Mirror Mirror on the wall!

Yesterday I read a news article about a group started online for a movement called "Mirror fasting". Its a group of women who have decided to not to look into the mirror whether it is at home or in malls or any other public places to improve their self esteem.
Suddenly I realized that I have never had a full length mirror or for that matter a dressing table either in my parent's place or now in my own set up. we have been busy buying all other necessary furniture for the house, but never thought of buying a dressing table and never did I insist on it! Come to think of it, I always feel better without a full length mirror to look at myself every now and then and trust me, it is lot of time saved. Never have I worried about whether a particular dress or particular colour suited me or not and whenever there was a function in the family and I had access to full length mirrors I was more than embarrassed to check myself out. I am comfortable in my skin and don't need the reassurance through a mirror. I think I am decently dressed when I step out of the house and that is enough to give me the necessary boost to my confidence.
Now, after reading this article I do realize that there are scores of women who are obsessed at looking at themselves and adjusting their attire and accessories all the time and I sometimes pity the women who miss out the actual occasion for which they are dressed up and end up checking only their own appearance. I am also blessed to have kids who have not insisted so far on having a full length mirror despite the peer pressure to maintain good looks. But one thing I am sure is that I might not feel comfortable to enter their room which might later on have a full length mirror!

Our own Mary Kom!

Winning a medal in Olympics! That too being an Indian and also mother of not one but twins. Great feat Mary! Of all the sports icons who won the medals for India at the Olympics (not that we can boast of too many), Mary has really stolen our hearts.
I salute her more since I realize how difficult it is to raise , leave alone twins , even one child. There are thousands of Indian housewives who hire full time maids much younger than them to handle their kids. Here is a sports icon who takes care of her twins (one of them is a heart patient!) and also keeps her drive to be good at her chosen sport fighting not only the opponents but all other social pressures too.
Her husband says that she had to face the wrath of her in laws as a newly wed to pursue her dreams. Of course, now they would be the first ones to celebrate her victory.
As middle class Indians we still have to fight the system to achieve something we believe in. It is all the more difficult for a married woman as many a times she has to fight the family too . Mary Kom is a winner every way and she is blessed to have a supportive husband who doesn't have a huge ego to stop his wife from pursuing her dreams. May his tribe increase and lets have more of such Mary (Humari) Koms!

Growing up with kids

Last week, I was travelling in a bus and passing through a school around mid-morning. I noticed a group of parents anxiously waiting at the gate and just when the bell rang , all the nursery kids ran out to their respective parent with so much happiness. Couple of them started crying when they didn't find their guardian. Just a few years back, I was one of those anxious mothers waiting at the gate. How time flies and how the attitude of these kids change when they grow up.
My daughter who used to cry during nursery even if I was only a couple of minutes late to pick her up, now in her teens, doesn't want me to come to the school unless the school insists. Do we parents actually realize when it is time to stop holding them and stop pampering them? There are times when my daughters are more matured than me in handling a situation and I am sheepish to admit so. Today's kids are far more matured and have greater clarity of thinking than us. They want to be out of our protective shadows earlier than we wanted to be out of our parents' control.

Very soon, they would be out of the house and on their own in this world. They are well equipped to handle the situation with advanced communication and far better education and exposure. But the question is, are we parents ready to accept that they are independent, are we ready to accept a situation when we are going to live a long, lonely life? At least , its time for me to grow up with my kids and plan for my own independent life.

Hair raising issues!

Blogging after a long break! Though lots of thoughts were there to pen down, lack of willingness to put it down in writing was a major block. Hope to write more and maybe, slicker posts from now on.

Recently my daughters had a sudden urge to cut their hair (not trim) to the shortest length possible. Cutting waist length hair to shoulder length (in this case, even shorter than that) is a crime in our conservative Tamil brahmin family. The history of maintaining long thick hair goes back to decades in our families and thanks to nuclear family set up today, none of the older generation athais or mamis know about this supposedly sinful act of my kids.
But to think of the privileges of having long lustrous hair makes me feel sorry for my kids. As a kid , I had tresses that were envy of my neighbourhood kids. Whenever there was a festival or function in the family, when kids with shorter hair had to run in search of hairclips to fix the small string of jasmine flowers, I had the privilege of getting the longest string of thickly tied jasmine flowers and I could flaunt it throughout the day without having to worry about hair clips. whenever there was a wedding in the family, elderly women of the family literally were vying with each other to plait my hair and decorate it with different types of kunjalams, beads etc. Once it was done, visitors including strangers used to call me and touch my hair and praise my hairdo. I used to feel like one of the just crowned beauty queens and strut around proudly. During my short stint in Europe too my long hair was the main attraction for the natives and I used to feel on top of the world when people used to stop me and ask me whether it was real hair and how I was maintaining it. Once I even had to give a small demonstration by letting my hair loose and combing it and plaiting it again.
few months back when we had a school reunion, friends who met me were keen to know the current status of my hair and most of them remembered me more for my hair than my other talents.
Although I agree with my daughters who say it is convenient to maintain short hair with all the travel involved and time constraints, I also feel sad that one day they would miss out on wearing fresh jasmine flowers with the traditional kanchivaram silk saree in a typical tamil brahmin wedding.

Celebrity fever!

Last year Hindustan times gave scholarships to few deserving students of the city schools who excelled in academics and co-curricular activities. One of the recipients of this was none other than Shahrukh Khan's daughter.
What an irony? When this country has millions of children who need all the funding even for basic necessities like food, clothing, etc one of country's leading newspaper chooses to fund the education of the daughter of one of the highest tax payers of the country. This can happen only in India. All the students selected for this scholarship have been selected from the most prestigious schools and not from state run schools and these so-called prestigious schools collect a huge sum of fees and in addition to that, the parents send their children to private tuition which cost more than double the school fees. Why on earth would these children need this scholarship? why not give it to more deserving and economically backward students?

Then came the piece of news that a hospital is turned into a fortress for Aishwarya Rai's delivery, while the same page carried a news of a poor woman delivering in the train . What a contrast! Surely , our media and administration needs to wake up for the needs of the poor and stop idolizing stars .

Facing a crisis

After a lot of thought about whether I should be blogging about this issue, I am doing it. A huge thank you to a close relative who convinced me to write about it in the hope that it will inspire others who face such problems in life.
Last year, October 2nd, was a memorable day for a reason besides it being Gandhi Jayanthi. It was the day my husband lost his vision all of a sudden. It was very scary for all us. I really can't imagine having to get up one day with absolutely no vision and grope around my own house, banging against things. But full marks to my husband who took the loss in his stride and was very very brave. Looking at him, I knew I should just be focusing on what I should do next and not brood about what has happened. With the little bit of medical knowledge I had, I realized that in case of loss of vision, especially for diabetics (my husband is one), every second becomes valuable since the vision can be retrieved only with early treatment. I prayed that this would be a temporary loss of vision and that he would get back to normal soon.

After a whole round of tests and investigations, the doctor concluded that my husband had suffered peripheral loss of vision. He also added that it was not due to diabetes (diabetics generally have central loss of vision). He said it could be due to vitamin B12 deficiency and put my husband on injections and medications. With continuous treatment, he thought it was possible for my husband to get back his vision, or at the very least, show some improvement.

After about almost a year now, my husband is showing steady improvement. Thanks to his resilience, he also manages to adjust well within his limitations. In fact, he took the blow with such a calm mind that I was amazed. How could anyone be so cool-headed in the face of such crisis? He never got irritated and neither did complain about his handicap.
This episode also threw light on how we take so many things for granted. For one, I never even knew that our vision can be affected in so many ways - loss of peripheral vision, loss of central vision, seeing floaters, having tunnel vision....
Until now, I had taken my perfect vision for granted and even wearing reading spectacles was a task for me. Now I appreciate my well being more than before and I have also learnt a few valuable lessons about how to handle a crisis .
I now know better how hard it is to survive in a city like Mumbai even with a very mild loss of vision and how difficult it must be for someone who is totally blind.
Unless someone close to us is affected we seem to be ignorant of the plight of the people around us. I just hope and pray that someday I can fall back on all these experiences of mine to make other people's life better.

Trip to Andaman

After really a hectic schedule of exams and rounds of clinical visits, we decided we needed a break . A long discussion and thorough research later, we zeroed in on the Andaman islands. It turned out to be a good decision and the trip was absolutely delightful.

Andaman retains the old world charm and is very beautiful. The ocean is blue and people are environmentally conscious. Unlike here in the mainland, shopkeepers are strict about not using plastic bags and littering is not the way of life. The lifestyle remains simple and we didn't see too many high-rise structures.
The best part of the trip was seeing the coral reefs and encountering the tribes.
The trip to the tribal area, by itself was an adventure. The vehicles are allowed into the highly guarded area only at specific timings and in a specific order. Not more than ten vehicles including three buses are allowed inside the area at any given time. The vehicles are escorted by police vehicles and tourists are strictly prohibited from handing over anything to the tribals. But as usual, we could see miscreants in other vehicles throw things out and disregard the rules.

Andaman is proof of a place that is governed well in the absence of political parties and leaders. The surprising part was that people are fluent in more than one local language. We came across a Tamil Nadar (shop keeper) who spoke fluent Bengali and also a few Bengalis who were very fluent in Tamil.

The local tourist guides , in contrast to the film-struck guides of North India, were very passionate about the historical importance of Andaman Islands and gave heart-rending accounts of the sacrifices made by our leaders for our independence, especially about the hardships they faced in the Cellular Jail . We also heard from the locals that there is no theft in the island. It must be a heaven to live in such a place!

I thought it would be a blessing to settle down in such a beautiful, unspoilt island. My children agreed that they too, would like to dump me on an island! This is one punishment I won't mind going through.