Five!

Ashwin celebrates his 5th birthday today.

He took a box of Kitkat to distribute in class and a Thankyou card for his teacher (which said: Thank you for being what you are and what you do... May life always smile on you. One of the least mushy thankyou cards I could find in Landmark). I think it made his teacher very happy and she thanked V for it when he went to pick up Ash.

We hope to take him out for dinner or get some Chinese take-away, since he has said he'd like noodles. The cake-cutting can wait till Sunday when his paternal grandparents arrive. From a Noddy cake (which model our regular baker doesnt have), he has changed his mind to a Mickey Mouse cake (probably from watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the morning during his oil massage). But we have already got him a Mickey Mouse cake on an earlier birthday, so I need to look up some other patterns that might catch his fancy - a tiger or a train are his other suggestions.

Mira says she'd like a Tintin cake - she is rather enamoured of the Boy Reporter! Maybe we have a reporter in the budding here.

Driving Miss Dicey

V has gone off to Kerala to meet Ash's doctor Ashtavaidyan Neelakandan Namboothiri of Vaidyamadom at Vaikom and collect a bouquet of medicines for a month or so. He is back on Monday.

Ash, in his absence, is sleeping better at night. When his dad is around, he expects him to scratch his back much of the night. So I guess the itching is partly psychological.

My inlaws have offered to bring their recently hired maid - who they say is a nice lady - for me on March 1, when the present one leaves. I hope the new one will stay for a month at least. I am planning to take both kids to Kerala when school closes on April 8, and leave them there for two months until school reopens in early June. Hopefully it will do Ash some good. A change of climate and the care of grandparents should help him.

Meanwhile I am on getting on with my driving classes at MDS. I have completed four theory classes, two simulator classes (at the end of the second one, I managed to hit a post while manipulating an 8; the dashing instructor decided I had done enough and wished me all luck in the practical sessions) and one practical (actual driving on a car) class. The first practical - tutored on a WagonR by a guy who spoke only Tamil, so some of the instructions went over my head - involved many right turns and left turns and finally a U turn. By the end of it I was damn tired and wondered whether I could manage the remaining classes on Indian roads - which involves honking non-stop at people who prefer to walk through the middle of the road like cows and pretending to be deaf, corporation workers pushing garbage barrows, schools vans etc. all of who seem oblivious of the fact that this is a greenhorn sitting behind the wheel for the first time and who could send them to heaven or at least to the Kilpauk Medical College with a broken leg. Luckily the instructor has a clutch and brake on his side of the car. The theory classes have been interesting, especially since the instructor is good - communicates excellently in English and Tamil, has a very nice and booming voice that makes not listening not very easy and need I mention, good looking in a Karthick sort of way. I have a theory exam next.

V however feels that these theory classes will make me fit only to drive a toy car!

Post-valentine musings

Sunday was a big bore this time because I didnt venture out of the house - did not attend church as we realised a lil late that the Malayalam mass was at 7 am since there was an English mass at 8.30 am every third Sunday of the month for the benefit of the city-bred younger generation who are not so well-versed in their mother tongue. Anyway attending a Kerala Syrian Orthodox mass in English is not my cup of tea - the intonations that the priest tries to achieve to create a feel of the original littany makes it a bit awkward for some of us who have heard it in Malayalam all our lives. I still had a good mind to attend it since yesterday was my granpa's death anniversary, but V decided to play truant. When the man of the house decides to take a break from his spiritual duties, the rest of us - especially me who is branded a reluctant devotee - can afford to take it easy too.

Not that there was any time to rest at home with the kids around. V managed two outings on his own. Venturing out with an itchy Ash is not easy. Parks and zoos (though they clamoured for a trip to the latter) have to be avoided for now as dense foliage increases the itching. V did not take him even for the Junior Evening at his school on Saturday, to see the programmes at least - exhibiting him now is best avoided, he says. Though every child had to participate, the teacher gave us the choice to pull out Ash owing to his poor health. It made me feel very sad, but there was nothing much I could do to reverse things.

Today as I dropped him at school, the teacher asked why we didnt come. I mumbled something about work delaying me. We have been given permission to bring him to school half an hour late in the morning, or to take him half an hour early in the afternoon when the kids are taken to the playpen. Mira howled all the way home because she couldnt attend "Achacha's school"; she seems to love the hustle and bustle of a big school. Her school, in contrast, is a quiet place with only some 45 pre-schoolers.

A singing mishap

The other day, after V picked up Mira from school, she requested a song: "Appa, paattu."

A very pleased V began belting out old Malayalam hits (like Maadapraave vaa...) in his best possible voice, confident in the knowledge that the car windows were rolled up.

"Appa, please, please stop!" she entreated. "I want the songs on the mobile (music player)."

So much for her tolerance for his musical skills.

Ash who?

In journalism one of the first lessons we are taught is to look out for the 5 Ws and 1 H in a story. Ashwin is now plaguing me with the Who questions these days. He wants to know who made/ bought/gave the things he comes across.
Today as we sit in the auto on way to his school, he asks me: 'Who made this auto? '
'The Bajaj company,' I tell him.
'Who made the floor mats on this?'
I am flummoxed for an answer. 'People who make floor mats.' I tell him.
'Who made the seat covers?'
I give an equally unsatisfactory answer.
'Who made the auto meter?'
The autodriver's face breaks into a smile. 'Ashwin Electronics in Coimbatore.' Thankfully I can read the answer on the meter itself.
'What is this next to it?' A bottle holder, I explain.
'How come that auto doesnt have it?'
'Its driver didnt want it.'
'Why didnt he want it?'
By now, I am tired and irritated and my thoughts are elsewhere. 'Will you keep quiet?'
He stays quiet for a minute, and asks: 'Who built Appa's office?'
'Masons, carpenters...'. Yesterday my answer had been 'construction workers'. But he trusts any answer I give.
Which means I have a new responsibility - to be able to give the right answers for all his questions. His dad doesnt have the patience or time for questions most of the time, and directs him to me. So he comes to me with, 'This appa doesnt know anything, tell me the names of the Kings who came to see Jesus.' That is his new fascination ever since I brought home the Mary's Boy Child and other Christmas songs CD by Usha Uthup.
"Know what?" he tells his dad. 'Usha aunty's father has gone to heaven.'
V looks at me in surprise.
I tell him sheepishly that I had told Ash that Usha Uthup's father was no more, when he propped equestion ('Where is Usha aunty's Appa') to me.
Forgive me Usha Uthup aunty if I gave the wrong answer in a moment of impatience.

Beggars & choosers

I watched Slumdog Millionaire yesterday. The sound quality wasnt too good on my DVD, and it should have been best viewed at the theatre. I think I need to watch it once again before I can make judgements about it. But I dont know if I can go through it again. Some movies depress you in parts or whole and it is a torture going through it again. I almost lost the heart to view it when I reached the part where the kids are taken to be blinded for a life as beggars. (Getting caught by beggars and blinded for begging was one of my greatest fears as a kid - a fear that adults at home always nurtured to prevent one from any form of danger)
After Maximum City, it was like reliving life in the slums of Bombay once again. A city so dangerous, depressing yet dazzling.
An eminently watchable movie inspite of everything _ I mean, the controversies that have increased after the Oscar nominations.
p.s. The weekend preoccupations, apart from this, were a marriage reception on Saturday night, morning mass as usual on Sunday and a visit to a friend's place in the evening which the kids enjoyed since there were two peers and plenty of toys to play with. V has kindly advised me to break the non-veg fast (since I am on an Ayurveda diet for my backpain) for 2 days to celebrate the birthday. An offer I took up eagerly...

Forbidden fruits

Today a Lazza icecream seller materialised on the road in front of our apartment, and soon girls from the hostel in front were seen buying icecreams. The kids, on their watch tower in the balcony, began clamouring for it too.
Later, we told them. Mira is easy to pacify. But not Ash. A child who has been living without most goodies that kids his age eat, he couldnt resist this. He was on the verge of tears. I looked at the broken skin on his cheeks and brows, and said: Later, when your skin is better. It is with a heavy heart that we refuse him eatables.
Two days back, he spied V taking chicken for lunch. Nothing evades his eyes. My inlaws have strictly instructed us that we not buy/make anything he cant eat. (The ayurvedic medicines he is taking mean that he has to forgo non-veg food and cold stuff like icecreams; less tubers, less pulses, less chilli & tamarind, no afternoon naps, and only boiled water. Even otherwise, his eczema makes him allergic to most food including milk and wheat products.) They went on a sabbatical when Ash was with them. But not V. Like many Indian men expect, his needs should be the household's priorities. If the man of the house needs a low-fat diet, the rest of the family should also go for a fat-free diet. But if the woman of the house needs a low-salt diet, she better make it separately for herself.
"Can I at least see the chicken, Appa?" Ash asked, with tears welling up in his eyes. He had a look, and then told his dad: "Will you get me chicken that wont itch?"
V told me later that day how rotten it had made him feel.

p.s. I plan to try a neem bath for him after reading an article about how neem benefits eczema.

Bi-cyclists

Ash with the new bicycle we got him as an advance b'day gift last
Saturday. He had been clamouring for it for over a year.
Mira after the initial fear is beginning to enjoy the rides too
(mostly pillion) - her legs are not long enoug to reach the pedals. So
her present goal is to eat well and get her legs long enough for that!

Boys!

Vinod's nephews, residing in Queensland for the past 2 years with their parents, visited us on their way to Kerala and back. The younger one, now 8, learnt to speak English only after he went there and so now speaks with an Australian accent.
He probably heard me utter a word or two in English - we dont speak English at home - and asked me in surprise: "Do you know English?"
"A little," I told him.
"I know very well," he said, still not believing me.

The elder one had given me a similar treatment long back. As I was preparing to go to work, he asked me where I was going.
"Office," I told him.
"Ugh! women dont go to offices. They only go to schools to teach." The other women he knew were either homemakers or schoolteachers.

Boy! didnt they give me a complex ? :)

Autobiography of a dusky Indian

"I think you have become a little fairer living with me," said her husband of 15 years. Rosakutty sighed. Skin tones frequently creep into conversations and small talk she makes with members of her family and community.

"Not really. A bleach and Shahnaz facial can do the trick," she retorted. A trick that had fooled people back in her hometown at a recent wedding. 'Not bad, look who has become fairer in spite of living in a hot city,' they had murmured.

But until she was introduced to the world of Pearl Facials and Oxy bleaches, it had been a difficult growing-up. Even mother and grandmother, both fair and beautiful, made fun. "Oh, doesnt her face resemble the rain clouds? All the milk and turmeric we applied on you hasnt helped." But at other times, they consoled her. "You have inherited the Neelakaarvarnan's (Lord Krishna) colour". Or "aint black seven-fold beautiful?" Or "Dont worry, dark girls generally land a fair husband." Father kept quiet, because she had taken after him in colour and looks.

Mother often avoided taking her with her for weddings or outings. Instead she took her older cousin, fair and pretty, who came to the family home during vacations. Or her lil brother. Maybe it wasnt deliberate, just circumstances.

The darkness on the exterior clouded her innards too; it enveloped her thoughts, her emotions and slowly her life too. She found solace in books, in fairytales, in daydreaming. Rosakutty pretended she was Rapunzel, or Catherine (who could win a Heathcliff's devotion) or at least a Mills & Boon heroine. She was good in studies, much to her father's pride. But it did not stop him from investing in gold and other wise savings to help win her a good husband. Fair and good looking girls always faired well in the marriage market even if money changed hands, but the dark and ugly ones could land a good catch too if they had a lucrative career, a rich father or enough to give in cash and kind.

The wait wasnt short - some of her suitors found her dark and some found her not good-looking. She rejected some and some rejected her. But in the end, she found her match in a fairly good-looking and well-mannered guy, who himself had been on the look-out for a fair and pretty girl initially. Destiny prevailed and she became his wife; he treated her more royally than she had ever been treated the first quarter of her life. It did not stop the snide remarks from relatives and neighbours though. "Surprising that your inlaws dont mind a dark daughter-in-law", or "Guess boys are willing to marry anyone for money these days", they said. Coming as they did from people who were not fair or had trouble despatching their dark or not-so-ravishing daughters themselves, Rosakutty thought it was hilarious but refrained from telling them so.

Destiny also gave her a son who looked like her and a daughter who looked like her mother. At last she had had her retribution - a fair and pretty daughter for all the ignominy she suffered as a child. The child was only passably fair but that was okay - as long as she wasnt dark, she would have an easier life.

But as she began taking her out more often than she did the boy, her husband wondered: "Arent you behaving like your mother yourself?"