Time travel - A peep into the gap

Wow....the last post was just 6 days after the new year that was 2011. And now here we are in mid June 2013.


I have been putting off restarting the blog as I did not know where to begin, what to update, what to omit, the sequence to follow etc. Finally I have decide to just do it...no updates, no formats nothing..I start from today, now!!!

But just a brief outline of what happend in the past 30 months or so.  Mid Jan 2011, I called it quits at my work... the same place I have been working for 13 years. Of course....I was very sentimental about bidding adieu to the place that I really grew up in, that saw my transition from a mere school girl to a crazy, rebellious teenager to grown up woman with her head well set on her shoulders. Career wise there was a growth from Insurance Assistant to Operations Manager. In personal life, I became a wife, mother of 2 kids and 25 kgs heavier!! But not surprsingly, once I set my foot outside the office as an employee for the last time, I was feeling much lighter and have not missed the workplace a single day..why not even a minute after that. I have settled into the role of a SAHM and am very comfortable with it now.  My life now revloves around my favorite place, my home, and my favourite people, my kids!!!  Life is happy, peaceful and very rewarding.  I am truly happy!!  Appu has grown a lot...and at 9.5 yrs is very close to puberty.  She is in grade V at DPS Shj.  A very good student and is one of the Prefects of Nile House this year.   Aarush baby is now almost 4.  He too started school this April and is in KG1 at DPS Shj.  He is an absolute charmer and has wrapped me around his little fingers!  He is my little pet monkey!!

Im seriously into wt loss now and have been successful at putting off a few kilos. The endeavour continues and I am confident that I will see success this time!! 

I am still not a great cook.....but I have improved leaps and bounds.  From a person who could not make a decent omelette, I can now confidently manage the kitchen and can cook up a lot of tasty dishes in no time.  I can proudly call myself a good housewife now!! I love making typical kerala vegetarian dishes for lunch. 

Thats just a brief outine.  Now back to NOW!! :)

2011 - My Year!

We were among the thousands thronging the Downtown Dubai to witness the ringing in of the New Year by the much hyped world’s highest fireworks at Burj Khalifa. It lasted only for a few minutes and as we were totally awestruck at the unabashed display! Appu and her friend had their mouth wide open and eyes popping out. Later, in the car, they were very vocal about their disappointment that it did not last longer and were fuming and cribbing about the unfairness of it all – we were in the car for almost 6 hours to witness the 3 minutes show! But the young lasses did not waste a minute of these 6 hours and were chatting away and enjoying all the while. And eh… I could not help but eavesdrop on their conversation. Its fun to hear these little girls talk, uff, they left me feeling ashamed of my skills at gossip and b****ing!

A week has almost passed and I am busy trying up a lot of loose strings. “ My New Year” has not commenced yet! I am excited and jittery about this year as it is going to a very different one for me and a major turning point! Resolutions have been conciously avoided this year. But yes, a few goals are lined up at the starting point and waiting for the gunshot. Steps have been taken to chuck out and keep away all the negativities of year 2010. Positive outook and approach is on the cards for this year!

2011 – The year of Books, books and books and lots of books!
I was quite concerned about my reading being on the back burner for a while. Last year I got it rolling again, only about 12 books read but its an improvement and I am glad about it. I have signed up for the South Asian Challenge to read more of my current favourites - Asian authors, infact more of Indian authors. I am impatient to relish the fares dished out by the young crop of Indian authors. Its so much more easier to relate to them and many a times the bond is formed with the authors even before you actually start with the books.  I have also joined the 50 book challenge at Shelfari and look forward to completing atleast 50 books this year!

2011 – The year of health and fitness!
I have given away a precious year of mine being obscenely fat and resembling an overstuffed potato sack! Apart from the weight and tyres (so many that my hubby is now quite relaxed about driving around without a spare trye in the car), I have managed to gain more than my share of self loathing, a creaking knee, a borderline thyroid disfunction and worst of all, disgusted looks from Appu many a times! Yes, I am going to make this the year for reversal of the sins of the year gone by!

2011 – The year of Culinary Delights!
Well, I admit to a little bit of exaggeration there. I will take my first tiny steps into the world of gravies, stir frys, roasts, grills et al. And by the close of the year, I want to proudly proclaim “ Yeah..I can cook!”. I am not over ambitious here – as long as I can cook up a decent simple meal, and a healthy tasty snack fpr the kids, I will be happy! Ahem, ahem…..note the cookery blogs on my blogroll at the right!

So here’s 3 cheers to 2011 -
HIP HIP HOORAY!
HIP HIP HOORAY!!
HIP HIP HOORAY!!!

A healthy, peaceful, fun, contented, cheerful new year to all of you!!

Love In the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I have just finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera but I do not know how to rate it. I read umpteen reviews about it to see how others felt about it. Most of the people seem to have mixed feelings about the book too and do not seem to know whether to love it or hate it. I didn’t love it, definitely not, but I was struck by something within it.

The book was not an easy read for me and had me googling a lot to read about Caribbean culture, history and life, which I found particularly interesting. I liked the manner in which the story is woven and the way in which the plot unfolded, but did not find the style of narration much to my liking. The narration in third party did not help much at all and I did not find myself being able to connect with any of the characters in the book.

The book is about young Florentino Ariza and his passionate love for the beautiful Fermina Daza. However, Fermina’s father opposes the relation and takes her away for a year. When she returns, she is disillusioned at the sight of Florentino who was eagerly waiting for her and gets married to one of the most eligible bachelor, Dr.Juevnal Urbino. Florentino cannot get over his love for her and decides to wait patiently and optimistically for her. Opportunity comes his way after Fermina’s husband dies falling from a mango tree while trying to save his parrot. Florentino approaches her and tries to win her back after more than half a century.

None of the main characters, Florentino Ariza , Fermina Daza or Dr. Urbino,were likeable. Florentino comes across as a selfish and self destructive man at the same time. I found him very boring, with a shallow personality, totally wasting his life lost in love.  His sexual escapades were quite revolting, especially the affair with the young girl who he was guardian to and all those other hapless widows. I could not find any reason why Florentino found Fermina different or better than all the women he came across. I could not understand why, in the first place, he was not giving himself a chance to love any of the others. Also I did not understand why the author was depicting all the widowed women out there as desperate. The detailed explanation and narrative also was quite boring at times and had me sighing a lot! Any by the way, what was the relevance of the character of Jeremiah Saint-Amour. Probably to show that death is an inescapable finality of life!

My husband was left wondering why I was laboring over a book if I was not able to enjoy it. But I could not explain to him why I did not feel like leaving the book mid way through, and why on the contrary, I was immersed in it. Probably because I still have a thing for love stories! Probably, a re-read and a better analysis at a later stage will help me to understand and love the book better. Hmmmm.. deep down, I feel this is a book to be loved. I just have to learn to love it!  and yes, I will revisit this one once more!

And in the meantime, any of you who have read the book and loved it, please throw some light on this for me, will you?

Remebering 26/12/2004

I feel Indra’s smile is among the best I have come across. Its very genuine and lights up his dark, boyish face with total sincerity. I was introduced to this boy from Jaffna when I joined the branch office in 2003. He must have been in his early twenties and was employed by a cleaning company for a very low salary. He used to spend his lunch break cleaning our office and a few cars to supplement his income. He was the main bread winner of a large family and must have led a hand to mouth existence to ensure that he could send the monthly draft to his family back home to meet their expenses.

His sense of duty and punctuality was surprising. He did his humble job of vacuuming, mopping and dusting with total involvement. Even a tiny speck of dust would not miss his earnest duster. He would walk over the place and supervise his own work. On those rare days where he noticed something was not to his complete satisfaction, he would not think twice about getting the vacuum / duster out once again. Such was his commitment and his sense of responsibility. He never forgot to wish and exchange pleasantries with each and everyone in the office albeit shyly.

Towards the middle of 2004, he informed us that he is going back to his home country as he had got another job that would earn him a few more hundreds of dirhams. As per the laws of the country, he would have to exit and would have a ban of 6 months imposed. He intended to return after the ban period. He introduced us to a friend of his and requested us to let him take over his job at our office. We agreed though we missed Indra’s smile and his dedication. Eventually, he was pushed to the depths of our memory.

Until one day after Dec 26th, we were informed by his friend that Indra’s home which was along the coast was dragged away and swallowed by the tsunami. He had no further information about Indra or his family. We do not know whether he was in Jaffna then or whether he had returned to UAE after the ban. We do not know whether he still has the large family for whom he had to work tirelessly. We do not know if he has gone on with life and is still able to flash that innocent, bright smile of his!

On this day, let’s take a moment out of our busy life to remember and pray for the thousands of innocent people who were victimized by the furious giant waves of the Indian Ocean in 2004!

Taking Stock of 2010!

Here we are at the fag end of 2010 and this is the best time to take stock of the year that is whistling by.


On a personal level 2010 for me was a grey year. Though we were blessed with abundance of comforts (thank God for that!!) and things were generally smooth without any mishaps (touch wood!), I am currently immersed in a sea of negative energy and have been worrying and stressing myself out as never before. Where does all this negative energy come from?? Well, to begin with, I have identified a few people who have been gloriously passing it on to me and sucking out all my energy endlessly. No hard feelings towards them and thanks to them, I have thought about and learnt of new ways to interact with such kind. The sad part is that I have not yet been able to successfully implement these methods yet!! I have also identified the negative energy in my thinking and now this is definitely easier to deal with. But since I am straying away from my stock taking here, I leave that aside for the time being!

Since I like to view the negative aspects in the shadow of the positivity only, I begin with the plusses:

• I will start with nothing less than the crowing glory of this year. As with any one else, a place I can call my own has been a major item on my long term goals and this year I was successfully able to accomplish that. A small apartment, in a small town is all that it is but for me it is a dream fulfilled. The installments are paid up and if everything goes well, the apartment will be all ours in March 2011!!

• Completion of the Associateship was the checking off of a goal for the year! This is something I should have done last year but allowed myself a leniency since I was occupied with more demanding things such as hmmm… pregnancy and childbirth!!

• Motherhood has taken over me totally and I am enjoying the role of being a mom of two thoroughly! Sometime back I came across this post on identity by COS. At this stage of my life, I love being identified as a mother and that is how I want to be identified! Each milestone of Aarush and each development of Appu has given me immense joy and pride! This year has witnessed Appu’s evolvement into a confident young girl with a strong personality of her own and look forward to the continuous development on this front!

And now on to the minuses.....

• Career – Sadly, there were not many days I woke up this year looking forward to work and its related challenges neither were there many days I went to bed satisfied at having had a fulfilling day! For the first time in 13 years I can say that this is the year I have not truly loved what I have been doing. Neither a glorious promotion nor ample authority helped! Having to say good bye to some very close and supportive colleagues was not very helpful either! I have considered various options, change of role, change of place, change of field etc! All I can say now is that the coming year will definitely see a major change as far as career is concerned, for better or worse only time will tell.

• Health and beauty –ALL TIME LOW!! 20 kgs overweight, creaking knees, immeasurable waistline, grey blotchy skin, dry flyaway hair! Add to this an irrepressible craving for crunches and munches, religious mid night snacking, regular bingeing, an aversion towards physical activity of any sort - need I say more. All the alarms are ringing wildly and its time I sit up and take note and do something effective and soon!!

• Social Life – A lot of scope for improvement on this one! I have not been able to give the due attention to some precious friends of mine. I have been avoiding a few of them intentionally as I did not want to burden them with the aforesaid negative energy though I do know that something as invaluable as their patient hearing would have eased out things for me! On a brighter note, I have been able to develop relations with relatives! I am quite reticent and mostly plain lazy to keep in touch with relatives!

Ahh…that feels good! After having taken a stock, I feel that things were not so bad after all! A lot of new things learnt and realized, and lot of changes and amends to me made, a lot more to look forward to …isn’t that just what keeps life going! Cheers!

Thank You, Mr. Falker

When I picked up this book from the highly discounted sale at “Borders”, little did I know that I was laying my hands on a true treasure!  This is an autobiographical story written and illustrated by Patricia Polacco and tells and inspiring story based on the author’s learning disability.

Little Trisha loves the world of books and enjoys being read to. But she struggles to read on her own and finds that all the letters and numbers get jumbled up. To make matters worse she also has to hide from her classmates who bully her and call her dumb and finds solace in drawing. Help comes to her in the form of Mr. Falker, her fifth grade teacher who understands her misery and discovers her incredible artistic ability. With his efforts, she learns to successfully tackle her disability. Appu found the story very moving and was touched to the core by Trisha’s plight!

This book will be a definite source of support and reassurance for all those young ones struggling with learning disability.

Johnny Johnny..

Bappappa!
Eating Sugar?
Bappappa!
Telling lies?
Bappappa!
Open your mouth!
Bappappa!