Fourteen!

Tammu,

The last year has seen your personality change in many ways. You have become very passionate about many things. You like to learn and raise awareness when it comes to many worldly issues. At times, you get on our nerves with your holier-than-thou attitude but we know that your heart is always in the right place. You have also fallen back in love with Bollywood and all those Brown Tiktokers you follow have made you more connected to your roots and feel proud about it. There was a phase where you did not want to wear traditional attire and thought Bollywood movies were so boring. You are making up for all the short-lived phase these days. You recently borrowed ‘Jhumkas’ from me on two occasions and I couldn’t have been happier.

You have also become very conscious of your hair, skin, attire and looks. The amount of time you spend on your hair and skin care routine in one single day makes me wonder who have you taken after? I used to make fun of you earlier when you wore same coloured top and bottom but turns out co-ords are in trend now. You must be a fashion visionary for you thought it was cool before it became a thing. Your outfit choices are always clever and chic. We all love looking at you get ready because you put so much thought, time and effort into it (which neither Baba, Mannu nor me do. Laddoo is the odd one coz she is committed to her birthday suit for life)

I had requested all your friends to send me a video message for your birthday recently. And it was heartwarming to see every single friend of yours said you were nice, caring and helpful. The way they all described you unanimously felt like it was scripted. But it was a testament to how you are as a person and a friend. You are also the one who helps your friends with their homework, spends extra time with them and try to teach them. The best part of it all is that you always detested Maths and thought your were bad at it. But now, not only are you doing great at it, but also helping your friends understand how to solve complex problems. This morning you surprised me by saying that you had Maths test and you had to do well in it because it have you a high. For a Math nerd mom, it sounded like a Mathemetical equation to my ears.

Lastest update to your lingo is you calling Mannu as Mazu, Baba as Boba Tea and on me as Moomy Loomy. We all ‘Bro’ each other all the time now. a new hobby you have developed is scrapbooking. Everytime we go for an outing or a vacation, you carefully collect pamphlets, tickets, invoices or some memorabilia and then journal those memories artistically in a notebook. Your obession with reading has peaked this last year and I am loving it. You are still interested in cooking but don’t cook as much as you did last year. But funnily enough, you are the one making requests for dishes although Mannu is the resident foodie.

Mannu,

You have become a unique person although you inherit a lot of my qualities by default. Your sarcasm and wit has only gotten better, you crack me up all the time. And by hearing your friends’ messages, I now know that they all find you hilarious. You also told me that it makes you the happiest to make other people laugh. The other quality of your that has shone through in the last one year especially is that you are chill despite the situation. You are a born procrastinator (just like your momma) and I cannot bring myself to lecture you to not be one. You always appear to be in control of everything, but I know deep down that we are like ducks swimming in the water with a calm facade while our feet are vigourously flapping to get us to our destination. Your attitude of ‘I’ll figure it out’ in any given situation is a gift. I hope you never lose it.

Unlike Tammu, your hair, skin and looks are the least of your priorities. Your outfit choices often make me blurt out ‘You look homeless’. Your fashion mantra is ‘comfort over everything’. Although you are not crazy about clothes, you have a special love for sneakers. I am happy that we share the same shoe size now. 😀 You make up for the lack of your regard for outfits with your passion for gadgets and gaming. You love playing video games and apparently you are good at them too. You have also recently found joy in learning photoshop and editing photos to come up with goofiest creations. It started with editing photos of people in yoga poses by replacing their head with the animal representing that pose. Then you moved on to editing photos of animals by replacing their faces with your teachers’. I though they were brilliant and funny at the same time. You also love making paper stars and gifting them to your friends.

You and I had a big fight at the beginning of this year. You were mad at me like never before. We were cold to each other for some time. It was because you told me that you wanted to quit the band. I asked you why you didn’t want to continue but you wouldn’t tell me the reason and expected me to let you quit. I put my foot down and said that you had to give me a valid reason or continue to go and that was the end of discussion. I know you were mad because I had let Tammu quit last year when she said that she absolutely disliked playing instruments. It was different in your case because I knew for a fact that you enjoyed playing drums. Cut to the present, you tell us every now and then how well you played the drums. I’m glad that I stayed firm although it killed me inside to have been that tough.

You have also joined hands with two other friends and performed at your school’s function. You even auditioned at a youth group for a performance recently. You have joined the school choir with Tammu this year. You have also been going to art class and spend your free time creating marvellous pencil sketches by spending hours togetehr on them. New in your lingo is saying ‘Slay’, ‘You’re done’, ‘The audacity! The nerve’. You are not so much into reading these days but you still enjoy craft activities.

Mantam,

Everyone says, raising teenagers is tough. But so far, I have had the most fun for the past one year since your became teens. Yes, you have had your phases of replying in monosyllables, being unreasonable but they have been far and few between. It feels like I am living my teenage years all over again through you both. I look forward to you both returning from school and spilling all the tea about your teachers, friends, and everything under the sun. I absolutely love the fact that I am in the know. I’ve also become active on Snapchat because you both think FB and Insta are passe. I secretly get a kick out of the fact that your friends think your mom is too cool because she has streaks with you on Snapchat.

You talk about some of the kids in school apparently dating. We keep asking you to let us know if you like someone. But apparently it is still ‘Ewww’. We’ll see how long that stays. Tammu says they ship Mannu with Germany (they have code names for all the boys in their class) and Mannu says they ship Tammy with Jamaica. For all millenials reading this, the Gen Z meaning of shipping is the action of wishing for two people to enter a relationship. I’m having a ball pulling both of your legs by bringing up these two country names and getting on to your nerves. What fun! It feels like being in high school all over again 😀

This has probably been the longest birthday letter I have written so far. Time to wrap it up now. As always, Baba and I are proud of you both and will be forever. Hope you both will always be good friends and great human beings. Be happy, live and let live. Never forget that we will always have your back, no matter what.

Love you both!

Mumma (and Baba) 💕

A dozen years!

Dear Mantam,

The last one year seems to have gone in a blur. (I won’t say the same about the remaining years). You both have shot up so tall as if in a competition to catch up with your parents’ heights. You secretly even wish to grow much taller than Baba and I. You are both growing through physical transformation as you near puberty. I feel very anxious when I think of all the pain you will have to endure during your menstrual cycles. As much as I am vocal about how I hate periods, I would voluntarily take on all the pains from you in a beat, if I could. But alas! It is yours to endure and I am sure Baba will go through hell to see his daughters suffer.

Enough of period talk, let me move over to how you both have taken up many domestic chores. (Yes yes, I admit to making you do them but hey, these are survival skills and I’m only empowering you to be self-sufficient). Your interest in cooking makes me extremely happy and I share with you too many tips and tricks in the kitchen. I always start or finish with my trademark dialogue ‘Nobody taught me this. I learnt it the hard way. But I’m telling you so that you don’t learnt it by making mistakes’. I do silently chuckle thinking of how I have become my mother. She also had her own set of trademark sentences which I recall every now and then. It warms my heart to think that you both will someday be on your own, away from our shelter and you will also recall some of these moments. I hope that you will remember them fondly and feel a warm sense of comfort. I dunno why I’m fighting an eager tear that’s trying to escape my eye as I type this. I do put up a brave face whenever we think about being empty nesters. But it sure is going to be extremely difficult as we are such a close-knit family that Baba and I never even think of taking vacations without you two.

We love spending time with you both and I like to think that you reciprocate the same feelings. Ever since COVID-19 took over our normal lives, I have been forever grateful that I have the best quaranteam that I could have ever asked for. These three months have been a dream. We sure were anxious with all that was going on in the world (still is) but I think we made the most of the situation. You both have always been adaptive to changing circumstances. And this was no different. Whatever we missed doing, you both made it happen magically within the confines of our home, with whatever was available on hand. You missed going to Timezone to play arcade games. So, you spent a whole day creating an Arcade evening with games that you made from scratch and I just can’t begin to describe how mind-blown we were. We missed going for movies, you created a movie night experience right in our lounge – complete with handmade tickets, popcorn, soft drinks, pizza and even numbered seats. Oh, I forgot to mention about the spiders you served during movie interval. We missed venturing out, so you both came up with the idea of a backyard picnic. We prepared picnic friendly food, camped in our backyard and spent a beautiful day out without stepping away from home. Your passion for DIY and the zeal to have fun come-what-may makes my heart swell with pride. I sincerely hope you will keep it up all through your lives.

I always tell you that I don’t care how much you score in tests but I do care the most if you are a good human being or not. When one of your classmates was left alone by her close friends, you consciously involved her in your group and played with her. When she patched up with her friends and flocked back to her original group, you were just happy for her and did not have an ounce of hard feelings. When one of your friends lost a tooth and you came to know that her parents didn’t leave tooth fairy money under her pillow, you left your gold coin for her in the classroom so that she doesn’t feel disappointed. For one of your friend’s birthday, you came up with a plan with your group of friends to each get a brownie slice from the school canteen and join it together as a makeshift cake to celebrate. You both reminded everyone to get a dollar each but also took extra money from your own pocket just in case some of the friends couldn’t get or forgot to get. You always make such amazing handmade cards and gifts for your friends and loved ones that it melts our heart. Hope you continue to touch many lives and make people feel special and loved.

You both stepped forward to contest in the election for school leader this year. I was very happy that you did irrespective of the results. Mannu, you came quite close to winning but didn’t. Baba and I were relieved as we always live with guilt if one of succeeds in something while the other doesn’t. Although you both have an open mind and always wish your twin the very best, we are worried sick when the balance is skewed! But later in the year, you both got chosen as the SRC of your respective classes. We could express our joy with abandon! You are going to be in high school next year and we don’t know for sure if you both are going to be in the same school or different. We hope that you have a wonderful final year of primary schooling and make beautiful memories that you will cherish. This is also the final year where you are getting picked up and dropped off to school, staying at after school care. Next year is going to be a whole new experience for you and us. We will have to give you a phone as you will start commuting on your own and also will be teenagers! (I’m trying hard to get rid of my own phone addiction so that I can preach to you without feeling guilty myself)

I wanted to write to each of you individually about the unique personalities that you are becoming. This letter has already gotten too long. I will write a separate post soon.

In conclusion, Baba and I must have done something right to be blessed with such gems of daughters. We love you both more than we ever imagined we could. (I might love Laddoo slightly more than you two, but that’s a debate for another day 😀 ) Thank you for being you and we hope you grow up with your hearts on your sleeves, always choose kindness, embrace every opportunity that life throws at you and never shy away from standing up for what is right!

Much love,

Mumma

Last single digit birthday!

Every year I open my letter on your birthday like a broken record quoting my favourite ‘time flies’. How very true when we remember the day you were born and realise how far we have come together in what seems like no time at all. In the initial few years of your lives, when our lives had become topsy turvy, I would always wonder when you will grow up! I couldn’t wait for your next milestone and wished if your growth could be fast forwarded in some way. I longed to enjoy the luxurious ‘Me’ time. Now I can have as much time for myself as I want, as you both have become so independent. But I sometimes do wish to go back to that phase where you were still dependent on me for the most basic of your needs (though I was the one who was in a rush to teach you those skills). I miss those innocent questions that were asked by the dozen, even if I would get annoyed at times. At times like these, I can’t pat my back enough for having started blogging and recorded those simple moments of joy along the years. No matter how many photos or videos we have collected, these snippets of conversations are much more precious as they bring the magical moment alive, which would have otherwise got long forgotten.

 

Mannu,

Like I always say, “What would I have done without you sweetheart?”. You are my Girl Friday. I could barely function if it were not for the assistant like you, who is blessed with so much care, love and responsible nature. You are a leader and always impose your own rules and/or orders on Tammu. As much as she enjoys you taking care of her, she detests your bossing her around even more. We keep talking to you to work on this, you have improved to an extent. But I can’t blame you in totality as Tammu does act kiddish all the time and you cannot handle it. You are an adult in a child body, aren’t you? Abbas and I absolutely admire your ‘never-say-never’ attitude. Tammu and you both joined Gymanstics class, Tammu was a natural due to her body structure and flexibility. It was an uphill task for you, but you refused to give up. We learnt heaps from you, dear, to step out of comfort zone and punch your scariest demon in the face, and with gusto. Atta girl!

Cleaning is something you are obsessed with and I can’t thank my stars enough (Abbas still thinks I have used some kind of black magic to brain wash you into this because we have hardly seen adults work with such precision) I remember the day when we went to our Tax Consultant’s office and it was extremely untidy. When we came out of there, without a moment lost, you commented “Mumma, how dirty was that uncle’s office. I was so tempted to clean it then and there” I was in stitches laughing at your craze for orderliness. You follow me like the proverbial Hutchison dog wherever I go. I declared that I would start going for walk over the weekends. You started setting alarm next to your bed so that you could accompany me, even better wake me up in case I bailed out in the morning. During our walk, you started picking rubbish strewn on the way. Your tiny little hands weren’t enough to hold the amount of rubbish we encountered. So we came up with a plan to carry a garbage bag along. You teach me to do a lot of good dear. I wish you never let go of your attitude towards life and care for people surrounding you.

 

Tammu,

 

My cute little baby, hope you always remain my teeny tiny bundle for life. While Mannu acts all mature and grown up, you are still holding on to innocence to a certain extent. You are a happy go lucky personality with a jovial persona. Your creativity never ceases to amaze us. The funny stories that you spin spontaneously, the hilarious expressions, weird poses you strike in front of mirror, the minion language that you speak… bring so much of zing to our lives. You care a damn about the worldly responsibilities and rever in your own beautiful dreamy space. Due to this nature of yours, you inevitably get to hear the lectures from us about how it is important to do your duties, take up responsibilities, yada yada yada. You try to adhere to the best of your ability. But the carefree soul in you takes over more often than not. Well, it’s not all that bad as I have realised that it is this very trait of yours that makes you forgive, forget and move on like a piece of cake. You hardly ever carry any baggage. So, be the same little nutcase that you are!

 

Your love for dolls and toys are still in tact. You really take care of Johnny like your own son. He is one fortunate doll, I tell ya! This year around Grandparents day at school, you cried because you have never seen your maternal grandparents. That was the day I felt so helpless and incapable of consoling you. Thank you for always cheering me saying you would go to Kundapur when you grow up to convince them to speak to me. You have been going to different classes but you don’t seem to keep your excitement for long. The only thing you have consistently kept at is writing and drawing. You wish to become an author and illustrator one day.

 

Sweethearts,

 

No matter which path you choose in your future, all I wish is for you to be great human beings. Always be kind, helpful and caring towards everyone that crosses your way. Remember to celebrate the simple joys of life as they go a long way than any material possessions. Never be afraid to take chances, as you would either end up with success or a lesson. There is nothing you will lose. Live, let live, be happy and spread happiness!

 

Love,

Mumma

Day 24 | Bollywood Bash

In this post, I had written about how we had arranged a Bollywood themed birthday party for the twins last year. Here are some pictures and details of the event:

We went ahead with the theme bollywood as we were only inviting very close friends of Mantam’s whose parents are also our friends now. Except for one Nepali family, rest were all Indians. First task on hand was to create the invitations. We had spent a lot of time and energy in making hand made cards and this year, I wanted to keep it simple. I designed the card on the computer using some free templates and filling in the text myself. Then simply printed them out at 10 cents each at Kmart.

Party invitation

Return gifts

Next task was to get the return gifts sorted. Since it was only 5 girls who would be attending the party, I got a few gift boxes and nail stickers from Daiso for under 5$. I added in Nail paints from a set I had bought for 50 cents each and a bangle set (I had brought a lot of bangle sets from India trip, so they came in handy). We also threw in some Indian lollies like Alpenlibe and eclairs. Mantam’s hands were painted with Mehndi patterns the previous night.

 

How can a Bollywood theme party be complete without Mehndi?

 

We booked our favouritest restaurant called Zac’s which serves the most delicious food in Sydney. On the menu was cocktail samosa, paneer and chicken kebabs, Gobi masala, chicken curry, veg and mutton biryani. We set up a chocolate fountain (which I had received as a gift during Secret Santa at office) and I made a cake in the shape of number 8. I topped the cake with chocolate ganache and piped Mehndi designs all over to give the Bollywood feel.

The birthday cake made by moi. One of the cakes was red velvet and the other was celebration chocolate cake

For the decor, we printed out posters of popular Hindi movies and stuck them all over the walls using Blu-Tac adhesives, which were easily removable post party. I printed out the posters of movies with twins as protagonists or with lead dual role. We had also requested the guests to come in Bollywood attire. Now for the games, we gave a Bolly twist to some classic games. I got a Housie / Tambola in Bollywood style online, so instead of numbers the grids had Hindi movie names. Abbas conducted games fully entertaining the guests as he sang songs from the movies, delivered dialogues, danced with some famous moves and made everyone guess the movie names instead of announcing them directly. We transformed the ‘Pin the tail to the donkey’ to the ‘Ek chutki sindoor’ game. I printed out a poster of Deepika Padukone, all the guests were blindfolded and provided with a red marker to draw Sindoor on her forehead. The game was super fun. We also had a Bollywood quiz and guess the celebrity game. At the end we played Bollywood songs and did the customary thumkas, matkas and jhatkas.

A glimpse of the decor

All decked up in Bollywood issshtyle

One of the Bollywood theme Tambola / Housie / Bingo cards

All in all, it was a good party and Mantam enjoyed a lot with their friends.

 

 

Day 2 | Abbas turns 40

Abbas turned 40 yesterday and we did not have any plan for celebrating the occasion this year. We were dead tired after the New Year Eve Firework adventure. And we had planned a vacation on 2^nd, so all we had on cards was to recover from the exhaustion, complete domestic chores and pack our bags for the short trip ahead of us. I did not even plan to bake a cake as we would neither be able to finish it nor carry it along due to the hot weather. It was a bland boring day in short.

I made some of Abbas’s favourite Bengalis dishes for lunch (with a hidden motive of clearing the groceries in the fridge but making an impression that it was all for him :-D) I also made the rice pudding (payasam) to keep up with the yearly tradition. Mantam made a treasure hunt for him by hiding clues in different places around the home. Each clue led him to either a card, note or a handmade gift by them. It was super fun to see their creativity. One of the clues read that he could find his next clue in somewhere / something with which he works hard and that was his work laptop bag. We thoroughly enjoyed the process.

After lunch, we went to take a nice relaxing nap. When we woke up from the sleep, suddenly our doorbell rang and we were taken aback as to who it would be. Our friend S had come over with her family with a cake to surprise Abbas. It was certainly a pleasant one and spiced up the day for us. Their arrival brought a cheer to the environment and we had a great time chatting and laughing. Abbas cut the cake and we all had payasam together. Although we couldn’t finish the packing, it felt really good to have loved ones around on a special day.

They left around 10 PM, we had dinner and cleared up. While Abbas was expecting that we could start packing together, I said that that I had to write my blogpost for the day as my blogathon had begun from that day. He was super pissed with me but then I know that he also secretly enjoys reading them. When I started typing on the laptop in a rush, he prompted from the background that my quality of writing diminishes when I rush. He patiently waited for me to finish up and we started the packing around midnight. Phew!! Couldn’t have asked for a better husband than him, he truly is made for me 😀

Happy 40th my dear! Hoping to grow older by age and younger by heart with you  😀

Mantam’s 7th Birthday Party

As mentioned in this post, we had plans of celebrating Mantam’s birthday this year with pomp and show J First item to tick off in the list of preparations was choosing the theme. We were confused as Mantam had both boys and girls coming to the party. The theme had to be gender neutral and something that all kids must equally enjoy. After a lot of brainstorming, we finalized “Magic” as the theme as Mantam had developed a sudden interest in Magic at that point in time. After theme selection, planning other things around it becomes easier. We booked a party hall as our flat is too small to entertain people. We I decided that the colours we would play with would be Black, White and Red. I searched for free printable invites but did not find any. I found an idea of Bunny-in-a-Magic-Hat invitation on Pinterest. We took it up as a small project work and made around 28 cards by cutting, pasting and writing each one of them.

Mantam had made a list of friends they wanted to invite. Since they were both in separate classes and also had a few common friends from the after school care, the number of invitees came up to 28. They handed out the invitations to their guests and I waited for the kids’ parents to RSVP. Out of 28, we got confirmation from 19 kids. We went to a store called Discount Party Warehouse and bought all the party essentials like balloons, party popper, table covers, cutleries, tissues, hats, blowouts, birthday banner etc. I looked for magic wands high and low to hand out to kids as soon as they entered the hall. But the ones that I found costed 5$ each and we didn’t want to spend so much on giving it to all the kids. I didn’t want to buy just for the birthday girls as that might dishearten the other kids. We left it at that.

For return gifts, I searched so many websites which offered theme based items. But this theme not being very popular had very few options and I was dilly dallying on whether to order or not. Just then on one random visit to K-mart we found Magic Kits for kids which had lots of magic tricks and accessories along with the magic wand. That was the perfect bet for us. We bought 20 of them. After return gifts, the biggest headache was what food to serve and where to order from. Since this was our first time hosting a party here, we were a bit confused. We decided that we would keep it simple and make it at home. Our close friends were to come over the previous day to lend us a hand. This made me increase the level of complexity and plan for more items.

Me being me, am used to overloading my plate to the brim. I also took the responsibility of making the cake and cupcakes. I wanted to make a magic hat with bunny cake to match the invitation. I made it using fondant. Since it was my first time experience with fondant, the end result was not well polished. There were cracks and to hide them I piped some white butter cream with some unusual designs. I made bunny cupcakes to go with the theme. (The bunnies looked more like baby pigs to me :-P) I pinged my dear friend in Bangalore who is an author with the list of items that we planned to serve. I asked her to add some suffix to each of them to make it sound magical. She did a wonderful job and we had magical (sounding) food items on the table.

I planned to make Mantam wear black and white gowns but I did not find good ones in our range of budget. Then we decided to buy their dress from an Indian store. I wanted to wear a party gown and luckily got a plain black one with a golden belt. Abbas wanted to be more casual and comfortable and we let him be. My friend Shree and her husband Ravi came over the previous day. If it wasn’t for Shree, I wouldn’t have pulled it off. She has a never-ending source of energy and enthusiasm within her that kept the momentum. We made one dish after the other like efficient chefs. Our close friend Ro also came over and helped us a lot with prep and shuttling around for stuff. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that we looked for magician to perform a magic show at the party. But they charged a bomb and we decided to drop it. Yours truly, who knows a few magic tricks herself, decided to don the magician hat and entertain the kids. How was I to go wrong when the birthday girls turned my helpers?

The D-Day arrived and we were ready with everything right on time. We had booked the party hall from 4 PM to 10 PM. The party invitation was from 5:30 to 8:30. We had 90 mins on each side to deck the hall up prior to the party and to clean it up later. We worked as a team and set everything up by the time guests started pouring in. Most of the parents dropped their kids and left. Some parents whom we had personally invited stayed back. Kids started playing with their magic wands and blowouts. We had arranged a few games like pinning the magic hat on the magician (which was drawn on a chart paper by Abbas) and passing the magic hat. I then performed the Magic show by involving kids from the audience. I would like to believe that they enjoyed it J

We did the cake cutting ceremony and when everyone gathered on the stage surrounding the table, we realised that we had missed the lighter. Abbas quickly ran to get it from the car. It was funny as we were all about to cut the cake yet didn’t have anything to light the candles. Cake was cut, food was served. Kids quickly had their food and started playing. The hall was quite spacious and they simply enjoyed running around and entertaining themselves. Slowly the parents started coming back to pick their kids. By 8 all the guests had left and we started packing up. We asked Shree and Ravi to stay back that night as well as we were all dead tired. They had brought a Barbie house for Mantam and showed it to them after coming home. Mantam were on cloud nine and couldn’t wait to open all their presents.

A few pictures:

The party hall

The stage all decked up

Abbas and I

Bunny cupcakes

Sausage rolls made by Ro

Veg noodles

Fairy Bread

Vanishing cake label, Pick your stuff label at entrance

Name tags for guests

The magic potion in true sense

Return gifts wrapped

The food labels

The content

Bunny in a hat invitation

With the loot

Cake Cutting

The Magic Hat Cake with Bunny perched on top

Performing a card trick

Hat and bunnies

Magician and the helpers

With Shree, the backbone of the party. Couldn’t have pulled it across the line without her

Twin love

Mantam ready to host their friends

7th Birthday

Dear Mantam,

This has been the most awaited birthday for you both. Last year when we moved to this country, both your parents did not have a job. For most obvious reasons, we did not have any kind of celebration as such. The only thing you demanded was a visit to the beach and you were always accommodating of the situation we were in. But somewhere in your tiny hearts, you did have a desire for a celebration and it only grew as you started attending your friends’ birthday parties. Baba and I wanted to make it up for you and we thought you deserved a great party this year. As usual, your Mumma has been planning it for a couple of months now and has driven your Baba crazy. But truth to be told, we are equally excited and looking forward to it as you are! (PS: We might have a low key one next year to recover the money and effort spent this time :-P)

I haven’t been blogging regularly ever since the marathon came to a close. I know I have missed out on recording a lot of your activities, dialogues and milestones. I would like to sum it up in this post before I forget 🙂

Tammu,

You are still the baby of the house always being looked after, being doted upon and always the one receiving advice from the rest of us (Mannu included). You have always conveniently leaned on Mannu for help and support. We were worried that you might not be independent and would always look for a shoulder to carry your burden. Hence Baba and I thought it right to separate the two of you into different section this academic year. You were resistant to the prospect but we did convince you with the positives. Though you reluctantly gave in, you have fared quite well for yourself. Initially you did miss out on getting your home reader everyday, forgot to submit your homework, lost the notes handed out as Mannu was always there last year to remind you all of these. But with constant reminder from us, you are getting used to being by yourself. We are happy about this decision and I know for a fact that so are you J You are a social butterfly and the last time I went to your class, I came to know why your tiffin box always comes back with food. You are too busy chatting, greeting and catch up with so many of your friends during the recess / lunch breaks 😀 You seem to be quite popular among your friends and seniors as well.

In the initial days of this year, your school had asked students who were interested in dance to go for rehearsals during the lunch break on two consecutive days. They would be selecting kids to represent the school in dance events outside school. You being you, did not bother to attend the rehersal at all J Mannu, enthu cutlet, attended and got selected in it. When we got a note from the dance teacher that Mannu was selected, we lightly patted her out of nervousness. We were worried how you would react to this. Surprisingly you were happy for your sister as much as we were. After some time, we got a note from school saying that your were selected to be a part of the school’s writers’ club. You were excited to be a part of it J Last week when Mannu and her dance group performed on the stage during school assembly, you were found cheering for her and you later told us how proud you felt at that moment. Moments like this make us feel that we must be doing a decent job at raising you two!

You know darling, your love for reading and writing makes me feel so good. I love the way you write notes and stick it around the house. It never fails to bring a smile on my house when I see your trace in almost every corner of the house. Be it a message or some drawing or a doll wrapped in funny attire or some creative craft. You are a joker and make all of us laugh with your funny expressions. You have always been the ‘eat-to-live’ kind of a person but in recent times, you have been making rounds to the kitchen when you find the aroma attractive. It gives me a new hope that you will regard food as more than just a necessity to quench hunger.

Mannu,

What do I say about you? It’s as if I’m speaking about myself. As you are growing up, I can see you as a reflection of me. You have inherited my positives along with all the quirks without being partial J Abbas goes bonkers when you initiate cleaning the house as the first priority on Saturday mornings. In spite of his efforts to shush you down, you are persistent about getting it done before putting your feet up to relax. You are the go-to person when any of us is looking for something around the house. I love the way you always follow my tail when I plan to do something new and I feel that I am in adult company when I discuss with you. Unlike Tammu, you readily accepted the idea of being in a separate section. But from what I have learned from you, you both hug each other when you meet at the after-school care. At home, you still try to dominate Tammu as you think she is a kid. We keep telling you to let her learn by mistakes.

When you brought the letter from the dance teacher home, you sneakily handed it to us. You whispered to us and said that Tammu might be sad if she knows. You said you were ok to let go of this opportunity as your sister can’t be a part of it. What do I say about you? You are like the guardian of our family. You keep a track of all that is going on. You remind me to take my jacket, you warn Baba to be careful when he gets fish and tries to cut it with a butcher knife. You are always aware of what the weather is going to be in the morning, sometimes you check outside window, at times you check the app on my phone and then advise us what we should carry along when we venture out. When I take you out for shopping with me, you constantly check the price of the items I am checking and ask me if I really need it. Lol J And when I reach the billing counter, you scan the shopping trolley and tell me that it might all cost a lot of dollars. Do I have so much of money on me? I smile and give a nod. At times you even carry your small money pouch with coins in it and tell me that you have some money on you just in case I fall short!

You are and have always been Baba’s girl. Next to me, you are the one who makes him go weak in the knees. But lately you are also worried when you think that some of your actions might hurt him. You chose me as your confidante and I’m loving every bit of it. Unlike Tammu, you are crazy about food. Whenever we go to a restaurant, you keenly participate in the process of ordering. As soon as we place the order, you clarify what kind of dishes we have sought. You eat like a pro with a fork, spoon or knife as applicable. Simultaneously, you keep a watch on each of the plate and shoot warnings at us if any of the dish is about to get empty saying “I haven’t tried that yet. Save some for me” I love the way you taste everything with so much passion. Whenever we go out, you carry a bag without fail with sunscreen, lip balm, toys, notebook, pencil etc. You try to be independent in whatever way possible. You ask never ending questions and we do get irked with them often. But your silence bothers us more than your banter.

Mantam,

Both of you are two different personalities, yet you always speak in unison when it comes to being righteous. Even though you know that we make you eat the food you bring back home in tiffin boxes, while doing so you have to listen to a repetitive lecture of why you must not waste food, you never throw it in the bins. You have also been found advocating the same lecture to your friends who chuck their food into trash cans. Both of you have also stood up for friends who were being sidelined by a group of kids. Even if Baba and I have a silly argument, you both pitch in from nowhere to see how you could calm us down 😀 Baba has programmed you well by now to switch the channel or divert me when there are scenes/songs where parent love is being portrayed to prevent me from shedding tears. The innocence of childhood is slowly weaning off from you and you are exhibiting a few signs of growing up. Baba and I have always been proud parents and we feel that you balance our life in the right proportions. No matter what situation you are in, always remember that Baba and I will stay by your side.

Love,

Mumma

Day 30 | The selective loudmouth!

I dunno how I missed mentioning it but 14^th of this month was my birthday. My friend M had called Abbas beforehand and told him that she would come home in the evening to surprise me. Abbas being Abbas, cannot keep a secret and told me immediately. Now my birthday being a weekday, that too mid-week, we knew the house would be in a mess with things splattered here and there. We had plans of going out for dinner with Ro and his wife. So, I suggested Abbas to tell her to directly come to the restaurant. Now the worst punishment for me was to act as if I was taken aback. But I was touched by M’s gesture of baking a delicious Pineapple upside down cake for me and she also gifted me a very pretty cake stand that I had been eyeing on for quite some time

The same Abbas who I knew couldn’t hide a thing from me, gave me massive heartburn when I discovered a packet of cigarettes in his bag. I had my doubts about him secretly smoking and had also doubted him on a handful of instances but everytime he boomeranged it on me and made me feel guilty for doubting him. So this was how I discovered his top secret. On a Sunday, Abbas was to go out for grocery shopping with Ro. I saw him hovering around his office bag which I had kept along with Mantam’s school bag in their room. I found it strange and when I asked him, he said something to divert my attention. I came back to my room and was checking me phone when I noticed that he came to check what I was doing and quickly added “Hey call Megha quickly and ask her what rice do they have. Will check if that brand is cheaper and better. You are calling right?” I said yes and was about to make her a call, when as if sixth sense, it struck me that Abbas again entered Mantam’s room. Immediately I went to their room and saw that he had unzipped the office bag. I asked him “What was he looking for?” He said “You again started doubting me right? You have upset me once again Seemu” and proceeded to the living room and sat on the sofa. I sat on the other end of the sofa which would lead to Mantam’s room, so there was no way he could go to that bag without bypassing me. He hopefully sat on the sofa but I didn’t budge. He finally got up and said that he is going. As he stepped out, I again had a gut feeling that he would come back to check if I had left the sofa to check his bag. And that is exactly what he did, within half a minute he came back with the pretext of forgetting to take the garbage bags. Once he was convinced that I was still perched on the couch, he left. I still sat for 5 minutes there to be safe. And once I was convinced that he had left, I checked his bag and I was shocked to see a packet full of cigarettes. I was devastated. I thought I must not lose me cool and handle this tactfully. I emptied the packet and left a note to him in it “Thank you for betraying my trust time and again” (I can be quite a drama queen, lol) and then I just went about the day normally. Now I didn’t know if he had seen the note or not. Monday came and there was no message or call from him. I was clueless but at the same time my heart sank even more at the lack of any reaction. Finally, in the evening when I reached home he made a puppy face and came to hug me with an apology. That was when all my pent up frustration came to the fore. I told him he didn’t even deserve to apologize. So after a lot of tug of war, we came to a mutual agreement that I would not put emotional pressure on him which made him hide his addiction from me and he would put in sincere efforts to completely quit this time over. I told him that I would be happy if he confessed to me rather than me coming to know it this way. It would be two weeks this Sunday that he stopped smoking. I bought him nicotine chewing gums to help subside the cravings. Hoping that he finally quits it for good.

Day 7 | How BB became a part of our family

As I had mentioned in some of the earlier posts, buying a car had made it to the top of our priority list. It would serve a lot of purposes. The most important one was that it would save 2 hours of Abbas’s travel time each day, which would indirectly mean that he could share responsibilities at home too. Secondly, he could pick Mantam which would help me head home straight away from the station and also pick some groceries etc if needed. Lastly, on days that there was some function or meeting where parents had to go to school in the mornings, we would both give a skip because our lives were so dependent on public transport, with a car Abbas would be able to attend and then reach office without any trouble.

Abbas and I both cleared our Learner’s Licence Test. Since Driving Licence was much needed for Abbas, we thought that he will go for classes and appear for the test first. Once he gets it, I would try my hand next. A few of our friends told that he must not take the test in our area as it is one of the most difficult ones to crack as it has 7 routes. They all suggested Sileverwater which has only 2 routes and success rate was very high. But Abbas thought that going to Silverwater for classes would take more than half of his Saturday, plus the travel expenses. He decided that he would give it in our area only. We were planning that we would buy a car once he gets the licence.

Abbas was very confident as he drove very well in India. I can vouch for that too. But it was a different ball game altogether here. I think it was tough for him to unlearn his habits of driving without rules and regulations and fit into a framework here. He flunked the first test and his confidence shattered. During those days, he had already started his research on cars and every weekend he would go to visit showrooms. After a lot of research he found that there was one car in a showroom in a remote suburb which was genuinely priced and it was THE car that he wanted to buy. He spoke to the Sales guy over phone and fixed a time to visit. I was not interested as I wanted him to get his licence first. But Abbas has always been like this, if something catches his fancy he will make everyone at home go mad until he gets it.

So, he convinced me to just come along and see the car atleast. We all went together in Ro’s car. Now the said car was Red in colour. Tammu said she wanted a Blue car as she missed Bulu. Since we were opting for used cars, we didn’t have much choice in terms of colour. After making her understand the situation, she negotiated by saying that if not blue coloured one, the name must start with B. Done deal, that was easy!!! Now Mannu had only one demand – the car must have a sun roof. Again the car we had gone to see didn’t have a sun roof. We thought that we were anyway not going to buy it. We will have a look and come back.

We saw two other cars apart from the Red one and decided to take test drives in all of them. One was SUV which I disliked to the core, it was so uncomfortable to sit in the rear seat. I said our Bulu was far better than this 😛 The Red was one was better than the SUV. The last one we tried was a Black one. When I sat in the black one, I had a feeling that this was meant to be our car J I simply fell in love with the car. It also had a sun roof which was a win-win. Abbas did have a soft corner for the Red car because it was a Sports version, newer than the Black one and looked dazzling from outside. But my point was that the Black one was so comfortable, the interior was beautiful and it had a sun-roof which his darling daughter wanted and the deal was best compared to all the other showrooms that Abbas had earlier seen(The price was a also a bit less than the red one :-D)

We went in and spoke about the price. We could pay half the price as cash down and thought of taking a loan for rest of the amount. Now they told us that since we both didn’t have DL, the loan could get rejected. We had gone to see the car on a Sunday and Abbas had a DL test on Tuesday. They said we could pay a token amount so that they would keep it aside and not put for sale. If Abbas passed the test on Tuesday, we could come back and proceed with the rest of the formalities. If he failed again, they would return the token amount and put it back on sale. We paid the token amount and came back home.

Abbas and I discussed and brainstormed a lot. We were both not sure that Abbas would clear the test. We were only thinking of what next if he fails. We liked the car so much that the thought letting it go disturbed us. Abbas spoke to Ro and asked if he could lend us the remainder of the money so that we would buy it without the hassle of entering into a loan. We promised him that we would repay him within a month. Ro immediately transferred the money to our account (so kind of him to have done without second thoughts. It was a big amount and I’m not sure if we would have ever done it if we were in his shoes) All this happened in the month of October and 28^th was also Bulu’s birthday. We thought we will take the delivery on the same day so that we could continue the celebration as we did every year. But then 25^th was Diwali and we thought that it was an auspicious day to get the car home. But we decided to celebrate the birthday on 28^th only to remember Bulu. The car was named Black Beauty (in short addressed BB, we gave Tammu two B’s when she had asked for one :-D)

I will post the pictures in the next post with the Diwali celebration details also J

Day 3 | Letter to Mantam

Dearest Mantam,

I did not write a letter to you on your sixth birthday. Baba and I were not in a right frame of mind to celebrate. On top of that we were feeling guilty that we had brought you to a situation where we were planning to have bare minimum celebration, just for the sake of it. Mannu, you were so understanding and did not even let out a sigh or showed any sign of disappointment. Tammu, you were visibly a bit sad but you came with the mind-blowing idea of changing your date of birth  Last year we had had a fun celebration and you were also loaded with gifts. This year we would just have A & S and we had instructed you that you should not be expecting anything from them and you both were just happy with a visit to the beach and a simple cake that I had baked. You both thanked me and Baba profusely for making your day. Abbas and I really felt blessed for having both your fairies in our lives. But your attitude of being happy with what you have re-assured us that we must have been doing a good job in bringing you up. I really hope that you never let go of this attitude as you grow up.

These three months of adversity taught us a lot. Both of you have learned value of money more than ever before. You both had even stopped asking us to buy anything for you when we went for shopping. You knew that it would hurt your parents to say No to you. On those rare occasions that you couldn’t control your urge, you would tell us “Mumma Baba, we like this. But you can buy it once you get jobs. Not now okay?” It was gut-wrenching for us to make you go through such thoughts at an age where you must be carefree and not worry about a thing in the world. Once you joined school, there was a day where all kids were asked to get their teddy to school. But you had just two soft toys that we had managed to bring along. You happily took them along without a fuss. During holidays, parents of your friends would tell me how their kids were making them buy art and craft supplied to keep themselves engaged. But you both would use the newspapers, carton boxes, ropes, clips, the crayons that Kelly had given you to keep yourselves engaged. We didn’t have a TV also and your parents always used the laptop most of the times for job hunt. You would create your own games with whatever is available on hand and your creativity would surprise us so much.

When we moved to the new house, you both started sleeping by yourself in a different room. You started liking it and then when A uncle moved in with us, you had to leave your room for him. While I slept with you in our room, Baba and A uncle slept in your room. Once A uncle left, we sent you back to your room. But we had to again bring you back once we had the other family living with us and as soon as they left Ro uncle occupied the room. When we had the family living with us, you both never got much attention from us as we were so busy all the time. You both missed us and we did too. But you behaved extremely well with the younger kid who even tore pictures that you drew or hurt you at times. You always cared for him like responsible elder sisters. There were a few instances when you shed tears silently when you could not enter your own room to take your stuff or when you couldn’t spend even a quality minute with your parents. We were helpless too and we would give you an assuring hug saying that life will be normal soon. But most of the times, you were warm and caring towards everyone that stayed with us. And your loving nature made you the apple of everyone’s eyes. You make us so very proud, our darling daughters.

Hope you continue to be this way and touch more hearts with your loving nature and kind behaviour.

Lots of love,
Your proud parents!