Rambling on... again..

My darling boy, You're turning 7 years old soon!!! I really don't know where the time flew by... It seems just yesterday when you were born, or maybe when you started playschool, or even when you started 'Big' school. You've filled my life with soooooo many experiences that its hard to keep track sometimes. This past year with you has been great fun as ever... but more importantly, its been very rewarding for me. I can see signs of my lifelong dream coming true - I always wanted my relationship with my child to be that of friends... equals even. I know its tougher on the parents than children - but why would i set an easy task for me anyways :) This year i had many moments of discussing life with you. When we lost Shilpi in October and you saw me breaking down completely, you didnt shy away from giving me a long and loving hug. I was rather worried that it might scar you in some way - but was so relieved to see that you understood that mamma was in great pain...

(Suggested read before this one - The Beginning of the end -  https://stilltakingitasitcomes.blogspot.com/2019/06/diary-of-menopauser-beginning-of-end.html ) So what have I figured out so far… firstly that this is not even Menopause yet L Its whats called Peri-Menopause. The first thought I had when I read about this name was that its obviously very to-the-point – I mean Peri-Peri is a sharp flavour with a pretty unique caught-you-by-surprise element to it. J The consolation was of course that I wasn’t imagining things – but the frustration was that there was just a bunch of shitty stuff available online which kind of takes being clinical to a different level altogether. Nowhere did I find elements of what kind of almost violent emotional mood swings you can experience due to this. This is in sharp contrast to absolutely soothing and emotional hand-holding I got via online forums when I was pregnant just a few years ago. I was told when to expect depression or an une...

I have never been shy of admitting my age – in public or otherwise – to the extent that I’ve had my year of birth in my email id from the beginning. Life journey – from a pure physical body POV – has been a bit unique as well I guess since I had my pregnancy in a ‘high-risk’ age zone at a ripe old age of 39 years. When you have a child so late – your body tends to remind you of your stupidity often enough. Along with this very high degree of awareness of my age, I also am a plan-ahead-or-you’ll-panic kind of a person. By now you would have understood that I refused to be caught by surprise by something as dumb as a body change due to age that I should have known about. What else did God make the internet for if not for reading up all kinds of crap? J So – flashback to about a year ago, when my 45 th birthday was coming up and I was kind of floating through a “what the F*&^ am I doing in life” kind of monologue in my head. Nothing new about that at all… happens with me o...

Gully Boy A representation on angst and an unusual path of rebellion – and yet not done in a melodramatic fashion. Stories of people from the underprivileged classes breaking barriers to reach out to seemingly a foreign world of success – or as put in this movie “angrezi bolne waale friends” – abound in our mainstream today. And yet this story stands out a bit more… There was a layer of struggle and proving oneself and camaraderie built in so seamlessly that this movie can be a part of various genres. Let me attempt to see where all I would fit this   Music based film (well of course) - Was it the unheard of world of rapping which makes it stand out? Yes maybe as unless you’re a really deep music enthusiast - rap is not a regular part of Indian music scene at all. But somehow I think that’s not it. The rap battles are a huge part of why I enjoyed the story so much. The thinking on your feet, turning it into a lyrical presentation and not getting bogged down by the in...

By far one of the toughest task as a parent I face in my life is to get R to focus and be determined to achieve something. Of course it started off with me believing I was setting tough goals, but its not that at all. When we grew up, our middle class upbringing and environment, automatically assured a feeling of depravity at many levels. There would be missed opportunities which would be enough to rub in the fact that life wasn’t about the ‘Ask and you shall have 2 of it’ environment which today’s generation lives in. One of the basic root cause of course is consumerism itself. Too many easy choices exist today within very easy access. Amazon and flipkart are a part of children’s vocabulary too easily! Another one I guess is of course affordability. If I’m taking a European holiday often enough and staying in nice hotels, that becomes the benchmark for him to expect from holidays and hotels. And of course it doesn’t stop there, does it? Expecting to be treated in a ce...

कभी यूँ भी तो हो मेरे कुछ कहने से पहले तुम मुझे गले लगा के छुओं मेरे आने वाले आंसूयो को अपने चिलमन में यूँ बुनो मेरी अंकही बातों को तुम अपने दिल में यूँ सुनो मैं कौन हूँ मेरे सपने हैं क्या तुम मुझसे ज़्यादा उनको जीयो मेरे छोटे छोटे अरमानो को तुम समझो खुदा का फ़रमान और मेरी नादानियों को तुम मानो इश्क़ का सम्मान कभी मुझे लगे की तुम मेरे बिन शायद अधूरे हो कभी मुझे लगे तुम्हारे बिन ये रैना बहुत अंधेरी है कभी यूँ भी तो हो....

I remember hearing this song when i was in my MBA days.. dont remember the title or for that matter the singer either... just these 2 lines stuck in my head... Oh why are we... so blind to see... That the ones we hurt... are you and me... Its the truest statement and assessment for almost every relationship i have been a part of or even observed closely. The people who hurt us the most are always the ones we care about the most - and vice versa. Of course its self-explanatory why it hurts more.  but a bigger tragedy is when we kind of start ignoring each other... or taking the US for granted. Because you can recover from a difference of opinion, but not from your partner not having an opinion at all on things which matter to you, or sometimes YOU.  So i guess thats enough of a context to explain why the lines below were coming to me a few days back... When the hug gets a little loose,  The conversations get a bit stilted When the presence makes y...