The Mommy Curse… Blessing?

You know what the ultimate threat/wish of a mother is?  The one that comes spontaneously when the kids do not kneel on the floor and rub their nose in the ground pay proper and adequate respect to her as a parental authority?  Well she draws herself to her full height (so what if she is short) and hisses “May you have children just like you”.  My Mom cursed , Blessed me with those very words, and guess what, yeah, I am doing just the same.

It was February and I was taking special care of my appearance.  Since I was skinny (sigh, wish I still was) I decided to wear a full length parrot green gown with lots of frills and flounces, rolled up socks in my bra, lipstick on my mouth (dark red) a bit on my cheek (YES dark red) green eyeliner and high heels I could barely balance on.  It was my very first adult party, the school farewell.  The family thought I looked something like this, but mercifully did not tell me

But I thought I looked like this

Yes in my eyes I was hot and thought I would be the most popular person in the party.  Sadly this is India and us girls were all huddled on one side of the room trying our best to be oblivious of the boys eyeing us warily from their side of the room.  And our Phys Ed teacher had rotten taste in music and kept playing Donny Osmond and Rishi-Neetu songs.  Naturally no one wanted to dance to that  even if we were asked to dance.  One of our teachers came and told us girls that we should dance and we did … with each other.  Our high heels came off and we danced barefoot to Ek Main aur Ek Tu.  Kid#1 smartly did not go for his farewell party.  Kid#2 did, clad in brand new Levi jeans, lovely Nike shoes and a psychedelic shirt which never got worn again.  He came back at 8 pm with a disgusted expression and insisted that we go out and party.  I nearly said “But you already came back from one”.  Luckily I did not and saved my reputation for that day.  No, I never asked him what went wrong.  I suspect his metallic smile (braces) might have a lot to do with it.

I could hear my Ma say “May you have kids just like you”

Well you cant keep my kids down any more that you could supress me.  We land on our feet.  We are survivors.  Its Kid#2’s Fresher’s Meet today and since I had his School farewell in mind, I was full of concern and started quizzing him about the programme, the music, the dancing he might have to do (he doesnt like to dance) and he turns and quashes me down with a very patronising and worldly smile

“Ma, we are grown up okay.  We will sit and drink, and if something clicks ….” and gave a very man of the world shrug.

Hello? He is eighteen years old, in his first year. 

And I hear my Ma saying “May you have kids just like you”

Well, okay, I’ll pass it forward … My darling son, May you have kids just like you

 

The Mommy Curse … Blessing?

You know what the ultimate threat/wish of a mother is?  The one that comes spontaneously when the kids do not kneel on the floor and rub their nose in the ground pay proper and adequate respect to her as a parental authority?  Well she draws herself to her full height (so what if she is short) and hisses “May you have children just like you”.  My Mom cursed , Blessed me with those very words, and guess what, yeah, I am doing just the same.

It was February and I was taking special care of my appearance.  Since I was skinny (sigh, wish I still was) I decided to wear a full length parrot green gown with lots of frills and flounces, rolled up socks in my bra, lipstick on my mouth (dark red) a bit on my cheek (YES dark red) green eyeliner and high heels I could barely balance on.  It was my very first adult party, the school farewell.  The family thought I looked something like this, but mercifully did not tell me

But I thought I looked like this

Yes in my eyes I was hot and thought I would be the most popular person in the party.  Sadly this is India and us girls were all huddled on one side of the room trying our best to be oblivious of the boys eyeing us warily from their side of the room.  And our Phys Ed teacher had rotten taste in music and kept playing Donny Osmond and Rishi-Neetu songs.  Naturally no one wanted to dance to that  even if we were asked to dance.  One of our teachers came and told us girls that we should dance and we did … with each other.  Our high heels came off and we danced barefoot to Ek Main aur Ek Tu.  Kid#1 smartly did not go for his farewell party.  Kid#2 did, clad in brand new Levi jeans, lovely Nike shoes and a psychedelic shirt which never got worn again.  He came back at 8 pm with a disgusted expression and insisted that we go out and party.  I nearly said “But you already came back from one”.  Luckily I did not and saved my reputation for that day.  No, I never asked him what went wrong.  I suspect his metallic smile (braces) might have a lot to do with it.

I could hear my Ma say “May you have kids just like you”

Well you cant keep my kids down any more that you could supress me.  We land on our feet.  We are survivors.  Its Kid#2’s Fresher’s Meet today and since I had his School farewell in mind, I was full of concern and started quizzing him about the programme, the music, the dancing he might have to do (he doesnt like to dance) and he turns and quashes me down with a very patronising and worldly smile

“Ma, we are grown up okay.  We will sit and drink, and if something clicks ….” and gave a very man of the world shrug.

Hello? He is eighteen years old, in his first year. 

And I hear my Ma saying “May you have kids just like you”

Well, okay, I’ll pass it forward … My darling son, May you have kids just like you

 

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Richard Wright is dead – the man on the piano, who contributed so much to my favorite band Pink Floyd, the guy whose key board expertise made the music of The Wall and The Dark Side of the Moon so rich died after suffering from cancer.

The Pink Floyd was one band that spoke mostly through its music and none of the members courted publicity.  So one did not know much about them.  But thank you, lovely people, your music enriched us.

Words from  “The Great Gig in the Sky”

“And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I
don’t mind. Why should I be frightened of dying?
There’s no reason for it, you’ve gotta go sometime.”

“If you can hear this whispering you are dying.”

“I never said I was frightened of dying.”

Celebrity Worship is Healthy

I was teased mercilessly by my younger brother and the entire tribe – yes – tribe of cousins for being an unabashed fan of Paul McCartney but one look at his eyes and I would simply drool – and this was at the mature age of eleven years old.  This was swiftly followed by David Niven and Sean Connery.  But then I set my eyes on Amitabh Bachchan and I was lost.  I drooled so much that I could have drowned in the puddle I created, much to the amusement of my entire clan.  Now I have discovered that it is normal and healthy.  Thank you Time, thank you very much.  You just dont know how much this means to me.  It follows that my teenage rituals like

• Talking for hours to Sean’s picture was normal
• Watching each and every Amitabh movie at least thrice was healthy
• Memorising every dialogue of the said movies was natural
• Giving every photo of Rekha a beard and moustaches was good therapy
• Modelling my wardrobe after Joan Baez was excellent fashion sense
• My fondness for Abhishek Bachchan not because of his entertaining skills but since he is my old crush’s son is sane and understandable

I am not too sure that I agree with this ….., but, hey if someone thinks that I am healthy and sane, who am I to argue with that?

😀

New Delhi – City under siege

It happens every time.  We face something like the bomb blasts on Saturday, freak out for a while and then, once we are sure the crisis has passed, we go on with our lives.  There are families to feed, money to be earned, lives to be lived.  I am sure this is what people did in wars.  For the soldiers it was their job to kill and be killed, for the ordinary people, the smartest thing to do was to avoid battle fields and carry one with their lives.  The painful reality about today’s world is that there is no clear battlefield and the people who die in these sordid wars for religion are civillians who never signed for it.  Its painful and base.  One big reason to hate organised religion – they kill people in the name of God.

I was in Delhi yesterday – had to meet a few friends.  It was disturbing to drive through empty roads, police jeeps criss crossing the city.  I felt like I had wandered into a war zone.  I also felt scared … though my friend kept assuring me that the crisis was over.  I have lived in disturbed areas like Manipur and Nagaland.  I know what it is like to be resented because we were educated and our parents had the much coveted Government jobs – but that was economics.  They were poor and we had (in their view) all the comfort.  That I can understand, though I dont like their way of showing it – by trying to burn our home or stoning our roof in the middle of the night.  But killing innocent people shopping in a market place just because you want to make a name for yourself by proudly claiming that you belong to some XYZ organisation?  How sick is that?  Is this something to be proud of?  And if this is so, then come out in the open and fight and die for your twisted interpretation of your religion.  Dont be cowardly.

Roop and Devaki have also reacted to this.  The point is – where will this all end?  Why can we not make it illegal for politicians to play the caste/religion/state card.  And as Roop has said – we have to stop persecuting people based on nothing but their religion

LHC and organised religion

There is a heated debate going on every where about LHC.  On Day one of the experiment, doomsday experts freaked out and predicted that the world is going to end, fence sitters adopted a wait and see approach and organised religions went into a tizzy.  I am against organised religion and rituals.  I dont like to have people butting in and trying to teach me how to talk to my God.  Besides, I am not entirely sure that God doesnt have his/her own agenda, and we dont feature to high on his To Do list.  This belief settled in when I was in Class III and had to take a Geography test.  There were some fill-in-the blanks to do, and the question was:

Nile flows through _________

and Chump that I am, I filled in Italy.  I was a big fan of the Roman Empire and Pizza I guess.  Well I prayed, was a good girl and even helped my mother in the house.  But no amount of bending over backwards got that answer to change.  My mother gave me hell when the test papers got marked and had to be signed.  Was I angry or what?  Now in retrospect, I feel that God has plenty of fish to fry and one little girl’s butt ranks way down on the heavenly agenda.

If the LHC proves succesful, I wonder if religions of this world will experience a whole lot of debunking?  My fear is that it won’t.  Religion will just transform, backpedal and adjust itself to the new situation.  The sad truth is that religion never dies, much like any other virus.   We will still have bigots who will be instrumental in causing a lot of death and misery, all in the name of God

Male – speak

This one comes from years of experience raising two boys but the catalyst for this post was a friend I was chatting with yesterday.  He has built his business from scratch and actually employs people to do work.  I am totally in awe of such a feat.  I asked him “Hey, Wassup?” and the answer was “Nothing”.  I dont own a business and I dont employ people and send them all over the place to deliver and install hi tech stuff, and still manage to have lots to talk about.  What is Nothing anyway.  My boys would chatter like magpies till they reached the age of 8 and onwards.  Then prying information about their day, school etc was like as though I was Momma Cop and information divulged would be used to incriminate them and might even get them arrested. Hmmm maybe that was it …….

Men speak a different language, that’s for sure

I broke up with her	She dumped me
I cant find it	It did not fall into my outstretched hands so I don’t know where the hell it is
Can I help with dinner	I am starving
I know exactly where we are	We are lost and I am not going to ask for directions
I don’t need to read the manual	I can mess it up completely on my own
I think we should be friends	You’re ugly/fat/both
It’s a Guy thing	I don’t know why I feel so, but won’t admit that its totally illogical and irrational
Mom/Honey I bought you flowers	I am going for a stag party tonight and this is a bribe so that you don’t make me sleep on the couch when I get back
Mom/Honey I bought you flowers	The babe selling them was hot
It’s a really good movie	Its got guns, knives, fast cars, hot babes
Nice dress	Nice cleavage
Let’s talk	I’m trying to impress you with my sensitive side because I want to have sex with you
What do you mean, you need new clothes	I hate shopping
Yes, that one is nice	Why do you ask me this always when you’re shopping,  You are not going to listen to me any way
You look fabulous	Oh please for Godsakes, take this one.  I am starving and tired
That one looks good one you	Pick any one and lets get out of here
I missed you	The house is a mess, I cant cook and am out of money, I cant find any thing
I bought you a present	It came free with my beer
I’ll call you	Next
I had her	In my dreams
Mom/Honey, Do you really love me?	I did something stupid and you’re going to find out soon
Mom/Honey, Do you really love me?	I maxed out the credit card and the bill is due

 

Link to a story of mine

Yes this is a shameless bit of self promotion.

I normally write funny stuff – mostly about my family.  But I have written spooky stuff too and request you people to view it and give me your comments

I know that this is a shameless bit of self promotion – but kya karen, wanted feedback

Link to a story of mine

Yes this is a shameless bit of self promotion.

I normally write funny stuff – mostly about my family.  But I have written spooky stuff too and request you people to view it and give me your comments

I know that this is a shameless bit of self promotion – but kya karen, wanted feedback

Link to a story of mine

Yes this is a shameless bit of self promotion.

I normally write funny stuff – mostly about my family.  But I have written spooky stuff too and request you people to view it and give me your comments

I know that this is a shameless bit of self promotion – but kya karen, wanted feedback