Happy birthday Mother dearest

Photo by me.

My mother is one of my favourite people in the world.

She is the textbook definition of a mother.

Kind and generous and caring.

And ignorant about the music my generation listens to.

Which is why she was pretty worried about our safety when Swedish House Mafia came to town.

She's always thought about mine and my sister's feelings and I'll give you a great example that explains it well.

When my sister was a child, she entered a book balancing race.

And when she lost, my mother didn't want her to feel bad.

Because no daughter of hers should ever face the harsh realities of life.

The harsh reality being losing a book balancing race.

So she went ahead and told my sister that the girl who won had a square head.

I don't know anyone else who would've come up with a more brilliant explanation to justify our failures.

Happy Birthday Mama.

I love you.

And please don't feel bad about not knowing who Swedish House Mafia is. If you were listening to Electronic Dance Music I'd secretly be worried.

I hope you manage to read this on Flipboard.

Happy Father's Day

To me, my father was and will always be the greatest father that ever existed.

He was more like me than anyone else I've ever met. So, obviously I thought he was awesome.

Our extent of laziness, love for movies, unhealthy food & drink and our sense of humour was very alike.

His idea of a treasure hunt was hiding a coin in his big belly button while he watched TV and I sweated it out hunting around the entire room for it.

We had a mutual agreement to scratch each other's backs. Literally. True story.

While he was around, I even liked the smell of cigarettes. Buying him an ashtray for his birthday though wasn't very appreciated by my mother.

We'd do crosswords together. And compete and see who could solve the 9 letter word sooner. 

He loved reading and could answer my every question. I always wondered how his brain could hold in that much information. I called him my human dictionary.

He taught me how to draw shadowy letters and I loved how he'd write stuff in CAPS and then add serifs later.
His love for gadgets rubbed off on my sister and me.

He spoke a different language with original words like TIK TOK (remote control) and DIK DIC (Do I Know Do I Care). 

He taught me manners. Good and bad.

Told me I'd turn into Jack Nicholson from As Good as it gets when I'd get older if I didn't change my OCD behaviour and try acting a little more normal. This advice really seemed to work.
He had an amazing photographic memory that I was fortunate enough to inherit.

A map he drew for my sister when she learnt driving.

He showed us love in so many ways.

He'd comb my sister's hair before school when she'd feel like she's having a bad hair day.

He'd help out with school projects and be present at every school event.

He created my first email account for me 15 years ago. It's hotmail but I can't seem to part with it.

He'd actually hunt for things we'd ask him to get us when he'd go on business trips. We'd submit lists with items like clothes, music CDs, acetone-free nailpolish remover, paintbrushes, blue hair mascara, ginger preserve and a variety of cheeses. And when he'd return, it always felt like Christmas.
He had his own lyrics for Alane which I learnt to sing with him. According to him it started with chal mere sung.
He was all about surprises.
He bought me my first cellphone for my 16th birthday and when I got my first call I realised he had set the Happy Birthday tune as my ringtone. I felt the love in the details.

He didn't want my sister or me to marry till we were 35 so he could have us around for longer.

I read something funny the other day: Noone will ever love you as much as your dad, so marry for money.

Reminds me of some of the conversations I've had with him.

He taught us never to get attached to material things.

And at the same time he taught us to enjoy the good life.

Happy Father's Day.
And Happy Birthday.

Here's one of your favourite songs.
Love you.

In Limbo

When I speak to anyone and need to refer to myself as something, I'm not quite sure whether to call myself a girl or woman. Most girls my age seem to be getting married and automatically fall into the older woman/ adult/ sometimes "aunty" category.

While growing up that category to me was characterized by 3 things:

- owning a lipstick collection (generally of shades of maroon)

- drinking tea (more than once a day)

- wearing salwar kameezes

Touch by MAC - my one and only lipstick

- I own only 1 lipstick, which I bought only to wear at my sister's wedding since it was too big an occasion to wear strawberry lipbalm.

- I don't drink regular milky tea. I have always only consumed half a cup at a time that too by dunking either biscuits or buttered bread (items which are capable of soaking up the tea resulting in me never having to actually sip it). And green tea = flavoured water.

- I only wear salwar kameezes to weddings if I have nothing else that's appropriate enough to wear. My mother thinks my choice of clothing shows regressive behaviour. Oh well!

So, where does that put me?

Is it safe to now sing : I'm not a girl, not yet a woman (in my Britney-nasal tone)?

Well, for now let's just say I'm in limbo. And it's a great place to be.

I've got the power

Good morning.

I'm still not sure about how I made it out of bed in one piece.

I did such a crazy yoga class yesterday.

Now I feel like I can start every sentence by raising my Power Sword or realistically speaking, by raising my arm and saying "By the power of grayskull".

I was a huge He-man fan while growing up. I pretty much had the same hairstyle as him. I watched the show everyday on TV along with the Mahabharat and have no clue what happened in either. I guess all I did was stare at the screen at He-Man's popcorn-like arms. My mother had bought my sister and me a He-man and a Skeletor toy but, I was so clueless about the show and so young and gullible that my sister actually tricked me into believing that evil Skeletor was the good guy. So, most of my childhood was spent playing with Skull faced Skeletor. My youthful innocence/ stupidity made me believe in something called trust. Oh well!

It's a good thing I grew up. 

But, what I still can't understand is why my mother didn't just buy us 2 He-man's?

But I'm not worried anymore.

I have the power.

Wonderwoman turns 82

The Prime Minister of India lives in my house.
She rushes off every morning to her office for urgent work.
Half an hour later I get bombarded with emails. Some are about the environment, some about health and most are jokes.
I sometimes wonder how India would survive as a country if she didn't forward these emails to me. Or that's what she makes it seem like.
This VVIP is actually my grandmother. And today is her 82nd birthday. 

There's definitely more than 82 great things she's done in her life. That's more than one per yr. I'm so so so far from it.

She's one of those people who can actually write a book filled with stories of her travels and all the interesting people she met, things she did and people she charmed.

She was born in 1928. That seems like ages ago. Maybe cause it is.

When she was 2 months old she traveled with her mother from Mangalore to Karachi by boat. Yes, boat. When she was older she even traveled to South America more than once (luckily this time by plane), met Pele and even came on their local TV channel and one of the Indians visiting their country. I know. This nearly seems made up. She was a travel agent most of her life that led to all these cool happenings.

She studied in Bombay. Was very enthusiatic about anything and everything. She was a badminton star and a theatre star too. And I can imagine that the boys were crazy about her. She played Portia in Shakespeare's 'the Merchant of Venice' in her college days. I know this sounds like I'm showing off my grandmom but think about doing this in India in the 1940s.

She was in the Home Guards which is an organisation that helped the Police but doesn't exist today. She obviously was the leader in the Repulic Day parade and even got the President's Gold Medal. And so everytime there were riots you may have seen my grandmom going through the streets in an open air jeep. Just to maintain peace and harmony in the land. That's all. No biggie.

Now do you get my blog title?

Being born before Independence makes her one of those really patriotic people. I consider myself patriotic at times I guess but this is something very different. While I wonder where to keep my popcorn when I'm made to stand up for the National Anthem before a movie, she's the one standing up straight and singing loudly.  She also insists on saying Namaste everytime the ladies at Aroma Thai Foot Spa greet us with a Sawadika. But that's probably cause she actually can't hear them whisper in their broken English. I have tried training her to know what sentence to expect when instead of trying to understand them. There are 5 basic sentences you need to watch out for.

- Sawadika

- What oil would you like?

- Is the pressure ok?

- Would you like a hot towel for your face?

- Would you like some lemongrass tea?

If only she had paid attention to my pre-massage training.

She doesn't look 82 at all and loves showing off about it. The secret to her youthful looks is yoga and that she moisturises everyday which has made her skin as soft as mulmul. I'm not even sure about what mulmul is but it sounds like something soft enough to compare her skin to.

Being the oldest of 7 children made her very responsible. Ok that's her version of it. She was like Hitler when we were kids. She made us have spinach soup every evening so much so that I coloured the inside of one of my utensils from my steel kitchen set with a green crayon. Cause obviously everyone has a separate bowl just for spinach soup. This magic green soup gave me and Aku energy for dance, art, music, gymnastics, swimming (8 times a wk) and loads of other stuff all planned out by her. We were obviously given other incentives like jalebi after art class and donuts after dance class too. Smart lady! Luring children with sweets.

She is one of those people you can't miss in a crowd. A true charmer, entertainer and storyteller.

She cut her hair short when society actually frowned upon it in India. She got a scholarship and studied in Germany for a year, which is why we say Gute Nacht to each other every night. She traveled all over the world and would get cool gadgets for the kitchen and cool 2 piece swimsuits for us to wear as kids. I was like a baby Sarah Jessica Parker. Ok, not quite.

Couple of things you may not know about her
Her food can be called The Food of the Gods
She calls H1N1 heenee &
She is Shah Rukh Khan's biggest fan

She is known to end most of her sentences with 

That's life!

Maro Goli or

Vagera Vagera

She is the lady in the next car giving you gaalis while you drive. Clearly learning driving with her sitting next to you is not a good idea.

But, you've got to love this woman.

All we have in common is our love for all the good/wrong things 

- wine

- icecream

- chocolate

- cheese

(though our order of preference is completely the opposite)

But she is undoubtedly the coolest grandmom I know.

Happy Birthday Aai.

I am so excited about eating cake :)