Tag-a-song

Well,all your comments on the previous post have been so sweet that I decided to convert the our song thingy into a tag! No no,no groaning please.Trust me when I say that this will be lots of fun!!

And why am I so sure?See M and I have gone out to lunch several times,we have held hands and hugged and kissed and cuddled countless times and we have also listened to our song just as many times as well.And yet, yesterday afternoon was very special!I cannot explain why but both of us had that really warm,fuzzy feeling all day long.But we just did!So the bottom-line is that sometimes the oddest of things can make the day special for you and your partner.It could even be the memory of a pleasant moment shared between the two of you.

So my lovelies,here goes the tag:

1]If you and your partner have your song,then mention the song and how/why it became your special song.

2]In case you don't have one,then think of a song that you feel best suits you and your partner and mention why you think so.

3]If its too much effort to come up with a song,then just mention one of the special moments that you shared with your partner.

I know that some of you out there are going through a very rough phase as far as your relationships are concerned.This tag may not be that exciting to you guys.But I am sure it will remind of you some of the best times that you have had and how your relationship was very special. For some reason,it was not meant to be as these dastardly things happen sometimes.Whatever you had/have,you can cherish.

So go ahead and have a blast and let me know the tune that your heart sings and why!

I tag everyone that reads my blog and everyone whose blog I read:

Divya, Madhu, Shruthi, Mri, Renovatio, just passing by, Su, Pri, Chandni, childwoman, Broom, Iz, PlanetHalder, The Mad Momma, Bikerdude.............

................and anyone else who is interested in taking it up :)

What are the odds....

....of you and the husband finally managing to meet up for lunch after several cancellations and rescheduling--going to a bagel joint of all places for lunch and quite enjoying the meal--talking about several non-issues--your song** getting played(yes,we have our song;we are that kind of people) which both of you are listening to after a long long time--holding hands under the table while eating with the other free one--the husband deciding that he could probably take half the day off tomorrow and work from home while watching random stuff with you on the new kickass TV. (I wanted to take the whole day off yesterday to do the same but was coaxed into doing otherwise.)

What are the odds I say!!

**our song : Iris by Goo Goo dolls

Side bar:
Gyaan imparted by one of the TV delivery guys : "How come the men are always home for the TV delivery and the women are always home for the furniture delivery?"

A concert.....soul food......touched

Asha for Education had organized a concert on Saturday called Notes of Hope.The first half of the evening consisted of a mesmerizing mandolin recital by none other than the maestro,U Srinivas, himself.Now this was the first time ever that M and I were going to a concert,any concert.I enjoy Indian classical music immensely but I wasn't too sure if M cared as much.

The whole event itself was very well organized by the volunteers of Asha and it actually started well on time!Strike one!

U Srinivas was accompanied on stage by his brother U Rajesh again on the Mandolin,Aditya Kalyanpur on the Tabla and somebody else whose name I did not catch, on the Ghatam. And together,they created magic.The music was divine and U Srinivas lived upto his reputation of being a genius.At times,we were so captivated by the music that we would forget to even applaud and we just sat there with our eyes glazed and our feet tapping away to the rhythm of the music.They played for an hour and 45 minutes straight, at the end of which we were left wishing for some more.And M put all my concerns to rest as he had enjoyed the recital just as much as I did.

There was a 20 minute break after which commenced a dance performance by this group of young adults.This bunch of teenagers was a special one as all four of them were visually impaired or differently abled as their manager elucidated.They were from the Shree Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind which is in JP Nagar,Bangalore.One had to be there to see what these kids were capable of doing.They performed 6 Bharatnatyam dance pieces and 3 folks dances ,each of which involved very complex dance movements and steps and poses.And the wonder of wonders is that they got every expression right and every movement and step was bang on.They moved from one end of the stage to another and back to the original position with so much finesse and grace and ease that one point,I actually began to doubt if they were really blind.And their coordination was just perfect and not once did they make any mistake on stage.It was an enriching and humbling experience.





My sister-in-law A,is one of the volunteers of ASHA and she got to spend some time with these kids.And she says that they are such a lively bunch and have a very good sense of humor and made her laugh all the while.








Saturday evening was a first in many aspects for both M and I and we were definitely not complaining at the end of it all..

We won we won we won!!!!!

What a match!What a match!What a match!What a match!What a match!What a match!What a match!

Absolutely exhilarating and befitting a world cup final!Been so very long since I enjoyed a game that was this closely fought where both teams produced excellent cricket.

Way to go,Dhoni and his team of young guns who played spectacular cricket and deserved to be winners!!!

Choked..again

I watched the India-England and India-South Africa matches in the Twenty20 world cup.And I must say that I am slightly confused with the whole format and the way the game itself is treated by the players.It took me two matches to feel anywhere close to comfortable with the sport.I was intrigued by how the Indian team would perform considering that the three big guns wouldn't be firing away.And I was quite pleasantly surprised to see that this young and raw team isn't doing all that badly!

But I guess the worst moment of the tournament was the departure of South Africa.SA is one team I have always liked apart from New Zealand.And, as bizzare as the this whole concept of Twenty20 cricket maybe,I still felt sad to see SA crumble in the manner that they did.Before the game,it was almost a given that SA will enter the semis one way or another.They had remained unbeaten in the tournament.But to see them in a position where they were unable to score even the measly 126 that would have seen them through to the next round, was really disheartening.I wonder why this team is jinxed in this manner and why it is destined to choke on D-day, almost every time.Just why do they do this to themselves?At one stage in the match yesterday,I couldn't help wondering if SA even knew what they needed to score to qualify for the semis.And like as if someone was reading my mind,the permutations were flashed on the score board for everyone to see!I felt just as bad for them as I had during that World Cup match when Shaun Pollock miscalculated the numbers and SA lost.

Much has already been said and written about South Africa's "choking" so I shall refrain from contributing.Just that ,they so richly deserved to play in that semi-final on Saturday...

I say Goodbye....you say Hello...

The other day,M and I were in the middle of discussing random stuff when out of the blue,he says to me,"Hey,you know what,when we have kids,I would want them to eat meat."And needless to mention,that kinda triggered off a whole new debate altogether.So it got me thinking about how M and I have extremely contradictory points of view when it comes to certain issues.For instance,he is an atheist and I am not.I am a vegetarian and he is not.So you get my drift here,right?Now none of these issues have had any ill effects whatsoever on our relationship.We have accepted each other for who we are and have never attempted to impose one's belief on the other which has worked out beautifully well(touche`) for us.So the million-dollar question is,what happens when we have kids?

First of all,there is the whole Tamil-Kannada angle.Lets say our offspring is a genius and manages to master both languages and as a result has both sets of grandparents thrilled to bits.One hurdle cleared.Next comes food habits.I argued that we should let the offspring decide for himself/herself.To which M countered that such a decision can be made only if the offspring is exposed to all categories of food in the first place.Well,makes sense I guess.Which brings us to our next question;when would be the appropriate age for the said exposure to take place?How do we manage not to influence the offspring with our individual preferences considering the fact that both M and I are very strong-willed people?And then of course comes the religion angle.Both of us are not overtly religious.In fact I don't think M even cares!I care to the extent that I want our offspring to understand my interpretation of that unseen force and strong faith that for me is god.It will then be upto him/her to believe or not.I would like our offspring to be exposed to festivals and the celebrations that they entail only so that he/she gets a well rounded exposure to what being a family is all about.It has nothing to do with the whole religious aspect though.I just want him/her to have as much fun as I did when I was younger on such occasions,with my family.Well,for that matter I even want him/her to climb tress and play with discarded rubber tires like I did.But I digress.

Its not like we plan to produce the aforementioned offspring anywhere in the near future.And yet,that one offhand remark got me thinking....

Of celebrations and such..

Born in a Hindu Brahmin family and married into another one,I constantly keep getting reminders from back home about some approaching festival or the other.

But you know what,I do really like the idea of celebrating a festival.At least in the way that I remember it from my Bangalore days.I don't much care about all the religious hocus-pocus. Celebrating a festival for me means:

*Waking up early in the morning
*Wearing new clothes
*The house looking neat and tidy and shiny
*Mom making the most scrumptious of meals
*The elaborate lunch with the entire family
*The house smelling amazingly good,thanks to all the incense sticks and flowers
*Dad giving me money after the puja
*People coming over
*Us visiting people
*The amazing sight of the array of lamps being lit up
*Listening to Carnatic music

I try and do as much as I can towards celebrating festivals.I believe in god but I do not believe in rituals and elaborate worshiping.I say my little prayer and do my little puja in the only way that I know,all of which probably taking no more than 6 minutes.I try and cook a decently traditional meal,with M's help.I should mention here that M is an atheist.And I completely respect his choices as he does,mine.So a festival for us is more of an occasion to be thankful for what we have and get together and celebrate life by eating good food and having a good conversation.

And that is exactly what we plan to do tomorrow!

Strength

My mother and I have always been best of friends.I told her all about my crushes and teenage problems and gave her a list of all the boys who were "interested" in me.She would actually listen in all earnestness to everything that I had to say,never once dismissing any of it away as frivolous.She was the strong and sensible one in the family.

So it was like my whole world came crashing down when exactly two years ago,I got the call from my physician-aunt, confirming that the tumor in my mother's breast was indeed cancerous.On the bright side,the cancer was still in the initial stages.So the doctor chalked out a treatment plan consisting of 3 rounds of chemo followed by a lumpectomy followed by 60 days of radiation followed by another 3 rounds of chemo.I had just started the fall term at school but both M and I felt that my mother needed me by her side.So I withdrew from school and jumped onto the next flight to Bangalore.She had just had her first ever cycle of chemo like two days before I landed.When I reached home and saw her lying on the bed in that condition,my heart broke into a thousand pieces.She looked so pale and weak and worn out.Yet when she saw my face,she smiled so brightly that all I could manage to do without breaking down was sit by her side and stroke her hair as gently as I could.Then began an experience that I can never ever forget in this lifetime.

My presence seemed to have injected tremendous hope and strength in her.She was determined to beat the cancer.The first few days after I landed passed by without much ado.In all the excitement of my arrival,she seemed to have forgotten about the side affects of the chemo.But after a week or so,the much dreaded hair loss started to happen.Chunks of hair just fell off every time she ran a brush through it.In just 4 days,she went from having a thick and long mop of salt and pepper-ed hair to completely bald.That was one of the most painful moments of my life.I felt so helpless;there was nothing I could do to make her feel better.On one hand,the chemo was doing a number on her in terms of nausea and headaches and on the other,she was losing hair like nobody's business.That was the first time I ever saw her break down and how.She just wouldn't look at herself in the mirror.But my father and I had to be strong for her.We could not afford to show her how scared we were and how upset we felt on seeing her suffer.

So I bought these really expensive silk scarfs for her to cover her hairlessness.I would make sure that she dressed just as normally as she did before all this happened.She was on a very strict diet;no oil,no spice,no raw vegetables,no fruits and the list just went on.So we also stuck to the same diet as her just so that she did not feel weird or left out.We made sure that we never cried or appeared depressed in front of her.The days following her chemo sessions were the worst.It was gut wrenching to see what the chemical did to her system.And then came the surgery.The surgery itself was a huge success and they were able to get all of the cancerous tissue out.But the days that followed were a real challenge to her and us.You know they have this strange rule.Post surgery,they will show the tumor that was removed from the patient to a member of the patient's family and get papers signed to this effect.And of course I had the misfortune of having to go through this bizzare procedure.

All of us including my mother felt a little upbeat as the surgery had gone off quite well.Just that the poor thing had tubes sticking out of her at the site of surgery to collect fluids which was painful and irritating as hell.It was then that I realized that the roles had been reversed;I was the parent and she was the child.I used to bathe her every day and help her get dressed.I used to cook her special meals.I used to sit by her side and talk to her till she dozed off.I used to give her all her medication.I used to accompany her to the hospital for her routine check-ups.I used to hold her in my arms when she was writing in pain and barfing away after the chemo.And you know what,I hated it.This was alien territory to me.I couldn't accept that my mother had become this weak and scared and dependent on me.I couldn't accept that while she suffered and endured,all I could do was watch in helplessness.I remember crying my heart out to M everyday when he called and telling him that if I had the power I would take her disease and gladly suffer through it rather than watch her go through the torture and not be in a position to do anything at all.

Ultimately,all is well that ends well.She managed to get rid of the cancer and is all better today.But the experience changed all of us forever.It was like I grew up overnight.I never had to shoulder this much responsibility ever but I somehow managed to do so.We as a family fought together.We stuck together and never gave up.M was a huge huge support and my fall guy basically.I could not have managed if it were not for him.My father was so strong and poised and was always there for my mother.Even after I left,he managed to take real good care of her, singlehandedly.I still remember that proud and tender look on his face when he saw my mother in a saree for the first time after about 3 months into her treatment!We used to go to the hospital for her chemo and sit on the chairs outside the doctor's office, waiting for him to take a look at mom.And the three of us would crack jokes and laugh until we had tears in our eyes just so that my mother would not get affected by all the suffering around us.And all the others waiting there would stare at us like we had lost it!

I still do not comprehend why she of all people had to go through all that she did.Apparently there is no answer to such questions.Whatever.I am just glad she is healthy and happy today and just pray and hope that she stays this way forever.And I am so proud of her for displaying tremendous courage under adversity.She went all by herself to the radiation center for her 60-day radiation therapy.And she would have animated discussions with the technicians about the process and the machinery as her thesis in college was on Nuclear Physics.Not only did the entire staff know her by name,they weretotally fascinated by her and she was of course their most favorite patient!And I am so proud of my father for being the most ideal companion one could ever ask for.

The funny thing is when certain people got to know about her condition,their very first reaction was,"Oh,so this means that I am at risk too.And what about my precious daughters?They could be at risk too." And their warped emotions manifested in such a way, that my mother,despite being a Physics major,was almost convinced at one point of time that breast cancer could be contagious!

Of this and that...

With last Monday being a holiday,M and I took off on a trip to Lake Tahoe,Napa and Reno.It was a reunion of sorts with our high school buddies.Yes people,M and I were classmates in high school.Now don't let your imagination run wild because contrary to popular belief, we DID NOT fall in love back then.Hmmm that warrants for a separate post all together.So yes, the reunion.We met up with Nik,Ash,Gana and his lovely wife HR and it was a laugh riot all the way.The fact that we were all meeting up after almost a decade did not dampen our spirits in any way.We ate and drank and laughed and made merry.And yes,we managed to squeeze in some sight seeing as well!All in all,it was a wonderful trip and all of us enjoyed ourselves to the hilt!It was very heartening to see that after all these years, we still shared the same kind of warmth and affection and camaraderie towards each other.And HR blended into the gang quite well so that was a plus.On our way back to the airport we stopped at my cousin's place for a while.We got to see her darling little daughter who is cute as a button!And the dinner was just scrumptious!I seriously had no clue that my cousin cooked that well!

And I promptly fell sick as soon as we got back home.I have been feeling quite under the weather since Tuesday what with a severe cold and body ache and a slight fever.Now when my condition is such,I always crave for a piping hot cup of chai;the kind that you get in the desi resturants;strong chai with some milk and elaichi.And I must have looked really out of sorts on Tue and Wed because on both days,I was offered free chai by the people at the desi resturants that I went to.

I am dreading the weekend in a way.Our house looks like its been run through by a tornado.So the very thought of having to clean up the mess and restore some semblance of sanity is kinda putting me off.But ones got to do what ones got to do.I got to convince M that its all his responsibility.Thats all.

Its either the conventional way or the highway

Not too long ago,M and I were invited to dinner by this married couple with a 3-year old child.The conversation throughout the evening consisted of different flavors of the same two topics : buying a new home and having children.One one hand,the husband could not stop complaining about how one's life comes to an end after one becomes a parent and about how difficult it is to manage to have any fun at all with the child in tow.On the other hand,the wife was making weird,indirect remarks about how M and I should follow their lead and consider having children of our own soon.

Now I do know several couples who have kids and who are very dear to me and I immensely enjoy spending time with them and their children.And this post is not directed towards any of you and you all know who I am talking about here.

This post however, is the result of observing and interacting with some exceptions like the aforementioned couple who behave in the most incorrigible manner possible.They are the ones who will not miss an opportunity to advice their single friends about the virtues of marriage and their married-friends-who-are-yet-to-have-kids about the imperativeness of parenthood.And they will do this in the same vein as complaining about their respective spouses or how the process of raising their child takes away all their time and energy.In the end it almost seems like they are so envious of our lifestyle that they can't wait for us to have kids and then participate in the rant-marathon alongside them.Juxtaposition,anyone?!!Or maybe hypocrisy.Or maybe its just the way they are.Yes thats what it is.Its just the kind of people they are.

First of all,the decision to get married or have a kid is entirely upto the individual/couple as the case may be.In the latter case,its upto to the couple to decide whether or not they want a child in the first place and when they want to bring that child into this world.To each his own.There is no right or wrong.So I don't understand how one assumes that one has the right to butt in and expend unwarranted advice regarding these decisions just because one is on the other side of the fence.Almost as if after the baby is born,these people will actually go ahead and assume responsibility of the new-born and change his/her diapers and stay up with him/her all night.We did not go about court-martialing them when they decided to expand their families now did we?So why not reciprocate with mutual respect and mind their own beeswax?If they are so envious of a life style that is unlike theirs,all I can say is suck it up.Accept the fact that they are responsible for their current situation and make peace with themselves instead of trying to stick their noses into somebody else's life!So what it all comes down to finally is how conventional one is in terms of what is generally the acceptable age to get married or the acceptable age to have kids.The moment one decides to screw convention, one is subjected to the third degree!

I love my life as it is,so sue me!