Vocal Mama

 Do you know that there are 5 stages of grief? I only knew about it when my papa passed away and I could not feel better even after months. The stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They say depression is the longest stage and I have lived through it so I will agree. After 9 months of my dad’s passing when I did not feel better and met a psychologist, she confirmed that I am going through the longest stage of grief and there is no other way to get out of it than feeling my deepest sadness. She gave various advices which she said would help; crying out as much as I want was the top most. Since I was in a bad state, it was easy to follow her topmost advice.  After a month or so, I decided to give working out a chance. I had read that its good for mental health. I thought if nothing than I will at least have a better body and thinking that I started working out in March.  Initial days were okay. I used to think about my dad all the time while wor...

Sometimes, we gotta understand that some of us are naturally the givers. It normal for us to keep giving. Giving makes us happy and content way more than the receiving does. We are the ones to drive and thrive the relationships. We are the cool ones. The live and let live ones. The ones who cut a lot of slack. The ones who get energy from making someone happy.  Needless to say that a lot of times, we get very little in return and although we should not but we feel bad about it. We (of course) can’t expect people to treat us the way we treat them; not everyone has the same heart so inspite of getting hurt at times and again; we keep giving, cutting the slack, forgiving, and forgetting because we are the givers and we know no other way.

 I was around 15 when I started travelling alone and kept travelling (mostly) alone till I got married. After that, mostly S and I travelled together but for work reasons, I did take few trips alone. Then, in 2019, Y was born and all my trips after that involved him. Let me tell you that travelling with a baby or toddler is not at all same as travelling alone or with other adults. As they say, “parents don't take vacations, they take care of their kids at a different location”. I can’t deny this fact but then we parents do get proficient with time in this matter and seamlessly take care of our kids anywhere and everywhere.  Last week, for the first time in 3 and a half years, I travelled alone. I took a one day trip to Mumbai without Y. My in laws and S stayed behind with Y and because I had left him before to go to office for full day, I was certain that he will be alright. I started telling Y, 3 days prior that I will be going to office for one whole day and will be back by ...

I am not a very patient person. I have a short temper, but most people don’t know that because I can act/tame myself down in public. My son was a very calm baby. He was very easy to handle until around 2.5 years of age. His early years of life were spent in house because of Covid and only when he started school, he got introduced to the outside world. I started seeing change in his personality once he had started school, but I never expected such a huge flip around 3 years of age. He turned 3 in June and the calm in him got totally replaced by chaos. His verbal skills are multiplying every day, his emotions are always on a turmoil, and he pretty much understands how he can express himself. Forget expressing, I can see that he can now literally manipulate us in agreeing whatever he wants to do. Yesterday, I wanted to go down to take a walk after dinner. I asked Y if he would like to accompany. He said yes but he insisted that he would like to cycle and not walk. I was in no mood of runn...

We recently took a week-long trip with Yuvaan, and following are our best memories from the trip: Y was so happy to sit in a real train for the first time. So happy that he could not sleep till 12 in the night. We were travelling in second AC so other co-passengers had to listen to Y’s non-stop blabbering and songs. Some tried to scare him but all in vain. Y only slept when he felt like. In Mumbai, when we tried to hire an auto for a short distance, autovalas kept denying. I was holding Y in my arms and S was trying to get hold of autovalas. Y noticed our continuous struggle/rejections and started crying on the top of his voice. When I asked him what’s wrong, he said, “saare uncle ki pitti karunga, ye gande hain”. Thankfully, one autovala gave us a ride after that. But while in Mumbai, Y kept saying, “Uncle, stop!” to autovalas and kept making sad faces when they did not stop. He also kept suggesting us to get our car out from the parking (which was in Indirapuram).  I was so excit...

 My mom is one of the most fragile and introvert people I know. My dad was always super protective and caring towards her. My mom taught for 25 years. She was financially independent but she was always picked and dropped to school by dad. She had never travelled alone in a bus or train. She had never gone to banks or other government offices. My dad took care of all formalities and she took care of us-the household-the relatives-her teaching job-and much more. One day out of nowhere, we lost dad, forever. Mom was inconsolable for a long time. They were very tight and so much in love. After dad passed away, I could see mom seeking independence.  Her first brave effort towards independence was completing the kriya-karam. My mom who was still in a terrible state, called people and arranged stuff when we could not. She completed all the rituals with utmost sincerity. She made sure that not a single ritual was missed. We are brahmins and my dad was proficient in performing pooja pa...

 I am not a relationship expert. I have dated a guy for 2 years and then married him. We have been together for around 8.5 years now. We have had the initial exciting phase followed by the newly married honeymoon phase, the without kid fun phase, the pregnancy and new parents phase, and current phase which we can call “know each other too well” phase. There have been ups and downs, we have fought, we still fight at times, but we are growing up together in this relationship. There are some rules that we stick by and follow in our day to day life to make sure that our relationship rule and does not ruin us as an individual or as a family.  Here are those 5 golden rules that we swear by: 1. Communicate: I was a silent person, I used to fight and then go into a shell. S was and is a good communicator than me. In the initial months of marriage he snatched me out of my shell and made sure that he do not get the killing silent treatments. I worked on it and boom things got easier. We...