Day for Daniel

Today is day for Daniel.

Child safety depends on each of you.

Today I want to talk about sibling abuse.

I grew up thinking that I am deaf and dumb and blind. Every time my sister and I had an argument, she would tell me ” You are deaf and dumb and blind” and those words used to make me so angry and sad. At that time I was already diagnosed to be partially deaf, I wore glasses and I failed most subjects unlike my sister who was the epitome of everything I wasn’t. But still,  I looked up to my sister for acceptance and instead she made me believe that I was a useless piece of shit.

My mother never once told my older sister off for calling me deaf and dumb and blind. I always felt betrayed by my mother’s action. She was supposed to have helped stopped the abuse. Instead she condoned my sister’s action by grinning and telling me ” You ignore her, she is just riling you up” But she wasn’t. My sister was deliberately hurting my feelings knowing very well that Amma was not going to do anything.

I grew up wanting to run away from my family. So many times as a child I packed my bag to run away. But I didn’t know where to go. My home was supposed to be my haven, yet all I wanted was to leave it. I think I must have had a guardian angel who taught me that all I needed was to survive another few more years and I can leave home and join a collage far away from home. I dread the thought as to where I would have ended up had I really run away.

Siblings will always have strife. But as a parent you have the power to stop emotional abuse by siblings.  If only my mother understood how much my sister’s actions hurt me.

Sibling abuse ( http://www.aaets.org/article214.htm)

 

Small things..

My friend ( ahem !) was home last weekend and I was getting annoyed with him for every little thing.

I am usually an easy person to get along with. Being a Piscean, I hate conflicts and usually avoids fights but not this time and I really don’t know why.

It started of with Ice cubes ! ( Imagine that )

My water cooler broke down few weeks ago and I haven’t had the time to go and buy a new one. ( I am also very stingy and am hoping by December, there might be some promotion..) Every night before going to bed, I fill the ice cube tray .. I thought I would make myself a smoothie in the morning and I opened the freezer and twisted the ice cube tray to collect the ice which I was sure would be ready because I filled the ice cube tray before I went to bed..only to find that my friend in his quest to help me had already re filled the ice cube tray with water in the morning.. and the water in the ice cube tray fell in to the ice that was in the bottom compartment..It was not something that is so disastrous.. Yet I was so angry and annoyed..

Then I went to water the plants. The night before, my friend had helped me water the plants and I found that he changed the hose setting. I use shower setting and he changed to jet..and I was mad..

I really am not sure what is getting me all riled up. Normally I would just ignore things like this..it  only takes a second to twist and change the hose setting from jet to shower. I suddenly find myself in a position that I don’t like any changes and don’t want to be helped if the help is coming with changes.

Either I am on my way to become a crabby annoying stubborn woman or.. actually there is no or. I think I am becoming a stubborn, crabby old woman.

 

Thank you

Thank you all for helping me to figure out what is Pachari..

From all your comments, this is what I understand.

1. Pachari ie the one I am familiar with..tiny grains of rice that is white in colour is only available in Kerala.

2. All grains except parboiled ie Kuthari is classified as pachari.

Now that we have sorted that.. What is Chakkari?

I grew up during IR8 nellu season. There were only four types of rice available then.

1. Mesha Ari = Basmati. ( Some of the old Kerala recipe books in English actually uses the term table rice for Basmati and I have always wanted to know, why basmati is called Mesha/table rice. If you know, please leave a comment.)

2.Kuthari = parboiled rice

3.Pachari = not parboiled rice

4. Chakkari ???????

I am away the next two days. Back on Wednesday.

Away

Back to Uni. I may not be able to blog till Wednesday.. Plenty of work to do.

I have a question that I hope one of you would be able to help me.

What exactly is pachari..  ?????? in English?

Amma used to make dosai batter with pachari. What I remember is that the grains were almost like glutinous rice colour..opaque white.

So is Pachari glutinous rice?

 

Happiness

I received two invitations yesterday to attend the award ceremony from my children’s high school. Both Yaya and Toothless have won the award for their respective grade.

It felt so good to open the invitation and to see my children’s name. This will be the last year the two of them would be receiving the award in the same venue, as my son is going to another school next year.

Obviously the first reaction for some of parents would be that I am a pushy mother and that is why my children get all the honours.

Am I a pushy mother?

Yes, I am.

I pushed beyond all obstacles to give my children my time. When every child was attending early learning activities, I stayed home with my children and we painted, read stories and played hide and seek. I pushed for a TV free childhood.

I pushed them to believe in themselves and taught them it is ok to fail and to learn from their mistakes. I taught them “no matter how many mistakes you make or how slow your progress is, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying”

I pushed them to believe that sky is the limit and the world is theirs to conquer.

I pushed them to believe that even if each of them are only one person, they still can change the world to make it a better place to live and that change starts with them.

I pushed them to remember always that there will always be someone more smarter than them and just as there will always be someone not as smart as them. I taught them not to  be judgemental.

Most importantly I pushed them to work hard, set their goals high and enjoy the challenges.. and that the journey of life is nothing but Zeno’s paradox.. each time you think you conquered something, you will learn that there are more to conquer..

I don’t have time to write about Zeno’s paradox. so I am copying what someone had already written. (http://platonicrealms.com/encyclopedia/Zenos-Paradox-of-the-Tortoise-and-Achilles)

The Tortoise challenged Achilles to a race, claiming that he would win as long as Achilles gave him a small head start. Achilles laughed at this, for of course he was a mighty warrior and swift of foot, whereas the Tortoise was heavy and slow.

“How big a head start do you need?” he asked the Tortoise with a smile.

“Ten meters,” the latter replied.

Achilles laughed louder than ever. “You will surely lose, my friend, in that case,” he told the Tortoise, “but let us race, if you wish it.”

“On the contrary,” said the Tortoise, “I will win, and I can prove it to you by a simple argument.”

“Go on then,” Achilles replied, with less confidence than he felt before. He knew he was the superior athlete, but he also knew the Tortoise had the sharper wits, and he had lost many a bewildering argument with him before this.

“Suppose,” began the Tortoise, “that you give me a 10-meter head start. Would you say that you could cover that 10 meters between us very quickly?”

“Very quickly,” Achilles affirmed.

“And in that time, how far should I have gone, do you think?”

“Perhaps a meter—no more,” said Achilles after a moment’s thought.

“Very well,” replied the Tortoise, “so now there is a meter between us. And you would catch up that distance very quickly?”

“Very quickly indeed!”

“And yet, in that time I shall have gone a little way farther, so that now you must catch that distance up, yes?”

“Ye-es,” said Achilles slowly.

“And while you are doing so, I shall have gone a little way farther, so that you must then catch up the new distance,” the Tortoise continued smoothly.

Achilles said nothing.

“And so you see, in each moment you must be catching up the distance between us, and yet I—at the same time—will be adding a new distance, however small, for you to catch up again.”

“Indeed, it must be so,” said Achilles wearily.

“And so you can never catch up,” the Tortoise concluded sympathetically.

“You are right, as always,” said Achilles sadly—and conceded the race.

 

 

Porn and you.

First of all, let me apologize for going AWOL. My server was down and I had to move the blog to another server, which took a lot of time. Thank you all for the concerned mails. I haven’t had a chance to reply to all the mails yet.

And today’s post is about Porn.

As a child growing up in India, I was really clueless about pornography. A lot of my classmates ( guys) went to Madras for a Sam Fox show and one of them told me, he only went because she had big boobs.  To me that sounded scandalous.. Until then I thought boobs were for breast feeding. There was also a small photo in the forensic medicine dept depicting group sex. Which none of the girls wanted to see. It was all too scandalous.

Sometime ago, I received an email from a reader who was asking me for help because she couldn’t talk to anyone else and didn’t know how to deal with the issue. Her husband thinks it was manly to slap her face, pull her hair etc during sex because that is what they do in most of the pornographic films and women in porn films love that. Much as she tried to explain to her husband that she doesn’t like to be slapped or want her hair to be pulled, he doesn’t get it and is angry with her because he thinks she is a typical ‘country’ Indian woman. I didn’t have any advice to give her. But I did think of my children.. I am sure they watch porn and in all likelihood they must be thinking that is real.. I have been wanting to tell them that porn is not real. Then I read this article and I thought I would share it here.

Although the article linked below is addressed to a son. I don’t think there ought to be a gender divide. I think every parent ought to talk to their children ( boys and girls) about porn.

Here it is

 

Safalyam

Though I studied in Malayalam medium, my vocabulary has diminished a great deal over the year because I don’t talk to anyone in Malayalam. However, there are some words that I can never forget.  Today’s word is safalyam. I don’t know the right word for it in English, but at the end of this post, I hope you will get it.

I grew up wanting a family where everyone loves and supports each other. Yet, here I am, 43 years old with a last will and testament that says if anything happens to me, my sisters shouldn’t be told about it and even if they came to know, they will not be allowed to attend my funeral. I walked away from my family and don’t want anything to do with any of my family members.

Yaya came back from Mexico day before yesterday with a severe jet lag and went to school yesterday morning without taking her gocard ( bus pass). They were already running late and she didn’t have enough time to come back home to get the gocard. Her brother gave her his gocard and told her, he will handle the bus driver’s wrath.

Although there is a policy that says “no child left behind”, that allows children without money/bus pass to travel on public transport without paying, the drivers are not very amenable to follow the law. It is not because the drivers are mean, it is because a lot of kids are deliberately exploiting the loophole to travel free. My son got in to the bus and apologized to the driver for forgetting his gocard and was promptly yelled at. He listened to the yelling and when the bus driver finished his rant, my son was given a warning not to do it again and was allowed to travel.

He gave his gocard to his sister because he knows she can’t handle the bus driver yelling at her. To be loved like that by your sibling is the biggest blessing life can give you..I wasn’t lucky, but my children are..that is my life’s safalyam

Changes

Couple of weeks ago, my son came with me to shop at Costco. I need his help to push the trolley.

When we were at the till, the check out chick was literally flirting with my son.

It started out with my son telling her “ola” ( He finds it really interesting to say Ola, instead of Hello to cute girls)

“Oh, you speak Spanish?” She asked him. Turns out she is from Peru.

She commented on his beautiful long eye lashes, his beautiful smile and what a wonderful son he is to accompany his mom and helping her when she does grocery shopping.

What I really wanted to do was to bop her on her head. This is my 14 year old son we are talking about here. He is MY baby..mine..

All that she said was true. He does have beautiful long eye lashes, he does have a beautiful smile and he always help me when I need help.

But, but, but.. so many buts were rolling out of my brain..

You see, we reached that cross road..me having to let him go.

I thought letting Yaya go was tough.. it turns out letting your son go is even more harder..

Say ” I love you”

This happened while Yaya and I were in India. We were waiting for my friend to fetch us  at the jewellery shop where Yaya had her nose pierced.

Yaya has zero pain tolerance and every time the guy came with the piercing gun she shrieked and jumped off the chair. Soon we amassed a decent amount of spectators. Eventually she calmed down ( after a lot of prep talk from your truly) and got the job done. As she had an episode of syncope ( fainting spell), I didn’t want her to get up right away. So I asked the shop attendant “is it ok, if we waited in the shop till my friend arrives?” And she said “ok”

Afs we were waiting, Yaya looked at me and said ” I love you Mom, thank you for being the best”

One of the spectator was a woman of my age and I noticed her looking at me with surprise when Yaya told me I love you. She then asked me “How do you get your daughter to say I love you?”

I told her ” it is very simple, I tell them I love you few times a day. Every morning before they leave for school, I tell them  Have a super day at school and I love you,  Every phone call ends with I love you. Every goodnight ends with I love you.

A ( mallu) friend who was born and raised in UK once told me that he asked his father ” Why you never once told me “I love you” like my friends parents?” And his father replied ” Our love is in our hearts, you can’t show what is in our heart” He told me that he grew up thinking his parents never loved him.

It really is not hard to say I love you to your children. Say I love you, because they need to hear it, not just feel it.