Gratitude

A couple of years ago, I started doing a gratitude challenge on Instagram. In addition to helping me focus on the good parts of each day, when I analysed what I had been grateful for over the month, there were some surprising results.

This year, I decided to do it again. This time, I must admit, I didn’t reflect on my day as much. Because the challenge overlapped with my India holiday, I lost track. I also tended to focus on the prompt and to take pictures to reflect the prompt, because it’s not necessary to stick to the order of the prompts. I think the whole thing was more haphazard this year, but also one thing was evident to me.

I am most grateful for my children. They are a huge source of happiness in my life. Their presence, the charming things they say, the way they enable me to see the world with fresh eyes and push me out of my comfort zone, getting me to do stuff I end up enjoying but that I would otherwise not have tried or been too lazy to actually do.

As a person who was never into kids, this is a huge and unexpected change in my personality and life. It is why I encourage people to have at least one kid, one’s situation allowing for this of course. By this, I don’t mean that I go about evangelizing the need for people to have children, but if someone who is ambivalent asks my opinion on the subject, my answer is usually positive. I agree that I am fortunate to have great help in raising my children, but had that not been the case, I would still advocate having one child, again if one’s general life situation allows for it.

I am sure there are people out there that regret their decision to have kids, and that these narratives need to be told and heard too.

In my case, though, despite the stresses that children put on my body, my finances, my marriage, my lifestyle, my emotional and mental wellbeing, overall, when I do a cost-benefit analysis, the sheer joy, breath of learning and general fun they bring to my life trumps the negatives.

PS: The second thing that I seem most grateful for is my job, the opportunity to do the PhD. The third is probably living in Hong Kong. This is just my overall impression.

Self

It’s almost the end of the year and it’s time for me to reflect, on the year that was and also on myself.

It has been a hard year, with soaring angst and despair. It has also been the year in which I reverted to type more than ever. To being strong and independent and detached and self-sufficient. To being the kind of person who can envisage being alone.

I disagree with the quote, though it made me think. We are all always escaping. It’s inevitable. Nevertheless, I am definitely less dependent on anyone else for company than ever before. Maybe it takes your time being completely crowded with people – even little ones – to make you embrace solitude. Ironically, when I have more ties that bind than ever, I found it in me to face my fear of having none. Or the fear of losing one. And I realised, I will survive. Or not. But there’s no point living in fear of an eventuality.

My children are the closest to my heart. Nothing brings me greater pleasure than just being with them, watching them, thinking about them, cuddling them. I am the cliché mother. During this 30-day Gratitude Photo Challenge I realised that I could have written every single post about my kids. But I pushed myself to think beyond them, partly because I know mothers talking about their kids endlessly can be boring but also because there must be other things that I am grateful for, and there were.

I also realised how privileged I am, how I have the best of all worlds. Being able to pursue a PhD after having had two small children is not a choice available to everyone. I still don’t know if I will be accepted and it will all work out for me to study, but the opportunity to really think about what I am passionate about and organise my thoughts into a proposal is something I will not regret. While I was going crazy with the application, so many people stepped up to help me and I realised that there are people out there that care about me and value what I have to offer.

I am more confident than I have ever been. I am secure in the knowledge that I don’t need to live up to anyone else’s expectations of me because my own standards are good enough.

I am more at peace with my body than I have ever been. I have finally embraced the beauty of the unconventional. My second pregnancy liberated me from the tyranny of trying to be thin, and now I couldn’t care less. Part of this is having no need or desire to attract a mate. I pay attention to my appearance at my own whim only.

This was also the year that I really understood the issues around society’s attitude to fat and truly shed my own inhibitions about other people’s bodies. I will not pretend to be fat, though I have some experience with how fat people are treated because of where I live. But I can empathise with and analyse the issues around fat in a way I never could before because I myself had not shed my own prejudice before.

I have come full circle on my thoughts on marriage. There will be posts on that later.

I have realised that my body is the final frontier. I will not have sex if I don’t want to. And good sex for me is closely intertwined with emotion.

I have realised that if all the world’s a stage, maybe it’s okay to self-consciously self-curate. I will still find obvious self-fashioning to a theme icky, but sometimes you just need to pretend to be the person you want to be. Luckily, I don’t have to pretend too much. A post on that later as well.

At the tail end of the year, I feel better. Not lighter but more steady. I won’t kid myself that the turbulence has passed or ever will. But I know that I am strogannof.

Movement

I never did learn how to waltz. People in my parents’ generation can execute a fairly elegant three-step, but all I ever mastered was fusing my body to another person’s and swaying somewhat to the beat.

Growing up, the waltz was something our parents did at weddings, with partners changing fairly innocuously; we managed ‘slow dancing’ in darkened rooms where there would be drama surrounding who danced with whom.

In its day, the waltz was revolutionary. Oh, the scandal of two people holding each other close, so close that only a sliver prevented them from kissing. The waltz was a hug in motion, one generation’s version of dirty dancing.

When learning to play the piano, The Blue Danube (along with the ubiquitous Fur Elise) was something we aspired to. This piece of music is so popular, it’s almost kitsch. But the full version with its constrasting tempos and soaring crescendos still does something for me. The Blue Danube may have been a previous generation’s version of pop (not when it was originally played, though) but it still does something for me.

I listen to Western classical music using this app. It has a great range of pieces covering many popular favourites. It’s one of the few (only?) app I ever paid for, and I use it every day, some pieces listened to more than others.

Sky

I don’t have much to say about the sky, though I do love it when it’s blue and festooned with those cotton-wool clouds.

However, the sky today is not blue but grey. And the weather today is not crisp but cold. Numbingly cold. Okay 10 degrees, but with a wind that takes your breath away (not in a good way) and rain, so that when the wind whips into you, you’re already damp and shivery.

Thank god that my new boots are supposedly waterproof. And thank god that I don’t live in those sub-zero-weather places. I would not survive. And I think of homeless people in extreme weather conditions and I shudder with sadness.

Creativity

Since I entered the hallowed halls of adulthood, I have found that I do very little with my hands. Cooking seems to be one way adults actually engaging in the fulfilling art of making something physical, but I don’t cook because I find it stressful and the results unsatisfactory. And I’m not good at household repairs either.

Enter the kids. There’s no reason why adults can’t colour, play on swings, listen to nursery rhymes, etc. but most of us don’t. Kids give us the excuse to, or at least remind us that these are fun activities too.

Since Benji started kindergarten, I’ve had to step up in the craft department. I moaned and groaned about it but the fact is that making things is fun. In fact, sometimes I need reminding that it’s not my project but Benji’s though from the results, it could well pass of as the work of a three-year-old entirely.

And I find that I enjoy it. I enjoy making a snowman out of paper doilies. I enjoy pasting sequins onto a tree. I enjoy “colournoon”. For the simple pleasures of cutting pieces of coloured paper and sticking them into a shape, I am grateful.

 

Routine

1. Wake up between 6.30 am and 7 am to noise from the children
2. Check my phone for a couple of minutes. Terrible, I know, but I am a grumpy riser (8 am would be a good starting time for me) and this helps me transition into morning.
3. Stagger out of bedroom and avail myself of tea to wake up.
4. Play with whichever kid is awake while eating breakfast.
5. I am to hit the shower by 7.50 am, but I’m normally late due to whining from Benji who finally faces the fact that he has to get ready for school, which he still dislikes.
6. Aim to leave the house by 8.20 am, but usually late
7. Take the MTR to work, reading for about half an hour.
8. Plug in earphones and walk 10 minutes from the MTR to the office.
9. Check email (both office and personal) and all manner of websites before getting down to work.
10. Walk to a nearby mall for lunch. Normally alone, so read while eating, which suits me just fine.
11. Leave work at 6 pm and repeat the morning’s routine backward
12. Get home at 7 pm, eat dinner. The kids normally arrive from playing downstairs 10 minutes after I arrive.
13. Watch the news at 7.30 while feeding or playing with the kids
14. Start reading to the kids around 8.30 pm. Now Mimi is part of the routine too, though she has an annoying habit of changing her mind about which book halfway through and the books she likes, Benji has sort of outgrown.
15. Kids head to bed around 9 pm. V and I veg out on the couch for 10 minutes and head to bed ourselves.
16. 10 pm: Crash out

Lately, I’ve been feeling that I am too tired and don’t get enough time with the kids. If I actually get into a PhD programme, I hope to have a little more flexibility to do that, though I know it’s going to be hard work yada yada. Nevertheless, my routine is better than many others’. There is a striking lack of chores involved, which is a huge luxury. So I’m grateful for that.

Comfort

Misfit dug up and linked to an old post called Favourite Things. I went through it and realised some of my favourite things have changed. For this post, I thought I’d write about my comfort routine, the things I do when I’m feeling low to make me feel better, some of which overlaps with my favourite things.

1. Curling up on the couch with blanket and cushions
2. Chick flick on the video (I have a CD collection of these, some unusable as the kids use them as toys).
3. Chick lit or Vogue magazine (staples to be reread include Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bergdof Blondes, The Zoya Factor, etc)
4. Packet of chips, preferably Hot Chips from Bangalore, or the salty chips from Hearsch Bakery in Bandra or the long spicy banana chips from Mangalore Stores in Bandra. Failing that any spicy chips. I can inhale these so they should not be in the house except during emergencies.
5. Chocolate
6. Chicken noodles/soup noodles, with a dash of chilli oil (for days when I have my period)
7. Face pack (because my face is like an oil well after the chips and sugar)

Other comfort foods: pizza, idlis from Udipi restaurants, chicken 65 (note none are homecooked .)

Optional comfort items: ciggies, whiskey (in that order)

Updated favourite things (in no apparent order except for the first and second one):
1) Cocker spaniels, especially Zo
2) V in a suit, looking like an overgrown six-year-old who knows he’s hot.
3) Bubble baths (The availability of a bathtub at home has made this one not so exciting)
4) Lemon ice tea
5) Dark Milk chocolate
6) Chocolate mint icecream
7) The spa thing – Facials, pedicures, massages (manicures are overrated though)
8) America’s Next Top Model/ Project RunwayThe Apprentice (I have to be obsessed with one TV serial and right now it’s this)
9) Chick Lit and slutty fiction from the early 90s (80s?) such as Judith Krantz and Jilly Cooper
10) My Blankie (which is still in Bombay for some reason)
11) Vogue magazine
12) Filter coffee (unavailable in Hong Kong, best available in Kamats)
13) 80s music
14) Crisp autumn days in the park with the kids Rainy days when you’re indoors on the couch with a 1) 2) 5) and 9) – sadly unachievable because 1) is in Bombay and 2) in Hong Kong
15) Bright red polish on my toes
16) Hot chips
17) Pizza
18) Libraries
19) Art museums
20) Classical music concerts

Family

This pin initially made me chortle. But I don’t believe it’s true for me at least.

There are a lot of times when being caught in the web of extended family can be trying. For example, I mentioned to someone whose wife went back to India to give birth that I was happy to give birth in Hong Kong and escape the brouhaha of extended family.

But Christmas and Easter (though I have let go of Easter now) are when I miss being around the big fat Indian family. I’ve realised that there’s certain phase, adolescence, when family gatherings are seen as a chore and an embarrassment that one seeks to avoid, and generally by one’s late 20s, one begins to cherish these events, even the conversation with aunts who talk to you like you’re still five. Hell, I crave those conversations these days, and if my aunties and uncles would slip me and envelope with money in it, I would die of happiness.

Moreover, there is the food. Women – because it was rarely the men, though in my husband’s family his dad does deign to cook a couple of signature dishes – in that generation put out a spread that people in ours my immediate circle of friends don’t seem capable of doing at one go. I have a feeling that by my generation sorpatel is going to go extinct because while my older cousin’s wives  (who are not Goan) have mastered the art (I think, hope), no one in the agegroup of my sister and below seem to be keen on learning how to chop liver, pork fat and concoct the heady and spicy mix that is sorpatel. Sannas of course would be ordered from this one lady only because no one else’s would do (fortunately she has passed on the secret to her daughter-in-law who was willing to learn).

Now compare that to how I will actually spend Christmas. If we can drum up the energy, we will go to church. I guess our helpers will guilt trip us into it. We have decided to let them both have the day off to celebrate with friends, which means it’s just the four of us. I tentatively raised the idea of going to brunch with V but he vetoed it on the grounds that with a 1:1 adult-child ratio there is no point as will have to speed-eat to keep up with the kids. Might as well stay at home. Which is not as depressing as it sounds because we do have fun just us and the husband will probably cook something delicious.

A friend just called as she’s at the loose end, and I told her as much. My message was – if you really can’t find other plans, then we’ll exercise ourselves to do something with you in the day, if not, let’s just meet in the evening. It doesn’t help that Christmas is mid-week and so Christmas Eve is effectively ruined because who wants to rush anywhere after work.

Okay, this post was supposed to be about family, but Christmas is family and on this one day, I miss them, warts and all.

Taste

So, I was going to write about how my taste has changed since I moved here, since I must, need to, eat Chinese food as much as I need to eat Indian food. And how I insist on eating lunch out every day because I need the endorphins that tasty food, if somewhat unhealthy, brings. And how yesterday I couldn’t fit into the pants I bought to replace the pants I couldn’t fit into.

Then, someone told me that she discovered her helper was skipping lunch every day because she just didn’t have enough money to buy food and support her schoolgoing daughter. Measures were taken to support the helper, but I thought of all the time she had been soldiering on, doing physical work, feeling faint.

I read this yesterday, and one line made me red: “Besides, there would be the additional load of the full implementation of social programmes like food security. How will a new government handle this? Will it have the courage to prune or jettison some of these revenue-guzzling welfare programmes, and risk eternal damnation by voters?”

Risk eternal damnation by voters, or starving people? Because there are people starving in our country, there are malnourished children, there are women having multiple miscarriages for lack of a simple iron tablet. If we can’t even keep people from starving, then what? The food security law will force us to live up to a moral principle that we should not be living alongside starving people, the people who grow food, the farmers, should not be starving. There are problems with the implementation, with the Act itself, we may fail, but it should be the most basic thing we try to do.

So, I’m grateful for food. For being able to feed my children. I am grateful that I was privileged to be born under stars that made it possible for food to be on my plate every day and I recognise that this is less to do with my efforts, my calibre, the much extolled merit the middle class is so hung up on, than sheer damn luck. That’s it.

Kindness

Yesterday, I was eating lunch in a restaurant alone and reading, and I did what I had been pretty sure I would do one day given that the glasses of soy milk are put in these fancy glass holders – I spilled the soy milk. On the table and my book, but thankfully not myself.

I am so used to being a klutz that I very calmly dripped the liquid off my book, reached in my bag for tissues, which I discovered were not there, and then used the one wet wipe on my table to wipe up as best I could. Either the waiters were busy or did not see me, but no one came to my aid and my table was a sloppy wet mess.

Then, the guy at the next table who was also alone, put his hand up and told a waitress in Chinese to help me. I was pleasantly surprised and mouthed a grateful thank you.

And yesterday I also saw this:

These people are heroes, modest as they might be, who showed immense courage during terrible times but the gossamer thread that connects them to the man at the table next to me who raised his hands is kindness. They noticed something going on with the people around them and just the plain niceness in them meant they could not stay silent and do nothing.

Maybe if we all practise kindness, one day courage will come to us.