Between You and I - the art of knowing each other

Its been pretty long we are not keeping our personal accounts J. So what are we waiting for, lets jot down some together time in this time.

Yesterday I was talking about who knows the other better, I was boasting that you  know nothing about me and I am so knowledgeable about you. You got up  and before leaving the room in your new casual way you replied, "Mamma, I lived inside you for nine months remember, so I know you inside out!

You have been pushing your limits, pretty much in recent months, you are an outspoken person now, (well you always were with me and your friends but now at school too). I am glad that with changing of city and school you used this opportunity to create a difference in your personality.
You are raising hands more often than not. Your teacher is very inclusive and the school believes in having fun while arranging events and not in having perfect events! Very important for growing up.

You have friends and you still miss your old friends - a state of mind I am afraid you will always have in your life. So enjoy making new friends and stay connected with the old ones. I know you want to have one best friend forever (BFF) like they show in the stories but you know what it is equally fun to have many friends each related to a specific slice of your life. Connecting with them occasionally reminds you of that part of life.
Yes but you are right it is really cute and lucky to have a BFF.
I would suggest you to follow the same pattern with finding mentors too!

When your new friends started coming home every evening to call you, or to chit-chat with you over the weekends, to speak the truth, I was little nervous. I believe in the principle of being friendly with my kid's friends and till now I managed to do that very well. I could always become the friendly and  funny anuty for your friends.
Here, in this place I was little unsure as your new friends are all grown ups and not the 6-7 year old primary school goers, so  I was wondering my "Come kids lets bake cake baking strategy" would work this time.

Phew - it worked! Your friends and you proved it again

"To grow old is mandatory but to grow up is optional"!

Overhaul your salary!

Overhaul your salary!

How to overcome loneliness while working from home?

How to overcome loneliness while working from home?

Why work-life balance is perceived as an issue for working women only?

Why work-life balance is perceived as an issue for working women only?

It’s time to break that guilt trap Moms!

It’s time to break that guilt trap Moms!

Women “fall in love” and “cry” when criticized in laboratory: A light hearted comment on Women in Sciences

Women “fall in love” and “cry” when criticized in laboratory: A light hearted comment on Women in Sciences

How to win recognition as a remote employee?

How to win recognition as a remote employee? | Workplace | SHEROES

Are you a buddy at your work place? | Workplace | SHEROES

Are you a buddy at your work place? | Workplace | SHEROES

How not to disengage women from Sciences? | Workplace | SHEROES

How not to disengage women from Sciences? | Workplace | SHEROES

Not so easy things of life...

It happens to all of us but we always think that it is happening only to us. All of us go through certain stages of life where confusion takes over and we feel entangled. Most of the time we feel overwhelmed as we see others not in the same stage but then if we observe a little more we can see each one of us are dealing with Not so easy things of life... Each in their own way... Each in their own terms...

Crossroad symptom- Once my father told me not to cross a road on the crossroads where 4 roads meet. He showed me how vehicles were coming from four sides and how difficult it was to judge the correct time to cross it. He showed how some people were trying to do that and were getting frustrated and angry.  We walked little further  on the road and we could easily cross the road.
I experienced the same when I became a mother as a phd student. I guess any woman or man goes through this  when they become parents and try to balance their lives along with a new bundle (of joy!) and the regular demands of life. Many times without much help from extended families like me in a foreign land and lots of self expectations of having a picture perfect life like those shown in the postcards. This is also the time when I learnt that my career and my child are equal in priority for me and that as much I want to do good in my career I wouldn't be able to do that without proper support ( emotional, physical and economical) for my child. It took some years for me to find ways around this situation, now 5-7 years away from preliminary years of parenting I could see how fragile and nervous I was at that time. I did not have a friend who could inspire or listen to my worries at that time. I had only male researchers around me married or not, parent or not, and I could not confide to them. They could not see any problem and they were publishing like anything. That was my limitation of not being able to reach out and to try to cross the road where 4 roads were meeting. That state of mind impacted my career and future choices/decisions to a large extent.

Today upon finding a way for myself I see so many other new mothers passing through same phase.

Two boat situation- It took me some years to accept that as much I like reading, thinking and presenting about science, I don't look forward towards technical processing of science. I did not like the repetitiveness of experiments to be performed and the dependence on one boss for greater part of the scientific career. I took strong decision of spending a big money to learn something related but outside of bench science. I started learning about that new field. This time I was more careful about my choices and started to look for jobs in both fields. My ongoing research field and newly learned scientific writing field. This process enhanced my confidence and enabled me to talk with senior people from 2 different domains in the name of interviews.

There are times when we can't pick just one path and need to keep walking on parallel roads. This can be exhausting but for me this helped.

Guilt free mode- I cannot tell you the date but it is around the time when my daughter was turning 5. She was getting relocated from one country to another with me and was mostly accepting things positively with some mild aberrations, seeing her handling things with a smile I could see those long lived guilt clouds leaving me. I could feel for the first time that my daughter would survive and succeed in this world and that she could take so much change easily more so because she was a day care goer from very early age.
Also, one day while talking with her she told me that she did not remember that she used to cry in the mornings before leaving me for day care as a toddler ( my major trigger for guilt- I realised this later) but she remembered her friends in day cares and the doll houses. From that day onward started my guilt free mode of life.

2nd chance is rare and should be nourished- I received an opportunity for further research, and I took the chance to try once more and  I am glad I did that. Research after Phd is very different and enables us to work in independent environment. Sharpens our transferable skills like teaching, communication, and problem solving. Help us earn good money to lay path for next chapter of life. After availing the second chance I was sure that I really don't want to 'do' science, but facilitate, write about it or nurture science in other ways.

Calculated risks and diluted ego- I learned to take calculated risks and say yes to
opportunities which were opening new frontiers to me. I still did not learn to negotiate though. Higher education come with a baggage of ego and pride, having taken calculated risk and stepping into a new domain, I could not afford to keep my ego boosted. It was required to bust my ego and quickly find a niche for myself in the new domain. I started using the skills learned in previous jobs, like attention to details and a knack to teach and train others. Sincere involvement  and a mind to take new challenges came easily upon taming my ego. Ego never helps in anything. The less we have the better we die.

Same problems but different approach- In the new job I soon started pouring in long hours and though there was no experiments to be planned this time but there were telecons and meetings with different team members living in different time zones. I could relate to these situations from past experiences. I started taking different approach than handling them in previous manner and waiting for different results. This time,  I was more confident and mindful, with less expectation. I simplified things wherever possible by expressing and demanding help at home, making my daughter independent in doing simple chores. I learned to walk further up the road and avoid crossing it on the crossroads.

Circle of friends-  From previous experiences I learned that it is necessary to continue to make friends from all facets of life, from different genre of living. A childhood friend might not understand my present state of mind and a college friend might find me a bore altogether. So I learned to make friends from neighbourhood and internet. I have many blogger friends with whom I share thoughts that my sister might also find difficult to engage with.

Inspire and get inspired- I don't shy anymore to discuss about the lessons learnt through my journey.  I share them with my colleagues who are in similar phase as I was few years ago. I observe and learn from others who are little ahead of me in career. I have a good network of like minded friends to talk, argue, debate and agree to disagree. I am learning about a new domain, new roles and designations, and new models of work in each day.

The dotty connect- My daughter keep asking me about what will I be when I grow up. She believes that just like her I will also keep growing. And isn't that true! I understand that designations change from one year to another and from one company to another but I have no answer to my daughter's query. In 5 years I might have more dots in my career chart and I hope to connect them together in a solid line.

Three years theory- This year I proved again my theory of childhood that it takes 3 years or less for a us to accept a new city or a place. This is my third year in this city and now I have started feeling comfortable about it, I have learned to understand its strengths and weaknesses.  I have started debating with new comers in the city, who don't find any reason to like this city. I was in the same page last year, today I feel home here. Having lived and left many places, I have found that only after travelling the path of newness, irritations, loneliness, reaching out, making friends, and then my brain accepts a place.

Let it go- Most of our problems arise because we are unable to let the moment go. We sometimes become so attached and grow comfort with a thing of life that we try not to change that like Not, let the child grow, let the career flow, let the relationship mature or let the life pass by.

Change is the only constant and we need to learn to let life go slowly but surely...

Tantrum busters for toddlers

Rena had a long and tiring day at office, traffic was horrible on her way back to home and then at last when she reached home she found that her two year old little son is in his worst mood and the baby sitter is completely bewildered about what to do.

Sweta is a homemaker; she gets completely frustrated sometimes to control all the tantrums of her one and half year old daughter.

Toddlers, they are like sunshine in the family with their innocent smiles, small walking steps and broken sentences but these tiny tots can also sometimes behave like thunder storm crying, yelling and shouting at everyone around.

In the children of age between twelve months and three years almost can feel just like us but the only difference is that they does not know how to control those feeling. Instead of shouting or giving punishment or getting depressed on a yelling child just take completely opposite approach to cool them down and see how you are also feeling much better. Here are some tips to calm down your angry little one.

Hide and seek

When your child is demanding for a third chocolate bar and you cannot divert his mind then just be quiet for few seconds and hide yourself behind the curtains/ doors and ask him to search you and you will see how he will wipe his eyes and will start searching you.

Pillow war

You had a very bad day at office, you left office quite frustrated. You came home and you found that your tiny one is really tired after whole day of separation and is shouting out of frustration. This is the best moment to play pillow war. Before starting the war be sure that both of you eat something together and then go to the bed and start! Throw pillows at each other, roll on the bed, laugh loudly, cuddle your child tightly and soon you will see the vapors of both of your frustrations near the ceiling.

Comedy of errors

Sometimes just bend down to the level of your crying child and point at her hand and say “Oh my god what happened to your legs” and see how she gets confused and then starts laughing! Repeat this with all other body parts until all her tears dries.

Indigenous bowling

It is a Sunday morning. You have invited some guest in the evening and for this reason both of you are busy. Your child on the other hand is moving behind you demanding some attention from you. Come on take a break from the continuous house chores and have some real fun with your child. Arrange some empty plastic bottles of cold drinks/ water in a row and then bring the big ball of your child and start. Throw the ball to the arranged bottles just like in bowling places. See how your junior gets busy with this game.

Published in www.sitagita.com

The Fine Art Of Balancing Your Personal And Professional Goals

At different stages of their personal lives – seeking a life partner, marriage, having children, relocation due to partner’s transfer, divorce, providing care to the elderly/sick family members, working women in India find their personal goals in conflict with their professional goals.

Just as we feel we are ‘achievers’ on our first job and start planning for the  next role of our
 interest, we begin getting suggestions from people around us (sometimes, including our bosses!) 
to settle down in life i.e. get married or get kids.

This is the first juncture in most urban Indian working women’s lives where we need to 
simultaneously think about personal and professional goals, and it continues. It is still mostly 
women who take on the challenge of relocation, career transition, short breaks, or quitting their 
career due to changes in their personal state. This impacts our lives deeply and can result in 
depression, and the guilt of non-performance in many of us, given that we start with high 
expectations for ourselves.

Here are a few tips on how women can cope in such situations and handle them effectively.

Clarity of thought and authority

This is most difficult part of the whole balance for working women in India. Generally, men are in
a better position here, as they are mostly not given any choice but to earn for the family. 
As working women, we need to learn to do a strength, weaknesses, opportunities and
 threats (SWOT) analysis and take authority of our work choices, aspirations, and the return on 
interest (ROI) for at least 3-5 years. This will help us to make informed choices.

Parallel moves

It is not necessary to stop asking for more responsibilities at work, looking for a challenging project,
 new job or plan for higher education in anticipation of marriage or a child. As Sheryl Sandberg 
posits in Lean In, many of us stop pushing ourselves at work long before the day we really get 
married or have a child. This attitude of self doubt causes more voids in our career than there 
should be. It is viable to think about career goals and personal goals on parallel paths rather 
than in a chronological manner.

Break big tasks into chunks

For a new mother, a new project at work can be overwhelming and even unfulfilling. It can be 
managed instead by cutting the big task into smaller chunks and working on it in like 
working on a jigsaw puzzle. Think about completing the next step, not the entire project. Taking 
breaks and rewarding yourself at regular intervals are some simple steps for a motivation refill. 
The same approach of adopting short term goals as a parent will also help us not to get burnt 
out.

Lists and mind maps

We are very good at making lists, but now it is time to upgrade ourselves to mind maps, charts 
and visuals with attached timelines for required tasks. While working on the timeline of a project, 
resourcing, budgeting and future scope can be tracked simultaneously.

Express it and not just expect

As little girls, we were told to be good mannered and keep doing the good work without waiting 
for the results. In real life, everyone is busy around us and it is wrong to expect that our 
colleagues or partners will take the cues from our frowns and do what we want them to do. 
We need to express our thoughts loud and clear. We should talk more about our good 
performances, career aspirations, and future plans at work and at home as well.  
To achieve at life and work, we need a support team behind us. We cannot go far without using
 our voice.

Assessing opportunities

Dual career families, managing career after childbirth or relocations are common in most places 
across the world. Women are trying to cope with these situations using different work models.
 Understand your core skill sets and their range of applicability, if your situation doesn’t allow 
you to work in the same way you did earlier. For example, a teacher can think of online tutoring 
or creating contents for educational courses where her core competence will be utilised.

Practising mindfulness

Women are known for their multitasking skills. Planning the dinner menu while helping kids
with their homework is something we all do! But most of us become so involved with our
personal quest that it reflects in the workspace too and keeps us from the joy of fulfilment.
It is also true that work overpowers our personal space and we lose mindfulness at home.

Mindfulness and concentration on the work in hand is vital. It is difficult especially for mothers
 of newborn babies but this can be practiced through working in smaller chunks.

Reach out

In this virtual world, Google can bring answers to almost all the queries we have. As a young 
mother I was benefitted from websites like babycenter. Now, I closely follow communities like 
lean In, fleximoms and Women’s Web to gain perspectives from other women and learn about
 matters important to me. I often talk with my line manager and colleagues to learn more about a
 new component of work. We should reach out to others to share our thoughts, delegate duties,
 prioritise tasks, and for constant communication.

Take out ‘Me/Us time’

Most Indian women forget to hang out with their old friends after marriage and after having kids. 
Taking out time as couples or with friends is equally important to get a break from our rigorous 
daily routines. Use ‘me time’ to exercise, attend conferences, read, think, analyse, solve 
problems, fulfil hobbies, rejuvenate and  plan. Working mothers go through extreme guilt on 
this but taking a little ‘me time’ out can do wonders to the quality of your life.

Say no and negotiate

Indians are known for saying yes all the time. In the global environment that we live in, we 
should know our limitations and capabilities. Before saying yes to any task (whether it is analysis of a 
new data set or inviting friends home at short notice) ask yourself whether you have time and 
energy for that. Always say no to the work and not the person. Negotiate with objectivity and 
openness towards the situation.

Upgrade and update

It is essential to keep upgrading and updating ourselves on new technological and behavioural
 skills considering the fast changing landscapes both at work and home. Both 
democratic parenting and working in a global company requires lots of learning. Our laptops 
and mobile telephones are becoming smarter and so are our kitchen tops. We should not be 
afraid or closed about using new technology and their applications both at home and work. 
A person who can learn fast is respected and adored by others (even kids).

Imperfection and impromptu

Everything cannot be done perfectly or in a planned manner. Spontaneity helps us during 
emergencies and crisis. So lets keep a scope for impromptu dinners and some imperfect, 
nervous moments in our otherwise balanced life!

The art of balancing between professional and personal goals is to learn to work like an ant and 
enjoy like a grasshopper.

Published in www.womensweb.in

About not blogging and other things...

It's been a while (well many months), I have not written any blog, not that I had ample of readers, but I am sure those very few of them were sad when they visited this space in last few months.
It is not that J is not giving me enough plots to write or that I have nothing to say about my work or so many other things I observe silently, so many bubbles of thoughts form in my mind each day, but I have noticed that while living outside India I had enough time to contemplate on those thought bubbles and then blog them up. On returning to India and then after joining work, my random thought bubbles keep  forming and bursting in equal pace. Sometimes while travelling in my office bus or in the middle of teaching I feel those bubbles to form and then in a hurry to catch with days work or to prepare the dinner I loose the bubbles invariably, or perhaps they tuck themselves away in the layers of memory for I gain them back in my ride back to home or next day while preparing dinner. I go to sleep with mind full of broken or hidden bubbles of thoughts. This gives me discomfort but then life continues without blogging...

Although not blogging, there are many other pages where I am writing regularly and on diverse topics. These are but planed write-ups. My recent endeavour were about understanding oil and fats with more clarity or tips of stress busting to working women of India or about interior decoration for people on the go (like me!)

Also my present work as a medical writer and a quality co-ordinator includes a lot of writing. I found it interesting how I could use so many skills I honed during my research time in my new profession and so wrote about my experiences while transitioning from a researcher into a medical writer.

So planned writing is going on but spontaneous pieces got missed in this space of mine. Hope I will be able to mind the gaps more frequently going forward!

Of late J is very busy with her school, friends and other activities. She has started showing lots of interest towards stray animals- mostly dogs. She wants to become a "Dog Orphanage Manager". I liked this idea of hers.
We are also busy in streamlining her reading obsessiveness. She was becoming a compulsive reader-who would not do anything else but read. She was loosing interest in travelling, doing art and craft or even in shopping. We were getting exasperated. So both J's papa and I have put our foot down, started working closely with each other to help her control her book reading time and take up other things in life. So we are also growing up as a parent and  turning BRAVE enough to discipline the CHILD! (She is reading the last paragraph of the blog with intense eyes, suggesting changes and asking me questions, so I guess the time has come when I would have to run each blog with her before publishing!)

Photo Courtesy- Merida from the movie BRAVE, Watercolour by J

Rendezvous with an old list

I have this habit of creating lists, list of goals, list of projects, list of improving skills, list of mistakes made previously, list of things to do, grocery list, list for parenting ideas, list of activities to do with J, list of things that J need to do in the evening everyday, lists of things I want to teach her, list of stories I want to discuss with her, list of authors I want to introduce to her, list of music to listen, list of plants to plant when I will have a dream herb garden, list of monthly expenses, list of ideas for frugal living, list of gifts I wish to buy for my family, list of gifts I want to buy for myself, wish list created in an online book store website about books I want to buy and eventually read, list the points for giving a power point presentation, list of website to browse, list of places to travel, list of house chores I need to finish urgently, list of digital photos I wish to print in hardcopies, list of accessories I would like to have with some of my dresses, list of new colour combinations for office ware, outline the points before writing an article or a book (only 2 theses so far), list of things I want to share with my sister, brother, and daughter as they reach different stages of their lives which I have already visited, list of commands for software use which reduces my dependency on mouse, list of movies to see, list of television series which I missed while being busy in different parts of life specially trying to finish my PhD and raising J both at a same time.

I make these lists in my mind, using my phone app, on random but  only on yellow post-it, on the back of an envelope, on the calendar, on my daily planner, on any piece of paper, printed on A4 size paper hanging on the sideboard of my bay, on the back of a letter pad, in J’s rough notebook, in my project book,  on the margins of a weekend news paper (other days I don’t get to read news paper in the morning), in my husbands phone (grocery list), on a book mark, using MS word in laptop, on the leftover portion of a journal article printout (specially I used to plan experiment while in research), using a power point (outline of a presentation).

Normally making a list is half of the work done for me, sometimes I make a list and then spend days weeks with very sorted and happy go lucky smile on my face. After making a list I am sometimes very keen on ticking them off, but sometimes eons of laziness prevent me to do anything about any or many points on the list. I ponder on the point for some hours to days and then that point might slip from my mind. Specially for things with no urgency like list of photos to be printed or so on. But the process of list making continues.

Then one day while teaching maths to J, while cleaning my hand bag, while turning pages in my daily planner, while cleaning the study-desk, while looking at the calendar, while playing with my phone apps, while searching for a word document in my laptop, while throwing some old envelopes, while collecting the bookmarks from old books I meet with an old list. It is almost like meeting an old friend, it is like going back in days and peeking at my brain in past, it is absolute thrill to read that old list again and finding how many points are ticked off  or for that matter not ticked from that old list. Also finding that the teaching names of primary and secondary colours to J was so high priority in my list few years ago and today I don't even notice when she talks about complex colours like beige, magenta or olive green!

Are you a list maker? How do you feel when you meet with an old list?

Monday blues and some interesting websites

Monday morning is on its way. This is the toughest morning many of our lives unless your Monday morning takes you to something special. For most of us Monday morning brings us to the same old routine we left happily on last Friday. After two whole days of wrapping several activities and running errands and having done so many other things you want little more break before starting to slog.

After so many years of getting into Monday blues, just like every I have developed few 'things to do' to combat Monday morning blues.  One of them is a few minute of web crawling in some of my favorite India based sites, before starting my Monday.


http://www.womensweb.in/

Website dedicated to thinking Indian women, doesn't talk about
lipsticks and suit lengths but about several other things a woman face
in today's world.
Extremely feminist and I like it that way. I love their book review, field
note and several other sections.

http://www.fleximoms.in/

Only community in India which is trying to bring women to the job
market after they went for a break.
I think they have high fee to begin with but then the programs seems
to be worthwhile.
Also they conduct workshops in different cities of India. They also have many sections in the website which are worth reading to gain ideas about managing work in a better way.

http://www.wowsumitra.com/
http://the-shooting-star.com/

This website talks about women on wanderlust! Traveling alone just for leisure  is almost an unknown thing in India. We rarely think of going for a trip on our own. These people are trying to make that real.
I love traveling and so I like this site too!

http://www.parentree.in/
http://www.kidandparent.in/

Being a parent it is inevitable not to see some parenting sites, these
ones are for Indian parents and by Indian mothers so I keep reading
them.

http://www.kiducere.com/
http://www.saffrontree.org/

Being a book loving person, and mother of a book loving person too,  I keep looking for new books for J. These two websites helps me lot on this agenda.

http://anindiansummer-design.blogspot.in/

Sometimes seeing some colorful posts can brighten the mood on Monday morning and can bring cheer in the regular work we do. Interior design sites are worth watching for few minutes break. They bring new ideas for your own place and also reading and visualizing creative ideas gives your brain the happy hormone boost to go back into normal work.

So web crawling is one of the few things I do to bust the stress of a Monday morning or even to relax on some other time.


So here you go! Have a happy week ahead!

On being middle aged- the patterns of life

Middle aged - unlike teen age, it is not so dreaded age by the people around you but something that you dread to reach. I reached this age recently and unlike my huge expectations nothing really changed, no thunderbolts, no heavy rains, nothing. Only that my J and her friends brought me to the other side of middle age with great care through thoughtful plays and songs. My sister hugged me tight and fumbled my hair as if she could hear the lib-dub of her middle-aged sister's heart. Brother also shooed away my concerns on age and gave a short lecture about age does not matter, it is the heart that matters. Well as you say big Bro! My husband remained silent as if saying that I dealt with you in your teenage and twen-age (twenties) and will continue doing that in your middle age too. How much harder that would get anyways? Mom and dad were never so friendly before and now finally I could see that they are okay in discussing their turmoils and worries with me and not concerned more about my story. They know their daughter will deal with them somehow now that she is middle-aged.
Colleagues were giving eons of suggestions and theories of how I should take control of my middle age and how middle age is the center stage of human life-true isn't it.
Life that went by seems to be so short and so makes me more aware and careful of each day that is coming. For today I am more experienced than yesterday but I am naive compared to tomorrow.
In the middle of the journey called life,  found some silly patterns finally;

Circular: For most things that happen with us are circular or reversible in nature, day and night, weekdays and weekends, seasons, stirring the sugar crystals in a cup of tea, the accumulation of specks of dust on the table tops and tops of chest of drawers every few days, festivals and vacations, the heap of dirty cloths on each Fridays,  weekly shopping, the circle of eating out and then eating simple home cooked meal. The solitary and inactive weekends and then having lots of friends and partying weekends. The regularities of an ongoing life is circular. Just like the way my grand mother used to make sandalwood paste by rubbing a small sandalwood cylinder on a circular stone in circular motion for her morning Puja. Just like my mother always prefers some flowers beds to be of circular in shape. Just like my father shows incense stick to Hindu gods and goddesses in a circular rotation. Circles of routines brings us comfort and boredom too. Finally understanding and accepting the fact that every weekend I have to shop, every 2 days I have to cook, every morning I have to go for work, every deadline I need to work for,  every day I need to instruct J and every day I will have certain circles to rotate has given me inner calm, I don't question on those circular routines anymore (having done enough of that) and don't find them mundane, I do them and seek comfort of doing something I know.

Linear: Relationships are linear and so is the age. They grow to fade, die or mature. They are not circular and not reversible. They evolve with time and our dream to go back to the relationships that is hold in our memory is a mistake. My relationship with my mother is absolute contrast to what we had when I was in my teenage. Also that time is linear. Time takes away people from you and forever. Grandparents who were there in my life, and at times I took them for granted, but then one day they left. I could not hold them back. Now I am conscious for parents and I don't want to take them for granted. I want to talk with them, laugh with them and share with them my opinions and the differences therein from theirs. Friends and ex-colleagues who were intense part of our past are distant now, we remember them but we realize that we cannot go back to the relationship of past. My daughter's toddler-hood has passed too. I can see her in photos, but to recollect emotions of those days are not possible. Similar is the effect of transition from one place to another (17-18 times for me), transition from one career to another or transition from one living place to another (25 times for me). It does not make sense to yearn to return when the path is not circular.  Accepting this linearity of life and then trying to enjoy the present of it is a must.

Boxed: Some things in life are limited or boxed. They are quantized. They bring limitations. Unless we accept those boxes of our lives, we might keep getting hurt and disappointed. It can be certain stages of career, relationships, certain dreams, expectations, our lack of skills and potentials. It can be an inability like inability to acquire a skill, inability to change a system or a person, inability to grow a habit in your loved ones or inability to control in general. I have learned to look on those inabilities as boxes or patches. I see the life as a blanket and I have accepted that there will be some patches here and there. So my life will be a patched-work quilt. I have also understood that these boxes can be very powerful in our life and can lead us to depression. So instead of giving these boxes a power to control our lives, we need to find a way out to work around those boxes. Initially it is difficult to understand that we are facing a boxed situation in life, one way I found is that if the situation is repetitive and is irritating or depressing me then that situation/person can be a box in my life.  I have figured 2 ways to deal with the boxed situations of life. One to ignore them and second is to understand them and then trying to minimize their effect on us. I try do develop a positive attitude and try to accept that limitation.
If a difficult colleague is a box in my life, I can become forgiving and become less dependent on that colleague. I can try to understand why that colleague is difficult, is it a situation or is it his/her nature? I can try to extend my work group by averaging out the effect of a difficult colleague. The same applies for family members, friends and children too.
Judgmental,  conclusive and closed people can bring more boxed situations around you. People who feel insecure because of you or any other thing, who are focused on only one thing in life (career, promotion etc.), who always compare with others,  can bring boxed situations for you. I try to identify them and make strategy to deal with them.
There will be but at least one or two or perhaps many boxes which we might have to ignore by creating a distance and becoming an observer of the situation. Also that I don't turn into a box for anyone is another learning experiment for me.

Open: Just opposite to the boxed situations are the open situations. The limitless situation. The situations where I feel enriched, where I am able to explore, where I can learn, and where I feel free. This openness for me comes from books, bookshops, libraries, ethnic shops, travel, making bread, colors and open people. People who accept me as I am, who don't judge me with my looks, age, career, language or religion. I am lucky that I have got to see many such people in my life and I have learned to be open from them. I think about them and keep going to them when I get stuck in boxes of life. As my observation says that boxed people are more in numbers than the open ones, so these open people are the ones to be cherished. Open people come along and bring merriness in our life. I keep looking out for these people, try to be close to them, don't judge them just be with them. In dearth of such people than we need to find out our door for openness, which can be traveling or knitting or gazing at the stars. Search for openness in life is a continuous learning.
Tough puzzle is when we come across people or situation that can be combination of the above patterns like a boxed and a open person, both at a time. Classic example is my grand mother, a superstitious woman with immense faith on higher education and knowledge. She has determined a lot of changes in the lives of her daughters and grand daughters.

It is amazing for me that recently I could relate to many of the turmoils of my past-life. Once a situation becomes past, we still try to touch that, try to solve that or try to draw a conclusion out of that. Sometimes our present get stuck in our past. It happened with me too. But recently, on identifying and  working with these patterns, I realized that the past somehow looses its charm to destabilize me at present, because I know the end of it.

Understanding the nature of those turmoils and problems giving them time to imbibe into a pattern and relating them to  a pattern, helped me to sort the present and find calmness.

After all this is one life to live.

Disclaimer: Warli paintings are used for symbolism and are collected through google search

Learning to be a parent each and every day after being one

Accepting it, the moment she came out of me and then each and every day - She is an another individual.

Being patient - extremely patient.

I will need to teach her each and every thing but she might learn them in her own pace and style.

I will loose my temper at least once everyday and she will never forget to hug and give me a tight hug in the evening.

I take few seconds to identify my child from a group of many children and she takes even less to identify me in the audience.

I will keep saying that "I will keep trying to balance between my work and her and she will be there accepting my every decision".

I will keep telling her to grow up everyday and on some days I will hold her tight and try to pack her in my tummy again.

I will keep telling her to grow up everyday and suddenly one day she will say, " Oh! mamma stop worrying about me coming home late, GROW UP!". I will be in tears that day!

I will keep making promise to her that I will never let her hairs cut anymore and she will dream of hairs to the hip length and then one weekend we will convince her to cut her shoulder length hair so that they would grow better and faster.

There will be days when I might spoil her with material and there will be days when I will try my best to instill non-material virtue in her.

There will be time I will cook mixed vegetable soup for her proper growth and there will be many days when I will only cook pasta and tomato sauce and would not worry about her nutrition needs.

I will try to share all my childhood stories with her, yes even the ones on cheating, lies, being naughty and being selfish. I will share the incidents on failure and inability more often the success stories. I will wait till she  learn to loose gracefully,  like a sportsman.

I will keep googling stuff like

Ten tips for kids lunch box
How to raise a creative child?
Art and craft ideas for kids
How to know signs of anxiety in a child?
How to raise a friend in a child?

for many years to come, sometimes in the middle of night and sometimes in the middle of office hours.
Thank you Google - for being there for mothers of today!

I will keep finding different types of books for her and I will also keep controlling her reading hours so that she does not get absolutely addicted to story books.

I would like to travel as much as possible with her, I know she doesn't like traveling as much I do but I will like her to get exposed to several situations and that comes only from traveling to unknown spaces and living amidst unknown people. In future she might hate me for this but that is okay.

I will be okay with her interests in something and lack of it several other things,  I keep trying and will continue trying being a non-competitive mother.

Good ear to listen, motivation, understanding and fun will be some characteristics of a lazy and imperfect mother of my daughter.

I will keep making friends with parents of my daughter's friends, just to chat, share, complain and enjoy the feeling of being on a same boat.

I tell her this often and will keep telling her whenever I can, "You are the BEST girl I could ever have".
 

A free day- May 1

It was a holiday today, and yes, holidays have become precious in my life. Even more so after joining a private company. Today, the free day was counting more as J is having summer vacation and in her words, "I am really really looking forward to a day with mamma at home, and I will not go to the day care."

Unlike Europe where the May day started as beginning of spring and then eventually became a symbolic day dedicated to workers, May 1 in India is in the middle of summer. Yes spring in Indian calendars finishes around 15th of April and now we are into the season of summer.

Summer meaning raw and ripened mangoes, season of making pickles out of them, season of drinking several kinds of drinks, be it sweet or tangy lassi (with mango off course) or water melon-juice or our good old lemonade.

Summer also means Flame of forest  trees (Hindi - Gulmohar, Bengali - Krishnachura) lined on the side of the melting tar roads or corner of a street or close to a bungalow or near a pond in a small village, mostly in their red attire and some in bright yellow. The view of these red trees used to haunt me  during the summer days of my expat life. Now I see them every day and don't even bother to click a photo. I guess I would be taking photos if like IHM, a Gulmohar tree were there near my window and not a mango tree.

So, J made an elaborate time table which was like;
Watching a movie with mamma,
Learning about art work of Picasso with mamma,
Baking cake with mamma and so on.
She was singing loudly in her nonsensical style, something she does when she is really really happy.
On seeing her schedule, I looked at my office laptop from the corner of my eyes and then let it stay there resting for the day.

Also, I needed to stop my urge to sit with her Hindi or Mathematics school work today. So, I told her to create an ambience for watching movie while I will just check my mails. She called her friend and asked whether she could join us. A lucky yes was the answer! Joyfully J prepared three glasses of Tang mango drink. Yes, now a days, she can make glasses of lemonade or powder based juices on her own. She knows how many spoons of sugar to add. Sometimes the crystals of sugar are remain visible at the bottom till you finish the drink,, I comment, "More stirring will be required next time J,  but this time the drink was a marvel." Her face beams with sparkle. Naive dream for appreciation becomes so clear in her 8 year old baby face.

We watched the movie, her friend had brought a bowl of chips too! So it was a feast.

Had a quick lunch of no specialities,  but we enjoyed it thoroughly as this was not a weekend and still we were having a family lunch-a luxury that we all appreciated.

Well, when at home just after lunch I become a devil for need of an afternoon nap, J is complete contrast to that. She hates afternoon sleep, as if she will miss something from life if she does that.  We have agreed on each other's habit now, after many years of discussion and arguments.
So J let me have a small nap and reminded me of cake baking scheduled in her time table.
I dozed off with a Bengali magazine in my hand.
J called her friend again, for baking time. They have become quite good at it now. I just stayed in the back ground for setting the oven temperature and so on. They did most of the work and licked the batter-layered spoons with satisfactory yumminess. After enjoying the cake, they ran down for some fresh air and catching up with other friends.

A book on Picasso, is still lying there, we have read it many times, and I have started understanding something which I always stamped as very difficult, but just after reading this book with J, I felt actually no one or never I tried to understand his works before. We wanted to draw and paint like any of his work, but that might need to wait for next day of togetherness as time is ticking by.
Art appreciation was not part of our growing up. Being Bengali we were bound to learn about Rabindranat Tagore, Jamini Roy or Ramkinkar Baij, Ravishankar but  very little was told to us about international artists and their works. Off course my mother didn't have google! So what ever aesthetic senses she offered to me was genuinely hers and not copied and pasted. She is an excellent interior

Just now, when I am writing this blog, J is in her room, venturing on her own in her art and craft stuff, books and other things, she is in her own world of imagination. She is happy and calm.
This was a good day of togetherness and we will be waiting for one more such day in near future.

De-stressed

Had a long day in office, days at work are not smooth sailing anymore, honeymoon period is over and I am getting exposed to several unexpected an unplanned events. A working day is also not only work any more, it is more and more of meetings, planning objectives, tracking time and communicating with clients.  The process of coming back home is also a big thing, trailing through the big serpents of traffic, aggressive driving and half dug roads. Badly wanted a warm tea and some warmth on returning back home. It was quarter to eight already. As the home door opened, I saw J watching TV in a defensive pose, meaning I must not touch the TV remote. Dear Husband left hurriedly to his office, he has yet to chase some more targets. This is a plan, we follow many days to balance time at home and work.

"'J', have you finished your homework"? I asked her. "Yes, there were 10 problems in Mathematics and needed to anwer a question in English. I have done half in the day care and half now," was the prompt reply. "Okay, good"! said I. The back of my mind murmured, "New term has began, it will be helpful for J if she does little bit of extra work every day." Those basic things you know; dictations, handwritings, multiplication tables and so on. "Yes, I know". I replied to my conscience. With the excessive heat, I first went for a shower, and on the way I noticed, washing machine  is full with washed clothes and needs to be put on the wire to dry. In the kitchen, fish was waiting to get defrosted and to be cooked.
I was feeling so drained, and tired.

"Can I get a cup of ice tea, mamma?" J asked with her eyes  glued to the TV screen. "Yes, you can but switch of the TV in few minutes." I said. "Yes, Mama", again a prompt reply.
Then made 2 cups of ice tea, defrosted the fish in between and took the cup of tea.
Office, cooking and J were creating lots of clouds in mind, all at a time. Why living is so much work? Arghh...

Upon getting a sip or 2 of the tea, I recommended myself a lie down and at least 15 minutes to get de-stressed. Simply went and hit the bed.

While on the bed, thoughts kept rushing one by one, but after few minutes their speed reduced, I started feeling calm, I kept the work in the back drawer of my mind to be dealt with tomorrow, I gave myself and J a free evening thinking of 10 maths problems and 1 english question has been already done after all!

Finally, I started thinking of a nice soupy Macher Jhol (Bengali- Fish dish), and how I will make it differently today...

ps. As I went to kitchen and started cleaning up the fish, dear husband returned, and asked "What are you doing"? "Talking care of the fish, for the dinner", I said. "Hey, leave it, I have plans to make Doi Maach (a very special Bengali fish dish), but if you have already cleaned it, then please put some marinade on it." I smiled, tossed my plan of doing any cooking,  happily poured the marinade on the fish and left the kitchen light hearted.

Life is not that much work after all...

Hi, there

Yes, I am feeling that Blog-e-zine is slipping away from me. I am not able to connect to it as I used to while mothering all single. Strange ha!
Did I have more time then? Or did I notice 'J' more closely then? Or did my physical distance from my family made me write?

Anyway, today I am back in my mind-space as I am all on my own. 'J' has gone for a sleep over (first time after returning to India) and 'J's papa has gone faraway on a work-tour.
On other days I fall fast asleep at this time and today I am all wide eyed and talking with my e-zine at the middle of the night. Today being a friday is even better.

I have recently noticed that 'J' is speaking Hindi, highly accented but she has started blurting out. She is done with her shyness. Thanks to the new day care where she is spending her after-school hours till 6 pm and she is encouraged to speak Hindi. She has also started doing lots of craft again after starting to go in this day care. 'J' loves craft work and at home and school it does not happen that much. I plan, but never get to do it with her on regular basis. 'J' also get busy with other attractions. So now I am happy seeing to be back with her scissors, sticky tape and glue.

We are so much used to of community centre for child-care that we grabbed the opportunity of sending 'J' to day care from the day it got started in our area.

'J' also liked the place from first day. Being older kids they are strong voices in the day care. Little kids love them and wait from them until they come from school. That day 'J' was explaining to me how a little kid in the day care hugs her when she returns from school. She was so proud to show her elder sisterly instinct. An instinct which used to be very common in olden joint family days. Today in a nuclear family scenario these are the golden opportunities for a child to learn sharing,  giving and caring.
I feel that it will become very difficult task for me to spend days after days with people in their eighties with only short options to see any one else of my age,  just the same can be true for kids. Children need other children to learn equality. While living only with their parents or other adults they learn either to obey or to order.
This is my personal opinion and might not hold for you.

Our time to talk with each other has reduced drastically.  In the morning when she goes to school, we don't talk. We act like robots (very sleepy ones). In the evening when we unite again, we all feel so tired (in India the energy level get really low after whole day of work and study) that we just stick to our own shells (reading, T.V. or doing nothing).
Its only in the weekends where we gets time to listen to each other.

'J' has recently started with mystery stories of famous five and all. I was little skeptical as once she  starts reading mystery stories then it will be difficult to make her read anything else. But then in India Enid Blyton is all over, there is no denying her. So let she continue and I will continue with finding other authors for her to read. Recently we got a book on curious George. It is about a curious monkey and the character is quite famous in USA. We did not know him before. 'J' is grown up for the book but she and I loved reading and re-reading the book and the illustrations. I  realized that with 'J' growing up I am also loosing the window of going back into toddler's and small kid's world of books.

'J' has stopped asking me to stay at home during her holidays. She gets up and gets ready to go to the day care. This was unimaginable just 1.5 years ago. 

'J' always notice and says, "hey, Mumma you are home early today". She has stopped complaining when I come late from work.