So, hello once again dear readers and my sincere apologies for not having posted anything since I turned 29 last September. All I can say is that, I of all people never expected that wonderful day to be the beginning of so many changes in my son's life and mine. I've gotten busier with more writing projects, had a few conversations that hurt, thoughts that became life-changing decisions, lost myself, found fragments of the person I once used to be, felt that same warmth from my best friends and am back with the three people I call my family.  Sometimes I float, sometimes I walk, sometimes I run but I'm getting there. :-)

This blog was meant to be a small gift from me to my son as he grows older. I would love for him to click on each blog post and read about his childhood as seen through my eyes, my thoughts, why I said some things and the many others I never did. Someday when I'm gone, I hope he'll find me in every post. In case, he doesn't understand my blog posts, I've even left him poems and diaries written faithfully about him, but either way he doesn't have much choice. To me as a writer, my purpose of starting a blog was just to unleash a little bit of that creativity and craziness kept all bottled up inside. There were many memories I didn't want to forget, certain why's I was sure I would want an answer to later and some sweet people who I wanted to pay a tribute to in my own way. 

And so, it's with a solemn promise that Sanjana swears she will write atleast 3 blog posts every month for her darling friends and the other anonymous readers who for some reason prefer to remain that way. Writing to an audience you can't see is therapeutic for some but for me, it's a big reason as to why I'm still a writer. Besides, as every day becomes just another page in the history of my life, there are always those few moments that deserve to be better explained, better captured and better remembered. So, cheers to a second innings! (this is where our champagne glasses clink!)

(p.s- Nandita and Raji- your mails made me smile. Words cant express that wonderful feeling when you know there are friends who do want to know your opinion even though there's a good chance you won't stop once you get started :-)) )

Celebrating 29!

Turning 29 is a serious eye- opener. I'm just one year away from turning 30 and I realise with a heavy heart that my efforts at weight loss seem to be proving seriously futile! So, this year I decided not to celebrate my birthday, even though I was in Cochin with my family. But my dear little boy had other plans on his mind:-

- He sang Happy Birthday for me and then gave me a small green box ( which he had flicked from his grandmother) and asked me to open it. Of course there was nothing inside. But my kid who has a roving imagination refused to be put off. ' Do you like the black angry bird mama?? It's for you ok?' First, I hate the angry birds game and secondly the box was empty. But when you become a parent, you learn to play these little games just because you don't want to see your kid looking sad. So, I replied ' Oh I LOVVE angry birds. Thankyou SOO much, kuttu!' And the little smarty pants was smiling away to glory.

- Not that I don't love cake ( I mean seriously, who doesn't) but thanks to my great pains at watching what I eat and watching other people eat what I can't, I decided no birthday cake this year. My mom and dad both have diabetes, so they weren't complaining but kuttu was sorely disappointed. At our local supermarket, he discovered a pack of candles and ran off to the cashier to explain that it was my birthday and to give it to us for free. 'It's my mama's birthday today no? We need to blow candles on cake no? We have to buy candles no?' Needless to say, the cashier was confused, but I was so touched seeing the way kuttu was so excited. Celebrating a birthday, means so much to him. Thankfully, I managed to convince him that we had candles at home and didn't need more! But of course, we did end up buying pastries from Cocoa Tree which has now opened another branch near my house.

- Trust dad to have a surprise up his sleeve and take us all for a movie at Oberon mall. Not only did we enjoy the movie, but we got to enjoy the big huge seats right at the back of the theatre. Plus, a treat from KFC and another small surprise from my parents were the icing on my cake! (literally!)

And as it was time to tuck in my little boy, tickle him for 5 minutes and sing songs to him, I realised with a deep sense of satisfaction that as far as your parents and children are concerned, you're never too old to celebrate a birthday.

All that jazz in 2 months!

Has it really been almost 2 months since my last blog post? Am tempted to say that time really flies (nothing new) and in these two months, so many things happened:-


1) My baby sister isn't really a baby anymore because she just turned 14 in June (sob sob). I can't even lecture her about the big bad world because she's way matured than I was at her age!
2) I began to sprout a wisdom tooth which needless to say, made my head ache like mad. Why didn't anybody warn me that wisdom hurts??
3) I came down with the worst food poisoning episode in 28 years in July. Just my tummy taking revenge for years of processing junk food. After one week of moaning like a banshee in pain and endless trips to the loo, I can confidently say 'Lesson learnt!'.
4) I discovered that Penguin Literature classics (and you thought the literature genes died after college!) retail for just 4 SGD each. C'mon, I pay 5 SGD for 2 litres of milk!!

I also figured that my little boy is becoming taller, that I can't carry him as easily as I could last year and that he is getting more independent by the day. This little brat of mine doesnt even let me give him a kiss. Instead he lectures ' No kissing on the lips ok? That's chee chee. Only kiss on the forehead or on the cheek!'. Am thinking I should have kissed him heaps more when he was a baby and wasn't strong enough to fight his mother off. These days, my little one has discovered the power of running. And running fast..

After 3 years of parenting, I can tell you that being a mother is so much tougher and fun than it appears. I wish my mother had handed me a few books on how to be a great mother instead of an worn out copy of ' What to expect when you're expecting'. But then again, why should words of wisdom from an expert apply to children all over the planet? After all, isn't each child different in his or her own way? So, it's with plenty of confidence that I can tell you:

- Kids imitate you all the time. My son has imaginary conversations with my sister on his cell phone (yes he has a cell-phone with no battery or sim card, a Nokia which I was only too happy to get rid of!) and when I ask him who he's talking to, tells me ' I'm talking to Nikki chech. Can you please go out of the room?' Someday when he discovers the magic of a real sim card, I can imagine what his conversations will be like and having a heart attack every month when I pay the bill.

- Just when you're in the middle of a nice nap, your kid has to go to the loo. And he will pester you till he gets his way. On second thoughts, it's better to get up and do the needful because who likes cleaning a mess?

- You reluctantly agree to watch spongebob squarepants although you're dying to know what's cooking up on Wisteria Lane in your favourite show. What's better? Hearing spongebob yap or a non-stop tantrum for 5 minutes? No wonder, am becoming a desperate housewife myself!

- Forget about watching a movie non-stop for 2 hours. Because that's the time your kid will most likely want to watch You Tube videos, play football, or of late, play angry birds!

- They are the little masters of manipulation. Real life example: My kid was running a high fever one day and of course I said no to giving him ice-cream. The next day he comes to the kitchen, gives out a fake cough and says ' Mummy, I need cough medicine. I have cough'. And I spent the next 5 minutes reassuring him he did not need medicine because he did NOT have a cough. To which, the little brat asked' Ok, then can I have some ice-cream please?' He's already learnt the art of beating round the bush and confusing his mother!

It's no wonder then that so many moms I have spoken to actually feel like they come from the dinosaur age. I completely echo that sentiment. I've learnt the hard way that if I have to discipline my child, I not only need to prove who the boss is but I also have to think 20 steps ahead of him!! Just like my parents did, am blinking when I hear my 3 year old say a witty liner and am wondering how much wider the generation gap is going to get. Through all the confusion and fun moments, am glad to say that I'm learning to be a mom the other way round- one day at a time. :-))

To buy or not to buy- that is seriously my dilemma

In my last post, I talked about going to a book fair and stocking up on more books. As luck would have it, I never made it to that fair for reasons I just don't remember now. ANYhoo, on my last trip to India, I discovered a few sites that sold books online. I've always maintained that browsing through books in a bookstore is an experience that's an ever-changing one. And one that I have always relished although in the past 3 years, I've had to be quicker in deciding what I wanted to buy because my kid doesn't understand what's so interesting about books that don't have any pictures inside! On the flip side, after I shelled out 5000 bucks (with a 10% discount thanks to DC books) in December at the DC bookstore not far from my house, even I had to admit that the soaring rates of novels were a tad too much for a bookworm like me. Add to that my mother's comment of ' You spent 5000 rupees of BOOKS? I could have bought 2 nice salwars with that!'. And you can understand why I was left feeling more stupid than happy with my purchase.

Anyways, I discovered a site called www.uread.com which claimed to give fantastic discounts on books of all genres. After some general surfing, I wondered why I had never thought about buying books online before. Of course, maybe because it's an Indian site, the prices are different. Am not so sure that Amazon would have worked out as cheaply for me on the other hand. The bottom line is that every book (and they have a fantastic range of I like to think all the books on the planet) had a minimum of 15% discount on the selling price. When I glanced through the books I had purchased from the DC store, I realised that I could have saved a minimum of 1000 bucks. Besides, I have the luxury of ordering what I want from the site, they'll courier it across to me and I can even choose to pay after the delivery is made. How cool is that??

So, I did make 2 purchases from uread.com. The prompt service encouraged me to buy from them again, only that the second time around I wasn't as thrilled with the service they had to offer. Just when I had made out a cheque to them, their customer rep gives me a call and says ' Why not deposit the payment directly in our Axis bank account? It'll be faster and we'll process your order within hours.' ( Unfortunately, the only 2 Axis bank branches were each a good 2 hours away from me. And as irony would have it, after the entire order-delivery issue was sorted out, a 3rd Axis branch opened directly opposite my house. Luck I tell you, Grrrrrr) So, I beg my dad who has become extremely finicky about LENDING his credit card to his daughters to please please conduct this one transaction online for me. Now, when you're the beggar, you can't be the chooser as well. So I had to wait 2 miserable days till dad finally kept aside 5 minutes to purchase the books for me. You'd think my troubles were over, but wait, the page which shows that the transaction was successful, didn't come at all. And although I don't want to tell my non internet savvy dad that there could be a goofup on the part of the site, secretly am praying that I don't have to repeat the entire process again!

And guess what? The customer rep tells me oh so calmly, that the website was undergoing some updates so they would have to get back to me on whether they had received my payment or not. Which website in the world allows online transactions if they know it probably won't go through in the first place? Anyways, they did manage to trace my payment and by then they had messed up my order too. 3 books which I had deleted from my wish list magically appeared in my shopping cart. Then in order to gnaw at whatever few grey cells I had, I was unable to stay logged on for more than 2 minutes. So I actually wasted 5 hours sitting like the hunchback of notre- dame at my laptop and struggling to edit my purchases. By then, I was furious enough to bang my laptop up and down as well (but thank goodness I didn't, because that would have just been entirely my loss!)

And then, maybe as punishment for all the mails I sent them, they didn't courier me my purchases all at once either. I realised too late that they didn't have 2 books in their warehouse and that I would have to wait longer for it to reach me. After you complain and tear your hair out for a period of time, there suddenly comes a phase when you become calm and you just can't be bothered anymore! And that's what happened to me too. By then I had lost the excitement of receiving my books and I couldn't have cared less if the postman decided to flick one for himself or if the Loch ness monster decided to add one of my purchases to her collection. In the end, I did get my books, but they weren't worth all that tension and unnecessary stress. Add to that, a nagging voice which reminds me that I wouldn't have had to put up with the same experience at a bookstore. A terrible catch 22 situation to be in, isn't it?

Here and there and EVERYwhere!

I ought to be finishing a client's project at this moment, but I couldn't resist taking a break and writing a new post. It's been ages since I wrote a new post and I blame that squarely on the number of projects that I have been working on since Jan. Being a freelance writer, of course there are plenty of times when you really want to be part of a project and you get rejected right at the start. Not a great feeling so when you DO get chosen for a project, it's such a wonderful high! I've been so busy that I didn't even get much time to catch up on reading and you know how I cannot live without books. I'm hoping I'll be able to make some time on March 18 to attend a book fair where everything will be sold at a major discount of 80%. Of course, at the rate at which I'm going, I'll probably take 2 years to get through my current lot of books, but stocking up for a rainy day never hurt anyone!

I finally made my list of resolutions. And unfortunately, I could not stick to just a few. By the time I had written down whatever I wanted to set right this year, my list numbered more than 10 resolutions. These days I have to remind myself to look my list every day so that I remember them. The main motto for this year is 'As you think, so you become.' Quite powerful and it sums up what a lot of preachers and gurus take hours to explain. One of the resolutions for this year is to pay more attention to myself physically and emotionally. When you're a woman who juggles so many roles, you tend to give so much of yourself to others that you feel burned out at the end of the day. Last year, I knew I had done so many things for my family but what had I done for myself? Not much which is why I wasn't able to shake off a deep feeling of unsatisfaction. This year I want to put in that effort to make myself happier and not to forget taking care of myself. So these days when I want to buy myself a handbag I do it without mentally calculating how much lesser my bank account figure will be. I have also started hitting the gym regularly. I long gave up the desire to lose weight and instead decided to focus on getting fit. Plenty of diseases run in my family and I want to make sure that I can healthy a few more years without succumbing to any of them. I actually began to enjoy working out because it felt that I was doing something for myself again!

The next thing I've started doing again is baking. I love baking and I regret not having explored this love of mine a bit more. I love baking a cake more than eating it myself. And for years I've wanted to buy one of those hand mixers that whisk your batter into a creamy texture. I finally did and now I use any excuse to make a cake just so that I get to use it. I also royally overlook the instructions that clearly say to whisk for only 2 minutes. I let it slip into 5 because it feels like I'm creating rippled cream that looks divine. Hubby says I'm responsible for his weight gain but what the heck, anything to use my darling hand mixer. I love it even more because it didn't cost the earth like I thought it would! So today after am done with the project, am going to try making my first blueberry cake. Last time I checked my little purple dearies were looking mightily ignored in the fridge. Now they no longer will be! and who can resist a little bit of cake batter. Why is cake batter so much more yummier than a cake? Sigh..I'll never know!

Kiddo is down with another awful viral flu which is getting all 3 of us down. Hopefully he will get back to his naughty healthy self in  a few days but for now, it's the thought of yummy baking that's keeping me going.

Till next time!