Monday 27 July 2015

At the icecream shop

There is one little icecream shop in my hometown.
My hometown is a busy town , though it has the tag of a city. Now years ago , when my sister and I were in school , we used to go to this big shopping center . Mom and Dad would go to the super market and we to the icecream shop. At that age, when sundaes were not the norm , they had brilliant flavors and mixes. Pineapple passion which is tall glasses of pineapple and vanilla icecreams with the occasional sweet and tart syrup and loads of pineapple or the Orange Temptation with vanilla and orange icecreams and sugary orange pulp . Even though I have my salted caramel and honey nut favorites now , this icecream shop and their icecreams are still a favorite.

So now I am all set to move to the US , I have this sharp pain that hits me when I think about leaving mom here. She is composed, she speaks about being happy for me , she does not show the slightest hint of pain.

Today I wanted to go to the quaint little icecream shop with her . She being her normal self, complained that it was time for lunch , complained about the weather and what not. But I could tell she was happy , very much ..

Now the catch is that the little boy cannot have icecream, he was (or maybe still is ) allergic to milk and I do not want to take chances. But he never asks for it , he doesnt seem to miss it . Mom thought it wasnt right for us to go with him in tow , she thought it was cruel . I bought some goodies from my favorite bakers down the street and he gobbled his share in the icecream shop.

We had our favorite icecreams , It has changed. My icecream was too frozen , and they had smaller glasses . and changed the brand of icrecream too. But it didnt matter to me.

While we were enjoying my son finished his "baked goodies" and made a sulky face. Without thinking I gave him my phone and told him he could play subway surfer. Sulk gave way to a broad grin and he told me : "I knew it , whenever I appear to be sad you give me the phone"  I realized I am doing it wrong but didnt care . 

Monday 25 May 2015

The perfect life

I fought with her.
I am worried , she is . Mom is .
I felt she didn’t need me anymore . She rarely talks to me . She doesn’t pet my son. She ignores me .
She spents the whole of her time on the social media. I think she is addicted.
Those are my thoughts.

The whole bunch of them think I have some problem. I told him long ago that I needed to see a shrink. He didn’t take me, he didn’t think it was necessary. He thought it was emotional blackmail from me to him . I tried to explain that I feel crazy, depressed,  lonely, alone, and the urge to leave was pulling me.
He didn’t realize. Even now he does not. But they all agree that I am wrong, a character issue they call it.
I feel lonely, cut off. I felt the urge  I closed the door. There, lying on the bed , was my bundle of joy. Sleeping peacefully. I cringe . I decide to cry . I decide to be around for him.

The whole world, apart from them, think I have a magical life. My career, the opportunities, my baby,  he, mom, she … the life to perfect …. So be it.

Thursday 19 March 2015

We will not react

Today started like any other day .

At around 10 AM a colleague blurted out that “R” passed away. Now “R” was not my close friend , or I have not even talked to him once . But then he was someone whom I saw everyday , it doesn’t seem real.

He was a very tall, very slim ,a vegetarian. And with the tag of a “workaholic”.
For many days , maybe since October , he hasn’t been sleeping well coz the project was in a bad shape. He was an architect , he did not have to take responsibility for the project .  But he did and the managers took undue advanatage of his dedication and passion to work. This meant that he has his own work , he had to mentor and help out the juniors and he did the job that his managers should have done. And he was sleep deprived…

It hurts me , he and his wife were expecting a baby and she was in the hospital for her delivery when he collapsed. He was shuttling between home , hospital and work since the past few days.

What really worries me is that this is not an isolated incident. There have been so many cases that I personally know of , where sleep deprived , hard working people get a pain in the chest and pass away before they reach the hospital next door.

My concern here is that management is least affected by this. Today , his manager commented that “R” didn’t have much of a work load. Everyone knows its not true. No one reacted.


We do not react, Organizations want to make money and they bid for less money, they make employees work and work . We lose a few of our collegues but we do not react. Is it pure selfishness ? Or is it about being scared ? Or is it the feeling that it will never happen to you.


Tuesday 27 January 2015

The Guests...


So the crowd has gone. It was a long weekend , the republic day and a "hartal" made it a super long weekend. I am exhausted cooking and cleaning for the Entire Inlaws clan. Now it is back to business as usual.

The guests over the weekend loved to sleep. Occasionally they would check if I needed help in the kitchen

I resorted to the readymade gravies and coconut pastes instead of doing it from scratch as I always do. Was a big relief.

One of the guests asked for "sambar" or some lentil curry when lunch was served. Luckily , I had some in the fridge. I do not understand how a guest can say - I need some curry other than chicken curry along with rice. I mean , isn't it rude. And there was fish fry , cutlets , veg stir fry , the usual pickles and curd ... and he wanted a "loose" curry he said.

The first day fish fry did not meet expectations. I tried my special fish fry masala with rice flour which makes the fish crisp on the outside and soft and well cooked on the inside. They consider that "uncooked" . They wanted fish to be be fried crisp till black like coal. I used to think it was a mistake , but realized that people do like it that way too. The next day I made it that way and they all loved it. I thought it tasted like a piece of burned something, could not taste fish anywhere.

They judge food by the amount of spice in it. The spicier , the merrier. Glad that I understood it , coz then i would make hot hot spicy curries . I thought the spice killed the curry , it was too spicy to get the real taste but everyone else would be happy. Great dish they would say. The husband bought some fish from the hypermarket, it was cleaned and cut . To me , the fish was starting to rot , the husband would not agree. I fried it with enormous amounts of chilly and pepper and they all loved it. I couldnt even think of tasting it . That is the magic of chilly and peppers.

I had to take Pran for skating lessons early in the morning . The guests would sleep all day . By 8 PM they were all refreshed and ready to start the day . I would be dead tired and waiting to hit the sack. Finally the last day , I apologized and asked my SIL to put dishes on sink when they were done with dinner. I had to wake up early in the morning and could not stay for a minute more.  Maybe they felt bad but I could not help it.

Now that they are gone , I am heaving a sigh of relief. Too lazy to start my office tasks. Too lazy to cook a normal meal . Too lazy , yes.



Wednesday 14 January 2015

To be happy...

Yesterday one of S ‘s colleagues passed away. He was around 32 years of age , or so I think.
I cant stop thinking of it. He experienced some discomfort when he woke up and thought it was a bad stomach. When it got bad , his wife took him to the hospital which was just a few blocks away. He breathed his last before reaching the hospital. He has a cute 1 year old daughter . I could not imagine what his wife went through , they do not have family here and she and the little girl was alone till friends and family joined them a couple of hours later.


It made me want to be a better person. Even S. We were discussing later how we choose to be grumpy and irritating all the time. Why cant we live life to the fullest for now?  In a dramatic way that only girls can be , I was thinking of writing letters to my son . Kind of like a letter for each year, in case something happens to me too…

Thursday 8 January 2015

Day One - A simple day

Day One:
I have been wanting to write a post a day , for a long time now.
Starting on it today.

I have been feeling very stressed out and awful since a couple of months. I guess , the uncertainity on the work front , the need to move from here etc is adding a lot to it. I have been working from home since I returned back to India a couple of months ago. One of my good friends commented on my weight gain yesterday . She suggested that I come to office once in a while for a change in routine. So today , I went to office after long for a couple of hours. It was good to see the energetic  juniors and listen to their  silly talks.

S went to Hyderabad yesterday for another official trip. I feel guilty, beacuse I kind of felt a little relieved. When it is just me and the little one , there is less work on the cooking front . S makes me nervous in the kitchen. He thinks that he is less maintenance . To me , he judges me based on what I do.  So I try to cook and clean more when he is around to impress him or to avoid complaints or is it to prove myself. Once he realized it and gave me an earful. Still I do it. I guess it has to do with the early days , soon after our marriage when he always blamed me for what I didn’t do.

I baked a chocolate cake for Pran yesterday. The recipe called for Baking soda , I didn’t want to add it coz of Pran’s allergies. I added baking powder but the cake didn’t rise enough. But it tastes good. Fudge like. I am happy , Pran is too. 

I hope to re-plant the tomato saplings today. A while ago , we have a few tomato plants that gave us loads of tomato's. Fingers crossed on this batch too.


The post makes me realize that the day is not bad and maybe I am getting stressed for no reason at all.