Author: nourishncherish

I really like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Not so much for the marketing, but for the thought. One day when everybody takes a moment to think of the everyday things these wonderful people do in your life. A moment to appreciate and cherish our wonderful parents.

I was a proud mother listening to my toddler wishing me “Appy T’youuuu” multiple times on Mother’s Day. She made it special by rising with the lark to spend time with me on a Sunday morning! I would have been happier still, if she had risen around 2 hours later, but it was fun anyway – its fun as your eyes adjust to the increasingly quick maneuvres with sleep tugging at the eyelids. Have you tried adjusting the Mouse settings on the Windows operating system to show the mouse pointer trails?

Something like that: my eyes were constantly shrugging sleep and trying to follow the path of the lil one.

I tried taking a nap later, but Father and daughter were determined to get me a gift, and before I knew it, I was a happy shopper at Great Mall. A tiring day of shopping done: we were back at home and took stock of the gifts purchased.

The toddler gets a booty (balloons, clothes, shoes and accessories), the father’s wardrobe gets a facelift, and oops! The selfless mother gets another “Appy t’youuuuu” to make up for the oversight of not getting a gift!

I love being a mother.

A foreword is necessary to this post. I work in the Financial district where dress codes are respected. The IT department, like in most companies, is the frumpier of the lot. We have people dressed smartly in Business casuals Monday through Thursday. There would be a slight exaggeration here, but you get the drift when I say the brightest colours inside of the office are the yellow walls.

The colours bloom on Fridays, which is the casual day at work. Hawaiian shirts spot the horizon, and the orange shirts and jeans are seen on happy faces awaiting the week-end. I sport all my Indian tops on jeans on Fridays and get rave reviews on the prints. I was looking for company to digress a little further and wear bright Indian skirts to work. A friend of mine showed inclination and enthusiasm. So we arrived on a date, and decided to wear skirts to work that day, when she said: “Oh, I meant, you should wear bright clothes, I can stand by the by-lines and encourage you.”

Have you been bungee jumping? It is like a x & y, two best buddies climb to the top. X depends on Y for company. They reach the top, and Y says: “You jump. I ‘ll stand here and give you encouragement!”

Well, one fine day, maybe I will come in looking like a bouquet of flowers in a yellow room!

A long post…so, please bear with me…

I was reading about the success and functioning of JetBlue Airlines. One trivia given about their CEO was the fact that he always travelled in the last seat, when he flew in his own airline, because that was the seat that did not recline. The customer comes first, he mentions, and sends his crew scurrying to look after other passengers upfront, rather than focussing on the non-reclining seat at the rear-end seating the CEO.

I leaned back, and reflected on another airline experience I had.

Location: Bangkok airport
Travelling with: Dear husband, extremely active 1 year old who had a fitful slumber from Hongkong to Bangkok, and was brimming with energy to explore the surroundings.

When I approached the Indian Airlines counter, I requested for the first row. Since I was travelling with an infant, the phrase “travelling light” was dropped like a hot cake from the phrases I was allowed to employ. Secondly, the first row allows the baby some space to develop immunity by running her fingers on the dirty carpet, and drooling on those fingers a while later!

“Sure Madam. I can do that for you”, said the courteous airhostess, explaining to me at great length about how she empathized with me for the long flight we had already endured. You are in good hands, she assured me and handed us our boarding passes. I emanated warmth. I smiled at her maternal instincts.

I was busy running between the chairs and playing a sophisticated game of Peek-a-boo when she (the air hostess)interrupted me and said she would like to change our boarding pass. I explained that I had requested for the first seat…blah, blah. She flashed a smile, and said she would still like to change our boarding pass to give us the “right” one. I handed it over to her with childish innocence. My eyes resonated with a warm feeling, and I did not quite catch that flicker of hesitation in her eyes. 8A, 8B was changed to 9A,9B and handed back to me along
with some candies for the 2 footer by my side.

I boarded the plane and this is the layout:

FIRST CLASS
_______ ________
8A,8B,8C 8D, 8E, 8F
9A,9B,9C 9D, 9E, 9F
10A.. …

There must have been a mistake I told myself and settled down in 8A. That airhostess was too sweet, and this must be an error. I settled the various bags, took out the relevant toys, milk bottles, baby blanket and other paraphernalia. I eyed the passenger across the aisle, and he explained why he had requested for the first row too. I nodded understandingly – he was nearly the height of a building and he would have had trouble fitting into those tiny seats with nil legroom. Hefty but courteous, I noticed and got on with my task of settling down.

Just then, the air hostess came by, and told me to vacate, and get moving to 9A. I blabbered, and explained again.

“That’s true madam, but a senior officers family is travelling, and they need these seats. You understand na?”

I didn’t understand. Imagine a baby chick and mama chick standing on the carpet, and the mama chick walks out of the carpet, and pulls it from under the baby chick’s legs. I felt like the baby chick now. Those very eyes that had emanated warmth, now displayed with a sense of betrayal.

She eyed the building sized man, and for a moment debated whether to tell him or not. She did, and she watched on with trepidation. He stormed that he wasn’t going to take this lightly. Apparently, he had made advance reservations and had come to the airport 2 hours in advance for this exact request, and it was being denied because the officers family “needed” the seats?!

To cut a long story short: The flight departed with grouchy 9th row passengers and a brood of happy officer family folks in 8th. A while later, the poor man across the aisle was failing miserably at trying to seat himself comfortably – he finally heaved himself out, and told the air hostess to put him in First Class, and he would bear the difference in fare if necessary.

The clouds cleared, the sun peeped and the air hostess smiled and bustled only to come back a few minutes later with first class seats ………… for the officer’s family!

The 8th row was available once again and everybody flew happily thereafter.

So, the Officers family flew first class while the CEO sat upright at the back.

I call a customer service representative for just another routine thing:
Bee: Hi, I am Saubya calling
CSR: Hi … Um, could you spell your name out for me please
Bee: Sure. S as in “Sab”, A as in “Apple”, U as in “Ubrella”, Ebb as in “Bary”
CSR: Pardon?
Bee: Ebb as in “Bary”. You know Jesus had a bother named Bary
CSR: Oh Mary!
Bee: Yes….pardon bee. I have a cold, and can’t get to say “Ebb” quite right!

Spring danced in, and the allergens joined suit. I have a cold that will not call it quits – Yes!! I finally banaged to say a sentence without “Ebb”!

As I get dressed everyday, I take a moment to decide about the deodorant to use. This time, it doesn’t matter. Atleast not to me, I am not the one smelling myself! I could dress like a peach, smell like a lime and feel like a rag!

A cold has some fringe benefits too – you could blame your deteriorating culinary skills on the inability to smell. “Baybe, the salt is a trifle bore, and I bay have gone a little too easy on the peppers. I can’t taste very well, thanks to this irritating cold!” you proclaim and set forth a dish of soup that tastes like dishwater.

Benefits aside, with a cold you seem to tick people off with some routine tasks. When a person has a nose like mine, they come to rely on it pretty heavily for day-to-day chores. You pick up the baby, and sniff around to see if the daily duties have been performed. With a cold, this is yet another task that requires more overt techniques. You have to resort to sneaking a peek, and this is certainly not something that makes anybody feel comfortable. So, you have a cold and an angry toddler to deal with by the end of the exercise!

I could ramble on as usual, but let me stop myself and enjoy the beauty of Spring!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have liquid toothpaste …Only then it would not be called ToothPaste, but Toothmix. The flow of the toothmix could be akin to ball point pens, wherein a little pressure when applied flows onto the toothbrush, and empties out from the top. Of course, then the structure of the toothbrushes would have to be changed to enable them to squirt the liquid as we move them over our teeth with a small liquid holder to squish out the liquid in spurts as the brushing action begins. The liquid should have the same foaming action as toothpaste so that we get the same clean feeling after brushing.

One may wonder at this juncture why one should go through all the trouble of changing the working model of toothpaste and toothbrushes? Rightly so.

The reason is simple: Have you seen the way people squish the toothpaste in the middle, instead of pushing the paste down from the top of the tube? Then, the task of moving the remnants from the top to the squished middle is left to the more orderly paste-pusher. Of course, by this time the tube has already lost its original shape and looks forever like a downtrodden, sad tomato shoved under the wheels of the speeding carriage.

I live with a compulsive paste-squisher, and many a store have I visited looking for some sort of a crude implement like a ring that I could attach to the end of the tube, and all the squisher needs to do is move the ring along the circumference of the toothpaste – and Bingo! Paste on Brush; tube looks good; birds chirp happily again and another smooth day is born!

Tea…Kappi….Vada…Bonda…Bajjeeeyaaa
Tea…Kappi….Vada…Bonda…Bajjeeeyaaa

I sorely missed this chant when BART ground to a stand still last night during peak commute hour. The stations were eerily quiet, and empty, while BART employees feverishly worked to get the system back on track.

I envisioned any other station in India when the train pulls into the station. The “sooda tea” and “suda suda bajji” smell wafts into the train accompanied by the shrill voices of the vendors. As long as one does not give too much thought into how these savouries are prepared, they make very tasty snacks!

In fact, my nephew was so enamoured of this profession when he was 3 years old, that his lofty career ideal was to become a “Chai” (tea) vendor in Dindigul station one day.

His metrics for job satisfaction were simple:
1) He could watch trains all day
2) He liked drinking tea, and by becoming a tea stall owner, he could have as many cups as he wanted to!

After a long day at work, I sure would have been happy to gulp in a cup of hot tea at the station yesterday!

She kept scratching her nose – it felt good to lift her hand, and scratch her nose.

There was no effect. She expanded the scratch area to include larger portions of her face, the lipular area, chin. She was scratching for longer than necessary, but there was still no effect.

She could hold back no longer – she decided to stop the scratching and held out her hand lovingly across the wooden table that separated the fiance and fiancee. He held her hand caressingly, and looked into her eyes and declared an oath of love. He then headed nose-down into his large icecream again.

He felt like having a little more ice-cream, and perhaps another chat with his fiancee. For some reason, she seemed flushed, and kept nervously glancing at the time. Perhaps she had another engagement to go to, and did not want to hurt his feelings by stopping him.

So, he let her go. She was reluctant to leave.

Finally – she thrust her hand at his face, and showed him the new watch she was wearing.

It will be a while before my parents…..

1) Look at the moon and not have pangs of separation anxiety from their grand-daughter. The moon is her most important attraction, and all loved ones are part of a nightly ritual of standing in the cold and staring at the “Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnn“, who only beams half as brightly as her face.

2) Can distinguish between parrots, cranes, sparrows, mynahs and crows again. In their current dictionary, anything that flies is classified as a “Kaaka” (Tamil word for Crow). There is a bit of an encoding problem here though. The “Th” in every word is substituted with the phonetic equivalent of “K“. So, she also calls her Thaatha(Grandfather) “Kaaka”, and he is not too pleased about being referred to as a ‘Crow’.

3) Stop referring to animals using vocalizations such as Moo and baa, and use the words ‘Cows’ & ‘Goats’ instead.

4) Open the refridgerator door for as long as necessary. Today, they take things from the refridgerator in multiple steps:
(a) Quickly scan the location of items, and decide where they need to retrieve the items from
(b) Distract the impish busy-bee who has hastened to the fridge to check things out for herself (sometimes accompanied by SOS calls to the spouse)
(c) Open the door only as much as required to extricate the food items from the fridge, while keeping an eye open for the marauding toddler.

5) Turn without checking to ensure that they don’t trip over the tiny little girl.

6) Browse in peace without having the little one “helping” in the task.

7) Have an afternoon nap without reading fifteen 5-page books, multiple times over.

8) Have coffee only thrice a day: down from several times an hour, depending on how often their grand-daughter serves them with her tiny teacups.

9) Walk bravely out the door without sneaking out.

10) Stop browsing the TV channels for Tele-tubbies shows……..

Most importantly it will be a long while before my little one gets used to not having her loving grand-parents around.

A moth was rudely awakened from its reverie this morning, and was none too pleased about it. He swarmed angrily across the cubicles, dodging the flitting arms. His dark home had been thwarted in one office memo assigning different work locations to employees. The cardboard boxes were opened to enable the move. The abrasive sound of cardboard against cardboard, and the bright rays of light were enough to anger the most resilient moth.

Dear moth,

Signed,
Been There

PS: My attempts at verbalizing the set of irritating sounds drew a naught. Metal scrapping against metal, the sickening sound of squeaking chalk, the tires screeching to a halt. These noises have always affected me in unconventional ways, and I was glad to see a similar effect on Moths.

The rays of the moon pored through the clouds. I lay shivering in the cold, too tired & cold to attract help. My body shivered against the relentless cold, my mind sifted through my own thought processes a few weeks earlier.

Then, I was alive, but in my dreams – today my dreams had come true, but I was dying.

The world outside through the bars in the gold-rimmed cage had seemed wonderful, and every slight opportunity I got, I fantasized about a life of freedom – a life when I could use my wings for that wonderful feeling of free flight. When the time seemed right, that flight I did take. I felt the soaring air flap against my face, I peered to the Earth below and scooped in the delightful flowers.

Life seemed fulfilling before the eerieness of unfamiliarity struck with all its brutality – I now yearned for the motherly touch of the little girl who had nurtured me. The world was closing in….it was gloomier and gloomier, till it was finally dark.

The next thing I remember was the wonderful touch I had yearned for. Warm blood cruised through my veins again. I felt a hot drop against my face, and then another one. I stared up to see the little girl crying for me to pardon her. Did I get the drift of her message through the tears? She wasn’t aware that I was unhappy, and she would let me go my way once I healed? It sounded too good to be true.

Time passed and I healed. I flew joyously among the flowers, trees and hills. Every night I dutifully returned to the little girl’s garden: There was no cage but this was my world now. I was free to do what I wanted and this is what I wanted to do.

I was the Queen in my garden!

A story of a bird
A story of just another modern day woman