An open letter to all the naysayers of capital punishment

Dear Sir

Your opinion in the editorial has made me think about the burden on India’s conscience following the hanging of Yakub Memon. It is clearing unnerving. And not all a comfortable position to be in. But it has also got me curious.

People of the likes of M. Tharoor have also stated that capital punishment is inhuman and not in line with India’s constitutional spirit. It is hardly a deterrent to prevent future catastrophes either. A lifetime imprisonment is a much more humane way.

Well then let me ask you, what purpose is a life imprisonment going to serve? If capital punishment is not a deterrent, do you mean that an imprisonment of life would prompt a change of heart and awaken a sudden collective conscience? That just by being conscientious and merciful we would suddenly ignite a spark of patriotism and compassion in those scores of minds and hearts who would still be plotting to bomb and kill as we speak. Do you really think these acts are a work of a thinking mind and equally conscientious hearts? I think you know the answer too well.

So let me put this fair and square. Terrorism is not a thing of the humans.  It is above all logic of humanity and justice, however merciful your approach be. You need not think hard on this. The way ISIS has been going about establishing their caliphate is too ominous a sign. And equally foolhardy to ignore. They kill in thousands. They kill in cold blood. They kill while laughing their guts out. They kill while you plead and beg for mercy. They kill the non-believers. THEY KILL THEIR OWN.

They kill for power.

Infact going by your logic, just as capital punishment is not a deterrent, all acts of valour and courage and patriotism should inspire us all. The slain policemen in Dinapur should make us all pledge our allegiance to the country, irrespective of our religion or community. Capt Vikram Batra should have inspired us all to lay down our lives for the country. Yet how many of us sent our children to the forces ? Did you ?

It is like comparing apples to oranges.

Lets not live in a make believe world. A conscientious heart is always the one. If you think about your country and fellow men over and above anyone else, you will always be a patriot. 

Again what purpose will life imprisonment serve?  Will it not cost the exchequer huge amounts of  money that could be spent more constructively? Will it not burden the already over burdened jails of the country, already spilling over with inmates ? Why not give him a nice long conscientious speech on patriotism and welfare and send him home ? At least his family would have a reason to smile!

And who says capital punishment is supposed to serve as a deterrent? No it is not. It is merely a punishment befitting your crime. Surely Terrorism comes under the rarest of rare crime. It’s a challenge to destroy my country and all that i hold dear. And i will not take it lying down.

We all remember Mother India. Where the mother shoots her own son because he was wrong. A doer of evil. She shot him.  Fair and square. A punishment befitting his crime. That is what justice is.

I rest my case.

Working Women in India: Corporate Apathy at large?

September 2013

One of the matters quite close to my heart !

For starters, it is not a rant. Not even a disgruntled discourse. In all honesty, it is a simple account of my journey from a stardust-in-her-eyes , raring to go young professional to a disillusioned, stay at home mother. And while chasing that elusive and mythical work-life balance, i have stumbled across some very pertinent questions that need to be answered.

The basic premise behind this entire piece is whether the Indian Corporate system is women friendly. And despite a lot of tall claims and debates, the reality is grim and morose.

A lot has been written and said about gender equality and gender sensitivity in the work force. How out of a large no of women joining the corporate sector year after year, a major chunk drop out before or at the middle level and a very minuscule percentage make it to top positions / boardrooms. Heads shake in disapproval, there is talk about reforms and policy shifts and yet the end result is always dismal. At least this is what it is to a large extent. There are always exceptions, i agree.

The main reason behind this drop out is family commitments. Translation – the moment a woman becomes a mother, her corporate life is practically over. And at par with practical issues, is the corporate mindset. Let me explain how.

When a man becomes a father, his stake in the corporate world rises. He is seen as more stable, responsible and a mature asset for the company. On the contrary, the moment a woman declares she is going to be a mother, her competence and relevance become questionable and she becomes a liability. While a certain amount of concern and sensitivity is required with a pregnant employee, why should pregnancy or motherhood render an otherwise excellent company resource as a handicap or invalid, is beyond my logical mind.

And the answer is short term profits. On hearing about a pregnant employee, almost every organization does a quick calculation of how many months of optimum productivity would be lost because of the impending motherhood. And hence a better solution would be to take on a new resource that would not be bound by these constraints. The pregnant employee meanwhile will be relegated to a less ”challenging” role and as is expected, in most cases, voluntarily withdraw from active service within the first 3-4 years of a baby’s life !

While in theory such a calculation proves superb, it’s harming the organization and the corporate setup at large in the long run. Retention is better than attrition and a stable, settled employee is always more productive than a new resource is something that HR journals are made up of. And yet so little of it is practiced in reality.

Then there is this mammoth issue of support systems for working mothers. Barring a small percentage of “lucky” women to have family support, a large no of them have to rely on uneducated and untrained maids or for the need of choosing a lesser evil – the day care centers. To begin with the maid system, i don’t think anybody needs to be educated about the perils of leaving a young child alone with a maid. Notwithstanding the CCTVs, unannounced surprise visits to home and overlooking a lot of small & big things – each day starts with a prayer for a safe day for your child. That the maid is feeding your child properly and not mistreating her, you invariably have to put up with the influence and grooming your child gets at the hands of a maid. She is after all, a maid ! And 3-4 hours of spending quality time with your toddler will never negate the effects of 10-12 hours of the maid’ upbringing !

Day care centers are no better for they are largely a part of an unregulated system. Hygiene, meals, involvement are always an issue. Here is where my personal experience of a very highly reputed day  care comes into picture. It’s a very upmarket day care, lauded for its live web streaming facility and net savvy tactics. The reality is that most of the caregivers there are not appropriately trained in child handling, something that you will expect of a day care of this standard. And the meals are a big issue. For all the fancy claims about having a nutritionist on board, it fails me to understand why do young kids need nutritional guidance. As long as its not junk food or stale/sub standard ingredients being used, kids need all the energy they can get. Serving dry roti rolls with just a filling of beans/carrot (at times twice in a day), watery daal with not even a drop of ghee, no side salad/yoghurt, and watery kheer / custard with barely a single fruit – for any sensible and health conscious mother who feeds her child aloo paranthas, daal/roti with ghee, yoghurt and salad everyday just to make sure all food groups are included in her child’s diet – it is a nightmare! And when your child starts losing weight you in arguably question your need to work!

Here i tend my apology for digressing from the core topic. But in order to understand the life and choices of a working mother, it was important to understand her pressures.

And now comes the most potent force behind this drop out. The attitude of superiors at work place. As i said earlier, a working mother is always considered an average performer. Just because she might have to leave early to pick up her child from day care or tend to family commitments too, her perception is always on the bottom. So an employee who wastes 2 hours every day in cigarette/coffee/lunch / net surfing breaks in office is still a better performer because he is clocking in the required hours or staying back late. Whereas a mother who finishes her work but wants to leave early is a waste of company resources! So they fare poorly at appraisals, given half a chance at promotions / pay hikes and not given meaty profiles/projects.

Also widely rampant is the phenomenon of exploiting women who are on a comeback after a child break. Not only are they forced to accept lower designations and lower pay packages, the prospective employers very smugly point it out that they no longer have professional networking or pose a greater risk of not being able to match up to their job expectations. i have come across many a such discriminating come-back tales. And the questions to be asked here are - a woman might have lost out on 3 years of professional life but that does not give the employers the right to pay her even lesser than what she was getting. How can they deduct her sabbatical years from her work ex? And reviving professional skills or networking is just a matter of days, there has to be some merit for experience too! For those who need a reality check, one of the prospective employers very candidly shared that companies have to look after their interests too. If they are getting a better experienced person for an X amount of money for which they would normally get a fresher / less exp, why will they not take it. So they corner the women on their gap, making it their disadvantage and make it work in their favour. if this is not exploitation, then i don’t know what is !

Which brings me back to the last part of this piece and your very justifiable query after reading all this – what is the role of the Corporate here?

The answer – take responsibility of your potential 50% work force!

Formulate women friendly policies. When the govt can come up with a scheme like Aanganwaadi where the women labourers are encouraged to work by providing them with a caregiver for their children at their place of work, what is stopping the more educated and sensible organizations from providing day care facilities at the workplace?

How about some efforts to push for the regulation of the day care industry? If the corporate bodies can lobby for important policies with the government, they can surely extend their support to this cause as well.

Even promote or tie-up with leading / credible caregiver / nanny providing agencies that provide trained, educated, certified nannies to the women employees. I cannot for a moment think of any working mother who would not avail of such a facility. And that it’s boosting the employee morale, bringing immense job satisfaction and increasing company loyalty, could be any layman’s guess.

And lastly do not treat working mothers as a liability. Work out a system wherein maybe the women who are in particularly taxing roles like sales, get a more relaxed profile for 2 years or maybe can do with flexi timings or work from home option. The amount of time that gets wasted in office commute esp. in metros can very easily be utilized tending to her family commitments. Also 4 fully productive hours are way better than 8 exhausting hours. There could always be weekly review meetings at office. Believe me any mother would certainly look forward to that weekly review, if it means doing away with those motherly duties for a couple of hours!

In a nutshell, nurture your 50% equally and at times better productive work force. It’s all about nurturing from within the organization, just like a tree which when the time comes reaps huge rewards. Because nothing spells a more stable, loyal employee than a working mother who is happy at her work.

And let’s not forget, given the current social scenario, when we talk about changing the societal mindset and sensitizing the society, we are in reality doing just the opposite. The biggest role player in a child’s life and thus the society at large – a mother- is being de-incentivized for being just that – a mother! For, in all my limited but exhausting experience as a mother, the fact is that babies need copious amounts of quantity time and slowly as the child grows, quality very easily replaces quantity . So actually it’s all a function of time. If we can only have some patience and look for long term rewards!

Till the time we do this, the proverbial GLASS CEILING will never be shattered!!!

Remembering Nirbhaya in the times of Gandi Baat !!

December 16,2013

This article was written on the first anniversary of the tragic rape. There was a round the clock media hype and hoopla about what had changed in the country in the past one year regarding women and their safety.While debates after debates were being played out on national television, our youth and children were happily singing songs that in my personal opinion have done more dis service to the cause of women safety and respect than some inebriated men !

Today is a solemn day. A day when exactly a year back a young spirited woman was crushed at the brutal hands of the misguided masculinity of our society. That her death awakened an entire nation’s conscience and sparked unprecedented outrage is the stuff history is made of !

Back to reality though. An year later, Dec 16 is being marked as a Reclamation Day ! All across, women and concerned citizens of the society are demanding a woman’s right to live without fear, stigma and societal pressures.

But what has left me dumbfounded is that while on one hand every intellectual worth his salt is debating and asserting women’s safety, we have an entire nation humming and gyrating to the tunes of the latest blockbuster song –  “ab karunga tere saath....Gandi Baat “ . Really ??

Are you trying to tell me that while singing this song somebody is asking my permission to talk dirty to me? Or get dirty with me? Oh sorry...he is not even asking for permission, this song is a very matter of fact proclamation that he can get as dirty with me as he pleases! The guys are singing  it, the girls are swaying to it, toddlers and young children are gleefully mouthing it and shaking their cute bums..... and our prime time TV shows are talking about sensitizing the society !

I know i have raked a big fire. There would be disagreements, denials, some people would call it crazy and being narrow minded. And some would just laugh it off!

But please for a moment stop and think about what the acceptance of such tawdry lyrics means in reality. And for those who are thinking i have some underlying agenda behind running off this song,  i strongly protest a lot of what is being served to us in the name of entertainment. Some samples – the positioning of a popular dance reality show as a platform for showcasing the passion of couples (in my personal opinion even their promos and hoardings could easily be mistaken for condom ads – that its being aired in primetime and a sizeable proportion of the audience is children n impressionable teenagers makes it all the more questionable), the all time crass lyrics of a song that goes like “nikkar waali chhori ne vodka chadha rakhi hai “....its endless! in my limited understanding of the human psyche, the men who have actually grown up with chhoris in nikkars would hardly be bothered if they are clad in nikkar or bikini. However for a vast majority of the Indian youth, spilling out of tier 2 n 3 cities, growing up with conservative mindsets and traditional family values where co-existence of both the genders is still a far-fetched thought – the mere thought of a chhori in nikkar drives their hormones up the walls ! blame it on our digital revolution that has put smart phones and internet connection in the hands of people whose minds are not even prepared to handle the onslaught of information and influence that internet brings. And would it really be fair to blame them? We all learned so long ago that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing! And this is exactly what is ailing our society. We have given a potent weapon in the form of easy accessibility to people who are just not equipped mentally and emotionally to deal with all that they see and hear.

And this is where societal accountability comes in picture. We are all liberal, free minded and free spirited citizens. We can enjoy adult entertainment too. In any case sexual banters and sexually laced content has been part of our culture and folklore since time immemorial. We are the land of kamasutra and khajuraho. Nautankis have been there forever. But what was different back then was no broadcasting technology...no mass audience. With the advent of technology the lines blurred.

Its become all the more important now to exercise our discretion and logic. Knowing the times we live in and the perils of technology, how can such stuff be written, sung, produced and broadcast ? And if it has to be done – though freedom of speech and art shouldn’t be confused with vulgarity – what about some discretion? What happened to censorship, A-certificate, late night slots ?

What fails me is how can we commoditize women and accept slang and vulgar, demeaning words for women in the name of popular culture and entertainment and then talk about sensitizing the society ? How can it be okay to dance to insulting lyrics and then cry hoarse about safety on streets ? and how can channels support and promote Women causes and then broadcast such content, songs and dances , even the language that’s being spoken on reality shows – i distinctly remember a judge using the word “kinky” on a dance reality show where again children is a big audience – how can they have a brain freeze when it comes to good sense ?

It’s an issue worth pondering over. Seriously. In all earnest

And for the unaware, i am a dance fanatic and love to party. And i totally believe in the repealing of Article 377. I believe in a liberal society – where the mind is without fear and the head is held high! I want a responsible, educated and mature society.

And if anyone dares doing “gandi baat” with me, Lord Forgive me,  I’ll beat the living daylights out of them !

RIP Nirbhaya..... Meanwhile, we still have a long way to go!

Right to Dignity, Right to Life !!!

December 20,2012

3 days after the infamous Delhi gang rape that resulted in unprecedented public outrage and served as a catalyst for re-framing anti-rape laws and trial in India.

I  don’t know where to begin.... i am numb !! Numb with pain, sadness and fear... i fear for my life, for the lives of my known and loved ones. What do i do, what do i say...where do i begin??

They said do not wear provocative clothes....we listened....and yet women kept getting raped in villages and at homes.

They said do not go out after dark.... we listened... and yet, men barged into houses and doused the girls with acid while their family watched with horror.

They said do no go out alone.... we listened.... and yet, THIS GIRL got raped in the presence of a male chaperon !!!

WHAT DO YOU SAY NOW..... IS ANYBODY EVEN LISTENING ???

INFANTS....YOUNG GIRLS.... SOME DAYS OLD, SOME BARELY 5 / 6 / 10 YRS ARE GETTING RAPED....EVERY SINGLE DAY...IN SOME CORNER OF THIS DOOMED COUNTRY. WHAT DO WE HAVE TO SAY TO THEM ????

They started taking away our rights to live the way we want... we cannot dress up, we cannot go out.... today they want to take away our nights... tomorrow these monsters would attack us in broad daylight....and then they would lock us up in homes saying a home is the safest place.

And then when these perverts won’t find us outside, they'll attack our homes in mobs....and then FINALLY  everybody would say....This world is no place for Girls ! We shouldn’t be allowed to live...to be born !

Does anybody have any idea how stupid it sounds....how cowardly, how dangerous !

And what are we talking about.... are the men safe here ? Tell me if little boys are not being abused.... just pick up today’s newspaper ... a 5 n half yr old boy is sexually assaulted in his play school... 2 months back, a 2 n half yr old was molested by his driver.

IS THIS REALLY ABOUT GIRLS AND BOYS ?

It is a battle between humans and animals....people who can differentiate between right and wrong and people whose minds sub-cede and their carnal urges take over.... and like for all animals, these need to be tamed....ANIMALS HAVE NO PLACE IN CIVILIZED SOCIETY....THEY BELONG TO JUNGLES...YOU CANT LET THEM LIVE AMONG US !

 So instead of telling us NOT TO GET RAPED.... tell them THEY CANT RAPE AND GET AWAY WITH IT !

Hang them, chain them, castrate them, brand them rapists....i don’t care.....JUST GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS..... THAT THEY WILL HAVE TO PAY FOR IT !

Do it immediately, do it NOW.... don’t wait for statistics to pile up....rape victims are not numbers....they are living breathing people...somebody's children, somebody's loved ones. Because i honestly believe....very soon it would no longer be between girls and boys.... and i am scared.

I AM SCARED OF SENDING MY SON OUT IN THIS BIG BAD WORLD....WHERE WOLVES ROAM ABOUT FREELY....WITHOUT FEAR....WITH THEIR HEADS HELD HIGH!

While  my loved ones and i struggle for survival !!!

i

New Year...New Beginnings ??

Hi there !

Its that time of the year again.... that warm fuzzy feeling of being loved and spending precious moments of festivities and laughter with family and friends ! The nostalgic feel of the year that's quietly slipped away into oblivion and the excited anticipation of the times to come...the days around New Year are always the most memorable !

I have had an action packed, hectic year end too.... the festivities and excitement that started from October with Diwali celebrations got an added impetus with the much awaited visit of my parents in this new homeland of ours ! From taking them around this fabulous city of ours, Dubai, to discovering places hitherto unknown to us to hogging on to my mum's food.... the days just flew by !

But like it always happens in life....the true extent of happiness can only be measured by the amount of pain you have gone through. The balancing force of life....one that never lets you take life and its bounties for granted ! Call it luck that this realization didn't come in the form of personal pain for me....but to know that hundreds of lives were lost and millions of people suffered and continue to do so....suddenly all the happiness looks frivolous and the future of our race....bleak,morbid,doubtful !

Once again,the heart feels overwhelmed and the mind is reeling with dangerous realizations ! It feels so naive to think that one person can make a change or together we can make a difference. Can we really ? As of now...i have no answer. My mind is busy imbibing the impact....suddenly everything is mixed up ! The lines have blurred. I want to point out so many things...address so many issues, make myself heard, try an awakening...scare, plead, cajole....anything that stops us from spiraling into this self destruction mode we have hit !

But like i have mentioned in my previous posts, write i will ! It is the only thing that gives me hope. And i am going to try and shrug off this laziness and pen down all that has been bubbling inside me for some time now. But before i start writing about the events of the present, i want to post some of my previous writings here. The reason being, a lot of issues we face today, are extensions of events of the past. And it's equally important for both me and you to understand where is my reaction and writing coming from. The actions that triggered my emotions and made me feel a certain way. And how my thinking was shaped over a period of time.

Hence, over the next few days i would be posting my previous articles. And with that i shall carry forward my take on the present. Each and everything that matters !

And once again, i wish this new year brings a new hope, the promise of a saner and more compassionate and considerate world.

Happy New Year !

born with an opinion !

whoaaaa

back ! its been quite a break. have set my house in order, ticked off a couple of things in my to-do list, taken a tiring but very scenic road trip and have finally got everyone settled into their routines. And i am back !

there is so much that has been going on in my mind past couple of days...lot of new experiences and perspectives that come with visiting new places and people...i have been trying to assimilate all and figure out what is it that i want to write about next.

but... i am overwhelmed. and scared ! i just read sometime back that a new blog is written every half a second...now that's a very scary statistic. for a beginner like me its like taking the wind out of your sails. added to it is the fact that i have started questioning what is it that i am doing here in the first place !! i feel like a village idiot trying to get his bearings in a vast, complex city. and its true...this blog-sphere is so overpowering and like i said overwhelming. there is just so much being written and shared every single minute. such prolific writers, such amazing blogs... great content ! for starters i dont even know which category my blog falls into... is it philosophy, current affairs, social issues, personal, spiritual... i think its one giant goofball all rolled into one !

 i wish i knew if it was making some small difference..somehow. a value addition perhaps ! pardon these cliches but being a management graduate, you start measuring every output of yours in terms of its potential profit and loss. is it really something i can own upto when i go for my next alumni meet and amidst a pile of fancy visiting cards with really important designations, i turn around and say smiling....i write a blog ! all i know as of now is that i am giving myself a chance... writing gives me some self worth and makes me happy. i am willing to wait and see where it goes....

i have friends...remarkable bloggers writing equally remarkable blogs ! travel, fashion and lifestyle, book reviews, food... they are doing it all. and probably being read on a global scale. and it makes me curl up even more. but i know for a fact that these kind of blogs need dedication and commitment akin to a full time job. and undivided time is something that's hard for me to dispense....atleast right now. being a hands on stay at home mum with no outside help is a full time job in itself. and some days just end up being so demanding that all you want to do is to sleep. or probably sneak out of the door while everyone is asleep and be gone for a day :) now i am not writing this for want of some sympathy....women around the world are doing this day after day. but it so happens that when you have been running your house on your finger tips for years and being responsible for every single thing down to detail......letting go is a difficult phrase to live by. you don't just make a home, you start breathing it !delegation doesn't happen easily....overlooking and compromising stop being your good traits  and priorities shift.... big time. hence my little snooty statement about not having time ! but i have started the process....meanwhile i cannot do a shoddy job of committing myself to something that i know i cannot sustain. or do justice to. just like we believe that an arrow once shot doesn't come back, similarly a spoken word can never be taken back. and a  written word bears the weight of your conscience and your integrity !. thus i cannot tell you which book to read, where to travel or what to wear ! 

which brings me to this. for the longest time i kept wondering if i have been correct in naming my blog. heart of the matter. born with an opinion. is it a true reflection of me or my writings? and then i realized its who i am. born with an opinion.... these four words have defined me all my life. call it a side effect of being the eldest child of talented, independent, liberal parents. Dad a gifted writer and expressionist, mom a fearless orator ! the genes hit me the hardest. and now when i look back i realize i not only had an opinion throughout, i never shied from voicing it loud...since the time as a 8 year old i told my grandfather matter of factly that i wont cover my legs just because i am a growing girl. even though i was totally incapable of undersatnding his intentions at that young age, i made it a point to speak out. and the rest of my growing years can easily be imagined ! wrecking my father's car and then looking him squarely in the eye, telling him thats how he learnt to drive too and hence he cannot withhold my right to drive to silent dinners at the table through my teenage because of my insolence and out spokenness, our family has seen it all. it is here that i really want to acknowledge my parents for not suppressing my free will....though i admit that was not exactly an ideal behaviour on my part. and my opinionated head has cost me a lot in life, i know.

but what i also know is that having an opinion means having a mind. while it does spell trouble in young years, it also makes you capable of being empowered and independent in adult life. it gives me the power to feel and the will to do. from deciding the color on my walls to challenging ideologies, i have an opinion and the might to carry it on. i speak out when my dear friend is overwhelmed and exhausted after having a baby and is spiraling into depression while her husband decides to underplay it and i speak out when as a society we victimize the innocent and indulge the culprit or happily choose to avert the gaze when faced with uncomfortable realities.

and so i believe this opinionated head and heart of mine is capable of making a difference. it could be just me...or my own small world. or maybe there would be a day when i will make a huge difference. i believe in all sincerity that a single written word can awaken a collective conscience. as long as there is hope i shall write. i might meet a similar minded individual along the way and our efforts would double. i might also meet people with contradictory views and difference of opinions. either way....there would be a debate. and people will speak out.

thats what writing is all about, isnt it ? it makes you sit up and think... and there.... you have an opinion !!

of freaky fridays and sexy saturdays !!

hello !!

how is your sunday brunch going on guys ?

but tell me what exactly is it about weekends, people?

weekends are supposed to be the best thing - lazy mornings, , lolling around in bed, sumptuous brunches, back to back episodes of ur fav serial or movies, shopping at ur fav stores(strictly for women), gossip and lunch with your gang of girls (women again), beers, backslappin, swear-tences and pizza (tandoori chicken, if its indian men :P) sessions for men, eating out and great parties........ heaven, right !!

in your dreams girl !!

for most of us and i am excluding the single, happening girls in their twenties - their life is one big party anyway, barring the mandatory sob-a-thons......hey i was in twenties too !

yeah so for most of us weekends are like looking at WW photos !! immeasurable suffering !

therez this huge pile of dirty dishes to greet you in the morning...just because you decided to switch off your auto mode n enjoy your one glass of wine or your share of the TV on one night and postponed loading the dishwasher, so much laundry that you can do all your muscle training in a day, putting your house in order that includes picking up items meant to be kept in shelves & not on the over-burdened floor , your weekly run to the grocery store and numerous other errands that only a woman' mind, body and soul  can comprehend and accomplish !!

and if that is not enough, there is always room for some emotional blackmailing from your family or emotional guilt of yours to cook that favorite family meal - b'fast+lunch+dinner in case you happen to be a good cook ! i happen to be the worst hit in this case...blackmail and guilt always visit me together and i chose to cook my way to my man's heart...so there !! one way road only...no backtracking or wishing upon  my lucky stars !

and the icing on the cake happens to be the sweet little innocuous super man bag lying quietly in a corner. you dread opening it because  in your hearts of heart you know there is not even an ounce of energy or inclination left in your bones that can tackle the mammoth task of getting the homework done... of a toddler...in time ! just like they would glue their mouths shut when you tried feeding them healthy food when they were young, that is exactly how it happens when you are teaching your pre-schooler to write alphabets ! they have the capability to put the phrase -at a snail's pace - to shame ! but you are a mommy...you are better than Superman, believe me.  so get cracking !

finally after all this is done, you are able to relax and put up your feet. it doesn't matter if this bliss lasts for just over an hour because its already sunday eve (sat eve for us here ) and the painful task of putting a well rested and full charged up kid to sleep is hanging over your head like a sword. if you are a mom to more than one, trust me lady, you have earned your place in heaven...the real one !

and then while massaging your foot cream in your ever tired limbs at night, you suddenly remember you couldn't go for your meni-pedi/waxing / facial session at the salon...again...just like last week and the week before that. and you form a steely resolve to do it next week, come hail, rain or storm ! and you put in some more foot cream, to compensate ! or pull out your tweezers n pluck those ungainly hair from your eyebrows...like what i did last night !

hey, did anyone ask me about the latest hot spots in town ? darling the ones i knew are probably in the antique listing of the catalog now !

now if any of you is wondering why did i have to take you through my weekend diary... its because i so wanted to write my intro to this blog over the weekend, but... it has simply not happened, yet again !!

and please, don't chide me for all this frivolity when i claimed to be writing about matters close to my heart.

my poor heart...it still weeps over its lost weekends !

so long :)))