For Chiyutai

Dear Chiyutai,

Suddenly you are so big, my pet,

And don’t want to be kissed –

In public and in private.

Those moments are now missed –

When you plonked on my lap with your chubby bums

And ate up my face with toothless gums.

You laid my long hair on your eyelids

To shield them from the light’s glow.

I don’t want to tell you this –  

But perhaps you already know.

That I still kiss you goodnight

When you are sleeping tight.

 

 

 

Look Who's Cooking

Anita: 
He thinks I cannot make good tea. So if we are expecting guests, he brews the tea and keeps the cups ready. He tells me to bring the tea tray in when the guests have arrived to seem as if I made it.

Nupur: 
How I wish my husband could only make tea!

Suchita: 
Before my marriage, I couldn't even boil potatoes! My husband taught me how to cook step by step. Now I can cook five course dinners.

Prema: 
When I am sick, my mother-in-law calls up and asks my kids if I did the cooking, if their father cooked, or whether we ordered food from outside. My kids reply that I have cooked and gone to sleep. 
My husband is an only son and cannot cook at all.


Ananya: 
When I was sick, I was rolling out chappatis. My mother-in-law came to see me and was annoyed. She said, "Why are you making chappatis when you are ill, my dear? I have taught my son to make chappatis. You should let him do the cooking and take some rest".

 

A Favourite Poem

Kaija chose a humorous poem for the Class IV project on favourite poems.
She copied it on a sheet in her best handwriting.
It was a poem by Clive Webster and went like this:

Pretty Parents

Dad's got tattoos on his chest

But he's not as bad as mum.

She's got the most embarrassing -

She's got tattoos on her bum.

Kaija drew pictures of a dad and mum with their respective tattoos under the poem.
Then she wrote, "I like this poem because the last sentence is so funny - that the mum has tattoos on her bum. I wish my mum had them too."

 

Bead by Bead

“He’s so young and handsome,” thought the apprentice nurse as she dressed his wounds. It was a bad accident.

The doctors said they would cut off life support if he did not show the slightest physical movement in a week. She put her prayer beads around his ring-less fingers and willed him to live and love.

Every day when the doctors came, she had nothing new to report. On Thursday, she watched as a doctor felt his pulse. Then they both saw it together. A finger slowly moved a bead. And then another. She gave a deep sigh and dreamed.

 

(A story in 100 words based on the true story of a young man from Vasai who worked in the Middle East.)

 

Forever and one day more...

The first time our eyes met and melted

We knew that this was forever

Although we were strangers.

...

With golden rings on wedded fingers

We uncovered pleasures hitherto unknown

As dusk blushed into night.

...

Our arguments raged

The cause forgotten

Yet through it all we mutually belonged.

...

This morning you pushed away my curls

As I traced your stubble

And you said something that made my heart sing.

 

 

 

A Long Silence

Dear Readers, I apologise for my long silence.

Thanks to those who read this blog regularly and prodded me about this silence with gentle reminders to write. Thanks to those who waited patiently for a new post and turned away disappointed.

I lost a good friend recently and I was in mourning.

We had a lot in common – she and I.

As we progress in understanding the world around us, we develop a sense of humour that is not shared by all. We click with those people who laugh at the same jokes. There are not many friends who share this quality with us. We treasure these friendships. To lose one such friend creates a vacuum which takes time to fill.

Most of us define our existence in relation to the people around us.

When we lose someone close, it feels as if a part of ourselves has gone numb.

.....

This was the first Facebook death I have seen since I started using social networking.

My friend read this blog regularly and gave me feedback. She will not read these posts anymore. That hurts.

For a while it had put me off all kinds of interaction on the internet. I shunned looking at the computer screen. My PC gathered dust in the living room corner. However, what bothered me most is that I couldn’t write. Not that I am a celebrity writer or anything but writing makes me feel worthwhile.

You have all ‘willed’ me back to this blog.

Many thanks.

 

 

A New Year's Resolution

Many of us make resolutions on the first day of the New Year.

Some are sincerely followed. Some are easily broken. Nobody else cares about our own resolutions anyway.

This year I am going to make a single resolution. There is no long list.

There is just this one resolution.

It is not an original idea. It was posted by a friend on Facebook. I shared it on my timeline for a while hoping that I would be able to follow it too. The words were simple and profound. Something stirred inside me. Just like Moses would have felt when he saw the Ten Commandments on the tablet for the first time.

The Facebook post said:

‘Open your mouth only if what you have to say is more beautiful than the silence.’

The silence already exists.

It is beautiful.

When I speak I am going to break it.

If I am breaking it, I should create something more beautiful.

Wow... this is challenging.

It makes me weigh every word before I utter it. It makes me judge every thought before I express it.

It might make me seem rude, boring, stupid, stuck-up, etc. To other people.

However, life is not about other people and us. It is all about God and us.

God has created silence and He has created us.

If I create anything beautiful with words, I will speak.

Other things I would rather keep to myself.

Dear Readers, this is not going to be easy. I will update this blog regularly and keep you updated on how my experiment with silence is coming along.