Never ending wait has ended!

       Coming...coming.... and finally the list has come. We had been waiting for the transfer order of our daughter since long. On every weekend there was this rumour that the list was coming. Knowing the uncertain nature of the job, we did not even bother to open our luggage completely. We kept telling our near and dear ones to visit us before we leave Bundi for it is a beautiful place full of greenery (little known fact is that it is the veritable rice bowl of Rajasthan) and quaint historical structures though many of the old beautiful buildings are in a dilapidated condition..

         After some time it became a joke. We too stopped listening to such rumours and happily immersed our self in planning for summer season gardening. LO...! Suddenly on a Thursday night my daughter woke me up (I go to bed early) to inform me that she has been transferred. It took me a few minutes to understand  the word 'transfer' as I thought it may be one of those pranks she plays with me. Finally the word sunk in and all the excitement caught on with me. I kept asking her so many questions in between the numerous calls she was receiving about the new place.

        

           After the initial excitement died down, the thought of packing and shifting began to haunt me. I've been doing this for umpteen number of years now. I must say that there were times I used to enjoy these shiftings but with time, how I wished to settle down in one place after retiring. I guess age is catching up with me! But with my daughter in a transferable job like my husband, that is not to be. Soon we busied ourselves with packing. It is only when you have to pack up your entire household does one realise how smart or foolish you have been in shopping.. do not ask me which category we fall into!! The Himalayan task was completed  in a week and it was time to move on.

        

          The most difficult part was saying good bye to all. The thought of leaving the house and the people in our lives made me very sad. I'm going to miss all those people, the beautiful, colourful tiny flying visitors, the menace of monkeys, the chirping of different birds and the ever daring and running squirrels. Even though it is a part of one's job, it is really hard to move away from people (and place) whom you have considered as your own and to a new place to make it your own once again. It is an emotional drain out. With great difficulty all of us put up a very brave face to say bye to the loved ones in Bundi. We have reached our new destination and now the second part of the show begins. The unpacking.....!

Expression of love

     Expression of love. The feeling of missing someone. Abi is yet to learn the normal way of showing his love to us. He is on a beating spree and crying mode these days. I'm the easiest target for him. He cries at the drop of a hat. Hits me without any provocation. Loves to throwing things which shouldnt be thrown. Milk no, food no, only chocolates are welcome. If you give him one and he wants more, he will first eat the one in his hand and then start crying and say,"mujhe yeh wala nahin khana tha, woh dusra chahiye!" (I didnt want to eat this one, it is the other one that I want). He has somehow made up his mind that there is no way he will get more chocolates otherwise.

     Going to school is better than what it used to be. But he still tries his best to resist going. Just to surprise him, one day I went to pick him up after school. He was so surprised and happy to see me that he jumped into the car and hugged me and my joy knew no bound!.On our way back, I bought some chocolates, ice cream and biscuits for him. The next day I did not go to pick him up and he was so upset. As soon as he reached home and saw me, he hugged me tightly and cried saying,"naani ko gaadi me hona chahiye tha". It took me quite some time to pacify him!

     At first I thought the change in weather is the culprit. But as things didn't improve even after a few days my daughter and I had a long discussion and web searching session. That's when we understood the reason (or at least one of the reasons) for this behaviour. His 'naanu' has been away for a few days now and Abi seems to be missing his 'naanu' a lot and he does not know how to express that. Naanu loves to spoil him, especially when we are trying to restrict him from watching the rhymes on youtube or discipline him. Now, every few hours he enters naanu's room and I suppose feels his absence. Slowly I made him understand that naanu is out and he 'll be back soon. Then I made him speak to 'naanu' on the phone, which he did nicely for the first time (earlier he would keep the phone to his ears to listen but not speak). He told naanu,"Abi nannu  ko dhoond raha tha". After speaking to him Abi has calmed down a bit.. at least I'm not getting anymore thrashing! My cute l'il angel is waiting for his 'naanu' to come back.. it is so sad to see him miss someone he loves at this age when he can't even express himself properly... 

Colouring obsession

Abi is bubbling with too much energy and I'm unable to keep pace with him. The days are too long and too hot. So we are not able to do any outdoor activities. He gets bored with his toys very soon. Not that he ever plays with them - he only likes to break them. Its very difficult to make him sit in one place for more than five minutes. He does not like to be disciplined or guided to do anything. Two things he does like are playing in water and colouring. So we play in water at around noon and evenings we try to paint something.

 Since long we had been thinking of preserving his hands and feet prints. But some how it has been delayed a lot, so we finally decided to do that today. He could sit patiently  for not more than a few minutes and watch us mix the colour, being as restless as he is. We could barely manage to get his hands and legs imprinted on a paper and soon after he snatched the brush, dug out a whole lot of paints (he wanted minimum of two colours) and splashed the colours all over the place. He made a merry mess of everything around him - painted his face, hands, legs and not to mention his clothes! The paper which I gave him to paint was too small for him, so the floor became the canvas. He happily splashed colours all over the place. His joy was so infectious, we joined in too and started throwing colours at him! I wanted to remember and cherish this joyous moments, so I captured it in my lens. My little M F Husain in the making... 

AM I GREEDY...?

The train was at 10:35 pm. We had done our packing and waited for our daughter to come back from the office. With a heavy heart, I explained to Abi that we will be out for a few days and he was not very happy about it. But we could not help it as our house was being vacated by our tenant and we had to go to Ggn to look for a new tenant. Also, this was our first experience with tenants after renovating the house according to our taste. We were not planning to rent it out ever, but circumstances lead us to do so a few years back.. I was very anxious to know about the condition of my house which we had let out as a fully furnished accommodation. 

By noon the programme fizzled out. Our daughter told us that she had to go out for 2 days for some urgent work. Abi was having cold and cough. She suggested we continue with our plan and that she will take Abi along with her (8 hrs journey by road and that too at night). We could not agree with her because of Abi's health and so my hubby went to Ggn and my daughter, to attend her work leaving me and Abi at home.

Our SIL, who had visited our house a while ago had already warned us to expect the worst, knowing how particular I'm about my things and cleanliness etc. He was more worried about me than the house, but I thought he was exaggerating. But after seeing the house personally, my hubby was shocked to say the least. Between the two of us, he is way more considerate and liberal, but even he was terribly depressed after stepping into our beloved house. The occupants had surpassed all limits, he said and was so relieved that I was not there to see its condition. 

I was thinking back to when we decided to rent it, how nicely we cleaned the house, washed the curtains, colour washed the walls, polished the both rooms before handing the house over to them, even though it was well maintained  and in very good condition.  My immediate neighbour would vouch for it. In fact, she was so surprised at the work we were getting done for our tenants and asked me "Are you giving it on rent or is your own relative coming here to stay?". I thought if I give a sparkling house to my tenant, they will keep it that way and reciprocate when they have to vacate. ALAS!! I wonder why people cannot keep a house neat and clean? Whether it is one's own house or rented, its you and your family living there. Am I expecting too much?

 For almost three decades I lived in govt quarters. Not once I thought that it is not my house and I should not take care of it. Whenever I had the opportunity to meet the new occupants of the govt house we were vacating, they always expressed their happiness for getting such a well maintained house. As I sit here and pour out my feelings, my hubby is getting all the cleaning job done there in Ggn. Also looking for a tenant who can take care of the house in which they are living. AM I GREEDY...? Why is it so difficult to find someone who can take care of their own dwelling?

PS: Before we renovated and moved into our house after the retirement a few years ago, we had another tenant (who had to move out because we were moving in). I'm ever grateful to them for taking care of my house.

Mora Sham Rootha...

How fast children grow! Abi too is growing fast and has started trying to assert his independence these days. "Naani bhi jayegi" used to be his mantra earlier whether it was time to go to feed the pigeons / parrots or taking chapati for Cookie (our pet dog) in the morning. He would not go unless and until I accompanied him at least for a short while. It was the same whether he had to go to school or go cycling or to play in the garden or even to go to bed. Of course, here I accept that I enjoyed every bit of  importance given to me by him.

Yesterday all of a sudden he decided to do things on his own. After his usual bubble bath and juice, he declared ,"Abi ka toh ninni time hai, Abi aappuaap soyega,  naani nahin ayegi" (this is sleeping time, Abi will sleep on his own, naani will not come). I was taken aback at this sudden change in him because getting to go to sleep has been one of the toughest jobs till today!

Of late he has also developed a habit of dropping  things without any provocation. A few days ago, we had gone to one of our friend's house. We were all sitting at the dining table and discussing a painting. BANG! Suddenly we heard the sound of a crockery breaking. To our shock, it was Abi who dropped a quarter plate for no reason at all. We were so shocked and apologised to the host. Back home he did the same thing during dinner but luckily with a steel glass. I did  raise my voice and told him I'm cross with him as a punishment. He said 'sorry naani' and I forgot about it. Later on, his mother was explaining to him why he should not break things, how it can hurt him and mamma does not like it etc. She also said, if he does it again she will become Vidhushi's mother(friend's daughter) and not Abi's mother. He agreed that he will not do it again and said,"mamma chalo ninni karenge" Second shocker of the day! Usually I put him to bed or he would ask for both, mamma and naani.  Thinking that I'm indispensable, I asked him shall I come? Nahin! Yeh Abi ki naani nahin hai, Vidhushi ki naani hai - pat came the reply! I'm still wondering.. why did he say that? Mora Sham kyon rooth gaya? Or is it just a growing up phase?

NEVER ENDING SURPRISES

          We all say that children of today are too smart, sharp and intelligent than what we were at their age. Saying is one thing and seeing is (experiencing) another. It is simply amazing. Grand parents who are lucky to see their grand children grow would vouch for it. Abi never ceases to surprise us. He has to watch you doing something once carefully and within no time you will see him doing the very same thing! Most kids are like that I suppose?

          He is so computer savvy and at times it becomes very difficult to keep him away from it. Even before he started going to school his 'naanu' introduced him to computers (naanu spends all his time with his laptop) and Abi used to watch 'nursery rhymes'. Within a short span of time he learnt to switch on the laptop himself. At times there are 3 laptops in the house and the power buttons of them are at different places. Yet Abi knows how to switch on all of them without any body's help.

          Slowly he graduated to the level of entering the password (kept as asd for his convenience) and reaching the Desktop and then clicking the Google icon and opening a 'new tab' ! After the 'new tab' he needs our help. It becomes so difficult to say 'no' to him after all that he has done. He sure knows how to take advantage of that! Left to him, he can spend hours listening  and watching rhymes and stories on 'you tube'. We are trying to restrict that but it is way more difficult than we imagined.

     

 Today he added one more feather in his cap. We were watching a Tamil rhyme video. In that rhyme, he liked a word 'ada... appadiya?' (which means, is it so?) spoken by the dog. With out my help he moved the cursor to that particular place to listen to that word  repeatedly (rewind). Increasing the volume, enter and exit full screen and selecting a new video are not a big deal for him. He seems to have understood the meaning of the symbols. I do not even want to compare myself with him when I was of his age, in fact not even my daughter! Eagerly looking forward to more surprises. What next...?

Abi's Maiden River Water Adventure

   
  It was one of those rare opportunities where we could all plan to go out as a family for a weekend outing and even though our daughter had to spend some part of this time with a few school children (as a part of her job), all of us were very excited. Of course Abi, more than all of us because he loves going out and keeps saying "Ghoomi ghoomi chalo"! 

  On seeing my excitement, my daughter warned me of the bad road and the long distance. Even though that disheartened a travel sickness prone me a little, I put up a brave face and we set off to Ramgarh Fort. This Fort is located in the midst of a wildlife sanctuary by the same name - Ramgarh Sanctuary. Most part of the journey was good, but some stretches were really bad.   
  After the initial jumping around from lap to lap, eventually Abi went off to sleep. I pulled through most part of the journey listening to Army life anecdotes of my hubby and son-in-law and anxiously looking out of the window for wild animals. We were told that once upon a time, this used to be the abode of numerous tigers, but now only 1 remains. Our hard luck we did not get to see him.

    But once we reached the Fort we could see the forest's greenery all around us and a serene river running by. It has a great view and an abundance of natural beauty which makes it an inviting place. Basically the "Fort" was a rest house, built for the kings and their troupe who would come here to hunt centuries back. Today it is a nice get away place for our fast and busy life. All the tiredness vanished in no time. Abi had carried his 'gulel' (catapult) with him and spent his time trying to 'shoo' away the monkeys there! He is quite well accomplished in this art now for we have them in our garden as well!  

   We didn't go trekking or looking for wildlife because time was short and decided to simply relax in the Fort. But en route we had to cross the river Mez which was close to the Fort. On our way back, all of us walked in the river where it is  not very deep.Walking bare feet in the river brought back lots of childhood memories. It was a treat we enjoyed whenever me and my siblings went to our farm and spent many days playing around in the fields and water courses..

  Abi was very scared to enter the water at first. Clinging to his dad and holding mama's hand, slowly they made him stand in the running river water and sprinkled some water on him.That's all he needed! After that he splashed water on everybody relentlessly! One could see the mischievousness in his eyes. His happiness knew no bounds and he wanted more of it. So we took off his clothes and dunked him in nice and proper! He happily bathed in the river and refused  to come out. The onlookers went berserk clicking his snaps.
 A trip to cherish!