Not hopeless!

I swore on a certain day in my life, never to make that mistake again
But here I am on my own again, as promises are made only in pain
To be forgotten on that happy day, when life seems simple
When you have good luck and cheer, that causes you to dimple.

I suffer and so does he, not sure how we agreed this to be
Also suffers the tiny love, with mute grumbles, maybe?
Their desolation can only be greater than mine,
Outwardly, holding brave front, within, seeking intervention divine.

Prayers so hollow, anger, aggravation, so mighty that can swallow
Our innate inability to be content, leading us to a bottomless shallow!
Our Twin faiths and gods yet to no avail, cries rising with rising cadence
Still, amid this zany wrath, love strengthens our resolve immense.

I count the seconds of this world’s mammoth contraption
To unearth the imminent, the future, the prediction
I chase an ever receding horizon, not hopelessly, but with a hammer and a nail
To pin it down on the spot I choose, when refreshed happy days will unveil!

Yoyo's growing up...

As a baby, my boy has been very strong, supportive and loving all along. A real 'Chota Bheem' indeed! He may also be the only baby on this planet who may have commuted about 90,000 road kms within less than a year when we did the daily commute together to Abu Dhabi while living in Discovery Gardens (Zen). Waking up at 6 am, enjoying the drive and co-cooing, oohing, aahing all along the road in the carseat and his mama by his side who tried hard (in vain)to squeeze in short naps during the tiring commute, with poor Baba at the wheel 6 days a week. After the day's events and all of us being out of home for a straight 12-13 hours (6am - 7pm), tired to the core, the work did not end. In fact, it only began!

One of the main activity upon returning home, apart from taking care of Yoyo, playing, bathing, feeding, eating, taking turns to have a bath, catching up with each other while Baby TV came to our rescue, was the religious, rigourous washing and sterilizing of Yoyo's dozen bottles(in no exaggeration- babysitting ones plus the bottles we needed for feeding him at home at night). For this I give complete credit to Satya as he did not skip this routine of driving and washing even for a single day!

With no time on hand to manage a sick baby, we struggled to ensure that he did not fall sick or at least as less as possible. Hence, as a paranoid set of parents we gave Yohaan's babysitter a clean set of 6-8 bottles everyday. A clean one for each time he had to be fed the 30-60-90-120 ml that he needed as he grew older. With added months the number of bottles went down, then the commute for him went down from a 120kms to a 1-2 kms just few lanes away after one year on the road and eventually just to a lift ride away.(as we had moved into a new home in DG in the same building as the babysitter, what a joy that was!, until it lasted that is...)

Today, it feels like we are light years away from those days though this was our routine all the way from Yoyo's birth up to his 3rd birthday. As he grew older, the needs for washing bottles reduced more significantly than other needs and I am now very close to breaking free from using bottles totally, as last night was the first night when Yoyo agreed to have milk from a glass instead of his bottle. He absolutely adores milk and until last night he has had a ritualistic method for drinking it from his bottle with his favourite orange blanket in his hand.

It took a bit of threatening, cajoling and finally bribing to get him to agree to drink and to finish the same milk that he refused to drink whenever it was presented outside of the bottle. As mundane as this may sound to some, I consider this a significant achievement in Yoyo's growth and mine as a mother. I'm proudly progressing as a mother who is first diaper free and now bottle free!! Yay, its time to celebrate indeed!

Though, sadly, it reflects that my Yoyo in not a baby anymore and is growing up fast...

Small Gestures!

My new life has imprisoned me in yet another mundane and routine activity, that is the daily ride on the bus.

Each morning I take the bus no. 106 from right outside my house to Orchard Street, right outside my office. It is a relatively effortless, stressfree, quiet, peaceful, freezing cold (hate ACs) and sometimes boring hour each way! On the positive side, this gives me the time I deserve during the day to devote to my passion for reading which was almost non-existent in the last few years, as I was doing the driving myself between Abu Dhabi an Dubai.

Due to the way my starting points are positioned I am always guaranteed a seat within one or two stops of my boarding the bus if not immediately. Yesterday, I was running less than 10 mins late but had missed one of the long buses and got into a regular size bus with a lot of other of my daily co-passengers who also seemed to have missed the earlier bus. I would blame it on the fact that it was a rainy morning and people walking outdoors with umbrellas in their hands tends to walk slowly, carefully and painfully in the way of the others trying to make a dash towards the buses they can see flying past them.

Since it was exceptionally crowded due to the circumstances, my chances at a seat were reduced until the next main metro station stop called Clementi but I was standing right next to a person who appeared to be packing up her Iphone headphones into her bag and preparing to alight. Sensing that she would get off soon, I tapped the shoulder of an elderly lady (I wouldn't call her old, somewhat similar age or a bit younger than our mothers) to point to the seat for her to take. She had a crepe bandage on her forearm, like the one we tie when we have sprained an ankle and I had noticed it when we boarded the bus together. This simple gesture of mine of giving up a seat, that was not even mine, but could have been mine, brought such immense joy and relief to this lady and seemed to have reassured her faith in the kindness that is capable only to the human heart. She thanked me and waited to be seated. As luck would have it, just after our little exchange of smiles the person sitting next to the one alighting also woke up to realise its his stop and got up. So this elderly lady and I sat down next to each other. She explained to me that she was in an accident with a taxi and her arm was broken and operated on with screws placed inside and its recovering very slowly. She got off about 20 mins later and thanked me profusely again, blessed me, graciously addessing me as "my dear" and we wished each other a good day!

As I said, I take this bus everyday and have an hour to survive in it so I am usually intent on keeping a seat when I get one. As you can imagine, its not easy and no fun at all reading a book while being pushed foward and backward with everytime the bus driver applies his brakes (which is very often, mind you, on the crowded, busy morning streets). However, I am now determined to giving up my seat to any old person I see next time, as the pains of standing for a few stops is insignificant in comparison to the joy I instilled, the smiles we exhchanged and the blessing I recieved for such a small action!