Thursday 21 October 2010

On the verge of becoming a 'stay at home mother'

This is a big transition for me as I have worked for all my life so far. There was a time when I used to dread being at home full time. There wasn’t much to do around the house as it was just the two of us – me and my husband. My work was my outlet of meeting people, making friends, exchanging ideas and keeping in touch with the ever changing world around me.


Now I find myself looking forward to becoming a full time homemaker and mother. I would get a lot more time to spend with my daughter. She is almost two and a half and is a delightful child. I would be there with her watching her grow, watching her enjoy every moment, watching her go to school…

Would I be bored? I don’t think so. I also would get much more time to read, to embroider, to cook… so many possibilities, so many options.

Tuesday 21 September 2010

On-Road entertainment

When I bought a scooter I thought I was finally going to be independent. I loved the idea of riding to work all by myself. No more waiting for the husband to come and pick me up. No more being dependant on him to drop me to places. I do love the thought….still. However I am also waking up to the reality….or the other side of my rosy dream.


Facing the traffic on a scooter, keeping an eye on the traffic signals, trying to avoid other riders who cut lanes, turn corners or overtake without signaling, people who cross the roads fearlessly at any time regardless of the flow of traffic and expect the people who drive to wait on them…..Well, all this sounds amusing if you view it from the comforts of the car but if you are in this chaos, heaven help you!

If this isn’t enough entertainment, there is the municipal council providing you with extras. Roads dug up at the most inconvenient places and traffic diverted…or the traffic diverting itself to whatever road is available in whatever fashion every person prefers. So you have people switching lanes as they would stroll through a park, ignoring signals and giving a few other drivers a fright...and if all this still fails to amuse you, you have the occasional cows strolling or even parking themselves in the middle of the busy by lanes providing effective diversions.

Braving the traffic in the morning and in the evening is no mean task. Yet I find myself doing it every day for the past few days. Why? Is it because I lack entertainment in my life? I guess it is because; I too, like other people in that throng have to reach work on time! Sigh!

Wednesday 18 August 2010

An idle day

I was in bed with cold and a mild fever for a couple of days. Thankfully I had a book to keep me company…..sadly; the book I chose to keep me company didn’t really do the job. I have loved Angels and Demons and I loved the Da Vinci code. However The Lost symbol failed to grip my attention. Another secret society, another secret message that only Robert Langdon can solve and another chase and the Ancient mysteries are saved! Didn’t really do anything to cheer me up so I had to resort to my trusted Wodehouse to do the job. The biggest regret – I was home the entire day but I couldn’t stitch or embroider or quilt at all. I hope to remedy that situation this weekend.

Monday 14 June 2010

The view from my room...

Here's how the garden looks from my window.

And here's how my daughter looks standing on the windowsill.

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Shop-A-Thon

Women are shopaholics. Shopping is the best therapy to lift up a woman’s mood. Well, absolutely! My younger sister is getting married and we had an absolute blast shopping for her trousseau. A quick trip to Mumbai over a weekend was necessary in order to check out the saris at Nalli’s. The sweltering heat of Mumbai wasn’t going to deter a few determined women on a mission. So we went, six women of different ages and opinions, united in our goal of finding beautiful and ‘unique’ saris for a bride.


Nalli is famous for its typical south Indian designs and colours. We were pretty hopeful of getting a good hoard. If you know how the wedding fever works in India, you would know that shopping for saris is the most important part of any wedding. The colours, designs and every element of the saris have to be different and spectacular than any guest attending the wedding. 

So after a hearty lunch to sustain us through the rigorous task and depositing the kids with the respective husbands, we braved the scorching afternoon sun and got into a local train to Mahalaxmi and then into a taxi to Nalli’s. All the while were counting how many saris we could safely buy (apart from the trousseau). The husbands had sent us off with warnings about going overboard (not your wedding.....keep that in mind before ogling at any sari!).

Well, no matter how many saris one has, entering a sari shop is like entering into the land of magic.

All the colours, textures and designs begin to mesmerize you....clamouring for your attention and preference! We were lost in yards and yards of silk, confused when we couldn’t make up our minds and delighted when we found something beautiful.

All this is pretty entertaining and exhilarating......and extremely tiring. So at the end of four hours the result was ten saris, aching feet and tired minds. After a necessary snack break, we returned triumphant with our purchases.....though much to the dismay of our dear husbands, we weren’t through with the shopping list yet!!

Friday 30 April 2010

20 things to do before I die!

1. Raise a happy child.

2. Tell my husband how much I appreciate him.

3. Read all books by PG Wodehouse.

4. Get up with the dawn.

5. Make at least one spectacular quilt.

6. Make one good embroidery sampler.

7. Learn to bake.

8. Learn to dance.

9. Go on a trip alone.

10. Visit Egypt and spend time in the valley of Kings.

11. Visit Greece and the Vatican.

12. Trek in the rain.

13. An African safari.

14. Go backpacking in Indonesia and Bali.

15. Visit the origin of the Nile (if I could figure out a way to avoid the snakes and the insects).

16. Search and visit places from Rider Haggard’s books.

17. Go to Vienna.

18. See the midnight sun in Norway.

19. Visit Israel.

20. Stop being lazy if I intend to go through at least one fourth of my list :).

Sunday 4 April 2010

My ideal day off...

How would it feel to have no responsibilities? How would it feel to be able to speak exactly what comes to our minds? How would it feel to do just what we want to do? Instead of trying to please the family, spouse, kids, parents, how would it feel to please just you? What would you do if you get a day all for yourself? Read, cook, dance, go trekking, catch up with friends, go for a movie?

How about a solitary picnic by a brook or a stream? With a picnic basket? Some books to read. A couple of Jane Austens or PG Wodehouse. Even Lord of the Rings would do. A perfect setting to read something fantastic. To get lost in the romances of Emma or Lizzy Bennet and Mr. Darcy and living their predicaments…..admiring the restraint and patience of Mr. Knightley’s feelings while waiting for Emma to realize her love for him….These books have been read many times but still the romance that they evoke creates a new magic with every reading.

A nice nap in the afternoon by the tree on the soft grass….waking up to the silent shadows of the evenings….a nice hot cup of tea and I am ready to head home.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Reading along!

In school, english was the first language of instruction for me. I am glad it was so because it opened a door to the wonderland of the language for me. The english text books had chapters from classic novels which made us run to the library and read the novel to understand the references. I had teachers who were so passionate about the language that they considered it their duty to initiate all the kids that they could take hold of to the beauty and mystries of the language and its liturature.


We learnt Wordsworth and WH Davies and Shakespeare and Robert Frost. We learnt to appreciate the finer nuances of the language and it’s words. We read Jane Austen, Jerome K Jerome and many more such authors who not enhanced our vocabulary and nurtured a love for the language in us. We were encouraged to read…..not just the text books but all the books that we could catch hold of…..mostly classics. I am glad that we began the literary journey with the classics. Unlike the contemporary novels, these books instilled in us a sense of awe about the words, the style of writing and the grace of the language.

Though i cannot read as much as i like now, i still try to read atleast one book a month. Reading makes me feel good. It is one of the pleasures that i cannot forgo no matter how busy i am.

Wednesday 3 March 2010

A beautiful begining!

Have you had a day when everything just seems so bright? Have you had a day when everything looks gloomy? My bright days are always when I get up early. Since this is a rare occurrence it makes the day more special. The perfect day to get up early is Sunday. When the rest of the world is still sleeping, I get up to spend some time with myself. Sunday mornings always have a relaxing, calming effect on me. I can do whatever I want for a couple of hours before my husband and my daughter wake up. Every Sunday I wake up with a list of things to do in my head. A bunch of household chores, some extra cooking, some embroidery, catching up on some reading……..do nothing! That’s what I tend to do most of the times. I end up chucking the list of all the ideal things to do and end up with a book and a cup of tea by the window. For me, that’s the best beginning to any day.

Sunday 21 February 2010

A trip down the memory lane!

I spent this weekend at my mother’s place. While I am there, my mother always asks me to go through all the memorabilia that still resides in my old cupboard and discard unnecessary stuff. I like doing it because it always proves to be a wonderful trip down the memory lane. While clearing out old greeting cards, I came across a bundle of letters. It took me an entire afternoon to go through all the letters by my friends and cousins. Writing letters was a passion when we were in school and it was the most preferred mode of communication to keep our conversations away from the parents’ prying eyes.


Back then, we didn’t have access to emails or cell phones. The land line was mostly used for urgent communications and under parental supervision. So it wasn’t really a lucrative mode of communication. What do you do then when your friends and cousins are in different town and you wish to keep in touch? Write letters….of course.

Writing letters was one of the most joyful experiences of my adolescence. We wrote letters with a passion. We wrote regularly every week and we knew that the recipient will write back immediately. It took around 4 days for the letters to reach and another 4 days for the reply to come back. Waiting for the postman was a regular and integral part of my growing up. I knew when the postman would arrive and I made sure I was home by that time.

What did we write? Well, every little thing that happened in our lives. Tiffs with parents, our insecurities and our daily routines. We shared all our feelings and we were open about our emotions. We didn’t mind telling friends who were studying in other cities how much we missed them. We shared our daily routine, adventures, advice and even heartbreaks. There was a lot of simplicity in our lives then and a lot of time to think and reach out to others.

I am going to keep all these letters and maybe I will use that as an excuse to gather all the old friends around! We will have a good time refreshing old memories! :)

Tuesday 16 February 2010

A perfect day to muse upon!

It is a beautiful day today. Like one of the early summer days. A clear sky, pleasant sunshine and happy faces running around the roads to reach work on time. The winter is passing and the new sun and the new season is all set to warm our thoughts and hearts! What a lovely day to begin something new! A lovely day to be outdoors, to go wandering without a destination in mind, to be poetic and to woolgather. Days like today make me think of all those summer holidays that I have spent doing absolutely nothing and love every minute of it. Nostalgia hits me every now and then and then I wish to do things that I could I have done when I was young (not that I am old!)
I absolutely love to read and I absolutely love to embroider. These are the two hobbies that I cannot do without and I make sure to spend some time by myself every week doing just that. I created this blog to make it easy for me to follow all those wonderful blogs by people who embroider and quilt and create such beautiful pieces. I hope to do as much some day. So now whenever a beautiful day dawns, I will read and embroider to my heart’s content. Maybe make something interesting for my daughter who is yet too young to appreciate all this. I remember growing up with my mom stitching away something or the other constantly so I would love to see my daughter growing up with the same kind of memories that put a smile on my face even on a dull day!