Ten reasons why I love you and why you’re a great mom.

1. You cook amazing food and still make school lunches for me.

2.You let me do crazy things like dye my hair red, get my ears pierced twice and go to concerts.

3. I can talk to you about anything, from politics to boys just like a friend.

4. You may be a friend but you’re also my mother and you take good care of me and make sure I’m safe. You look out for me.

5. You always give me what I want even if I don’t ask for it or deserve it, especially when it comes to money.

6. You taught me how to aim high, to be determined and work for what I want.

7. You’re crazy like me and do wacky things like drive two hours to get ice cream or fish and chips

8. You support me through hard times like exam week and encourage me, telling me that I SHOULD leave it till the last minute, that I most definitely have time to go shopping.

9. You never fail to tease me which keeps my ego from getting too big.

9.5. You let me listen to my ‘bad’ music in the car ( sometimes)

10. You can always make me smile even when I don’t want to.

Thanks for being an amazing mother.

Yaya

I waited eagerly for this song to be released and my children have threatened to disown me if I play it one more time.

My son and I are practicing atheists. We believe in being responsible for our own actions and do not think some heavenly body is responsible for our happiness.

Yaya is agnostic, according to her, “I am not saying there is no God and I am not saying there is God” She thinks religion was invented by mankind to blame someone for the miseries, because no one needs a God when things are going well. Her extended essay ( ee) for IB is looking at the fall of Roman empire and rise of Christianity.

My youngest is religious. She truly believes in ‘Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners’. She attends the religious class at school and argues passionately about Jesus and all he did for mankind.

Dinner time is really fun on Fridays. My youngest has religious lessons on that day and eagerly waits to tell us the ‘true facts’ about Christianity.

I believe in live and let live and that  my children have a right to follow whatever religion they want to. But I can clearly see how the Christian Ministers are working hard to brainwash little children like mine and terrifying them about sin and salvation. I really want to sit down with my child and tell her she got it all wrong and explain to her that religion is the real cause of all human miseries. But I didn’t do that with my son or Yaya. They chose their own path.

Sometimes it is really hard to live and let live..

He is my friend’s second child. My friend and her husband are Ivy league  graduates. Their oldest child is exceptionally brilliant and I know for sure will get admission in one of the Ivy league college.

But the boy is different. He has severe learning disabilities. But what I found absolutely interesting is the way his parents raise him. They raise him exactly  like they raise their oldest child, as normal.

I hired both kids to work as waiters for the party. The boy was in charge of making fruit punch and serving it. I expected the mother to stand next to him and guide him. She didn’t. She trusted him enough to be able to handle his chore all by himself. He did a brilliant job.

His parents know that academically he is not going to get in to an Ivy League. But that didn’t stop them from treating him as a normal human being.

How often we push children who struggle academically because their failure is considered a failure of the parents not doing enough? Wouldn’t it be better to raise your child by encouraging their strengths and accepting their weakness?

After 24 years, I wore the saree that has been with me everywhere I go. I am absolutely certain that I am imagining it, but the saree still has a faint smell of Kouros.

I don’t remember the name of the shop where I bought the saree from, it was very close to Majestic bus station in Bangalore and had marble steps in front. It was the first time we went for shopping together. Two strong willed people coming to an agreement took a long time. I like green colour and only wanted a green colour saree. He liked blue. I also do not like to wear prinited sarees, I prefer plain sarees with a border ( binny silk style). I ended up buying a peacock blue plain silk saree with a silver zari border. I can still see the grin on his face as we left the shop because he got me to buy the blue colour saree and I threatened him and said ” if you don’t stop grinning, I will wear a green colour blouse with the saree” and for which he replied ” you should, you will look like a lovely peacock”

I think that was what I loved the most about Beautiful eyes. He always had an answer that makes you laugh so much.

The trouble is, I am left living with a void that I have tried so hard to fill and sometimes it is just so hard. Sometimes I think how lucky I had been to have known such love, but most days I think how dare he left me alone to grieve like this

It all happened during a drunken night of madness. Few of us were celebrating the end of summer and someone asked What are we going to do about K’s 40th birthday party.? I am a bit sketchy about what happened after that. It turns out that I offered to host the party and we agreed it is going to be a Bollywood theme party.

Hosting a party is no big deal for me, I have always done it. But this one is going to be the most difficult one I have ever hosted. First of all everyone thinks, being of Indian origin, I should be the best to host a Bollywood theme party.

They don’t know that I am a typical oreo..black outside and white inside.

I own one saree, bought 24 years ago. I wore it when we had a party to celebrate end of first year MBBS. I have no Indian jewellery to match with the saree, let alone safety pins to hold it all together.. I am really ashamed to be an Indian, especially because even my friends who have never been to India and have no Indian blood running through their veins has better sarees than I do.  It is really sad that the only Indian among the 40 coming for the party will be the worst dressed 🙁

I have not listened to any Hindi songs since leaving India and I still haven’t got the music sorted.

I still don’t know what to do with decorations. I would have loved to have diyas. But the deck is timber and the nearest  fire station is 20 km away.

I bought colourful muffin cups and am planning to fill it with a mix of murukku and banana chips  and serve as nibbles.

Main course, , I am cooking  nadan erachi curry, butter chicken, gujju style dhal,paneer butter masala, boondi raita, naan and neychoru..

My friend is baking an enormous pink elephant cake ( heffalump)

My children don’t help me with house work. Sometimes when I am tired, I get really annoyed with my children that they don’t help me at all with house work

Yaya told me once when I complained bitterly how mean she is because she doesn’t lift her little finger to do any house work  “Mom, you chose to have us, all these chores are your responsibilities, not mine”.

She was absolutely right and so I continue to do all the work by myself. ( My son does help me with mowing the lawn and Yaya always put the groceries away, but that is all they do)

Last weekend we went to Coffs harbour. Because of my exams, we didn’t go to the beach during summer holidays and I really wanted to go camping and spend time with the kids.

We always make it a point to go to Muttonbird national park and as usual, I was busy vayum nokkifying.. My youngest is a dare devil and she ran ahead. Yaya hates walking.. in fact when we were doing  bush walk, yaya was whining so much that a stranger asked her ” Do you want some cheese with that W(h)ine?”  After2 minutes of walk, Yaya complained that she thinks she is suffering from Altitude sickness.. needless to say, it took a long time for the mother and her forever complaining  child to reach the top of the hill.

This is what I saw.

There stands my son next to his dare devil sister watching over her..it is a 30 foot drop to the ocean from there… My son suffers from severe Osgood Shlatters disease ( growing pain with.knee swelling) and he really would have struggled climbing down the rocks to get to his sister.

When she went too close to the edge I heard him tell her ” Baby, get down” and she listened to her brother.

I guess, I should stop complaining that my children don’t do anything at home. It is not doing the chores that matter.. it is being there for each other that matters the most.