My Little Bundles of Joy

On Dec 3rd Smitha gave birth to a cute baby boy name Siddhant! It was love at first sight for me ... All he did the entire day was sleep ... wake up ... fill his lil tummy ... and sleep again ... He smiled when he slept, which used to make me wonder what he dream of ... From being a mere bundle that slept with eyes shut in deep slumber he has grown to be a big boy who loves to be talked to and played with in just a span of 3 months ...

Nephews and Nieces are surely the magical things to have in ones life ... As an aunt I can spoil them and not have to be the one to worry about them becoming spoilt ... They let us relive our childhood for at least 10 years ...

Akshay was the first ever baby i saw in my life. I was a baby myself when I held this baby in my small hands. He was and will always be my first love, my baby, my darling ... Never knew he would grow up from my being my bundle of joy to a grown up boy ... The one thing I remember the most about him is the way he would hang around the kitchen while Achema cooked fish and say "Meemi ulta soja, meemi ulta soja" and the way he screamed in the temple "Soumya chechi ... Ambatti shame shame puppy shame" ... Still brings a grin on my face ...

Next born was Sree Padhmanabhan ... Although I haven't had much interaction with him the one striking thing I remember about him is his "endana bomb itto" story and the way he would say "Paavam aale" 'Paavam aale" ...

Vishnu was the next addition to our clan ... Met him very recently and what fine boy he is ... He probably has the cutest smile in the world and it is also a contagious one ... The perfect blend of innocence and mischief all rolled up into those big round mesmerising eyes just like his mom ...

Next in line was Aditya ... As a child he would always be with chechi and not let any of us pick him up ... But with age he became very close to all of us ... He used to and still is always concerned about logistics when people visit him as in where everyone would sleep, what everyone will eat and so on ... He is my sweetheart who talks with a weird accent !!

Naveen was born around my 12th standard vacation so the only image I have of him is being a small baby ... Haven't been able to interact with him much in the later years ... But one of the stories I have heard of him is how he scared Raje amma with a lighter saying he would burn her ... lol ...

Then came the first twins of the generation Ayush and Aashna ... What adorable kids they are ... I am still exploring them ... Always together in whatever they do ... the way speak, the way they do stuff everything about them is soo adorable ... I have soo many stories to tell about them but that would just run pages and pages ... Put together they surely add sugar and spice to our lives ...

Then came Riona ... Like Naveen haven't interacted much with her but i still remember how pretty a baby she was just like her mom ... Wish I could get more in touch with her in the years to come ...

Next in line was Sameera ... She was hardly a month old when I went over to Raleigh to visit her ... Once I saw her I just couldn’t stop myself from holding her tight almost every minute. She looked so cute with big black eyes and a mop of black hair ... And now she is slowly growing into a fine lady ...

Almost a year later this tiny baby called Sameera was suddenly a Big sister thanks to the arrival of Sanjana ... Our little Valetine gift wrapped in love ... She is undoubtedly small, brand new and amazingly angelic ...

Very soon a few more will be added to the list and even sooner this new generation will be all grown up ... They may not remember what they did when they were young or even realise the happiness they bought into our lives but still they would always be Soumya Cheriamma's/Valiamma's/Chachi's/Maami's darlings forever n ever and ever ...

Among the many things like joy, happiness, satisfaction, stress relief, innocence etc. that children bring into your life, one of the things they do is take you outside of yourself, force you to be less self-absorbed and more engaged with the people around you ... Children surely are an antidote to the narcissism that sometimes emerges in most of us ... Thanks to all my lovely nephews and nieces for making life so meaningful and worth living ...

Brahma Kamal - The Night Queen

Brahma Kamal, named after Brahma, the God of Creation, probably blooms only for one night in the entire year, somewhere between July and September. It is a rare plant that flowers around midnight and survives only for a few hours. It is also commonly known as Nishagandhi in India or ‘Queen of the Night’; The Japanese people call it Gekka Bijin, which means ‘Beautiful Woman Under the Moon’.

Most Indians will relate to the celebration surrounding the blooming of the Brahma Kamal. There is a lot of gossip revolving around the same like only lucky people get to see the process of blooming or that ones who see the bloom get rich and prosperous and are showered with blessings! Whatever be the myth all I can say is that I surely did feel blessed by the serene white beauty of the Nishagandhi.

Mom planted the Brahmakamal somewhere around 2007 and finally after a long wait of almost 4 years, Sunday night we gathered around the auspicious plant to enjoy the full bloom of the Queen and her heady fragrance. The vigil started at sunset when he four of us – Mom, Dad, Subhash and I – sat at the dining table, glancing often at the plant with great anticipation.

With passing time she revealed more and more of herself was at her stunning best by midnight. And as if the visual wasn’t glorious enough, she filled the whole room with a bewitching fragrance. We all were totally ecstatic to witness this beautiful creation of the nature. Like we were advised we prayed to the flower and also entertained a few people who came over to pay their so called respects to the Brahma Kamal.

If you take a closer at the flower, you'll see the central white stamen which people believe represents Lord Krishna, while the reddish brown stalks which you can see on the closed bud represent the 100 Kauravas from the Mahabharata. I don’t know how far these myths are true but the Brahma Kamal in itself is truly divine and no wonder the Japanese named the Queen, ‘Gekka Bijin’.

Post midnight the flower began to close, unbloom as I like to call it. By morning she was back to being a bud again. Truly marvellous. Most of the people today argue that this flower is not the original Brahma Kamal but even if it is true, it in no way takes away credit from our splendid rendezvous with our pseudo 'Brahma Kamal' ;)

The entire process of watching the Brahma Kamal bloom and unbloom has made me think of the metaphor for our lives. At her moment of glory the queen didn’t know that her life was only for a few short hours but still she gave her everything for that single blaze of glory and then she was tired and exhausted. She thus teaches us to give our best shot at anything and everything because it is not the length of glory but the glory itself that people reminisce forever.

The five hours that we spent watching her bloom without even blinking for a second made me realize how important it is to watch at the right moment. So many times we miss the smile on the face of our loved ones just because we dint look at them at the time they were smiling.

It is really amazing how watching a flower made me learn such lessons of lives which would have otherwise taken years.

Wilton Cake Decorating Class

As evidenced by this cake , I had very little experience decorating cakes, so a month back Neha & I started the Wilton's Cake Decorating Course One, needless to say, it was a lot of butter cream!

I started the course with some basic cake decorating knowledge and now I almost feel like pro ;) We learnt a whole variety of things - butter cream icing, borders, flowers, dots, and hearts and not to forget the rose.

However I have really mixed feelings about my whole experience. I surely did feel like I learned things, but my biggest issue was our instructor Lisa. She is a nice lady and I wouldn't have disliked her so much in a normal day to day environment, but I hated her as a teacher. She was uninterested and uninspiring and never explained things as well or as detailed as she should have. She would also rush us through our classes. All in all, she didn't teach well.

But we had the book and time to learn by trial and error and we surely did a good job at that.

Class One

Neha and I attended our first class on 7th Sep 2010 and it sure did make us giggle a lot because we were probably the only two people out of the 10 students who had no experience in cakes, icing or anything like that ;)

Anyways we managed to suppress our giggles and learn all we possibly could about how to prepare a cake for decorating; from baking, leveling, torting, filling and icing the cake. Lisa also showed us how to make some stupid looking fishes (yeah personally i felt the fish looked like it had a bad lip augmentation done). She also showed us how to make some creepy looking clowns; Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the clowns especially not after those scary clown movies :(

Later we were asked to frost and decorate some cookies :)

Class Two

While first class was more of an introduction to how to make frosting and a discussion of what the class would cover, second class was all hands-on, and we had to ice and decorate an 8"cake.

First we learned how to smoothly frost the cake. We also learned how to do a pattern transfer, using piping gel and then fill in the pattern or rather just a few of us learnt since Neha and I chose to make our own designs (see I told u I was already practicing to be a pro). We also learned how to make "scary" clowns for like the hundredth time (she taught us to make clowns in every class).

Here's the finished cake and I surely don't think it's too bad for a first attempt. It went to work with Subhash a day after and they all liked it or at least that is what they all said ;)

Class Three

For the third class, we were asked to bring six cupcakes. During this class, we learned how to make shell borders, drop flowers, rosette, shaggy mum, pom pom flowers. Since my frosting was a little thinner, it was easier for me to make these on the practice board, in fact my icing was soo thin that my pom pom flower fell out of the flower nail while all i could do was sit there and stare at the disaster.

Once we had practiced well we were asked to fill in our cupcakes and decorate them with the classic swirl or the flowers we had learnt that day. Well not to forget we also had a session of making the infamous clown (Please stop it now!!!)

Here is what I managed to do with my cupcakes in the 15 minutes that Lisa gave us to decorate the cupcakes.

Class Four

So when I first signed up for cake decorating class, I knew the one thing I had to come away with was how to make a rose and this was like my dream day

In this class Lisa (Well she was a very different lady today, all sweet and helpful ...hmmm) showed us how to make the ribbon rose, But for some reason it took me over an hour to get the hang of making my ribbon rose. I don't know what it was but I just could not get it to work for me (I kept envying Neha who made awesome roses like a pro). Anyways by the time I managed to kind of make a ribbon rose the heat kicked in and my icing started melting and the so my “not so ribbony” ribbon roses fell apart. Anyways I was able to save 5-6 roses which I put on the cake and the final cake looked pretty good.

On a concluding note all the stuff we learnt in our 4 week course is surely not rocket science, but it's also not something that most people can do! During the last one month I practiced, and practiced, and then practiced some more (yeah even while sleeping). I'm not kidding, at one point Subhash wanted nothing to do with the site of frosting and trust at that time i was not even half satisfied with my skills ;) However like I said earlier, as of today I feel like a pro, well maybe not good enough to compete on the Food Network Challenge, but I am surely very proud of my small achievement!

Differently Settled

Today Pappa (my uncle) celebrated his 60th b'day! Wishing him made me sit back and think where would I be at 60 ?? What would I be doing ?? How successful would I be ??

In today's world one's success is measured by how much wealth one has accumulated. In other words whether he/she has “settled in Life”.

Well this definition of "settled" has changed from time to time. There was a time when taking up a Government job was considered being settled. It dint matter what job he/she did as long as it was for the Government. Then came the era of brain drain, when being an NRI or being married to one was considered to be "settled". Well we still see the shades of that in our society today. Thanks to the recent debacle in the software industry nowadays people measure your success based on whether you have a H1 or Greencard or you are a Consultant !!

Well this is not anything new for Indians like me who have forever been taught "survival of the fittest (read best)". We have been told again and again that "settling down" is nothing but getting a good job, getting married, having children and so on. And that is exactly what almost everyone is busy doing because failing in any of the aforesaid would mean being "unsettled", "unsuccessful" ...

So is "making a living" the only yardstick for measuring success ... what about doing something you love, something that makes a difference, something that only you would be remembered for ?? What if people like Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and many such others had decided to just be "settled" in life ??

I am not hinting that one should not get a good job or get married and have kids and so on. What I am suggesting is that while "making a living” we should surely find time to “make a difference”. We should all be like the farmer who is supposedly the biggest devotee of Lord Vishnu, because he would take time to pray and worship the lord inspite of his very hectic work in the fields. We all should indulge ourselves in doing something that we love, something that will add value to our existence, something that we can be proud of at 60!

All in all 30 years from now I want to be living (read making a difference) rather than merely being "settled". Am gonna call it being "Differently Settled" ;)

Some like Sunday, Some like Monday, but I like my Birthday ;)

Birthday, a day of rejoicing, fun and light heartedness. A day full of love and affection for all those that send in feeling and wishes and warmth; a day of family and friends calling in. Subhash and me quietly brought in my 27th birthday last night with a cake, candle and a birthday wish.

When I woke up in the morning, my first thoughts were my parents. I tried to create their image in my mind and think about them. No matter how many new friends or new experiences I have, on birthdays, it all comes back to my parents first.

The day then became festive with calls and card - half of them now arriving as electronic messages, from friends and family. In the evening a few friends (Sachin, Ranjana, Shashank, Amit, Renuka, Nithin, Lakshmi and Isha baby) came over for dinner. Nothing extravagant or loud, a mere warm collection of friends, light banter, some Wii sessions and now going back to bed.

As we all know life being what it is, my birthday had a few moments of sadness too. Its been just two long weeks since my uncle passed away. When life ends it takes along so many moments and memories in one swift cruel move. Lips still have prayers for him.

We need to understand that when we remember birthdays, we remember what we did, and who we were with. We don’t necessarily remember the presents. This shows us what is important to us. Hoping to have some more such wonderful birthdays sans the sad moments.

God's fingers touch'd him, and he slept.

Yesterday I lost my uncle, the Father like person in my life. Today i sit here and send in a prayer as I sit in my room across seven seas, quiet and in contemplation. There is no one around me today and there is a sudden sense of being alone and isolated. But trust me sometimes it is good to be yourself and be by yourself.

I have been moving about for the past 30 hours in a delirium almost, not knowing what to do, where to go and what to say. My brain demands that I be involved in something; Absolutely anything because it believes that the more occupied I will be the more faster will i recover; But my heart, still lingers around the sweet memories and the pain this incident has bought into my life. All am capable of doing now is to sit here and let my mind and heart battle it out.

I feel a stong a sense of ‘not wanting to do anything’ and this is surely not a healthy state. But even if I want the time to stop here and rewind back I know that life will do otherwise and move me forward. Something inside me still feels that perhaps tomorrow when I wake up all this will be a dream and the pain will cease to exist and life will once again be full of happiness and joy but unfortunately thats not true. I know that for the rest of my life I have to live with a tinge of this sadness.

My father was an angel sent down to take care of me, protect me, guide me, correct me when I was wrong, to love me unconditionally, to laugh and cry with me, to stand up for me, to make me feel good about myself ... to just be there for me always ... Well even if I dint believe in angels earlier I just started to, because i realise he WAS an angel to me who dint expect anything in return ... Maybe just a phone call or a visit once in a while ...

As i sit and reminisce the time spent with him I realise that in the daily hustle and bustle of our life there is very little that we usually sit and absorb. However it is only in the advent of such an event that we understand the importance of these special moments and the importance of admiring and respecting them. Today his entire life flashes before me and trust me it surely is worth watching.

I know that for the rest of my life every time I step into Swapna Sree I won't be greeted by his warm smile or hug. All that I'll be able to do is spend a few odd moments with his picture, his books and glory. He has gone far away from us, but the way to keep him alive is to never stop loving him; To be strong and smile so that every time he peeps in to see how I am doing he feels happy for what he has made me !!

My father - strong and malleable, wise and understanding. I will keep him thus forever and ever in my heart and memories !!

How Ethical Are We ??

"How ethical are you?" I've been asked this question by quite a few people since time immemorial. In fact many people have even advised me things like "It’s ok to do something Illegal but doing something Unethical is totally unacceptable". Kind of weird but believed by many.

Long long ago during my schooling and early college life, I believed smoking and drinking are totally wrong and unethical. I did rather say, that was something I was made to believe so that I would abstain from it. Anyways I no longer hold that perspective. Not because I have taken to smoking or drinking but just because over the years my entire outlook at things and people have undergone a sea change. There was a huge list of things I believed were an unethical way of life but thankfully most of those myths have been busted over the years.

However there are still a few things in my unethical practices list. For example what if we are caught in a situation where in we have to tell a lie for someone's good? Most of us would tell the lie. So does the fine print of being honest read we need to forsake humanity for the ultimate truth??

Bhagvad Gita says “Don't cheat others, don't lie, don't steal, don't hurt others, don't drink, don't take drugs, don't eat meat, and don’t buy leather”... refers to Unethical Behavior. In the recent times I would like to add watching pirated movies, using pirated software etc also to the list. Apart from this I also feel like adding free-riding (i.e. you just relax and let others do the task. No matter however talented you are, the pressures are so high that you free ride in one place or the other regularly)

Well I don't steal, drink, take drugs or buy leather. However there have been times when I have lied like I said earlier. I have never cheated or hurt anyone intentionally. I do watch a lot of pirated movies, download songs online, use pirated software etc etc. I have also free ridden a lot of times be it at work or college or school or even home. So does all this make me partially unethical or totally unethical?? (Well I did break a few codes but I also do follow a few codes u see.)

I don’t think so ... Personally I believe that the values of an individual undergo many changes as he/she progresses through the various stages in life. However there are some core values that remain more or less same over the ages. Well It sure is difficult to enumerate those core values. In my case the core values are being true to oneself, respect for all individuals, love for humanity, peace in the world, equality of the sexes, freedom of speech, right to education and so on because I have, I do and I will always feel the same for these.