H is for home

For a girl who left home after graduate studies and never finally came back for good, what is the definition of home?

Was it that corner room in the hostel where she spent 3 years with her dreams, aspirations, solitude and everything she learnt from the adventures in a new place?

Or was it the room in that shared apartment with 5 new girls in a complete new city with a new found independence? That bare room with almost no furniture but with always crowded with friends and not so friends as well.

Or was it the so called my room in the house I got married into, where I tried my best to make myself feel like home. 

Or was it in the one room apartment where I started my life in a new country with limited resources but unlimited dreams and aspirations?

Or was it in the next apartment we moved into after getting the first job when a place with just more than one room was affordable?

Or was it in the house where I welcomed and raised my 2 kids in this world, made memories of their firsts?

Would you call me weird if I told you none of those felt like home. I was home only when I walked into familiar old house, threw my bag in one corner and laid lazily into her mom's lap, chatted freely with dad, ordered bhai to get me some jalebi. Just that, and nothing else !!

G is for grandparents

Grandparents: What an amazing relationship this is!!
My dad always says:  Sood hamesha asal se jyada pyaara hota hai (Interest is always loved more than the principal)
And this saying is so relevant in case of a grand parent and grand kid relationship

I grew up in an extended family, surrounded by my dadi, babaji, buas, chacha, chachi !! Now that I think about it, every day seemed like a party with so many folks in the house. But, that also gave a lot of help to my mom, who was raising 3 toddler kids. 

My dadi, as I can remember, always dressed in her saree and glasses, sat outside in the verendah in her chair, making sure the house help was doing her work diligently, the presswala bhaiya did not miscount any of the clothes and reminding  doodhwala every single day to not mix any water in the milk.

And my babaji, such a simple and down to earth man. My most distinct memory of him was making sweets. Yes, every Diwali, we had a huge sweets making routine. He would start by making "bura" out of sugar syrup in a gigantic kadhai. From there, the rest of delicacies making routine for the festival would continue. And then distributing them among the factory workers on the Diwali night.

Those days were so simple, yet so precious.
Both of my grandparents are no longer in this world. I hope they are spreading peace and happiness in their new abode.

F is for finances

(Still playing catch up, and I am STILL confident I'll make it to the end of April)

Finance, oh the talk about the dreaded money !!
But it is my favorite topic for various reasons: One because I love numbers.
Secondly, I very strongly believe women should be financially independent and be in control and knowledgeable of the money. All my life, I have seen such strong women who managed and kept tabs on the family finances.

I come from a business family,  but still my mom, my dadi, nani, chachi were never careless about money. Even if they were not CA's or CFA's, but they were so diligent about money. Folds among their costly sarees and their jewelry boxes were their CDs which were found only when money was needed in urgency. Their kitchen budget was always fixed and balanced.
All the shagun monies that used to be exchanged, was always accounted for and saved for future gift giving. Everything was so methodical and organized, at least it seemed like that to us as kids.

As I was growing up, there was also times when money was a crunch; even in those times, my entrepreneurial mom came up with creative ways to manage the home finances and kept everything going.Those times and the hard lessons learnt during those times made me very conscious about money.
And so, I made every effort to understand where was money coming from, where I was paying, how much and for what, where to invest and how and how to look for ways to save the currency. 

I take time to learn about the investment options, benefits available at work, tax saving options, tax laws and the list goes on and on.

The bottom line is universe can keep on making jokes saying men go and earn money and women are only good for spending endlessly on credit card. But, every women, working or a home maker, need to take control of their finances and be knowledgeable to make those decisions.

E is for expressing yourself

Expressing yourself is such an important trait or skill, I must say.
As I always tell my kids, no one can know how you feel or what you want unless you express it somehow.

I myself haven't been great on this trait... I have a hard time expressing myself - be it asking for something, telling someone what I like or dislike about them. Let's just say that it is a work in progress- slowly learning to do this.
As for the next gen goes, I am making sure to teach my kids to thoroughly express their feelings, likes and dislikes.

I guess a lot depends on personality too.
My older has gone on me on this nature.. I can keep on asking him questions but he rarely makes anyone know how he is feeling. I have to keep probing but at the same time keeping boundaries.

My younger one on the other had (at least so far) is good about it. She loves writing simple thank you or love you notes, giving "just like that" cards to her friends. I hope she retains this side of her personality as she grows up.

D is for Dear Zindagi

Dear Zindagi:

I am writing this letter more to myself than to you. To convince myself that there have been lots in life that I should be thankful about. Whenever I was at cross roads wishing for something I thought I couldn't reach, you paved ways for me. You showed me the options and dropped hints along the way to lead me to the right path. Lately, I haven't been a very optimistic person. Tend to look at glass half empty rather than half full.
But I have hope that I have what it will take to fix that in my life.

Ab chitthi likhne baithi hoon to shaikayatein kaise nahin karoongi... uski bhi bohot lambi list hai
Jinse main judi hoon, jinme meri sansein atki hai, unhe takleef mat dena kabhi !!
Aise doraahe par mat lakar khada karna ki main decision na le paoon.

Jin lamho ko, jin rishto ko peeche chod diya hai unse na milwana kabhi. Jitni strong dikhti hoon utni hoon nahin ab.

Continue to stay on my side 
Love
Me

C is for Candle light homework

Did you ever do your homework in candle light? Candle light dinners may sound so romantic but candle light homework.... they were created out of necessity. Out of necessity to finish that one assignment that was definitely needed the very next day and the Bijli board decided to cut power in the evening. Generators and Invertors were not the most popular trend of those times and only a selected privileged homes used to have those. So the only option used to be to try to use the day light to do all your homework, but if some of your friends from the street engage you in a game of Lock and Key or hide and seek for the evening, then keep some candles and match sticks handy as it started getting dark and just hope the power wouldn't go away till you finish that last sentence of the assignment.

Those were the days ....

B is for busy

One of my neighbors always says "Busy is the new buzzword". And I have been thinking. Is this really a buzzword or are we all  really busy?

We must be, otherwise what could be reason for having a 5 line conversation with old friends only 2 times a year - one on their birthday and one on my birthday

what could be the reason that we would rather quickly hit "Like" on social media posts but not take a moment to write a real message or comment?

What could be the reason that when someone asks "How are you?", they are really not waiting for a long winded answer, it is being asked just for the sake of asking !!

But isn't this busy-ness self created? we immerse ourselves into so many things that we hardly have 100%  time or attention span for any one of those.
And that's the same lesson we are passing on to our kids
To keep them occupied every single second of their awake life.

I am not sure if it is good or bad. Some folks may justify it as a way of living their life and that's fine too.

But I have been struggling with this phase a lot lately.
I want to get out of the stage of busy. I want to be idle. I want to be with myself, completely shutoff from everything. Not sure how or when that will happen.