On the road

I’m not a great driver, don’t know the machine intimately and have grave doubts about my ability to change a flat. But I do like being behind the wheel of a fast or maybe I should say, fast-ish car. I like the promise of freedom, the way the car cocoons you in a world of your own, the air-conditioning, the music. And on the days when our usually very dusty on the outside and very messy on the inside car is clean and bright, I feel clean and bright.

 

When we’re on the road as a family, though, it’s a different story. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes not-so-great. And then, there are the times when I would be anywhere but inside the car.

Mother Superior!

When at home, the kids fight and whine a lot. The minute they step outside - away from the walls and the box that is the bane of childhood - to say hello to the wide open, they are skipping and laughing and running. They become, in an instant, happy kids. As for me, I start to cruise on my feet, at peace in my suddenly unshakeable belief that I am a wonderful mother.

Is it the ease infused by the soothing greenery, the caressing breeze and the open spaces? Yes, it’s Mother Nature; who nurtures and nourishes; who is wild and yet systematic; fun and full of surprises, yet organized. Like my little ones, she knows how to take dirt and mess in her stride. She knows that the slow-moving, the fleet-footed, the beautiful and the repulsive, the rough and the smooth, the meek and the aggressive all have their place in the sun.

Train journeys and way too much ado

As a mother of two under-fives, I am put to the test almost daily. There are some days when I know I won’t make the grade, no matter what; like when there’s a train journey involved.

The ordeal starts with the crossing of the overbridge - fairly painless unless you have only two minutes or less left. That being the norm for me, I have to take the steep steps two at a time carrying the younger one and a heavy bag and coaxingscoldingcajolingthreatening the older who will invariably come to a stop to inspect that greenish blob of God-knows-what.

When I make it to the other side, perspiring and foul-mouthed, I hear the dreaded announcement – the train is late. After an hour of Lays, Frooty, Appy and similar junk, the train arrives. But as I see it chugging into the station, my relief melts into trepidation.

Martha or Mary?

Who am I going to be today? Martha or Mary?

It’s something I ask myself almost every day. Today, should I be an efficient homemaker who can whip up a tasty dinner in fifteen minutes; who has a garden like Paradise; who irons the children’s clothes the previous night; who will not tolerate dust, cobwebs and disorder of any kind?

Or

Should I be in touch with the latest in music, technology, news; have well-manicured nails; meet my deadlines, listen and not mentally tick off my to-do list while pretending to?

Not so grand

Grandparenting, in the medical community of which i am a part, is not a fun job, I gather. You are away from your environment, away from your community, interacting, in many cases, in a new language; there is also the burden - joyful maybe but a burden nevertheless - of being responsible for a baby and/or child. The challenges are numerous.

The other day I talked to a lady who is staying with her son and wife to help them with looking after their baby. Her husband was alone back home. Though I hardly knew her, when I said hello, she poured her heart out to me saying she felt caged in the house, life was monotonous, she had no one to even talk to except the maids etc. I felt sorry for her.

Not to be ministered unto

Yeah, I know.  I know you think I have no right to complain. After all, I have decent quarters, great maintenance, and vegetables at prices that I’ll never get anywhere else. I know there are millions suffering.

I know that no one ordered him at gun point to join this course. (I know too that I married the man with my eyes wide open.)

The training is fantastic. Nowhere else in the world will you get to learn for such incredible fees.  Absolutely. When you leave this place, you will be made for life. You will be swooped up by the institution of your choice. You can earn big bucks. Granted.  All true.

But I sure hope that the majority will finish with some remnant of the excitement and hope with which they joined.

Talk the walk!

The morning rush is over. The kids have been sent off - to the school, to the park; the husband’s made his exit too. The homemaker breathes a sigh of relief. Some time to herself. The hub. That’s where she’s headed next.

“Why can’t I have a flat stomach?” was the question asked by a very flat-stomached Aishwarya Rai in an ad, some years back. “Will I ever have my pre-partum abdomen”? For the women at the hub, the gym, that’s the crucial question. The kilos you can manage to get off somehow or the other – by hook or by crook, by tread milling, by exercycling, by dieting, by self-delusion (ask my husband about the last one). But one thing you can’t do by all this and more is lose that jelly-belly.