A follow up post.....

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Couple of comments to my previous post make me feel that I should probably put up a follow up post for it.

I probably did not come across very well in the last post. I did not mean in anyway to glorify working mothers by writing that. I did not even mean to discuss working mothers vs non-working mothers. As Agnes and Bins rightly said, it is just the circumstances. If one has the support systems required to manage both easily, one is lucky. If not, no mother will think twice about putting her children before her career..I am sure. No one admires women who give up a great career to take care of the family more than I do. More so, because it is a very difficult choice to make...but I am sure I would not find it impossible to do should the circumstances arrise. I did do it also to some extent...but talking of that would be digressing.

I meant the post only to convey what I admire in my mother as a woman irrespective of the fact that she is my mother. Because there is no way you can compare two mothers! For every one of us, our own mother is the best!

I admire my mother not just for being a career woman but for being so good at what she does.

My mother was brought up in a small village in kerala. She was married at 20 before her degree results were out. She was married to an extremely bright engineer with a great future. She had her baby at 21. No one expected her to work,least of all my father. She herself I'm sure did not plan on being a career woman. The reasons that pushed her into going to work are different and not in the least because she had great career aspirations. I shall not go into those reasons here.

When she started working, I think my father was just an amused onlooker. He did not expect her to continue for long and expected she will tire of it soon and come back home.

But within 5 years of her starting to work, she was given the responsibility of the entire KG Section of the school which was run separate from the rest of the school. Soon she was heading the section which had two branches, 25 teachers and more than 600 students. This continued to grow and she also started a teacher's training course in the same institution and headed that as well. After this, she has helped start and set up 2-3 other schools which have all grown to be some of the most popular ones in the city.

I used to experience pride every year on the annual day when she used to read out the annual report on stage. Within a couple of years of her starting her job, my father became a staunch supporter of her continuing to work and he stood behind her whenever any of our relatives spoke against it. I have seen pride in his eyes too.

Even today, at 55, after more than 3 decades of working, she still does research on the internet and reads up about modern methods of teaching and tries to put them into practice at her school. I doubt if I have that kind of energy and motivation even now!

So you see, when I said 'I used to be proud of the fact that my mother had a successful career', the emphasis was more on the 'successful' than on the 'career'!

And probably it is this feeling that helped me overlook things like having to eat idlis every day because they were easy to cook, not having my mother at home with hot snacks when I got back from school, having her come running, late to dress me up for my dance programmes after all the other mothers arrived.

The Women In My Life...

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

This is what my daughter wrote about her most favourite person in the world for her last exam.

'My most favourite person in the world is my mother. She is the best mother I have ever had. I love her because she is intelligent.'

Yeah...I also wondered how many mothers she has ever had to compare and award me the first place! But considering that not too long ago, she told my mother, 'I wish you were my mother and Amma was my grandmother..then I could always stay with you', I guess I am just gratified she wrote about me at all!

Well..anyway...what struck me was not that. What struck me was the reason she has given for loving me. Don't kids normally say they love their mother for taking care of them and giving them the most delicious things to eat? I kind of understand why my daughter doesn't say those things...if she writes about food, she'd probably have to write about the chef in the restaurant next door or the guy who makes the home delivery....but I also wondered if the kids these days are different.

I have found that the most amount of bonding happens between the two of us during the time we spend studying together. Evenings spent with me helping her with her lessons. Also, our dance classes together. Even though we have our disagreements, we end each of these sessions with a feeling of utmost camaraderie. Maybe that is why she thinks the best thing I do for her is teaching her stuff and she loves me because I am intelligent enough to teach her.

Come to think of it, I was not too different either. I used to be proud of the fact that my mother had a successful career.

She still is the most favourite teacher for so many of her students. She is a born leader and diplomat. I have heard her own colleagues grudgingly admire how as a principal, she used to make them do so much hard work without any of them realising they were doing it for her. People felt thrilled and gratified to do work for my mother because of the way she asked them to do it.

So even now, more than the for the food she cooks, I love her for being the unique person that she is. Soft but smart, selfless but efficient, tender but strong, always giving and undemanding but absolutely courageous.

Can one ask for a better role model?

A rose by any other name...... ;)

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

I am worried about my blog identity.

It is almost exactly a year back that I started blogging. I had not even read many blogs till then. One of the first blogs I read was that of PS and I was amazed at the popularity of the blog. Also, I had been thinking of trying my hand at writing stuff...because I had seen so many people posting their writing on the literary public folder in my company in India. There seemed to be people ready to read and share their thoughts on all that.

Even though I have been an avid reader of all kinds of books all my life, I kind of instinctively knew that I would not be good at writing stories and other things that require a lot of imagination and making up stuff. Aren't artists and writers supposed to have a temperament? I had none of that...I think I am too real,practical and not so emotional.

But the concept of blogging was okay. I could write about what happens to me and around me and also nobody would know it was me writing all that.

So I decided to start blogging.

Now I had to think up a name for my blog and also a blog identity for myself!

Like I said, I had not done much blog reading and didn't have an idea that you could come up with such exciting and imaginative names for yourself. So I named myself what I felt I was at that time - WannabeWriter. Now don't get me wrong... that does not mean wannabe author or anything. I know quite well I shall never publish anything. But I felt even to be writing on the internet and expecting people who do not know me to read and be interested in what I wrote was expecting too much! Hence the name!

Well..I haven't come too far from there. I don't have many readers but the few regular ones I have are those whose blogs and personalities I like and admire...and they are like any other real friends now. And couple of them are no longer virtual but regular friends to whom I chat on the phone often.

But now,I kick myself for choosing that identity. Why didn't I think of naming myself CreativeGenius or CelestialBeauty!!! Now I shall always be a Wannabe! Well...when you do want to address someone with a name like Wannabe Writer, what else do you call but Wannabe!

I imagine conversations between bloggers. "That wannabe has posted something..did you read?"..."Hey..for that blogger's meet, do we call that wannabe?":-O

Nothing to be done now! Sigh! I shall always remain a wannabe!!!

psst...any idea what the process is to change one's name in the blog world? Advertise in the Gazette?

 
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