Rambling on... again..

Mere pyaare Cheeku, Another year has flown by and we have created so many memories together!! Hopefully now you are old enough to remember some of them yourself. What a year we’ve had together… Your Scottish experience has taken firm roots, you’re such a teachers’ pet in all spheres (its quite funny to watch btw), you talk dime to a dozen – sometimes even making sense (!!), you’re such a fabulous traveller too and above all else – you’re a very very sweet and nice boy. I am sooooo relieved to see you turn out like this. I don’t know if I would have been able to manage if you were a snooty brat or a dumb sissy! Sorry to be biased – but I am certainly a satisfied mom. Maybe even a bit proud – ok ok… a whole lot of proud mom J I was thinking about what all I wanted to write in this letter for you this year… in fact various themes have been running around my head for the last couple of months now. But in the end – like always – I decided I shall write what comes to me in a f...

I remember asking my husband what two values he wants to see our son portray as an adult which will make him think that he’s done a good job as a parent. He had said – Hardworking and honest. My two values had been – Caring and respectful. It had really gladdened my heart that as parents we were thinking of similar direction of values for our son. Hopefully this will over the years translate into becoming a similar set of inputs and encouragement that he gets from us both. This was some 4 years ago I think. Sometime last year while reading an article on yet another case of teen suicide, it struck me to re-visit our wishlist. Maybe its not enough for him to be honest and caring. Maybe he needs to learn empathy instead. What about developing a calm nature? Are any of these values going to be enough to ensure that he at least understands the repurcussions of his actions before taking them? This is how I concluded that more than anything else – my task as a mother is to ensure I ...

Having grown up in a fairly financially-constrained environment, this topic seems like a total case of wishful thinking. But its not! Seriously. Truthfully. Painfully. What are these problems you ask? Well they range from how to invest the money you earn to what to buy as a gift for friends and family. Let me attempt to explain these. Investing your surplus earnings is a normal and natural cycle in life for most Indians. Where this enters the problem zone is when you’ve built a decent base in MFs, have a property and own the jewellery you would like to wear. After this, what to do with the extra salary every month is a VERY painful decision to go through. Before this, there are simple goals to aim for. But what when your goals have been achieved and you’re not willing to expand your lifestyle just to accommodate the surplus. Happened to me a few years ago – when I paid off the loan against the property investment I had made. I remember asking a friend of mine – extremely s...