being ambitious and being a mother....

Someone was talking to me about being ambitious , about being a mother and not being able to spend time with the 4 year old child .

Why my parents made me so ambitious that i can't look beyond my career and spend time with my child . Even when i am home and the child wants to play with me i know i am thinking or planning something else when i should be playing whole heartedly with my child. All the workload descends on me whenever my child asks me to play with him and i get irritated and snap on him or just keep multitasking while playing with the son....the reason why i am concerned is that my son doesn't bond with me well and i feel he feels alienated . Also i am noticing that whenever i go to his room when he is alone , he gets startled and almost scared , as if he withdraws all his playful tentacles and encloses himself into a hard shell whenever i am close to him.....what to do ???

The mother looked harried and pale and shaken . The only sparkle of dimmest light came to her face when she talked about her ambition and what projects she is working on. Making it lucid , i repeat it was still a very dim sallow sparkle.

Does your ambition leads you to this state of mind ?

Playing with your child with your heart and soul in unison , you could be reviving your own energies too . A revived , energetic , happy companion is all a child needs . Not a hovering helicopter who instructs to do this and to do that too . Not at all a half hearted playmate.

You can make your life beautiful with a baby around . The innocence and candid laughter touches your soul and makes the life worth living .
Are you letting your ambition destroy your happiness , your life ?

Do you think your ambition is the sole solace of your life ?

I sound very harsh when i ask why do you need a child when you don't have the time to enjoy the childhood of your own kid . In the process you destroy the childhood of you own kid .

I am not against being ambitious and chasing your dreams .

If you dream about a professional position , does it mean you should not enjoy life ?

I would also want to ask a question about the ambition , the dream of making it big.
Is the ambition about making it big professionally or being happy and contented in life in general? About having a family and kids who love you and care for you , and you care for them. 

You worked hard for your professional degrees and to rise . To the position you like.

You did absolutely nothing worthwhile to get married and to bear that child who is the biggest worry of your life today .

Bearing a child doesn't need any qualification or ambition , sadly.
Oh wait , there is a tendency to fit in the society by getting married and having children , you bear children because you want to look perfect.

Perfect.

Can you pick up the professional ambition and place it on a higher pedestal ?

Higher than the 'life' . The 'life' you so miss when the child is alienated from you and the family scene never happens even when you have decided to marry and have a family.

You chose your ambition and you chose to have a family . The ambition eats you up and the family becomes a punching bag . A refuse . An irritable entity in your life. A nagging reminder of the things to do list.

You expect your child to love you , come running to you happily when you come home and wrap his arms around you . Comfort you after work (smirk)....but your child is not doing all of that .... what is wrong with him.... how to make him straight??

Balance .

The child has the birthright to be nurtured . Nature is reminding you . Take notice.

Note : the thought was actually gnawing at my heart since i encountered this . The post has come out like a preaching tone . Excuse me for that . I got my slice of peace back after writing this....bash me if you don't agree ...i am ready to take it...

see what I dug up today....

Sundays are lazy excuses to get up late and have a late breakfast and so it was today. After the breakfast I went out to check my plants and as the mali (gardener) had cleared the shakarkand (sweet potato) bed yesterday, I was looking for the cracks in the ground. I spotted one and dug just with my fingers first. I do that kind of things and don't ever look at my nails :)

These pink beauties were peeping at me and I jumped up to get my tools and the camera....

An excited yet careful digging for five minutes revealed these...

And just so that you can see how big they are, I had never seen them so big .... a few smaller and thinner ones were also found, held in the other hand....

This was the very first time I had planted a sweet potato and the vine had taken over the garden in no time . I used to keep it in bounds though and even used to trim them to make a very tasty saag and even with daal (like palak wali daal) ... the leaves are beautiful even for indoor flower or plant arrangements .

I know my Dad will be so happy to see this :)

The Bracelet .... a fantasy journey into the mystical world...

The invitation to the book launch was quite tempting but i had not attended any book launch before this and i was in two minds about going to be a part of it . Half of a Sunday was to be sacrificed and it was not my idea of having a good time till now. A call from a great blogger friend got me thinking and i decided to give it a try . She generously picked me up and after a long and invigorating chit chat along the 1 hour drive we reached the venue to find a cute guy greeting us introducing himself as the kid # 2 ( Kartik ) of the lovely and vivacious Phoenixritu .

Ishaan Lalit , the kid # 1 is the author of this gripping fantasy woven around two mystical groups on war .... 27 year old Ishaan is a pilot and the first impression makes you think that the book must be a kid lit written for fun by a pampered cute looking guy ( sorry ). How wrong i was with my first impression as the book turned out to be a well crafted fantasy , actually it is a semi science fiction as there is some time travel and some brain shuffling too... when i picked up the book i was heavily prejudiced to think it as a kido literature , felt that the beginning was a bit slow ...but as i moved through the pages the book gripped me till i reached the last page .... a pleasant surprise to be honest.

I would recommend the book for all age groups , probably the teenagers and some grown up kids may find it more interesting than the insomniac minds of adults ... what ?? You still are a kid ?? Just go buy the book and read it in one go....

wishing you all .....

I realized just now how terribly late i am in wishing all my friends here a Happy New Year .

I hope you are still sticking to your new year resolutions , though i am sure some of you might have already broken your's . As for me i never made a new year resolution , resolutions work for me only when i make short term ones . So my new short term resolution is that i will be updating my blogs more often . But short term resolutions need frequent invigorations ...do i need to resolve to invigorate my resolutions frequently too...ehh...

As many of my readers and friends here already know that this time of the year could have been dreadfully painful for me and i was really not very confidant about being in a steady mind .

I feel the warmth of your love when i get the mails from you enquiring my absence from the blogs and i feel humbled as  many of you remembered this time of the year and gave me strength though your mails, comments and messages .

Thankfully , i tagged along with Arvind for one of his oficial tours ( to Chennai ) and though i was shit scared how i would feel staying alone in the geust house or would i be able to explore Chennai alone with this state of mind , i found myself in the company of extremely creative people and i am loving being with them.

So , as most of you are aware of , 31st Dec was the first death anniversary of Mithi and i am still feeling a painful lump in my throat while typing these words ( let me assure you that i am fine and enjoying my time here ) but that day was truly magical in every sense .

I was reading a book ' The Year of Magical Thinking ' by Joan Didion gifted to me by IHM and i had finished the book on the 30th . I must admit here that i was expecting a lot from this book and the only hint of magical thinking was unfolded in the final oparts of the book but reading the book at this time of the year and finishing it on that date was magical in itself . Joan had lost her husband on the 30th of Dec and i had not timed or planned the  reading of this book . IHM had handed me three books when we met at the Indiblogger meet and i had decided to bring these books to Chennai as i wanted some good books to read on this 'unpredictable' tour . I picked up this one first and it turned out this way . Joan has viewed death as a minismal event in the larger scheme of things which take place on our planet , if not the universe . She quotes many small islands were blown away by the Tsunami and as a geologist she says that she used to feel a sense of peace during earthquakes ....if that is magical...

The magical events of my day is yet to unfold . We had decided on the 30th Dec morning that we will go to watch sunrise at Marina beach and as Arvind asked for the directions and distance from out guest house a few of his colleagues wanted to come along instantly . I was apprehensive about company as i wanted this to be a private moment for us but still i decided to go with the flow and we took a local train to reach the beach . I ( we ) enjoyed the early morning train ride and the sunrise was 'magical' too . The sun , the sand and the waves were therapeutic , magical and everything else we needed that day . I am enormously thankful to the two wonderful people who accompanied us that day and made us feel protected and pampered ( we were really feeling like lost children again around this time ) . I must say here that i find it really magical whenever you get the company of nice people at the time when you are the most vulnerable , or even when otherwise mean people are nice with you in such times . 

So we watched the sunrise , bought some shells and headed to the guest house . The sea waves had washed away most of my disorientation and delirium but still there were new , however smaller waves of grief shaking me every now and then . We got ready and reached the venue ( the NISCAIR team was doing the media coverage of an important event here ) , the thought process was not very pleasant during the short drive but as soon as we reached there i decided to hold my neck straight and smile and guess what ...... Gauhar Raza complemented the both of us for looking smart . Hero-heroine ( he said jokingly ) are looking very smart today and i came up with a repartee ... director saab ko hero heroine smart lagte hain to koi fikr nahi kisi aur ko lage na lage  ( if the director thinks the hero n heroine are smart looking , it doesn't matter how we are to the others ) ... with this refreshing boost i felt like i have conquered my fears for the day .

Many times during the day i was reminded of what we were doing the same day last year and the memories were enough to shake me up , but i had the energy to gulp it down and smile and even feel good about it . Don't you feel it was magical in every sense . We were heading towards pondicherry the next day with a rejuvenated heart and mind and that trip was great too.

The mood is upbeat as i said the company of extremely creative people and the vibrant atmosphere here at the venue makes me nostalgic about my research days . Nostalgia is good ... it masks the bad memories like fresh and frothy waves of the sea smoothen out the sand as i pick small sea shells .... my cute little keepsakes....

baby parrot come again ....

I am terribly late in introducing this lovely guest to you . This was about a week back from Diwali , i heard some unusual flutter outside my window . A pleasant chirp of a herd of parrots is nothing new but they keep themselves perched on the higher branches of the trees mostly . I have failed miserably whenever i tried to shoot them

I feel so lucky to be so close to nature , green surroundings , a jungle-garden and loads of birds . I have seen so many colors , shapes and sizes of birds here and many of them choose to make their nests in my trees . But i am very bad at taking pictures ... i am so engrossed in the experience of watching them that i forget to shoot them most of the times . On the other times when i rush inside to fetch the camera , i get so conscious of not disturbing them and i fail ...... to take a decent picture.

 This is how i shot this baby ....

up and close .........

He just hopped here n there a few times and flew away ... i have been waiting for him to come down from the higher branches since then .... hard luck .... but he is so cute .  This picture i shot in the last week of October .

A child can be so easily recognized by his/her body language , checking out everything and taking short uncertain flights ... this baby is flying a bit more confidently now but is not giving me any opportunity to shoot him .... waiting till then.

my garden pictures...

Okay ...i have a garden in the middle of Delhi and i am not a millionaire .... i don't live in a huge bungalow surrounded by a lush garden for your kind information . It is a small apartment located in a government owned campus . I am on the ground floor and luckily there is open garden space both in the front and back . There is a huge drumstick tree , a nice lemon tree loaded with lemons right now , a curry patta tree , a jamun tree both in the front and back , a bael tree and a chakotra ( grapefruit ) tree adorning my garden . Apart from this there is a mehendi fence interrupted with paarijat bushels and a very fragrant variety of jasmine too . I keep planting some seasonal flowers and vegetables but there is no set layout and the overall look is like an unkempt patch of greenery .... here are a few glimpses....

                                                                          the Araucaria  ....

                                                                  Pink Abutilon .........

                                                    Violet creeper ( railway creeper )...

 

 Right side of the garden during rains........right behind the papaya tree the curry patta and lemon tree are jostling for space ........

Left side of the garden .........you can see the plants battered by rains , sunflowers can be seen which were in the last lap of their growth span , they are huge sunflowers ( 6-7 inch diameter ) rains made it difficult for them ... In this picture only a few sunflower plants have been left . I am posting a riot of sunflowers in the later part of this post ....scrawl down...... Luckily i have saved a few seeds.

                                                  The papaya trees about a month ago...

 Some potted greenery..................

 

                                                          Growing almost wild.......

                               These lilies look like two shining stars to me......... almost wild again...

A small rock garden i tried to construct , still needs some work....

Mogra during the rains.........last lap of the mogra season.................

                                                         Isn't it wild ....well almost....

                                                                Some more abutilons....

                                                          A branch of lemons in the sunshine........

             The Gomphrenas i uprooted last week and saved the bright colored flowers for dry decorations...

                                                                          Close up....

                                                           One more shot of the Araucaria...

                                   And now ........my happy sunflowers .........attracting lots of bees....

                                                           
                                                                  The buds coming up.......

                                                                       Young flowers.......

                                                            Growing neatly in a row......

                                                      Drooping with it's own weight....

                                                         Don't they look absolutely happy........

 Wait for some other happy looking flowers in the next post ............these were all my summer flowers and the overdrive of the rainy season ...... some quite winter things next time.....

A few of my readers and friends have been asking for my garden pictures ....... i want to remind you my friends...that , this is a lazy woman's garden and the pictures have been uploaded in a lazy frenzy.....if there is something like that .............. but the pictures made me happy in the middle of the night and hope they will do the same to you too......... cheers !!!

diwali was great ...

Diwali was great .
There is always something to look up to , only i have to focus my eyes on that .
Small little things to feel good about .

There were no celebrations and it felt like a low and dull weak . The more i saw others cleaning and decorating the more i felt terrible . I wanted to clean up the house at least , lots of things needed my attention but everything was ignored very conveniently ...under the guise of self pity .

On the day of diwali i decided to drown myself in something crafty . Strange, but it was good . It was an instant idea of joining 4 handmade woolen mats to make two cushion covers . It took all my time till the afternoon .

These very old, much used mats were used for the most significant thing of their life .

 I clicked these pictures too after finishing them . These were two white and two black mats and i made two sided cushions with them ..

As soon as i finished them , a very sweet thing happened . In my neighborhood , an uncle is partially paralyzed for the last two years and he rarely goes anywhere ... other than hospital visits and a drive to India Gate her daughter treats him with . His family takes very good care of him and they decided to bring him to our place this Diwali . This is the beautiful thing happened this Diwali when this uncle brought me gifts and blessings . It was wonderful !!

Another very nice thing was that a couple who were apparently headed for divorce got together this Diwali .... and it was because of my small little contribution in their life . I had invested some of my time and lots of my emotions towards them and the result was really wonderful . I got a call from them how happy they are ...making some future plans . Isn't it a wonderful feeling when we touch lives and make a positive difference to each other .

I hope such wonderful things keep coming in my life . What do you feel ?? Could it be any better ??

wishing light to all of you...

A doodle for light ...

welcoming all the lights and cheers and sending them back to you all.........

we choose to be what we are.............

While talking to someone that day over phone i realized that i should write about a friend who has been very strong and upright in her life , who has the spine to stick to her beliefs ....... and that , this strength has been an acquired virtue . I have great regard for all the people who have made their lives better on their own , by sheer grit and courage . A few such people have touched my life and have helped me grow too . This is something i wanted to share here for a long time but somehow i lack the drive to come here and share even the greatest things happening around .

This is a friend who i met through a FM radio ( Meow ) and related to her ideas and thoughts immediately , soon we started talking over phone and started visiting each other . She visiting me most of the times , myself being the lazy bum . We were strangers and still we could share so many things easily to each other , guiding each other and listening to each other in the not so strong moments.... we feel so week and helpless sometimes and after each episode come out stronger . She is no more a stranger and slowly we developed a different kind of bonding , most importantly i saw her connect with Mithi almost instantly. Let's call her T ..... a name is not an issue...

Yes , Mithi responded to her the very first time when she talked to her . I used to feel so happy whenever T used to come to my house and call Mithi's name loudly while entering the house .........something nobody else ever did . Unfortunately at that point of time Mithi was less responsive and could not respond to her call but she always understood whenever T talked to her holding her hands. That was the time when Mithi had become very week and her body very very distorted and no other person used to go to her and communicate with her , apart from us family members. This gesture always warmed me up and definitely Mithi too .

May be because T has an elder sister who is a special child , still a child at 50 . Seeing a disabled sibling all her life must have made her sensitive towards the needs and emotions of such a person . So Mithi was the first reason for our bonding , later we realized it was much more than that .

The story i wanted to share here is of that fateful day when Mithi left us . Both Arvind and i were dumbstruck and shocked . We had rushed her to the hospital in a frenzy and saw the doctors struggling with her for almost an hour .... the longest hour of our life ......... and when the doctors calmly informed us .. as if both of us had lost our voice . I don't remember for how long we sat there , still ........ Arvind's colleague , who was there with us , took the phone from his pocket and started checking the call log to find a number of any family member to inform , he dialed one number and gave the phone to Arvind . I do not remember what came to my mind , i took out my phone and dialed T .......... she came immediately . It is now that i realize , the way i felt when she used to communicate with Mithi might have been on my subconscious mind and that might have prompted me to call her. ( i did not call anybody else and that is why i wondered after a while why her name came on my mind )...........This is not what i wanted to share here , it just falls in the sequence of events....... and may be i feel lighter by facing it one more time........

When it was time to go to the cremation , somebody asked me to go home ( thinking it would be difficult for me to see all of that ) and before i could say anything , it was T who said firmly ....... Sangeeta is going there ...and insisted that she would accompany us too . I am telling this because T had lost her husband about 12 years ago in a freaky accident and going to the cremation ground must have been so very difficult to her . Facing our worse memories related to a lost loved one is so very difficult . I could feel that day and for weeks after the day that she was very very depressed . Apart from the tragedy in sight , confronting her own fear and heart wrenching memories had definitely taken a toll . And i know all this while she was silently praying for her own sister too , who is old bodily ( if not mentally ) and is suffering because of many issues .

Whenever i remember that day , T is there in the memories and that act of courage comes alive . It was not easy as we can imagine , but she decided to go for it . She choose to be strong .

Today evening we were talking about the things which make us restless..... the changing season .... this is the season when she lost her husband ( this very month ) and the chill in the air and everything related to this month must be difficult to encounter .......every year , year after year . She brushes off the chill and gives a warm smile......... she chooses to be happy ...
 
As i have witnessed so many times , we come out stronger when we address our fears face to face . I am not writing this to prove that i am indebted to her gesture ....... That will be an insult to a pure selfless friendship i believe . I just want to convey this to anybody who might get inspired from her . Personal courage and strength is something we achieve by practice and by will . After loosing her husband , T has struggled a lot to raise her two sons single handedly . That is the reason i believe that the courage and the resolve to be strong is an acquired asset and we can all grow towards it . Also, this 'growth' is an ongoing process and we have to work on a daily basis to keep growing ..... Something i am myself struggling to do now a days ..........

Growing is life ........ we choose the direction ..........

who is disabled ???

 I met a sweet girl who had specially come to meet me when i was visiting my sister's place .

'Sweet girl' ...this was my first impression for her and she talked to me non stop for a couple of hours together. What i had known about her previously that she works for autistic children and occasionally with blind people. I was so touched by her child like demeanor and eagerness to talk to me about endless topics....all related to the lesser privileged people .

We talked for hours about how satisfying this work can be if we do it from our heart and soul . But she had come to me with a purpose . She had actually come to to tell me not to engage myself into working with disabled and special children . Yes , it may sound weird or even insensitive , but she was talking from experience and i had to give it a thought . She was following me from the very beginning through my sister and often my sister used to tell me to meet this sweet girl i am talking about.

I could understand what her point was . It is really heart breaking to see somebody suffering when you have been at the receiving end yourself . Every time you see somebody suffering the way you have , it revives all the pain once again . More importantly the person is mostly able to deal with the physical pain , but the social stigma ( of being differently able or disabled ) and callous behavior by friends , family and neighbors is most disturbing . The reality is that the closest of people have the most capacity and probability to hurt you . When you see some other person being subjected to the same kind of callousness , it is far more heart wrenching . And that is what 'the sweet girl ' was trying to convince me.

I understand that. Very well . I understand what it is to be ignored by family and friends . As if you no longer exist . As if you exist for a few occasions convenient for them , when they are not ashamed of a 'not so presentable' you . When everybody seems to be associated with you only for a benefit or give and take and you no longer seem to be useful for anybody...... In a country where every kind of disability is associated with beggars ... we are so used to seeing the blind , lame and lepers queuing at temple gates and traffic lights that a person who lost his limbs in an accident is reduced to being a faceless 'bechara' , and 'bechara' here doesn't translate to a 'poor thing' ...... the 'bechara' in this case is a mere subject of charity ( ohh...charity can be different to different people , that i want to discuss in detail some other time ) . Not a competent professional he once was , not a dear friend , not an intelligent thinking mind and not at all a throbbing heart . Not that all of it should happen to me , it's just that i become a bit more perceptive to any of such things happening around ....and even if someone else is at the receiving end , it hurts me to witness the callous attitude. Clearly , it will be all the more painful to intentionally reach out to that kind of people if you are not a heart of steel ( gold is not worth )...

Now about the 'sweet girl ' . In the midway somewhere during the conversation i realized that this girl must be older than me . The wide eyed expression , the fidgety fingers and straight posture with a precarious uneasy back on the sofa was not a young girl's usual demeanor . It was an obscure mind of a grown up woman who was still vacillating between her beliefs and social norms . Her beliefs so pure with a twinkle in her eyes when she talked about how the particular child can only be tamed by her and not his parents when he is violent and it is the touch and a soft voice what is needed to speak to him . The social norms which have alienated this sweet girl from the people she works with and the extended family and everybody who reaches out to her or is hesitated to do so ....

Why ?? What is so special about her . The red head which i thought was a trendy hair color was not so . The covered hands and full sleeve kurta was not due to summer heat ( as any scooter riding girl does these days ) and the dark glasses were not just for the sun and the milky white complexion was not of a parsi or kashmiri origin . In a nation obsessed with fairness , albinism is a disability which is torturous in a girl's life . While she could very well protect her skin and eyes from the scorching sun , the soul so pure was scared to face the world , was unsure of the people's reaction ...always looking for a sense of acceptance....nowhere to be found . I kept thinking about her for weeks and when asked my sister , got to know that everybody in the office makes her the scapegoat and everybody practices the right to pour their own frustration to her , to make her feel inferior .....even feel like a retarded ..... Yes she is often treated like a retarded person in her workplace.

She is not a hard working honest girl , not an intelligent mind , can never be a trusted friend ........... she is just a useless white skin   ......... in a nation obsessed with fairness.

Coming to her advice to me .........which was so important to her that she wanted to meet just to convey this to me for a long time. Yes i agree to the concerns she had , and presently i feel a bit worried about being unprepared and unequipped for being a hard core ' worker ' but i know i have the understanding to handle it . It's a matter of time and i will not be able to stop myself . Still i think i do not stop myself when i see someone being ostracized or deprived because of an inferior status or a disability ....any kind of discrimination for that matter. I am specially sensitive to children being ill treated by their own parents and intervene whenever there is such a situation . For me any small little gesture of being useful for someone is good enough ...... and as i read somewhere i now consider myself as a ' work in progress ' ...