Mood uplifter

Having a chocolate is a quick fix for any bad day.I loves all kinds – the mango bite, orange bite, pulipu mittaai, cadbury dairy milk, dairy milk silk,amul chocolates, lindors and lindts.

I had 3 mango bites today and I am going to hunt for the dairy milk in the fridge.

I keep cribbing about exploitation of others and consumerist culture.. Do you know, chocolate is one of the most explotive industries where there is rampant child labour involved?Despite knowing this, I do not know why I keep reaching out to the fridge.

Sustainably made chocolates are expensive. Any cheap sustainable alternatives for chocolate – as a mood booster. Suggestions awaited.

Some days

Some days, I am exhausted,

Some days, I am not.

Some days, I feel frustrated,

Some days , I am not.

This is a journey as a parent

A parent of the special kind

Some days are pleasant

Some days, are not.

A bye with mixed feelings

Dear bloggers of the blogathon, there are mixed feelings when I am writing the last post of this blogathon. While generally there is a relief that the blogathon is over as I need not write a compulsory post every day, this time it feels like saying good bye to good friends for a while .

This time I got introduced to Prachee and Indu .I loved reading RM and Pepper after a long break. Constant companions have also been writings of MTW, RS, Vidhya and Seema. I loved the friendly bantering with Chaitra, FV, Ani, Tharani and SS. Visha ,you writing again seemed like telling hi again to a good old friend after a big gap. I would miss you all after you have gone back to your busy lives.

Thanks a ton Ani for motivating me to join the bandwagon. It has been a fun ride. While I am tempted to write about food after reading your post, I am pretty sleepy now. Good bye and looking forward to seeing you all in the next blogathon.

Guess the blogger – last for this blogathon

While I love reading many blogs I could not actually have many guess the blogger posts due to my frequent deviations. So now in this post I am copying FV by asking multiple questions in same post and reducing number of hints to make the exam hard..I am strict teacher ok.

Blogger A :

Hint 1 : She has one daughter.

Hint 2 : Her FIL is an awesome photographer

Blogger B :

Hint 1 : She used to travel to work on Mumbai local train

Hint 2 : She is a mother of two girls and is currently not in Mumbai.

Blogger C :

Hint 1 : She has named herself and her partner as a spice and herb

Hint 2 : so obvious..no more hints

Blogger D :

Hint 1 : She is a social worker and has travelled extensively across India

Hint 2 : She is a patriot.

Blogger E :

Hint 1 : She lives in Mumbai

Hint 2 : Her blogger name starts with P

Blogger F :

Hint 1 : She does home composting and has turned vegetarian

Hint 2 : She writes awesome travel posts

These are bloggers whom I loved reading through the blogathon. Thanks much for writing, sharing stories despite hectic lives.

Love to you all !!

Life is full of surprises

This is what I think is mustard plant

I grow 4 different plants in the pirandai pot . Priandai is a hardy plant and it can survive with other friends. Now I do not know what the three others are – Brinjal ? Tomato? Tulsi..God knows !!

Is not life also a matter of chance?? We do not know what will happen the next moment. I had given up researching about these plants too.. Are not children also like these plants? We can just put in our best effort and nurture them. Beyond that it is for the plant to grow .The joy for me is to see what these plants grow into without having any expectations.

We come with nothing when we are born and go back taking nothing with us during death. What matters in between is how we live the life in between gracefully hopefully and joyfully.

Let us talk about autism

I had been giving a lot of thought if I should be writing on this topic in this blog. After a lot of thought, it then stuck me if I do not share about this journey here, I am missing documenting and sharing an important piece of my life in this space.

Kiddo was diagnosed to be autistic by the age of 4. It took me an year and a half to completely accept the diagnosis. He was showing autistic features right from the age of 2.5. Though we provided for appropriate interventions since the age of 2.5, I started getting actively involved with him since he turned 4. I  now have the courage to admit about kiddo’s autism and get help. After all kiddo needs to get all the support that he deserves.

Being a mom of autistic child taught me to celebrate little milestones, and made me a better parent. Some days , I get sad as many times I have to see kiddo struggle through what is so easy for a neuro typical child. A bit of the sadness is also probably in having to say good bye to my dreams of sharing my world with kiddo and instead venturing into his world.

The bottom line I keep learning every day is acceptance , being happy with the child as he is and enjoying time together.

Guess the blogger -4

Hint 1: She is a mother of two children who are not twins

Hint 2 : She lived in a joint family

Hint 3: Now she is abroad

Hint 4 : She has switch over from menstrual pads to the cup !

Who is she ??😀

My kokki to patriarchy

The heart of patriarchy is control. The head of patriarchy is to serve to male members of the family. I had been raised in a very liberal family. My dad loves waking at 4 am and cooking idlis before my mom could even wake up and would serve her tea every morning. Dad also regularly does some house hold chores. I got married via arranged marriage in a highly patriarchial household and had been living with in laws together for the past decade.

While I had given in many times, to be fair my in-laws have too accepted me quite a bit.

My mother in law belonged to the previous era. Her daily routine is highly disciplined and fits to the clock. She had initially expected the same from me! Face palm moment. Every day I would wake up at different times and ultimately she gave up on me.

Control comes in various forms. Coaxing to eat what they cook, getting dresses that they like for me, setting rules to visit parents, finding fault with your family etc. The fun is breaking all the control structure.

Controlling the kitchen is one of the most important ritual of patriarchy and deciding what to serve for whom.

The gravest insult you can give to the system is to eat the icing in the cake or the choicest dishes solely prepared for the earning male of the family. Some days it is buying what you like or visiting your family as you wish.

While we have both accepted and co exist reasonably, some days I shake a bit of patriarchy and enjoy the fun.

Breaking patriarchy needs male allies. It is unfortunate that the gate keepers of this regressive method of control have been the victims of patriarchy. I have many days encourage mil to have fun her own way and take care of her needs. Some days she listens, some days not.

Mix up

I am a master mix up person. Has to do a bit with my impatience in completing a work .

Last week, I was commenting in a hurry that I mixed up Mtw and Ani.

The week before, I mixed up Idli podi and Sambar podi in my hurry to have a side dish for idli.

For this pongal , I bravely ventured to make a rangoli and guess what I took instead of white kola podi??- Ariel washing powder!!

Worst is last year , I mixed up multani mitti and meera shiakai powder. I was wondering why the shiakai powder was not lathering while I had applied it to my hair. 🙄

Temple visit

Today, we went to the Nitya kalyana Permunal temple at Thiruvidanthai. It is one of the 108 divyadesams of the Vaishnava Sect and is a very old temple built in the 7th century. Though it is an archaeological site, regular Pooja’s happen in this temple. The chief deity is Varaha Perumal – the boar Avatar of Vishnu. It is believed that those who want to get married can pray to get married soon in this temple.

Temple visits in traditional setting with the family is a treat for me. This visit was one of the kind and it evoked strong nostalgia.

The temple is located close to the sea and the drive is through backwaters which are frequented by water birds and kingfishers. The weather was cloudy and pleasant.The scenic drive itself was a pleasure to the eyes.

Once we reached the temple, we first visited the temple tank and fed pori to the fish in the tank. Kiddo loved dipping his foot in the tank water and was insisting on taking a dip!

Enroute to the temple, we got flowers for the gods and fed agathu keerai to calves . There was not much crowd probably due to Covid and we could leisurely take in the peaceful atmosphere of the temple.

Getting prasad stall goodies is my favourite part of temple visits. We got puliyogara, laddoos , murukku thatai and milagu dosa and had most of it sitting together as a family in a mandapam located outside the temple.

On way back home we had refreshing tender coconuts to drink and bought some pana kilangu( fil’s favourite) and a December poo strand ( mil’s favourite) .

There is an innate simplicity and beauty in such experiences. This one is going to remain in my heart for a long time.