Yesterday when I went home, the duo, were all upbeat. The Jellybean complained that Ammachy had smacked her and the peapod went on about the yummy chocolate Dada got them before he left for office. After the hugs & kisses they both went back to playing their own games. During their play, both got to searching something, I don't quite recollect what. They started pulling out drawers and upturning stuff. I could clearly see it in a small container right between the drawers they were yanking open and the toy basket they were ruffling. Sitting on the couch with my legs stretched out lazily I kept asking them to look in the blue basket. Both looked at me and then went back to the drawer or the basket but very clearly acted as if the blue basket did not exist. Finally they emptied the entire toy basket on the floor, pulled over stuff from the drawers to the floor and I didn't know where to jump. It was very clear that they weren't searching any more, probably forgotten too, but having fun annoying me. Because, after creating that mess, they both look at me and when I chided them for their behaviour they smiled, laughed a little, looked at each other and then screamed their lungs out like it was bliss.
The more I tried to shut them up, they laughed and screamed some more. My sister had got them a doll that sings "twinkle twinkle" and says "Mumma, Daddy I love you" and then shuts up untill you pat it again. For some reason this doll seemed sensitive to our milk cooker whistling. Whenever the milk cooker whistles, the doll perched on top of the refrigerator starts singing & talking. That is untill yesterday. So y/d when the duo screamed and the noise reached deafening decibels, the doll perched on the refrigerator started talking. We all laughed and ofcourse regretted it immediately. The doll sang and talked and stopped and the girls would scream again. Again and Again, I was scared the neighbours might call the cops in with all the shrieks going on in here. Finally I switched the battery off. That made them mad at me and so they kept screaming at me totally annoyed. I was almost deaf. Finally I had to threaten them with "A little more noise and I will shut you up in the dark" to get some silence. After 2 mins they cried TOGETHER. Aah!!! They both slept after 15-20mins of book reading leaving me totally drained :).
So that is why the wise say never get the kids very excited because then they do not know how to calm themselves down and then they cry.
On a different note, both the kids are trying to form sentences with all the words they know. Its fun deciphering what they actually mean. While we are successful 99% of the time, the one word which is yet a mystery is "Maka naka bella". Last month , most days when I got home, the peapod greeted me with "Maka naka bella". On the phone, after the customary, hello mumma comes "maka naka bella". Ask her to repeat it and she will oblige as many times. We laughed and rolled on the floor just hearing her say it in her serious, no-nonsense tone. My take is, she was with my sis-in-law for a day. Her cousin, my sis-in-law's daughter speaks only Hindi. I think this is something she picked up from her and ofcourse I have no clue what is she trying to imitate. Whatever it is, it is soon fading and I don't hear it a lot these days but it was so sweet I had to save it in here.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
All girls/boys v/s co-ed
I had been planning to do this post in a couple of weeks, but chandni and Sporadic blogger brought it up today and that forces me to do a post immediately so here I go.
Why have I been thinking about this? The peapod is just 2 years and 4 months now, and I need not worry about her school for an another 2 years. But every time I meet a parent the conversation drifts to school. There are these schools perceived as the best in every area, lets say in a 10-15km radius. The one that happens to be in ours, is a girls school. Also the second best and the third best. So now I deliberately try to find out if there are any co-eds nearby.
I was in a co-ed right from kindergarten untill graduation. I think my concept of equality for gender comes in from there and probably also from the fact that I have no brothers. And I fiercely perceive the gender equality balance. Before you label me a blind feminist, I also accept that I might not be able to lift weights or change tyres like the boys, but I know where I can match and what I can out-do them. This acceptance of my strength and weaknesses, I believe comes from the fact that I have been among them.
Like chandni said, our school too had 2 posts for every administrative office, a head girl and a head boy, 2 vice captains and so on. But for anything that needs to be based on merit, you need to compete and be the best to get there. Which is similar to real life. I have been there, have worked after class with a whole lot of others on various projects or just dance practise or the drill or carol practise or cleaning the premises or whatever it is. We have also run pillar to post getting sponsorship for a funfest we organised when I was in the tenth to raise fund for the new school building. We have roamed the entire town of Billimora, a small town in Gujarat, on cycles, after school, getting into one shop or the other, begging for sponsorships. OK, Agreed the roaming was more for fun but then we got the sponsorships we needed and I am told the school building today is nothing close to anything we studied in. I hope to make it there someday with hubby and the peapod. During my 10th, we were a gang of 3-4 girls and 2-3 boys who used to study togather in each other's place. OK, the hidden agenda was only to eat the stuff the mom's made and push off. This is getting very nostalgic. Anyway, friends came home, boys and girls, spent time with the parents or sisters if I wasn't around and so on. In short we had no mental partition between boys and girls, they were all just friends with a name.
Co-ed boys and girls in my opinion learn early to accept each other just as fellow beings destined to share the space on earth. Friends who came in from a all-girls or all-boys were generally very reserved and shy with the other gender around. Also I believe a lot of unassisted sex education happens in all-girls/all-boys school from what you hear and see. I am not sure if I can vouch for all, but I don't remember a single instance of any such talks. Not that it was a tabboo but it just never came up as something interesting. While I am not against imparting sex education(which did not happen during our times), but kids should know only age-appropriate things. Sex is good to know about but not something they should be very interested or yapping away in school.
We have atleast 5 school-going kids in the apartment complex where I live. Boys and girls who go to all-girls school and all-boys school because like I told you that is the best school around. I have seen them all play and I don't see any kind of awkwardness. Having said all the above things I believe, I was actually very surprised. When I was talking about this to a colleague, she said that maybe its because families earlier used to create huge issues around the boys n girls thing and so it was imbibed in small minds. These days, families are more open about it and hence the kids are more comfortable. Good point.
While I would like a co-ed for the peapod, in all probability I might still have to send her to a all-girls school. Maybe she will have a different kind of fun and experience than I had. Maybe it is not a issue. You tell me.
Why have I been thinking about this? The peapod is just 2 years and 4 months now, and I need not worry about her school for an another 2 years. But every time I meet a parent the conversation drifts to school. There are these schools perceived as the best in every area, lets say in a 10-15km radius. The one that happens to be in ours, is a girls school. Also the second best and the third best. So now I deliberately try to find out if there are any co-eds nearby.
I was in a co-ed right from kindergarten untill graduation. I think my concept of equality for gender comes in from there and probably also from the fact that I have no brothers. And I fiercely perceive the gender equality balance. Before you label me a blind feminist, I also accept that I might not be able to lift weights or change tyres like the boys, but I know where I can match and what I can out-do them. This acceptance of my strength and weaknesses, I believe comes from the fact that I have been among them.
Like chandni said, our school too had 2 posts for every administrative office, a head girl and a head boy, 2 vice captains and so on. But for anything that needs to be based on merit, you need to compete and be the best to get there. Which is similar to real life. I have been there, have worked after class with a whole lot of others on various projects or just dance practise or the drill or carol practise or cleaning the premises or whatever it is. We have also run pillar to post getting sponsorship for a funfest we organised when I was in the tenth to raise fund for the new school building. We have roamed the entire town of Billimora, a small town in Gujarat, on cycles, after school, getting into one shop or the other, begging for sponsorships. OK, Agreed the roaming was more for fun but then we got the sponsorships we needed and I am told the school building today is nothing close to anything we studied in. I hope to make it there someday with hubby and the peapod. During my 10th, we were a gang of 3-4 girls and 2-3 boys who used to study togather in each other's place. OK, the hidden agenda was only to eat the stuff the mom's made and push off. This is getting very nostalgic. Anyway, friends came home, boys and girls, spent time with the parents or sisters if I wasn't around and so on. In short we had no mental partition between boys and girls, they were all just friends with a name.
Co-ed boys and girls in my opinion learn early to accept each other just as fellow beings destined to share the space on earth. Friends who came in from a all-girls or all-boys were generally very reserved and shy with the other gender around. Also I believe a lot of unassisted sex education happens in all-girls/all-boys school from what you hear and see. I am not sure if I can vouch for all, but I don't remember a single instance of any such talks. Not that it was a tabboo but it just never came up as something interesting. While I am not against imparting sex education(which did not happen during our times), but kids should know only age-appropriate things. Sex is good to know about but not something they should be very interested or yapping away in school.
We have atleast 5 school-going kids in the apartment complex where I live. Boys and girls who go to all-girls school and all-boys school because like I told you that is the best school around. I have seen them all play and I don't see any kind of awkwardness. Having said all the above things I believe, I was actually very surprised. When I was talking about this to a colleague, she said that maybe its because families earlier used to create huge issues around the boys n girls thing and so it was imbibed in small minds. These days, families are more open about it and hence the kids are more comfortable. Good point.
While I would like a co-ed for the peapod, in all probability I might still have to send her to a all-girls school. Maybe she will have a different kind of fun and experience than I had. Maybe it is not a issue. You tell me.
Monday, July 21, 2008
JellyBean turns TWO
On the 27th June, my niece, who I call jellybean on this blog, turned 2. 2 years back,when she was born, I was stuck at home with the peapod and the entire family cast was in the hospital, waiting for her to arrive. Finally she arrived and her mom was wheeled out. Less than an hour after she was born, she stared at your father for a very long time and eveybody who came in to see her, remarked how she had her eyes wide open and was staring right into his eyes.
So to celebrate her 2nd birthday, We had a small party with just family. Still, too many gifts. Everybody who came in got 2 gifts, one for the bday girl ofcourse and the other for the peapod. The girls went crazy tearing the noise-making-glitter-sheets and were even more happy when they realized that is what they were supposed to be doing. As usual, when they get more than one can handle, they immediately divide and delegate between themselves. Peapod, take this, Jellybean will take this ..ok? .."ok" comes back the prompt reply. On my birthday about a month back, I taught(forced) both of them to sing me the birthday song. After all the hoopalah, the peapod can sing the first line "Happy birthday to you" while the jelly bean customized it to "Happy to you". They sang to each other just trying to contain all the excitement.
Her Mom, Dad and her uncle got her birthday dresses and they all fought over which one she should wear for the party. The uncle's choice was out of the race right at the begining because it seems he had bought it for the next year's party ....He forgot to check the age tag..Oops!! The father's choice won since we all liked what he bought so we shamelessly ditched the sister's choice for the BIL's choice. The Jelly bean blew the candle and cut the cake with mom and dad. We put on a little kiddie music and they did a little jaaz. Dance to the peapod and jellybean means moving around in circles like the dog trying to catch its own tail. The highlight of the day was little Ben's dance. The peapod picked up a few of thoes elephant-steps from him while the jelly bean retired to her mom's arms after being bumped a couple of times by our little disco dancer. There are some pearls of wisdom from his grandfather(my dad's brother) in the other videos I have which I plan to release on his 16th birthday, as a gift ofcourse.
Seemed like we did not get any decent shots of the bday girl in her birthday fineries on THE day, so when she returned from church on Sunday we planned a photo shoot in the balcony. She picked a packet on her way from the kitchen to the balcony to show-off as her gifts. Turned out, it was a cabbage and no fancy gift. She posed inspite, with it and then without it while everyone kept laughing. The little girl has to cater to her own pride.
She was this little frail baby when she was born. Though she weighed 3kgs, she seemed very weak. She picked up fast in the coming days and now has turned into this sweet girl who can put on 250 expressions a day and a 100 tantrums. Her expressions when angry are priceless. I love irritating her. From the shy little baby she came in 7 months back, she has transformed into this wild cat now. The transition has been fun watching and sometimes nerve wrecking(when thoes shrill cries begin). she will run after the peapod and hit her, if the peapod dared medle with her. If one hit did not seem like was at target, she will run after the peapod and hit her till she is satisfied. The reason her needing so many trials are because, the jelly bean has tiny palms and feet so its a lot of effort giving the exact effect back. Its lots of fun watching the 2 play their own games in their own little world. Taking turns with everything and anything has come very naturally to the 2.
Love you sweetheart. I dread the day you plan to say bye bye to the peapod.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
My 2 minutes of fame
People who have been waiting for the jellybean's birthday update, its soon coming. Meanwhile let me talk about something at work.
One fine day, 2 months ago, my line manager(boss's boss) extends me an invite to attend a meeting with the department head and a few names from the 'elitist' department in the company. The people from this group have the "I-know-everything" attitude. We hate them all and would love to be there kinds. The meeting invite had a brief agenda and I wasn't sure of my role. When I asked the big boss, he just said, come along, its about what you guys are working on. OK fine. Now the department head guy is a shrewd guy. Diplomacy and politeness did not seem to be part of his dictionary based on my prior experiences with him. So I was a little wary of being in a meeting with him.
Coming to the day of the meeting, I and the line manager walk in to a room full of people(atleast 6-7). I try to make up for the lack in height by walking in straight, a straight face and a slight smile. Basically acting all dignified. You know what I mean right? Anyway, as soon as I seat myself next to the six footer, I feel all nervous. Its basically the silence in the room and the presence of the crude someone I mentioned. The Crude guy then looks at me, raises his eyebrows and asks the manager how was I relevant to the meeting. While my manager is struggling to answer that one, he immediately tells me, I am sure you will have better things to do with your time, donot waste your time here. I was like ..."What the %$^&%*&"...Ofcourse I did not say that. I turned beetroot red probably and fumbled a "ok", gave my manager a nasty look, and walked off the room with the remaining shreds of dignity I had. It all probably lasted 2 mins. I ranted & cribed about the insult at lunch for days there after.
2 weeks after that meeting, I am talking to a senior manager and he tells me about some positive developments in our team. I am mighty pleased. He then tells me, oh this was discussed in the meeting you had with the Dept head and your line manager. I am like "me?" he said yes, you remember you had been invited but the the dept head thought otherwise. This senior manager wasn't even there in that meeting. So what does that mean? While I was pleased at the outcome, I could hear people gossiping & laughing behind my back. I ranted about this too for a couple of days at lunch.
3 weeks latter, in a casual meeting with an another senior manager, he mentioned so-and-so had some good things to say about our team. Since the so-and-so leads the elitist group at work, I was very surprised specially because I have never heard of him in our circles with respect to work. I should have left it at that, but when have I learnt, so I ask "How does he know" and he comes back with "You remember that meeting ....blah blah" ... God this guy also wasn't there. *&$%$#%&^. So its doing the rounds that I was kicked out of a meeting.
Now a week back, I went in for my interview with the elitist group. I have realized at whatever stage you are in life, however great or small your achievements are, interviews have a way of chickening you totally. Its been 3 years since I have appeared for an interview. I walk-in totally nervous. A Sardar walks-in and greets me. He continues to say "We have met before". I rake my brains and cannot place him anywhere so I fumble, curse my failing memory, and retort with a frown "I cannot recollect". He smiles and adds, "we met in the meeting with your dept head and your line manager". Now I was all ready, getting bolder and shot back non-chalantly "Oh yes, my 2 mins of fame". He laughed and said "yes mam".
There on everything was smooth. The interview went on well. 20 mins of questions and 10mins of praising me for the skills I owned and the ones I pretend to have and even the ones I don't have. I almost felt I was due for a thank you speech by the end of it. Its been a really long time anybody has said some nice things about me, other than ofcourse me bragging about it here and there and also the ones I fish around the house. I wanted to come outside the room and explode. When my team mates were out of the interview, they had some cruel stories to tell about how they were grilled. Obviously, I couldn't explode right in front of them. The explosion had to wait. By 5pm, I could wait no longer, I decided, I will treat myself before any of them comes back and says "oh sorry mam, mistaken identity, I wasn't talking about you".
What is better that "Shopping" to boost yourself. So I take a rick to MG Road. Walk into STS mall. What do I see, 70% off at Pyramids and 50% off at Westside. Great. Pick 5 'L' & 'XL' size tops in Westside and walk to the trial room. While I am mentally prepared for none to fit me, magic happens, EVERYTHING fits, infact I am tempted to try a 'M' and I do. And what do you know, 'M' FITS ME COMFORTABLY AS WELL. God What did I do to deserve this day. Beautiful.
Pinch me someone.
One fine day, 2 months ago, my line manager(boss's boss) extends me an invite to attend a meeting with the department head and a few names from the 'elitist' department in the company. The people from this group have the "I-know-everything" attitude. We hate them all and would love to be there kinds. The meeting invite had a brief agenda and I wasn't sure of my role. When I asked the big boss, he just said, come along, its about what you guys are working on. OK fine. Now the department head guy is a shrewd guy. Diplomacy and politeness did not seem to be part of his dictionary based on my prior experiences with him. So I was a little wary of being in a meeting with him.
Coming to the day of the meeting, I and the line manager walk in to a room full of people(atleast 6-7). I try to make up for the lack in height by walking in straight, a straight face and a slight smile. Basically acting all dignified. You know what I mean right? Anyway, as soon as I seat myself next to the six footer, I feel all nervous. Its basically the silence in the room and the presence of the crude someone I mentioned. The Crude guy then looks at me, raises his eyebrows and asks the manager how was I relevant to the meeting. While my manager is struggling to answer that one, he immediately tells me, I am sure you will have better things to do with your time, donot waste your time here. I was like ..."What the %$^&%*&"...Ofcourse I did not say that. I turned beetroot red probably and fumbled a "ok", gave my manager a nasty look, and walked off the room with the remaining shreds of dignity I had. It all probably lasted 2 mins. I ranted & cribed about the insult at lunch for days there after.
2 weeks after that meeting, I am talking to a senior manager and he tells me about some positive developments in our team. I am mighty pleased. He then tells me, oh this was discussed in the meeting you had with the Dept head and your line manager. I am like "me?" he said yes, you remember you had been invited but the the dept head thought otherwise. This senior manager wasn't even there in that meeting. So what does that mean? While I was pleased at the outcome, I could hear people gossiping & laughing behind my back. I ranted about this too for a couple of days at lunch.
3 weeks latter, in a casual meeting with an another senior manager, he mentioned so-and-so had some good things to say about our team. Since the so-and-so leads the elitist group at work, I was very surprised specially because I have never heard of him in our circles with respect to work. I should have left it at that, but when have I learnt, so I ask "How does he know" and he comes back with "You remember that meeting ....blah blah" ... God this guy also wasn't there. *&$%$#%&^. So its doing the rounds that I was kicked out of a meeting.
Now a week back, I went in for my interview with the elitist group. I have realized at whatever stage you are in life, however great or small your achievements are, interviews have a way of chickening you totally. Its been 3 years since I have appeared for an interview. I walk-in totally nervous. A Sardar walks-in and greets me. He continues to say "We have met before". I rake my brains and cannot place him anywhere so I fumble, curse my failing memory, and retort with a frown "I cannot recollect". He smiles and adds, "we met in the meeting with your dept head and your line manager". Now I was all ready, getting bolder and shot back non-chalantly "Oh yes, my 2 mins of fame". He laughed and said "yes mam".
There on everything was smooth. The interview went on well. 20 mins of questions and 10mins of praising me for the skills I owned and the ones I pretend to have and even the ones I don't have. I almost felt I was due for a thank you speech by the end of it. Its been a really long time anybody has said some nice things about me, other than ofcourse me bragging about it here and there and also the ones I fish around the house. I wanted to come outside the room and explode. When my team mates were out of the interview, they had some cruel stories to tell about how they were grilled. Obviously, I couldn't explode right in front of them. The explosion had to wait. By 5pm, I could wait no longer, I decided, I will treat myself before any of them comes back and says "oh sorry mam, mistaken identity, I wasn't talking about you".
What is better that "Shopping" to boost yourself. So I take a rick to MG Road. Walk into STS mall. What do I see, 70% off at Pyramids and 50% off at Westside. Great. Pick 5 'L' & 'XL' size tops in Westside and walk to the trial room. While I am mentally prepared for none to fit me, magic happens, EVERYTHING fits, infact I am tempted to try a 'M' and I do. And what do you know, 'M' FITS ME COMFORTABLY AS WELL. God What did I do to deserve this day. Beautiful.
Pinch me someone.
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