And yet again another Taxi strike....

Kolkata is notorious for strikes. We have already faced few strikes right on the days when we have to take a cab to Railway station, airport etc..

Today is one of such days, when a taxi strike has almost killed me. I started fro home, getting Ada ready for her school. That itself is a tough job, since I have to give her 2 breakfasts, clean her after potty, give her bath, take her to park, do shopping for home and get myself ready - all of this before 9!! I have no choice left but to do it. I got myself ready and left the house, carrying 12 KG baby in one hand and a 5 kg basket in another (carrying all her essential stuff for the school) and my own office bag. It was scorchin hot outside.

I looked around and no taxi, then I decided to walk little farther because after the turn which is about 200 meters from home, generally taxis are parked there. I crossed  the turn with all sweats and paining hand. No sight of any taxi. I decided to walk 500 meters more, because there is a possibility of finding taxis there. I reached there with great difficulty, taking two short breaks to breath and wipe my flowing sweat. My poor baby thought mama is struggling so when I made her stand cutely she hold my hand and walked little. But because of the rugged path, she fell. I could not see  that again lifted her and started walking gasping for breath. It was too hot and sunny. When I reached the 500 meters destination, still there were no taxis. I was begining to get frustrated. Then I saw a shared auto which generally goes half way through, I decided to take that and offered to pay him, twice the fare, so that he will not squeeze another person in. There, one of the passengers said that there is a taxi strike. I was not crest fallen. What to do? I am half way through, but  the remaining half is also not easy. I have to walk another 500 meters carrying 17 kgs worth stuff to get another auto and then walk another 300 meters to go to school!! I had to do that and I did it again walking carrying my daughter. I told her today is taxi strike and she repeated 'tasi stike'. It was cute to hear that. Finally I crossed the main road and waited for another auto. Luckily that auto was empty and I negotiated with him, if he will take me out of his way and drop at the school gate, I will pay him 5 times the fare. He agreed and took me to the school gate. There I saw no one was there! It was about 5 to 10 AM (The school does not like late comers and strict rule is re-inforced). Since it was 5 minutes to 10 and they agreed to take her in. meanwhile my poor baby did not want to go and was constantly pointing me to go out. Finally wailing and screaming and crying she went in. I just hate to see her crying when she goes to school. I wish I had another option. Now the next struggle will be to bring her back home. Now I know she does not have diapers and has to be purchased and I am sitting in my lab and venting myself through this blog....

Respect to all mothers.....

Today is the second mothers day to me after Ada and I made some plans yesterday that I will go out with Ada and pramod and may be pramod will give me flowers and a card on behalf of Ada.. And yeah none of that happened :) I am finally sitting with my iPad to have a blog post that is long over due.

Time just flies and as a mother I know my day begins with Ada and ends with her. Morning to our surprise Ada woke up about an hour later ( at 6.30 am) all smiling. Then we had the ritual of her milk followed by first breakfast, in between playing with her entertaining her. Then little bit of Zumba and little pranayama. I did sit today to start yoga, but could not start. In between numerous time Ada will come with her books and will ask me to read it to her. Then her ritual of potty followed by bath. Then her second ayah comes and leaves also for good, leaving me to do all the dusting. Then it is already 10.30 am. Time for Ada s second breakfast. After it gets over at around 11.30, I am already thinking about lunch. Lunch is cooked for her and along with rhyme, she finished her lunch at around 1.30 pm. She decided dot skip her nap session today. We tried several times but it did not work out. Next thing was for us to have lunch. Then I realized there are lots of clothes in washing machine lying to be washed. So I set that up. Then started pressing Ada's clothes ( tomorrow to school day and they demand evey cloth need to be ironed) . It took me a solid 2 hours to finish ironing. Then there were some of her clothes without buttons and some with stitches gone, I started stitching in hand. By then it was already time for Ada's first snack. I squeezed a rosogollah in milk, boiled it for sometimes and then fed her( this is one of the ecommended snack by her nutritionist).  By now I am already tired but the young lady is not. The moment I went to lie down she brought in my sleeper to the bed. Then I ended up playing with her. One hour later she is hungry again I fed her some puffed rice( again a recommendation by her nutritionist) now she is showing signs of slowing down. We discovered a flat tire on our car, so pramod is busy fixing it downstairs. Next thing Ada wants is to take her by the window, so that she can enjoy boys playing football. Fine, I obliged. Then our cook is in, I ask her to start doing coking then my your lady asks for biscuits and the moment she has it, she falls asleep... Finally some time to myself. I went ahead to take a shower and brush ( yes on holidays I brush only in the evening). At about 6.30 pm, I am planning to have some tea, Ada is up again and crying. This time I hold her and gave her some milk and finally after holding he rfor 45 minutes, she slept again.
Now with her maid gone, I have to do her cooking, so I boiled milk and cooked her food. At 9.30 pm, I am done with chores for the mothers day. I am now wondering how people manage with multiple babies. Hats off to all mothers.

Its five and half months on...

Ada is home now for five and half months now and I blog very rarely these days. Apologies for that, it has been a lot of adjustment, but I dont think my not writing has anything to do with Ada :) She is a great baby, when I say great, I really mean it - not because I am her momma. Now she is 8 and half month  old and she can crawl very fast and she is trying to stand. Her favorite sport is doing "Jhul Jhul" (by holding our hand and moving back and forth) and dance. Earlier we were thinking how to accommodate a baby in our life, now we cant imagine a life without her. She is such a delight! She makes us happy and fills the space with her contagious laughter.
Now I have become expert diaper changer, baby soother, bottle refiller. I can give bath to her, message her, take care of her all by myself. I never thought I had all these abilities.
Whoever says that adopted babies are not treated well, I have to strongly disagree with them. After the baby is home, no normal person will think about their genetic makeup. The baby becomes all yours. You hardly think if she shares the same single nucleotide polymorphisms as yours. When we look at her, it gives so much pleasure to see that actually she is growing and we are taking care of her. She learns whatever we say or do. That is amazing! I dont think if we had a biological child, we would have loved him/her more than we love Ada. She is apple of her papa's eyes. He can let her do anything, but that scares me sometimes, what if she goes the wrong way... 

The momma syndrome!

Not very long ago, very frequently I would make fun of momma's complaining that their children are not eating at all. But recently I found myself doing the same, albeit without much of my knowledge. Our baby Ada is home for the last two and half months. These two and half months have been a huge turning point in my life.
In November 17th, the agency called us saying that a 11 days old baby girl has come and if we would like to adopt her. My immediate response was a big yes without giving much thought. After sometimes the thought started percolating in and the thought of arranging logistics started sinking in. I was getting in touch with my mom and I in-laws regarding a full timer at home. Then the nervousness about handling a small baby all by myself. I have heard horror stories of babies crying  all night long, parents going into depression and so on. But we went ahead during last week of January 2014' camped about a week, but the agency, lawyers with vested interest turned us down until till a later date. Only after extracting some money, they called us the next week to come and take the baby. I went again with my parents for a day and got the baby with us. Ever since life has changed completely. From a free spirited person I became a mom!!

I have heard that moms cry when the baby's are taken for blood test. What a surprise i cried too when ada was getting her blood taken for a test. I am talking often these days about Ada not eating well! Is this the mom syndrome. I have successfully now inherited the mom syndrome.

Time of my life....

We are witnessing a great time and a great transition. In the last decades of my life, I am witnessing lots of changes - positive ones, quite astounding. I will cite some of this with examples. In Kolkata, there are lot of things are there that I dont like, and many times I wished silently that all of these go away. And as I watch some of them really go away!! This is not about mysticism,  this is about changing times. This may be because many more people thought about it acted upon it and made it happen. Of my wishes that were fulfilled were:

1. Cleanliness in the lake park near my house. As I see now there, people are cleaning it everyday :)
2. There was a guy selling green coconut near the park, but his cycle ricksaw is always parked on the road blocking the traffic. One fine day I saw he has permanently moved to the pavement, unblocking the road and keeping his surrounding clean.
3. There are homeless people on the street on my way back home. As winter approaches, I always think of donating them blankets. One fine morning I saw all of them already having blankets :)
4. Our apartment complex campus is much cleaner now.
5. Traffic stops way before their traffic lines giving way to pedestrians.
6. People clean up the road after selling puchkas etc.
7. There is stadium near my house and every time there is a program, the noise is quite disturbing. Now I see they are building walls around  it and we hear much less noise.

Among the things that has not happened so far is:

1. Spitting on the road. I wish this stops completely.
2. I hope there are no homeless people.
3. I hope there are no street children.
4. I hope there are no street dwellers.
5. I hope the encroachment goes away.
6. I hope there are vending zones all over....

Apart from all these, it is heartening to be in an era where there are a number of great people are around. I call this as renaissance. The great people we are contemporary with are: Baba Ramdev, Sri Sri Ravishankar, BK sister shivani, Narendra Modi. All of them work selflessly beyong their personal agenda. Hope our country will be prosperous one of these days in my lifetime. 

Does metta bhavna(loving kindness) meditation really work?? - YES IT DOES...

Exactly about 27 days ago, we walked into the buddhist temple opposite my house during an evening aarti. The aarti ended and there was a gentleman who started discoursing on meditation. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise that he started teaching it and described the benefits of doing this particular meditation.Meditation was not new to me. I have been doing some general meditation for the past 6 months, on and off while I was yet to really feel any specific benefits of meditation. But nevertheless I used to feel very good about it. Now, about metta bhavana meditation. the monk said the following things:

1. Start with a close eye and smiling face (If you smile you will be happy and vice versa!!!). Imagine yourself in a very happy and pleasant state. Think that all is well with you and all is going to be well with you, no matter what.
2. Imagine your very inner circle (the immediate family members). Imagine their happy faces and tell that all is well with them and is going to be well with them. While imagining the faces continue breath deeply and gently. Dont allow any other thoughts to sabotage this feeling.
3. Slowly expand this to distant family members. Imagine their happy faces. Go slowly to your friend circle, acquaintances etc. Imagine any unhappy soul on the street or anywhere whom you want to give this special loving kindness. Then continue to people in your office building, apartment building, city, state, country and entire universe. All this while keep a very smiling face.

This may last between 5-7 minutes depending on how many people you are specifically sending this loving kindness.

I have been doing this meditation may be every other day o n an average. Even I include the people I am not particularly fond of.

Yesterday, I got a phone call from a person whom I am not very fond of, but nevertheless I have included her in my meditation. She was speaking very fondly about me!!!! This is like a miracle. So, also another person, I am not very fond of also has been pleasant with me. So, I am assuming this is the result of this metta bhavana meditation. How nice it is! Hope this will work for you as well  

My Balcony Garden

After I moved to my official accommodation, there were a lot of things that needed to be fixed. The lights needed to be fixed, the wall fixtures needed to be added, water Reverse Osmosis needs to be in place, kitchen needed fixtures. I needed wall mounts for bathroom, screen rods and many more things. As finally all is done, I am now focusing truly on something that I enjoy as a serious hobby - that is gardening. I have a small balcony and an unsightly wall to work on. While I have had  my tryst with the wall and to some extent it is manageable, but I still have miles to go before I make what I really would like to make it. I am posting some pictures of my balcony garden and wall garden. I will catalogue and follow up after few months on the progress....