i was

1. making samea uppuma
2. making venn pongal
3. making rasam
4. making making fried chutney
5. making dokla
6. making mysorepak (when firstborn turned five)
7. making bucketsful of rasam
8. making sambar
9. making vendaya kuzhambu (with floating ladies fingers)

10. making idlies (new gyan: pressure cooker idlies are fluffier than rice cooker ones)

11. making dosas (heard my mil’s ditty which is from chapter 2 of PV’s textbook of Tamil

sayings: grinding urad dal is as easy as going to ma’s house; grinding soaked rice = is as

hard as going to In-law’s house) PV. mil loved your post. it took her back to her grandma’s

days.

12. making vadas
13. making parupu usili
14. making mixed-veg raithas (finely chopped tomatoes, cucumber and onion).

but. not. making kaapi.
the mil is drowning us in thickly decoctioned, richly frothed, tall steel tumblersful of

hot, hot kaapi.

it’s kaapi tsunami. firstborn and baby param are riding the kaapi wave.

**

was greatly flattered when someone asked me if i was going to attend the launch of rajinikanth yenthiran (it’s happening one hour away from my home). so there’s at least one person in the whole world who thinks i have a high-flying social life.

plus. caught the audio-release of that movie on TV. makes me feel that’s so July 2010 of me. doesnt feel right.

how do i live in the past, if the present keeps interfering.

**

the mmmim has rationed my laptop time. with his tours to indonesia (bah). and going to work

on weekends (gah).
**

met a woman who has two tween kids. undergone three surgeries. lived in two countries. but is afraid to wax her arms because she thinks it might hurt.

**

updates

my ma remains high on her grudging quotient. check tag for more info. she pointed a chap at a party of about 100 people: “see that man. he’s the one that didnt give me a lower berth. on our return trip from kodai.” i think she stayed on at the party only to poison his paneer.

**

a friend visited me. only to check if the rumours were true. indeed. she was horrified to find MY toenails are painted.
**

many people commented that I had lost weight. note to self. continue waxing arms. i look at least 27 gms lighter that way.

**

this was the india trip with the least photos. it took longer for me to reach the wedding hall from home. than it took me to reach chennai from KL. traffic bit into us.

**
love wedding Polis. and the hot ghee.

**

Saravana Bhavan, Mylapore. present. Vrindavan at New Woodlands. Present. the idli wasnt a stone but it could have been. CreamCentre RA Puram. absent. and regretting the sizzling brownie+icecream.
**

we dressed the boys in cream and white kurtas and persuaded them to NOT pull at the drawstring of their respective pyjamas. and they slept through the wedding reception. not awake for even 30 seconds of a 120 minute reception.

**
the in-laws are here. felt liberated that i could run down to the store and buy sugar. ALL BY MYSELF. and sun tv serial update: there’s thendral and chellamae and nadaswaram. soon. will tell you which is the absolute awfulest.

**
off. to reply to earlier comments. you guys do most of your writing when i am not around: 400 items on google reader.

shopaholic and friend

i am the latter. and my friend is the former. she leaves KL in about three months. i am trying to tell myself it’s like drinking rasam without the curry leaves. actually it’s like rasam made without tamarind.

attn: meira and dipali. here you go…

i dont wish i were more male about some things, i just wish i was more ‘ma’ about some
things

ma is abrupt. She tells people exactly where they get off.
I hated that in her when I was growing up.

And dad could walk into a room, and not recognise a relative, who has been a relative for
the last 31 years.

Sandwiched between these two asocials, i tried to be the polite smiler to make up for the
collective rudeness.

and now, how gah is it that i want to help myself to some of ma’s specials.

1. tell some kids where they get off. (“One million times while growing up, I’ve prayed ma

wouldnt tell off a friend… and she did)

2. one rotten apple + 11 good ones = a dozen rotten apples was her ditty. so was not allowed
to make friends with kids who pinched,slapped, lied, talked back to grown-ups… yep. i had
like one point three friends growing up.

and now, I want to apply that rule to the firstborn.

3. look bored when some people speak.

4. never look at photo-albums of friends. not even of the grandsons. not even of my wedding.
online ones she skims through, though.

you know the kind of photo albums that i dont want to look at == the mmmim’s friends (who i
dont like) who show off their Pattaya vacation on a slide show. but i just look and ooh lala at
the right places. big fake = me.

5. never say ‘drop in’ home if she didnt mean it. and if someone did drop in, she never
asked them to take a seat. Athithi devo bhava, she is not.

6. hold a grudge lifelong. She remembers wrongdoings from 1963 November, 1973 mid-may, 2008
feb. she can tell you the lifehistory of a grudge from how it was born. (me: just found a
couple of people to hold a grudge against. oh and it’s not the mmmim)

7. deliver a 15 minute tongue-lashing. without pause. i am 2/ 5 at the tongue-lashing bit
which is pretty ok, by my standards. but i take pauses that are 10 minutes long. need to
work on.

8. she couldnt vacillate. never had nagging equivocal thoughts. never made decisions that
were between ‘neither a yes nor a no.’

9. repartee. deadpan. not as sharp as her dad’s. but just as stinging. mine are good only in
my mind. and about 24 hours too late.

10. be a misfit. and accept it.

**
the things that I have…er inherited

~ the pep talk. motivate friends out of comfort zones and into glory.

~ larger than life gifts. she gifted one friend a coffee maker like the ones at Starbucks. I
have inherited her appreciation for the non-birthday gift, and those ones I always remember
to give

~ more preoccupied with world news and politics than family and home. me too. not very obssessive about my role as mom/wife. it’s a significant but not a major part of who i am.

**
sorry. if this didnt conform to the tag rules. but am not too sure of what falls into a gender stereotype and what falls out (see that’s why i need to work on point 8). so.

all non-bloggers can feel free to do the tag — originally born here — , in this space.

bothered quotient

feeling v. boxed in, with so many of the mmmim’s colleagues finding homes in our apartment. i cant exhale without bumping into someone i am not sure i really want to bump in.
gah.

and it is bothering me more than i want it to bother me.
***
~ “your son (age 3) STILL doesnt know English alphabet. He cant read and write yet. Do you want me to teach him… ”

~ “All i want for my son (in UKG) , is that he should come first in class.”

~ “because he is anoctober-born, he is missing out on being a year ahead. take kid y. he is a dud. but he goes to class 1 just because he is a january- born. in the long run this reason will cut into a year’s pay of my kid when he starts work in an organisation…”

all statements made by: my new neighbour

***

Flatscreen TV.
in the new home.
the mmmim hugged and kissed it. really.

**

and the friend on my earlier floor cried. at the silence. on our corridor.

**
also. predicting a dip in frustrations. coming up. a wedding that we have to move heaven and earth (and the mmmim) to get to chennai. next week.

***