Fear No more...

 We often speculate things, get worried, and the cycle continues. This stems from overthinking and assessing risks unnecessarily.

This year, personally, has been very eventful for my family. Even in my relaxed state, I would worry about my daughter's grades, her spelling woes, and her constant struggle to keep up with her studies. Changing school was almost certainly on the cards. But change to where? We were looking for CBSE schools because that was the most obvious option. In south Kolkata, although there are many schools are there, but we deliberately chose few of them including the DPS Ruby park. Now the problems with these schools are that they have high demand and are extremely choosy. In admission to class 6th they asked for a bunch of documents, only to never get back to us. We kept on waiting patiently till December 24, but nothing. Then came January, suddenly, pop up came about Narayana school, New Town. I casually contacted them, and they said they can take her!!! It was a CBSE school, and I heard only good things about the school, so some part of me was really happy. Coincidentally, we have an apartment in New Town, and the tenant left the house. So, it was easy to think that we can move into our own apartment that is barely 2.5 kms from Narayana School.

However, I was sick and worried. Reasons: The distance between our apartment and my office is approximately 23 kilometres. So,  I have to travel to the office daily, commuting 23 kilometres one way, fighting traffic, pollution and spending nearly 3-4 hours in commute. The effects of all of these have on my physical and mental health. How to maintain office hours. Whether we will get a good cook and a maid who is reliable. Most importantly, whether my child will be able to adjust to a new school, whether she will make new friends in our residential complex and so on. 

The other worry I had was whether all our belongings would fit into the new house, knowing that the official quarters are much larger than our own apartment. Whether all my plants will fit into the place. Whether my daughter will find a good tuition teacher or not. She is afraid of lifts, so she has to climb one more flight of stairs. Whether the school bus will pick her from our gate or not. When she is dropped someone has to be there to receive her. I will not be able to come home on short notice. These were some of my worries that hunted me as we navigated through the school admission procedure.

She got admitted to a new school, now we are 9 months in our new apartment, and all my worries were found to be just invalid. We could manage things beautifully. Not to mention, all my plants found a home, and more were also added. We have mosquito nets on the windows protecting us throughout the evening. Daughter has made friends, joined tuition, yoga and dance classes in the community. My travel times also streamlined with uber the saviour of the day. I reach every day around 9.30 am and leave by 7 PM. I managed to do meditation in the cab and slowly added new routines. In the evening, I spend about 30 mins in the call to my mother who stays alone in Bhubaneswar. Then I binge in netflix shows. I just completed the Big Bang theory. In the morning I also listen to audio books through audibles. In some good days, I even go for an hour walk in the surroundings.

My daughter is now comfortable in her school, and the icing in the cake is she can manage to come home by herself. She also stays by herself sometimes when necessary. The icing in the cake is she got 85% in maths. That is the joy of our life. In addition, we have a trust worthy help, quite punctual. So, overall, life is better than the previous dwelling. The fear and anxiety was really unfounded.

An evening in NEHU guest house

 The North East Hill University campus, a sprawling 1225-acre landscaped beauty has several dwelling places. If you happen to stay there, don't forget to take an evening stroll. This campus looks even more enchanting during evening hours with the setting sun and clean air with ducks quacking in the nearby pond. Wildflowers are growing on both sides of the road and are quite pretty. One can take numerous shortcuts and pavements crisscrossed across the campus to reach different locations. It is very peaceful to walk during the evening as well. Near the duck pond, there are lots of activities with students having pleasantries, some feeding the fish and many onlookers stopping by to have a glimpse of the ducks.

The campus is full of Pinus trees that look like Casuarinas. The Casuarinas are  Angiosperms and true flowering plants. The Pinus trees on the other hand are gymnosperms with needle-like leaves. The botanist in me, can't help but wonder how much similarity these two distantly placed species have. Both have cone-like seeds and it is very difficult to tell them apart. In addition, other wild plants are growing rampantly such as Solanum virginiaum. This plant has medicinal properties. If you plan to take the seeds away and grow these plants yourself, then this is the place you should visit.

Walking in NEHU guest house in the dawn

 Morning in NEHU Guest House:

The day breaks quite early in NEHU guest house as we call to “North East Hill University guest house” in short. This is a hamlet in Shillong with picturesque view and beautiful ambience. This is a campus in the Shillong suburbs spreading over 1225 acres of land. It accommodates several institutes namely the IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University), National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), a central school, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Sports Authority of India (SAI) and The English and Foreign Language University (EFLU), apart from regular university departments. The campus also boasts of a small shopping center where you find almost everything needed to run your home. There are few eat-outs. The eateries serve Indian, Chinese and Khasi delicacies. Food is delectable to say the least. In addition, there are student canteens, student dhabas spread across the campus

The functional gate is gate number 2 through which all the vehicles enter the campus. We lived in the Tirat Sing guest house, that is the new guest house. The rooms are big with double beds and the ambience is good. You may find some of the electric sockets not working but there are plenty others to make your job done. They provide electric kettles for hitting water and materials for making tea. You can rise up to faint beams of sunlight in an autumn morning. Surprisingly, the birds don’t chirp. There are not enough birds there. The locals say, the birds were eaten up by people, so there are unexpectedly low number of birds. Only you can spot a sparrow or a mynah. No large birds!!

There is quite a good possibility that the place rains through autumn. In the morning, there is cloud floating over the campus and one can literally walk through the clouds. The mornings are best to walk around the campus. There is a beautiful duck pond full of fishes and ducks quacking all over the pond.  It is good to explore all the small roads and pedestrian crossing to find shortcut between the roads. The distance between the old and the new guest house is about 2.5 kms. In between there are numerous departments and small lanes and by lanes to explore. The library building is huge and is straight way from gate number 2. The high and low slopes make it the ideal place for strolling, breathing fresh air and burning calories. You can spot friendly stray dogs that generally don’t harm anyone. So, one does not really have to run away from them. Happy walking in the campus.

When your own people forget you - many more just step in to fill up the space

Birthdays are personal affairs!! It has been so especially when we were kids. After growing up to a certain level, we have realized that we need some kind of attention and birthdays were celebrated extensively with extended family and friends. This has become a habit ever since the experimental posting of birthday in social media came into picture. There was a point in my life where I was actually waiting to see how many have posted on my face book wall to wish me on my birthday. I used to immediately reply to that to "Increase the Impact". Then suddenly, experimentally, I removed the birthday date from my about info and that means that face book will not remind people to wish me. Bang! There you go, there was not a single post on my wall. So, to put it correctly,  nobody really gives a shit about you. They just post a wish because others have posted and what "we will think", if they don't? Even I had some of our distant friends calling me at 10.00 PM to wish me, so that it does not go un-noticed. 

Surprisingly, this year, the only person that seemed to be really excited about my birthday is my 10 year old princess. She made sure her father buys gift for me. Even she moved her friends and made them decorate the public area in the apartment to wish me on my birthday. I am not sure if anyone else remembered. Only my sister did and probably my aging mother did. Not even my very close friend circle remembered. So, this tells a tale! The Maya that we believe people care for us is probably a myth. We all are individual souls and probably, that is the best we can carry it.

This time I have also received wishes from un-expected quarters. That includes small kids (friends of my daughter), my students and some un-expected moms of my kids friends. So, basically my daughter has pulled it off quite well in absence of family members to fill in. I had a full, joyous day which was full of revelation. This makes me now believe that when there is a void created there are always many more people out there to come and fill it in...

Dashami - from my eyes today, a divine experience

 I live in this beautiful SIRSA campus, located in southern Kolkata, India. SIRSA stands for Scientific and Industrial Research Scientists Apartment, true to its nature is the abode for many scientists and other employees working for CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) labs. For the decade I lived here, there were 10 Durga pujas. During my initial years of staying here, I was busy raising my child. I have never in true sense participated in Puja except for doing some puja related work or attending the puja procedures or mass lunch. This time I had the privilege of attending something I rather missed my earlier years.

I will describe the Dashami puja as it happened in the morning today. The puja is symbolically a procedural aspect of saying goodbye to the deities for this year. It is an emotional event. The stage will be empty, and we will not see the face of our beloved goddess Durga and her contour.  The first step was Anjali, paying obeisance to the deities, then the next is to do puja and wear the Aparajita stem around your wrist. I am not sure about this ritual, but I believe Aparajita signifies mother earth and wearing Aparajita means loving and respecting our mother earth. For me the most important protocol of this day was immersion - a symbolic one that to. We take water in an earthen pot, put little bit of turmeric and take a mirror. From the mirror we see the whole body of deity and then we immerse the mirror into the water pot. By this, we signify we have immersed our beloved goddess into water. In the end the priest sprinkles the Holi water on the devotees. Here in Bengal, I have seen emotional goodbyes where devotees, say goodbye to Durga maa by giving her Sandesh in her mouth, wiping her face in their sarees. 

Today I had the good fortune of sitting on the stage and meditate briefly.  I was thinking people ask for things, what should I ask? I have everything I need. Then I realized, I probably can work on myself a little bit and meditate. First, I was thinking oh lord make my child a good person and let her grow up to be successful and get good marks. Then my mind said who defines what is good what is bad? In our own make-believe world, we have defined success and happiness with getting good grades, getting a good grade and having a comfortable life. But in true sense that can't be success. We all are so temporary on this planet; what we think how we behave or what we get in terms of earthy hardly matters to the universe. It is important to train out thoughts. Instead, I started looking inwards and was thinking what I do wrong. Though consciously, sometimes, I am rude to people - that signifies ego. Ego because I feel that I can be rude and get away with it. Rather, I take out my anger on someone else on someone. I prayed to God that please give me strength to get over that. Sometimes I scold my child because I have no patience and say hurtful words. I prayed to God that please give me patience so that I stay calm when I have the urge to shout. Then I looked inwards and saw that I often tell my mother things that I don't practice myself. I tell her to ignore what others say or think about you and celebrate your loneliness. But in practice subconsciously I am also not immune to what people think or talk about me. I prayed silently to God, so I get over this. For now, I hope my goddess will grant me this much courage, so I get over these ailments and do "bisarjan" to these bad qualities along with the deities. Today is the day for all of us to introspect look within and immerse the bad "identifiable" traits we have with good ones. Namoh Debi Durge Durgati nasini, may sense prevails on all. 

What a year 2019!!

Today is the last day of 2019 and is the first and last blog post from me for this year.. I have been very irregular and aptly so I would say. This year was a mixed bag of joy, happiness and disappointments as well. But I would say a very decisive year.

Professionally speaking it was a mixed bag. I got my wetlab renovated this year among other major things. Got a total of 9 publications this year including some of the pending work that we have been doing for the last 4 years. Got a promotion which was deferred by a year though. 3 students graduated from the lab this year with Ph.D. Though I have not received any new grant this year but I have written and got shortlisted for a big proposal.

In personal fronts many things happened including fencing my land, plantation, making my parents dependents and getting medical bills submitted and reimbursed for the first time. One of my long standing wishes to take my parents on LTC holidays was successful when I took them to Sikkim this year in June. I Submitted phone bills after 4 years this year. Starting yoga, running marathons etc. have been few of my achievements this year.

Hope next year is more nicer in terms of publishing great papers from the lab.

khoai er hat or Sonar jhuri haat - An weekend gateway from kolkata

Recently, we had a quick trip from Kolkata to Shantiniketan to spend a quiet weekend break and to see the weekly sonarjhuri haat or khoai er hat  that happens every saturday. There are several trains from Kolkata to Bolpur, but one can choose the fastest ones that runs between less than 3 hours to reach Bolpur. WTDC hotels are there and there are several others to choose from several sites. We booked one hotel through goibibo and it is called deer park eco home. We needed 4 beds so went for it, but sometimes the reviews are not very helpful. We landed in a very congested 2 room setup that included a bunk bed and the second cut out room was very small and untidy without AC. In any case, we managed our stay OK.
For those, who are new to Shantiniketan, one point to note that the entire city is very small and there is one central road that connects everything. All the other places are connected through that road. Now thanks to the govt. there are only "Totos", as they call the e-ricksaws. These are battery operated rides ferrying people between the places and are very pleasant and relatively cheaper. If you plan to visit the Sonar jhuri haat, the haat starts at 2 PM in the afternoon and lasts as long as the day light lasts. This mela has tribal women dance and that is a pretty site. The location is inside a forest of Acacia plants which is otherwise known as sonar jhuri.



The vechicles are parked at the entrance of the haat and the products are sold on the ground. The products mostly includes hand woven fabrics including beautiful sarees, bedsheets, skirts, Kurtas and dresses. Apart from that you will also find handicrafts, many types of terracotta products. Prices are usually much less than the market price and is a way to boost local economy. One can visit the place and spend a good few hours there checking the products and buying.

It is really peaceful there and I recommend people to visit the place once in their life time.

Six years on resetting life back in our own country - an overview

Today is the day exactly 6 years back we landed in Kolkata in the wee hours to resettle back in our own country after wandering around the world for a whole month in a suitcase. That is when our life was reset into null and it was self inflicted, many would term it as madness. We came back from certainty to uncertainty; affluence to penury; order to chaos; clean to dirt; and these are just few.. Most importantly with unsettled job offer and unfamiliar domain. I was offered a Ramalingaswamy fellowship and an adhoc position, my husband left his job completely with an idea to start a company back home. Well, if I look back it was quite a journey. I would say a great one that to. I count the blessings we have now. I have a 5 year old adorable sweetheart and that is the best I got so far. I got a permanent position in a reputed lab. I have guided successfully 9 Ph.D students and many masters and bachelors students and post docs. I assumed the headship of a division. There was almost 100% raise to compensation that was offered while coming back. Got 4 grants, completed 2 successfully and 2 ongoing. Published 18 papers and still counting. One of my students awarded Ph.D already and many are on the way. One student got a job and another one is choosing post doc offers and this is success according to me. I have made great friends, connected back with my school/college friends. Went to attend college re-unions. I can now talk with my parents everyday. I can now visit my parents anytime I wish and see my siblings when needed. I can have the food I like. I have cook and people to clean my house, so I can spend good quality time with my daughter.

Additional bonuses are a huge park near by. Teaching yoga and zumba in our own apartment building. I sometimes look back and think if we did not take the chance probably we would have had the same life - may be gotten richer but none of the other things would have happened. I thank my lucky star and almighty for blessing my life thus. I have delivered several invited lectures, attended all Ramalingaswamy conclaves, made wonderful friends and collaborators. Visited many new places and seen the real life luxury in India. Thank you DBT, India for taking me back. I will try and give back to the country during my tenure in this lab.

When life throws lemon at you and you cant make lemonade...

Has it every happened to you? I am going to rant for something here that I needed to do to take the stress out of my chest...

When you are a faculty guiding 9 Ph.D students, 3 students sending papers in a day, 1 student submitting thesis in 2 days and 3 master students submitting their thesis the next day. The masters thesis reaches you in the evening of the penultimate day, despite 10,000 reminders with no title, no discussion and a billion typos and errors. You are single parenting a 4 year old who needs infinite patience; Your 4 year old goes to a day school that is very particular abut timing and parking is non-existent when you reach 1 second later than 9 am. When your domestic helps are on leave and you have to make 3 lunch boxes, one breakfast, one 10 am snack and one evening snack for your daughter, pack school accessories and feed her breakfast which she refuses to do. When you realize that you have a project submission due on the same day and 10 page write up to CSIR head quarters all in the same day, and all landed on your mail box just a day before...

When you have a meeting at 11 am, 1 PM and 4 PM and pickup scheduled for your daughter at 5 PM. When you have to cook for yourself, clean the house, get ready by yourself. When your daughter does not sit and do homework despite you calling her 100 times, sitting with pencil, eraser and still no luck. When your toddler refuses to take bath and you have to take bath after her and get ready in 5 minutes and that includes everything. When you have forgotten what is breakfast is like and you worked till 10 PM the previous night in the lab correcting the thesis and getting up at 3 AM again correcting thesis, so the students can print and submit them on time. When you realize that you have had a bad ear infection and liquid substances are oozing out of both the ears drenching the pillow in the night. When you dont find your medical files and dont know when is the time for you to see a doctor... Today is such a day and I needed to write this.

Just an update. I survived!!! I cooked, got my daughter ready, came to work, did all the meetings, managed to cut salads for myself, did 30 minutes yoga. Corrected the masters thesis, Ph.D thesis, gave bonafide certificates to all, chose 8 Ph.D examiners..... And it is 9.41 AM. I still have 2 hours before I write the last CSIR proposal before moving on to meetings... 

China trip pains

I am here in China from 9th April to 12April 2018 for the OMGN conference. My last trip was in March 2012 and was eventless. This time around however it was difficult. Difficult for the fact that there were no direct flight, I had to stay back in Shanghai overnight. Next day I realised the distance between the hotel and the Sanghai Hongkiao railway station was 1 hour drive. That is quite an expensive deal though. I asked the organizers to bokb me a railway ticket and they did. But you can only collect them from the window. I went there gave my passport and reference number and was told that the number is incorrect. So I had to buy a fresh ticket leaving after 3 hours. I did that, but there was no one going to pick me up, so had to struggle with the hotel name and address. After some struggle they understood. Apparently, there is a Chinese name to everything. So, if you are traveling to China, make sure you know that, internet may not work. None of your global nrtwork phone will work. Neither Gmail, Facebook, Twitter will work. So, take a VPN connection if you want to use any of these. Additionally, phone, messages, ehatWhat will not ewor. It is a scary ecperexper. I don't want to come back to this again.

Work Life Balance workshop by the CSIR-HRDC September 6-8th at Ghaziabad Delhi

For the first time I took a sponsored course at the HRDC, Ghaziabad conducted by CSIR for women scientists and officers. It was  an amazing experience. I took my almost 4 year old toddler with me not knowing how I will deal with it. I thought I will have to get in sit for sometimes and the rest of the time, most likely I will be outside playing with her. But everything was proved wrong. My toddler sat next to me with her a headphone and my laptop watching cartoons. She did not budge neither did she disturb anyone. Only time she was playful or making noise was during the break.

The first session started off with Dr. Suneeta Singh from NTPC. The session started off with lots of interactions, a video, where the take home message was be your self and enjoy. What others say or do actually mean nothing. You have the power within yourself to take charge of you. We all are aware of this, but re-inforcing in another context was very refreshing. The second session began with another faculty Dr. Meenakshi Gandhi. She started off with a coin and asked the most important event in the year the coin has. Although she was exciting in the beginning, I lost interest later on because she was citing her examples all the time. But the message she was trying to convey was try to love yourself then things will fall back in place. Take a break and read a book and pamper yourself. I take that because many times we neglect ourselves trying to juggle work and life. But we are not thinking what is that needs to be done for us.

The third session was a yoga session where the teacher made us do few OM sessions, guided meditations and yoga. The fourth session was by Ms. Anubha Muarya Walia. I enjoyed this session the most because she was talking about the power of positivity. She said the universe gives you ultimately what you ask for. The rationale behind this is when you want something, you think about it and you start working on it. She also asked everyone on what was their person, professional and emotional goals. It was very interesting. She also made us write what we want from life in a wall, and to write nice things about anyone in the group. In addition she taught prioritization in a very nice way by putting points on the activities, that we did. It was a full of fun class. Also Dr. Suneeta and Anubha both made us write behind others back on what we think about them and there was a pattern. I liked that very much.

The last day Dr. Suneet came back again with the mirrors and asked us to look at it into the eyes and say that I love this beautiful creature. Power of affirmation. And the eliminate the word should. It is always about a choice and if we keep saying that we love to do what we are doing life becomes easier and enjoyable. The take home message is always same. We create our thoughts and that becomes our destiny. So we can control it at many points and also choose our destiny. The power of positivity, power of communication and good thoughts are something that can solve every problems in life.

Then the last session was by a behavioural therapist who gave us a list of questionnaires and  that was about the behaviour of people. I came to know my true nature and the session came to an end.

Cataloging my efficiency as I grow older

Today I had this strong urge to document how my efficiency has changed for better in last decades of my active professional life. My life started as a professional (read first job) at the age of 26 in Mumbai. Then I was a fresh Ph. D with great ambition in life , but could not find a job to match my ambition, so just settled for a teaching job in a college. Highly unsatisfied, I was not really a good worker. My  job was for 5 hours a day and the timing was variable. But there was a travelling time attached to it. I had to travel between Goregaon (E) that is my home to Bhandup (W), the college and the most plausible way to commute was by crowded bus. But the plus side was the bus would go through the only green patch of Mumbai that is Arrey colony. If I got a seat, that was the best day for me. Everyday I would keep checking my time and leave for home the moment it hit 5 hours. Travelling time 2 and half hours on an average added, my total away from home hours were approximately 8 hours max. Plus I had summer holidays and Diwali holidays of one month each. Well, then I was doing no exercise, no other activity, but just go to work and watch TV and may be cook during the evening. Thats it. It changed for a more lazy life when I joined a company called as DSQ Biotech. There the commute time was maximum 10 minutes, food provided, so no cooking, office hours are flexible. Then also I did no physical exercise. It lasted for 2 more years. Then getting up at 6 AM was a rarity. I often used to get up way after 8 AM, and sleep at 12 PM or later after watching all the useless serials.
Then I spend 10 long years in USA, where I worked from home for 6 years. The remaining 4 years I was onsite, I traveled only 4 minutes up and 4 minutes down to work (4 miles away). Time was flexible no pressure and indeed again another long lazy chapter of my life. Although I had to cook, but that was not a big deal, eat outside most of the time, get up late and watch a lots of TV, that pretty  mcu defined my life. But then I had some health scare on the third year of my USA stay (2005) and I slowly got into exercising...When we bought a home, we did some more work like gardening, grass mowing and may be some exercise. That included at least one hour of regular exercise, and yes, we did  socialize, that accounts to may be an hour per day. And that's it. When we returned, I believed we will have a good life with house help and cook and driver. But the joy lasted only for a year. We realized no matter how many people you have to help you out, you need to do your stuff. Now pushing  5 years this is a reality. This is what I do in a day. Get up between 5.30 to 6 AM (now this is a rule rather than an exception), drink my tall glass of lemon water followed by 2 more glasses of water. Go to potty, make my own lemon extract drink (with ginger and lemon peels), make a breakfast for me and Ada. Feed Ada breakfast, play with her, give her bath, get her ready for school, do homework with her, many times drop her at school and go to office before 10 AM. Sometimes I even catch up with 30-40 minutes exercise in the morning. Most of these days, I even carry my lunch box. Now I supervise about 10 students, run my projects, present papers, attend conferences, write grants, write annual reports, do doctoral advisory committee meetings, assess annual reports, head a computer division, act as external and internal evaluater, act as thesis adviser for MTechs, serve as external expert for purchase committee, act as invited speaker and the list is endless.... How do I do this now? Only thing I dont do is cooking, but other than that everything is as before and 10 times more. This all happens because I watch 0 TV, get up early and sleep early. Yes you heard it right. My life seems to be back on track just because I changed one habit of mine - that is NOT watching any TV, not wasting any time socializing and getting up early. Now I am very happy me :) :) :)

Remembering my homeless day five years back today....

I am remembering this day today 5 years back when I was literally homeless (rather we were homeless). It was 4th of July 2012, the independence day of USA when people enjoy a day off and a long weekend. In our community (Ruidosa Ridge), there was a small celebration where they usually block the traffic where children parade. We were most of the time onlookers through our large front windows. Suddenly we saw a SUV pulled off few meters away from our home. The man and his family got down off the SUV, of course we know them, they are the people who bought our home for a throw away price!! In case you want to take peek here is the image that we took ourself! https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/601-Flintwood-Ln,-Arlington,-TX-76002_rb/?fromHomePage=true&shouldFireSellPageImplicitClaimGA=false&fromHomePageTab=buy They are a nice Vietnamese family. We signed the documents on 25th June 2012 and the condition was we would stay there 10 more days in the house. We thought may be he dropped to enjoy the independence day parade in the community. He came inside the house and sat with no signs of going out. Our home almost empty except for few items that we would need to sustain our self for another month in the country. He and his kids came and he ordered his older kids to sit on the couch saying "Go sit on your sofa". I was like ?!!!! Then at 9 AM they blocked the traffic in front of our house for the annual parade. He sits and tells us you can take your time to vacate. We were like, was it not suppose to be tomorrow?! As per our calculation, July 5th should be the 10th day. In any case, since he bought the house, we have nothing to say in this scenario. We immediately booked a hotel near by and planned to move and told him that we will leave for the hotel after sometime. His youngest was 2 years old and was crying for food, at that point instead of going back, he called his wife and asked her to bring the food. We looked at each others face and realized that he is determined to evacuate us on that particular hour!! The milk was still boiling on the gas stove and we were still sipping hot tea. Then we sprang to our feet and began preparing for evacuation on a war footing! We packed whatever we could, rest we dumped on the dumping place in front. At that time the traffic curb had been lifted, parade was over. It was approximately 10 AM in the morning. I poured hot tea into the flask and rest all in the back of the car. Off we left for the hotel... Hotel was just 10 minutes away. Hotel guy said check in time is at 2 PM and since it was a holiday they were packed, cant take us early! We roamed with the luggage at the back of the car from hotel to hotel, and all the hotels had the same story.... Finally after 2 hours of roaming, we found one that allowed us a check in at 12 PM, and there we went. The next day was a long day for me because I had to leave for Virginia for the annual OMGN workshop, so it was essential that I take some break and PREPARE for the workshop. Thank god it is over and thank god for the 2 hours homelessness. It teaches you the value of a shelter.

Life of a scientist mother

Although there are many many days with much more overwhelming feelings, today I am penning it down, because I am determined to. People say looking at the kids "Oh how time flies!! Look at your daughter how grown up she is - good for you..". But little do they know that raising a child for a working mother involves so much struggle every single hour!! By the way my princess is 3 and half year old and her name is Ada.

My story goes like this:

Morning: Got up at 6.30 AM with a bad back pain. Maid comes, I went and opened the door, instructed her to cook for daughter's lunch box. I then went on warm a tall glass of water for drinkng with lemon juice. In between I went back and forth, pack curd with sugar for Ada's lunch, pack her a sandwich for evening snack, quickly cut an apple for morning 10.30 AM snack while sipping lemon water. Now I have to go for the additional glasses of water, so that I get pressure for potty. Done! Maid has already made tea, just took a small break to drink tea. Whoa, got pressure, got to go to toilet. Done! Time is already 7.30 AM. Checking on Ada, yeah she is sleeping like an angel! The other maid has not come today, so I have to water plants!
Watering before she gets up, done! Time now 7.45 AM. Now I have to wake her up else she will be late for breakfast....

Now Ada is up and asking for her favorite cake. Me: "No Mama, cant have cake today, there is no cake at home". Ada: "You told me we will go and buy one today". Me: "OK, we can quickly go and buy one". Now checking my purse. Yesterday, drew some cash but only 2000 rupees denominations... Me thinking there is just one shop out there who can give me change. Thinking in my mind, I need change too. My cook said there is no onion, I have to buy some today. Yesterday's shopkeeper said he will not give change for 2000 rupees. Me: "Ada get ready got to go to that shop change money and get some cake". Ada "OK mumma". Slowly comes wears her shoes... "Mumma, I cant wear this shoe, please make me wear it". Me: "OK will do it". We both locked home, I took the car keys so that I can give it for washing(thursdays are car cleaning days) started for the shop. Did not see the cleaning boy, so just walked. It took us 15 mins instead of 10 because Ada  is holding my thigh and not moving. Now got the money changed, bought milk packets and cake. Now walking back home. Just near my home, there is a fruit seller. We bought some mangoes and bananas and heading for home.
Checking the clock, oh my god, it is already 8.30 AM... Will I have time for some quick pranayama... No may be not now. If I get ready before 9.00 AM then may be. Now checking what needs to be packed for Ada's school. I have to pack her 2 dresses, 2 pairs of socks, 2 pants, 2 bedsheets, wipe cloth, long pants, powder, odomus, comb... Done, now putting in her basket. Checking her water bottle, already very dirty, so cleaned it filled some water. Ada: "Mumma, can you please open this cake". I quickly opened it and then she said, she wants eat it on her study table. I looked at the table, it is too dusty, so picked up the dusting cloth, cleaned it, so that she can eat. Meanwhile I go back to pack my lunch and breakfast. Got to cut cucumbers, carrots (need to eat salads, because recently I had a series of health issues). Pack chole also done.. Checking time, 8.45 AM. Saw Ada neebling on a straw. I asked her to put it down, so I can wash it for her. Cleaned the straw returned it to her. Saw Ada holding potty. This is what is happening for the last one year. There is a long story about it. I saw she soiled her pants. Quickly removed the pant put her in a fresh one. Looked into her eyes, asked will you potty now? She said no, give me some mango and after that I will do potty. So went ahead, peeled and cut a ripe mango, put the plate in front of her and asked her to eat. She said, no mumma, can you please feed me? I clenched my teeth and said OK. While feeding her, I am still going back and forth, charging my phone, packing my lunch and doing other mundane jobs. Now I finished dusting the reaining tables also, where she generally puts her hands on. She puts her hand in her mouth all the time. Now it is 9 AM. My god, I have not brushed, not taken bath neither has Ada done any of that.Generally at 9.00, we start from home. Since it is school break she can reach school by 9.30 AM. But let me try and put her in potty and see what happens. She sat, asked me to sing and tell her story, 10 minutes, nothing happened. Me now very angry, sprayed water over her to clean, lifted a 16 KG child in my two arms, took her to bathroom. At this she started crying. "Adar khaba" (she needs adar all the time). Now I am very angry, gave her bath, cleaned her feet, brushed her teeth, wiped her and made her wear dress, pants and socks, she is still crying..... Now it is 9.15 AM. I have now 5 mins to comb my hair, brush my teeth and take bath and get ready. I went to bathroom amidst her constant crying. Got ready at about 9.25AM, she is still crying, did little bit "adar", now we are all set for school. Time now 9.30 AM. Drove super fast, so that I get a parking spot. Dropping her at school was smooth, no crying. Got back to office(office in opposite direction from school) at 9.55 AM. The car tyre pressue is low in the front wheel, and car is running out gas. May be do it some other time. Punched in and back in office. Today I have skill development meeting at 11 AM, Ph.D AcSIR screening committee meeting at 11.30 AM and a DAC (Doctoral Advisory committee) meeting for one of my students at 12 PM, a meeting at 11 AM, got to an annual report, got to supervise a sequencing, do some annotation for collaborative work. Toner of the printer is down, so students keep coming to my office for printout, while I hit the key board typing this story. Also had two quick meetings, signing two OMs (office meorandums) while I am still typing.  Now it is 11.05 AM, time for the meeting... Got to go.

Fast forward, now it is 3.15 PM, meetings are over, lunch is over, little bit of work is over, questions and answers for Sequencing is over, 2 students meetings are over, back is still complaining....
4.30 PM, time to go pick up Ada. I started at 4.30 reached in school near about 5 PM, the school handed me over a home work book chiding me on why I did not collect it earlier.. I had sme argument with them and finally at 5.15, the child is in the car. I straight away headed to office, was checking team viewer for a genome assembly with an ICAR lab. At 6.20 PM, Ada is restless to go home. So packed up, reached home at 6.30 PM. Karate class today. Made her wear her Karate uniform, took her to the ground. Meanwhile, sneaked out to buy onion and then back sitting near the waiting area. At 7.45 PM Karate class is over. We both are back home, she wants to do her homework, so we sat for a while. One pae is done. Now time now for dinner. I feed her rice, dal, omlette veggies for about 30 mins. I am terribly hungry, had some veggies and curries and one dosa. 9.45 PM, time to sleep. Slept like a log till 6.00 AM when the door bell rang. Happy to be alive and yes the back pain is gone!!! Thanks to my eating only salad.....

An idle day out of a perfect beginning...

What started off as a perfect day ended up as one of the most idle days. I dont remember having a day like this for a long time. No office for me, no school for Ada just hanging around. Sounds good right. Here is what happened. Today I got up at 6 AM, took out frozen milk and made cheese since my daughter takes cheese to school. This ritual followed by watering plants and doing my daily chores. Packing chocolates for Ada's school since there was supposed to be a school birthday today for her. Food packed, snack packed, clothes packed, water bottle packed, shoes packed ready to go. At 7.30 AM I am done and ready for work. Bathed Ada by 8 AM and was planning to do some pranayama if time permits between 8.30 AM to 9 AM. Fed Ada one roti and it was looking like one of the most perfect days to school and work. If I start exactly at 9 AM, I reach school at 9.15 AM and hence get a good parking spot. I dont have to rush going far away near a drain or struggle to do a parallel parking. Just when I am about to leave, saw Ada is holding potti (She stands in her toes, hides her face behind curtain and avoids eye contact). I was aware that it will be late to school but still thought let me take her to potti. 10 minutes in toilet, nothing. I was loosing my patience. It was already 9.15 AM. There is very little hope that I can take her to school at this moment. Despite all this I decided to give her the suppository that we usually give her every 5-7 days. 15 minutes later some symptoms, then I take her to toilet, waited for 5 mins nothing as yet. My frustration was running high just because I was aware that she not only missed school, I also missed my office. I then scolded her, put her in bed, walked out of the room angrily. She being a very pampered kid started wailing loudly. I came to the living room and was taking deep breath to calm myself down. The cry stopped, and I was wondering what is she upto (usually she is afraid to be alone in any room). It is already 5 mins since I left her. I tip toed to the bedroom and saw she was not on the bed. Then when I went further inside saw her heading towards the toilet. This time she was really getting the pressure. I went hurriedly and found she has already soiled her pant. Then took her to the toilet. Great this time it worked. Then 3 more trips, looked like she emptied her colon but missed her school and I missed my work. So just chilling at home and dont know what to do on a unplanned day like this so blogging.

An unforgettable holiday in Andaman...

Ever since we came back from USA ( to be precise 25th July 2012), we have not taken any meaningful break. We did take some small breaks, but they were rather very short and stressful to be called as a holiday. Our recent trip to Andaman during 30th June to 7th July has been particularly very enjoyable. We too straight 7 days break and stayed in a very comfortable hotel in the downtown where I could even do leisure shopping. That was the best part of it.

We traveled Air India from Kolkata and the flight was scehduled at 8.40 AM. It took less than 2 hours to reach Veer Savarkar airport in portBlair at approximately 8.30 AM. One thing to watch out is the airport rest rooms are aweful, so better stay away from them. We took a taxi to the hotel that was approximately 3-5 kms from the airport, at a comfortable fare of 125 rupees. The taxi guys generally try to do sight seeing marketing, but dont jump into yet untill you verify the locations yourself.

Out of the 7 days locations listed by the taxi guys menu, we found 2 are very close to the downtown. So probably there is no need of a package tour for that if you are staying downtown, you can take them on your own. One of them is Rajiv Gandhi water park and the other is Mahatma Gandhi park. We stayed in Courtyard J hotel and both the places were walking distances apart from the hotel (from downtown aberdeen bazar). Cellular Jail is also very close to the downtown, but it is closed on mondays. So, better to plan for this place on weekends.

First day in the evening, we headed for Corbyn's cove beach in PortBlair by an auto. It was about 10 kms ride from the hotel, quiet, water is not that clean but still better than mainland.

Day 2: We walked into the municipality food court and Rajiv Gandhi park. It was quite nicely maintained and stays open long. I saw some big screen monitors broadcasting social messages. This is a beautiful garden with small play park, walking trails. Has everything for all age groups. There is also a cycle space for kids to learn traffic rules. I found that to be interesting.

Day 3: We took a cruise to Havelock Radhanagar beach bu Macruise. It is a pivate cruise charges about 1000 rupees per head for one way for an adult. For children they dont have a fare structure yet, but for infants they charge 150 per head per way. The cruise lasts for about 90 minutes and is beautiful. You need to reach the dockyard at 7.30 AM. Once you reach havelock, you need to take taxi or rented cars for the beach. We headed for Radhanagar beach, one of the most beautiful beaches with pristine clean water. The taxi two and fro costed us about 500 rupees. Once you get down there, you will see ladies selling bananas, pine apples at resonable prices. You can munch on them if you like. We headed for the beach at 10.30 Am and were back by 2.30 PM just about time to catch the cruise back to portblair. Radhanagar beach is one of the nicest beaches I have ever seen. Water is extremely clean. There are changing areas, wooden benches swings and tall trees all over the beach. So you can lie down and relax. It is the perfect beach I have ever seen! On our return the water was choppy and bouncy. People having sea sickness should take enough care and precautions.

Day 4: We went for local sight seeing including cellular Jail. It is a 7 armed structure and the central pillar is beautifully located with sea all around it. There are museaums and displays about the life of the prisoners. There is a small shop called as sagarika, that sells local products. Very reasonable in case you want  to buy momentos.

Day 5: We took small cruise to North island and ross island. There are several boat/cruise operators and they generally charge 500 rupees per head per way. So for 2 adults to go and comeback these two places will cost about 2000 rupees. The water in both the places are pristine and clear. In north island people generally do water activities. We happened to do some shopping there and found pearls and other stuff to be much cheaper than sagarika. Apart from that there is nothing much to see. From there we headed for Ross island. This is an island where no body stays now. It has a great historical significance. During british times, british high commissioners were staying here and this place was called as paris of the east. Indeed it is a beautiful place with remains of the all the old world charms. There are peacocks, deers, rabbits openly moving around and a lot of coconut trees. You are suppose to walk around the place and enjoy the sight. We wasted time because we though it is a big place for walking. Bu actually speacking if you take a walk on one side in 2 hours time you can complete seeing the entire place. Be aware, there is no food items available, so carry your stuff.

Day 6: We visited local spots for buying plants and checking out there manufacturing place at Dollygunj for buying stuff. They were not that great. We found north island to be by far the best place for purchasing. We also visited an agriculture and dairy university place where they were giving away free plants and we got some.

Day 7: Chidiyatappu. We rented a taxi for Chidiyatapu from Aberdeen bazar. It costed about 1200 rupees for both ways. The price is worth. This point is a place where you should see sunset. In a cloudy day you may not see much. It is a must go place again with beautiful beach and mountainous roads. I must say difficult to drive roads. If you plan to go there start as early as 2 PM from the city. Overall I would give 5 star to the beach.

My take home message is:
1. Andaman nicober island is a beautiful place.
2. Regular household items are cheaper there if you want to buy.
3. Mostly this place is inhabited by Tamilians and hence crie rate is much less.
4. The city is very clean and they dont use polythene bags.
5. People in Andaman islands dont every imagine coming to mainland. They are much happier there.
6. Food items are more or less like mainland so no surprises there.
7. Green coconuts are two types, green and orange.
Overall a 5 star tourist spot.

When is this going to end?!

The title looks serious, although contents may not appear like one! This has been an issue for one and half years now and I am not seeing any end to it. Well here is the problem.

My toddler (going to be 3 in 2 months) has stopped wearing diapers for atleast a year now. She does not wet the bed and susu is not a problem at all. With her potty has been a biggest challenge. We tried everything, pots, toilet seats to real toilets but she somehow has a phobia for it. Somehow she manages to hold it. Earlier she used to hold for 5 days and would soil the pant and will not come near us when she feels like it. No matter how much we try. I have started with a reward system where she gets chocolates when she does potty, but she says she does not want one! I am totally confused as what to do...

Everytie she soils the pant there is lot of stress, scolding crying happens and just now one such episode just happened so I decided to blog.

For last six months, the stool has been extremely hard and she had injuries. So we took her to the doctor. The doctor gave a medicine and she would do potty only when she is fed the medicine. Now it has come to a stage where she by passes the medicine also. We tried Ayurvedic, alopathic, homeopathic medicines and none of them works. It has so far has been a very frustrating and stressful experience for us.

Last week, she did not do potty for a week, so we took her to her doctor. He referred to a pediatric surgeon and he gave suppositories. She passed stool in 2 installments. Then he prescribed a medicine and asked us to give her for 2 weeks. Now she is still holding a soiling the pant. I take her to toilet and there she refuses to sit and starts for

My toddler is an angel!

Now it is early morning, 4 AM on a monday. Woke up to mosquito bites, quickly checked my phone for emails and face book posts; one article caught my attention - an article on a toddler. The mom of the toddler writes about how she is being screamed at, bitten, scratched, hairs pulled and puked. This has been seconded by many more moms, makes me think, my toddler is an angel!! Let me describe my struggles with my toddler in a typical day.

Most of the time I single parent my daughter. Getting up in the morning, giving her food, running around for buying her supplies in case of emergency, getting her ready etc. When I say get her ready to school, it is no easy job. She does not want to take bath even after constant pursuasions. I try to put her in her new bath tub that her grandma bought. Putting all her choicest toys, spoons dabbas, anaything else she wants to take in, let her sit for as long as she likes - still does not work. End of it when time comes to put soap on her, there is always screaming and wailing. Then comes the real struggle to get her dressed for school. She does not like the thought of going to school, so she will run away before you manage to gather her and put her dresses, socks on. In between I have to manage to brush, take a 2 minutes bath, wear my (any) clothes to get ready to work. I only get 10 minutes every morning for myself. But the most harrowing of all is when you are about to lock your door, ready to leave, she will come up with her master stroke - want to go to toilet!! Many times, she will also tell you that she wants to do potty...So you remove all her clothes, put her in potty, wait patiently till she says she does not want to do any and get her ready all over again. This has been my life for as long as I remember with my 2 and half year old toddler.

Weekends are no fun. Morning, I have to take her to the park till she is done, then take her around the lake, run to buy milk, buy groceries, vegetables (all in different directions - managing time for each of these schedules while pushing her stroller), buy her school supply etc. In between, do my work intermittently and most importantly attend to her. The most difficult part so far has been her potty habbits. On many weekends, she will not go to toilet for potty, but will simply do on her pants. Day before yesterday, a saturday it happened for 7 times through out the day. The drama continued when she has the urge to go to toilet and has already soiled her pants, I take her to toilet. After waiting for 10-15 minutes, singing telling her stories, nothing comes out. Clean her bring her back and in another 1 hour, the same story repeats till you completely break down. Yesterday, a sunday another story erupted, where she refused to take bath!! Hair smelly, body smelly dirty but still does not want to take bath. Once in the morning I allowed her to cry as much as she can and she managed to do that successfully and fell fast asleep. I felt bad, although I could have done my work duirng that time, but could not do much. Then she got up, I fed her and pursued her to take bath all over again with many (inspiring :) stories ) and that resulted in nothing. Again crying wailing, screaming. I left her crying for sometimes till she calmed down. I gathered her, hugged her and asked whether she would take bath. She graciously suggested she can take bath in balcony.. It sounded like I won some lottery. I brought everything to balcony, but the sight of soap again triggered her anger. Anyways after a great struggle I managed to give her bath. When it was shampoo time, wailing ensued. She would just grab my legs, so washing her I get completely drenched. In any case, end of the struggle is good, because she is clean and hairs washed. This has been so for last 2 and half years every other day. Imagine the stress, but I manage to stay somehow sane by occasional meditation (like today when I get up really early) and contain my emotion. Today especially after reading this article, it occurred to me that how my toddler is an angel compared to what I read (touch wood! ). She does not pull my hair (yet), does not puke, does not bite me or scratch me... I dont know if she did all of this, what I would do and how I would react. She is now asleep by my side like an angel while I rant about her....

How is it to miss your daughter when you are at work ...

Call me silly or stupid, I am at work today and missing my toddler so much that decided to write this blog. Yes you heard it right, we live together, everyday before I come to work, I drop her at day care - not before we have enough scuffle. She hates to go to school and hence refuses to get ready and as result I get stressed out and a lot of shouting screaming and crying ensues. And finally it is a success when I drop her at school before 9.40 AM. Sometimes when I am late, I get nice lectures from her teacher. Believe me, on my way back driving I feel as though I am lighter by many kilos. Then few hours at work, I start missing her. Once I missed her so much that I googled her as 'Kukua' because that is what I call her at home and ended up getting this cute little bird and immediatey made it my desktop wall :)



I find this very strange because when I am home she drives me crazy and I want to have some quiet time, but when away from her I miss her. Does it happen to all moms?

How much work does a home need????

Endless is my answer.......................................... I will explain this in a while. People do spring cleaning when the snow is over, I did a spring cleaning because my train tickets did not get confirmed and/or I did not get a guest house booking All is for well I guess. Much to the horror of my domestic helps I did not take off for the loong weekend end with 5 straight days off. It sounds like a lottery :)

I am home alone with a toddler who needs constant attention and what could be done in this scenario is when she is asleep. However, she is super excited when she is home so, she does not taker her nap during the afternoon. It all started on 23rd March ( a compensatory off), 24th is holi, 25th is good friday and 26th and 27th are the weekends.

On 23rd actually there was holi in the building and in Kolkata, so could not venture out. But hey who worries, I have straight 5 days off.However, early in the morning managed to do a full sequence of yoga and pranayama before Ada woke up, yay!!  Morning time few of  my colleagues landed in my home to put colors on my daughter, but she is not yet conscious about holi yet. Look at stupid me, did not keep any sweet at home in advance and could not offer anything to the visitors.. Face palm :(

After noon of holi, we (my toddler and I) went to the park, took a lot of beans, carrots for the rabbits did jhula and the day was over coyly. Now the second day is the action filled day. I must make up for the wasted day so I thought. Morning started with taking the 9 pillows of the sofa out remove the cover wash them off along with other clothes. Go to the park, buy stock of 3 kg papaya, 5 litres of milk, grapes, bananas, yogurts, vegetables (seriously, what would I do if I did not have this stroller ?!!) etc. Stocked it up, gave bath to Ada (now it is a struggle. In between managed to gulp some food when hungry. Constantly in every two hours I was aware of Ada's food need , so would make sure she eats and drinks water. Came evening, I took off to buy clothes to replace the pillows of my sofa. They wer very unsightly before made up of dirty looking clothes, that started tearing off exposing the polyeaster fibres. I took measurements and it is 20 X 32 inch for the large pillows (6) and 18 X 18 inch for 3 small pillows. I ventured out with Ada, made her climb the Dhakuria bridge ( she was super excited). My little baby walk all the way till the shop and we bought 7 meters of cloth. While coming back, we took an auto ride. Ada was super excited to have that joy ride over the bridge. We came back home. Dinner time, fed Ada, read books to her, play with her. About 9.30 PM when she slept, I slowly crawled out of the bed, stitched all the pillows till 1 AM in the morning. Next day, I got up at about 3 Am after catching up about 2 hours of sleep. Time to work, so I took up the job I would do when Ada is not around. I took invcentory of my entire wordrobe. arranged everything, threw some clothes that I was no longer fitting into. I had another nice new dress that I never wore and was wondering if I can wear them after I become thin. But finally decided to let go of it and gave it away. Arranged my clothes in order, felt really good.

Ada got up about 6.30 AM that day, so I had to keep her engaged, played with her, fed her, had a cup of tea and immediately after toilet went to the park with Ada. There usual stuff , let her play little bit and then go feed rabbit, then go play football, go to green coconut spot, buy vegetables or anything edible come back home. In between I managed to browse my mail box and there was this email of my student who has to submit an abstract for an international workshop and work had to be done. So, I decided to go to the lab the next day. Meanwhile after coming home feed Ada, giver her bath, feed her lunch, play with her till she sleeps. After she is all set for afternoon nap, I took out the old pillows, removed the polyester fibres and filled the new pillows. This took a while. After this job is done, I stopped it there, because Ada was already up. Then I took her to Garia Haat with me. The washing machine pipe is broken, I bought one while holding Ada tightly. We walked till the auto stop, there again took an Auto and Ada was ecstatic. The expression in her face was priceless. Once in Gariahaat, it is so crowded that a small person may get crushed. So I decided to quickly finish shopping. Bought a big jhula for home and that was so heavy that I had to return back home then and there. Luckily got a taxi and headed home. In the evening till 9.30 it is Ada's time, so played with her, fed her and took her to sleep, After she was asleep, I closed the mouth of the pillows, put the covers  on and placed them back on the sofa. My todo list was still long, I was nowhere close to my target. I was supposed to clean the cobwebs, all the drawers, take inventory of the items, Well, now it is getting to a point where I am trying to evaluate myself on my efficiency. I installed the new swing on friday..

Saturday again I got up to coockoo's singing at 3 AM, started off with the tent, un-aseembled by Ada. I must assemble it before she  gets up I said to myself, else she will stew parts everywhere and this piece will be useless. I bought it from Mumbai after all carrying it as a luggage. Successful after one hour. Next job was to check the cupboards of my bed room and I discoevered many lost items, that I was looking for a long time. Hurriedly I began my next job and that was to clean the cobweb. This had to be done before my maid came else I will end up cleaning the floor. Yup that was done. The next item was to clean the drawers, I  managed to clean few of the drawers, found many new batteries and most importantly one screw that was missing for a while now from a chair. That chair was lying broken for sometimes because of that missing screw as well as the screw driver that can be operated on it. Somehow, I managed to find both, fixed the chair. So far so good. Very good progress I said to myself. Ting it was 7.30 AM and Ada is up. Played with her engaged with her to Park and het stuff till 9.30 AM. Back home arranged  her to watch some rhyme and did my second yoga routine albeit only 30%. It was already 11 AM. About to put on my shoes, smelt something. Saw Ada has done potty. Went back cleaned her and then set for the lab with my daughter. All her things need to be packer e.g; a giraffe, a ball, water bottle, her wipe, biscuit and my laptop. On the way, she pulled the strong elastic of the giraffe and little bit of her skin was stuck in the elastic. I know it was hurtful I was driving and then she cried aloud. What can I do? I can't stop the car, inside the crowded place and cant focus on anything. It was nerve wrecking. Her cry was only getting louder and louder and my patience was running out. Luckily after 2 minutes, there came a signal and I  managed to untangle her hand. Took her to the lab. Checked my students work, left her to play with my students and went for running errands. Withdrew cash, bought groceries, bought her  green coconut and came back to lab, Fed her and then set up back home. Its time for lunch! Fed her lunched. Whatever was remaining in the plate managed to gobble up and went back to sleep with her. I was already sleep deprived and needed some good sleep. Both of us slept for good two hours and got up at about 4 PM. When she is awake, I dont venture into doing any of my todo. Just attend to  her and play with her. One more batch of garia haat shopping was remaining that included toilet papers, kitchen organizer, chopping bord and a bottle brush. Repeated yesterdays ritual and took off for Garia haat with Ada. My little baby was excellent. Not even for a while she asked me to life her. We managed to take an auto and walked into the crowd. Could buy most of the stuff. What a co-incidence, I saw a shop that was selling the flowers I always wanted. These are the flowers to be stitched into dresses. My happiness knew no bounds. I bought all the listed items, heavy on one hand. The other hand tightly clasping my precious little sweetheart. She was soooo good. I was seating profusely, finally an auto fellow took pity on me gave us a ride to our home with of course some premium. Once home, no more work, it is Ada time. Slept at around 10.30 PM.. Time is almost running out just one day remaining and I have to still do considerable number of chores. Morning again at 3 AM, I arranged the kitchen with the new  organizer. It took a while. Then my princess got up, the park and play ritual started and ended at 10.30 AM. Came home, determined to atleast complete remaining jobs. Started to clean the vegetable basket, washed, cut the veggies packed them and kept in fridge. Organized the fridge. In between I have to make chees for Ada's school, so took 2 litres of milk and started the job. Realized that Ada's stroller needed cleaning, so cleaned that. Then saw all our shoes were extremely dirty, cleaned 6 pairs of shoes. Cleaned Ada's tri-cycle, cleaned a along velvet chair, cleaned yoga mats. My little princess would come in between ask me food or ask for attention. I would  instead ask her to help me bring things which she would all so gladly. Then is the time to clean bathroom. Then next turn is to clean the table, beds. Some of my clothes were having stains, I went on to do the stain removal on them as well. Run the washing machine (checked the leak has stopped - my fix is working!!). Fed Ada, gave her bath, myself took bath. Finally Ada is taking a nap and I am into this post. It was such a great 5 days where I did so many things that it makes me feel really very good.

Here are some of the listed items I did over these 5 days:
Fixed a chair, Fixed washing machine, Stitched pillows, cleaned closet, cleaned cobwebs, cleaned all the drawers and took inventory of the items. Took inventory of all the kitchen items, vegetables, groceries, fridge. Did loads of cleaning including 3 laundries, 6 pairs of shoes, yoga mats, kitchen dabbas, Ada's stroller, red chair, kitchen cabinets, cleaned cup boards, 6 chairs, Ada;s toys, balls etc. Regular cleaning suhc as daily dusting and cleaning Ada's mess is not included here. Bought and fixed a new swing, bought plants, bought kitchen organizer,arranged Ada's racks. All these along with taking care  of a toddler that is feeding her 25 times in 5 days, cleaning and changing her. trying to potty train her, giving her bath, shampooing her, taking her to park, playing with her, reading to  her, watching TV with her etc. etc. What I still could not do is to replace some of the  plants and clean the  plants. But hey no complaints. I am happy that I could write this blog post to document my super holidays yipee. Life of a mom :) :) :)