Please Read it here at Jyothi’s Musings. 
Category Archives: MUSINGS
My thoughts on Stuff!
Born Crying
Please read it here at Jyothi’s Musings.
My Latest Posts
1. Jyothi’s Musings : Love is.. and Idli Addcition
2. Jyothi’s Gallery : Skywatch Friday 4 and Thursday Challenge 2
3. Jyothi’s Recipes : Dosas
My Latest Posts
1. From Jyothi’s Gallery : Istanbul
2. From Jyothi’s Musings : Son Of Sardhaar
3. From Jyothi’s Recipes : Aviyal
I have shifted…
I know what you are all thinking! NOT AGAIN! He he..
Sorry dears, but what can I do, this is me. And I like change. But at least the person that is me doesn’t change. That has to count for something. I have always remained the person I was and am.
So if you are still interested in reading me or about me. Kindly do visit my three blogs listed below. You can follow anyone you like or follow all of them(please do) if you love me.
1. Here’s My say – Jyothi’s Musings
2. What My Camera Captures – Jyothi’s Gallery
3. Simple Yet Tasty – Jyothi’s Recipes
How much more selfish and self oriented can I get eh? Nope. This is it. No more.
Happy New Year
New Year Demands a New look! Don’t you think so?
As usual I have failed to keep a promise. Or let us call it a Resolution. I was to stay offline till April 2013. Didn’t happen! Surprise! Surprise!
Just like the year, I too have changed a bit. I am thinking (Yes, I do that sometimes) that it is for the better. And to tell you the truth when I left blogging since Dec 24th, I was totally blank in terms of topics to write. And all in all I had a very negative approach to everything.
In my life negativity and postivity phases have always alternated. Now I plan to be positive for a long long time this time. Only positive, happy posts and inspirations.
Just like the look of the blog, I intend to change its type of content too. Going to try and maintain a standard for my posts so that you all will come back to read me At your own free will, rather than through my updates ( read constant nudging) through FB and Twitter. Yes, I am turning a new leaf.
As I sat down beside my son (who is doing his prelims now) while he was preparing for his board exams in April, I realised what I have been missing all these years, staying away from his studies and school work. Even now I am just here to give him a moral support and am not actively involved in his studies. He just needed a bit of organising. I helped him with that.
While I sat there beside him playing games on my smartphone and tablet, a whole lot of blogging ideas popped into my head. The fool that I am , I forgot to note them down. But then I realised that all is not lost. I still have some ideas for writing in me. I am hoping I can bid farewell to blogger ‘s block for a long long long time now.
With the recent happenings around the world and especially in India, the mood and the spirit had died. But life has to go on. No matter what, no matter how. And these what and how are what my posts will now comprise of. I am promising a post every Monday morning, if God Permits. Yes, I am planning to organise my blogging schedule and my blog reading schedule too. I am working on something that will help me access all my fav blogs at one place. Once that is done, I shall be a regular on your blogs. This I promise.
Wish me luck, as I start fresh again. I mean, kind of.
Here’s wishing all my lovely friends A Very Happy New Year.
I am sure this smile is here to stay. And I hope you are smiling too.:)
An Update :)
I haven’t blogged since Diwali. In fact I have barely read blogs since Diwali. This has been an amazing few weeks of my life. Not because I was away from blogging. I missed it miserably, but because of other things that kept me totally busy for a change.
I spent the first week planning a holiday in Istanbul with the hubby and kids. It was my Birthday gift. So how could I say NO, save the money.
Then my post got posted on Parentous. It is the first time I have posted outside my own space, and I think that went quite well. [Psst.... Please do go and comment there 
]
Then there was this sudden trip to Muscat that I enjoyed immensely. You can read about my experience here.
My son fell ill after that for two days and it looked like we might need to cancel our travel plans. But then he got better quickly and we left for Istanbul to celebrate the UAE National Day Holidays there.
The post and photos on Istanbul will follow soon. I have been down with a throat infection ever since I got back. Today I feel a lot better and I actually sat down to write two posts at a go.
Since I can update my FB Photography Page from my phone, that was going on smoothly. Please do visit my page and click on “Like” to get updates from there. You can find the link on the right sidebar too. I am in love with that page and it is getting my full attention these days.
Hopefully, I should start reading and commenting on blogs soon. I am still on medications, so please forgive the slow pace.
And Oh yeah, I celebrated my 39th birthday on the 5th of December. I am year older now, and I am sure none the wiser. But then again, age has nothing to do with immaturity. I am like this only.
The cake was the best I ever had till date. I heated it up the next day because my sore throat couldn’t take in cold things. It was thaaaat good!
A Diwali in Abu Dhabi
With exams still going on, the children were made to study for a while in the hotel room yesterday. The hubby is in Abu Dhabi this whole week. He wanted to spend Diwali with us. So I drove down there yesterday afternoon.
Before settling down for the night, the kids were reading their books. I am not using the word “studying” purposely. I know my kids too well. The ambience was absolutely wrong for studies! I overhead this conversation between the kids.
Daughter (D) : Why are you not reading?
Son (S) : You keep quiet!
D : Amma, he is not concentrating!
Me : Hmmm.. Ok.. ( busy uploading pics from Mobile)
D to S : Why are you looking at the paintings??
S : I am admiring the pictures framed here. Buzz off!
D : Why are you wasting time looking at these paintings? Amma’s photographs are so much better! Study Now!
My neck suddenly raised from it is constant position of looking at the mobile to staring at my Daughter in admiration. She not only learnt how to nag like me, she , she actually appreciated my photography!
I did a little joy dance in my mind and went back to the pictures on my mobile……
Safety First
My daughter ,the other day, was ordering some items from the grocery nearby over the phone. The same order, if my son or I had given would have ended in less than three minutes. She took more than five minutes. That too after I asked her to disconnect the line. She was being nice on the phone. She spoke very sweetly to the person and was trying to make the guy understand what a “Strawberry Flavoured Yoghurt” is. That was fine. She was giggling too during the process. This somehow rang alarm bells in me. She was then being asked the particulars of the curd and other items that needed to be ordered. Which generally never happens on certain items , because they are a small shop and have only limited varieties and brands. I asked her to end the conversation as soon as possible.
This is something typical what my mom would have asked me to do. She was always highly cautious of who I spoke to and how I spoke to the person. She was my moral and behavioural watchdog. Though I resented it at the point, I now realise how important those teachings have been. Being naive and thus being nice to everyone is an inborn faulty trait. Sadly my daughter has got it from me. These kind of people trust everyone blindly. They are highly immature in their ways. And hence are the ones who end up getting hurt the most. If it was just an emotional hurt, that is bearable. Not acceptable, but bearable. The breaking of trust can leave a scar. But when that very same breaking of trust ends up violating someone physically, it ends up being a crime.
In many ways I was restricting my daughter’s freedom to do and say as she desires. Being a feminist I would want her to talk in whatever way she choses to and to whoever she wants to. But I just couldn’t. Does that make me a hypocrite?
Being nice gets you friends in the long run. Being cautious of people rarely helps in that account. It takes ages for someone like me to trust someone first. Friendship and everything else comes a long way down the line. I am in a dilemma whenever parenting issues come up these days. Am I so proud of what I have become to make my daughter follow the same cautious path that I took? Or do I let her be more open and trusting to people. I am not just referring to men here. Girls can deliberately land you in trouble too.
I can stay back and not be a helicopter mom if all that would come out of that was a failed test or unattended extra curricular. But should I back out from protecting her or teaching her how to protect herself emotionally and physically?
Everyone says if you have one of each kind, a son and a daughter, your family is COMPLETE. I think it is time this is rephrased. The mother of such a family is FINISHED! This situation is the worst to be in. I want to be a feminist when I teach my son how to respect women and to treat them as equals. On the other hand I am restricting my daughter from doing certain things. No, I don’t make any differences in the way the two are brought up. They enjoy the same rights to attend parties, movies , sleepovers and trips. But they have to be taught a different set of rules when it comes to safety.
Where does a parent draw the line between his/her own views on feminism or right to equality and the safety of his/her child?
Love in test doses…
Our class was made up of all kinds. From the studious nerds to the totally crazy b****s. Yes, it was indeed a girls only class. We didn’t have the luxury of making friends with boys even though there were plenty in our school. Ours was not a co-ed, the school worked on shifts. Morning, the school was occupied by the girls and in the afternoon by the boys.
There was a very brief period of time daily, during which these two shifts crossed each other’s path. Or for the lack of a better word, coincided. In the premises there were clear imaginary markings as to the areas were the boys were allowed to gather before the long bell rang and the girls walked out of their classes. Come to think of it, you can compare it to the theatres. Where people await for the previous show to end and their show to begin. The only difference being, in the latter case, the movie hall gets cleaned and prepped up for the next show. But in school, the boys didn’t have that luxury. They had to make do with the mess that we girls left in the classrooms. But then again, imagine if it was the other way around!
Many a love story has bloomed from those classrooms. Even the strict prefects and teachers who become human guards between the two species every single day, couldn’t prevent love from blossoming in young hearts. I am using the term love here, cause in those days we were naive enough to believe that it was love.
Our classrooms had separate metal with wooden top desks with matching chairs for each child. The desks had an area under it which was a temporary storage space for us to use when in class. These had to be emptied before leaving class, lest you forget your precious pencil box or lunch box or God forbid books. Boys almost never handed them over to lost and found. This was also the best way to exchange love notes. And yes, the boys and the girls somehow managed to get the right note to the right class and hence to the right person. It was somewhat like the dabba walas in Mumbai. Precision and on time delivery guaranteed.
Then there were parties outside of school where the two species met. Dandhia nights, common family friend homes and I have heard there were teens only party nights too. Not all were lucky enough to get permissions to attend these. The communication channels were not entirely closed. Even though mobiles hadn’t come in then, telephones were useful in this scenario too, especially if both parents were working. In those days caller id was an unknown thing. Those were the days of crank calls and obscene remarks from total strangers. And no one bothered to register complains for such seemingly harmless flirtations. Of course, misuse happens and then brilliant people come up with caller id to identify the perverts. So yeah, telephones were pretty useful too.
Like everyday, school buses stop every 5 minutes in front of our building. Today, I was taken back to those days of my life. School days, however stressful they may seem, always end up being memorable. Friends, foes, lovers, fights, makeups and breakups. School does teach us so much. But sadly, we really understand and respect these long after we have left the school premises.
So, what are your school memories.
