Yeah, you’re right, I did run away with him……

Okay, continuing my chain of thoughts, if I were to go back to my post-box and were to read my half baked thoughts, I would not be surprised that most of them talk about parenthood in general. Or at least attempt to, probably HALF-HEARTEDLY which is why they are incomplete. AND HERE I GO AGAIN. What is parenthood really? I wish 10 million times that it was an objective question – A)YES B)NO C)THEY ALL DIED AND WENT TO HEAVEN. I guess, what I am trying to say is that there are no straightforward answers, they have to be dug up. And there’s more, the same question could have two different answers depending on the time and date it was raised. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? It’s a whole new kind of fun, not the eat-drink-and-make-merry kind though, but more like the one that surprises you, something like I-never-knew-I-could-do-this or I-never-knew-I could-be-so-patient kind of fun. It’s not science so you cannot rely on facts and figures and there’s nothing called DATA. But it’s not rocket science either. The more I think about it, the more I feel that it is really like a new job, EXCEPT that you are madly in love with your boss and you cannot get fired, EVER.

WHY DOES THIS THING I AM EATING TASTE LIKE CARDBOARD? Because it is 1:22 am and I SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN BED BY NOW!! Well, there you go, before I started rambling again, I am going to call it a day and yay, I managed to finish and publish this one.

I think in her previous life she was someone who earned her living doing laundry. The moment she sees a piece of cloth and I mean it, towels, napkins, apron, rag cloths, bedsheets, pillow covers, you name it, she has to grab one and run away and stash it in her secret hiding place and it will resurface the next day under the bed or her toy basket or even the shoe cabinet. Needless to say that her favorite digging spot is the laundry basket.

On second thoughts she could also have been a trash collector or a more fancier, treasure hunter, if there is anything like that. If I ever lose an earring, I can trust her to find it and the same applies to quarters, tags removed from new clothes, hair clips, cherry stalks, milk can caps, cheerios etc. What can I say, of course I am secretly happy that she found that earring but also relieved that the ‘treasures’ or ‘trash’ did not end up in her mouth. Turns out teaching her ‘GIVE IT TO MAMMA’ was not a complete waste of time.

These days I think that she might also have been a goat or a cow. How else would you explain eating karela whose juice was actually meant to be applied to her thumb in order to stop her from thumb sucking(karela or bitter gourd is an extremely bitter Indian vegetable) but surprise surprise, Jiya had stuck a karela slice into her mouth and was enjoying her snack. The karela juice formula had to be abandoned even before commencing the trial. Orange peel comes in a close second, I’ve tried to reason, WHY??? and ‘BRIGHT ATTRACTIVE ROUND ORANGE BALL’ is the best explanation I can come up with. She will grab at an orange and bite off a hearty bit of peel. No one knows what happens(to humans) when you eat orange peel, although I have not heard of any disadvantages of eating orange peel and I know that it does not cause any harm to cows and goats. We once had a dog when I was growing up, that would eat papaya skin and would still be alive and kicking the next morning.

Well, if Jiya was all this, I wonder what that makes me????

So now I am thinking, what makes a good reviewer? How do you trust someone that you’ve never met before lead you into watching or not watching a movie? I wouldnt even let my parents of 30+ years walk me into a movie!! However much a reviewer may lay claim to write an unbiased opinion about a piece of work, I do not believe that it is possible. How do you leave out the several many years of family upbringing, education, lifestyle and social surroundings and most importantly your personality from your writings? Isnt it bound to affect your thoughts and words? For eg. I am a very adventure loving and outdoorsy kind of person, so I completely dig movies like Cliffhanger, Sholay(I know everyone on this planet loves Sholay and this probably has nothing to do with my personality but nevertheless) and I hate dark colored movies like Raincoat, Saanwariya etc. My point is that numerous such personality traits would unknowingly or knowingly manifest themselves in my writings.

Then how would one review a person who was going to write a review??? Is there a way to do this? I like the way I do it though its a back door way. But it helps in the long run. Read a review or two after you have seen the movie, so now you can judge whether your view matches with the reviewer’s. This will help set up a baseline for future review reading and decision making, through the front door this time!!

Why, why, why???? (in the same tone as KYON KYON KYON????). I cannot believe that I let myself being walked to watching this insult of a movie called Kambakht Ishq. I have certainly realized one thing that when you are an avid/regular movie-goer/watcher, your tolerance to such movies is very high as opposed to when you have to carve out 2+ hours from your bound-to-the-hands-of-the-clock routine causing you to spend the next 10 days getting back on track. This is, in effect, the LAW OF CONSERVATION OF TOLERANCE. The total sum of tolerance always remains the same. The level is reduced to a hair while watching such(read Kambakht Ishq ish type) movies and on the other hand it is stretched beyond belief while dealing with an attention challenged one year old.

Anyway, getting back to the movie in question, I am falling short of expletives. Even if the director of the movie sent me a written apology, I would be unwilling to accept. How can anyone even think of making such a ridiculous movie and even if someone made such movie and also a fool of themselves, how does it even get through the censor board? Worse, how did Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Sylvester Stallone and Dennis Richards not see the light of the day? Is it true that some people would do anything for money? I can imagine Kareena Kapoor being interviewed and asked about the character she plays in the movie and Kareena replying, “its very different from the characters that I have played before. I think I am just like her (the character) in real life so it was very easy to play the role”. Wow, if thats the case, then Kareena should be renamed a walking encyclopaedia of cursing and swearing because that is all she does for 2 hours straight.

I think I would rather watch Rakhi Ka Swayamvar instead.

Things that I have noticed so far
1. The new job is still very new and the best part of the job so far is the cafeteria. I am loving the fresh salad bar and the occasional indulgence at the ‘cheesy’ mexican counter.
2. The ladies room washbasin has a sign that says ‘take a minute to debug yourself’. Pretty original, I have to say!
3. There is an automated coffee machine that brews a ‘left’ coffee, a ‘right’ coffee and a ‘left and right blend’. But it takes almost 46 seconds to fill an 8 oz cup. Not that I care, but I could see the frustration on many a face.
4. People walk their bikes through the elevator and into their cubes. There, thats one seriously green company.
5. The free soda vending machine hasnt been emptied out even after 48 hours!
6. No one carries a notebook/paper into a meeting anymore, no one except me of course. I seem to have skipped a complete generation of changes during my absence.
7. Half the people in the meeting are texting the other half that are not in the meeting.
8. The only thing I miss is Jiya and not so much the SAHM role.

And that reminds me that I have to update my profile!

I was very young, I’d say maybe 8 and my mom had asked me to watch the milk that she had left on the stove before leaving the house. I had been warned to ‘not leave the stove until the task was completed’. But I obviuosly thought she was kidding and happily skipped away and before I knew it all the milk had boiled over on the stove and the countertop. Now I had to deal with all that wastage of milk as well as cleaning up the entire mess. There was no way I could hide my blunder, where was I gonna get the milk back? So to make up for the loss and save my face, I could try and restore the kitchen back to the state that my mom had left me in charge of and lo, I was struck with a cunning idea. I fetched Motu, our little puppy from the backyard and put him to work on the countertop. And poor little Motu lapped away all the milk until he was completely full and could eat no more. In fact, he was so exhasuted that he collapsed and fell asleep in the small leftover milk puddle!! I scooped him up and quietly placed him back on his blanket and wiped away the remaining mess while praying for my mom to return only after I had finished cleaning up.

When she heard the story upon her return, she didnt know whether to get mad at me or to smile at my creativity and she simply shook her head in disbelief. Even to this day, if I ever boil over my tea, I cant help remembering this episode and faintly smiling to myself.

Thanks to Swaram for tagging me on this one

Something very nice happened the same day and I couldnt help smiling. We had been teaching Jiya a few words here and there and she suddenly said M-O-M, although I am doubtful if she knows what it means, but it was enough to lift my spirits. She kept repeating it every few minutes and I was all smiles by the time she had finished exercising her new found vocabulary. She started again the next morning, but quickly I realized that instead of saying M-O-M she was saying B-O-M. In her sleep, she had forgotten how to say the first letter M and I was now her B-O-M, no, actually BOM BOM BOM……