Sunday, April 12, 2015

Wake up Call or Warning Alarm

I was undergoing this phase of life where everything was just going upside down,was regretting everything I had done,and was cribbing to a close colleague of mine, of what I was undergoing. She then introduced me to this person (say X), I use to see this X everyday, outside of my work place asking for some money or food.She told him how I was talking about regrets in life, X looked at me and said, if you hear my story you will never say the word "regret" in your life. X started to narrate as how he was the happiest man in the world, an excellent job ( X was a professor in one of the top universities), happy wife and a great son. His son wanted to become a doctor and how he had forced his son to become a lawyer and how they argued the day before. The next day X got a call that turned his world upside down, his son died in a car crash.After that, he lost interest in his life, his wife was mentally unstable and had to be admitted in the rehabilitation place for treatment, he lost his job because of his alcohol addiction. By the time he realized, everything was snatched away from him. He looked at me and said, you have the opportunity,strength, resource, everything  so do something about it because you will never know, when everything will be snatched away from you. But remember, there will lot of clues or warning signs for you to know that it is going to be snatched away from you for once and for all if you do not act on it.  He said, now I have urge to do something but I do not have the resources nor the strength to pursue it. He said he never use to believe when people use to say life is short, but now I understand the true meaning of how short it is.At once I knew that was my warning alarm. At the same time, I was also reading this book called "Little Princes" , sometimes the correct people, correct books, correct words come to you at the appropriate time just to wake you up for the purpose you are being sent. I am doing something about it. I have started to give more, help more, be considerate more, forgiving more and have an urge to do something different in the way I live before its too late. That one person and one book indeed left a great impact on me. Every time I find myself in a dreadful situation, I just of think of the man's situation and the situation of the kids in the book, the next moment I have a smile on my face of how much I have and how grateful or thankful I should be for what I have.I have started educating Adit more on the same terms so that his wake up call is early rather than late. Even now, I am not sure why I wanted to share this, but I have this urge to share, this may be a wake up call or warning alarm to someone who is reading this.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Humanity or should I just say "Consideration"

This post is about a personnel incident in my life. I have to give credit to this person for this particular virtue they possess and it is hard to be seen in many of us. I read a post in my friend's wall today in the social media, where a taxi driver in NY had given ride to a old lady who was maybe in her final journey.

This brought back a memory of an incident which happened couple of weeks back. We were traveling to work.The traffic was pretty bad actually bumper to bumper on Lake shore drive and we knew that instant that there was some road closing. It was raining and the visibility was bad and it was extremely windy ( not that I complain about that in the windy city).As we were moving, we saw on the other side there was a bad accident, guess the car skid and probably hit the other vehicles which caused the heavy traffic.

By the way it looked, it had just happened and we could see one lady coming out of the car with some injury, there was a kid in the car and thankfully he was fine. The other people got down to help her. My husband who was driving that day, frantically was trying to open the front cabin and was searching something. I knew the instant he was trying to open the front cabin, he was searching for tissues for the lady who was on the other side and I helped him grab the tissue box( V usually have lots of that coz of emergency situations) in the storage.

He immediately opened the car window and asked if they needed it and threw it to the other side. The lady immediately grabbed it and gave a thumbs up.After that, we were on our way to work but this incident kept going on in my mind.. Of course, Mr. P (hubby)did not do a great thing but he did a timely one and this timely one according to me is the exact definition of "Human Consideration". I looked at him and I was so proud of him on that day, my son who was sitting behind us kept asking us questions. I am sure he wouldn't understand what happened but I for sure would take this example now and then to make him realize what he should stand for in his life.

Well, there is the other side of the coin, sometimes hubby goes a little ( little is an underrated word) overboard with this attribute of him ( those of you who are very close to us and know in and out  would agree with me ) and it back fires on him or he gets hurt or gets himself in trouble.

But as of that day, I was extremely proud of what my hubby did and couldn't help not appreciating him for the small act of "consideration" he showed.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Small Measure of Happiness!!!

I am in totally off mood at work today coz of some things which got flared up at my work for no mistake of mine.. But I wanted to take a break and other than writing who else would be my better friend in venting out.

Anyways coming to the topic, I took my lil munchkin to this incredibly, excellent, well cast & enacted show "Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf". Well of course, it is a classic and the original story essence ( thankfully with no remixes) was kept. My son completely loved it, I have taken him to a few theater shows before but this one gave a complete different experience to us. It was an hour show with no intermission and I was worried as how I was going to occupy him or how he is gonna be quiet for that entire hour. Of course, I did start the talking on Thursday so that he is completely into it by Saturday. The biggest thing was that they allowed food and drinks inside the theater and it was so interactive that all the children were hooked on to the show. Although the complete an hour session was Q& A for me but he did follow the rules of asking me in a low tune and not disturbing the other audience beside us.

I am so happy he liked it, coz a daughter of a " M A English Literature Graduate" ( that's how my hubby calls me when I try to show off my literature side) I was totally into all classics. My dad still has the original version of "Romeo and Juliet" ,"Macbeth", "Julius Caesar", "The Wizard of Oz". I grew up listening to those, reading those books. I wanted to introduce the small classics to my son like Hansel and Gretel, Goldilocks etc., Alice in Wonderland.

One fortunate thing for me was/is/ hope for the (Will -future state) my son loves reading books, be it comics, fairy tales, cartoons. I did start for him at an early age the introduction of books.Although I wanted to introduce classics at a very early age, somehow I gave up the idea after that thinking that it would be too much on him.I am glad that atleast I have the opportunity of introducing some of the literature drama to him through these theatres. I am not sure how its gonna develop in him as he grows, I just wish that he develops atleast a minute interest in the literature classics and develops a liking to the style and writing of some of the famous writers.

I did like the way they molded the story to suit the age group of kids by including songs, interaction, story telling and even the dialogues weren't pretty complicated. Simple words, sentences were used.I really wish we had similar kind of shows like these in my country too so that kids would be exposed to the theater arts at a very young age.

But I am going to be doing my bit of effort in making him like the theater arts by taking him to at least to a few shows every now and then so that even if he does not develop the interest in the later age at least he will remember that we did make an effort and we did take him to these famous classics and that feeling is more than accomplishment for me. So next show is "A VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR".. (fingers crossed) but as of now I am contended and Happy...

Monday, April 21, 2014

2 States

I recently saw this movie called " 2 States" based on the novel from Chetan Bhagat. I had read this novel but felt the movie was better than the novel in terms of bringing out the characters, feelings, emotions and the everything undergone when a marriage is decided  between 2 people.This movie did bring back a lot of memories.

In my land, for a marriage to happen, it doesn't just involve two people falling in love, it involves the parents, relatives, sometimes 2 different states falling in love with each other. I can completely co- relate to every single scene in the movie. Well , this is my story and I wanted to pen in it down in words today so that some day when I look back and read, or if my generation reads it, they should ve a smile on their face as to how they all came into existence.

I am from Tamilnadu( Southern state) in India, although my mother tongue is Telugu , we were settled in Chennai for some generations, I would call myself a Tamilian rather than a telugite until my parents started looking for proposals. Of course, hubby and I liked each other instantly and fell in love too. We both felt love was enough to get married but no, we realized it quite soon, when we took the next step to convince everyone for marriage. First, was my dad , he was completely against it coz hubby was from a different STATE and the culture, style , tradition everything was different from us. Then it was from the hubby's side, whether I could communicate with my MIL in her language... ( well I did put in a lot of effort and hard work after marriage, and now no one can tell the difference that I am from a different state)

Somehow, that issue was resolved, next thing was again my dad and he had his own inhibitions of getting me married to someone living abroad and whom he did not see in person and is going to see that special person only a few days before marriage.I should really appreciate one person's incredible help here. My hubby's brother-in-law and now my brother who gave that confidence to my dad that everything will be perfectly fine and I will be in safe hands.Next, was the issue from my side as everybody was curious to know as to how this marriage got fixed, they wanted to know the background about the groom's side, their property details and of course we successfully did manage everyone's expectations.

As stated in the movie and in the novel, on top of our parent's permission, we wanted them to be more happy in our marriage than us. I wanted my mom to have fun,enjoy and ve that contented feeling that her responsibility is passed on to someone and that her daughter is in safe hands.We did put in a lot of effort even in the minute things eg., the menu of the marriage , all the other minute details which we knew would be raised as issues and not once thought of going against them.

I am sure every marriage has a story associated with it, some emotional, some romantic,some problematic, some peaceful , some happy, some dramatic.Now when I look back and see our marriage photos and videos, it was indeed a marriage between 2 states,culture and tradition and when I look at all the smiles it was indeed worth all the effort!!!!

Monday, April 7, 2014

Adoption--- Life Changing Attitude

Wow... almost been a year since I visited my blog. Life has become so very hectic absolutely no time for anything.. with hubby's new interest and the lil dumpling growing up and plus my work, activities ... I need another 24 hours in a day to have time for my interest, hobbies...

Well.. that being said, I did watch this very interesting film "Vicky Donor" ( Hindi Feature Film) in the weekend and I liked the concept of the movie... very unique and well portrayed subject.It was about "Sperm Donation " and "Adoption" both are indeed very bold concept's well according to the Indian public and the message was very well conveyed..


"Adoption" ---- this has been "THE" word lingering since my college days.. I am big fan of Sushmitha Sen.. when she went all public about her adoption of a lil girl.. I was so impressed and wanted to follow her foot steps and I was not bothered about anything or anyone and I wanted to adopt a girl too... But as and when the life progressed, the idea of Adoption has never left me but the reality around it started increasing..

3 years back when I had my son, my hubby and I had this discussion that our next child would be a adopted one.. that was when I started exploring the opportunities, and the reality sinked in. At the same time there was a discussion about the very same topic in one of our girls groups and one of the girls actually brought out lot of good points.

The first which is the most important thing according to me, am I absolutely ready for this? it's someone's life, if I even show the slightest .0000000001% of difference to the child I wont be able to ever forgive myself after that.It's huge huge huge responsibility...I have few of my people in my friend's circle who have gone for adoption and I salute them for having done that.Hat's off...
 
The second one being, if I am going for adoption I have to go for the one from my native country the reason being I would want that child to get the same love, care, attention everything as my son ( this "My son" referring  has to completely change and I know it has to be a life changing attitude) and that child should actually feel that he/she is not different from us.

The third, am I mature enough or should I say bold enough to tell the child that I am not their biological mother and generous enough to allow the child to have a connection with the biological mother and accept that relationship too.. well I don't know....

 I know I have all the answers to all my questions, the only part is Am I ready enough to accept all the facts and am I strong enough to convince everyone about my decision ( I am sure the one person who would be on my side is my Hubby)and I can't be aggressive on this... well this has always been a debate in my mind. I wanted to get everything out of the system about this topic and writing has always been my friend in that area... But as of now, I have left everything to time, when the time comes I know everything will fall in place ( Hopefully ( Being completely optimistic)).

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Changes -Part 2

I read  a very interesting article posted on my friends wall as how a girl changes to a woman and then to a mother gradually and a mother anticipating  the change which will happen in her daughter very soon. I would agree with every word in the article because as a  mom I undergo it every day in my life and today was no exception but with a little spice added to it. Adit was transitioning to 2's class ( of course he is a 2 year old) starting today. The transition is gonna be slow so it was just 2 hours today and a formal letter of transition was given to me and P ( hubby) last week and my tantrums started since I saw the letter.

I was like how is he gonna handle it? he is gonna miss his teachers in toddlers class? he is gonna get low,grumpy go into hibernation?.he is gonna miss his friends?blah blah blah... Well all these were my assumptions When I called his teacher today and asked her how did it go? She was like" He was fine, he was probably upset for a little time initially and he handled it well and he was happy being there" I was like that's it...I expected her to say some kind of dramatic thing or scene which happened over there.

My husband and his teachers always say I am one who is resisting the change and not Adit. To some extent I would agree with it but from a MOM perspective, I would not coz I would always want my son to be comfortable ,get the best out of everything and I saw him being comfortable with his teachers in the present class, hugging him, taking care of him so well. I know the 2's teacher is also as wonderful as the present ones.But as everyone says and I know I hate to admit this one fact but I had to that my son needs to grow and develop as per the age and he is no more a baby and I have to let him do that.

He is ready for the next stage and I know he is and maybe I am not so I ve to let him go and get adjusted to the change. Of course I did have a talk with him about this change, not sure how much he understood of what I said and meant but he sure did a good job today and made me proud.Well, I am sure this kind of rambling is gonna come from me every now and then as and when the changes occur to him until my son is old enough to say" Mama, please stop worrying about me, I am fine and I can take care of myself" but does it ever gonna stop?? nahhhh... well we all are called the "MOMs"and that breed never stops thinking about their kids.

Well as for today I am gonna get a good peaceful sleep in the night with a happy feeling that "All's WELL"

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Milestone --- after 13 years...

This has always been my secret, only few people who are very close to me and know me in and out know about this incident. I never had the courage to share this unless a person comes into my close circle.I was scared that some might show pity or sympathy ( Which I cannot tolerate) on my weakness or they might even make fun of me. I am a highly sensitive person although I appear to be extremely mentally strong outside ( of course I did become one after this struggle) It is almost 13 years since this accident happened and it was when I was in my college. Yes, the big accident while I was going on a bike actually the accident was nothing but the after effect was bad. Completely lost my right knee, had to undergo a surgery which was supposed to be an hour but lasted more than 6-7 hours and the doctors were shocked to see the damage which was done in the knee. Everyone gave up on me except my mom and my doctor. There were comments whether I would ever walk again in my life.Tough phase. Everything around me seemed very difficult. Even to get a glass of water I had to depend on some one. The pain, mentally and physically, the guilt of being a burden to everyone killed me almost every day.But my doctor  always use to  say 1 thing and I remember that even today " Never Let anyone tell you that you cannot do something"

Well that being the past, I have always had that fear that I cannot be completely normal again..I cannot jump, hop, cycle.. well this was my thought, my fear .But this changed... Yesterday when I was at gym, my trainer completely removed my fear and she made me do all these things which I never thought I would do it ever in my life. She actually saw the fear in me, and she said if you walk, run and do everything as a normal person you could as well do these things and said its just mental courage and not to think about anything else and let go off the fear by saying" You are very strong than you think you are"( Thanks Carla!! I would have not done it without you).It might be very trivial to a lot of you... but as for me and the people who know about my surgery and accident would definitely join me in saying "its a Milestone" indeed and also to completely let go of the fear I had built up in all these years. It was as if Paulo Coelho Quotes was coming true " And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it" and the confidence, motivation and the inspiration you get after the achievement is incredible and cannot be put in words.

I had to build up courage to put all these in words and share it so that someone somewhere who reads it might let go off the inhibition of anything that had been building up for years and go ahead and venture it.