Tagged!!!!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Tagged by Nancy!!! Here goes....

I am: quite a normal person...and hence this is going to be a boring tag ...:(

I think: but I don't dwell...so I stay happy...

I know: just enough to manage with...

I want: a little bit of everything...

I have: been very lucky....

I wish: I was taller..well...I manage quite well with platform heels...

I hate: crowds and loud noise...

I miss: my father...he went before I could know him as a normal person...he is still the worshipped figure on the pedestal...

I fear: mosquitoes in India...and all that they bring with them...

I feel: hot! Hey, it's June in Dubai!

I hear: my daughter, talking to herself... :)

I smell: nothing fishy....

I crave: for fun times with old friends...like we used to have in college...

I search: for the right dupatta...which is assuming I found the salwar AND the matching kameez.... you can imagine the mess

I wonder: at my husband's patience...

I regret: being lazy with house work.... :D

I love: words.....and admire people who have a way with them...

I ache: when my child falls ill...

I am not: moody or sulky....

I dance: all the time...if my body is still, I'm dancing in the mind...

I sing: only when my singer husband is not around...

I cry: while watching movies... sometimes even for the not so sad scenes....

I dont always: fight...even when I probably should...

I fight: fair...when I do... though I manage to avoid it most of the time...

I write: nothing...only type...

I win: arguments with my daughter....so far....

I lose: track of stuff that I should finish doing...

I never: miss some birthdays...

I always: wear a watch...

I confuse: my husband by arguing both sides of a point....

I listen: to others....try it, you would get to hear some interesting things....

I can usually be found: grinning....

I need: to be liked...

I am happy about: who I am...

I imagine: the unimaginable.... and daydream the impossible.....

I tag: Colours and read2blew

Growing up???

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

What I’ve been dreading for a long time has happened! My daughter has started speaking about ‘it’! You don’t get what ‘it’ is? You know.... 'LOVE'!!!! She spoke of ‘love’! We go ‘I love you’, ‘you love me’ at home all the time to each other. This is not THAT ‘love’. This is the ‘other’ love… you know…the ‘love’ love…....‘luuuuuurrrrrrrrvvvvvvvveee’..*smirk* *giggle*

Okay, I shall stop rambling!

Well, my daughter has been very innocent all these days. She does not talk stuff beyond her age as some children do and does not pay overt attention to any ‘uncomfortable’ stuff on TV or the movies. Even when my hubby and I get...er...affectionate...at home, she gives us an indulgent look, shakes her head and goes back to her book. Anyway, I’ve been quite happy about the way she handles that stuff.

Now recently, one day, she comes from school and tells me, ‘You know Amma, today A was holding M’s hand. And P asked them if they are 'in love’. A, M and P are her best friends at school! And she didn’t say it just like that. When she said the ‘love’ part, she had a naughty look on her face and she whispered it in our ears as if it was some taboo topic! My husband and I did not know how to react for a second. Then, resisting the urge to laugh, we told her that, there is nothing so great about holding your friend’s hand. It’s the most natural thing in the world to do. Then she said, ‘but he is a boy!!!’. And I said, ‘So what? Boys can be your friends too’.

I do really want her to grow up feeling that way. I want her to feel comfortable having lot of friends, boys and girls. I want her to understand that boys and girls can be friends and can hold hands and there need not always be ‘love’ in the picture. It’s only when you have lot of platonic friends that you can really experience the thrill of finding a romance! Isn’t falling in love with a friend when you least expect it such a thrilling experience?

Well, the end result of all this is that nowadays I’m busy teaching my six year old daughter that it’s perfectly okay to have boy friends and to hold their hands! Do you think this will boomerang on me in, say, another ten years or so???

All in a day's work!

Phew! I feel like I've been running a relay where all the four runners are me! The last two weeks have been such that before I complete one task, I need to pick up the next and run! And each task required lot of preparation! So after lot of sleepless nights, neglecting the family and not blogging, I have finally got a small respite.

The trouble is there is nothing to show for all this work that goes in. Except the back and shoulder pain, of course! You get a prospect that looks good. You work day and night trying to answer all their questions, give several demos, study their requirements, work on the estimates, make a proposal that you think will suit them. Finally, they look at it and say 'too expensive'! Just like that!

You must remember that right from day one I’d have requested them, cajoled them and begged them to give me SOME idea of their budget. At least if their budget is low, we can avoid doing all this work! But no! Nobody tells their budget! They think that their budget is going to be higher than what we would quote and we will get a good deal out of them. Finally what is their budget? Some one-tenth of the price of our software! People here think ERP product can be bought like potatoes and tomatoes across the counter!

Well, it sure feels good to crib!!! Thank God my salary is not linked to the sales I make!

On top of all this, I go for two days to another country on an official trip, secretly wanting the hubby to realize all the work I’ve been doing at home while he sleeps in the mornings. I come back expecting him to throw up his hands and say, ‘oh, you superwoman! How have you been doing all this work all these years?’ And what do I find? Father and daughter content and happy in each others company! And the daughter shamelessly even says she didn’t miss me!

‘Kya family hai’….as Juhi Chawla says in one of those ads!

Dancing Genes

Friday, May 16, 2008

I am so thrilled! My daughter has started her Bharatanatyam classes!

When a daughter was born to us, my friends said..'Good... you can teach her dance AND music'. I have learnt South Indian classical dance forms for almost 15 years and done quite a bit of dancing in school and college and my husband is a very talented singer and even now a key bhajan singer at Sai bhajans. Our friends were quite convinced that our daughter will be a singer AND a dancer. But we were not so sure! We knew that each of us contributed only half of the chromosomes...and remembered what we were taught in school about dominant and recessive genes... what if she sang like me and danced like him!!!! Oh! The horror of it!!! So we used to give a sheepish smile to our enthusiastic friends and subtly change the topic!!!

As she grew older, we were able to make out that she has some talent for singing. My husband, who is the severest critic when it comes to music and singing, admitted that she seems to sing well with the right notes and all that. It is indeed high praise coming from him! If I happen to hum a song while doing my cooking or in the bathroom, he starts screaming 'Shruti! Shruti!!!'....making the listeners think that maybe he suddenly forgot his wife's name and remembered an ex-girlfriend... nooo... it's just that I'm singing all the wrong notes... ('shruti' means 'pitch/tone' )

I was relieved! Singing is the one thing I wish with all my heart I could do. So I was thrilled that my daughter has not got my singing chromosomes!!! Forget about dance... I can teach her music.. and who knows, when she grows old enough she might even win us an apartment or two worth crores of rupees in some musical reality show!!!

So I was busy looking out for some good music teacher and was not able to find any in Dubai. Oh, how I regret leaving Singara Chennai, the heaven for classical arts and artists!!!

And then one day, my daughter tells me that she wants to learn Bharatanatyam. She has a few friends learning it and has also watched on with interest when I get into one of my dancing moods and practice at home. But I was not so sure... unlike music, you really cannot make out the talent for dance until you start learning and performing. But still I made a half-hearted attempt at searching for a good dance teacher. I'm quite a critic when it comes to dance as well. My regret at leaving Chennai surfaced again... I used to live in Adyar...within kilometers from the greats like Padma Subrahmaniam, Dhananjayans and the famous Kalakshetra itself!

But two weeks back, luckily, I came across a good teacher and was even able to watch her perform on stage before my daughter started her classes. So finally, last week, my daughter went for her first dance class! It was so nostalgic to watch her give the 'dakshina' to the teacher and start her first steps...

From the looks of it, she is enjoying the classes and learning quite fast.... and even teaching the younger kid next door who is also going with her to the class... It's touching when she takes my advice on dance seriously and tells me...'Amma, even though my legs hurt a little, I still danced like you said I should'...or...'Today I watched the big kids and learnt some new steps...like you used to do when you were small'.

I don't like the idea of parents forcing their children to do the things they love to do (or could not do)... but I'm really glad that she would get to experience the beauty and grace of Indian classical dance.

Early Memories

Monday, May 12, 2008

This is because Nancy kind of tagged everyone who read her post on her earliest memories... here are mine... when I started thinking I found there were many...

Age 2-2.5
My friend A and I, both of us of the same age, running a race in the wide sit-out of my house. Me winning the race but hitting my face on the parapet wall and getting a blood clot on the front tooth...which stayed brown till I lost it at 5...

Pure Hearsay
Being very talkative and friendly, they say I used to stand at the gate and talk to all the people going on the road. On my second birthday, they say I stood at the gate and invited all and sundry for lunch, much to the horror of my mother.

Being an early talker and a very talkative child, I used to speak quite fluently by the time I was two-and-a-half. Whenever the conductor in the bus asked for my age (since the journey was free for kids below 3), I used to pipe in 'Why do they ALL want to know my age???', making the conductor very suspicious and my parents very embarrassed!

Age 3-4
Going to school in a cycle rickshaw with lot of other kids.

Standing on the window sill and having a conversation across the road with the boy next door. Being a few years older, he used to be terribly shy at having a little girl shout across the road telling him about her new bangles or chain...

Being told scary stories about the lady in white who sucks your blood by my cousin brother, 4 years older, who used to come over and stay during summer holidays. Waking up to his spooky voice going 'white sareee...looong hair'...and running to the kitchen screaming 'Ammaaaaaaa'...

Age 5
First day in Class one in a new school, heavy rains, yellow raincoat and butterflies in the stomach…

Climbing over the wall to play with J, my neighbor, also a 5 year old girl. We never used the gates to go to each other’s houses! Most of the time we used to play sitting on the wall, which was quite wide.

Eating half ripe guavas from the tree that stood in her house with salt and chilli powder stolen from the kitchen.

Well.. that WAS fun to do…and brought back lot of old memories!!! It sounds very different from the memories my daughter is going to have!!!

Not so popular...

"Welcome back...This hour, I'll be playing you 3 songs back- to-back-to-back from Jewel Thief, Dharmatma and Tumsa nahi dekha'.. that's Dev, the RJ on Pulse, the FM channel I listen to every morning on the way to office. I hope against hope that he will play 'Rula ke gaya sapna' from Jewel Thief... but no...it is 'Aasman ke neeche...'! (sigh!) Not that I have anything against that song.. it's a lovely one. But I always find that in most movies, the songs I love are not the most popular ones. I love 'piya tose naina lage' and 'din dhal jaye' from Guide as against the more popular 'kaanton se kheench ke..' and 'gaata rahe mera dil'. I love 'nadiya kinare' from Abhimaan and not the most played 'tere mere milan ki yeh raina'... In Dil diya dard liya, I love 'Saawan aaye..' and 'phir teri kahani'..which I don't think I have heard any music channel play. And 'jurm - e - ulfat' from Taj mahal rather than 'Jo waada kiya'... There are so many more like this. Wonder why this is so? Could it be that the popular ones are played so often that we kind of get bored of them? I don't think so... because I could never tire of listening to some of these others... And those of you who don't know what in the world I'm talking about can skip this post.... :D ... and come back later........:-)

Summer showers!!!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

I feel like I have been drenched in a cool shower of summer rains!!! You are wondering how I can feel that way at 2:00 pm in May in Dubai???? No.. no... it is not another experiment conducted here by the Met. department that gave us some artificial rain a few days back! This is different... this is of the mind!!! This has come about as a result of a one-to-one rendezvous with a very handsome guy! Ah!! Now you all understand! At least the ladies do, I bet!!!

Hey, no! Don't raise your eyebrows at me! It is only fair!!!

Imagine roaming around in the scorching desert sun wearing a black blazer meeting strange people and convincing them to buy a software product. Imagine reaching 15 minutes late for meetings, thanks to the Dubai traffic and having to smile and apologize and tell them why they still need to like you and your product. Imagine keeping a sympathetic face while listening to them pour out their budgetary troubles and reasons why you should give them the 'best' price...while all the time your poor brain is working hard wondering what points to put forth to the boss and the sceptical people in India who give the estimates.Imagine working as a sales person who needs to give a good price to the prospects and win orders while actually you are a techno-functional person who knows what the product can (and cannot) do and how the same begging user would change colours and become absolutely demanding during the implementation phase!

So even though I am not young any more, on the wrong side of 30 and rushing at break-neck pace towards 40 (as PS put it in one of her posts)...I think it's okay to feel good about having a young, good looking guy listen to what I have to say with rapt attention for 2 whole hours, even though I was only talking about Master production schedules, chart of accounts and warehouse management!!! What do you say????