Mangoes!

I got a call from my dad yesterday. Then again, today.

That’s unusual.

Not because we don’t talk much but because he isn’t a just-like-that-call person. He’s more of a say-hi-when-mom-has-called kind or ask-for-adhar-card-number-and-say-bye kind.

Continue reading “Mangoes!”

The Queen

The Husband calls her The Princess but that she’s not.. She’s the Queen herself and he.. well decide for yourself. The other day, back from their annual function she plonked herself on the sofa and demanded I put nail paint for her (This obsession with nail paint is getting to me). At 9.30 in the night that was the last of my priorities. I was more concerned with rustling up a quick dinner since it was way past their bed-time. I left her sulking heavily. When I came out to lay the table this is what I saw….
Nail art from the expert
As she watches television the dedicated Daddy goes to work on her feet. The Daughter shall train The Husband after all. Way to go Naisha.

The men are fighting

The men of the house got into a scuffle today – the father and the son. Who was at fault? Read on and decide.

The son was in high spirits what with Nanu and Nani ma spoiling him silly and was showing off his skill with his favourite toy, the gada. Enter the daddy.. a tad sleepy considering he got home at 3 am and hence not in the best of humours. One swipe of the brave gada and daddy’s specs came flying down.. the lenses and the frames sailed to two different corners of the room. The eyes, spared mercifully.


Happy to help



Predictably the daddy lost it. The erring gada was promptly confiscated and consigned to the loft. That was of course sacrilege. If you have been a brave and patient reader of this blog you’ll know what the gada means to the son. It’s his weakness and his strength. He has it by his side when he’s eating, sleeping or watching television. Each time we go visiting we have a tussle because he wants to carry it with him. A few days back he wanted to take it down when he went to play the dandiya.
All hell broke lose. I sprinted to the spot to mediate, which I did quite well. Within ten minutes the son was persuaded to tender an apology. The father accepted (after 20 minutes because he was at his phone, as usual).
The daughter, who has perhaps been the worst hit by her brother, literally and figuratively, then persuaded the daddy to return the gada to her heartbroken sibling. She sure can twist the big man round her little finger. Up she went on daddy’s head and got down the precious gada. Some wars are easier won by love than anger. Hrit that’s a lesson for you from your sister.

The big hunt

My husband is a compulsive job hunter. Oh and before his current and all prospective bosses blacklist him for lack of commitment let me clarify that he is NOT a compulsive job changer. That he spent something like nine years in his first job is more than proof enough. However a few months into a job and the hunt begins… rather, resumes. Never will he admit that he has no real intentions of switching.

When we were newly married just as I was putting up our nameplate he announced, “In six months we’ll be out of this place.” I dropped the hammer on my foot and while limping around painfully wondered why I was investing so much effort in making a home when we’ll be out in a few months. We stayed on for six years.

Let me put it this way.. The pleasure is in the journey not the destination. It’s the hunt that thrills him. That first call from the consultant, the preliminary interview, the next stage and the next.. parrying questions from a panel of company experts, the salary negotiations… the whole deal…that’s what excites him.

Come Sunday and my completely non computer savvy husband can be found puttering on his laptop. He spends hours updating, revising, renovating and beautifying his CV. He even invested in a book on the art of resume making… I didn’t even know such books existed. He then went on to try out various formats. “Different styles suit different companies,” he informed me gravely.

As a relative lay person in the field resume-making, I could never really figure why one wasn’t enough. Why would anyone need to ‘update’ a resume even while there was no enhancement of qualification or position, I wondered. Experts however seem to differ.

My dear husband is never satisfied. Otherwise a frugal spender he readily parted with an exorbitant sum to try out the services of a CV specialist. The specialist promised to draft him a deadly resume along with the assurance of forwarding it to some hundred consultants. However to his horror the ‘deadly’ resume turned out to be a rather dead one. It was littered with basic grammatical and spelling errors which stood out like red flags to my editor eyes. He safely retreated to self help.

Then there comes the first call. When the phone rings his eyes light up and I can feel his pulse quicken at the thought of a consultant at the other end of the line, the hunter in him at a total alert. A bit of cross questioning and he sets up his itinerary. “I have a videoconferencing after office today and if that works out I’ll be flying down to Chennai (or Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad),” he will announce with aplomb.

A complete workaholic the only leaves he takes are for attending those unending interviews across the country. He is never too tired or too tied up to rush into the arms of a waiting interview panel.

Sample this.. For that interview at Chennai he woke up at 4 am to catch a 6 am flight. After the interview he waited at the airport for his 9.30 pm flight back, got home after midnight and was ready for work the next day. Is he too tired.. nopes, not he. This, by the way, is the same man who is always, yes always without exception, ‘too tired’ to go out for dinner over weekends. We’ve had just about two holidays together in our 14 years of married life because – yes you’ve guessed it — he’s too tired.. but miss an interview.. nah.

One Saturday I found him getting ready for a meeting at CCD for a position even I, a total proletarian to the placement game, knew he would never take up. “What’s the point?” I tried to reason. “Practice,” said he solemnly. “It’s important to keep in touch,” he added.

There are other reasons he cites — ‘I might not like the company, but if I get a good enough offer I might be able to push my current company for a hike.’ And another one – ‘If I don’t keep going the consultant will forget about me and stop calling.’ Never will he admit his love for the hunt. That would be like admitting that job hunting was a mere hobby.

We’ve just moved and the other day as I was considering joining a gym. He peered over my shoulder into the membership form and said, “Go for a quarterly membership. I have a tentative offer. We might be moving.” Did I get worked up? Na na. Not for nothing have I been married for fourteen years. I gave him a serene smile and confidently ticked on ‘Gym plan – annual’.

Oh and by the way anyone out there who needs advice on changing jobs, job trends, how to negotiate salary, how to make a killer resume you know where to go. He’s really really good.. I’ll vouch for that.

Missing papa

Changing homes/cities is always traumatic but with the kids it takes on a whole new dimension. Next week we pack out bags for Pune. Sunil has been there for two months now and it’s equally tough handling the kids on my own.
They rarely talk about him or the fact that they are missing him, so I assumed they just didn’t think about him. However I was proved wrong today. The milkman came to take his money and Hrit ran to the door saying “papa papa papa”. Trying not to let the embarrassment show I said with a very straight face, “Beta it’s not papa.” And what does Hrit do? Does he go back quietly? Nope.. he just stands there staring at the milkman repeating like a parrot, “Papa.. papa… papa.” Finish your food, I say with as much firmness as I can muster under the circumstances. He looks at me defiantly, then looks at the milkman and launches into a, “Papa aa gaye,, papa aa gaye,” Thankfully the bearded, bespecaled milkman went along with me and pretended he couldn’t hear Hrit at all.

Sunil really needs to come home.