Fact: I hate leftovers.
Fact: I hate throwing away leftovers.
Fact: I hate creative complicated recipes about what to do with leftovers.
Cows, dogs and magic wands: Creative solutions for leftovers
Traditions
I don’t want to wear formals, announces H.
That’s how most of our festive days begin. We have this tussle each year, at every festival. I’ve been giving in to him slowly but surely, bending to his will, letting him have his way. We moved from Kurta pajamas, to short kurtas and trousers and then to a shirt with an Indian jacket and jeans. This year I don’t even have the mind-space to push for that.
I don’t regret it. Not much, at least. I know he’s getting older; he’s a teen and I’ve learnt to choose my battles.
‘Alright’, I tell him, ‘but change out of your shorts and vest’. Crumpled tees and shorts have been his uniform these past few Covid months. I haven’t much bothered. This was but a small trade-off for quiet mornings.
But he isn’t done. ‘Why must I change? ‘What’s wrong with these clothes? They’re clean and that’s what should matter,’ he challenges. He loves a good argument, this son of mine and I indulge him most often, but not today. The cook is on leave and a pile of chores beckon me from the kitchen.
‘This is why I hate festivals,’ he continues.
That gets my attention and stops me on the verge of my don’t-argue-just-go-and-change outburst.
It’s an almost compulsive thing with me, this need to make festivals happy and stress free. Paradoxically, the stress of being stress-free stresses me out.
That is one reason I’ve let go of many traditions. And that’s why H’s remark hits home.
I pull my gaze away from the kitchen, realise I’m frowning and straighten the frown. I will myself to relax as I prepare to gently wade into this sea of arguments.
N walks in holding up a bright orange tee shirt for H. ‘Remember, I gifted you this one? It’s perfect for today. Please please wear it.’
I sigh in relief and quickly push home. ‘Come on H’, I tell him. He gives a huge fake sigh but I know he’s coming around.
As I busy myself with the cooking, I hear them argue.
‘I won’t wear trousers.’
‘But you can’t wear these shorts.’
‘Okay, then I’ll wear my Eminem Tee shirt.’
‘Noooo!! Not on Rakshabandhan. Have you even heard his lyrics? He uses such bad words in his songs.
‘At least he has a message to convey. He’s not just mooning around like your One Direction.’
‘I don’t care. You’re not wearing that ugly black tee. Mamaaaa tell him, pleeease,’ N calls out to me.
I don’t respond. I don’t need to. As I stir the kheer on the stove and get out the dough for the puris, I know already that H will wear what she wants him to, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have his bit of fun. Just as I know N doesn’t really expect me to intervene when she calls out to me.
When I glance into their room I find them giggling together, playing tug-of-war with the unfortunate Eminem teeshirt.
Finally, they’re ready. Much fuss is made out of tying the rakhis. As per their own weird tradition H smears N’s forehead with the kumkum instead of making a neat little teeka. She’s used to it and stands still while I wipe it off and make a small round one instead. ‘I’ll take revenge,’, she says when it’s her turn. That freaks him out a bit. He takes eons to fix the clasp of her rakhi and ends with pushing an entire kaju roll into her mouth. She does the same and we’re done.
As I put away the puja plate I realise I forgot to ask them to cover their heads, as per tradition. I realise I miss doing things the traditional way. I miss the colourful kurta-pajamas, the chaniya cholis, the laddoos, the elaborately decorated puja thali and the sitting down cross-legged on the ground with a handkerchief on the head. I miss it all. I was wrong when I said I didn’t regret letting go of traditions. I do, at least some part of me does.
I want to tell the children: this is your culture, your heritage, your link to the past. Don’t let it go.
I hear them laughing and arguing and I hold back.
Instead, I tell myself, this is change, embrace it.
Image by minxutopia from Pixabay
I am writing. Again.
The beginning of a year has always filled me with new vigour. It seems magical somehow, full of possibilities. Each year I print out planners, set blogging goals and health goals. I make resolutions, some of which I even manage to stick to.
This year, however, has been different. Because I’ve done nothing! Nothing at all. I tried to plan. To write. I opened my laptop multiple times. I sat staring at it but I just couldn’t. I read articles and blogs in search of inspiration. That’s what got me out of my limbo in the past.
Curiously enough, this time the more I saw year-end posts and resolutions, and Word of the Year posts and Vision Boards, the less I felt like writing. Because, honestly, I have no goals for this year. That sounds terrible – like a lost directionless ship. Moreso when everyone else seems to have everything worked out neatly.
Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to write. It isn’t a happy confession to make – that one is directionless. It’s like belittling the whole business of writing/blogging.
Then today I received a gift and a beautiful little note from friends from a blogging community which I am sort of part of – in a very peripheral kind of way. But that small note reminded me of the fact that I am a blogger. Goals or not, professional or not, good or bad, five views or five thousand, I am a blogger, I write. That’s what I’ve done for over a decade, not counting the years I did it for a living. There’s no way I could stop doing it.
And so I resolved to try again.
Each evening when I drop the kids for their classes I workout at a gym. Today I decided to dump it. I ditched my tights and tee. I picked out a gorgeous new top and my favourite pair of jeans. I put on some gloss for good measure. Then I did away with my gym rucksack, got out my bright red handbag instead and slid in my laptop.
Today, I was going to write.
The children looked on, a trifle puzzled. H, who can never hold in a question asked, ‘Where are you going ma?’ ‘To write,’ I replied cryptically.
As they walked off to their class I headed for the smoky cafe I go to sometimes. It’s been an hour since I sat here with a terrible cup of bitter green tea for company and I’ve got down a thousand words! Not all thousand are going to make it to the publish button, maybe none of them will, but the good thing is I am writing. Again.
The blogging world is vast. It is easy to feel lost and inconsequential, like you and your writing don’t matter (and maybe they don’t, really). However, one must keep writing with the hope that someday, some small piece of writing may make a difference to someone somewhere, that it might touch someone in a special way, bring a smile maybe, or a nod of relief and understanding. And for that, one must keep writing.
So here I am with my directionless rambling. Perhaps this will mean something to someone else feeling just as directionless. Perhaps it will make them continue on their path, like me, in the hope of better things. Perhaps, tomorrow I’ll find my goal and write something meaningful. But for now, this is all I have, this will have to do.
In search of a perfect gift #WordsMatter
Some six or seven years ago, on a crisp December morning I stood before the tiny temple I have at home, my hands folded in prayer. This small dialogue with God is my daily post-bath ritual. I put all my anxieties on hold for the space of a minute or two and recite a small prayer. That day after I finished my regular prayer I added a special petition for H and N.
It was their Sports Day and I wanted them both to do well at the races. Mercifully they were in separate sections and so both stood independent chance of winning. As I was asking God to help them, I wondered if all other moms, or at least some of them, were standing in front of their Gods just like me praying the same prayer. So who would God listen to? Also, I wondered if it was a little unfair, not to say selfish, to ask a favour for BOTH my children at the same time. I mean, God must have some kind of a quota system, right? Only so much happiness to be doled out per family, or something like that, I reasoned. So if I had to choose one child to ask a favour for, who should it be? That thought boggled my mind so crazily that I gave up without even trying. I’m not good at decision making anyway and so I decided to leave it to Him. I ended my prayer with a ‘Keep them both happy, please God’ and that was it.
They both ran their races. N bagged a medal while H missed his, coming in fourth.
And that, dear friends, was the best thing God could have done. I’m sure if H reads this later he will wonder if I’m really his evil stepmom as he often says these days. And since God prefers to conveniently shut himself up in the heavens above rather than offer clarifications I’m going to try to do that for him.
First up, N is the sporty one in the family while H is content with his laptop and his books (in that order, regrettably enough). That day winning mattered more to her than to him. He would perhaps have been content losing out in the heats so he could sleep in at home rather than go for the finals.
Also it is N who needs small wins such as this one all the while to keep up her confidence, while H has an inherent sense of self that never lets him feel down too long. So all in all I can say, Well done God!
Had I not had my I-want-the-world-for-both-my-children glasses on my mom-face that morning, I would perhaps have known what to pray for. Thank goodness I at least had the sense to leave it all to Him.
And so when I think of the one gift I would like to give or receive I’d stick with the same one I asked for H and N that December morning – the gift of happiness.
The tricky bit is nothing guarantees it, not a win at the races, nor fame or success or money or even friends or family. One can have the world and yet not find lasting happiness. Paradoxically, it’s the simplest to find too – a hot cup of tea, a gentle smile, a stranger’s kindness. One can have nothing and yet be happy.
And that is what I’m counting on, that we all find our own individual happiness beyond material gains and social paradigms.
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I received this tag from Geetanjali Joshi at Of This That and More . It’s my pleasure to pass on this tag to Parul at Happiness and Food. There are 25 of us on this Blog Hop and it will be spread over 3 days – 6th, 7th and 8th December 2019. Do follow the #WordsMatter Blog Hop and prepare to be surprised!
Why we need argumentative children
Sample this conversation here:
H: May I sleep in your room today?
Me: Why?
H: Because I get the best sleep there.
(The real reason is perhaps because his room is messy and he’s too lazy to clear it).
Me: Nope, you’re thirteen and you need to learn to be independent.
H: But mama India got independence after hundreds of years, I am just thirteen!
That was kind of funny, I know. However two words that top my list of most-detested-words are ‘But mama..’. I deal with them day in and day out, a million times a day. They have driven me to distraction, they have led to long arguments and missed buses. My personal Utopia would be a place where those two words didn’t exist.
Imagine for a moment, that did happen, that children stopped arguing with us. Imagine they ALWAYS did EXACTLY as we told them to.
Bliss.
Right?
Life would be peaceful.
There would be no dissonance.
There would be no tantrums, no whining, no arguments.
And so, things would move faster and we’d probably get way more done. We’d be more productive.
Right?
However, also, consider this:
Children would never learn to reason and think and make decisions.
Their mental capacities would lie in a limbo from disuse.
They’d grow up into adults with no minds of their own.
Things would perhaps never change because each generation would be a replica of the previous one.
There’d be no progress.
We’d probably still be hunter gatherers.
Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? I mean arguing with your children sounds infinitely better than spending your life wearing leaves and living in deep dark caves crawling with all kinds of undesirable life forms, right?
Jokes aside, as a mom I hate the thought of my children not making their own decisions and taking over the course of their lives at some point. It is staggeringly frightening to think that I would always and forever be completely and wholly responsible for everything that’s right or wrong in their lives. That’s not how it should be.
Children argue because they have the capacity to think.
They argue because they do not want to follow rules blindly.
They argue because they want to try new things, new ways.
They argue because they think differently from you.
And that’s a blessing.
Be grateful.
Linking up with Mel for Microblog Mondays after a long time.
