I’ve loved you all my life,

Loving you each day and night, each hour,

Each minute,each second

with every breath I take

Loving till I can be in your arms,

I know it is just a matter of time

We will be together one day.

So have I dreamed, though we have been apart

To my children

This is something I have been wanting to do for a very long time. After witnessing the most horrifying RTA in my life, I figured I might as well do this now.

This post is a work in progress and I will add more as and when I get time.As most of you know me and my wonderful kids, if there is anything you want to add, do leave a comment.

My darlings

As your mother, there are so much I want to tell you.

First of all let me begin by apologizing for leaving your father.

I come from a broken family and I know more than anyone how important it is for children to have a proper family. I wanted to give you an ideal family. A father and mother living together, weaving the magic of perfect family and raising wonderful kids together.
Believe me when I tell you that I tried. I really tried to give you a family and only quit when I could no longer cope.

However, I need you to understand two things.
one: It was never your fault. Whatever issues I had with your father was my own. It was never because of the three of you. NEVER.

Two: Your father and I wanted each of you very much. We waited anxiously for your arrival, we shared the joys and the heartaches. and I know your father will agree with me when I tell you that the three of you mean the world to both of us, even when we live apart. It is also true that the three of you will come first before anyone else in our life.

However, just because I didn’t get along well with your father doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t/wouldn’t.
He is your father and you will respect him. He is not perfect,but remember always that neither are you.

I have enjoyed every second of being your mother. The three of you are the best thing that ever happened to me.
I was never a perfect mother. I probably screwed up most of the time. But there are things I wanted you to learn and I am hoping that I taught you to

respect
believe in yourself
stand up for what you think is right
to say sorry when you are wrong
not to judge
to think outside the box
to look for the silver lining in every grey cloud
to lose gracefully
to win graciously

As you grow up, you will learn that life isn’t a bed of roses. ( remember, even the most prettiest roses have thorns).
You will also learn that sometimes you lose.
In every race, in every game there is only one winner. But it isn’t always the winning that matters. It is the game, the race, being part of it, that is what matters. It takes courage to participate, knowing that you only have 50 % chance to win.

Give it a go. be it love,be it the exams that you never studied for or the badminton game with your friend.Don’t be afraid to do something because you know you would lose.
It is ok to lose. You can always try again.

Fishing with a hat

Took the kids out for fishing.
Let me tell you how much of fun it is.

First of all.. I am extremely allergic to prawns and the only bait that I usually find at the bait shops is prawns.
I didn’t want to restrict something my children enjoy because it could potentially kill me. ( I know it really sound weird. But I am not deliberately taking a risk, I do have my epipen with me and my son does the baiting the hook part)

So as much as I enjoy fishing, I am also terrified of having a severe allergic reaction and dying!

Secondly, I must introduce a few of my personal stuff I cherish the most.
First in the list is My Harley Davidson hat. It is older than Yaya. It used to be dark blue at one time. Now after being washed so many times it is neither blue, nor grey. It is somewhere in between.But it is my favourite hat.

At the beach, We found a nice spot. I always make sure that there are people around when we go for fishing in the event I have a medical emergency. This time, we had a group of kite surfers in the beach. ( All handsome, I must add)
My children were were so excited to cast the line.
I knew I won’t be spared from the excitement and hence I didn’t bring a book to read with me.
I found a place to sit and just as my butt touched the earth, I heard
“Mama,we need your help”
From where I was, I could see that all three fishing lines got tangled!!

I got up and the wind knocked my Harley davidson hat off my head! I ran after my hat and I heard my son hollering
“Look, mama is running! This happens once in a life time!”
And sure enough all the handsome kite surfing dudes heard him and were laughing..

I thought of shoving my son in to the water.

I caught my run away hat before it got soaked in the sea spray and went to untangle the lines.
By then the fishing mission has progressed to ‘find the culprit’ mission.
Each blamed the other for getting all the lines tangled.
Ultimately the older two ganged up on the youngest.
Easy victim.
She, being the master in the art of survival, started to cry.
she knows very well that I fall for her tears any day..any time, hook, line and sinker.
“Don’t blame her” I said
“You always take her side” They said
“No, I don’t” I said
“yes, you do” They said.
It was not getting any better and my poor baby was bawling her eyes out.
so I said
“Ok, let us go back. enough of fishing”
“What?” They screamed in unison
“You are so mean, You are no fun” They started to blame me
“You want to fish?” I asked
“Duh” They replied
“Then don’t fight” I ordered
“But we didn’t fight. You started it” The child who was bawling up until that moment looked at me accusingly and said.
I looked at them incredulously.
How did I get sucked in to this and ended up being the culprit?
Then they started to laugh. They love it when their mother is speechless.

Eventually after getting their lines tangled a million times and fighting with the gulls that were stealing the bait, my son suggested
“let us do something” and they went over the rocks to search the rock pools for treasures.
My son dropped his hat in to the water accidentally and asked if he could borrow my hat.I being the ever generous mom let him have my hat, but with a warning, don’t lose my favourite hat.
“Trust me mom. I won’t lose your hat” He said.
10 minutes later the three of them ran to me screaming
“Mom see what we got”
I could see that the water was dripping from my Harley Davidson hat.
My son opened my precious hat to show me
a fish
a live, slimy smelly fish
in my hat!
I know Methran Thamby’s wife must have rolled on the floors of heaven and laughed. After all, her grand daughter once caught ooppa meen with the towel!!

Ah, the joy of fishing!

If you have a company and does web page designing, can you send me a quotation please.

The website already exists.
They just want to revamp the whole site and make it user friendly.They are not bothered about SEO. All they want is to make it look nicer, add more features etc.
You need to mention all your costs.
I know it is a very short notice
I need the quotation by monday evening.
Thanks

Aimless travel..

Today T S Eliot is keeping me company.

Mélange Adultère de Tout

EN Amerique, professeur;
En Angleterre, journaliste;
C’est à grands pas et en sueur
Que vous suivrez à peine ma piste.
En Yorkshire, conférencier;
A Londres, un peu banquier,
Vous me paierez bein la tête.
C’est à Paris que je me coiffe
Casque noir de jemenfoutiste.
En Allemagne, philosophe
Surexcité par Emporheben
Au grand air de Bergsteigleben;
J’erre toujours de-ci de-là
A divers coups de tra là là
De Damas jusqu’à Omaha.
Je célébrai mon jour de fête
Dans une oasis d’Afrique
Vetu d’une peau de girafe.

On montrera mon cénotaphe
Aux côtes brulantes de Mozambique.

and in english

A Corrupt Mixture of Everything

In America, a teacher;

In England, journalist;

You’ll have to get a move on and sweat

To follow my tracks.

In Yorkshire, lecturer;

In London a bit of a banker;

You’ll have trouble putting me down.

In Paris I wear

A don’t-give-a-damn black cap.

In Germany I am a philosopher,

Very excited by the love

Of mountaineering;

I continually wander about,

With many expressions of pleasure,

From Damascus to Omaha.

I celebrated my birthday

In an African oasis,

Clad in giraffe skin.

They will display my cenotaph

On the burning shores of Mozambique.
(Source:penguin books)

I have always thought this poem describes me as I am..
No roots
No foundation
No links
No past
No future
Just the present..aimless travel

Help PLEASE

This is what I need to figure out and it is pretty simple, for the love of macaroni I can’t get it right.

5 students
each students works only two days a week for 2 hours each day
Each student sees 4 patients each day.
Each student needs 2 hours supervision each day.
cost of supervision is $200/hr

All I need to find out how many total hours of supervision I need to pay..
and the cost per consultation by working out total number of patients seen and the cost of supervision

and I am sure it is pretty simple.
Can someone help me please ( and of course I did medicine because I hated Maths and look where I ended up)
And yes it is obvious that I have absolutely no maths brain cells in my skull!

Idli rava

Quick question
1. what is idli rava? How is it different from normal semolina?
2. How do you use it to make idli?
3. proportion of rava and urad dhal
4. Can I use urad dhal flour instead of urad dhal and mix the idli rava and the urad dhal flour, keep it over night to ferment?
Would appreciate it much if anyone can help me.

Now here is the idli love story.
My Amma’s idlis could be used to teach the aerodynamics of parakkum thalika . They were so hard that we begged her not to make them, but the fact that one pressure cooker and one idli thattu equals one breakfast for entire family ensured that Amma loved to make idli.. So all through childhood I was never fond of eating idli.
At the medical college hostel mess they served rava idli and I preferred to eat the vada!!
Then when I was expecting Yaya, all I wanted was to eat Idli..and I was willing to travel all the way to Puchong from Ampang to eat idli. The same story was repeated with the other two..and funnily enough..all three of my kids still ask for idli and coconut chutney..and their mother loves masala dosai..any day, any time..

Segregation was part of my growing up. Akkachi had her own plate and cup and she had a special place to keep them. She was not allowed to use the family dish rack. It was the same with clothes. Akkachi had to wash her clothes separately.

In Chengannur house the workers never came in through the front door. They walked to the back of the house and stood a few steps away from the door. I was not supposed to play with the children of farm workers. There were so many rules that ensured that we could enforce the upper class ideologies without much struggle.

Yet, within the family and friendship circle, we shared clothes, shoes etc and had no problems when our friends came home and ate food from our plates! Chechy had to wear my aunt’s clothes and I had to wear my aunt’s and chechy’s old clothes and my sisters..yup you guessed it right.

As an adult you try to do the right thing and for me one of it was to accept that my Amah is part of my family and she used the plates and cups we used. I must say that it was not a decision I could make easily. I had to convince myself that if I could eat at a restaurant where the same plate was used 100’s of times and I am relying on the cleanliness of the dish washer to ensure that my plate is clean! then my Amah could use the plates in my own home.
But using the washing machine..that was a different issue. It wasn’t that the Amah had cooties..and I knew my scrubs in the hospital was washed centrally along with everyone else’s. But I just couldn’t bring myself to allow my Amah to wash her clothes along with ours.
Then I went for two weeks holidays and stayed with a friend. I had gone out to do some errands and when I came back, my friend had left a note telling me that she did the laundry and had put the clothes in the dryer and asked if I could take them out when I am back. I opened the dryer to find my clothes and her clothes and her boyfriend’s clothes in the dryer!
I took my clothes out and washed it again., and was so worked up that she would come in any time and I will have to explain why I am washing my clothes again.

I thought about my idiosyncrasies..Most of my work clothes were send for dry cleaning. My scrubs were washed at the hospital. So why am I getting worked up when it comes to washing my clothes? Reluctantly I accepted that there was no point in separating clothes!

Itchy feet

Nope, I don’t have fungal infection.
I am dying to travel.
Kids have school hols from tomorrow
and I am so miserable.
I want to go some where..any where..
It is so frustrating..

Life was pretty simple until now.
Now, everything revolves around my work and my children’s school. I was offered a damn good job in longreach. ( and incredible perks!!) I couldn’t take it because there is no good school there and Yaya wants to complete her Spanish Immersion.(2 more years)and then she wants to move to US and live with her grandmother.

In 2 years my son will be in high school!

in 4 years my baby will be in high school.. ( now that is scary..I can kind of accept the older two growing up..but it is so hard when your youngest actually grows up..)

so technically I am stuck. I won’t be able to travel like I did all these years and that is making me pretty sad..melancholic..upset..( ok, I am out of words)

I will now have to think about buying a house..which terrifies me..cause it will be the Albatross on my neck.. financial management is my forte and I, more than anyone knows paying rent is throwing money down the drain..but the freedom of being able to leave everything with one month notice..there was nothing that can compare to that. (besides I still have my condo in KL.)

And finally, though crabby as I might sound, I am actually ecstatic..Today, I used my salary packaging to book my dream car !!!
and no it isn’t Tesla (How I wish)..
but still..it was always always always my dream car..even before Tesla was invented..