The Holiday Ends - as does 2007

The house is strangely silent just now because the last of my family has left today for home. I've just put Peanut down for a little nap. The excitement of the last few days has been a little too much for her, and she has had a bit of a cough and cold. But is recovering fast, thank you very much.

I contemplated doing a 'Last year's highlights, New Year's resolutions' kind of post, but I got bored with the idea quickly. Just the fact that 2007 has given us Peanut makes it the most special year ever. Enough said.

It was a nice sort of end to this year, having my family down here. Over the last couple of days, we went to Murud-Janjira, a few hours away from Mumbai. The drive there and back wasn't too great since Peanut has decided to hate her car seat, but squalling infant notwithstanding, it was good fun overall. We even got to see the Janjira fort, it really is quite beautiful.

My cousin Anjali remarked on how amazing it was that the fort had been built out in the middle of the sea, and such a long time ago. I agreed that it was amazing, but was more amazed by the fact that no matter which monument I go to see in India, some idiot called Raju has been there before me, declaring his undying love for Pinky by scratching their names on the wall, complete with the obligatory drawing of a heart. Whatever, guys. Get a room. And write on the walls there!

Anyway, a few photos:

View of the Fort from the boat.

Inside the Fort.

A shot from one of the highest points in the fort - you can see the Pond covered with moss. It was quite a climb to get this Bird's Eye View. I hope you appreciate it.

An artistic shot Vijay took of Peanut and me inside the fort. (Note: artistic was the word he used. I said 'unclear' - but he quite likes it anyway.)

Oh, and this is a big one for me - I've been lamenting how I've not seen a sky full of stars in the longest time, like ten years or something - and it was on my 'Things to do before I'm 30' list - well, I saw a sky full of stars - two nights in a row! And it was really amazing. It wasn't really like millions of stars, but it was thousands, I think - and anyway, we take what we can get, given how rare this sight is nowadays. We took a bottle of wine out and sat on the beach on a couple of mats, passing around roasted almonds and cashews, just looking up at the stars, and listening to the sound of the ocean. I will spare you the bad joke I made about sitting on dari-yaan by the dariya. (note to self: do not attempt humour in Hindi again).

And since this was a very important moment for me, I attempted to take a photograph of starry night sky, as below.

As you can see, this did not work very well.

Vijay scoffed at my attempt, and said rather condescendingly that he would show me how it was to be done. The next night, he spent half an hour adjusting the camera settings, exposure, lighting, and took the following photograph.

Brilliant.

I always say, if you must fail, fail in style.

Anyway, just believe us, there were a lot of stars in the sky. Just imagine them or something.

Oh, and before I forget - A Happy New Year to You!

Family Fun

Got a lot of of my family down for a few days, so no time to post much.

We have in the house my mother, my sister, two masis, two female cousins, and one male cousin. This makes it 9 females to 2 males, including Vijay.

When Vijay was teased about being so badly outnumbered, he just smiled placidly and remarked. 'That's okay. I'm used to it'.

I figured he was talking about constantly being surrounded by me, Peanut, the K and Zareena.

He continued, 'Even when it's only Y and me, I am still outnumbered'.

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Tabboo is proving to be a really fun family game, again. No time to go into the details, but the one that shone today was:

My Masi was to make the team guess the word 'Evaluation'.

An easy one, this, she thought, and said

'This is what you do at the end of an examination'.

She must be so proud of her son, my cousin Abhi, who quickly and authoritatively replied

'Fail!'.

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There is a lot of the usual family stuff happening, including watching old, old home movies. This, one would imagine, would be very painful for Vijay, but instead he has been quite fascinated to see what we were all like ten years ago. My mother has brought with her some old scraps and letters that I wrote when I was a mere child, some of which are quite amusing and most of which are very embarassing.

There is this one piece I've written on 'The advantages of having working parents'. Am going to try and scan and post that. Perhaps this will convince me that it's time to go back to work soon. Sigh. But for now - Happy Holidays, everyone!

I Am So Smart

It's just not really been my week.

First, I lost my phone and all the Peanut pictures on it. That was not very nice.

The same evening, I thought I would cheer myself up by watching my newly purchased VCD of the Harry Potter 'Order of the Phoenix'. Shocking that I haven't seen it yet, I know, but I've been a bit busy raising a baby. Anyhow, I purposefully unwrapped the CD, opened up the cover, and while taking Disc 1 out, snapped it neatly in half. I gazed at the two pieces just lying there silently, taunting me with their indifference. I think my eyes may have welled up in tears.

I went over to Vijay, who was trying to take a nap, and woke him up to show him the pieces. 'Can you fix this?', I asked hopefully.

He looked at them and said slowly 'No...'

I was aghast. 'But you are an engineer. Can't you glue it together or something?'

He could see I was not to be diverted. 'Okay, leave it there, Honey, I'll try later', he said, while turning over and pulling his pillow firmly over his head.

Why are men such liars?

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I was going to blog about my recent trips to the dentist but have decided it is too painful right now as the memory is fresh. However, suffice it to say I am debating with myself which has been the lowest point of the week. It could be any of the instances below:

a. When the dentist injected the anaesthetic into my gum, so that I felt nothing when he was hacking away at my teeth. No, no, that part was good. The bad part was when he instructed me to rinse my mouth out. Everything was all numb and I couldn't move my jaw properly - the long and short of it is that I missed the basin completely and spat right on the dentist's immaculately maintained wall. It was not my finest moment. Judging from the dentist's silence, it wasn't the best part of his day either.

I'm sure this happens to everyone - although Vijay claims it hasn't ever happened to him. But then, men are liars.

b. Since my temporary crowns keep coming loose for some bloody reason, I've had to make two otherwise unnecessary trips all the way across town, with my baby in tow - driving for a total of 3 hours each time, for just 10 minutes work, because only the glue or cement or whatever-it-is had to be fixed.

I am still waiting for my permanent crowns to arrive. In desperation, my dentist has given me a spatula, a square plastic mixing base, two tubes to mix together to form the glue/cement/whatever-it-is, and an instrument with a menacing hook.

An apparent admirer of my husband, he said 'Just ask Vijay to mix these together and put the crown back for you'. I was thinking 'Yeah, right. This is the stuff divorces are made off'.

And then he added 'But I'm sure this time it won't come off'. I was thinking the now familiar thought 'Why are men such liars?'

c. The second trip I made to get it fixed, my cousin Mini accompanied me, handling the baby in the dentist's office. While Peanut behaved admirably there, she now appears to hate her car seat and we had an extremely harrowing time with her bawling in the car.

I had to ask Vinod to stop the car on the way back, so that I could take her out and calm her down. It was quite hot, there was the sound of honking and traffic all around, and my nerves were rather frayed. But Peanut began to calm down as I swayed her in my arms, back and forth. Mini looked out at us from the front seat. She slowly got out of the car and approached us. By this time, Peanut was almost asleep. I started to feel calmer myself, as my big sister approached with apparent tenderness at this loving scene of mother and baby, rocking back and forth, a small bubble of peace in all the chaos of the outside world. Mini leaned in close to the two of us, and whispered in my ear to inform me 'Your fly is undone'.

d. But I have to say, it might just be this one that was my lowest moment - when my crown actually came off for the second time. I was on the phone talking to the nice lady at Yatra.com, booking tickets for Mini, when I felt a sneeze coming on. It was a particularly violent one that came in the middle of a sentence wherein I was informing the Yatra lady that the booking reference number was 'T for Taxi...V for Vijay...'. The force of the sneeze that arrived in the middle of a sentence, sent my crown suddenly flying across the room.

This was embarassing enough as it is, but was made worse by my lovely cousin, insisting on scrambling to retrieve it. In general, you don't want other people to be picking up bits of your teeth, temporary or otherwise, and I'm sure it's not a load of fun for them either. Anyway, the nice Yatra lady was saying, politely and charmingly 'Bless You, Ma'am'. I wanted to hit her but being reasonable, I realized it was not her fault, and anyway, she was safe on the other end of the line.

I also realize as I type this that I've made myself sound like quite an idiot. Well, the truth of the matter is, I rather am. But tell me, seriously, tell me - this stuff DOES happen to everyone, right? Right? Right? (She implored)

For now, I've had a brilliant idea, and I'm going to try using the dentist's 'base paste & catalyst paste' and other equipment to glue my Harry Potter CD together.

Buddies

Or 'Chal Mere Ghode, Tick, Tick, Tick'

Happy Merry Christmas, Every Buddy!

Off to Work

Friday morning, and I am bleary eyed at 8.00 a.m. - having been up every two hours to feed Peanut, as usual.

Vijay is as fresh as a daisy (strangely enough, this phrase has some of its zing since I met his secretary, Daisy), and all dressed up to go to work.

I try out the phrase that, I'm told, I used in early childhood when it was time to go to school 'Aaj to Thathurday hai?'

Vijay looks wistful and says 'Nahin...Friday hai'. We have a quick breakfast together and he dashes off, worrying about being late.

At 10 a.m., I get a call from him 'Aaj to badi bewakoofi ho gayi'.

It appears that he reached office, and noticed it was completely empty - except the solitary security guard who informed him 'Saab, aaj to chhutti hai'.

Yes, he drove all the way across the streets of Mumbai, for over an hour, only to discover that office is shut because it is Eid today.

He is now on his way back. Eid Mubarak!

Yayy! Aaj to Thathurday hai!

Have you ever played Taboo?

I've played it only a couple of times but it can be a regular laugh riot.

The essence of the game is: you pick a card, and on top of that card is the word that you have to make your team members guess; and below that are five words which are closely related to the word on top- the deal is that those words are 'tabboo' and therefore, cannot be used in the description of the top word. It can be quite difficult to do this, and the other team members have to keep an eye on you, and scream 'taboo' if you use any of the taboo words. This can be a lot of fun - but only if you're the one screaming 'taboo', not if you're the one desperately trying to describe the word, under pressure of the fast-emptying hourglass. Obviously, the more words you successfully get in that limited time, the more points you get, and so on.

For example, your guess word could be 'Drive' - but your taboo words would be 'car', 'steering wheel', 'bus', and so on.

Vani and Pranay were over the other day, and we were playing it - guys versus girls. Vani is great at describing the words - and while I suck at that, I am pretty decent at guessing. Plus, we squealed and appealed louder every time, so we were beating the guys hands down.

But fortified by a few rounds of whiskey, Vijay and Pranay were starting to shape up and get their act together. Pranay became surprisingly good at describing the words, and Vijay started rocking the scene by guessing them quickly.

On one round, Pranay was going through his cards rather quickly - clearly, they were on a roll. And so, he was rather pleased to see such a simple word- 'Sweep' - on his next card. Of course, the taboo words were 'Chimney', 'Clean', 'Dirt', and so on. But this was still very easy.

'Okay, now this word... is something... that the guy... does outside the building... every morning...!' He said, confidently, already reaching for his next card - so sure was he that his partner would get it right.

Obviously, he hadn't counted on Vijay, who replied crisply, with equal confidence and authority, also apparently gearing up for the next word:

'Susu!'

The Search for the Right Lullaby

I have come to the conclusion that we need a new lullaby for Peanut.

When she started, I mean, when she was born, we discovered that she liked this one song called Aicha. Actually, since I was very keen on the name Ayesha for her initially, I sort of fancied this as a 'Theme Song' for her. ( A theme song for a baby. What can I say. New parent) and played it over and over for her - so it's no wonder she grew to recognize and like it. She favoured the Khaled version , and rightly so because the newer version by Outlandish doesn't even come close, in my humble opinion. However, since Khaled, has for some obscure reason chosen to sing this song in French, and my French is a bit rusty nowadays, I have some trouble with remembering and singing the words. The only part I can sing properly is 'Aicha! Aicha! Ecoutez moi' and I'm not even sure I've spelt that right. If you've not heard this song, I have only one thing to say to you - you should hear this song.

Well, anyway, soon after, I moved onto rocking her to the tune ( if you can call it a tune) of 'Give it away, now ' by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I really like that song, always have. Also, it starts with 'What I got, you gotta give it to your MAMMAA'...so I vaguely felt some sort of baby-and-Mama connect. Of course, I then came to realize that this is perhaps not the most appropriate song to be singing to your baby, and so started to look for another. If you've not heard this song...come on, everyone's heard this song. ( Dipali? Have you? Sorry!)

Peanut did not show much interest in the Mozart CDs that Vijay bought for her, and anyway, as Vijay astutely informed me subsequently 'You can't sing Mozart', that was no help.

I then remembered the wonderful song 'Kitni Sundar Pyaari Chidiyan', and it worked nicely until, as I wrote before, Vijay ruined it for me - forever.

I then tried making up a song by myself for her - rocking her back and forth to a monotonous poem, made up as I went along - I had to stop when I realized I was singing stuff like 'Tu hai meri Rani...', followed by, because I couldn't think of a better rhyme 'Tu hai meri Naani'. Not only is this terrible poetry - so bad that you would probably be shot for it in a less liberal country - it is factually untrue and you don't want to be confusing your Peanut. So I gave up trying to do-it-myself. (Hey, that spells 'Dim'. Sounds about right.)

Nowadays, we've been trying the 'Cuppycake song': ( Yes, Sue, I know you put this down once in my comments section and I didn't acknowledge it, soweee!)

You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum
Pumpy-umpy-umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie
You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop
Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye
And I love you so and I want you to know
That I'll always be right here
And I love to sing sweet songs to you
Because you are so dear.

Very sweet, but it's getting too repititive now. Plus, Vijay insists on ruining it by either singing along with me or singing it by himself, but saying 'Shnookum shnookum shnookum' instead of Snoogums-Boogums. This is exactly the kind of thing that can put you off any song for good.

So that's pretty much it. But yesterday, Vijay discovered that she likes the 'chhk chhk chhk chhk...' part in that old Hindi song 'Dil ka haal sune dilwaala', so we are transitioning from the Cuppycake song to this one...

Peanut must be thinking 'What the hell is with you people!?'

Any suggestions for a good one?

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that Vijay has also started trying that funny song 'Girl, where didja get your body from? Tell me, where didja get your body from.....I got it from my Mama! I got it from my Mama!'. This is quite frighteningly inappropriate, especially when he starts feeling insecure and starts singing it, instead, as 'I got it from my Papa! I got it from my Papa!'