And Thereby Hangs a Tale

Just finished reading the much awaited And thereby hangs a Tale by my favourite author- Jeffery Archer.
A collection of 15 delightful plots (pun intended)- funny, wicked, devious and wide ranged.
A majority of the tales are inspired from real life and some of them are stated as fictional.
The collection is a diverse motely of backdrops ranging from the place of action- right from India to England among others, and themes from jail to romance to expeditions.
In typical Archer style, the tales are detailed, the plot is twisted and has a surprise ending!
I leave you to read them and savour them without adding more spoilers

11th May 2010

They say early morning dreams come true.

And so I was dreaming... and in my dream I was talking to my sister who was sitting up straight in her hospital bed and telling me - the baby has come.

The phone alarm rang and I woke up with a start- totally confused and disoriented - 7 am. (don't laugh- I need alarm for 7 am even)

At around the same time, in a country that is around 12.5 hours behind us, the baby boy was born.

Fair, tall, dark haired and handsome...

So one set arrives on 01.11.20 05 and this one arrives on 11.05.20 10... just a play of digits!

Regressing?

This summer holidays seem to be a season of change- both forward and backward.
Probably parenting does get less strenous as kids grow up.
I am a total momzilla on working days - everything happens on clockwork and in double speed- "wake up, eat, school, play, dinner, bonding, story, sleep cycle" is speed done. Because the next day should not get "scrood" if everything is not followed as per schedule.
I do more quality than quantity time with the kids. And am almost measuring on an activity basis my quality time spent with the kids.
Read- check
Discuss school/ talk- check
Be with them during their playtime- check
During the limited time I get to spend with them which does not involve attending to their needs and food I have to pack in a lot.
During these holidays, I have realized that parenting under pressure is so different from a relaxed parenting that happens during breaks and holidays. While I still have my mental checklists, the time is fluid. Sometimes we are doing writing work just before bedtime or sometimes like last night the kids slept in the living room as I caught a movie on TV and hubby worked on his laptop. Rules are broken, time loses relevance, breakfast happens at 11 in the morning, kids take bath on their own and I convince myself that the next bath I will give them- to make up for the parts that were overlooked when they did their self ablutions.
In the quest for independence, I insist that the kids eat their dinner themselves and all meals on weekends except dinner which is the Dad's duty- communal eating from his plate.
My way of ensuring some Dad-sons bonding.
During the holidays, kids have been insisting- toom khilayo (you feed us) and I have regressed to spoon / hand feeding rather than self eating- been obliging them with an ease I am myself surprised. Else I was forever the impatient one. Eat yourself- I cannot run behind you- finish fast- type on working days.
I am still measuring quality but also making time for lot of quantity. Either by extending their waking hours or taking leave from work.
I finish my "house" work, sit with my book or laptop as the kids play with each other or their friends and even manage to get some shut-eye while they are bouncing off me. So no longer it is like I have no me time when I am at home with the kids.
And the kids are getting housetrained too. Switching off lights, shutting doors when the Aircon is on, trying to maintain the home, putting shoes inside the shoe cabinet, offcourse between number of change of clothes- independence leads to this also. Vain boys.

So What Do You Want to Do Now?

"Nothing" said Tejas.
I have tried to bring about a focus in terms of holiday activity for the kids.
We did the summer camp within the complex for 2 weeks after which most kids went off for their vacation and we had to bring the camp to a halt.
I bought practice books- alphabets in english, hindi, Tamil, color books and activity books.
We bought crayons and paint boxes and put sets of pencil, eraser and sharpener in their new pencil boxes gifted by N Mausi.
We have also stocked up on lots of books to be read.
While we have been doing all this writing and activity, the pace of it has been slow.
Because the husband believes that if I force them, they will begin to hate studies (i touched a raw nerve somewhere maybe!)
Not that the kids are not busy- they are occupied all the time, playing outside, indulging in mud play or imagined play with their toys and with each other. Or watching TV.
And lots of cricket with the Dad who has been rigorously coaching him- so much so that the kids were eagerly analysing Tendulkar's play- Dadda, is he playing straight bat or cross bat?
And they have taken breaks in Pondicherry and Bangalore etc too.
They got to see their first circus at Pondicherry (I did not accompany them so no post)- but from what I heard, they saw lots of animals (no tiger or lions) and the elephant played cross bat and straight bat cricket.
We have progressed with our Hindi alphabets- the vowels- and they are easy because the basic shapes are not unique. They have even begun to identify lots of sight words - the oft repeated ones and sometimes I am lulled into believing that they are actually reading.
And today, just a moment ago, as Tejas completed 2 sheets of work and I asked him what he wanted to do- he says "Nothing" - and I let him do just that- which includes snacking, watching TV, jumping on my bean bag and kissing me repeatedly, fiddling with the invertor, and and now playing together with their soft toys and talking to each other theaterically in English.
So nothing is something all together! (which incidentally Ojas specializes in)!

May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss

Is funny...very very funny. And written by The Great Bong in such a conversational matter of fact tone that it seems as if the author is talking to us.
The book is very contextual so those who are not aware of India, Bollywood, rituals, culture may not really be able to appreciate it.
His detailing about his observations is admirable and the humour indepth!
I loved the Wedding chapter the most - it had me rolling on the floor.
And the 5 things I hate most had me nodding my head in agreement.
Go read it- it's fun..

Indus Ladies Mommy Blogger eBook

For the upcoming Mother's Day, IndusLadies are planning to compile a elegant list of all Indian Mommy Bloggers and send it to our entire 90,000 members. In addition, we would also be making this list available to our 6000 facebook fans and twitter followers. (Note: If you blog about your family, kids, parents or parenting in general, you qualify)If you blog inside or outside Indusladies.com, this would be a good way to get the word out about your wonderful blog to the entire membership of Indusladies.On Mother's Day, we ask that you make a blog post requesting your readers to download this compiled list of Indian Mommy blogs. If you would like your blog to be included in that list, please email (to partners@indusladies.com) the following as soon as possible and before 6th May.
1. Your blog URL
2. Your blog Name
3. A 5-8 line description about your blog (or about yourself as a blogger)
4. Link to 3-5 of your most popular blog posts.We hope to hear from you.
Please forward to your fellow bloggers as well. Indusladies Team.P.S - If you have any questions, please email partners@indusladies.com.

Weekend in Bangalore

Soemhow I associate holidays with food- lots of them- even food that I may otherwise not eat due to weight issues- I somehow feel that during a holiday you must eat all you can.
Infact the eating began much before the holiday started- met AD at GRT Azulia over a huge lunch of some great stuff which translated in English means- Mutton shanks and Keema and kababs.
Bangalore was all fun - we drove down the scenic highway admiring the hills and the greenery and the clear roads- and the drive was very easy simply because I was not doing the driving- the superman (husband) was.
The kids were as good as gold- reading, snacking and sleeping throughout the drive. Ojas particuarly doesn't need any excuse to go to sleep.
And I was focusing on my book, snacks and offcourse weaving all that I saw into long posts. Which I promptly forgot after the drive was over.
We stayed in a hotel which the kids loved simply because they discovered the bubble bath there. They want to come back to Bangalore and in particular to the hotel again for the sake of the bubble bath. Who says being shallow is not hereditary?
And what exactly did we do in Bangalore?
The husband had a late night meeting there and that's why we went. But the rest of us tagged along so that we could get a break and meet friends.
We had a huge lunch of chicken tandoori, mutton shanks at Samarkand in Infantry Road.
We met ArtNavy family and D over dinner at Art's place and it was just like old times. The decor was familiar, the people were well known, only the setting had changed. The kids also had no trouble from starting off from where they had left. We ate and chatted late into the night and as the husband went off for his meeting, the kids and me went off to dreamland and geared up for the next day.
The result was that while we were totally refreshed, the husband was not and therefore we had no time but to visit the aerospace museum, which the kids assured me they liked- proof was that they wanted to play with the pair of squirrels, loved touching the aircrafts and loved the airplane models we bought for them.
Lunch was with D again at a lovely restaurant- lots of fish and chicken and coffee with K's friend at Coffee Day -where else.
Dinner was at my dear friend's house and here again, the kids bonded exteremely well with my friend's kid and that was very heartening because we expect our kids to be great friends with our friends.
The kid was a total charmer- he totally drew my kids to him and I sincerely believe this much needed trait is a rarity.
We ate yummy mutton adn chicken curry with biriyani and as expected chatted till late into teh night.
Seriously for the first time, I was sad to leave Bangalore- an emotion I feel only when I leave from Delhi to Chennai.

Chai Chai

An interesting, well informed travel companion is a boon to long train journeys. Their ability to spin off interesting bits about obscure stations one crosses during a journey adds some spice to an otherwise mundane journey.

The best tea can be had in Jahanabad, or you must taste the juice from this shop in Vijawada junction, or once we reach Mughalsarai, Banaras is just an hour away, or Muri junction is where you buy jhaal mudi on this route....

Tidbits that are Nice to Know -may not be useful but nevertheless interesting- like nuggets of knowledge being added to our pool.
On long train journeys, you have a lot of time to think, to imagine, to weave tales about people you see as the train slows down near a crossing or a village.
One finds it hard to imagine that life goes on in small towns like these, albeit at a much slower pace or much smaller scale than large cities or towns. Towns where one feels like shifting to, as far as cost of living is concerned.
Often I would wonder- who the hell lives in places like Gomo, Patraatu, Namkum, Ramgarh etc etc... and why does the train even bother to stop in some of places when no person ever boards here. Do they have good schools? Do they party? Do they go out with friends?

Chai Chai by Biswanath Gosh is a powerful concept and it fuels the imagination of those who are curious about places like Mughalsarai, Itarsi, Arakonnam, Jhansi that are important junctions from the rail connectivity point of view.
One spends a long time at such stations- 1 hour used to be the bare minimum during which the water tanks get refilled, food arrives or is duly purchased, legs stretched, snacks or magazines bought, water bottles refilled.... basically all maintenance work is done including that of the train.
One might wonder what else exists beyond the railway station. In today's fast paced life and big bucks earning mentality- who exactly are those people who choose to stay in these small towns, what do they do for a living, are they ambitious- chai chai answers these unanswered questions that play in our mind when we stop in such places.

I picked up chai chai with an open mind- it is not meant to be a fast paced story - it is a travel book so it is going to tell me little tales related to those places in a very honest way.
That said, I have never really read any travel book except Ruskin Bond's and they are anecdotal in nature and do not always tie the loose ends.

Chai chai starts with the most interesting city from a historical point of view- Mughalsarai and then traces steps to Jhansi, Itarsi, Guntakal, Arakonnam, Jolarpettai and Shoranur.
The book progresses exacly like a train does - slow in the beginning of the journey, stopping as it crosses various sections of the platform, stopping at the outer and thereby reluctantly picking up speed, making up as it reaches the destination.
The Mughalsarai chapter is the most detailed one that way and probably the saga became repetitive as the author stopped at other towns and therefore intense detailing was done away with.
The tone of the story is kinetic, one can feel the movement of the story as if one is journeying with Ghosh. Each chapter is anecdotal - stories without beginning and end- leaving a lot to imagination and I think that is the way it is meant to be.
Think of the people you have met during short journeys or autowallahs-you meet them just for that small duration and if you happen to get talking, you get to know plenty of details about them to make an anecdote but not enough to write a story. This book is just like a compilation of these mini encounters.
What gets a little dull and repetitive is the process of finding hotels and the mandatory trips to the bar which seems to be the only place to find people to talk to and in all probability it may be just so!
The vivid descriptions of the condition of these hotels make one smile and nod head and simultaneously shudder as we all have definitely gone through those stained bedsheets, no soap in bathroom, broken bucket mug type situations in some hotel or the other we might have stayed.
Ghosh looks for stories in the lives of ordinary people who go about their business of living.
This book might be like the story your brother or friend or spouse or colleague tells you after coming back from such a place- you just get a glimpse into the town from the point of view of a person who has spent just a couple of days there- and you move on without dwelling much on it.

The author has also gone beyond the brief- visited places of significance that are tantalisingly close to these towns - just like one might do if they were sent to a godforsaken place on an official trip.
The only thing the author did not do is visit the theatre in these towns!

Overall, the book kept me going till I reached the end but left me with a vague sense of - is there more to it apart from what is written in here? Perhaps there is or perhaps there is nothing beyond what the author has written- no interesting cuisine or a famous shop (like the tirunalveli halwa) or interesting natural landscape or handicraft or historical tidbit like Nalanda University ....the absence of which would have perhaps made it even more difficult for the author to assimilate the town into a chapter.
I feel the book could have done with some tighter editing without messing with the essence of it all though.
I also feel that this book opens up a lot of scope for this genre of writing- now if someone could weave a book around places that house Haji Ali juice centre, Karim's kabab, Tirunalveli halwa shop, Maner ke Laddu.......

Queen of Dreams

I am on a Chitra Banarjee spree. I fell in love with her writing after reading Palace of Illusions. Such lucid style and hidden in that style is deep meaning.
All her books have a common thread - I am not talking of the bengali backdrop- I am talking of the commonality that manifests in the form of dreams, power of stories or rather the power of a spoken word that takes a life of its own and within itself, carries a lesson. I love the way she says that everyone visualizes a story in a different way- sees it in their own mind through different filters. I think that is a great insight for everyday life also.
Digression alert- Just the other day the husband and I were discussing the shape of a cabinet I had in mind- I said L shaped, visualising a vertical L- tall in the corner, and short but horizontally extending to cover the width of the space. The husband argues that there is no space for an L shaped cabinet- he imagining a horizontal 2 dimensional L.
Queen of Dreams take the power of dreaming to a magical (supernatural?) level. The story is built upon the idea that a dream is a telegram from the hidden world. And I interpret the hidden world to be the future, the unknown, the yet-to-happen, because they say the mind sees that which the eye cannot or refuses to see.
After reading the book, I tried to crystallise my thoughts. I realized that whichever angle I take to my review, I am bound to miss out some shades of the story. There are so many facets to it that it is difficult to put them on the same page without giving the entire story away. So I took the most obvious route -the protagonists point of view.
Rakhi is an artist living the typical American born desi life- American by birth but having a keen interest to know about her roots. Her paintings depict India as she imagines, her chai house is Indian as per her understanding of what is India.
Rakhi's mother has an incredible gift- the power to dream the dreams of other people, dream warnings and even dream lost dreams - dreams of people long gone. She seeks out people whose dreams she has dreamt and warn them of potential hazards.
But then, that is not what the story is all about. It has deeper significances as lot of reviewers point out- relationship between mother and daughter, the daughter's quest for her identity through her mother's journals, her struggle for survival post 9/11, and on top of that her love-hate relationship with her ex-husband.
The story flits from Rakhi's thoughts to her mother's journals swiftly in an almost ethereal fashion. After her mother's death, Rakhi finds her mother's journals. The journals answer most of Rakhi's questions about her roots- those which during her lifetime, her mother was never able to speak about. They explain about her struggle with her choices. Her struggle with herself to come to terms with the fact that to keep her gift intact, she had to give up on the most precious things in life which normally a woman or a person would choose- her family. Or perhaps in her case, her gift was the most important thing in her life- over and above anything or anyone else. Or perhaps she is not the stereotypical woman for whom the family comes first?

Some questions are left unanswered much to my annoyance, leaving me behind with a feeling of loose ends- I almost scraped at the book cover to see if some pages are stuck by the way!

Crossposted at booklovers

Staying Alone Can Be So Liberating

-You can wake up at anytime you wish
-You don't have to prove anything to anybody / set an example to the kids- so leave a book or many lying around wherever you wish, forget to keep your sandals in teh shoe rack, leave medication lying around with no danger of it being moved
-You have the whole house to yourself
-You need not really cook
-You can browse, sleep, read, go out as you wish

The kids have gone to Pondicherry and I am doing all of the above. The moment I came home to an empty house last evening, I was in a nasty temper. Just because the kids were not home. Then a neighbour suggested- enjoy, another friend wished she could send her kids off for a week somewhere ..and slowly the realization dawned that I could make it either bad or ok for me.
So it's sort of ok...I miss the tiny bodies that snuggle upto me every night. I miss their smooth skin and soft hair or their non stop chatter.
I am insanely jealous when they call up to say- we are playing.
And extremely heartened when the called up today to ask why am I not coming.
I thought they wouldn't miss me at all, as before leaving Ojas said - tum khana banao, hum aate hain- on second thoughts, clearly he would have assumed that it was just a matter of a few hours before which he would be back to me and my khana...
I spent the entire evening reading till late into the night and chatting on skype. Not even lit the gas. All leftovers microwaved.
The maid was called early today to finish the work for the day so that there are no fetters for the evening unlike yesterday when I had to rush back for her highness' arrival- which never happened by the way.
Last week I had taken a 3 day break to spend time with the kids. I am realizing as they are growing up, they are getting easier to handle. we get into an easy sort of routine with the kids keeping themselves busy during these lazy summer vacation- playing in the mud, doing activity books, getting dirty and giving themselves a bath. Probably this is what is called independence. Now if only they would learn the 2 most important things in life- to wash their backside and eat their food fully!
So the summer vacation is not turning out to be as bad as I thought it would!