Parenting flaws

Talking with a few parents from church during dinner on Easter night made me feel I am not so bad a parent as our parents like to label us. A boy of 13 who has to be spoonfed three times a day except when he is eating stuff he fancies, another boy who gave his mother such a tough time at mealtimes that she decided she did not want another child and who at 15 still doesnt know how to chew his food...
Right now, the kids are doing pretty ok under my dad's strict supervision - so much so that they are counting the days to our impending visit. Ash's skin seems to be looking better and clearer - and his skin is not itchy except at night. Bingo, the new pup, Ash tell me, is naughty and doesnt sit still. They also have the company of their great grandmother this week at home.
Easter and Good Friday went past the usual way - attending the mass, and meals courtesy the church. Meanwhile, we are still trying to get the house in order. And completing the medical check-ups that had been kept pending.

Rain, rain, go away

Mira whispers into the phone (she has to repeat it twice for it to be audible): 'Amma, I dont like it here. I want to come back. I can stay here only when u are here.'
In a week, she has got over her excitement of being in 'Channapally' as she calls it. It rains in the evening unlike in Chennai, and she cannot go next door to play with her aunt. And now she is afraid of a stray kitten, that has decided to make our house its home ever since Mira started feeding it.
In another 2 weeks I will be there for a short vacation, and by then I hope they will feel at home there. Then they move on to V's place to be with his parents.
Meanwhile, the parents here have a whale of a time - not cooking proper meals, eating out, watching TV without the kids to fight for tv rights, sleeping late into the morning etc etc. Thoughts of Ashwin bother us as he doesnt seem to be getting any better.
The quiet house - where everything remains in its place - looks strange.

Here we come!

Mira enjoying the watery, sugary-sweet coffee in the train en route to Kerala....

The kids have begun their vacation in Kerala.
The parents are back.

The maker

The kids have been increasingly pondering about life and death of late. While Mira suggested that we tell the Jesus in the church to bring Donypapa back to life (since the one at home doesnt move!), Ash is getting more and more interested in the Christian version of human evolution. He is in fact more interested in the practical aspect of Creation.
"Did Jesus make all of us?"
Yes, replies his dad.
"But wouldnt his hand ache making so many people? Did he make Vibeesh uncle (who is very obese) downstairs, Benoy uncle in church etc.?"
Now, to the next question.
"How did he make all of us?"
"Mannu (which in Malayalam means sand)," V tells him.
"Oh, does he go to the beach to make them in sand?"

Dream Dune

Talking of dreams, I had a strange dream on a weekend vacation (March 12-13) to Pondy. In the early hours of that Sunday, I dreamt that my father had passed away and that I was trying to arrange leave to go home. It was a disturbing dream to have on a vacation, and since early morning/dawn dreams are believed to come true, it disturbed me all the more. I tried to shake it off my mind and enjoy my vacation at Dune eco resort hotel in the company of a couple of V's colleagues and their families.

That night when I called home I was told that my uncle, who was half-father and half brother to me (considering that he had no children of his own and the small age gap between us) had been admitted to a hospital following bleeding in the ear. I called his wife the same day and the next, and she said things were under control. But the next day, things began deteriorating and he soon went into a coma that led to his eventual death.


I had planned this post to be on the Dune resort in Pondy, which provided a different experience from the usual touristy stuff. But the dream and death that followed could not be extricated from the vacation.

Dune is the kind of place that foreigners or even Indians living in crowded cities would develop a liking for. For a Keralite who grew up in a rural landscape, it is nothing much to go gaga over.Spread in 40 acres near the French town of Pondicherry (12 km from it), it has a neat private beach on which the waves deposit quaint shells and molluscs. It belongs to a French artist couple who live in the campus, and hence each cottage there is designed aesthetically and different from each other.

Our group stayed in the Baywatch houses built with casuarina trees. I guess we were the luckiest - we got the biggest and the best, though a bit secluded (which made us a wee bit scared in the night and we slept with the light on), of the baywatch houses which had been their director-founder's former residence. Unlike the other baywatch houses which had casuarina log flooring, Baywatch 1 had a proper cement flooring. The walls had bamboo panels while the doors and windows seemed retreived from some old Chettinadu house. To one side was the director new big house and the Artists-in-residence hall and the other was the organic farm, while the roar of the waves and the chatter of insects brought music to our ears - one needs them in the absence of the television and the Internet. One could view the sea through the pine trees from the hammock outside.

The bathroom was spacious unlike in the others, and the toiletries seemed to have been procured from Fabindia and Auroville. A frog in the washbasin gave Mira a fright, and we worried a little about snakes entering through the thatched roof or the gap in the wall. Thankfully we had a Kingsize bed with a mosquito net (but not many mosquitoes though they provided us Odomos and earplugs), which meant that once we tucked in the net no reptile could slither up our bed. There was an exra bed , which looked pretty ancient. The mini-fridge provided drinks and chocolates for a price.

Each cottage is provided with a mobile phone to contact the reception and other houses and facilities. Being an eco tourism project, private vehicles are not allowed inside; instead each house is provided with 2 bicycles (most punctured!). One has to leave the vehicles at the entrance, and luggage and guests are transported in the hotel's minivans. Check-in time is 1 pm while checkout time is 11 am - which is not fair. Since we went into Pondy town for lunch - which has some authentic French restaurants - we could check in only by 3 pm.

The pool, the play area and the beach made kids happy. But the adults did not carry their swimsuits and could not enter the big pool. Dinner at the inhouse restaurant was great though slightly expensive. The restaurant serves excellent food and the complimentary breakfast the next day provided a great variety.

I also made use of the free yoga session from 7-8 am along with a couple of French guests. The instructor was a Keralite from Palakkad. The yoga hall near the spa is a perfect place to relax and rejuvenate one's tired work-worn body . Thanks to him, I am practising suryanamaskara in the mornings aided by my inhouse instructor V.

Artists get a free boarding if they are willing to produce and exhibit their works; for others the boarding tariff is anywhere between Rs.6000 and 20,000. They have a honeymoon suite atop a tower. I liked the woodhouses - built using wood reclaimed from Kerala planters' residences - the best.

There is also a pottery class, table tennis court and badminton court for those interested. The mudtracks would have been more fun if there were avenue trees providing shade. One can also get lost in the night in the absence of proper boards for direction.

For me, sitting on the lawn in front of our cottage with the mist-laden grass cooling my bare feet early in the morning was the best part of the holiday.

The kids loved the holiday and wants a repeat.

Dune resort, Pondy (click on the pic to view the album)

Dreamer

Ash seems to dream a lot ( not when awake like me) in his sleep. From his narration, they sound interesting though often nowadays I dont have the time or patience to listen to him. A day after my uncle's death, he narrated that he had dreamt that he had given D-papa a tablet that made him wake up. It only managed to bring more tears in the eyes of relatives gathered around.
And now he has been telling me that his classmate Sabin has told him about a pill, which if popped into the mouth, will make a dead man alive. I tell him that maybe we can try it on Donypapa.
"How can we? Havent we buried him and sealed the vault?" He knows better.
I tell him that Donypapa is sitting with the angels in heaven and he can appeal to him to plead with Jesus to make his skin better. So on the worst flare-up days, when he brings the entire building down with his howls as I give him a bath, he prays: Donypapa, please tell Jesus to make my itching less.
***
Death seems to be an interesting concept for him, I dont know how. He talks about wanting to die when I ask him to take a bath (the raw skin burns as water  falls on it).
When I ask him how he plans to die, he says: I am going to a jungle and get eaten by dinosaurs.
Ice Age influence.