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Hello homework

After four years of being a ‘nice mama’, ‘pretty mama’ and sometimes even ‘beautiful like Cinderella’ (when Naisha’s in an exceptionally good mood) I finally turned into a ‘witch’, quote unquote Hrit. Then he went on to add my name should be changed from Tulika Singh to Monster Singh. What, was it, you might ask, that turned nice mama into a witch – it’s that dreaded HOMEWORK.

Last weekend the twins came home with their very first load. I was actually quite excited. I had these fanciful notions of peacefully sitting down with Hrit on one side and Naisha on the other while I guided them through it all with a gentle hand (hah).
They sat down happily enough to make those standing and sleeping lines. Naisha said she wanted to stretch first, I was okay.. then she said she wanted to scratch herself, I was fine with that too. Then she deigned to make just one line and said she was tired and sleepy. I held onto my patience with both hands and told her to go rest while I turned to Hrit, who meanwhile was concentrating hard on a single standing line that started from the top of the page and reached the bottom. I erased it and told him to start again. He didn’t take too kindly to that. However with constant coaxing and he went on to make some lines.

I thought I’d cajole Naisha back from the bedroom but I was followed by Hrit and the two then refused to get back. That’s when my patience snapped and I turned into a ‘witch’. Sigh!!

Writing IS tough. Either they’re not holding the pencil properly or they’re reclining on the table or they keep their book at a weird angle. However I can only sympathise. Oh and there’s one more thing I need to do – apologise to Hrit.. sorry baby no more screaming from next time. I know how tough it is for both of you.

This weekend saw a wiser, better prepared me.. no screaming.. oh well.. very little screaming. Thankfully there were no sleeping standing lines to be done. And they did manage to have fun.

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Chewing gum anyone?

It’s crazy how many things one needs to teach the kids. Yesterday in the playground a child offered Hrit Naisha some chewing gum. Now my bechara bachchas have no concept of what chewing gum is all about. And before Hrit could swallow it up and create an emergency I ran to warn him. They were both just not convinced about a sweet that couldn’t be swallowed. Naisha being the relatively obedient one (other than when it comes to eating dirt) spat it out immediately. Hrit needed plenty of convincing.. Why can’t I eat it? Sweets are meant to be eaten, aren’t they? What will happen if I eat it up?.. Whew.. one can’t even relax when they’re in the playground.
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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.

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Far from the madding crowd

May 2010

Lucknow vacations this year were quite eventful because we managed a vacation within a vacation – a four day trip to Mukteshwar.

It was a long road journey – 12 hours straight. Hrit Naisha took it pretty well, sleeping through almost half the journey and waking up intermittently to ask sleepily – ‘has the medicine mountain come?’ (inspired by Hanuman’s trip to get the Sanjivani buti. Their obsession with mythology continues).

Once there they seemed thrilled but disappointingly enough they weren’t awed by the mountains at all. They were happier with the swings in the resort gardens and the resort itself (Mukteshwar Himalayan Resort) – a cosy quiet place where they could be left to run around with their cousins while the cooperative hotel staff kept an eye on them. They happily climbed to the Mukteshwar temple without their trademark ‘I am tired’ line while we huffed and puffed our way up.

The high point of the trip however was their obsession with food. The mountain air seemed to have worked wonders with their appetites. Even when lunch was hours away they would start planning their own menus irrespective of what the resort cooks had whipped up. Hrit wanted dal-chawal when he was offered aaloo parantha, Naisha wanted palak paneer when there was khichri at the table. It was a constant struggle to reconcile them to what they had on their plates.

For the rest of us long walks and peaceful drives were the trademarks of the trip.

**************

What’s a vacation?

  • For my overworked brother-in-law, a doctor by profession, the vacation meant unaccounted hours of sleep and his daily can of beer. In fact so strictly did he follow his a-beer-a-day routine that the morning prior to our departure he was found contemplating.. “I shouldn’t have my beer in the evening because I’ll be driving early tomorrow so I will have to have it in the afternoon.”.. hmmm… such devotion. Touching!
  • For my sister-in-law, also a doctor, the vacation meant a holiday from routine, long hours of chatting and catching up on her reading.
  • For my sister it meant connecting with nature, looking for wild flowers, making tiny bouquets of daisies for Hrit and Naisha and wearing one herself as a brooch.
  • For my nephews Varun and Tarun it meant craving for Pepsi, which we found in plenty for them, and icecream which was completely not available due to power cuts in Mukteshwar.
  • For Hrit and Naisha it meant foooood and a far second was their obsession with collecting unripe fruits which they claimed had ‘fallen’ from trees. (To their credit they stuck to the claim even when I actually saw them plucking the fruits.)
  • For me it meant letting Hrit Naisha be. Not worrying about what they’d eat, whether they’d had their milk, when they’d sleep… total bliss. And also (how could I forget) preening in front of the resort mirrors which made everyone appear magically slim. Wish I could have carried one home. I strongly recommend the mirrors for everyone other than Kangana Ranaut.
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The renuion

May 2010
A reunion with Loreto girls.

Wow, though I. It had been over 20 years since I met up with everyone.

It was to have been a rendezvous with three pals, then there were five, another one joined in and then another one. Finally on a hot May afternoon eight of us gathered for lunch.

Time works in strange ways; it changes some things beyond recognition even while leaving others untouched.
It had turned skinny girls into plump women while leaving the smiles intact.
It had (quite magnanimously) allowed the plump ones to keep their curves while taking away their self-consciousness.
It had turned jet black hair silver, while leaving quicksilver tongues untouched.
It had transformed gawky teenagers into lively women, with their ability to giggle intact.

One thing was for sure the teens were far far behind us.
Or were they?
The excitement of the reunion melted the years away and turned us back into rowdy teens. Someone upturned a glass full of water while someone else knocked over the tissue box. The rest chatted animatedly, as comments flew around and camera’s clicked in a bid to savour and capture the moment.

The young couple at the secluded table next to us beat a hasty retreat followed by barely concealed hoots from the rowdier ones, while the others tried unsuccessfully to shush them. Waiters hovered around trying in vain to get us to place an order. Who had time for food when we had a quarter century of tales to consume?

Looks came under the scanner first…
‘You so look the same..’
‘When did you get cholesterol deposits on your eyes?’
‘Why on earth don’t you colour your hair? I hate to be seen with an aunty.’
‘You were so thin in school, what happened?’

…. then the catching up….
‘You? A principal? Unbelievable.’
‘Your son’s 17, how lucky is that! I’m still struggling with my four-year-old twins.’
‘…92 pc in her boards…. Great.’
‘Do you still sing?’
‘An HoD? Can you actually tell off students?’
‘… dad’s real estate business? Woah!’
‘…  in Jaipur? Wow great place.’

…. And the unending memories

25-year-old school gossip that still seemed so interesting — the scandals that seemed so huge back then, the shared punishments, the dreaded subjects.

Of course there were the teachers, the quirky and scary, the elegant and the frumpy — all of them doing their bit to make ‘young ladies’ out of us. There was the tough librarian thanks to whom we never could still turn corners down in books, the oh-so-propah English teacher who taught us to appreciate Shakespeare and get the pronunciation just right, the nun who walked around with a pillow to sit on, the music teacher who exhorted us non-singers not ‘slide over’ the notes… the memories were endless.

As we relived them our school days seemed to come alive.

Finally the order was placed.. rather, over placed.. each thought the others were big eaters. Between bites of paranthas and kebabs the talk continued till responsibilities beckoned.. there were businesses calling, kids to be put to sleep, homes to be taken care of.

With promises to keep in touch and meet again we dispersed, each becoming a grown up again leaving behind our teens in the restaurant.

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