Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Playschool Ahoy!

The first day of school. I'd been dreading it all summer. For weeks before school re-opened I'd been feeling like I used to before a major exam for which I was ill prepared and when the first day of school finally dawned I woke up with clammy hands and a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Naturally I couldn't let Nikki cotton on to how anxious I really was, so I valiantly kept up my dual faced act of quivering with dread at the thought of school in private and acting all jolly and gung-ho about it when Nikki was around. I was really beginning to feel quite schizophrenic about the whole concept of playschool at the end of it. It didn't help that the week before school opened I went shopping for school supplies with a bunch of Equally Paranoid and Hyper Over Protective Moms who spent the entire time discussing all the horrible things that could happen to a hapless two year old, left alone to fend for herself in the big bad world of playschool. Or the Assorted Pesky People I met at the park who'd earlier ask 'What?! She's not at school yet?' and who had now coolly switched to 'What?! You're sending her to school so early?!'.

The whole thing was really beginning to get to me and I couldn't help feeling a pang when the day finally dawned when Nikki would have to go to school all by herself for the first time ever. As we arrived at school, I couldn't help feeling wistful and a little envious of all the mothers with younger kids who were happily trotting off to the Mother & Toddler class together. This was the same school where I'd first come with Nikki when she was just a fifteen month old baby, just about beginning to take her first wobbly steps. This was where we'd spent a whole year together attending the Mother Toddler program ourselves. And now I was expected to just leave her there by herself!

Nikki herself was seemingly unaffected by this momentous occasion and even seemed happy to be back at her beloved school. That was till the teacher showed up and tried taking her from my arms, when she promptly let out a belligerent howl and demanded that I go in with her. The teacher whisked her off nonetheless, after repeatedly reassuring me that Nikki would be absolutely fine once I was out of sight and left me at the gate feeling bereft. I took myself off to a nearby bench and sat counting the minutes feeling more and more like Cruella de Ville with every passing second. What kind of a mother was I, to have just left my baby in the wilderness like that? I mean it wasn't the wilderness strictly speaking and we had been coming there for a year, so Nikki was familiar with the place, but still! She was not even two and a half yet! My baby! I was just about to call P to tell him we were making a horrible mistake with this whole playschool thing when I saw the teacher re-emerge with a familiar looking little figure in her arms. Nikki! She was back! Was it just my imagination or did she look a little pink about the eyes? She'd probably been crying her eyes out inside, poor little angel! I rushed towards the gate as a high pitched Bollywood-esque 'haai mera bachha!' rang out in my mind and reached for Nikki.
"She was absolutely fine!" the teacher informed me with a beam.
"Oh no! Haai....Eh? What? She was fine?" I gaped back at her.
"Oh yes, she had a great time. See you both tomorrow!" the teacher gave me another bright smile before turning to another anxious mother.
Nikki had been fine by herself! She'd managed perfectly well even though I hadn't been around! Right. So that was all fine then. Except that I wasn't feeling bereft anymore. I was feeling dispensable.

I brought up the matter gently with P that evening.
"Nikki doesn't need me anymore!" I screeched "Two years of spending every waking moment with me and now she trots off with that beastly teacher without so much as a second glance, the little ingrate! She had a good time at school today! What am I going to do?"
"Er, I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually honey" P smiled weakly before suddenly remembering an important official dinner for which he needed to leave that very instant, leaving me alone in my misery.
Get used to it indeed! Bah! I was not going to just let that teacher steal Nikki from me while I stood by the sidelines cooling my heels. No sir, I was going to fight right back and show that teacher how indispensable I really was! Hadn't I been voted the most enthu mommy dancer back at the mother toddler class? Hadn't my moves for 'Dorothy The Dinsosaur' been emulated by all the others? Get used to it! Pshaw!

So I was ready for the teacher when she showed up at the gate to take Nikki from me the next morning.
"Maybe I should accompany you till the classroom?" I suggested in a gentle but firm voice "Being her Primary Care Giver, it may help alleviate her separation anxiety."
"Oh that's not required" the teacher replied equally firmly, "It might upset the other children. Besides Nikki has settled in pretty well, she's fine without you inside."
"But she'll have so much more fun if I come too!" I was desperate now "It says on the activity sheet that you have the Wiggly Woo dance activity planned for today and I'm an ace at Wiggly Woo! Why back in the mother toddler class I...."
"Er right, I'm sure you were wonderful!" the teacher interrupted nervously "But we really must go now and Nikki will be fine! Don't worry!" she shot off like a rocket with another nervous glance at me as if I was going to start doing the Wiggly Woo right there! As if! That little twitch I'd given when I was talking to her was just a muscular spasm. Or something.

I spent the rest of the time kicking up a dust storm and pretty much achieving my targeted calorie burning for the quarter as I anxiously paced up and down outside the school building, till a worried looking teacher came out to offer me a cup of coffee and a magazine and told me to 'please just relax'. Nikki came out soon enough with the teacher, beaming and looking as happy as could be. And then, instead of jumping into my arms, she turned around and gave the teacher a high five and a flying kiss! I must have turned a visible shade of green because the teacher took me aside and patted me kindly on the arm "I understand that this is a worrying phase for you but don't worry! This is a settling in phase for the parent as much as the child. And Nikki is doing well, she's with us for just half an hour now but she's settling in so well that we can increase it to an hour next week onwards!"
Yeah right! First an hour and then two whole hours! And before I know it she'll be leaving for college and telling me she needs her space! But I'm damned if I'm giving up without a fight! For starters I showed Nikki who was the real ace at Wiggly Woo with my live stand-up act at dinner last evening. And there was really no reason for P to get all upset. Okay so maybe I did go a little overboard when I asked Nikki if the teacher could do the Wiggly Woo as well as me (huh? huh?)but I mean, she was the one who started it with the high five-ing and the flying kisses all over the place! Still, P insists I need to learn how to let go and stop behaving like a sap and I should be happy that Nikki is bonding with her teacher at school. Hmph. What does he know? He has no idea about the kind of pressure teachers put on the kids nowadays- I heard some horror stories from the Equally Paranoid and Hyper Over Protective Moms just the other day. In fact some of them are even considering homeschooling for their kids so that they don't have to....Hey! Waitaminit. Homeschooling! No more sending your child away for two whole hours. No more high-five-ing and flying-kisses and 'Oh I love my teacher'...no more having to work my butt off (quite literally) to perfect my moves at Dorothy The Dinosaur. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Coming Soon!


Coming real soon, to bookstores near you! You remember I'd told you about it, here? Well the endless wait (for me!) is finally over, and it is going to be out in bookstores by early next month. Will post more updates once it is finally out there!

And now, I'm going to go back to curl up under my duvet to snivel and chew away at my finger nails and continue being a hopelessly nervous wreck.

On an unrelated note, did you notice that I've put up TWO posts in the same day? Prolific, eh? On a blogging spree, what? Yeah, I thought not. Its probably the first and last time this is ever going to happen.

Now back to sniveling.

Lessons from mommyhood

Okay, so I am bursting at the seams (metaphor, metaphor!)with all the stuff that's been going on and that I want to tell you, but first I have to do the 'lessons from mommyhood' tag that the delightful Noor had tagged me with a while ago. Strangely enough before this tag started doing the rounds I'd been thinking of doing a post along similar lines, a post about all the stuff that I've learned since I became a mom. Being my usual efficient, brisk, get-down-to-the-job self, the post in my mind grew and brewed and would have probably got pickled, if it hadn't been for this tag which has served like a timely kick in the posterior. So here goes; here's some of the stuff I've learned since I became Nikki's mommy:


1.I've learned that it pays to start the day sunny side up. That bit about getting off on the right side of the bed? It works! Before I had Nikki I don't really remember waking up in the morning all raring to smell the roses and soak in the sunshine. Maybe the fact that all I could really look forward to smelling was my evil co-workers' coffee breath while soaking in the artificial glare from my laptop had something to do with it, but the point is I was invariably grouchy first thing in the morning on most days. Except Mondays, when I was positively depressed. Then Nikki came along and every morning I'd be greeted by a little bundle of cooing and squealing delight. Nikki wakes up every morning super thrilled to just be awake, raring to take on a new day, chattering non stop about all the million things she simply has to do right away and her cheerful enthusiasm is infectious! My blue funk vanishes and I grin right back at her and it makes all the difference to the rest of my day as well. The bai who fails to turn up doesn't throw me into a tizzy, the gloomy weather outside doesn't make me want to curl up under my duvet and die and the million little daily irritants that earlier made me want to howl like a banshee just make me want to say tut-tut. Sounds simple really, but it took Nikki to make me realize how important it is to start the day with a smile and what a difference it can make.

2.I've learned to stop, slow down, relax. When you have a child who takes approximately one hour and thirty seven minutes to eat one aloo paratha, you can use the time to figure out what WH Davies really meant when he wrote all that stuff about leisure.You also learn that it can actually be fun to just slow down while you make funny shapes with that aloo paratha and observe the swirls it makes when you trail it in a bowl of yoghurt. And that there's nothing more relaxing than a summer afternoon spent in the park with a two year old, watching the clotted cream clouds drift past above, or make up stories about apples that dance and grasshoppers that sing.

3.Motherhood has made me an infinitely patient person. Patience was not something I listed among my virtues earlier but now I can deal with the worst of the temper tantrums and the nuclear meltdowns and the mealtime battles and then some with an abundance of calm. I just hope it lasts.

4.I've learned that I can be Superwoman when I have to. Ten years ago, if someone had told me that I would survive one long road trip with an infant, during the course of which keeping said infant well fed, clean, safe and in good humour would be my sole responsibility no matter how many times the infant pooped (and boy, did she poop!)and that I would come back home at the end of it, bone tired, to cook up a batch of khichdi and sterilize a few bottles, I would have laughed hysterically. Then I would have keeled over and died. But I did do all of these things. And then I woke up three times at one, three and five am to rock and sing the same infant to sleep. And I did not howl like a banshee. At least not out loud.

5. Most importantly, I think becoming a mother has helped me learn a whole lot of things about myself. About what makes me happy, about the things that really matter to me and the things that don't. And, cliched as it sounds, it has helped me become a better person, because the thought of that little person whose life I am responsible for shaping, at least in some ways, makes me want to be someone she can always look up to.

The whole world and its sister has probably done this tag by the time I've got down to it, but I'm going to go ahead and tag some mommies I'd like to hear from anyway. Go for it Priyanka, Divs, Sonia, MRC (hope this gets you to blog again!) and Beks! You're IT!

Friday, June 3, 2011

The thing about beauty...

I always thought I had a pretty standard perception of beauty. Smooth skin, pretty eyes, shiny hair, a pleasing face. Being nicely put together and well groomed just added to the overall picture. Then I got to thinking of all the times I’d felt beautiful myself. Really beautiful. It wasn’t the day I got my first terribly expensive haircut in preparation for an important job interview. It wasn’t the day I got dressed to the nines for my wedding. On both of these occasions I’d made sure that I had ticked all of the right boxes. My face was perfectly made up, my hair was straight and silky, and you couldn’t have found a fault with my attire and make up. But I didn’t feel beautiful. I felt cosmetically correct. Actually, to be honest, on the day of my wedding I felt like a cross between a chandelier and a Christmas tree in my heavy lehenga, overtly made up face and chemically straightened hair. But my eyes were shining. And it wasn’t because of the mascara and the three inch thick eyeliner, it was because of the overflowing happiness that I felt inside. And this got me to thinking of all the times in my life that I had felt really beautiful. The day the boy I loved held my hands and told me that he loved me too. It was a windswept, rainy afternoon and we were on a trek with a bunch of friends. We’d been caught in two showers already and a third loomed menacingly, imminent in the brooding, dark clouds hovering above us. I was drenched through, my hair looked ratty and fell in limp strands across my face and in my heavy and wet trekking gear I was probably as close to looking and feeling like a (wet) sack of potatoes as I ever would be. And yet, when I received that declaration of love I felt beautiful. I felt like the most beautiful girl in the world.

I can remember too, in vivid detail, the moment when I saw my daughter for the first time. For nine months before that moment I had dreamed of seeing my baby for the first time ever. For many months before that moment I had thought about and imagined this baby, falling in love with my own creation of her in my mind. Always, I imagined a chubby cheeked, cute little cherub with bright sparkling, mischievous eyes and a pert, impertinent smile. The baby that the doctor brought to me was nothing like that. Eyes tightly shut, fists clenched, a facial expression of immense displeasure at being hustled out into the world like that, taken away from the welcoming cocoon of the womb that she was hitherto accustomed to, my daughter was as far from the mental impression I had had of her as a real, newborn baby is from a touched up, photo shopped Anne Geddes model baby. And yet, at that moment, there was nothing more beautiful to me than the sight of my newborn baby girl and all I wanted to do was revel in her innocent beauty.

When I urge my mind into the past I remember some of the images of everlasting beauty that have stayed with me. My grandmother, with her silver hair and her warm, grey-blue eyes will always be one of the most beautiful women to me. I remember one of my friends in school being slightly disappointed when she first met my grandma. Having heard countless tales of her ‘beauty’ from me in the past she had probably expected to see someone along the lines of Maharani Gayatri Devi when she first came over to meet her and I think she was a little let down with the frail, slightly stooping old lady she met instead. But if she had seen my grandma through my eyes she would have understood what real beauty means to me. To me that very same frail old lady was beauty personified. I saw beauty in those loving grey-blue eyes that had waited eagerly for me to come back home from school every day since the very first day I started going to school, in the smile that lit up her face as I’d turn the corner on the last stretch of the path that led up to our doorway, in the wrinkled hands with which she would insist on feeding me herself, in that tinkling laughter and soft voice that never failed to enquire after my day, even many years later when I’d started working and she probably couldn’t understand exactly what it was that I did, and in that silver hair that I had loved playing with as a child and that had born testimony to years of loving and nurturing her children and then their children after them.

There are other little vignettes that flash through my mind when I think of what beauty really means to me. A face in the crowd that captures my eye and, oftentimes my imagination, that is beautiful in that moment, because of those shining eyes or that serene smile, reflecting an inner spirit and contentment that no cosmetic makeover could ever hope to achieve. Sometimes it is a beauty that reflects character and resolve, sometimes a quiet contentment, sometimes it is just a moment of pure joy. Real beauty then, is something very personal, unique to each of us and our perceptions of it, slightly elusive and a little indefinable, and all the more beautiful because it is so!

Quite honestly I don’t understand the whole brouhaha over looking good, to feel good, especially when that looking good entails confirming to certain norms and predefined standards. And that’s probably why I’ll never colour my hair or get it artificially straightened, because I’d never feel beautiful if I do. But I do know that I will find beauty in the silver of my hair, a beautiful, visual reflection of a life that’s been hopefully well lived. I find it a little hard sometimes to express or even fully understand the reasons behind those occasions when I feel beautiful. It could be after a great workout, or after a great head massage, when I feel beautiful even though my hair is dripping with oil! Maybe it’s the feeling of well being that comes from within, the feeling of caring for myself that makes me feel beautiful at these times.

Someday I want to sit my daughter down and try and tell her, as best as I can, what real beauty should mean. It shouldn’t be about fitting in or standing out. It shouldn’t be about short skirts or long legs or poker straight hair. And it shouldn’t matter what everyone else thinks it is. But it should be something that has meaning to you and resonates with you. It should feel right. And it should come from within. And as long as it does, it will be real.
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