Out of fashion childhood Stuff

Walking to school and back:
School was 20 minutes of a stroll from home and my folks like everyone else's were not worried about cars running us over. They would only be reasonably worried if we did not turn up home after the street lights came on in the evening ! I used to walk to school for a few years till Dad got a bicycle for me. I usually carried an umbrella along, since it would get very Sunny in the afternoon. The way back was lined with housing blocks, each with a small green lawn in the front and rows of hedges with colorful butterfly bush flowers. I would pluck all the flowers I could and disseminate them into tiny 'flowerlets' to fill my umbrella. Close home, I would open the umbrella over my silly head and stand looking up with glee at a burst of tiny flowers raining on me.

6.7.08 : Ruhi and I found those flowers yesterday in one bylane near Nallagarh Fort in Solan where went for a small holiday !

Making a neighborhood Group to save the world.
As 8 - 9 year old girls, we used to read Enid Blytons like they were going out of fashion. Inspired by Enid Blyton's 'Secret Seven' ( a children's secret society who held regular meetings to solve mysteries that have baffled local police) we started our own secret seven society. In the book series the Seven had a secret password, a badge, and secret headquarters in a garden shed - in our own version we were seven girls though I only remember four names - Gauri, Pallavi, Sujata, Me, ??, ??, ??. We had weekly afternoon meetings at each other's houses by rotation and some mothers (unlike my own ) would actively participate by sending us biscuits and lemonade !

Running amok in school during the recess, like wild animals set free.
The whole school had the recess together - everyone ran out on to the grounds with their tiffins and made their own lunch groups and sat on benches, on the grass, under the tree and wherever else to have their lunch alfresco ! It was one huge informal party in the school grounds. The boys would steal guavas from the trees behind the convent. I remember someone once sneaked to the verandah of the Sister's hostel where washed underclothes were put out to dry. He put guavas under a bra cup and lay it out for display, before running away to safety ! The next day all children were banished from anywhere near the hostel.

Sleeping on the terrace :
For a few years we lived in a flat with a small terrace and in the Summers it was usual to put out the folding charpoys and sleep in the open. I remember learning about the constellations lying wide eyed under the starry blue night. And waking up to a misty pink sky and the cacophony of birds.

Making Janamashtami 'Jhanki' (Lord Krishna's birth story mock up) down to every detail and inviting the neighborhood kids to look at the baby krishna in his basket !

Making chalk Rangoli outside the house on every Diwali 

Playing the games of our times, which lasted till the nineties but are now extinct, at least in Delhi : 

Oonch Neech : The den would announce "oonch" ( high) and all the kids would go scurrying around looking for any surface higher than on which the Den was standing. If the Den said "neech) ( lower).....

Langdi Taang : The 'Den" hopped along on one leg trying to catch the next less abled den

Shivaji cutting the cake : The den chases the kids and while he pursues someone, you dart across the chaser & his prey shouting a war cray ' Shivaji cut the cake' and then the Den chases the one who cut across ! Why Shivaji ? Dunno ! I want to know.

Posham Pa bhai Posham Pa: Two kids would join hands after stretching arms over their heads to make a gate through which the other kids would pass singing 'posham pa..' not sure what's the climax but I think you grab the last kids in your trap as soon as you finish the song 1 

I wrote a letter to my father and on the way I dropped it : Bunch of Kids sit in a circle and the Den goes around dropping the letter ( hanky) behind any one of them. The one who gets the hanky behind them chases the den and if he fails, he circles around with the hanky as everyone sings ' I wrote a letter..."

Vish Amrit : The den runs after the others and curses " Vish" ( poison) and you have to sit down while the others try and pat your head back saying " Amrit: ( nectar) to revive you. But if you get too close to the den, you may be 'vish'ed too !

Chain - chain : The Den ;catches' you and you hold hands till you've got everyone else on the chain chasing those who are left.

Mendhak Choo: The den impersonates a frog by sitting down and hopping along to catch others by extending his leg ! 

Chidiya Ud : 

Chupan Chupai : hide and seek till much after dark running around apartment blocks and playgrounds

Saan Seedi, Patte-pe-patta, Ludo, Carom Board, Teen-do- Paanch, Rummy...

Lots more to add ! Will do so as it comes to me....

God of all 'News'

6:00 PM this evening, Ruhi lights a couple my favorite aurobindo sandalwood incense sticks, keeps the tiny Ganpati incense holder on the dressing table, solemnly folds her hands and shuts eyes tightly after checking her pose in the mirror. I fondly tap her on the head and ask : What are you doing ?

Ruhi looks very pleased with herself and is trying to better her 'namaste' pose in the mirror. She says : Praying to God.

I am curious to know who she prays to. I recall my praying to Jesus Christ in the Gurudwara as a 6 year old. The after effect of attending a Catholic school ! But here is a child with an array of religious messages and choices ! I chose not to ask. I know she is managing well and seems to naturally understand the concept of one supreme power and many ways to communicate with it. In her simple 6 year old way, she talks about it often. So I ask instead " What did you pray for ?"

She says : "I asked God to finish all the News ! "

" ...Because News is bad. People do bad things and die in the News. I don't like the News at all".

I hadn't thought about what a horrible world it would seem to a child who hears messages about accidents, murder, car snatching, kidnapping and the like. Even while we think she is playing boo boo with her baby brother and not listening to us discussing the newspaper. Even when I think I am careful about blocking sordid messages on TV or the real world. Sometimes there is no escape.

I proposed, God disposed : As usual.

Thats Ruhi on her first day to 'big' school. Class 1-A.

I had eagerly waited 3 years for Ruhi to start proper school. These three years have been a journey which made me wiser or so I think, even more cynical in case that is possible and less hyper about situations I have no control over. 

I don't know if it was my good or bad luck that M quit her  job with the most sought after school in the city to take the top job at the most sought after Play school instead, before my kids were born. Good luck perhaps because my kids sailed into the Play school without the agony others faced, bad luck because : only if she had still been at 'that' school I so wanted !! 

Sounds funny now but over these years I have realised that if you are ambitious about your children's primary education environment, you must be careful about the choices you make in your own life - choosing your own school to begin ( better go to that same school you want your Kid to go to LOL), the person you marry, his bank balance and the residential address he inherits ( within 8 Kms of the school you want for your kids), the cars you drive, the foreign degree you pay for, the career that you opt for etc etc etc. 

If you have lived the life of a Maverick and worn it on your sleeve then you better be prepared to reap what you have sown when the time comes! Like I did.

When Ruhi turned three I enthusiastically started the rounds of the schools for her pre nursery admission with a firm belief that it wasn't as difficult as other neurotic mothers made it sound to be. By the end of that year and another, I was another neurotic mother myself after we were rejected yet again for pre Nursery and Nursery ! By the third year I had given up mentally but did not stop going through the motions. I must also mention that for Ruhi's admission I have done what I always thought was the unthinkable for me ! I made a list of ALL the people I knew and I asked them for that elusive 'Pull" the strangely nonsensical loaded thing that one needs to have along with everything else to survive this city !

This post is an epitaph for all those who pushed me harder than the rest on the dizzy school admission merry go round ( I do love this word ! )

One among many others was husband's cousin who for years had been the guy with connections. Someone who always talked about dinner meetings with Ministers and seemed to know everyone important enough in 'The' community. At his own initiative he assured me that because of his fondness for us he had a seat pre-reserved for Ruhi in 'that' school in which lesser mortals may need to pay up upto Rs 5 Lacs for a Nursery seat. I gratefully accepted and told him to hold on to that seat till I've tried and failed on my own merit. After the inevitable had happened,  I gave him an SOS call 2 years ago and said I was taking his rain check. 

As I realised very quickly afterwards, there had been no seat, no connections, no intentions. It was just one of the things that people with big egos and bigger insecurities say to sound important ! I was amused to find out that he was giving the same assurances to another gullible aspirant mother this year! 

Then there was this 'agent' who was introduced to me through a close friend of mine. My friend would have done just anything to help and Mr agent was a government employee and friend's aunt was his boss. As a favour and obligation to my friend's aunt he regularly took me for a ride upto the school reception ( same school as above@ Rs 5 Lacs per seat) and after an hour of waiting would come back and say 'madam ji aaj busy hain".

Then, another well connected brother in law of a close friend, who said he would have helped if only he knew the details about the kid. I must have given him the details on phone, fax, e mail over and over again but after each lapse of time and memory he would ask the details again. 

And many, many others, each different in their quirk but the with the same cliched result ! I must also mention here for posterity that our old driver who now works for a VIP ex politician got so disturbed by the situation that he threatened to quit unless his perplexed 'madam' gave him a recommendation letter for school admission for Ruhi.  There was also an estranged brother in law who I havn't spoken to for years, but who, for some reason went out of the way to help. But no thanks I didn't need it.  Though perhaps if it was really the school I wanted, I would have compromised on ethics ? Thank God I didn't get to finding out.

I also used to wonder what the future had in store for Ruhi -  she seemed to have been born on a particularly unlucky schooling star ! To beat the stress I used to listen a lot to my favourite Art of Living music those days - now, even if I accidentally hear that music again, it stresses me out for no reason at all, just by bringing back unconscious associations ! LOL

I mention those days here because memories of the misery and the anger are slowly losing their edge.  I always want to remember that no matter what happens, there is a way and that is the only right way  for us.  Also to record for the future that I did try everything under the sun to get her in that list of a handful schools that everyone sends their Kids to. Nothing worked. 

It was as if she had her own course charted out for her - I used to spend sleepless nights wondering if she was going to stay at home after her nursery class which was the very last class at her Play School. Just before her session ended, the school announced they were starting a proper school ! If I step back and look, she's grown up playing and learning with a bunch of friends since they were all 2 years old ! They are going to spend the next 12 years together in the same school that has made her incredibly happy and secure in the play group atleast.  Even as her mother tore hair over worrying what comes next !

The new school is straight out of my imagination - like I had dreamt it should be except that its far from home and expensive. But I am wearing rose tinted glasses yet and I think I am more excited about her starting new school than she is about it, though for the last 2 days she has refused to take off her new found school uniform ! Lets see how long this lasts.

Growing up with Rayyan !

Little Rayyan attended the first day in his new class today. All through last year he made no pals though I ended up befriending a majority of the mothers thanks to the amount of time I spent trying to make him 'settle' in school and also thanks to the string of never ending birthday parties that Rayyan & Ruhi attended with a vengeance !!

His new class teacher, Ira had taught Ruhi two years ago and is a friend of a close friend of mine. The other senior teacher Geita, I am told is the best at making the worst of them 'settle' in school ! Rayyan is lucky to be in their class and I really hope and wish that he blossoms under them.

We reached just in time but the class was already full of mummys and a few daddys with a handful of boisterous, noisy kids. I could see familiar faces and got that happy feeling of being 'at home'. I realize that after 4 years of attending this 'society' kind of play school I have nicely settled here in my own skin with the discovery that my hang ups about the snob set were mostly my imagination. And that 75 % of everyone is the same under whatever clothes and pretenses they wear ! I have Rayyan and his Class to thank for that.

There were a few new children including a Korean kid with a really long name ! His mother tried to make him shake hands with Rayyan but both ended thrusting their chins to their chests so she gave up. Ira madam made a lot of friendly advances which were met with the same chin into the chest reaction ! For the longest time he sat hugging me tight, sobbing in between and taking reassuring peeks at my face that it was indeed his mother holding him. The other kids were running around, rubbing crayons on paper, painting, snatching toys and I looked around trying to find any others like my poor little scared boy. There was one other who was standing clutching the maid's hand and looking as if he was going to burst into tears any moment. His parents could not make it to school it seems, so his expression was understandable. There was also a pretty, dark eyed girl who looked grumpy but she is the Principal's granddaughter and I figured it wasn't anxiety but plain boredom to be attending class ! So that singled out Rayyan as the only one with real anxiety...I clutched him tighter. After all its only me who will ever understand !

A bit later he suddenly jumped out of my lap as Man Singh, the pottery teacher walked in. He rushed up to him to beg for some play dough and started rolling it into a ball. That was the first sign of excitement he showed and though he sings and dances endlessly to the TV at home, he climbed back into my lap again as soon as the singing dancing routine began. 

As the other kids got more and more excited by the music he slipped out of my lap again and quietly picked up a brush and started painting on the small easel in the corner. He didn't stop till all the dancing and music was over. Then he quietly walked out of the classroom and came back with his hands clean, dripping water. He had walked up to the washroom a few yards away from class and come back on his own. I could not believe myself ! I'd like to believe that its not so much about self confidence, he is just not comfortable among strangers...

After class he had a nasty fight with a little girl over his favorite swing and finally got his way with her. Then he told me I could go and fetch Ruhi (from her old KG classroom where she sat staring nostalgically at her old teachers as new Kids attended their first day). When I came back, he was walking around the play area immersed in a pool of tears. A bunch of kids had occupied his favorite swing !

Another year at the Nursery school ! Another year of growing up for the both of us to do !

This morning !

Was reading a while ago about Poppin and I smiled to myself about my own morning today ! I was intently reading Mail Today with a stark naked Carla Bruni picture in it. Ruhi was busy making caricatures in her sketch book when suddenly, without a warning she jumped and came over to my side of the bed and started rubbing white crayon over the picture like a maniac.

Me : “what’s your problem?”
Ruhi : “She is naked”
Me : ” So ? Don’t I watch you naked ?”
Ruhi : ” But I am a little girl”
Me : ” So?”
Ruhi with a Moral Police kinda look : ” Not nice to look at naked 'Badi ladki'”

Goes back to fiercely rubbing crayon over Carla Bruni.

About wanting a boy and having a girl!

I have been forever wanting to write about the fact that I never really wanted Ruhi when I conceived her. I wanted to record it so that I would forever and ever be compelled to rub my nose against the ground for being so wrong in my stubborn desires when life had already created a plot and a screenplay for me as usual. 

I finally got down to it for Roop's brilliant initiative unwantedgirlchild

Here goes...

I got married very late and with almost a decade of a difference between my husband's age and mine, he was very eager to start a family immediately.

I of course couldn't care less and wanted to enjoy every bit of my new found freedom that one simple act of walking out of my father's house had brought into my life. Right from chopping off my hair to late nights to traveling the world to wearing whatever or nothing at all, I was loving it all. And then suddenly one fine Sunday afternoon in the year 2001, I discovered the party was over and that I was pregnant.

I felt none of the celebrated euphoria of discovering impending motherhood. Instead I was confused, panic stricken and unhappy. Specially when from size 8 I started graduating upwards to monstrous proportions. The only thing that brightened up my days was the thought of a little boy with whom I would play football in the park, go chasing crows and squirrels and do all those wicked things that little boys do. I just could not imagine bringing up a baby girl. Pink and pretty things, dolls and preening was just not my kind of thing.

In my final months of pregnancy, the doc pointed to a dark bundle on my ultrasound and said that was the baby scratching its bum. I was elated ! Its got to be a boy who goes scratching his privates and I pictured a rowdy crop of hair and a tiny pug nose as they pushed down the spinal injection before I was ready to be cut open. When I woke up my husband was peering over my face with an expression of such delight that I have no words to explain till date. He had a plump, pink baby in his arms and he whispered 'Its a girl". I felt a pall descend and I felt anger, frustration, disbelief. I had lived each day of the last few months with that pug nosed boy who looks like mowgli. It took me days to come to terms with the fact that it was a daughter I was going to bring up.

My husband was shocked by my reaction. He understood it as a 'typical' reaction where most women in India desire to bear sons. He was ashamed that I unabashedly admitted to all and sundry that I was disappointed to have a daughter. Six years down the line I am madly in love with my daughter and my world revolves around her. Three years ago when my son was born I  I already knew it was a boy ( my doctor told me happily but discretely in my fifth month of pregnancy and its very easy to know as I found out).

I had a small hope in my heart that it would be a second girl. My daughter has brought such love, kindness, honesty and goodness in my life that I cannot imagine a life without her. I used to fantasize of having two girls in our house and how full my life would of company as we discover the pleasures of their growing up into womanhood.

In retrospect, I often think about my initial reaction before Ruhi was born and I wonder why I did not want a girl. Was it just because I hated cute pink stuff and girly wiles ? Or was it because I had grown up frustrated by my ill luck of having been born a girl ? Because I could never do the stuff my brothers did ? Because of the "Don'ts" I lived with for my being born a girl ? No late nights, no outstation trips, no competitive exams, no MPhil if its another city or hostel, no short skirts, no open hair, no boys, no make up, no hockey, no cricket.......I could fill up the entire universe with them.

Because when I dreamt of a happy childhood I could only imagine little boys. 

Perhaps that is why I struggle and strive to give my daughter the best any girl can receive in terms of opportunity and exposure. Another story though that she loves Pink Frilly dresses and make up ! But I know it for sure that she loves being a girl unlike her mother who always forever wanted to be born a boy!

Salutes !

I am quite a joke among my friends for being on every possible social and business network on the internet. Friends my generation are cautious of the internet and use it when they have to. I am on the other hand an internet addict, from cooking to childcare to literature to yoga, I treat the internet as if I am hanging on to it for my life. If I don't have internet for a day, I get withdrawal symptoms ! 

As is obvious I get a lot of friends requests from people I have never even met, on Facebook, Orkut, Myspace....you name it. I used to happily add everybody and have only recently started filtering friends requests. After many years of being an internet Hippie, I am now trying to be sober. 

I added one such 'friend' on facebook (he seemed the important Advertising sorts and who knows, may be I did know him in my past advertising avtaar !). I am glad I took a chance since I was pleasantly surprised to be 'found' in his friends list by a girl I used to work with many years ago! 

I had in fact been looking for her. She used to be this new kid on the block, came from a small town, was fresh and innocent, very pretty and something about her made everyone want to play daddy to her. 

I don't exactly remember how we became friends but I used to really like her - she was talkative, funny and had a broad smile. I was a happy person myself and we got along. As we moved jobs, we lost touch. Off and on I'd get to hear of her but in the hum drum of life that was so fast and so full of people those days, we never kept in touch except an odd bumping into each other here and there. 

I added her to my facebook and a week later she called when I was in the Loo. Ruhi answered the phone and made some awkward conversation telling her that I would call back. I remembered the call but didn't call back. In my usual way I stuck a post-it reminder in my brain and forgot about it. 

A week later she called again - just now.

We spoke for a bit and filled in each other about the decade thats gone by since we were last in touch. Turns out that the sum of it all was that I got married to the guy I was hanging around with those days, I have a job and 2 regular kids and I get bored of my car every two years. 

And turns out that she battled out alone in a hostel through a bad relationship, physical abuse, fear and chucked it all and started life all over again in another city, met a guy on the net and married him, has a 5 year old son discovered 2 years ago with a rare genetic disorder that will slowly but surely kill him before adulthood. She looks after the kid and manages her job. There is no cure yet for this disorder.

She finds strength in bringing him up one day at a time without any agenda  and she started out alone but has now formed a support group of 30 other families who have kids with the same problem and she counsels them. She plans to register the group as an NGO soon.

While she narrated all that has happened to her in the last ten years she sounded as cheerful and happy as she used to, back then. She was full of plans. She spoke openly and honestly about herself and her crazy life on her own initiative. I hadn't even asked her one question...

I broke down after hearing her story but she was unfazed. Except for a tiny tremor in her voice she told me " don't worry everything is good for now, and I need strong friends'. 

And here I am with my petty, sometimes imaginary problems, holding on to myself with all my might. Often Thankless, for what I have. 

Miss Bones !

It was Ruhi's Fancy Dress competition today ! I got the Skeleton idea from the internet upon spotting a boy dressed up for halloween ! I did some quick research and wrote a rather funny rhyme about bones. I didn't know there are a good 206 of them in our body ! I dressed her up in black tights, black gloves and a black skinny jumper. The white chart paper  bones, ribs etc were stuck by double sided tape and staple pins on the bony little thing and pronto ! She looked the perfect 'Mr Bones".

She had memorized the rhyme really well and I was quite amused when yesterday I found her recording her audition on my phone on the sly, and playing it back to herself to hear how she sounded ! Last year she went as an Alarm Clock with two steel 'Katoris' stuck on her head and stood first !! A year before that I painted her as Nemo Fish and she stood third !! I was quite relaxed till she walked up on stage - walking again like a scared little deer - and my heart went thumping mad. She said her lines perfectly, albiet softly and she won the second prize.

I still cant figure how my shy, unsure little poppet gets the prize every year !!

@alarm clock at 5 years

  

@Nemo Fish at 4 years

What the Doc said !

I wanted to stop pitying myself and fretting about the Kids and write today about having been married 8 years to a man I have known 18 years now ! Married to him several times during  a sultry month of March, 8 years ago starting with the court marriage today...but I got some unfinished business to do! 

'Getting there now' wanted to know what the Principal prescribed as the cure:

She said I need to:

Leave her alone to discover things herself - like unsupervised playing in the park - even at home since she feel the father is too protective and the children have become scared to experiment and so they seem so unsure. She could be right - my husband is overprotective with the Kids.

Choose a couple of families with small kids in the neighborhood and make friends with them so that Ruhi can be introduced to a social life outside school. Invite those kids over to play at our home and send Ruhi to visit those Kids on her own every once a while. Ruhi does have a small circle of friends in the Park and a couple of kids come home often. Ruhi invites them over but seldom likes to visit their houses. 

Take the Kids out for family outings, picnics. I do that every other weekend - the movies, mall even holidays but I started only recently and I go alone since my husband keeps very busy.

Reward Ruhi for 'confident' behaviour. Not a physical reward but a 'feel good' comment like GOOD JOB or YOU WERE GREAT TODAY etc

About the school's role - she said nothing. I didn't ask either. I was too busy blaming myself.

Thanks !

Its incredible how the internet makes it possible to receive strength and support from complete strangers and I wanted to thank all those who shared their thoughts about how to deal with my situation vis a vis the Kids. 

I didn't go to school to meet the Principal as invited on Monday.  I sat there procrastinating and then decided I would go the next day on Tuesday. As expected it was about Little Rayyan bursting into tears when the curtain went up. She had not noticed that I was sitting right in front of the stage, but even so...

And it was about Ruhi - usual things like her way of walking like a scared little deer, her soft nervous voice during school assembly whenever its her turn to recite on stage, her quiet presence among a class full of boisterous, loud friends. Her coming across as 'under-confident'.

She said it was only that she cares that she pushes me so hard...

We talked for the longest time and amongst many things right and wrong I felt there was something wise she said - that I got to forget everything and first of all deal with my 'guilt' about the kids. About the inadequacy that I feel all the time that I am not doing enough. The same feeling that makes me cry each time I talk or think about my Kids. I had been thinking I was perhaps depressed..

Like always, on my thoughtful way back I reluctantly agreed I was slowly leading myself to become a nervous wreck and I was leaving behind the happy person I used to be - like some skin I am shedding....all because I am guilty ?