The god of small people

Niks has been falling sick. Again. And again. We’ve tried a variety of doctors and medicines and even antibiotics through a needle in his little hand. The Manipal hospital Emergency nurses say he is the bravest kid they’ve ever seen, with the scaredy-pooest mom. I stand outside while they poke at him inside.

When all earthly supports fail, we remember those guys upstairs.

And religions blend into one, with all the gods in their heavens being called down in a stampede. It doesn’t matter whether the god wears white robes or saffron, as long as He does the job.

So my neighbor, Nik’s adopted mommy, a Hindu Nair, promises the Infant Jesus church a solid bribe. And my Ma, a die-hard Roman Catholic resorts to tying a black thread ‘to ward off the evil eye’ on Nik’s skinny lil hand. And my cook does a hocus pocus with some seeds and oil around his nose. Something works. And Niks gets well.

I sit back and wonder. At what this relationship is with our Gods. They are smart beings for sure. Probably when Their coffers run a lil empty, and They need to finance a celestial tour across the skies, They look down, chewing Their divine lip.

And then They send Niks a tedious little viral infection, and soon enough – the prayers – and the funds will start pouring in.

In a perfect world

In a perfect world, the day I did the washing, hung all the clothes out in the sun till they were nice and dry and crisp – it would NOT RAIN! Especially, when I was out of home in my new suede shoes! Walking! Without an umbrella! With a cold already!

In a perfect world, the door jamb would hold a door open, not spinelessly fold up and let the door slam on someone’s fingers.

In a perfect world, the coffee would NOT run out just when I had a humpback whale of a headache.

In a perfect world, I would not be an hour late for a one hour meeting.

In a perfect world, I would have a longer nose. And thick lustrous hair falling down my back. (Well, it still falls down my back, but I would rather it was still connected to my scalp while it fell down my back, I meant).

In a perfect world, Niks would not collect germs and school complaints by the dozens and bring them home.

Learning : It’s cloudy outside, and I’ve just put my clothes to dry up, and I’ve got a nice big cuppa chai (so what if there’s no coffee?) and the house is filled with the noise of the kids playing Dinosaur with eachother and swinging from the curtains, and the golden brown dog is curled up in a slice of sunshine, and my hubby’s laughing out loud at something on the TV, and my Ma is doing the crossword, and Niks comes and sits on my lap right now , and wipes his nose on my TShirt, while trying to give me a big hug.
It IS a Perfect World!

My little black dress words

Every woman who ever reached anywhere to be interviewed in any article seems to have a little black dress which she says is the ONE element of her wardrobe she cannot do without. (Well, I have done without one for ages,) and anyways, it only really looked good on Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffanys and on no one who has fat knees.


But I do have that one all-purpose swiss-penknife little black dress WORD – or series of words. They fit in anywhere – consider:


LBD words # 1 : Next time, for sure.

Annoying clingy person: You said you’d call. You didn’t call. You were in the house next to mine, and you DIDN’t CALL!
Me : Oh ah ya. I didn’t call? Next time, for sure!


Ma : You forgot to post my letter again?
Me: Next time for sure.
Next time, Ma :You posted my letter?
Me: Next time, for SURE.

LBD # 2 : hehe

Really bad joke-telling person: So did you get it?
Me :(didn’t get it) : hehe.
Me : (got it but didn’t think it was funny) : hehe


Ira : You didn’t apply for your passport reissue yet?
Me : hehe.
Ira : hehe yes or hehe no?
(the problem with little black dress words is friends soon catch on!)

LBD # 3 : The kids did it!

Posh guest arriving at home: Ah, well, your house looks so – er – homely.
Me : It’s a mess, right? The kids did it!


S (from upstairs): What’s that noise down there?
Me : (dropped hot pan of milk) : Milk fell. Kids did it.
S : The kids are up here with me!



And sometimes, if the situation is really bad, I can use all 3 emergency LBD words at once… like…

Someone I don’t recognize : Hiiii Jane, you look just the same.
Me : hehe.
The someone : I still remember that portrait you said you’d paint of me.
Me : Next time, for sure.
The someone, suspiciously : You don’t know who I am, do you?
Me : hehe.
Someone : Don’t tell me you’ve lost your memory?
Me : The kids did it.

From: Jane. To: Rain

Oh great Indian monsoon, please show your face.
So far, you’ve been an utter disgrace!
No storms, no sploshes, no plops.
No miserly two-bit drops.

But wait - hey!
When I said Rain Rain Go away,
I really meant to say, Please stay.
Don’t be a spoil sport, come out and play.

Please wash my terrace, flood the streets.
You have permission to drench my sun-dried bed sheets.
Just Rain.
Don’t be a pain.
I want no excuses, no buts.
And I really want no more power-cuts.
The price of tomatoes has gone through the sky.
Because every farm is dry.
The big ole trees are dying of thirst.
But those pregnant clouds just refuse to burst.

Made my point. Please Mister Rain?
Save our grain. Please, pretty please, just come out again.


Comment : 1

Dear Jane. This is Mister Rain.
I know the reason you want me to shoot,
Is not for the earth or the crops or the roots.
I’m a wise old fella.
It’s cos you’ve just bought a new fancy umbrella.

i failed the passport test

The newspapers blazed with ads of all the minister’s smiling mugs, proclaiming Bangalore to be the new icon for passport purposes – all computerized – smooth process – no waiting - passports in 3 days – child-friendly -no hassle to citizens. I beamed more than the ministers. Time to get the kids their passports and renew my own and my mom’s. With NO hassle.

Now, reading between the lines, this is what it really means:

1) New scheme : You are our latest guinea pig! The post office staff supposed to helpfully supply these services looked blank, said they didn’t know what I was talking about and made me buy stamps for standing in the queue.
2) 3 days : It takes over 3 weeks to get an appointment to even apply for a passport under this scheme online – and wade through crashing systems. If you are one of the poor paupers who needs to go stand in the queue, please go the previous night, with idlis wrapped in newspaper, for the passport office to open the next morning.
3) No waiting : We waited for 4 hours, along with others who had brought tons of tiffin and tons of relatives.. Finally had to whine my way in, saying I have 2 sick kids, 1 handicapped mother (she walks with a stick – ha!) and got a chance – after the guy took pity on S, who looked like a normal person stuck in this circus.
4) Child-friendly : Niks,(who unlike the other toddlers who sat and sucked their mom’s sari pallus for 4 hours straight) ran away and got lost when his turn came, then fell onto the camera, and got the fingerprinting stamp ink on to everything else in sight, and insisted on giving the data entry operator a star on her official document. Neel sat and complained to an elderly lady on the other side, about the weight on his 6-year-old shoulders of monthly tests at school.
5) Smooth process : We needed to go through 4 separate levels, some desks manned by grim TCS hires, and some manned by boiled potatoes.
6) No hassle to the citizens : Hahaha – excuse me, while I choke over the coffee that I had to fight off 15 people in the queue in the ‘smooth process’ for!

Did I mention they also fingerprint you and take your photograph on the spot? So, I had done my hair, and put on an apricot shade of lipstick. 4 hours later, when the pic was finally clicked, I ended up looking like Ozzie the Orangutan on a bad hair day.

Need a mid-week weekend

Chix and I just exchanged hellos, how are yous this Monday morning, and realized we’re both exhausted and need a holiday. Because we’re recovering from two holidays in a row, and you know how stressful that is!

The weekend’s more packed, than the 6.02 Churchgate local is. There’s everything you couldn’t do on the weekday to do, like:

Bills to pay and queues to stand in, and bills to search for in safe places, and to find to see that they’re overdue, and therefore different queues to stand in – to be told you’re too late and it’s the weekend, so come back later, since the office is now closed.

Shopping rears its head, since the cupboard is bare. There are exactly two and a quarter geriatric drumsticks that have fossilized, that support the innards of the fridge, so the weekend is the time to stock up. S, with his caveman instincts, likes to hunt and forage, and pick up another five kilos of something that no one will ever eat, except the ants, some day. While the drumsticks live on.

There are errands to run, school things to be picked up (where does one buy bangles of different colours for a BOY’s school project, and WHY does a boy need them?), and socks that display magical holes just a day before school opens and pressure cooker gaskets that suddenly blow and people who fall sick and need visiting, and long-lost family members who appear and need to be visiting…. And the list goes on and on…

There are books to be exchanged in the library, and therefore, the night before spent in speed-reading the book to return it. There are appointments with dentists and saloons and vets, and washing machines that lie down and play dead, and parts for extinct electrical gadgets to be sourced, and – phew!

And do NOT FORGET TO HAVE FUN! Weekends are to have fun, so you must have fun, even if it kills you. So, squeeze in a pub in between standing in a BSNL queue, and repairing a shoe. Or take the kids on a play date with other parents who look as hollow-eyed as you do.

And finally, it’s Monday morning. Time for the blues. Time for a break!

Learning : Don’t you think the week should start with a weekend?

back to the front burner

To all those who kept asking me to re-blog (like that’s a word!) – this one’s for you. A pile of excuses. It’s nice, by the way, to be told someone’s waiting to hear my thoughts. And my cribs:

1) The World Cup : We all know by now, that every guy will watch anything with balls (didn’t come out quite the way I meant it). And since I have 3 guys at home, there wasn’t time for anything but football, at those insomniac hours. Though I must admit, that I’d get my huge mug of hot chocolate, get the place all readied up to watch the midnight match, and then at the first kick, fall asleep.

2) Nik’s started school : For these last 6 weeks, Niks has started going to Monstessori on a staggered (timings for the kids) and staggering (time for me) schedule. It was drop and pick-up, and now he’s finally going in the big yellow school bus, I miss taking him. He came home yesterday with some big girl’s shoes on. (Only wonder what she wore?) So, now I’ve got myself a little breathing space in the mornings, with Niks at school. Of course, his teachers look like drained out laundry after spending 3 hours in his company. Serves them right. Couldn’t they have opted for an easier profession – like neuro-surgery?

3) Last excuse in my book – is just that. A book that I’m writing/ trying to write. It’s not going forward. Quite the opposite, actually. Every chapter I manage to write, I delete two of the previous ones. Which leaves me with a backward progressing novel. It’s tough to write a book – demoralizing and no feedback (unlike your happy comments on the blog) – so I’m writing it mostly in the dark (literally,given Bangalore’s power situation).

But there it is! You can always depend on me for many excuses. I’m really good at that.
But thanks anyway, for missing me.

germ warfare

I am sick.
Day 10 now. Coughing like an old car, and head thumping like a new drumset.
And I didn’t do NOTHING to get sick, honest !
What’s happened to my immunity?

Down Memory Lane :
Memory 1 : I lived in a place where they bred cows for the milk next door. I used to spend my time hanging over the cow shed wall – making friends with all the buffalo calves – they are downright cute! All that cowdung and smell ! And I’d be in the middle of all of it, cuddling them up. Come right home, feeling hungry and make up a sandwich WITHOUT washing my hands.
Healthy as a horse ! (Excuse the mixing of metaphors and animals).

Memory 2 :
Playing all day – dashing around in the mud – hot sunny day – buying 2 rupee iced water in hideous colours of parrot green and orange from the roadside (though it was rumoured they made it from the gutter water).
Gastro-enteritis? Not a whisper !

Memory 3 :
Icy-cold Jamshedpur winter. Freeeeeeezing, and on top of it, it was raining. Saw from my verandah, some lil puppies getting drenched and howling on the road. Went running down (umbrella? Nah!) – and carried them all to push them under a culvert –, and wiping the rain streaming down my face -off at the same time.
Unhygienic? Fleas? Rabies? How do you spell all that?

Not fair. Fast forward a coupla decades – and here I am – being good. Using umbrellas in the rain, and hand SANITIZER – and half the preventive pharmacy – and guess what?

Caught some big bad bugs.
My kids cuddling up to me, kissing me all over my germ-infected nose - and still healthy as - horses!

Learning : Guess those guardian angels that they say kids have? That’s really true.

Early bookings

Every alternate Sunday morning, like a good convent-educated girl, I make my way to worship. In the crowded, dusty environs of Eloor library. Which holds, in the most no-nonsense style, the best books to be had in the city. There, I spend a good part of the morning hours browsing, reading, searching, giggling at a funny line, raising my eyebrows at the audacity of someone who can’t write at all, tip-toeing to the top shelf to get a look at the books hidden up there, sneezing at the cobwebs.
All, in all, it’s a fabulous wouldn’t-give-it-up-for-the-world morning. I come away feeling refreshed (though a lot grimier).

Once in a while, S and I take the boys, in an attempt to introduce them early to this wonderful world of make-believe that makes the world of non-make-believe a lot more livable. Each time, we do this, we promise never to repeat it again.

S goes down one aisle to his section of books heavy enough to start weight-lifting with, with pages full of words no one but the author (and apparently S) had heard of. He then turns to his other interest – absolute mind-smashing Wild West comic books. Similarly, I window-shop through all the erudite master-pieces, cluck at the wisdom and the beauty of those Pulitzer prize winners, and then settle for some nail-biting thriller I can read before falling asleep.

Neel reads (has just learn to read) in loud stage whispers : “P-A-N-T-H-E-R TALES.”
Nik : Whasthat mean, Neel?
Neel (who admits to not knowing nothing) : It’s about why you can’t wear pants if you have tail.s
A couple of giggles around the library. A loud sssssssssshhhhhhhh.

Chastised, Neel goes on to read another book, loudly and all wrong.
Niks soon bored, goes to his favourite task here. He rearranges all the reading stools. He stocks them up on each other, then tries to climb up the whole unholy pile, and before he crashes to the floor, someone kind thankfully catches him. Then he starts all over again.

S often thinks of charging Nik’s audience for the entertainment he never fails to provide.

Neel, meanwhile, has moved to another section of the library, it seems from his loud rendering of “L-A-D-Y C-H-A-TTTTTT-something – L-O-V-E-R”.

Sorely tempted to disown both, and leave them behind in the library, S and I, nevertheless, act the part of responsible parents, and quickly hustle them away. We pay for our books, and rush out red-faced, promising yet again, never to bring them here again.

We are half-way home when we find that Niks has become the world’s littlest shop-lifter, and certainly the first in our family. He clutches on, innocently, to the Little book of Classic Quotes.

With a sigh, we turn back.

Jane Funda’s workout

To those of you who ask me how I stay slim in spite of 2 kids, I say I stay slim BECAUSE of 2 kids. But here's my secret - the daily exercise regimen - never miss a day.

Yoga : Start the day by lying on a mat staring at the ceiling.
Breathe in, saying “Oooooooooooom”
Breathe out, saying “WHO threw ketchup at the ceiling?!!!”

Aerobics : (good for the heart)
It’s gonna rain. Run up the stairs, to pull in all the clothes drying out. Kids run after me to help. Niks throws a clean bed sheet over the terrace wall. It falls to the ground 3 storeys below.
Run 6 flights of stairs down to get the bed sheet, run up 6 flights of stairs back to the terrace. Find that Niks has thrown all the clothes clips over the wall. Run down…. (to be repeated at least thrice).
Scream and rant and rave at Niks (bad for the heart).

Rest : (Finally slump down on pillow for well-deserved rest).
Jump up, with pillow jumping with me. Why? Someone has stuck chewing gum on the pillow. Spend 1 hour vigorously washing hair, and finally have to cut off some strands.

Dance :
So angry now, that should catch and whack the butt of some offending kid. Easier said than done!
Lunge to the left. Bend to the right. Jump over the chair. Dive under the bed. A 1- and a 2- and a- 3- Stretch to the top of the cabinet – a-4- and a- 5- (count till 30 and if haven’t caught the kid till then, let him go!)

Meditate :
Close eyes, sit in a dark room and listen to the sound of …
“Mama, potty!”
“Mama, Marcopolo is chewing up my underwear.”
“Mama, how do I get a crayon out of my nose?”

Learning : Dash around doing three things at once, maybe 40 times a day, and I guarantee you – even after eating comfort-food of a double bar of rich chocolate a day – you will – on this exercise plan– lose 5 pounds a month (and a lot more hair).