Joyce at 14

She walks, runs & kicks. She climbs 2 flights of stairs 5 times a minute (atleast seems so). Good for my health you might say, I don't think so. At 14 she can kick a ball, she can show anger by kicking anything available at her discreet.No, this is not a practice in our place and I have no clue where she gets it from. It could be probably because my mom moves rags with her feet, just a guess .

She claps and turns around. She enjoys watching nursery rhymes.

She drink off her sippy, glass and even a bottle. She has learnt to sip through a straw as well.
P took her for a walk one day and bought some coconut water from the street since he was thirsty, Ofcourse the daughter wasn't going to let the father enjoy it in peace until he taught her how to sip. Now every time we walk the road and pass the coconut seller, she keeps smacking her lips and pointing fingers.

She imitates P exercising everyday. One day, he was just showing off his muscles and she started imitating him forcing strength while grinding her teeth.

She tries to eat all kind of raw vegetables. Tomatoes, beans, onions and even bitter groud. She even tried digging her teeth into garlic and latter spit it out in disgust.

She is scared of the dog growling not barking. she is scared of the grinder, the moped starting and thunder and little butterflies sitting on the ceiling. She comes running and clings hard or even better is she runs through that stretch of the house instead of walking or strolling where the butterfly or insect is seen on the ceiling.

As soon as I set the table for dinner or breakfast, she goes in search for P and signals him with a smacking sound while summoning him with a nodding head. Now-a-days she pushes him towards the dinning. Smacking is her way to tell us she is hungry or thirsty.

These days she seems to be putting things into her mouth just to grab attention. Couple of days back I was so tired of yelling "spit, spit" after she put in a piece of paper into her mouth, I just ignored her. In a few minutes she comes to me and holds out her tongue for me to see. I ignored her again and she comes back holding the thing in her hand :).

All the trolleys/drawers in the Joyce household has been emptied or dumped with things otherwise not required for the smooth running of the kitchen or the house in general.

Not Potty trained, not weaned and does not sleep on her own yet.

My cousin Sharon

Hi Again!!!

Here is one more personality. My cousin Sharon. This is when I was 12 and she was 9 in perfect harmony.



Sharon with her Mom. Do you know, when I was born, I used to sit on my aunty's tummy(that is Sharon's head or leg whichever) and go to sleep. What does she know, possessive toddler ;)





She finally sat at 9 months.


I was just checking if she was sleeping or awake. And there she indeed is. Did I tell you of her 2 hobbies, 'Sleeping' & 'Crying for Mama' keeps her occupied for the whole day. I hear she has started crawling and getting up with support, waiting to see the lazy bum finally off her BUMS ..he he he :)

8 things about Myself

Poppins tagged me. When you are tagged, you do the tag so here I am.

• I can sleep through earthquakes ( doesn't matter what is falling off from where and if it falls on me, just push it away and continue), floods ( I was discovered sleeping on a floating mattress with just a small stretch in the centre of the mattress that wasn't wet yet. The tap was left open overnight, I thought I was dreaming the waters around and never bothered to get up) & loud comotions (I have woken up to people of my building & my aunt staring at me next to my bed. They had to literally break-thru the door) . Joyce is Ditto, She slept through my friends sangeet with the blarring loud speakers.
• I never taste what I cook before I serve. My rationale behind this is, if I taste and realize its no good I don't know what to do next.
• I have Sky-dived.
• I had decided to name my daughter as "Swekruti" in class 9.
• I am not a detail person. I would never notice a haircut unless you are bald. Subtle hints never work with me.
• I am down right practical and pretty unemotional most times.
• I do not tend to keep in touch with people regularly. I am known for missing in action for months togather and then resurface suddenly.
• My mom and I have the exact opposite choices and opinions about everything debatable.

I tag

Risha, Ams, Biju, Naina, Minal, Rohini, Sarah, Upsi

Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) Bills

I think it was some 3-4 years back, sitting on the terrace of my previous office with a notorious gang over tea we were discussing why the bloody hell is the MSEB bill printed in Marathi. The scenario is still the same. Marathi is the local language of the State. Most of us then part of that discussion were people who did come to Pune for work and were not born and bought up in this part of the world. So most of us did not understand Marathi. The MSEB bills are printed in Marathi and thankfully the figures are in English, which reminds me to thank for God for little mercies.

I can understand the importance of the local language. I can understand the sentiment of wanting to keep it in marathi but I don't understand the stubbornness of keeping every written word in marathi ALONE except for the title 'Maharashtra State Electricity Board'. It is the case with the property tax bill as well. Amount and the pay-date are in English but everything else on that piece of paper is Marathi. I am not sure about MTNL bills but BSNL has labels and instructions in English & Marathi.

Pune is gearing up to be the next IT hub after Bangalore, if it has not been qualified so already. There is so much activity going around, be it building roads, BRT buses, special BRT routes, brand new PMC & PCMC buses, signals working (except on weekends), fly-overs or better sanitation options to just build better infrastructure and facilitate the boom. Ofcourse all this isn't happening for a whole new generation of Puneris ALONE. Ofcourse the State is planning on immigrants, rather banking on people from the north, south, east, and west to come and make Pune their home. Pune also has its share of international students who come in for their choice of education. Then why this bias to the local language on something as important as the MSEB bill (or are you suggesting we don't pay the bills and the 'friendly' Puneris will chip in) .

The people I tried arguing this with gave me 'Chennai' as an example. Though chennaites have their arguments about 'Hindi' they do have a secondary language 'English' which would help most immigrants get through most printed government documents/bills etc. Pune is worse with no secondary language at all. I am not sure about Mumbai but I am guessing the metro should be having a secondary language on the bills unlike here.

I think Pune is a beautiful place to live with the pleasant climate and no-nonsense attitude of most people but with the cosmopolitan status its acquiring, the State needs to change the typical 'Puneri' attitude and be more welcoming and willing to accommodate. Coming back to my lame point, please please print your bills, documents with English or hindi as well along with marathi ofcourse and save us ignorants of the tedious exercises trying to figure out meter readings and consumption units with out confusing one with the other.

Hardworking Joyce!!

Hello everybody!!! I know my milestone is the next post mumma is planning to do, mumma is soon gonna be telling you how I am getting naughty and messy so I decided to tell you how I am not.

I get up before mumma most days. I drag her out of bed. I guess she is tired so I get the milk in the morning from the milk man.

I help sweeping the floor. I also help & supervise
our maid. Ammachy doesn't understand marathi, so I have to pitch in to help both.

I also help mopping the floor and sometimes this dumb piece in my hand knocks out things at different places and I get the looks. You think that is fair??

I help Ammachy clean her garden everyday. There are quite a few strange things in here and every time I try checking them out, I have my mom and Ammachy at my throat screaming spit spit, spit, spit ...irritates me no end ....I spit it right out so that they can stop screaming and leave my ear drums intact.

I know how mom loves a neat house and things in their own place. I always help with all the folding and packing. Sometimes I have to get into those bags and clean it of the last dirt. Don't ask me how. Aren't we toddlers entitled to any secrets of our own??

And finally when I am done with helping all at home, I get very little time to play :(. I love my toy basket. I feel like the 'Queen' sitting on top of my toy basket


I hope now you are convinced and will not believe a thing mom comes up with.

Century Celebrations!!!

With this I celebrate my 100th post on Enigma. I decided to pen down my blog story infact my journey on my blog.

A friend in office started his own blog and he blogged every weekday and we were all hooked to his blog and the blogs he linked to. That was the time when I did a small article for a inter-company magazine. I always loved to write and loved writing subtle humorous post(I am no where there....but so I thought).With a little nudge an another close friend started blogging. And then I decided I should try it too but then I was very sure I could never make it to that kind of frequency(post daily or even 2-3 times a week). I got on to the www and created a blog for myself nevertheless. I have no idea why I named it as Enigma, I don't think I thought about it enough but I was guessing I am most probably going to be talking/penning about the mysterious ways of life so it was "Enigma". My first post was also all about enigma. So basically it was all about a repository for brilliant articles I might come up with. Slowly there weren't any brilliant ideas coming and Enigma was rotting away with just one post.Influenced by other bloggers I too started blogging about happenings of daily life that needed a mention to the wider audience(friends & colleagues of the previous organization). We did encourage a lot of people in my previous organization to start their blogs ultimately. We commented on each other's blogs, sent mails saying a post is up, if found uncommented, kept harassing each other with "did you read my post" 101 times until a comment is duly made by the frustrated soul. The organization then did a google search based on our names to find our blogs and ofcourse now it is "the previous organization" for all bloggers for obvious reasons. We used an external commenting system(haloscan I think) which is no longer supported now. When switching to the blogger.com's comment system I lost all the earlier comments.

My blog reflects the journey of my life in the last 3-4 years from being a spinster who tried to do log her travels, complained about the pathetic roads in Pune, to getting married, to the day I heard my baby's heart beat in my womb, about my mom and her mean ways,to celebrating our first marriage anniversary, ramblings during my pregnancy, to my baby's birth and her milestones, her first birthday bash and so on thereafter. I have no idea what am I blogging away these days.

I started out in 2004 and pretty much limited to blog-hopping to friends. Sooner or latter there wasn't enough to read. Anu's blog probably was the first blog that I came across in the virtual world. She writes beautifully and is also probably responsible for me giving up my dreams of writing brilliant stuff. I realized I could never get close and so gave it up like a wise young girl. I started blogrolling each I enjoyed reading. Soon followed stalwarts like Vantage point, India Uncut, Youth curry, Sidin etc of the Indian blogosphere. Then I accidentally happened to visitArt and that is where I saw or discovered the many mom's bragging about their kids just like how I was beginning to do. It was on Usha's blog though where I discovered the term "mumma bloggers".While searching for some cake recipes for my daughter's first Christmas I landed on Deep Ann's andmyWorkshop's recipe blog . Excellent recipes & mouth-watering pictures. From Deep Ann's blog I landed on Sarah's blog and have been hooked ever since. Sarah's blog is the story of her life that she is attempting to write (and she is doing an excellent job of it). I am sure her blog will be a great source of inspiration for those going through difficult times in life.
Comment, Ofcourse I love them. I enjoy reading them. Initially I wouldn't reply to comments and then realized it was polite to reply and it does help grow the blogger and the reader connection. I do comment on posts I can relate to or have an opinion or a view to offer or to even appreciate how well they have described what they did but sometimes I am just running against time and the captcha codes keep getting time-outs.

What does my blog mean to me today? It is exactly what it is meant to be. Its 100 posts in 3-3.5 years..talks about my frequency. It is no stupid repository for articles & views unpublished. It is my web log. I enjoy reading &debating the different perspectives people have. For any given topic there are probably almost an equal number of people with exactly opposite views and that helps me see where they come from in terms of background, experiences in life, geographical locations, culture etc. This is my space to tell you my tales from my childhood & life around. Its my travelogues, Its Joyce captured in time, Its about life in Pune, Its about my takes on different aspects of life.

Couple of months back, Kapil, the one who introduced me to the blogosphere called me to tell that he is surprised to see me still blogging. Many with whom I started blogging have given-up with a few exceptions. Recently I dragged a very dear cousin of mine into the blogosphere by absolute confusion. I thought he had abandoned the blog after his first post but there is hope of it surviving I guess.

I love the fact that this blog helps me to express myself as I care. It could be a travelogues one day and a baby log the other and I don't need to worry. Friends & bloggers will come along, read, leave a comment or send me a mail or just read and leave but leave a counter increment behind and I feel so connected.

Gulmohur

Come Summer and Pune has Gulmohurs in full bloom all around. The Gulmohur, which is the view from our windows, stands tall over 2 old cottages with huge clusters of red-orange flowers, the brown flattened pods and green leaves. It is a beautiful sight. We sip our morning & evening teas sitting on the window sill, watching the Gulmohur in all its majesty, while Joyce plays peekaboo with the tall french windows & tries to look for birds that make strange noises. I love the Gulmohur. I just can't have enough it.
I fell in love with the Gulmohur back in school. My school had 2 Gulmohurs on both sides of the Gate. Many a Games and PT(physical training) periods were spent underneath it. Lots of garba(a Gujarati folk dance) & dandiya practises have been performed underneath. Lots of breaks and rests in-between long jumps and high jumps have been under the tree. Lots of tiffins were gulped admist laughter and jokes underneath. Have played the 'love-me-love-me-nots' with thoes beautiful green leaves. In short lots of memories of the Gulmohur.
I tried clicking a couple of pics of the Gulmohar outside our window but just couldn't do justice to what I see. I had a similar feeling when I visited the 'Lake district' in UK, a couple of years back. Have you ever felt so or do I need a better camera? This is a pic I clicked that absolutely doesn't do justice to what we see there. Serene and Captivating.

Like Dada or Mama?

The day Joyce was born, everyone who came to see us were prepared with their guess at who does my child look like. Absolutely divided. My family, as in , Mom, my extended family, uncles, aunts, basically all who had seen me as a kid claimed she was just like me and ofcourse P's entire family including parents, aunts, uncles all claimed they resembled him. I was happy then. since atleast half the world is on my side.

Slowly well-meaning friends and neighbours and acquaintances at social gatherings or otherwise would go ...oh she is so NOT like you. She looks like P or She looks like her grand father and so on. Now obviously these people haven't seen me young and all they see now is a wheatish complexioned, long faced, short mother and a fair, round faced fairly tall father. Obviously the scales slides the Dada side and he is grinning because he knows how I disagree and am being polite.

The only thing people are not able to figure out about Joyce is her curly hair. No one in P's family has curly hair. My father had. Mine is too, but fairly less than his. My Father's granny in all her snaps, seemed like she had a boy-cut, but that was just curly hair curled all the way to her scalp. My cousins have spent a fortune in the parlour trying to straighten their hair. So coming back, Joyce's curly hair attributes to my genes :). I am Happy, one down.

I and P often argue about who she is going to be like. Once he showed me an article which stated that every women would want to claim her child is like the father. It is a mental game where the women is telling the father, "really, is your child". I probably belong to a different league :). I want her to be like me.

Yesterday my cousin mentioned, her smile is like mine. Ofcourse, two down. I am counting. Recently, while going through old albums I found a pic of mine at ONE. I have been carrying that pic in my bag to get it scanned. P found the pic in my bag .."oh so that is what you are going to pull out every time anyone says she looks like me uh" ?? ... But the self-pompous creature that I am ... I will post in on my blog for the world to look at :), So ladies & gentleman, here I present the proof.


Joyce's picture taken at 8 months

Tell me there is something similar please. Else I will get a better pic :)