Life's Mixed Bag

Is it something that only I am imagining about or is it something that we all experience everyday? It has become so prevalent in today’s life that we fail to notice it. Or we have imbibed it so well that it now flows in our vein. I just noticed it today as I experienced an overdose of it that led my mind to ponder over it. I went out in my balcony to get the soothing morning breeze when I saw my neighbor screaming over the vegetable vendor. I did not want to upset my morning enthusiasm and so I retired back to my room shutting the door. Back there I found my husband getting agitated and loosing his temper over some issue on his early morning phone meeting. I opened the door to get hold of morning newspaper when I found my other neighbor pouring her anger on milkman over a torn packet of milk. While dropping my daughters for school bus, I noticed one well dressed lady dragging her son angrily as she was getting late for work.  The little boy wanted to go at his comfortable pac...

Written after my  third visit to Grand Canyon on Nov 11, 2008 I have been to Canyon thrice in last two years.  Every time I visit it, I discover a new angle to its beauty, I see a newness in it- a new spirit with which it stands still for more than five million years. I stand speechless before the Canyon, listening to its silence in perfect exaltation. Its enormity burns my retina.  The magnificent beauty inexorably drives you to enact things shown in various movies like falling on the ground to kiss the earth or screaming at the top of your voice and listen to the echo. The world on my side- the park from where tourists see the Canyon, is noisy. There are people chattering, children running around and cameras clicking.  But the Canyon is still. The two opposing world collide and get engulfed by the vastness of the Canyon that separates the two world. Looking at the stillness of the Canyon, it seems improbable that the making of Canyon was a noisy eve...

This blog was written for an online magazine in 2008. A sensitive husband always throws a surprise birthday party for his wife a year ahead of her other friends and relatives! Well, that’s a joke and is too good to be true. We do not expect such sensitivity from someone from Mars.  As per the survey result and experiences of married women like me who are enjoying the mundane ‘comfortable zone’ of their married journey, most of the husbands forget to remember their wife’s birthday or their marriage anniversary because they try too hard to memorize it. Well, I am not writing this blog to complain about the defects that my Tech-savvy husband suffers from when it comes to touching the soft corner of a woman’s heart.  That’s how majority of real men are. And I do not want to change him (well! I give up on that impossible task) and I love him the way he is. He is not a man of words and I rule the relationship when it comes to expression through words. Whether it’s love, ange...

This piece was written in 2008 and published in an online magazine. Last Saturday, I turned 4 years old mom when my elder daughter celebrated her fourth birthday. I do not remember what my life before that was as I can hardly recall any moment when I have not talked like a mom, behaved like a mom or thought like a mom. Motherhood has been overwhelming but truly enjoyable. I am into a 24*7 job of parenting as I am having my hands full with two adorable daughters of 4 years and 18 months. They truly are the angels in my life. I still remember the first time I hold her in my arms. She was a healthy baby wrapped neatly in a pink towel which blended with her pink complexion. Oh! That was the most overwhelming moment I ever had and it was repeated after two and half years when my second bundle of joy arrived. Till the birth of my elder one, I never trusted my maternal instinct. In fact throughout my first pregnancy, I had doubts about whether I would be able to bond with my baby. S...

This piece was written when I was a young mother. The chaos has reduced with my girls growing up. We face chaos at several stages of life in  varied forms. But this chaos is the most enjoyable one!!! Toys scattered all over the floor, cushions thrown out of couch, prints of little fingers and hands on the walls, doors and refrigerator, pencil and crayon marks at some places on the walls and a soft nursery rhyme CD playing on- this is how my house is at most of the times during day. If you feel that it is quite messy, let me check you here as I feel that it is not messed up, but fully lived up by my two kids of 4 and 2. Life before being a mother was well organized. There was discipline at home and at work. Everything remained at its place, could be easily found and the house looked spotless clean and beautifully adored. There was specific time for everything- for work, for relaxing and for entertainment. Life took a beautiful turn after being a mom. Organization and time m...

With Mother's Day around the corner, this one is from my treasured memory bag, written some seven  years ago. The first Mother’s day that was special to me was May 9, 2004. That was special because for the first time, I was experiencing this day as a mother. I was new to the mother’s world as I my first bundle of joy was born a week before . But what made the day even more special was that the first person to wish me on this day was my own mom. Since then for the last four years, I get calls and wishes every year on this day from my spouse, mom, friends and relatives. But this year was special and would be registered in my memory as the most special Mother’s Day of my life. It was special because for the first time my own daughter wished me. Yes! My four year old has grown up smart enough to fill my life with surprises on special occasions like this. Well, she surprised me with a special card that she made at her school and for her age she did a pretty good job to keep t...

This is an old piece written in 2007 and published in an online magazine. I was enjoying “Everybody Loves Raymond” on television with my husband. In that episode, Ray Romano made a humorous remark on married couples. We chuckled together and my husband could not let the moment go out of his hand and took full advantage of it to make a statement that clearly reflected his chauvinism. “See, how great his sense of humor is. No female can have such a sense of humor.”- He said in a teasing tone. Well, I am very prompt in answering back and especially when it comes to an attack on feminism. But I was dumbfounded as no female’s name crossed my mind, who had such a talent. I struggled to recollect one such name. I scratched my head and bit my nails, but I could not strike on one such prominent name. My husband did not verbally proclaim his chauvinist win, but he walked away with a victorious look on his face. I was still struggling in my brain to find a female who could make someone l...