My 7 year old cousin is going through a phase in his life where he wants to be everything. One day he wanted to be spider man, the next day he swore that he was born only so he could bat like dhoni and then he wanted to be a footballer like zizou. Everything he sees around him enamors and charms him. It reminded of the time in my life when I was going through a similar phase. From the time I was 4 to the time I was 18 there were approximately 137 people I wanted to become and 3764 things I wanted to do when I grew up.
Age 5: Revs the garbage collector
I am extremely serious when I say that at the age of 5 I thought the coolest profession and the best thing to do in the world was to collect garbage. The reason was this. When I was young and amma used to give me something to eat, me being me I would invariably always drop what she gave me. A bar of chocolate, a ladoo, fruits EVERYTHING. And most of the times I would drop it in the dirtiest of places possible and just when I went to pick it up again and put it into my mouth to eat it my mom would say “chi!! Gandha hai” and flippantly throw it into the dustbin without realizing how it broke my heart to see a perfectly edible, delectable piece of chocolate go into the dustbin just because my mom suspected it had contracted germs. So most of my childhood went by with me sacrificing most of the things I liked to the dustbin. Every morning when chandu the garbage collector came home I would stare at him wistfully and think to myself “if ever I grow up I would want to be someone like chandu so I can go from house to house and collect garbage and retrieve all the things amma cruelly threw into it”
Needless to say after I attained a certain level of maturity this dream died.
Age 9: Revs the teacher
Though this sounds like an extremely sane and serious profession to choose, now when I think of it , the reason I chose it for seems extremely silly. All through school the one thing which absolutely enamored me was writing on a black board with white chalk. In class 4 there was nothing in the world I would have liked to do more than writing on the board with chalk and the only person I knew who always did this was my teacher. Because of my lack of stature though I have been monitor many times I was never given the opportunity to write the proverb for the day on the board primarily because I never could reach so high. It was such a grand thing for me to be called by the teacher to solve a sum on the board or something and I used to almost swell and burst with pride and hold the chalk as tightly as possible and do the sum as slowly as possible but that was a rare occurrence and So every time I looked at the teacher I would be like “That’s it. If ever I grow up the only I thing I want to be is a teacher and the only thing I want to do all my life is write on the board with chalk”
This dream died when amma and appa bought my sister and I a black board at home and after writing for 6 months to my hearts content the charm wore off.
Age 11: Revs the pilot
I think EVERY child would have had this dream at some point of time in their life. I haven’t known a single person who didn’t want to be a pilot when he/she was a kid. I think it is just one of those childhood things. Kya banna chahti ho badi hoke? someone would ask me and pat I would reply “Mai to badi hoke pilot banoongi” . I dunno why or what made me chose this profession but the very thought of sailing high in the skies among the clouds and wearing all those badges and stuff seemed like the most interesting and fun profession. I think this dream of mine never did die and never will. Even today I nurture a secret desire to ride a jet or at least a helicopter. The fact that I have never seen the insides of a jet or a helicopter and have a mild fear of heights is something which we shall not waste time discussing.
Age 13: Revs the sleuth
Extremely predictable. Every kid who has grown up reading enid blyton, nancy drew, hardy boys, agatha Christie, perry mason or sherlock holmes would have nurtured this dream. At the age of 13 I knew that I was a reincarnation of fatty (the main character in the five find outers and the dog. My favorite series by enid blyton). I used to dream up non existent mysteries and suspect extremely innocent people . I got the hiding of my life when once my dad had given my cycle to the cycle fellow for some repairs and I went and told him “hah!! Ramanan!!! So u thought u could escape by stealing and selling my cycle, getting some money and then claiming the insurance claims also by declaring the cycle was lost eh? (errr.. yeah. That was the way the book “the mystery of the burned cottage” ended when Mr. what-his-name would set fire to his own cottage to claim insurance claims). Needless to say my dad wasn’t pleased. Parents!! No appreciation for creativity or lateral thinking.
So because of extreme parental pressure I gave up this dream of mine.
There were so many, so many other things I wanted to become. A lawyer (the thought of wearing a black robe and carrying a rolled up white paper and shouting “your honor” gave me quite a kick and I have done it many times in the privacy of my room when I was young), an actress (ok!! U can stop heaving a sigh of relief that I did not pursue this dream of mine), a cook (never will become a good one I guess!! :(), a writer, a doctor (I grew up watching corny hindi movies so I have always had this desire to come out of an operation theatre, look at anxious family members and say “inhe dawaa ki nahi duwaa ki zaroorat hai”. Lol. Morbid!! I know!!), a cricketer, an army general (because the fact that there were no women in the cricket team or Indian army rankled me.) and sooooooo many other things that I have lost count.
It is indeed surprising and rather ironical that not even ONCE in my lifetime did I want to become a software engineer. I have nurtured so many dreams when I was young and in none of them have I pictured myself sitting in front of a computer screen and typing away to glory. Well what I am doing now is way way way better than some of the things I have wanted to become. (I mean seriously. Just imagine what would have happened had I pursued my first ever dream of being a garbage collector. Incidentally I am also doing that. Yesterday one of my team mates asked me if my variable in java had been garbage collected and if I had done garbage collection. I couldn’t help but laugh!! :D) and I am extremely happy and have no complaints but sometimes I wonder why I never pursued some of the things I wanted to when I was a kid and ended up becoming something I totally did not think of. But I think all of us have extremely romantic and exotic dreams when we are young but reality is so much different and I guess life’s like that and though right now I may not be exactly fulfilling some of my dreams (Thank god!! :P) I am extremely happy and contented and I hope I stay that way!!
Showing posts with label Moms and Dads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moms and Dads. Show all posts
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Money Money Money - Must be Funny
What is it with parents and accounts? Why are mom’s in particular so particular about money and where it goes once it is given to a teenaged daughter? What is money after all, when compared to a daughter who is worth a million dollars. My parents sadly don’t seem to realize that and are always worried about how I spend my money. When I was doing my engineering I was given 10000 rupees per semester (four months) apart from my fees and it was deposited in the bank in the starting of the semester and I was to survive with that money for the entire semester. Now it’s a funny thing with money. If u have it in hand u never know how it goes out of ur hand, where it goes, why it goes, when it goes. The only thing u know is that it goes, never to come back.
I tried telling my parents that maybe they should give me a monthly allowance rather than a semesterly allowance if they wanted me to keep things in control but they never listened. As a result of this normally by the end of the third semester I would be in a pathetically impecunious state, with a bank balance which would be equal to the weight of the most mal nourished kid in somalia. In fact the bank in which I had an account had a rule that my account must have a minimum of 100 rupees of balance. Once I was so hard up for money that I had 126 rupees in my account and I wrote out a withdrawal slip of 126 rupees and was given such dirty looks by the cashier that even now I shudder when I think of what he must have thought of me. By the end of the semester i would go to the college stores and buy the cheapest soap, cheapest biscuits, cheapest of everything. A normal conversation between the stores guy and me would be this
Me: give me a packet of hide and seek and a bottle of maaza
Stores guy: that will be 25 bucks
Me: (thinking) what???!!! 25 bucks. That’s an outrageous amount especially when u have exactly 20 bucks in ur pocket.
Me(saying): Errr. Give me a packet of tiger biscuit. ( note to readers : stop thinking “My god. She eats tiger biscuits”. When u r hungry and have no money even pedigree dog biscuits would taste delicious and anyway tiger biscuit was the cheapest biscuit available in the stores)
Stores guy: that will be 7 bucks. Don’t u want anything to drink?
Me: (heaving a sigh of relief and reluctantly parting with my last 10 rupee note. The remaining 10 bucks were in coins.): no thanks. I think I ll just drink some water from the cooler.
I dunno what the stores guy thought of me and at that point of time I was hardly in a position to think of what people thought about me.
By the fag end of the semester this would be conversation between my mom and me
Me: amma. Errr… hmmm.. actually.
Mom: stop hemming and hawing shruthi. What do u want. I am sure u have run out of money. That’s it right?
Mom’s are too smart for their own good.
Me: heh heh. Actually yeah. That reminds me that I am kind of short of money (that’s an understatement. I am extremely short of money. I wear a burqa in hostel so ppl dont recognize me and ask me to return the money I owe them and I am scared some of them will get their boy friends to beat me up if I don’t return it in time)
Mom: ok. I will transfer 200 bucks. Is that enough?
Me: (almost hyperventilating and thinking) 200 bucks?? My debt is running to over 700 bucks and then come my own personal needs.
Me: (saying to amma):Hmmm. Actually could u transfer 1500 bucks please.
Mom: 1500? Shruthi. What did u do with the 10000 I gave u at the beginning of the sem?
Me: amma. There were so many expenses this sem. Plus a mess bill of 1200 per month.
Mom: 1200 per month. So 4 months Rs 4800. what happened to the remaining 5200?
Me: (mind working at a speed which would put Einstein to shame): well u know amma the mess food is so bad that we buy maggi and cook it in the hostel.
Mom: (incredulously): u spent 5200 bucks on maggi???
Me: no!! heh heh!! Actually. It was my room mate’s birthday and then my class mates birthday and then I saw a couple of movies, took photocopies of a couple of notes (terrible lie!! Being in the hostel we never had the need to “Xerox” any notes. If one had it, it was same as all of us having it. I was usually never the “one” to have it) and then the usual u know.
I sounded extremely lame even to myself. Try as I might I just couldn’t imagine where 5200 bucks had gone.
Mom: how many times a year does ur roommate have a birthday. Normally people have it just once a year.
(yeah. Sarcasm runs in my blood!! :|)
Me: (thinking): Damn!! Looks like I have already used up that one.
Me(saying): Actually. She is not really my roommate. She is a close friend of mine and spends so much time in my room that she is almost a roommate. That’s what I meant.
(I am damn proud of myself and the way I handled this sticky situation)
Dad (joining in the conversation): I dunno shruthi. I think u spend entirely too much. When I was doing my engineering appa used to give me 300 rupees each semester. I used to write accounts daily and in the end I used to save 50 bucks and have enough money to buy my ticket home. But you? U spend all the money, demand more and apart form that we also pay for ur ticket home.
Me:(thinking): appa studied in 3rd century B.C when people were still thinking that the sun revolves around the earth and 300 bucks in 3rd century B.C was like 20000 bucks in present day.
Me(saying): yes appa. Sorry appa. I will try to spend diligently from now on and save some money and also write accounts
(even as I say this my conscience is rolling on the floor and laughing. I am miserable at saving, I am miserable at account writing. I am miserable at everything except spending and I lie blatantly to my father. I wouldn’t dare saying this to my mom because being a daughter it is easier to melt dad than mom)
Dad: hmmm. Good girl. I will transfer the money.
Me: phew!! Thanks appa. Umm. Can u do it now. I am kind of in need of it now.
This scenario used to repeat itself unfailingly every semester. Apart from this I also used to get “special” allowances from my grandmom and sis who being the kindred souls that they are would give me “diwali” allowances or “birthday” allowances or "Cool. u failed only in 3 subjects out of 6 this unit test" allowance. Once even going as far as giving me 200 bucks because it was mahatma gandhi’s birthday. In spite of all this kindness from various members of my family by the end of the semester I would be in an extremely impoverished state. Till date I dunno what I did with all that money which came to my hands. All I knew was that it wasn’t there when I needed it and needed it most.
I used to envy my friends who were committed or had boyfriends. They never spent anything. Their boyfriends spent for them and I wondered how that dude handled his parents’ questions every time. My friends who were in love had so many other “love” problems but I was always the one with “financial” problems which I think are much more difficult to handle than “love” problems. Apparently when u r in love u don’t feel hungry or sleepy. I was always sleepy and always hungry and hence always in constant need of tiger biscuits to keep my hunger pangs away. My friends in love had no such problems. So no standing shame facedly in front of the stores guy for them. :-\
Even now after I have started working money in my hands flows like water. And thanks to the umpteen investments which my parents have started for my “safe future”, at the end of the month my bank balance looks like the same Somalian kid mentioned at the start of this post. The day I learn to manage money will be the day Osama bin laden will surrender himself to bush, Vajpayee will take part in a marathon and win, Andrew Symonds will look more human and less primate like…. U get the drift. It aint gonna happen ever.
Suddenly the words of the song by Abba seems to make so much sense.
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
Having more money and not knowing what to do with it. I guess that’s one affliction I will never suffer from!! :(
I tried telling my parents that maybe they should give me a monthly allowance rather than a semesterly allowance if they wanted me to keep things in control but they never listened. As a result of this normally by the end of the third semester I would be in a pathetically impecunious state, with a bank balance which would be equal to the weight of the most mal nourished kid in somalia. In fact the bank in which I had an account had a rule that my account must have a minimum of 100 rupees of balance. Once I was so hard up for money that I had 126 rupees in my account and I wrote out a withdrawal slip of 126 rupees and was given such dirty looks by the cashier that even now I shudder when I think of what he must have thought of me. By the end of the semester i would go to the college stores and buy the cheapest soap, cheapest biscuits, cheapest of everything. A normal conversation between the stores guy and me would be this
Me: give me a packet of hide and seek and a bottle of maaza
Stores guy: that will be 25 bucks
Me: (thinking) what???!!! 25 bucks. That’s an outrageous amount especially when u have exactly 20 bucks in ur pocket.
Me(saying): Errr. Give me a packet of tiger biscuit. ( note to readers : stop thinking “My god. She eats tiger biscuits”. When u r hungry and have no money even pedigree dog biscuits would taste delicious and anyway tiger biscuit was the cheapest biscuit available in the stores)
Stores guy: that will be 7 bucks. Don’t u want anything to drink?
Me: (heaving a sigh of relief and reluctantly parting with my last 10 rupee note. The remaining 10 bucks were in coins.): no thanks. I think I ll just drink some water from the cooler.
I dunno what the stores guy thought of me and at that point of time I was hardly in a position to think of what people thought about me.
By the fag end of the semester this would be conversation between my mom and me
Me: amma. Errr… hmmm.. actually.
Mom: stop hemming and hawing shruthi. What do u want. I am sure u have run out of money. That’s it right?
Mom’s are too smart for their own good.
Me: heh heh. Actually yeah. That reminds me that I am kind of short of money (that’s an understatement. I am extremely short of money. I wear a burqa in hostel so ppl dont recognize me and ask me to return the money I owe them and I am scared some of them will get their boy friends to beat me up if I don’t return it in time)
Mom: ok. I will transfer 200 bucks. Is that enough?
Me: (almost hyperventilating and thinking) 200 bucks?? My debt is running to over 700 bucks and then come my own personal needs.
Me: (saying to amma):Hmmm. Actually could u transfer 1500 bucks please.
Mom: 1500? Shruthi. What did u do with the 10000 I gave u at the beginning of the sem?
Me: amma. There were so many expenses this sem. Plus a mess bill of 1200 per month.
Mom: 1200 per month. So 4 months Rs 4800. what happened to the remaining 5200?
Me: (mind working at a speed which would put Einstein to shame): well u know amma the mess food is so bad that we buy maggi and cook it in the hostel.
Mom: (incredulously): u spent 5200 bucks on maggi???
Me: no!! heh heh!! Actually. It was my room mate’s birthday and then my class mates birthday and then I saw a couple of movies, took photocopies of a couple of notes (terrible lie!! Being in the hostel we never had the need to “Xerox” any notes. If one had it, it was same as all of us having it. I was usually never the “one” to have it) and then the usual u know.
I sounded extremely lame even to myself. Try as I might I just couldn’t imagine where 5200 bucks had gone.
Mom: how many times a year does ur roommate have a birthday. Normally people have it just once a year.
(yeah. Sarcasm runs in my blood!! :|)
Me: (thinking): Damn!! Looks like I have already used up that one.
Me(saying): Actually. She is not really my roommate. She is a close friend of mine and spends so much time in my room that she is almost a roommate. That’s what I meant.
(I am damn proud of myself and the way I handled this sticky situation)
Dad (joining in the conversation): I dunno shruthi. I think u spend entirely too much. When I was doing my engineering appa used to give me 300 rupees each semester. I used to write accounts daily and in the end I used to save 50 bucks and have enough money to buy my ticket home. But you? U spend all the money, demand more and apart form that we also pay for ur ticket home.
Me:(thinking): appa studied in 3rd century B.C when people were still thinking that the sun revolves around the earth and 300 bucks in 3rd century B.C was like 20000 bucks in present day.
Me(saying): yes appa. Sorry appa. I will try to spend diligently from now on and save some money and also write accounts
(even as I say this my conscience is rolling on the floor and laughing. I am miserable at saving, I am miserable at account writing. I am miserable at everything except spending and I lie blatantly to my father. I wouldn’t dare saying this to my mom because being a daughter it is easier to melt dad than mom)
Dad: hmmm. Good girl. I will transfer the money.
Me: phew!! Thanks appa. Umm. Can u do it now. I am kind of in need of it now.
This scenario used to repeat itself unfailingly every semester. Apart from this I also used to get “special” allowances from my grandmom and sis who being the kindred souls that they are would give me “diwali” allowances or “birthday” allowances or "Cool. u failed only in 3 subjects out of 6 this unit test" allowance. Once even going as far as giving me 200 bucks because it was mahatma gandhi’s birthday. In spite of all this kindness from various members of my family by the end of the semester I would be in an extremely impoverished state. Till date I dunno what I did with all that money which came to my hands. All I knew was that it wasn’t there when I needed it and needed it most.
I used to envy my friends who were committed or had boyfriends. They never spent anything. Their boyfriends spent for them and I wondered how that dude handled his parents’ questions every time. My friends who were in love had so many other “love” problems but I was always the one with “financial” problems which I think are much more difficult to handle than “love” problems. Apparently when u r in love u don’t feel hungry or sleepy. I was always sleepy and always hungry and hence always in constant need of tiger biscuits to keep my hunger pangs away. My friends in love had no such problems. So no standing shame facedly in front of the stores guy for them. :-\
Even now after I have started working money in my hands flows like water. And thanks to the umpteen investments which my parents have started for my “safe future”, at the end of the month my bank balance looks like the same Somalian kid mentioned at the start of this post. The day I learn to manage money will be the day Osama bin laden will surrender himself to bush, Vajpayee will take part in a marathon and win, Andrew Symonds will look more human and less primate like…. U get the drift. It aint gonna happen ever.
Suddenly the words of the song by Abba seems to make so much sense.
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
Having more money and not knowing what to do with it. I guess that’s one affliction I will never suffer from!! :(
Friday, December 21, 2007
Spring Cleaning - II
Well whether u like it or not here is part-II of spring cleaning. ;)
Bathroom:
The bathroom in our house is a really interesting place!! On entering there is a shelf which at any given point of time has 5 shampoos all at different stages of their lives. Some are new to the surroundings and some are just breathing their last breath. Its funny. My mom uses some herbal shampoo, my dad (who errr…doesnt have much hair left on his head) fears that after using the herbal shampoo his hair might start growing(i tease him saying that hair growing on his head would be like rice growing in the Sahara but he doesn’t listen) so he uses clinic plus, and then we also have sunsilk (for the guests mom says), my sister (when she visits) uses some shampoo whose name eludes me (honestly speaking I cant even pronounce it) and I use a little bit of all. I love experiments. I put a little bit of herbal+clinic plus+sunsilk+$%^*$ and put it on my head (which probably explains why I have lesser hair than my dad and whatever is remaining smells funny (read: smells like a pigsty)). All the persuasion from my side to reduce all of it to one bottle always falls on deaf ears
Anyway coming to soaps next. In the soap dish in my house you will find a green color soap, on whose back is piggy backed a pink color soap on whose back is a white color soap and so on. If u don’t know what I am talking about then obviously there is no one like my dad at ur house!! my dad believes that scraps of soaps should be preserved so that they can be joined along with the new soap thus forming two soaps. when asked why he cant throw the scraps of soap the gandhian inside my father surfaces and he says “there are children in Somalia who don’t get even a bucket of water a day let alone a piece of soap. you should consider urself blessed. never waste stuff when there are million out there in this world who have never seen it”.
and experience tells me that the minute the gandhian in my dad awakens the sarcasm in me must die and I must keep quiet. same is the case with toothpastes. my dad is never satisfied till he has squeezed the last drop of life out of the poor tube of toothpaste!!
Bedroom:
This time I have to face both amma and appa and two box cot’s full of junk (for people who are wondering what a box cot is it is a cot whose lower half aint empty. it is shaped like a box so u can keep stuff in it)
apart from this there is a cupboard full of useless papers
from the box cot I retrieve close to 25 unused dupattas
me: amma!! so many unused dupattas.i don’t care what u say. I am throwing these away. we don’t use even one of these now
amma: don’t be silly. I have been saving it for the winter months. when it gets really cold I can make a rajaai out of all these dupattas.
(she has been saying this for the past 4 yrs since we shifted to this house and come November we always buy a rajaai for the harsh winter, the dupattas forgotten )
next I discover a carton full of diaries dated from 1978 to 1996 most of them empty and some of them have my mothers neat handwriting on it describing in detail how she spent the princely amount of rs 1000(my dad’s salary in 1982) and how much of it she saved
(I cannot imagine how a couple could have lived in such abject poverty and my mother tells me that every month they used to send Rs 200 to each of my grandparents!! )
me: these moth eaten, rat bitten, infection carrying diaries!! do u need these??
amma: yes of course. good that u found these. I have been wanting to show u how wisely appa and I used to spend money and how neatly we maintained accounts. you children nowadays get a king’s salary you don’t save, you don’t invest, just spend spend spend!! tch tch. come here. see look at the entry for November 1983. that is the only time we used to get clothes for diwali. we saved every pie we could and that is the reason we have been able to give u such good education (next comes a long rigmarole about how my children will suffer if I don’t save or have a SIP-whatever that means. (I try telling her that the minute they become my children their suffering starts but refrain from saying so))
anyway the bottom line is I do not take the topic of the diaries again
next we move to the cupboard (I throw one piece of rag from the box cot after dusting and cleaning it for an hour!!)
I pick up around 10 kgs (no kidding) of appa’s official papers and proceed to throw them.
Appa stops me and the gandhian in him surfaces again.
Appa: are those papers printed on both sides or one side??
Me (after checking): hmmm…one side
Appa: so many bundles of paper with only one side written. How can u have the heart to throw them? It is because of people like u that half the trees in the Amazon forest are being cut down and things like global warming have become a reality.
Me: DUH!!! Sorry pa. Wont throw these. Will use it to write something!!
Anyway after cleaning three bedrooms and bathrooms I threw out a small polythene bag of stuff. What is most irritating is that over the period of 20 years my parents have thrown out my entire stamp collection (by mistake my mom still swears). my interest in philately has died since then, 12-13 posters of mine which I had painstakingly cut out of sports star every month, 287 éclairs wrappers that I had collected (don’t ask me why I did it!! I am weird. but I loved to look at those éclairs wrappers now and then and was damn proud of my collection) my entire box of paints, a pair of jeans-my favorite (those are the clothes u wear??? if u wear it out and go people might think we don’t provide for u or something!! was my mom’s argument) and so many other things which I loved and preserved!!
Anyway after that round of spring cleaning I took a vow never to assist my parents in this maddening hobby of theirs and so this is the concluding part of this series (do i hear a sigh of relief?? )!!
Bathroom:
The bathroom in our house is a really interesting place!! On entering there is a shelf which at any given point of time has 5 shampoos all at different stages of their lives. Some are new to the surroundings and some are just breathing their last breath. Its funny. My mom uses some herbal shampoo, my dad (who errr…doesnt have much hair left on his head) fears that after using the herbal shampoo his hair might start growing(i tease him saying that hair growing on his head would be like rice growing in the Sahara but he doesn’t listen) so he uses clinic plus, and then we also have sunsilk (for the guests mom says), my sister (when she visits) uses some shampoo whose name eludes me (honestly speaking I cant even pronounce it) and I use a little bit of all. I love experiments. I put a little bit of herbal+clinic plus+sunsilk+$%^*$ and put it on my head (which probably explains why I have lesser hair than my dad and whatever is remaining smells funny (read: smells like a pigsty)). All the persuasion from my side to reduce all of it to one bottle always falls on deaf ears
Anyway coming to soaps next. In the soap dish in my house you will find a green color soap, on whose back is piggy backed a pink color soap on whose back is a white color soap and so on. If u don’t know what I am talking about then obviously there is no one like my dad at ur house!! my dad believes that scraps of soaps should be preserved so that they can be joined along with the new soap thus forming two soaps. when asked why he cant throw the scraps of soap the gandhian inside my father surfaces and he says “there are children in Somalia who don’t get even a bucket of water a day let alone a piece of soap. you should consider urself blessed. never waste stuff when there are million out there in this world who have never seen it”.
and experience tells me that the minute the gandhian in my dad awakens the sarcasm in me must die and I must keep quiet. same is the case with toothpastes. my dad is never satisfied till he has squeezed the last drop of life out of the poor tube of toothpaste!!
Bedroom:
This time I have to face both amma and appa and two box cot’s full of junk (for people who are wondering what a box cot is it is a cot whose lower half aint empty. it is shaped like a box so u can keep stuff in it)
apart from this there is a cupboard full of useless papers
from the box cot I retrieve close to 25 unused dupattas
me: amma!! so many unused dupattas.i don’t care what u say. I am throwing these away. we don’t use even one of these now
amma: don’t be silly. I have been saving it for the winter months. when it gets really cold I can make a rajaai out of all these dupattas.
(she has been saying this for the past 4 yrs since we shifted to this house and come November we always buy a rajaai for the harsh winter, the dupattas forgotten )
next I discover a carton full of diaries dated from 1978 to 1996 most of them empty and some of them have my mothers neat handwriting on it describing in detail how she spent the princely amount of rs 1000(my dad’s salary in 1982) and how much of it she saved
(I cannot imagine how a couple could have lived in such abject poverty and my mother tells me that every month they used to send Rs 200 to each of my grandparents!! )
me: these moth eaten, rat bitten, infection carrying diaries!! do u need these??
amma: yes of course. good that u found these. I have been wanting to show u how wisely appa and I used to spend money and how neatly we maintained accounts. you children nowadays get a king’s salary you don’t save, you don’t invest, just spend spend spend!! tch tch. come here. see look at the entry for November 1983. that is the only time we used to get clothes for diwali. we saved every pie we could and that is the reason we have been able to give u such good education (next comes a long rigmarole about how my children will suffer if I don’t save or have a SIP-whatever that means. (I try telling her that the minute they become my children their suffering starts but refrain from saying so))
anyway the bottom line is I do not take the topic of the diaries again
next we move to the cupboard (I throw one piece of rag from the box cot after dusting and cleaning it for an hour!!)
I pick up around 10 kgs (no kidding) of appa’s official papers and proceed to throw them.
Appa stops me and the gandhian in him surfaces again.
Appa: are those papers printed on both sides or one side??
Me (after checking): hmmm…one side
Appa: so many bundles of paper with only one side written. How can u have the heart to throw them? It is because of people like u that half the trees in the Amazon forest are being cut down and things like global warming have become a reality.
Me: DUH!!! Sorry pa. Wont throw these. Will use it to write something!!
Anyway after cleaning three bedrooms and bathrooms I threw out a small polythene bag of stuff. What is most irritating is that over the period of 20 years my parents have thrown out my entire stamp collection (by mistake my mom still swears). my interest in philately has died since then, 12-13 posters of mine which I had painstakingly cut out of sports star every month, 287 éclairs wrappers that I had collected (don’t ask me why I did it!! I am weird. but I loved to look at those éclairs wrappers now and then and was damn proud of my collection) my entire box of paints, a pair of jeans-my favorite (those are the clothes u wear??? if u wear it out and go people might think we don’t provide for u or something!! was my mom’s argument) and so many other things which I loved and preserved!!
Anyway after that round of spring cleaning I took a vow never to assist my parents in this maddening hobby of theirs and so this is the concluding part of this series (do i hear a sigh of relief?? )!!
Monday, December 10, 2007
Butter Fingers!!!
I am clumsy. Ok I am very clumsy. Ok finally I am very very very clumsy. I cant do anything right the first time (or for that matter the second third and fourth time). When I try to cook I always burn whatever I am cooking (attempting to cook), if I am painting I spill the water on the canvas first, if I am drawing I smudge the paper and go oops, if I m driving a nail into the wall I drive my thumb in first, then I drive my parents crazy with my screaming and with the remaining energy I drive the nail into the wall, if I walk on a carpeted floor I trip on the carpet, if I walk on a non carpeted slippery floor I lose my balance and slip, if I walk on a non carpeted non slippery floor I stumble on some object and fall down, if I walk on a non carpeted non slippery floor with no objects I have the amazing ability to stumble over my own feet and fall down. I m not even going to talk about wet floors. On an average I bang my head on doors and walls at least thrice every week, skid on the stairs on all weekdays, stumble over my bed sheet and fall from my bed on weekends, get soap into my eyes everyday, put the soap into the commode periodically, cut my finger whenever I enter any kitchen, always drop whatever I am carrying. (sometimes I really do wonder what my fingers are made of. Butter?? Marble?? Soap?? Foam?? What is it?)
Till date I have broken 3 of my fathers spectacles (two by sitting on them and one by dropping them), broken 2 watches ( banged my mothers watch against a wall and my own watch broke when I fell from my vehicle), lost 3 pairs of gold earrings, broken a couple of plates and glasses at my sisters place (god bless the person who invented stainless steel. I cant even begin to imagine the havoc I would have wreaked had all cutlery been in porcelain and glass. My parents would have given me food in aluminium plates like they give doggies. Ewwwww!!). my grand mother tells me that instead of going oops, ayyayo, Sh*t, damn,(I will not mention the other words I use for obvious reasons) if I went rama, krishna the number of times I broke innumerable, countless things I would at least have attained moksha for all that punyam. Sarcastic grand mother u say and I totally agree with you. On a more serious note it is tough having a walking disaster like me in the house. My sister tells me I should enter her kitchen with a helmet and gloves if I have to avoid banging my head on the doors and cutting my hands with a knife. My mom and grandmother are smart. They don’t let me come anywhere within 10 km radius of the kitchen. The other parts of the house though, have to bear the brunt. Why I am built this way I don’t know!!
So needless to say in my family people don’t trust me with anything. if I am given any responsibility I either break the responsibility, lose the responsibility, forget the responsibility or disfigure the responsibility. errr yes. Once I was asked by mom to keep a potted plant on the parapet of our balcony (silly idea given me as a daughter and a house on the third floor). I diligently and ever so carefully carried the plant successfully till the balcony and even till the parapet. After that I placed it on the parapet, only the silly plant instead of resting its posterior on the parapet chose to go all the way down and smash itself into a million unrecognizable pieces. To this day I swear it was only because of the fact that I was suffering from astigmatism that the parapet seemed farther than it really was. The smirk and the sarcastic grin which my mother gives me make me think that she doesn’t believe my astigmatism theory. Parents can be so skeptical sometimes. That brings me to another aspect of my parents. Sometimes I think they only care for the objects in their house and not a priceless (priceless as in precious and not priceless as in priceless ass!!) daughter like me. For eg: sample this conversation between my mom and me
Me: amma!! I need to tell u something.
Mom: Hmmmm. What is it?
Me: I have decided that I have found my only true love and it is yousuf the milkman. I am deeply in love with him and have decided to run away and marry him because u will never allow us to get married otherwise. We have our future all planned. After marriage we will be moving to Afghanistan where he will join the mujahudeen or al quaeda and do social service by bombing more countries, I will convert myself to islam and bear him three children called osama, bin and laden who will grow up to be terrorists. Together we will wipe the human race off the face of this earth. In fact I urge appa and u to join the mujahudeen too and serve people. Inshallah!!
Mom: ok!! But shruthi if u are running away at night don’t stumble over the lamps and pots near the entrance and break them. Put the light on and run away if u want to but don’t break the pots.
You get the drift?? They just don’t care. Sometimes I think my parents should have given birth to pots and lamps and carpets if they care so much about them. I mean yeah I have broken a few (ok!! More than a few) things at home, lost a lot of things but still I am their daughter!!
But lately they have started caring a little. The reason?? Quoting my sister – “Oh my god who will marry an ungainly, clumsy girl like you. You cant cook, you are destructive, you cant walk without falling, cant carry food without dropping!! What are u going to do?”. Ah well. As Krishna so wisely quoted in the gita “whatever happens, happens for the best”. So if my clumsy and ungainly nature can result in “eligible” suitors rejecting me then there is nothing like it. I am glad I am this way and I hope I stay this way!! ;)
Till date I have broken 3 of my fathers spectacles (two by sitting on them and one by dropping them), broken 2 watches ( banged my mothers watch against a wall and my own watch broke when I fell from my vehicle), lost 3 pairs of gold earrings, broken a couple of plates and glasses at my sisters place (god bless the person who invented stainless steel. I cant even begin to imagine the havoc I would have wreaked had all cutlery been in porcelain and glass. My parents would have given me food in aluminium plates like they give doggies. Ewwwww!!). my grand mother tells me that instead of going oops, ayyayo, Sh*t, damn,(I will not mention the other words I use for obvious reasons) if I went rama, krishna the number of times I broke innumerable, countless things I would at least have attained moksha for all that punyam. Sarcastic grand mother u say and I totally agree with you. On a more serious note it is tough having a walking disaster like me in the house. My sister tells me I should enter her kitchen with a helmet and gloves if I have to avoid banging my head on the doors and cutting my hands with a knife. My mom and grandmother are smart. They don’t let me come anywhere within 10 km radius of the kitchen. The other parts of the house though, have to bear the brunt. Why I am built this way I don’t know!!
So needless to say in my family people don’t trust me with anything. if I am given any responsibility I either break the responsibility, lose the responsibility, forget the responsibility or disfigure the responsibility. errr yes. Once I was asked by mom to keep a potted plant on the parapet of our balcony (silly idea given me as a daughter and a house on the third floor). I diligently and ever so carefully carried the plant successfully till the balcony and even till the parapet. After that I placed it on the parapet, only the silly plant instead of resting its posterior on the parapet chose to go all the way down and smash itself into a million unrecognizable pieces. To this day I swear it was only because of the fact that I was suffering from astigmatism that the parapet seemed farther than it really was. The smirk and the sarcastic grin which my mother gives me make me think that she doesn’t believe my astigmatism theory. Parents can be so skeptical sometimes. That brings me to another aspect of my parents. Sometimes I think they only care for the objects in their house and not a priceless (priceless as in precious and not priceless as in priceless ass!!) daughter like me. For eg: sample this conversation between my mom and me
Me: amma!! I need to tell u something.
Mom: Hmmmm. What is it?
Me: I have decided that I have found my only true love and it is yousuf the milkman. I am deeply in love with him and have decided to run away and marry him because u will never allow us to get married otherwise. We have our future all planned. After marriage we will be moving to Afghanistan where he will join the mujahudeen or al quaeda and do social service by bombing more countries, I will convert myself to islam and bear him three children called osama, bin and laden who will grow up to be terrorists. Together we will wipe the human race off the face of this earth. In fact I urge appa and u to join the mujahudeen too and serve people. Inshallah!!
Mom: ok!! But shruthi if u are running away at night don’t stumble over the lamps and pots near the entrance and break them. Put the light on and run away if u want to but don’t break the pots.
You get the drift?? They just don’t care. Sometimes I think my parents should have given birth to pots and lamps and carpets if they care so much about them. I mean yeah I have broken a few (ok!! More than a few) things at home, lost a lot of things but still I am their daughter!!
But lately they have started caring a little. The reason?? Quoting my sister – “Oh my god who will marry an ungainly, clumsy girl like you. You cant cook, you are destructive, you cant walk without falling, cant carry food without dropping!! What are u going to do?”. Ah well. As Krishna so wisely quoted in the gita “whatever happens, happens for the best”. So if my clumsy and ungainly nature can result in “eligible” suitors rejecting me then there is nothing like it. I am glad I am this way and I hope I stay this way!! ;)
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Home Sick
I want to go home. All of a sudden I am feeling really really home sick and right now I just want to quit my job, take the next train to Jamnagar and go home. It’s been 7 years since I left home to pursue my education, then a job and I have enjoyed every minute of staying in Chennai these 7 years but suddenly, though I completely hate Jamnagar from the bottom of my heart I cannot deny the fact that it is home and I so want to go there right now. (I was atleast hoping to spend some time at home after graduation but after staying at home for 15 days I got a call from Cognizant to join them. I joined work on June 1st after finishing my exams on May 11th!! :-\)
Right now I want to be able to sleep till 8, wake up to my mom shouting and calling me for breakfast, listen to my dad getting ready to office (yeah!! I love “listening” to him go to office. Its so much more fun than actually looking at him go to office. “Where’s my shoe, where are my socks, where’s my lunch, where are my car keys, ooouuuccch who left this hair pin in the middle of the drawing room, I almost killed myself stepping on it” are some of the sounds you will definitely get to hear in my house on any given weekday morning). I want to be able to eat a good breakfast, want to hear my mother say “you have lost so much of weight. U should eat green vegetables...blah blah” though I closely resemble a baby elephant.
I want to go back to the time when my sister and I used to fight everyday in the morning before going to school. We fought to decide whose hair amma would plait first, who would take bath first, we fought to decide which pair of socks were hers and which were mine (“you liar!! These are mine. See this bit of mud on the corner. That happened in PT class yesterday”. “you pig. I am sure u must have lost ur pair of socks and put this bit of mud on mine” “oh!! Don’t be lame. Anyway check out the new elastic on this pair of socks. Yours always sag. Mine always stay tight”), fought to decide which ribbons were mine and which were hers (yeah!! We had to wear black color ribbons to school and I will confess I always lost mine and pilfered my sister’s.), fought to decide who would have the first dosa in the morning for breakfast, who would make the bed in the morning. We fought for everything. Right now I make my own bed, we make our own hair we don’t wear socks or ribbons, she makes her own dosa (in fact whenever I visit her she has always been magnanimous and always offers me the first dosa!! It’s no fun fighting with her anymore).
Even as i write this my sister is in clacutta, my dad is in jamnagar, my mom is in bombay and i am sitting here in chennai. if dad were in delhi i could have said four of us live in four corners of india. ok!! sad joke i know but then i am not feeling particularly cheerful at present!! :-\
Yeah its fun living on ur own, fending for urself, staying with friends, etc but when I look at some of my colleagues who come from home, who bring lunches made by their mothers, talk about how they fought with their siblings in the morning I feel so jealous and wonder why software companies are so apprehensive about opening branches in a godforsaken place like jamnagar. And the funny part is that most of these colleagues envy me because I get to stay alone, have more freedom than they do etc. Sigh!!!
I love my life as it is now but I would give anything in this world to be able to spend one month with my parents right now. Sigh!! If wishes were horses the Revathi’s of this world would ride!!
Right now I want to be able to sleep till 8, wake up to my mom shouting and calling me for breakfast, listen to my dad getting ready to office (yeah!! I love “listening” to him go to office. Its so much more fun than actually looking at him go to office. “Where’s my shoe, where are my socks, where’s my lunch, where are my car keys, ooouuuccch who left this hair pin in the middle of the drawing room, I almost killed myself stepping on it” are some of the sounds you will definitely get to hear in my house on any given weekday morning). I want to be able to eat a good breakfast, want to hear my mother say “you have lost so much of weight. U should eat green vegetables...blah blah” though I closely resemble a baby elephant.
I want to go back to the time when my sister and I used to fight everyday in the morning before going to school. We fought to decide whose hair amma would plait first, who would take bath first, we fought to decide which pair of socks were hers and which were mine (“you liar!! These are mine. See this bit of mud on the corner. That happened in PT class yesterday”. “you pig. I am sure u must have lost ur pair of socks and put this bit of mud on mine” “oh!! Don’t be lame. Anyway check out the new elastic on this pair of socks. Yours always sag. Mine always stay tight”), fought to decide which ribbons were mine and which were hers (yeah!! We had to wear black color ribbons to school and I will confess I always lost mine and pilfered my sister’s.), fought to decide who would have the first dosa in the morning for breakfast, who would make the bed in the morning. We fought for everything. Right now I make my own bed, we make our own hair we don’t wear socks or ribbons, she makes her own dosa (in fact whenever I visit her she has always been magnanimous and always offers me the first dosa!! It’s no fun fighting with her anymore).
Even as i write this my sister is in clacutta, my dad is in jamnagar, my mom is in bombay and i am sitting here in chennai. if dad were in delhi i could have said four of us live in four corners of india. ok!! sad joke i know but then i am not feeling particularly cheerful at present!! :-\
Yeah its fun living on ur own, fending for urself, staying with friends, etc but when I look at some of my colleagues who come from home, who bring lunches made by their mothers, talk about how they fought with their siblings in the morning I feel so jealous and wonder why software companies are so apprehensive about opening branches in a godforsaken place like jamnagar. And the funny part is that most of these colleagues envy me because I get to stay alone, have more freedom than they do etc. Sigh!!!
I love my life as it is now but I would give anything in this world to be able to spend one month with my parents right now. Sigh!! If wishes were horses the Revathi’s of this world would ride!!
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Spring Cleaning - I
This is a blog which I wrote on sulekha a looooooong time back. I keep forgetting my id and password and the name of my page on sulekha and i didnt want to lose this so I just thought I would post it here!! Hope u guys like it!! ;)
The last time I went home my mother decided that since she had help (yeah!! I am talking about me. I can be a help at times too. I am not always a pest. Sometimes I try being nice and helpful for a change) she decided she would do the spring cleaning she had been wanting to do for a long time but had been putting off because of lack of help.
So one bright Sunday morning I was woken up by my parents and we started cleaning. Let me start with each room
Kitchen:
(If we finish off the kitchen first then I can cook and u and appa can clean the rest my mom suggested)
I started emptying the shelves and asking amma if she needed the stuff or wanted to throw it
Me : ( holding up a tablespoon with no handle and just the scoop part of it): amma...why do u need this?? I mean what purpose does it solve??
Amma: ila ila...keep it. I use it to keep oil, leftover paruppu and sometimes water and besides I would never throw it she says her eyes misting. those were the vessels appa gave me when I got married in 1982. appa is no more at least I can keep the vessels
me:(thinks): with all due respect to thatha I think he would be infinitely happier if amma had used a bowl to store oil,paruppu and water and not a broken table spoon!
Me: (says): right!! ok
later as we proceeded to clean the kitchen I unearthed 13 dabbas with red lids(only six of them actually containing stuff,the rest empty), 6 horlicks bottle (4 with caps,2 without caps, all empty), old dabbas of kerosene, some million rags to clean the kitchen (the blue one is for oil, the red one is for dry stuff, the white one is for water and the magenta one is to clean the gas my mother explains) loads of those free glasses u get with gulab jamun mix, lots of plastic dabbas from eat outs(no no.dont throw them.keep them.tomorrow when u r going back to Chennai those will be helpful to pack food for u she says. its a different thing that she ultimately decides to use zip lock bags to pack food but she wont throw them. I can’t go running around searching for them when I need them, so just let them be she argues)
I don’t understand my mother's fixation with wanting to keep the most useless of things without throwing them. loads of plastic spoons, empty tin dabbas and plastic dabbas all to be used at a later time
Bookshelf:
my dad and I started cleaning the bookshelf. as usual I had to bring down each book and ask him if he wanted it.
he has three shelves of readers digest and three more of national geographic.
me: appa why do u need a readers digest dated 1962
appa: oh my god. is it still here? I thought we lost it while shifting. give it here.
I oblige
appa: wow!! imagine a time when readers digest were only 4 rupees and I used to beg appa to lend me 4 rupees every month so I could buy these.
he goes into the nostalgia mode, smells the digest and starts reading. we have been living in the same house for the past four years and he has not realized the existence of the book but he wants to keep it...
me: appa please!! a national geographic dated 1983???this is heights of madness!!
appa: show me show me!! children these days, no appreciation for nature. look at this issue. did u know that the African grey hornbill advertises its presence with a pee-o pee-o pee-o call and it can also be used as a mating call???look here are the pictures
me (thinks): what???how does it affect me how the African grey hornbill shouts and woos its girlfriend???please!!
me: hmmm
The next are baby books("how to understand ur baby", "being a mother and more" , "pregnancy and motherhood" , "loving ur child" were some of the names) which were gifted lovingly to my mother thinking that she would be blessed with angelic babies (since she wasn’t, the books remain unopened waiting to be passed on to my sister hoping at least she would produce angelic babies!! so they stay too!!)
ultimately after we were done with the bookshelf I only thing I threw away was one subscription offer for national geo (he wanted me to keep that too but i convinced him whe n i showed him the text on it which said "hurry...offer closes on dec 31st 1986" :-\ )
Store Room:
this was the worst. with absolutely 0 exaggeration the following were the items we found in the store room (which have been collecting dust for the past gazillion years). the text in italics are my parents' reaction when I told them I am going to throw the stuff
1. two cycle pumps (one without the handle and the other without a nozzle). FYI we don’t have a cycle at home.amma gave my cycle away in 2001. (suppose we buy a cycle where will we go searching for a pump??)
2. three cycle tyres (all punctured. no don’t throw them. if the washer comes off from under the centre table or the stool we can cut pieces of cycle tyre and use them as a washer for the centre table!!)
3.some 20 pairs of shoes right from the squeaky ones which my sister wore when she started walking and I wore when I started walking (if preethi has a kid tomorrow it will be like a family heirloom and the child will get a feeling of attachment. I do not express my apprehensions and tell them that the only thing the child will get is psoriasis if it wears slippers whose rightful position is the archaeological department - Mumbai or antique collectors club)
4. some 15-16 pairs of mismatched rat eaten socks. (don’t u dare throw them!! we can put bits of soap into each of the socks and it can be very handy in cleaning the kitchen sink!!)
5. my sister’s broken pram (I have been meaning to fix it up. yeah right!! he has been meaning to do it from 1988)
6.seven or eight curtain rods(no no. its good steel. will help me fix up the pram)
7. 5 boxes of shoe polish(1 brown, 4black and all dry. Keep them. We can use kerosene to make them usable again)
8. to support 5 boxes of shoe polish mentioned above we have 5 tins of kerosene!!
phew!! that’s when I stopped counting and told my parents that I had had enough of spring cleaning. in part II I will re count the other things I discovered(unearthed) from the bedrooms and bathrooms. they deserve a separate post!! so if u haven’t slept off or moved on to the next blog and are still bravely reading this then please be as patient as u have been and read Spring Cleaning part II as well!! ;)
The last time I went home my mother decided that since she had help (yeah!! I am talking about me. I can be a help at times too. I am not always a pest. Sometimes I try being nice and helpful for a change) she decided she would do the spring cleaning she had been wanting to do for a long time but had been putting off because of lack of help.
So one bright Sunday morning I was woken up by my parents and we started cleaning. Let me start with each room
Kitchen:
(If we finish off the kitchen first then I can cook and u and appa can clean the rest my mom suggested)
I started emptying the shelves and asking amma if she needed the stuff or wanted to throw it
Me : ( holding up a tablespoon with no handle and just the scoop part of it): amma...why do u need this?? I mean what purpose does it solve??
Amma: ila ila...keep it. I use it to keep oil, leftover paruppu and sometimes water and besides I would never throw it she says her eyes misting. those were the vessels appa gave me when I got married in 1982. appa is no more at least I can keep the vessels
me:(thinks): with all due respect to thatha I think he would be infinitely happier if amma had used a bowl to store oil,paruppu and water and not a broken table spoon!
Me: (says): right!! ok
later as we proceeded to clean the kitchen I unearthed 13 dabbas with red lids(only six of them actually containing stuff,the rest empty), 6 horlicks bottle (4 with caps,2 without caps, all empty), old dabbas of kerosene, some million rags to clean the kitchen (the blue one is for oil, the red one is for dry stuff, the white one is for water and the magenta one is to clean the gas my mother explains) loads of those free glasses u get with gulab jamun mix, lots of plastic dabbas from eat outs(no no.dont throw them.keep them.tomorrow when u r going back to Chennai those will be helpful to pack food for u she says. its a different thing that she ultimately decides to use zip lock bags to pack food but she wont throw them. I can’t go running around searching for them when I need them, so just let them be she argues)
I don’t understand my mother's fixation with wanting to keep the most useless of things without throwing them. loads of plastic spoons, empty tin dabbas and plastic dabbas all to be used at a later time
Bookshelf:
my dad and I started cleaning the bookshelf. as usual I had to bring down each book and ask him if he wanted it.
he has three shelves of readers digest and three more of national geographic.
me: appa why do u need a readers digest dated 1962
appa: oh my god. is it still here? I thought we lost it while shifting. give it here.
I oblige
appa: wow!! imagine a time when readers digest were only 4 rupees and I used to beg appa to lend me 4 rupees every month so I could buy these.
he goes into the nostalgia mode, smells the digest and starts reading. we have been living in the same house for the past four years and he has not realized the existence of the book but he wants to keep it...
me: appa please!! a national geographic dated 1983???this is heights of madness!!
appa: show me show me!! children these days, no appreciation for nature. look at this issue. did u know that the African grey hornbill advertises its presence with a pee-o pee-o pee-o call and it can also be used as a mating call???look here are the pictures
me (thinks): what???how does it affect me how the African grey hornbill shouts and woos its girlfriend???please!!
me: hmmm
The next are baby books("how to understand ur baby", "being a mother and more" , "pregnancy and motherhood" , "loving ur child" were some of the names) which were gifted lovingly to my mother thinking that she would be blessed with angelic babies (since she wasn’t, the books remain unopened waiting to be passed on to my sister hoping at least she would produce angelic babies!! so they stay too!!)
ultimately after we were done with the bookshelf I only thing I threw away was one subscription offer for national geo (he wanted me to keep that too but i convinced him whe n i showed him the text on it which said "hurry...offer closes on dec 31st 1986" :-\ )
Store Room:
this was the worst. with absolutely 0 exaggeration the following were the items we found in the store room (which have been collecting dust for the past gazillion years). the text in italics are my parents' reaction when I told them I am going to throw the stuff
1. two cycle pumps (one without the handle and the other without a nozzle). FYI we don’t have a cycle at home.amma gave my cycle away in 2001. (suppose we buy a cycle where will we go searching for a pump??)
2. three cycle tyres (all punctured. no don’t throw them. if the washer comes off from under the centre table or the stool we can cut pieces of cycle tyre and use them as a washer for the centre table!!)
3.some 20 pairs of shoes right from the squeaky ones which my sister wore when she started walking and I wore when I started walking (if preethi has a kid tomorrow it will be like a family heirloom and the child will get a feeling of attachment. I do not express my apprehensions and tell them that the only thing the child will get is psoriasis if it wears slippers whose rightful position is the archaeological department - Mumbai or antique collectors club)
4. some 15-16 pairs of mismatched rat eaten socks. (don’t u dare throw them!! we can put bits of soap into each of the socks and it can be very handy in cleaning the kitchen sink!!)
5. my sister’s broken pram (I have been meaning to fix it up. yeah right!! he has been meaning to do it from 1988)
6.seven or eight curtain rods(no no. its good steel. will help me fix up the pram)
7. 5 boxes of shoe polish(1 brown, 4black and all dry. Keep them. We can use kerosene to make them usable again)
8. to support 5 boxes of shoe polish mentioned above we have 5 tins of kerosene!!
phew!! that’s when I stopped counting and told my parents that I had had enough of spring cleaning. in part II I will re count the other things I discovered(unearthed) from the bedrooms and bathrooms. they deserve a separate post!! so if u haven’t slept off or moved on to the next blog and are still bravely reading this then please be as patient as u have been and read Spring Cleaning part II as well!! ;)
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