Help! The 'to-do' list is empty

I was suffering the constant gnaws in my conscience...Built triangularly around it with bold arrows pushing each side inward...you get the rather gory picture right?

Side 1: Its summer vacation and I havent planned any constructive ways to occupy my childrens time. No holidays planned, no summer camps programmed...just the usual six hours at the creche where they can do whatever they please with fifteen other occupants of the space, who come in various shapes and guises - infants, toddlers, a resident grandma, a few ayahs and teachers, and one responsible seven year old.

Side 2: The never ending list of things i proposed to do around home when I get the time. SIMPLE ones like visiting the tailor, buying correct sized socks (of different, but unisex colours), coutning the number of spiders behind the TV; GRAND ones like installing the printer, figuring out the treadmill, growing plants etc.

Side 3: Work at office. If lesser elaborated, the sooner I can proceed with this post.

On Sunday afternoon, the husband was calling for a cab to take him to the airport... the smaller monster insisted that it too will accompany him on his trip(business) to Chennai....Why not! we said.... so we called to check about tix and BINGO they were off. Really and truly the monsters were whisked away by daddy dear to Chennai. And I have been alone ever since...(18 hours and counting the seconds...).

And now I seem to have nothing to do.

In response to the barrage...

kbpm's ranting on parental anxiety (among other things) made me recollect Peter Drucker sooth-saying (in 2000)about this century's revolution in human affairs.

"....In few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time, literally, substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choice...."

Isn't that quite amazing and so true? Our generation can actually can feel the effects....to make your work relevant or irrelvant to your education, to work (outside of home) full time, part time or no time, to raise children in any crazy way we think fit, locational and vocational choices across geography, to see eye-to-eye or fist-to fist with parents, in-laws, neighbours, the whole lot..the list goes on.

I confess I get stressed out thinking what will happen to seven year olds who have GREAT diffculty with spellings and letter sounds (one reason why I adamantly refuse to watch TZP), but I believe they will very shortly be mature enough to understand their shortcomings and find something off beat that they will excel and also be passionate about.

Fireflies

The annual Fireflies Music Festival is a dusk to dawn affair. It happens in a 80 acre farm cum ashram cum cultural centre tucked away in a village called Dinnepalya nearly fifteen kilometeres down Kanakapura road. An open air amphitheater, a makefshift stage propped up against a huge pipal tree, with rocky steps serving as seats. Theres a huge canopy of trees, with a small aperture to view the starlit sky.

Go there next year - with kids, friends, pillows, mattresses, food, drinks.... and enjoy. This year I was stirred by Shabnam Virmanis performance of Kabirs poetry in the Malwa style. She was totally 'magan' and held the audience in that state as well. She is a documentary film-maker by profession. And an awesome singer.

Sentiment

Broke a bottle of perfume this morning. Never the one to really follow rules that dictate replacing lids tightly and never holding glass bottles by the lid, it had to happen sooner or later....Though with this particular item it has taken a full eight years. On numerous occassions these past eight years I have rapped two tiny pairs of fingers for climbing shelves and reaching to all things on shelf three.

The mess was slovenly cleaned up. But the whole apartment was emanating fire and ice. My neighbour offered her condolences and asked if it was a rarely-used treasured object, and if I had wanted wanted to preserve for forever kinds. I was stunned at this thought. She was equally stunned at my surprise. She said she has a bottle of perfume that she had used at her wedding and that she often just smells it to recollect those moments.

Hmm...this thing occupied my mind for a few hours. I guess the environment has conditioned me. My parents moved homes/places every single year till I was fourteen. That meant eight different schools till class eight. The cleanliness freaks made sure there never was anything in the house that was not currently in use or good shape. Except of course things that were produced using Guttenberg's ideas. No artworks (if only they had been preserved - I could have VOWed my current art instructor), no school books/notebooks beyond the last day of school for the year. Though I do remember somehow culling a whole load of greeting cards (only the pictures...the messages carefully scissored away) over the decades, and my brothers having truckloads of stamps. We even disposed off the veena when I discontinued my lessons!

My in-laws...they are different. They are very sentimentally attached to places, people and things. When we visited their village last month, it was moving to listen to their narration of the house they lived in, the fields they had tilled, the temples they worshipped, the rivers they swam in... Last year they gave S the piggy bank that their children had used. They even fished out the key from and ocean of metal stuff. The ocean also yielded cute kid-sized dinner plates about thirty years new.

Now, after all these years, in the scale of sentiment I can claim to be somewhere in between my in-laws and parents, tilting more towards the former. But still, worshipping perfume bottles....I still have a long way to go.

To continue lifting lines from an ancient poetry book (my fathers copy!) to which I am sentimentally attached.. heres Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Spring

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown-
Who ponders this tremendous scene-
This whole Experiment of Green-
As if it were his own!

Ah! Its real. Spring is here.

The glorious trees of the city are in full bloom. I spot the purple Jacarandas, the orange Flame of the Forest and numerous unknown ones...trees and plants that I never could have guessed sported flowers anytime. Its a refreshing sight.

And there are concerts galore to shake the really stubborn ones from hibernation. Took the little ones to Kadri Gopalnath and Mandolin Srinivas....we hardly managed to stay one hour at each, but we all enjoyed the experience.

And then my company has changed its name. The third time in three years!

Have scouted around for painting classes (for myself). Am waiting for inspiration to ignore the constraints of schedules to actually enroll.

And if spring is here can summer be far behind? My kids are doing vacation planning already. They want to see Red Fort and India Gate. They want to see Mumbai. My husband wants to eat the Delhi bread pakodas and parathas on the way-side. And I want to attend two weddings. And to buy coordinated paavadais for all the girls. Poor S though.

And thankfully the V day is over and done with. All newspapers, all TV channels will have not speak about it for one next 300 days (at least). Even CNBC had a V Day Closing Bell program! S thought that it was a festival like Id and Christmas which our family dosent historically celebrate. I decided to leave him at peace with that reasoning. It will last perhaps two more years, and then his ideas will change.

And then Jodaha Akbar is set to release. I dont know anybody who opines that its gonna be anything other than a failure...like the Umrao..I guess.Hrithik as Akbar. Its unsettling. Rai in jewelry more formidable than an armour. But it has got some peaceful music.

So long...till the Mango season arrives

The Q

I joined the crowd at 7:30 pm. The queue was about half a kilometer long, stretching well into the main road. In front of me were a man-wife pair. Holding/wriggling hands, whispering into ears...and all the rest of the things one can/cannot expect. Behind me too were a man-wife pair, discussing the intricate details of their professional life...project release next week, bitchy boss on leave, finance demading IT proofs of investment, what address to put down for HRA etc.

As the queue moved on at snails pace, the wife in front spotted the Schwarzkopf beauty parlour. She quickly peeped in, came back to husband, took some money and disappeared inside. The husband behind me was getting too restless. He went to the Q's beginning to see if there was any other way of getting in...disappointed that there wasnt, he bought a bagful of popcorn for himself and a small cone of peanuts for his wife. Meanwhile, the other wife in front returned after doing her eyebrows and trimmig her hair.

And this Q was for darshan on Vaikunta Ekadasi (last Thursday), at a temple nearby! When I finally got out of the temple it was 10:00pm. I had no clue what made me undertake this ....on a chilly, rainy night...and I am sure at least half the other were equally clueless. I even saw a lady from north-east, clad in a business suit, along with a long-haired boyfriend braving all this!

I always though such 'bhakti' came to folks living near Srirangam and brought up on the lore of Vishnu.

Arriving at hyper-parenthood

Saturday was the appointed day when we got initiated into hyper-parenting.

10:00 am was school day for S, 9:30 was a clouring and recitation compettition for the V organized by some hyperactive Rotary club. The boys went to the school after I got the dancer 'costumed'. The girls went to attack the Rotarians.

After a long wait, around 11:00 am, we got round to some tear-filled colouring. All the while responding (calmly) to things like
- "Why is baby fish in this picture jumping out of the water?".
- "Will it not die?".
- "But, it is STILL looking happy".
- "I want the fish to show me the other eye so that I can colour it Blue."
- "Why is THAAT girl painting, while I am crayoning?"

Then we rushed to meet the boys at the the dance. Lovely dance to a number called Suvvi Suvvali (Kannada of course, from Mungaru Male). Lots of goofed up photo-ops later, we arrived back at the venue for recitation as a full family. Hyper, needless to say. The twosome ran around the grounds, fell, bruised, wailed, hugged, pushed each other all over again, rolled in the mud like dogs....Finally V was asked to take the stage. By which time I was puffed. She put the mike INTO her mouth and sang "Wheels on the bus". Judges were pretty impressed.

I was planning a quiet lunch and nap at home when my niece called to say that my kids will love OSO and that I should take them to it (along with the neice of course). We drove to the other end of town and saw that movie. I immensely disliked it. But the gen-X liked it.

Next time, I will chaperone them, but wait outside on the steps with a book. But I guess I shouldnt get hyper about bad movies. Its all a part of hyper-parenting.

Hey, but I forgot take S to the Music class on Saturday. Hmm..Still have a long way to perfecting the skill, I guess.