Catterpillar to the Butterfly !

Little Rayyan led his class for the Sports Day march past while I searched for him among the last in the file of kids !

He has so completely transformed from where we began an year ago. And his teacher made all the difference - that grand old lady in front of him whom he calls 'Dadi ma'm" ! She calls him her "Little Puck". We love you Geita Ma'm.

"Mom, are we Bengalis?"

Every evening, Ruhi and I spend some quality time together! She had come back late from a birthday party and after the regular run down on her asthma (she is going through a miserable attack that leaves her coughing and wheezing all day ) what she ate and what she didn't, the games and how she could not dance or run the conversation took another turn :

"Mom, are we Bengalis?"

"I don't think so Ruhi...why would you ask?"

"Hmm....some one at Sona's birthday party thought I was Bengali"

"Is that so? How come ?"

"She asked me my name and when I said it, she asked 'are you a Bengali?' Ruhi said smiling sheepishly

My heart was pounding harder than usual.."hmm...so what did you say?"

"I said I am a Punjabi" she said with a more sheepish smile and gave me a look that she has when she isn't sure. I stayed silent for more than a second till she asked "We are Punjabis, are we not Ma?"

"Your mom is from Punjab, but your father is ..."

"Oh I know it ! He is a Bengali !" she interrupts excitedly

"NO !!! He is from Uttar Pradesh..."

"Oh Ok"

I pondered if this was that moment I have been anticipating when I should introduce the concept of Religion, Caste, Creed etc. I felt unprepared...this wasn't something that I could delve into my mommy good sense for answers if she asked me a pertinent question. Specially since I noticed my husband look eagerly at me, waiting to hear the obvious explanation. I let the moment pass. Some other time, some other way.

Ruhi had moved on by then.

"Mom is 'senstitive' a bad word ?

'Sensitive you mean ?"

"yep, someone called me that...."

Love is...

Merry Christmas !

I bought an island Pine last December and it has survived yet another christmas this year ! Ruhi & Rayyan had a mini wrestling match to decide who would hang up the trinkets and after the tree was done Rayyan solemnly folded his hands in front of the 'bhagwan ji' tree. God save these terribly terribly mixed up kids.

Ruhi wrote a letter to Santa asking for a 'toy house from the play pen in the Mall, a 'real' camera and a 'real' phone and a chocolate.."

Santa left her a Barbie doll with a helmet on a natty bycycle and the chocolate. I told her that her wish list was quite out of Santa's budget and she conceded. Rayyan got a miserly plastic auto rickshaw and he was elated. Krti didi their maid got a pair of shoes which she turned up her nose at. LOL

Ruhi still believes in Santa Claus ! She woke up past midnight almost as I was putting her gift on her pillow, blinked vaguely for a couple of minutes muttering some Santa gibberish & then collapsed into sleep again. In the morning she inspected the house and told me the exact places Santa had visited. She could tell by the trail of Santa's perfume ! I am keeping my fingers crossed. I guess there may be another year to go before the bubble breaks ! :)))

I am intolerant...

I got to know of the Mumbai attack through an sms at 11 PM that night which said " Mumbai...terrorists...am stuck at the Taj restaurant...still alive". It came from someone who had just arrived in India that day and someone with a feisty sense of humor. I gave the sms a bemused look before deleting it. Then the same sms came again and I decided to check on the internet.

I kept feeling sick through the night and that feeling has still not gone. I could not make myself switch on the TV and after 2 days when I finally did, I saw Barkha Dutt chocking with melodrama over a half spilled glass of wine that she had discovered at the ghost of the Taj. I could survive the TV for less than 20 minutes, the same sick feeling.

I feel a changed person, I am brimming with contempt and I have a feeling that my lid will blow off. I am feeling helpless, I have been wanting to 'do' something beyond reading newspapers, pressing the 'join' button for every call to 'join hands against terror' e mail..,to do something dammit, even if just to buy an air ticket to Bombay, stand across the Taj and hurl abuses into the sea to wherever it is that the monsters came from.

More disturbingly, I am feeling intolerant. I am distrustful when I hear my muslim family protest against what happened. I intent fully look for denial in what they say - you can hear it sooner than later. A day post the Bombay tragedy I was broodingly silent ad-mist an animated family discussion when the inevitable came up - stuff like Mossad, Hindu Terrorism, cover job to save Col Purohit...I felt a nerve was going to crack in my head and I framed my sentence in my mind " Indian muslims will always live in denial...until Indian muslims stop pitying themselves and become a part of the Indian fabric, until then terrorism will have a market in India...".

As I started to speak I stopped at my first words " Indian Muslims.." My words were hanging in the air, I thought of the consequences. I would become an alien with that one sentence. A lot else would happen..was there any reason to ignite this? I would be told I know nothing about Islam so I could ill afford a point of view. I decided to stay quiet and leave the table. It was left to assumption what I had intended to say and no one asked. I think the point was anyhow made that... I was intolerant...

My children do not know their religion yet. Ruhi thinks her mother is from Punjab and her father is from Mars. A year ago, a lot of kids from the local mosque came over to my house for reciting verses from the Koran. It is called 'korankhani', the same purpose as holding an 'ardas' in your house - for purification and blessing. Ruhi was woken up by the loud sound and she went over to watch and then came running to me and said "mama a lot of Punjabi people have come to our house" ( implying that they were speaking a foreign (punjabi) language). It was funny then and I had laughed. Today it is sad. There is so much irony in that humor. She is seven and its time for me to tell her who she is supposed to be, before anyone else does. I wish I did not have to. Not when I feel like this.

I am to blame.

"From today, I resolve to blame myself for whatever is going wrong. I also resolve that I will take action - decisive action - to solve my own problems as well as those of my family, neighbours, friends, relatives and associates. I am a proud Indian. I can bring about the desired change.""


Say "I am to blame" at www.iam2blame.com and get everyone we know to say the same.

To Santa Claus?

This morning to Santosh Desai...and to you...to whoever it is who visits here and reads this post.

Dear Santosh :

I react to 'to gather with the rage of others' in today's City City Bang Bang.

I am angry like the rest of us and I want to be able to 'do' something. I believe ( naively?) that there are many other people like me. So yesterday, I spoke to a friend who is a celebrated, young army officer, on a quick climb up the army ranks. I also spoke to a young IAS officer working with the revenue services in Delhi. I asked them what we could do to channelize this rage, since my limited understanding of how things work limits my abilities to act. Both said nothing could be done by anyone. The defense services and the bureaucracy is infested at every level with people wanting to earn brownie points and promotions. The high rage after Kargil took just a few months to be completely forgotten. And that Kargil was equivalent if not more offensive in its damage to our country. As with Kargil, it will take a few weeks for our collective memories to fade. Ditto for the collective rage.

I told them that to me both of them represented the highest calibre of what young India stands for and it was disillusioning and heartbreaking that both of them speak a common language of indifference and defeat. The army guy said " things are not so bad". Whatever that may mean.

I have been thinking ever since that the ONLY was to keep the collective rage alive is if people with media clout ( like YOU) and Bollywood takes it upon themselves to endorse this cause. The rest are dead and we have to bring them to life. If Aamir says often enough that muslim is not equal to terrorist and so does Salman and so does Shahrukh there will be no market for terrorism in this country. And if you and your likes will keep writing about the outrage of what happened last Wednesday - way beyond one month, 6 months and 12 months from today - there may be hope of change.

I am helpless and angry, I can only vent angst by writing to people who I think are a bit more empowered than myself. And I can hope they read obscure blogs...

What happened to Raj?

Swarna asked !

I had left the story at the night when Ruhi cried about kids teasing her and how I was resolved to sort it out. And there was a PTM on Saturday...

As I got ready to leave for the PTM, I hesitantly took out the 'I love you note' from my laptop bag. I had no clue what I was going to do with it, but I saved it for the impulse.

I walked around her class while the teacher was busy with others, eagerly looking up as the next parent walked in - just had to meet the Raj kid but I could not spot any unfamiliar kid amongst the visitors. Finally, the teacher came to me and I silently handed her the neatly folded paper in my hand.

She looked embarrassed and concerned at the same time and immediately crumpled the paper in her hand. I found out that she and other teachers had known about this for months. Raj's mother had visited her twice to discuss the 'problem'. He had been spoken to 'firmly' by the class teacher and sent twice to the principal's room. Had been given 'warnings' at school and at home. The teachers were making a special effort to separate him from where Ruhi sits in class and the lunch hall. It seemed like a very big issue over there !

I felt a surge of guilt of having it made worse for him. In the background I could hear the teacher advise me to talk to his mother and to encourage Ruhi to 'complain' to the teachers rather than keeping it bottled up to tell mom later. But all I could really hear and feel was enormous sadness. 

This kid had a problem, he was new in class and maybe he was lonely and sad and the soft spoken, kind little Ruhi was the easiest to approach in a class full of cheeky, preposterous kids. 

I have ignored Ruhi's protests about Raj ever since. Each time she complains I tell her to make an effort to 'include' him in their gang. I think she will come along...or maybe not. I've overheard her talk to her cousin yesterday, slyly inviting him to school to fix someone who 'troubles' her...

If you must know what this 'trouble' is - touching her hand, insisting on sitting next to her always, looking at her - as Ritu said in her comment, trying to be included.

I tend to make a big deal of small things, and maybe its unimportant and will pass, but I do know that sometimes small smarts in a 6 year old's life stay for ever, like they've stayed in mine.

Sorry for 1984.

Rahul Gandhi said 'Sorry' for 1984. 

Thanks, it helps.

24 years have gone by and I am no longer the same person. I am cynical, hardened, wiser, indifferent. But I still shed a tear over the newspaper. The memory of that year will never go away.

Done Seven :)

This year I did it - finally dished out the birthday party that I could never quite get right for the last 6 years ! I started with doing my favorite thing - make lists ! Of all the things Ruhi loves - she loves the most to paint or that is what I like to think. So Color Factory it was, thank God for the malls to have opened next doors. 

The next was to sacrifice our own social list so that I could get her friends to have fun with her. I invited her class of 25 kids - a majority of boys, but so what !!! 

As expected, she wanted to leave out Raj from her invitees and grudgingly agreed when told how mean that would be and so one morning I splashed some paint on her as she got up bright, cheerful and really excited about her birthday, clicked some pictures and this became her birthday card. On the previous night, her doting grandfather (yup, thats right ! the grand old man) baked a couple of cakes for her and we cut them through the day for my mom, husband's cousins and more adults who feel obliged to visit us on Ruhi's birthday. 

We have always made such a big deal her birthday that most don't even bother to check the POA with me. Guests just drop in! I knew I was expected to invite the family, their children and the neighbors and their kids and all those who've invited us last year etc but I stuck to my guns that this was going to be a no adults birthday party unless the adults agreed to sit there and paint !

We did up the Color Factory at City Walk in her favorite mauve & purple  balloons, ordered junk food and ice cream cake. Its an outdoor kind of place with no music so I even got portable speakers for my ipod which I eventually forgot to play !

Her guests were there in full attendance and I love this age of theirs - they came dressed up as little menfolk (spiked hair & fashion jewelry on some) and ladies ! They behaved so well, they painted and had a blast ! After finishing the painting, they played girls against boys tug o war and Tambola and then their own games. Soon after they forgot the 'menfolk and ladies' bit and went on a rampage bringing down the balloons and stomping on them. I had a blast too since I'd love to do that myself if my daughter allowed me to ! 

The boys got her girly stuff and her favorite was a lovely pink Barbie pillow and I am just so glad that not one kid gave her a Barbie Doll ! 

Raj lives miles away in Greater Noida but he turned up as expected. A tall sullen kid who sat alone and painted and did not speak a word. I noticed the other kids do not speak with him either and I felt very sorry about the situation, though I am glad he came. He got her some Enid Blytons and while she opened her gifts out came board games, more books and craft sets and skateboards and Casios... after a bit I noticed she would fold her hands in a hurried prayer before she opened another ! Apparently she was praying for the next one to be a Barbie Doll. God didn't listen !

I also kept feeling teary for no reason at all and my heart ached as much as my feet at the end of a wonderful day. She's growing up way to fast and I feel years slipping by like sand through my fingers. I've never known myself to be the filmi types but Ruhi can usually bring out the worst in me ! Sigh :)