Mommy's Day Out

“Beep, Beep”, went on my alarm clock.It was 5:30 am ,time to start a new life again .Its been a while since I have done it and needless to mention that my apprehensions towards this new beginning kept haunting me through out the night. Not that I was scared but something inside me was not happy the usual way. My husband shook me and handed over the morning tea. Sometimes I get lucky to be served that way.As always the great face reader heard my inner qualms and said ,”don’t worry he will be just fine”. And this broke me. It was about my cute little angel , whom I nurtured for nine months in my womb and then surrendered to all his demands for next 16 months. Since the day I first time took him in my arms ,have never separated from him more than an hour.

But today as I start back my career after pampering break, it was jittering  as to how will I stay without him ,more than him staying without me. So used to of his naughty smiles, half eaten words and running around the house ,I could feel a void inside me the entire day .He was on my mind during the orientation in the new organization and worse half way down I started feeling I am the worst mom in the world.My thoughts kept juggling between the right and the wrong.During lunch break,I called up the day care to check on him and was little relaxed to know that he was sleeping .Wondered how did they manage to make him do that, for it took me six months to learn about his sleeping schedule. Again the anxious mom called from inside, ‘what if they didn’t feed him and he slept all the way crying’. Thought itself  was too much for me to simply run away from all the hiring formalities with the new employer. But something held me back till 5pm and then as soon as I could, I reached to pick him up.

Looking at my anxiety the day care Head called me inside and there I saw my little one playing with kids of his age, singing ‘Ringa Ringa Roses..’All engrossed in dancing and matching the steps of new found friends, other then  his 30 yrs old mom,he didnot even realise that I was back.Again I couldn’t stop my tears , this time it was definitely for a better reason for I was overwhelmed with his first day response.Truly my angel!! I called him up and he came running straight in my arms.Hugged me tight and smiled.Felt like he said, 'missed you mumma’.I too smiled back and whispered, “I missed you a lot darling”. We came back home, played for a while, had our dinner and then he went off to sleep. We were all set for sweet dreams, for this time something inside me reassured me that , 'He loves you and you will always be his best mom in the world'.

Look who is with us always?

I was at my favorite hang out place, one which reminds me of my womanhood. Makes me complete. A place I am addicted to an extend that nobody can stop me from visiting it at least once a month. Don’t let your thoughts go any further for towards the end of month I have to be at Hyper city to replenish my already exhausted kitchen cabinets. Looking at the well managed value chain of the retail outlet I could only appreciate technology and be thankful to be born in this era. An age of 3G, where items are not stone’s throw but ‘finger tip’ away. A generation where ring tone is no longer limited to ‘tring tring’ but has varieties like ‘sheela ki jawani’ and ‘shaalu ke nakare’.

I kept checking out aisles as per my long list when somebody just said, “Is that you, Rakshita”. I turned and saw an old friend smiling at me, "Neha. wow!! Where have you been.Its been ages yaar”.I said all in a flow.  “Ya, you haven’t changed much though, how have u bee all these years”, she said responding to her Blackberry messenger first. We had a great time over a coffee apart from her phone being the only disturbance. Looking closely I realized she looked little more that age or may be she was overworked. Why not juggling between home, kids and demanding office is not a joke. Sometimes I feel these gizmos make us work more than we would have done without them. Gone are the days of 9 to 5 jobs now we practically work 24*7.

“Hey we need to wind up dinner by 9, have a call at 9:30 tonight”, my husband said on his way back from office. Not sure who to blame for this erratic work schedule, MNC culture or so called employee friendly ‘work from home’ policy. Interesting enough, looking deep inside, such policies are pain in disguise. As much flexibility one gets from them more and more it traps you in vicious cycle of timelessness. Office is never over; at least it’s always on your mind. I still remember when on a vacation he was taking a conference call while we kept waiting for him to finish.

This probably is the dark side of the technology which many of us have never paid much heed to. As technology became omnipresent, techno stress too came as a package. Now as it is advancing from 2G to 3G, we are becoming more and more obsessed with the electronic leech. Organizations are utilizing it in most effective manner to stay connected with the employees and providing them work flexibility. But like everything, this too comes with a cost. There is no fixed time to work and nor there is a limitation. Socio economic environment too has compelled people towards rat race where everybody is trying to achieve the most out of them. Hardly noticing how the technology has not just consumed us but even our time. We have started enjoying being connected from wherever we are and physical presence has been replaced by virtual. A great cost saving for companies it must be, but in long run we are compromising on human bonding which for ages has been responsible for building great organizations.

With changing time techno stress will lead to many social issues like family and health problems. Supporting more and more sedentary life style and ease of work, techno stress will lead to many lifestyle diseases. Gadgets if have given us flexibility then have damaged our day to day ergonomics. Finding youth suffering with back aches, over weight, high blood pressure in not new anymore. Every coin has two sides and we can’t ignore any and though 3G age has been a blessing in its own way but given the circumstances and advancements, techno stress will be a dominant part of our work lives in coming future.

A (Star)day at Mumbai Airport

“This is a love song for you..la la “…oh, that’s my cell phone ringer and I am glad finally he called up. Elated I was to hear him from the other side.”Hey, sweetie!!,  We are moving to Mumbai, I got a job there”, he said. “What??, Mumbai!!, ok good, so when are we shifting”, I responded. “20^th of Next month, it’s a Saturday, start packing”, He said and hung up.

I looked at my phone thinking gone are the days when we would talk for hours and still wait for other one to do the honors. Well this was some six years back though. May be I too need one of those Pond’s cream. Anyways…Now Mumbai definitely might sound a cool place to many of my friends but not to me .Monsoon trauma ,Traveling hassles and terror attacks were enough to keep that place out of my wish list. But still there was something exciting about that place …

“We are at Chattarpati Shivaji Airport, Passengers are requested to remain on their seats till the seat belt lights are on. Hope you had a great flight and we look forward to see you soon”, the pretty kingfisher airhostess said in her own style and ever charming smile . But as we Indians never fail to let the world know that we cant be driven by instructions ,almost all were up queuing behind each other as if that might fasten the procedure of getting off the plane. Since I hate getting pushed by people , chose to sit back and waited for others to fulfill there wish only to notice that somebody has been equally sane. “I remember, I have seen her somewhere” ,I told my husband. ”Shhh , shut up , you are too loud. Don’t you know she is Carol Gracias, the super model”, he whispered and also gave a broad smile to her . Now this was not acceptable for I don’t remember when did he smiled at me last. “Whatever, she is not that great too”, I tried to be loud enough but somehow it didn’t come out that well.

We landed at 5:30 pm and since Carol had raised my expectations , I started looking around for my favorite cine star. As if Mr. Amitabh Bachchan will just come and say, “Hi lady, I have been waiting to see you for a while now”. Lost in my thoughts I turned only to see my husband smiling at me for he somehow read my mind. “Should we move further, incase you have received an invite from him”, He giggled. He knows that for me Mumbai is not financial capital rather ‘star capital’ and I am one Big B movie buff . “Oh ya”, I said ,awkwardly.

 While we were waiting for the luggage, suddenly heard a long lost but familiar voice, “Oh my God, is that Shakuni Mama”, I shouted. My husband simply gave me a look and that said it all. Shakuni Mama, alias Gufi Paintal too was amused enough to know that there are people who still remember his deadly performance which actually led to Mahabharat.

“Hey ,don’t you think that suitcase is ours, the one which that man in blue shirt is picking ”, I asked my husband. “Oh yes, let me just see”. He replied and ran towards him. I followed him too, only to bump into Ravi Kishan who was standing almost next to me. ‘zindagi zand ba baki sab ghamd ba’…his famous dailoge from Big Boss was all I could remember about him. But from my previous experience , I controlled myself and went on without acknowledging and even apologizing, for the head on collision was the obvious reason for his Ray Ban to fall on ground. ‘Now he should have been more cautious and god knows why is the whole TV industry here to welcome me ’, I said to myself softly this time.

Finally we were at the cab point with our luggage , and I was wondering if I have seen any of the people around in any movie. Trust me observing people can be a great past time , just that God forbid, they shouldn’t be from D Company. As we were about to start , my husband almost shouted, “Look that’s Kareena, isn’t she beautiful”. Now somebody was raising eyebrows on my pitch sometime back. “Oh, I wish she had come with Saif”, I said and we both started laughing. We got in cab with smiles on our face ready to start our new journey in Mumbai on a Star studded Saturday.

Rainbow from my window

Well I am not a professional narrator and this is my first such attempt to put thoughts into words.

It was nice breezy evening after a week long rains and sun was still up in the sky though not full blown, a typical of Mumbai day. My window, the only part of our apartment that connected my toddler to the outside world during monsoons was indeed our favorite spot during such evenings. So like any other days we, the routine obsessed mom- son duo with our beverages (in his case milk and mine tea ) were there on our grand spot ,sharp at 6:30 pm for our regular dose of fresh air and some bright colors.

There across the street, I heard her shouting on her son, “ Tu ki karda hai, teinu kuch farka na paida ”, she is the loud Punjabi lady we have in our society, the one famous for letting everybody know what’s cooking in her kitchen . I guess from north to south the vocal cords have gradually been tuned down ,for the other south indian couple on the first floor have never uttered a word which I could make out or may be I should pay more attention to what my neighbours are talking , so typical of my north Indian roots.

Suddenly something interesting caught my attention, “ Suu che, majja ma..” well that’s the Gujju lady who lives in the society opposite ours. A tution teacher by profession, she mostly has Gujarati pupils and everyday we too get an opportunity to learn basics of Gujarati and Mathematics, for she gives all the residual instructions only from the window of her fourth floor apartment to the outgoing students and there parents.

In the same society lives a 7:30 Maharastrian family too.Why 7:30?? Because every day sharp at 7:30 am they would  start for there office and would be back by 7:30 pm.Now can you beat that!! Another popular feature of a Mumbaikar. Interestingly I have not heard the couple talking to each other in last three years , may be they are practicing sign language. Looks like its true ,the less you talk more happy you are for the Bengali beauty on the ground floor who happens to be my good friend too definitely gives a hard time to all of us with her endless conversation. “Ki baba, tumi kichu bujhi na, amaar koutha suno”.

I was enjoying the converstaiongs from east, west, north and south when suddenly a school bus stooped with a screeching noise.Oh, poor kids are back from school ,with bags heavier than there own weights at 7:00PM.Now this is what is not very appreciative , Schools are runs in morning and evening to maintain the supply demand ratio but who cares if they don’t get to play hide and seek like we did as kids. No wonder why these tech toy companies are minting money !!.

Truly this is ‘ Life in a Metro’ though here it runs in local trains. I was lost in my thoughts, suddenly my son shouted, ‘look Mommy” and saw him pointing up the sky and there was such a beautiful rainbow smiling at us and my joyful son was just as thrilled to see something so amazing. Just that I was not sure which was more beautiful ,the one up in the sky or the other which I have been part of since last one hour.