For my teachers...

Teacher's day was celebrated this month and I was wondering why not pen down a few words on the people from school who made me who I am today.

Very few people actually leave a deep impression on my head. There might have been a 100 teachers who must have taught me but very few who I really adored and looked up to. There were a whole class of them - some of them mean, some of them so timid, some weird and some were awesome. I think I did mention in one of my previous posts that I once thought of being a teacher. When I was studying abroad, there were a variety of teachers from all over India - north, south, east and west. I can remember only few who actually I adored the most. One was Irfana Jalal - this teacher was so damn pretty. I know this is not a reason to like a teacher but every kid gets mesmerized by one teacher or the other for her looks ( seriously!) and this was one of those times. She was absolutely gorgeous. She taught Hindi and the subject was loved by me that year just because she was teaching it.

So next was a chemistry teacher - Gita Sivakumar. She was the word for 'class and professionalism.' She was from Kerala but did not have their accent. She was a gem and believe me when I say chemistry was a breeze when she explained it. I really did not have to even study the subject for the way she took it. Her attire would be very formal such that it would never attract unwanted attention and she was someone who could make even the dumbest kid wise up.

The person who I'd always cherish was Mrs. Sequiera (hope I got the spelling right). She was a terror to everyone. She'd make all the girls run from toilets and boys run the other way around when they spot her. She was one to look out for as she'd storm behind you unexpectedly and catch you when you're with your boyfriend/girlfriend or bunking class or wearing too short pinafores.

Now, why did I like her? I used to be real bad in Maths and was at the verge of failing during grade 6. She taught me English but she was also my class teacher. During the dreaded parents-teachers meet, my folks came to see her and I expected her to complain to my parents regarding my Math marks but she was just the opposite. She explained to my folks that I was a good kid and I needed to brush up on Maths and gave me  few books from her cupboard to help me. Next exam, I scored 90% for it. It wasn't only the books but her way of helping me out when I had a problem and the way she'd patiently understand- all this just made me love her. Also, she was such a wonderful woman - she'd visit hospitals and pray for the sick and never miss church.

I only named a few but there are so many teachers who really shaped me up - some who shared their food with me, some who made me cry, some who helped me when I was sick and some who hit me with rulers for bad handwriting ( I know!). I can also never forget the teachers here like Arulanantham, Samuel, Jeya and a whole bunch who were very sweet people.

I believe teachers play a very pivotal role in molding up a kid and to all my teachers out there - Happy Teachers Day! You guys really are to be praised for such a worthy job.

The First Picture

Last week I went for my scan - it's called anomaly scan or something. I was really excited as I wanted to see the first real image of whatever was in there. After an initial confusion of the names Hepzi and Gibsy, the doc finally called me in. I asked if Dan could come along and the nurse politely told that he will be allowed in the last five minutes to see the scan picture.

I went in and was made to lie on a bed and the doc was looking at my report and asked me lots of questions like if anyone in my family had abnormalities, if I married my cousin, if I had fever in the last few months, etc etc. After replying all in the negative, she applied this really cold gel over my tummy and told me to relax and I was like okay, this is gonna be fine.

The doc was amazing. Her name was Anjana Mala and she was so reassuring and good. She kept the tiny movable thing on my tummy and then she turned the monitor to me and asked, "There.. doesn't the baby look like the dad?" and I turned and I saw the picture. I saw the head - the outline of a tiny nose and skull. Tears welled up in my eyes. I was barely able to speak with emotions overwhelming me and I just smiled and looked on thinking,  two lives created this one life and there it is - alive and moving! How can people not believe in God and his love I wondered.

The doc then proceeded to take vital measurements and the li'l one was moving a lot and making things hard for her I guess. I even looked at it stretching its head backwards and I laughed. She told me everything was normal and looking good. Thank God for that. Finally the dad came in and he was sitting beside me. She showed him the picture again.  He was like "it's not very clear, is it?" and everyone started laughing. Well, we can't get a Kodak shot for that now, can we?

Then he watched open-eyed, in amazement and blissful joy as she showed him our kid's arms, legs, spine, feet and eyes. We even heard the heartbeat and it's something that I will always cherish in my memories. They even handed us a beautiful picture of our li'l baby to treasure. The scan was finally over and the doc finally said, "Very active baby.. It'll be a challenge growing it up!"

P.S - The image shown is not our kid's... I don't want to put it up right now but it looked more or less like this.

Primigravida

Floating inside two years of marital bliss makes all the people around you curious with questions and one very common one among them is – aren’t you planning to have kids?

Whenever me and my husband go anywhere and I mean any part of this world, it all starts with – how long have you been married? What are you doing now? Don’t have any kids? We both will look at each other and smile and say we just got married, let things settle down a bit. Some people really bug me when they throw this question in front of a crowd – it’s really insensitive to do that you clowns! There was this particular woman in my husband’s native who asked me if I had a kid and I was like no and then her face went like as if I told her I had a dreadful disease and I was about to die the next day. She held my hand and looked up to me with such sad, pitiful eyes that I really felt like I was living my last days on earth.

At first it was funny, but as days went by it really got to my nerves. I mean here I was working to stabilize and fix holes in my life and people were like jumping everywhere and popping the inevitable question. I mean its okay but what about people who really have problems – people give them a break, will ya?


So you can imagine how everyone reacted when I told them that I was indeed going to be a mom – yes I am finally pregnant. Then everyone became doctors and dieticians telling me what to eat, what to see (yes, see on TV – apparently I shouldn’t watch violent movies), what to listen, what to talk…. The list goes on. Well, whatever it is, I know that something beautiful living in me is waiting to meet me soon...

Driving Crazy

Many of us while going to work or anywhere must have encountered a foolish driver and you must have wondered – who on earth gave these guys a license?

I do not want any one of you to think about me that way – one of the many reasons why I don’t drive despite getting a car and a license. Getting a license here is no big deal at all. You apply for a learners and voila – whether you know the difference between the clutch or the brake – you get the license. There are even people to help you in the so called written exams they have – I did not even know what was written in tamil on the screen, a guy behind me was like press A or press C.  It’s all so neatly taken care of that we have so many people with awesome driving skills here.

I drive on highways (naturally, you don’t have to use the clutch+brake much when you’re hitting 100) and that too with my husband sitting next to me who screams like he’s in labor when he sees me doing some foolish stuff. I decided that I would be taking the car only after I have mastered the art to perfection – which is by no chance anywhere near in future.

Oh, and by the way I also got a two-wheeler license. If there was any sane man on planet earth, he would have thought twice before approving my license for two-wheelers. I still remember the days I sat on the bike to learn that with my husband behind me. If there was a dog like 10 feet away from me standing on one side – I would suddenly apply brakes - my reason: what if the doggy suddenly decided to cross the road? This selfless attitude of mine would make all the vehicles behind me stop, honk and well, you can imagine the chaos. So, in case you see a foolish driver around going on the wrong side or not signaling before turning, leave the person in peace I say – it’s just not his/her fault!

R-E-L-A-T-I-V-E-S

There are so many things that I cant understand in this planet I live in and one among that is R-E-L-A-T-I-V-E-S. How did they evolve? Okay, this I know but things like - did they evolve with brains - is something that has made my mind wonder.

You ask me 12 years back about my relatives then I would proudly tell you that they are my family but now I feel that they are this weird bunch of people who just love to wreak havoc on people. Whenever we came from vacations relatives would throng our houses and my dad like the summer Santa Claus would fling all kinds of "Faareign" things to them. They will lift me and my siblings, pull our cheeks, kiss us and never let our feet rest on the ground. Sigh! It was magical. They would all camp in our house when we leave for the airport and cry with copious tears. All the drama... phew!

Then we came here for good. I was waiting for all the attention and affection and all but where did everyone go? Soon we started hearing things like we don't help, we don't care, we are selfish people and after all they (relatives) have done for us we hardly mind them. Yeah, it tickled my funny bone too.

Recently, my uncle and his family came from abroad, so we and the relatives clan went to see them. I saw history repeat itself when my aunties and uncles were cuddling my uncle's kids, pinching their cheeks and slobbering their saliva all over them. Ugh! I was sick.

That's not all. There is always comparisons as to- 'oh my kid studies better!' or 'look I've got a kid who doesn't have a boyfriend' or 'I have brought up my kids with such discipline!' or 'look at me - I am the best.' I am so tired of such ramblings that I grew immune to it now.

I do envy some of my friends families who have such amazing relatives - they are like this perfect, fun-loving family - being there for them through thick and thin. I don't know what went wrong where in my family lineage. I just hope that my child doesn't write a blog post like this on my brother or sister's kids.

Happenings...

I am back after such a long time - really lost track of the blogging world I guess. Did not know what to write for this post so thought of penning down few incidents that happened lately.

Last week while I was going past office I saw this old woman lying on the road and people rushing up to her trying to give water. I recognized her - she was this confused beggar walking near cars and bakeries asking for money from bystanders. I was surprised that people actually were trying to help because I witnessed a live accident in Hosur a few months back where an old man flew from a bike and landed on his face on the tar road. I was looking all stunned and my mother in law was about to go feel his pulse but my husband stopped her. I was like gosh, this person's dying and we can't save him. But we were told that since we were just tourists, if anything happened to that guy we would be called to the station and would involve a hell lot of formalities. The old man survived but I was irritated with the way things work here; life was just not given importance.

I do hope things change here. However, there was one happy incident that took place which was also a few months back. I have a phone which is like something I CANNOT part with. It is like I lose touch with the world if I don't have it in my hands - okay - I know you get the point. So here I was shopping in Lynns and when I paid the bills, I noticed my small pouch that I carry my phone in was missing. I froze for a while. I became frantic and tried calling but brilliant me just had to put it in silent mode. I lost hope knowing that no one will neglect a chance to whisk away my red phone. I went to the counter where I purchased deos and there it was, untouched and waiting for me, and the sales woman just gave a casual smile and told me "you forgot to take your phone."

I felt like hugging her.  I mean she could have just switched it off and stolen it including the money in my purse but she just handed it out to me and I was just plain surprised. Maybe I should start believing there are nice people in this world.

I want to be a....

I just overhead my aunt asking her child the question which we all must have heard at least once from someone in life - what do you want to be when you grow up? This got my tiny brain thinking and I was like - wait a minute - I never wanted to be what I am today. So what did I really want to be. Well, a lot of things since I am a totally indecisive kind of person.

I wanted to be a teacher when I was eight years old. I loved the way the teachers in my school used to scrape their chalk piece on the board and that too with beautiful, colorful chalk pieces. I was madly in love with this profession that my younger sister was often a victim of my fake-class by being a student surrounded by dolls who were sitting on chairs. I would wrap a bed sheet around myself (supposed to be the sari) and start taking classes on my terrace door - which served its purpose of being a blackboard. Sadly, my love for teachers or should I say chalk pieces diminished such that after two years I wanted to be a nun.

Don't ask me why. Its just that I wanted to wear that hood-like thing on the head and not marry anyone. I loved Mother Teresa and maybe I was simply fascinated by movies where they dress up like that and got to eat a lot of that communion bread stuff (which by the way I was dying to eat tat time because I wanted to know what it tasted like and my parents told I had to wait for it).

When I was 13, my sole aim in life was to become a veterinary doctor because I simply loved animals (by animals I only thought of cats and dogs - not cows and hens). I used to watch BBC where they would show these documentaries with doctors in their neat blue gowns helping dogs, cats, horses (No, I did not see them helping cows or hens) on clean tables and I was like, wow that would be me someday.  I spent my vacation that year in India and saw a man shoving his hand deep down into a cow's butt. I started laughing and thinking why would anyone do that and my grandma told those are veterinary doctors. At the speed of light my ambition changed - I wanted to be an air-hostess.

I love traveling so I thought I can fly all over the world and get paid for it as well. Unfortunately I developed a fear after seeing the number of plane crashes and I totally get worked up when the flight lands so my mind settled for being an engineer. An engineer is what I am today though I really don't know anything about it. Yeah, I don't even know how to fix a simple wire connection like my husband says - so much for struggling 4 years in a horrible college. Well, I'm thinking now... I love architecture, painting and designing... Maybe I should be an interior designer? :P

                                     

Grow Up!

Growing up is something I hate. I wish I was like Peter Pan who never grew up and who basically did not want to shoulder the painful responsibilities the world had to offer. I wish I could go back in time and stay right there.

I remember the days when I used to wish that I would finish my schooling fast and why was that? So that I could stop doing homework. Yeah, that was lame. Then I wanted to finish college real soon because I couldn’t stand college – OK this is a valid reason.  Then I was stubborn that I wanted to work and now I whine when I am dead tired while reaching my doorstep.

So why is it painful to grow up? Is it solely because of responsibilities or the fact that the world doesn’t look rainbow colored as we were brought up to believe while singing nursery rhymes? The naïve life that we lived isn’t there anymore. I used to cry when I see birds dying or fishes floating lifeless till I was 14. I thought that it was the worst thing that could happen in one’s life and oops… I was wrong. Now, I have seen live scenarios of people getting hurt. They sure did never teach us to be prepared for all this while we were kids.

I thought my fourth grade friend stealing my favorite pink Minnie mouse pen was the worst sin anyone could commit but had I known how people can backstab, I would have gladly given my friend a box of pink Minnie mouse pens. We were protected from all that’s bad in this world but eventually we learn it or experience it one way or the other.

Maybe this was why God forbade Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge; to keep them happier but like me and everyone else in this world, they just wanted to “know” stuff.  I am sure after that mistake they probably wished to turn back time too.

It’s not like I laugh now when I see birds or dogs dying, but I have learnt to deal with it. I learnt to harden myself and not be foolish and naïve. I mean we’re living in a world that is filled with terrorism, child trafficking, poverty and wars - not Barney the friendly, purple dinosaur dancing around singing 'I love you'. It’s true that I miss the good ol' days cycling on a four-wheeled cycle wearing a petticoat and getting balls of rice fed to me by my mom, but one day whether we like it or not, we have to accept the fact that life must go on.  Unless we grow up and learn to face the world, I don't think we will ever be able to protect our children and give them the courage to move up in life.

Have you ever met a Stranger?

I have a form of xenophobia. Let me spare your trouble of googling that word - it means fear of strangers. I don't interact very well with them and I always have this inhibition popping out of nowhere when I meet them. Whenever I meet new people I naturally become quiet and start studying them. Its like I am a porcupine whose quills start taking shape when it senses predators.

I remember this one incident which happened years back. Me and my mom were returning from Vellore after her medical treatment in CMC. We hadn't reserved the train tickets so we got two unreserved tickets and climbed into the reserved compartment. We usually do this and when the train conductor comes we buy the reserved tickets from him for the sleeper class. This time we were in for bad luck as the train was totally crowded and I had a hunch that there wouldn't be any sleeper class tickets available. We sat in one empty berth facing a couple traveling to Kerala. I sat there facing the window while my mom was dozing off owing to fatigue. The man whom I assumed to be the woman's husband looked at me and smiled and I could feel that sudden inhibition waking up in me. I shifted uneasily, pretended as if I did not see him and continued to stare out of the window. He turned to his wife and they were chit chatting about something in Malayalam excitedly and were eating crackers.

Slowly, the woman turned to my mom and smiled at her and asked her in Malayalam where we were heading to. My mom replied in Tamil and politely asked her where they were from. She told some Ernakulam or something, and offered my mom some crackers and my mom took one. Then the lady offered me the silver wrapper containing the salty crackers and I cautiously took one. I slowly nudged my mom's foot and with the power of eye language, was telling her to throw the cracker out of the window. (Don't blame me..I had my reasons.. people used to drug these things and rob for heaven's sake!) She passed it on to me and I pretended to go to the rest room and flung those evil crackers out of the window and resumed my calm posture on the seat staring at the fleeing fields and trees.

I tried looking for the train conductor amidst the hustle of tea and coffee sellers so that I could ask him if there were any available tickets but he was nowhere to be seen. No one came to claim the seats we were resting upon so I thought everything will be fine. After a few long hours when I was in deep slumber, I found myself waking up to some loud noises coming from my berth below and I could see the familiar couple arguing with the train conductor and my mom having a very worried expression on her face. I jumped down thinking the predicted robbery had happened - I was wrong. The reality was a couple of men who owned these berths came and started arguing for their rightful seats, whereas the couple whom I misjudged, were defending my mom and tried reasoning with them to give her a seat since she was sick. I felt kind of foolish as my instincts had gone wrong. Finally the couple gave up one of their two berths to us so that we shouldn't be kicked out and they adjusted with one.

Their stop for Ernakulam arrived and they bid us goodbye with their ever smiling faces. I could feel those porcupine spines in me relaxing and I waved back at them smiling, genuinely this time.

The Social Network

I doubt if there is anyone who is not in some social networking site or the other. I mean 99% of my friends are there in either Facebook or Orkut or Hi5 and the rest 1% are too busy in life to join the networking club. I joined Facebook nearly two years ago and I was super excited at first since it was the first ever social site I put my leg in. I was all into updating my interests, taking the perfect display picture, and adding my school friends. I was an active member of games like pet society, UNO, Restaurant City, Pull tabs, Sudoku etc. But I guess the interest in games slowly fades away with time. My pet Fifi must be drowned in flies by now and starving to death (that is what happens when you don’t play the game for a long time) and my restaurant in 'Restaurant City' burnt down.

I understand the fascination behind taking photos of yourself but quite a few are obsessed with themselves. Their narcist like albums are only filled with photos of them giving weird wanna-be poses. Surely you could have a few self-centered shots but seriously people, I don’t think anyone would be interested in you sitting, standing, walking or standing topless showcasing your newly grown (fl)abs. Oh, and there are some of them who keep photoshopping their faces - I actually tend to forget what they really looked like.

Another class of people actually hit ‘like’ on whatever they post. They post something and then they like it, they comment and they like their own comment. They post a video and oh, there is someone who liked it – click to see who it is and bingo, it is the same person who posted it. Uh, it just portrays your sorry state.

I also get tired of unknown and barely acquainted people sending me requests. I mean no offense but it’s a “friends list” and I actually would like people who I know, really message or talk to me to be in that list. So please don’t fret or call me arrogant and pig-headed when I click ignore.

So whether you are filling mob contracts, milking cows, cleaning pets, stalking people or posting corny lines, do it sensibly. You are being watched.

                     

Welcome 2011!

Its such a long time since I wrote my last post and I thought, hey why not wish everyone a New year or something (I know it is a little too late :D). So hope everyone had an awesome New Year, mine wasn't at all and please don't ask me why.

Every New Year I would hope that the forthcoming year would bring me some sort of magical happy things but by the end of the year I would start whining about how hopeless the year was.

Last year January I remember how wasted me and my group of friends were. We would roam around, play cards, boardgames, go to the beach at 1:00 AM and  live a nocturnal life. I still remember when the same month last year, we were returning from a trip and we were discussing that we would return to our spoilt lazy lives. Now its 1 year and we hardly do the crazy things we used to. I think when time goes by the only thing we seem to see is change. When changes happen, we feel difficult to absorb it and come to terms with it. I do miss the old times but this is the way it should be. Time sure does make us wise.

I do wish this year this place would change a bit more, people over here change (who am I kidding??), and good things happen. So though its kinda late, here's wishing everyone an awesome blessed 2011.