Eat, Pray and Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
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Thirty years and 12 days. Yes, that's how old I am today and I feel like screaming that from the top of a mountain, mostly out of relief. I think after I turned 27 or 28, the days around my birthday were getting to be a little less mirthful and a little more introspective. I would catch myself making mental tick marks and filling in the blanks – Am I any better as a daughter, sister, wife, mom, daughter-in-law, friend , research analyst, a human being than I was last year? What have I accomplished this year? Am I growing or just aging? Blah, blah. My husband, who started counting his age backwards since he turned 30, would readily empathize and reassure me that it's all in the game. I dreaded turning 30, because in my mind, that number painted the picture of a middle aged woman, who was wise, mature and accomplished. And I feared that I would be middle aged, sans the wisdom, maturity and accomplishment.
So how did it feel when I actually turned 30 a couple of weeks back? Relieved, blessed and aware! Relieved, at the realization that Thirty was just a number, and that I was attaching way too much importance to it. I did not feel a day older than I was a year or two back. Blessed, because of all the things that I may have been without but have been blessed with. I felt like I wanted to treasure my blessings in the palm of my hands. Aware, that I may not live up to the standards I have set for myself, but overall, I am happy with who I am, where I am and what I do, at this point in life.
Moving on to jollier stuff – the celebration. Atul was slightly unwell that weekend, but that only altered our plans not dismiss them. We ordered a Thai take out, went to temple and ended with the usual cake cutting. We had some nice quiet family time. All the b'day wishes that poured in from friends and family left me with the warm and fuzzy feeling that one would want to have on a b'day. Needless to say, I was grinning ear to ear all through the week.
The celebration continued the following weekend as well with a surprise trip to Nashville to visit my twin and his wife. My sister-in-law and I plotted it a month in advance and we just couldn't wait to see Arun's reaction. Knock, knock, who's that? is literally how the three of us went to their place. That flabbergasted look on Arun's face was the best b'day present I could have asked for!
A close friend of mine, fondly nicknamed Atul as “Kelvi Nayagan”. Kelvi in Tamizh means question and Nayagan refers to Hero. So roughly translated, Kelvi Nayagan would imply king of questions.
Orkut helped me to get in touch with a couple of my childhood friends last week. My twin brother, Arun, and I studied in the Virugambakkam (in Chennai) branch of Chinmaya Vidyalaya (CV) from first to fifth std. That too in the same section. So the school is special to us in more ways than one.
CV is where I developed some of my very first friendships. S, P & H were cousins. All of us studied in the same section and lived in the same neighborhood. So memories came flooding to mind when I saw profile pictures of S & P on Orkut. Come summer vacation, all of us (S,P, H, Arun, myself and a couple of other friends) would gather at S's house with grand plans to enact a skit, sing songs or play board games. Since her house was on the way to the bus stop, we would throw curious glances at her house whenever we passed by it. In those days, our classrooms in CV had none of the fancy buildings of today and we were pretty much housed in thatched roofs. I remember getting thrilled whenever it rained because the leaky roof was an excuse for us to sit down on the floor next to our friends. Learning at CV was very closely linked to religion. Every Friday, we would have balavihar sessions, wherein we would recite a bunch of slokams in a certain order. On the day of Vijayadasami, kids would do padha-pooja (washing the feet) for their mommy dears. Arun and I would always fight for amma's right leg with me losing the battle most of the times. I would console myself by saying that since heart was on the left side of the body, that must be the better side! Later we moved into a flat of our very own, which opened gateways to other friendships. This post would be incomplete if I don't mention the yummy bread-butter-jam that amma bought for us from a local bakery whenever we missed our evening bus. Good old times!
Since appa was in a bank job, he was transferred when we finished our fifth standard. I remember feeling heart-broken at the thought of losing my friends and wondering if I would make any new ones at the new place. It turned out that we kept in touch on and off for a really long time through letters (I still have every single one of them) and even visited them during our Chennai trips. But somewhere along the way, we were not able to maintain the tempo and we just lost in touch. Thanks to Orkut, I was able to pick up the pieces from where we left after a phone conversation with S this weekend.
Please don't hold a donut party while I am gone
Focus your attention on him when he is having his breakfast, or else he would dodge
I have told him that he can take only one stuffed toy for nap time
When Arvind goes out of town, his advise for me:
Pavam, give him treats once in a while. If you don't give him the snacks he likes, he will feel deprived
It's ok if he doesn't eat every meal. He will make up for it.
May be you can watch a movie with him during the weekends
Talk about differences in parenting style. I wouldn't be surprised if Atul grows up thinking that appa is cool as a cucumber and amma is hot as a pepper!
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If you have been following this blog, you must be familiar with my addiction to hug and kiss Atul. All that will have to change now because my son has made it loud and clear that only he is in control of his body. A few weeks back when I gave my routine hug and kiss to him, he broke down and proclaimed, “Mommy don't touch my body. I don't want a kiss”. The first time I heard it, it made me want to cry, as if I had committed an unpardonable crime. But you see, with time I have developed immunity to this statement and am slowly learning to work my way around it by saying things like, “Hey you, how about giving a magic kiss to amma” and later add, "would you like a magic kiss from me".
Innovation is a trait that every parent should learn to imbibe, what do you say?