THERE ARE KIND PEOPLE

I just had to say it, because I met or encountered kindness today.

The first was this gentleman we've known for the last decade- he gave me very kind words. With most others, I take them with a huge pinch of salt; with him the words were right and they were the right words. Not like what I normally get to hear from most of my well-meaning-couldn't-really-care-more friends/acquaintances. I mean, come on, I am not calling every single human being I know mean or selfish, I just don't think people care...enough. And even though the love ballad by Extreme is one of my all time favs, still something about words!

The second was this blind gentleman who makes his living by selling dusters etc in Khan Market- he gave me kind words too! He said he found me kind and even though he couldn't see- he could see me! I don't have anything to say that.

And the third was this 7 month pregnant woman who I didn't know till last week. She came to my house for a pedicure- yeah yeah too lazy and I promise I didn't know she was preggers! Anyhow, I cancelled on her yesterday so she called me back today offering to come and help knowing, as she said, I have no maid! Wow- that would mean juggling her work and she's pregnant!!

Basically it means I like people being nice to me. Who doesn't?
Basically it also means there aren't too many people who are being nice to me. Maybe there aren't too many people being nice to anyone! A bit loser like to say that- but hell, if it takes three relative strangers to bring tears to my eyes and re-realise that kindness does exist, then so be it!

All Izz 'Not' Well!

The title of this post is totally lost on non Indians or non followers of Bollywood or those who didn't see Amir Khan's 3 Idiots!

Just a very roundabout way of saying we are, all of us, very ill! What are the chances of that happening? Not many...but it's true and high fevers, bacterial, viral infections, antibiotics rule the roost.

Waiting for it to finfish off...as my older one says!
And just to make it easier for me, went and bought tons of baubles (translation TWO SILVER RINGS...WOW...Blue Nile..wait a bit!)

ILL AGAIN!

Feel so ill...hate this feeling of not being in control and to top it all...the idiot of a driver ditched on us at the last instant!

Worried...

How could I not be?
When is the big change happening? Where do we move from here?
Everything that we would like to have is super expensive and everything that is available is out of reach.

How do you step down....way way down?
Now I know a bit of how the 'mighty' feel in 'how the mighty have fallen'...not that I lay any claims what so ever in being mighty etc, but...

Having stayed in this little piece of heaven right in the middle of Delhi, with the lowest crime rate, with parks so green, with children's areas so well looked after, where when we go to the terrace we get a great view of the Lodhi Gardens....how do you move from here?
I know it's the sweet sweet lure of liberte...where one definitely prefers one's own heaven even if it's in the middle of shit to living in shit in the heavenly surroundings!

If it doesn't make sense to you, don't fret...if ever you find yourself in a similar situation, you will know!

Left Out

So what do you do when you feel left out?

It could be at 5- my older boy complains sometimes of being left out at school.
It could be at 35- like this evening at a friend's daughter's birthday party. Admittedly it doesn't happen as frequently at our age, apart from my own house, but then we are dysfunctional!

After writing this whole post, the internet connection somehow got disconnected and now I have to sit and write the whole thing again. Which I don't particularly want to.
Summary:

We are sitting out with this friend's husband having an interesting conversation.
Husband- hers, gets pointedly called in to join a small group. Pointedly, because we are pointedly left out. If it had been K, I would have tons of spiel to spin to him: join the fun/ do not complain, blah, blah!
But somehow this rule did not seem too applicable to our situation.
Of course it didn't help that the hostess seemed quite impervious to the whole thing. She was a part of this small intimate inside group. So you know when you are not wanted.
What do you do?

You say your goodbyes as gracefully as is possible without hurting your cheekbones (from too much smiling) and know that you can't possibly let yourself be in a similar situation with the same people.
One off your list.

It's Good to be OLD!

Yes, it does feel that more and more.
The power of growing old. The knowledge that comes with the 'advanced years' and the confidence.

I had gone for a meeting this evening. I met a young young girl. She was as old as I was when I actually got married. But her age was oh so evident and maybe mine was as well. I certainly was not jittery- AT ALL. And as I looked at the girl, I realized it felt good to be as old as I am.

Maybe I won't feel the same when I am in the swimming pool with a bunch of 20 somethings with their firm corps and compare them to my sagging bits and wish for the pre-two-kid-body, which by the way is totally achievable and possible even to better it!
But at the same time, I also know it won't really matter- my sagging belly, because it doesn't really matter. Body hair (gross! I know) doesn't really matter. How do I care if someone finds my moustache offensive, or the little hair on my legs when I wear a skirt. If you don't like it, look the other way mister, coz I do not care.

And I can say that now that I am on the right side of 30.
But come to think of it, I always was!

Gethia.

Just ran away for the weekend. To a place called Gethia. I had heard the name 12 years ago.
Was pleasantly surprised to know they were the same. Owned by the same people. It was a beautiful house. Every thing had been thought of. The children were happy. Anuj was too.

The lawn was great, so was the pool. The food was brilliant, the people as well.

The bathrooms were huge.

Wow

Runaway

Well going through the crap as we are and such pressure, we try and run away as frequently as possible. Even when I try and explain my situation to people, I am sure not many even get half of what they are hearing. It's just not possible- such dysfunctionality. It is possible as a third party occurrence- we read about such people and such families in the newspapers; Ekta Kapoor makes television serials based on them- By the way I am never again questioning the authenticity of the seemingly inane and impossible plots. But they do not happen to your friends and acquaintances. The number of times I've had to hear 'Are you kidding me? is irritating.
No I am not kidding. Would anyone be able to make up stories like these? Why would they? Would they be such a brand of losers that they would want to show themselves in such poor light. Pathetic.

And maybe I or my situation appears so for others as well, but should not be the case with my friends?

Anyway, I had initially started this post off as a post about my weekend. But that will be another untainted by this sh#!$@y house talk.

I just don't wish the situation I am in or even half this bad on anyone who's ever wished me well.

Addicted!

I am...to mahjongg!

I had fought this addiction some time ago, to be precise before A jr was born. I would play the damn game for hours. I thought it gave some much needed exercise to my otherwise starved brain, and maybe it does.
All I know is that I am a game freak, and I love it.
Today I got a slightly delayed mother's day present from my babies- a board game called scattergories!

I am content and I thank you God.

TIRED

Am so tired today and seem like the end of my tether as well. Am just beginning to lose it!
Birthday party after party- hopefully now with the schools having closed down, it's going to be dormant for a while.
My friend, another one is moving out of the country- got to know of it yesterday. And another one went this Sunday.
Not many left now. In fact very few.

Too tired to make new friends. Too tired not to have any.

Civic Sense? R U Kidding?

So embarrassing to say if you are in India, and more particularly in the northern belt of let's say the national capital region, you would be deluding yourself if you expected some civic politeness from the citizens.
What does it say about the country? Lots.

I was at a bank this morning with my little one in a stroller and found myself trying to open the heavy door while maneuvering the stroller- not an easy task. And all this time two guards, and other bank personnel just looked on. They literally just looked on? Maybe it was their idea of a daily dose of entertainment, the high point of their dumb days. In all probability they just didn't want to come across as being wimpy, opening doors for women with infants, or for that matter anyone.

Why are we a nation devoid of any etiquette?
The answer even more embarrassing- the lower ranks behave as the head of the organization does. So what example is being set for them in a country rampant with national level corruption scandals, bribery, cheating and crime; where power lies in the hands of those 'unempowered' by even the most basic education, where ability does not necessarily translate to empowerment, where women are well 'women'.

What else would you expect in a nation like this?
Where you can't take a taxi without haggling over the price, even though there's a perfectly fine meter.
Where you try and fleece foreign nationals because they get the 'dollars'.
Where you are happier staying away from the police.
Where there is basically no logic to the systems which never work anyway!

The argument comes back, at least in my head to population, a drawback which China has so beautifully turned to its resource. We can't even control this most root of all causes, in turn the cause of all evils in a developing economy like ours. We can't even provide the most basic of protection to our citizens nor a shelter over our heads nor food. Please don't forget this is the country where our farmers regularly commit suicide because they just can't go on any longer.

And what happens when all this is going on? Is there a national hue and cry? Kind of, in the dailies or the numerous television channels. But what happens then? Do policies get made? Does the money allocated reach the needy? No.

And all this boils down to our looking the other way when a woman is being beaten on the road. It happened when I was 8 months pregnant right in front of my house. And there was NOBODY except this hugely pregnant busybody trying to get the guy to leave the girl. And all this while a group of young 20 somethings- some 10 odd drivers, told me on being shouted at, 'we didn't know whose fault it was...anyway it's a family matter.'

Family matter- rat's ass!

This is what my beloved country boils down to. And to think I gave up a lot of opportunities to come back to this 'oldest civilization'.
Civilisation? Now you are definitely kidding.

No one's Reading

Why is no one reading BIRTHDAY PARTIES-3?

Now that is depressing.

Of course I check my stats. That's the first thing I do when I log in. My millions of followers are a few hundreds of thousands short, but they have grown from 3 to 15!

How do I feel?

On top of the world.

Age 'Eyeing' Me!

So went to the eye doctor today.
Had blurred vision since a couple of months and had postponed this appointment a couple of times already. And I promise if A had not literally pushed me out, I would've cancelled for sure.
After a long wait at the doctor's, and a funny explanation of the reason of my visit- I sounded like a hypochondriac to my own ears; turns out my muscles are tired tired tired. All this because of blogging in the dark- not because this is highly sensitive stuff and needs to be protected from probing eyes.
Au contraire, it is for the sake of the probing eyes, that I have to write when putting my kids to bed, with the lights off.
Well, I hate blurred vision but at least it's not leading up to wearing glasses.

Sleepless Nights

How I wish they were because of some warm cuddles with A...

No such luck. A junior has been waking up every single night at midnight. Usually he goes back to bed around 1 in the morning, but yesterday decided to be up for 3 hours.
He woke up just as I had finally taken something for my migraine and had A heat up...a heating pad for my neck (ha ha). And then plain refused to go back to bed. I don't know what was bothering him, but something clearly was.

I hope he sleeps through tonight, or it will make me think it's the curse of the B-witch!

Bull-ying :-(

Have had a tough week as far as K is concerned.

It started with a call from school asking for him to be picked up early as he had been inconsolable, crying himself into throwing up. I went, picked up my crying baby and by the time we were 50 mts away, the child was back to normal.
All week long, the pattern continues, with him actually making himself so sick that he could not go to school. Thursday saw me forcibly leaving him with some instructions to the teachers. Same story the next day. Makes me actually go to a child psychologist to figure out if I was doing something wrong. Turns out we are fine.
Also turns out that my angel is being bullied terribly at school, with two older boys intimidating him and his dear friend. They've been calling these poor children names, seeking them out and being so obnoxious that the other kid started peeing in his pants and mine just plain refused to go to school. I did complain to the teacher. I was told they are never unsupervised. Turns out they are.

What do I do about it?
I go and find out tomorrow.

Question: What does one do when one's gentle offspring is faced with the big bad world?
How do you empower them? They will be faced with weak people like these bullies, how do they learn how to survive?
Survival of the fittest.
One more thing to teach.

At the same time, I am SAD.