Day 31 | Happiest person today

…. is none other than the man of my life. He has been counting days and waiting for this month to end even more keenly than all of us bloggers who participated in the Blogathon and were racking their brains to churn out post after post to keep the momentum going.

Most common scenes at our home during this month:

Situation 1

It’s a week night and I am still in the kitchen cleaning up, loading dishwasher, washing the bigger utensils by myself, cleaning the kitchen countertop, and the clock seems to be on fast forward mode inching towards 11 PM. Abbas comes to me and says anxiously….

Scene 1:

Abbas: “Seemu, can’t you skip blogging for one day? Just come and take rest.”

Me: “Haven’t you known me in all these years?”

Abbas: “Grrrr!!!

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Scene 2:

Abbas: “Seemu, shall I give you an idea for today’s post?”

Me (excitedly):”What? What?”

Abbas: “Just write, Will be continued tomorrow”

Me: @#@$#@$@$#@@

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Scene 3:

Abbas: “Seemu, it’s too late today.”

Me (frowning): “Hmmmm. I know, what to do?”

Abbas: “Do a shortcut post today na? Maybe just post some photos and get done with it”

Me: “No, I have already drafted a post in my mind. Just need to type it out”

Abbas: “Oh that’s great! You have it all sorted na? I knew you were smart enough to think of a quick fix post today”

Me: “Arey no, in fact the post is actually quite long”

Abbas: “What?! Ok bye. Good night.”

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Situation 2:

I am still lazing around and my engine is on hibernation mode, meaning my body and mind are reluctant to do anything at all. Abbas knows that I still have the blog post pending and too many chores to wrap up.

Abbas: “Seemu, you go write the post, I’ll deal with the dishes.”

Me: “Oh thank you. I love you so much”

Abbas: “Tell me all this in Feb. Hmph!!”

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Situation 3:

Abbas is in the bedroom waiting for me to finish publishing the post and come to bed. I am in the drawing room typing away to glory.

Abbas: “Seemu, come here and do your post na?”

Me: “No no, if I sit on the bed, I’ll fall asleep”

Abbas: “How long will you take?”

Me: “I dunno yaar. Trying to finish as soon as possible”

Abbas: “Seemu, I miss your touch….. When will this month get over???”

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Situation 4:

I finished all my chores and about to sit with my laptop while Abbas is watching TV.

Me: “Are you going to bed now? Or will watch TV for some more time?”

Abbas: “Why do you ask?”

Me: “If you are going to bed now, then I’ll sit in the drawing room. If you are going to watch TV now, then I’ll go to bedroom and finish my post”

Abbas (snarling): “This blogathon is separating us. I don’t like it”

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Situation 5:

I finished my post for the day and went to sleep. Abbas was still awake.

Me: “You know Baba, what is most satisfying about the blogathon?”

Abbas: “What?”

Me: “Every day when I hit on Publish button, I check the calendar on my homepage which gets highlighted on each day that I have posted. It makes me feel accomplished every day as the calendar gets filled up.”

Abbas (suddenly turns romantic out of nowhere): “I’m so proud of you”

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This was pretty much the scene every other night. Mantam also tried to help out in whatever way they could by reminding me of some funny incidents and conversations. Special thanks to my dear friend Harvy, who has been loyally reading my posts and correcting some mistakes that I make and I’m so grateful to her for that. Last but not the least, thanks to RS and Maya for initiating the blogathon this year. Hadn’t it been for you both and all the other fellow blogathon mates, I wouldn’t have been able to sail through these 31 days so smoothly. Congratulations to all of you!

Strangely, this time around I did not resort to cheat posts. I wrote every single day, even on days when I thought I will cheat, I ended up typing my heart out. One more thing which was different this year for me was that I visited and commented on the blogs that I follow quite frequently. The best part was that I have diligently moderated comments and replied to most of you who have taken the time out to read and comment on my posts. Thank you all so much and also to those silent readers who make me feel their presence in the stats of this blog. I can feel the warmth, love and affection and it means a lot.

Signing off this year’s blogathon with a promise of blogging actively this year. (Errrr…. and not chewing my own words!)

Much love,

Seema

Day 30 | Fitness funda

The titles of my post these days seem to be inclined to alliteration due to Mantam stressing on it lately in their stories. I digressed even before beginning the post!!

I am a person who had never even done simple stretches or danced in the name of workout. In Jan 2015, when I joined a new client I noticed that some of my colleagues there go to boot camp. On enquiry I learned that every week day from 12:15 to 1, workout classes are conducted in the park across the office’s street. My colleague Sups asked me to join her if I was interested. She told me that one week was free and that I could continue further if I liked it. By then I had put on so much weight that I grabbed the opportunity with all my body parts (pun intended!)

I still remember the first class that I attended, I could not even do 10% of what others in the class were doing. I was huffing and puffing and even before reaching halfway, I plonked myself under the shade of a tree giving up. The instructor told me to take it easy as it was my first class and told me a line that has stuck with me even now, “Don’t compare yourself with the other people in this class. They have come a long way to reach this level of fitness. In every class, compare your performance with that that of your previous class.” Although I could not continue that class, I laced up and showed up class after class. Tried to outperform the feat I had achieved till then with each passing class.

I was getting fitter, lifting heavier weights, mastering my boxing strokes, sprinting faster and longer, doing more reps of the same exercises that I could not even do initially. It was going great. But because I did not mend my eating habits, I did not see any significant change in my weight or inches. My other two colleagues and close friends Harvy and Sanyo volunteered for the “Member for the month” program conducted by the bootcamp instructor. They would take 1 person training class every week, for four weeks. Their goals before the program would be noted down, their weight and inches would be measured. They would be trained for the four weeks to achieve their goals. We saw the transformation in these two girls over the next one month and it was like magic. I too was tempted to try it out. I roped in Sups if she would like to ta along with me. I was not game for doing it alone. Sups readily agreed.

We signed up for the program, our instructor Dave took down our goals (which was mainly to lose inches), he measured out weight and inches, he asked us to sprint 400 metres and noted down the time we took to complete it and then we began our journey. Dave was amazing to check on us, monitor us, motivate us to stay focused. At the end of the four weeks, we had achieved some impressive numbers. Our running speed had increased. We felt fitter and better about ourselves. And then the India vacation happened, I came back and joined the bootcamp and continued for about 2-3 months. Then suddenly I developed neck sprain and the doctor advised to take a break from the bootcamp for 2-3 weeks. Slowly the fitness drive decreased inversely affecting the weight and inches. To add more fuel to the fire, I got released from that client and moved to a different location.

I did join a gym which was located in the same building as my client’s office. But I was asked to move again after a month. I lost the deposit I had to pay to get the membership, plus they charged me 4 weeks’ fee as notice. I felt guilty of wasting money and didn’t bother joining any other place. It was a good decision because they still had me shuttle between locations every now and then. But over time, I gained so much weight now that I am finding it hard to walk at a good speed. I pant for breath even if I have to briskly walk to catch a train. I have let the slumber damage my fitness levels alarmingly. I am trying to get back to track now.

Luckily, I found a bootcamp near my office just last week. And the icing on the cake is that it is free of cost. Because it is free, the classes have to be booked ahead and it works on first come first serve basis. The latest slot available was on 10th Feb and I made no delay in booking it. I also managed to book the whole of following week already. Can’t wait to get back to the groove and treat my muscles with delicious exercises. Did I tell you that my favourites, by the way, are boxing and strengh training (because my upper body is quite strong. My bootcamp instructor used to call me Junior Tyson 😀

Will be editing this post in a while to add some photos. 10 more minutes to go before the clock strikes 12. So I got to publish this post first.

Updated:

With pictures of bootcamp and also my first ever 14K marathon in Sydney. Sanyo, Harvy and I did it together and had loads of fun all the way because of one another’s company. Mantam and Abbas were super proud of me 🙂

Boxing with Harvy

Sups and I pumping iron

The bootcamp scene

What I came home to after completing the marathon

At the finishing line

My proud daughters

Day 29 | When Amma spoke

This happened in October 2015. I wanted to write about this on the blog but somehow it never made it here.

In 2015, when Amma’s birthday was nearing something made me look for online gift delivery services to my town. I had done this search many times even before but there was no such facility available as Kundapura is a small town. But that very time, I landed upon a website that would deliver to my town at an additional delivery fee. I was beyond ecstatic to find that I could finally send something to my family. My mom is not a fan of cakes or sweets as much. I thought flowers would be the safest bet and ordered flowers and a card for her.

On the day of her birthday, I got a confirmation that my order had been delivered. After returning from work, I called Amma. This is how the conversation went:

Amma: Hello?

Me (hesitantly) : Huh… huh…looo

Amma: Haan Hello

Me: Amma, Seema here

Amma: Yes tell me

Me (thinking Amma didn’t hear that it was me, coz this was the first time she responded after hearing my voice, otherwise she would just go on silent mode): Amma, I’m Seema speaking!

Amma: Yes, I know!

Me (thought I was dreaming, heart paced faster than ever, pinched myself hard, didn’t know what to say next, mumbled in a single breath): Happy Birthday Amma

Amma: Thank you

Me: Amma, did you get the flowers?

Amma: Yes I got the flowers, they’re good

Me (Still overcoming shock that she spoke to me, but clueless what to speak next): ?!?!?!

Amma: God bless you. Be happy.

….. And she hung up

I was still in a daze. It all felt surreal. Abbas kept asking me what happened? And I took some moment to collect myself together and told him how that call had gone. We were both astounded at what had just happened. We couldn’t believe it, Abbas asked me many times if I had really heard her say all that! And I was like ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

Although our happiness knew no bounds that day, I still had a doubt that she had to speak to me normally as I had heard some background noise with a lot of people chatting in the background. She might have just done so to avoid an awkward situation. I dunno why but it was too good to be true that your mom had spoken to you after 9 years. In spite of the doubts, our hopes of being accepted had suddenly shot up. We thought this could be a small beginning. Abbas told me to call back in a few days to keep it going. I was terribly scared to call back again, I wanted to live in the exhilaration of having heard my Amma speak to me. I was scared that the next call would break that euphoria and that is exactly what happened. Next call went back to the usual scene of me calling and Amma not responding. Sigh!

Cut to 2016 October, I ordered a combo of flowers and some sweets. I think the website specifically asked for a mobile phone number and my Annu’s (dad) number was all that I had. So I gave his number and placed the order. Come 9th of October, I was waiting anxiously to receive a delivery confirmation and to call her. I had a tinge of hope that the history could repeat again. I received an email saying the order could not be delivered to the recipient as they had rejected to receive the delivery. I was devastated. I made a call nevertheless and this time asked Mantam to wish Amma first. But my dad had picked up and as soon as he heard Mantam’s voice starting to sing ‘Happy…’, he bluntly hung up. I was too stunned to react. Tammu started crying profusely, Mannu was visibly upset too. I decided from then on that I would not ask Mantam speak to them unless the relationship comes to good terms. I don’t want to paint a negative picture of my parents in their eyes.

Honestly, I was shattered beyond repair after that incident. I resolved not to contact them ever again out of disappointment. But I found myself texting my dad (dunno if he reads them at all) the very next day. The hope of reuniting with my parents is gradually dwindling in its strength. I just wish them well, that’s all!

Day 28 | Can’t wait to move

In November last year the land got registered in our name. Our home plan was submitted to the council for approval and the wait began. We knew that the construction would not begin the same year as everything either comes to a standstill or moves at a slug’s pace here during December. We were prepared for it and were hoping for a speedy progress from 3rd week of Jan. Two weeks have gone by and the plan is still under review with many feedbacks coming our way one after the other. It has been a frustrating experience coordinating between the builder and the council when both are saying contradictory statements and each being adamant about what they said is right. As we hope for their conflicts to be resolved and our file to be approved at the earliest, the new home has become our collective dream now and we find ourselves always discussing it!

I thought I must list some pros and cons of moving to the new home:

Pros:

• It will be OUR own home! We have always lived in a rented house (except for the in-laws’ place in Kolkata) and this would be our first time ever living in a place which would be solely ours as a family.
• We can decorate it the way we want without asking for permissions from anybody else
• Mantam can finally jump, hop, skip, cartwheel, hula hoop to their heart’s content without us asking them to stop as they would disturb the people living the lower level
• We can have a dog finally and complete the family
• I will get to cook on gas stove instead of the electric one which I detest. It takes at least 15-20 minutes boil 2 cups of milk and cooking a meal makes me feel depressed due to the endless wait
• We will get more space for our stuff. Currently, we have only one wardrobe for all our clothes but it has only 6 tiny shelves. Summers are still manageable but come winter, it is a struggle to keep the warm clothes in such tiny space.
• We can finally invite friends and family to come over and visit us for a longer period as right now we hardly have space for ourselves
• We will have more than one toilet which would be a savior to combat the weekday morning mad rush. At present, we sometimes have to queue up in front of the toilet or reserve our turns when nature is in its prankster mood and calls us all at the same time!
• We will have an outdoor space which we really miss in the unit
• The biggest advantage is that the amount we are paying as rent would come to an end. We will still be paying the mortgage which would be more than the rent but at the end of the day, it would be for our own property and not towards paying off someone else’s mortgage.

 

Cons

• First and foremost would be maintenance. Although the lure of bigger house with more room sounds fantastic, it also brings with it more laborious chores to nurture the home
• Leaving our current suburb is also a major disadvantage as we loved this place to bits. It is one of the safest suburbs with a great quality of life.
• Mantam will miss their school and friends and are already feeling sad thinking about the day they have to depart from them
• Train journey to work would take longer than the current one by 15 minutes one way. Although 1 hour seems to be a norm in Sydney these days, I would miss the frequency of trains that I enjoy at the moment. You miss a train, next one is in a few minutes. But in the new suburb, the frequency of trains is every 30 minutes!
• More space in the new house would certainly mean more hoarding. No matter how much we try to curb the temptation to buy things that we don’t need, we eventually give in 😦
• In a unit, we have Strata who come and clean up the common area and do all kinds of maintenance which will be our own responsibility once we move
• the unit we live in now is close to Westfield mall, so we have access to supermarket and Kmart until midnight, which is a blessing! We don’t need this often but the assurance of having the amenity at an arm’s length make us feel secure.

 

So there! Pros outweigh the cons, don’t you think? On a side note, we were talking about naming our house and dog yesterday. My dearest readers (even the silent ones), could you please suggest names for both and help us in deciding? As I said in one of the posts, we are looking for dog names starting with R to make us a smart family 😀 I have thought of Rocky but Abbas doesn’t like it. Thanks in advance 🙂

 

Day 27 | You feel blessed when

• you come home in the evening after work and your husband is waiting with 2 cups of freshly brewed tea so that we could sit and sip together (every single day)
• your daughters clean the house better than even you could, when they know that their Mumma is getting late at work and would be super stressed when she reaches home and a tidy house is all she needs to lift her spirits
•  your friends turn up on your birthday and make you feel special with so much love and affection
• you have a lovely friend who genuinely cares for you, keeps a tab on all your personal goals, always follows up and motivates you towards reaching them and inspires you by leading the way
• you have friends who return from their overseas trip with gifts for you, the fact that they even thought about you during their vacation itself is a blessing in itself
• you have loyal blog readers who look out for you during your absence, send emails to check on your whereabouts and say that they are missing your posts
• your friends who cook tremendously delicious food, and send them over in boxes every other weekend
• your daughter makes your bed so perfectly that it would put any hotel’s bed to shame and waits for your reaction with curiosity
• you learn about the great progress your siblings have made in their respective careers and you can preen about them like any big sister worth her salt would
• your attempts at making new alien dishes yield successful results and you get rave reviews
• your children change the channel or forward a song when they get a hint that it might make you cry
• your daughters get awarded at the school’s annual presentation ceremony, neither for academics nor for sports but for their positive behaviour
• your kids’ child care centre head appreciates your children’s conduct and feel that you must not have been a bad parent after all
• you have a well-knit family that lives, loves and laughs together

Day 26 | Aussie Aussie Aussie

Wishing all the readers a very happy Indian Republic Day and Australia Day! Last two years we went to watch India V/s Australia cricket match around this time. This year 26th Jan being a  midweek holiday, we did not have anything special planned but to spend quality family time.

I have been planning to write a post on a few humbling experiences from our life so far in Australia. But I thought I must preserve it for this very day as a dedication to this beautiful country on its national day.

Humanity:

When we went to a beach during our vacation, we kept our belongings on a mat and all four of us got into the water. Abbas asked me to go closer to the crowd but I was feeling more comfortable to stay away from them and enjoy privately from a distance. As we played in the water, we saw a lady approaching us and I felt that she was coming towards us to say something. She came and told us that there were a few girls who were swimming close to the spot that we were at and they had to be rescued because of a whirlpool there some time back. She suggested us to come to the other side where there were more people. Abbas did give me an “I told you so, you didn’t listen to me” gyan, but that’s for another day. What I’m trying highlight is the kind gesture of looking after other people for humanity’s sake. This is just one of the examples we have experienced.

Privacy:

People respect other people’s privacy and never poke their nose into other people’s business unless in situations where one might need help. I can’t express in words how empowering it is to wear, speak, or do whatever you want to do without a single pair of eyes glaring at you, forget about judging you. I have witnessed couples engaged in high-level of PDA in trains but my co-passengers had no reaction whatsoever and I felt as if I was imagining things in my mind and that nothing was probably happening in reality. This country makes me feel free to live the life that I want to and I would never be judged on my choices

Respectfulness:

I am always in awe of the way people speak with so much respect. Forget common people, I have witnessed authorities with power like the police, transport officers speak to people that they have caught in acts of crime or based on suspicions with utmost dignity. This behaviour totally blows me away as I am used to powerful people abusing their supremacy to treat the subordinates like sh!t. During my visits to government offices, banks, post offices, medicare centre, supermarkets, shops, restaurants, the way people are greeted every single time and asked “How are you?” never fails to bring a smile on my face.

Adhering to rules:

Be it traffic rules, elevator etiquettes, boarding and alighting public transport, using the elevator, following rules is like second nature to the people here. It makes life so much easier for everyone, isn’t it? Abbas and I were astounded to know that this country did not have traffic police. We wondered how was the traffic was managed then? We now realize that there is no need for a supreme power to manage you if you can manage your responsibilities by yourself.  People make use of the garbage bins, they make sure that they use the public properties like electric barbeques, restrooms, showers etc in parks or beaches with utmost care such that the next person succeeding them gets these facilities in the same condition as they did in the first place.

Honesty:

We were impressed by the kind of trust people have on one another here. My office has this lolly box which is filled with candies and whatever money is collected by selling those lollies goes for charity. Now there is no person physically selling them. They just place a box with a piggy bank and a note saying 3 lollies for $1. And people put money in there and take the lollies. The box gets replenished every week or so again. There are stalls on highway that sell fruits, flowers, eggs, manures etc with the cost of the commodity and a box to leave the money. This kind of faith was very unusual for us before migrating to this country.

Caring:

Remembering an instance when Mantam’s school bus came to the station and dropped the kids off. Most parents picked their children but one young boy couldn’t find his. Mind you, this bus is not the school’s private bus but the usual public transport that plies students during that time. The bus driver could have easily left the place without giving a damn about the boy but he chose to wait there. Seeing that, two other people, who were around, also came in and started talking to the boy, ensuring that he is calm and does not get worked up. Curiously I waited there too worried about the kid. All these people waited for atleast 10-15 minutes till the child’s mom reached there and they left with relief. There have been so many instances where random strangers chipped in to help elderly with their luggage while boarding or alighting from trains. Even simple things like clothes left for drying fell from the balcony and someone bothered to hang it using a hanger near the garage. Once Tammu’s dupatta (she dressed in Ghagra choli for multicultural day) went missing in the morning while walking to school and in the evening when I returned home, I saw that someone had nicely folded and tucked it on gates close to the footpath. Not only for humans, they care for their animals too.

There are always exceptions to all these attributes I mentioned, which is natural. But in general, these qualities are very much tangible in day-to-day life and we always feel thankful for it.

Leaving you with some memes about life in Australia in general for fun

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Picture credit: Meanwhile in Australia FB group

 

 

 

Day 25 | Mantamism – special edition

This post on Mantamism is specially dedicated to dear GB. She had commented on my previous Mantamism post saying it made her very happy and that’s why one more coming her way:

Mannu told me one day that there was this guy L in her class who repeatedly kept telling her that she had an ugly face. I stopped in my tracks and thought about how I must make her understand that what other people think of you in none of your business. But my train of thoughts came to a grinding halt when Mannu said “Mumma, I don’t know why he says that because it’s wrong to judge others on their appearances, right?” Instead of her feeling bad about being called ugly, she was worried about L’s actions. I grinned ear to ear for two reasons. The first reason was that being shamed had zero effect on her, it did not bother her one bit. Second reason was that she believed that judging other people based on how they look was not right.

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Mantam get a report card by their class teacher twice a year. As their progress is not measured here based on exams, they get evaluated based on their behaviour, sports, Math and English skills demonstrated in the class on a day to day basis. The report is usually sent along with the kid in a sealed envelope. The teacher always stresses on the envelope not being opened before reaching home.

The last term when Mantam came back with the report, Tammu had a Eureka moment. She said Mrs.Stone gave me the report card. I am going to prepare a report card for her about how she has performed as a teacher. I just let her do what she felt like. She made a report card similar to what was given to her. It had a page with the description of how she fared, other page had the evaluation column. She listed different attributes and rated them as Good or Bad. She then sealed it in an envelope to present it to her teacher. I missed clicking a picture but I was in awe of her ideas.In the evening I was too curious to know how her teacher had reacted and couldn’t wait to know. Tammu told me that Mrs. Hall laughed on receiving the report and after reading it she said “Tamanna, you are so funny”

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Mannu is the helper of her class as she she is at home. She proactively lends all her friends a hand and needless to say the teacher too. Mannu says that her teacher once asked her “Mannat, your house must be clean all the time as you are living there.” One day they had an activity where each kid took turn to face the class and was given an impromptu topic to speak on. Mannu’s turn came and when she picked a random chit, she got the topic “The chore you hate doing” And guess what? Mannu’s teacher voluntarily told her “Mannat, I think this topic will be too hard for you as your love doing your chores. Why don’t you pick another topic?” And Mannu proudly came home and told us this.

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One day Tammu was making up a story. She said “There was a girl and a boy. The boy was a Hundred air”

Mannu and I were stumped “What was the boy??”

Tammu: “A hundred air”

Me (thinking that this must be some Aussie term that is out of my limited vocabulary’s bounds or some familiar word that she is pronouncing in a heavy Aussie accent): “Tammu, I really don’t understand. Can you please explain?”

Tammu: “Mumma, you know how you once told about a millionaire is a person who owns million dollars. But this boy in the story only had hundred dollars. So he is a hundredaire na?”

Me: “Yeah, you’re right. Why didn’t I ever think about it?”

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During our vacation, one morning Mannu kept saying that her ankle was hurting. After a while, she started limping. I got worried and we were in a place where she had to walk. All I had in my handbag was Amrutanjan (pain relief balm) and I offeref to apply it on her ankle.

Me: “You are limping na? Shall I apply some Amrutanjan?”

Mannu (pain filled frowning face): “Ok Mumma”

Me (sits her down): Can you bring your ankle forwarf so that I can apply the balm

Mannu (brings her foot closer to me): There!

I nicely apply the balm and lightly massage her. Then we start walking again.

In just about a couple of minutes,

Mannu: Mumma, I’m feeling a lot better now. Thank you for the massage.

Me (patting myself on the back at a well done job): You’re welcome my dear. I’m glad you are feeling good now.

In just a couple of more minutes,

Mannu (in a concerned tone): Mumma, you know what?

Me: Has it started paining again?

Mannu: No Mumma

Me: Then what happened?

Mannu: Mumma, I actually gave you the wrong leg to massage. The pain was in the other leg.

Me: Whatttt?? So does that mean the pain is still there?

Mannu (chuckles): No Mumma, strangely the pain has gone away.

Me: Hmph! Next time wherever you have pain in one body part, I’ll apply medicine on the other. Seems like it works magic!!!

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Every night when Mantam go to bed, Abbas and I go tuck them in and say good night. I always give them a hug and we kiss one another. Most days I even lay down with them for 5-10 minutes chatting about everything under the sun. Somehow, that chat feels really precious and at times it gets dragged on for more than 10 minutes. Abbas then starts nagging me to let them sleep as it would be hard for them to wake up next morning.

Today, Mantam went to sleep a bit late as I came home late and relaxed more than any usual working day as tomorrow is a public holiday here. Before going to say Good night to them I asked Abbas to let me speak to them tonight as there was no rush to wake up at the usual time tomorrow morning. He said “No problem. Talk away as much as you want tonight”

Mannu was very sleepy as it was past her bedtime and was not so much in a mood to chat. Tammu is an owl and can stay awake whole night if you let her. Tammu and I started talking and giggling. Mannu was trying hard to sleep and got very irked with the noise we were making.

Mannu: “You both are not letting me sleep”

Me (in a disappointed tone): Tammu, see today your Baba was ok for me to chat with you both but Mannu is irritated.

Tammu (in a naughty sarcastic tone): It’s ok Mumma. Life is unfair after all!!

Me: ?!?!?!?!?!

Tammu: (Starts laughing hysterically)

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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 23 | Granny tales continued

Continuing about my Annamma from the previous post:

Annamma had a few unique qualities which I really admired. She was very detached from the worldly expectations of her or obliging to the norms of the society. She did what made her happy and did not give a damn about what others thought about her. For that reason, she was the best mother-in-law one could ask for. She let my mom take the reigns of the household and enjoyed her life from the backseat. She would provide my mom with advice only if it was sought from her. I have never seen the two of them argue or even bitch about each other to a third person, which was very rare to be seen. My granny would keep herself occupied with stitching, crochet, crosswords etc and my Amma always made sure that she procured all the resources for Annamma to keep her hobbies going.

Do you know that my Annamma was addressed as ‘Honnie’ by all her children and grandchildren. Brother’s wife is usually called ‘Honnie’ in out language Konkani. Then why was Annamma addressed that, you may ask? When her kids were small, they would hear her brother-in-law call her ‘Honnie’ and they learned by imitating him. The grandkids also followed suit later on. I used to ask her why she had not corrected her kids and taught them to call her Amma. But she brushed it off with an attitude of ‘Who cares what they call me?’ See I told you, she was very hip 🙂

Sindhu and I used to practice our Henna / Mehndi patterns on her hand ahead of Mehndi competitions in our town. She was an enthu cutlet when it came to encouraging us in anything under the sun.Sindhu would draw patterns on one hand and me on the other. When we were done, she would go wash her hands to let us try more patterns. Once we even talked her into letting us draw patterns on her back, arms and belly button. Boy oh boy, she was game for everything.

One of Annamma’s daughters inherited her passion for stitching and she had gifted Annamma a pair of quality scissors from Bahrain. Annamma loved those scissors to the core and enjoyed stitching more than ever with her new found toy. One fine day, she took a new sweing project and sat down on the drawing board to do the cutting first. Guess what? Her one and only pair of scissors were nowhere to be found. She got so enraged that she declared “Till I get those scissors back, I’m not going to sew anything”. It was like she had declared war and there was no way she would retreat.She stayed true to her words after that very day. She did not sew even as days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. My Amma felt really bad for her and even offered to buy her a new pair of scissors. But Annamma blatantly denied. My Amma then prayed to Lord Ganesha at a famous temple called ‘Moole (read as Moo Lay) Ganesha temple’. The specialty of this temple was that if you pray to the lord to find any lost object in exchange of a service or a task that you would pledge to do, it will happen. Believe it or not, soon after Amma’s prayers, the attendant from our school had come to our home for some reason. Just out of nowhere, the topic of sewing came up and Annamma narrated the story of the missing scissors (for the millionth time, she had been narrating to all and sundry). On hearing it’s physical description, the attendant had a Eureka moment and broke her the news that there was one such pair of scissors at school which was there since the exhibition day and nobody had claimed its ownership till then. He volunteered to send it through one of us kids the very next working day. All three of us refused that it was our deed, but Annamma was on cloud nine to have found her prized possession back and didn’t bother to take us to task 🙂

My Annamma was suddenly diagnosed with psoriasis when I was in college I think. It was a terrible disease as it spread throughout her body like bush fire. And she would say that the itchiness it caused was unbearable. Our family doctor prescribed Ayurvedic medicine and also a certain medicinal oil, which she had to smear all over her body and leave it on for an hour or so every day and take a shower. Annamma would just smear on a few parts of the body but that did not help in curing it. I started doing this for her every single day morning before leaving for college. I felt so good about doing something for my Granny who had always supported us all through our lives. It took many months to cure, but it did happen eventually. She got cured of the disease completely.

I really miss Annamma, she was like that friend we had so much fun growing up with. I dunno if I will ever be able to meet Annamma but I hope and pray for her good health all the time.

Day 22 | Gala Granny

In the previous post I wrote about how my Annamma got on our nerves and drove us crazy. But apart from that, she was the coolest granny anyone could ever have and we loved her to the moon and back.

Annamma was one of the highly educated women of her generation. She had passed metriculation (Class 10 of her times), was an avid reader, crazy cricket freak, fun loving and the most doting grandma. She solved crosswords and answered quiz questions alongside us like a pro. She knew names of all cricket players and watched cricket with us even burning midnight oil. She used to call “Brett Lee” battery :-D. She said that by mistake for the first time and cracked us up. She would purposely repeat it to make us laugh. Annamma was very interested in our acamdemic and extra-curricular activities at school and would always keep herself updated with all that was happening in our school. She used to feel so proud of our achievements and always appreciate us. God spare the guests who would visit our home, she would brag about our accomplishments to no end. We would hide our faces in emabarrassment.

Ajja and Annamma had an age difference of just 3 years. But in terms of education, Ajja had failed in class 4 and was forced to earn a living at a ripe young age. That was never a factor in their relationship as they loved and respected each other immensely. We used to hear stories about how they got married. Ajja was one of the most handsome men I have seen and he was known to have been sought after by many young lasses. The proposal for marrying my grandma apparetly came from a relative who knew both families. When they matched the horoscopes to predict the fate of marriage, they were told that marrying Annamma would bring prosperity to Ajja. He was going through a rough patch of life what with getting his sisters married, his brother educated and being the sole bread winner of a large family. The marriage was arranged and as per the soothsayer’s prediction, their union brought welfare to the family in all respects.

For as long as I can remember, Ajja and Annamma used to sleep in the same room but on different single beds with a distnace between them. I really wonder why! On occasions such as Annamma’s birthday or their anniversary, we grandkids used to request them to give each other a kiss. The embarrassment on their faces would be priceless. They would act as if they had never had any physical contact with each other. Ajja would wake up as early as 4 AM almost everyday. Annamma would follow suit, she would make 2 cups of coffee and they would sip them together. Both of them would then start walking in our front yard waiting for newspaper. On exam days,  I would wake up early to study and ask Annamma to make coffee for me too.

With Annamma by our side, we did not need any physical alarm. If we asked her to wake us up at a certain time, she would do it unfalteringly. With her skills to haunt us during our early age, we would be rest assured that her waking mechanism would put any snooze feature of alarm to shame. Apart from studies, Annamma was a pillar who supported us with our other activities as well. She became the audience when we had to practise singing, she would become the hair model when we had to try out new hairstyles, she was the hand model when we prepared for Henna competitions, she would help us in practistind speeches or drama dialogues. She was our companion while playing board games, card games, art and crafts. She was the guinea pig who was more than happy to taste our experiments in the kitchen. During the early years of our life, all the clothes we wore were stitched by Annamma.

More about Annamma in the next post….