The wives and their cars

In most of the couples I know, the wife drives the better and bigger (by implication, more expensive) car. Wonder why. I was doing one of my stray thinking bouts when I happened to see one such couple I know driving past - the husband driving the car for a change, that it was the wife's car, she usually drives around in that. Then thoughts went to Rohan's friend's mom and dad, there too, wife drives the more expensive, bigger car. Then I started thinking about it and surely I noticed a pattern. It's not at all uncommon. Wonder what the deal is with guys buying their wives, or couples investing in bigger, more expensive cars for the woman.

Considering our thought process being that a woman is the weaker driver compared to a man, surely this doesn't fit in. Another thing to notice is that when the couple drive together, it is always the husband who drives the car when they take out the wife's. Again an infallible repetition.

Just an observation jotted down.

The cynicism kicks in when you are in your 30s ;)

It's been too long since I blogged. Cousins and friends have started asking :)

I had quite a few things to write about - incidents, feelings, milestones and what not. But the cynicism is to blame. Who cares anyway? How is writing about something going to change it? Etc etc. And also the overdrive thought process about writing diplomatically.

Well, whatever. Let me write now!

First let's get the pet peeve out of the way - parenting.

I was at the park a month or so (or perhaps even more) ago - there was this kid who starting bringing in sand from the sand pit by the handfuls and dumping it in Rohan's cycle basket. I told him very nicely, smiling, acting surprised, and in various other styles that he should not do that. He persisted for about 5 times before I said, well, this is not correct, let's clean it up now. Clean, the magic word. From thin air appeared a woman. Presumably his mom. And she asked me what he did. I said he's been dumping sand in the cycle. And she began to rant about how he is just a baby and he won't understand if I tell him and that she has been watching what I have been saying to him (really?!?!) , that I should not ask a baby to clean up and so on and so forth. First of all, the kid was no baby - he was a good 3 years old or more. And woman, what were you doing watching him repeatedly put sand in someone else's bike? I mean, what? And only when I asked him gently to come "clean" did you appear? I say, it is not the kid's fault at all. With a mom like that - he can't help but being a menace. What?

Then yesterday. In walks another mom - with two kids. Both presumably only half-Indian - they had blond hair. Father in law and I were sitting on a bench and chatting and watching some kids being rowdy, some quietly playing, some running around, some just being outright nasty etc etc. Then one of the lady's kids starts jumping up and down in a pair-swing on which he was standing - the mom went to enquire and turns out he wet his pants. All the way down to a small puddle on the swing. Thanks to the perforated pedestal of the swing, there was no much left on it but enough to get onto other kids shoes. The mom asks him how it happened, quietly consoled him, even let him talk to the other ladies with whom she was chatting and then just prepared to leave. I was watching for a full 10 minutes in the hope that she would clean up after her son. But no. I almost told her to please clean up, but thought the better of it - didn't want to sound rude and further alienate one more super-senstitive mom (really, what is with being so sensitive?). But I did what was next best - set an example to my own kid. Got up, took the bottle of drinking water I had (ouch, hate wasting drinking water, but was too lazy to go to the rest room at the other end and fetch some water), poured it over the swing pedestal till it was clean. Rohan asked me why I was doing that (he knows I hate wasting water, I never let him do it too), and I told him the kid peed, and his mom didn't clean up but we don't want other kids to soil their shoes/feet, so let's clean up. Done.

What is with us as a people and not cleaning up after ourselves? Really, dog-shit is a menace in our layout - in spite of many folks asking people to clean up after their pets, I have seen just one or two do it dutifully. We just think public property us ours and our pets to pee and shit on - no wonder our streets and public spots are in such a sorry state usually! Well, if there is one thing that annoys me endlessly, it is the so called educated, elite folks, behaving like absolute ruddy bumpkins. Spitting everywhere, peeing everywhere, trashing out of cars and what not.

There, I got it all out! Did it make a difference to anyone's life? Yet?

We went to a birthday party on Saturday night - my first ever with lights and music and a dance floor - yeah, ever, in my life! ;) I had a good time just observing people and soaking it all in. Our hostess, one of the most elegant women I know, Subhash's friend, had done a splendid job with organizing it. It was a late night party so fed both the kids, put one to sleep, left the other with parents and went. Didn't feel guilty about it too! :) Such a blessing to have parents and father in law around - not a day goes by when I don't feel thankful for it :)

So, well, hopefully I can shake off some cynicism and laziness now..
 

Of daughters and sons and in-laws

The other day I read on a blog, the typical story of neglect from two sons toward a widowed mother. Both sons not willing to bring the mother to live with them from the old-age home, bowing to wives' pressure, finally daughter coming to the rescue and how it is always daughters who are better than sons. Standard narrative, we have all heard, seen, experienced these situations. But how about a twist on them?

This particular daughter who came to the rescue of the poor mom - would she do the same for a mother-in-law? In this case, has anyone even thought of thanking the accommodating son-in-law? He is a son to someone too, and assuming he is OK to let his mother in law stay with him, I am sure, he'd do the same for his parents?

What about the daughters-in-law? Would they treat their own moms the way they shunned their mother-in-law out of the house? Or would they also be daughters-to-the-rescue for their own parents? In which case isn't it really two-faced? Should we really be praising all daughters?

What about the mother-in-law? Why are we assuming that because she is helpless and old, she is the epitome of goodness? Maybe she was nasty to her daughters in law in her day and age, and so maybe they want nothing to do with her anymore?

I am only attempting to question the natural stereotyping that comes out of these stories against the son and daughter-in-law and in favour of the daughter. I have heard far too often these days about how it is better to have daughters since they are more caring towards their parents. Agreed. I come from a two-daughters-no-sons home too! But have we taught our daughters to treat their in-laws with the same care they show towards us? Sadly, no. We have re-inforced the all-mothers-in-law-are-evil-and-need-to-be-dealt-with-harshly stereotype (actually make that all in-laws, not just mother or father in law) so much, either out of our own fear of "losing" the daughters' affection to her in-laws (like a battle for who will keep her affection to themselves) or genuine concern out of our own bad experiences. I have seen this in real life with so many people in so many facets of life in such close quarters so often that contradicting me on this one is pointless.

End of the day it comes down to the people involved. Daughters can be as bad as sons in shunning parents or sons can be as warm as daughters in caring for them.

But I agree, having two sons of my own, I am actually very apprehensive about the future and how often I can see them once they are married. Gone are the good old days where having sons guaranteed you a life together with kids for eternity since they marry and continue to live with you. These days whether it is daughters or sons, all birds fly the nest typically by 22 in most urban households. Never to return. It becomes worse for parents of sons since girls are more prone to hating than guys in general. (think girl roomies vs guy roomies, I definitely find guys more accommodating since they don't care so much about trifles very often) So you can be assured to some extent that your son-in-law wont hate you in your face but you cant really be so sure with daughters-in-law.

My mom was a very accommodating daughter-in-law. She met with resentment at every step of the way (think love marriage between different language speaking families in the 1970s!) but she always endeavoured to the best of her ability to treat all her in laws (mother, sister, brothers in law) the same way that she would treat her own kin. Of course, her in laws turned around in due time and actually came to appreciate and value her, and I have to thank her for her perseverance in maintaining those relationships. If she had decided that enough was enough and cut us off from that part of the family, we wouldn't have been lucky enough to know so many cousins on my dad's end and share such lovely relationships outside of just us siblings.

Luckily for me and my sister, we did not have resenting in-laws which made the whole relationship change in dimension like not many people are lucky enough to experience.

My own mother-in-law will always be my role model for how I should treat my daughters-in-law, to keep it simple, like my own daughters. She always lives with me in my memories, just the other day, my iron-creased wedding saree, back fresh from dry cleaning, reminded me of her so many times. How she did all the wedding preparations herself right from buying the saree to stitching the fall, to buying knick-knacks to jewelery purchase and what not. To the extent of even suffering our shortcomings silently, she always dealt with it sportingly. She adjusted as much as possible to our generation's needs and demands and lifestyles and even when she had to differ, she broke it to us in a very gentle manner. There are so many small things that constantly remind me of her - not in a poignant or intense or sad way, but just remind me of her. Like she was still around somewhere in some other town. In another five days, it would already be two years since she passed away. I still cannot believe it, it seems so unreal sometimes.

Sirf 3 lakh!

There is a new ad for the Tanishq Inara collection (of diamond sets). There is a sister pair (one of them presumably a soon-to-be-bride) out shopping for diamonds and they ask the Tanishq guy for the latest collection and simply love the necklaces. The sister who is getting married asks the guy how much it costs and he says "Around 3 lakhs ma'am", to which the sister responds "Sun na, sirf 3 lakh ka hai, maine socha mehenga hoga". And the other sister makes some joke about it being expensive anyways since she is having to marry for it.

First time I saw the ad I was mildly amused. It seems that the point at which 3 lakhs stopped being "mehenga" just zipped past me without me noticing it ;) I don't know whom Tanishq is trying to target this ad at ;) It doesn't seem to be to the middle class nor to the super rich ;) maybe some category in between?

e-commerce

Indian e-commerce has more than come of age! Proof?

Check this:

The web-site lets you order different things and when they come home to deliver, you can try the stuff out and then pick the ones you want, pay for just those and return the rest! And on top of that, they don't charge a premium for it, they in fact offer some cash back etc ;)

This is a luxury you can only afford in a country where the population is booming, eh? :)

Of making babies

I was talking to someone who is going through a bad mis-carriage phase right now. It is tough on folks, both partners in fact. Not just the physical stress and pain but also the mental trauma, especially if this is not the first time it is happening.

But this is a phenomenon that is here to stay. When a good chunk of my friends were having kids, I saw so many of them go through multiple mis-carriages that it started to seem the normal thing to happen. And I had seen them (especially the women) go through hell. I was telling this guy the other day, that it is hard for his wife additionally since we are all subconsciously conditioned that the ability to make babies is the only thing that makes us complete as women (I don't know how many of you remember that yuck number equation in a movie called Sundarakanda where Venkatesh neatly sums up at what stages in a woman's life, points are added to her womanhood, till finally when she has a baby, she gets 100 points, thus making her the complete woman - I always found it nauseating, even as a 11 year old kid)

But in my mind it was always a feminine topic. That only women suffer such mental trauma. But what I realized is, it is no different for guys. In fact it is probably worse. When a man figures he cannot make babies, I think it hits his ego way harder than it does a woman. It is a question of his man-hood much more than it is for a woman a question for her woman-hood.

Infertility is a growing problem. The number of infertility clinics is on the rise. Even movies are being made about them. But it is still a taboo to talk about it. If you go through infertility treatments, it is always a hush-hush. There was much appreciation in Bollywood when Aamir-Kiran declared their baby was born via surrogate. And everyone admired them for coming out in the open and admitting it. But really, considering no one had seen Kiran ever getting pregnant with a big belly, they would have had people speculate anyway. The only thing they did by announcing was to kill speculation. A smart PR move. Bagged some brownie points for being embracing and honest about infertility treatment etc. If it was a more discreet method, like say IVF, I wonder if they would not have passed it off as a normal conception and pregnancy.

So I think, the bottom-line is, as human beings, we are still tied to the most basic and raw elements of pride. That of making babies and furthering the human race! We can go the moon, Mars, you name it. But if we discover the inability to have babies, we feel inadequate. Like not worthy human beings, men or women. This is what I have found at any rate. So much for being the most advanced and refined of all living species.

Ferrari

So I saw this Ferrari at the Leela on Sunday. There was a guy standing guard over it and then there were other guys drooling from behind the pillars, from the garden etc. And then I noticed the plate, PY, invariably. I wonder why, why would someone spend a few crores and get a Ferrari and then go and register the car in Pondicherry just to save a few lakhs?! Why? It is beyond me. I just do not get it.

PS: I actually didn't like the car at all - it looks ugly. If not for the horse on it ;)

Indian Toilet

Today at a mall - in the restroom - the lady waiting in line after me was about to go in - checked that it was an Indian toilet and stepped back and chose to wait for a western one instead! And still we call them Indian toilets! What an irony!

Personally, I prefer the Indian version in public toilets like malls etc. They are definitely better since it is zero body contact with any soiled surface.

Kahaani is a must watch movie. Please, I urge you all to see it :)

What is in a school.

When we were in Hyd, I noticed, a lot of the schools' posters talked about how if your goal is to get your kid into IIT, their school is the one to bet on. Why am I saying a lot, actually, all of them just said the same thing, at least all the ones I saw.

In Bangalore, the posters say, child's potential, overall development, well rounded personality etc etc. No mention of IIT in even one of the posters that I have ever seen.

Disclaimer of course being that the Bangalore we live in is not really the traditional one, maybe on the west side of town posters do say IIT? But then again, in my wanderings through the west side of Bangalore, I never came across a poster for a school ;) Also, in Hyd, I saw posters in equivalent areas to where we live in Bangalore - Kukatpally, closer to Hitech city etc.

So what is the deal between the two cities pursuing such different dreams!!

Music background

The son has surely taken after his parents. I never used to study without the walk-man on (the iPod generation probably doesn't know what a walk-man is ;) ). Apparently it was the same for Subhash.

Now the son.

He has a walker which plays different tunes when you press the different piano keyboard style buttons. He no longer uses the walker since he is walking on his own now. So we removed the music tray and we normally let him play with it on the floor. His mode of playing is:

1) Press a button on the music board
2) Play with/observe whatever it is he is playing with/observing

3) When the music stops, press any button to re-start the music
4) Resume playing/examining.

My god!!

Mistakes!

In more ways than one, this is my buzzword. Mistakes. We all make them. How we learn from them defines who we are. If you ask me, life is the story of what mistakes you make and how you grow out of it.

Now more than ever, I am always conscious of allowing people the leeway to make mistakes. If someone in the team makes one, I am always careful how I deal with it. I don't want to make the reaction so severe that the person becomes permanently afraid to make another mistake, in the process stubbing his/her learning process.

Just thought I'd overcome the blogebb by being a little philosophical here! ;)

Boomerang!

Subhash has this theory: Whatever you say about others is like a boomerang, it comes right back at you.

Since I have heard this theory I have seen ample incidents which have given proof to it. More so in the past few weeks. I have seen things happen to people who have ridiculed others for the very same things. So much so that now, when I start on the ridicule train (even in my mind), I take a shudder. Good for me I say. But scary all the same ;)

Of course this doesn't apply to public figures, celebrities, politicians, CEOs and so on and so forth. You get the drift. ;)

Fit or fat?

Or both?

Subhash is a very non-exercise person. He very very very rarely exercises. And he eats moderately, doesn't freak out on food like me, but doesn't particularly watch what he is eating either.

I, on the other hand, religiously wake up every morning, go for my jog/walk, do hand weights, ab exercises etc. Yet I have a perennial paunch and feel fat (of course I love food). Especially so after the pregnancy, its just been super difficult to shed that extra flab which I accumulated. Everyone says it will go eventually but I am an ambitious person. I'd like to see it go ASAP.

No doubt I am fit. I bounce back very fast from injuries, don't get very tired easily etc etc etc I feel healthy and happy most of the times. On the other hand I know people with to-die-for bodies who keep falling sick at the drop of a hat, get tired from even the smallest outings etc.

Being fit doesn't necessarily mean being trim. That is the only thing I can conclude.

So are you fit? Or are you fat? Or, like me, are you both? :D

The perfect line

I was looking for many years now, for that one line which would describe how mediocre folks try to tell the world that everything they do is the best and what everyone else does or aspires for is either stupid or not important or worse, materialistic. I used to try the fox and grapes and them being sour. But today I found the perfect line thanks to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and it goes:

"Mediocrity knows none better than itself whereas talent instantly recognizes genius"

(One of his four novels, where one Scotland Yard agent unlike others who try to snub Holmes, actually respects him from the word go)

Well said sir, hats off!

Punctuate those lines!

On an unconnected note, I am super thrilled with the response my 20-30 blog got. Thank you folks!

These days I find more and more that my comma usage has gone for a toss. Of course in emails I still maintain strict grammar and spelling but mostly the chat lines are all one long string of words. Often I've caught myself unable to understand what I've written to someone on chat in the last one week. And I HATE it.

Of course in this generation where English is murdered left and right, where "the" is written as "d" (This one I absolutely HATE the most, tops the list, and what more one of my ex-English teachers' also uses it!), and through becomes thru even in official emails (I am also guilty of typing thru in chat but if and only if I am carrying the baby in my right hand and trying to type fast and get some message across with the left hand), I guess my lack of commas will go absolutely un-noticed. Still, like someone said (I don't know who), so far as I know my work is faulty, I cannot sleep in peace.

So here is making a conscious effort to get those commas back in chat ;)

FYI

OK, I know this is a beaten to death topic, so I decided no harm in beating it once more.

Prelogue: I was never a forwards person. Even in the nascence of my internet familiarity, I hated forwarding. All forwards were read and promptly deleted.

This morning I got an email. About some official announcement. OK, I thought. Actually I knew it about last week itself, thanks to one more email. I made a note of then and moved on.

Now the guy who forwarded the mail last week, again re-sent this alias email I got this morning. Again! It was exactly the same line he sent last week too. I thought, well, OK, one new email no harm, deleted. Till I got some 4 more emails which were essentially people forwarding the original announcement email to different aliases as they thought fit.

I say, if I got it why should I be bombarded with the same information 10 times? If you got it and if I got it then obviously the rest of the team also got it so what is the sense in forwarding to different sub-aliases saying, "in case you haven't seen it", "in case you missed it", "FYI" etc?

Either you think I don't read my email well or I can't get it unless I am told 10 times.

If I am the former, then chances that I will read your email are minuscule. If I am the latter well, maybe I don't deserve to get it.

Either ways, just because we are in the business of making internet faster, it doesn't mean we test our own muscle from time to time by repeatedly forwarding emails I think.

Sigh!

PS: I wish I could induce more humour in this post like KrishAshok does, but I confess I have not the talent!

Of toys and stereotypes

Since I totally loved our two ELC toys, Subhash got me one of their catalogues when he went to London. I was browsing through it and in the section for toys of older babies and kids there was a marked difference between those for boys and those for girls. The boys ones were mostly tool sets, railway lines, cars, copters etc and the girls were predominantly cooking and dressing up stuff, crockery, kitchen in a bag (some of them were real nice, four grill stove, oven, microwave and what not, and all life size, as tall as the kids were), powder room stuff, dolls to dress up etc. Predominantly pink.

I made a comment saying whoa! why are they segregating toys into neat slots for boys and girls, they are encouraging stereotypes that girls cook and boys work with tools!! (I mean secretly, if you asked me to pick the toys I'd go for that kitchen set anyday, but still!).

So Subhash asked, well, if you had to buy something for Rohan what would you buy? (Trust my husband to deflate me when I am pumping up thinking I made a remarkably clever statement ;) )

Well, it is true, I would never buy that pink stuff for Rohan. (I mean I'd still buy it since it was so cute, but it would be for me, not for him. But if I had a girl, I'd never shy away from buying her the tool set, the railway lines etc, although they were shown with boys playing.

It then hit me that a guy's life is hard. When women dress up in guys clothes like jeans etc, it is all too cool, in fact in this generation you can no longer call trousers, a "guy's apparel". It is universal. But if a guy was to wear a skirt? That would be so no-no. (except in Scotland, but then we are digressing)

We have pervaded and taken over for ourselves everything that was exclusively men: clothes, occupations, lifestyle and habits (drinking, smoking for example) and have at the same time more than zealously guarded and kept our domains to ourselves (anything slightly womanish that a man does and we immediately suspect him to be gay). Poor guys! I feel sorry for them. One of my friends was once saying, you guys can wear mini skirts, shorts, 3/4th pants, capris and what not, and all we are left with is shorts and full length jeans. If I was to wear a 3/4th jeans, I shudder to think what people would make of me.

How true! ;)

Indispensible?

My maid went to her town to see a match. And she is not back yet. And I am not sure if she will even come back. So I am on the look-out for a maid. Yet again.

What I hate most about changing maids? You have to train them all over again. Just when they reach aut-pilot mode and you don't have to supervise them anymore somehow they leave. And the only thing worse than doing household chores is to supervise someone doing it.

So now I am going to be super-happy if my old maid comes back. Since she was well into auto-pilot. Even if she comes late, I don't think I'd complain initially ;)

I always used to wonder why companies spend so much time and money on research to retain existing employees and keep them happy. Now that I'm an employer, I know! :)

Whoa! The stats need betterment

• ► 2009 (82)
• ► 2008 (187)
• ► 2007 (99)
• ► 2006 (26)
• 2005 (15)

What are those numbers. The number of posts I did every year.

Steady progress from 2005 to 2008. But then the blog went south. Actually it was just the pregnancy. I kept consciously away from the blog since I didn't want to make it a motherhood one ;)

So hoping to better the stats next year!

Scales of comparison

A while back (quite the years back I mean) there was a time when I was disappointed at some incident where the same set of people commended a job that someone else did where I felt I did a lot more but there was no commendation.

Naturally from my perspective I was sour. Why shouldn't I also be commended? If anything I should be commended 3 or 4 times more since I was doing that much. But what I got was zilch.

Subhash had a simple reply : The expectations of you are higher since they know you are more capable. The expectation from that person is much lower.

Still, it was not fair. That didn't soothe me at all.

So he had an analogy (he always does) : Lets assume my niece drew a picture of a hut (niece is all of 4 years old) and you also drew a hut. People will naturally praise the niece all out since she has done an extraordinary job for her known and accepted capability. But if you expect people to praise you because you drew a hut, then it is not going to happen. On the contrary it would sound rather stupid, this expectation of yours.

That totally explained it. At that moment I was soothed. Yet, this was no 4 year old that I was putting myself up against. Outside of this philosophy when I thought about it, I was still sour. But at least I knew that there was some psychological reason to it rather than attributing it to prejudice.

So it is all about who you want to set yourself against. People more accomplished than you or people less accomplished. The former is definitely a better idea :)

Daily, I grapple with such dharam sankats ;)