Day 8- Tired but Not Out

Phew! It’s been a long day. But a good day.

Am so sleepy and tired right now that I could just doze off sitting right here while typing into the computer. I think I am sleep-typing already! I can’t crash out yet fully, though, as I need to be awake to open the door to R who’s on his way back from a work trip. And also,I need to get today’s post done with. See how dedicated I am! 😆

BTW, a heartfelt thank you to all of you who commented on my previous post. It’s not been an easy one to write, and I’m not particularly proud to have let the negativity inside me come to the fore. But I’m still glad I wrote it. And gladder that it’s now behind me. Thank you all for understanding the sentiments behind the post and making me feel so much better. Am truly touched.

Loads of hugs back to each of you 🙂

So as I was telling it’s been a good day. I had gone out with some friends on a lunch date and had the most delicious risotto after ages over hours of chatting and laughing. We iced it with a sinfully luscious chocolate fondue.

Sometimes all you need is a good company and a little time out of the maddening rush of life to get your groove back and be ready to get past the rest of the day or even the week.

And now I am going to hit publish and shut my laptop off. R is back, and off I go!

Zzzzzzzzzzz

Happy Diwali to everyone..

in advance 🙂

We celebrated the festival last night.

And run-up to this day was preceded by days of rigorous pre-Diwali cleaning. Yes, I was bitten by the safai virus too! How could I escape it when so many of you were putting up posts and tweets on how you all were so engaged in getting your homes clean and set for the festival of lights. Watching and reading you all drove me to turn my heavily cluttered house to a neater and decluttered home just in time :).

The kitchen cabinets were reorganized. Floors were bleach cleaned. Even those far ends that hadn’t had any contact with cleanliness for weeks were reunited with the vaccum cleaner. Thanks to which, the sharpener that was last seen some 7 months back was found lying in a chunk of dust under the child’s bunk bed! Piles and piles of unwanted papers and stationaries cluttering inside the study table were shown the door. Wardrobes and bookshelves were reset. Windows were brushed off the dust. The front and back yards were broomed and washed. Of course I had some able help from my domestic help, who diligently took my suggestions and instructions to clean every nook and corner of the house . God bless him!

I can’t begin to tell how satisfying and calming it felt to see all those shelves and cabinets and drawers that looked as though hurricane-hit, transformed into neatly stacked counters. Even though, as Rachna rightly pointed out, others may hardly notice the hard work put in.

Having said that, isn’t it a bit of an irony that Diwali, which brings in so much of cleansing and decluttering to our homes and lives would eventually entail a sense of mess and unkemptness the very next day with all the crackers and poppers and snappers strewn all over the street?

Thats not to say that I don’t appreciate the positivity, brightness and cheer that the festival brings with it. It is after all, my favourite festival!

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful Diwali this year! May the festival of lights brighten up your lives with happiness joy and fervour to last forever 🙂

A day I have to keep a record of..

Sometimes all you need is a little jolt to make you realize how blessed you are to be sitting here in the safe confines of your home with your daughter right beside you watching her favorite show as you type these words on your mobile, when these very moments could have turned out something entirely, drastically tragically different.

My hands and feet are still shaking as I recollect the moments Namnam and I spent in one of the home furnishing stores a while ago.

We were excitedly strolling along the lanes with our trolley, picking up stuff needed to do up the room for my father-in-law who is expected next week. We reached the cash counter all set to check out when all of a sudden the fire-alarm went off! For a good few seconds nobody reacted, since most of us thought it to be normal fire drill. When it still didn’t stop the anxiety started creeping in. Namnam covered her ears wondering loud, quite loud at the deafening jarring sound. The cashiers stopped tapping on their keyboards. And then I saw a lot of people running helter skelter towards the elevator. Right then one of the customer care officials announced that it was a false alarm. I heaved a sigh. Barely for a fraction of a second but. For right after, he announced us all to evacuate the building. So the alarm wasn’t false,but very much real!

I had a stream of thoughts running in my mind as I held Namnam’s hand to get out of the building. I had to get to the basement of the building to take the car out. But would we reach there in time? What if we got trampled in a stampede? Would I be able to get my Namnam home safe? The thoughts kept gnawing at me as I held Namnam’s hand, walked down the stairs and out of the building. We were still away from the basement and way away from the spot I had parked the car in. Right then on our way out I met a friend and her husband who were trying to figure out a way to get to the basement too. I felt a strange sense of relief to have spotted a known face in the midst of an utterly chaotic and panic-ridden situation.

We, then, found a way to the parking lot from the side of the building. Fortunately my friend and her husband spotted their car close but Namnam and I had to walk a bit to get to ours.

The parking lot had turned into one hell of a deafening room filled with panicking car-horns. I wasn’t sure whether I would succeed in taking the car out. Namnam wondered the same. And when she said, “Amma, if you kept saying it was a fire alarm, why is it that you’re driving so slow? Why cant we get out fast?”, I realized that my child was scared too! Although I tried to reason to her about the number of cars ahead of us trying to get out, I wonder if she even heard me. She had her eyes firmly focused looking out for the exit, like me. I messaged R who was in Delhi, about the situation we were in. Not that he would have been able to help, but then it gave me some kind of strength to be able to just reach out to him.

And right after I messaged my three closest friends on our common chat thread just so they could reach me if needed.

In another 10 min or so we were out of the parking on to the road well on our way home! Were we glad to be safe!

Well not fully safe yet, as I was to find out soon as I drove a few meters further, still reeling under the shock of what we had just gotten out of. I banged into a car right in front of me while waiting at the traffic signal! Luckily, it was a minor bump so no dents on either of the cars and even more fortunatelt the driver was a very patient and polite person, a fellow parent but certainly not a hassled one like me! I could get away with a sorry and drive home.

As we reached home it all began to sink in.

Now at the end of it all it may not seem such a big deal. But its when you think back at those moments that you realize how much worse it could have got.

Fate has strange ways to kick you out of your complacency! I have been so laid back and engrossed in this life that I have forgotten when was it last that I stepped back to look at the beautiful way my life was shaped by so many wonderful people around me and be thankful about it…

I have my Namnam whose unconditional and growing love for me makes every single day of my life worth the while. I have R whose rock solid support just keeps me going always. I have my parents( achan, amma, appaji), who seem to just magically know when I need them to give me strength and will to pull through difficult tides. And I have my friends whose just being there is the best assurance that I can get. The confidence, the trust I can place in them at any point in time is more than I could ever ask for.

I can’t thank God enough for blessing me with so many wonderful people in life. Life cannot get better than this. Touchwood!

When a fun day meant for kids turns as much fun for the parents..

Then its no less than a day well spent, right?

The summer has been trying to peek its head way too many times lately with the cool, fresh, wintery air that we have been waking up to for the past few months getting replaced off and on by warm and stuffy one. While the nights have been largely nippy still, the days have been a shuffle between cool and crisp breeze with balmy and sandy wind occasionally thrown in. Which makes me realize that in a few weeks this pleasant weather will make way for the ferocious summer :(.

So how do we make the most of the last few bits of the favourable weather left? We head out to the park and give ourselves a go…kids and grown ups alike!

And that’s what we did yesterday.

Now most of our Fridays are spent either by staying at home or strolling around the shops and malls ogling at all the displays or taking the same old ride in the gondola or checking in to the usual kiddy-zones with Namnam. So, yesterday when Namnam suggested that we go to the park, it sounded like the perfect change to the routine. And luckily the day was perfect for outdoors with just the right amount of sunlight to brighten up our day and the lovely breeze to cool our hearts :).

And to make it even better and more fun, we were joined by my friend and her family too. So without much of a dilly-dally, we geared ourselves up with our flying discs, bike, trike and camera and off we zoomed to the newly opened Museum of Islamic Art Park.

Needless to say it was a joy-ride from the word go.

While the kids cycled around the park, occasionally stopping by the fountain to splash water at each other, the mothers tagged along beside them to join in the splashing fun :). And the fathers? Well, they had the flying disc and foot-ball to help them bring out the zestful child in them!
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Then there was bungee-jumping which had both mamas and papas give their adventurous selves some real good push! We were tied to a harness each and asked to jump on a trampoline and lift ourselves up as high as we could! I know I know…not the real deal but it did give us as much of an an adrenaline-rush! And a fantastic exercise for our abs 😀

Anyway after the bungee-stint, while the mothers were drained of their energy, the kids and fathers were clearly not. So they had another round of miniature foot-ball, took few dig-ins at the sand-corner and some rounds of slides and swings and other rides, while us moms captured the priceless moments into our cameras and sealed them in our hearts!

Now let me stop right there and have the images do some talking too 🙂

Splasssshhh

And splasssshhhh some more!

And after the bungee-jumpers’ show, it’s time for the acrobats to spring into action…

And its a goal!

With that we’re ready to drag and pull ourself and our bike and head homewards..

This is how our weekend was. How has it been for you all?