Tulika, Author at Obsessivemom

10/12/201015/04/2017

Reclaiming life

This post won the ‘Life Changing Device’ contest on Blogadda. Got a Philips MP 3 Player for this one. Yay! The contest was judged by Kunal Sheth. You can read the other award winning entries here.

Since I started working I’ve changed cities pretty regularly. Each time I’ve looked forward to the move with great excitement. Setting up a brand new house while we stayed at the hotel was always fun. I would take a short break then start job hunting – new job, new friends, new beginnings.

However this time when the husband announced our time at Mumbai was up I had a sinking feeling. Setting up the house would be a nightmare with two four-year-olds getting underfoot. There was to be no job since I’d turned a stay-at-home-mom. We’d been in Mumbai since the kids were born and now I was to going to lose my entire support system – my friends who’d seen me through the toughest times and my trustee maid. I was leaving behind my whole world.

Just as I’d feared, the move was traumatic. The first month went by in a whirl of carpenters and plumbers. I struggled with a house that refused to run smoothly, maids who didn’t cooperate and kids who were … well.. busy being kids. And, I had no friends. The city was not new to me.. yet all my old friends were working. My mommy world didn’t connect with their media world.

Writing used to be my way to unwind and I’d started blogging right after the twins were born. The blog was for me.. just me. However, in this new house our study was at one end of the house and I couldn’t leave the kids and disappear for some ‘me’ time. The one pleasure of my life became inaccessible. It couldn’t get worse, I thought.

Alone, depressed and overworked I was nearing break point.

Some time back we had subscribed to a holiday package (which BTW we’ve never used thanks to the workaholic husband). Along with that package we got a complimentary laptop. My husband suggested I make use of it. I’m really not a technology freak. I figure out just about enough to keep myself going. The comp was an old friend but a laptop…? Desperation drew me to that dust-ridden carton in the loft. The laptop was out. I struggled to work without a mouse and surprisingly within days I was comfortable. Soon I found myself reveling in the freedom of the laptop and a wifi connection. They accompanied me to the kids’ room, the balcony, the dining table, the living room… wherever the kids chose to play. I was writing…. furiously.

Picture courtesy Google Images

That was the first step. Then I began to connect with other mothers. I found Parul who had a book to her credit despite a four-year-old and a baby (now she has two, books, I mean), Mad Momma and Rohini, also moms with two kids each who held full time jobs and surprise surprise there was momofrs who had twins just like me. They were in their terrible twos and she was a working mom. There was Y who has a young daughter followed by twins.. gasp. Could it get any tougher?

They all generously opened the doors of their hearts and their homes to me through their blogs. It felt like family. I could talk about my son’s tantrums and my daughter’s homework issues without fear of being judged. Oh I know they weren’t reading my blog but I was reading their’s and when I wrote I felt I was talking to them all… like I had ‘friends’ out there. They had the same issues, unruly kids and absconding maids included. And they talked about much more.. book reviews, films, family functions, issues, impressions. They were out there doing it all. Maybe I could too.

And then I discovered blog directories. For the first time I entered a contest and found myself attempting to write something NOT to do with my kids in a long time – a first since I quit my job. That was the icing on the cake. Then I actually won the contest .. talk about the cherry on the icing.

Coincidentally around the same time a few of my articles/stories were selected for various publications and I was actually paid for them.. hah. I was on a roll.. damn I AM on a roll. I have more virtual friends than real ones. I’m not sure that’s healthy but at least they’ve kept me sane.

My laptop and the wifi, that’s where it all started, that’s how I reclaimed my life.

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09/12/201003/12/2017

When beans grow on trees

Gardens and gardening have been an integral part of my childhood. My dad is a passionate gardener with a special love for roses. I watched as he busied himself budding and grafting. When the soil of our new garden wasn’t good enough mom and he sieved the entire soil of the flower beds adding quantities of sand to make it just right for those precious roses. Come winter and they showed up in all their glory. Winter was indeed special with the seasonals in full bloom too. Hollyhocks, Sweat Peas, Antirrhinums, Calendulas, Pansies, Chrysanthemums.. the entire range was there.

We had a swing in our garden and we’d spend long hours of lazy winter days lounging about in the sun, the grass warm under us reading and chatting.

At home now, in my flat, the garden seems far away. What’s worse, I suffer from a complete black thumb. Of all the plants I’ve ever tried to plant only ten odd ones have stubbornly refused to die on me.. none of which are flowering plants.

Hence there was great excitement in the house when the Tulsi planter decided to play host to a Periwinkle. The said Periwinkle seemed to have woken up with a start after a year of deep slumber then decided to bloom with a vengeance to make up for lost time.

The kids have been delirious with joy rushing to the plant right after school and dragging their dad to the scene of action as soon as he entered the house. That was followed with a desperate desire to grow their own ‘plants’. I was game for this lesson in agriculture.

Rajmah beans were sourced, two bowls were lined with cotton wool, water poured and the beans made to nestle gently on their royal seats. N also insisted on making a cotton wool ‘blanket’ for her seeds. Of course name tags had to be made.. sharing being an alien concept despite me trying to rub it in from the moment they were born.

N’s are under the ‘blanket’

While I rambled about roots and shoots and air and sunlight they were on their own trip. Here’s how the conversation went…

N : Bhai when do you think the plants will come out?

H: Kal niklenge.

N: What will we do when it becomes a tree? The bowl will break.

H: Mine will be taller.

N: Par aap mere ped ke fruits mat toriyega. We’ll collect lots and lots of fruits.

Edited to add: Better sense prevailed and all the Rajmah seeds were dumped into a single bowl. H called his friends and told them proudly.. “Look we are making our own trees.. we just need lajma, cotton and water”.

07/12/201015/04/2017

To be ten again

Bo Derek once said quite famously… ‘Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping’. I couldn’t agree more. Shopping really is therapeutic. What’s better I needn’t be shopping for myself.. it could be for anyone.

Yesterday I had a great excuse, no not excuse… reason to shop, it being my niece’s birthday. Time was short, the maid had bunked yet again and I just had an hour before I had to pick the kids. I rushed to Landmark thinking I’d quickly pick some books. Once there I realized nothing was going to happen ‘quickly’.

After ages I found myself browsing the preteen section and it was like opening a long forgotten treasure box… like being at a party filled with some long lost pals and some extremely fascinating strangers. Among the old friends Enid Blyton still seemed to rule. Famous Five and Secret Seven were everywhere. Then there was Caroleen Keen where Nancy Drew had turned younger. In our time she was a teenager now however, she’d gone much younger, an eight-year-old ND….. seemed kind of strange.

There was Meg Cabot of Princess Diary fame along with a host of books on teen Diva Hannah Montanna. And there were many more interesting titles like No Boys Allowed! by Marilyn Levinson, Agent Amelia – The Case of the Ghost Diamond by Michael Broad , Airmail to the Moon by Tom Birdseye. I just wanted to be ten again. As for the gift … I was a bit lost first then decided to stick to the tried and tested. Enid Blyton it was.

Hope the birthday girl enjoys the read. Along the way I grabbed a Barbie too. My niece has over a score of those dolls and to her credit she lavishes them with plenty of love and affection. Her birthday gift could never be complete without the mandatory Barbie.

02/12/201015/04/2017

We’re in it together

This specs thing is proving not quite easy. Hrit is handling them well enough it’s me who has the problem. You see I have been wearing specs since my graduation days. However after the kids were born I kind of gave them up. It was tough to keep them on with the twins around and I wasn’t much on the comp anyway. Besides, I could see well enough with one eye and life was fine. I got used to it. Now however Hrit has struck a pact with me, (without bothering for a nod from me of course) “I’ll wear mine when you wear yours”. So now I’ve got to keep them on.

Last night he carefully placed his in the case and then said, “Mama where’s the box for your glasses?” Now God only knows where it was. He saw me looking for it and then gallantly offered me his case, squeezing both our glasses together. Finally I fished out the case for my glares and he was satisfied, carefully placing the two cases side by side. “Same same, no mama?” he said with his delightful heart warming Hrit bhai smile.
BTW I hate it when Hrit calls it his ‘chasma’. When will he master the ‘sh’?

That was before the ‘accident’

Edited to add: Hrit’s has broken his first pair of glasses. Apparently he was trying to see how far he could bend them before they snapped. He added, “The lens came out like a rocket, mama.” His specs were just one straight line when he brought them to me. Sigh! Another chore to do.

30/11/201015/04/2017

All for a good laugh

This has been quite the toughest post to write. Each time I have gone to my bookshelf to figure out that veteran among veterans I have been found by my children a long time later sitting cross-legged on the floor with a pile of books around me and one open on my lap. Sometimes they’ve found me giggling uncontrollably, sometimes smiling gently and sometimes with tears in my eyes. Wodehouse, Huxley, Austen, Harper Lee, the Brontes, Margaret Mitchell – who’s been with me the longest?

Pages from childhood: Piggly plays truant…

Talking technically, the oldest books around my house are for the youngest of readers. Piggly Plays Truant, Billy Goats, Cinderella all of my old favourites, were rediscovered and claimed by my four-year-olds at their nani’s house last year. However they have now moved to the kids’ cupboard and so are no longer in the running.

Technicalities aside, the book that’s been closest to my heart for the longest of time (and is still in my cupboard) is one by Gerald Durrel called My Family and Other Animals. It’s quite the funniest of books I’ve ever read. It came to me as part of our school curriculum about a quarter of a century ago in 1985 and has since then stayed with me.

The favourite

Set in Corfu, Greece, the book is an autobiographical account and talks about young Gerry, a natural history enthusiast.. hence the title. The book is peppered with hilarious characters starting with Gerry himself. He keeps a series of peculiar pets including Roger the dog, two pups Widdle and Puke (what’s in a name, yes… but Widdle and Puke?), Achilles the tortoise who loves strawberries, Ulysses the brave owl who would ‘unhesitatingly attack anything and everyone’, a gecko Geromino who ate up Gerry’s other pet Cecily the mantis and Quasimodo the ugly pigeon who thought he wasn’t a bird at all and refused to fly preferring to walk.

Gerry doesn’t think twice before putting his pet snakes in the bathtub when they get dehydrated or housing a family of scorpions in the matchbox. Of course he forgets to inform the rest of the family to hilarious effect.

His family is no less interesting. There’s Larry the littérateur who once set the house on fire quite literally, Leslie who can think of nothing but guns and pistols, Margo who has the uncanny ability to find the most unsuitable of suitors and his harried yet extremely patient mother with a passion for cooking and gardening.

There are scores of other characters too. Some completely lovable and others you are tempted to clobber on the head but I’ll leave you to read about them yourself.

Initially I skipped the parts dedicated to natural history enjoying just the human characters marveling at their eccentricities laughing at the troubles they got themselves into. Much later I delved into the other life forms that Gerry is passionate about and he taught me to enjoy and appreciate them just as much as he did.

Trapdoor spiders, mating turtles, sparkling fireflies, geckos, swallows, magpies — enchanting treasures, all of them. Even now, years later, I open the book randomly and read it for a good laugh.

Interestingly, I lost the book in one my numerous moves across the country. Such was my yearning for it and so much must I have complained about the loss that my then roomie finally ordered, yes ordered it, as a surprise for my birthday, because it was not readily available. And so it came back to me. Friends really are the best.

For the record I have no intentions of giving it away to anyone. I am however game to share/lend it on a strictly returnable basis…. unless of course Gerry decides to go the Cinderella way and finds his way to the kids’ cupboard. Then of course I’ll have no say in the matter.

Afterword

Incidentally I owe a lot of books to good friends and a doting aunt. Pocket money was an unheard of concept back in my childhood and gifts were scarce. So if a friend gifted a book it was/is cherished forever. Then we had our aunt. Each year she would come to spend the summer with us and each year she’d give us the option of choosing between new clothes and new books. We’d pick books without fail. I remember craving for Gone with the Wind for a long time till my aunt took me shopping. It was priced at Rs 60 and I just couldn’t bring myself to ask her for such an expensive gift. Fortunately she saw me lusting at it and bought it for me. It remains a favorite even today. That year was exceptionally lucky as she also gifted me some other favourites including Far from the Madding Crowd and Wuthering Heights.

Yet I pick Gerry’s adventures as my favourite solely for their ability to make me laugh. I do so like to laugh.

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