of blue skies, red helmets and yellow arm chairs

the papers called it 'the mother of all traffic jams'...

its a crowd out here!

i live in a crowded space.

beyond our many many 'things', our books, papers, her books, her toys, we have very many inhabitants in our crowded little mumbai space.

they could be anywhere, and everywhere.

the egg seller stood bang in front of the tv yesterday, as she tried to drive a hard bargain with a one rupee coin and the five eggs she wanted.

we have to constantly make space for her friends who want to sit on that very spot where half my bum has settled comfortably a moment ago.

the living room was suddenly divided by a busy street where she was going for a walk. it took a little convincing to get her to wear imaginary rain shoes, an imaginary raincoat and carry an imaginary umbrella, rather than her muddy shoes and wet everything else.

ofcourse wild animals from the jungle are commonplace. you never know when you could bump into a tiger with claws. or a friendly lion lolling about.

the room could transform into a market or a river, you just change your body language. you can not possibly splash around in a market, can you?

crowded, yes, but the house where i live, its enchanted!

the leaves are shining green, but they sure are aghast

oh!oh! the leaf exclaimed, open mouthed.

yes,we said, we are rained in. no office. no school.



our forest has burst into grey.



our rocket building is not going to take off for a while.



she was worried, mera green green park hai na?

i assured her it is there. probably a big brown pool at the moment. but underneath somewhere, the green park is there.

funny family

he has a bright yellow umbrella.

i have a purple umbrella, with white polka dots.

and she, she has a yellow pichkari. it is ceremoniously carried out of the house.
the pichkari is opened out and held aloft with utmost solemnity. and she walks under the yellow umbrella, proudly holding up her yellow pichkari to protect her from the rain.

and if you walk into t village when it rains you might see us, the one with the yellow umbrella, purple umbrella and the yellow pichkari.

initially i was bothered about how absurd we looked. but after a week of losing every argument with her we give in. and actually, is it not commonplace to hold up a yellow pichkari when it pours?

magic massi

magic massi spins her magic around mother and child!

in ascending order

the questions get tougher in ascending(or descending of you read the last one first)order.

she went for her first two day vacation away from us, with her nana and nani, to panchgani. she has had a blast, the parents moped, nothing unusual in that.

now for the questions she posed to the nana and nani.

panch is five. gani kya hai?

tunnel ke naam kyon hote hain? iska naam tunnel hai, to ek aur naam kyon hain?

taare zameen par, zameen kya hai. tare zameen par kaise aaye?

dil mein mere hai dard-e-disco ka kya matlab hai? wohi dard, jo petu mein hota hai? to dard-e-disco ka kya matlab hai?

and what were the answers? you think i believe my parents when they say they gave great answers, right there, right then! bah!

though my mother, never one to be short of an answer, confessed that dard-e-disco was a tough one.

the vote is yours

when i find my husband pouring over the classified columns, especially lingering over the matrimonial columns and the property ads,

is it in preparation of some deep sociological insight?

or

is it plain and simple escapism?

as they would say in reality shows and tv news channels - YOU DECIDE!

of chants and unanswered questions/ or mommy falls from grace

we now know that apart from the narmada there is the jamuna, thanks to a beautiful book by tulika

books get over pretty fast, but the appetite for stories remain, even at the end of a tired day. so this book ended with me listing out the names of rivers, ganga, brahmaputra, tavi, krishna , kaveri... she repeated after me, savouring each name. a soothing chant. and she fell asleep.

the papers next morning had a photograph of some nala or the other. and her mother could not name that blighted trickle of filthy water leading to status of mother falling rapidly in the eyes of this child.

bolo na, yeh river ka naam kya hai? bolo na.....

i even tried to suggest it was not a river. but the suggestion was shot down.

i dared not suggest mithi just in case she insisted on going across and tasting it. what scrap of information can rear its head and bite your ass can not be predicted ever.

edited to add: link me to photos of rivers big and small that you have taken. a little story along with it would be a kind gesture to this mother who has to constantly make up never ending stories.