35 Pieces of Pasta

It was one of those mornings today. 

My maid (cook) called in sick at 6:20am.

Good news - I was awake and reading an unputdownable book.

Bad news - it was "Bad Mothers United" by Kate Long.

I didn't even work out 'cause I was lazy. 

And she had early school today. 

I ploughed on, I am 43, I can deal with one measly lunch box.

'How many farfalle does she need?' I mused aloud.

'35' he answered promptly. God bless him.

Sometimes your questions need precise mathematical answers.

'How do you know how much sauce to add?'

'Well, I just do' 

Sometimes I surprise myself with how good I am at food.

I blundered on after, all a-tizzy, 'cause today was going to be a good day.

I was going to make up for last week's unproductivity at work. 

The sambar thingie splattered down as I picked it from the fridge.

There was sambar (small onion) pretty much everywhere.

Including the ceiling, oh heaven help me. 

I calmed down as I cleaned. 

I think I deserved it 'cause I was whining. 

About the fridge which is over-flowing with stuff. 

Shouting in my head at the maid (cook).

Anyhow the kitchen got a good wipe.

The cloths are all done for & I found sambar in the MnMs.

But order prevails, generally! 

As for the lunch box? 

It went with a long note from her father.

It was all ignored. 

She shared the sandwich with a small boy. 

She rolled the used fork in the cloth napkin.

She brought back 10 farfalle, if you must know. 

Birth Month Update

It has to be most lame birthday I have had in my 1000 year life on earth. First of all, I bought a bucketload of things earlier in March. Like, an iPad (admittedly, I have barely touched it up to now), and a Garmin (Love It), boots, and clothes, and things. Not to mention an inverter battery, and new tires for my car, and stuff like that. When some NGO called me repeatedly and emo-blackmailed me into donating some money, I sort of did that too.

So, all in all, it was no time to treat myself to an iPhone (like I did last year) or anything. & I went off to the holiest of holy places - Tirupati. Though I couldn't walk up the steps, go stand in the Serpentine queue, and get darshan of Lord Venkateshwara, I was happy that I could visit there and see a whole new bunch of students!

First up I met up with some 200 girls in the Engineering stream at Padmavathi Mahila University. It was a great experience to be in a room of enthusiastic, well dressed, neat and tidy students! It was great that it was all girls - strange as well! I spoke about a bunch of things and threatened to ask Chemistry questions if they didn't interrupt me. So, interrupt me they did!!

"Who is really your inspiration" they asked - after I had rattled on about Tessy Thomas and Kathrine Switzer and Lijjat Papad. I hmmed and hawed and said this and that and finally the bulb clicked and I said "MOM" - and they all nodded happily at that. And I nodded inside as well, because, well, that's epiphany in public.

I then spoke in the weirdest shaped room in all the civilised world! I mean it was a super wide room - how to cover that much ground? I walked everywhere and had them swivel their heads like that horror movie child thingie, but still, it was weird. This was in IIT Tirupati (temp. location). I spoke about adapting to change, and marathons, and stuff like that, and it was good fun though the bunch was pretty rowdy and noisy.

We ended the session with a loud karaoke rendition of Lungi Dance, and I resisted the temptation to Dance Like It Was My Birthday. After all, 42 is no joke. Yep, that's me, the forty-two year old who rode a train and took selfies and resisted the temptation to eat Masal Vada in the train station. 

Meanwhile, the child has, in a moment of inspiration, and in an attempt to avoid learning html coding that the school wants her to, started to blog. I mean, she has started today, just hope she keeps it up. I will be fine with all the hazing-the-mom activity if she keeps it up and practices writing or vents her thoughts, or whatever it is she wants to do with it. Here, read if you want to:

New Kid On The Blog

Home Alone!

Image: Internet 

Every morning I wake up and of course I first and foremost get rid of my exercise fixation. But even half way through that the nagging "I got to be doing this that" feeling creeps in. Yes, it is the dreaded school cycle & morning routine. Well, not so dreaded now. But more on that in a bit. That feeling is not entirely unlaced with excitement, I admit.

It is kind of strange but I just love those first few minutes of the morning when I see my daughter. Now, it could be that I am a morning person. Or that I am all hopped up on endorphins after my workout session. Or it could just be true love or something. Whatever it is, I feel very positive and awesome and all resolved to be a wonderful mom (and not a nag), every morning. And then that feeling slowly goes away and I become this person who most likely has PMS (even if she doesn't).

Now, this year, we have made some changes. We moved schools! I know - this is like super big and momentous and I haven't had a second to talk to people whom I haven't met IRL about it. We thought long and hard, actually for almost one full year, and then bit the bullet and did the needful to give up on the CBSE dream. With that, we threw away also, the dreaded uniform, a 15 minute morning and 1/2 hour afternoon commute, and the comfort of familiar textbooks. 

I would have to be really selfish not to mention that this is the fourth school the child attends, well, fifth if you count her play school. She is a trooper and has held her head high in all. This is also the fourth language she learns (as a second language) - Spanish. Oh yes. She did Hindi when we were in Mumbai. Then I went all idealistic mother tongue (well, father tongue if you really must split hairs) on her and she did Tamil when we moved here. It got super scary so we moved to Sanskrit (which she loved) when they offered it. And now, in the new school we picked Spanish! 

The class is very small, and they follow the Cambridge curriculum. She gets to wear a Tshirt with the school logo on it, and shorts/skirts/pants of any sort. Of course she wears shorts or jeans, which is also her normal outside school wear. The salwar kameez as uniform is something she has hated a lot! She can wear non-uniform shoes so she has a series of sports shoes that she wears using logic I don't understand. Her feet, incidentally, are a half size bigger than mine now. 

It has been a month and she is full of beans (and rather red in the face from playing in the sun) when she comes back home. So far, except for a couple of minor fights with a couple of the kids in her class (she can be fierce when it comes to small matters like someone taking her pen - I blame it on the fact that it has all happened 1000s of times in her years of schooling), she seems well settled. I don't know anything except that we talk science occasionally, and I needn't tell you how much that warms the cockles of my heart. 

Today the school has taken them to a movie - Kaaka Muttai - which is why I am home alone currently. Good for them, 'cause I have been really really bad about any kind of movie watching this year. I was telling her this morning that she cannot take any food/water to the theater as outside stuff is not allowed inside. "I am not an idiot ma - even if I have been to exactly two movies in my eleven years" she said - tone all accusatory. I don't deny it. I never seem to find a chunk of time for this. 

But I have managed to pick her up from school all this month (except a day or two here and there), been un-competitively encouraging of her basketball playing, bought her all the shoes she asks for, including ordering a pair online, sending it back 'cause it was too small, and getting the correct size in timely manner, allowed her to make a food timetable and not insisted overmuch on Vegetables Every Single Meal, and generally tried to keep the nagging under control. Now where is my Gold Star, dammit? 

That motherhood gig

It has been a while since I talked about this whole being a mommy deal. I think the last time I complained about how the child liked all things pink (and purple). Well, we have come a long way from there. Now, she calls these two colours 'vile' and 'hurting to the eye' and says they must be avoided at all costs. Her favourite colours are, apparently, blue, and green.

Not that I am not complaining about this. We built a whole bedroom and bathroom based on those colour schemes (by and large), and she barely deigns to use those. And I couldn't find blinds in a matching colour so went with a neutral brown which is what most of the house has, and that, apparently, is a reason to avoid her room. And the monsters that are under her bed (precious little space down there for monsters, but hey).

My niece is now a bonafide teenager, and my nephew is getting close. My child is up next (still a few years away technically). We had the kids over a few months ago at home and it was pretty nice, overall, so I am hopeful that those years won't be as scary as they are in my head. But it is fair to say that I have turned to be a very different mother than in my ideal-case scenario.

I wasn't a dreamy sort of pregnant girl, in fact, I was a shit scared pregnant girl who was pretty miserable most of the time through those months. Despite the fact that I was healthy as a horse (a healthy horse, that is), and had not even a sniffle to complain about. I had edema of course, but big deal, everyone does. It was stressful and busy so I didn't dream forward to when my baby would be nine years old or anything.

But I had some ideas. That I would be a 'cool' parent that wouldn't be too hung up. That I wouldn't lose my temper at my child, or ever raise my hand at her (or him - didn't know that I would be lucky enough to be blessed with a baby girl, I was secretly hoping for a girl of course, but didn't want to say it out loud just in case). That we would read and sing and study together.

Maybe reality is a little bit different. Instead of getting the 'best of both' - the good characteristics from each of us - she seems to have inherited a healthy mix of good and bad. Which is how it invariably is, of course, but damn frustrating. Anyway it doesn't matter a whole deal because everyday I discover that however much she annoys me, it doesn't change how I feel about her. Which is very different than how I think about the adults that I love.

Yes, I am worried about teenage, and college, and her friends, and their parents, and everything. I think I am ready for the challenge, I feel confident (sometimes) that I will deal with it, but I do worry. And when I look at her after she falls asleep at night, I feel so overwhelmed with worry and emotion, it hurts. No, I was not expecting this back in March 2004 when I was sitting around sweating miserably in the Mumbai heat.

These charts...

A couple years ago we were at the printer store. We always argue about printers. I usually buy some dumb-ass one at work and use it to death printing assignments and stuff like that. A long time ago, I requested permission to use my spare work printer at home and we brought it and used it for a bit in Mumbai. The same one that I had killed to death earlier so it was like really not super useful.

In Chennai we decided to go ahead and make the purchase. The child was with us. She wanted us to get a colour printer. I hate colour printers, seriously. The damn ink and the colour and all that stuff that runs out every so often. I am OK with changing toners (since I seem to do that for a living at work), but the colour printer stuff is just such a pain.

We argued her down and got ourselves a super nice (non-colour) printer. It has been awesome. It can scan stuff as well, which is useful. It can photocopy, that means, which is not un-useful. It can fax, I believe, though we haven't tried that one out. I hate faxes too, while at it. Its been ages since I used a fax machine and I am just fine with that. Horrid krrrrr sound it makes.

Now, every week, the child has to churn out & turn in these 'projects'. After asking her a billion questions I figured out that this means that you take chart paper. Large size. You make a border. Stick some colourful pictures on it. Bung in some writing. A title. Child's name and class. Simple, right?

I print black and white things out and make her colour them in with crayons. The first few, I played around with the contrast and stuff so it looked decent. And in fact after her crayoning, pretty close to a colour print out. Now I am super bored and do whatever. But I am thinking, a colour printer would have been useful!

She is super upset that her chart never gets chosen to be put up on the classroom wall. She blames me. "I told you to buy a colour printer" she says. Oh well. In the meantime, we plod on. I feel bad too sometimes, looking around the classroom and never finding her charts. I would've chosen her Mars chart, for e.g., because it had a pie diagram about atmospheric composition in it...

I guess its okay. Maybe a bit left of the beaten path is okay... Last night we made a chart about Anita Desai. She used the opportunity to quickly read up The Village by the Sea. I want her to change the last line in her chart, which reads 'I am looking forward to reading The Village by the Sea during my summer vacation'.... 

Un-prepared

The school start date is upon us. The clock is ticking. My heart rate went up a notch at the mere thought of it. Seriously. Its the most stressful thing ever. On the one hand, I am happy that she will be out of our hair and involved in 'doing something useful' with her time. On the other hand, I am afraid of the whole process of schools, mornings, lunch dabbas, new class teacher, etc. 

Usually, I LOVE LOVE LOVE everything associated with the end of the summer. I love the smell of new books. I love wrapping them. I love reading them (yes, yes, even if they are of the child, and not mine. Mine, I used to start with the Math. She, she starts with the English. I read the Sanskrit one this year, at least, I tried to). I love new uniforms and stationary and bags and lunch dabbas and so forth.

But not this year.

I haven't wrapped the books yet. (No, the father is not going to contribute to this one, its not gender discrimination or anything, it just works better this way, believe me). I haven't bought a new bag. I have a bag, somewhere, I haven't found it yet. I haven't bought a lunch bag either. No new dabbas. Or water bottles (those are the worst, I swear. Smelly things). No juice bottle. Or snack box. I did get a few pencils, but my heart was not in it.

I don't know any mommies in the new section. Heck, I don't even know the new class teacher's name. I am having a hard time keeping in mind the new timings of the school. Its a full half hour earlier. My mind is not able to process what that implies in terms of leaving for school. Y'know. Considering traffic patterns.

Thanks to the metro activity, I am not even 100% sure I know the correct way to get to school. We went on Saturday to get the books but I was not paying much attention, I guess. I surely don't know how to get back, even if I manage to find my way over to the school. One ways everywhere, you see.

The uniform doesn't fit. Its tight. I have to bring it back to the tailor to get it altered. I don't even know when I will do that. The socks are all last year's and nasty. I have to clorox them (seriously). The white uniform skirt is loose. I can do some repairs with buttons etc. but it might be best to take it to the tailor again. We didn't even buy her new shoes. "Those must fit for sure" the husband insists. He is often wrong about these things. 

What is wrong with me? 

Desi Barbie

As the child grows up, I finally have time to sort of step back and think. About her. Me. Her as a child. Me as a parent. About choices we have made. About thought I have paid to choices I have made. About rules, and opinions, and objectivity and most recently, about this whole boy-girl stereotype business.

The trigger was simple. The child needed a haircut. Her hair had grown out in ungainly manner and even the father was starting to complain about it! She swam for eons and then her hair was wet and it was impossible to dry it out. Plus with all the chlorine and ick it looked in bad shape.

So I resolved to take her and, as I have been saying the past few sessions or so, said, I am going to get it cut short. NO. She said. Okayy... She wanted it to be cut REALLY SHORT like a boy. I tried various tactics to dissuade her. But I was outnumbered. So I caved in and now she looks completely like a boy wearing gold rings in his ear.

I was reading some of my old posts and also glancing through photos and remembering the pink phase. It really didn't last long, but that was bothering me as well, I find, as I read myself. In that phase, she was the opposite of me, wanting to wear pink and purple, and bangles, and occasionally, sporting lots of colourful clips in her hair.

I did knuckle down and enjoy that phase though, on hind-sight. I made all those hair things for her - something I have never allowed myself to do. I selected bangles and sorted them and packed them when we went on trips. Again, something I have never done for myself. Suddenly, I found, I was enjoying this stuff!

Through my own childhood, I resisted the pulls of what I thought of as 'frippancies.' No make-up. No jewelry. No flouncy frocks with frills and so on. No fancy footwear. I dressed in simple cottons, wore brown Bata sandals, kept my hair short. I wore running shorts under my school uniform skirt, all the time, and even went through a phase where I smothered my hair in oil with the explicit intention of looking nasty.

And no, I wasn't a teenager necessarily through all that. Y'know. When your body is changing and you don't know how to deal with it. I was like that through that period as well, but also before and after. Even in grad school, heck, even recently. I don't even look at my face in the mirror, really. I don't really think I am hideous, just that I don't allow myself to do 'all that fashion stuff' (whatever that entails).

So on the other hand, here I am, as a parent. Trying to tell the child that its awesome to be a girl. And that, we, as women, can really do anything we damn well please. Hopefully, considering my abject faith in role-model parenting, I am not just saying that to her. Not just empty words.

Then I have a child who insists she 'wants to look  like a boy.' I thought it was a phase. That its that damned Georgina. Surely she influenced me as a child as well. But it is a long phase. She says she genuinely dislikes 'fussy clothes' as she calls them. Things she cannot play comfortably in (even if she doesn't play so much, sitting around reading piles of books). Hates hair-clips. Likes bangles and bindis but for about 10 minutes at a time, only. Loves to play with colourful beads and buttons and bells and so on, but not to wear them. Favourite colour? Blue. Most hated colour? Pink. Poisonous pink, she calls it. Vomit-inducing, she says.

And...it bothers me. I resist it. I fight it. I work on her from various angles about this. I react by finally, FINALLY, embracing my gender a little more (in a manner). I wear pink now. I line my eyes, and like how they look when I do that. I wear long ear-rings (only the wooden Fab-India kinds), and love them. I wear my saris often. I am wearing my hair long. I am even considering if I should pin back stray strands of hair (this is something I have never done, if you can believe it!).

I still won't go so far as to colour my hair. I don't paint my nails or wear lipstick or touch anything other than Oil of Olay/Pure Vaseline to my face. But the reasons for some of those at least are related to how sensitive my skin is in general, and my dislike of chemicals (despite day job). The worst part though is? I am enjoying it. I am even feeling occasional pangs of regret that I didn't learn stuff about clothes and fit and hair and accessorising when I was younger...

So, as I was saying vaguely on facebook... I think I am rebelling against my child. Who knows? Next I might purchase that thing called 'Desi Barbie' in the wedding finery or something and start playing with it. Oh wait. That would be totally weird... :)

Of dogs, cows, and such like

I am deep in the middle of Malory Towers. I know. I am too old for that. But it is still fun. And answer me this. Four towers (houses). Special designated train from London. Carriages to take you to school from the station. Beautiful sight of school as you turn a corner. Camaraderie. House spirit. Lacrosse contests. Prep. Breakfast rooms. Common rooms. Dormys with eight beds. Sound familiar? All muggles, all girls though, thats the only difference.

Child managed to procure the entire Malory Towers courtesy indulgent aunt. She is in book bazillion. I am in book 1. The books past the 6th one are written by someone else. Not Enid Blyton. Thats fine with us, don't really mind. The cover is all jazzy and modern. "Is Malory Towers older or Harry Potter, Amma?" asks she, innocently. I swallow my indignation, and answer honestly and without malice.

I was quietly running along this morning. Vibrams are in really nasty, smelly shape. But WTH. A dog barked. I jumped a clear half foot into the air but continued on. As I often say, motherhood, and running, have almost cured me of my irrational fear of dogs. Almost. A security guard strolled out from his post and said "Don't run. Just walk" He might have meant it in the context of not irritating barking stray dogs. He might have meant it otherwise, in general, as well. I smiled and crossed the road.

We warmed our new house late last week. It still has a while to go to be habitable. I have a list of disappointments already. I like the front facade though. Its in my favourite colour next to black - grey. We reluctantly convinced a much-mustachioed pehelwan like dude to bring his cow over. With crumpled horns. Which I had to touch with turmeric. Not to mention its rump. It proceeded to pee all over our (unfinished) front porch. Its calf merrily ate a banana after I peeled it for it, meanwhile. "Its all super holy" said everyone as I wrinkled my nose.

We all sweated buckets. Especially the Mysore and Bangalore folk. "Madras ana chumma vaa?"  I told them as they complained. It takes guts, fortitude, perseverance, grit, determination, and a certain streak of masochism to spend the summer in Madras. Chalk them down as my qualities, in my balance sheet, if you will. Especially in light of the dreaded load shedding!

"This has become a tourist destination madam" wails the swimming coach, who is gamely trying to get his platoon of kids ready for a tournament in June. The pool is overflowing with creatures of all shapes and sizes. Women in their full-body armour, protecting their skin from the sun. Every inch of it. Men, on the other hand, in boxer shorts, short shorts, torn shorts, undies, anything they happen to be wearing at that point of time. Unprotected, to say the least. The kids are bearable at least with the exception of those that wear that nasty thing called 'shimmies' which I hate.

"You should conduct a special running event" suggested my uncle. I raised eyebrows query-ingly. Apparently, for women to run in nine yards madisaaru saris. I could do it. Though I might die of heat exhaustion if I tried it in mine. Its my wedding sari. Has severe lines of zari coursing through the entire body. Is constructed of a kancheevaram silk yielded possibly by worms that were fed on steel. In the 15 years since I was awarded this prize, there has been no love lost between us.

Days follow nights follow days follow nights as we edge unerringly towards a distant day when the weather will be cooler and tempers less frayed. There is some good stuff that the household has been hit with in the midst of all else. The child came in second at the Landmark Spelling Bee thing on Sunday. She was lovely, if I may say so myself. And she enjoyed it, most important of all. I am planning a trip of 2-3 days (for work) to cooler climes, visa permitting. My little niece is at home and is super cute. So, I now head home, semi-productive day all wrapped up here in my sweaty office.... 

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock

The child loves The Big Bang Theory. In the initial phase when it was a lot about Sheldon and his crazy geekiness, we used to watch it together once in a while. This serves the dual purpose of allowing me to not have to watch cartoons (which are awful & I hate them), and preventing fights between the family folk for the remote.

Well, not really on that last one. Husband mine strongly belongs to the category of people interested in 

'What ELSE is on TV' rather than what is going on in the current channel. He hunts. He travels where no human has traveled before. To AXN and FOX Crime (I would prefer to knit sweaters than watch that channel, even for 5 microseconds. Not that knitting sweaters is wrong. Just not my thing). And beyond.

Yesterday I made a big list of things we wanted to do on Sunday. I always have a list. In fact with Evernote I am extra enthu about lists because it looks good and it is there in my computer to admire. I love admiring lists. I love the little check-box I can make and the tick-mark I can put down.

Last year we bought the child a large white board. She loves the white board in her father's office. It is of course a fancy schmancy one which prints out the content that are on it and stuff. She likes the basic one in my office which still features a list I made last year and haven't gotten around to completing. So we thought she would like her own. 

We cannot watch TBBT anymore though. Now, its all about sex. Like almost entirely. They seem to have even gotten Sheldon on board the sex-wagon now. Not one episode goes by without him saying 'coitus.' I was a fan because it reminded me vaguely of my grad school days, and it was something the child & I could watch, & I didn't have to be subjected to Kid vs. Kat. But bah. That phase is done. 

Yesterday's list was not long. I negotiated hard and allotted 'only 5 books' to read through Sunday. I have discussed this earlier with choxbox and she suggested to me a limit on the number of pages per day. Never been able to implement it though. I was adamant about the 5 book limit yesterday. Logic usually works with her so I tried that. 

I showed her the list of things to be done. I put down an hour by hour plan. I pointed at the things that were optional for her, which she could use for reading. Like 'Nap Time' - which was primarily for me. I have coached myself into being a good afternoon napper these days. Oh horror. Must change that. She whined a bit but mostly agreed to comply.

The whiteboard is largely un-used. I have to literally FORCE her to write anything on it. Currently, there is one math sum written on it. In the corner is a list that I made (and have pretty much ignored). And in the middle is a fancy gadget the child claims to have 'designed'. By this she means she has made a sketch of something that looks vaguely like a comic book martian with scissor hands. 

Just as a means to force her to cut down on obsessive reading, I get on her case about doing other things. Yesterday I kept her on a tight leash for the most part. We watched a swimming tournament ('spectating' I called it). We went to my office (but she brought a book there, unfortunately). I made her memorise the grocery list and recite it to me in the store (instead of hitting the book-stand there). Then I gave up and took a nap.

I guess the gadget is supposed to be a multipurpose swiss army knife type thing. Or an electric razor. Or something you can use instead of your hands, to play rock paper scissors on lazy, rainy days. Or something to fix up her cycle. Without dwelling too much on it, I dragged her out and we cleaned our cycles and oiled them and got our hands all nasty and our legs all mosquito-bitten, in the evening.

Of jumbles and read-ons

On a whim, I said to the child

Here, let me teach you how to do The Hindu crossword.


Y'know, 'cause every self-respecting Tam has to know how to do The Hindu crossword. And only that. Not the TOI one (oo mama). Not the Telegraph (shudder). Not the Deccan Herald one (ugh).

Before you ask, yes, we subscribe to The Hindu. Also the TOI. Our newspaper/magazine subscription story is a long one. I don't want to talk about it now. Suffice to say that we don't seem to have much control over what gets flung on our doorstep (dislodging, in the process, about a kilogram of mosquitoes).

There are few things you are better at than me 


The child tells me, in passing, while skipping a pink coloured skipping rope haltingly. Discussion (calmly now) led to the conclusion that I am better than her at most things (at this point of time). In fact, at all things except swimming. I quickly added a 'at this point of time' tag to it, knowing full well that its untrue. Hanging out with her in the pool today, for example, in five minutes, she had touched the bottom, wormed her way up, hung out upside down in the middle of the lane and criss-crossed me a hundred times. I was clutching the ladder and going 'Cat and Mouse' 'Cat and Mouse' in my head, meanwhile.

I am definitely good at this crossword business, so learn you from me.


I tell her. I learnt some of the stuff that is known in CW folklore, from my dear friend airspy. Yes, despite being a professor, I admit it. Some class time in college was spent by us on this activity. I have spent hours on the damned thing in my younger days, thats for sure. Not all of it in class. Oh yes, before you ask, my parents had The Hindu as well. Mum still does. Of course we drink coffee as well. I missed the centum by a mark or two, if  you must know.

Most people hate math Amma


The child informs me, playing in distracted manner with the sudoku. I should go up in flames at that surely. I tell her thats utter nonsense and its virtually impossible to dislike math. Forget hating it. It is the most beautiful thing in the world. Without numbers, there is nothing, and so what if some rote memorisation of the multiplication table is required? It is only a matter of time before you are fast enough to figure the thing out without memorising, I argue.

Let me help you guys take this one over the line


The husband shows up on the scene with his jargon and his brazen confidence. We forget about math and focus on words now. Sometimes I feel I love words more than numbers. Only sometimes though. I point to the inherent symmetry in the grid, surprising the child, who hasn't noticed it (or, it is not a rule followed in children's crosswords, possibly). There are a lot of anagrams, as usual. "Jumbles" the family chooses to call them. The occasional read-on clue. Really, there is nothing too remarkably clever in the CW. Is it a reflection of the times? The lowering of standards? Or have I become just super good at this.

What is this? Two girls in love before marriage? Super funny Amma


The child says. I choose not to comment on the clue itself, but pencil in the answer. She cracks up big time. She calls her father back to the dining table - the scene of our crimes. "Prema Rita L" do you see, she sniggers. Assuming that he doesn't understand, she goes on to explain. The two girls are Prema and Rita, and love is L. "Prema Rita" she has been going on after that, laughing each time, "What a clue!" Her innocent eyes light up when something makes sense, when I guide her gently to the answer. Its thankful that I know the end-point now, and can walk her to it, and I can almost see the bulb go off in her head.

You are growing up so fast, child


Pretty soon, I will NOT be better than you. At anything. Math, Skipping, Basketball, Crosswords even, perhaps. For years my dad would ask me to help me figure out the CW. I learnt fast and he couldn't catch up with me. He would make a big deal how it made no sense. Truth is, its silly, not the most intellectual of puzzles out there, but it is a lot of fun, once you figure it out. As you surely will, child. Before I know it, you will be really good at all these things... And all grown up... And off to college... And actually knowing what 'premarital' means, and implies.. It is all so scary at times...