I Don’t want to go to the school

My fauji hubby is due to be posted out of Jaipur by the first week of May. Anya , our elder daughter hasn’t enrolled in the new class at her school as she will be joining another school in a new city soon. But Anika, her younger sister is continuing with her studies at the primary school that she attends since we felt that it would do her good to be regular with the books. We have feeling mighty proud of her as she has been adjudged the ” Best Student of the School “. The principal of her school and her teachers all describe her as being very good natured, cheerful and very gentle with her friends.

A daily morning scene at our home nowadays: By the time her school van arrives, we ( me, Ranjan and Anya) have been smiling continuously for a good one hour, so that Taidu/Anika stays cheerful and is in a good mood. One honk of the horn and the tears start rolling.
Taidu- “Now I have started crying so I will be crying till tiffin-time.”
Us- “But why are you crying?”.
Taidu- “Because you gave me a bath/ made me wear white
shoes/gave me a cheese poori for tiffin/ etc etc.
Us- ” No, that’s not the reason”.
Taidu- ” Anya will enjoy at home and I have to go to the school.”
Us- ” She doesn’t enjoy at all. She gets bored at home”.

We take her to the van, she doesn’t let go of us. I don’t want to see her in this state, hiding her face from her friends, shedding copious tears. So, we pull her down from the van and her Dad takes her to the school. The same tearful scene follows. After sometime, I ring up Ranjan at his office to ask if she had stopped crying when he came back. Till she comes back from the school, her crying/hiccupping face is all I can think of.

Whew! I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal to you, But to us, it’s a heart breaking routine that we go through daily nowadays. We know that she is crying because she has to go to the school and her sisiter doesn’t. My naughty, happy-go-lucky and good natured Taidu cries daily in the morning. So, my sweet Taidu- please will you smile and wave at me from your van window,like you always do? Will you laugh when I make a ” Bugs Bunny face” just to see your face light up. You know I do that always so that you go to school laughing and happy. Strawberries to you! ( it’s her favorite fruit).

©Apr 2016 Sapna Dhyani Devrani

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Two kinds of people

I think people at large can be classified into two categories.

The first : I faced it, so should she/he. Why should she/he be spared? Why should he/she get what I didn’t ?

The second : I went through it, why should he/she? Let me try and make things easier for him/her. With my age and wisdom, I can provide guidance and prevent this younger person from becoming embittered with bad experiences.

If you are fortunate enough to meet the second kind, hold on to the person with all your might. Don’t let go. 🙂

©Apr 2016 Sapna Dhyani Devrani

Two Biographies and a Memoir

Happened to read two biographies and a memoir one after the other. It took me some time to read them due to time constraints. Even my girls came to know the names of the books, and would tell me where I had last kept them.

The first one being Shatrughan Sinha’s ” Anything But Khamosh “. Hey dude, you had your cake and ate it too! Two females, one of them being a top actress and the other one also an actress as well as a beauty queen, worshipping you. CAD! smile emoticon

Naseeruddin Shah’s memoir- ” And Then One Day “. Respect to your total honesty and candour. An interesting glimpse into your unconventional world.

The best among the lot– Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw’s biography ” Soldiering With Dignity “. What a dynamic and interesting personality! Hey Rockstar, why were you not born in our times? We all could have met you then. And I am sure he is warmly and cheekily saying from his heavenly abode, ” Why not, sweetheart? ” , Sweetheart being one of his pet phrases. They don’t make them like him anymore.

©Apr 2016 Sapna Dhyani Devrani

65.5 kgs. Gosh!

These numbers have been sitting heavily on my mind since the past one week. After our daily evening swimming sessions, my daughters always rush to the gym and stand on the weighing scale, It’s a game for them ( and me too ), watching numbers pop up on the machine. But it ceased to be amusing for me as ” 65.5″ stared back at me.

How did it come to this? I was a dainty 48 kgs when I got married, 12 years back. Then the hubby embarked on a mission to feed me up, piling up delicacies on my plate during meal times, taking advantage of the fact that I was,am and will always be- a big foodie. It was years later that he confessed to the crime; saying that he wanted me to go back to Doon and my family, looking well fed and looked after. He is one of those rare species of husbands who don’t notice the change in their wives’ weight and go through their lives believing that the fair lady has miraculously maintained the same weight throughout. ( To tell the truth, I am mighty thankful to be blessed with such a loveable ” weight blind ” hubby.)

So, while watching t.v. a few days back, I asked him, ” Am I slimmer or fatter than that female on screen?” Pat came the reply, ” Oh she is fat. You are perfectly fine.” If you are going “awwww”, I perfectly understand. They don’t make “weight blind” guys like him anymore. If I ever mention about watching what I eat, ( which won’t ever happen, as I eat like a horse ), he tells me to live it up and eat whatever I want to. Yes, I know, again a rare trait. And together we eat, each outdoing the other. Cooking together, eating together, clicking pictures of the delicacies and piling on calories together. But he says, the calories sit right on me and he prefers me this way- Hari Bhari ( Gross, I know.)

Ssshhhhhh…I’ll let you in on a secret thought of mine. I suspect that he is ” fattening” me up for his own ulterior motive. He is plotting and scheming to make me overweight so that we look ” balanced” in the pictures. No Tipping Of Scales!!!!  😉

©Apr 2016 Sapna Dhyani Devrani

Help me…the hubby snores!!

I am riding a motor-bike. The day is perfect, the sky is an azure blue and there is wind in my hair ( somehow am not wearing a helmet ). I am on my way to that wonderful land- Leh. There is a steady “dhad-dhad-dhad” of the bike along with me singing ” mai chali, mai chali”. As I get to the first stanza of the song, the dhad-dhad-dhad starts getting louder. Now it’s more like “chug-a-chug-a-chug” ( with a few whistles thrown in). All of a sudden there is a deafening sound of a train approaching. Whoa ! A train? The force of the sound makes me loose balance and am thrown off the bike. Can’t a girl go on a solo trip? Who sabotaged it by sending a train? I get up and start looking around, rubbing the dust off my eyes.

It’s NOT a train!!. The sound is emanating from my hubby who is sleeping next to me, snoring away to glory. I kick him hard in the shin. He jumps and looks at me, and goes back to sleep again. I hear him muttering ” She is beating me”. I punch him on his arm and he says,” lemme sleep”. “No!” I shout. ” Why did you stop me from going to Leh?” “What? When?” the train/hubby/snore machine asks. “Just go back to sleep, you M.C.P.”

Help me, the hubby snores!! —- a sleep- deprived wife.

©Apr 2016 Sapna Dhyani Devrani

” Mummy, why can’t you be like the other moms? “

This was a questions I asked my mother many times, after returning to my own home from visits to my friends’ homes. “Meaning?” she would ask. ” Aunty 1 makes Laddoos at home and she was preparing Mathri when I was starting for home. Aunty 2 is always fussing over her kids to eat food, you never fuss over us to eat. ” Her answer used to be, ” But their moms are not busy like I am. Their fathers are not away sailing at sea for months at a time. Their moms don’t have to handle finances, bills, gas & phone connections, run a home. All this while staying alone and bringing up three kids. And not to forget the herculean task of constructing a house.”

But to my teenage self, this answer didn’t suffice. I wanted my mother to look like a ” regular mom” – slightly portly, wearing matronly sarees. She, on the other hand was slim and wore crisp cotton sarees, suits and looked very young and pretty. AND she didn’t fuss over us to eat ,eat and eat some more !! She wasn’t always in the kitchen, it was a not her place of work.

It’s only now that I fully grasp the enormity of her efficiency. In the 90’s, she was a liberated and independent woman, quite unlike the “other moms” that I wanted her to be like. But un-assuming that she was, she was never forceful about anything. Perhaps that’s the reason I never understood how truly modern she was.

Salute and Respect to you Mummy. I hope I can learn to be as efficient and humane as you were.

©Apr 2016 Sapna Dhyani Devrani