my fav car ....the good old Ambassador ....

The Hindustan Ambassador was an automobile manufactured by Hindustan Motors of India. It was in production from 1958 to 2014 with few improvements and changes over its production lifetime. The Ambassador was based on the Morris Oxford series III model, first made by Morris Motors Limited at Cowley, Oxford in the United Kingdom from 1956 to 1959. (source Wikipedia)

the first car the husband had post marriage was a white Maruti 800 ...when we were transferred to South India ...the company Parry Agro gave us a Mahindra Jeep ...an 80s model and it was Awsum ...

when we shifted back to Assam in 1999 ...we sold the Maruti 800 and once we shifted to D. Tea.Estate...we were looking out for a car desperately ...seeing the deplorable condition of the road to and from town ...I was hell bent on buying an Ambassador ....as Luck would have it ...one of the Seniors in The Assam Company Ltd was looking out for a buyer for his wife's car ....

in Tea circles a Memsahib's car is the best maintained and least used car ....specially if she was a senior official's wife ....as seniors have an official car, a car the official uses for personal use and personal trips ...when I came to know the colour of the car...I insisted we buy it ....it was an excellent buy at 50,000 rupees ....

a car for a Tea Estate executive in India is their life line ....spl if the tea estate is in some remote wild life sanctuary or in insurgency riddled Assam .... we never know when an emergency situation would arise and we would have to flee the estate ....ergo the car is Always very well maintained ....in the company garage ....plus most estates in Assam and South were in areas with heavy and torrential rains ...which ensured that roads were difficult to maintain....estate roads in Assam were practically non existent...plus they tarred only two strips where the tyres would ply and the area between the tyres would be mud or grass filled ...

this car was a big help to me during both my pregnancies as this car has very good shock absorbers ...

one very distinct feature about foreign cars is that their chassis is very low ... however here in India the roads being very bad ....cars made with foreign collaboration had this small flaw ... however Indian made cars were designed keeping the road conditions in mind ... hence more sturdy ...

once I went back with my first child ....it was very convenient to make him sleep next to me on the bench seat... when my elder child started play group ....a large number of us would go to school everyday in the car ...my kid and me and a basket full of food and water for everyone ...my kid and me ...my househelp and a gardener too in case ..something went wrong on the way .... being on one's guard was a Constant there ...and then there was the chauffer ...

before coming back from school after my child was fed and was done with his ablutions  ....we older people would have our food and then make a trip to town ...in case I needed anything or there was a company guest at home...and make the one hour drive back home ...

everyday going to my child's playgroup was like a mini picnic for him and me ....as for the first time I was going out on a daily basis ....

once I went back to Pune in Jan end, 2004 ....and when the husband put in his papers in June 2004...I was very keen that the chauffer be given the task of driving the car to Pune .... however the husband refused to listen to me and sold this car for 28,000 rupees ...it would have given us excellent service in Pune and maybe we would Not have had the terrible bike accident in 2006 ....

from 2004 June to December 2007 we had no car and went around in hired vehicles or the motorbike we had .... 

this is a staid looking car according to majority of Indians ...however if one goes to the rural areas of India ...one can find the sturdy Ambassador serving valiantly ...even now ....  

    

childhood neighbours and my dialogues with them ....

i am the one on the table ...the tallest girl who is behind me is Shirley and the kid with the lace on the collar and sleeves is my sis ...the boy next to the sis is Shirley's brother ...they left for America in the 70s itself ...and the other two boys in this snap to my right ...are the kids I would love to put in place ...during my toddler days LOL

the boy whose head is right next to me was a year older than the sister i.e 4 years older than me ...and his younger brother is a year older than me ... and their mom used to like me very much as a kid ....when ever these boys ate ripe bananas they would get fever ...their dream those days was to grow up and gorge on bananas LOL and the younger of the two loved jam with everything ...even soup .... they went to a very strict school nearer to home and the sis and i went to a girls convent a little further away from home ....

on rare occasions when the younger boy would be ill and at home ...i would go and play with him ...however my sense of right and wrong would make me angry with the younger brother and i would bully him and win every conversation we had ....till he was on the verge of tears ...

those brothers were as thick as thieves and the minute the elder brother would come home ....the younger one would tell him about me and the elder one would come thumping home with a steel spatula and charge me about needling his brother .... i would listen to him and not reply ....my parents were very strict about being polite to guests who come home ...i would wait for him to go home ...

then i would go pick up the machete kind of thing my dad had for breaking open them coco-nuts.... and charge into those boys house and give a clarion call to both the brothers ....who do you think you both are ??? how dare you come to my house and yell at me ....don't you know How Irritating your brother IS ???? isn't that why you whack him Shibu anna (anna is how one addresses older brothers in Mallu )
and their mom would come running and say ....oh my ...is my house under attack now ....and split us up and take me home and tell my parents about the incident ... and i would get an ear full about behaving like a girl and not fighting with boys .... hmmm

when i was in Kinder Garten their dad took up a job at the  Dubai Airport and the boys shifted to Kerala ....they had a very cute dachshund named Rosie whom those boys loved very much ... according to those boys Rosie was their sister ...since i was allergic to pets ...i would pet her from as far as possible ...
however their mom could not take all their belongings and the boys and the dog too, to Kerala and she left their pet with us ....Rosie was a very ferocious Dachshund and no one Dared come home ...she would bite the post man and the paperman and fishermonger and vegetable vendors and family and friends too ... LOL ...we kids loved her just as much as my erstwhile neighbours ...then one day came a letter asking us to send Rosie to Kerala ... somehow she knew and stopped eating ...finally on the day she was sent to Kerala ...she bit the Ticket Collector and the pet handler on the train and barked her head off .... she was going to have babies after a few months...so told a letter that came from Trivandrum ....however later we came to know that Rosie ate all her three pups and soon after when the monsoons started that year ...she got swept away and drowned in the ensuing floods .... we were heartbroken to know ...
when we went to Kerala ..we used to meet the neighbours during every visit to Trivandrum .....however by then we hardly spoke to each other ....

in 2015 when my brother came down from Texas.. on his visit to India ....he wanted to take us sisters and kids out with his kids and since i was very busy with setting up the house... post half the renovation work was over i excused myself ....ergo the younger brother and elder sis took all the kids and went to a Chinese joint in town ... which was next to the sister's official quarters ....and my siblings were talking about my terror tactics with the boys in the neighbourhood ....
and my kids got mighty upset ....they came home and asked me if i was a Gangsta kind and if i had actually taken a huge machete kind of knife to threaten the neighbours ...and i said ya as nonchalantly as possible ....however Kids ....they needed all kinds of details and from then on .... for some reason ...they do not take to my siblings .... sigh ....  

those carefree summers spent in Kerala 3 ... chess and me

the striking feature of my paternal grandmother's house was ...the big ancestral house and the new bungalow of my paternal aunt and the huge amount of space for us kids to play and run around in the 80s and early 90s ....later two more houses were built on that plot and my cousins kids do not have the kind of space we cousins had ....
another very unique feature of my paternal grandmother's place was ...the herculean amount of male cousins...there was just one girl in that Entire household and though my cousin sister was very dainty and dressed very well and coquette is the word that comes to mind when I think of her ...she too was a tomboy at heart .... had to be ...with 11 boys in those 3 households living there ....my eldest aunt had a separate kitchen in the compound and she lived with my paternal grandmother and youngest aunt ....my dad's youngest sister's husband was in the GREF and he was always posted in remote border areas of India... my dad's eldest sister with 6 boys and one girl child ...stayed there as her husband was in the Merchant Navy ... the second bungalow in compound belonged to my 3rd paternal aunt whose husband was working in the SAIL in Bokaro ...as she had a special child ...she did not travel to Bokaro and built her house in the plot allotted to her ....
Ergo this translated to Loads of cousins to play with and Fight with and argue with and go gallivanting around town with...specially to the awsum beach near the house ...
all those cousins thought I was a bit of a smarty pants and a good way to check out each others IQ was obviously a game of chess ....which they taught me ...and I loved to play ....
I was 3rd grade when they started taking me to their club to play chess with their Intel friend ... so Monsieur Intel with a goatee and I would play very earnestly ....he could have finished the game in 5-6 moves ...however he would let me learn the game by challenging me .... most days I lost and I would say ...wow good game ....
however some days I would try my level best to win and give the game my very best ...and once in a blue moon I would cry on losing ....and my Intel cousin who was highly Leftist would be the first one to pick me up and take me for Kapi ....kapi in Malayalam means coffee of course ...however it also means tea and snacks and coffee and snacks or just snacks ....
bakeries in Kerala are just Awsum and by far the cheapest in India too ....and I would love to gorge on pastries and puffs ....and squash (the sweet orange one being my favourite)
my picking up chess was all thanks to my cousins and me getting a little good at it was All thanks to my cousin's Intel Friend ...they were some 12-15 years older than me and yet loved to argue with me ...coz I was like a little Rottweiler of a kid and never gave up trying to Win an argument ...LOL
later my eldest aunt's sons would start cram classes in my dad's house in Kerala and that is the reason I never grow or paint my nails ....
my dad's house when converted to cram classes had a decent laboratory for those doing science in college ...and once my cousin Lalu took me there and showed me some trick with potassium permanganate and when I was not visibly impressed ...he cut a bit of my nail and put it under the microscope ....yuck ....yikesss it was and that was the end of me growing nails ....like for Ever...
my eldest aunt's sons were a Wild lot and Always up to pranks ....
my brother and I were born really dark skinned and my mom believes it's because she went overboard with the calcium tablets during her second and third pregnancy ....
anyways ...we brother and sister were teased like Hell for our skin colour ...to make my brother feel good ...my elder aunt's husband told my brother to drink as much milk as possible to turn fair ...early morning my brother needed a big mug of milk and sugar which he called kaambool for some reason ... then during one trip to kerala ... the 4th of my eldest aunt's sons took my brother to my granny's cowshed and showed him the jersey cow and the cowdung and also showed him the cow defecating ....then he told my brother ...see that cow and how dirty and smelly it's dung ....that very cow's milk you drink ......End of stori of my brother and his milk drinking days ....he refused to drink milk and would howl to do so ....
that cousin of mine and his brothers told me very seriously one day ...look at how dark you are ...do you see any other girl in this entire clan as dark as you ....hmmm the reason is that you were bought for a bag of rice from poor farmers in Andhra Pradesh ... I went howling to my parents asking about my origins and my poor parents ....however the twist in the tale was ....the train in which we travelled to and from Kerala each year.... used to pass through All the desolate and barren parts of Andhra Pradesh and I would not like those parts till I was much older ...I would be torn between wanting to meet my parents and going and living in poverty ... LOL
when I was in college and the train would pass through Andhra ...it would make me smile thinking of my Mad & Krazy cousins
    

Economics of gossip

I wonder if anyone has computed the actual Economics of gossip for a large sample size ....spl in an industry like Academics or Art
or Manufacturing ...does gossip have a positive impact in Art as compared to Academics .... or could the study bring about some mega
changes in our perception ....
I know of a few sad case studies where the people gossiped about have lost money and those spreading gossip have actually earned money
....
is the economics of gossip tied to tears too? and is there any correlation to the Mythical term ....Karma ????
hmmm ....wonder who could be approached for Funding for such a project ....

my Mom and I were talking on the phone today and she told me about a family friend ....who is facing very tough times ....

and it took me to my .... questions ....why would karma go and rest on some Innocent from that gossiping family friend's family....
why do people who are very pious and have staunch Belief in the Believing Hindu way of life ....gossip sooooooooo very much ... how
does gossiping and praying get married in a temple ....I used to hear girls in school talk about who wore what and did what at
Sunday church ....during my school days ....
plus my school was very close to the Khoja community mini township...and the Koran class my school friends attended there
had Guides too as part and parcel of Koran class ...the Khojas and Bhoris are a very unique community ... with status of women
being very different in those communities ...however those girls too had a lot of info about other kids ....

all this behaviour was very different for me ..as i lived in a remote part of the Airforce station... as defence civilians
are the dregs of that society ...lol ...
ergo.. I had just one or maybe two other kids in the building I stayed in ...as friends ....no matter the change in neighbours ...
the number of friends did not change as in go up much ...we discussed books and movies and tree climbing and sport ...we had No
one to gossip about
and if we fought ...we would have to play with siblings ...not very great a proposition ...ergo we were alien to gossiping those days ....

and I used to always Think ..... ergo I found that religion and religious places were basically... trading zones for info about
other people ....it is socialising with ...a form of fear ....thrown in for good measure ...

maybe ...For a Select Few ...whose business is Primarily ...getting information about ....other people's lives and business ...

last nov ...when I was at a party for my parent's anniversary ... this family friend walks upto me as she was leaving ...asks
a very openly atheist like me to pray for her and then in that very breathe ...asks me if the lady and gentleman I was sitting
with ...were the unmarried sister and brother who stayed in abc place and blah blah blah about them..... the lady I was
sitting with, is my batchmate from school and an Architect and sooo much more ....

I was so wild with this family friend for doing what she was doing ...she did not get my very obvious expressions either ...
she is a very Naïve country bumpkin kind of lady who loves to gossip and does not know ...when and where to put the brakes ...
no one is mean to her coz she is a meek kind ...I changed the topic asap ...
and I hoped and hoped my friend has not seen the lady put her hand to her mouth and talk to me in a hushed tone in Malayalam ....
for a bit ...till I changed the topic and she spoke in a normal pitch and tone ...I feel when one goes all hush hush with their
hand to their mouth in public ...that is when ...we humans should have a legal right to be our most Physical ...like I would
have loved to whack people who do this hand to the mouth kind of talking ....age and relation and whatever notwithstanding ....
I wanted to be most disrespectful and tick her off about being nasty .... however .....it was not My Party ....
and
normal behaviour in public situations are a freaking drain ...at times ...

I felt so bad for my childhood friends...as how can ..not being married be something to come and publicly gossip ...right
under their noses ...

however ...ever so often when I hear the gossip my mom picks up at the temple ...
and ...it is very irritating ....
today I told my Mom about this incident last Nov and my Dialogue about temple going people and gossiping ....and not
losing energy and focus when there is so much on her plate in terms of problems ....my mom pretended to not understand
the correlation I was making ... or the context or the moral upper hand I was trying to play ....hmmm

I am very mean and highly stingy with my compassion and making the right noises ...when it comes to people ...
who go about their lives ....not knowing ...How Much Harm their gossiping is causing others ....
and
I wonder... where in time... did we as a species ...get hooked to gossip ...

was it greed or idleness or loneliness or some perversion that makes people ....die hard gossips ....

ergo one of the tea planters I Respect Loads is a person i met in Assam...the senior assistant at Digultarang Tea Estate
when I lived there .... a person who Never Ever gossiped ...the minute it started ...he would break up the gathering or
he would get up to leave ....no matter who was speaking what ...this gentleman would up and leave ...
and ... that made him the Rarest of Rare Planters ....

gossiping is a plague that infects close communities...spl in small townships .... and estates ....
and offices and ...and ...and ...and ...

three near brushes with ....when i was carrying my first child .....

I as a person am an atheist however I am very religious in following certain things ...those days it was being fit and Not having a paunch.....it was towards October end in the year 2000 when I thought that I was putting on weight rapidly...ergo I took out my tummy trimmer and would very religiously exercise every evening ....there was a district party coming up and I did not want to look bloated during Diwali time when we would be going to the in-laws place ....or I would get to hear loads about losing weight ... nothing seemed to help ....winter had set in as the TEs have a lot of tree cover and since it was a very remote place with a huge river near the bungalow ...it was very cold ...specially early in the mornings .... ergo the car would choke up and I would push the car to start it ...that took a lot of energy and I was doing so to expend the energy ....I even took to walking in the bungalow compound soon after the help left for the evening ....to lose the paunch ...

usually I lose weight as fast as I put it on ....not this time though .... and I was beginning to get worried ....I told the senior factory assistant's wife about it and she asked me if I was constipated ....I told her I never had any issues of that kind .... she had advised me to go off the pill in August as I was beginning to get worried about the effect those pills were having on me .... those days I had just come to know that my elder sister was having a baby in May end 2001 and I had planned to go to Pune then ...to be with her and help with the new born ....
on the Diwali party day while dressing to go to the club which was at quite a distance from the estate.... I was wondering if I had some illness as my neck had turned darker than usual ....I wondered if I had some hormone imbalance due to the pills I had taken ....when I voiced my doubts to the senior assistant's wife ...she said do not worry the effects if any ...will go off in a few days and she forbade from taking them ever again ....to and fro from the club I was getting strange cramps in my stomach ....I had never got such weird cramps before .... then I realised I had started liking 'dal' specially with lemon juice and I wondered What was wrong ....dal is something I used to not like one bit ...I rarely ate dal and made it only because it is a very traditional part of the meal in Assam ..... when I started feeling nauseous in the mornings and puked three mornings in a row ....I sent the husband to town to buy 3 pregnancy kits ....all 3 came positive and the husband freaked out ...as he was sure he did not want a baby just yet ... 

on 3rd Nov 2000 ...the day I turned 29 I went to town for a treat and to get a blood test done as I was not sure about things ....the town the husband grew up in was close to the estate and we decided to go meet the gynaecologist who delivered the husband ...he is a very kind gentleman and an excellent doctor ...he checked me and confirmed the news and gave me a few blood tests to run .... the roads in the Tea Estate are kind of non existent and travelling to town meant a lot of jerks and bumps due to a mud road battered by constant and heavy rains ... ergo I used to go to meet the gynaecologist rarely ...my BP was checked by the tea estate doctor ....

I had developed an insatiable craving for all things sour ...lemons, pomelos, pickles and all things savoury and salty and could not stand non vegetarian food ...in Assam, there is a belief that if a lady is carrying a girl child ...she tends to like sour food ..... along with the sour food I was taking in quite a bit of salt too ...one day I decided to cure an earthen vessel for cooking and was squatting for quite some time ...I was 5 months pregnant then and developed terrible spams in the evening ...the garden doctor and the senior assistant and his wife and the doctor's wife all reached to check and help ....my BP was normal however the garden doctor said I should go for a blood test in town the next day ...I was also consulting a gynec in Pune my hometown .... the next day when I called him from town ...he insisted I get my BP checked ....that was my first Mega Scare ....my blood pressure was at danger levels and the minute the doctor in Pune heard it he asked me if I was eating something different than normal and I told him about my diet...he said stop eating excess salt and cut out pickles .... and he put me on a drug for my blood pressure ...he told my husband how both the baby and I could have had a major brush with death if I had been even a day late as I was displaying quite a few symptoms of being a borderline case based on what he had discussed with me ....since nearly a month ....that was a like a cold water wake up call 

I started eating moringa leaves on a daily basis from that very day .... choosing food wisely became very important to me and I stopped eating potato chips totally ....have never gone back to eating them like I used to .... the garden doctor put in an order for a new BP checking device....however I remember discussing how the ladies who plucked leaves on the estate .....Never had any complications like the wives of executives seemed to have ....ergo we were so very Fragile compared to them ...

when I came to Pune the doctor insisted I join the ante natal class as I had no clue about anything ....that helped me quite a bit ...however in the 8th month I developed rashes all over and I had to go through all kinds of tests ...starting from German measles to the Rh factor ....nothing showed up ...my childhood neighbour told me that she too had this rash during her pregnancy and that it was harmless in her case ....what I missed totally was the fact that Aunty is hypothyroidic ...and checking my thyroid levels is one test my gynaecologist missed too ...

my baby was due on 30th June and on 3rd July a girl from my antenatal class decided to go in for induction and I asked my doctor if I too should try that ...he told me what it involved and then agreed as the husband's leave was getting over and he had to leave in 10days time ....I went in for induction on the 4th of July however that day since I was in the air-conditioned labour room ....from 8am in the morning by 3pm when the doctor went down for a smoke I had my second brush with Death.....

and it was by far the scariest experience on a hospital bed for me ....the cold of the air conditioning got to me and I started something that is called Rigor which is a sudden feeling of cold with shivering ...however in my case it was just like a scene out of a horror movie ...I was shivering sooo very much and so hard that I was levitating off the narrow delivery bed ... the matron who was there for a round got so scared she called for blankets and came and held me down ....that moment I got this feeling ....ohh this is IT ...maybe I was not destined to see my baby or live anymore ....I decided to Breathe in the way ...they taught us in class ....slowly my body temperature started becoming Ok with the hot water bottles on me along with the blankets  ...

after a bit when everything was back to normal ...the doctor walked in and decided to take me off the drip and medication I was having for induction ....plus he made me eat .... I was Ravenous and talked only after I had half the meal ....then I was laughing about the exorcist sort of scene which scared the Matron too ...and I too thought this was IT ...the husband was crying and my parents guilty that they were not there when something scary happened ....

the next morning I was taken in for induction again with two blankets on me ....by 5.30 pm ...I was delirious with pain as the gaps between contractions were nearly not there and all I could do was howl in terrible Constant pain and hunger too ...as in the last 48 hours I had had ...only one meal which was an early dinner the day before .....the machine reading the pain levels was going into hang mode too ....plus the most scary part being ....the machine monitoring my baby's heart beat started worrying the resident who called the doctor and after a bit he ordered an emergency C-section ....
there on the operating table I remember feeling sooo awful as I thought I had urinated in my pain ...I started apologising to the doctor who told me ...chill that is your water bag bursting and I thought ....faux pas et moi !!!!!!.... then the spinal epidural would not take effect ....(even GA wears off faster than usual for me) .... they could not wait as the baby was in distress and at 7.26pm when they poked me and asked which feet that was ...I moved the relevant feet and I could hear them all gasp ...the paediatrician had reached and was sounding very worried about my baby ...the gynaecologist told me the risk to my baby and said he is going to start the operation and not to scream or move too much as I might have some sensation which would go off in a few seconds or a minute at most ....I could feel the blade touching me and the feeling of being cut open ....then at 7.30pm the excitement of seeing my baby for the first time was exhilarating !!!! ....I saw him pee on the paediatrician and it was in a fountain form and remember feeling happy and weird too ....by then my body had started twitching Involuntarily to the pain and since it was getting difficult for the team operating ...the last thing I remember is the doctor telling someone to start GA and in some time I was totally off ....

when I came to ...it was late night and I could see that my child had wrinkled skin like an elderly person and a spot on his head which had a bit of hair in a matted way with blood congealed to the hair ....and I was later informed of how my baby had gone into distress due to lack of space for him to manoeuvre himself from below the pelvic bone and the matted small spot was his head hitting the pelvic bone ....his parameters were all perfectly fine and he had this really awe struck look everytime I spoke ....he would stare at me with the strangest expression when I spoke .....and everytime I spoke he would turn to look at me ....the doctor explained that babies lose weight from their due date in the womb and all post mature babies tend to have wrinkled skin due to weight loss in the womb ...

ergo during my first pregnancy ...even though I had a very good book with coloured pictures telling me of the weekly progress my baby might have been making in the womb ....it did not warn me about the dangers of going overboard with sour and salty food ....nor did it warn me of what could have caused the scary measles like rashes I got ...no book ever talks about Rigor either ....however those 3 brushes with near death taught me to be calm in a troubled situation and Breathe and count stuff to be cool ....

when my baby was 6months old my brother got married and that is when I noticed something really wrong with my skin ...when I went to meet the gynec he wrote out a few tests along with the thyroid function test ....he was shocked with the result and made me go to a different more advanced lab for a repeat of the test ....and when that too came positive for hypothyroidism ...he guided me about the problem and sent me to the endocrinologist in the hospital who explained the problem in detail and asked me to make a few changes with food and water and general care ....ever since 2002 I have been very carefull about my food habits ...initially I took my exercise schedule very seriously too ....however later I became complacent about it ....

in hindsight I used to always think how ...only when we have access to medical help do we seem to develop so many complications ...the poor workers on the estate would rarely have any complications ...they would be plucking leaf till the 9th month and would be back at work soon after delivery....

when I was carrying my second child ...3 other women from different estates nearby were also carrying ...of which two women lost their lives ...one was a haemophiliac and not enough care was taken during delivery and another passed away due to a minor mistake on the part of the doctor ....the third lady lost her baby post delivery and I remember thinking how we the educated and cautious are so very Fragile compared to the sturdy women from the working class ....life is not fair most of the time and I wonder what is the process behind the natural selection that seems to be at work ....

those carefree summers spent in Kerala ..2

today I will write about my mother's elder sister ....she lives on a cashew and rubber estate ...that place is called Kotathala ...and is furthest from the main town in Kollam where my dad's ancestral house was ... a house where Even my dad loved to stay....usually he would stay for just a day in my maternal granny's house ....the minute he left for his mom's house ....my siblings would cry and get fever and my maternal granny would get upset ....ergo her fondness for me ...as from as young as 4 years of age ...I would stay alone with her in that ancestral home in the village with her and Never get bored or cry for my parents or siblings or trouble her either .... she and I got along very well ....we could sit quietly for hours and look at the fireflies in the yard and be content ...

my aunt who lives on the estate is my mom's immediate senior sibling ...seniority wise and the Most Helpful Being I have seen ...she helps everyone and anyone and is very kind .... her husband a contractor, would take me to their house from my maternal granny's house sometimes ....though a remote place and very dimly lit that place due to voltage in rural areas...I loved it ....specially cause my cousin sister who was two years older would lend me her georgette pavadas (long skirts worn in south India)  and I would love walking around and tripping, wearing them ...and my glass bangles and running and fighting with my cousin brother who was two years younger than me and a very active political activist (later when I came to know that his paternal uncle was a communist naxal who was shot dead by the police...I thought I knew his political genes)...he would use his generous pocket money to buy ink and white cloth and make banners for some political party he belonged to ....when he was in the 7th grade ...his village folk wanted to make him a panchayat member!!!!

I also liked him coz he would put 'my enemy number one those days' my brother.. in place ....once when we went to their house ...I was 8 and my brother and the cousin were 6 ....my aunt gave my brother, my cousin's shirt to wear ....some time later I saw them both going up to the terrace ...tagged along and saw my brother getting Nadan Iddi ( countryside boxing) from his cousin for wearing his shirt without his permission ....and I was ohhhh boy oh boy ....soon we were all trooping down with my brother crying and loads of shenanigans happened ....

apart from cashews and mangoes and rice cultivation ...that is the house I saw what a nutmeg tree looked like, what a clove tree and a cinnamon tree looked like ...the entire place smelled soooo herbal and Awsum 

however this cousin of mine ...his pet name is Kuttan led his entire brood of 3 siblings ...he had two elder sisters and one elder brother and he had such muscles at that age and he Never listened to anyone .... he taught me a few bad bad words in Malayalam and my aunt yelled at all of us about that !!!! she also would get mighty upset if we played cards in the house ....I could never understand why playing cards in the house was a bad omen ....my dad taught us to play rummy and a few other games in Pune....

Kuttan's favourite way to pass time before lunch was to take us and his brood of siblings and attack the neighbour's mango orchard ....according to him those mangoes were better ....whatever his dictates.. we obeyed ....the only problem ...he would not allow his second sister to accompany us ...and his sister would plead with him ....and I would take up for her ...however he would not listen and be rude to her .....finally when I put my foot down he would grudgingly agree ....and off we went to Steal .... me in my long skirt .....half way through stealing .....Bhammmm!!!! there was their neighbour running towards us screaming something we could not understand and we would get Orders to Runnnn ...from Kuttan of course....and all hell would break lose ....my brother would start crying and we would pull him and run ....once I fell and scrapped my knees and ouchhhh ....how that hurt ....however when we reached my aunt's home  ......how aromatic those dark green mangoes with a tinge of red would be...his second sister would be given the duty to wash and cut and add chilly powder and salt to the mangoes and we would have a hearty feast of raw Stolen mangoes .... LOL

and post lunch we would go pick cashew fruit and go awwwwwww and ohhhh about how Unique it is ...then in the evening we would have a small outdoor fire and roast those grey stone like cashew kernels ...and eat the hot tasty cashew nuts straight from the fire after shelling them ...we siblings were always treated like Porcelain and my cousins got a ticking off if we hurt our fingers while roasting and shelling ....I dunno if it is those days of gorging on cashew nuts that I somehow can Never eat cashew nuts ...I just don't like them shelled ones ....

once when I had gone to Kerala alone after my 11th grade ....my aunt came to pick me up from my paternal uncle's house in Kollam and I remember my first encounter with a python during a trip when I was picking cashews with my cousin sister and brothers ....by then the eldest girl of their house was married and there were just three of them ...I was as usual in my cousin's long skirt made of georgette and leaning against the tree trunk of a cashew tree ... I was telling them something about my coming 3rd in college and how I had got a scholarship as they wanted to know how I had turned around as a student ...in school my mom was always going on about how bad a student I was ....we were talking and laughing when Kuttan's elder brother said ''Hush'' ''Listen !!!!!'' and sure enough I thought it weird that I could hear a sound like a heavy stream gushing towards us and I wondered how such a flash flood could occur in peak summer ....that area was called Bhootataan Mala aka Ghost Mountain and I was hmmm anything goes out here ...

in that moment my sister dragged me by my hand and all of them started Screaming and dragging me and running ...I said wait ....lemme tuck my skirt up and they went Ballistic specially my elder brother ...I waited pulled the skirt up from behind and tucked it in the front to make it pant like and then started running ....by now my elder brother was Wild with me and yelling on top of his voice to Runn .... ergo I thought maybe we are in the middle of an Earthquake for sure ....

when we reached their compound ...I turned around and asked him if he was Ok ...screaming like a Bansheee ....that is when they told me that was not water falling nor was it an earthquake ....that was the sound of a Python ...Yikessss !!!!!!!! I hate snakes and the thought of being chased by a huge snake felt ewwwwly yikes and yucky

that aunt's house and estate was awsum and I still remember playing in the drain water during the rains ...those drains were between the paddy fields and had small fish in them .... we hardly clicked snaps and the weird thing about snaps in a joint family was that ...we had to give them away ...ergo most of ...no nearly all my childhood snaps are with aunts and uncles and dunno who ....sigh ... 

now my cousin Molly who would lend me her long skirts has a daughter who is doing her 3rd year of medicine in Russia !!! and it's more than 20years that I saw them .... 

those carefree summers spent in Kerala

this says Kerala during summer holidays like nothing else ....invariably during summer vacations ....my family and I would travel to Kerala to see our paternal and maternal Grandmothers ... it would be peak wedding season then.. and we would go to homes to greet and meet people ...we would rarely see some of these people ever again ....and we would be introduced to soooo many people ....

after a point ...be it a morning wedding or an evening event ...my 2 siblings and I would be ushered inside to have snacks as we were from outside Kerala and always treated as special guests ....

sometimes loads of these cakes would be bought in the grandparents homes ...in case of some event or for some get together in the offing...

since my siblings and I were never yelled at in Kerala by our aunts and uncles ...those days ....any pilfering of sweets, these slice cakes or even tender coconut and palm jaggery was our responsibility ...of the three of us siblings ...I used to get nominated most often to go get stuff ....as my paternal grandmother and I got on famously... there was an enormous amount of space to run around and play hide and seek and other games in my paternal grandmother's place and two houses in one compound ....ergo if we did something naughty in one house ...the entire gang of cousins would sneak off to my aunt's house ....if the prank we pulled was greater in severity ...we would all go off to an uncle's house a little distance away from my granny's place....
however two of my younger cousins would get very scared of a jackfruit tree near my aunt's house ....I could never understand why those boys would get scared of the dark and ghosts ....growing up in Pune there were no older cousins to scare us with ghost stories .... that happened only in Kerala ....we had more than 40 cousin brothers .... my paternal grandfather had two wives and 13 children ...and boys ruled the roost in that household .....fights were fought with Gusto .....and if all else failed ....I would go running to my dad's eldest sister and complain about All her six sons ....and my petite aunt would get a stick and come to check out her sons and her nephews ....her threatening them was the coolest thing for me ....

needless to say ....my cousins had Loads of horrid nick names for me ....since I did not know any bad words or slang words ....I would call them names of animals in Hindi ...the national language was a sore point with my cousins and we siblings would tease them about their pronunciations ....

the loudest fights were about how good Quilon( now it is known as Kollam) was as compared to Pune .... and it would usually end in we siblings being called Punewalas and chased around ....
evenings the fights would be about who made the best flower garlands for the Puja room .... even then there would be a minimum of two teams and competition as to who knew all the hymns and sang better ....my paternal grandmother would break up the fights often ...we siblings were always treated a little specially and that would irritate our cousins no end ....

once when my parents and siblings were in my maternal granny's place ...I was with my paternal grandmother ....and one night we were sitting in the veranda that went all around the house and it was made of cement ....my granny had rheumatism ergo I asked her to be carefull and go inside or else sitting on that cemented area would cause her to be bed ridden the next day ...to which my granny replied that she was really old and it was time for her to bid us her final adieu ....to which I replied that ....Granny it is only because you are there that we can come to Kerala every year ....in case something happens to you ...our touch with this land will end ....
my words moved her to tears and she talked about it for quite a few days ....what my 6 year old self said was spot on ....till my grandmothers were alive ...we kept going to Kerala and after they passed ...our touch with the place ended ....my dad sold his house and property and settled down in Pune ....

some things remind me of the fun summers spent in Kerala ...this slice cake is one such thing ....it had a very unique aroma and I have tried N number of times to get the flavour and aroma of this cake right ...and have not been able to get it right .... I keep trying though ....
this I bought last year ....all thanks to technology ...it was sourced via a page on FB and I got all these sweets unique to Kerala from there itself ....the page Flavours of India helps people source eatables from different parts of India from the convenience of their homes .... the packaging is very sturdy ergo the food items reaches one in good shape and with the original flavours intact ....  

electricity dept ... Marriage Registeration...computer crash ...Signs from the Powers that Be???

Heights the electricity dept of my city sends situations to .....yesterday there was a huge rush of couples wanting to get married at the Marriage Registrar's Office ...it was a very auspicious day for Hindus....
All of them had to wait for 10 hours !!!! 10 hours !!! due to a No Electricity situation ....and here I was cribbing about 1 hour of no electricity LOL ....
poor couples were given the Ultimate Acid Test of compatibility by the electricity department .... I know one cactus who would have Roared the roof down and there would have been No Marriage for sure ....
however All those couples waited patiently yesterday and after 10 hours of waiting ...when a certain number of marriages were Registered ....More Bad Luck ...the computer Crashed !!!!!!
the Powers that be were Giving Such Obvious Signs and no one took heed ...not one couple .... lovv sure is deaf dumb and Blind in the initial phases no :D :D :D
finally one groom waiting in line who is from an IT background ...Repaired the Computer in that Govt run office and ....Finally all the couples got Hitched ....with govt certification LOL
now I am wondering what signs I missed when I was in the deaf, dumb and blind phase of ma Life LOL LOL
when RJ Ira shared this on air ....I was in splits !!!!!

never stop Trying

whenever i come across people who say they were footballers But left sports for xyz reason and are bitter about things .... i thank the technology of the times we live in Now ... however much one abuses social media ... it has also helped people in the remotest of places and those dealing with financial issues ....
my kids and i were so happy to find pages like ...fundmyschoolfees.com and a few other such sites ... youtube is the biggest learning ground for my kids and me ....
yesterday seeing the latest video my kids made ...i tried making them understand that Critics are not Haters ...you learn so much from a criticism ....
little one said ...mama it is our perspective... and i let it go
i am glad that at such a young age ,my kids learnt to help themselves and be diligent in all they do ..
on FB i have come across people who needed help.. 5 times.. and like i usually do ... i sent links and other places one can get help ...suggested good shows on the Radio i listen to ....

in all 5 cases i saw a similarity .... the Wrong notion that ---the universe owes us for the problems we have ... scores of people have problems ....however they all are working to help themselves ...
the day a person thinks they can Outsource their problems and get free solutions .... they have nailed the final nail on life's coffin
life is a struggle ...write about it ..share your issues ...however never stop Trying ...

Singapore Singapore !!!!!

sometimes the cue is just a word ....for me it was Singapore ....read the name of this country on a post ...from a page I follow .....and it made me go on thinking about the myriad Singapore connections and stories related to Singapore for me ....

first and foremost it's blood relations .... two of my maternal aunts used to stay in that part of the world ....they were married to Chartered Accountants who were working in Malaysia and then one shifted to Singapore ... in fact some of my cousins born there have dual citizenship ....some part of the gold jewellery for my mother's wedding came from Singapore and I used to wear it once I was going to college ....it was unique and got me questions from friends and faculty too... one maternal Aunt shifted her kids to a Boarding School in the city my parents are from...when they shifted from Malaysia to Singapore ...my uncle was a part of the committee that was heading  the Malayalee community there 

since the school my cousins were going to had a convent too ....my cousin sister wanted to become a Nun ...she went to the extent of taking a steel rounder and marking a cross on her palm ...which led to a lot of worrying by family and needed medical care for quite some time ...she was teased quite a bit ...when she fell in love and got married soon after graduation ...the standard dialogue was a pun on the word ''Mother''

sadly however ....her brother hated being in hostel ...felt abandoned and got into drug addiction ....a very good looking person who not only ruined himself .... he was also the reason his parent passed away before their time ...his example made me very focused in my youth ....plus during my first pregnancy when I started getting a huge craving for liquor ...I used to think of him and the alcoholic uncle in my Dad's house and even later ...when tempted to drink ...during my lows in the last place I stayed in Assam ....I would read or write to get a hold on myself...substance abuse and how horrendous they are I had seen up close

that cousin who took to drugs... is the reason I decided to quit Tea Life and leave Assam and come to Pune ....I knew for Certain ....my children would Never be put in a hostel ...

I had cousins who were in Singapore from the paternal side too ...once they had come home on their way to Mumbai and I got to know a bit about the education system there ....as my distant relative was teaching in a college there and she would get called for paper correction even after shifting back to India ...

then thanks to Parry Agro ....I got to go see Singapore and I found that Malaysia is even more cleaner than Singapore

here in India people are always citing the cleanliness standards of Singapore ...when I went there I found Malaysia a tad better ...specially since no one ever spoke of how things were in Malaysia

the next time I got to hear the word Singapore was when I was teaching in a pvt college near my house ....I had to teach the students of Nanyang Technical University ...NTU ....I was given to take the very first lecture in economics for them ....and I was told the Importance of the Pvt University getting into a Tie Up with NTU Singapore ...scary that so much of hype gets added to the pressure of taking a lecture for foreign students ...

I took the first lecture on Indian Economy in my style ....with facts and theory and Bollywood !!!! got to know quite a few details about the Singaporean way of life from those students on an exchange program as I had 11 lectures with them ....each was of 1 and a 1/2 hour duration ....I got to know that there is compulsory defence training for boys there ....I got to know this as I was soooooo very impressed by the Total and Complete Discipline in class .....whereas the kids I was teaching in the private college were a Mad lot ...who never stopped fidgeting !!!!

that is when the Singapore kids told me how the military training gave them the capacity to sit quietly and that they could be thinking of XYZ and MRF ...however they knew how to Look Attentive ....I remember throwing my head back and Laughing Out Really Loudly at their honesty ....

however when we were discussing money and avenues of investment ....they told me how unlike in India ....the Post Office Savings were a risk free and lucrative place to park excess funds ...which was a quite a new thing for me ....we rarely sit and teach students a parallel or comparative study of Post Office Savings in countries in the ASEAN region ....we only do a comparative study of banking in the UK and USA ...so I got to know of that one snippet life that was different ...along with the way the govt functioned was discussed by me and those kids ...

a very important thing those students told me was about Style of teaching ...we Profs in India would teach a lot more as compared to the style of teaching in Singapore ...we tend to spoon feed a huge amount ....this was reiterated by students back from higher studies abroad too ...however we never changed our style to teaching here in India ...spoon feeding is a way of life ....
surprisingly those kids liked the biscuits in India as compared to what was available in Singapore ...which made me smile because ...when Parry Agro had taken it's executives to Singapore and Malaysia ....the executives ended up having to pay for items consumed from the fridge in the room .....as people went overboard ...and finishing Everything as far as food was concerned in the rooms in Malaysia....which prompted the management to change it's policy in Singapore .... earlier the company had a policy of allowing people to order food in their rooms and executives went overboard and had one too many drinks and food too was wasted ....ergo ....from the time I was travelling with the executives for a conference ....food was always served in a buffet in a common area ....no more wasting of food and overindulgence of food ... when we get liberties ...we take them for granted and then Rules change ...

and that brings me to the last time I was in touch with Singapore ....in July 2017 my elder kid competed to get a chance to go to Germany ....this was after the Hoffenhiem thing was totally over ....thanks to Radio Mirchi and Bajaj Allianz ...my elder kid tried for a week long session with Bayen Munich ... he was among the Top 60 footballers in India who were selected after numerous rounds of elimination ....my child was selected on the basis of a video and votes his video got and also for the content of the video ...

he did not play well on selection day though .....his team was the last one to play and he had honey with his sandwiches and got cramps by the time he got to play ...Big learning experience and we swore off honey before matches ....however he loved the exposure and learning ...then started the prodding to call up football clubs around the world ....

I called PSG in Bangalore and a few other clubs in India and abroad ... we knew that their favourite club has a coaching centre in Dubai ...however they had to be residing in Dubai to get to train .... then the 'Imports from Mars' saw Singapore as the nearest place their favourite club has a coaching centre ....and I had to make calls ....IOH ...I said now that you have seen me make calls ...why don't the two of you call ....I will top up your talk time .... after a lot of prodding and them not hearing a word I said ....I only called up the coaching centre of the club in Singapore and the rules were the Same !!!!

one had to be residing in Singapore to apply ....and both the boys got down to studying and finishing their academic year and counting the days left to shift base to Bahrain ....

just one word and so many things come to mind ... no :)