Good Girl

Last night, during our mom-daughter talks, my child caresses my face & says, “You are good girl”.

I was a taken back a little. I am always the bad girl. And, guess what people do who make sure to point it out to her. Naturally, I was curious. I asked her why she thinks I am a good girl.
She : You have good manners.
Me {Duh} : What good manners do I have?
She : You work, you play, you talk, you take me to dance class, you sit with me for homework ……..

The actual list was too long. She listed out most of the things I do for/with her. Even though some of them doesn’t end pleasantly, like for ex, getting her ready for school. But, whatever said & done, it felt good being acknowledged :)

No more school!!!

Nans {crying} : I don't want to goto school

And, I was thinking ....Oh! God! Mom was rite! What goes around, comes around! As child, I never liked going to school and used to create a scene every single morning. I could see my mom passing a wicked smile.

Me {trying to be calm} : Ayyoooo ..... you will not be able to learn new new things if you don't goto school
Nans {in-between her sobs} : I don't like school
Me : Why baby?
Nans : The teacher makes me write 'E' when I want to do coloring ....
Me : ????????

And, I was thinking it was the early morning waking up thats discouraging her from going to school. I have no clue on how to tell her that school & life are going to be like this for a real long time to come ...........

Time to move out????

Its only 3 days since I last saw him, but still I couldn't resist the temptation to be close to him. Oh, GOD! What is happening to me??!?!?!

For all those who are wondering who this 'he' is, he is none other than my brother. All these years, I have being doing my best to get onto my elder brother's nerves. Considering the age difference, and thats not a small figure, he was always stronger than I was. Which implies, all the physical fights were won by him. But, I was persistent. I used to try everything in & out of the books to keep him on his toes. I do that even now.

As we grew up, the age difference turned out to my disadvantage. He was sent off to a far away university for his graduation, then he had to pick up a job & other things in life. All these kept us in different hemispheres of the globe. That was how I learned the talent of verbal abuse(not necessarily be dirty language).

After all the wandering, now he has moved to a place very close to my home. But, of late, its more of verbal thing than the physical one. End of the day, the story is the same - torture the sibling! To be honest, I am enjoying that routine.

Yes, my dear friends, irritating him gives me thrills. But, I realized another thing too ..... there is a need to talk to him too. Just to know that hes around, to talk to, to fall back on and, most important of all, to fight with ........ :)

Epilogue:
Yes! I finally rung him up. The call was short & brisk.
Me : Hi!
Bro : Hello!
Me : You busy?
Bro : Not at the moment.
Me : Okay! I just called to see if you are busy! Byee!
'Click'

Looking for schools?

Of late, I have been seeing too many inquiries on various schools in and around our apartment.So, I thought, I'll put this up here in case someone wants to use it .....

We had gone through the admission process for our daughter, for the academic year 2009-2010. She was to be enrolled into nursery(the class before lkg for age 3+). The schools we had an eye on were - Delhi Public School, Freedom International, Greenwood High and National Public School. All these schools started issuing the application forms after the pooja hols, that is October-November time frame. I wanted to pick a school which follows the CBSE sylabus and nearer our place.

1) DPS has a website, from where you may download the appln forms. Since this link is active throughout the year, check the academic year mentioned in the form before you start filling them. Click here to access their website. You will have to take a DD(Rs500 or 600 forgot the actual figure) while submission.

After the screening of the admission forms, they will ring you up for interviews & other formalities. What I have generally observed is, they will ring up on a Wed or Thrus & ask us to appear, with the child, on that Sat. So, if you have plans for sending child out-of-station, it wouldn't be a good idea. And, rescheduling generally doesn't work.

There are two rounds of interviews - the first is named the 'observation'. The teachers will take the child(the child alone) into a classroom & observe how he/she behaves. Since we are not allowed inside, I have no idea what actually happened in the classroom. After much coaxing, my child left a couple of hints - Casually, they asked questions like, your name, dad's name etc. Inside the room, there will be some toys, color pencils & other activity items. They observer how the child responds to each of these items, whether the child knows to hold a pencil, color pictures, how the child interacts with other children etc.

Luckily for us, our child went with the teacher after we introduced the teacher as 'the teacher' and not a stranger.

If the child clears the first round, theres a second round, which is basically for the parents.

Anywayz, my child goes to DPS now. I picked it up mostly because there are lots of children going to DPS from our appartment. The kids from her day-care goes to DPS. And, two of her friends parents are teaching there. There are three buses dedicated to our appartment :) That left very little room to feel lonely.

2) Freedom International, you just walk-into the school & ask the lady at the front desk. She will be able to give you the precise dates on when they will be issuing the forms. The lady there was very friendly.I don't have any further details on the admission process there, as our child had already cleared DPS by then.

3) Greenwood(its in koramangala). This schools has the most hassle free process of all the schools. The results will be out in 10mins of the interview. They had done it professionaly - the lady in the reception was very friendly, the interview slots were well space so that there are not more than 3 families at a time. If you have the enough cash balance in your bank account, the entire process will be over in an hour or two.

Interview was fairly simple. The Kindergarten principal will ask the typical question - sing a rhyme, identify colors, vegetables, sizes. When the Pricipal asked our child to sing a rhyme, she gave a stright NO. Again, luckily for us, the Principal found it ammusing. Oh! yea, she answered all the other questions correctly O:-)

Our child did clear the interview and my husband wanted to enroll her in this school. But, I was intimidated by the fact that Greenwood has only a/c buses. I wanted her to travel in a regular bus, with lesser comforts & have her own episodes with the bullies in the bus.


4) NPS ...... well, heres a tough nut. There won't be any updates other than the ones on their notice boards. I got the info from our office forum. Some parents saw the info in the school notice board & they had posted a thread in the office groups. So, you will either have to be in touch with some NPS parent or personally go & check the school notice boards religiously.

I have no clue on what their screening criterions are. There are a whole lot of rumors going on like - they prefer siblings, their own teachers' children, kids with one non-working parent. But, I have heard a teacher's child being rejected and one child of the non-working parent get into the school but not the other.

Now, if you ask me, why I applied here, just for the heck of it. I wasn't too confident whether I will be able to handle the pressure of this highly academic school. Yes, am not talking about my child, but myself.

Theres also a general opinion that the school fees are high. Yes, the school fees are high, but there are no concept of 'donations' either(at least, not when we tried last year).

Location Maps : DPS BLR-EAST , Freedom International , Greenwood High , National Public School

Compliment ... to give or not to

"I have no clue how I am going to ask her to reduce all those excess kilos she is gaining", said one of my guy friends. They are expecting their first baby. His wife was asked for a complete bed rest, during the first trimester, due to some complication. And, later on, the doctor advised not to strain herself. All this left no room for any activity - not even the age old remedy - the walk. And like a typical mallu, shes being gaining weight ever since.

We, my friend & myself, being loyal friends, we started off with our expertise. He had no option but to listen to us - after all, girls are supposed to know girls better. This is a snippet of the conversation that ensued ....

Me : Well, to start with, never ever tell her to start working out. That is a direct insult - it gets translated to 'You are fat! Do something!'
The other girl friend(eagerly shaking her head in consensus) : Very true! That might even hurt her ego.
Me : Yeah, and that will surely back fire!
He (taking a mental note) : No direct statements!

The other girl friend : Make subtle comments.
He (looking lost) : How can the topic of weight reduction be made subtle?
Me (seriously thinking) : For one, you may start saying stuffs like, you look great in some pre-pregnancy dresses.
The other girl friend : Yeaa .... you can tell her that you like it when she wears that dress.

There was a long pause while the guy was giving it a serious thought. Finally, the other girl friend broke the silence .... "But the problem is, if you are not used to complimenting her, and out of the blue, you make this statement, she'll be wondering - Are you nuts!!!!"

That was exactly the reaction I gave my husband when my hubby got me some accessories 'out of the blue'! He had been out of town that weekend. On a normal day, things like, ringing up or getting gifts are not important to him. And, he never does that and, I was fine with that until this time, when he decided to surprise me with a gift! As my dear friend had mentioned, I was indeed dumbstruck & was wondering - 'Is something wrong with this guy?'

Hydraulic Force

"I was unable to transfer all my emotions into a verbal form, I guess thats why I cried", said I.

I was talking to a guy friend of mine, soon after I had patched up with my hubby after a week long fight. He asked me how I patched up, and my answer was - I don't know, I was confronting him & then I started crying. Maybe, my verbal skills were unable to match the rate at which the emotions were taking a ride. And, I burst into tears out of frustration for not being able to convert all these emotions into words!

The other day, someone else close to me had mentioned the same thing. They too patched up after she started crying. Now, thanks to 'Times of India', I know why. If you want to read the complete article, check the 'Banglore Times' dated Sept 23rd, 2009. They have an article titled, 'Crying is good for you'.

As per this article, crying is a highly evolved behavior. Tears give clues and reliable information about submission, needs & social attachments between one another! They also say that the 'efficiency' of crying depends on who we are with and the place we are at. That is, crying in office is not efficient .... Duh???!?!?!?

Fine! At least, the next time I cry amidst an argument & my husband gets irritated, I have an answer ... an actual answer that he would understand. But, my all time favorite definition for this process is ......

Tears : The hydraulic force by which masculine will-power is defeated by feminine water power.

Psst! Yes! this is how I get away with all the arguments. Otherwise, I don't see a reason why my marriage should have lasted this long!

Meeleparambil Aanveedu

This is the name of a Malayalam movie. The movie revolves around the characters in the house name Meeleparambhu. This house is famous because, this house has only men in it. The only female residing in that house is the mother.

Those were my brothers dreams too. Live in a house with just male relatives & mom. Unfortunately, Providence had something else in store for him! It all started on that unfortunate Friday night. He was eagerly waiting outside the room, waiting for his first recruit! But his mother thoroughly disappointed him. She gave him a baby girl inspite of his repeated requests for a boy. Starting from that unfortunate Friday, He was stuck with girls!

After that, he had his hopes pinned on his aunts, they were all able to meet his expectations, but the 'generation gap' moved in with them. They were all too young to be in his 'gang'. Moreover, he was able to meet them only during vacations. And again, since he was much older than us, he always had classes or extra-classes or entrance preparations or something looming over his head. So, whatever hopes he had on spending time with his boy cousins were also flushed down the drain.

We grew older & we moved to our home at Kochi(or Ernakulam or Cochin), there again he started nurturing his childhood dream now that it was my turn for entrance examinations.He was pinning his hopes on my clearing the exam & going away from home to study some place outside Kochi. After which, he could bring home all his guy cousins and christen our home as 'Meeleparambil Aanveedu'. Poor guy, little did he realize then there were engineering colleges in Kochi. Now, not only did he have to live with his mom & sis, BUT, his sister brought more sisters into the house - her friends. Can you hear the flushing sound in the background? I very well can!

Then he escaped to US of A. There he tried hard to get out of the girl circle. But, there too he was landed with more sisters - his friends' wives. And, being the big brother - he had to listen to all their woes too. Then came his turn to get married. Oh! yes! One more girl.

Finally, he is back in India. Luckily now the girl count is under control, but the girls aren't. God only knows why he has been branded with a piece of each - wife, mom, daughter, sis & niece. I can see the CG changing the name 'Meeleparambil Aanveedu' into 'Puthushery Pennvendu'.

local hartals

Like all Thursdays, last Thursday I called in a strike at home. Yeah, being a mallu coming from a leftist background, I have the liberty to call in strikes or hartals every now & then. And mind you, like the strikes in Kerala, I too go on strike every other day. I was beginning to get the feeling that, something was terribly wrong with me - I am always in the fighting mode.

During one of these 'hartal' days, I had visited my friend's place before going to office. The maid opened the door & let me in. While I was waiting for my friend in their living room, I could hear an extremely familiar conversation. It got me worried, did someone overhear me grumbling? Were they trying to mock me? Quite contrary to my character, I decided to wait for a couple of seconds, before I respond. And just then, I saw my friend storming out of her bedroom, took a pause, turned back to say the finishing line & walked out of the house with me.

Thats when it all came to me. The scenes & the dialogs were familiar to me, it just happened in my house just a couple of minutes back.

Yesterday, I was visiting another friend of mine and I just missed the familiar scene. The house was calm, calm like the ones before the storm. And, they were just holding it back, because both our kids were playing in the same room.

I have to say, I was a little relieved to witness these 'private' moments. I am not completely different from other couples. Of course, the degree of bitterness varies, but am happy that deviation from the normal has reduced. The issues are all similar - women say something & men translate them into something completely different.

One heck of an Onam celebration!!!!

Like all mallus stationed outside Kerala, we - all mallus from our apartment - too decided to celebrate it on a weekend instead of the actual Thiruvonam day! And, as any Onam, our celebrations too had to have couple of basic items - one traditional dance form, some songs to go with the theme & a skit/drama - if not more.

A couple of Mommy friends & myself had signed up for these programs. It all started as a fun thing. But the day before the celebrations, all of us went into a panic attack. The last time I felt the same was before my university exams! Two nights before the exams, all of us would be frantically ringing each other to check out what all are the important points to be revised, what all can be completely skipped, which all modules have been completed by who all, etc etc. This time the phone calls included - did you buy the bangles for the dance, what kind of necklace should we be wearing, who will buy the flowers, are all your costumes ready.

Amongst this confusion, someone mentioned their teenage story on stage fright - her mouth dried up, she went completely blank & fainted. Since none of us had been on stage or had felt the pressure of being judged for a long time, we were all having second thoughts - were we right in signing up? The practise sessions were fine, but getting on stage? That too, when the audience were friends & family... oh! ooo! not a good thought. And now its too late to drop out!

In any case, everything went fine. Though we could feel our mouth going dry, nobody fainted. Just like in exams, after the first five minutes of 'stiffness', all the answers came in automatically from somewhere deep within. In this case, we started dancing a few seconds into the music :) Of course, there were glitches. We have no clue on how the audience felt about the program, but we definitely felt happy after the performance! In fact, we are all looking forward to the next event to get on stage again :)

the listner in me ....

Yesterday, one of my friends left her 3year old son at my place with my daughter. The stay was not intentional. He saw a completely new set of toys & decided to explore them! It was only after 10 mins that the child realized that his mom was serious about leaving him & going out to finish her errands. And the moment he realized that, he started crying. Being used my daughters screeching wails, I didn't notice any difference in the beginning. It took a couple of mins to ring the bell - He was crying. Then I hugged him and tried my best in explaining that his mom will be back soon & that I'll try to call her & ask her to rush back.

All this while, my daughter was watching me. When he stopped crying, she took him to her room & started playing. After a while, he enquired about his mom again. And, this time, my daughter handled it wonderfully. I have to say, her approach was more systematic. First she explained, where his mother is currently(gone out for doing some stuff). Then she explained, why she had to go out(like, lets say, she has to go out to get cookies). Next came the consequences IF his mom doesn't do whatever shes doing rite now(like, if she doesn't buy cookies he won't be able to have). And, to my surprise, he didn't ask for his mom after this real long explanation.

I don't know, if its the mom in me speaking, but .... I was thoroughly impressed. She applied the same approach for helping him out with new toys - how the toy works, what you need to do to make it work, etc.

Epilogue ...
They played happily for almost an hour. After that, their interests in each other & the toys died out and were on the path to become normal children(ie. fighting/blaming mode). Luckily, his mom reached before an actual fight started out :)

Special Thanks to J.Ammai & Kutti's Achan who takes time in explaining things to my daughter :)

into the loo ....

When I was being introduced to the 'real' my hubby, by his family, one thing caught my attention. That was his dad's 'handout' on his routines -

5 songs in the bathroom = morning rituals complete
another 6 songs = bathing complete
another 4 songs = hes all set to come out

Until I married, there weren't any guy living in the house. In my maternal home, the men of the house - my dad & my bro - who were working &/or studying outside Kerala, were mere visitors. So, I could never comprehend the 'need' to be in the bathroom for this long.

I thought, may be, my hubby is different ... after all he was brave enough to marry me! Now, that I have a larger circle of married friends, I get the same response from all the lady friends. Their guy spends more time in the loo than anywhere else!

Maybe, its a guy thing - may be they feel secure there?!?!? Like the algebraic formulas I was asked to accept, I am to accept these new formulas too. I remember, one of my aunts complaining about her son taking the newspaper to the loo. But, now as technology has progressed, they take PSPs & laptops to the loo. Oh! yes! whenever my hubby configures a wireless router, loo is the first place he checks for connectivity!!

The silent treatment ....

This is the story of He and She. It was her bday & he was trying everything to keep her on cloud 9. It was a Saturday & like every other working couple, this Saturday was also jam packed for them. Besides the routine tasks, she was to goto a famous mall for her bday lunch at location X(via A, L, M & N). And, he was go & arrange for that night's dinner party at location Y(via A, L, C & D). And, I, was eavesdropping on them ;)

This story unfolds at a place near his & her home....
He : I don't see your wallet, where is it?
She (the look) : --
He (a lil defensive) : I was asking this because, weren't you supposed to catch a bus to go and meet your friends.
There were some discussions on the POA as our final destinations were in different directions & we had only 1 car. We had a rough plan laid out while we crossed A.
He : How are you planning to pay for the lunch? I hope, you have sufficient money with you.
She (the look again) : --
He & Me came up with the final draft while we passed point L. We also decided on the child distribution plan - kids to stay with their respective mommies. We were a few meters away from C when she finally spoke ...
She (all smiling) : So, whats the plan now?
Me (proud to explain the foolproof plan) : We are now going to Y to order food. There is a bus stop near Y, its a major bus stop, so you will get all buses to all routes from this place.
She (screaming) : Aren't we going home now??!?!?!?? I don't have money, I am not dressed properly. Am I to take the baby in this dress?

Since I was the audience, I had all the authority to roll on the floor laughing.
He (all perplexed) : What was i repeatedly asking you all this while?
She (that angry look) : --

Someone was correct in saying, Men are from Mars & Women are from Venus. I would say, so are their communication methodology. All this while, she was using 'the look' to say, "Don't be stupid! Can't you see am not dressed for the occasion? I have to go home & change & a get a lot of other stuffs sorted out before I go out for lunch. "

I think, he was able to put her back on cloud 9(or at least a cloud 6) after a lil help from Me towards damage control.

Sun's Clip

This is a snippet of the conversation my daughter had with me ....

Kido : Amma, which was that clip ... the sun's clip
Me : Sun's clip (duh???!?!?!? In my mind, I was frantically searching for the cartoon that shows Sun with a clip. Was it Chutti TV? I know their logo is some sun, but does that have a clip. None, that I know off. Oh! My God! Maybe, I should ask my daughter for more clues .... )
Me (again) : Which clip baby? Where did you see sun with a clip?
Kido (now shes doing the patience act) : Ammaaa, you know the sun, the moon ... that clip
Me (still clueless) : Yes ... the sun ... the moon ... (gulp) the clip ... but when did u see that baby?
Kido (now a lil impatient) : Amma! the sun ... the moon ... they hide ... clip ... that clip ...

No prices for guessing what she was trying to say, but still you may try it. Just to get an idea on amount of mental exercise I am getting on a daily basis.

Well, the answer was eclipse!!!! Couple of days back, we had a solar eclipse in India. That day, while I was trying to get her ready for school, I had mentioned it to her. She asked a couple of questions & I tried to answer them as correctly as my poor memory would let me. I never realized that it would boomerang in the least expected manner!