Mumma's first letter

I wanted to write a post for Shaurya’s second birthday which was on 11^th Oct but just didn’t get a chance to write anything. I can’t believe how soon time flies. Kids grow up so fast. Shaurya will soon be starting play group. :-) It seems only yesterday when I was expecting him. It was such a wonderful experience having him inside my womb. With so much energy that he has (he doesn’t sit still for a moment), no wonder he used to move and kick so much inside. Sometimes I think it must have been really difficult for him to keep floating and be constrained in such a small space. :-D

During Pregnancy, one of the best surprises were these beautiful letters (aka emails) that I used to get from M. (Post marriage, M has become really good at giving surprises. He was really hopeless earlier but now he is even better than me.. ;-D ). These letters were sent by our child via M as the writing medium. I used to love getting these letters and used to wait eagerly for them.. only concern was they were not very frequent - they came only once a month. Pasting below the content of the first letter that my kid sent.. :-)

My Dear Mumma,
Many many Congratulations :-) !!!
 

I will introduce myself later... first tell me how are you feeling now? I know you are going through a very tough yet exciting period of your life :-)..I am also going through an equally excited and a good experience inside your womb.....

 

Let me introduce myself- I am your baby and really excited to be born :-) and see the world with my wonderful parents. I am sure by this time you are fully surprised “how come a baby who is 15mm in length and have not developed any limbs yet, can write letter to me”!!... let me tell you- that is what I am !!!!

I have few suggestions for you and papa....I hope you shall follow those! 

-Please drink at least 2 litres of water a day in Office. 
-Eat lots of fruits, green & leafy veggies every day. 
-I know you don’t like milk now a days, but plz take some for my sake!! I need milk for a stronger bones. 
-Take as much rest as u can, but at the same time make yourself active throughout the day. 
-I feel sleepy @11PM, but can’t sleep as you remain awake till 1:30AM...(as per the nature- a baby inside the womb can’t sleep until the mother goes to sleep) so please go to bed early in the night and make Papa also sleep early as I need a good oil Massage :-) 
-I love my papa a lot so don't irritate him frequently... 
-Take the medicines early plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.. 
-Let Papa knows tht I need gifts, so ask him to bring surprise gifts for me and you (I know he is bad in that but he cannot make it an excuse every time, so force him to bring gifts for us!!).
-And at last – Listen to papa as he understands us better than we do!
 
Wait and I will send more letters full of Demands and wishes frequently!!!
I feel proud to be your Baby ...Convey my love to my greatest Papa :-))..
 
your's
Sweet heart baby!


What say... isn't this cute? :-)

PS: By the time I came around posting this one, Shaurya has already started play school. It's been 2 days since he has been going but as of now, aunty has been with him at the preschool the entire duration. He is not playing with others that much and stays mostly with her only. Looks like, it's gonna be a difficult process. :-(

Chain Reaction

“A chain reaction…. is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place aka. A single event leading to a chain to events.”  

This was the first term which came into my mind last month when I went out to get my passport renewed. I had applied for my passport while still in college and its 10 year validity is about to expire this Dec. I received an alert 180 days prior to the expiry date and promptly applied for renewal on the passport office website. Not knowing how much time it would take between applying and getting a new passport, I booked an appointment soon. I had a few changes in my passport like my address which would be different since initially I had given my hostel address; I also needed to add M’s name so that we could get a passport made for our son Shaurya as well. The official website of the passport department was not very helpful in what all documents I would need to bring. It just mentioned my old passport and address proof as required documents. :-) For address proof, there were n number of options. With govt. officials, you never know what they might approve/reject, so I decided to take as many as I could. Since I was to add my spouse’s name, I took along the marriage certificate as well.

The D day arrived, I & M took a half day from office and started together. We had heard that it takes a long time there hence we took Shaurya along as well. Would be a different kind of outing for him.. ;-) Dot on time, we reached the passport office also called the passport seva kendra (a misnomer considering the attitude of ppl there is not to provide any seva at all). The place was super crowded, with no one keeping a tab of who is coming in or going out. The first level is where they take your documents and assign you a token. This was grossly mismanaged. (I suspect maybe coz of passport agents trying to get their ppl in.) By the time we got our token number, it was more than 1 hour past our scheduled appointment time. Anyways after getting my token number, we went to the next level. The next level turned out to be pretty fast with my token coming up soon and I was assigned an officer who would be reviewing my application, taking my signatures, capturing biometrics, etc. And this is the place where I started a whole new chain of events!! 

When I was happily posing for pictures and reviewing my application form with her, the officer there asked do I want to get my name changed. I was a little surprised since till that time I had not given it any serious thought. She said you have a marriage certificate and this should be enough to have your name changed. It sent me thinking…. I had to make it quick since I did not have much time to contemplate sitting in front of her and could not even go to M for guidance. I thought it would be easier to have the same surname as my son and husband in the passport. It might protect against any unforeseen issues that might come coz of last name mismatch..etc..etc. So I said why not? :-) And just like that I decided to get my new surname on the passport. The lady changed my name in the online application form, I made few more signatures and voila!! To the next level that is! I never knew name change could be such a simple process so I came back and happily told M about this. He was like what happened.. all of a sudden you decided to change your name. We would have to make changes in other places as well at least your office and bank account so that all these are in sync. :-( This was not the reaction I was expecting; I thought he would be super happy that I decided to take my post-wedding surname..but he had to go into the practicalities and leave out the subtleties. Anyways later he also agreed that it would be good to have the same last name and to keep things in sync but we should think these through and not make such decisions on the spur of the moment

Next level turned out to be the real level.:-) You see the first 2 levels have been handed over to a third party (a big IT company) and the third level is where government officials actually sit and check everything. The lady whose counter I was assigned to asked for my passport, I promptly handed over this to her. She then asked for original marriage certificate, gave that too. Next was address proof, I gave my original account statement/property bill. She asked for an address proof where I had my new last name. :-( This was where things came crashing down. I told her that this is the first official document for which I am changing my last name so I didn’t have any proofs. Since I have the marriage certificate, it should ideally work. She asked me to use the marriage certificate and get my name changed in bank account and come back with the new statement. I told her that ifwe are using marriage certificate as the base only why can’t she couple it with address proof in current name. But alas.. no logic works in govt offices. :-( 

So here I am currently waiting for a name change on my bank account. Meanwhile passport renewal is in ‘On-hold’ status. Will have to go to the passport seva kendra again. However I am assured I can skip the first 2 levels this time. Let’s see!! When I went for change in bank account, I was advised to get the updates made in office as well as loan account as my salary credit or ECS debit might be impacted owing to name mismatch. (They did later clarify that it should not matter since this is based on account number and not the name per se). Anyways after coming back we took a stock of what all places I might need a name change at the minimum… turns out I need to change it in bank account, PAN card & office. Thankfully most of these have online application facility and shouldn’t take much time. But there are other places where I should make name change to keep it all in sync. Hopefully I won’t be needed to make changes anywhere else since there are pretty cumbersome affair with many other government offices and these usually have more repercussions!! Will have to wait to see the effects of the chain of events I sparked off on a whim!

The Palace of Illusions - Book Review

While I was reading ‘Mrityunjay’, I learnt about another book based on Mahabharata ‘The Palace of Illusions’ authored by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The book revolves around Draupadi aka Panchali.. the wife of the Pandavas and has an interesting take on how she viewed Mahabharata – it has been written as if narrated in first person by Draupadi herself. 

With Draupadi being one of the most powerful women in Mahabharata, there has always been a curiosity to know more about her. She is one the most controversial and enigmatic characters in Mahabharata, whose hunger for revenge, many believe, led to an unnecessary war. Knowing the little that I know about Mahabharata, I thought of her as someone who got stuck in the cross fire of hate between the Kauravas & Pandavas. Going through what she did in the Hastinapur court, she wasn’t too wrong seeking revenge either. Maybe she could have been a little more forgiving and not became one of the reasons for initiating the Great War. 

The novel has been aptly titled “The Palace of Illusions” based on the illustrious palace that the Pandavas built for her. And after reading the book, I realized even more that the name was suited since this was the only place which she truly loved and felt at home in. The book has a very contemporary style of writing. While reading the first few pages I actually got a little disappointed since the writing didn’t seem to have the gravity that an epic story like Mahabharata requires. The writing seemed a little trivial as well. However as I went further, I realized that the writer wanted us to learn about Draupadi’s longings of a normal childhood & trivial childlike thoughts and then show how her circumstances gradually changed her thinking and made her the women she became. The effect of all the incidents which caused her to behave the way she did is clearly explained. 

 There were many things that I hadn’t given much thought of earlier or wasn’t aware of before reading this book. Like the story of her birth.. that she and her brother were born out of a hunger for revenge and to satiate their father’s ego. No wonder Draupadi had that same thing within her and had an unforgiving & revengeful nature. Morning shows the day!! Also the fact that Shikhandi was her sibling or her childhood friendship with Krishna (and thus their great bond) was something I didn’t know. The book also lets us know that when Draupadi was still a young unmarried women Rishi Vyasa had predicted her whole life and also warned her about few events which would be life changing for her. He had also advised on which of her actions she needs to control in order to avoid taking the pre-destined path. However even after knowing the result of her actions in these events, she is unable to do anything about it and her life takes the course that Vyasa predicted. Maybe the writer wanted to emphasize the point that Draupadi did what she was supposed to do and what was destined for her. It didn’t matter how she behaved, the war and the sufferings that are to be would take place. The book also has the typical ‘Saas-Bahu’ angle. :-) It was happening with the great queens of Mahabharata as well so may be a Saas and a Bahu are destined to have some or other clash ;-)

Being the romantic that I am, I loved the part about the unspoken love between Draupadi and Karna. Draupadi was attracted to Karna even during her Swayamvar and might have chosen him if not for Krishna's words. In ‘Mrityunjay’ there was a reference to their mutual attraction; in this book it has been explored further with many incidents where the actions of Draupadi and Karna are explained even though their thoughts at those incidents are different from the actions they take. Each regrets many of the words used for the other. The author does try to bring a closure of sorts by writing a happy ending for them. Do read the book to find out more :-) I used to think that the Draupadi-Karna love story was a figment of both Shivaji Savant and Chitra’s active imagination but learnt after some googling that there are subtle references to it in the original version of Mahabharata as well!!!! Interesting. 

The novel is a good read and the author has brought out the pains and sufferings of Draupadi really well. Her revengeful attitude as well as ego has not been polished over either. The story has been well written giving us a different insight into the life of Draupadi… she was not the cause of the epic battle; her life was impacted by the forces leading up to the war!  I would recommend it for sure.

Rating: I would give it 4 out of 5.

The Biker Boy

No this post is not about the biking controversy that rocked the world last week. However just to throw in my two cents—I was hugely disappointed when I learnt about the truth. I was a fan of Lance Armstrong. His life was such an inspiration.. even I feel like suing him for the cheat that he turned out to be. Sue him for the money and emotions I invested in his two books :-(. Anyways coming back to this post.. 

Last month we made a short trip to our hometown, stayed with our in-laws for a couple of days. Since then, there has been a new attraction to bikes that Shaurya has developed. It started with the small tricycle that Archie (Shaurya’s sister) had as a kid. This is the same bike that Sanskar (her elder brother) used earlier.. bought by none other than M. :-) When Archie learnt that we were coming home, she took it out and had it dusted and ready for Shaurya. Now Shaurya is her darling.. and vice versa.. so the moment my son set his eyes on this cute little tricycle that his didi got for him, he developed an instant connect. In very little time, he even learnt how to get on and off it. (Though it’s quite funny watching him get on that cycle.. :-) )Most of the time that we were at our native, he was either on the cycle or running round and round on the terrace. From my in-law’s place, I went to my parents place for a day. Luckily for him, he got hold of an old tricycle (in a very derelict condition) that my brother had. So here also, he spent a couple of hours on it. 

With the amount of time that he spent honing his cycling skills, it’s no surprise that his love continues back here in Pune too. Shaurya doesn’t have a tricycle yet and since he won’t be able to pedal for quite some time now, we were not sure if this was the right time to buy one for him. But now, whenever we come down from our apartment, he runs towards the parking area. There are a lot of bikes as well as kids bicycles parked in here. If it’s a bike, he would stand near it and call us to help him sit on top of it. He would then just try to hold the handle or touch the oil tank… If it’s a cycle, he would try to push it backward and forward and basically move it. However since the cycles would be locked, they wouldn’t budge much and we would put him on the seat so that he can play with the handle. It gets very difficult to pull him away from these bikes. Just so as in perfect timing, there’s a 6-7 year old girl in a new family which has come in the apartment in front of ours. She also owns a cycle. She seats him in the carrier and rides the cycle herself. :-) Shaurya just loves doing these rounds in the evening. 

Seeing his love for bikes growing day by day, we thought of getting a tricycle for him. We kind of delayed this for a couple of weeks, just to see if this love persists or would fade away if he finds something new. Also we were still unsure if it was too early to get him a cycle. Anyways this weekend, we went ahead and bought him a tricycle. In the shop, when Shaurya saw the cycles, he just went and sat on one. Wasn’t even ready to come out of it… the entire duration that we spent looking at different options and all.. he just sat on one. The one he choose was a cute blue tricycle with big bright yellow and silver tires. We loved that one too and bought it. Even after that, he didn’t want to come down from the cycle. We had to keep the cycle in the backseat of our car and my son sat on it and this is how we reached home.. :-D Now that he can’t pedal yet, Shaurya is trying to push the cycle with his legs. Currently he has learned to propel it in backward direction.. :-D.. let’s see what else my biker boy does!!