I am Me, Wife and a Mother

Well - it has been a while since I have actually written anything - ANYTHING at all - except emails at work - if that counts as writing. And so much has happened. I graduated with a Master's, found a job, resigned the job after 2.5 years, got married, moved to AZ and also had a baby (big thing!). My life has definitely been a roller coaster ride. Looks like the ride only took me up - guess it depends on how you look at it.

I should warn you that this blog might sound like a lot of complaining that might also sound like bragging - sorry, I am prone to be misunderstood - just making sure I confirm that before you proceed to read - but bear with me - I hope to end it on a good note.

Everything happened so quickly - even before I could absorb the changes that happened. Well - everybody says it is for the good. Anyway - the most important point of this blog is about my feelings about being a MOM.

I'll be honest - I wasn't as ready (mentally and emotionally) as I thought I would be to be a Mom. I always dreamed of holding this little one in my arms and just go "Awwww.." like they show in the videos - which I did - but soon all these thoughts about - taking care of the little one, entertaining her, feeding her, cleaning her, teaching her etc. (did I say it was a GIRL?) - all these things seemed to bite into My time. I was missing Me and the Wife. Soon I started thinking about the things I cannot do - pursue MBA or learn something new, buy new clothes without thinking about her first, go on a date with my husband, not being able to go on an office trip - essentially making any plans that did not include her. It did seem like a burden. Well - my parents offered to take her to India with them - but no, I could not part with her.

Don't you think that the baby needs too much attention! She is adorable sweet little one - with lots of hair - I plait two pig tails for her already - very active - very smart - always smiling happy little one - goes to day care - feeds well - loves cottage cheese. She always let me go to work. When I go to pick her up at the day care -

But one day - she fell sick. It is regular cold - not too scary - but I was scared enough to want my mother and father here. She developed a fever this time - in the place of those little smiles that used to welcome me at the day care, there was a miserable look on her face that said a lot without saying anything. She did not leave my side from that day on for the next 4 days or so. Being her (and a baby), even if she was feeling a little better - she would go on and spend that energy. I didn't see a single smile all those days - she didn't even bother to stand up - play with anything that was given to her - all she wanted was to be held by Dad or Mum - and sleep. I was scared of a common cold and what it would do to the baby. I was hoping and praying that she become better.

Now she is all cured and all the smiles have returned and so did the little devil in her. She is all active and herself - well she is yet to feed properly. But I guess this little incident made me realize how much I want to be there for her and with her. No matter what I think about not being able to achieve anything - that inherent parent in me comes alive when the little one is not herself. And to nurture that little angel back to being herself in itself is an achievement.

I bow to all those mothers that take care of their babies that fight something worse than common cold.

This is from Me, the Wife and the Mother.

At this point of LIFE...!!

Well, it might be in the air…!! It was the time when both the roomies were almost vexed with their daily routine at work. WE kept discussing randomly about the work, the work culture, the people, their relationships and so on.

Whenever an American greets you, he generally asks you “How are you doing?” You would just want to reply, “I am fine” and try asking him the same question, “How are you?” for which he would reply, “I am good”. I wonder what else they expect when we just say we are fine, because I don’t find them satisfied with the answer. I work at a snack bar. So, I generally ask the customers “Do you want anything else?” for which they answer, “I am good, thank you”. Now I translate that into my mother tongue which says “nenu bagunnanu”. Well, they are being courteous, but I find it amusing. At the back of my mind, I think “Nee… who asked you if you are good or bad, say yes or no”. Excuse me! I couldn’t have laughed in front of my customers because their answers amuse me. I managed to smile.

And then WE started discussing about why these people “seem” so mechanical, so vapid, so discriminating (should not be the word, but I had to use) etc. Everyone calls the other person by his/her name irrespective of their age. In India, we use Aunt, Uncle etc to address the elders. And here, I call a 40 year old lady by her name. I find it difficult man! My employer is near to 45 and I call her “Dawn” (that is her name).

WE then talked about our families. It has been a long time since we sat in the living room and had a chat with our mom or heard our dad’s voice over phone, since we searched for our mom as soon as we came home and told her everything that happened on that day or told dad about a compliment from the teacher. Yes, we got nostalgic and tears just touched the edge of the eye and went right back.

And then, WE had come to that point of the discussion where we found it difficult to accept what we said because that was new to us. It is the requirement of someone we love, to ask us how the day was, if we ate, if we had a sleep, how much we scored in an exam, what our friends are doing, what our future plans are and so on. The need of someone, to hold our hand and walk along, to pat us when we are sad, to ask us to sleep when we are tiring ourselves beyond the break point, to share every moment with us, be it happy or sad and to just hug us when in need of confidence. It is the requirement of someone who can make every moment special just by being there for us, who can understand us, who can make us smile even when we are sad, where silence is comfortable, where the mere presence of someone can make our day, the one who can make our life meaningful, who leaves us better than what we were before we met him etc :).

Not that we are weak. It is only that the strengths differ. Prior to this, we must have shared this so called burden with our parents sub consciously. But consciously, we are unable to lift the same alone. WE were unable to accept the feeling that we need someone, the thought of which, made us feel guilty. But then when we tend to fight the thought, we tend to make it worse. Perhaps, the only solution is to accept these feelings and get along with this so called real illusion. I just happen to write this blog because these were feelings I never knew before and that they amused and fascinated me. And yes, it is in the air…!!

A walk through the MECH LIFE..!!

Walk through it and you will know what ecstasy is..!! I understood only then the beauty of what was taught in A-605 @ BITS, Goa. I have been allotted Tata Projects Limited an Engineering, Procurement and Construction Company, Hyderabad, which mainly handles the erection projects for POWER GENERATION. As part of my project work there, I happened to visit one of their construction sites @ Bhusawal in Maharashtra. It is a very hot area with temperatures around 45-47 degrees. Unlike Hyderabad, one can steel feel hot wind on the face at 8 P.M. Mainly rocky area with less vegetation, suitable for a power project. We (I and another co-student) were sent there to work on a quality improvement project. We were provided accommodation at a hotel which has very less items on its menu. Ultimately, we got bored of repeating the menu at the end of the stay. The lunch at site reminded me of the food back at BPGC, though the vegetable salad at the site was much better than the one at mess. We used to be out at 9 A.M. and back at 8 P.M. For the first three days we were given A/C room for all the brainstorming sessions and to draw the cause and effect diagrams and most importantly to fight the heat. Due to the staff meetings, we were away from the A/C room and had to experience the afternoon heat @ Bhusawal. Though there were desert coolers all over the office, there was this touch of humidity in the air bringing a sensation of itching.

That was the last but one day stay of ours at the site. We asked our project co-ordinator if we could see the site. He agreed to it and introduced us to the safety officer. We were taken to the stores where we were provided helmet and shoes to walk through safely. We got into a car and drove into the construction area which was about ½ km from the site office. We got down the car and looked up to the site area. The first smell of dust and of the iron felt like living. It was the construction of 2 X 500 MW BOP (Balance of Plant). To the left of us was Unit-1 which was almost done and to the right was Unit-2 which is far behind Unit-1’s completion. We introduced ourselves to a couple of site engineers and they explained to us the rest of the plant structure. I was completely excited by the very sight of the giant structures and was patiently waiting for our safety officer to take us upstairs, which he kept avoiding at the slightest reduction of day light (the time was 7 :30 P.M. you can still read a newspaper). The site engineers showed us the area for turbine placement, the condenser placement. We managed a look at the boiler drum which it seems weighed 240 tonnes and then the other pipes out of and into the boiler drum (unaware of the technicalities). Now was the time to go upstairs. Our officer finally managed to ask “oopar jayenge?” I said “haan sir, chalenge” with a wide beam on my face. We climbed 6 stair cases and reached the arena of turbine and condenser. The turbine was yet to arrive and the workers were working on one half of the condenser and the other half was put aside and was open. It was a semicircular cross section with a dividing plate in the center; that was the visible other half of the condenser. Occasional fear while walking through the building is quite obvious while the rest of the time, you are carried off by the feel of it. Walking back, we spoke of the economic perspective of the project which was worth 2000 crores. On the way back to the site office, we were shown ESP, chimney (275m high), DM plant, ring beam (civil) of the cooling water tower, stack of cooling water pipes and the like. Well, I was on cloud nine to watch an open structure of that kind.

The rule says “if you really want to do it, you will surely find a way.” I call it a life time wish to watch an operational plant under maintenance and to learn everything about a power plant. Only that I am waiting for a chance and I am not making it happen. But, I revisited the course Power Plant Engineering once again with the help of my partner who explained me the entire process of power generation and I shall be grateful to him for making me relive the PPE days of Babu Sir. :P .ALL THE BEST..!!

Life...An Apparent Paradox...!!

As it is always said, there are three sides for an argument...yours, the other person’s and the right one. But I never knew what the right argument was. So apparently, few incidents in life seem to be contradicting the very rules or rather the so-called rules of life and we are the ones who wrote the rules. Quite obvious...we break the rules.

Someone is teasing a young lady. She is really upset with the process and vents out her anger on everyone who is teasing her. Now, is she supposed to be good spirited and take it in a friendly way or is she supposed to tell them that she doesn’t like all this and be angry with them. Friendship requires friends to be true to each other and understand each other. That means she is right in showing her anger and her friends were wrong in teasing her because they could not understand her. But the society wants the teasing to be taken as a joke and tolerated. That means she must not have shouted at them. Confusing?? It is, to me, a paradox...sounds silly but there are lot more like this if you observe. The premise that you consider for the argument differs and so does the conclusion.

More often than not, people tend to become emotional and they do search for an exit. When some ‘X’ accepts in front of some ‘Y’ that he/she is missing him/her, even before claiming this sentence, wouldn’t there be a minute of struggle in the mind thinking “what if I admit that I am missing him/her?” Because in the journey of life, he/she learnt that being emotional does not really help though it is with his/her own people. But he/she also learnt what such a relation would mean if he/she cannot show up his/her mental situation. Phew!! Again..!! Do they still seem silly?

Simply put, should you do it or should you not? Because the premise that you consider for doing few things might actually differ from the other person’s premise and it happens most of the time. The above mentioned situations are the recent happenings and they amused me but did not bother me much. Lying..!! Had it not bothered me, I would not have written this blog.

Love...for a life time ...let it be so ..!!

A relationship that need not be named as friends, brother-sister, lovers or anything else but they could be whatever they want to be for each other. I wonder what they would be called. :P...They share a nameless relation…that is what people would say…they are mad about each other…they are crazy about each other etc etc…blah blah…But the beauty of such a nameless relation is understood by them and only by them. It would become important to be in the relation than to give it a name. It would become important to love…not the routine boy-girl love…but to LOVE and UNDERSTAND and NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!! The fulfillment hasn’t found its way into the relation…just the love, affection, support, care, kindness, compassion, thoughtfulness. It doesn’t even matter that you stay with the person or live with him/her for the rest of your life…just the presence, the mere presence matters and the confidence that the relation would last forever though you are separated by miles and miles of distance. The relation can endure all that distance with a simple smile which mocks people who think the relation ended or the smile has the confidence that we still live for one another. The pain doesn’t really hurt; you enjoy the suffering. Probably such is the beauty of a pure relation…I really wonder if that is what purity means. The soul would dance to the tune of the unheard music, present deep inside the cockles of heart; it is the presence of these souls that matter; I may go to the point of saying the body doesn’t matter. THE SOLE SOUL!! The ego, the pride…nothing at all comes in the way of the relation. All that matters is the shameless acceptance of the words … “I live for you”.

Well, let’s contradict the above point…because I once stood for the point that … “Only love does not suffice, its fulfillment gives it the beauty”. Would you bear to part the person you love? Would you stop dreaming as you dreamt all along about the person who you thought was your life? Would you forgo the person who was indispensable or you? I guess it would be really difficult for someone to do so.

Well, I really don’t know how to end this…I hope you people have an end not just for the sake of ending it but for it to give it its end.

Freedom..Well do you really think your LIFE's got it??

Well guys, I feel I ask a lot of questions, but I don’t know what you feel about it...but yes I do ask a lot of questions. Who do you think got us freedom? Why do you think there should be a struggle for achieving our freedom? Why do you want freedom at all? What do you think freedom is? Well, I don’t have answers for these but I guess these questions must be bothering you now and then, if not always. They must be bothering you when you happen to watch “The Legend of Bhagath Singh” or on August 15^th or at least on January 26^th when you watch the Indian Flag floating proudly in the air and if you get to watch some cultural programs on this day at your school, college...blah blah. Why I am asking you these questions? Hmm...I happened to go to Andaman and Nicobar Islands recently. It was a short trip for about four days. You know “KALAPANI”...probably this name at least takes you into the history of freedom fight or at least reminds you of the movie KALAPANI starring Mohanlal. The place WAS very well known for the “CELLULAR JAIL”. It starts with a watch house at the centre and seven rectangular blocks extending on its sides and the locus of their ends more or less looks like a circle. Built out of heavy rocks and cement...obviously...the cells have high ceiling without any sort of facilities that we enjoy today. The latch of each cell has its bolt well hidden away from the prisoner...not like the one shown in movies where the hero sometimes just opens the lock just by a small shot on it with his bare hands. Our Indian freedom fighters used to live in such rooms, don’t mind me describing this...had to shit in there for more than a fortnight without even cleaning it and when it was time to clean, they themselves had to clean it with their bare hands. Can you even imagine doing that? Would you imagine yourself in that position? Every Indian prisoner entering the cellular jail was no less than a slave to the British. No PROPER food, No PROPER light, No PROPER water, No PROPER treatment at least like that of a human being, No communication among the Indian Prisoners...NOTHING AT ALL. C’mon, put yourself in that position. How would you feel if you were locked up in your room forcefully all day without having anyone to talk to you? You don’t even know if you would ever leave that room to see YOUR people. It could be worse than what you can imagine. But they lived with one hope, the HOPE that INDIA will be free one day and they lived only for that day. If they went through all the pain, all the regardless treatment, it was because INDIA would be free one day. There was this prisoner called VEER SAVARKAR. He was teased by the jailer of the cellular jail who said...that you are going to remain here in this jail for another fifty years...for which VEER answered or rather asked “Do you think you are going to stay here for another fifty years...INDIA will be free by then...don’t you see the fight has already begun?” Such was his confidence on the future of INDIA. The international airport at Andaman has been named after him as...”VEER SAVARKAR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT”. This is the love and affection that those Indians for the future or present INDIA and the INDIANS. But think guys...do you really think you are repaying their kindness?? Are we really living in a country that they dreamt of? Are we really living in a country which they wanted to live in? Well, I don’t even know how eligible I am to talk about all this. Mind you, I am not belittling myself by bringing in my eligibility, just giving you a chance to think that you are far better than me so that you will do something for OUR INDIA. Better idea is that, WE will do something for INDIA. This is only a small attempt to allow ourselves realise the efforts put in by our freedom fighters to give us a chance to build INDIA OF OUR DREAMS. You know half of the freedom fighters died young probably at thirty. Well, we don’t want to die but only do something for INDIA. ALL THE BEST!! WISH YOU ALL SUCCESS IN YOUR FUTURE ENDEAVORS FOR INDIA!!