The apple of my eye

20/07/06

It is a sunny afternoon and from the window upstairs, I look with awe at the man mowing the garden below while happily chatting with his little boy. He wipes off the sweat from his brow and reaches for the trimmer, ready to trim the edges of the otherwise neat lawn. He catches my eye and I smile at him through the panelled window frame, wondering how incredibly lucky I am to be married to this gem of a person.

Funny, rather scary to think of it now, we met literally minutes before we got married six years ago. Our mothers were once childhood friends who lost contact with each other and thanks to the many (senior citizen) aunts and uncles who excel in the art of match making, horoscopes were exchanged and after many long phone calls to Vedhagiri uncle, (one of my mum's close friends, the Anniyan of our block who suffers a MPD :D and hence is both a doctor and an astrologer) the marriage was fixed.

He is there every step of my way, guiding me carefully, warning me of pitfalls, supporting and encouraging me when I fail and cheering and applauding when I succeed. I was this naive 22 year old, just out of college, extremely pampered and unbelievably cocooned lass, whom he readily took under his wings. I have never seen a more honest, sincere and down to earth person. He is extremely patient, so much so that he was my driving guru! When I first began to learn, I couldn't tell the brake from the accelerator. I was not a fast learner and many times wanted to give up. It was his determination that made me go and many months later we got the licence.

He was my birthing partner. I was in labour for a good 23 hours before Kuttan finally decided to show up. He was there with me right from the word go, helping me all the way. He went without food too the whole day along with me and that single toast that we shared in the wee hours of the morning as proud parents is really very special.

We are just poles apart. He loves physics, I like literature. He loves gardening, even dead plants seem to spring back to life under his tending fingers; whereas the humble grass dies, if I try to water them; he is a home bird; I love travelling. He loves thriller movies, I enjoy comedy. I love doing things spontaneously; he plans everything to the last detail, I like my dosais crisp whereas he calls oothappams as dosais.

We used to fight like cats and dogs for anything and everything. When newly married saying "Sorry" was just so easy for us, but then when there are so many things on our plates, we forgot to say "Sorry" for small things. All the displeasures and the disappointments gets bottled up, stashed away somewhere deep down in some corner of your heart and just one small fight is the trigger to bring everything up. We were both in pain and said things just to hurt each other. At those instances, we just stop thinking about the other person and just desperately want to see who gains on whom. Ego is a big thing after all! We blame everything and everybody for our fights but it takes a lot of maturity to accept reality and take responsibility and he certainly has it. He initiated (still does!) truce at the end of each of our war.

We were really never away from each other since marriage and when Kuttan was born, we decided that Kuttan and I spent some time in India. At the airport, there was this really strange knotting feeling in my tummy and my hands were cold. It was strange, I was going back to my home, the place where I spent the first 22 years of my life , to my people, whom I longed to see for the last three years and yet I was feeling home sick already.. It made me realise that the three years of togetherness had made us so dependent on each other. I understood he meant more than anyone/anything else in my life.

Our relationship has matured and we are definitely learning to be more considerate to the other person's needs. Our fights are now few and far between and we are still learning to accept the other person with a whole heart flaws and all. We may not be thinking alike but at least we are teaching ourselves to think together. We are working at what our parents have and grandparents had, the sort where one knows everything about the other's feeling without a word being exchanged. I certainly look forward to spending many more of such happy years together.

Love you Loads, Chells!!!

வணக்கம் பம்பாய்(Salaam Bombay)

11/07/06

I am deeply saddened by the bomb blasts in Mumbai. What angers me even more is the lack of sufficient media coverage of the incident in my adopted country. Is this not another chapter in the saga of so called international terrorism? Is an Indian's life simply not as worth as any other Brit or Israeli life? Should the English not understand the agony and the pain having undergone a very similar tragedy just a year ago? With all due respects to the captive Israeli soldier, how is the life of a kidnapped Israeli soldier more valuable than more than 200 innocent civilian lives tragically lost and 1000’s injured due to a bomb blast? Shouldn’t they really be ashamed of their narrow mindedness?

I am angered by the acts of the terrorists. Do they not have a conscience? How could one perform such atrocities in the name of religion? Which religion does not condemn violence? Is this only how much one would value a life? Is int the person who is killed/injured someone's mother/father, someone's daughter/son, wife/husband and friend? What have these innocent lives and their families done to meet such a tragic end? Will their lives ever be the same again? Is this some sort of a collective punishment meted out to the entire community to prove a point? Is it really worth it all? How can anyone be so selfish and unreasonable? Will the compensation from the Government bring back the loving father or the doting mother so mercilessly snatched from their precious families?

I'm frustrated that as a fellow human being as much as I hate to see what is happening around me, there is not much that I could do to stop these atrocities. Sometimes I feel that we are fighting a losing battle. There is only so much that UN or the governments can do and unless there is a radical change in the thought process of the individuals there may really no light at the end of this dark tunnel.

In spite of all this, life goes on and in Mumbai especially life goes on non-stop. Mumbaikars take things on their stride and carry on trying to help others where they can, sharing their grief and pain, donating blood and offering food and shelter to the stranded. Readers Digest has certainly got their math wrong by naming Bombay as the rudest city. The layman's vocabulary may not include please and a thankyou but certainly there is compassion and warmth, which is far more important.


I'm extremely proud of this glorious city and its people who are refusing to yield to demands and pressures of few spineless and heartless individuals and go about their business. This is not disrespect to the dead and this civility should not definitely be construed as weakness. Be it bomb blasts or a natural calamity, the city rises every time like a Phoenix and it is this aspect, which makes Mumbai a truly outstanding city.

York through a child's eye

The last few weeks have been pretty busy with Dh working late shifts. As a result he got to see kuttan only for few hours in the morning. Kuttan and I spent the evenings together with the usual play time-dinner-bath-prayer-bottle-bed routine and saturday was the first day in two weeks where appa got to spend the whole day with Kuttan.

Kuttan's latest passion is trains. He absolutely adores Thomas the tank engine series. So we decided to take him to The National Railway Museum(NRM) in York.

The NRM is the largest railway museum in the world, responsible for the conservation and interpretation of the British national collection of historically significant railway vehicles and other artefacts. The Museum contains an unrivalled collection of locomotives, rolling stock, railway equipment, documents and records.

It was a beautiful sunny day with the average temperature around 24 degrees. After a pleasant two hour journey,we reached the beautiful city of York. It was our first visit to this charming little town and boy it was like stepping into one of the pages of an old English novel. It was really fascinating to know that the city has passed through the hands of Romans, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans. Not surprising the entire historic core of York has been declared as a conservation area.

After an uneventful drive with multiple stops for wees(Kuttan is in the process of getting potty trained) and the non stop question of 'Are we there yet, appa?', we reached the car park. It was a very nominal charge of £5 for the entire day's parking.

I have to say that the entrance to NRM was far from spectacular. It was rather unappealing. There was a fairly long queue and at the counter we realised that the entry to the museum was completly free and that they only charged for the Norwich Union Yorkshire wheel. Kuttan particularly didnt enjoy these during his visit to London and so we decided to skip the wheel though at 60 meters in the sky the views of the city from inside must have been uniquely panaromic.

Kuttan was in awe seeing the innumerable display of locomotives. He was a tad bit disappointed that his favourite 'Thomas' train and the fat controller were not present there, the closest he could get was a little shop selling Thomas artefacts. He enjoys photography very much like his dad and so for his third birthday he was presented an used aim and shoot digital camera. He had a ball of a time taking pictures, some of which are included below.










More than the beautiful city, the amazing history and the lovely environment, it was the happiness in the child's face that made it a truly memorable day for us.