Tulika, Author at Obsessivemom

06/06/201807/06/2018

Food and fitness in Lucknow

I’ve been trying rather hard to keep an eye on my weight this year with some decent amount of success. But then the children had exams and they seemed to need help the moment I put on my sneakers for a walk. The stress of it all meant walks and exercise took a backseat.

Moving on – right after the exams came vacations. We travelled to Delhi and then to my hometown and that meant F.O.O.D.

The first morning in Lucknow I woke up to a pile of jalebis and khastas at the breakfast table. I’ll probably need to do a whole post on the Lakhnawi jalebis but for now let me just say that they served to kick off my food fest. It would have been absolute blasphemy, not to say inconceivably rude, to not be ru-ba-ru with my old favourites. If you’ve been with me on Instagram you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. While the children waded through cartons of Amul Icecream, I renewed my friendship with Lakhnawi sweets – malai chamcham, kaju pedas and motichur laddoos. That’s not to say I didn’t sample the ice creams. This season the Caramel Cookies flavour from Amul absolutely topped my list.

Coming back to Lucknow, the chaat here is something else. The pani puris are perfect. As Goldilocks would say – not to hot not too sweet, they’re just right. And there’s matar – boiled and mashed white peas fried over a low flame in lota-fulls of ghee (The chat wallahs actually keep a lota full of ghee on the edge of their giant tawa). When it’s garnished with crisp crushed papadi, green chutney, fresh coriander and long ginger juliennes, it’s a party in the mouth.

And just when the party’s getting too hot you take up a pattal of sweet cool kulfi topped by pista flakes and two types of falooda.

Then of course there’s the ma-ke-haath-ka-khana, my favourite – jackfruit fried to a crisp in mustard oil and singhade ka achar (water-chestnut pickle) – I’m not even sure many have heard of those. My mom, the strongest advocator of healthy eating and the loudest YOU-NEED-TO-LOSE-WEIGHT voice was torn between serving up my favourite foods and exhorting me to not binge. That was seriously funny.

Oh and this isn’t really a food thing but I have to make a mention. Each year sometime in the month of May is the Bara Mangal – a grand celebration of Lord Hanuman. I’ve written about it here. Numerous pandals serving free food and drink come up overnight, every Tuesday for a month. It might essentially be for the poor but the puri-and aaloo-kaddu ki sabzi one gets at these pandals is absolutely delicious. No matter how hard one tries, it is impossible to replicate at home. A bit like the kada prasad one gets at gurudwaras – it never tastes the same at home. So every Tuesday my lunch (and sometimes evening snack) menu had puri-subzi.

To make matters more complicated, my sleepy hometown is slowly awakening to diverse cuisines – national and international. So we also have to do cafes and coffee shops, sizzlers and mocktails, fine dining and lavish buffets.

Sigh!

Did you see that? This was meant to be a stock-taking post on food and fitness but fitness seems to have taken the far back seat! This, right here, is what my problem is. I need focus, focus, focus!

For the first few days I managed to stick to a morning walk. Since my two homes – the in-laws and the parents are really close by the walk worked well because I’d start off from one place and drop by at the other for my morning cup of tea. But then the charm of lazy morning conversations took over and the plan went bust.

Now I’m back home and just as I was gathering the courage to step onto my brand new weighing machine the maid did the disappearing act (yet again). I’ve been spending my days mopping and dusting, lunging and squatting more than I’d ever done in my one hour a day at the gym. So my fitness routine should soon be on track. It is true, you know, what Coehello or SRK or whoever said – The Universe does look out for you if you want something with full shiddat.

What’s more my evening walks are beginning to make me happy. The nights are turning cool with the monsoon expected any day now. The days when the wind Gods are happy it’s an absolute delight to be out in the open with my iPod. Most importantly I get to switch off for those thirty or forty minutes from the chaos up at home.

While on fitness – I’d love some help on healthy salad recipes. Do leave them in the comments. Any other happy low-fat diet ideas would be great too.

Linking up with Shilpa and Bellybytes for #FlavoursomeTuesday.

04/05/201806/06/2018

Vacations, train travel and other happy things

April is the fastest moving month of the year for us because it has so much crammed into it. It begins with exams, moves ahead with results and ends with travel and vacations. Quite perfect actually. And so it was that I didn’t quite notice how it crept up upon us and was over before I knew.

There’s a lot to be grateful for this past month.

First things first, the children’s exam results. They were my top worry for months together and I am glad and so very grateful for the way they turned out. The kids weren’t top of the class but they were pretty much what I’d expected, even better maybe. I always worry that I don’t worry enough, that I don’t push the children enough so it’s kind of reassuring to know that it’s alright, that we’re doing fine. So very grateful for that.

The most interesting bit is that N maxed her Art exam while H scored the highest in Science. Seriously, these two couldn’t have been more different!

The other highlight of the month was our 20-hour train journey from Pune to Delhi. It’s a whole different kind of wonderful to share a bit of your childhood with your children and to watch them enjoy it just as you did.

Trains were a very happy part of my childhood, perhaps because travel back when we were children was ever so rare. We’d squabble for the window seat, gaze for hours at fields golden with wheat or dotted with neat bundles after it had been harvested, we’d twist our necks trying to follow the trees that rushed by, we’d wait for every hawker who came by, begging for a paper cone of bhel or peanuts.

I am glad to say that not much has changed.

Despite the fact that the children had carried along their tabs they did pretty much all what we used to. They went around inspecting the compartment, hung up their rucksacks on the hooks by their berths, spread out their sheets and blankets and settled down quite happily. The welcome tetrapack of juice was all it took for them to become Indian Railway fans. The feeling was only strengthened as lunch and snacks arrived at periodic intervals. When ice cream was served as dessert, they were completely sold over.

We read, talked, played word games and worked on N’s story. It was such a happy day.

The next five days in Delhi were completely relaxing. We managed to visit Kidzania which was a long-pending tick on the children’s list of fun-things-to-do. Although they were a wee bit grown up for the experience, they had a good time. I strongly recommend it for all children. Do try to visit it, there’s one in Mumbai too. The best bit is that it is extremely parent-friendly. I loved the super comfortable parents’ lounge. I ordered in a masala chai and ‘lounged’ on one of the huge sofas with my kindle, leaving the children to do their own thing. Those were happy five hours for all of us.

And now we were in Lucknow. I have so very many things to be grateful for here that I need a whole post, or maybe a bunch of posts.

Is there anything better than being in a place filled with family, friends and the happiest memories you’ve ever made? Share on X

This new month promises to be wonderful.

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Linking up with Vidya’s Gratitude Circle

11/04/201811/04/2018

The exam checklist

We’re almost done with the children’s exams – three whole weeks of crazy days. Each small windows of free time that I’ve had has been taken up by housework since the maid has been playing hooky since the day before exams. But the mandatory exam-post needs to be done.

You remember the one I did during the last spell ? Well here I am again.

Exams affect different people in different ways.

Each exam time I find my children changing in interesting ways.

This year they turned into authors.

Their creative juices are in full flow. The only catch is those juices are directed in every directions except towards their books. They have both decided that being a writer is their calling after all and have started work on their debut novels. The daughter is writing a book on an Indian girl who strikes up a friendship with an English Girl. She informed me today that she has written 1021 words over the last two days. She just might finish her novel by the time exams are through.

H’s masterpiece looks vaguely like Rick Riordon’s work, only in an Indian context. The Gods and goddesses have names that are part Indian part Australian (since they have Australia as part of their syllabus, in excruciating detail). One of them, I clearly remember, is called Yirdaki,

Meanwhile I have turned into a queen of confiscation.

I have currently, in my possession

Sponge balls – 3 nos
Rubix cube – 1 no
Tub of slime – 1, small
Water colours – 7 bottles
Nail paints – 6 bottles
Toy dinosaurs – 2 nos
Fidget Spinners – 2 nos
Guns – 2nos

I’m fast running out of space to hide away all the confiscated items. And if you’re beginning to feel sorry for the children, Don’t, for toys are mere props to their rich imagination. They are currently in the process of fine-tuning an adventure sport that involves jumping from one bed to the other because the space in between is a volcanic field covered with ‘bubbling lava’ visible of course, to their eyes only. I’m not sure how long their Pepperfry particle board beds will bear the onslaught. The way they jump and clamber, even my grandma’s teak would have groaned and died.

Other things that have kept the twins busy are as follows:

H has discovered a new shop of ‘imported chocolates’ in the neighbourhood (Where on earth do they get their information from?).

Also, as he very proudly informed me, he is fourth in the world in some online game he plays where he, quite darkly, calls himself ‘Death’.

The other day as I settled down with a book he jammed his fist in my armpit. As I straightened after picking up the book I had dropped, he explained, “I read that children resemble their parents in six aspects – colour of hair, colour of eyes, smell of armpit…. (I forget the other three) so I was checking whether the theory was true. He proceeded to thrust his other fist in his own armpit and then sniffed at both his hands, nodding in agreement.

QED

N has found a way to make coloured slime (resulting in a coloured bathroom sink everyday) and is now in the process of adding glitter to it so she can patent her own glitter slime. She got pretty offended when I refused to believe that she could continue to study with ‘full focus’ while kneading that bit of slimy dough.

Even as I write this they’re deep in planning their after-exam social calendar which is chock-a-block with lunches, dinners and rendezvous at Ice Cream parlours.

I’m off then, to sort my TBR list.

Happy days ahead.

04/04/201804/04/2018

Striking a balance is the hardest thing to do

If you’ve been with me on the blog for a while you’ll know how I have always rued the fact that the twins seem to feel no pressure of exams while I am completely freaking out. The more I worry, the less they seem to think about it.

During their mid-terms in October last year, things got worse than ever. All through those two months (before and during the exams) I was constantly yelling at them and then feeling terribly guilty at the things I had said. We’d reach a stalemate, go through silent spells and then I’d be back trying to appease them, trying to get them to study, only to lose my temper yet again.

The worry about their marks and exams hung like a dead weight on my mind dragging me into the dumps, waking me up at night and keeping me anxious all day. I hated the entire exam system, hated that I had to handle it all alone and hated that I had to put the children through it all. It was vicious.

All for a class 6 mid-term!

I can see how foolish that was, now. But the thing is, the reaction of a troubled mind is often far from logical. In retrospect I realise it was also partly because I had been struggling with a lot of health issues. That must have contributed to my chaotic mental state.

By the end of exam time I knew just one thing – I never wanted to be in that space again. More importantly, I never wanted to put the children through that. No marks, no awards were worth it.

We talked about it, the children and I. And we promised that at the next exam all of us would work towards keeping our cool, NO MATTER WHAT.

The children call it my Kalinga War, moment 🙂

Yeah Asoka the Great is part of their syllabus this term. So basically, that last exam was a sort of turning point. I made the keep-my-cool promise, even more fervently, to myself. I promised I’d not let the worry of their scores push me to the edge of reason, ever.

I am happy to say, this time round exam time has been relatively peaceful. Nothing much has changed – I still have to push them all the time, they still rush off the moment my attention flags, they’re still playing computer games, watching television, amusing themselves in a hundred different ways and annoying me in a thousand more.

The only thing that has changed is my attitude.

Sometimes the only way to make things better is to change your attitude. Share on X

This doesn’t mean I haven’t lost my temper at all. A leopard takes time to change her spots, right? But I have definitely dissociated myself a little bit and that feeling of panic hasn’t come back.

For that I am grateful.

After years of worrying that the children do not worry enough I can finally see the benefit of it. I never thought I’d say this but here I am feeling grateful that H and N do not panic. A friend, who is a teacher, spoke of kids who threw up constantly, suffered from headaches and body aches or ran a fever throughout the exams – all due to anxiety. And these are kids from class five and six, 11, 12 year olds. I would not wish that upon any child ever.

That said, I have to admit I doubt myself all the time, specially when I see a lot of moms pushing on relentlessly. I know of moms who solve each math problem along with their child. And when I hear of things like this I cannot help but wonder if it’s just me. If it is I who am at fault, that I don’t have it in me to handle the pressure and then I worry that H and N might suffer because of that. Am I allowing them to slide into mediocrity by letting go? Have I been too hasty in letting go?

I don’t have any answers and so for now I push all these thoughts away. I’ll wait for their results before I make up my mind about anything. If they aren’t radically different from the mid-terms I’m good, or else I’ll need to rethink their study pattern.

However, there’s one thing I’m sure of and that is that I never want to go back to the madness of those anxiety ridden days, for their sake as well as my own. I’d much rather they score less and be happy than top their class but become a bundle of nerves.

And for now I’m enjoying the sense of peace.

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Linking up with Vidya’s Gratitude Circle

22/03/2018

Facilitating growth the right way

I used to think children gave us grief only when they were infants. Not true at all! As they begin to grow and develop personalities of their own, trouble takes on whole new dimensions. Research says baby brain development starts right from the moment of conception. Then on, children make such rapid progress as to have you completely stumped.

The other day as I sat with N trying to explain the importance of exams and good grades she said:

Mama do you remember the time we went out for dinner to that restaurant Italy via Punjab?
Me (wondering how this fitted in with my exam gyan): Yes, I do.
N: And do you remember your marks in class 6?
Me: No, I don’t. Why?
N: See nobody remembers marks, we only remember the good times. Exams aren’t everything, you know!

Seriously? Now I’ll have a cheeky 11 year-old lecture me on how exams and grades weren’t important? I know that already, thank you. And could you get back to your studies, please?

Sometimes when they talk like this, like know-it-all mini adults, I wonder when they grew up. When did they start thinking up arguments and talking to me like equals?

I well remember the day they were born – tiny mites they were – H, at a mere 2.4kgs, was struggling with an underdeveloped lung while the 1.9 kg N was all eyes and ears, looking, listening, absorbing, even when the doctor brought her to me for that first hug.

I have to admit I was a pretty clueless new-mom. All my school friends had grown up children by then, while my work friends were mostly single or childless. I hardly read up and thought of pregnancy as one big holiday since I’d worked ever since I had left college. That wasn’t quite the right thing to do.

Have you heard of Feed IQ?

I recently came across the concept of Feed IQ. Have you heard of it? Quite literally it implies that a mom ‘feeds IQ’ to her baby through breastfeeding and also through infant brain exercises. There’s a whole list of exercises for each stage of your baby’s growth. You can look it up here.

Simply put, a new parent needs to expose his/her child to as many new experiences as he/she possibly can while giving the child time and leisure to process them at his own pace. Coupled with proper nutrition, this can boost the baby’s IQ.

First the food

I went purely on instinct back when H and N were infants and so obsessed was I about the food that my sister christened me Nirupa Roy. I worried constantly about their baby weight, because they were pre-term babies, plus because H needed to spend about two weeks in the NICU.

They picked up fast enough and I can say with some amount of pride that they are pretty non-fussy as compared to a lot of other children. My sister insists that because I ate so much lauki and cabbage during my pregnancy the children have developed a taste for it. There might be some truth in that, given that the foetus’ first taste of food is through what the mother eats.

And the brain exercises

As with food I went with instinct again, which wasn’t all bad, but I do wish I had been more organised. I’d do things differently now, prepare better perhaps, be more conscious of the fact that the children were attuned to my every mood and thought even when they were tiny foetuses.

The trick is of course, to start early.

I remember I talked to them all the time, even when they couldn’t understand much, mostly because I was often alone with them at home. I sang to them and told them stories. While Shape of You might be miles away from Nanhi Pari, I like to think their love for music stemmed from there.

I do take complete credit for their love of stories. I began by telling them about the epics then moved on to reading aloud to them. From Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America to the great Wars, they loved every bit of it, and still do. Now they’re writing stories of their own.

Going by the way they argue and counter argue; their brain seems to be developing fine. Some of it is genetics of course; we’re quite a family of ‘arguers.’ But as a parent we can facilitate their skills in a hundred small ways.

As the twins grow I see a lot of me in them. And that makes me happy except when they quote me at me to get their way.