete-noire. I can understand it very well and speak it to shopkeepers and cabbies. Ask me to construct a grammatically correct sentence with the right masculine/feminine assignments to tables and chairs (What the heck? Some alcohol must have been involved to see that a table has gender!) and I am gone. Ask for this sentence construction with ease and confidence and witness serious stutters!

Parenting involves doing things that are way out of your comfort level...including your education...again...from the nursery level, as many times as the number of kids you have. No wonder single child families are becoming the norm! :-)

Okay - it has to be THE gold medal!

2008-08-12T23:38:00.004+05:30

Am absolutely thrilled. You would think I won the darn medal. No, it was Abhinav Bindra who won my medal in the Olympics....and though I might have done a better job of showing my emotions (!), he deserves it more! :-D

It was exhilarating....like a colleague (a sports coordinator and former athlete himself) said," I can die now! I never thought I would see this in my lifetime!" Can't put it better. It was such an amazing experience to see the Indian flag rise and the anthem play. Okay, most of the time the darn commentators spoke through the anthem, but we know it by now. So many people shed tears that day - were it not for the salt content, the water table would have benefited.

I hope with the Mittals getting into sports, others will make as big of a splash and begin identifying athletes at a younger age. That way, the talented kids with middle to lower middle class backgrounds would still be able to continue on, if they show talent and the intent to work hard for the sport. Our kids at Dream A Dream (and who am I kidding - my own brats!) might have a fair chance of making it too!

In the meantime, my feet are up, remote stuck on the Olympics (yep, even though it is only DD showing it.....desperate times need desperate measures!) and I am learning more about sports than I ever thought I would. Even when the Indian does not make it, I am glad to see the Indian flag appearing in more heats than ever. Rehan Jehangir Poncha was a hero in our household, with two kids and I waving a plastic flag, shouting "Poncha, PONCHA!" to egg him on. Yes, before you say anything, am sure he heard....and maybe was slower than he should have been. He was second in the heats but ended up not making it because of the time he took - we don't care. The event was won by the Phelps bulldozer, so we didn't have a chance in the first place. That someone even made it to the pool and went to the Olympic heats (a Bangalore boy at that!) was enough for this time around.

Akhil Kumar in boxing (by the way, what is the point of the sport? We have enough of that happening in J&K - if only we could do a quick location switch for medal number 2!), Saina Nehwal in badminton, the Indian-kind-of-over-the-hill-but-trying-hard duo of Lee and Hesh.....we are watching you and cheering hard. Yes, please win that medal before my neighbour complains and I am evicted from my home! :-D

Way to go, Abhinav......you belong to a great nation and we are proud of you in return! :-D

Yayyyyyy........fade into incoherence!

Adoption days, weeks and months!

2008-08-07T20:49:00.004+05:30

A post after a long time...life has been crazy. Had no time to think before this week.

Lately, it has been adoption tasks/thinking for a few weeks. Started with the SuDatta Annual General Meeting where a second generation adoptive parents' team has taken the helm as office bearers. The group is an association of adoptive parents - basically a support group for ourselves and others in the same/prospective boat.

The thing with involving oneself with the cause of adoption is that it is constantly in the subconscious. It is not like you can't think of anything else....but scratch the surface with one news story remotely related to it and there you go, the adoption gene comes to the fore!

So many questions and suggestions - do we tell (please, god, let us have put that question to rest....of course, YOU there, tell...now!), when, how, how much - just one part that is related to the child. Do we tell the school, how do we deal with relatives and their good/ill intentions? How much telling impinges on the child's privacy? What when your kid uses it as a card to differentiate....and gets hurt? Kids can be cruel and hard hitting....to other kids AND adults! :-)

What about the bigger context? Should the gender of the kid be dictated to you? Should it matter what religion you are - yes, in modern secular India, a personal choice like adoption is legally impacted by religion of the adoptive parents! Should the agency show you more than one child? Should you be able to specify caste, colour and religion as 'conditions' when registering preferences in the course of adoption?

The questions and choices are so many. Until you attempt to put them down on paper, you probably don't even realize that you made these choices, for good or bad. I do clearly remember the guilt I felt for not bringing home a differently abled child....no confidence in my parenting skills/patience levels and inability to provide enough opportunities. And remember the joy of feeling that my family was complete when my second one came home.

So some days are adoption days - when all of a sudden, after days of being a crazy busy regular person, you are put into situations/see/read things that directly impact your adoption gene and wake you to comment/act with passion for or against the issue.

Baby Manjee - a baby brought into the world through surrogacy, Japanese biological parents who got a divorce before the baby was born, being cared for by her paternal grandmother in a nursing home in Jaipur, visa clock ticking away.....this is the plot of a Danielle Steele story. All extreme happiness and deep devastation! Can't even attempt to list out the various factors to look at in this case.....thank god, I am not the judge or lawyers fighting this case!

In the end, adoption is not social service. It is not a 'noble' thing to do - just another way to build your family. Adoption - the other option! If anything, it is parenting that is social service!