Abhiyum Naanum!

I watched this movie twice in a span of three days last week, the first time, enjoying all by myself, with no kids or hubby to fight for the remote (long live schools and office) and the second time as a family. Wow! What a movie! Very few movies – very few – give you this feel-good feeling when they end. No heavy sentiments, no tragedy, no fight, just love and laughter. The bonding portrayed between the dad and his girl is simply contagious. You yearn to be that dad/daughter and start expecting the same from the counterpart as in the movie :)

When the same movie was telecast just the day after, the mom, dad and the two girls sat glued in front of the TV right from the start. And Smruthi was glued to each and every scene in the movie. When the little one was feeling bored, and irritated due to sleep, Smruthi refused to move without seeing Abhi getting married. And worse, her interrogatory skills came back in full form as she watched the movie.

- Why did she bring the beggar home? (This for the Ravi Shastri scene)

- Why has she not invited anybody else for the cake-cutting of her dad? (The lake scene)

- Why did he collapse when he heard Abhi say ‘Love you Jogi’ on the phone?

- Is loving bad?

By now, I start feeling like switching off the TV and hitting the bed, just for her sake, when she suddenly asks: ‘Maa, he said that Jogi has no parents, and only a paati, now how come there are so many relatives ma?’

Apart from being interrupted on watching a nice movie, such questions at 9:30 in the night, was starting to get on my nerves. Before being questioned further, I leave the TV and the question-bank to the dad, and retire to bed with my little one. After 10 minutes or so, I hear a loud screaming, only to see Smruthi crying, because her dad had switched off the TV just before Abhi’s marriage, So, I compel to the poor guy to let her watch the movie, just this one time, and to give her company like the nice dad in the movie. So, that was that! Smruthi slept peacefully that night after watching her first ever night-show, fully understanding a story, and loving it too :) A story like this, and who cannot?

Universal Conspiracy!

Here I was, voluntarily entering into the blogathon, resolving not to give up, till the end of the month, and what more, I actually started writing a post a day for every day of the month – for 9 days, that is! That is when it happened. My consistent writing and my exceptional writing skills (ahem! Ahem!) urged murphy to stop me from reaching the finish line of the blogathon. So, the entire universe conspired, first it was my flu, and then, consecutive hospitalization and surgeries in the family, not to forget pongal and guests in home, making me toggle between hospital, home and guests – gave me no time to breathe, let alone blog. So, ultimately fate won, and the blogathon - my very first one, lay totally forgotten somewhere in the back of my mind. Now, that things are settled and quite back to normal, I bounce back with some fresh ideas for the blogathon, and it is already end of the month! Sigh! Why is Murphy always behind me?

Me & Myself!

Giving a break to kids and romances, here, I decide to write blog solely for me and about me. So, this post is about me, me and me!!

I love reading.....anything which interests me, ranging from puzzles in 'siruvar malar', to novels, blogs, home-making. I am still crazy about Harry potter and Lord of the Rings. When nothing else is available, I pick a copy of HP and start reading randomly.

I like to do expensive shopping for self, but look at the price tag, and come back without buying it. I don't own any dresses, for which rates have been a four-digit number. Except my marriage sarees.

I don't mind buying dresses for my daughters, which easily touch the range of 2k - 3k. I don't mind spending for my kids, and most often, I end up buying more than I should have actually done. (Oops, kids agan!)

My imagination wanders to the negative extremes, when a loved one is late by more than an hour, without information.

I think I have been a good girl, good daughter, a best friend, an awesome wife, and an above-average mother.

I always feel guilty after shouting at my kids, but that has not stopped me from shouting at them again and again.

I like to cry on seeing emotional scenes in movies.

I hate back-biting.

I don't like calling up help-desks and enquire for something. I always want to leave such tasks to hubby.

I like to be a home-maker some day, and maintain my home the way I want it to be.

I am very poor in maintaining contacts, with people, whom I don't meet on a day-to-day basis.

I am very good at finding excuses.

I like to give away free-advises, but only when I am asked for!

I can be easily irritated.

Most of the times, I tend to have a guilty feeling about something or the other.

I am conscious of God, and tend to think twice, before doing something wrong, (like lying, shouting at some idiot, who tries to bang on my car, coming in the wrong route, missing rituals and customs) Not that I’m saint-incarnated, but same case as point 6 above.

I love to follow traditions and customs. I ‘love' to follow....and not that I am following all of them...

I love to put kolams, rangoli and mehendi.

I always have starting problem, be it getting up in the morning, cleaning the house, conversing with a stranger, posting a blog, whatever!

I am giving freedom to this post today, after almost two years of confinement in the drafts section.

If you know what I mean…

• When the kids sleep like logs on weekdays, and it takes you more than 10 minutes to move them out of the bed, to get them ready for school!
• When you want to sleep long on weekends, the same kids are up and awake at 6, and as if that’s not enough, demand you to give them milk. NOW!
• When you try cooking a new dish, surprisingly, it comes out tasty, and no one in the house even notices it. Let alone, compliment it!
• Having to go to office, when all the schools are declared ‘holiday due to rains’, and your kids are tempting you to bunk office for the day!
• When you rush to catch the office lift in the evening, and the lift leaves, just when you are about to catch it!
• When you desperately expect a surprise gift for your b’day/anniversary, hubby (surprisingly) gets you a new dress, and the size is XXL (for a medium person L)
• Assuming your writing to be in the likes of all the well-known authors and wondering why your blog is not a hit yet!
• Posting, what you think is a wonderful blog, and getting no comments J

Foolproof ways to overcome writer's block

Well, all bloggers at some point or the other face this! You haven’t faced this yet? Wow, you can skip this post, continue to read my other blog posts and come back when you face this. You are suffering from this currently? Join the club and read on! In a social cause to help all those affected by this block-o-mania, here are some ideas derived from a deep research and analysis from me. Some foolproof ways to overcome your writer’s block and start writing again.

• Start nagging your friends to suggest you an idea for a blogging topic, consolidate them and post a blog on the list of topics you intend to write soon, prompting your readers to come back for more!
• Call a friend who does not have a blog, brag to them on how blogging is the easiest thing to do in the world, urge them to create a blog of their own, and once they suffer from writer’s block – come and post about it in your blog. (They don’t have writer’s block yet? Good, you can post about how you were the sole reason for this person’s blog creation, and how your advice to them was instrumental!)
• Dig deep into your system, collect all the old photos, anything would do…and post a collage on the photos, with a single caption. There, another picture post is ready! Too lazy to form a collage? Randomly pick a photo and post it with the caption ‘My best/worst/favorite/boring/whatever photo’. No photos in the system? No problem. Search for your favorite desktop background, and post a screenshot of the same.
• Write a post on how you are suffering from writer’s block, and if not for this, how you would have been posting about n blogs per day, regularly!
• Create your own list of (brilliant) ideas to overcome writer’s block and form a post – like I just did J

 (We cannot altogether blame this syndrome. It can be a boon sometimes, you know? What other reason can I give for my laziness of not actually posting a blog, even when its complete and almost ready in my Drafts.)

Books & Me

2013 saw me with very few books, even though I consider it as an achievement in itself, even to have read those few ones. And am happy to see the impact it has created on my girls (much to the annoyance of hubby). Some of these books, can always be seen lying around my bedside table, either because they are my favorites or I simply haven’t got the time to move them into the shelves yet. Every night these days during bed-time, Smruthi grabs a book, and tries to read the sentences or words, which she finds easy, and Swathi does the same, simply because her sister does it. The day they start reading full sentences, and understands them will be the day, (which I believe is not far behind) I would be forced to arrange the M&B and Sidney Sheldons in the shelves. So, until then, I can keep lazing around having the books within the reach of my hands. Some of the books which I read in 2013 are:

-          Digital Fortress – Dan Brown

-          The Oath of the Vayuputras – Amish Tripathi

-          The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga

And revised all the parts of HP and Lord of the Rings for the nth time! Surprisingly, I loved ‘The White Tiger’ more than the much anticipated (and disappointed) Oath of the vayuputras.

A friend introduced me to Indireads (as a reader, of course) and I got to read as much novellas as I could, until hubby threatened to cease my credit card. So, some of the novellas which I enjoyed from Indireads are:

-          Full Circle

-          Love’s Labor

-          No Such Thing as Love (This being my favorite in the romance genre)

-          Love will find a way

-          Against all Odds

-          The Gandharva

Hopefully, I get to read even more books in 2014. Fingers crossed!

Kitchen Delights

Yesterday was another one of our experiment sessions in the kitchen. Its been quite some time since I've tried a new dish in the kitchen, but never with a paneer variety. The elder one is a born favorite of paneer, and we were happy with ordering paneer dishes on our every visit to the restaurant, until one day, our dear neighbor tried a paneer gravy and shared it with us, and my daughter not contented with tasting the yummy dish, started screaming 'I WANT PANEER, I WANT PANEER...." every time I made rotis! Finally, when I ran out of excuses and we could no longer postpone it, we decided to try the same yesterday, having taken expert advice from the neighbor.

The daughter was seated in the kitchen table, and the neighbor coming in to help us, we tried and did everything as per the recipe, and finally the dish was ready. The dish looked mouth-watering, (yes, indeed!) and my girl couldn't wait until I made the roti, so she went ahead and tried the dish without the roti. I definitely didn't want to use her as the guinea pig, but it so happened, because I couldn't deny her what she had waited for so long and once she tasted, her mouth was literally running in search of water, a bit too spicy for my girl, but ok for the rest of us.The taste would have been the same as the original source, except that the paneer tasted as though it had long since expired, even though the package claimed that it was good to be used until the next week.

So, all in all, Smruthi went back to her roti-jam combination for dinner, and the rest of us had the roti-paneer gravy, except that all the paneer pieces lay discarded! So much for trying a new dish. "Try to make it better the next time" - was Smruthi's comment during bed-time. Atleast, she hadn't given up on her mom's culinary skills. Yet!