Mumma kuchh bhi kar sakti hai...

The first person that we come in contact with when we are born is our mother. Right from our birth, she takes care of all our needs till we learn to do everything independently. This probably gives a child the idea that mummy is a superwoman and can do almost anything. When my son throws a toy under the sofa and can't get it himself, he looks at me. Without him actually saying anything, I understand what he wants and pick up the toy and give him. He is amazed and yet again, mumma is his hero.
When he cant open his toy box, he simply brings it near me and places my hand over it. Even in a room full of people he only comes to me to get his box of toys opened.
My niece was about 7-8 years and a tooth shaking. It was paining her very badly and she was shouting for 'mumma'. My sister was busy doing something and my niece was continuously shouting. My father scolded her 'daant dukh raha hai toh isme mumma kya karegi?' (if your tooth is paining, it will pain -what can mumma do about it?) She simply said 'kyon...mumma toh kuchh bhi kar sakti hai'. All of us burst out laughing.

My 'bhaav' skills

One of the many concerns I had while re-migrating was how to buy vegetables in India.
I used to always refuse to go with my mom to the sabji-mandi as she used to bargain a lot or as we say do a lot of bhaav. 3 years in US was easy- just go to Cub Foods/Walmart/Krogers and grab whatever you need, put it in the cart, pay by credit card and drive back home happily. Even though you get vegetables in departmental stores in India too, they are not as fresh as the local sabji-mandi and expensive too. So one fine day, I went to the sabjiwalas that sit outside my house. I looked at cauliflower and said nervously "kaisa diya flower?" (I had gone reluctantly with mom a few times), he said "8 rupay paav". I had absolutely no idea whether this was cheap or expensive. But still I tried to maaro chance and said,"7 lagao, aadha leti hoon." To my surprise he agreed. I was thinking I should have said 6. Nevertheless, this continued for about a week by when I got an idea of which vegetable is running at what rate in the market.
I was back from jodhpur after a week and we went 'sabji' shopping. We took some 4-5 vegetables from the same vendor, the total cost came to 82. My husband gave me 105 Rs and said softly "I challenge you to get me back 30 Rs". Ab toh meri izzat ka sawaal tha. "pachattar laga lo bhaiyya",I said. He did no-no, I did yes-yes for some while after which I shouted loudly "Bilkul baraabar hai". He finally resigned and gave me back 30 Rs which I turned around and flashed to my husband smilingly.

Beautiful Monday Morning !

Its been such a long time that I havent posted something here. Not that I havent been thinking or wondering. Just that been too lazy to jot down things here. So, thought would share something funny but learning experience that I went through this morning.

Monday, 20 Oct 2008, 7:50 AM: It was 0C today in Ohio, first time this winter that it touched 0. I looked at my car and instead of the usual fog, there was a thin layer of ice on the windshield. So, I started cleaning the car when I realized I should switch on the car so that the ice melts. I put in the key, started the car, came out, closed the door and started cleaning again. Because the trousers I am wearing today do not have pockets, I thought I would put the cellphone in the car, as it was difficult with the cellphone in one hand and trying to clean with the other hand. But, oh no! the car is locked !! I didn’t realize the car auto-locks itself when the key is in and all doors are closed. I tried my luck to see if any door, by mistake did not get closed properly. But no, not today. All the doors were properly closed and locked. Then after 2-3 minutes of panicking, I remembered something called a duplicate key of the car which was luckily in the house ( And for once, I even knew where it was kept). But guess what, the house is locked and the keys are in my bag which is in the car !! So then I called my apartment people to help me open my house. But they say, since it is out of office hours and I locked the car myself, its not an emergency - I will have to wait till the office opens at 10 am ( by the way, the car is ON all this while). Then I remembered that the duplicate keys of my house is with my friend who stays in the next colony (its not very far, but considerable distance for me to walk there and get the keys from them). So, I call them up (they usually leave by 9-9.30, and I called them up at 8). So, I make their morning barbaad but they are kind enough to immediately come to my house with my apt keys. With a sheepish look, I took the keys from my friend, opened the house, took the duplicate car keys and opened the car - phew ! That was 20 minutes of unnecessary trouble- not just to me, but to my friends as well. Needless to add, that also meant 20 minutes of delay in reaching office (which isn’t such a big deal :P)
I was saved a lot of trouble because of the cellphone. It would have been really difficult without it. So, once again, like various other times technology saved me. But, it was the technology which put me into trouble in the first place !!
Moral of the story: When technology puts you in trouble, only technology can take you out of it.
Moral of the story2: Once you switch ON the car, NEVER step out and close the door !! Or, come out with all the belongings.

Childhood Memories

I was listening to Radio the other day and they had a cute thing going on…they were asking people what games they used to play when they were small. It was so nice to hear some names that I had not heard in a long time. People said all sorts of things from pakdam-pakadayi (running and catching), oonch-neech or land and water, lock and key, sitolia (or seven stones or pitthoo). And then I also remembered my childhood and all the games that we used to play. There was one particular game that we used to call “gallery” – Don’t remember the rules now, but it had something to do with four blocks and four stones. Any kind of stones- big, small, round , flat. Ahh…flat stones - that reminds me of something. But, I just couldn’t remember the name of the most basic game that we used to play where you have to throw stones on the boxes we used to draw in the playground/road with sticks/chalk. And not just any stones could be used for that game…you needed special flat stones. In fact, flat stones were so difficult to find that half of games period used to be spent searching for them and then the other half in playing that game. So much so that, I actually started collecting such stones and used to put them in my school bag. Before I knew it, I had almost 30-35 of them! My dad once came to the room and lifted my bag to keep it aside, he found it awfully heavy and asked me “kya patthar bhare hai kya isme?” I of course, didn’t know it then that it was meant to be a metaphor and innocently said yes (I was also wondering how did he know?). Papa was shocked beyond words. At first, he could not understand why it was so important for me to have those flat stones. But after my repeated attempts to explain it to him, he let me keep one of them and let me go with the warning that he would check my bag daily now. I don’t remember, I think I had cried then because papa had scolded me. But now, I can’t stop laughing about it. As I was having this flashback, there was one thing that was still bothering me…what was the name of the game? How can I forget this? After days of thinking, it suddenly struck me “STAAPU”. That’s what we used to call it. I know there are innumerable other names for this one. Then there was this other game, I don’t even know if it ever had a name. Two people stand facing each other, holding hands up, sort of making an entry gate and everybody else has to enter through it. I remember some parts of the song “….ab toh jail mai jaana padega, jail ki roti khani padegi, jail ka pani peena padega, ab toh jail mai jaana hi padega”. And then that person would be out. Was there any name for this game? If there was, I don’t remember it (I have become old !!)
And then of course I thought about good old teacher-teacher, ghar-ghar, ringa-ringa roses, fire in the mountain,…….and the list goes on. Children have a good imagination and do not really need toys to play with !! Anyways, it was nice to relive those years all over again (atleast in memories)!!

Hair Nightmare !!

This is also one of the things that has bothered me since a long long time. In fact, it still does. Some people may think "How stupid it is to bother about this, why does she make a big deal out of this?" But trust me , nobody can understand my agony as well as me.
I always wanted to have long hair. But was never encouraged to do so by my parents. Because I had bad quality, highly densed and extremely wavy (mind you,not curly) hair. My parents had me go bald (mundan) four times as a child !!! Generally they do that so that the child gets straight hair. But my hair is much much more stubborn. It never straightened up ! How many times I fought with my parents to grow my hair. Things once got so bad that I even got a signed declaration from them that they would not force me to get my hair cut. Imagine ! I tried to grow my hair against their wishes but it ended up being so so messy that I finally gave up and said "I want to get my hair cut."
I tried to grow my hair again in college but got fed up of it after a year and went back to my easy-to-manage short hair.
And here I am again, trying to grow my hair. Well, actually I did not try to grow it. I simply did not cut it. This time, its much better. Its still messy and high-maintenance but somehow its not behaving as rebellious as before. I think with me, even my hair has mellowed down in life. This time I have managed to grow it much longer than the previous two attempts.
If you are still reading this, I am extremely sorry...I thought I better write some crap than watch the stupid progress bars of my extremely slow server. But its true that I bother a lot about my hair. But right now, I am loving my "kaale ghane not-so-mulayam baal "