Its my mother - in - law's birthday today and one of the things I want to gift her is to let her know how she has transformed 'me' into a better 'me' than I was, to a great extent. Things I paid no heed to when my mother tried them on me, my mom - in law successfully got through to my system. Its a typical case of that kid who doesn't eat/ drink something at home and you go around telling the world about it, and when someone else tries to give you those things, you happily gobble away, embarrassing your poor mom to shame! (:D) Hang on - it wasn't as easy as it sounds from the previous sentence. More like a million miles away from easy! As you may have guessed by now, the things that my mom - in - law got into my system, for starters (no pun intended when I say 'starters'), include food!

The story goes like this. My mom had spent a good 25 years of her life trying to make me put on weight. I was so thin that she would go to see astrologers seeking answers to when I would finally start looking like a 25 year old female human walking around (instead of a hanger with clothes on, magically floating in air)!! I remember one of those several times distinctly. The astrologer stared at my face for a few minutes, then held my very thin wrist, then stared at my face again , then held my wrist again, mumbling something about how thin it was, and finally went through my paperwork that had information regarding my date, place and time of birth. When he resurfaced from the pile of papers he was scribbling on, doing the 'math' about when I would finally put on weight, he popped his head up with a very evident 'Eureka!!' look and said (in Kashmiri), 'Gassinas khander.....ye banye aalephyantt hishh!!' If you're not Kashmiri or a non - Kashmiri speaking Kashmiri, that more or less translates to, 'Let her get married...she will become (fat) like an elephant'. If you happen to speak Kashmiri and understood that as you read it, the joke's over! Stop laughing now and keep reading on! (:D) No prizes for guessing that what that Kashmiri astrologer predicted several years ago, turned out to be true a few years down the line.

After getting married, when I used to sit on my chair at the beautifully the laid out table, alongwith everyone else (including the food), I would give the food a very, 'Emmm....Will I be eating you or will YOU BE EATING ME!!' look. You see with my mom, I could just tell her, well, I'm not that hungry. Well, I'm not eating this & I'm not eating that! If she tried to force me I would remind how we live in a democracy and how eating as much as I want is my fundamental right (or perhaps just listen to an earful from her and carry on with my very tiny portions! :D). I tried the same thing with my mom - in - law and guess what - it didn't work! It seems she had tackled her daughter and my now lovely sister with the same eating challenge and had succeeded! She was a master of the game - I didn't know I was dealing with a professional here. I kept doing what I did, and she kept doing what she had to until one day! That day when I jumped onto the weighing machine and my eyeballs nearly popped out on seeing what I saw!! For nearly half an hour I kept checking the weighing machine for faults and made my entire family check their weight on it to confirm it was working fine. You will not believe what I saw - she had done the impossible!! I was 10 kgs heavier within one year of being married and being fed by mommy - in - law. I don't know about myself, but my mom is ever so thankful to her for achieving so gracefully what she did while she had spent 25 years and had given up trying! It was my mom's dream come true!!

Over these four years of officially being her daughter, and nearly 6 years of knowing the wonderful person that she is, there are several lessons she's taught me and some of which I have internalised. As for the rest ( which include learning to cook) I still am working on (I couldn't cook to save my life!).

Today I would like to share with you, 7 lessons mummy (as I fondly call her) has always taught me:

1) No matter how bad someone's been to you, forgive them . However, don't forget what you went through completely, because if you do, you might end up repeating the same mistake again. That would be stupid of you!

2) Nothing in the world is more important than your family. When your family needs you, anything and everything else in life can be paused. (Except for Saavdhan India which is her favourite crime awareness programme! She will get all the bad guys one day and beat them blue I tell u! :D)

3) Never ever go after shallow, materialistic things. In the end all that matters is the number of loving and truly caring people in your life. It's no good to have all the wealth in the world and no one to call your own and share it with and be miserable. Instead, focus on giving love in abundance and everything else will fall into place and you will always remain happy.

4) Always take blessings from your elders try to never hurt them intentionally. The blessings they give you will protect you during challenging times in life, no matter how difficult they are.

5) What you do and how you act reflects what your parents have taught you and the values you've been brought up with. Always think about this before reacting to any situation. 

6) Bringing someone who has grown up in another family into yours is like grafting the branch of one tree onto a completely different one. You need to keep working at that branch for years to fully incorporate her vascular tissue into your own family's (How true - this is my favourite one).

7) Be ever so grateful for all the small mercies. God watches over you and showers more such mercies in abundance if you are.

Mummy is truly one of the strongest people I have ever known. Her mental strength astonishes me each time. I could write on and on and on about her but I guess I will end this post here for now with a, "*touchwood* how lucky am I to have her in my life!".

 
To the worlds most superb mommy - Happy birthday! :)

I am Sorry!

A couple of posts earlier, I mentioned that I am taking part in the Ultimate Blogging Challenge (UBC), where in, I am required to post one blog post a day for the entire month of July. As I went on writing posts for the first few days, I realised that it was quite simple to produce one post a day because someone as talkative as me always will have some sort of verbal diarrhea to type and translate into an online post form.

I went online to the UBC website to read on details of the challenge just out of curiosity. While it is a splendid initiative to motivate people to write, share, increase their readers' network and maximise blog content, there is a downside - well at least for me there is. You see, my foremost mission in reviving my one - post - blog, was not to maximise content and or to meet any targets, or to  increase readership etc. My foremost focus is to write something because I want to write about it - not because I have to produce one post every day. While this is a great motivator for some and ideally I too would want to have something I want to write about, every day. However, I feel my previous blog post was not so good and perhaps if I hadn't taken up the challenge I wouldn't have posted it in that form. Or perhaps I would have added more value to it - I don't know.

I did think about this myself and when a dear one gave me some blatant feedback that, 'it feels like you wrote that because you have to write, and not because you want to write', I was taken aback slightly. The Bollywood drama queen in me did give the person an earful saying, 'you could have put it in a better way even if that's what you feel!', 'you're so rude!', 'you need to rethink your feedback strategy!', etc, etc (:D). But deep within I knew what the person had said was true as the thought had crossed my own mind initially.

Having given myself a couple of days to sleep over it I have come to the conclusion, that I perhaps did write that post just for the sake of writing my blog post for that day, and but for this challenge, I wouldn't have posted it just as I did. So via today's post, I want to send a very sincere apology to the person I snapped at (:D) and I want to assure my readers, that when you take your valuable time out to read this space, its a promise that you will be reading something I want to write about and offer you to read and never something I have to write about.

No matter what course my participation in the challenge takes, I still would like to thank the organisers of the challenge as every experience, is an asset in life. At least I learned that if I am to start a blog where my primary motive is to maximise content and readership, I am well capable of running it successfully. However, for here, my primary motive is to write because I want to. Everything, including the blog content and the readers and followers will come eventually but I will always focus on the primary motive. Because this is my sacred space, free from the stresses, expectations, worries and targets of the world. This is my unadulterated therapy!

To that special one of mine - I am sorry! :)

The Orkut days! :)

Once upon a time, we used to socialise virtually on Orkut. I thought typing this would make me laugh, but I feel a sense of nostalgia instead. Remember that fun time when Orkut was a breath of fresh air after the very insipid Hi5? How we used to compete on how many scraps we had collected on our scrapbook & how many fans we had. We would wait eagerly for a testimonial to come in from friends (filled with words that over sold our normal selves to potential virtual friends! :D)  and would count how many we had collected. Gosh - how jobless were we and how much time we had for things that didn't matter at all! :)))) I remember how we would join various communities and comment on threads, and keep checking regularly on what comments followed ours and if someone disagrees, or has picked up a fight or is in agreement with your views. Okay - now I am laughing!! How ridiculous! :D     What is it that out of the blues made me write about Orkut now that he/she/it (never know which one to pick for the likes) is no more (God bless the departed soul that served us so well when alive!).    

  I recall that, in a community called 'Kashmir' that I had joined, there was a thread by the name, 'My Dream about Kashmir', where I had written down my thoughts on the matter and I happened to land across the piece yesterday. On reading it I went into the, 'awwwwwww how cute' mode instantly. It was the time when I was still very idealistic about life and things that can happen in it and the piece reflected that. I feel I have to share this with my readers purely for the sake of its innocence.    Pasted below - enjoy!! :)  

   

    I was in the fourth grade when I grabbed onto the Children's Bible one day, for he first time ever. I was a kid....innocent, untouched by either the realization or the importance of the word "RELIGION"!!!!! I did not even have the slightest idea that the book that i was holding had anything whatsoever to do with religion....i just started reading it as if it were a story book i could feast on (becoz i LOVED reading) and was fascinated with the wonderful pictures it was filled with. I remember clearly to this day the first few chapters which described some breathtakingly beautiful place called "The Eden Garden" and the relevant pictures that they contained. Looking at those pictures, my naive mind thought that, perhaps "The Eden Garden" was actually metaphoric to my homeland "Kashmir". I was living in Switzerland in those days, yet my mind could compare the beauty of "The Eden Garden" to but one place i had seen to that day, and that place was "Kashmir". With the sheep grazing on the pastures, the birds singing sweet nothings flying all over the place, the air of love and peacefulness till wherever ones vision could take them, the beautiful lake with fish swimming deep and low( which by the way i thought was “the DAL”....heheheh...silly me), and no sign of panic or fear whatsoever anywhere......in fact, i don’t think people living there had ever even heard of these words(that is a different aspect altogether that at that time only Adam and Eve lived here)!!!!!!
 Then one day Eve committed the Original Sin somewhere in the next couple of chapters, and the stunning garden transformed suddenly into living hell, with hate, worries, tensions, and bloodshed everywhere. That too led me to compare the place one more time with what was becoming of KASHMIR.....only I had no idea who was Eve in this case.......because if i DID i would have begged her not to listen to Satan disguised as a snake and not to eat the apple from the "forbidden garden", when there were plenty of apples to eat from our own garden!!!!
 I had visited Kashmir a year back, after a span of 16 years, and believe me, when i boarded off the plane and placed my first step on the land, there was this sense of serenity I felt in the air ever since the aircraft door had opened, and everything was so pleasant, that I actually wanted to bend down and KISS the land before I placed my foot on it. I know people who have not been there must be thinking I’m dramatizing all this, but believe me, you will know that flow of adrenaline and that bittersweet emotion, only once you personally go there and feel exactly what I did.. Those days spent there have by far been the most memorable days of my life. There is something in the air of Kashmir( aab-o-hawa as they say) that makes you instantaneously fall in love with it and a sense of possessiveness takes you over, like maybe for a man, as hey say, a thunderbolt strikes u and u fall in love with a beautiful and innocent girl, without even knowing anything about her (Ref: The Godfather). Guys, now I know what emotions you go through at those times…..LOL!
 Since the beginning and the next part of the Bible was almost allegorically similar to what Kashmir went through, my dream about Kashmir would be that its end be that way too. The Bible ends with a promise of God to all His children that one day He shall return us “The Eden Garden”, a place where sheep would graze beside tigers, all people would live in serenity and harmony, and there would be love, love and only love all over the beautiful valley. The love for Kashmir would take over all other things like politics, religion, and the list is actually endless. Kashmir is more important than anything else and I just hope God answers my prayers while I am alive, and someday I go to live in that heaven with my family and all my friends.
 And that is all I have to say about that (Forrest Gump style)!  PS: The irony is that I was referring to myself  as a kid in line two, whereas now when I read the post, I feel I was still a kid when I wrote it! :D Also, I have left the post unadulterated and not run it through spell check.

The unnamed post

I have forgotten to mention in any of my previous July posts that I am taking part in a blogging challenge called the "Ultimate Blogging Challenge" that a very sweet person ever so kindly informed me of. Taking part simply implies you commit to writing one blog post a day.

Initially when I heard about this challenge, I was filled with immense self doubt. For starters, in the last 6 years my blogging average has been 0.1666666666667 posts a year. Having only just returned here and truly started blogging and with a 8 month old filled with energy, wanting to cuddle and play with mommy every waking hour, the furthest I could push myself to was one post a week. Would I be able to do this? I know I so want to! I tried to calm my tormented mind and told myself, 'Well one post a day is for others. They obviously don't have a small baby crawling and cruising around all day. I must and I will give myself some relaxation for my inability and perhaps focus on one post in 2 days. Yes, that would perhaps be realistically achievable.' You see, when you have a toddler around, people like me take it for granted that no one in such a situation can or will  lead a normal life until their baby is a little older and more independent. Ahhh that felt good now! No more pressure on my head to produce one post a day - mine is a special case and my deadline is 2 days! I could literally feel the stress flying off my head.

Stress, my friends, is a funny guy! The minute it comes to live in your head, you start getting disturbed and wondering whether or not you will ever be able to deal with the situation you're in, to the standard that you actually have set up for yourself. Not the standard that you allow yourself as a special case. Your productivity commits suicide the minute he speculates his beloved creativity and stress are having a thing going on between them. Creativity, however, was always faithful to productivity, yet she digs a dagger into her heart and ends her life, just as soon as she gets the news of her beloved's suicide.

There you go - that's Shakespeare's, 'Romeo and Juliet'  (more like 'productivity and creativity' LOL. Shakespeare's soul will surely haunt me for doing this to one of his finest works) relived for you once again. Certainly, 'All isn't well that doesn't end(s) well'

Now for the bigger news - Surprise!! Surprise!! Well, surprise, that is, if you haven't noticed already. Since the day I took up the challenge, I have consistently posted one blog post each day (except for yesterday when Mr. apple ipad decided to vanish my post into nothing {I will surely write another post about that moment of frustration}. But I am confident I will soon catch up unless a natural calamity strikes.) Its almost as if from the moment when I took off my head, that pressure, and the stress it radiated, I just knew I could do this.

The lesson I learned from this experience, which I guess is the purpose of my post (in addition to making you laugh a little) is that minus the stress we all can continue nurturing our talent for a lifetime! Stress brutally and cold bloodily murders creativity and talent in any shape or form. Once again I will bring in karma here. Whatever it is that you need to get done, get rid of any strings that might be attached (or at least paint them with some invisible ink till you are where you want to be. Yes, you can shop online or buy in store - for details contact my childhood friends 'Tom & Jerry).

 
Take it one day at a time and keep doing what you can to your best possible capacity. As long as you are at peace with your own conscience, you're ok. There is no one else in the world you are truly answerable to other than your conscience (not even your boss!!) and that is a fact most of us forget while leading the busy and stressful lives that we do in today's time.

Hope I haven't spoken a little too soon. Should you not see another post here for the next 6 years, please know that I have (:D)!

And I still haven't figured an appropriate name for this post so I will leave it to what I have left it to.

Happy weekend everybody! <3 p="">

P.S: Any images I post on this blog are courtesy of Google Image Search, unless otherwise mentioned or obvious.

 

9 things my mumma's always taught me!

If you do a search, the internet is full of the '10 things blah blah blah' posts. 10 reasons why i won't do this, 10 things I have learnt from x, 10 destinations to visit before you die etc etc. Whilst there are some great teachings and learnings off these posts, I am led to believe that this is injustice to other humble numbers. Just because 10 is a convenient number, and not too big nor too small at the same time, it emits arrogance and very conveniently takes away the limelight off other numbers leaving them for mere mathematical and numerical usage.

I therefore would like to focus all attention on the number 9 today so it gets the footage it's long awaited. Today I will share with you, 9 things that my mumma taught me.

My mumma has been the most influential and the most giving person in my life and understandably, I am very attached to her. I take her for granted all the time and no matter how much older the years passing by make me, I will always act like a 9 year old when she's around. There are innumerable things I have learned from her and I could write on and on about it. However, as mentioned above, today I will concebtrate on the 9 first ones just as they come to my mind.

1) pamper your child no matter what the world says. Pampering is not the same as spoiling - there's a marked difference between the two. Eventually, your child will learn to fight her own battles but the loving memories of that pampered childhood will always remain and make her a good human being, able to deal with anything in life.

2) Relationships are more important than your ego:

3) Having a child doesn't mean the end of your life - it means the beginning of an even better life. 

4) The most important ingredient in any recipe is love

5) no matter where you live, live with a sense of pride in where you come from and set an example for others to follow.

6) Live simple and think high

7) If any sick man tries to take a shot at making you feel inferior as a woman, put on your 'chandi maa' shoes and put them in their place. Beat them like frappe coffee if need be. If you don't respect yourself and stand up for what's right, no one will. Never be afraid of such people. 

8) Nothing is more important in the world than your family

9) Consider yourself privledged if God ever gives you a chance to look after your elders. Not everyone is lucky enough.

DISCLAIMER: These are the lessons mumma has taught me. That doesn't necessarily mean I have learnt all of them. Work's still in progress! :D

That place beyond bugged!

Ever so often in our daily lives there are various things that irritate us. Some of them we patiently bear with and the rest we vent out in the form of anger, tears, and the likes. Nevertheless, they bug us and we find ways to get on with life in spite of that.

Usually the degree of being bugged is in constant low doses well distributed through the span of the day. That isn't much of a problem as our systems are well versed with adapting to such doses over time. However, sometimes the bugging takes place in high concentration and high frequency doses. This is the time that I want to tell you about today.

I have recently been in that place where something someone was constantly doing was bugging me to the core. I do not want to get into details about how, when and where as I like to keep very private, the identity of people who help me gain experience in life - specially if the experience is a bad one! They kept doing and saying things that irritated me beyond the boundaries of normalcy. Further, with more constant bugging, I became angry and swallowed my anger a few times. As the bugging treatment continued, I went into female dog mode and bitched about it with someone I am very close to. When it continued further on, I almost reached a point of breakdown. And that's when everything changed!!

I suppose if the bugging had stopped at that point, I would have broken down and wept. But since it carried on with the same constant frequency of high doses, something else happened - it made me laugh! No - I am serious!! I finally reached a place beyond bugged.

Don't know if any of you have ever been there but that place is something else! There is no more irritation, anger or tears of frustration in that place. It's a place filled with comedy and hysterical laughter. And when the bugging carries on even further, all you can do or feel is more comedy and laughter in it! :))))

Such is that place beyond bugged!!

Ever been there?

Love, hate, indifference & 'the complicated'!

We all experience various feelings in different situations that we are faced with in life. Love, hate and indifference are the three dominant ones of these. We love someone/something, hate them/it or dont really care as it doesn't bother us in any specific manner.

However, most of us do experience a fourth kind of emotion. One that doesn't fit in with the crystal clear categories mentioned above nor in any others set in place by the society. Older people like to promptly sweep it under the carpet and get on with their lives, and up until a few years ago, youngsters under peer pressure or otherwise, would want to update their facebook status to it at the drop of a hat! Yes - I am talking about our very own, the very real, yet the least discussed in black and white, 'the complicated' emotion. 

More often than not, this emotion is associated with a situation where the person/s experincing it are wondering whether they are in a relationship or not. However, there is so much more to the complicated emotion, that no amount of blogging space or words would be enough to do justice to its essence. Perhaps this is because its essence keeps changing in direct proportionality to the context within which it is experienced. When we speak about a complicated emotion, in general, we mean an emotion that is beyond the realms of understanding of the human mind. Our brain perhaps is void of the specific neurons required to interpret it in a form understood by the society and its beings. And it is basic human nature to try and figure something out with all his/her/its might, and when there is no other option but to give up, one would rather sweep it under the carpet and pretend nothing ever happened rather than come out of the closet (if you like) and give it a venting voice. 

By now, you must be wondering what suddenly drew me to write about 'the complicated' emotion when I am happily married to a wonderful man and am blessed with a gorgeous 8 month old. As I previously mentioned in paragraph 3, this emotion doesn't always have to do with 2 people trying to figure out whether they are in a relationship or not. It could be about an infinite number of things. A son who's father wasn't a dad to him, a daughter whose dad abandoned her and so suddenly decided to return after 15 years, a reasonably good wife being jealous of her mother- in - law, an otherwise secure child suddenly becoming insecure following the birth of a sibling, or a very close old friend you don't speak with anymore because 'something happened'! In my case, it is to do with a friend who was very dear to me and perhaps who still has a set place in my heart (and perhaps I have voluntarily chosen to make that place dormant), but who I still don't speak with any longer. 

A few days back one of my one time best friend's mother, who I lovingly call 'aunty' contacted me on facebook. She mentioned that she and 'uncle' speak of my always smiling face ever so often. Additionally, she sent loving blessings for me and my family. I was surprised to receive her message but at the same time that place in my heart that I had consciously frozen away, possibly thawed faster than the speed of light. In the time machine of my mind, I was taken several years back and lived those loving times so lovingly spent with them, all over again. I could smell the tangy fragrances and the luscious taste of the delicious fresh home cooked food that aunty had perhaps spent hours cooking in heat and sweat, because I was going to visit. They loved me and as I was in a strange land away from my parents, all my friend's parents ensured they looked after me and fed me like a stuffed thanksgiving turkey, till I could puke at just the thought of food. All my friends always complained that I hijack their parents. And it was true to a great extent as sometimes I found myself spending more time with their parents than with them. Somehow I loved interacting with grown ups and understanding their perspectives and thoughts on various aspects of life. And for people I love and care for, I always keep in touch irrespective of any reciprocations which I kept doing. Until that one day! That day when my dear friend did someone else wrong. The word 'wrong', may I clarify, is very subjective. What I thought was wrong, he may have thought of to have been the longterm best for all who found themselves in that situation. However, the wrong he did to whoever he did the wrong to as a man was unacceptable to my conscience as woman. Even though I am certain most of him is the same person I was dear friends with, some part of me doesn't allow me to take that as the truth, for the wrong he so insensitively did, that value driven friend of mine would have never imagined doing. 

As such the emotion I feel is perplexing. I cannot understand exactly how I feel about him. I dont hate him, nor is he my loving friend that he once was, nor does this all not bother me. I guess I'm just going to say 'it's complicated' and make peace with my emotions.