Away from home

After getting off the phone, I find myself thinking, ‘If only I could be there, taking care of things for him, making sure he has everything he needs’ ‘to keep him safe and protect him forever’. But life does not work like that. I know all this wishful thinking is a mother’s response to an empty nest. My son has flown the coop and is not at home anymore..he is in India in a boarding school, learning his way in the world. I know he is well taken care of but still the heart wants what the heart want...I miss him so much that I have a permanent ache in my stomach.
I know I need to let him go..let him find his way..but it’s a difficult process..one I am coming to terms with very very slowly. Even though he is away, I know he still needs me but in a few years that too will end as he becomes more and more independent..soon he will have his own life apart from us..maybe this is a way of preparing us for that day..

The Headboy

When Thomas joined the new school in grade 3, he was a little shy boy, a boy who made friends easily and somehow never managed to impress his teachers..once during open house I had gone to see his teacher, who asked me, 'Why didn't you bring your child? How am I supposed to remember all the kids in the class?'

Anyway that was his old school, in the new school he made friends and had a few fans among teachers too. Yet he was the little shy boy who preferred being the wall paper rather than the center of attraction. He desperately wanted to be a School Prefect but knew and accepted it was unlikely that he would ever be selected..

years passed..

Every year teacher told me what a great child I had but that was it..he was liked, approved of and forgotten..Then in grade 8th, for the first time I received complaints about him distracting class when teachers were teaching..I was surprised but understood that teenage was difficult for most kids..

then 9th grade and he suddenly was this studious student determined to make a mark..teachers were surprised at this change from shy likeable boy to disruptive Tom to the ideal student..that year he was finally made a prefect and also the House sport captain. That was all he had wanted.

Soon grade 10 came around and his name was  among the three shortlisted for the post of School Headboy. He was nervous, I was nervous..the interview went off well and on the day of the anouncement of results, I told him, may be one of the others will be selected but reaching this place in itself had been a great achievement for us..I told him that I never ever dreamed of anything close to this  ,so for me even being selected was in itself a bonus..I send him off to his class and sat nervously in the car..then before leaving checked with receptionist if the name of the Headboy had been announced..she told me ,'not yet',

So I left..when I went back to pick him up from class, he announced, 'A... is the Headboy'.
Me, 'Really, Oh OK. '
Him, 'No, just joking..I am the Headboy.'

Wow!! I think back to the little shy boy joining the school in grade 3..coming so far..
It seems the teachers voted to elect the Headboy and he was a favorite among them..

Sometimes dreams do come true and here is me hoping that all his dreams come true..😍😍

Not good so far

Eld finally got a job, nearly one and a half years after he lost his job in Dubai. He is now in Bahrain. Chu is still in India and will be joining him only after an year. An year is long enough to check out how things are in the new place and she can continue to work till then. So that is good news. Though at present that seems to be the only good thing happening around. Vena sold off her land and the rest of us are left with an odd shaped plot that no one wants to buys. She fucked us off well. Now a huge debt and a penny less mother and an almost value less plot is left and no solution out of it.

Well, life is like that. Each wrong step teaches us some valueable lesson. Only with the number of mistakes we have made in life, my family ought to be the most educated in the world, in life lessons but we keep bungling again the next time around. 

wishing me a happy new year

A new year and time for new resolutions, only, I never make resolutions. Besides 2009 was one of the worst years i had, things kept going down hill everyday and it was really bad. the year started with Eld losing his job and then having to leave Dubai, the baby's operation was unsuccessful and had to be re-operated on. then Chu decided to leave after resigning her job and she returned to India in December. Vena's problems just kept growing and we have not been able to sell our land as yet. All in all a bad year. Hope this one turns out to be better and we get someone to buy our land and Chu settles back into a job and is able to force Eld off his ass and get a job. Hope Vena's problems end and I get peace of mind.

I hope 2010 is a ten out of ten year of us and all our troubles will be gone.

125 years of Indian national Congress

Just listened to the speech by Sonia Gandhi at the 125th anniversary celebrations , sounded funny. Mahatma Gandhi got us freedom, Nehru build the country, Indira did something else and Rajiv took us to the 21st century. What were Sardar vallabhai Patel, lal bahadur Shastri and narasimha Rao doing? Or are they being erased from history books so that only the current Gandhis end up in history. I think even Mahatma Gandhi's name was mentioned because of his surname. Then again we need to be thankful for small mercies, priyanka's children were not mentioned.

Maybe we deserve this, after all we put up with them, vote for them and listen to their shit so if they make us eat shit then it is only our reward.

Made with Chocolate

Unlike me, my six year old son is dark brown and he is forever comparing his colour to mine and his other fair skinned friends.

"Amma, remember Jamal in Slum Dog Millionaire, he was dark skinned like me when small but turned peach skinned when he became big, so I will also become peach coloured when I become big", he said. At times like this when he is always thinking up ways to hope for a fair skin later in life, I sit down and explain all about how skin colour does not matter and how your brains matter blah blah blah. This was getting me nowhere and then I told him the story of how dark skins are made. 
You see God makes us out of mud and breathes life into us (the only kind he is familiar with is sand which is plenty in the desert).  God makes people out of golden sand, which makes people fair skinned but some people he loves more than the others and when he makes them he adds chocolate to make them sweet and depending upon how much God loves each person, the quantity of chocolate added varies. The more He loves someone, the more chocolate He adds and the darker skinned the person is. 

The only problem is when my son confidently repeats this story to everyone and the fair skinned children start crying and their mothers end up having to make up some other story to stop the crying. Then again all children including my son are always licking him to see if he really tastes sweet or like chocolate. 

Being nice sucks

When i had just joined AND Data in Pune, I started on a salary of Rs. 3500/- It was a small salary, almost like no salary in a city like Pune where everything is expensive. The vegetables are sold in units of "Pav" which is quarter kilos and usually cost as much as a kilo in other places. Anyway, I was too poor and had to get away from home and my family who were driving me mad. At AND Data, breakfast and lunch as provided by the company so my food problem was mostly taken care of and for dinner I would pretend that I was on a diet to lose weight. It worked or at least I think it worked, because no one commented on it. But i used to be so hungry then, so very hungry that I thought I was going mad. Then I found out that bread did not cost much and with a packet of cheese that I rationed at one slice a day, I managed to partly silence my empty stomach. During that time too my parents thought I ought to be sending money home and i did, every month around Rs. 1000/- after which I had nothing with me till salary came next month. I used a pay around Rs. 700 0r 800 as rent and remaining Rs. 300 was what was left for food. As weekends were holidays, I had to buy food then and I subsisted on a diet of rice and yogurt.

That was ten years back and even now my parents are waiting every month for the check to arrive which I youngest sister has been paying for the last 6 years. She will stop this month because she has lost her job and then what. How do people turn into leaches like this after a time I can't understand. All these years nearly twenty years now, one of us daughters have fed them, clothed them and taken care of their medical needs and now the excuse, theirs and the worlds, is that they are old and need to be taken care of. My mother is 64 now and father passed away a couple of years back at 64. So from the age of 44 and 47 they have depended on us to provide for them. And I am finally fed up with being the dutiful Indian child who takes care of people who just wants to bleed me dry.