Back to the future?

While I've been away from the blog, one of the things I've been working on is to be less judgmental of people. I've become an even more firm believer of "live and let live" policy. So I believe any adult has a right to do what whatever she/he wishes. And I have a right to judge only if this particular action is impacting/harming my family in anyway. I'm sort of proud to say that my tolerance levels have increased in everything. I'm much more open to others having different ideas be it in religion, politics and sexuality. The only thing I'm against is fanaticism of any kind in anything. I get outraged when people start becoming fanatic about everything from language to sexuality and actually feel offended at such mentality. Maybe its because I have lived in a country far different from mine in most of the things that matter and I've come to believe that nothing is above humanity. If you are degrading another human for something you are fighting for, then that "something" is not worth it. Its such a global world now that even "patriotism" doesn't have a meaning for me like it did before. I think a person has the right to make choices and even though their choice might not be the same as mine, I'll always support their right to choose.

Well, generally this "acceptance" of mine is well and good, but I still find myself being very judgmental with people who I consider close to me. And here, I'm not talking about big issues like religion or politics. Its the simplest things. For eg: a person might be too kind that others take advantage of them, while another is always making judgments on others. Yet another person might be blaming everyone other than themselves for their "misfortune" while another person altogether, is always complaining about their situation and never grateful for what they have. There's another person who keeps making statements that "Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error" and then doesn't even bother to mail me or keep in touch with me. From my statement, you can see that I'm a little vehement in my feelings for these people. I find it very hard to "forgive and forget" people who I consider close to me or "live and let live" when it comes to them. I'm not really sure why. Maybe because I care too much. But caring too much doesn't mean that you have to change people into your ways of thinking. If everybody is like me then whats the fun? ;-). If the kind person is okay to be taken advantage of, then who I am I to say anything? If a person is happy being judgmental of others, then why should I let it bother me? If a person is not grateful or blaming others for their situations, then I should accept that those are the type of people they are and I should be okay with what they are. Who am I to say "Holier than thou"? Right now, I'm making an effort to apply the generosity that I have for the "general" to the "particular". I've succeeded to some extent, but I find it very difficult sometimes. It's still a work in progress, but succeed, I must.

You may ask me why I'm so bothered about this and I'll tell you. Its that some part of me is worried about the future. Soon our children will be adults and will start making decisions of their own. You may tell me that its too soon to worry about that and that there is still lots of time. But that's not so. If today I'm not accepting of my outer circle's decisions and choices, how will I ever accept my own children's choices tomorrow? If today we think that we are so-called modern, what will tomorrow bring? So many things have changed in the past generation, but the truth is that we haven't seen everything. What we have come to accept today will be NOTHING compared to the tomorrows headed our way. When our children grow up and start opting for their choices, the options might not always be something I'd chose to do. While I may completely disagree with their decisions and the decisions themselves may be huge mistakes, I want to be able to support them no matter what happens as a consequence. I want to be able to say to them "I think this maybe wrong. But if you are sure, I am with you no matter what. Better or worse, I'll be here for you". And try not to tell them "I told you so" in case things are not positive, as it will not really be useful to them in anyway.

I hope to God that I'll turn out to be such a mother. I hope to God that Sri and I will turn out to be such parents..

Pyjama mama :).

Saw this today and it struck a chord..



I don't know about you, but I'm always in my pajamas at home. I am comfortable in them and I like being comfortable. Have never really cared too much about my appearance (atleast when I'm home). Being in US, that's not really a problem as I've hardly any visitors dropping in without informing first. Well, that's what has spoiled me. Sometimes I wonder if and when we go back to India, how hard would it be to get rid of my so-called bad habits. When going back itself is a big question, I wonder whether "pajamas" are the real concern anyway :-p. Sometimes I can't believe its been more than 8 years since I've been here. Never thought that I'd be here more than 2 years. We're still infected with the one-leg-on-shore while another-on-the-boat syndrome as of now :-\.

And sometimes I feel we ought to pack up and move to Europe or Australia or some other place than India. Because I have realized that there's nothing like living in a totally different country to give you a whole new perspective on life. And the travel we'd get to do, would be a bonus ofcourse :). But, no plans of introducing yet another boat/shore to the mix right now ;-).

Content..

Yesterday Sri and I were lying on our stomachs on the carpet while Snugli and Sunny climbed all over us plying us with hugs and kisses. At that moment, I felt happy. I didn't have a care in the world. I'm sure I sound facetious, but I really don't care that many others have more money than me or that other women have a better career than me. I can afford to be generous because life has been good to me. I am content :).

Andddddddddddd I'm back baby :).

New year wishes..

Things have been crazy since we have been back from India. For one thing, the mom part of me has completely taken over my life. I just don't get any time for myself, so the blog has sadly been neglected. I have all these ideas I want to write about, but I never ever get the time. When I do have a few free moments, I'd rather laze around rather than start typing. Poor Sunny hasn't even had a post of her own yet. And there are so many things happening each day and I am regretting not noting down each and every thing like I did with Snugli. But I am determined to get back to writing soon. Meanwhile, I feel frustrated, angry and stressed out most days. There are bright days now and then, but all the other days are passing in a haze and I don't even know what to about it. I feel like taking a break, but there is no break for a mom from her children and ain't that the truth!

Well, its sad that I couldn't even jot down a post on Snugli's birthday. We didn't celebrate it very grandly this time. She did have a party at school and we did take her to an indoor kids play area (where she enjoyed to the maximum) and her favourite restaurant for dinner. But I just didn't have it in me, to plan another party outside and arrange things. I still feel a little guilty over that, but she had fun and thats that. Oh man, she's 4 already and I wish all the time that I had a pause button to life, sigh.

On a sad note, one of my good friends passed away last week and so the past week has been depressing for me. She was sick with a rare disease and suffered a lot in the past month, but we never expected that it would take her life. I was fortunate enough to spend a weekend with her in September when she came to visit us here. I keep remembering little things about her and it keeps getting to me now and then. We expect death at ages lot older than ours and imagine that we'll have all our friends till the ends of our own lives, so it becomes very difficult to accept it that she died at 32, she had a lot of spirit and lot more in her. I hope she's in a much better place and is happy and at rest finally. You know what I have realized from all this? Her life is no more, but our lives go on, they have to go on..

To put a positive end to this post, I did get my macro lens finally - Canon 100mm f2.8 macro and I'm glad that I haven't let go of photography completely, despite all my "troubles". Have some pics uploaded on my facebook photography page in case you are interested. Here's a recent one:




And so, to summarize, 2011 brought me a dear daughter and took away a good friend. It also brought me my first silver hair ;-) (sounds better than gray or white and I'm sticking with it :-p). The year has been a mix of gains and losses, easy and tough times, tears and laughter, basically life going on in all its glory. There's still much more to see, many more things to do and hope 2012 has ample opportunities :-).

The end of the world is coming folks ;-) :-D. 2012 is here! Wish you and your loved ones a very happy and prosperous new year :-).

The facade..

The facade...

Days beckon with
infinite drive.
Nights sink tired;
Crash dive.

The body dances
the daily grind..
The mind droops,
feeling confined..

The inside me wants
to cut and run..
The outside me has
worries none.

Uncertainty questions
"Am I really needed?"
Confidence prevails,
all doubts receded.

Behind a joyous mask
sadness taunts..
Behind a brave facade
vulnerability haunts..

Oh joy!

Oh joy!

In the earth so green,
That it hurts the eye.
In the deep blue wrap
Shrouding the silky sky..

In wings that fly outside,
Chirping and singing..
In children that play inside,
Their giggles ringing..

In the melliferous voice
Riding the radio waves..
In gurgling waterfalls,
Tall mountains, cold caves..

In colours of flowers
Be it bluebells or daffodils..
In colours of dawn or dusk..
In warmths and in chills..

In the crimson sun,
that bids stars goodbyes..
In the velvety night's
Soft whispers and sighs

Happiness lurks
At every corner and nook.
All you have to know
Is just where to look.

The audacity!

Some people are so full of themselves! (Another huge rant in progress, consider yourself warned :-p)

Today morning I get this message from a person saying "don't u answer u'r freinds e mails". Now this person was my best friend in childhood and we have been touch for many years thanks to my efforts and absolutely no thanks to her (my calling her "person" instead of "friend" shows you how angry I am). We lost touch a couple of years back thanks to her constant changing of phone numbers. No, I can't even say we lost touch because I have her email and kept mailing her on her special days - her birthday, anniversary, her kids' birthdays and so on. And she never replied a single thanks. Plus I have told you how fond I am of sending photos to friends and relatives once or several times a month (:-p), she is in my mailing list and again, she never ever, not once, got back on whether she even saw the photos.

Out of the blue last week, I get a message from her giving her yet-another-changed-phone-number and asking me for my contact details (this is despite the fact that my phone numbers haven't changed since 6 years, from the time I came to US). Thanks to a 1.5 month old that was born to me and that I'm quite busy caring for (which again I had informed her through a mail), I haven't been able to keep up with all the communication. So I didn't, make that couldn't, reply. And I get this message from her today! I am so outraged, just what do people think of themselves? And how much do they expect of me? The more I do, the more I'm expected to do.

There have been many days in the past when I've gotten sick and tired of the whole thing and think I'll just quit putting in the effort. This is one of those days. But then again, I take a deep breath, tell myself that just because some people are atrocious, it doesn't mean that I should give up what I am and then make the effort again to keep in touch. But seriously, this was like I was literally stabbed with a long sharp knife. I wrote a blistering reply to her and being the goody-two-shoes that I am, I should have regretted it by now, but I haven't. One big part of me is very very very angry with her while another small part of me is actually sad - it feels like I have literally lost a friend. Or maybe I lost her years ago, have been deluding myself all these years with my puny efforts and am realizing it only now :(. How dumb I must be!

Update: She replied saying that she was busy with her household and kids for all this time and that she took liberties with me as she was "eager" to get back in touch with me. Oh well, I didn't know "eagerness" can translate to years and you know me, I am a free spirit without households and kids :-p. Anyways, enough of this subject, lets move on :).

The pregnancy diaries mk II :-D.

Well, where there is the first version for the first child, there has to be a second one for the second right? Its only fair methinks :-D. Plus today is the day I complete 36 weeks, so the bun in the oven is officially full-term and ready to pop :-D. But I'm hoping it'll stay snug and tight in there for 3 more weeks atleast mainly because my dad and Darsh are heading over here in 2 weeks (I can't wait!! After a long time we'll all be together as a family for a solid 2.5 months!). But on the other side, there's the fact that I suffer from heartburn and swollen legs everyday without fail (my legs are swollen but my BP is completely normal, go figure!) and I'm literally tired of being so tired ;-). The doc asks me to sleep with my legs up to help with the swollen leg syndrome and asks me to raise my upper body for the heartburn. I don't know how I'm supposed to sleep with only my stomach lowered and upper and lower body raised :-p. I keep muttering to myself "just one more month to go", but am well aware of the reality that the only thing thats going to change is that one kind of trouble is going to be transformed into another kind ;-) :-p.

Anyways lets get on with what we are here for the pregnancy this time around :).

• The day I took my pregnancy test and it turned out to be positive. Even though it was for the second time, there was lot of happiness because we had been trying for sometime before striking the lottery :-D. Since I wanted to announce it to both families as soon as possible, I took a doctor's appointment immediately. When the doctors confirmed the news, there was excitement, maybe not as much as the first time, but lots nevertheless. The worry about how we are going to manage has not been as bad as I had last time, basically because we have been through so much with Snugli and are sure of our abilities. But there have been times when I have wondered whether 2 kids are going to be a bit too much to handle :).



• The day I had my first ultrasound. This time around the first ultrasound was done at about 7 weeks to make sure the baby was ok and its heart was beating properly. The experience was emotional, because after 3 years it felt good to be back seeing the baby in its earliest form. Yeah it wasn't as overwhelming as the first time (yeah yeah I know I'm comparing everything, but I wanted to record the changes in me ;-) :-D). In some ways it was different, but in others we were back to being first time parents - We could see just a finger-sized clump on the monitor with a heart beating, literally jumping out of the tiny body. Again we were relieved that there was only one ;-). Just 4 weeks later, when 3 nurses weren't able to find the heartbeat using the Doppler (which got me totally tense, as you can imagine), I had a second ultrasound, just to make sure the baby was doing fine. And it was :).



• The day I completed 3 months. As I have said in earlier posts, this time I had morning sickness every day in mornings and evenings. Thankfully I wasn't vomiting anything. So I was really looking forward to the completion of 3 months not only for the end of first trimester safety issue, but mainly because people generally say the 2nd trimester is the time when a pregnant woman feels her best. Sadly, that wasn't the case. The nausea continued and so did the tiredness. Despite these, I was subjected to the usual blood tests (taking out 3 test tubes of blood from me and checking it for everything from the Rh-factor to HIV) :-p. Everything was normal this time too :).



• The day of my third detailed ultrasound. This time the detailed ultrasound took place in my 19th week (it became the third one since I had the unexpected 2nd one). They checked whether the major organs/systems of the baby are developing/working properly and like the previous time, this was a major highlight of the pregnancy. The scan encompassed the brain and heart measurements (which we were able to make out), the spinal cord check and then the kidneys (which I wasn't able to recognize at all :-p). The best part was when the little rascal decided to yawn and opened its mouth wide - the technician even managed to snap a shot of the same :-D. Moreover the baby even put its thumb into the mouth and started sucking just like its elder sister :-D. We did find out the baby's gender this time too, but lets leave the story until after delivery ;-) :).



• The day I felt the baby's first big movement. It is said that after the first pregnancy, in any subsequent pregnancy, everything will be exaggerated. As in the woman will feel movements sooner, expand more and is basically sensitive to changes. So I was expecting the movements to be much much sooner, but that wasn't really the case. The first time I had felt the movements first time at around 22 weeks, whereas this time it was around the 20th week. It was as exciting as the first time. I feel that for women, the baby becomes real to us when the first big movement happens. Thats when it strikes us that oh wow, I really am carrying another human being inside me and the love for the baby starts there and then. Whereas for men, its usually only after the baby is born. Anyways, the major difference between the first time and now has been that this baby feels more active than Snugli. With Snugli, there were days when she used to be totally silent and I literally would be scared and these days, this little one moves so much that I literally feel like a washer/drier (the rumbles and tumbles in my stomach feel like that :-D).



• The day I had my gestational diabetes test and it turned out to be normal. As I said in my last post, the gestational diabetes test happened in the first week of March and thankfully it was normal this time too (I had a tiny nagging worry about it). But as I said unlike last time, this time the hemoglobin levels were a bit low and I was prescribed iron tablets. They checked it again after a month, the levels had raised a bit, but still low, so I was asked to continue the tablets. I am sick and tired of the damn things, since I'm supposed to take them on an empty stomach and not mix them with milk. Plus have the prenatal vitamins as usual :( and the iron tablets don't go with them either (have to take them with a gap). Hopefully the next time they check, the levels will be up and I'll be rid of those damn tablets :-p.

What else? Yeah I have had the leg spasms like last time where I get up crying and Sri ends up rubbing my calf muscles like crazy until the pain subsides. I have been feeling painless contractions (Braxton-Hicks) a lot earlier as well - have been feeling these for more than 2 months now and I have atleast one each day. Its not very painful, but damn uncomfortable. But one of the worse things has been the stretch of the stomach ligaments. This time I did expand more as the doctors had mentioned. By the end of 6th month I was feeling like I was in my 9th! I felt heavy and huggggggggge. But the stomach didn't show any signs of slowing down at all :-p. When I had the flu, it got worse, whenever I coughed, it was literally as if somebody was tearing out my stomach ligaments and the pain was horrible. But this pain has been popping in now and then other times too. Whenever I sit, stand, or do anything for that matter, my stomach stretches and the pain is literally like pulling the skin. Sometimes oil helps, other times calamine did and yet other times nothing does, but it has been a big experience this time.

Well, just one more month to go, just one more month to go, just one more month to go, take a deep breath and repeat 100 times :-D.

Craving and caving in..

I figured that I owe you all a pregnancy post after that abrupt update :). First of all, thanks to all who bothered to leave a comment and wish me, and to all who thought of leaving a comment but were too busy to do so (:-p). No thanks if you said "Meh" and walked off :-p.

The decision to have a second baby was for us, a combination of many reasons. For one thing, we both have siblings ourselves and we, especially I, wanted Snugli to have that experience, that particular companionship. Secondly we felt it kinda was the right time. We didn't want it too early (needed time to recover from the first one :-p, :-D) and didn't want it to be too late, when a second one will be more of an intrusion than a welcome. Thirdly, we had started to go through this terrible nostalgia about Snugli, hehehe. I mean the first year was full of frustrations, but it has been our lives' highlight to watch Snugli grow up (I think its any parent's life's highlight :-D) and we did want a repeat of that. Yeah, nostalgia, half the time ends up helping you make the craziest decisions :-p.

What I'm saying is that the second time pregnancy hasn't been as smooth for me as the first one was. Yup, the comparison begins now with the second baby still inside my womb :-p. While carrying Snugli, I literally had no pregnancy symptoms except for heartburn in the last couple of months. But this time around, man, has it been a wild ride! I have seen it all. First trimester (the first 3 months), I had morning sickness the entire day, every day. So well, "morning sickness" definition wasn't really suitable to what I had :-p. Thankfully I wasn't vomiting at all, but would feel queasy the entire day. Plus I used to feel tired. The tiredness was so bad that I would drop off to sleep in the evenings while sitting on the sofa! I was waiting for the 2nd trimester relief, but there wasn't any. The queasiness continued and so did the tiredness. No break. As of now I'm in my 7th month and I still have the morning sickness (it is thankfully limited to the mornings these days) and the tiredness - yeah you'll still find me nodding off in front of the TV some evenings :-D.

Plus heartburn made its appearance in the 2nd trimester end - so guess this little one will be born with a head-full of hair like Snugli did ;-). Thats not an old wives tale btw - John Hopkins actually did a research on that and proved that excess of estrogen causes heartburn in mothers and more hair in babies :-D. Jokes apart, the heartburn seems worse this time, sometimes I start feeling it even when I taste something while I cook! So yeah queasiness+tiredness+heartburn implies this baby is a troublesome one already :-p. My gynec says that the tiredness is basically due to the fact that I have a toddler to run behind and she insists that even the littlest things I do for Snugli contribute towards the strain. But honestly speaking, Sri has taken over most of the chores and it feels like all I do is laze around :-p. And did I mention how glad I am to have him as my partner? ;-) :-D.

And then there were the cravings. This is the good part, believe me ;-). I never had a single craving when I carried Snugli. My mom always would talk about the cravings she had when she was pregnant with me - it seems she ate a whole box of jalebis once and so on :-p. My parents weren't that well off then, so I would tease her that cravings were just excuses to eat whatever she wanted during that time, hehehe :-D. Well, this time, I found out how wrong I was. My cravings started with a simple McDonalds icecream cone (the 49 cents one which is like a version of our Bangalore Softy) and I think it was sometime in November. If you haven't tried it, believe me when I say, its not all that good. Its okay, a bit different from any icecream that you get. But craving a softy in winter was a surprise ;-).

But I didn't really know how worse it'd get until I started craving the Garlic bread from Pizza hut. Now, I regularly have frozen Texas toast garlic bread in my freezer (you just have to heat it up in the conventional oven for sometime and its ready to eat), but I didn't want that. I wanted the salty Pizza hut one and nothing else. After thinking (and drooling :-p) about it for about 3 days, I finally asked Sri to get that and a pizza from Pizza hut one night. There is a hitch in the Pizza hut garlic bread, the thing is that all locations don't serve them, a couple have them and a couple don't. The one that Sri went to didn't and the guy coolly calls me up and says that they don't have it and hence he is getting bread sticks. To excuse the poor guy, this has happened a couple of times earlier and I've always been quite okay with it. But nah, not this time. I literally burst into tears over the phone, shouted at him, slammed the phone and hung up on him. God!! I have never behaved that atrociously in my life ever. The poor guy went all the way to another Pizza hut location to get his crazy pregnant wife the garlic bread she wanted :-D. Moreover we always get 4 pieces, this time he got 8 and I ate 5 of them!

Phew, that particular craving was done after I had garlic bread a couple of more times. Today, if you ask me, I don't even feel like looking at the damn things :-p. After that there was gobhi bajji (cauliflower fritters) which I literally kept dreaming about for 2 consecutive nights! Then finally the third day I made them myself and ate to my heart's content :-D. After that, there have been jalebis (available in Indian stores here, but not very good ones), pakodas (made them myself twice) and little things like that. I keep teasing Sri that he should be thankful that I have been craving only inexpensive foods, otherwise he'd have been a goner ;-). I think he is more thankful that the raging maniac he encountered hasn't made a reappearance, hehehee :))).

So thats it, the journey so far. I have to be thankful that things have been pretty normal and it has been a low risk pregnancy. More will be up whenever my brain keeps recovering from the shutdowns it has been facing on and off, then and again ;-).

Realization dawns..

I have realized that you cannot take anything for granted - not even things that have already happened. Just when you are thinking that everything is going well, life suddenly throws a curve ball and the very next day things might be the total opposite of yesterday.

"Life has a funny way of sneaking upon you when you think everything's okay and everything's going right" - Alanis Morisette in the song "Ironic".


I have realized that pessimism can actually be a good thing sometimes, though this fact is painful to admit for an inherently optimistic person like me. When you are totally optimistic, if things don't go your way, you'll obviously be disappointed. But being pessimistic, the hurt will be much less and if things do work out, the happiness will obviously be more ;-). Well, its not easy to change this intrinsic quality :).

I have realized that some things take time (take their own sweet time actually), no matter how much you pray, you wish or you worry. Bribing Gods only goes so far. Sometimes things happen without even trying and other times, no matter how much your effort is, the return is just not equivalent. This is especially true if you are wishing for something good to happen to someone else other than you. If you are praying and the other person is not really making decisions for the good, then tell me, what can God do to help? If you yourself don't do anything and keep pointing the finger at everyone else, then sorry to say, things will just not go your way..

I have realized that everyone is addicted to something or another. Need not be bad always. People generally hear of the bad addictions like smoking, drinking, drugs etc. But sometimes even religion (as in God), culture (as in not-meaningful-anymore rituals) or even self-obsession can be an addiction. For an example, I'm addicted to travelling, I just cannot sit at home for more than 3 months. I just long to go somewhere and see something. I also cannot do anything half-way. If I get into a new activity and I like it, its usually like building a resume - I have to go deeper into the thing almost to a semi-professional level, if not totally professional. Glad that Sri does understand and support this addiction of mine :).

I have realized that there is no point in arguing with someone with a different point of view, even though you are right in the logic. Some people stick to their opinions like they have been plastered to them with the most potent glue. And just because you fight/argue with them or write lengthy mails explaining it all, things aren't suddenly going to change. Just because you obsess over the right things to say and question your decisions of the mile-long explanations, it doesn't mean that they are doing the same thing or will have regrets about their behavior or apologize to people that have been hurt by their attitudes. Such people exist and though they are totally against the beliefs you have grown up with, you just have to deal with it and accept them.

I have realized that being young is getting to be more difficult these days. It was probably never that easy to begin with, but these days, with all the social networking, nothing you do is private anymore. When I met Sri, I wasn't on Orkut and hadn't heard of Facebook. But these days even though youngsters are subjected to arranged marriages, you can find their profile here or there. And most are public with their friends posting their photos (which can be awkward or embarrassing) or revealing messages. You can even see if you have common friends and find out more. It might be actually good when it comes to potential partners, but I kinda feel that it may lead to judging that person before actually meeting him/her which can sometimes be harmful, when all that he/she has been upto is harmless fun. Its like they cannot catch a break ;-).

I have realized that moms are the same every where :). The languages are different, sometimes even the generations are different, but the concern, care and the attitudes regarding the children are the same (of course there are extreme exceptions to this). The librarian of the library I take Snugli to daily said this to me the other day - "Sometimes when Snugli gets too excited, I have heard you say things to her. Half the time I don't understand what you say to her, but I know the voice. Its the mom voice" :-D. I have also heard moms here speaking to their kids and admonishing them when they touch certain things or do certain things, and hug them when they hurt just like I'd with Snugli :). Its a great feeling of comradeship :).

I have realized that no matter how much you try to convince them, some people living in India believe that living in the US means making loads of money. Though we do earn in dollars, these very same people seem to forget that we also spend in dollars. I know there are probably many people residing in the US who are actually here for that very purpose of making money. But sometimes the people in India just don't understand about not generalizing. Yes, personally speaking, we do have some savings. But our main purpose of being here is family life - Sri gets to be around us everyday, certainly more than a regular software engineer in India (this is what makes me okay with the fact that I don't really have a career these days). He doesn't have to leave early in the morning or stay very late in the evenings or work on weekends. In fact he comes home for lunch. I have seen some cousins/friends in India with zero family life and am grateful to have this while we do. Plus we travel a lot and go to India atleast once every 1.5 years (and carry gifts for everyone around) which doesn't come free. The only way we'll make money is if we win a lottery :-p.

I have realized that a person is as busy as he/she wants to be. Though I don't work, as a mom, I'm pretty busy. But I try and make it a point to blog, put up pictures, make calls, mail friends, wish people on their happy days whenever possible. Its not that I have time to spare, but I make the time, because I don't want to get lost in my day-to-day life. I have always thought that I shouldn't be like others, even though they might not keep me updated with everything, I have always tried to keep them in touch. But recently I have been getting very much irritated at friends/relatives who just don't reciprocate. When I put in the effort of uploading 100s of snaps and writing captions for them, atleast reply and let me know you have seen them, dammit! I know I make sure to keep you updated, but it would be nice to receive a "Hi, how are you?", just a single line mail from you. I am tired of hearing excuses of "Oh I'm too busy". How can anyone be busy to reply a single line or like a photo I put up, I'll never understand. Just how long does it take to type a single line comment? As a friend/relative, can't you spare a few seconds out of your life for me? People with kids keep telling me that they show Snugli's photos to their kids as if thats a consolation. Don't you get it that while you all know Snugli, Snugli doesn't know anyone of you because you don't bother to keep us updated?

I have realized that I'm using this post to clear out a few cob-webs in my head that have been bothering me recently and I'm certainly glad to have ;-) :-D.

The grand past..

Some children are fortunate enough have both their sets of grandparents and get to see the love and affection between the pairs, but I have never been one of those. Since I was born, I had only my grandfather on my dad's side (I called him "Ajja") and my grandmother on my mom's who I called Ammamma. Ajja was there for 15 years of my life when he succumbed to a heart attack (I was studying 10th std then and it happened right before my final exams) leaving us in shock. The only grandparent I had left, my Ammamma, passed away more than 12 days ago on 27th October 2010.

Neither of the grandparents I had, could ever be termed as affectionate, though I do remember Ajja being loving towards Darsh. But it was certainly not what you see in happy movies - grandparents giving hugs and kisses and sweetmeats to the children around. I am not saying this with any regret, because I know what they were, were because of the way they spent their lives - life certainly never was easy on them. And I have a tremendous respect for who they were for basically how my parents are and how in turn they have influenced me and Darsh.

Ajja was a hotelier, though not as grand as the word sounds. He had successful hotels and total failures, the fail part more often than the success part. He would open a hotel in one part of Andhra Pradesh and continue there as long as it was a success. If things were good, he'd sell that one in profit and move on to another place. Same thing with losses, if the hotel turned out to be a loss, there'd be no choice, he'd have to move on. So my dad and his 4 siblings lived all over Andhra. Ajja was mostly a workaholic because he had to feed his family and it didn't help matters when he lost his wife. Dad did get his education, but he had to work all mornings (grinding idli/dosa batter and chutneys) and once he came back from school as a waiter. I remember him telling me that they couldn't even afford oil lamps at home and that he studied under street lamps. When things were good, he got money to watch cinemas, but until he was about 16 or 18 (I think), he didn't even have footwear. But being the son of a Udupi hotel owner, he atleast had enough to eat. My mom didn't.


BharaNi nakashatra-davaru onda dharaNi aaLthaare athwa beraNi thaTthaare.

Meaning "The people born under the BharaNi star either rule the earth or make cow-dung patties" (implying either they'll be either very rich or very poor). My mom always uses this quote about Ammamma adding that she saw both. Ammamma was born to a very rich and very orthodox family. She was married off at a very young age and mom tells me that she was sent to her in-laws in a Chinnada pallakki (gold carriage). Her in-laws were very well-off too, but her husband was a different case. My maternal grandfather was a total gambler - the only 2 accomplishments I can list of his are gambling and making babies. He drank away all of the riches and died leaving Ammamma with 5 children (she also had a couple of miscarriages) and thankfully, a house to live in. She had some cows, so she sold the milk and earned some money. But it wasn't enough when it came to feeding her children. I think she even cooked and helped out in houses, but she hardly had anything to eat. She sent away my mom to her mother's place for some years and later to her elder daughter's place (my doDDamma was married and with her family then) for some more years. Staying with her grandparents and then her elder sister, mom was a bit better off, but it didn't mean that she wallowed in luxury, the opposite in fact. Things were difficult there too and to this day mom says that she'd have preferred to live with her family than anywhere else (which is why she never entertained the idea of sending me or Darsh away anytime). Even later, when she came back home, things weren't better. Ammamma would make sure all the kids got food, but for herself, she'd walk miles to the Udupi maTa (where they serve food for the poor) to get a belly-full food once a day, bearing all insults and evil eyes around.

Things didn't get any better for a few more years until my parents found jobs - my dad did his bachelors in Science and got a job, while my mom applied right after her 2nd PUC and got one (she completed her bachelors in arts degree later through correspondence). My mom was able to request her boss into considering her brother for a job and from then on, there was a lot of improvement in that house. Ajja didn't give up on his ventures until my parents got married and even after coming to stay with his eldest son, he still wanted to be independent and had a shop running for quite sometime (oh yeah that reminds me, he'd get me candies from his shop - so there was bit of sweetmeats :-D). From then on Ajja was quite happy living with us. Being a hotelier, he would interfere in the kitchen and cause some amount of irritation to mom, so there were the usual bickering now and then (but I think my mom learnt a lot about cooking either from him or due to the competition :-D and to this day according to me, she is one of the best cooks around). But things were getting better by the day - all his children were pretty much settled and his death, when he passed away was very much unexpected. He was one of the healthiest people around and had gone on one of his trips to Mysore - when he saw the Nanjangud temple after many years and we don't know what happened, his heart simply gave out that night. He was at my cousin's place and by the time we drove there (I still remember dad driving like a maniac that night), he had had a 2nd massive heart attack and was gone.

Today I still picture Ajja sometimes - he'll always be this old man in a white panche to me, very fond of his nashya dabba (snuff powder box) and talking a lot and making yummy khaara mixtures and gulab jaamun at home (for the mixture he'd make 5 to 6 different things and we'd keep running to the kitchen to sneak stuff, obviously getting scoldings in return :-D). I remember him at every happy occasion at home, when my dad bought a house, when I got a job, when I got married and later when I had Snugli. Every time I wish he was there to see and enjoy the occasion with us.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Ammamma was doing well - taking care of the birth of grandchildren and basically taking care of the grandchildren themselves. She has taken care of some of us when we were ill, when our parents couldn't attend to us and so on and so forth. As we grew up, she grew into this old lady who lived with one of her sons but travelled to our place often (once a year atleast for 3 months) and we grand kids would love to tease her. But recently as she grew to her 80s, she had become quite weak and travelling had become difficult for her. She was not really in a good shape when she came to Snugli's namakarNa, but I was glad that she was able to make it.

Last year, she fell ill pretty badly and I was very worried about her. So in our India trip, I made it a point to make a quick trip to Udupi to see her (which now I am very glad I did) - it was literally a flying visit. She had some memory problems then - she's ask the same questions again and again, forget that she had just eaten etc, but she was looking well. But after we came back here, things got a lot worse. Her health deteriorated and she even had a fall which resulted in a brain stroke. After that she didn't recognize anyone. My cousin who grew up under her care got married there just about a month back and she didn't recognize her own children and grandchildren. She didn't talk much, had incontinence and later even got bed-sores which resulted in her getting admitted to a hospital. Mom was inconsolable, but Ammamma couldn't even talk about what she was going through and how she was suffering. It was a miserable time for everyone. Just about 20 days back, she had even stopped eating and was being given liquids through a food pipe. We actually had started praying for her suffering to end..

Yet when I heard the news of her passing away, it still somehow came as a shock. One part of me was glad - she didn't have to suffer any longer, while the other was very sad - I lost the only grandparent I had, my future child if any, will never even have the opportunity of interacting with her like Snugli did. I have a photo of hers with Snugli on a wall and I find myself going to it and wishing she is in a good place. Ammamma also had a heart attack and she was almost 90. The most clear memory I have of her is of her sitting on her cot at nights, eating adike (arekanuts) which she was very fond of and powdering karpura (camphor) to put in the eyes and cool them. I remember her voice and some of the things we'd make fun of. Some part of me still cannot believe she's not around anymore, but I'm glad we had her until now.

One of the reasons why I admire my parents so much is because they are products of their past (I wasn't always in awe of them, when I was in my teen years I thought the whole world was conspiring against me, but I digress :-D). They didn't have everything on their side, everything going for them, yet they made something of themselves. Theirs is one of the personal success stories that I've seen and though neither I nor Darsh have had difficult circumstances while growing up, we were taught to appreciate where they came from. I see people day to day blaming everything from their parents, to their past, to their circumstances, i.e everything except themselves for what they are today and I get really irritated at them. Yes your past matters to some extent, but you can always overcome it. If you insist on not doing anything and keep finding someone or the other to place the blame on, your situation is not going to get any better. My parents never gave up and neither did my grandparents.

I can only hope that I have inherited a little bit of the persistence, the strength and the resolve to go on, no matter how bad the circumstances, how dire the consequences and how hard the times are. I can only hope that I can bring up my child(ren) how my parents have brought us up and teach them to appreciate the sacrifices and the hard work of their grandparents. I can only hope that my grandparents are in a happy place and will be watching over us for time to come. I can only hope..

The war...

The war

Tumultuous waves bombard the very cores
Of inert rocks and long forgotten shores..

Incessant rain erodes the broken earth
Insensitive of the damage to home and hearth..

A strong wind turns into a hurricane gale
Crushing the spirits of trees, already frail..

Fires rage south and north, west and east
Scorching on their way, all man and beast..

Thoughts harass, pester and never retreat
Until the battered heart admits absolute defeat.

The circle of camera life :-p.

Finally!! After much deliberation, research and what not, my new DSLR Canon EOS 50D arrived last week on Tuesday the 20th July 2010. So why wait till now for a post, you ask? Well, I "assumed" that the camera would work on an SD card and found out only after I got it that it needed a compact flash card, which arrived today ;-). So here's the gear:




This photo above was taken by my trusty Canon S2 IS which promptly died soon after the arrival of the new one, apparently as if from jealousy :-p. In fact this was one of the last photos I took with it. Last friday, I was working on re-capturing the same image (because I wasn't completely satisfied with it), when the lens got stuck and refused to retract. Supposedly its the infamous dreaded Lens error. I felt very very sad, it was difficult losing something that was so close to my heart. The camera was a silent ever-present friend to me and it was as if I lost a part of myself. I found out that it'd cost almost as much as $150 to get it repaired.

So I decided to open and check it myself. Well, the engineering degree I have in electronics has to be useful sometime right? :-p.




Please forgive the bad quality pic - it was taken from my iPhone as I hadn't gotten the CF card for the DSLR yet :-p. I have to tell you, I was scared like hell that I'd end up corrupting it further. But I didn't. Yesterday evening, with a bit of Sri's help, I pin-pointed the fault to the USM (ultra-sonic motor) inside (its most probably that or else there's nothing I can do about it). Now have the option of getting a spare part from ebay and fixing it myself, but still thinking about it :-\.

Lets get back to the DSLR now. Today I got the CF card and immediately had to take snaps :). Here are my favourite subjects :).









Looks good on these hands right? :).




So the first 2 steps in my Astrophotography dream are done (learning photography and getting a DSLR). The next step is to master the DSLR and try taking astrophotos without an equatorial mount (used to negate earth's rotation while taking long exposures of the night sky). Just can't wait :).

Meanwhile the MasterCard ad was made for this post ;-).

Canon EOS 50D with 28-135mm lens - $957
Canon EF 50mm f1.8 lens - $87
LCD protector - $3
Compact Flash card - $60
Having it in my hand and jumping up and down - Priceless!!

Man, was it a lot of money. I thought again and again on whether I'm confident enough to invest such an amount (had second thoughts about it even after buying it :-p). But you know what? I'm ready for this, to move on and learn more. To know and to do more :).

Or else, I can always blame this particular madness on the big three-oh (coming up soon), hehehe :)).

Vanity, Thy name is Woman :).

Well, the actual quote by Shakespeare is "Frailty, Thy name is woman" (in Hamlet), but Vanity has taken over even the quote in common usage :-D. I have always put my absolute faith in the common usage quote :-D, mainly because I have no illusions about myself. I mean we women dedicate ourselves to threading eyebrows, waxing arms and legs most of the times, or in general torturing ourselves all in the name of our vanity :-D. Jerry Seinfeld says it best :-D.

I will never understand how a woman can take boiling hot wax, pour it on her upper thighs, rip the hair out by the roots, and still be afraid of a spider - Jerry Seinfeld.

I love Jerry and this is my most favourite quote of them all (I'm not afraid of spiders or anything that crawls btw :-D) :). But I never thought how our vanities matter in our day-to-day lives until the incident (is that ominous enough? :-D).

I wanted to write this post on July 10th commemorating the 5th month anniversary of my fainting incident. But well, I am writing it now :-p. As you read then, I had/have a sense of humour about it, as long as I was at home and not facing any crowds. As soon as I had to get out of the house, the anxiety would start. I had a blatant scar on my forehead and a very noticeable lump and scar above my upper lip. So I would obsess that everyone would notice it (I know I'm not queen Cleopatra, to turn everyone's heads, hehehee, but sometimes my imagination runs wild :-D). I would wonder what anyone might think about it. In fact, things were so bad the first month that I hardly ever got out of home.




This is the only photo I have of me during that first month. It was taken on Sri's birthday, i.e 18 days after the incident. Atleast it was winter then, so whenever I did go out, I wore a wintercap which covered my forehead (I couldn't do anything for the scar above my upper lip). I have photos of Sri and me hung over the walls and sometimes, I wouldn't even be able to look at them without feeling sad and angry. I wouldn't accept invites from any acquaintances we have here, because I didn't want to narrate the entire story to them..

Sri was completely supportive and my parents were literally trying to knock some sense into me. Mom would recount stories of worse accidents (women who lost their teeth in accident and had major surgeries) and somehow though I understood everything, I simply couldn't help it. Dad was like, people have their own concerns and why would they be concerned with you. It'd always make me laugh, but again I would regress. Maybe it was some form of depression. I mean I have had accidents before, but having something on your face is different from anything else. To this day I don't know why.

I would apply vitamin E oil to it twice or thrice a day plus some other ayurvedic ointment at night (kumkumadi thaila) - both are supposed to help with scars. Slowly things started changing, but not because the scars started fading or anything like that. But because I would make myself go out - thats when I started taking Snugli to the library. I used to apply a thin coat of make-up to hide the scars, but if you stared right at my face, the scars would still be visible (I used to joke to my close friends that I have never applied make-up all my life and now I am becoming an expert at it :-D). And I got back to swimming, making it a point not to apply makeup for that :-D. I did catch up with people I knew when I went swimming, I'd see some questions in their eyes, but they were too polite to ask about it :). About 2 months later, I'd even go to the park nearby without make-up.

Today, 5 months later I still apply some compact powder before I go out, but thats about it. The scars have faded a lot, but the areas are still a tiny bit sore. There was a lump on the area above my upper lip which was pretty bad and which I worried about, now the soreness is gone and the size of the lump has reduced a lot. The scar there is hardly visible (unless you look at it too closely). The forehead scar is a horizontal 'Y' and it is visible. But the main thing is they are not on my mind all the time as it was then. I don't bother about them at all now. Guess I just needed time..




I took this photo today (no makeup whatsoever :-D, the thing on my chin is a pimple :-p - vanity strikes again :-D). On a side note, this was another photography experiment - getting the feel of portraits by taking self-portraits first :).

As I said, I still don't know why I was so bothered about it. Maybe I was afraid that people judged me by looks and hence would not even try to get to know me, the person inside. Or maybe I am shallow when it comes to certain things. Or maybe I felt like I lost a part of me forever. Or maybe I was just insecure and wondering whether people who loved me would continue to love me despite this (meaning I was being an idiot :-D). Well, I have been proved wrong in many of these already and as I said sometime back, I am me no matter what happens :). Like Aamir says in Dil Chahtha hai, "Perfection cannot be improved", hehehehee :)).

On the wings of time..

I know its been a long time since my last post. Most of these days, time feels like a whirlwind, it goes so fast that I keep wondering what is happening to it. Actually thats not true, I do know how its going, but somehow get surprised every time that okay another week is over and I didn't do all that I wanted to do! I do have many thoughts to jot out and a huggggggggggge travel post coming up, but sometimes I wonder, is anyone even reading my blog? I know my family does and my close friends do, but I hardly get any comments (even if I do, I hardly respond :-p) and sometimes, only a few times mind you, I feel, why the heck am I even putting the effort? But I do know the answer to that. I write for myself, but even typing seems like a chore these days :-\. And the ramblings go on..

Forget that and lets get on with the updates that I have..

1) As I mentioned earlier, we went to California for a 5-day trip about a week back and had a pretty-wonderful-time-except-for-a-few-things :-D, so I'll be writing about it soon.

2) As for how the time goes, I am hopelessly addicted to Survivor (and Jeff Probst ;-) :-D) these days, so am watching the older seasons on a continuous marathon in the afternoons (about 15 seasons done, 5 more to go :-D). Plus have been reading up on Photography, Astronomy and Astrophotography, so lot of things going on in my head. Yeah, that reminds me, have to put up a post on each of those :-p, atleast something on photography which is still going on in full josh mode :-D (lots of experimenting and lot of success :-D) . So, my morning is gone in cooking and some days, taking Snugli to the library and my afternoons vanish in reading or Survivor ;-).

3) As for evenings, I go swimming twice a week, actually thrice including the one time we take Snugli swimming (yup, another post due). I took some lessons last November, re-learned a few things and learned a few new styles. Basically having a lot of fun :)). There is also my gardening which is going great (which means one more post), my gladioli are back and I have new Dahlia flowers coming up. I plan to plant some chrysanthemums soon, so have lots of work there. Flower photography is blooming to say the least ;-).

4) Have to mention the nights, don't I? ;-) :-D. Since about a week, have been trying to catch a glimpse of Comet McNaught (it appears only sometime pre-dawn, so got up 2 nights for that :-\). Its still not really visible to the naked eye, but I thought maybe my camera can "see" it. Well, I have been disappointed so far, but it is supposed to brighten up next week, only to fall below the horizon. Lets see if I can catch it before it falls :).

5) And then there is Snugli. She is fully into her terrible twos and believe me, they are as terrible as they can get! Since she's literally driving me up the walls (Oh God, I have so many posts!) and school doesn't start here until she's 4 years old (I think or maybe its 5), I have started to look for a daycare/pre-school for her (there are waiting lists for the damn things :-p). I don't really plan to send her for the entire day, but I need a break for atleast half-a-day, thrice a week. Right now still looking into it, hopefully something will be finalized by month end..

6) Also wanted to add that we saw Toy Story 3 yesterday and its awesome, awesome, awesome. Especially the last part about growing up and moving on brought tears to my eyes, reminding me so much of my past (our connection with our childhoods never goes away) and making me think about the future when our little ones will fly the nest :(. I think all the women were crying (I noticed atleast 2 other women, we sniffed and then grinned at each other, hehehe). Please don't miss it and if you haven't seen 1 or 2, then there is no better time than now ;-).

As you can see, things haven't been "boring" in the Deeps household :))). I really wish for the 100th time that I had a mind reader which would jot down posts for me. Is somebody listening?? Oh well, I'm here, I am writing, I am living life as I want it and thats all that counts..

BTFYA 9 - Less than ideal :).

The final post of the series :). I have to say I enjoyed doing this, though I am sad that it is ending at 9 posts (I don't like odd numbers - one of my quirks :-D). I wish I could have stretched it to one more, but don't want to write anything just for the sake of writing it :). But whatever I have written I am plenty happy with and thats whats important..

Five years ago, as a new bride, I wanted everything to be ideal. But more than everything else, I wanted myself to be ideal - the ideal wife, the ideal daughter-in-law and when the time would come, the ideal mother. I cannot speak for everyone, but I think most girls feel like this. We are always conditioned like that by our parents who are in turn pressured by the society as such. Anyways as I was saying, I wanted to follow all the rules in the non-existent book, so to say. I didn't want to be the rotten apple of the bunch :-D.

But things have a way of going in the opposite direction of how you want them to and isn't that the truth! Not that I'm the rotten apple :-D. I have always been basically a goody-two-shoes in a devil's clothing ;-). So sticking to my own "rules" wasn't the hardship I imagined it to be. But slowly I realized that the definition of "ideal" is different to different people. Though you may think that you have been ideal in doing certain things, there will always be people to contradict you and make you think otherwise. I can't really blame them, because their definition of "ideal" was most certainly something else. The more I struggled to be ideal, the more I realized that I was losing myself. Idealism is an illusion, created by a few unknown people, which only serves in making you miserable.

Moreover, it didn't matter whether I was ideal or not. It never does. People around me were never ideal (yup, according to me :-D) and the situations almost always weren't. For a relationship to work, the effort has to be from both sides, be it in any relationship. If the one side is exerting all the effort, never appreciated for the work put in, while the other side is still venting out frustrations without putting in any effort, then the relationship is doomed no matter what. My dad always says that "You try as hard as you can and don't expect the other person to do the same". For example his saying about a simple phone call is "You make a call to the elders out of respect (even if they don't call you) and you make a call to the younger ones because they don't know better" :-D. Very ideal, I know :-D. I have always tried and followed that (and its not only in the matter of phone calls), but still it gets to me sometimes that most people around me don't try as hard as I do. So how is it ideal in anyway?

For a relationship to work, both sides have to make adjustments. There has to be give and take. But as I said earlier, I felt that while making those changes, I was losing a part and later most of myself. If you are compromising everything, even your true self to make a situation ideal, then who is it ideal for? It certainly wasn't for me. I found myself over-thinking, over-emotional and upset with everything, with even myself. And I realized that sacrificing myself for the greater good is certainly not the thing for me :-D. I have made certain adjustments and they are a part of me now, but all in all, I am what I am. If you can't accept me the way I am, then there is nothing I can do about it (I cannot harm my true self for the so-called well-wishers' sake). One of the women quite close to me once said that she has adjusted and compromised everything all her life, first with her hubby and in-laws, then with her children, just to keep things moving smoothly. But I refuse to live like that. Its not that only I should have a say, but that I too should have a say in the decisions made (I hope you get what I mean). I refuse to blend into the background..

I am not having this epiphany after 5 years. This has been a day-to-day learning. But as I look back at my 5-year younger self, I find myself laughing at her, at the ideas and the ideals she had. If she had known what I know now, she could have avoided a lot of pain, suffering and anger :-D. And that my friends, is called life experience :).

Just a note to people who found this post too vague - I know its difficult to understand unless you are in my shoes. But I know many women are - compromising their true self for the betterment of the family and I hope they can relate to this..

And this post is the end to the Back-to-five-years ago series. I hope you enjoyed the series as much as I enjoyed being nostalgic :).

The house story..

Its the same old story, different characters. Today is the gruhapravesha of a new flat that my parents bought almost an year ago. Its officially Darsh's flat, unofficially bought by my parents. The house that they live in now, which I usually call my home away from home, is also their own. So its not like I am missing a first-time event. We had the gruhapravesha of the current house almost 10 years back and ofcourse I was there for that. Moreover Sri and I celebrated our flat gruhapravesha, so yes there have been more than 1 gruhapraveshas in my life :-\.

And its not like I did not have any say in the whole thing. I was the one who insisted on not having the function while I was in India. You know how stressful these affairs are and I didn't want that to affect the time my parents spent with Snugli. Plus they'd certainly be running around to get things completed and we'd hardly spend any time together. Maybe that was selfish of me. Because on the flip side, had I been there, maybe I could have helped out in some things. Maybe I could have done some running around myself and given them a break. Or maybe I am giving myself a bit too much credit.

I don't know what I feel. One moment I am happy that they are having the function and everything is going great for them. Next moment I start thinking that they have never not had me around for any of the major functions before this one. I have always been there. It certainly feels very strange not being there. I am excited for them, but also there's some amount of melancholy. I tried distracting myself with various things, but haven't really been able to forget that I'm not there (as if thats so easy)..

But enough about me. Nanna gOLu iddidde (my woes are always there :-p). Its wonderful that they are having a reason to celebrate and I wish the new house brings them more happiness and many many more reasons to celebrate. May this joyous occasion be a step forward into new opportunities, new occasions of merriment and much more love and laughter...

I still wish I could have been there though..

Sigh..

I did not know that about astronomy..

Did you know that you can take perfect photos of galaxies, nebulae and many other DSOs (Deep Space Objects) right from the earth? If you knew, kudos to you. Well, I did not.

I am a big fan of astronomical photographs. So much that "astronomy picture of the day" is my daily cup of tea. I always assumed that most of the photos of space were either from the Hubble telescope or some of the special satellites designed to take them. Well, assuming certainly made an ass outtta me :-D.

From the past couple of posts, you know that I was feeling down. I wanted to come back up and one way I thought I could do that was to immerse myself in the activities I love. I thought I would take photography classes or attend a photography workshop, but they don't have them in my town and the private lessons available in a nearby town are atrociously priced :-p. So next, I searched for an astronomy club and found one. While I was exploring through the site, I find the members' photo gallery section and thats when it hits me. Amazing photos taken by people right on earth!

The standard search on Google for more information revealed the term - Astrophotography. Suddenly it was as if the last puzzle piece clicks into place. Felt like a true calling. Felt like, hey thats what I always wanted to do, since I learnt the basics of astronomy (I gave up because of all the math, hehehee). I started reading more and more, getting more and more interested. Don't know how or when really, but I know I want to get into Astrophotography soon.

Its certainly not going to be easy. Astrophotography brings together 2 extreme things in photography and astronomy. It requires the knowledge of operating a high quality telescope (not to mention some knowledge of night sky) and a Digital SLR camera, both of which in turn take quite a bit of mastering. All these don't come very cheap either. Plus from what I have heard, its going to take years to get it right. Just pointing a camera into an eye-piece of a telescope will not get the perfect pics. So its going to be an expensive hobby if it is a hobby and I don't know whether my interest will be strong enough to go on for years and make it into some sort of a career. But right now, I am interested and I am excited.

I have decided to start off initially reading about photography, experimenting and then moving onto buying a digital SLR (which has been one of my all-time wishes). Meanwhile probably will also simultaneously explore buying a beginner's telescope (after going to a couple of meetings of the local astronomy club ofcourse) to learn and explore the possibilities. By then I should know whether I want to pursue this or not ;-). I have several good books on hold already and I can feel the impatience boiling in me ;-) :-D.

I know I am going to have lots of fun figuring it all out :). My only hope in all this is that this will make me look back on the bad phase in my life I have had for the past month fondly as a new beginning :).

Rock bottom..

"Ya know I really thought I had hit rock bottom, but today it's like there's rock bottom, then 50 feet of crap, then me." - Rachel in Friends.

Strange how some quotes just seem to suit your life so aptly. In my earlier post I wrote how I was afraid to say "it can only get better from now on", but I have to admit, I thought it. Well, I thought wrong. On the fateful day of Feb 16th, I woke up to find that I have been locked out of my Google account (looks like it was hacked into). After some miserable hours I managed to get my password reset and login to the account, only to find out that my Orkut profile was deleted! The profile cannot be recovered and I have to create a new one :(. Still, the saving grace was that my blog was still there and nothing had happened to my photos or mails. Wrong! Next morning all the posts were gone, wiped out, deleted without trace from my blog.

I was shocked to say the least. I didn't have a backup of anything (had tried to do that earlier, but hadn't gotten any proper solution). I really thought Google was the big boss of everything and they'd have multiple back-ups of everything and nothing can ever vanish without their approval. Not so apparently :-\. Didn't know what to do at all. After one complete day of grovelling on the help forums, I found something out. If you subscribe to a blog on Google Reader, it usually has if not all, most of the posts in cache`, despite the fact that you are logging into the damn thing only after your posts have been deleted. I had posts from December 2006 to February 2010, but I started the blog in March 2005, so there were a lot of posts missing.

After about 5 days of to and fro on the forums (here's the discussion), there still wasn't any concrete solution. I was told that if I could produce the URLs of all the posts, they'd try and restore them. What the heck! I had about 300 posts then, how am I supposed to get all the URLs of those? I got around 200 URLs on the Google reader. I didn't know what to do about the rest. I remembered some of the missing posts, but didn't really remember the titles of the posts (blogger names the URL on the title). Tried searching in Google blogs, didn't work. After various permutations and combination, finally figured out a solution. If you search the blog name and say a month and a year, the search result usually shows the archived page of the month. If you click the "cached" version, then you get the old post. And so after searching for every single month and spending the entire day on the computer I finally had all the URLs of all the posts (you can see the entire list in the discussion above). Phew!

Again a week went by without a word. You cannot fathom the frustration that I went through. Yesterday they finally said they had restored all the posts as drafts and I had to publish them all to get the blog functioning as it was (one URL was wrong, so there's still that to be worked out). They still haven't told me how or why it happened and I'm totally clueless. Atleast its a learning, have the XML backup and am planning to have a backup blog on some other site. That'll be my birthday gift to my blog this year.

Coming to my wounds, I'm fine. Stitches have been taken out and also the surgical strip that was put in as a replacement. There is a 1.5 inch gash on my forehead and a 0.25 inch one on my lip but they are very much on the mend. Right now I'm sporting the healing Frankenstein monster look (which is wayyyyyyy more hipppppp than the Rohini Hattangadi look ;-) :-D), so even though I feel awkward going out anywhere, thats alright to some extent.

So all's well right? Beep wrong again! You know that last year my MBA plans got cancelled (to put it mildly)? I had transferred the application to this year and had hoped to get some financial assistance. Yesterday I got a mail from the coordinator telling me that times are tough and financial resources are limited, hence they'll not be able to give any financial aid to me. I somehow expected that (usually business schools don't really dole out dough), yet felt crushed. It feels like I'm down and being kicked again and again. I'm so sick and tired of being treated this way! And I know tomorrow the situation can be worse.

So bring it on God! I'll take it like a woman - I'll be depressed, I'll cry, then I'll show you my middle finger and I'll get over it!

7 stitches in time..

3 days ago, if you had asked me when I have fainted in my life, you would have heard an emphatic "never" as an answer. Sigh, things have to change, right? My first faint happened on 10th Feb night at around 7:30 PM and how!

You know I was ill. Sri kept insisting on going to the doctor, but I had somehow put it off thinking that things will get better the next day. Moreover the plain fact was that I just was too sick of even thinking of getting up and getting out in the cold weather. Well, things weren't looking better at all, so on that fateful Wednesday evening, we headed to an Urgent Treatment center nearby to get me checked up. The checking in stuff was a bit slow for an "urgent" treatment center, but somehow got through that and soon was in the examination room. Since I was a bit weak and my brain wasn't running to its optimum speed, I had asked Sri to be with me when the doctor asked me questions, so in turn even Snugli was there for the incident. I told the doctor about the tablets I was taking and that I wasn't able to eat at all - as soon as I took a few bites I would feel full and nauseous.

They found that my blood pressure was a bit low and said that I was dehydrated. The doctor said that they would give me an injection for the nausea and hence I should atleast be able to eat/drink a little bit better. The nurse came in with the injection and here the story has to be split to give different perspectives :-p.

Deepthi's story:

The nurse told me that there would be a burning sensation when the shot would be given, so I expected that. But not the immediate reeling of my head. Suddenly I was in this calm place with some nice music playing - like this nice dream that people are trying to wake you up from and you don't want to get up. When I did come to, there was something cold being pressed to my forehead and my forehead as well as upper lip were paining like crazy. For a few moments I didn't even realize that I was lying on the ground, I was sitting on the examination chair when I was given the shot and hence thought that I was lying on that.

Sri's/the nurse's story:

The nurse gave the shot, put a bandage on (I don't remember getting the band-aid either) and turned to throw the injection to the dustbin. The next thing they know, I was falling to the floor directly on my face (make that forehead and upper lip, I don't know how my nose escaped hitting the ground) and there was nothing anybody could do about it. They still don't know whether I hit my forehead on the floor or a chair leg, but immediately the doctor was called and they turned me over to my back. I had blood flowing from my forehead and upper lip and obviously bad cuts both places and they started putting cold compresses for both.

Well, fun times eh? They got me up to the examination chair where the doctor determined that the cut on the forehead was deep and she didn't know whether she could stitch it up without scarring it up. Plus she wanted a CAT scan done so we had to go to the emergency room (ER) of a hospital for that. By this time, my brain was back to its optimum function and I said that I would get the stitches as well as the scan at the hospital (well, there is this old story, where I got stitches from a general physician and there's a blatant scar on my leg to this day and I certainly didn't want a repeat of that on my forehead with this general physician :-p. The story I'll talk about some other time). And so we got checked out and Sri took me to yet another hospital which we hadn't yet explored here in Lexington and after initial formalities, they soon got me on a bed and answering questions.

They did a pregnancy test since there would be lots of radiation in the CAT scan and then the scan itself on the head and the neck (cannot believe I am learning the full form of CAT - Computerized Axial Tomography, today!). Meanwhile Sri took Snugli to one of his colleague's house for dinner. By the time he got back, the CAT results were up - thankfully everything was okay with my head and neck and the surgeon was about to stitch up my forehead. One thing I like about doctors here, they tell you everything :-D. Its like a constant commentary on whats going on. He told me how he's using small sutures so that the scar would not be prominent and that my upper lip cut would not require any. And so I got 7 stitches on my forehead and a glue to support my upper lip. I'm supposed to go back for stitch removal after another 2 days. The surgeon kept saying how he was sorry that I was having a bad day and I remember thinking "you don't know the half of it" :-D.

So you can see, all has been well with my household the previous few days :-p. Its still not the end of the story, but an ongoing saga, so I can't say these are the learnings from the thing or whatever, but sort of ongoing observations:

1) I managed to successfully scar another person for life. Darsh keeps teasing me that he was scarred for life when he saw the gory sight of some white stuff and blood in my chipped off leg (in the incident mentioned above) and now its the turn of Snugli. The poor thing was a witness to the entire fall and the gory sight of the gaping hole in my head and was saying "Amma Amma" when I came to. Maybe she and Darsh can compare stories and notes later on how they were impacted, hehehehe :-D. Seriously speaking, I don't think she even remembers it now :-).

2) No matter how bad a situation is, I have realized that it can never get to my sense of humour :-D. We went to the second hospital and the surgeon actually asked me "Do you know where you are?" and I laughed out loud. Despite the pain, the trauma, the everything!! I was reminded of the very filmy "Mein kaun huun?", "Mein kahaan huun?" etc, hehehee.

3) I never knew what fainting was about. Now that I know, it feels strange to miss out on a few seconds of your own life (a few seconds was all it took) and to rely on others to find out what happened to you. I had this classmate who'd faint all the time and I remember scorning at her for being so weak. Now I can sympathize more and understand the helplessness of it all.

4) Whenever something bad happens, we think why? I find myself wondering what I did to deserve this. I keep replaying incidents from my India trip and thinking that maybe I behaved badly with people and this is the reward. Yeah, thats the depression speaking. But then no matter how I behaved, this is me. This is the person I am. This is what you get. This is not an epiphany. I'm not going to become a saint/sorceror just because this happened. And so I convince myself that this has nothing to do with what I did in the past. Heck, God has better things to do, right? But then I regress and get right back to it :(.

5) Another reality check has been about looks. I always thought I wasn't too obsessed with my looks (I am a little bit obsessed, but who isn't?), but this incident has sorta brought me down to earth. Right now, I have a hugggge gash on my upper forehead and the entire forehead area is swollen. Plus a scar on my upper lip + entire upper lip swollen. I look like a version of Rohini Hattangadi in that weird makeup applied by Sridevi in the movie Chaalbaaz, hehehee (here's the scene on youtube). Yup, I have a sense of humour about it, but my self esteem has taken a beating. I keep looking at Sri's eyes to find out whether he looks at me differently. Pathetic, I know. He doesn't, but the doubts don't stop. Atleast with Snugli I know for sure, the child doesn't know the meaning of pretense yet. I wonder whether I'll ever look like myself again. Or is this the new me? :(((. I am even afraid to say "it can only get better from now on", thats what I thought before I went to the treatment center :(.

I am grateful, believe me, that I didn't hurt my eyes or nose or teeth or fracture the skull. I'm only upset that this has overshadowed the good times I had in the India trip and the stuff I had planned for this month. But I'll survive :).

Anyhow, they say a stitch in time saves nine, so 7 stitches in time? Saved me from looking like a cyborg with a large hole on its forehead :-D. Although, that would have been really cool in an alternate world :-D.