Why are Indians so UN- Indian when they are not in India?

Is Mera Bharat really mahan? Ok. So yes. What about us Indians? There's something so pseudo almost about the way most Indians conduct themselves when they are not in India. Almost everything changes about them- the way they talk, what they eat, the way they say things and even their accent. Suddenly they forget how to converse even in their native lingo. Here are some weird but true observations my four eyes made-

1. They barely wear the type of clothes they would have normally worn in India- such as a sari or a salwar kameez. Once abroad, gowns, pants and skirts take over.
2. They eat different. Goodbye chappathi and bread for breakfast or lunch. Its fashionable salads, muffins and sandwiches now.
3. Even the names of dishes are weirder and longer. Like palak paneer becomes' soft cheese dumplings in mashed spinach', and chicken masala becomes ' tender chicken marinated in traditional spices and herbs'. So going by that, I had tender steamed cauliflower tossed with red peppers for lunch.:-)
4. An accent that was never there will suddenly make an appearance. I have known people who went to states and UK for a few months and then came back trying to talk like one of the natives there.
5. They work out more. Being seen at the gym, playing a sport is suddenly the in thing to do.
6. Indians barely ever smile at other Indians. This I can vouch for. None of the Indian families in my complex have even smiled at me as yet, although I swear I did. Why do we act like the other doesnt exist?
7. Nobody watches saas- bahu and other soppy serials like other 'good' Indians.
8. Most of them dont teach their kids things they learnt when growing up. Nor do they share the little things that make them Indian with their kids. Like how to fly a kite. Or eat with the hands. The more un- Indian the kids are, the more successful the parents think they have been as role models. 'My child doesnt speak hindi. But he is the first in his class in English'.
9. Suddenly ordinary eatables like rotis become'exotic breads', and masala tea becomes 'tea with spices'. Takes away the Indianness of food itself.
10. India now becomes a chi- chi country. Too much pollution, too much noise, too much garbage, too much everything.

Why do we forget that at the end of the day it is India who gives us our identity?

The gym should ONLY be for people weighing over 90 kg.


Pregnancy is Mother Nature's gift to women who love to eat. Like me. The best part is nobody really says anything and you can actually make people get up and buy you that particular chocolate bar with nuts, raisins and caramel made by thaat one chocolate company. My advice is make the most of the pampering. I recently felt like eating some ice cream and all I got was a very witty comment of- Shouldnt your cravings be over by now? I thought you just delivered a baby. That successfully killed my interest in ice cream. Atleast for that day.

So. I have started working out again.  For some reason, after you become a mother, people almost expect to see you in dresses that are twice your size, hair all over the place and what not. If you look at half the women in Singapore, you would never even say that a good number of them are mothers. The maid who comes in once a week, gave me one heart attack when she revealed that she had three married children. I could have sworn that she was only in her 30's. In fact I told her, three kids and you look like a stick. I had just one kid, and am a walking balloon. She just laughed. hmmmmm...I knew she wouldn't share the secret !!

Working out in the gym should ideally make me feel better about myself. On the contrary. The other people who come to the gym have no business to be there at all. I shall explain. The guy in the sleeveless silver tshirt and blue shorts wears the same gym wear every single day. He is so freaking thin that if I have to blow some air on him, he is likely to float away. And this modern day skeleton lifts up weights weighing a minimum of 10 kg just to pep up his thin arms. But its working for him. He actually has some small bicep buds beginning to sprout. Me? The only weight am interested in lifting is my plate of food. I have to pick up my baby by default. There is also this thin thin lady, who seriously has dots for boobs, and exactly one gram of flesh for a butt. What was she doing in the gym? My dear, she was jogging for an hour on the treadmill, burning at the end of it whatever she ate the whole week. I mean why do such people have to come to the gym at all? To make me feel fatter, am sorry plumpier? Or to show me what happens when people work out too much? Because if that is the case, then am genuinely worried. Here I am, plump old me huffing and puffing and counting every nanosecond of the thirty minutes that I work out on the treadmill for.

So, you would expect that the much needed motivation, would come from friends So, i asked them- have I lost any weight , do I look any thinner?Hmmm...You havent lost any weight as far as I can see, but you have shaped up... Huh?? Ok, people say your skin is supposed to glow when you are working out, is my skin glowing??? I dont know. What is the meaning of glowing skin?? You are looking healthier anyways... So does that mean I was looking unhealthy before? No, its just that I think you're looking healthier...  I have no clue what she meant.. Talking to mum wasnt encouraging either. The lady actually told me not to take the pains to go to the gym. Thing is she and I are in some competition to see who loses weight faster. Why does this grandmother  choose to compete with this mother than with other grandmothers her age I have no clue. If I have to ask dad who has lost weight mom or me, he is sure to say that mom is slimmer.. I stopped blaming him a long time back. After all, mom is responsible for his dinners isnt she?

What makes me smile so much is that hubby dear will always be assured that he is soooo slim, even if he actually isnt. And I will always be assured that I am fat even if am really not. After all, what are mothers for?

As if I wasnt already an anxious overthinker, of late I have personally become a lot worse. I keep coming face to face with some 'great'line like- Being a mother is a 24 hour job, and is a duty that doesnt end in this lifetime; or something else like Being a mother means you cannot afford to fail. That only steps up my anxiety about how am going to be eventually turn out when and where it matters most.

I have always been this planner. A person who set aside days and months for a specific something. Everything changed after marriage. My plans of getting out and continuing my career of a working woman abruptly stopped. From somewhere came this chance to do some content writing. I wanted to see the world, and do all sorts of fun things before becoming a mother. Come sep 2007 and I realise that hey I am pregnant. Come november 28 2007 and I realise that I have been 3 months pregnant and didnt even know it. This is the scary part. My frame of mind then was ok am not strong enough to abort, and my personal ethics dont even make room for it. So i am having this baby and I have to get mentally stronger about a responsbility that I just have to take up. I had to grow up fast. I had just 7 months to mentally prepare myself for possibly the biggest role a woman takes up.   I wonder if I had actually planned everything, would it have had an impact on my motherhood skills? It isnt that I regret my baby. Nothing could ever make me do that. It is only because I love him so helplessly and so much that I want him to have the best. I want to be the best. When I hold him sometimes I still battle that feeling of am I doing this right. Personally, I have had to stay behind and watch old time friends zoom across in their careers and in life. I probably wont ever be able to catch up. I dont know. I could probably leave the baby with a nanny and try catching up in the rat race. But I would be forfeiting the experience of a lifetime, and that would be one more regret I dont need on my list. I know one thing. Whoever said that motherhood comes naturally was so dead wrong. There is nothing freaking natural about it. If it was as natural as breathing and walking, women across the globe wouldnt be screaming in labour pain. They would just give birth in a more controlled manner minus the usual histronics. Motherhood is all about learning on the go. Ok. Am leaving the unwanted reflective thought I started out with, here. God did plan this after all. And if he thought that an unprepared mother like me was good enough for the job, then am going to have a bit more trust in the one he had faith in. Me. 

I just realised that-

1) When I wake up in the mornings, I look at my sleeping baby and think that I am so lucky to be his mother. And I quietly thank God in my mind.
2) After the delivery, I am losing quite a bit of my precious mane. I didnt think I was that much a fuss pot about losing hair now and then, till I had a freakout session on wednesday.
3) I am quite serious about keeping this blog up and running.
4)  I still suck at making resumes, and I probably wouldnt hire myself on reading the one am working on now.
5)  I am now a mother. But I have no intentions of walking around in attire that signifies I am nearing my expiry date. I still dream of the sexy halter necks and hot pants. DREAM is the word to focus on. Reality still laughs at me.
6)  I am serious about my gym workouts. Main reason being that I can get to lip sync to my favourite songs.
7) Lady Marmalade is one of my favourite numbers. I cant get the lyrics right but I do mouth- Voulez-vous couchez avec moi, quite ok.
8) I miss french. And I blame myself for letting lose of my hold on a lingo I dearly loved. So, am going to sniff out some good sites which will  help me get back my fluency.
9) I should have taken more effort to learn Spanish and Italian on my own. What made me spend so much on Learn it Yourself books?
10) I want to travel the world. With my baby. Europe is still on my list although I dont know if its do-able anymore.
11) I want to get a bit more drunk in ambition and release a second book of poems.
12) I was a fool in MBA to think that a job would make me really happy. The happiest days were then and there, when I was surrounded by people who mattered and dad was footing the bills.
13) I feel sad about not clearing up some past mess with people I genuinely cared about. And it hurts that they probably think I was one bitch who used their goodness to my advantage. But I am not a manipulator. And it was never meant to end that way. But it did. And it hurts a lot.
14) When I think about mom, dad and nikki, I get this faraway look in my eyes, and I get misty-eyed.
15) You dont always need to bow your head in prayer when you want to connect with the Almighty. Last night, I sat on a bench under the stars and was just talking quietly. He was listening I can tell.
16) There arent many places left on earth where you can be truly by yourself. Either its a person, a car or an insect to take away the silence.
17) I want my baby to be all the things I am not. And all the things I am.
18) My son is the only person in my world to love me without any compromises. Just me being there is good enough for him.
19) I am still not the kind of person to stay at home. A lot of the time I am battling my own restlessness. Mostly I lose.
20) Being a mother is the hardest role I have ever played. And I can never afford to fail.

Its been ages since I last went shopping and concentrated only on myself. Of late, picking up things anywhere has mostly just been about the baby or the flat. So, it was a welcome change to hear hubby say- lets go shopping for just you today. Somewhere I knew I once remembered the feeling, but somewhere again I just didnt. We decided to try out the mall not far from where we live.

Vivo City. Its a world away from the one we live in. You walk and drag yourself from one shop to another not realising just how much you are walking. Its only when you sit down for a minute that you realise just how tired your legs really are. Well, the agenda for today was to buy clothes for meself. Style is such a personal statement dont you think? What I wore yesterday wasnt what I would have worn 4 years back and vice versa. I keep swearing am going to become a slim beauty and squeeze myself into fashion wear reserved for skeletons, but my body plans otherwise. Who doesnt love a good bargain? Fila had some great tshirts and even nicer discounts.  Since when did Sanjana really bother about who liked what she wore?

Back to the shopping. If shopping is truly about me for a day, then it has to involve books. Books. Books. Books. So many to read. Too many to own. And not enough moolah to do it. This mall had two bookstores. I happened to come across the biggest one first- Page one. Awesum. If a bookstore has to be called awesum by me, it has to meet certain criterias. First, it has to be spacious, with clear indications of what is where. Second it has to be huge. Third, the staff should be willing to help out and not run away each time you approach them. But the fourth is the sweetest. A bookstore that has a book you have been looking for ages, tends to stay longer in your mind. Well this place had a great Indian authors section and an enormous non fiction section too. I love historical biographies. Theres no better way to learn history and savour it than by reading it like a story with all the flava put in. Antonia Fraser and Irving Stone are two of my favourite historical biographers. Marie Antoinette was one queen I loved to hate till Fraser wrote a book about her and gave her a total image makeover. One of my favourites by Stone is 'The agony and the ecstasy", about the great Michaelangelo. I truly think Michaelangelo lived a second life through that book; thats how powerful it is. Anyways. After 45 minutes of wandering, I settled on four novels- Rani, Mary Queen of Scots, Atonement, Antony and Cleopatra. Iam yet to walk into a bookstore and come out with just one book in hand.

Also decided to treat myself to DKNY's latest perfume- Delicious Night, which is simply great. I have this fetish for berries of late, and this perfume has its comforting and sweet notes. Shopping truly massages the mind and ego. I think the kick is more when you dont indulge that often. In the end we had no clue where 5 hours had gone but had plenty of bags to account for it.