the poonal cake.
there’s a news item in today’s metroplus about a couple of young women — sujani nagarajah and yalini– who have started their cake company…
and they bake the upanayanam cake…rub your eyes , the photo kids you not
—
my jaw so totally dropped.
normal posting may never resume…
i have family who is perfectly and annoyingly living out this…
“Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to taking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young. — sigmund freud”
and i agree with the next quote too…
“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain. ― Jane Wagner
”
and for clarification i always turn to the good doctor for some psychoanalysis, and he says…
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. – C.G. Jung”
oh well.
i realise there are a couple of carnatic ragas that have my name…
and i hate how they play out.
both.
i often remind firstborn that he has two ears and only one mouth for obvious reasons…
my niece,6, also a chatterbox, was reminded of this factlet by her dad. ”do you know why we have only one mouth child…” he asked.
”because God didn’t have quite enough space to fit in the other mouth as well…” she shot back.
btw, i hope firstborn doesnt hear of this ..,
—
another nephew, 5, back from the USA, who went to a muhurtam of a wedding, saw people eating lunch…
”ma, is this an eating competition..” he wanted to know.
er.
—
and in other news the all india radio is playing devi brova on the veena…
here’s a lovely version by the very talented sri. vignaraja, who used to teach in the music school in kuala lumpur… that firstborn went to.
been chuckling over this one…
my friend V from malaysia is holidaying in udupi. her daughter is in class 7.
V is tense about the endless holiday homework.
daughter has to finish reading 15 books from the book list. 6 projects in social science. 4 projects in maths… and the toughest V was cribbing about is the hindi essay which is ”what i did during the summer vacation…”
V’s husband said ” don’t worry. let daughter write the truth — all i had time to do in the summer vacation was 15 books from the book list. 6 projects in social science. 4 projects in maths, etc etc . that should take care of the 500 word essay.”
60 holidays are behind me.
hindsight — i wanted to do more with the sons –but my planning cramps their style;
2. also i plan exhaustively i am left with zero energy for execution — not smart.
3, which brings me to the spot. must do much more, during school days…
looking back, i give myself a ‘can do better’ report card, with a grade of B minus — as far as ‘mothering with an eye on improving allround personality development’ went.
[a few times, i hid behind a pg wodehouse when i was supposed to mother. just being honest.]
I got an A in cooking – no eating out except for our 10-day vacation — fresh homecooked meals, everytime — no bread and no cereal.
[of course, the kids yearned for bread and cereal and gorged like hungry birds at ma’s ]
i got a D MINUS in lazing. but it’s only expected. lazing works better in schooldays. Today i might get an A.
at madikeri, the mmmim had a brainwave after seeing the hotel cottages having unusual names..
— ”let’s also name our rooms in our home — instead of calling it bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, we’ll have names for them — like shivaji, mayura varma, himalaya, annalakshmi or ganga…”
this killed me — the mmmim, who is deeply anticreative and brings up the logic-only tail end of the family — comes up with this.
what is my role in the family then –excuse me while i teach my sons math, and file the income tax returns.
i spotted this at kasargod… and while i was ruminating about this and what it meant for me,
i found the equally wise sign at madikeri. firstborn and me felt the last two words were addressed to the sensitive grammarian because the signboardists accidentally printed ‘their’.
or. could it be a standalone piece of advice to live by , totally unrelated to fountains.
we went to a lovely spiritual retreat in kasargod, kerala…
as i think back i remember the scent of the
bushes of jasmine,
sweet milk from cows that had their own individual names, a neat as a pin cowshed under fans to cool off in summer,
and cool water from these pots…
of course, we did the non-spiritual things as well…
1. we threw up in paperbags in the van
2. we played cards
3. and only 16 of us went together — youngest was 4 and the oldest 82 — and everyone had to outshout the other to be heard
[to be continued. or may be not.]
my ma overturned the bucket full of snippets from the great epics and miscellany from devalok and raised firstborn… from toddler to child.
now that he’s well-versed with the nitty gritty, he enjoys stories that tweak and play around with the theme. and you don’t really find them all that much in bookstores.
we chanced on the kiddies’ books by devdutt pattnaik, which are just right for children like firstborn raised on the standard indian diet of gods, demons and mothers.
the added zing comes from mixing fiction with mythology and it works well…
this one has the firstborn seal of approval
http://devdutt.com/books/an-identity-card-for-krishna.html/attachment/covers3devlok
Twopointthree kids, sixpointsix ideas on raising them 