And they're off!

...but not before wishing you a Happy Diwali ! Yes, YOU!

May the light of something something prosperity yada yada happiness etc etc grant your wishes blah blah...and oh, to your family too.

Have fun.

See you on the other side.

I've always wanted to say that ... ' ... on de udda side'...yes!

Ok, bye.

(Best wishes from Vijay, Y, Peanut, the K, and everyone else!)

What's the Use of Being a Manager?

...If you can't even manage your packing?

I'm on the verge of giving up. There's just too much stuff here and I find myself unable to decide which items can stay behind and which ones go to Bombay with us. Everything suddenly looks indispensable - except the Mr. Bear Bump & Go Mobile - which is the only thing I have been able to decide to leave behind, so far.

And this is despite the fact that Vijay already took back a whole load of stuff over the weekend. After packing everything, he asked me 'How much do you think all this will weigh?' - I examined the baggage critically and said 'Oh, you'll be well within your 20 kg limit'. It was 34 kgs.

The suitcase we are using to transport our baggage is a really old, large green one that is falling apart at the seams. After Vijay managed to struggle with it last time to finally get it to shut, it stood there like an unsightly, overstuffed frog. I then gingerly placed on top of it the 8 DVDs which I had borrowed from Vani earlier. I didn't hear a word from him about them, and I haven't been able to find them in the dustbin here, so I think he squeezed them in - my patient, accommodating husband.

However, he told me, as he gazed thoughtfully at the tattered, overfull suitcase 'Agar yeh raaste mein phat jaaye...aur sab kuchh bahar nikal aaye...' I waited expectantly to hear his plan, and he finished the thought with great confidence 'Main isko wahi chhod ke chala jaaunga'.

Clearly, a man whose reservoir of patience is as close to bursting at the seams as our suitcase.

Anyway, back to the point - I have only a few hours today in which to wrap up everything! It is an impossible task. The word 'Yaaaaaaaaaaah' comes to mind!

Come on, Y! Is this why you went to a top-notch B-school? To have all your faculties fall apart in a simple domestic organization issue?

A manager has to prioritize...to schedule...to delegate...and most importantly, have an overall strategy...

Prioritization: Diapers, Car seat, Bassinet, Bathtub, Clothes, Toiletries, Toys, Baby Gyms - yep, everything except Mr. Bear Bump & Go Mobile goes. Check.

Schedule: I have decided to split my day pretending to pack and posting mini-posts on my blog because I may not have internet access for a while now. Oh, and there's this little thing called Peanut which may require my attention now and then.

Delegate: Vijay is coming tonight to put the final finishing touches on my packing, and I have full confidence in him to do a great job. It's all about confidence in your people.

Strategize: This one is a sure-shot winner. In a masterly move, I have piled all our worldly belongings onto Vijay's bed. There's absolutely no way he can sleep tonight without tackling that pile.

I finally know why I deserve my salary. It really is kind of sad.

Well, no time to muse today. Bye bye for now - will try and post a few pics later today.

Conversations

The K and my sister:

K: Shoneee kitna chalaak hai, oh baba goh! Shabh jaanti hai...
My sister: Hmmm? (half listening)
K (conversationally and candidly): Aap log to bilkul buddhu the...

Vijay and Peanut:

V (chanting with enthusiasm): Ek dhakka aur do...saari potty nikaal do!
Peanut ( obligingly potties some more, on my hand, as I clean her up while V looks unusually happy): ....


My sister and me:

Sister (petulantly): WHY you going to Bombay? With MY baby?
Me (feeling sorry): Yeah. You'll really miss her. What'll you do when you come home in the evening?
Sister (snaps maliciously) : I'll cry. And curse you. Every day.
(Silence)
Me: Well, at least you've got a plan.

The K and me:

Me (trying to dress a wailing Peanut to go out, getting very late): Uska woh dena...
K (hovering around in readiness, not knowing which way to lurch): Kya?
Me (searching for the hindi word for 'Glove') : Woh...woh...
K ( desperately trying to help, picks up a diaper): Yeh!?
Me: (getting frustrated) Nahin...kyo bolte hai usse, yaar...uska...haath ka...
K ( triumphantly grabs the nearest rattle) : Yeh!
Me: Nahin, yaar...haath pe pehnaate hai na...
K ( finally handing me Peanut's gloves): Achha!Yeh!
Me (relieved) Thank you.
K (beaming) Belkum... (adds helpfully as I put the gloves on Peanut's hands) Isse haath ka moja kehte hai.

Vijay and me:

Me (upset that Vijay is busy working on his laptop on the weekend): I'll run away from you.
Vijay (perks up immediately, looking up with interest) Kabhhh?
Me ( still trying ) I'm serious. You'll be all alone, I'll run away.
Vijay: (pumping fist encouragingly) On your marks...Get set...

Peanut's Paediatrician and me:

Doc (wrapping up visit): Ok, Vasundhara, all the best in Bombay.
Me (for the nth time) : Umm...it's Yashodhara, doc.
Doc (surprised): Is it? Well, the same thing, Vasundhara, Yashodhara. They are the same person we worship.
Me (as docile as a cow in front of the man with the needle, while thinking 'what a load of crap'): Yes, Doc.
Doc: Now, let me give you the receipt for the vaccination. What's his name?
Me: Anoushka.
Doc (finally, after treating my baby for over 3 months, exclaims in surprise) Oh...it's a girl!

One Hundred Posts of Non-Solitude

100 posts.

Wow.

I started this blog at just about this time, last year. I was generally bored, frustrated and sick at the beginning of my pregnancy. I just wanted to get my mind of things, at that point. That's what this blog was for. It was completely unrelated to the most significant part of my life - the pregnancy and the baby that was to come.

But then of course, I realized that there were parts of the pregnancy that were pretty special and memorable too (and I needed to vent and complain somewhere!), and so I thought I would start another blog, which I have subsequently discontinued after Peanut was born. At that point, it was only for family and friends to read, but if you want to read a pregnant lady's rants any time, knock yourself out.

Anyway, this blog has really evolved since it started - and so have I. And I guess we're both still evolving. For example, it's pretty telling that before Peanut was born, I could actually maintain two separate blogs - one on the pregnancy and one about other things in life - but now, it's all very much, to quote Poppins 'About my Life...my Baby...Wait, aren't they the same?'.

I'm also told that the tone of the blog has changed a lot. Well, how much of your original irritable and sarcastic self can you retain when you're writing about tiny little Peanut? The frequency of my posts have increased since I'm on maternity leave and obviously the content of the posts revolves mostly around her right now. I'm fairly sure motherhood is bringing out a most caring, unselfish side of me - although my hackles still rise when I get all that frickin' unwanted advice from people around me.

Which brings me to another point. I've never really been a person to reach out to strangers. I have very few friends who are very close to me. I mentioned earlier that I usually come off as someone with too much attitude. But as I interact with more and more people while blogging, I feel that there are actual relationships that are being forged here - and somehow it seems to me that there are so many people out there who are so interesting, who may be going through or have gone through the same things that I am right now, and in general, are just so much fun to get to know through their writing - and the comments they leave behind here. So while I get annoyed with the unsolicited motherhood advice I get all the time from those around me in the offline world (I hate that phrase but it's useful), I absolutely lap up the experiences of other young blogging Moms - the most important difference I find being empathy.

The bloggy Moms are largely non-judgemental and have been through similar emotions and experiences in the recent past. This is important to me to know, because I'm literally the first in my circle of friends to have a child - and the older generation of our family seems to have completely utopian views on how to raise kids, and their cloudy memories suggest that they raised their own children in an atmosphere of blissful perfection 'My children never cried this way...' (Yeah, right).

Look, I may not be a great Mom, but I'm learning, hey? But I'm pretty much figuring the only way to deal with this is to plaster a fake smile on my face and move on, and to accept that the advice will keep coming - and most of it, if not all - is as well-meant as it is irritating. And the thing is - I can always come and bitch about it here.

What else, what else? The bitching part reminds me of the anonymity bit. Sure, this isn't an anonymous blog and I never really wanted it to be. I've been warned by a friend or two on a couple of occasions about revealing too much, and sure, there are freaks out there -but to be honest - I don't see how I'm revealing more here than most people reveal on Orkut or Facebook! Sure, there are times when I need to regulate what I write because a lot of people who know me read this blog, but for the most part, I share whatever I want to share and keep it mostly light-hearted. Unlike some others, I don't treat this blog as an online diary - it's just some thoughts that I put out there, a way to record some memories and increasingly, a way to interact with other people.

And that's another bit of evolution here - my writing was very one-sided when it started, largely because I knew I was only being read by a few of my friends and family. It's different now and I find myself starting to pose more and more questions to those who read this blog - and this stems out of a genuine sense of curiosity about what you think about a particular issue.

Another thing that is changing is that earlier I only wrote when I had something funny to say - but lately, I just write whatever I feel like writing about -such as this post- and it is really far more liberating. This is a good thing - especially considering that you lot who come here for the laughs don't really PAY me for it, hey? Also, I don't want or plan on having those Google Ads here, either. Am sure I will miss the 75 paise that I would have made thanks annually to my wide readership, but I'll somehow scrape through, I think.

Which brings me to my final point then. I know there are a few people who drop by occasionally, because of the comments they leave behind...I can think of Svety, Quirky Quill, Nandita, Stuti, Mona, Timepass, Still Searching, Unpredictable, Rayshma, Chandni, Sameera, Suki, Poppins, Aqua, Argee, Rohini, Moppet’s Mom, Parul, Dipali, Sue, Nm, Squiggle’s Mom, Cee Kay...a lovely, sporting, supportive bunch in general.

And then there are my family and friends, including Vani, Abhi, Richa, Shilpa, Garima, Nimisha, Ganju, Shome, Mahogany, Vijay, Mash, Gitanjali and her pals Gaurav and Saurabh, Ma, Mini...

But while I'm really just a small-time blogger, I do sometimes wonder...who are the rest of you? And why do you mostly read me on Mondays and Wednesdays? (Dumbass question with an obvious answer!) Incidentally, Monday also sees a disproportionately high number of page reloads - that bored in office, eh? Wink, wink. I know how you feel!

I don't have dem fancy-shmancy trackback thingies installed on my low-tech little blog. Anyway, if you've come back here on more than a couple of occasions, this may be a good time for you to de-lurk. After all, you do want to wish me a happy 100th post, don't you?

It would be nice to get to know you - but even if you choose to remain silent for some reason, well, that's okay too.

In any case, you should know that I really do appreciate you all dropping by. We must do this again sometime.

Maybe at the 200th post, hey? Let's do lunch.

The Solo Vacation Tag

Mahogany tagged me with this beautiful tag decades ago and I have finally gotten around to doing it. The tag simply asks you to write about which is the one place in the world that you would like to go for a solo vacation.


Now, the reason I've had some trouble with this 'solo vacation' thing is that I am one of those who hasn't even ever gone to watch a movie alone. It's not like I can't - in fact, at times, I think it might be better to go for a movie alone. And I do like my alone time when I'm reading a book or jogging or whatever - but there are just some things I feel are better done with someone to share it with.


Perhaps this is only a phase in my life. Maybe sometime in the future, I will grab a backpack and say 'Ok, bye' and take off for a solo vacation somewhere. It's just that right now, with a three-month-old at home, there are currently enough adventures and discoveries that take place everyday and I just don't want to 'get away from it all' as some of my non-mother friends seem to think necessary.


Anyway, meandering back to the point. Where would I go if I had to take a solo vacation?


Well, I've always wanted to go to Corfu, ever since I've read Gerald Durrell's most famous series - My Family and Other Animals & Birds, Beasts and Relatives & The Garden of the Gods. I haven't been to that many places in Europe but the next time I go there, I'm going to make sure I do go to Greece and I hope to see the warm, colourful, beautiful island where Durrell spent his happy childhood years. I know I may be setting myself up for a fall because I remember reading that Durrell was most upset in later life about the fact that the popularity of his books turned Corfu into a tourist destination - and the commercialisation left it a changed place, resulting in its losing its original charm.


But it's funny - of late, I've been thinking a lot about how much there is unexplored - by me, and many people I know -within our own country. My mother was posted in Shillong year before last, and a lot of people, family and friends went to visit her and had a fabulous time with her - but Vijay and I were 'too busy with work' to take a few days off and do this. Pretty stupid, huh. The North-East is just one part of the country I haven't been to - whenever I've gone travelling for work to different parts of the country, it's often ended up being a dumb day trip and I've rarely seen anything apart from the inside of the hotels or the conference rooms. The time off I've had in the last few months has really made me think about how silly this has been.


This was driven home for me last month when I was watching a tourism advertisement on a travel channel and I was like 'Wow! What a beautiful place! I need to go there!' - and felt pretty idiotic when it turned out to be India. ( Hey, they didn't do the regular Elephants and People in Turbans thing - just showed a lot of landscape, sea, forests and all! Not my fault!)


But finally, the thing that has really been bothering me most of late - I've realized that it's been around 15 years since I saw a sky full of stars. I've always lived in cities - Delhi, Bangalore and Bombay - and you just can't see the stars from here, anymore. It was only as a kid, when we visited our family friends in the hilly little town of Dharampur, that I remember looking up and seeing what appeared to be millions of stars. I remember just staring up in complete awe for the longest time. It was a truly beautiful sight.


I then proceeded to forget about it for so many years - but it came and hit me like a ton of bricks recently that I just don't get to see the stars anymore! So this tag should have been relatively simple for me - I just want to get to any place where I can see the stars. And I mean, LOTS of them.


I have taken to jogging at night over the last few weeks in Delhi, and every night I look up and mournfully count the five stars that are visible over the city. And I realize that this is the one thing I want to make sure I do as soon as possible. Get an eyeful of millions of stars, at least one more time. And wherever I happen to be when I finally see this is where I will want to be most when I see it. That, my friends, is a ridiculous sentence, but I suspect you know what I mean.


In the meantime, I try and make do with the fact that the evening sky looked sorta pretty the other day as I looked out my window. Here's a picture.



And here's what Mahogany wrote when he started the tag. He blogged about his trip in the two subsequent posts.

Shome - since you're blogging again, I tag you to write about your Tabo trip and post some of those fabulous pictures.
Ganju - keep having those exciting weekends in the U.S. and telling us about them. Just sort of bung them in between your usual descriptions of your laundry, toilet paper and vending machines (Sheesh).


Anyone else who wants to do this tag, please feel free to take it up and tell us all about it. Don't worry, you can make it as meandering and introspective as I have. Tell us what you're thinking. And how do you feel about living in the city that you live in ?And I'm especially interested to know when and where was the last time you saw a sky full of stars.

Last, but not least, I'm curious -have you ever gone on a solo vacation? Heck, have you ever gone to watch a movie alone? Gone out to eat in a restaurant alone? What are the advantages you've found?


A lot of questions, but an inquiring mind wants to know. Do tell.

What's a Wombat, She Asks?

Here you go, Parul...

http://www.wombania.com/wombats/

It is one of my prime regrets in life that I went to Australia and returned without having spotted a Wombat.

And Sue...I really want to hear that poem you mentioned...

'Wombat Stew! Wombat Stew!
Crunchy Munchiee! For my Lunchee!
Wombat Stew!
Wee Hoo!'

Is just so cute. The versions I've seen online suggest that the book by Marcia Vaughn has the rhyme as

'Wombat Stew! Wombat Stew!
Gooey, Chewy,
Yummy, Brewy,
Wombat Stew!'

I like the Crunchy Munchie one better.

And thus ends the most arbit post I've ever written.

Heck, Y On Earth Not!?

Words That Are Fun To Say - 1

There are some words that are nice for no reason other than the way they roll off your tongue. And for no particular reason, I have decided to compile a list of these. The first few are:

1. Repartee
2. Wombat
3. Machete (Courtesy: Ganju*)
4. And my current personal favourite: Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Try them! And do you have any favourite words?

Note: Peanut likes to say 'Huhhhh...huhhhh....huhhhhhhhhhhh'. Very versatile as this can be said in a wondering tone one minute, and with biting sarcasm the next.

*Ganju, has the word courtesy ever been used with your name before? Ha, ha. Just kidding, ole buddy.