I know that it is your way of mocking me when you somehow make me aware of my family’s arrival at my brother’s place but I have no way of knowing the exact address to even try to visit them.

But I do not have a speck of hatred towards you in my heart…

Do you know why?

I know that had it not been for you, I wouldn’t have known Abbas, wouldn’t have experienced this bliss called love, wouldn’t have been the kind of person I am today.

Inspite of all the derision you derive at my cost,

I blindly trust you not just for all the magic you have spelled on my life so far…

But also for the hope that you will conclude my story on a beautiful note, just as you began it; the conviction that you will set things right with my family so that we all live ‘happily ever after’…

Few pointers to conclude:

• I don’t think I’m ever gonna do this month long marathon, atleast any time sooner in the future. It is really taxing. Although we might spend less than an hour a day on a post, the pressure builds up as the day progresses, dusk arrives and I have even published posts in the nick of time before the clock struck tweleve…

• Abbas would be the happiest person in the whole world. I wrote most of my posts at night. So, I would be on the laptop and not even strike a meaningful conversation with him while he would have his dinner. We missed out on the moonlight clothes hanging date most of the times and he had to do it alone. He would blackmail me that he would flood all my fellow marathoners’ blogs with comments requesting to stop it.

• I didn’t read any book the whole of this month coz I would then get addicted to it and might have backed out from the marathon. Have asked Abbas to take me to Blossoms this weekend to quench my reading thirst which seems to be at peak.

• This marathon helped me in dusting off this blog and reviving my readership too. I apologize to all my readers for my inability to approve the comments. I will start it off tomorrow. Also, thank you for bearing with the daily posts. I dunno if it would have been pain for all you to read me daily, especially to those who are subscribed to emails…

• My fellow marathoners were all sporting and I think their spirit kept me going. Thank you so much and a huge round of applause for all us, blogging marathon is no mean feat!!! I tell ya.

• Inspired by this, I would like to do such an activity with my on-the-verge-of-dying food blog too to bring it back to life. But I would rather go with week long marathons or month long ones excluding the weekends. Anyone game? RM, what’s your update on the Julie/Julia project?

• The title implies that the marathon is over. I will still blog regularly though not as frequently as in this month. If I eat up my words RS, please shake me up from my slumber with another blog marathon offer, will ya?

Instance 1:

I accumulated some reward points credited by the employer over a period of time. I redeemed them to get myself a lunch bag inclusive of four containers. I was all excited to take the new bag which I got for free. (Free stuff titillates my nerves!) I packed rice and fish curry in two containers and proudly took the brand new lunch bag to office.

After picking Mantam form the day care, we got into an auto and as usual I kept their bag, my lunch bag and hand bag behind us. When we got down, I promptly forgot to pick my new lunch bag. I called Abbas (what else could I do?) Mantam on hearing me depressed, came to me. Tammu – It’s okay Mamma. Don’t be sad. Mannu – Mamma didn’t lose it Jaan bhooj ke na? So, don’t be sad

After more than 2 months, one day when I was waiting for an auto with Mantam, the same auto guy came and before we settled on the amount I could recognize his face. It was a Eureka moment for me. I said “I had left my lunch bag in your auto, remember???” The guy with a terrified face – “It was not me, it was not me” and left. :-!

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Instance 2:

An auto comes and he demands 60 bucks. I never travel for more than 50 bucks, so I refuse. He says “Ok, come sit”. I said “Only if 50 is okay with you, I’ll come. Else I’ll wait for another auto.” He -”Okay madam, come. I’ll put on the meter. I want to check how much it will actually cost” Me – “By all means”

My house is in 16th cross. This guy stops his auto at 8th cross and asks me to get down. I say – “I had said 16th cross. Why will I get down here?” He – “No you had said 8th cross” Finally he keeps murmuring and I don’t pay heed. He stops exactly at the beginning of 16th cross and refuses to move any further. By then the meter read only 25.

Me – “If you are not dropping me at my destination, I will pay you whatever reading the meter is showing”

By now he is furious, “This is an old meter. I need to check the conversion chart”

Me – “Okay fine, where is the chart?”

He – Very rudely  ”Behind you, pass it on to me”

I oblige. He takes it and throws it on my face. “He – Why should I check the chart? Gimme 50 bucks and simply get down”

Frankly I was quite frightened by the looks on his face and also since Manta, were watching this and they too were stunned.

I got down immediately with Mantam and gave him his 50 bucks and yelled at him but to no avail. He turned a deaf ear and zoomed away.

On hindsight, I thought  shouldn’t have paid him at all. But then, I would have felt guilty by snatching his money away from him! I still remember the look on his face when he threw that piece of paper on me.

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Got into an auto, as usual dumped my bags behind. Auto wala goes “Arey, don’t keep the bags there. Don’t keep anything there” Me – “Why what happened?” He – “My child is sleeping there”

Whatttt???? I looked behind to see only a portion of the child’s head visible. It was neatly covered and tucked with a blanket. The child was not moving at all. I wanted to strike a conversation with the auto waala but he began abusing the fellow travellers and I didn’t like the way he spoke.

I was surprised that the child was not moving at all inspite of Mantam yapping away constantly.

Have you ever been in such a situation?

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Another day, three of casually chatting in the auto about our day’s events. Tammu suddenly says “I wanna do potty”

Me -”Arey, Tammu please control now. We’ll go home and do it”

Auto waala – “Madam, agar bachhe ko su su karna hai to main auto rok loon?

Me – “Nahi bhaiyya. Wo ghar mein jaake kar legi”

Auto waala – “Bachhe ko karne dijiye na?”

Me – “Nahi, usko su su nahi aa raha hai. Potty aa raha hai”

Auto waala – “Koi baat nahi. Thoda zyada time lagega. Hum wait kar lenge”

Me – “Nahi bhaiyya, waise bhi hamaare ghar pass pohonch hi rahe hain. Koi baat nahi.”

This person was very genuine and I liked the way he cared for his passengers.

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To end the post – Man-ism

Auto driver spits on the road.

Mannu: Mamma, this uncle spits on the road. He doesn’t have good manners na?

Me: Yes beta!

Mannu: Mamma, why don’t auto uncles wear seat belts while driving?

Me: Err.. Urm, Seat belts are mandatory for cars not autos.

Mannu: Why don’t they wear a helmet?

Me: Errr…. Helmets are mandatory for 2 wheeler riders as there is a risk of them falling in case they fall.

Mannu: (Spots a two wheeler guy passing by our auto sans a helmet) Look look Mamma, this uncle is not wearing a helmet.

Me: Errrrrrrr…. Yeah, let him travel a little further. There is a traffic police uncle near the signal. He will be caught.

When we reached the signal, that two wheeler was nowhere to be seen. I sighed. But it just so happened that another 2 wheeler passed with the rider not wearing a helmet.

Mannu: See Mamma, That uncle passed by but why didn’t traffic police uncle catch him?

Me: Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. I guess police uncle looking in some other direction and might not have noticed

(I guess when I was pregnant, I would have watched that movie where Paresh Raawal has a question mark on his forehead and asks questions to make othersa faint. Mannu has become an incessant question bank. Sigh!!!

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ETA: I wrote this post last night and there was power cut. My laptop is connected to internet via broadband so, couldn’t complete the post. Tried to complete it on my mobile. But my smart phone illiteracy didn’t do any good. So simply hit the publish button. Will modify it at night… Sorry for an incomplete post, didn’t want to miss out on a day in the marathon after having come so close to its end

To begin with, RS had gifted Mantam with a few books for their birthday last year. One of the books was on origami. I was more excited than Mantam on seeing it. The three of us almost immediately got to work and made all the orgami objects demonstrated in the book. It’s been too long but, better late than never eh? Thanks RS and sorry for not putting up the pics earlier

Next comes the sky lamp I prepared for Diwali. We weren’t going to be home during the festival due to our Goa trip but to keep the spirit alive, made this and hung it in the balcony before we left for Goa.

Here’s an ear ring with crochet work. Picked a pair of plain ear-rings from Commercial street for 40 bucks and stitched the crochet pattern on it. Got the idea from a colleague who bought a pair of crocheted earrings for 500 bucks

These are flowers made with socks cloth. Made the flowers on Chumki light, covered the wires with green cello tape. The flowers glow in different colours when switched on.

These are Mantam’s old jeans which are short for them now. Bought few laces for 20 bucks each, cut the jeans to half its original length and got the laces stitched on them. They are worn as shorts now. Cute na?

Had collected many flowers, bows fallen off from Mantam’s old frocks. Stuck them with Feviquick on old clips and they look so pretty on Mantam’s head.

Last night when we hit our beds, Abbas started fiddling with his mobile.

Mannu calls out from her cot – “Baba, what are you doing in your mobile?”

Abbas – “I’m playing a game”

Mannu – “Don’t play any games Baba. Just sleep or else you won’t be able to wake up early in the morning”

Abbas – @#!$%#!$

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Early in the morning, I woke up with a shudder when Mannu shakes and wakes me up…

Mannu – “Mamma, get up, get up quickly… You need to learn driving na?

Me – “Uh, oh… Why don’t you wake your Baba up? I can’t learn on my own unless he gets up”

Mannu – “I told Baba not to play games last time. He didn’t listen to me”

Abbas murmurs under his breath – “I wasn’t able to manage one, there is one more in the making!!!”

I retorted – “Oh yeah, you wished for our offsprings to be like me… That is why they say to be careful when you wish for something… It might just come true! Go figure now…”

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In the evening, i had my usual chores of cleaning up, fixing our dinner etc. Once Mantam went to sleep, I had my dinner and sat to publish the day’s post for my blog. By then Abbas came and I finished my cheat post by the time he had his dinner. After clearing the table and cleaning the kitchen counter top, I started off. It was 10:30 by then I guess.

First job was to prepare a base on which the cake would be assembled. Cut two pieces of cardboard in square shape, piled one on top of another to make the base thick, wrapped with a gift wrapping paper. Next job was to get the barbie ready. Undressed the barbie, combed her hair neatly into a plait, cleaned her well as there were some black coloured marks on her, wiped her dry, covered her legs with cling wrap. Already cut cakes were horizontally cut into 6 layers. Whipped cream to go inbetween layers. Assembled all the six layers and inserted the barbie in the center. I got my first panic attack. There was some gap from the top till her hips. A small one but I didn’t know how to cover it up. There was no way I could bake another one at that hour.

Presence of mind worked, I used the small circular portion carved out of each layer form the center to do the trick, I was skeptical if those bits and pieces would stay put or fall off once I started falling. But luckily, they chose to do me a favour by not moving a bit. That settled, I began with the frosting. I had showed S my birthday cake and she wanted me to do the same combination dress for her too. So Pink coloured buttercream frosting was made and smeared all over. her dress. All the chocolate cake’s crumbles began showing on the dress as I moved the spatula. I had to chill the cake for sometime to let the cream set well and proceed. So, I piped patterns on the upper body to complete her dress. It was already 1 AM by then so I hit the bed.

I set the alarm to ring at 5. For those 4 hours, I had a completely disturbed sleep with dreams of the barbie. Once I saw all the cream melting and dripping all over in the fridge. Another was that I opened the fridge door in the morning to see the barbie having fallen inside. I just couldn’t catch a good sleep.

Woke up at 5, and I thought of puttiing another layer of cream over the dress to hide those crumbs. SO this time I used whipped cream and coloured it pink. Somehow, the colour didnt match the upper portion of dress. Howmuchever colour I added, it wouldn’t upgrade to a darker shade of pink. So I thought of giving a shaded effect on the dress. Plain pink wasn’t looking that great all by itself. So I added a bit of blue too. Covered it with cling film by 7 AM and then started off with my usual cooking.

It was too strenuous but I enjoyed it. I dunno, it gives me such an adrenaline high once the end result is achieved. Abbas has warned me not to accept any orders in future on weekdays. I agree with him more…

Here are the pictures:

Whenever I travel by his auto, he would discuss with me about the weather condition, current affairs, cricket scores, his daily routine etc. Within a few days when I started travelling by his auto, first thing he asked me was if I hail from Mangalore. I was shocked! When I asked how he could guess it, he said that he had lived in most parts of India during his lifetime and knew many places, people and cultures etc. There were days when I would visit the auto stand and not find Thatha’s auto there. I would get into any available auto. Next day, he would promptly tell me that he saw me in another auto while he was coming back to the stand after dropping some other passenger and that he missed picking me up by just a minute or so.

A couple of months back, when I went to the stand, he was speaking over the phone. Apparently, he was speaking to a regular passenger(RP) who was carrying, she had fixed his auto for the daily commute as rest of the autos drivers drove very rashly. He asked me if I was okay to travel with her as she was also coming in a minute. It was perfectly fine with me and we traveled together. RP and I didn’t converse as there was no introduction as such! I promptly got down first when I reached the daycare. And this repeated a couple of times again.

Two weeks ago, I travelled by Thatha’s auto on Friday and he was discussing about the previous day’s match. And repenting the expenses he incurred on his calls made to inquire live scores. As usual, on Monday evening I went to the stand after work. I could see RP approaching the auto stand. When she saw me, she stopped and asked “Do you know something?” I was caught unawares as I had never spoken to her earlier. She continued “Thatha expired!!!” Words are not enough to express how I felt at that moment. “It couldn’t be possible. How would she know! I travelled with him on Friday. He might not be well today. He will come tomorrow.” I asked her “How do you know that???” She said that she had called his number today as usual but Thatha’s daughter picked up and broke the news. She too was clearly upset. Since that evening till today, Thatha has been on my thoughts all the time. I just can’t get myself to believe that he is no more.

I spoke to another auto driver today and he told me that it was a shocker for them too. He expired on Saturday morning when he went to the bathroom after having his morning tea. Apparently he had a heart attack… It’s so difficult for me to resist the urge to find those three digits 478 in each auto that passes by. It’s a pain to visit the stand daily and not see Thatha, even more painful that it’s all over!!!

Like Piscine Patel (in Life of Pi) says, I know that life is about letting go but moving on without even saying a final goodbye is grievous….

PS: I have an order for the princess cake to be delivered 2mrw. I’m gonna get it ready as it will be likely picked up tomorrow morning. Got lots of thoughts to jot down but priority calls me to dart into the kitchen  Wish me luck again please. So see ya guys tomorrow.

Finger rings for Mantam

Bought 4-5 pairs of ear-rings for me to adorn my collection

Hung it on the bathroom door. It’s made of elephant dung, a product by Haathi Chaap. Check their website http://elephantpoopaper.com/

Magnetic photo hanger by Gypsy Soul. (gypsysoul.in/)

Fridge magnets by The Little Gifts and Alicia Souza

Check that cute clip hanger. I’m gonna make one like that for Mantam

That’s me