Health in your hands

Health is in my hands...or so I believed. I always thought I was on track healthwise by maintaining a good balance of exercise and diet. I have always been regular with exercise and have always maintained a frugal diet. However I was in for a shocking discovery. Recently me and my husband checked in at a local hospital for a battery of medical tests covered in the health package that was being offered as an incentive at my husband's work place. Like all healthy people, I was convinced that none of my tests are going to highlight any caution or read anything negative. However one week later when the reports arrived we realized that both of us were way past the accetable limits of cholestrol and tryglycerides. In fact what was alarming that there was absolutely no manifestation when in fact the cholestrol levels were shooting through the roof. The cardiac surgeon advised increase in fiber intake and to completely avoid any sweet and fried food. The diet needed to be supported by daily aerobic exercise such as a brisk walk. It made me think at this rate I was perhaps headed for a cardiac arrest maybe by the time I touch 40. It made me also think why are all the good things in life sinful? Fried potatoes, ice creams and desserts and I can go on. I remember my days as college going kid when internet and media had not invaded our homes and our lifes and in a way we were blissfully unaware of leading a heatly lifestyle. There was a certain joy in eating food without the guilt of how many calories we were consuming. Ignorance was really bliss I say.

So lifesytle diseases, the new age word that has been written about so much was more closer home and I had to do something about it. If I did not succeed in reducing my cholosterol levels, I was going to have to rely on pills for a life time. Since that was unacceptable I decided to take control of the situation and made a few changes in my diet and exercise. I drastically reduced sugar intake, added more fiber to the diet like carrots and radish in meals and oats for breakfast and also shifted from doing just weights to taking a brisk walk. Sure enough the test results done a month and a half later showed that all this had paid off. My husband's triglycerides are back in the normal range and my cholestrol has dropped. I am still slightly over the upper limit but the results have been encouraging.

I often dream of being fighting fit at forty and perhaps this was a check done at the right time. I have decided to go in for a health check up every year from now on. What good is a long life without good health?

My Terrace Garden

Gardening can be quite a stress buster. I did not realize this until I had a small terrace garden set up. I have all along seen my mother nuture and grow plants of different varietes in her garden but now that I have my own house I realise what a pleasure it is to grow my own.
Though my garden is small it took quite an effort scouting around for pots and plants. I made trips to several nurseries and zeroed in on plants of my choice. Before that I had to decide the layout and accordingly decide on the number of pots and their sizes. Finally Golden bottle brush and Frangipani it was that I would plant in the bigger pots. My terrace is graced by sunlight only for a couple of hours in the mornings in winter and Balsams not only thrive in such conditions but also add vibrant colours to the otherwise green garden. Yes Frangipani too would need sunshine and I am hoping and waiting for the day when I get to smell the sweet fragrance of its flowers. A small swing, a couple of chairs and a coffee table complete the garden making it the perfect place to relax and unwind so much so that I cannot help but write a poem on my lovely plants....


You bring smiling sunshine in my life
As I look at you I cannot escape a smile

With multitude vibrant colours you bloom
Making sure to take away all the gloom

U teach me to be selfless at best
Expect none in return but give joy with zest

But that is not all that I learnt from you
Lessons of life, so simple yet so true

You have lots to teach than meets the eye
Not mere beauty as deemed by a passer by

The cold of the winter fails to diminish your glow
With each falling leaf more confident you grow

Knowing in your heart that when comes spring
A new lease of life with it, it will bring

A new brighter self will be revelaved
The old and dried, cast away or peeled

A glorious new you sashaying in the breeze
An avatar donned once back from freeze

New shoots, new blossoms and new leaves
An opportunity to thrive that you have seized

As I sit besides you on the swing I dwell
Will your virtues rub on me as well?

Year end reflections

Yet another year goes by
And I begin to wonder
Have I stopped to spare a thought
About all the things that are to ponder

Good things, bad things, things that happened
Things that happened to me
Things that I had to work hard for
Things that happened for free

In friends and family and their love
My guardian angels I found
Who were there to help me cope
With the pressures of life as they mount

Friends who spread the Christmas cheer
Taught me the art of giving
Took time out from busy schedules
To share some wisdom and preaching

Unabashed love showered by a son
As mother-son bond grows tight
Is it God that I am experiencing?
Or am I basking in His light?

Neighbours saw each other through thick and thin
They were absolutely God sent
To care for us when we were sick
To sit with us by our bed

Reflecting on life in retrospection
Part of life are ebb and flow
Moments of high and moments of low
But they all sure help you grow

All my loved ones,near and dear ones
If it weren't for you I wouldn't be me
It is only your abundant love I seek
I consider myself blessed you see

A new page

The idea of getting my child into a reading habit germinated one night when both me and my husband went to bed reading our respective novels and Remy tried imitating us by picking up a book and pretending to read it. It was then I realized that perhaps Remy too loved books and this was the right time to introduce him to the lovely world of reading.

Just as I was wondering what kind of books to introduce him to, I got a lovely pointer quite unexpectedly. Janaki, the owner of TwistnTales, a cozy bookstore in my locality introduced me to Tulika publications. Tulika publishes books for children in multiple languages. Some of the books Janaki showed me had very simple content and fabulous illustrations. For example there was one book about the story of a peppercorn. It was about a sole peppercorn trying to escape the hands of the amma who is ready to grind it into chutney. In order to escape the fate of being ground to powder, the peppercorn rolls away from her hands into the market place. The story is set in the typical village milieu in Kerala and introduces the child to colloquial terms. I am sure that by reading this Remy is going to soak in a lot of authentic Kerala culture.

Another unexpected discovery was the book series called the Karadi tales. I stumbled upon the book series after I discovered the television show adapted from the books that was being telecast on Disney channel. I was drawn to the show as the tune was so refreshingly different and so were the characters. Then the bear started reciting a story which my grandmother used to tell me as a kid. I had never read this story in any of the kids books that I had ever laid my hands on. Very soon I got hooked on to karadi tales and realized it was all about the local stoies that were passed on from so many generations.

A search on the internet led me to Saffron Tree, a good site that has reviews on all the books for children. A book review is accompanied by pointer to other books with similar themes. What I particularly like is that a few reviewers on this site are mommies who have inculcated reading habits in their children. They have not only posted reviews but also personal anecdotes about books very enthusiastically.

I have enough starters for now to get Remy to turn a new page in his life.

A small getaway

I am so gung ho about yesterday's Transactional Analysis (TA) meeting that I was itching to pen my thoughts as soon as I was done with my morning walk. Apart from attending the fantabulous session there were a couple of more reasons for the itch. First of all I was keen to test if I could use my sense of smell just like Pooh and Mammi could use it in yesterday's session. Secondly I wanted to implement the walking meditation that I learnt yesterday and lastly the fact that I was actually able to make good use of my sense of smell to feel the heaviness and the lightness at different places along the path of my morning walk.So here I am finally done with my morning chores of seeing bapu and beta to their respective office and school and sitting down to actually write about yesterday's experience.

Getting people together, co-ordinating the rendezvous and finally getting them to come together at times takes a little effort and sometimes it is as simple as sending out an email...It all started with enthusing people to attend yet antoher TA session. So all I did was send out a mail to our regular TA group. After some mails to and fro it was decided that we all meet at the beautiful Empress Garden at 10 am on Sunday morning. All except two of the group members were available.

So with high spirits we all assembled at the Empress garden. After scouting for a place we zeroed on a spot near a gazebo where a lot of benches were available and as such the spot was secluded. After quickly adjusting the benches under the trees where some sunlight could peep in we realized that Puzo was missing. Ms M made a quick phone call to Puzo and he was on his way. So the TA session started with Mammi, our guru asking all of us what is that we expect to learn from each other and also from the session. This was going to be the very first session for Ms M, Pooh and Puzo who was yet to join us. Ms M was curious to find out abt what the session was, Pooh was using this opportunity to take some time out of himself and I wanted the session to expand on analysing every thought and the action that follows and also for some guided interaction between members to encourage learning form each other's experinces.

Mammi then introduced the concept of using our five senses that can be used to interpret the mental make of people we interact with or even getting the vibes from our surroundings. So she left us with an exercise to use our five senses to soak in the milieu and went looking for Puzo who apparently had reached the garden and was wandering on the wrong route looking for us. We started feeling, seeing, hearing, touching and tasting our surroundings. Most of us were clueless about how to use the sense of taste when it comes to anything non-culinary. After settling Puzo I was quite amazed to see how Mammi and Pooh were in sync while noticing the difference in energies at two different bences that were just adjacent to each other. As for the rest of us the most prominent and the obvious senses that were most active were visual and auditory. Most of us felt a sense of peace and serinity from the surroundings that was a riot of the colour green. As the session continued there were aspects Mammi touched upon that were covered in the previous TA sessions like giving each other strokes. It was raining strokes for Ms M and Bhola was quite playfully annoyed at the lack of attention. After a little tomfoolery and after lots of strokes Mammi introduced us to yet another practical and very easy concept of walking meditation. In that we learnt to pay attention to ourselves as we take a walk, be aware of the muscles used in the activity, the feel of clothes on our bodies and the rythm in which we move as we walk. The idea of this exerice was to help us to teach oursleves how to focus quite like what is midfulness in Buddhism. This was followed by anaffirmation exercise. Mammi had brought along affirmation cards and all of us including my baby Remy picked up one at random. It was amazing to read Mammi affirmation that said " I am unleashing the gold mines within me". Equally apt was Pooh's affirmation that said " I am willing to spent more time for myself". Bhola's affirmation that read "Every cell in my body is getting rejuvinated" left him a bit confused.

With a lot of aaha moments, self introspection, soaking in the amazing things we had learnt and a generous peppering of laughter and pranks the session ended with a desire to catch up on the next meeting. All of us agreed to make the next one in Goa in the month of Jan. Until then I promised myself to implement all the I had learnt. The fact that I already implemented a few things today has left me with a sense of elation and achievement and I am unwilling to let go of the hangover.

Mommy dilemma

Working mom or stay at home mom? When I was a working mom all I could think of was spending more time with Remy and now that I am a stay at home mom I think how horrible it is to be financially dependent. Well the devil of the mind will always look for greener pastures in the things that it does not have. So the only way I know to hold the reins of the wild horses is to do some self introspection and visit the sorted list of priorities at any given point in time.

There is a huge data base on the internet on working mom versus a stay at home mom. Now that I have experienced a little of both worlds I must say each has its own pros and cons and it is really a personal thing. As a working mom the common lunch table discussions with my colleagues who were moms was the perpetual lack of time available to do enviable things stay at home mommies do - spend time children, good housekeeping and cooking and pursuing hobbies. Now that I am a stay at home mommy and I regularly take my child out to play in the evenings, I meet other mothers who too were once working women and many time the favourite discussion topic with them is the desire to start work again.

I guess it is only the women who have to face this decision and never the man. The female of all species on the planet are primarily responsible for nurturing the offspring. It is not to say that the male is incapable. It is only natural that the one who gives birth is the one that has an unbreakable bond formed with the child from a fetal stage and perhaps thats why the primary responsibility. A few generations back say even one generation back when my mom was a mom my age, most women were quite comfortable with with fact that after graduation comes marriage and then home and kids. That was their life and quite uncomplicated at that. There was a clear divide in the reponsibilities, the woman as a caretaker and the man as a provider. The complications started when women decided to foray into the man's field and started taking equal responsibilities to earn the bread as well. With the additonal resposibilties there has been a shift in the nurturing ways. These have also caused a shift in the responsiblities of the man. From two generations back where most males would abstain from household chores, males today are helping out with the cooking, cleaning, laundry and the sundry household chores. If women have so easily accepted and conquered the additional resposibilities outside the home why is is so difficult to get rid of the emotional baggage that comes with compromising on the first-hand nuturing. While we have evolved and adapted quite well on the newly acquired responsibilities outside home, we will have to wait and see how the we evolve on the emotional front. Shedding this baggage is still a long way to go.

Staying connected

Calling up mom every night and catching up on the days activities with her is a daily ritual. This has been a part of me ever since I moved out of their house and now has got extended to conversations between my parents and my 3 year old son. My son takes pleasure in reciting all the new learnings of the day excitedly over the phone and giggles at every appreciation. So when my parents decided to visit my brother for a couple of months in the US, I thought these conversations would get limited to once a week calls with a watch on the long distance calling card talk time. However on the contrary thanks to Skype I am talking to them daily. My close cousins from another town too have joined the bandwagon and now we are a huge family all simultaneously logging into Skype to catch up with a daily dose of gupshup. All of this is possible because we are chatting over wire. Personally talking on the phone is like using dedicated bandwidth where you cannot really keep silent for long or take long pauses in the conversation. If you do that you might as well hang up. It is as if there is nothing to talk. However with Skype I just make a call and keep the speakers loud enough to be heard as I continue with daily chores. So mummy can hear me coaxing my son to eat his breakfast as I ready him for school, hear the tadka as I cook breakfast and I on my part can hear my brother strumming away to a melodious song. Skype is one of my communication tools.

The other one I find myself getting more and more addicted to is Facebook, especially when it comes to sharing with friends. Just as the daily phone calls, logging into Facebook to check out what my friends are doing has too become a daily ritual. To think about it all it takes is a just a phone call and saying Hi to friends I knew back in school or college but I am bad at keeping in touch. I am bad at calling people who have moved far away in the present but who were a big part of me in the past with who I had fun moments. So the promises of keeping in touch when I parted with them remained just that..promises and never materialized into reality. So why is it that with FB I see this whole lot of change in me. I guess on FB there is a paradigm shift in the way we communicate. I can post what is on my mind whenever I feel like, upload photos that offer glimpses of my life, leaves messages for friends all whenever I feel like without requiring them to be available at that moment. Once I have shared a slice of my present, it automatically opens up channels of communication. So a who I was not in touch with for the past 10 years can comment on my vacation.

Then there are times when it is like the internet cloud offers a shield behind which I find my freedom where I can be myself. I can think of an analogy where a speaker with a stage fright would probably get petrified to speak in front of an audience with just a microphone in her hands feeling completely exposed as opposed to standing behind a rostrum, with a good part of the body hidden behind the rostrum. I believe the same must be true for many of us as just yesterday when I was logged on FB a close friend revealed over chat that she was seeing someone. Not once did she mention this when we met in person. She even directed me to their photo that was in her shared FB album. So there I was getting an immediate introduction with her boyfriend. Also a good friend from the past happened to invite me to his friends list on FB and soon our messages turned to cheerful banter. Then there were those whom I had lost contact and a search on FB sure enough resulted in a hit. Some skeptics may call this as the disadvantage of the internet age where we are losing touch with the personal side but to me it is a great way to stay connected.