J is for job

In 2011, I quit my job as a manager at a bigass publisher to take care of Xena. I was deeply and madly in love with my job and it was not an easy transition. I didn't feel it so much in the first few months because Xena was in the ICU and I was shuttling between home and hospital all day long, with not much time or energy to think of anything else. Even after she was stable and got home, my days and nights were spent tending to her needs.

It was after almost half a year that I started to feel the withdrawal symptoms of quitting my job. However, Xena was not in a state where she could be left with anyone other than me at home, so I knew it would be years before I could go back to a real office. To make sure that I didn't go completely bonkers at home, I continued writing and editing, but on a freelance basis. This allowed me to regulate my workload based on Xena's health and needs, and also to keep in touch with the changes in the syllabus and trends in the industry. And of course, whatever money comes in is always a bonus, since I don't have my salary and perks anymore. Last year, on her doctor's recommendation, we put her in half-day preschool to get her to eat under the powerful influence of peer pressure. I started taking on more work as I had more time in the mornings when she was away at school.

Now I work a half-day shift from home in the morning, taking just enough work to nicely fill out that part of my day when Xena is at school. A lot of people ask me if I'll ever go back to work in an office. The answer is in the affirmative. Once Xena's health and eating improve, I'll consider going back to an office.

Provided they take me.

Though I have been in close touch with the industry's happenings and have not stopped working, I am aware that this gap of a few years could prove to be a disadvantage when I apply for an office job again, especially if I want to get back my managerial position. That is a little scary. I can imagine myself being questioned at the interviews on all the skills that are needed in a corporate environment, which they'd assume would have rusted in the years that I spent focusing only on Xena.

So I decided to do up an addendum to my resume. One that shows that even though in the last few years, my primary position has been 'mother', I've had plenty of opportunities to exercise the skills the position requires. (Honestly speaking, If I really were to take motherhood as a 'project', there is no question that it has been the most challenging one so far, with many layers of intricacies and complexities, and one that requires a multitude of skills to be used all at once.)

So here it is, dear interviewer, a list of reasons why you shouldn't hesitate to hire me, in spite of the break I took from the working world.

I am a leader. 
I lead a team, the size of which ranges from 2 to 3894738949837032. The reason is that although the more senior of the two members is relatively stable, the junior one can be quite a handful at times and under those circumstances, simply cannot be considered as a single headcount. Both staff members were personally hand-picked by me, and are competent and reliable. The more experienced of the two works mostly offsite, whereas the junior member works half day offsite and half day onsite. I am based mostly onsite and lead all operations from there.

I am a keen listener. 
My staff feel free to approach me anytime as I take the time to really listen to them. Though the senior member often spouts jargon, which I filter selectively, I take a deeper interest in what the junior member has to say. And I listen and I remember. I know who hit whom at school today, I know who peed and pooped how many times, I know who cried and who ate and who didn't eat lunch, I know who bought a new bag to school, I know who brought what for show and tell, and whose water bottle has which cartoon character. Heck, I even know the colours of her three teachers' water bottles.

I'm a team player.
The three of us make a very efficient team. We have established the perfect morning routine, where everyone works in tandem to get stuff done in record time. We wake up at 7 am. While I prepare the junior member's breakfast and snack box, the senior member brushes her teeth. Then as he gets himself ready for office, I get her dressed and seated in the high chair with her breakfast. While he feeds her, I make our breakfast. After she's done, I serve his breakfast. While he eats, I tie her hair and get her to put her socks and shoes on. And then they are off for their respective offsite operations.

I'm an independent worker. 
Every year, for a few weeks, the senior member is away on business trips, and then I'm a one-woman army dealing with the junior member, my own projects and all operations, all by myself. It is also at these times when junior member decides to become the equivalent of the 3894738949837032 staff members I'd mentioned earlier. Also, I encourage my staff members to pursue their hobbies in the weekends, and so the senior member goes off to play cricket on Sundays. He's out from 7 am to 7 pm, but onsite work doesn't stop even in the weekends, so once again I take full charge of everything.

I delegate.
Though most of the major operations are split between the senior member in my team and me, I delegate appropriate tasks to the junior member too, such as peeling garlic, boiled eggs, folding laundry and some dusting and sweeping. I carry out regular appraisals to praise her good performance and to give her feedback to address any shortcomings.

I'm deadline-oriented. 
I make sure that junior member and I never miss a single deadline for our respective projects. (As for senior member, he can handle his deadlines by himself. I've trained him well over the years.)

I am organised and detail-oriented.
I have to be very organised to run the operations. I have to be on top of everything, such as school projects, excursions, medical appointments, play dates, outings, nutrition, household chores, etc. I keep track of many small details -- library book due dates, parent-teacher meetings, birthday parties, buying the gifts for the birthday parties, new clothes waiting for junior member to grow and fit into, etc.

Also, the junior member in my team tends to take too many days of medical leave, but I have done a thorough background check and the reasons appear to be genuine. This, however, hinders some of the operations, such as my own projects. I have to be even more organised to make sure that none of my deadlines are missed due to her hospitalisations.

I'm goal-oriented. 
I set realistic goals for my team members and help them achieve the goals. The senior member used to report quite late in the evenings, and the reasons he gave inspired no confidence. We discussed and set a realistic goal of 7:30 pm on normal days, and 8:00 pm on crazy days, and an action plan (take the private fast bus instead of the public ones) and he is now able to meet the targets.

For the junior member, I set a target (10 kg) and used grassroot-level involvement and positive reinforcement to help her achieve it.

I handle stress well.
Junior member, due to her relative inexperience, often puts me in tough spots (think throwing up in a crowded bus) where I need to think on my feet and quickly find the best solution out of the stressful situation. I have implemented several instances of successful crisis-management.

I'm resourceful. 
I spend a good part of my day reading and learning about the latest developments in the field. I am part of motherhood groups and have contacts at my fingertips that I harness to find out anything I want within seconds, such as where can you buy styrofoam balls to make a model of a poodle for a class project, and where can you find ready-to-use icing for a birthday celebration at school, and who is the best pediatrician in the area.

I have a strong sense of CSR. 
I work with my motherhood groups to organise donation of baby items to be sent to organisations such as Babes, and children's clothes and books to be sent to orphanages in Cambodia. I volunteered at my junior member's school fund-raiser for the APSN.

I'm self-motivated. 
The last few years have not been an easy journey for me, but I have to keep myself motivated and positive and just march on.  

Happy? All right, gimme the job already.

Added on 16 April: I found this video and thought it was perfect to share on this post:

I is for I

I is for I. First person singular. I in English. Main in Hindi.

I've had a really odd relationship with this word. In Hindi. My dad got transferred to Bihar when I was six, and that's how I picked up Hindi. And because it was Bihar, it wasn't the kind of polished cool-sounding Hindi we hear in most Hindi movies. It was the kind of Hindi that villains in movies like Dabangg 2 speak. The "Hum kah rahe hain na" kind of Hindi. Dad had a few more transfers in the next 12 years, but they were all within Bihar. (He went to Calcutta, Vizag, Hyderabad, etc. after I left India.) So as I shuttled from school to school within Bihar, my Bihari Hindi just got stronger and stronger. Of course we learnt proper Hindi at school, so my written Hindi was always good, but I have always spoken Hindi like a true Bihari. And even though all of the 7 schools that I studied in before coming to Singapore were English-medium schools, we only spoke to our teachers in English. Hindi was always the language of choice when we spoke amongst us. And we always used 'hum' for 'main'.

So, after a dozen years of hum-ing, I suddenly found myself in Singapore, being ragged by my Indian seniors because I was the only one in my batch who spoke like that. The first time I said something like "Hum Bihar se aaye hain...", the senior ragging me looked behind me and said, "Aur kaun kaun aaye hain tumhaare Bihar se?" I didn't get the sarcasm so I replied, "Aur koi nahin. Sirf hum aaye hain." Much to my surprise, they broke into peals into laughter. I also got ridiculed for calling them "bhaiya" and "aap", but that's a different story altogether.

My 'hum' became the point of amusement for everyone. It took me a while to understand why. No one else around me said 'hum'. One, they almost always spoke to one another in English, and two, even when they did speak in Hindi, they used 'main'. I tried real hard to change, not because I thought 'main' was cooler, but because I knew it was correct. But much as I tried, I simply could not shrug off the 'hum' that had been laminated in my brain. I'd start off my sentence with 'main' and would have switched to 'hum' halfway without even realising it. It got very annoying, so I decided to just switch to talking to everyone only in English. That was helpful in a way because it really brushed up my spoken English, which wasn't great because of my years in Bihar where I didn't have to speak much English at school. And of course, even though everyone at home read English newspapers, magazines and books, we never spoke English at home. I used to do well in the written English exams, but I wasn't confident enough to rapidly rattle off sentence after sentence in English. I'd have to think them out in Hindi, translate them in my head, think of the correct pronunciation of each word, and then start speaking. It was very stressful. But it was very helpful to me in the long run.

But I love Hindi and I always have, and I couldn't bear to stop speaking it completely. The only person I continued to speak to in Hindi was Viv, and he didn't mind my 'hum' at all. In fact, he'd use 'hum' back when speaking to me, even though he spoke to the rest of the world using 'main'. I did make an attempt to make the rest of it sound a little polished -- more Lucknowi than Bihari -- but the 'hum' stuck on. I've continued like this for the last 16 years of my life -- English with everyone else, and my hum wala Hindi at home with Viv -- and I thought I could get away with it.

Until I had a kid and my kid started speaking.

Viv and I had decided that since both of us have different mother tongues, we'd ditch both and teach Xena Hindi, a language that will serve her well in any part of India should she choose to go there, and one that we can help her out with when she takes it as a subject at school. So now was my chance to start from a clean slate. To teach her correct Hindi from the beginning. But it was hard. Bewdas who have kids will know that when they start speaking, they refer to themselves in the third person because that's how they've seen themselves being addressed. So Xena too started off with "Xena ko chahiye" for "I want it." And I followed suit by saying things like "Mama ke paas hai" and "Mama ko de do" and so on. So I still didn't have to change my 'hum' because I was not using it yet, I was using 'Mama'. When I started teaching her pronouns, I made sure she used 'main' for herself' and 'aap' for me. But in my efforts to teach her 'main', I'd not realised that I'd have to drop referring to myself in the third person too because everything was getting all mixed up. She was joining her 'main' with the verbs in my sentences such as "Mama karegi". I realised it the day she declined my "Mama ka help chahiye?" offer and said, "Main apne aap karegi."

Main apne aap karegi.

Great. This was even worse than my 'Hum apne aap karenge'. The mother was talking like a Bihari bhai and the daughter was talking like a Mumbaiya bai. At least according to what the movies show.

So I'm now trying really hard to correct it all. And I finally have a good enough reason to ditch the 'hum' once and for all, and really focus on 'main'.

Mushkil hai, lekin hum koshish kar rahe hain main koshish kar rahi hoon.

H is for hot

Viv and I are fans of hot food. Hot as in spicy-hot, not temperature-hot. He's actually a notch above me, because I would never enter a chilli-eating competition, and end up winning it too. (Yep, he really did that when we were in university.) He also almost entered the 'hall of flame' in a restaurant in Thailand, but it turns out the food was too hot even for him.

At home, I make moderately hot food, but I try not to go overboard because I feel that if the food is too hot, a little bit of the flavour and taste is lost. For that reason, even at restaurants where we are given a choice, I don't go for the highest level of hotness, though Viv does (and sometimes regrets).

I thought it might be fun to jog my memory and think of the hottest foods I've had, and here is my list. (Even though the norm here is the word 'spicy', I'll use 'hot' throughout the post because I think that the word 'spices' encompasses a lot more than just chillies. I often get disbelieving looks when I explain to my local friends how food can be spicy but not hot.)

1. Nando's in Lahore
I never miss the opportunity to make people (especially my dad) envious by telling them about my trip to Pakistan. I was there on work in 2006, promoting my company's books and carrying out presentations in various schools to train teachers on how to use them. In addition to work, I also had the awesome opportunity to see everything -- Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Wagah border and... Adnan Sami in a mall!' And that's where I first had food at Nando's. My hosts (the distributors of our books) had been asking me what kind of food I liked and I'd mentioned that I liked hot food. So they took me to Nando's. (Surprisingly, Lahore had Nando's before Singapore had Nando's, so I'd never had it.) My hosts instructed the waiter to turn up the heat in the dish I ordered and to make sure that 'Lahore ki naak na kat jaaye'. The waiter took their words a little too seriously, and though Lahore's naak stayed intact, my naak was molten by the first few bites. My hosts also challenged me to have two of the jalapeno poppers and I took the dare. Luckily, I had also ordered some Portugese lemonade which made sure that 'meri naak na kat jaaye'.

2. Habanero sauce at Cafe Iguana, Singapore
Cafe Iguana is one of my favourite Mexican restaurants in Singapore. Riverside dining, hot Mexican food and frozen mango margaritas. Yum and bliss. And that's where I'd had a taste of Habanero sauce for the first time. Though I saw the warning on the bottle that said 'The hottest sauce in the world', I poured a generous amount over my prawn chimichanga and took a large bite, setting my mouth on the kind of fire that only half a jug of the frozen mango margarita could douse.

3. Roadside pani puri, Bangalore
A few years ago, we were in Bangalore, staying at Viv's uncle's place. Uncle C knew that my favourite food was roadside pani puris so he took me to his regular guy one evening and asked him to make me some nice pani puris. I had them and they were okay. Uncle C noticed that I didn't look that happy and chided the pani puri wala. "Put a little more mirchi, yaar", he said. The guy got a little extra enthu and so the next round was.... woooohooooo. Hooooooooo. HOOOOOOOOO. So I asked him to tone it down a bit and then the next round was perfect. I can't remember how many I ate, but I believe I only stopped when it was time for him to go home.

4. Yellow ginger chicken, Thai Express, Singapore
One of our favourite haunts near our place is Thai Express. They have a reasonable vegetarian menu so it works well for Viv too (well, he just pretends that he did not hear the waiter say that the sauces and broths in even the vegetarian dishes are not exactly vegetarian). We used to go there so often that we knew the menu inside out. (But they pissed me off when they started charging for water.) I've tried every dish they have, and I have to say the yellow ginger chicken is HOT. Even hotter than their drunken fire noodles, Viv's regular order. It's the kind of hot that no sweet, frozen drink can neutralise.

5. Mutton vindaloo, random Indian restaurant, Singapore
I'd heard that vindaloo dishes are not for the faint-hearted, but I believed it only when I tried it. I can't quite remember where I had it but I do remember one thing. Hot hot hot. HOT. I bet even if they rinsed the aloo from the vindaloo in boiling hot water, it would still be fiery hot. Mutton vindaloo never again.

So what is the hottest food you've ever had?

G is for geek

Okay, so I have a rather small dressing table. The different objects on it are always fighting for space. With the addition of Xena's box of 3842984730247039 hairclips and rubber bands (which I admit were added by me, but still), it's gotten worse. However, I always keep one of the corner spaces reserved for my ipad and phone, which I place there just before I go to bed. I see red when that space is occupied, especially if I'm not the one who put the stuff there. So the other day, when I saw two of Xena's water bottles and two large drinking glasses on 'my spot', I lost it. I picked up all four items and marched over to Viv. Then I said in my most polite voice, "Viv, my dressing table is huge and has a lot of empty space. I think two 500-ml drinking glasses and two water bottles are probably not enough to occupy all that free space. Why don't you get four more of each and put them there?"

He stared at me for a few seconds with a completely blank look. Then he spoke slowly, "You know, sometimes it takes me a while to figure out if you're being serious or sarcastic. I have to process your words and insert the Boolean NOT operator in the correct places before I can tell what you're really saying."

:|

F is for Favourites

So I got this notification on Facebook that I had been tagged in a photo posted by a classmate from my primary school days. I was sure it would either be a "Like this page if you like Sai baba" kind of thing, or a "Latest research from Johns Hopkins shows that everyone has cancer cells" kind of thing, both of which irritate me to no end. So I clicked to see what it was so I could immediately untag myself. What I saw made me almost fall off my chair. It was a photo of six of us in our school uniform from some twenty years ago. My first reaction when I saw my two-decade-old self was "OMG class nerd". To verify it, I sent the photo to Viv, a few of my current friends and my in-laws, i.e. those who have never seen that avatar of mine. And the reaction I got from them was consistently, "OMG class nerd". Ditto from the comments on the Facebook photo. So when Facebook prompted me with the "Are you crazy enough to publish this to your timeline?" I hastily pressed the "HELL, NO!" button.

But then I got all nostalgic and dug out my 'opinion book' from those days. Remember opinion books? They were full of inane things that we forced our friends to write, such as their favourite animal, flower and fruit (Seriously? Favourite fruit??), which I have to admit, serve as a great source of mirth now. As I read the list of my own favourites back then, I thought it might be fun to do a comparison of what I used to like then and what I like now.

My favourite colour (then): Pink and sky blue (ahem, 'sky' blue, no less)
My favourite colour (now): Purple

My favourite food (then): Chilli chicken
My favourite food (now): Spicy roadside pani puri served in a leaf, with potato stuffing, not chana, and imli ka pani, no meethi chutney

My favourite subject (then): Sanskrit (because it was easy to ace)
My favourite subject (now): Science (because it is so intriguing)

My favourite actor (then): Salman Khan (I kid you not) and Aamir Khan
My favourite actor (now): None (To clarify, SRK is my favourite star, but I have no current favourite actor)

My favourite actress (then): Bhagyashree (still not kidding) and Juhi Chawla
My favourite actress (now): None

My favourite films (then): Maine Pyaar Kiya, QSQT, Padosan
My favourite films (now): Too many to name

My favourite song (then): Aate jaate from Maine Pyaar Kiya (I had never heard any English songs and I had no clue this song was such a blatant copy)
My favourite song (now): Too many, but if asked to pick one at gunpoint, I'd pick Naam ada likhna from Yahaan

My favourite flower (then): Lotus
My favourite flower (now): Pink gerbera

My favourite fruit (then): Mango
My favourite fruit (now): Mango

My favourite bird (then): Peacock
My favourite bird (now): Err... I don't know. I don't even think I care.

My favourite animal (then): Rabbit
My favourite animal (now): Err... rabbit again? (Incidentally, Xena was born in the Chinese year of the rabbit)

My favourite game (then): Cricket (to watch), Badminton (to play)
My favourite game (now): Badminton (to play)

My favourite place (then): Kodaikanal
My favourite place (now): Queenstown

My favourite drink (then): Maaza
My favourite drink (now): Bundaberg ginger beer, frozen mango margarita

My favourite author (then): Enid Blyton
My favourite author (now): J.K. Rowling

My favourite singer (then): Lata Mangeshkar
My favourite singer (now): Varies, the latest being Arijit Singh

My favourite ad (then): Lehar 7Up (was it the Fido Dido ad?)
My favourite ad (now): Tum chalo toh Hindustan chale (it's not exactly an ad for a product, but it always makes me tear up)

My favourite season (then): Rainy season
My favourite season (now): Mild winter

My favourite junk food (then): Binnie's pudina flavoured potato chips (I beg you, please watch this ad. You'll die laughing at "Humko yeh nahin maangta, humko woh nahin maangta, humko aur koi chips nahin maangta! Toh kya maangta?? Binnie's Binnie's!")
My favourite junk food (now): Cadbury's rum & raisin dark chocolate (though according to some very promising new research, dark chocolate is not junk food anymore, but an essential nutrient required for the survival of the human species)

My hobbies (then): Reading, poetry, sketching, playing the keyboard, singing
My hobbies (now): Singing, blogging, watching Hindi movies, reading Bollywood news

I am afraid of (then): Lizards
I am afraid of (now): Lizards

The place I wanted to visit (then): London
The place I want to visit (now): The whole world

E is for Extreme

We had some friends over a few days ago and somehow sky-diving came up in our conversation. A chill ran down my spine. Honestly speaking, extreme sports are not for me. I am the kind of person who classifies even roller-coaster rides under extreme sports. Not that I'm scared of heights the way Viv is (he can't look down 20-storeys from a balcony without feeling queasy), but I'm just scared of downward-moving fast-moving things over which you have little, if any, control. I'm the chicken that the simulated (yes, you read that right!) ride at Universal Studios scared the living daylights out of. I kid you not. They had this slide and because in a simulation you don't need laws of physics or something, it was impossibly steep and fast. I knew I was sitting in a chair and not really going down the slide of death, but I shut my eyes tightly. And I breathed a sigh of relief when it ended and I found myself alive. Laugh all you want, but I can tell you honestly that I found the mummy ride less scary than the Simpsons ride.

In February 2007, Viv and I were on our road trip honeymoon in New Zealand. It is a beautiful beautiful place, and Queenstown was my absolute favourite. Not because it's famous for extreme sports, but simply because of how scenic it was. We did go for the Shotover jet ride, which is a crazy jetboat ride through the canyons of the Shotover river. It was pretty scary but then there were a bunch of people with us and the driver really looked like he knew what he was doing, so I wasn't that scared. We also tried out the luge. Back then, Singapore didn't have the luge, so this was a big deal. And so was the open cable car ride which you had to take by yourself to get on the luge. So here they were, the three extreme sports that I was willing to try out in Queenstown.

That's me, fearfully raising my hand to wave at the camera.

That's me on the world's steepest roller coaster.

Both Viv and I drew the line at bungy jumping, but just before leaving Queenstown, we decided to drive down to the Kawarau bridge and take photos of people who were "crazy enough to jump off a bridge". So we went, we saw, but we did not conquer. Until Viv suddenly turned to me and said, "I want to jump." I was taken aback. I actually wondered if he wanted to jump on the spot a couple of times (but why??). "You want to jump?" "Yes!" He said. "Ok, go jump," was all I could say. "You?" he asked. "Hahaha." I replied. He understood. When you've been married two whole weeks, you understand each other without having to say too many words.

So, in front of my disbelieving eyes, my husband was getting strapped up and bound and what not, to jump off a 47-metre high bridge. There was only one thing to do. Close my eyes. But I couldn't. Viv had asked me to videorecord the whole thing. Damn.

I still remember his face as he ran up the steps after his jump. It was lit up with joy and love and I knew what he was going to say. That all he thought of before jumping off was me. "Did you record the whole thing??" he asked. Sheesh. So he watched himself jump off 282836464839 times until I reminded him that there was such a thing as the camera battery dying. I then asked him how it was. He told me it was very very very scary, and then he asked me if I wanted to do it.  "Erm, no thanks." I told him and we were on our way.

As we drove, I was unusually quiet. And then half an hour later, I said it. "I wanna jump too." "Seriously??" he asked. "Seriously." I said. "Okay, let's go back." he said. I didn't want to go back because that would take long and we were kind of on a schedule (two Monicas, you see) to get to the next city. So he looked up the map and found that we would be passing by Thrillseekers' Canyon, another bungy spot. So we stopped there and the guy gave us a few options, which included tandem jumping. I was still terrified and still not sure why I was doing this, so the idea of tandem jumping appealed to me very very very much. I was confident that even though he'd only jumped once, I could make use of Viv's experience and try not to die. And though he had told me that his jump had been terrifying, he agreed to do the tandem jump for me. (Now you know why I married him.)

So there we were, standing on the bridge, preparing for a 35-metre fall. Our ankles were tied together, and we were told to hold on to each other tight so we wouldn't separate and clash into each other mid-air. We clutched each other's waists, and held our right hands together, just like the instructor advised. My heart was beating so wildly, I could hear it on the outside. This was it. My last chance to back out. But I didn't. The guy counted "1-2-3-JUMP" and we jumped. If even one of us had hesitated, it could have been dangerous due to the tied ankles. So there we were, in a ballroom dance position, except that we were suspended in the air, upside down, and descending rapidly.

Okay, so the whole thing happens very fast, so there's not much to react to. The very first thought that passed my mind as we lost contact with the bridge was... "What the...?!" followed by "What on earth was I thinking????" It was the single most terrifying experience of my entire life. Of course, you're tied with the bungy cord but you only feel the pull of the cord at the end of your fall. Until then, it's a free fall off a bridge into a river. At some point, I realised that I was screaming, but it wasn't the kind of high-pitched terrified scream one would expect. It was a low-pitched guttural sound, which surprised both Viv and me. I suppose you discover things about yourself, such as alternate vocal chords, when you're not sure you're going to make it.

Finally, I felt the jerk of the bungy cord and I realised we were alive. But hanging upside down over a river with no visible rescue. "Where is the boat????" I asked. The boat appeared shortly and someone caught hold of us, pulling us into it. I sat up. Sitting up felt strangely wonderful. The boat took us back and soon, we were back in our car, driving off. I was very quiet again. (No, I wasn't contemplating jumping again.) I was just going through what I'd just done. I had just bungy jumped. Bungy jumping was never even in my bucket list. But I had bungy jumped and lived to tell the tale. So, from going over just to take photos of the "crazy bungy jumpers", an acrophobic and a tachophobic ended up joining them.

Later that day, I called my mom and told her that we'd bungy jumped. I think she heard it to mean that  we were going to bungy jump, and instantly in mother-like fashion said, "No. Don't." "Erm... Mom, we already jumped." I told her. She took a long breath, tried to remain calm and then said, "Okay. But don't do it again."

You bet, mom. You bet. I ain't jumpin' no more.

All I need to do now is to make sure Xena never finds out there's such as thing as a bungy jump.

D is for Deca

So last week, Xena reached a major milestone -- 10 kg. I had waited for this for 2 years. She has finally reached the average weight. For a 1-year-old. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my 3-year-old finally weighs as much as an average 1-year-old. Sarcasm aside, you might know from my lamentations on this that her weight has always been a major concern for us as well as her entourage of doctors. From birth, she has been under the 3rd percentile for weight, and at the moment she's off the charts.

Most of the time I joke about her poor growth and complete lack of interest in any kind of food by saying that she is a photosynthesiser, but only someone who has gone through the same thing would know how frustrating a journey it is. I know of another mommy in a similar but slightly better situation, and she told me she broke down in front of her kid's teachers and begged them to make him eat something. Anything. I could empathise with her. I have not broken down yet, but I've come pretty close to having a breakdown. When you have a kid who only starts solids at 18 months, that too rather reluctantly, takes an hour to finish any meal and then promptly throws up afterwards, hates even junk food (her dietitian won't believe me when I tell her that Xena is not interested in ice-cream and cake and French fries and nuggets), takes a year to put on a few hundred grams, but falls sick often and promptly loses it all within a week, you're pretty close to losing it yourself.

I sure am thankful for a lot of things about her (the very fact that she made it is nothing short of a miracle), but unfortunately, her battles are not over yet. Running from pediatrician to dietitian to lung doctor to gut doctor, and coming across depressing terms like 'failure to thrive' just add to the depression. So do studies that say that the brain grows the most in the first few years and poor nutrition during this period can have permanent negative effects. I try not to think about it too much, but when I find myself struggling to pick up her 1-year-old and 2-year-old friends at the playground, or when I'm putting her clothes to dry and I see the tag that says 12 months, it serves as another grim reminder. And then I look at how lively and talkative and happy she is, and I forget it all. And then something else happens and I'm forced to think about it all over again.

A lot of people don't understand that this is not the usual 'My kid hates vegetables' situation. This is a more serious, almost a medical problem. Everyone thinks I'm joking when they ask me, "So what does she like to eat then?" and I say, "Nothing." People try to empathise and say some random reassuring words. I think they mean well, but it can get pretty infuriating. I'm patient with the mothers who ask "Have you tried giving her XYZ?" because it is helpful information (though I think my 'I have tried feeding her this' list is wayyyyyyy longer than 'I haven't tried feeding her this' list). But I think I've had it with mothers who tell me "Her weight is fine. I mean, compare it to her birth weight!" It really annoys me. I can't compare it to her birth weight. I can't use her birth weight as a reference for anything. It was 990 grams, for heaven's sake. Since most babies triple their birth weight by age 1, I should have expected her to be about 3 kg at the age of 1? I've also had it with mothers who tell me that "they can totally understand" because their kids are "only in the 70th percentile". I kid you not, I've encountered this a couple of times. Jesus, this is not how percentile works. This is not an exam that you aim for 100%. If you want your baby to be in the 100th percentile, you are mad. And if your baby is really in the 70th percentile, I'm the last person you should be complaining about it to.

Another thing I hear is "Weight is just a number. As long as she's happy and healthy, it's normal, don't worry." This actually makes sense, but the issue here is that she's happy, but not healthy. I'm stuck in this vicious cycle where her lungs get infected at the slightest trigger, making her lose weight and the doctors say that she needs to put on weight so her lungs get bigger and stronger. It is pretty frustrating, I can tell you. Yes, premature underweight babies do take a while to catch up with their peers, but in most cases it happens by the age of 2. Plus, how on earth does one catch up on weight gain without eating? I'd still not mind the poor weight gain if her height gain was okay. It is not. It is far from okay. I don't know where this is going really and on some levels, the future scares me.

"I suppose we have no choice but to give her more time," is all her pediatrician can say. Her dietitian is out of ideas. Peer pressure at school has helped a little but there are still days where she throws up breakfast and refuses to eat lunch, so the first nourishment she gets for the day is her pre-nap milk in the afternoon. The ball is literally in her court and all I can do until she is ready is to keep serving.

When she was about 2 years old and in a position to understand stuff, I tried to bribe her with a much-desired toy by telling her she could only have it if she ate well and reached 10 kg. I have it on record, actually.

This did help slightly because every time she refused food or milk, I'd tell her that the toy was waiting for her to hit 10 kg. And she seemed to open up a bit towards milk at least, if not meals.

So last week when I weighed her and saw the double digit for the first time ever, I was thrilled. I celebrated, but with caution. Because I know how prone she is to promptly losing whatever she gains. And sure enough, the next time I weighed her, she was 9.8 kg. So I did a mean mommy and told her that though her post-milk weight was 10 kg, she had to hit it pre-milk. We should not see any more single-digit weights, I told her. And my poor little baby calmly agreed to it without any fuss. And she did hit 10 kg pre-milk. Exactly 10.0 kg, as you can see.

So yesterday, I decided to give her the coveted strawberry toy set, or 'toby wala toy' as she used to call it when she first encountered it. But I weighed her before that and she was 9.7 kg. Great. I had half a mind to withhold the toby wala toy, but then better sense prevailed. My experience so far has only indicated that I have to live in the present and enjoy every moment that I have today. She had hit 10 kg and it was only fair that she got the toy.

Because, in the words of Bill Cosby, the past is a ghost, the future a dream and all we ever have is now.

C is for Changi

Last week, Singapore's Changi airport topped the list of the best airports in the world in the 2014 Skytrax awards. It did so last year too, and this is the fifth time it has been named the best airport in the world. These awards are based on nominations from 12.85 million travellers across 110 nationalities, and includes 410 airports worldwide. Of course, it won't come as a surprise to most people because Changi is truly a phenomenal airport.

I love different things about India and different things about Singapore. And Changi is one of the top things I love about Singapore. The airport literally stands for what the rest of Singapore is.

I have loved Changi since I set foot on it almost 16 years ago. It was my first international flight, and I was coming here from a town so small that I had to take a bus, a train and a flight to land in Calcutta, from where I flew to Singapore. I was 18 and travelling by myself for the first time. I must have been in a state of trance because I felt no fear. But when I stepped out of the plane and into Changi airport, the song 'Yeh kahan aa gaye hum' played in my head. Very loudly. I simply gaped. My first impression of Changi was... "How freakin' clean is this place??"

My relationship with Changi airport grew stronger over the years as I passed through it to travel to about a dozen countries. And yet, every other airport I saw simply paled in comparison.

So here are the top seven reasons why I heart Changi airport.

The efficiency
Changi airport is the only airport I've been to where you can get off the plane and be in a cab ten minutes later. Even though it is one of the busiest airports in the world, catering to millions of passengers a year, the efficiency is amazing. It's crowded, yes, but the crowd moves along fast and in an orderly way. You'd be shocked at how long the taxi queues are, but you'd be even more shocked at how within minutes, a marshall is ushering you to your cab.

The cleanliness
As I said, the first thing that struck me about Changi was how impossibly clean it was. I was even sure that they dunked the free massage chairs in boiling water after every use. No seriously, the squeaky-clean floors shine like mirrors and everything is always bright and clean and shiny. Even the toilets. Even the toilets. When I first saw all this, it was almost blinding, especially to someone like me who had only seen Indian airports. (Though I'm told that some Indian airports are now very cool and clean and swanky, I hadn't seen any back then. Hopefully I'll make that much-desired trip to India soon; just waiting for the green light from Xena's doctors.)

The amenities
Singapore is such a tiny island that I'm always amazed at how much space and amenities Changi has. Other than the usual amenities such as hotels with pools and gyms, there are indoor playgrounds, arcade games, a butterfly garden, an orchid garden, a koi pond, spas, including a fish pedicure spa (yikes, but wow), art installations, a four-storey tall slide, and an aviation gallery.

The free stuff
Who doesn't love free stuff? And Changi sure has plenty of it. Free two-hour city tours for passengers on long transit, free foot massages, free wifi, free phones, and even free movie theatres!

The food
I think there must be at least a hundred dining places (maybe more) in Changi. From local food to international cuisines. From hawker style to fine dining. The free skytrain makes it so easy to travel from terminal to terminal, you can eat any kind of cuisine you crave. In fact, a lot of people go to the airport just to eat.

The hangout place
When I was studying at NTU (it's on the other end of the island from Changi), some of my crazy friends used to take the train all the way to Changi to study for their exams. Seriously. I never tried that though. It was a bit too much for me. I know people who take their kids to Changi and just let them run around and blow off steam. Airplane buffs can watch planes take off and land barely four metres away from the Terminal 1 viewing gallery. I'd have never thought of an airport as a hangout place till I saw Changi.

The welcome
Every time I'm flying back from somewhere, the immigration staff always smile and say, "Welcome home." And somehow, it does feel like home when I touchdown at Changi. It's always sad when a holiday ends, but when it ends through Changi, I feel like some of the pain goes away. Believe me. So all you bewdas who are planning your next holiday, don't think. Just come. And look me up.

Okay, I have finally come to the end of my government-sponsored publicity post. Thank you for reading and wish you a pleasant experience at Changi.

On a serious note, you can tell that I really do love it.

Changa hai Changi. :)

B is for Barbie

Prescript: I just had this crazy thought that I could have pulled out my bailout card by posting 'A for April Fool Banaya!' yesterday and gotten away with it. Tchah! Too late.

While I'm on the subject of the gifts Xena received on her birthday this year, I have to share my absolute delight when she unwrapped a box with a Barbie doll inside! Her first Barbie! I was a little disappointed though because after she had examined it, she simply tossed it aside and started playing with her other toys. "It's a Barbie, Xena!" I exclaimed. "You don't want to play with a Barbie?" She didn't. Sigh. Not that I was trying to make her all girly or anything, it was just that I have the most wonderful memories of my own Barbie dolls when I was a kid, and I thought that was something I'd share with Xena.

My first Barbie was such a big deal. Back then, they were one of the most expensive dolls in the market and none of my friends had one. My mom gave me my first Barbie for my 6th or 7th birthday. The doll was literally called 'My first Barbie'. I was amazed at everything about her. She had shiny hair that could be combed and styled, she had stylish clothes and amazing heels that could be taken off and put on. Years later, I read the articles on how the impossible proportions of Barbie dolls can lead to body image issues in little girls. Wow. I guess I never had that problem because I never wanted to be like Barbie; I just wanted to own her and play with her.

The only thing about her body that bothered me a bit was that she was always on tip-toes and couldn't really stand without support. But she was my first Barbie and I adored her. When my friends heard (i.e. I called each one of them and told them), they thronged my house to see her. You know how girls name their dolls? Whenever someone would ask me what my Barbie's name was, I'd be very offended. She was Barbie. What do you mean what is Barbie's name?

Over the years, the obsession just kept growing. I emptied out the entire bottom shelf of my cupboard and set up a complete doll house for her. I used to shampoo, condition (I kid you not!) and style her hair in different ways. (My mom-in-law tells me she's very impressed with my ability to make a neat French braid on my own hair; this is totally because of the years of practice I had on my Barbie's hair.) My mom, who was a pro at the sewing machine, sewed very pretty lehenga cholis and even sarees with golden borders for her! That was also how I learnt how to wrap a saree. I used to remove the thin white rings from the top of old desk calendars, cut and colour them to make spiral bangles to match each of her Indian outfits. I'd also put matching bindis on her.

I shared Barbie and the other dolls with my sister, but once teenage hit her, she stopped playing with dolls. She busied herself with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and I had the dollhouse and the contents all to myself!

At some point, I almost had a gudiya ki shaadi for her, but I did a 'Yeh shaadi nahin ho sakti!' when my friend who had the gudda implied that Barbie would have to move to her sasural after the wedding. Nice try, sister. Hmmmph!

I believe I got a few more Barbie dolls over the years but I don't remember much of the others. I only remember my first Barbie and how very very special she was to me.

And that's why I was a little disappointed when Xena didn't take to hers the way I'd taken to mine. But that changed a few days later. I was in the kitchen and she was playing in the living room with her other toys. Suddenly I heard a loud, "Oh no!" from her. "What happened?" I asked. "Barbie needs to poop now!" She said, sounding very distraught. I laughed out loud and went back to whatever I was doing. Suddenly, there was complete silence for a few minutes. Curious, I came out to see what was happening. THIS was happening. Barbie's clothes were off and she was on a 'toilet', apparently pooping.

My joy knew no bounds. Though it was a very unglamorous start, Xena was playing with her Barbie doll! After my laughter at Barbie's state had subsided, I sat down with Xena.

Two can play this game, I think?

A is for Abracadabra

Among the birthday gifts that Xena received this year was a Hello Kitty magic set. She was really excited to see Hello Kitty on the cover and took off with one of the figurines inside, showing no further interest in the set. I, on the other hand, was fascinated. Most of the tricks were indeed a little high-level for preschoolers, but there was a colour-changing trick scarf which was really easy to carry out, and something that can easily fool this age group. I did the trick for Xena and she was thrilled! And that gave me an idea. From time to time, Xena's school has story-telling sessions by parents and I'd wanted to do one this week. But then I decided to take it to the next level and perform some magic tricks instead. When I emailed her teacher to ask if I could do that (I promised her there would be no fire or explosions in the classroom!). She was more than happy to have me come and do something different from what the kids had seen so far.

So I turned to Google devta once again and got cracking. I needed some tricks which did not need much in terms of set-up, could be easily performed in a small space where the audience is literally inches from you, and was something 3-year-olds could relate to and enjoy. I prepared four tricks and rehearsed them 1828276337399302 times with Xena until she was sick of them.

I washed my hair the previous night and did not condition it so I'd have lots of static electricity for my balloon trick. I took an inflated balloon in my bag but took some spare balloons and a pump along, just in case the inflated one burst in my bag. (I also imagined the scenario in which I was in a crowded bus and suddenly something inside my bag went 'KABOOM!')

To be very honest, I was actually nervous. And that surprised me because I'd have thought that after years of doing corporate presentations, this should be nothing. Though I knew that it was just a bunch of 3-year-olds who wouldn't demand a money-back guarantee if a trick didn't work, I still felt like I was going for an important exam. Xena was going to be there and I had to make her proud in front of her classmates. She had already seen the tricks enough times to not be impressed by them anymore, but what she had not seen what how her friends and teachers would take to her mommy's stunts.

I reached at 10 am sharp, the time given to me. The teachers welcomed me warmly and asked me to sit outside while they 'prepared the class'. Prepared the class? *Gulp* I was asked to go inside a few minutes later. There was a small chair for me (My first thought was "OMG no table! How would my monkey trick work??") and the class was seated on a rug in front of me, looking at me with eager eyes. I looked out for yawning kid. I'm not kidding -- there's a poor kid in her class who's yawning in at least one class photo every day. (The teachers take daily photos of the class activities and upload them for parents to see.) All kids look alert and active and happy, but this kid is consistent. He is most likely just very tired from the early starts, but the impression one got from looking at him in the photos was "Boring teacher boring teacher boring teacher!" I didn't want to be "Boring magician, boring magician, boring magician!"

To my relief, yawning kid looked alert and excited, and so did the others. Xena ran to me and wrapped herself around my legs, and I had to peel her off and tell her that Mommy was a cool magician today and that she had to sit with her friends.

So these are the tricks I had, and here's how it went.

1. Colour-changing scarf - This was my first trick because it needed no set-up at all, and could not go wrong at all. The rigged scarf was already in the Hello Kitty magic kit so all I needed to do it pull the hidden scarf out, giving the impression that the scarf had completely changed in colour. I tried to add some educational value by asking them to name the before and after colours. The kids were thrilled and some even clapped! (You can tell from the exclamation mark that I was not expecting any kind of applause whatsoever.)

2. Magic hollow tube - This was my favorite of the lot, and also something that Viv said can impress grown-ups too. You have a very obviously hollow tube and suddenly you take out a whole bunch of things from it. You can get the details of how to rig the tube here. The class was excited to see me magically produce a balloon, a leaf, a puppet, a long scarf and a strip of stickers from it. One of the kids even yelled out, "Can you take out a dinosaur?" *Gulp* The teachers somehow saved me from that one.

3. Balloon picking up paper strips - This one's a no-brainer, of course. You rub a balloon on your hair and first it picks up electrons off your hair and then it picks up strips of paper. I'd hoped for no rain so the air would be really dry, and luckily it didn't rain. (But I want rain NOW!) Some of the kids came forward to try it for themselves and were very happy with the results.

4. Monkey magnet trick - I'd meant to do this on a table so they'd not be able to see my hand with the magnet behind the screen. But there was no table. So I got down on the floor and used the chair as a table and did it. I put a monkey fridge magnet on the chair in front of a cardboard screen. Then I told the kids that the monkey was asleep and they needed to wake it up. "Wake up, monkey!" They yelled. I used the magnet the shake the monkey a little but did not allow it to stick to the cardboard. The children though excited at the shaking head, were perplexed that it was not waking up. Then I told them, "Oh! I think we have to say 'please'! They yelled out, "Monkey, please wake up!" Immediately the monkey jumped to the cardboard, sending one of the kids into uncontrollable giggles. A chain reaction started and soon everyone was giggling. I had to literally stop and wait for the laughter to subside. Then I asked the kids to ask the monkey to move up, move down and go round and round on the paper. It obeyed every time, but only when there was a 'please'. The I told them that the monkey was tired and it needed to go to sleep again. "Please go to sleep, monkey!" they yelled out. I pulled the magnet away and the monkey fell on the chair, rolled over and went to sleep, producing peals of laughter from the class.

I finally breathed. I had done the tricks and they were a hit. The children were laughing and clapping and the teachers were beaming. Her class teacher told me I'd set the bar too high for her to engage the kids anymore and I'd have to come back every month. So I decided to give her my magic tube and showed her how to use it. Xena had a proud look on her face. The class said a big "THANK YOU" and waved goodbye to me.

I believe it's time to update my resume.

To add: Part-time magician. (Not suitable for audiences above 3 years of age)