The Paper, The Information, The Conclusion!

My reading mostly entitles anything printed I could lay my eyes on..from any source, as I sit in front of my computer and browse the internet, or cursorily glance through the news paper, magazines (while I wait in the pediatrician’s office or the physical therapist’s office to help me fix my back or neck ). It could be the most pointless of articles or the most touching, intelligent or wittily written blog entry. Basically, any small non-fiction articles.

Fiction and non-fiction BOOKS seem totally off limits for me at this point, for lack of time and focus. Yeah! I have the attention span of a toddler.  I never grew up in that respect. Look at me, I brag about this like I’m so proud of my accomplishment and then, get mad at my kids if they exhibit the behavior. Maybe, I can also add “reason” to my list of “never-grew-up” stuff. No wonder, I feel so much at home with my kids and they with me!

Since mistakes do happen, I do sometimes get carried away by a book or two, like I used to in those bygone days....but then, Richa will not spare a moment to remind me, what else I should be putting my mind into, like, a tiger game where I get to be the crawling tiger and also get to catch her while she runs around, or, the triplets would remember, they needed  help with their homework just when the clock strikes the gong to inform them,

“Lights off, Its Sleepy time”

just enough to get me back into my nagging routine of how irresponsible they had been, to save this for this hour. Or, they would have created a show, ready for us to watch.

Luckily, creativity is not alien to them as it had been to me  So, this situation of mine, where I crib so much about lack of time..seems to be a win win for me.  After, blaming my lack of reading on,

“Why aren’t there 30 or 50 hours in a day?”

and my kids, I do eventually, get to do lots of fun stuff that I like and a little bit of parenting too in the process.

The one newspaper I get a lot to read, (or skim through) thanks to Hubby dear who doesn’t want to subscribe to any other, is the Wall Street Journal, or WSJ. Its one paper that needs some conditioning to get used to, just like one needs to condition your tongue to Thai food. I remember the first time I had it..couldn’t stand that weird taste.

Seemed so close in taste to an Indian curry yet, there seemed to be some flavor that spoiled the whole dish.  While all the others among our group were hoggin on saying..Yum! ( I remember one colleague from work, who used to use all the paper towels at the table to wipe the sweat of  his forehead  and still continue to order cut green chilies' on the side, apart from his extra hot red curry order.), I was unable to appreciate it.

Coming back to this WSJ, it comes like this big fat book and looks so raw and in no sense attractive. There are hardly any pictures..just reams and reams of paper with letters and numbers printed so tiny, that a person with a 20/20 vision would need a magnifying glass to read. There is nothing that hints “Masala” on it. There is no “E!” news anywhere.

Eventually..after a little struggle, one gets to know the spots to find the “Masala” news! Not the “Masala” we Indians know Masala as, but, what WSJ wants you to construe it as.

The way this paper is read..works like this. Its delivered early in the morning even before sunrise, wrapped in sheets of plastic. Most people commuting by train read this ( ignoring the ones that yap on the phone sitting beside you ), like its their indispensible caffeine, only, they need a cup on the side, with that real hot beverage too, to help assimilate the stuff in the paper lest, it puts them to sleep! Once people reach their destinations…there are newspaper bins all around where those papers are disposed off. But, Hubby brings them back for me, most times, like he used to, for my Dad, during the time he visited us when the triplets were born.

My Dad,  was a diabetic, blind in one eye, and could hardly see much from the other too. He was always spotted with this big magnifying glass trying to make out words from those tiny prints of the WSJ. He used to hold on to each letter until he figured out the word and consequently the sentence.  The visual of him bent on that paper with the magnifying glass, still so clear in my head. WSJ had managed to capture his interest too.

You would realize how difficult this process of getting used to reading newspapers like WSJ is,  if you would come across the Indian newspapers like “Indian Express” or “Deccan Chronicle” or “The Hindu” and many others that are circulated, in the city I come from, in India.

Those have big pictures, quite a few tasteless, without any censor when it came to showing crime scenes, of Movie stars and socialites. If there wasn’t a scam to report, or a political scenario where some politician, had not changed parties, or, forming a new one, news bits like, “John Abraham insures his tush for 10 Crores” would be top news. (That’s the bit I read when I was in India last summer).  There is no dearth of such “Masala” and the newspaper is so light almost without any grammage attached to it. Used to be fun reading them.

That I’m stuck with WSJ now, aware of what's happening with the Arab nations right now, I start to turn the pages. I’m not interested that Facebook raised $50 billion with help of Goldman Sach’s or that there is a poll on how people perceive Apple’s Steve Jobs leaving the company for health reasons, or that Goggle’s CEO is very smart but most times very rude too. That he idolizes Steve Jobs or that Jobs has been on medical leave again..or that, walkway rage is as real as road rage or that ICU treatment has been shown to cause some brain damage in the long term due to keeping patients sedated for long durations.

What caught my attention was this tiny article that said that a happy marriage is always about finding the right sized partner. Immediately, my mind raced around sizing up myself with Hubby and many other couples,  and sizing them up against their partners weight wise and height wise! I’ve seen couples where the man is tiny compared to the woman, or couples where the man is as tall as a tower and the wife a tiny midget, ( our classic Big B couple, right! ). Were they happy?! 

I continue to read, research mentions that as the years progressed in ones marriage…men with body mass index greater than his wife’s were found to be happier.  Similarly, in a woman’s case, the happiness index in her marriage stayed put or increased if she was tinier than her man.  So, all happiness in marriage melted down to one thing that I myself, had been struggling all along to achieve, in my marriage too. The woman needs to be tinier than her man. I mean … Thinner than her man! But, how does one achieve that with a Hubby like mine?!

I know Hubby dear loves challenges, but, why does he have to choose mine for me?  He could have made this easier on me..by keeping his BMI higher than mine, right? No! he will go ahead and reduce his BMI further and brag about it too!  Then, he tops it by convincing me over the years..that, it didn’t matter to him, that I’m out of shape, I’m fat, or growing older.  He would love me irrespective of anything, even if my BMI was more than his, reminding me that my BMI was more than his :-(

Somehow, I knew all those sweet words were too good to be true. Now, research has proved it so. It had opened my eyes as to why Hubby dear would insist that I work out, and keep fit.  For my own self, and for our kids, he had said. He had conveniently put all that “To be liked” onus back on me! How do I convince him..I already am in love with myself. I have always been..since the day I came alive into this world. The most selfish kind of love.

So, I decide to take on this challenge of getting my BMI below his disgustingly low 1#% (I’m guessing its around 13-14 maybe, who knows, could be less too!). I increased the pace of my workouts, reduced the amount of food, but, I see no signs that I’m anywhere close to my goal. I struggled everyday..to ignore all this food around me, as I work out in the kitchen, washing dishes and cooking while he easily looks through all this food around..like it was just thin air. .

With just enough salt to dress my wound, he’ll have a smoothie for lunch like his magic metabolic rate needs it, while I would think of what’s for lunch, after having the smoothie.  Wouldn’t the world have been a better place for me, if I had not caught a glimpse of this article? Ignorance is so blissful. And if it is so..why even bother thinking so much, my lazy mind reminds me?

There’s more to add to my woes. Its never so bad that it can’t get worse, right?! There was another article waiting to catch my attention on another page…on something called the “Gut Brain”. I had always had this Gut feeling that something more was to come.

So, this article tells me, our Gut has nerve cells as many as the brain of a cat and it can tell the bigger brain, the one that resides inside our head..that its not hungry anymore and that, it should turn on the “not hungry” sign now. That, the hand should stop approaching the food. That the eyes shouldn’t find the site of food appealing anymore..and its smell, should feel nauseating!

How come my Gut Brain wasn’t wired like that? My Gut Brain did many more things than what was mentioned. My gut brain had made me feel “Panic” when confronted with a difficult situation. It had made me feel weak in my knees and made it wobbly. My gut brain only gave me “Butterflies” in  my tummy, when I felt nervous, like the time when the results of my exams were to be announced. It had made my tummy feel that “Weird” feeling when Pavan came close to me for the first time. The feeling very well used in this blog and described by Hobbes from “Calvin and Hobbes”.

My gut brain had made my head feel  “Giddy” and my heart “Stop”  when we couldn’t spot one of the triplets in the mall..while they played a prank on us at the mall. ( That was the day we had decided never to go to the mall with the kids.)

I remember, holding on to my tummy for support, squeezing it, like something was jumping inside, during such situations.   But, It never told me that I needed to stop eating because I wasn’t actually hungry during the times, I wasn’t hungry and still hogging away to glory. In fact, I ate more in such situations.

“I had told you this all along, didn’t I?! “, squealed Hubby dear,

to remind me, I didn’t need to eat as much as I do..when I mentioned to him about this Gut Brain.

“I need all that food Dear!!” I screamed,  “How will I be able to do all that work I have in the day? I hardly get to sit down in the day!”

So, I decide, I’m now going wait for those foods that Nestle and others are developing that’s going to be very slow to process by the Gut..and going to makes one feel full very soon. The 2 main signals that the Gut Brain is able to tell the bigger brain that makes us less hungry, and feel full for longer!

Then I come to the disappointing part of the news..

”it’s going to be 5 more years to see them in the market”, I read.

“Oh! what a torture!”

In the end..I give up and realize, there is no way to satisfy Hubby dear.

“My BMI is never going to be lesser than Hubby dear’s” and if our marriage is to continue with its happy days, it’ll have to do that in spite of my BMI compared to my Hubby’s or my Gut Brain refusing to tell me..that I’m not actually hungry.Or how about, I just change to reading another newspaper.

But, then I’ve noticed in the recent past, the articles that were short listed by Hubby dear from the WSJ, later caught on with the other networks and newspapers as well, means, there is no winning in this situation.

Then I remembered the old couple I saw last summer, as they were going about their evening walk talking with each other, engrossed in each other, listening to each other, so preoccupied with each other. Nothing around the world mattered more to them, than each other. The man was tiny and short,  the woman huge compared to the man. They looked so satisfied and happy together.  Did it even matter that the woman’s BMI was more than her man’s? Did it even matter that the woman was not tinier than her man? That’s the picture that brought back the calm in me and I told myself, I need to trust my Gut some more.

I went down to the kitchen and had a sumptuous meal. :D

Richa, Don’t come!

 

It had been a summer afternoon. All of us had had a sumptuous lunch of starch!..It had shown itself in so many forms and we had jumped at it hungrily and consumed it greedily. The kids had laden themselves with Idlis, White Rice and Papad, while, we grown ups, the Moms, Dads, Grandmas and Granddads, had not only loaded ourselves with those yummy Idlis..we had also added some Kheer and Upma made of Starch..( Yes! did it remind you of those starch balls called “Sabu Dana”). Right, we had ravenously eaten copious shares of those yummy appetizer and dessert too, apart from the starch and fat ridden main course.

It reminds me of this “Calvin and Hobbes” strip.

So, maybe, it wasn’t a healthy menu but, it was a tasty one. And we had gulped as much as we could of that heavenly food. So what, if it had made my kids get a bountiful load of empty calories. So what, if it had made them so hyper and us so full and sleepy. Remember, Kumbakarna and his six months of sleep pattern. Right! we were ready for that after that meal. The triplets were about 3 years old then. Usually, when driven around in the vehicle, they used to fall asleep. But, not today. Not after this meal.

We had returned home carrying those heavily burdened bellies, first perching them on our lap as we sat in our vehicle and then, letting it hang as we got off the vehicle and managed to get the kids to their rooms. We had even helped the grand parents to their respective nap spots. Then, we had asked each of the triplets to get into their toddler beds and have a nap because, we grown ups needed very badly to have one too.  They looked at us so meekly, giving that innocent “cooochy…pooochy” looks and almost making us feel guilty that the thought of keeping a watch on them, had even crossed our minds. 

Richa was no where in the picture then.  We went and lay in our room. At that time it was just “Mama and Papa’s” room. As we dozed off into sleep we could hear the ruckus happening in the other room through the intercom.

There were excited shreaks and loud noises. The kids were obviously hyper. They were not going to sleep now. So, we let them continue their play, but when the noise got louder, we had to stop it..I went to their room and what did I find..all the walls were colored with crayons…Only K’s spot was clean. N had put layer after layer of crayons on the wall adjoining her bed and P had done the same at her spot.

That was it…I got so mad that, after that day..I loaded the home with so many paper supplies that the kids never looked towards the wall again. They had easels, and boards and art paper and doodlers and drawing books and coloring books that, if they desired to scribble for the whole year non-stop, they could find paper to do so..

It had taken us 2 coats of the strongest primer available in the market to hide those crayon marks. I had done that for their fifth birthday. I had gotten them pink walls.  (They had almost been free to add more crayon marks where they had and I wouldn’t be able to find out). 

All this availability of paper had gotten them into this habit of putting everything in their mind onto paper, either through drawings or writing. Now,  this started a new trend at home..The need to stick these pieces of art and literature on to the walls. When the walls were zoned off from sticking stuff on it, the doors became their next target.

Fast forwarding a few years..Richa was born and is 4 today. Today also, the triplets continue to be the same. RIcha has also joined them in this effort. Actually, she had taken it a step further and let us know she belongs to the current generation. She prefers typing on a word editor!!

Her Didi’s still scribble their thoughts or their art on to paper and put it on their door  for everybody’s display. Sometimes..there are seasons greetings for thanksgiving, Christmas or just paper cuttings of snow flakes itself. Other times, there are instructions for their family and friends telling how to behave once they enter their room..A few weeks back it was this:

That’s the sign that was posted on the triplets door..It had been there for some time now. Suddenly, Richa notices that it was her name indeed on that paper all this time! No wonder, it had looked so beautiful. Her name written so big that it almost felt like a decoration for the door. She felt so proud of it.  She brings that sheet and sticks it on the door that belongs to HER!   Its the room she calls..”Mama, Papa and Richa’s” room.

From the day she was conceived, it had ceased to be “Mama and Papa’s” room. It had become her room. Mama and Papa have no choice but to accept that it was “Mama, Papa and Richa’s” room. If Mama and Papa were cruel enough to omit her name along with the room’s, she would be kind enough to attach it. She would very politely add “and Richa’s room”. Even if a slightest suggestion was on the table that the room just belonged to “Mama and Papa”, there would be an uproar which Mama nor Papa would be able to calm. 

Trying to get her to accept Didi’s room as hers, Mama and Papa, have even put her to sleep in Didi’s bed every night, but, there is a bed bug or a nightmare hidden in that room, that has taken Mama and Papa to task on this. It always wakes up Richa, in the night and lets her know…she is not on her own bed. She sincerely thanks the bug for reminding her every night, before she comes back to the bed she should be sharing with Mama.

She didn’t care that her Didis had put up this sign that says “Richa, Don’t come in” on their door during moments of despair when she wrecks their stuff. Who cares if anything is even written after the word “Richa”. The most important word that ever matters to her is “Richa” and its on that paper. It was written so boldly, almost adding a world of beauty to that paper in a jiffy.

Even if told verbally that she  is not allowed to enter their room, she never recognized nor understood those curfew conditions. All these things hardly mean anything to her. She believes in what she knows.  That she lives in “Mama, Papa and Richa’s” room and she also almost lives in “Didi’s” room. She frequents the room just as she pleases and stop them from clearing the room, when they try to so, she could continue to be at the table where she is coloring or on the bed where she is lying and watching TV or reading a book.

I can imagine if the same was written for P, N or K. There would be clashes between the three, that would take us ages in Mom years, to resolve. Dare if Papa put up such a sign for Mama.. Can you imagine the Battle of Kurukshetra erupting from the flames of that sign? Now that Richa has planted the message herself on the door..How many more Mom Years is it going to take to convince her of the MMMAATTER on the sheet?! Any guesses?  :D :D :D :D :D

 

P.S. As much as I portray this as a problem..there is nothing more beautiful for me than to give that comfort of protection to my kids while they sleep. If I just kept the privacy, the inconveniences,  and all the other matters the world makes such a big deal of, aside, I love to share my bed with my kids infinitely.

At least, it makes me aware, which kid of mine grinds her teeth or kicks me out of bed, or turns around 180* in bed with her covers everywhere except on herself or, talks in her sleep. I will also be able to know what’s going on in that little head of theirs while they mutter in their sleep.  And when they cry out, scared by a bad dream, or a loud thunder..I would be able to give them a tight hug so they could relax and fall back to sleep.

Keeping this in mind..we had bought this huge king sized bed so all of us could fit into it sometimes but, who knew, kids grew up so fast or beds get smaller by the day, or Mama and Papa also add to their size by the day! :D , or that, we would have Richa to add to the number, one day.

Love you so much my babies!

Creative or Wild!!

The girls had been to a play date like situation last weekend..They’ve been practicing for a play in our community. When the kids get together in one of the residents place, the place looks more like a venue for a play date than, a place, where, serious stuff is happening. Kids were everywhere..on the sofa’s, chaise, tables, playrooms, upstairs and downstairs, inside except outside.  I’m sure that my friend would have had her work set for the evening fixing her home back to its original state since, she’s a stickler for neatness. So, after one such session, the kids came home with lots of creative energy and sometimes this can go wild (which could have been harnessed for the practice session, but for the director mom, who thinks that she is being very hard on the kids).

Their enthusiasm for the play and learning their dialogues can be seen from this picture below…Everybody seems either engrossed in their script, or, watching the other kids perform their part. 

These 4 kids have the most important part of the play and one can see they are serious about it. Its going to be an amazing experience for the kids and will surely play a part in fueling more of such creative activities in the future. Like it did to my triplets, who came home with this weird energy. They needed to expend it..They wanted to go cycling which I let them. The day was so beautiful. The geese were cawing..as usual, flying to the nearby pond.

But, it got boring, soon enough. Then,  they realized that the helmets are more than mere helmets..It could be used as shields for a fist fencing game…

And while the other 2 siblings were engaged in theirs, one of them becomes the Laughing Shiva umpiring over them. It can only be left to imagination, what it would be like, to create a parody, or a little comic mime like thing where, we have mortals fighting like this and Shiva, the destructor and creator of the cosmos, would be watching them mortals fighting and laughing over them,thinking, how these mortals make his work easy for him,changing the outcomes between the opponents at the flip of his finger..That’s some weird imagination there.

Have heard of a ‘Laughing Man’, or ‘Dancing Shiva’, but, first experience with a ‘Laughing Shiva’. This Shiva needs to straighten his arms further..

Then..after a series of crazy poses…they hit the jackpot, for the real use of the helmet..atleast it felt so, for that moment. It provides instant biceps!!!  How cool!  N, shouting..

“I…AM….THE….POWER”

 

So, the trio grew instant biceps at lightning speed.

But, P wanted to drive this to another level. She wanted an armor too…but, it turned out to provide her with an instant pregnant belly… So, here we have a little girl who grew a pregnant belly and biceps instantly using hers’ and her sisters’ helmets…WILD WILD P

 

 

But, then she got an  even wilder idea..Now she wanted boobs!! And what sized..HELMET sized ones! so, Neha, the dresser helped P get instant boobs, the biggest I ever seen on this universe!

Soon, they realized, that its not convenient…wisdom had set in, maybe just for a second but then, they went even wild…They decided to build helmet butts. So, N the dresser started on the task of building instant butts for P using the available helmets.

 

Here is the results..of that..weird makeover.

They also got a chance to pat her instant fat ass.

After this extravaganza of their creative abilities, they decided to call it a day! My crazy trio…provide so much fodder for fun at the Palle home. Life would have been so dull without all these crazy days.