My Views and Ideas: Life and Parenting

The day I found out I was pregnant I took very good care of myself. I have always been very healthy and aware of all the do and don’ts during pregnancy. There was a time when I would think that while pregnant, a woman is supposed to lay on the bed all the time.Doing any work was far from my imagination. However when my own time came I realized that the theory was all rubbish unless of course in certain medical condition. So long story short I kept exercising, eating what ever I wanted limiting some of the things that are prohibited during pregnancy. I was hyperactive active throughout the pregnancy. The day before Tutty-Fruty was born P(My husband) and I went for bowling. When my bag of water broke in the midnight of 30 th November, went to the hospital with out any pain. I was started with gel. Unfortunately, I did not dilate as much as I was supposed to be and the doctor did not want to wait for long. Still I never in my dream thought that I would have to go under the knife. ...

I am back again after a very long time of break. These days were some of the most important days of my life. I am so glad to write that I gave birth to a beautiful daughter on November 1 st . Life is full of cheers and new experiences. However, I am still trying to recover from the blues of the birth experience, which I never hoped.Perhaps I was not prepared mentally for this kind of experience. The saying that “things stared well ends well too” did not apply for me. Nevertheless, I am glad that at least today, I am able to hold my lovely daughter in my arms.

Even to the scientist the complexity of reading seems to be a miracle. The act of learning to read actually changes our minds. Reading habits changes and carves our very brains. In addition, once we are rewired the possibilities of analysis, imaginations and adventures are enormous. This is what I have realized over few years. Along with that, I have also realized that in this digital age dominated by graphics, images and flying snippets of texts has changed our reading habits from books. We should try to trace the imprints of the effects of internet because of which our reading habit is perhaps slipping away from the culture and our routine. Did you know that reading actually rewires our brain .when we hop into the U-Tube instead of a book are we loosing that brain wiring? By doing this are we loosing or are we adding the capacity to our brains? Although we were not born to, read but human being developed this habit over the years and since then have been doing so. This...

I never thought on this topic before. When I got married, I had no idea of what marriage is, how people adjust to this relationship, what the downfalls are of arrange marriage and what is appreciating about love marriage. The only thing I knew was I would live with my parents forever. I was not ready to leave home and my mommy yet. However, in my heart I also knew I had to get married very soon looking at my cousins. That is Indian culture. After I got married, my world was full of happiness, life and enthusiasm, which I never expected. I was expecting some one who would get up in the morning, wear a "loonge", read the newspaper with a cup of tea in the morning, and do puja for some time. When he is doing puja I am not supposed to disturb him, he would never go out to have fun, or have dinner or lunch outside. He would always be very serious etc etc. On the contrary, when I got married things were just the opposite. My husband is more like a small kid than a grown up m...

Of all the revolution underway since the coming of the digital age and internet one of the most profound may be the revolution and transparency in private life. Today millions of people share their deepest feeling, their most embarrassing moments and every detail of their daily routine with any body, everybody on the earth who wants to the take time to read or watch.Good or bad or indifferent, this is different. This is the end of the private life as the new generation puts itself lock stock and barrel online. If you are a blogger or an online diarist, if you share your life most of it or bit of it ,you can easily imagine what I am trying to say. It seems like now private life has become old fashion. Computer is pushed so much into our lives these days that we want to archive every bit of our life in to the hard drive. This can have major decline and fall effect on our private selves. This is an explosion in our private lives. Vast majority of the blog is of personal nature. Earlier...

Last week went to do the first shopping for my baby. I was full of enthusiasm and more than that which was much unexpected; my husband was even more enthusiastic than I was. I was surprised at his involvement in picking up every item with so much refined taste and vigor. I am very well familiar with his refined tongue taste but this was completely a surprise to me. I had a short list of things to buy. Being completely new in this area, I am ignorant about the necessary things to buy. All the baby items looked so pretty and cute that I could not resist buying what ever my eyes caught a hold on. Normally in our country, new parents do not do this shopping and let the elders do shopping. However, things have changed in recent scenario. It is not always the case that the garden where you were planted once, you will grow in the same garden. That means it is not sure that when you get pregnant your mother, your aunt, your mother in law, your sister will be with you. That is the irony ...

I remember when I was at home, my mother used to make sesame bars or sesame balls all the time. Not only in the special festival but otherwise too. The main reason behind starting to make that was health .My father was transferred to a place which had lots of cement factories .As a result problem of pollution was huge and people used to develop lung and breathing problems a lot. When My father was transferred to that place as a precaution doctor asked him to eat products made of jaggery.Now eating jaggery alone was a not an easy task ,so my mother came up with the idea of sesame balls or bars which were made of jaggery. No matter what the reason was, we kids also had good time eating them even though we did not live in the cement factory place .My father lived there alone and would come on weekends. Unconsciously I also learn't making that. Now I live in a place, which is so polluted that we do not get a chance to see the starts in the sky. Since Phoenix is a valley ...

I just finished the book “Who moved my Cheese” by Spenser Johnson. This book was so riveting that I could not stop myself to write about it. I have read many inspirational books but this book seemed very realistic to me. It is a simple parable that reveals profound truths. It is an amusing and enlightening story of four characters that live in a “maze” and looking for “cheese” to nourish them and make them happy. Two are mice named Sniff and Scurry and two are “Little People”-being the size of mice that look and act like people. Their names are Hem and Haw. Sniff had the habit to sniff out the situation and see the changes early,Scurry liked to go into action immediately,Hem wanted to stay in familiar territory of misery and Haw was realistic to accept the change and find solution. “Cheese” is a metaphor for what we want to have in life-whether it is a good job, of loving relationship, money, a possession or spiritual peace of mind. And the “maze” is where you look for what you wan...

Countless number of packed boxes ready to move ! I never knew moving can be so tedious. Last couple of weeks I have been busy in planning, packing, making to-do-list and crossing each item after finishing them. This to-do-list seemed an endless job. How busy I was, that you might have noticed by my sporadic posts these days. Now the good news is that I have finally moved and now there is another endless to-do-list of unpacking. Choosing appropriate place for each item needs lots of planning and brooding. Every item has to be in the right place to look pretty and show your sense of taste .Not being an internal decorator, the process of setting each item at proper place took me several attempts and finally I found a sweet place for each item. However, this will keep going for a couple of few more weeks, of course at an easy pace. However, the most surprising thing is that in this moving process, I discovered few brand new muscles in my body :)), which I thought never, existed. Such a...

July 19 th was my birthday. My husband and I have our birthdays in the same month and that gives me a little bit of convenience because until my birthday the decoration will be still there which I did for my husband. In addition, the whole month I feel very festive. Perhaps very different from the usual husbands mine is a little special. His ways of celebration are different and his way of wishing is different .He has no knowledge of how to show his emotions directly. However, his discrete way of showing emotions and love has made him so lovable to me .Some what both of us being of same nature type makes us a perfect couple. Nevertheless, I being a woman still have some of the womanly showoffs and etiquettes and that goes very well with our socialization and in maintaining our friend circle. No matter how sober my husband is but every year he will buy me the prettiest boo key of flower and a lovely card. I have no idea how much time he spends but every time the card he gives me, c...

Many people had difficulty in accepting my views about problem with girls to drink in my previous post( Drinking culture ). I have not one but several reasons for that and for me each one is equally important. I am not against drinking culture but in my mind there should be a well-defined boundary when to stop, and your body tolerance .I am not against European or American drinking culture, however I think drinking should be under certain limit. Perhaps in following that belief I do not understand why anyone will want the pubs to remain open after midnight. For me this attitude is not conducive to our personal developmental environment, work environment and eventually not at all for certain health issues. However, above every thing I am totally against girls drinking so often and as a way of socializing .I am not a misogynist, I believe in gender equality but just by indulging in certain activities do not make one gender better or equal to the other gender. Apparently ,I do not b...

I was listening to the BBC documentary on Exploring issues, which is affecting people around the globe. The issue was about alcohol abuse in Kenya , America and India . What triggered my thoughts when I listened to the young people, standing in the pubs drinking and talking to the correspondent in Bangalore ? There main viewpoint was, when there is accessibility, afford ability and availability why should not they indulge in drinking when the other developed countries like America and Europe are so famous for drinking culture. I was shocked to listen to the interviews of some of the folks out there in Bangalore . Obviously most of them were youngsters, and above 18 years old. Most of them were men but women of the same age group were not behind either. When these people were asked if they would like their parents to know about all these activities, all of them said that this is a tough question to answer. Therefore, inside they know that what they are doing is ethically wrong. ...

July 2 nd was my sweetie’s Birthday. The most waited day of my whole year. He is more like a kid than a grown up man. So I also celebrate it with all my enthusiasm and make him feel as if he is a tiny little kid. I decorated the house with balloons and colored paper. I also made his favorite sweet Gulabjamun and samosa as a savory item. In the beginning I thought I would just make rasgulla because that is the easiest thing to make. He loves rasagulla. The time he got up he warned me to be extra nice to him as today is his B’day. Here is our conversation on that day:- "Listen Sweetheart today on your Birthday we will cut Gulab jamun instead of cake" “Honey will you let me eat what I want today” I said “sure sweet heart, what ever you want” “Will you also let me eat as many samosas I want?” “Yes of course” “Will you give me 12 gulab jamun and 4 samosas” “Yes I will” “sweetie this way you will become very fat very soon” "Who cares it is...

Don't think that I have stopped blogging.Just taking a break for some time,from publishing my blog.I will be saving them as a draft for a while and will come again full fledged soon and publish them . I will be writing about my travel trips in the US and for sure my passion about "Food and Nutrition .Need to learn a lot in this field.In the mean time I will definitely keep track of you guys as how is every thing going on for you all.So keep blogging !

When you see a person, whether he or she you have a tendency to label with in a certain category. In your heart, you will feel, as she is very humble, she agrees with every one, she is polite, so on and so forth. As a person grows, he or she develops a certain kind of personality. That personality depends upon the group she belongs to; the society she belongs to and the kind of influence majority of people are having in her developing process. Human beings are social animals. Every individual wants to live in a certain group or more than one group that matches his personality. The individual will either change herself or change the group member’s personality. That depends upon how influential the person is .When a girl from Delhi comes and joins a school in a village ,she will be so influential that every one in her group will act according to her .Because the members realize that she is smarter then every one ,more knowledgeable and more advanced. However, this is not alwa...

Through out our lives we get motivated by many people .On the other hand some of the advises are given in such a way that they actually crush your motivation, lower down your self esteem to such a low level that you will never be able to get over with it. The fact that the suggestions based on what ever knowledge a person has gleaned in the past or some of the knowledge he/she still continue to glean may not work out for you. As a result, over the time I have come to a succinct conclusion about giving positive feedback or positive motivation. In this post, I would like to share with you all. I have tried to make it very simple by giving an everyday life example. Positive/Negative Suppose your roommate cleans up all the dirty dishes when you are not at home just to help you out. What will be your reaction when you see the dishes clean? There are two possibilities you will say :- 1) Thank you for doing the dishes, but next time, try to get all the food part...

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I do not know when and how I got into this situation, but as far as I remember, it has not been more that 3-4 years back when I was a free spirit like a bird. I always felt that I am the best and I have no demerits, impossible word never existed in my dictionary. Perhaps because parents do not normally point out the drawbacks as criticism and they only know how to encourage. May be that is not the right way to do, but for me at least that always worked as miracle. It is different that I made their dreams sour and could not keep up with their hopes. Still I was always confident that I have potential to do any thing I wanted. I was always happy, laughing and tension free. My laughter was contagious at times. However, things have changed lately. I have lost all the confidence I had. As if any thing I will do, will make some one or the other unhappy and irritable. I have lost confidence in my communication skills, so much so that I just want to be quiet all the time. I always have the fe...

These two things matter a lot in our life .Earlier I never thought about it, but now I feel like our happiness, celebration of happiness and joy they all depend on space and time. By space and time, I mean the surrounding you are in at a certain time, the place where you are at, at any particular time. If you think about it deeply it all makes sense. I have been postponing writing for a long time, in search of the real answer behind how time and space changes the emotions and needs. How time and space bring closeness to relationships. It amazes me at times. I never understood the depth of the concept behind time and space effecting the celebration of joy, perhaps I never encountered that situation in my life before, what I am experiencing now. Back at home, every small joy was a thing to celebrate, share your heart and double that joy. Once you are away from home every thing changes. I am not saying all these because I am being nostalgic. It is because these days I am feeling a v...

I am writing this post not for preaching or for giving advice on self-improvement. The fact that ,I always want to keep my self engaged in some thing which can help me thrive constantly and be compatible to the world ,these thoughts come to my mind very often. Perhaps I want to be better off than an average. When I first came to the U.S .the first thing, which struck me was my accent which very different form the people out here and more or less it still is. The language you learn in your childhood is very hard ingrained in our brains. It is difficult to get rid of the thick accent unless you are putting conscious effort in changing it. I have been trying so many things. Learning to pronounce word, which I already learnt long time back when I was in India , now I am trying to learn each word in American way. I know it sounds arrogant and look down upon my own country and culture. However, I would rather not embarrass myself, then changing few things in me to fit in where I am. ...

There are only three situations in life according to me when you need some one’s empathy or sympathy what ever you say. They are- 1) Life 2) Death 3) Sickness With life, I mean when a woman is pregnant and finally goes to the labor room, which is the time she cannot manage things on her own. At that time, she will need some one without any doubt. Throughout the pregnancy the changes a woman body goes through is beyond any men’s imagination. Nausea, morning sickness, backache, mood swing, cramping, leg ache and what not. During this time she needs some one who can empathize with her, she does not need the sophisticated love at that time, she just needs childish love and care at that time, some one who can be on her side all the time, no matter how stupidly she acts. I bet you she will remember that person for the rest of her life. She will do any thing for that person if needed. Death is another tragic situation where people need others empathy. They want some one to be along ...

I am big time listener of talk radio .It relaxes me when I am tens, when I just need to kill some time or for the reason of gaining some knowledge. When I am thinking over something unnecessarily listening to my favorite talk, radio show has a positive effect on my brain to distract me completely form the subject of tension. When I am cooking ,cleaning or doing any boring task like these I just turn on to radio talk show and ,my task is finished just like that without me realizing that I did so much work. However, these days I have started hating talk radio shows a lot. All the time they talk about Iraq war and the soldiers struggling for their lives. It is not that the talk of those soldiers irritate me, what makes me mad is the way these show hosts talk about it. With all their pride and enthusiasm, the Republican Party hosts brag about how wonderful and brave the soldiers are and how George Bush is so correct by not ending the war without actually winning it. They are h...

Hmm Cuckoo tagged me for this post thinking I am a very easy target, isn’t it! I am not very good at replying to the tagged posts but since this a simple one I will try. I have been asked to write down the 5 th paragraph I am currently reading ,tag 5 people.Here it goes:- 1) The Name of the book I am reading right now is “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” By “Lannery O’connor”. 2) Here is the 5 th Paragraph from page no. 123. 3) And the 3 people I would like to tag are :- 1) Priya 2) Keshi. 3) Sujit 4) Srikrishnan 5) Greensatya For all the tagged people here are things you need to do :- 1) Name the person who tagged you. 2. Describe what you are asked to do, in this case publish 5 th paragraph of page 123 of the book you are currently reading. 3. Tag five people And here the rules you need to follow:- 1. If the page does not have 5th paragraph, in that case take the last paragraph 2. If the book is very small & do...

Few days back I read a book on “Touch”. I already had the idea, how wonderfully touch works, from my personal experience, but this book gave me the scientific insight to believe those experiences and feelings. How and why messages work wonder in certain situation was always mystery for me. The only thing I knew was it feels good to be touched and to touch. I am used to getting a lot of touch since very early childhood. My mother is very lovely woman, her way to show her love and affection was to touch and that touch is an was something for which I can loose any thing, in this world. My mother’s touch used to be so gentle , loving and caring that some times I would act as if I was sick and in pain. what she would do is just put her hands at that place, stroke my face and body ,and that was so magical that I do not know from where , but I would get world’s energy running in my body. It doesn’t matter for her if some one is her own child or someone else’s child, her way to sow affectio...

Those days are gone when people sent hand written letters to anyone. I was a big fan of writing letters to my friends and families, so much that half of my pocket money spent on buying postcards, envelop and stamps. At the same time, I used to get plenty of letters in return from my family and friends. New Year was the time when my expenses exceeded my pocket money in buying cards, and then postage stamps. Let me clarify you my pocket money never used to be hundred rupees here and there. So I used to have hard time in managing my snail mail hobby. Even when I used to write letters, I never had the habit of just doing a formality. I would pour my heart out to whichever relation I am writing letter to.Of course the content of the letter would match with the depth and type of relations. All in all my letters used to be very intimate and enjoyable. That was what I was told from my family and friends. I never like to use short cut or wrote letter just out of formality. I took it as ser...

I have been thinking about this for a long time. Some times I wonder if every one else also has the same thought in their mind. Normally we like to go on vacations. Some people like to go more often and some just occasionally. I am a kind of person who likes to go on a vacation every once in while.But not anymore.Somehow I do not like to go on vacations as much as I used to like before. It is not that I get exasperated and thus I need a vacation, I like vacation just for the change of mood; change from daily routine and above all to know about new places. I was in a habit of going for vacation more when I was a small kid, which means before my board exam. After the board exam, I felt as if suddenly I grew up and no more vacation for me now. As years passed by this thought, become stronger and at some point going for a vacation stopped completely. I am not sure, exactly when this happened. However, the real adventure of a vacation for me was when I used to go with my parents. Our v...