Who moved your curds? Not me!

When I tell people I have never tasted curds (and yoghurt for those who want a fancy name) in my entire life, they look at me like I am saying I have committed two murders and I am on the run.

It gets worse when I say that I have also never tasted buttermilk or even home-made butter.

There have been gasps of disbelief and shock and sometimes even condescending stares from my brethren. Some have told me in no lesser words that I am a lunatic and some have given me sermons over what I am missing in life. Some have stared at me like I am a lesser mortal.

In a nutshell, I have managed to elicit a gamut of emotions by stating a simple fact about myself.

Over the years, I have learnt to live with these collective reactions for two reasons
1) I can’t make them understand why I haven’t tasted the aforesaid products
2) Even if I try to, I know they will never understand

The husband says I should stop being proud of the fact that I am a non eater and get my act together. Well, to him and scores of my other well wishers, I can’t do much about it.

Being a non eater runs in my genes. There are several members in my extended family who are like me. I have an aunt who drinks only black coffee because she can’t take even that much amount of milk. As for me, I manage to endure milk.

There have been several efforts to convert me. A favourite subterfuge is to put pressure with the help of examples of converts. “X never used to have dahi before. But she has started having it now. She eats it after food regularly and feels great about it.”

“Y started having curd and rice because when he was staying away from home he did not have anything else to eat and had to survive on that. Now he loves it”
These are subtle suggestions that I should go their way. I say, “Good for X and Y, but I can’t do it, much as I want to.”

I don’t know why I am a non eater. It’s certainly not by choice. I am like this genetically, mentally and yes physically too, much absurd as it may sound. The smell (or aroma for most) of curd or butter never fails to make me nauseous. In fact, it’s so bad that I can’t touch or move a pot of any of the above mentioned products.

These days I have stopped convincing people I am as normal as anyone even if I don’t go berserk when I see curds/buttermilk/butter.

To me the chapter of being a non-eater has long ended, in fact it never was in the first place.

A friend once told me, “You don’t know what you are missing in life.”
To her and to everyone else I say, “That’s right. I don’t know and I guess I never would.” It’s like someone who has been a vegetarian all their life.

It doesn’t make a difference.

The ‘little’ world

There are so many things to do over the weekend. My hands are always full. But there are some that stand atop my list of to-dos. Re-arranging my little one’s wardrobe is one of them.

I look forward to the activity. It’s kind of a stress-buster. Sonny’s wardrobe is more often than not teeming with clothes. These are all gifts from loving aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, friends and kith and kin in the category. I must admit there is very little that I have contributed to it.

So, there I go, sitting cross-legged in front of the little cupboard that houses my son’s belongings. I start off by digging out all the clothes just to discover that there is so much stuff left unused for reasons ranging from ‘not the correct size’ to ‘not right for the weather’.

Now comes the tricky part – bringing in some order which would hasten the process of finding the right piece of clothing at the right time.

I start by creating little stacks. The tees all go in one place; followed by all the pants, then go all the onesies, then the jumpers, then the peddle-pushers, then the cardigans and coats, then the raincoats, the traditional wear, the shirts, the denims, then the…

The whole effort takes me a little over 20 minutes as opposed to the herculean task of arranging my own wardrobe. At the end of it, I have a whole new range of clothes, an organised cabinet, a bag full of hand-me-downs and a mind full of energy.

I always wonder why I feel so rejuvenated at the end of it. When I am at it, I feel like I am transported to another world – a world beyond the drudgery of everyday life.

It’s like an Alice in Wonderland feeling.

To Grand Pa and Ma, with love

I once came across some beautiful lines written about some of the most wonderful people in the world. They said, ‘Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.’

I couldn’t have agreed more.

When I see my little one with his grandparents, to me, he looks like the luckiest kid in the whole world.

They dote on him like there is no tomorrow. There’s a little world they have built only for him that is full of everything robust. When he is in this world, he is tucked away from all things bad. He is happy, secure and in the best of his element.

I look at him and I feel that my little one will grow up to be a fine young man thanks to a wonderful childhood.

And that’s one thing I share with him.

I have experienced two sets of grandparents, that’s like four individuals and four times the love. They have been my guardian angels, my playmates, my partners in crime, my support systems and much more.

Things haven’t changed even after I have become a mother myself. My grandparents’ house is where I have left a little piece of my childhood and they have taken every care to keep it unblemished.

Years after he died, my grandfather’s words still resonate in my ears. One night, as I slept, he quietly sat by my side. I pretended to be fast asleep. He tousled my hair and whispered, “God, give my baby all the happiness in the world.”

They were simple words yet ones filled with emotions that were reserved only for me. That time, he probably left God with little choice of not fulfilling his wish.

Not many are lucky to have experienced this form of love. If every little boy or girl had a chance to live with Grandpas and Grandmas, the world wouldn’t have been filled with so much hatred.

Grandparents can do what even parents can’t.

The ‘age’ factor

Have you ever had a sudden realization that you have reached ‘that’ age where all you see around is people younger than you? They seem to be everywhere -- at work, in restaurants, at the movies, in malls and on the roads.

As for you, you suddenly find yourself to be an ‘older’ person at home, a ‘senior’ official at work and a ‘responsible’ individual otherwise.

You find it hard to relate to the ‘younger lot’. Their concerns are different. They probably lose sleep over chipped nails, hair colour gone wrong, Levis getting costlier or argument with girlfriend/boyfriend.

Then you feel a little ancient.

Not so long ago, you were in their shoes. Days off meant waking up late, lounging at home, having things served on a platter and then gallivanting with friends often to return late.

At that point, these things had made sense to you. Now, perhaps, they don’t. Life moves on and you reach a stage where it doesn’t really matter that you chipped a nail (well, unless, it’s a throbbing pain).

But you somehow don’t miss living ‘that’ life anymore. You look at ‘them’ and you reminisce about your days of yore.

But it ends at that.

You have started liking being ‘older’, ‘senior’ and ‘responsible’.

Weight and watch

“You need to put on a little weight,” a cousin told me recently. I nodded. He was not the first one to tell me that.

A little after my son turned six months, I lost all the extra kilos I had piled on during my pregnancy. Even as I thought this must be about it, my son ensured that I lost the extra stuff and more. That left me with much lesser flesh on my person than ever.

Till late in my life, I did not know what watching weight meant. I thought it was done only by those in the show business or at the most by a few friends, who I anyways thought were crazy. Most importantly, I did not have much weight to lose in the first place leaving my mother wondering where all the food I gobbled was going.

Then I moved out of my parents’ house and started living on my own.

I thought I was doing fine till a colleague commented, “You seem to be in an expansion mode.”

I was shaken out of my sweet reverie. Rest is history, as all those who know me might say.

I now watch every morsel of food I eat. Fried stuff makes me cringe, sweets make me feel sinful and I have started using terms like ‘brown rice’ and ‘multigrain bread’.

It’s not only food that I watch, I even watch the timings. I avoid rich food late in the day. Some might think I am a loony, but if I do feel like eating, I eat dessert with breakfast because that’s the time the digestive system is at its best (I can cite facts like these also now)

Sundays are the only days I let myself indulge (There was a time when the word ‘indulge’ did not exist in my dictionary)

My family thinks I could do with some weight. Only sometimes when I do feel like binging, I take their words seriously (that makes me feel a little less guilty).

And then of course there’s my son who seems to have taken on the onus of keeping me ‘maintained’ by making me run around all day long.

People exclaim, “You don’t look like the mother of one.”

I tell them I look like this because I AM the mother of one!

So much for so little…

Last week, I bought some popcorn and a couple of soft drinks at a multiplex. The bill came to a whopping Rs 400. That was more than how much we paid for a whole meal for a family of four not less than 5 years ago. I thought it was a total rip-off.

But, I did buy that popcorn and ate it happily. Now I do feel a little guilty, but it won’t last long. Why blame anyone for selling this stuff at such steep rates? Let’s say the culture of paying through the nose for a simple packet of popcorn (now it has a fancy variant: a popcorn tub) or coffee has been ushered in by people like me.

Things were different not so long ago.

I went to a coffee shop for the first time pretty late in life. I must have been 20. We chose a coffee that was the least priced. It was watery and tasted like a potion. And we shared two cups of coffee between three of us. The next time I visited the café, I didn’t know what to choose of the list because the names made no relevance to a coffee. So I just refused politely.

Now, I know all the names on their menu and what each one of them exactly consists. I even enjoy sipping what I would have once termed as insipid coffee.
I can’t say what prompts people like me to buy such stuff and later regret paying so much for so little. It must be that spur of the moment.

The saving grace perhaps is that I earn, I spend and THEN I crib.

My ‘non-happening’ way of life

For almost four years of my life, evenings meant nothing to me. Literally. They were just about languishing in a morbid office surrounded by gloomy pieces of news and the clock ticking away towards a deadline. I would hear friends discuss evening plans and family lament my absence for social dos. I would quietly resign to my fate (or rather my profession).

Now, one child and a change of profession later I have access to a bunch of evenings.

From Mondays through Fridays, they involve finishing work and rushing home to get busy with the sons’ chores. The mind is occupied with whether I get to catch the bus on time, whether I manage to get off the several signals on the way and whether the roads aren’t too crowded.

Yes, I work in a ‘9 to 5 job’ (okay 9.30 to 6.30) – a term many my age look down upon as boring, non-happening and non adventurous. There was a time when I was one of them. When did I change?

Well, the answer is I haven’t really. It’s just the situations around me that have perhaps changed. I have just learnt to adapt to them. For four years, when I had only one life to look after (obviously my own), I had my way. Waking up at 10, lounging around, walking into office not before 4 and sleeping late, mine was surely a nocturnal life.

But now, life is different and let me say it’s nice. Waking up early to hear the birds chirping, to see the family scurrying around for morning chores, to rush to work when the whole world does and to return with it, to be able to make plans for evening social dos if need be and most importantly to be with people I so want to be with.

I never knew living the ‘non-happening’ way could be so much fun.