I was 16, when I listened to Bruce Springsteen’s My hometown song for the first time. I was studying for the MBBS entrance exams and was already planning to screw up the Kerala state entrance exam, so I won’t get admission to do Medicine in Kerala. I wanted to escape from Kerala and eventually India. It was not luxuries or comfort that I was after, but my freedom. I couldn’t live with the cultural taboos that forced me to conform to rules that I didn’t agree to. I felt Mallus (and Indians) are hypocrites. I was not willing to change, so I could conform to the expectations of others. Leaving was the only option I had.  I am still a Malayalee, that will not change, but I live following my heart, chasing my dreams and am happy because I am in control of my destiny, not the society that I live in.

And now I call Australia home…

This is my home in Australia.

The lounge is extremely small and when I bought the house, I was planning to knock off the wall that separates the lounge from the kitchen and build a small kitchen at the far end. I wanted an open plan home and my idea would have been brilliant if I could do such a simple job. Unfortunately, It turns out that there is a cross beam support in the wall there and it will involve a lot more work to create a new load bearing support, ( not to mention the permission from council)

When I have a large number of friends over ( which is very often), I host garden parties because there is no place for everyone to sit in the lounge room…The house is small..but the heart is big and I am happy..

Yaya’s best friend is going to New York to meet her boyfriend during the Summer holidays. ( I am not sure who is footing her airfare , if it was Yaya, I would have told her to get a job, earn the money and pay the fare herself, But that is beside the point).

When Yaya told me about her friend’s impending trip to NY, I told her, I can’t wait for the day she brings a boy home to introduce us to him. For which my son replied ” Yaya when you do bring a boy home, please inform him in advance that he needs to pass my ‘tests’, then mom’s , then Met’s, only then he will be allowed to be a part of our family, and make sure he knows that if he treats you badly, then he will have to deal with me”

( All my life, I wanted a big brother who would have protected me and I was so pleased to hear my son say that to his big  sister)

But what Yaya said was what surprised me the most. “Mom, I don’t believe in teenage romance, right now I want to concentrate on my studies, I don’t want to rush in to a relationship now.”

When I was a teenager, I was desperate to fall in love. When a guy showed some interest in me, it felt like I was on cloud 9. I wanted to fall in love with  the one who would save me from my family, the one who would love me for who I am and cherish me for what I am.  Not once I thought of the implications. Sure, I wanted to study and get a degree. But that wasn’t my priority. My priority was finding love.. it didn’t matter where love was, I was going to find it at any cost. My desperation was directly related to my mother’s actions.

I read somewhere that “experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you”. My life with my mother was a nightmare, but those experiences taught me to be a better mother and my children has benefitted from my painful experiences. I will always bear the scars, but not my children.

Away until Monday

It is so good to have the blog back online. ( Server migration caused the site to be offline)

A lot has happened in the last 4 days. I am 4 more days older and wiser ! Which is a good thing I hear you say.

I have my Chinese side of the family coming for a visit in a few days, My house is a total wreck. None of my kids want to give up their room for the visitors. I  can’t blame them because I don’t like anyone else sleeping on my bed.

I must tell you how hilarious it was, when I went  to buy a mattress few months ago. Growing up I slept on the mattress my grandmother( maternal) made for my mother ( paruthi panji ) as part of her bridal trousseau. Then we upgraded to foam mattress my father bought from mid east. At one stage I slept on a bed made from stacking 5 foam mattresses and spend a lot of time pretending I was the princess ( as in the princess and the pea story). In the medical college, I broke Amma’s heart by cutting one of the foam mattress to fit my hostel bed and Amma used the left over foam to make a cushion. ( The long strip of foam was rolled in to a pinwheel shape)

When I went back to Malaysia, I had no money to buy a mattress, so slept on my Razai  for the first few months and then bought a Dunlop mattress ( no bed still). It took a few more months before I bought a bed. In England I bought my first futon because I was staying in a bedsit and there was no space to put a proper mattress, besides it was the cheapest option, couch and bed in one.. The love for futon stayed all through till a few months ago. I was laying down on my cotton filled, comfy low bed and thought of all the things I had dreamed of wanting and it occurred to me that I had always wanted a four poster bed. By now, it is pretty obvious that I am a mad woman and needless to say, I decided to buy a four poster bed. Happily I fixed the bed after it was delivered. My idea was to continue use the futon mattress, only thing was, the mattress was a foot short on all sides. I wish I could describe the look on my children’s face. I had no choice, but to go and buy a new mattress. .

The sales rep at the furniture showroom asked me to lay down on the display mattress and see what kind of a mattress I would like. There were at least 20 different mattresses, all had a panel of washable fabric at the foot side, so your shoes won’t dirty the mattress, but no other covering/sheet. I could see all sorts of people laying down on those mattress to check, which one they like. I couldn’t bring myself to do that.  ( This is the same me, who travelled all over India in reserved and often unreserved train compartments and slept on those hard railway seats without any complain )

The sales guy tried his level best to convince me that the only way I could find my perfect mattress is by laying down on it.. but alas no luck. I needed a mattress, he needed the commission, but there was no way he could sell me one, if I don’t know what I wanted. I found the solution to my dilemma. If in doubt, always remember, eenie, meenie minie mo works.. I did just that. I have no idea what type/specs of mattress I bought, neither do I care.  As far as I am concerned, If I am going to count the sheep all night, the mattress isn’t going to make a difference..

Oh yeah, I was telling you about my family coming over for a visit. The good hostess in me wants to make my visitors comfortable when they come to my home, but the OCD sufferer doesn’t want to share her bed. And the house is a wreck because I am trying to rearrange the furniture in the living room and the TV room to make some space.. Did I tell you that my house is very small and built up area is only 210 sq meters?

PS: It looks like my OCD is increasing as I grow older..so the first part of the blog should actually be read as older and stupid..

It looks like I lost the last post titled The contrast, I think it wasn’t saved when the server was changed..Anyone knows if there is a way I could retrieve it?

I am not a violent person, but I wanted to give ‘her’ a tight slap yesterday. I attended a get together at a very dear friend’s home yesterday. All of us have children of the same age and our children are good friends. All the girls decided to watch a movie and the all the boys chose to play xbox games. My friend being the sweetest person that she is, made popcorn and drinks ( mocktails) for the girls  as a treat. I helped her to carry the drinks and as we entered the media room, her daughter asked her very rudely ” What do you want mom?”. She saw the popcorn in her mother’s hand and said ” You can leave the popcorn on the table ” and when the mother did that, the daughter very rudely told the mother ” You can go now”. I wanted to give her a tight slap. There is no excuse for rudeness.

A senior of mine hated her father visiting her at the college. Her dad was a typical small time farmer, who chewed pan, talked loudly and preferred to sit down on the floor. When we returned from our morning rounds, you would see him sitting on the floor in front of the hostel, happily chewing and spitting the pan everywhere. I guess she felt her dad wasn’t up to the standard of everyone else’s dad and always scolded him for coming to visit her. Even after she scolded him, he still came the very next month to see her. I used to feel so sorry for that man.

But my friend was an assistant District Attorney before moving to Australia. It is not that she is uneducated and not up to the standard in comparison to other mothers. I think, if Yaya talked to me like that, I would have given her a piece of my mind right then and there.  I am a nice, kind, gentle whatever mother, but I will not tolerate disrespect.

We didn’t have any pets when we were growing up. My cousin who was the same age as me had a collection of love birds, pigeons etc and he was always bragging about his birds. All I ever wanted when I was young was a pair of love birds. After so much whinging, whining and pleading my mother finally relented. Those from Kottayam would remember the row of pet shops in what is now the new bus stand on 70 feet road ( Shastri road) There used to be shops selling  birds and fish and I used to visit those shops each day after school on my way back home. Amma only had one condition, that I would have a hair cut. Not an ordinary hair cut, she wanted to take me to the Deluxe hair salon ( men’s only) where they had a razor that could cut my hair really really short. ( My mother had the theory that it was my hair that made me sick all the time). I remember pleading with the barber, please don’t cut my hair really short and I can still see my mother and the barber giving the signs to each other, thinking that I am an idiot and I can’t see their action in the mirror in front of me. After the barber “motta adikkufy” my hair, as we walked home and I thought we were going to stop in front of the pet shops, my mother very kindly told me ” you know what, we should ask Appa ( who was working in middle east at that time) for his permission, before we make a decision to buy the love birds” I knew then that my mother’s words are never to be trusted again. For weeks, I endured the mocking of every Tom Dick and Harry about my lack of hair and didn’t even have the birds I so much wanted to comfort my broken heart..

My grandmother had guard dogs at home, that were chained and kept behind closed door in the shed during the day and were only handled by her and released at night. The dogs were trained to bite and I was terrified of them. ( My mother once mentioned that Ammachi used to feed the dogs opium to make them ferocious. I am not sure how that worked or what exactly she gave the dogs)

I don’t like dogs and I have never felt the need to pet one. It is the same with cats. ( I am also allergic to cats). My children really want a pet and I refuse to have one. They have promised to feed and take care of the pets, like they said when we got the chooks. Their interests lasted 6 months and It is me who take care of the chooks now. I only have limited free time in a day and I refuse to spend my free time to walk the dog and take care of it. Then there is the financial aspects, vets are not cheap and I read some where that having a pet is like having another child. I only earn “x” amount of money and I have to educate my children, want to travel and don’t want to be a financial burden to my children when I am old. So pets are not something I want to invest my time or my money in to.. I told the kids, one day they will leave home and have a home of their own. They can have all the pets they wanted then.

Ps. We did have budgies when we were in Canada. After living in a Condo and having all the luxuries life could offer and then moving to a two bedroom basement suite with nothing, it was a drastic change for my kids and I got the budgies for them, so they had something they didn’t have before.

Away until Monday.

Probably the one thing I believed in. that would be my saviour through each and every abuse I endured was that, One day I could leave home and go to a place far  away from all the madness.

A degree and a job was all I needed to leave home, both I knew I could achieve and I couldn’t wait to grow up.

When I was in 3rd Year MBBS, Amma received a marriage proposal for me. The boy was a dentist working in Australia. Amma consulted with George and replied ” We can’t send our girl that far away to Australia, besides it doesn’t look nice a doctor girl marrying a dentist boy”. It was funny that the proposal was for me and no one bothered to ask me for my opinion.

I bought the books for USMLE the day Amma rejected the proposal. I was studying pathology in 3rd year and my first USMLE book was on Pathology. It costs me 230 RS. I can still see the yellowish orange book cover and what it represented,  My freedom. My classmates thought I was showing off, they had no idea that it was my ticket to heaven.

When I was 5, I imagined when I grow up, I will have a cellar filled to the brim with chocolates, cakes and candies. ( Hansel and Gretel must have been the inspiration). but from the time I became a teenager , I only dreamt of one thing. I was going to have a home with a loving husband and lots and lots of children. A house full of children and I will give them all the love that I was denied.

So it was a big shock while we were having dinner and Yaya said ” I can’t wait to grow up”

I think my heart actually missed a beat when I heard her say that. I wondered if I turned out to be like my mom and my precious baby girl too wants to run away from home, like I did.

“To do what?” I asked.

” I want to travel and visit all the places , Mom”

“But, I do take you to all the places”  ( I didn’t deprive them of travelling, they have been to so many countries compared to kids of their own age)

“No Mom, it is not about travelling as a family, I want to travel on my own, explore the countries like Ireland, Iceland etc  and learn their myths and history”

Hearing her sister’s dreams, the youngest too said ” I can’t wait to grow up, then I can live in my own home and have all the pets I ever dreamed of having.” ( I will blog about that tomorrow).

My son was quiet during all these growing up discussion. So I asked him ” What about you?”

“Nope, I don’t want to grow up, then I don’t have to make decisions or take  responsibilities. I am pretty content to go on like this for a while at least”

I took a deep breath and said to myself “All is well”

It all started with a phone call to the local council. The neighbour behind my house, whom I have never met (as the entrance to his property is from the main road) decided to be a bit cheeky and dumped all the garden waste on my property. I called the council on Friday afternoon and on Saturday morning, someone from the council came to inspect the illegal dumping.

I admit, this guy from the council is drop dead handsome with Azure blue eyes and he started to hit on me from the moment I opened the door. All he had to do was the inspect the green waste, accept that it isn’t mine ( it was mostly palm fronds and I don’t have any palm trees, whereas my neighbour has plenty of palm trees in his property), talk to the neighbour and get him to clear the mess or issue a fine.

He spend an hour, all the while giving me subtle and not so subtle hints about his interest in me.

When I was young, when a guy showed interest in me, it was exciting.. Handsome guy had a potential..( I am sure the previous statement is going to be considered very scandalous 🙂  but I am sure, most women out there would have felt the same way)

I think I  can officially be considered “old” for all I felt with this unwanted attention was absolute annoyance.

If my mother was here, you would have heard her say ” thumpineyum kondu kallu eduppikkuva”  ( there is no direct translation, loosely translated it means that it is a sin to make little children to do some work, when their body is so tiny)

I function better when I follow my routine. I am so used to packing kids’ school lunch everyday before I leave for work, but I just don’t know what to cook for them when they are at home during school holidays. Sending creamy pasta in their thermos to school was no big deal. But if I cooked that and left it in the bowl for them to eat at lunch time, the sauce would get thicken, pasta gets really soggy and they won’t eat it. To make my life easy, I told the kids to fix their own lunch.

I warned them about leaving stove unattended, went through the fire drill (stop, drop and roll), and told them, if there is a fire, my house and contents are covered by the insurance, but I won’t get new children, so I don’t want them to do anything to save the house, I just want them to save themselves.

I know many of you would think I am really being stupid and children and stove shouldn’t mix. My niece ( step) started cooking when she was 4. It is her job to cook dinner for the family every Thursday. When she was 4, she made peanut butter and jelly sandwich and everyone ( including her grandparents) ate that for dinner. When she was 7, she knew to take the meat out of the freezer before going to school and cook a roast when she came back from school.

I used to cook before Amma came home from work and knew to clean everything and leave the kitchen just the way Amma had left it in the morning.

Yesterday when I came back in the evening, there was a banana pineapple cake on the kitchen counter. My youngest told me that she noticed the bananas in the fruit tray are going off and that there was some left over pineapple in the fridge, so she decided to bake a pineapple banana cake.  ( She used 3 eggs, 1/2 cup butter, 3 eggs, 3/4 tin of crushed pineapple, 3 ripe bananas, 1 1/2 cup self raising flour. Mixed it all up and added a bit of fresh cream to get the batter consistency right and baked at 180 degrees for 30 minutes)

My son made Chicken peri peri for dinner. He mixed two tablespoon of chicken peri peri powder with vinegar and salt and marinated the chicken in it and then slathered some mayo over the chicken and baked it. Instead of adding oil to marinade, I prefer to use mayo, as it makes the meat very tender and moist.

Each day, as I leave home, a part of me is terrified of all the untoward things that could happen. Then like Amir Khan, I tap on my heart gently and say “all is well”

Kids have two weeks of term holidays now and on the last day of school, Yaya worked out and told me “Mom, I only have 730 days with you before I go to University”

She will complete grade 10 in three months and another two more years, she will complete grade 12.

When she told me that she ONLY has 730 days more before she leaves home, I thought that meant, she is planning to spend as much time with me and cherish every moment. Read books, bake cookies ( she has a knack when it comes to baking cookies) do a bit of shopping, go to the beach, go for long drives, play few rounds of black jack etc etc.

I had everything planned.

School closed on Friday and she went Bush camping with her friends. She came back home yesterday afternoon, slept for a few hours and went for a sleepover at another friend’s house. This evening, I am to pick her up at 7 pm and am sure, she is only coming home to eat something spicy for dinner and tomorrow she will be visiting her friends, the same to be repeated till the end of school holidays.

Sometime ago, She had asked me “why do parents have kids when they know kids will leave home one day?” I answered “It is the moments that I had with each of them that forms my memories, that makes it worth the while”

Today, I am grateful that at least I managed to spend those precious moments with them when they were young, for that is all I have. Now my children are making their own memories and I am not part of that.

I remembered this song after a long time..memories behind the song are mine to reminisce..

Enjoy