deviousways

Last night, big man and I stayed up till 3 am to watch the Argentina-Netherlands football match. And before we slept, he and I had a brief conversation. "Let him bunk school," said he. "No, I don't want him to miss school, when he is perfectly well and able," insisted me. Naturally, I woke up to regret that. Got out of bed fuzzy, woolly-headed and utterly disoriented. But also filled with what-a-worthy-mom-am-I pride. I'd had barely three hours of sleep, after all. And there I was doing my best to ensure that my child went to school well-fed, healthy and on time. What an amazing parent I was being, I told myself. Then sitting in the loo, trying to shake the cloudiness from my head, I hear a tinny voice reciting numbers. It's Ayush, our security man Naveen Bahadur's four-year-old. Naveen, his wife Nirmala, Ayush and their new baby boy live in a room in our building basement. And since our flat is a ground floor one, we hear practically everythin...

Every morning, when I wake up, I need to be alone for a bit. Just me, myself and my cuppa--filter coffee sweetened with bella (jaggery in English, sarkaram in Malayalam). Sometimes, I do add a bit of sugar, truth be told, specially if it's organic jaggery (which tends to be a little bitter and less sweet, as compared with its normal counterpart). I read somewhere that mornings are best for regrouping one's senses, restoring the spirit, so to speak. And if I've been tossing and turning all night, then this me-time in the morning, even if it is only to savour my coffee in silence, makes me feel infinitely better. So, the early morning hour is something I jealously regard as my time. And I tend to get extremely irritable if my space is invaded by either doddering child or sleepy husband. Poor things. But then, we all have such routines. And children, more so than adults. Our little fellow, for instance. He likes me to carry him first thing. And crabby creature that I...