My mom and her maid – Post 13

I fail to understand the fixation my mom has with her maid. Actually not just her maid, she has a fixation with my maid as well.

The first question on my daily call to her is inevitably “Maid came?” followed by “Cook came?” No mom, they didn’t and what will you sitting hundreds of miles away?

I know what she will do; she will curse her if she didn’t come. After all, the darling daughter will have to do the work.

So maid is a very integral part of my mom’s life. Each time I speak to her, the maid gets a mention. Either she was very good that day, or she was bad. Either she did some extra work without asking, or she didn’t finish her work!!

Sample Conversations:

Mom – Radha came late today

Me – Mom I am in Singapore

Mom – Good, I almost thought she won’t come.

Me – ok, I am running late for my meeting with the Chairman of my company

Mom – Oh, so I scolded Radha and she almost replied back

Me – Mom, I if I don’t make it on time he will fire me

Mom – Don’t worry, but Radha has become very rude!!

Me – Mom, I just got ran over by a bus

Mom – Oh, but how can Radha be so rude??

And the story goes on………

Random mumblings of a confused mind. Post 12

No matter how much I travel, each time I am about to leave for the airport, I still get that sunken feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like there will be something amiss happening. There is always this thought of calling the boss and telling him that I am almost dead and therefore can’t do this trip. But some things “have to be done” and travelling on work surely tops that list.

Sleep is another aspect that is totally screwed up while I am oversees. I sleep with the lights switched on and with TV playing as well. I have this major phobia of sleeping alone. So with TV on, I get the feeling that there is someone in the house. Also, I need to be fully aware of the surrounding and therefore the lights are kept on all night. With TV I have to be extra careful to ensure I tune it to some safe channel. Like some sport or some cartoon. Now what if they start showing some horror movie and I suddenly wake up to see some gory images!!! Night mare!!

Now why am I talking about all this today? That’s because I am sitting at the airport waiting to board my flight to Singapore. I will be gone for a couple of days. And didn’t want to skip writing a post.

So tomorrow’s update will be from Singapore la!!!

Nothing like sweet nothings!! Post 11

Pre Script: Yesterday was this mad mad day. and so I couldn’t write a post. Are we allowed a few life lines in the NaBloPoMo? I hope we are. I really want to continue this? So veterans, do let me know if missing a day or 2 is acceptable.

Now why was yesterday mad could be anybody’s guess. My dream of taking that 1 month break seems to be getting more and more real. And if life continues at the same pace I would be taking the break sooner than I thought.

Aman time and again shows me what a wise decision I made by marrying him. Not that I have any doubts, but the guy doesn’t fail to swoon me every now and then.

So Thursday morning while I was just about to leave for work, he caught me by surprise and clicked a picture of me from his blackberry. I didn’t even bother to see how the snap had come. And almost forgot about it as soon as it was clicked.

On Friday, I saw this message from Facebook, saying Aman had tagged a picture of mine. Curiosity obviously got the better of me like it always does and I logged on to check what the guy was upto?

What I saw, made my heart skip a beat!! He had uploaded the same picture he had clicked the previous morning with the caption “Yesterday’s morning was really beautiful”. Now what does one do with that? One simply says a little prayer, thank all the gods in the world and hopes that things never change!!

P.S: I am still a bit modest so won’t put up the picture here. Those of you who I am connected on FB can obviously see the picture.

Home will be warmer from today… Post 10

Because In-Laws are reaching Bangalore tonight J

This means -

I will be waking up early

I will not have to unlock the door and enter an empty home (as aman invariably comes home after me!!)

Aman and I will be on a detox for obvious reasons ;)

There will be yum paratha’s for breakfast

There will be longish Mango hogging sessions after dinner

There will be home made mango pickle

There will be more laughter in the house

There will be a lot of baby talks – for which I will not have an answer!!

There will be good food all around

There will be more talks on shifting to Delhi

There will be gifts and more

There will be an attempt to wrap up work and reach home on time

There will be packed weekends and some out of Bangalore trips

Home will be a lot happier place. I am blessed, truly. Touchwood.

No Desserts for me please - Post 9

Some decisions are hard to come by. But when enough is enough, one has to take drastic steps. The pointer on the weighing scale has been moving in the wrong direction for a few years now. Finally the realization came home that I had moved to the category of “Overweight” people. And who wants to be that.

Something had to be done.

And after a lot of tears, resolve was made. Say no to SWEETS. Yeah, you read that right, I decided to be off desserts.

But considering the fact that I have a major sweet tooth, I love eating out and most weekends are spent trying some or the other new restaurant, I knew this would be a difficult job.

So the clever me decided that I won’t order any desserts for myself. I will just take a bit or two from what others are having. This way my craving would be satiated and I wouldn’t be taking in all those calories. And so began the mighty sacrifice.

But, alas, it turned out to be quite something else. How you may ask. This is how - I am out with friends. Each one orders a dessert. I don’t. But I take a bite from each. So ultimately mu intake is more than theirs.

So my taking a bite or two turns out to be such a duh!!

Who ever said sharing is a mighty good thing to do??

Even Good guys make mistake - Post 8

This was my FB status message a few days back and a lot of my friends assumed it was about Aman. Fortunately it wasn’t. My guy usually doesn’t make mistakes and even if he did I wouldn’t talk about it on FB, would I?

This is about someone else. Let me explain.

Recently I met this newly wed couple. While I have known and respected the guy for a couple of years, it was the first time I was meeting the girl. The guy is a mature, intelligent and an extremely smart fellow. He is a good human being and overall a nice person to know. He is good at his work and quite ambitious. And when he announced marriage we were very happy. It was a marriage of choice and he had known the girl for a few months.

I am sure they are in love. And I am sure they are happy. But what shocked me was the “couple itself”. They were just so opposite. And not opposite in that nice way which makes one go all mush.

They were opposite in this very weird manner. While the guy is all sober and intelligent, the girl was all silly and full of giggles. I surely don’t mind people who laugh a lot, but laughing without a reason is such a put off. The girl was also definitely low on IQ, a bit of a show off and seemed like a brat. She certainly wasn’t someone I could manage a decent conversation with.

Which obviously made me think what my friend saw in her. She was good looking. But it ended at that. So did my friend get so floored by the way she looked that he didn’t bother to go beyond that? So is it that men still just want eye candy as wives? What happens when this initial fascination with looks dies down? Will then the stupidity start bothering him? And wont it be too late? What will he do when he wants to talk? Will he still enjoy the giggles as much? Well, that only time will tell, but as of now, I think he did make a mistake.

The monkey menace - Post 7

That’s the most recent phenomenon that has plagued the so called up market, posh apartment I stay in.

So the security guards had warned me and had asked me to keep the doors closed. Which, of course, I forgot about.

So it was Saturday and Aman and I

were sitting on the balcony enjoying some evening tea. Suddenly I see these 2 pair of eyes staring at me from the adjoining balcony which is attached to the bedroom. I shrieked and we ran in only to realize that the bedroom door was open. The monkeys were faster than us and before we could enter the bedroom to close the door, the monkeys were comfortably sitting on the threshold.

Panic struck the Bhatia – Malhotra household. And Aman, if not more, was at least as scared. We were standing at the entrance trying to hush the monkeys out. Aman was trying to make all these scary sounds but our monkeys were just not bothered. And slowly they entered the room and started scanning the place. I ran to get a stick, but before that I clicked this picture. The picture is not very clear, after all I could do only as much with Aman pushing me to get the stick, while he was holding the fort and protecting the house.

After running around the house I finally managed to find a curtain road which could be used as a weapon to chase these animals away. But before we could do anything, one of them grabbed the All Out {yes, the one we use for mosquitoes} and the other one clutched this Mobile phone box which had the warranty card and ear phones. Having their loot in place they ran. And we couldn’t do anything.

Huh. Even monkeys are getting the better of us!!

And if this was not enough, I saw then swimming in the apartment pool the next afternoon. It was sunny and what better way to cool themselves right??

The fall syndrome. Post 6

Yes, that’s what I have been suffering from since time immemorial. Ever since I can remember I have been this extremely fall prone person. As a kid, I could be often spotted with crape bandages on my ankles. My home back in Ranchi was a duplex. And I use to go up and down the stairs a number of times each day. And even then managed to trip or twist my ankle ever so often. This meant that I used to fall on the same set of staircase, which I knew like the back of my hand.

Things haven’t changed much. I walk extremely carefully as I am well aware of this tendency and yet I manage to do the mighty fall every now and then.

The most recent one was where I fell in the PVR cinemas. I was walking up the stairs, very carefully, and yet I managed to do the unthinkable. The on lookers were shocked and all I could do was laugh. You might think that my footwear choice is bad, but what will you say if I tell you that I fall even while I am wearing those Nikes. Just the other day Aman and I were at this cool restaurant having a romantic candle lit dinner. It was the beautiful Banglore night and we felt like going for a walk across the pool. So we got up, Aman was standing tall and I was on the floor. I really had no clue how I fell while getting up from the chair but I did. Don’t even ask me about the level of embarrassment.

There are way too many of such instances. Like recently when I was in Melbourne for the launch of our new centre I decided to save my company some dollars. So I doubled up as the event Emcee as well. I was wearing these awesome stilettos and was extremely careful while walking up the stage and just as I put my left foot on the stage it slipped. I felt the world come crashing. There were dignitaries, my company’s leadership, employees and media. Last place to fall you would agree. Right at that moment my hand held the podium and I stabled myself. Some people did notice what had happened but the mighty fall had been saved.

I trip and fall while walking on the plainest of the surfaces. People close to me know this well and there is always a helping hand nearby.

I think it’s time I go visit some astrologer, or maybe add another A or I to my name. Or maybe wear some precious stones. But I really need to find a solution.