The 3 Cs

Cleaning, Clearing, Cooking

It would be no exageration to say that the last few days have been crazy for me. I have been cleaning, clearing, cooking, hosting a party, and cleaning, clearing all over again.I do have loads of left overs to not have to worry about cooking though

It was daughter’s birthday last week, and I decided to do a small get-together, with our close friends, at home. And also ambitiously decided to cook. Of course, better sense prevailed, Or rather husband prevailed. He refused to even let me think about it. He knows me. So I settled on cooking a few things and ordering the rest – just to make me feel less guilty about not cooking entirely. You see, I have some friends who cook for massive parties, and I feel so inadequate. Husband, of course, believes that we should outsource everything that is not our core competency, and we should enjoy the day rather than go crazy cooking. Which I agree with, most of the time.

Thank goodness, he drilled some sense into me. Even with the little that I had to do, I was running around like a headless chicken. Shopping for everything we would need, cleaning, taking the opportunity to clear out clothes and toys that we needed to give away. Which just made it crazy, because I just ended up doing things which I could have easily done another time. The only way I could pull it off, was by staying away from the laptop. I allowed myself the phone(but of course ).

To cut a long story short, in the few days that I cut off myself from the laptop, my efficiency doubled. My cupboards are lighter, my carpets are cleaner, I wish I could say that I was lighter as well, but after a party, that would be a small miracle It won’t take too long for my carpets to go back to their earlier state, but I seriously plan to keep my cupboards light. I’m going to have a tough enough time trying to pack things into boxes without adding to it by shopping some more.

Now, with the party and the mess out of the way, I’ve got to get ready to go to Venice We are off to Venice next weekend! And I suspect that I will have to go on another blog sabbatical to get everything ready to go.

So I’ll get back next week and comment, reply to comments, read, etc, etc, etc I’ll try to sneak in when I can, but I might be better off staying away from the laptop. Oh, and please do wish for us that we get good weather this time! AND by good weather I mean, HOT weather!

PS: Leaving you with a picture of one of the things that I made, and luckily, turned out to be a huge hit especially lucky, because it was a first time experiment

Wordless Wednesday 30

Never a Hero to Me by Tracy Black

Tracy Black is the pseudonym for the author who writes about her childhood of abuse. Tracy was just 5 years old when her mother got hospitalized and her father uses the opportunity to abuse her.

She was told to be the ‘woman of the house’ because her mother was not around. She is made to do the housework, and subjected to sexual abuse by her father. Hers was a dysfunctional family, with no real affection between her mother and father. Her mother seemed unconnected with her daughter, while she was extremely protective towards her older son. Whatever Tracy did was wrong in her mother’s eyes. Approaching her mother with what her father was doing to her was out of question.

She remarks how even her teachers did not pick up on the clues. Her father used to make her do all the house work – including washing and dying clothes. More often than not, she turned up in school in smelly clothes, but none of her teachers raised any concern, especially as her condition did improve when her mother was around and she was always well-turned out until her mother got hospitalized.

Her father was in the British army, and they relocated quite a few times. None of the moves made any real difference to Tracy’s life, with her father abusing her, whenever he got a chance. From the age of 5 till she was twelve, abuse carried on. Her father used to call her a ‘prostitute’. She recounts how once her teacher was talking about ‘Protestants’, and she got up and told her proudly that she knew what that was, ‘I am one, My father calls me a prostitute’. Sadly, even this went unnoticed.

As she grew older, she resorted to bad behaviour outside home in an effort to get attention. At one point she told a social worker, who refused to believe her. By this time, her father had started ‘loaning’ to his other paedophile friends by sending her to baby sit their children. She even gets abused by her own brother.

Finally one Commanding Officer listened to her, believed her, and helped her get away from the hell that was her home. She gets sent to a boarding school that the army paid for her.

The author says

I know I’m not the only child who suffered these horrors, but if in writing this I can reach out to even one person and that them what I’ve learned, it will be worth it. It is never the child’s fault. There is nothing you can do that makes abuse something that you deserve.

She goes on to say, ‘ Some people complain that books like these are distasteful. I think raping children is distasteful.’ Can’t really dispute that, can we? The book is written in a very straightforward manner, without overly graphic descriptions, while ensuring that her confusion and pain comes through. A little girl forced to do things which she has no way of understanding, being told that the only way her mum can get better is if she is a ‘good girl’ for her father. And her confusion when no matter how obedient she was, her mother still continued to be ill, and still showed no love towards her…

How was the book? Depressing, upsetting, heart-wrenching. Makes you sick to think that someone could do things like this to their own children. Reading this is not pleasure, but for me books like these is a reminder that we can never be sure of where the danger lurks. That our precious children can be at harm from almost any quarter. Child abusers are regular people, even respected people, ordinary people, who don’t carry badges or ‘looks’ that set them apart.

In the author’s words,

They don’t have ‘evil’ stamped on their foreheads, they don’t carry placards proclaiming what they are. They hide and stay hidden. They are among us and they are very, very clever.

All we can really do is be alert, educate our children, be ready to listen to them and let them know that they can approach us with anything.

A book(like many others) that needs to be read, just so that we are parents don’t get complacent, in my opinion. I have heard people believing that these sorts of things never happen in India, but a read through the Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Blog is enough to understand that perverted people exist everywhere.

While this book might have been situated in the West, things like this happen everywhere.

My Most Beautiful Thing

Well, not a thing, but a person, daughter.

It is not very often that I take part in contests or events in the blog world, mainly because I find it difficult to write on demand, but when I saw this event - My Most Beautiful Thing Blogsplash, to be held on the 24th of April, it felt right – just apt to do a post on someone who means everything in the world to me. Especially as she came into my arms, six years ago, on the 24th of April.

I still remember my first sight of her. That squealing baby, is now my six year old, who thinks she knows the answer to everything. I can’t even playfully ask her, ‘where did my little baby go, when did she become so big?’ she has the answer, ‘Amma, you were a tiny baby once too, look how giant you are now!’. Well, at least someone thinks I am not a midget!

Looking back, I can’t even imagine a time without her in our lives. Her infectious laughter, her optimism, her bubbly excitement, her nonstop chatter, and her ability to find ways to entertain herself. It would do me a world of good, to take a few a pages out of her book.

I’ve not written letters to my daughter on the blog, but here’s what I would want to tell her.

My darling girl, you brighten up my(and your Dad’s) days in more ways than you know.

You  are a truly morning person, who wakes up with a smile, and wakes up with one blink of your eyes. Those eyes, which once once open, don’t close. Of course, I am delighted about it now, but a few years back, all I wished was for you to go back to sleep so that I could catch a few extra winks. Now, of course, you entertain yourself with a book, much to our delight(and relief, if I am honest).

You’ve made me proud in so many ways, with your impeccable behaviour(well, most of the time), with your consideration for others, and your sense of fairness. You strive to be fair to even those who might not have been exactly fair to you. You even try to hide your disappointment when your parents give you a dictionary as a birthday present, and actually tried to use it immediately. Of course, it made your delight at your actual present(a set of your favourite book series even more interesting to watch). Every time I have a parents consultation with your teacher, I come back with a huge, huge smile The one time, Daddy managed to get time off to attend, he came away teary-eyed with happiness too. Both of us wish we could record the meetings and show them to you when you are older.

My precious blessing, I can’t describe how much pleasure it gives me when you come running out of school, hurl yourself into my arms, give me a massive hug, and then go on to tell me about your day. Some days, of course, are extra special, because you’ve discovered that wobbly tooth, you’ve been waiting for, for ages. It is another story that I feel queasy when I see you wobbling that tooth.

You can’t sit still, not even while reading, you change positions, even almost turn upside down, engrossed in your books, lost to the world. I can’t tell you what makes me happier, seeing you reading like there is no tomorrow, or looking up from the book, and telling, ‘I feel like there’s a thunderstorm around me, because I’ve been reading about it in the book’! I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’ve discovered the magical world of reading. May you always enjoy reading the way you do now.

You’re six years old, a big girl, according to you. It’s been six years since you came into our lives, and nothing has been the same since.You’ve changed me, the way I do things, the way I look at things. Makes me so proud to be your mother. Here’s wishing you a lovely birthday, doing what you wanted to do (play Monopoly the whole evening after school, you are easy to please, I have to give you that . Hopefully, we will be the kind of parents you would be proud of, as well. Hopefully, we will bring you up with the kind of support, and love you that need.

May you stay blessed and the cheerful, sunny person that you are. May you continue to find joy in the smallest of things. May you be reach for the stars and beyond, and may you be happy in whatever you do.

With all the love in the world,

Amma

My most beautiful thing…

This is my contribution to the My Most Beautiful Thing event, inspired by Fiona Robyn’s Book -My Most Beautiful Thing. Fiona has made the book free on Kindle and PCs for today and tomorrow. I’m off to read it, what about you?

The Virgin Queen’s Daughter by Ella March Chase

The books, opens with Elinor(Nell) de Lacey,imprisoned in the Tower of London, in 1565, wishing she could turn back time, wishing that she could go back to being just Nell, safe in her father’s estate in Lincolnshire, safe from London and the politics of the court.

Nell, grew up in Calverly, cherished by her father, who taught her everything he knew. His love of the sciences, astrology, philosophy, languages, everything that is reserved for boys. Strong minded and willful, Nell, would constantly try her mother’s patience, refusing the learn what her mother felt were necessary skills for a woman, learning to run a household. She was happier reading the books her father read. Her father and her nurse, from birth, Eppie, were the people she loved the most.

Her mother had been the chief lady in waiting to Henry VIII’s last wife, Katherine Parr, and had kept away from the courts ever since the death of Katherine Parr. She knew the reality of life in the courts, and wanted to keep her daughter away from all that.

When Nell was five, her father took her and her mother to London to get some more books, and instruments for star gazing. Nell, had accidently seen Elizabeth(then just Princess Elizabeth), captive in the Tower, and in childish, excitement, tried to save rescue her with a key she found. Five year old Nell believed that the key she found was magical, and would open Elizabeth’s prison. Princess Elizabeth is charmed by the child who wants to free her so much, and promises to never forget her.

Nell’s imagination is captured by the captive Princess, who is known to be as intelligent as she is beautiful. Ever since that experience, all she wanted was to go to the court and be a lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth, much to her mother’s annoyance and worry. Finally, she manages to reach the courts, after her father’s death, having outsmarted her mother. It was only after she became a lady in waiting that she realized that her mother had been right all along.

She uncovers the truth of her birth, and the shocking realization that the truth could land her in prison. As she learns to speak the ways of the court, to pretend, to lie, to know when to bite her tongue, she finds herself an unlikely ally, someone everybody had warned her against, Sir Gabriel Wyatt. The explosive truth she knows brings danger to everybody she holds dear.  Her beloved nurse, Eppie is tortured and killed, and she has no idea how she could escape from the prison she willingly came to, and no idea if there is anybody she could really trust.

A beautifully written story, fiction woven with known facts, historical fiction in the style of Philippa Gregory. Chase, has explored the possibility that Queen Elizabeth might have had a daughter before she became Queen. In the treacherous environment that the English Court was, such a truth would have given enough material to those who wanted Queen Elizabeth toppled from the crown. With that premise, the author weaves a fascinating story.

Apart from the historical aspect, the story is also about mothers and daughters. Of how Nell and her mother discover each other. Of how Nell, is touched when she learns that all her through her life, her mother lived through the fact that her daughter loved her father and her nurse more than her mother. I found that aspect very touching.

If you like Philippa Gregory’s books, you would enjoy this book. Full of suspense, mystery, romance and intrigue. It also speculates on how it must have been for Queen Elizabeth I, to be a woman leading a country, at a time when women were not considered at par with a man, despite having proven her intelligence and her capability in so many ways. It was a captivating book, and I was surprised to read that it is the first book by the author! I would definitely recommend it, if you like historical fiction.

I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

I’ve always loved Sophie Kinsella’s books. Especially her shopoholic series, so when Smita mentioned that Kinsella’s latest was out, I had to read it. Luckily for me, it reached my hands rather quickly too!

Poppy Wyatt, engaged to the perfect man, Magnus Tavish, has everything she wants, until she goes and loses the one thing she is absolutely not supposed to lose – her engagement ring. The precious family heirloom that Magnus had given her as the engagement ring.

It doesn’t help that Magnus’ whole family is full of intellectuals who discuss Greek Philosophy at the dinner table. She already feels that she is considered inferior, not good enough to marry their intellectual son. After all she is just a physiotherapist, with not even a paper in her name. Now having lost their precious ring, she is about to confirm for them, all their worst suspicions about her.

Just when she is trying to locate her ring, she manages to get mugged and loses her phone – her precious phone with all her contacts. Can anything be worse?

Things seem quite bleak until she finds an abandoned phone in the bin. Finders keepers she deems, although the phone’s owner, Sam Roxton, doesn’t quite think so. She is days away from her wedding, juggling between her messages, Sam’s messages, and trying everything to get her ring back, often muddling up things for other people.

So does Poppy get her ring back, does Sam get his phone back? You’ll have to read it to find out, but I can guarantee that you will have a wonderful time reading it! You’ll find yourself chuckling away, laughing out loud(scaring your child, sometimes), and wishing that the book never ends! It is totally unputdownable.

A delightful, fun read, a book that does not disappoint, leaves us wanting for more!

OMG! I’ve turned into my husband!

You know, how they claim that couples married for ages start looking like each other? Well, I’m not quite sure about the that, but what I can tell you is that I’ve started reading like husband. Rather have started reading the same things as husband.

It all started when I started researching to figure out which phone to upgrade to. Husband told me about a few websites that are good, with comparative analysis and technical specifications, and needless to say, I am hooked. It is great fun, you know, and not easy at all, zeroing in on the one you want, the perfect one, the one you will hold in your hands, well, until the next upgrade Research is important, isn’t it?

It was all fine before ordering my phone, but I continue to read them, even after ordering it!

The time I used to spend reading blogs, I have been reading about the Android-Apple wars, nameless people fighting on the internet, about who has the smartest phone of them all, and not having enough of it.

Last night I read until 12:00 in the night before I realized that my head was aching. That di did not stop me from waking up and reading some more. Who would’ve thought that phones would hook me so badly. Now, I understand why husband hates the idea of anybody gifting him a phone or any other piece of technology – that would rob him of hours and hours of analysis!

I tell you, I’ve turned into my husband

The Right to Education

Some thing most of us take for granted, but is out of reach for so many of our fellow Indians.

Every since the Supreme Court ruling judgement upholding the applicability of the Right to Education Act (RTE) even to unaided schools, has come out, I have been reading up articles, opinions, blogs related to it. I have an added interest because we are moving back  to India this year, and I wanted to understand how it would affect us.

Let me clarify, that I have managed to secure admission in one school in Bangalore – not the school that I wanted – but the only school which had vacancies for Grade1, which indicates that most schools are completely full. I am happy to go with what we have got, with the hope that daughter will be fine, and where ever the school lacks, we will be able to pitch in and support her. My choices were further reduced because I did not want to opt for schools that ask for donations – as far as I could.

Now, going on to this RTE debate. I am not entirely sure where I sit on whether the 25% quota is a good thing or a bad thing. Clearly education is a fundamental right, and it is sad that so many of our children go without education. And something definitely needs to be done about it, I am just not completely sure if just reserving 25% seats in private schools is right or even enough.

In order to understand the statistics better, I was trying to look up information. According to Wikipedia(not always the most accurate, so if you have more reliable sources, please can you let me know? Would be really grateful), 80% of all schools in India are Government Schools. That makes the government the largest provider of education. But here is the interesting part, despite 80% of schools being government schools, 27% of the children in India, are being educated in private schools. Which begs the question, are the existing government schools being utilized to their full extent? Are they being monitored? Are there parameters set to figure out how the schools are performing.

My daughter goes to a state school in the UK here. We pay nothing for her education – not a penny. We could easily afford private education for her, but chose not to,mainly because good state schools are comparable to private education – at least in the primary years. Of course, all state schools might not be great, just as not all private schools are really good, but we’ve been fine, thankfully. Here, only about 7% of the children attend private schools. Since then, I have also heard of the ‘snob factor’ that is there in private schools, and it makes me happy that my daughter is not in an environment like that. I am happy for her to be in a more inclusive environment rather than a super-privileged environment. Of course, there have been times, when I wonder if I were too idealistic in my beliefs, but so far have been convinced that the school she is in, is great for her.

There are all sorts of state schools, and one thing I have noticed here is the accountability of the teachers, the staff. The fact that there are independent agencies like the Ofsted(click on the link, and you will be able to see how they work), which review and rate schools. Schools that are not performing to the expected standards are evaluated and the govt takes measures to ensure better performance. If I wanted to find out how the school works, I can find full reports with all the information I might need. Some schools still don’t perform as well as others due to other factors that affect it, but at least we don’t feel as cynical as we do about the Indian govt.

I would have been delighted if I could send my daughter to a state school in India as well, but clearly, that would be out of question for a variety of reasons.

If the real reason children do not have access to education is the lack of seats in government schools, then I would entirely agree that private schools need to do their share of giving back to the society. For some reason, it feels to me that the government is shirking its responsibility of providing education to every Indian. I would have been more impressed if it came up with a methodology to bring up the existing state schools to a level where every parent would be happy to send their child, rather than make it a refuge for parents who can’t afford better. After all, not all government schools are bad, why can’t we try to get all our schools to an acceptable level?  I do believe that some states have better govt schools than others. What stops us from replicating their success? Political will, I suppose. The RTE act itself has a lot of good guidelines in regulating the school conditions, but why have no measures been chalked out yet, that the government would undertake to ensure that schools run at the minimum acceptable standards.  If along with improvement schemes to the existing state schools, the government also included the 25% quota, I, as a parent, would have been very happy. In the current scheme of things, I can’t help feeling that this is more of a quick-fix measure, which might not really make a huge difference in the years to come. A law can only do so much. Law enforcement is as important as drafting a sensible law, in my opinion.

As for the  ’class divide’ question which a lot of parents feel concerned about. I feel that the class divide needs to go. It might not go in a hurry, but things might change if our children grow up without the class divide in their minds(and if we try not to put these things into their minds). If they learn to accept that their friends come from different backgrounds, and just having more money or a more plush lifestyle does not make a better or worse person. I think it would do our children, a world of good, to be able to the person, rather than the packaging.

So what do you think about all this?

PS: I’ve mentioned again and again how wonderful daughter’s teachers are! And when I see adverts like this, I feel like teaching! Along with RTE, I wish we had a campaign to encourage people to go into teaching. After all, most of us will have at least one teacher, who left a lasting mark on our minds..

Edited to add: Check out this campaign by HT.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dv7rPAa0gKqw&v=v7rPAa0gKqw&gl=GB

Wordless Wednesday – 29

Picture postcard?

Books are for Showing Off?

I heard someone say that people read to show off. That started me thinking.

A lot of my posts are about books, book reviews, or just how much I love reading. The only reason they appear here, is because reading is such a huge part of my life, part of who I am. People who know me personally, will tell you how I always have a book with me. Always. Because that’s what I love to do – read. I grab every minute I can, to do that thing I like doing the most.

For a long while, after I started blogging, while writing about my love of reading, I never reviewed books. Mainly because I was not sure if I would ever do justice to the books. I mean, the authors put so much energy and effort into crafting the book, it just takes half a page to spoil it for someone, doesn’t it? Which is probably why, I don’t review the books that I don’t like too much. It took me a while to get the confidence to write reviews of the books I liked.

I started listing the books I read, because husband keeps asking me if I have any idea how many books I read in a year( I suspect he wants to figure out how much money the library helped us save ). So when I saw Monika listing her books, I decided that I should do that too. Just to keep track.

If you came home, you would see how much books are part of our lives. We have books everywhere, mine and daughter’s mainly. Husband just hangs on to his precious Kindle. He is so hooked on it, that he claims that he can no longer read normal books. Sigh! That Kindle was supposed to be a gift for me, you know! Anyway, nothing makes me happier than lugging bags of books back from the library.

Talking, writing, discussing about the books we read, is so much fun. So many books I read today are the result of books that have been recommended by so many of you. And I think I have loved every one of them! And it is not just the books that I enjoy, I love the discussion on books that we have in comment sections – those are just as much fun, aren’t they? They offer so many perspectives – on the books, on the author’s writing style, and sometimes, it makes me realize that books that I adore might be books which others might ever want to touch.

Now, I can’t help wondering if there might be people who might consider it all a show-off. Do people think like that? I was really surprised to hear that some people do think of it as that..

Having said that, I do know of one person who told me to give her all my books(the few that I have bought here) because she likes to ‘collect’ books. Not read them – just collect them and display them on her shelf

On a kind of related note, do read ‘How to be a woman’ by Caitlin Moran. That is one book, I could definitely not do justice in a review. I can’t thank CR enough for that recommendation! I liked it so much that I went hunting for reviews – and found this one that I really liked  and one by a man. Go on, read it and tell me what you think!