A ring of nostalgia

If and when I get to travel down memory lane, it is usually a few years down the past to before the kid, or before the kids, or at the most to, just before getting married.

Some more internal statistizing(?) shows, that your truly tends to go down 5-6 years down at most under normal circumstances and rarely past a decade when some deep emotional disturbance happens. Extreme elation or depression seem to open some strange doors in the brain which are otherwise collecting cobwebs and the rare flashback happens!

The fact that most of what we see in our daily life seems to dwell increasingly on the present, be it the blogosphere, SUN TV (old movies from our childhood are a rarity), the lack of other TV channels at home, books (Kite runner appealed so much, mainly because it brought back memories of the late seventies!) and things that connect to the past are few and far between are possible reasons.

Imagine my surprise then on watching this Tamizh movie at home called "Kannum Kannum", I find myself going down memory lane, not 5-6 years, not 10 years but a full 30! The movie was different, with good acting performances but ended up being too long. Would definitely recommend a watch with a nice DVD remote that can Fast forward with subtitles on and the sound still playing! What the movie lacked, it made up by connecting a few critical neurons in my head!

This family in the movie, was playing "ring ball" on a large terrace! Tell me people, when was the last time you played "ring ball" or "ring" or "ring toss", as we used to call it? A simple, almost solid white rubber toroid, light enough to be tossed around and caught, but heavy enough to hold traction with your fingers? The texture of a ball, the feel of a frizbee, a unisex sport for all family?

Drifted into the past effortlessly, after watching that scene. So many great memories of playing "ring" as a child with my brother, sister, aunts, kids we had hardly met in houses we rented. Even caught glimpses of the faces of some of those kids while dreaming with my eyes open.

Do they even sell these rings anymore? If they do, going to ask MIL to get one for the kids, (okay, okay, it is really for me!) when she comes back here.

Time to open up more doors inside my head and create some new ones inside the kids heads so they can dream a few decades from now!

"Ring" toss anyone?

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Tummy blues

Was waling out of the house in the morning last week, and saw this flower just about to release...


Somehow the word "bloom" doesn't fit this flower. It almost looks animal like, the way the thin film pulls back as the flower emerges leaving behind a shell like coating. Reminds you more of a chick coming out of an egg!

I wish to be this flower. That after all the much promised analysis!

Last week ended with me being very sick. So sick that the kids were alarmed at seeing me like that. I made the mistake of eating in a local Indian Restaurant (under new cook and new management.. more on that later!) and my system could not digest a simple Masala dosa from this place. The end result? I was like a steam engine with a serious clog!

My stomach had bloated to proportions that even I had not seen. Jr. came to me and said "Daddy, you look like a mommy, daddy! Like when they have big tummies and the baby is going to come out." That was funny and depressing at the same time. Funny because she was so innocent, depressing because I was in lot of pain.

Thanks to San's grandma, I was saved. On her last visit, she had sent us this special version of "Deepavali marundhu" which works on my insides much the same way Draino works on clogged plumbing. Took an overdose of the stuff and a few hours later, I was not looking like a mommy anymore.. not that there is anything wrong with that! On a side note, please remember, we are not talking about San's mom aka my MIL. We are talking about her Grandma who happens to be my MIL's MIL aka my GIL!

I have no clue what the ingredients are in this stuff she made. It seriously warrants a study by the likes of Pfizer, Merck, etc.. and needs to be mass manufactured and be made available to middle aged dudes like me!

On serious thought, I need to do some serious readjustments to my lifestyle..

Summary of a conversation with San on Sat:
1. Should start eating healthy again. Less oil. More greens. Less carbs. More protein. (whatever you can do, while still being veggie!)
2. Start exercising at least for 20 minutes a day
3. Get at least 6-7 hours sleep every day.
4. Meditate at least 15 minutes a day.

What actually happened on Sunday (it was cold, windy and lousy outside):
1.Told San that it was the perfect weather to make Bhajji (so I made some nice deep fried delicious potato bhajji's)
2. Too cold to go out and exercise!
3. Catching up with work for missing out on friday afternoon. No nap as planned.
4. Attempts to meditate were interrupted by my angels who were worried that daddy was going to sleep while sitting. They would effortlessly put Rambha, Urvasi and Menaka to shame. Viswamitra would not have had half the chance of finishing his penance, with Jr. and the little one around. They physically open your eyelids and stare inside!

Yes, it was 0/4, but tomorrow is another day, or so they tell me. Still dreaming of being that flower....

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Pondering.. Pondering... more Pondering..

Here is a hypothetical question.

Let's say you are a dude in his mid thirties, busy as a bee at work, busy as a bee at home, yet you are described by your wife as a "rubberband (elastic band)" and when asked to elaborate she says "you stretch to your limits and either implode or break!" and you have been

Pondering

Pondering and

more Pondering..

Is there any way out of this vicious cycle?
Maybe take a break and go to the himalayas and consult the wise sages?
Maybe join some club that does PAM (pot assisted meditation?) along the famous Yogi's of Beetle's days?
Maybe meditate in the living room?
Maybe just start exercising?
Maybe get some sleep?
Maybe see a shrink?

Now that is too many hypothetical questions and we all know that they are not hypothetical....

It is time for some rethinking on my side. I keep falling sick every three weeks simply because ........

I dont Know!

A thorough analysis will be done using Eastern medicine, Western medicine, the occult, the cult, theology, philosophy etc. and a report will be published in this blog.... soon... more like tomorrow!

Until then, ta ta!

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Wishing you were older..

Just to go to school...

Brought me so many memories of my brother when we were little!

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Aspirations?

A casual conversation with Jr.

Me : What do you want to become when you grow old?
Jr.: (puts finger on her chin and thinks...)
Me : It is okay. Take your time. Don't say something because it is the last thing you did or see. Think and tell me what you want to become (of course hoping all the time that she would say "want to be just like daddy, wear a smock and work in a fab"..)
Jr.: I am thinking.. don't rush me!!
Me : Okay. I will wait!
Jr.: (comes back to living room after 5 mins). Daddy... I know what I want to be when I grow up.
Me : What ? What? Come here, sit on my lap and tell me.. I am all ears.
Jr.: I want to be "pregnant"!
Me : (stunned silence) Why?
Jr.: So I can have a baby! like mommy..
Me : Takes a full two minutes to recover from the shock.. (clears throat and launches into a monologue). Kuttyma, you WILL be pregnant when you grow up. Every girl who managed to grew up, on your dad and moms side of the family, went on to become pregnant and have kids. So the probability of you getting pregnant and having babies is very high! But before that, you have to finish elementary school, then go to middle school, high school, then college, then go to work like mommy and THEN get pregnant!
Jr.: Okay daddy! But why should I go to work at IBM?
Me : (I never mentioned IBM in the monologue) Well, only if you work, you will have money and only if you have money, you can buy diapers for the baby! Otherwise she will poop all over you!
Jr.: (after some more thinking) Okay daddy!

There were two points on the monologue that struck me as odd.

The first one was that I was just trying to send the message to get an education first. The job is not a pre-requisite to getting pregnant (neither is an education for that matter!). It was more of an instinctive thing I said because of the percentage of working mothers in our families and to let her know that there has to be some economic security before having kids.

The second point was that there was no mention of men and the getting pregnant part etc. That was a godsend! Now, on the off chance that the @#%$#$$ that is eventually going to get married to my daughter and get her pregnant, eventually reading this post.....

a. "YOU" there, are a #@%$@$$ till you prove yourselves otherwise! Granted my daughter is only five at the time of writing this post, but what did you expect? I have fully morphed into a combination of my father and father-in-law! I am in short "just an ordinary daddy" by now, and it has only been five freaking years! God knows what I will morph into when I am fifty plus years old!

b. Chances of me arranging a wedding twenty years from now are slim. However you can redeem yourself when Jr. gives you a "good husband" certificate on her first Quarterly Marriage report.

As usual, I digress. The message to the dude is, well... "I have no say in what my daughter does when she grows up, but hopefully by the time you read this post, we would have raised her to be a responsible woman who knows how to make important decisions".. and of course "I will be watching you!"

Kids.... aaaaarrrrrghhhhhhh!

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