Who said life is simple??

I think its time I convinced myself that I’m not needed everywhere and that what I have been doing has been ok…and that life gets by …no matter how hard I try…it’ll still remain the same.

If I have to look at life’s gifts to me…I’d consider my sons the best ones amongst them. They just make my life so simple….just a plain circus. Isn’t that simple enough…

Well consider this.

My older is a stickler for details and ….
His books are always so neat, I wonder if he even opens them to use it.

The younger :
I remember wrapping the books in brown regulation school sheets….clean, neat and light brown. 2 months down the academic year…I can’t see the brown…its just plain black and ..I insist he’s a dirty kid, but he insists he had nothing to do with it…

And they both go to the same school??!!!!

Older: Its been 3 years since I gave him pencils and erasers…each exam I ask him to take a new pencil and eraser, but his is still brand new. (He was a lil upset that his teacher had borrowed his eraser and taken off the plastic wrap around it…hmppfff so much for cleanliness..!!

Younger. I’ve raided Metro , the wholesale place…but I’m always running short of stationary…what does he do with them???? 3 erasers and all gone in one day?? Don’t even ask about his pencils…he’s sharpening them so often, I don’t think he even writes in them at times.

Storage better get better in days to come…
Older: His things are always in its own place. He’s a very outdoorsy kind of boy, but his stuff always gets back to the same place…and they are looked after too…sometimes to the point of my frustration…

Younger : He is an organizer too…his things just organize themselves into bad, sandy and broken. And trying to ape his elder brother , he borrows all my boxes from the kitchen…sometimes…even the expensive Tupperware ones…to keep his stuff. After a few days…I find all his things in one jumble in one huge bag…Where did all the boxes go?? Search me??!!!!


I’ve tried to maintain a little bit of tradition in my family. Love celebrating festivals and following customs. Its fun if one were to look at the brighter spot.

We lived our childhood celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi, Ramnavami, etc, community style…and they have taught me huge lessons in bonding and teamwork.

This Janmashtami, as is tradition, I made all the sweets( some I bought of course) and true to our custom, while offering naivedya ( offering to the Lord) I kept a small bit of buuter on the Lords’ idol. Bang on!! Came the first question…

Younger : Will Krishna eat it?

Older: So dumb!! As if he can..

Father : Of course, if you really pray hard for him to, maybe he will..with a wink .

Me: silence…

Next morning..the blob of butter as expected still remains in its original spot.

Younger…He didn’t eat?

Me : Maybe he was full with so many sweets..

Older: Hmpff…so dumb!!

Younger : ( after some thinking) How can he, Ma…he’s playing the flute, how can he eat and play at the same time …!!!

Time for me to change the idol I think…next time, I’ll look for one laidback Krishna maybe….eating butter ????

I am now convinced that whoever said that as they grow, their vocabulary increases, just don't pay attention. But I can show them its not how it is…it just gets down to simpler words, and then by the time they marry it gets to become monosyllables…and we still wonder why our husbands don’t answer with anything more than Haan!, yes! OK, maybe….?!!!!

But life is one big gift, like I said…and I’m sure a few years down the line when they are away from us…I’ll be grasping at these memories and all they would do is make me smile..

Sisters in arms!

Siblings anyone??

As kids, we used to draw this imaginary line on our beds, to distinguish my place from hers. And god forbid if we stepped over the lakshman rekha in our sleep. Now when I look back it sounds and feels so silly..., but it brings me good memories, none that gives me a reason why we did it, back then.

We had fights over who got the better piece of the honey cake, or even better, the bigger piece always felt as if it was sliding towards her, and just ditched me:( It was never true, now I know) . After having 2 kids now, I know a mother will never do that to her kids...not because she wants to be fair, but because she wont be able to handle the fights that follow...

Everytime I went away on some camp or the other, I could sense the glow in her smile and knew she was happy or rather terribly glad to see my back fade into the rickshaw that would take me away to the station or wherever....

Early mornings before we both left to college, I remember those times, when the neatly ironed clothes in my wardrobe would suddenly make space on her petite body.

Sharing a room with her, was like living in a bombed out room....her table always had something or the other defeating all rational reasoning of balance and proportions....while I would get a disease if things went haywire on mine...

Now years later, and many grown up experiences and cities apart

I crave for that Lakshman Rekha, which i'd gladly cross, even if it meant to cross her...it never happens....the bed is always usurped by the 2 brats of mine who both want her on their side

Now a piece of cake never sits on her ever dieting palette...so I get to eat the big and small of it...and when she makes such huge efforts to bring me the same...I can't hold back my tears

Now when we see the backs of each other...even if it was after just meeting for half an hour after months and years, we, turn back again and again, just to get that one last glimpse of her oh so smiling face

And when she gifts me clothes and stuff, I can't but help think back to those times, when I would wish that she never would see clothes...

And years down, she tells me that I need to get my life back in action and organise my haphazard plans...

Sisters will always remain sisters....Feel like wringing their neck at times, but when you miss them , so bad, all you want is for life to turn back and give you those small moments to cherish and smile...And then one day pray that they get the best out of life and not you.