I failed - miserably

I am a little upset with a lot of people and a few parenting websites. There has been an onslaught of activities to engage your kids to upskill them and make them enjoy this period albeit usefully. These include fire less cooking, hand-painting, singing, and what not. They tell you to follow a schedule, keep them busy, reduce their screen time, involve them in household chores and the list is endless. Did no one tell them - it’s lockdown period, no house help to lessen a lady’s burden, high probability time for home appliances to develop snags and please acknowledge that mothers are humans too...they need me time.

Despite all my misgivings, when the lockdown period started , armed with these sets of instructions , I started my mission - if those moms can do it, so can I. I picked up a planner ( I am a teacher, we love planners), made a schedule for my elder kid ( he is a grown up kid...all of four years 😁) and listens to.....no one. The younger one a little above 1, has high disregard to all my instructions. You see , my mission had too many hurdles.

So , I tried waking him up as per that schedule, because they said so, he told me to go away and slept again. So, I failed.

I tried giving him tasks as per my time table, because they said so, he ran away to play with his toys. So, I failed.

I tried to involve him in household chores - like putting away his toys, he simply ignored me and said he liked it that way. So, I failed.

Being a teacher , I sat down to analyse what went wrong and I realised -

1. My kid had an agenda of his own that included the following goals -

A. How to ignore my mother?

B. How to irritate my mother?

C. How to make my mother lose her temper (this is time bound task)?

D. How to make my mother pull her hair in frustration?

E. How to make my mother angry and still smile ?

His success rate was 100%.

2. For me I realised that these kids need their own space and pace to learn, enjoy and experience.

3. We have to allow them to get bored, only then they would look ways to channel their creativity and believe me they find ways and are great at role plays and make believes.

They need us to play with them, to talk to them, to make them feel what they are saying is important, leave them alone at times( keep a watch from distance), allow them screen time ( sue me, but I need my sanity). Staying at home all the time isn’t easy for them. 

Though is still try to involve him in an activity or two. At times I fail , sometimes I succeed. You see, the teacher in me won’t rest.

P.S -  To each mother on her own, you know your kid the best. Let’s enjoy this roller coaster ride called motherhood.

Aisa hota he

The combination of Indian movies and Mills & Boons is hazardous for the concept of marriage and romance in real life. We, the readers learn it the hard way. It awakens the fairy tale romantic notions of life , puts your expectations on a high pedestal and then you crash land.

The cherry on the top of this super awesome combo is that I am a 90’s kid ( ok, a few years older but I grew up in that decade) and we all listened to a staple diet of great songs  - lovely pop music era and singles by Lucky Ali, Shaan, Sony Nigam, Euphoria and so on. The lockdown gave me some time to turn back and listen to those songs again. One of my favourite’s is a song by Shaan and his sister Sagarika- Aisa hota he. A beautiful composition of poles apart siblings and their relationship . However while listening to it last night I realised, at this moment in my life, the words perfectly define the relation between my hubby and me . Aisa hota he.

We are truly poles apart in all our choices from hobbies to food, from dream vacations to how to spend a day at home. ( Mujhko pasand  Chinese khana and usko pasand chaat pakodi)

( Main padti hu books bahut  sari and usko pasand he loud music) - He wishes to be a DJ part time. 

I love watching Bollywood movies and he is still fascinated by roadies, no splitvilla...no big boss....no video games....pick any.

We are as different as can be and it brings out fights , frustrations, expectations and challenges on all occasions. At the same time these differences are the reason we are together because all this mayhem brings with it variety, spices, and experiences that fulfill the unknown blank spaces of our lives. 

He doesn’t read but listens to anything I have read ( not that I give him a choice to ignore me) 😉. I had no clue about a lot of gadgets but can listen to hours now about them ( as if I have a choice not to😔)

. 

We might fight /argue/ discuss on same points in circles for months for he never accepts he is wrong and i won’t stop till it is resolved. But these sessions also tell that we care enough to communicate. - Aisa hota he

I might not understand his fascination for wires but can live with it. He can’t understand mine with Shahrukh Khan’s movies but he has no choice other than to accept it. 

So dear husband the following lines are dedicated to you - 

Main tujhko, tu mujhko he pasand.

Par apni pasand alag he.

Main tere bin, tu mere bina 

Mushkil he akele jeena

Pyaar me in kabhi kabhi

Aisa hota he.

And before you or I pick up next point to argue/ discuss

” Tu right nai he Naina ( Atul), bas mujhse alag he.” 

-  Courtesy- Yeh Jawani he deewani

In love With My Life

My hair remain tangled ,

permanently in a messy bun.

Can’t recall the last time,

 they felt a comb run.

It’s crazy being me, 

ask my untamed locks.

Still in love with my life ,

It rocks.

My clothes remain unironed,

Piled up high in the ignored almirah.

Some old tops and a few faded lowers, 

Have become the dress of the season.

It’s maddening being me, 

Ask my designer dress.

Still in love with my life,

So what if it’s all mess.

My book lies unopened,

glaring at me, right next to my bed.

Cartoons, patterns and tracing,

Have become my latest interests.

It’s insane being me,

Ask the closed books and coffee mugs.

Still in love with my life,

Because of my cherubs.

I pull my hair numerous times a day, 

I shout and scream and then we play.

In between all the chaos, 

Their smiles shine like rays.

Still in love with my life,

Wouldn’t have it ,

Any other way.

The incomplete blogs

Finally I opened the doors of my mind, (lockdown kind of helped) found my diary ( yes,I still use pen and paper as my first medium to express - so sue me), picked up a pen to write down what I was feeling. As is a common habit, I turned back a few pages of the diary.... and what I saw there boggled me.

I had a huge collection of incomplete blogs staring at me. Some just titles, some with a few lines and some abandoned after a couple of paragraphs. They all were started at various phases of my life but never completed. I started reading them , one by one  - just to check if I felt like completing any of them. To my surprise , reading them was therapeutic but none called out to me to complete it. They were complete -  in being incomplete. Maybe they were a part of a process or just some passing thoughts.

Maybe everything we write is not for people , at times we write to just ...write. We scribble, we express , we pour out just to feel free...feel alive....feel happy. It works as a release , same way a dancer sometimes dances for just himself / herself or a sportsperson keeps practising alone.

Those incomplete blogs were release...from what I don’t remember but they worked because here I am - with a pen in hand and ready to write.

So thank you my incomplete blogs...you completed my chain of thoughts.

Taking a leaf out of Karan Johar's book

I have done a lot of stuff in the last couple of years, some I can recall, some I can't and a few I choose to forget. I have almost self diagnosed myself as in depression,(there are so many questionnaire online to trick you), I  have imagined myself suffering from all life threatening diseases(from cancer to tumor to .......)I have imagined losing near ones every few days (death to kidnapping ), you name it, I have imagined it. Let's accept on a positive side that I have had a fertile imagination(I still do) because i refuse to allow the pessimist in me to rise again. 

It enhanced post the birth of my second son( yes, you may congratulate me), when I chose to take a career break to raise him and settle the elder one in his first year at formal school. Now when you are away from adult companionship, you crave an intelligent conversation and in its absence, a smart phone becomes your BFF. This is a tricky situation when you start reading a lot online, believe me a  it leads to my kind of mental state. As I read stuff written by others , somewhere I started believing all that happening with me, my thinking process became influenced by what i read . It's then I realised the true power of words, and that made me sure, I wanted to restart the blog.

Now, I have never written fiction, all my blogs are related to me and people around me, but here i was in a self diagnosed worst mental state. So topics that came up were ....depressing. I took help from family but nothing excited me. One fine day, while surfing on FB... yep that's also my obsession at times( I love feeling bad when looking at happy pictures- now that's a dark blog topic) - I came across a quote by Karan Johar - (something on the lines of - I feel young because I have surrounded myself with young, positive people ...their energy keeps me forever young.  And the tubelight lit up - who has the best youngsters in the world around her - me, well my kids are under 5. So, what I thought was a reason for feeling low was actually my biggest strength. This is what happens when we start looking at things from others perspective all the time-  A result of reading a lot online.

Now is the time to pick up , dust and read my book, write a blog, become a kid with my little ones, and live with a smile as life has given me a lot to be grateful for.

P.S -The process isn't easy and fast - but then love will find its way. 

P.S 2 - My kids still manage to drive me crazy, one is sitting on the table eating chips and the other making his father dance on his tunes....