Heart upon my sleeve

The last post was when I travelled from mumbai to newark - then the kids had taken so much of my attention I had barely looked around. This times thanks to their cooperation I had a chance to experience 'Air India'. Here'a a quick review if you are planning to use it for your next travel. The good: 1. The staff is extremely helpful and kid friendly. By the time we landed at Mumbai the air hostess knew kapil and tanisha by name and was chatting with them - a personal touch very different from my Continental experience last time. 2. They have a sky buffet in the centre of the aircraft - not a big spread but sandwiches, juices and tea, coffee laid out as a small buffet. This helps when you have kids that sleep and eat at odd hours (rather when they bring food at odd hours). 3. In flight entertainment was pretty good with the latest bollywood and hollywood movies and the usual F.R.I.E.N.D.s, How I met your mother etc. The bad: 1. The dinner from newark to mumbai was...

1. On Mumbai airport Kapil had a good time rolling on the floor. 2. Kapil was pointing fingers at every Chinese-looking man, and yelling “mumma Chinese”. Very embarrassing, but thankfully no one understood his “mumma shinese” 3. Kapil wanted to pull off the carryon tags on every passenger’s bag. No ‘shinese’, American or Indian was spared. 4. Tanisha was a savior. She dutifully kept him occupied at Mumbai airport while I filled all the immigration forms. 5. Inglifht entertainment was not provided by Continental. It was provided by Kapil. Orange juice was on the floor twice, seats belts were not used at all, and the airhostess was referred to as “air hostess bai”. 6. Then there was silence and the kids slept good 8 hours straight. Thank God! And then it started again.. 7. Three inside the airline toilet was no fun…. 8. At Newark, while I stood in the immigration line, kapil ran around (again) and I was almost on the verge of a breakdown. The 10 kg backpack on my shoulders wasn’t making ...

One of my team members told me he would be on leave for a day for some personal work. I said ok. Today we got an email from him saying he is the father of a baby boy. At lunch we all discussed how we never knew his wife was expecting. And that made me think – “How god damn easy, simple and uncomplicated it is to be a father”. It just took me back in time 2 yrs when I got to know I was carrying. The first three months were crazy. I did not want anyone in the office to know about it. I would need to throw up at least thrice a day so I would go to the restroom on the third floor of my office and do the needful. Thinking of it makes me feel like puking again. By the time that phase was over, it was time to reveal it because it was showing anyways. I had to miss an amazing summit in the US where all my colleagues got a chance to go. I could have gone but there was a chance my child would have been born somewhere over Saudi Arabia, so I dropped the plan. I worked hard till the last week s...

We had promised a party to my sister and her hubby, so obviously they had finalized on one of the most expensive restaurants in Pune – Hard Rock Café. The place was quite far (Near ABC farms, Koregaon Park) and I had never been to this side of Pune. In fact during the drive I often thought, “Is this really Pune? Looks more like B’lore” As we entered the parking area of the restaurant I started wondering “Is this India? Looks more like the US.” There was a cover charge of 400Rs per couple and looking at the huge crowd I could understand why. We had reserved a table so that turned out to be a very good idea. The ambience inside was great; the music was a bit too loud (or maybe it’s just my age). (Warning: Not the place to go with kids. Unfortunately we didn’t know that before). Jeans and t-shirt, one kid on my waist and the other holding daddy’s hand while daddy pushed the empty stroller, we looked like complete misfits in the world of stilettos and cleavages. But who cares? We were ther...

There have been so many occasions where someone has said “No guarantee of this stuff. See it is made in china.” And I just don’t get it. How can a product’s quality be measured by the country it is manufactured in. Quality depends on how it is manufactured and not where it is manufactured. Quality is directly proportional to the cost. If you want cheaper products you get cheaper quality. It’s that simple. How can I be so ignorant to ‘Made in china’ when the flat screen Dell monitor I am looking at, the keyboard I am typing on, the mouse and the coffee mug too have a ‘Made in China’ tag on them. My daughter’s Fisher Price toys (considered the best brand in toys) are made in China. My Levi’s jeans are made in China. I have a 200Rs unbranded wrist watch and a 5000Rs branded wrist watch – both made in china. I can’t blame if the cheaper watch falls slow in two years. I can’t say “hey this thing does not work cause it’s made in china”. As Indians in general I think we have always been env...

My maid, Swati (name changed) barely 19, got married a month back. Then one day she came to work looking tired. Around lunch time, she said she had started feeling giddy. I thought it was all the hard work any newlywed in their community probably goes through. I told her to go home and take rest. The next day she came to me with tears in her eyes. “I am pregnant”, she said. “What?”, “How?”, “Why?”, I just spurted out questions in a fit of anger plus amazement. “Both my husband and I, do not want a baby so soon. My husband has taken a loan of Rs. 1 lakh for the wedding. We want to repay that first. Only then can we think of a child. We want our child to study in an English medium school. We need to save money for that. All our dreams are crashed now”, she continued. “Did you not talk about this, Swati?”, I asked. ”Tai, we were so busy after the wedding my husband and I never got time to talk”, she said. “Ha! And you had time to do all that has gotten you in this situation”, I said to my...

As I lay on bed, I kept thinking of the conversation I had with mom in the evening. Mom had recently attended a function at a relative’s place on the occasion of Guru Pournima. It was to pay respect to some ‘Swamiji’. She was narrating the incidence to me. About 30-40 ladies of different age groups gathered and recited Mantras and sang Bhajans. My mom felt out-of-place. Each of them seemed to have forgotten about their daily worries and sat there completely absorbed in the mantras. There was a sense of devotion, a sense of contentment while they sang ‘Shree Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram’. They all seemed in a happy place. My mom on the other hand was completely bored. She felt weird that when most ladies of her generation enjoyed spirituality why then did she find no pleasure in it. She asked me “Is something wrong with me?” Incidentally, the very next day she was invited to her sister’s place for lunch. After lunch, my aunt asked her to stay a little longer as her Rummy club members would b...