An Early Morning Post

I have never written a blog post so early in the morning! It's 6 am as I write it!
The only time I remember waking up early, ( Early to me is 7am! Anything before that is "almost night"), is when I was in school, when I woke up by around 7.15 and hurried up and got ready for school by 8am. I remember my childhood when I look at Aadu and Molly now a days!

I remember, 'Bhai' or mamma,('Bhai' is what I call my father), used to come to our room and declare the time, which used to be 7am. Me and my sister always heard it, but never woke up at that time. Then at around 7.10, the fan would be turned off! And turning off the fan is a BIG No-No in Goa, since it is so hot! Still we adamantly continued sleeping! At about 7.15, mamma would barge into the room shouting at us,pulling our blankets, or dragging us out of the bed. I do not remember much whether I ever finished my breakfast or not, or whether I was quick to brush or did I just lull around till I made it to school. ..Oh yes, I do remember that me and my sister sometimes finished our breakfast sitting in the car, while my father drove us to school. Shoes almost every day would be worn in the car!

I was amongst the late comers at least twice a month. In fact we had our own gang of late comers, people who would always turn up late. We were the relaxed , laid back types. Taking a few shoutings and punishments from Lotlikar teacher or Mense sir did not stir us, whereas the 'first time' late comers or 'rarely-late' comers would shiver , some of them would even cry! I could never understand the commotion some kids threw at such minor happenings in life. I could also never understand why the 1st ranker of the class needed to cry after she( only she's can cry for getting less marks! I have never come across a 'he' who has cried for scoring less!), scored a few marks less than the highest marks in Maths or science!

But crying in school is something I have done.Why school? I have also cried in Law college, why college? I also ended up in tears once when my boss shouted at me while I was doing my internship in Mumbai!

In fact crying is an emotion that touched me very late in life. Somewhere by the end of school life. And it became an emotion I could not control for many years. There was no saying, when , where and how I will cry. I just had to let go of all the frustration that would built up in me. And this has led to a series of embarrassing incidents, for me and also the immediate person responsible for all my tears! But still, throughout my school and college life I never cried for marks, ( I had other criteria that made me cry.)I only cried last year when I did not pass my exam at the 1st attempt! That too an attempt I had given half hearted without any preparation.

Failing an exam was an experience I only had last year. And it sucks!! I know of too many people who comment, laugh and pass judgements on people who have failed a couple of times in their exams, especially some important and tough exams! These are typically those people who themselves have never given a competitive exam and have no guts to even think of attempting one! Thankfully I had no one but myself who criticised me for not studying a "Lil harder", as I had not made the cut by a few marks ( It's always like that, isn't it?)
After giving the 1st paper, I felt so terrible about myself. I had never sat through an exam looking at people's faces. An examination hall is the last place I want to check people out. I better have stuff to write down on those sheets, and so I studied damn hard for the next attempt, and thank god! I passed!



It's amazing how my mind starts shooting memories and thoughts and information from the 1st moment I wake up! I know the mind is working throughout the night as well, but early morning thoughts are fresh! They give a new dimension to life, based on what has been learnt so far.

As for me, till yesterday I struggled hard to deal with a lot of emotional backlog, and a lot of study backlog as well. It's always this way, that when you have an important exam facing you in your face( say professionally), there's also an emotional exam tugging at your back! And you are stuck.....it takes so much courage and patience to decide to move your butt some way and kick off both the exams so hard in their face that you make your way clear!

It's the start of a new month today!
Also the start of a new study schedule...it's my final lap for this exam!
Also the Birthday of one of my favourite person! ( And no....I'm not talking about Aishwarya Rai!)
And also the Karnataka Rajyotsava Day!
It's more than 1 reason to be happy, to start up early, to smile and to be at my best!!

Wishing you all A very Good Morning!

Love,
J

Life with Princess Aduvati and Madame Molly!

I'm still unsure about my feelings for kids!
For most part of my life I've openly said that I will not like to have any children.
And on very few occasions ( Times when I meet friendly kids who I get along with), I've felt my heart say otherwise.

One of these times was when I met Aadu ( Aditi- 7 years) and Molly ( Mallika- 9 years) around a year back. They are my cousin Ganesh and Vrinda's daughters. The first time I met them I was so happy in their company ( and the happiness was also accentuated with a couple of drinks) that I told Ganesh I would love to have daughters like them.


I'm always in a dilemma now a days, whether to join their parents and their friends for a drink or say a quick good night and slip into the girl's bed and tell them bedtime stories!
I love telling them bedtime stories, and I love talking to them!

Now, the first time they asked me to tell a bedtime story, I was confused as to what story to tell them. Especially considering all the complicated stories I make up on my blog. I was very much aware that I did not want to get myself into a story which would scare the hell out of the girls! So the safest story was that of Prince and Princesses. I wanted the story to be interesting, because Molly has already read more than I've read my whole life! She is a voracious reader, and me? I've never read a children's book my whole life. I've jumped from Noddy ( which I started reading in 7th std......( yeah right, have a laugh!!) But I've never been much of a reader!) to Hardy Boys the same year and by the year end got glued to Sidney Sheldon! So there have been no Enid Blyton's, Roald Dahl's, Calvin and Hobbes for me!

Impressing Molly was a difficult task, so I diverted my attention to Aadu who  hasn't yet started reading books and who loves the Barbie and princess related cartoons on the TV.

In order to make it more interesting I named the main Princess as 'Aaduvati'! The first story, about Princess Aaduvati's 7th Birthday was a mess, with loose ends and Molly questioning every now and then about the logic of what I was telling them. Somehow, I ended that story with the Princess getting to wear the most beautiful gown ever made in the whole world, and the maker of that gown was a tailor from Sri Lanka who had picked up beautiful crystals and shiny items from the ocean bed, and with whom the Princess falls in love!

I soon realised that making up a new story every night was very difficult and started avoiding going to bed early with the girls only because they would insist on a story and I couldn't come up with one. So after taking a break of around 5 days, and the girls starting to get disappointed with me and me too missing all the fun of the bedtime story telling decided that it would be a bit simpler to continue with the Princess Aaduvati plot.

So when I declared one night at the dinner table that there's more to Princess Aaduvati, both of them got excited and danced around, and I got loads of sloppy kisses from Aadu!

( By the way, about the picture: We sometimes dress up for the story telling session!)

And so began the story of Princess "Aaduvati" who stayed in "Aaduland" with her parents, the King and the Queen. She was the only child and her parents were very old in comparison to the age of their daughter. This was so because Aaduvati was an adopted child. And what nobody knew was that Aaduvati's real mother was a Witch who was the Queen of a nearby Kingdom called "Witchland".

I don't want to get into the details because the story has already crossed the 15 episodes mark( and that's a lot considering there are no ad's and slow movements and repeated shots and I talk continuously for over an hour) and it has been getting interesting with every episode. I've put everything I've ever watched, read and heard about witches, about magic, about the mystery of life into this story! The story which started as a fun princess story is today at a point where Aaduland was attacked by a nearby kingdom, and the attack was so severe that nobody but Aaduvati could protect her people with her inborn witch powers, and that's when the whole Kingdom realises that their princess is actually a Witch and they turn against her. What would Aaduvati do now? How will she win back her people?
.
.
.


I felt a bit bad that this fab story revolves only around Aadu, and has character names of only her favourite people such as Prince Arnav ( Arnav being one of her favourite pals at school) ,  and so I wanted to weave a story around Molly, but Mollyvati sounds too lame ! For a long time I kept thinking about how I could include her into some story. The answer to that question came just yesterday!

It's Aadu's 7th Birthday today, and we have decorated the house and made it look like a Palace with drapes and lights. Yesterday when I picked up a gift for Aadu, I also found something interesting that Molly would like. When I got them wrapped and had to write the names on the card, for Aadu I wrote " Happy Birthday Princess Aaduvati", I wondered what I should write on Molly's gift? ...After a bit of thinking, I wrote, "To Madame Molly". And that was a start of a new story that I told them yesterday night. The story of Madame Molly and Mrs. Pittsbal!

Madame Molly's story dates back to the 17th century and took place in the suburbs of London. The name Madame might make you think she's old, but no! Madame Molly is the youngest of the 7 children of Sir John Jr and Madame Hazel. Sir John works for the government and they have a palatial house where they live a very lavish life.
The eldest daughter is Jane (21 year old 'Jane' is the English version of my name in this story. So Jane is really me :-),
the second daughter, 19 year old Demi - is the English version of my sister Devaki's name,
the 3rd is a son, 17 year old Austin- taken after the Initial A for Akshay, my bro in law ,
After that comes 15 year old Jack- It's just the name of Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic,
Then comes 13 year old Kimberly,
11 year old Emma,
and the youngest, naughtiest and the smartest , 9 year old Molly!

This story has had only 1 episode so far in which Sir John runs into some trouble in his office and there are a few misunderstandings and he ends up making dangerous enemies who plan to kill him and one fine day when he's on his way home in his car, a huge truck runs him over and he dies.

Hazel is devastated! She doesn't know how she will take care of 7 kids with 5 of them ( the youngest 5) always getting on to each other's nerves! She rushes to the nearby church and prays to the lord and cries all night long not knowing what to do next. When she wakes up the next day, she rushes back home , worried about her kids.

At home, at the table she finds Jane and Demi pouring coffee and making toast to an old lady whom Hazel can not recognise. The 55 year old lady, introduces herself as Mrs. pittsbal, a governess!
"How will you handle my kids at this age?" asks Hazel.
"Let me spend some time with them and then you will know." Smiles Mrs. Pittsbal.

And she spends not more than 20 minutes with the kids and surprisingly the kids listen to this magical old lady!

The starting of this story is a mix of 'The sound of Music' and some other film  I'd watched long time back, I don't remember the name now. But because there are so many characters in this story, I think it's going to be my playground :-)

Okay, the kids have started arriving at Princess Aaduvati's Palace and I gotta go catch the fun.

Next time, I'll tell you some more about all the fun I have with the kids, also I will talk about the delicious food Vrinda makes for us.....

Today I made this 1st cup cake of my life! 

These are all the cup cakes for the kids!

And the Grand Cake!

It's so tasty.....it's totally Yum!
The first cake I've ever witnessed being made!

I helped to decorate it :-)

And that's both of them again....My sunshines!

If I ever have a dull day, all I gotta do is press the bell of their door and their twinkling eyes and those beautiful smiles will drive my blues away!

SMS that made my day!

Sometimes we complicate things.....even by being quiet!
Silence is not always understood!

U miss some1?
Call.

Wanna meet?
Invite!

Wanna b understood?
xplain urself!

Have questions?
Ask.

Don't like it?
Say it.

Like it?
State it.

U r in d mood?
Do it.

Want something?
Ask in d best possible way to get a yes.

If u already have a "no", have the courage to let go.

We just have one life....

Do what makes u happy!

This love has taken its toll!

Take the latest case of Malini Murmu's death.

For the past couple of days a lot is being talked about how her boy friend posted a status message about their break up on his facebook wall , following which the girl hit a depression and ended her life!

I watched the film, The Social Network last year and was shocked to learn how FB was invented and especially "The lack of sense" displayed by its founder ,Mark Zuckerberg!

FB aint a social network, its an anti-social network!
Because you can't trust the world to be at its best all by themselves! It's a jungle out there, and we so called humans are , in fact, just animals, and we are showing our true colours on sites such as FB!

In the first few minutes of the film, we see Mark dating a young girl, with whom he doesn't speak a sentence decently, ( I don't understand what happened to that breed called 'gentleman'...are they extinct??), and the girl gets fed up with his insults and weird behaviour and leaves. To which our youngest billionaire responds by blogging in the following terms,


"Erica Albright’s a bitch. Do you think
that’s because her family changed their
name from Albrecht or do you think it’s
because all B.U. girls are bitches?

For the record, she may look like a 34C
but she’s getting all kinds of help from
our friends at Victoria’s Secret. She’s a
34B, as in barely anything there. False
advertising."

In comparison to such language, Abhishek Dhan hasn't done half a crime!

Every newspaper, blog, comment is talking of thrashing Mr.Dhan. But wait a minute, is Abhishek the only person responsible for this free media which allows each one of us to take out our frustrations the way we want??

Is Abhishek responsible for Malini's weak EQ?

Do we know Malini left a note that said* (something to the effect of),  My death is the best revenge for Abhishek.

It looks like both of them were very much in a mentally abusive relationship, while he posted a message on his wall to piss her off, she went ahead of it all and ended her life!



How can we lay the entire blame on a boy , who broke up with his girl friend?

How can we take justice in our hands?

All of us have fallen in love, and out of it...have faced break ups, or have broken up, if Abhishek Dhan is guilty for the death of his girl friend, so is each one of us.

People over the centuries have committed suicides for various reasons, yes, many of them did so because of cruel people and situations around them.
Life isn't easy on some and difficult on others, life is life, for all of us!
And we all know that some of the most revered leaders and social Heroes have come out of some of life's most difficult circumstances.
Now a days we want to win, but we don't want to suffer any pain.
There's no gain without any pain my darling, haven't you ever heard of that?

So let's toughen up our hearts, and face the world!
Yes life sucks!
Yes the society laughs at us when we are the weakest!
And people kick our ass when we most need them!
So what?

Have the guts to show your middle finger to those who laugh at you, if you don't have those guts, go ahead, hang yourselves!

Laws and social welfare/development can never cushion you so much till nobody can hurt you any more. People in all walks and societies will always try to hit at you with their best weapon, isn't life all about facing that challenge and being prepared and hitting back with whatever you have in you?

I want to make it clear here, that I'm not on Abhishek's side, nor am I on Malini's side.
But I do want to tell the likes of Malini, who might now think after how much trouble Abhishek has gotten himself into for being nasty to her, that this is the best revenge to such boyfriends, that please wait a minute and think, Life isn't about 1 love, life isn't about a couple of years..........some months down the lane Malini will be forgotten and so will be Abhishek!

There's nothing more important than your life,
It's a gift!
So treasure it please!












* http://news.oneindia.in/2011/09/22/iimb-girl-suicide-boyfriend-met-malini-before-death.html

Have you seen a clear night sky?

I never get "Random Thoughts" by nature, it has to be someone else making random statements for me to wander off in that direction. And when it comes to 'Randomness', "Alphus Rockey" rules the roost! After all , he's Alphus 'Random' Rockey while I am Janaki 'Confused' Sincro, so you can imagine where his randomness can lead me to. Sometimes our conversations lead me to a state of mind that ends me with morbid dreams!


Our conversations are as good as a drug dose for me, as I get a hangover the very next day.


So yesterday night, he asked me this question, "What do you feel when you see a clear night sky?"

So I laid down on the lawn to completely feel it, to answer the question.

The sky was clear yesterday night.




"So? What do you feel? Apart from appreciating the beauty of it of course..."


"Only if you stop talking will I feel something.....wait now...let me listen to my heart...."


And so I looked at the sky, and the million stars, and ignored all that was around me, ignored the fact that I was lying down on the lawn at 9.30pm at night, and that if the security had seen me like that, they would probably come running to see what I'm doing....I took a deep long breath, (and apart from the traffic noise somewhere far away), could hear my own breathing, and I could sense some slow sad music going on in my head!




" I hear some slow music......."




"Okay....and?"




" Alphus, I'm getting a feeling of a very deep sense of loss! As if I'm lost somewhere....


I think I've never felt too happy looking at a clear night sky with stars......they are so many of them....


I feel lonely.....as my eyes see the familiar patterns in the sky, my mind cant make any sense of my life and my goals and my being alive!


As if the very next moment I'm going to die, as if I'm breathing my last!"


"Hmmm........and the moon? What do you feel when you see the moon?"


" The moon is my friend! No matter how lost I am, if I see the moon I smile. I know him, he knows me!"


"Nice...that's kind of deep...The emotion that you are feeling is called "feeling insignificant"

"What do you mean?"

"Imagine u have a map, its like any other map, but only difference is that this one shows all of Creation with its limitless stars and planets and infinitive emptiness of space, and it also shows You, a dot about 1/100th the size of a pin prick and it marks you out with a sign in Bold letters saying "THIS IS YOU". If u had such a map what would be the first thing that comes to your mind?"

"I'm so small"

" Exactly.....hence Insignificant! Now let me ask you a different question...."


"No!"


"Why not?"


" Because I'm lost in the sky........ "


"Okay.......Look, you might be feeling quite peaceful there, but I aint watching the stars right now, so...next question!"


"No next questions, all the noise from your side is disturbing my thought process....let's hang up now."


"This is what I don't like about you, you get lost in our conversations and can't Come back!"


"No.......I feel divine! Good night Alphus, we'll talk tomorrow!"


" Nonsense! No random conversations with you any more. Bye."






(Song) "Growing in numbers
Growing in speed
Can't fight the future
Can't fight what I see

People they come together
People they fall apart
No one can stop us now
'Cause we are all made of stars'

Efforts of lovers
Left in my mind
I sing in the reaches
We'll see what we find


Slowly rebuilding
I feel it in me
Growing in numbers
Growing in peace


People they come together
People they fall apart
No one can stop us now
'Cause we are all made of stars"





Security: Madamji , aap thik ho?

Me(waking up): Huh? Wha??

Security: Madamji , gyaarah baj rahe hain, aur aap yahan lawn pe so rahe ho?


(Madam, are you alright? It's 11 pm and you are sleeping outside on the lawn?")










"We are all made of stars" by Moby

Alphus Rockey at http://alphusrockey.blogspot.com/2011/02/pale-blue-dot.html?zx=e9ec93577ed52fda