around me

She was transferred to my office on marriage grounds from the other unit. Tall, beautiful and a smile to die for. They were a small family: she , her husband and her in-laws living in a duplex home at a decent society. Her husband along with a steady job co-owned a small telecom business and her father-in-law was a retired government officer. Like every new bride at a new home, she had to make some adjustments in her new home. She quitted her habit of drinking morning tea as none in her family drink tea early morning. To start for her office at 8:00 am, she has to get-up and rush to the kitchen to make breakfast for everyone and lunch for herself, in the evening reach hhome at 7:00 and cook dinner for all. She accustomed herself with the big city travel system and changed 2 buses to reach office on time. Work at office was also not very smooth and work under a hot-tempered boss has its own ill-effects. Once she told how her mother-in-law gifted her a gold bracelet of exactly same design as the one she had lost earlier. We were impressed after all whose mother-in-law gifts gold even after marriage.

A year into marriage, she hadnt been to her parents home. She yearned to go home. Any requests to her husband to take her home were transferred to her mother-in-law who dilly-dallied it to next time. The work she used to do at home and then managing to work as efficiently at office was really tough. From 6:00 in the morning till night she was in a constant grind and even on that her mother-in-law insisted to wake up a bit more early so that she can manage everything better. She tried her best to ensure her mother-in-law that she had no interests to come in between her and her son and that the husband would always been her so first.Its not like that she didnt discuss the problem or spoke her mind but whenever she did, the mother-in-law started crying and cursing herself and the girl started feeling guilty for making her mother-in-law sad and crying.

Soon she got pregnant, by chance. They were not prepared for it but went with the flow. With months into pregnancy, she faced difficulty doing the house-hold chores like kneading dough and standing constantly at the kitchen. On coaxing her family to get a maid for some help, her mother-in-law wondered aloud that if the girl is having any problem to do house-hold work , she(the mom-in-law) is fit enough to do the work and there is no need for the maid as they are unhygenic and dont do things properly.

Once after reaching home after office with a headache, she asked her husband to get her a glass of water. That was , may be, the first time the boy was doing anything for her. As he was taking the water bottle for her to their room, the mother-in-law taunted her son, "So now the queen cant even drink water on her own?" That was the day and since then she had sworn to not get her husband to do anything for her before the mother-in-law.

In the mean-time, her father-in-law got a heart-attack. The focus was now the health of the father-in-law. Not that she was ever the focus of the house as it was always her mother-in-law. As she wondered sometime that noone in the family has shown any care or love for her health. The husband would run post to pillar if her mother will get a headache and when she demanded extra-care owing to her pregnancy would ask "why? you dont have any problem."

In the second trimester when she desired to have delivery at her parent's home, the mother-in-law and her husband made it clear that they are nobody to say in this matter. But whatever happens. she will be solely responsible for it. The girl went to her parents place for a day and returned back the same evening from the train.

Till her last days before taking maternity leave, she came to the office from the same bus, while earlier she was contemplating to get a driver and came to office in the family car.

The girl had a love-marriage. She knew her husband before the marriage. This is an outsider's perspective from what we hear from her, may be the things were not as dark in the inside. The insecurity of a woman that her son will not hers after marriage, the husband who does his best to be the good son of his mother and made it clear to his wife that her mother is the first priority in his life, a girl away from her family and friends entangled in the roles of the dutiful daughter-in-law and wife, loveless relations and as she earlier confesses, in no feeling of maternal affection with her womb. A sad state to be in and all one can wish is a happy beginning to her family with the new baby.

10 Day You Challenge: 6 places

This tag was supposed to be done by July end and I have just reached half-way..So without any delay lets continue the tag. Today os the turn of 6 places:
1) Milam: To see the splendid beauty I have heard of only.
2)Laddakh: What to say. If you havent seen Ladakh, well you havent seen anything. or so I think. I so want to be there.
3) Goa: I thought I wouldnt like that place, that paradise of so-called hippies, well I so didnt know myself. I loved that place. If possible every year I can go and stay there and not yet get bored.
4) Europe: Not just a place, a country but the entire continent from Turkey to Holland.
5) Thailand: Just to see the beaches there and gorge on the heavenly food and shopping and some foor massage and temple-visits..
6) Home: After all the travels, its good to be back to the home, to the loving faces of all those who matters most.

10 day You Challenge-Seven Wants

Seven Wants:

1) Some bright coloured clothes in my wardrobe. Just noticed that my wardrobe is full of earth tomes of black, brown, green and blue.
2) A clean flawless skin. And then I promise I will take good care of that. At present, the only skin-care I do is to take 8 + hours sleep, haha. That reflects- the oily, patchy, blemished, tanned, big-pored, acne-prone skin.
3) A job at TLC for both me and ZZ. That way we can both roam, explore and see the new destinations free of cost.
4) Big half-yearly holidays intermixed with small breaks fortnightly.
5) An elegantly done house with balconies (lined with bonsai s), big lawn, a small backyard at a nice location.
6) A good active lifestyle.
7) And last but not the least, World-Peace.

10 Day You Challenge: 8 fears

Continuing the tag, here is the list of Eight Fears. Following are my eight fears that can be tamed and win over:

1) I fear that I will never gain weight. I so want to gain weight and look different from my earlier self.

2) I fear that I can never drive in the insane city traffic.

3) I fear that I am not becoming the person I want to be. I know this, I fear this but I am not at all doing anything towards it.

4) I fear if all the dreams I have will be dreams only.

5) I fear of heights.

6) I fear that I might turn into a non-active, non-spiritual, lazy woman who don’t exercise, yoga, pray and is lazy to do her household chores and cook and clean and attend functions.

7) I fear that I will never learn swimming.

8) Lizards..

Now that I have documented the fears I have, I will come back here from time to time to check if I have overpowered them or not.

10 Day You Challenge: 9 loves

Continuing the tag from here, today is the confession of 9 loves.

I love:

1) my sweaters knitted by my mummy . I don’t know knitting and i have made a pact with her that she is going to knit for my kids.

2) houses with balconies. I would any day take a room with balcony over a ground-floor room.

3) sense of humour of my father.

4) deep husky strong voice in men, in women also. Not the kind of Rani Mukherji voice but Angelina Jolie type voice. Strong and clear. I remember during my school days when I had got a bad cough and got my voice all hoarse, I secretly loved it and was sad when I lost my sexy voice. Ala Phoebe from Friends.

5) the idea of being in love.

6) New destinations, great vacations, good food, nice company, great movies, awesome books- i love them like everybody else.

7) sunny mornings on winter days, cool breeze on rainy days, flowers around in spring, colours of autumn and sunscreen on summer days.

8) the beautiful and cute twin kids who used to live in my building at my previous place. They were so adorable. They used to call my specs “Ai” for ‘Ainak”. Here I written one of their tales. They are the most adorable and smartest kids I have known.

9) the expression on my brother’s face when I crack my ‘deadly’ PJs and crass jokes.

10 Day You Challenge-10 Secrets

Saw this "I, Me,Myself" kinda "10 Day You Challenge" in this blog. This being my birth-month and in a hope to end the blog-draught, here I am taking up this Challenge. As per rules, it is to be done in 10 consecutive days. But well (lets make our own rules) my challenge is to complete it by Julu end.

Here are my Ten Secrets:

• I am not crazy over Harry Potter series or Twilight series. I have not read any of those books from the series and don’t follow the movies very keenly. Apart from the main characters, I hardly know the names of the other characters. The same goes for the Twilight series.

• I love to sing. Blame it on those days singing reality shows, when I was alone, I used to sing with one of my hand folded as a mike and other hand gesturing the surs of the music. In my college 1^st year, my room was next to 4^th year Senior Maam who was the singing champion of the college. Through the open window, my soulful;) voice must have reached her ears as on her farewell, she called me and complimented that she loves my voice and asked me to participate me in the college annual function. I famously couldn’t cleared the Auditions.

• On the eve of fourth semester examination of “Network Theory”, I famously slept from 7:00pm in the evening to 8:00am in the next morning. The room mate, friends all came in the regular intervals to wake me up but I didnt budge and wake up at my sweet own time. Then grew morose, cried a tear or two on my situation, flirted with the books and notes and went to the exam at 2:00pm. Thankfully the paper was easy and I passed. A friend told me after exam, “I was looking at you time to time. To check if you are writing anything or not. And when you get up to take another copy, I sighed a relief, even if garbage at least she is writing”:) Luckily cleared the exam and all friends checked to see my marks in that subject. When I look back I couldn’t understand why did I do that.

• I didnt know how to carry an umbrella. Monsoon time, rainy mornings, big bag on the shoulders, black polished shoes, neatly pressed dress- almost all my friends will come safe with not a drop of water in their clothes and I would have my shirt sleeves and skirt ends wet with rain.

• Shantaram, Midnight’s Children, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Catch-22- all Classics-all books I have left half-read. *hangs her head in shame*

• For past 8-9 years my weight is almost constant as is my height;), no matter how much I eat. And I am underweight as per BMI.

• I am not good with showing emotions through words. I cry when I feel bad, when I am emotional, and usually at loss of words to show my gratitude, condolence towards others, especially when it comes to talk to some elder or rude person.

• I wished I have departed on better terms from my last office.

• You know there are some people who are so level-headed at all times, who don’t panic at crisis. I admire them.
• For the past couple of years, yoga and pooja everyday is in my New Year Resolution list every year. And I have never been able to complete this one it due to sheer laziness. Mornings are a hurry and evenings are busy or so is the excuse I give myself for this inactivity.

Realisation: Age is just a number

They asked my 12th class percentage.
80.6
Four marks less and I would have fallen from 80+ criteria.

They ask my graduation marks.
74.8
6 marks more and I would have passed with distinction.

They asked my age.
I rounded it off by a year and half.
Uhmm, well, AGE is just a number, no..