my pet theory

mother gig.

easiest to bring up are …

daughters.

2 daughters = jackpot. you lucky mum i envy you …

1 daughter = naaaaaaaaaaaice. plus you get to have your life back, real soon.

on the other side of the spectrum are..

1 son 1 daughter – you didnt do too badly. at least you didnt have two sons.

2 sons — i am on your page sister. this is the toughest, most tiring combo… i could write some more, but i am so pooped. and i know, you — are too.

—
ps. my thoughts are fuzzy on the mum of 1 son — judgement postponed.

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the emperor’s new clothes…

i am so so glad that rolf dobelli said all the things i was very scared to tell my ma.

because i don’t have a tv, or buy a newspaper — ma and her gang clicked a clothespin on their collective noses and decided to have nothing to do with me.

and when this piece appeared in ma’s beloved guardian,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli

i knew i was frenchkissed by providence

i spammed ma … with this

Click to access Avoid_News_Part1_TEXT.pdf

and not content with my goliath-sized victory, i advised her to follow dobelli on twitter – dobelli follows no one, he says in an interview.

—

i am on a news diet. ma calls it ‘cocooned, passive and isolated’. but i prefer the epithet ‘news diet’ .
yes, i do read the newspaper, only not at my home — the in-laws place, at a store, at the music class… i dont seek the paper out. we were once a home of four newspapers and three magazines … btw.

now, my neighbourhood paper that pops in once a week is good enough for me… it tells me about the scholastic book sale, a spot where i can get lovely plants, who’s singing at the nearby sabha, and that my friend i lost in touch with 15 years ago has opened a boutique 10 minutes away — enough news , i say.

—
i tried to assess a la rolf dobelli, what i have gained by not reading the paper everyday… or by not listening to the booming tones of the likes of rajdeep sardesai

i cant.

i dont have the distance vision to judge.

i dont know what i have gained. in fact … i may have not gained anything.

but, ma, i dont think i missed anything, either.

grandparenting in 2013 …

ma is staying with me to catch up with the kids..

she spent most of yesterday catching up on sleep… right through a 2 hour power-cut.

yesterday evening, she caught up with her friend — someone she just visited last month, and speaks to on the phone ALL the time

today she missed a family brunch to catch up with a relative who lives nearby — this is the relative she chatted with for two hours last week.

and she wants to finish kiran bedi’s ‘i dare’ and jerome k jerome’s ‘three men in a boat’ before she leaves this evening…

this hands-free grandparenting thingie is getting me tres envious; i cant wait to become a grandparent myself…

robust health

how delightful it is to hear stories of health and wellness… i just heard about an 80 year old who went to the US to look up his newborn great grandson. and he is apparently in great shape.
yay.

—
i read about chandrika tandon …
http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/success-is-the-freedom-to-do-what-i-want/article4660157.ece

i’ve listened to her singing, since my friend in kl was a fan..

in this interview, she says she was greatly influenced by her grandfather who read aloud shakespeare to her when she was a kid; incidentally indira nooyi is her sister.

—
we are also reading poetry chez mim.

i liked this one by keats to read aloud for firstborn…

There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see-
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red-
That lead
Was as weighty
That fourscore
Was as eighty,
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England-
So he stood in his shoes
And he wondered,
He wondered,
He stood in his shoes
And he wondered.

—

and for myself i love love william blake… tears well up quietly when i read his works…

from auguries of innocence

..
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.
A dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus’d upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear.
A Skylark wounded in the wing,
A Cherubim does cease to sing.
The Game Cock clipp’d and arm’d for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright.
Every Wolf’s & Lion’s howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul.
The wild deer, wand’ring here & there,
Keeps the Human Soul from Care.
The Lamb misus’d breeds public strife
And yet forgives the Butcher’s Knife.
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that won’t believe.
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbeliever’s fright.
He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belov’d by Men.
He who the Ox to wrath has mov’d
Shall never be by Woman lov’d.
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spider’s enmity.
He who torments the Chafer’s sprite
Weaves a Bower in endless Night.
The Catterpillar on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mother’s grief.
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly,
For the Last Judgement draweth nigh.