Biting off more than I can chew

To top it all off, I am now toying with the idea of guitar lessons to revive a long forgotten passion. Wanting to read more, write more, play more, work more, and above all spend more time with family.

I've always liked Alanis.

'I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone. I certainly do'.

You live...You learn...

Except, sometimes, you may not, and that's okay too.

How do you do it, Yaar?

A couple of days back, Vani came home to visit me.

It so happened that Vijay was late, and our maid Rinki (who is a young girl that helps with the twins) had gone out for an hour to see her father. Thus it was the K and me, and three kiddies.

For the first few minutes of Vani's visit, she looked at me sitting there on the floor with all three babies clambering over me, and said repeatedly 'I don't know how you do it, yaar! I have one and I go mad sometimes. Look at you with three of them'.

'Oh it's nothing' I said modestly, adding 'I have a lot of help, you know. Rinki has just gone out for a bit. Least I can do is take care of them myself for a little while'. K was in the kitchen making Maggi for Peanut, so I sat there like a hero with the lot of them, glowing like some sort of cross between Superwoman and Mother India.

Peanut was lying with her head on my lap. Just then, Papad stepped on her ear and she suddenly screamed in pain. Papad, startled out of his little baby wits, tripped over my leg and fell down and screamed even louder than her. While attempting to reach out and grab him, I kind of knocked Pickle down and the combination of this rude behavior and all the screaming, set Pickle screaming even louder than his brother and sister. I didn't know who to comfort and almost set the record on screaming, while Vani looked less impressed than before, and a lot more worried and picked up one or two of them off me. I think I ended up hugging Pickle, more to comfort myself than him. The K also re-entered the room and finally some semblance of peace and sanity reigned once more.

Rinki returned in a bit to find a very sullen looking crowd and it was all I could do from hugging her.

Indeed. How do I do it, Yaar?

Seriously. I'm asking you. HOW DO I DO IT?

*Deep Calming Breaths*

'Tis the season to be Taggy...

Apparently, I'm a Versatile Blogger, according to the lovely Sue. Although she seems to have awarded me for my versatility in life rather than on my blog.

It seems I need to list some random facts about myself as a recipient of this award. Okay, just off the top of my head:

* Am supremely happy about having snorkelled over the Great Barrier Reef with my cousin Mini.
* I used to play guitar once upon a time. I have started again four days back and my fingers hurt. The twins don't let me play much though, and Peanut makes me play Mmm-bop for her repeatedly. This is embarassing!
* I have a bit of a temper. Okay, a lot of a temper. But I'm mellowing as the years pass (hahahahahaha!)
* I like Robbie Williams. Don't judge me.
* Apparently, I like to take perfectly innocent tags and use them to confess random things, even though I started out fairly strong with some cool snorkelling story.

Sigh!

Also, I realized I'm not tagging anybody with this post and the last. So sorry, but I feel too out of it and will probably end up tagging someone who's just been tagged. Double sigh!

But thanks Sue...appreciate it :-)

P.S - one more random fact - I abhor smileys but use them liberally myself.
P.P.S - oooh, I've got another. I am 50% Punjabi, 25% Bengali and 25% Nepali. Vijay is 100% Rajasthani. That makes Pickle, Papad and Peanut an interesting mix. I would like to see what their kids turn out!

What mommyhood taught me...Tag

I feel very ill equipped to write this, but since it's Dipali who's tagged me, how can I not?

The reason I feel ill equipped is because I feel so certain that I am still learning. The funny thing is, a year ago, I thought I was pretty certain about what being a mother means, but then several things happened in quick succession

* I gave birth to identical twin boys
* My little Peanut became a 3 year old teenager
* I underwent two surgeries within a span of two weeks, and the worst possible health condition I've ever been in.

So basically, everything I had learnt thus far went for a toss.

But anyway, 5 things I can safely say I've learnt by being a mommy -

a. I am not the center of the universe. Not even close. The kids, all three of them, matter much more than me. I don't think I've ever been this unselfish.
b. I am the center of the universe. For them. No one else has that kind of effect on them. To be able to comfort them. It's magical. I've never felt more important.
c. My husband takes on a whole new dimension of attractiveness by how he behaves as a father. It is indescribable.
d. Your friends or cousins will never understand what it's like. Until they have their own. And that's okay, because you never understood before it happened, either.
e. Mum was probably actually right when she said she didn't love my brother or sister more than me just because they were older and younger. I know. I have three of my own now. Although technically, there is no middle child in my case, but still, Pickle is a minute older than Papad. Anyway. I guess that's just not how love works. There isn't a limited supply to be divided between people. There's plenty of it to go all around.

Photographs by Marta

Just a few sample pictures that my Spanish neighbour, Marta did up for me. She's created an absolutely gorgeous album, with high quality pictures on some special high quality paper.

She's starting out her career in India as a professional photographer, and the lady has some style. So if you're interested in getting some family pics and you happen to live in Gurgaon/Delhi, go ahead and email her at apna.moments@gmail.com.

Disclaimer

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I know sometimes it sounds like I am doing a lot and packing in many, many things in a day.

But it's actually at the cost of sleep and sometimes food and often exercise. And then there are days like this one today where I really feel like it's all coming at me from all sides.

So yes, basically what I'm saying is I don't think I would call myself an inspiration for anyone! So neither should you guys.

But I do love you for it.

Edited to add:

I just hugged Peanut and asked her solemnly 'Can I tell you something?'
She said 'Ya'
I said 'Life is full of problems. But you must always smile and know that you are very lucky to be you'.
She said 'Ya'.
I said 'Did you understand?'
She said 'Ya'.
I said 'So what did you understand?'
She said as solemnly as I did ' Sometimes in your whole life, the earth is the moon and it takes your house away. Because we are on the Earth and also in India, and the Earth is under India and so your house goes and then in the English we call the earth the moon and sing 'the house on the earth goes life, life, life'.
I am dumbfounded for a second and then nod slowly. And say 'Exactly'.

Thank God for my many, many children.

Attempting to Write

I have found it is a very, very different thing to write something while you're on maternity leave for months on end; and try to write something while you're handling a full time job and three babies.

I don't think I've written very much about the process of writing, so I thought I'd just start capturing it a bit.

To begin with, let's not get overly excited -the publishing of my first book is still far away - many months in fact, early next year is mostly likely. That's okay with me. I'm in no hurry at all. Just the fact that someone thinks it's good enough to print has got me started writing on a reasonably regular basis in the little spare time that I have.

About the book -it's going to be a book largely based on the funny side of marriage. As you may know, there are plenty of funny stories that I have on this subject. However, it wasn't as easy to write as it may sound. The first attempt I made, despite the good advice of my friend Parul, was very series-of-incidents loosely bound together in chronological order. I kind of fancied it a very Gerald Durrell or James Herriot style of writing, but it didn't really fly with the big publishers. I had to eventually change it around a lot into a story-type format, the more conventional 'commercial fiction' category as I later discovered this is called.

One of the smaller publishing houses, however,had caught hold of it in January because I had written to the CEO, through a contact at my workplace, asking for advice on how to go about getting published. His editor told him good things about the sample chapters I had sent on email and he offered to publish it. I almost said yes, because he was extremely convincing about how I should not 'get lost in the maze of large publishers'.

Even though I eventually did get accepted by a large publisher and may indeed get 'lost in the maze' (although I hope not and it doesn't really look like it given my experience with the very nice editor I interact with) I will be eternally grateful for this gentleman's encouragement - he is someone with decades of experience in the publishing business and he said something to me which I will never forget.

'I know what Indian writing lacks, my dear...and you've got it'. He gave me a very meaningful look, as I sat nervously on his sofa.

'I do?' I was surprised. 'Thanks very much'. After several minutes of more conversation, I asked him quite stupidly 'Excuse me, but could you tell me - what have I got?'.

He looked momentarily flustered but quickly said 'Why, humor of course'.

He also said later in the conversation 'You've got the makings of a real author. Not just a writer. An author'. This was possibly the first moment in my life when I really believed that something I wrote could actually be seen as worth publishing by someone who counted.

At that point of time, as I mentioned, I was almost convinced that I should just go with this godlike gentleman who was saying all these nice things. However, he wasn't talking large numbers at all; and fiction is not the forte of this particular publishing house. And I happen to have a Mami in publishing, who turned out to be my real guardian angel and guided in the whole process, because when I sent her the novel, she read it and then repeatedly told me to hold out for something bigger - to not be impatient. And that it did make a difference who published it.

I followed her advice, said no to the gentleman, and after a painful wait of a couple of months, quite miraculously, HarperCollins came on the scene and yes, they're doing it. The editor, as I've mentioned, happens to be a very very nice lady, and when she called me with the news, she said she had read it in the car on the way home and couldn't stop laughing and that her driver thought she had gone mad (exactly the kind of reaction I wanted) and that she really wanted to publish it.

The reason I'm disclosing this now is that I have recently received the advance cheque and it looks real enough although I haven't yet tried to bank it and think I might not ( plan is to frame it despite Vijay's protests) - but yes, net-net, looks like they weren't joking after all.

So that's it. The final draft of the book is with them. One has to finalize name. The cover design. And so on. Plenty of time for all that, but I think I will bounce some of the options off you guys as and when they get ready.

In the meantime, the other thing was that I was planning to write Book 2 as a sequel to the first one ; but when I discussed a loose fiction idea with the Editor, she liked the sound of the storyline and said I should try to write that as the second book, and maybe write a sequel to Book 1 as the third book.

'That's a more fun way to do it' she declared over a cup of coffee at the Coffee Shop at Vasant Continental.

So that's what I'm trying now. But it's tough on various counts. Firstly because as I said, I now have many more children than before and also a full time job. It's chugging along though with about thirty stolen minutes of effort each day and lots and lots of ideas in my head. The second level of challenge is that it's fiction! And I never thought I could do fiction, and yes, it certainly is different from anything I've ever done before. The good news is that I think I may be able to do it because it's coming along okay as of now - still needs lots of time and polish but may turn out decent. Not as funny as the first one perhaps, but yes, hopefully interesting.

Look at me - talking about Book 2 and Book 3 already. The gall. The insufferable overconfidence. But then again, why not? I'm not saying I'll be a big author. But I think I will keep writing, now that I've started. And as I've mentioned before, I don't think I'll be quitting my day job for it. If I quit my day job, it would be for other reasons than to 'focus on my writing career' ( especially since my writing career doesn't exist as of now!) . But I know this is something I want to do. I'll do it even if it hardly sells, although the darling editor seems to think otherwise ( A different kind of mass novel is what she calls it).

I'll do it simply because it's possibly the biggest personal ambition I've ever had.

Somebody pinch me.

Actually, don't.

If this is a dream, I'm okay being smack in the middle of it.