Parenting?

On By Indu PatikkalIn Children, growing up, life, opinion, parenting, Random thoughts, realizations, WomanLeave a comment

I have been lazy lately, to write. Some days there are thoughts that I want to note down and some days my mind draws a blank. When I really have to write it down, I put in Facebook and its done. I know that’s not a good thing. I need to write to get better at it. So let me collect some thoughts here everyday (I hope). My friends keep telling me to write, they go to the point of nagging me, which is a good thing. I while away scrolling through the colorful notes and pictures on Facebook and Instagram. Well that’s me. Have you faced situations where in your mind you want to change, but you just don’t do it. You are conscious of the fact that you are not making the change, and yet you don’t make the change.

I have been going through some parenting challenges lately. Parenting is the most difficult mental task one can undertake. You never know if you are right or wrong until many years later. My generation of parents I believe, is so hooked on doing it right and dreading the results that we miss this moment. We are constantly hounded by ‘what-ifs’. What if my child does this, or that, or turns out like this or like that. We don’t have enough faith in ourselves or in our judgement because we fret about the end result – when our children are like 20+ and need to walk on their own. The absolute moment when you leave your child’s hand and he/she walks out alone.

I always think, how did my parents do it? Anyways, with the recent challenges I learnt two things –

1. One baby step at a time – yes ‘baby’ step at a time. The key is breaking it down and taking one baby step at a time. The best analogy I have is the 5K training I attended. I got up from my couch and signed up for a 5K training. The training span was about 2 months. The task on day 1 was to run for a minute and walk for 19 minutes. Just one minute. As long as you stick to the plan, you will achieve the goal of running a 5K. Children are smart and can do many things at a time, but a behavior change has to be made one step at a time.

2. Its give and take – all the way. A parent child relationship can never be all-give or all-take. Never. It has to be give and take. Keeping that balance is the key to healthy parenting. They need to feel like a partner and not order takers. Do this, do that never works. Parents also have to mind their Ps’ and Q’s. In a recent conference call at work, someone reference to the parenting saying ‘Do as I say not as I do’. That never works. Children are naturally wired to ‘Do as I do’ rather than ‘Do as I say’. It is so important to do your part for them to do their part. I strongly believe, that the best environment for nurturing their innocence and help them grow into independent individuals is an environment of love. Where there is love, there is everything else. Love doesn’t mean agreeing with them all the time. Love means being with them, Love means listening to them, Love means taking interest in their everyday life. They go through struggles and challenges everyday. The challenges in an adult’s view are molecular but those are the child’s biggest issues. Obviously they don’t need to worry about a project deliverable or paying the bills. So the boy on the next table not sharing his toy is a big, big problem. I have read somewhere that the best thing you can give your child, is your time. I did not have this awakening as soon as my children were born. It took time.

There are many more essentials of parenting. These are what hit me in the last week. Many people have said this over and over that when babies are born, parents think maybe the next stage will be better. As we progress through the stages we realize the previous one was better. We reach the conclusion that newborn was the best. Change the diaper, feed the baby, swaddle and hold and that’s it. The rest of the issues are what you as a new parent needs to get used to.

From my parents life I know that they can never stop parenting. Even today I call my father and ask for guidance. He is parenting me to parent my children. Of all the roles I have played, the most challenging and the one I love most, is being Mom.

Why don’t children get it?

On By Indu PatikkalIn Random thoughts1 Comment

Have you wondered why don’t children get it these days ? A toy breaks and they want it replaced. They don’t like a food, they push the plate away. Clothes are worn for a few hours and thrown into the laundry. Pencils are lying around like they were at a conference. Blank pages in notebooks left at the end of the year, stacked in the garage. They use the phrase “I lost it” without any guilt. There are many such examples I see in my house and around. 

The most difficult question I am trying to find the answer for is “how to teach children the value of money?” 

My generation and every generation prior to mine lived in the scarcity of material objects. Everything was precious, whether it was food. A phone call, clothes, stationery, toys… everything. If we lost a lunchbox we really felt bad, we were taught to use every paper, made to feel the pain of trees that were cut to make paper, food was not to be wasted, toys were meant to be taken care of and a thousand other things. All credit goes to our parents for teaching us the value of money. There were no lessons, no textbook that differentiated between this and that, but still they knew. They were also first time parents just like us.

There were other things of moral value like being honest, respect for elders, offering a seat to an elderly person, talking respectfully, understanding important values like integrity, self confidence etc. By just living their life openly in front of eyes they displayed the values we have at least partially imbibed. 

So what happened to our generation. Why is it that we are passing only a negligible amount to our children? Or why does it seem like a daunting task when it seemed so simple for our parents. Why do we have to watch every word and action of ours and our children to make sure we are in line?

After much thought, my direction of thought leads to a few reasons –

1. Abundance of resources – everything around children today are in abundance. Our education leads us to think will restricting of abundance lead to restricting their freedom? 

2. Lack of seeing respect for elders on a day to day basis – we grew up with our grandparents residing with us. Our children see their grandparents maybe once a year. Unless they see us taking care of our parents how will they carry on that important value?

3. The tsunami of technology in their lives – there is less reason for them to talk to their parents, they have google for everything they need to know. There are these coloruful bots on their laps that have left the streets empty. 

I guess all of this makes us twice as alert than needed to bring up children. There is always a question am I doing the right thing? Did our parents have this question? I don’t know, maybe they did too, but it seems that parenting was seamless for them. I always wonder “how did they do it?”…

I feel sad thinking that with our generation the link is probably breaking. There are many families living near their siblings and parents where the link is strong, but I really wonder how many of the future generations will carry the strength of family relationships. 

The weakening of the link between generations is more obvious to families living away from home turf. When there are no elders we tend to compromise on essential daily habits like eating together, talking to each other instead dig our faces in social devils on our smartphone. Have these platforms really brought the world closer or secluded each individual in their cubicles?

I always think, if I turn out to be half as good as my parents were, maybe my children will get a quarter of it. I just hope they get it 🙂…

My first and forever love..

On By Indu PatikkalIn Childhood memories, father, growing up, Happiness, Random thoughts, realizations1 Comment

My childhood resonates with him. If I sit down to reminisce about childhood, most memories are about him. As I pick them up one by one, I realize that he is the one person I observed almost all the time. Every movement of his is a distinct memory. Maybe because I am a daughter, that I took my mother for granted and hero-worshipped him. My father.

When I was very young, my aunt’s family and we were close knit. My cousins called my father, uncle, mother, ma, their mom, mummy, their dad, daddy. Although its an embarrassing confession to make, I called my father ‘unkel’ for many many years. I did not mean ‘uncle’ in its literal meaning, but that is how I addressed him. I’m sure I was corrected, but I stuck to ‘unkel’ for a long time. As strange as it sounds to me now, the word echoed every sentiment I had for him. For some time now, he is ‘Appa’.

I distinctly remember his routine during my school years. He woke up around the time my brother and I did, ironed our uniform, tied our shoes and pretty much did anything that was required to get us ready and out of the door when the autorickshaw guy aka ‘automan’ was at the gate. While my mother handled the breakfast, hair he went through anything that would propel the purpose of every school day morning, getting my brother and me to school. After that he carried water in plastic pots from the ground floor tap to the second floor where we lived. All the water we needed for the day. For many years, since we did not have water supply at the second floor, this was the only way. At 9.45 am sharp, he left home for office. He walked the two kilometer stretch from home to Visveswaraya Museum on Kasthurba Rd to be able to sign in at 10am.

Promptly at around 5.45pm he walked back and got home. There were days when he was late, when he had to get something done. If it was raining, he walked in soaking wet. He is more of a walking and bus kind of person, owing to his allergy to petrol and our means. If he had some work at Majestic, he would occasionally bring three masala dosas parcel from Kamath. If he went to Commercial Street, it was four samosas from Bhagathram’s. If it was a birthday – two times a year precisely, it was a cake from Nilgiris. In those parcels that came in plain plastic covers, were some of the most delicious food I have eaten (apart from my mother’s meals).

On Sundays he did his share by doing the laundry. My mother and I helped (as I got older) but it was his chore. My most favourite memory of childhood and my father is when KSEB (Electricity board) decided to cut the supply to our neighbourhood. We put out folding metal chairs, bright blue in colour, in the verandah (aka patio) and talked or played games. Most often the game was names of places. I’d say the name of a place, my brother then had to say a name of a place with the last letter of my place and so on. My father came up with names outside our geography text book and we would end up finding his place on the atlas when the electricity supply resumed. If it was not a game, it was some childhood story of his. I could write a whole book of the stories he has told me and continues to tell me today.

My father was born a Shastri or to the brahmin class of people who perform rituals at the temple. His eldest brother was given an acre or so of land by the king surrounding the Shiva Temple at Shivapuram, a town near Mattanur in Kannur. His family of six brothers and one sister moved from Puthur, Mangalore to Shivapuram and have lived there ever since. At school he wrote novels, worked on the school magazine and leaned towards the creative side. After losing out on academical brain pounding, he left to join his brother who wrote sign boards in Mangalore and subsequently Bangalore. A few years and he landed a job at Visweswaraya Museum. It is here that his tryst with the camera began which went on to become his ultimate passion.

As a child, I saw how screen printing was done. He did it at home. I helped lay out visiting cards, letter head sheets for drying, carefully so that the wet ink wouldn’t smudge. Every card and paper costed money. Wastage had to be negligible. We were probable Six Sixma compliant :). Once in a while he allowed me to lower the screen and run the rubber edged piece of wood along the screen. The excitement of achievement at printing a visiting card or a letter head. I saw him build the screens. Hammer the edges of the board, cover them with screen, nail them in tightly, mount them on the table with metal clamps, mix the ink, align the card or paper to precision. The fun part was gathering up the cards after they had dried, count them and stack them up in those light green plastic boxes. When the orders were high, we put them out to dry all around the house and we tip toed till they dried up.

In my sixth grade we bought the first computer. The CPU was about three foot high and three foot wide. I do not remember the specification but it was exciting. That is when my parents established ‘Typograph’ a desktop publishing company with my father, mother, and me as employees :). When we had to type a lot, we employed a typist for a short term. Unfortunately that company did not grow leaps and bounds, but it helped me through engineering college. I went with my parents to get orders, typed, learnt Coreldraw to draw the chemical compositions of Methane and what not. I never new what those C, H, O meant at that time. My father got softwares from friends, Pagemaker, Ventura, Coreldraw, got a book and asked me to learn and teach him. Wow! those sessions were hilarious.

Almost all my school projects of posters were done with his help. He taught me how to use the compass, set square, draw, layout text, cut pictures appropriately, what glue to use when, in those projects, much before engineering drawing. He always helped me, I do not remember a single time he made an excuse when I needed him.

He knew the concepts of chemistry, physics biology, maths, but did not have the academic know how to help me at school work. A long look at the report card and he would always ask about the marks I lost. If I got 98 on 100, he would ask what happened to the two marks. If I got 85, he would ask why I did not get hundred. At that time I was definitely irritated as to why he couldn’t appreciate what I had got, but now when I do the same to my son, I know, he was just pushing me further.

All this may sound like close to perfection. But that is not true. He had his lows. But through all of those he was honest with us. He told us how things were, he made a deal with me that I would pay for my brother’s education once I got a job, because he had drained out his resources on me. He taught me the value of money and why it was valued. When times were bad, he along with my mother taught me how to survive, that truly made me believe that there is a road at the end of the tunnel.

All his acquaintances tell me about how he is as a person, some are good, some are not so good. I understand that that is their version of him. My version of him, what he is to me, is my personal experience which nobody else can understand or feel. I saw him at his lowest when he battled cancer a few years ago. It was a nightmare. He lost his weight, his zest to live, his humor. Five years down, he lives with the devil, but beat it, to get back to what he was before he was struck by it. I got back his humor, his stories and love.

At 71, he has his pangs of i-am-at-the-end symptoms but nevertheless most days its current affairs, old stories, laughter and love. A few hours after Father’s day this year, he is setting off to the trip of his dreams, to the Himalayas. He always said, he would get away from everything and go to the Himalayas. I have never once discussed or even mentioned Father’s day to him. I did today, and he asked me, so what are you giving me for Father’s day. I said ‘your Himalaya trip’! Being able to provide him with most of what he needs is my biggest happiness for the last so many years. More than the materials, its the call from me at the end of the day that we both treasure the most. And almost everyday he tells me a story either from his childhood or mine.

Happy Father’s Day! to my first love and forever hero, my appa!

Appa

Mohanlal 

On By Indu PatikkalIn Random thoughtsLeave a comment

There are innumerable articles about this man. There is a side of world that has never heard of him and there is another, that worships him. In his words, it’s the characters he plays on screen that the people know and appreciate. For me, I love the man, irrespective of whether he wears a wig or not, of whatever negative is written about it. Makes no difference. He is an artist and I love his art and his looks 😀.

I started watching his movies probably in the early nineties. Living in Bangalore access to his movies was limited apart from the video cassettes we rented from a malayali’s video shop and the Sunday afternoon doordarshan award winning movies. I hated those movies back then. 

There was one instance where I accompanied my cousins to watch Bharatham at a theatre in Perinthalmanna. I cried at the end of the movie and I was freakingly scared for a couple of days after that because of the photo of Nedumudi Venu they show after he is dead. That was my first tryst with Mohanlal. Then there is a memory of watching Maya Mayooram with my mother at a depleted Commercial Street theatre. Boeing Boeing was my childhood favorite, it was from a tiny collection of movies my family owned. It’s after I moved to Trivandrum in 2000 that my love for him started growing. I watched many of his movies, I still dare not say that I have watched most of his movies. So over the next five to seven years I stared at the charisma and persona in the movies, applauded his acting prowess and cried at the sad endings. 

Then came the year 2007. It is significant because my younger son was born that year, but its special for another reason. Mohanlal and group were coming to California for a show. Of course we would watch the show, because the venue was a few miles away from where we lived. The icing was something else. 

Our good friend told my husband and I the location of where Mohanlal would stay. It was a mile away from our house. Both of us are equally crazy about Mohanlal. So that October evening we (my husband, kids and my mother) went to the hotel and asked at the reception for Mohanlal. Just like that. The receptionist had no idea who this person was or what his aura was. She connected me to Mohanlal’s room. Somebody else picked the phone and said he was in discussions and to come at 7.30 am the next day. With a little hope still left we went back home.

The next day, that beautiful morning we wore our best clothes with a manual camera loaded with a new roll of film we went. Back at the reception I asked the same question, “we are here to meet Mohanlal”. She connected me to his room and on the other end I heard a “Hello”. There is no way I could have mistaken that voice. I could recognize it anywhere, anytime. My heart literally skipped a beat. I said “Hello Laletta (as he is popularly known), I am at the reception to meet you, I was told if we come at 7.30 we could meet you”. He said, “Oh is it? Do one thing, wait for 15 minutes, I will freshen up and be there”. The entire conversation was in Malayalam.

I hung up the phone and I was jumping for joy. Oh did I mention, my mother is also as crazy as me about him. So after the long fifteen minutes wait, he comes. You could just stare at his face. A yellow corduroy shirt and brown pants. Face just washed, fresh from sleep. There he was in all his glory. We exchanged a few pleasantries and took photographs. Since my husband and I were completely out of words, he suggested where to stand and asked one of his friends to take the picture. He posed and we clicked away. My mother told him that her favorite character was Vinod, from Thalavattam.


We offered our thanks, goodbye and left. 

It may not be a big deal to meet a movie star today, but that conversation on that beautiful October morning is a treasured memory and the conversation of a lifetime.

There is no one movie that a Mohanlal fan can pick and say that that is his or her favorite. There are just way too many because he has been a son, a father, a teacher, a doctor, a lover the list is endless. My most favorite character still remains the first time I fell in love with his magnanimous charisma, when I watched Bharatham.

Mohanlal is Mohanlal is Mohanlal.. period! And I love him, period.

The year gone by…

On By Indu PatikkalIn celebrate, Childhood memories, father, Friends, Good reads, growing up, Happiness, holiday, life, opinion, parenting, Random thoughts, realizationsLeave a comment

New year is always an opportunity to reflect on the year gone by and renew the hope within you to possibilities and achieve something new. Technically January 1st is just another day, when you reset the calendar. But over the years this day has filled the human with what a system reboot does to the computer. You wash out the junk and temp files, and make the system ready for new transactions.

As I look at the year gone by, it was an eventful year. So many high points, and low ones too, and definitely some valuable lessons, retaught in life’s mysterious ways.

I ticked off a few items from my things-to-do-before-I-die bucket list, and some were direct blessings from above delivered to me through people I love.

All through my childhood years, my parents never owned a car. The lack of it didn’t have any impact on the quality of our life either. We walked, took an auto, rode the bus. The memories created during those walks, holding my parents hands, the endless chattering during those 2km walks from school or my father’s office were filled with stories from my father’s childhood or general knowledge about the world. I am so glad there were no mobile phones then, to intrude into our privacy. The paradox of today’s life is that we drive to the gym to walk!

So it was not until I got married that I owned a car. All credit goes to my husband for pushing me to learn driving. He virtually gave me a pair of wings. Fourteen years hence, we walked into the BMW showroom and bought our first BMW, a black sedan. Honestly, buying a car or even a BMW is no big deal in the US. You get auto loans at good rates, you can own any car you want. What makes it a blessing is knowing from where you came and where life has taken you. Counting your blessing and the luxuries that God has blessed you with. The icing of all of these blessings, was driving my father in the BMW, which was his first ride in a BMW! Truly blessed!

So, you have read blogs about my childhood years, the house I grew up in. My mother always complained that she never owned a house, until her final years when my brother and I together with our parents built a house in Wayanad. After listening to years and years of her grumbling for her own house, she looked so calm and at peace sitting in the front yard of the finished house. She looked like finally she was home. The memory fresh in my mind. Maybe I got this from her, but I always wanted to my own house and didn’t want to have it towards the tad end of my life. I wanted it during a time when I was healthy enough to maintain it. So thanks to my husband again, he bought us our first home. This house is many times the size of the house I grew up in. Again, what makes it special is knowing from where I came and where life has brought me. I now strive to create half as many good memories for my children in this large expanse of space, as my parents created for my brother and I. Again, blessed!

She is the first lady in my husband’s family I met. She welcomed me into the family with the warmest hug and a heart full of love. In all the fourteen years I have known her, she has only given love. Such selfless love, I have only read in books. She battled the worst illness during her final years and even in those times, she spread the warmth she had been blessed with. It was only befitting that she named our eldest son, Nitin. The nicest soul life introduced me to along the way, moved on to find her place in heaven. In that leaving, she redeemed me and blessed me for the years when she wouldn’t be around. Blessed to have been part of her loved ones!

Then my appa! The seventy year old, handsome fella who applies hair dye so carefully and wans to look young as he gets older. His bald head being the only obstacle. After years of nagging, he finally boarded the big bird and crossed the seas to come see America! He saw less of America, and just more and more of Walmart in Bentonville and rain and snow in Seattle. The six months he spent with my brother and I comes to an end this week. Yet having him with either of us is so much of a relief than when he is alone in Bangalore, where I call him everyday just to make sure he is okay. As he has got older he has developed some irritating habits like all old people do (which even I will, I am sure) but what he has done for me over all these years, is our personal story and is so important in shaping the person that I am today. So blessed to be born to him!

I always love spending time with my parents and sibling. We relive our childhood years, like everyone else. This maybe more important and dear for daughters who even partially adopt a different family strain through marriage. Being yourself with no strings attached is so endearing and happens only with your own parents and siblings. I got a week of this bliss when I went to Seattle to spend time with my brother and father. As I left Seattle there were underlying fears that I kept hitting down like whac-a-mole arcade game, yet the happiness of that one week is a treasure. Blessed to get that one week of me!

When you stay in a different country and miss your best friends often, getting even a 24 hour time period with them is a treat! 90% of the time is filled mostly with nonsense chatter, laughs, laughs and more laughs. At the end of the day the memory of that time brings a smile to your face. When life doesn’t offer you the best, this is where you huddle into, your punching bag, with no promises and explicit professing of the depth of the relationship. Its the knowing that they are which makes all the difference. The two nonsense-chatter people in my life have stayed on for sixteen years straight now. I can’t imagine my life without these two. Blessings!

Grandparents are a treasure. My children were blessed with another set of grandparents and their unlimited love throughout last year. My children are a bit more affectionate, softer, respectful because of the affection they were showered with by these grandparents. I am ever so grateful, that my children got this opportunity at love during these years of their life which will definitely play its part in the people they will become. Blessed again!

Letting go is difficult. Dipping myself in that cold water early in the morning, following the steps the priest dictated, putting rice and reciting those mantras supposedly frees my mother. It is not sadness or tears that I felt, its a frozen state accentuated by the dip. With my father beside me, its like she tied the bond a bee wit tighter. It was a low time, no doubt. But in the knowing that I was born to a fighter with a never-say-die attitude is the biggest blessing I have received. Her attitude to move on in spite of all obstacles is what she passed on to me. Blessed!

There were low times, but at the end of the day who wants to remember them. They are best let go. People whom I misjudged, people who helped you sail through during tough times, everything a blessing, a learning. There were days when there is no light at the end of the tunnel, just then the ray of hope shines in the form of a person or the inner strength or the force that helps go on. Through it all, God has been the invisible strength either directly or through people whom he placed in my life.

Yes, new year is a Ctrl+Alt+Del system reboot. Bring on the new challenges and blessings!

May 2017 be filled with blessings, again!

Cooking

On By Indu PatikkalIn growing up, Happiness, life, opinion, Random thoughts, realizations, WomanLeave a comment

Cooking is an art – whoever said this, uttered the truth. When you sketch, you need to feel the paper, use the correct pencil, every stroke makes a difference. When you make jewelry, you need to pick the correct beads, string them in the right sequence to make something beautiful. When you paint, your canvas, paints, brushes, strokes all of them matter. Its the same with cooking. You need the right utensils, spices, oil, vegetables/meat, sequence of events and above all, the P word – Patience.

Like all art forms, cooking needs an enormous amount of patience. If the onion is a tad bit undercooked or overcooked, it makes a difference to the end product taste which is probably another ten steps away. There are people who cook in a hurry and yet get it right most of the time. Yet, the speed is not in the cooking, its the speed in multitasking or tricks to get to the end product sooner.

My oldest memory of cooking goes back to that tiny 100 to 150 sq ft of space lines with built in shelves of cement on the right side, a sink again made of cement on the other, with stands on either side to keep the washed utensils, on the left side. There was a tap that opened into the sink, unfortunately, water never flowed through the tap. There was a plastic basin or bucket on the side, from which we fished out water to wash the utensils. This basin and back up plastic drums was religiously refilled everyday morning by my father who carried the water up two floors before he went to office. The two sides was connected with a wooden plank of about 10 feet by 3 feet on which we kept the stove. This was the third side of the kitchen. Initially this was a single electric coil, till we became modern and got a gas stove that had an automatic lighter. My father uses this stove even today!

The right side of shelves was lined with red circular plastic containers with off-white lids. These were remains of some washing powder we bought in those days. Then there were a couple of huge aluminum canisters to store rice, atta. There was a green basket to store onions and potatoes – this again still lingers on in my father’s kitchen today. There were Red Label Tea plastic bottles to store the smaller volume items like dal etc.

It was sweaty during summer. There was a small window which she opened to let some air inside, but quickly shut off because the gas flames would go any which way. The kitchen was always crowded except for the center area where we sat down to cut the vegetables or knead the flour or roll out the chapathis. There was a waste basket in one corner, which was cleared out everyday at the bell of the worker who cleared out trash from households. As soon as the bell rang, we would carry that bag of trash and run down two floors to hand over the valuables. Later, we got modern and played catch by throwing it from the second floor at the direction of the worker.

My mother cooked here three times a day for us for almost thirty years! I know now, that I would have hated it. I am sure my mother was not a fan of the kitchen she had to succumb to. I wouldn’t have been if I had to cook in there for thirty years. But she made sure there was food on our plates.

It was a very humble dwelling compared to what I cook in today. Yet the lesson I learnt about cooking has not changed. The single most important one being – whatever you cook, you need to cook it with love. You can add the best spices, give it all the time you have, yet when you cook with love, the end product tastes the best. Is it the love for food? No. It is love for the fact that you are going to feed someone. In the Malayalam movie Usthad Hotel, Anjali Menon wrote for Thilakan – when you feed someone you should fill their heart.

Whatever my mother felt in that kitchen one element for sure was love, coz she filled our hearts every time we ate.

Love you Ma!