It’s never too late to learn, right? As the twins are growing I am trying hard (and failing much too often) to keep up with their ever-evolving lives and the crazily unfolding vocabulary. Each day brings with it a new learning.
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And just like that, the twins are through with grade 11.
It sounds amazing when I hear myself say it – they’ll be 17 this year. Even more unbelievable is the fact that this blog has gone on for as many years. There have been fits and starts and gaps and breaks, okay whole huge chasms sometimes, between posts but I’m glad I keep finding my way back here.
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Home. That’s my happy place.
No matter where I go, no matter who I am with, my happy place is, and will always be my home. I have, in the past written about what home means to me. It needn’t be the place I grew up in, it needn’t be the first home I bought with my husband or the place I brought the twins home to – it’s just the place I call home now, at this moment.
Home was sometimes in the old city with a small garden and a large courtyard where sparrows chirped in the huge malti creeper. Sometimes it was the gorgeous high-ceilinged bungalow in the University campus where my parents were professors. It might have been my spacious hostel room in Delhi which I made mine with a mattress on the floor and fresh flowers in a vase. In Bombay, it was a tiny shared room with Shah Rukh Khan posters on a makeshift thermacol soft board and a full-sized mirror which I lugged in along with my roomie from many stations away on a local train.
It might have been the tiny one-room apartment I moved into with my husband or the many others I’ve had ever since.
No matter how big or small it has been, no matter which city it has been in, but my home has always been my happy place.
Even when I’m on the best holiday ever, after a point, home is where I want to be. Surrounded by my disorganised bookshelves with that tall lamp I bought on a whim, the rug I got during a Diwali discount sale, a few plants in mismatched pots that have survived despite the irregular attention I give them – yeah, that’s my happy place.
I cannot deny that the people at home have some part in making it my happy place but as I stand on the brink of becoming an empty-nester I’m hoping the place itself will be some kind of comfort and will see me through, when the children have flown the nest.
Joining in Linda’s SoCS prompt — “happy place.” Write the first thing that comes to mind when you think of “happy place.” Drop by her site for details on how this works.
If we were having coffee I’d tell you to pour yourself a cup and keep the kettle close by for this is going to be longish conversation. After all it’s been ages since we met up.
If you’ve dropped by the blog over the last few months you’ll know the children took their Grade 10 Boards and came out fine. Even as we wait for the final results I cannot begin to say how happy and proud they made me. Exam scores aside, I was amazed to see that they handled the pressure calmly and maturely.
That said, I’m glad it is all behind us.
If we were having coffee together I’d tell you how busy we’ve been sorting their junior college admissions. Choosing subjects, filling forms, scanning mark sheets and adhar cards, appearing for interviews. We as parents have also had to take interviews. One school wanted to know what school we went to, another asked for the marksheet of our last degree! That was strange.
While H is clear about what he wants to do, N is vacillating, still. Sometimes I feel it’s wholly unfair to expect a 16-year-old to know exactly what he or she wants from life. The Indian education system, inflexible as it is, with little room for changing streams or even subjects, frightens me.
I worry. A lot. What if I’m not giving the right advice to the children? What if a nudge in a different direction could prove life-changing? What on earth IS that right direction?
Uncertainty overwhelms me some days.
But then I have to remind myself to put it all away. I need to trust the children’s decision and mine even as I constantly assure them they have the freedom to take a different route any time they want, no matter the cost. In the end, it’s their happiness that counts.
If we were having coffee together I’d tell you that this will be the first time in their lives that the twins will be in different schools. Their timings are different too. It gives me a pang each time I think they will meet only in the evenings now.
I tell myself it’s a good thing. They need their space, they need to have different sets of friends and it’s time they forge their own different paths.
It truly is a whole new phase of their lives.
If we were having coffee I’d tell you I feel as if this was a whole new phase for me too. I’m hoping, with their schools in order, my life can get back to some kind of a regular rhythm.
I have been exploring opportunities. I have to admit this change isn’t easy. Although I have been freelancing all these years, the twins have been a clear first priority for a decade and a half, specially with the husband being in another city. I find myself shying away from committing to anything full-time. I wonder if I will be able to strike a balance and be available if and when the children need me (which they won’t, one part of me reminds me, but the other me remains unconvinced).
I am allowing myself baby steps as of now and keeping my fingers crossed. Things have definitely eased out with the Husband coming home.
If we were having coffee I’d tell you how he and I have been taking turns teaching the children to drive a scooter. At 16, they are eligible to take to the roads although on smaller vehicles. We’re in no hurry since they still have two years to go before they can get onto a regular scooter but it’s fun, almost like the time they learnt to walk. One more step towards independence. While N remains cautious despite having a better sense of balance, H is, as always, sure of himself. They’re so different, these two, in everything they do.
If we were having coffee I’d wonder if you noticed how this post has been all about the children! That’s how much they’ve taken over my mind space this past month and that’s something I’m struggling to overcome. I really need to put the days of being obsessivemom behind me.
That’s it from me, for now. Tell me what’s happening with you. What’s been on your mind?
There are two types of people in the world – those who are fruit people and those who aren’t.
I am the latter.
That’s not to say I didn’t sneak into the school grounds to pick bers and amlas like every self-respecting young person but that was more for the thrill than the fruit itself. And I like mangoes but those are more dessert than fruit, right?
The Husband on the other hand is a complete fruitarian.
(I have to stop here for a moment to marvel at the way God up in heaven gets his laughs bringing together people with entirely different likes and dislikes and then sitting down to watch the fun.)
But I digress.
So the other day we were passing a street-vendor with a handcart laden with jamuns. Obviously then, the husband had to stop the car. We hadn’t had them in decades. They show up for such a short while each year and then have to compete with mangoes. They really don’t stand a chance.
Back home, as they lay washed and dried in the colander, H came by and chucked one in his mouth. (Fact: H cannot pass by anything that looks remotely edible without sampling it).
‘Akhch!’ he exclaimed, ‘These aren’t grapes. There’s a seed!’
‘These are jamuns’, I told him.
‘I like grapes better, one doesn’t have to spit out seeds,’ he said settling at his gaming desk, shooting the seed with unerring aim right into the dustbin.
I caught hold of N and got her to try one too (Fact: N has to be waylaid/wrestled/bribed before anything at all, specially a fruit, passes her lips).
She ate it, wrinkled her nose scratched at her tongue with her teeth and ran to the mirror to look at it saying, ‘I can’t feel my tongue.’
What kind of children are these, I wondered, who could not accept a jamun for what it is — a delicious, juicy fruit, the daddy of their favourite kala khatta and one that came with the added advantage of giving a technicolour tongue?
When we were young, summer would bring with it special offerings, jamuns being one of them. It also brought a bunch of cousins who stayed for one whole long glorious month.
Our grandfather babuji/nanaji (as applicable) occupied the bahar wala kamara (the room on the outside) of our house that opened right onto a busy street where vendors plied their wares.
We’d know it was jamun season when we’d hear the cry of:
‘Kale kale hain, bagiya wale hain’
(Loosely translated: They’re black, they’re straight from the orchards)
As soon as we’d hear that we’d rush out to our grandfather’s room who would have already hailed the man.
The vendor would make a cone of jamun leaves, put a handful of fruit in it and sprinkle on it his secret spice. He’d then cover it with another leaf-cone and shake it all together.
We’d watch with ill-concealed impatience, saliva surging already. That wait was interminable.
Finally, the cone was handed to us with the rich ripe berries bursting out of their skins coated with the delicious masala and they were gone in minutes.
At school, we had a tall jamun tree by our throwball court. The fruit would drip down onto the court making it an accident-prone spot. A careless step would find one slipping and sprawling on the plump fleshy seeds. One would then have to spend the day with ones sky blue skirt stained a stubborn bright purple.
When we shifted to our house in the University Campus we found the bungalow rich with a variety of rare fruits. The Campus stood on the grounds that were once an orchard of the Nawabs (even our address read Badshah Bagh). Kadamb and kamarakh spread out their thick branches among the mangoes and of course large lanky jamun trees .
While my grandmother who was diabetic, would collect the seeds, wash and powder them, saying they had medicinal value, we simply enjoyed the fruit. We even had a resident snake that lived high up in the tree. I don’t quite remember ever spotting him but we all knew he was there.
Once I moved out of home I lost touch with most seasonal fruits, including jamuns. Also, the strawberries and blueberries, avocados and dragon fruit elbowed it right out of my memory.
But here it is, after all these years, delicious as ever with the added sweetness of nostalgia.
