Pinku-Enchanted Life

1 st Jan 2015 – I woke up to a new year and a raging headache and wisely told myself no more drinking for at least 3 months. I had been overdoing it over the past few months and the 31 st night barbeque party where I kept tossing chicken legs on the grill and drinks topped the list. Cut to 8th Feb – I figure I am pregnant, we rush to the doctor and after a Ultrasound we get to know that I am over two months pregnant. And that is how Mowgli came into our lives…unannounced, slyly and when we were not expecting him at all ….much like happiness. Oh and I must tell you how he got his name? Well Aarini was watching Jungle Book…the old one you know, the one we watched as kids on Doordarshan with that unforgettable song…jungle jungle pata chaala hai, chaddi pehne ke phool khila hai. So she figured that our new baby (who is still a three month foetus at this point) would also wear a chaddi and crawl and therefore should be called Mowgli and she started talking to my tummy addr...

I lost my dad the same month I turned 15 years old. Dad had a brief illness of about seven days from which he never recovered. Just before he fell ill he was teaching me how to ride a scooter, I would perpetually get confused between the clutch and gear combinations and dad would lose his patience. He was a natural with vehicles and my less than perfect handling irked him. I grew up eventually learning to ride an automatic scooty (my friend’s) and much later I bought my first car.  Initially I had a driver however a few months later I guess my latent genes kicked in and I dismissed the driver and started driving on my own. I had observed him for the few months that he was there and that coupled with practice helped me perfect my driving skills. Having a car literally gave me wings, no longer did I feel insecure, I could go anywhere at anytime, I need not be dependent on anyone. I and my car became an inseparable pair. I applied for my learner’s license and one Sunday whil...

28 th April 2016 Hi World, I turned 39 today…my last year in the 30s before I step into official middle age. Honestly life has been feeling pretty blasé for some time. I have been in hold-on-to-status-quo-mode' for a while now and let life take its own route to wherever it’s going. By chance I ordered a pair of prescription glasses and they got delivered yesterday and I ended up wearing the new glasses today. The bright clear vision coupled with the fact that it is my birthday makes me feel rejuvenated. It feels like a veil has been removed and I am seeing the world anew. Perhaps it is time again to take hold of the reins and give a good tug. Life ought to spring back into some action and motivation. While everything could do with a new coat of paint figuratively and perhaps literally as well, I am picking up three areas in which I want to make a marked difference in the coming one year. Health : I am obese and need to lose weight like now. So the challenge...

Having an infant in the house means you get used to waking up at odd hours and acting as if nothing is amiss. Today the infant was actually kind and gave me about six hours straight night sleep (a huge rarity these days when the normal is to get up every two hours) so when he wailed at 5:30 and wanted a feed I got up in an instant. Having fed the baby and put him back to sleep I noticed the time was almost six and sleeping now meant being late for work so I decided to bake instead. I had just baked a winter fruit cake (Orange) and now I wanted to try my hands on a winter vegetable; the red juicy carrots. There was only one hitch I had run out of eggs. That is when I remembered the flax seeds which have been lying unused for a while now. Here are the ingredients I gathered: 1 cup white flour (maida) 1.5 cup grated carrots (the red juicy ones) Half cup powdered sugar (take a lil less if the carrots are really sweet) Half cup olive oil 2 tbsp flax seed powder 2 tbsp curd 1 tsp baking powd...

My toddler is hyper active and over intelligent so time and again we are told to keep her occupied with multiple tasks that engage her both mentally and physically. Finding time from all the household chores to spend time with the kid becomes a challenge and the best solution I have found is to get her involved in what I am doing. Baking is one of my much loved activities during winters and so from an early age the girl has helped me bake (she is all of 4.5 years right now). Whisking is her special task and she hates handing over the whisk to anyone. Once when her dad baked me a cake on my birthday, she tasted it and commented that, 'its good, but would have been better if I had done it'. So coming back to the point, winters have set in and the past weekend we got out our baking stuff and got ready to get happy. Oranges are the girl's special love and she has been looking forward to the fruit hitting the market so we chose that as the flavor we wanted to experiment with. We...

When the partner and I got together what brought us together was a shared love for books, films, theater, music, travel and to some extent food but most important of all our ability and yearning to share myriad thoughts. Eight years of marriage, two babies and a dog later we are happy if we can say three lines to each other without intervention or distraction. I call ours a mad household: the only rule that applies here is that there is no rule. Each day brings its own set of challenges and solutions. We are all proud owners of very strong opinions and don't care to follow what others have to say. Add to this the fact that we all have friends and love asking them to drop in which they do and it just adds to the circus. So when we actually get an entire weekend to indulge in one of our first loves it feels like heaven :) This Saturday the entire family including the 13 week baby went to attend Bookaroo a children's literature festival that tries to inculcate readin...

We were two sisters and our parents never made us feel the absence of a son in their lives. However come this time of the year and I would feel the absence of a brother quite acutely. Especially since mom and masis would get busy with the preparations for Bhai phota and our mamas would land up with gifts for that special tikka. While I did have Rakhi brothers at school and amongst family friends Bhai phota somehow seemed too sacred to be frittered away on 'by the way' brothers.  The cousins who could have fitted the bill were never around at this time of the year and the years passed without my being able to dirty my left ring finger with Kajal and tikka and repeat that silly ditty which mom and masi repeated in the most somber tones. This year though finally was different as Aarini excitedly put the first ever tikka on her young brother's forehead and gleefully exchanged gifts. Somehow my wait has been so worth it. I felt I was the giver and taker of that cherished tikka a...