These are a few of my favourite things…

… about her, this DIL ka tukda (piece of my heart 🙂 ), an awesome Virgo girl, (LINK) partner in crime to the Lion in our family 🙂 Now you know how he flourishes! All because of this young girl, and the way she’s taken him by the hand and walked beside him, having got his back, being the guiding light, the one who fixes him too, and loves with all that she has, in her heart ❤ and soul 🙂

Yes, Ashwin, HER! Happy Birthday, Neeti!!! 

As intense as they come and as fiercely loyal as they are, this one all of that and more. My DIL, my Neetikutty, an alter ego of all my quirky self too!Be it movies, the fun ‘ideas’, and the love of books 🙂 Both of us ‘hatke‘, me more, though 🙂 She too strives hard to ensure I stay that hatke! The perfect daughter a mom could have!

I know I’ve spoken about her too, a LOT, on this space, over the years, but what you love and admire about a person ought to be said enough times, I guess, and then some! And so it is with her too…

…like you can call her at any time of day or night, and know you shall hear an answering voice, even in the dead of night. Sometimes even your best buddies don’t, can’t do that!

….when life throws a spanner at you, you kind of reel, in slow motion and yelp and curse, right? She smiles, grabs it, puts it in her tool kit, to use, for tightening a few loose nuts around her, primarily her partner’s 😛 😛

… her sense of style and being able to carry off with grace and elegance, even a homely (hehehe Neeeettiiiiiiii 😛 ) sweatshirt and pants 😛 😛 But really, she’s just plain gorgeous!

….the way she can focus on what needs to be done (yep, I can, you can too, duh! but how long do you stay with it???!! Gotcha!!! 😛 ), and does it!

…. those Time Management skills! I’ve learnt a thing or two from her, about incentivizing (the self, people, the self!!!) and actually making it work! However, I’m still a work in progress! (pun-DUH-intended!!! 😀 )

… her ability to see the big picture, and then heck! join in the fun of circumventing it! The goofiness of a good laugh, thumbing one’s noses at such things… I love that about her!

…her deep deep devotion to those she loves. I still need a few lessons that a way! I’m still learning, as we all are, I know 🙂 But you know how it is, how it comes easy to some people more, over the others? She’s one!

… her generosity of her heart, her time, her work, and yes, her bosses do tend to take advantage of it 😛 Much as that is tagged as a no-no these days, it is something just as refreshing!

This, up  here, isjust a wee bit of what makes that gorgeous, zany, passionate gal who’s my darling Daughter In Law, my DIL, an echo of my own heart – and she celebrates her birthday today!

Happy Birthday Neetikutty! You’re a goo gu’l , you are!!! (remember that awesome night we dragged down the beds onto the floor to watch Eliza Dolittle??!! It was the best!!! And yes, I am a goo gu’l too!!! ) Here’s wishing you life’s best, with love, laughter, warm sunshine, romantic rains, stunning rainbows, and all the colours and passions of life to add to the masterpiece of life you are making, as you journey onward! May the Brush strokes of the powers that be, be gentle, healing, loving and soft! Live life Quantum Size, my dearest daughter! There’s no one else I know who deserves to!

I love you, Neetikutty! God Bless, always!

 

My fav. pic of you 🙂

30 August, 2017

More, for Neeti:

A Goo’ Gurl She Is!

The Queen of His Heart!

Here’s wishing another dil ka tukda, Keerthi Gautham on her birthday too! Another girl who makes me wonder at how these beautiful souls manage to rise above the things life throws at you, take it in their stride and march on oblivious to it! Lesser souls would pause to catch their breath, not these Amazons of the heart and spirit!

A wisp of clouds in the sky takes her fancy, and her camera’s and she brings to you the most wonderful of pictures, words and stories she creates… our girl on Cloud No. 9! Uma, (her blog is HERE!) you’re wished a wonderful day today, and the best of times ahead too! Big hug!!!

Happy Birthday, you gals, Neeti and Keerthi and Uma!! I love ya’ll!

For You, Parukutty :)

What is it, about this daughter
That makes this mother proud?
And happy and filled with quiet contentment?

It fills her too, with a motherly anxiety 😛
one that warms, rather than distrubs 😀

The girl talk
The secret sharing
The tale telling
The gyan bestowal 😀 😀

No, not just that.

It’s more. More.

The empathetic listening ear.
The generosity of a heart
that knows only to share.
The innocence of childlike fun 🙂
The enthralled enchantment in
simple pleasures of life.  🙂

That is her. My Parukutty.

And, as she celebrates her first birthday, today,  as my “kutty” (child 🙂 ), all I wish is that the Heavens keep her this lovely, always, this loving and always, but always, this lovable 🙂

14 October, 2012

Ms. Pea, the Princess!

Once upon a time

On a mid-November day
To happy parents, was born
A pert little Princess.

Full of face
Maidenly grace
A tomboy impishness
A child’s innocence, openness

Quirks, and
Sudden spontaneity
Were all gifts she grew with, into,
And carries, even now
Proudly!

Pretty, is she? Oh yes!
Poetic? Undoubtedly, the best!
Passionate? About almost everything,
Especially a certain…*ahem*!!!
Pouty, petulant? Errrmmm, only to charm! 😀
Playful? Always, as the child
She’ll always be,
No matter however many years pass!

But

Pea? Ah! Therein lies a
Sweet fairy tale, of the Princess
Who enchanted (as a mermaid would, perhaps)
A sea-faring, handsome young man
Only to be enchanted herself… 🙂
Knowing, through lifetimes lived
And yet to live, he was the ONE
To complete her! Her Prince.
The other Pea, in the pod :D!

So Ms Pea, and her Handsome Pea
Will soon find their day, their way
To the ever after horizon…

But, wait –
No that , but this day
Is hers alone, to be celebrated
To be loved, all the more

To be always wished
All of life’s happiness and love 🙂 🙂

Happy Birthday, Sash-
God bless! Always!

15 November, 2011, for 16 November, 2011 🙂
Pic. stolen from Sash’s DP on FB 😀

For Meggie…

Sticky post for 2 August, 2012 and 2 August, 2013, 2 August 2014 – Indygurl’s Happy Budday 😀 😀
God Bless! Hope you have a great day! And year! And the rest of your life!

When daughters are born, Goddess Lakshmi walks into our abode, they say. I have always believed that. I have always wanted to have a daughter that I could pamper, and befriend, and grow up with. In fact, when my second born finally made it out to the world, I told my doctor he had it wrong, when he told me it was a boy! Well.

That little thing couldn’t stop me! I knew I was destined to have daughters, and who says that they have to be born of your womb? Sometimes they are born of your heart, as with some I have been blessed to have. There is Sashu, daughter of my yearnings 🙂 and she knows it too. “A Daughter I wish I’d had” is solely hers… but it found resonance soon after with one more. That one daughter comes into her own on 1 December. My Meggie. This one is a daughter of my heart too! Never mind that we have never met, or even heard each other’s voices. It is there, in the things we have shared, and the things we have never spoken of but knew, anyway, all along…

18th January, 2009, she visited a post here, and wrote, :“From one teacher to another…..:)”… and that brought me to her space, and how could I not, and how could she not? Connect. Just that… It goes beyond just being in the same profession; it is a clairvoyance of thought, of emotion, of certain likes, certain notions. You know, the feeling that one is just catching up with a person one has known for a long long long time? That is how it was with this gurl.

19  Jan 2009, she gifts me this wonderous quote: ““Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” — Anais Nin”… 🙂

And on 24th Jan… she writes, finding yet another treasure of books we share… 🙂 “and Robert Fulghum?What are you doing to me?After Richard Bach?This time I don’t even have to search for it…I am re-reading it again right now…:)come over and see!just for you..:)”

And on Jan 27th, after the Mangalore incident, she overwhelmed me “I love you too…this mother who sees so much and says even more….and makes me understand things I ought to…and makes me remember that which I had forgotten…ma would love to meet this mother someday….another who understands…”

And this, when she discovered I did not have a daughter of my own 🙂

“You don’t have a daughter?Seriously???You really ,truly don’t???not one?pssstttt are you sure??:)Then how in the name of heaven did you write this??how?and the answer comes to me..because you have the ‘heart’ you see.:)…very few do …If you ever picture me…then just imagine ….that this indeed is me…the chatter box,the compulsive hugger, ”’ my fears, my joys my secrets, and my ploys”’…oh yes!so many of these have been shared in college and cups of chai with ma…..and beyond…..thank you …and somehow that’s still not enough….not really….hugs to you too!!! a mother who sees so much and beyond…:)”

It is like that sometimes, the knowing. The gifting of the self. The sharing that is just so clairvoyant. And so it has been with this beautiful person, whom we all know as Indyeah.

Her last post, Que Sera Sera painted the loveliness of a daughter, the oneness of a mother- daughter bond, the sheer beauty of a mother 🙂 and gave us a hint about how she was soon to leave her nest 🙂

Indygurl, my Meggie, has, with her beloved, walked the seven steps to a new life, a new beginning… a whole new universe of love…

And as she takes those baby steps, her mothers still watch, still hold out their hands, still yearn…

and this is what we shall wish her…

for warm sunlight, dreamy soft moonlight,

for rainbows, after little thunderstorms that excite, more than scare,

for the fragrance of wild flowers to come unbeckoned and envelop you both,

for a life together, blessed by each other’s best 🙂

And a lovely song : Stay the same, Joey McIntyre 🙂 Just for you, Meg 🙂

Oh, and why do I call her Meggie 🙂 ? A favourite character from yet another of the loves we share, “The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough. Mr Vinod Sharma, a regular at her blog, first referred to her by that name, and I loved it 🙂

Meggie my dear 🙂 Congratulations to you and PM :D! And may the  Gods Bless you and yours, and keep you ever in Their Loving Grace!

(For the 1st of December, 2010, when finally I got to speak to her. To say it felt awesome, is an understatement! )

4 December, 2010

Mommy Dearest…

No, I am not plagiarizing a beautiful title, of a well known Hollywood actress’ biography (Joan Crawford’s by her adopted daughter). Rather, hot on the heels of Mothers’ Day, is yet another special one for me. Mine grows another year younger, and it’s about time I acknowledged that one 🙂 🙂

My SB said to me the other day, amma, you know we’ve been together the last almost 22 years, and it’s going to be difficult na, when I go? I mean, you’ve known me only a part of your life, but I’ve known you all my life! 😆 Understatement, isn’t it? Of course he was just rehashing an old cliché!! But that is the point I’m trying to make. All our lives, we know one person the mostest, I think, our mother, sometimes, more than our father. In India at least :D! And so it is with Mom. Yes, I call her Mummy, Mom, Maaaaa… somehow never got around to calling her Amma, though my kids call me that. On my insistence! My paternal grandma, at her insistence, was called Amma by my brothers and I. That is another story for another rainy-no-muse day :)!

Mom has been the strongest pillar of our family. Not just us, but even hers, I sometimes think. She takes after her own mother, who I have already described in “A Woman Extraordinaire”, with a zest for life, and an unconditional and uninhibited go-for-it attitude to life. She, like me, is the ham  of a club sandwich, the 5th of 10 children her parents had. 11 if you were to count the oldest, a half brother. Life was tough as they grew, she and her siblings; lots of ancestral property managed by the Kaarnavar, or the eldest Maternal Uncle, the head of the family, entirely matriarchal… a childhood of getting, not much at all, just enough to live, dreaming of things, rushing about doing a 100 jobs around the place, along with the others. Going to school, walking over 3 miles up, then down again; taking turns to carry the large tiffin carrier; being denied further studies after her 10th, which only she and her youngest sister passed, because she had been seen, approved and was to be married off!! Tough times. Times that could, I have felt, crushed one with a weaker spirit.

So almost 50 years ago, she got married, a charming 17 year old, to a handsome tall dashing young navy man. My Dad. Though there are times we, both mom n I, rave and rant about men, I have always felt she was lucky, way luckier than her sisters, cousins, relatives, heck, even me :P! But then, I am biased am I not? She got married to my .. MY dad :D! Tougher times ahead, unfortunately! Being the wife of an only son has its problems. A possessive mother in law, who, though never abusive or hurtful, was possessive enough to make things difficult! But, yet again, she was lucky in that she was able to join Dad and travel with him on his various postings. And then of course, she had us 🙂 🙂 🙂 Lucky her! Lol!

With just a year between my EB and me, it was difficult for her to manage us, especially with Dad off sailing for long periods. But manage she did, and beautifully. For, in an alien city, Mumbai, with alien language and customs, she took to it all like a duck to water, and sailed through with flying colours. In Delhi too, the same happened.

She has  taken us to heights, and been with us through all our lows, been firm, yet loosened the bonds and apron strings when required, and kept us grounded and level headed through everything. Just everything. Be it the double fractures my EB had, the sickly chap my YB was, the rebel I became through my adolescence… right through it all, like a rock, she was there, always there. Never preachy, though she had and still has a booming voice when she gets mad 😉 😉 Dad was also there, but he was the strong and silent type back then 🙂 Now he is just the opposite, ever since his grandchildren got him to open up 🙂 🙂

You see, she grows younger as I have already said. She gels instantly with persons of all ages. It takes just a few seconds to get anyone talking, with her listening and drawing them out. She never holds back, be it advice sometimes, knocking common sense sometimes, listening, encouraging, consoling. There are very very few people I have come across who can reach out the way she has. In fact even my kids’ gang of friends are her friends; she never holds back; nothing, absolutely nothing!

When she knew I was going to be alone, in a few months time, there was no, why don’t you come down here, or shall we come there… just a reminder to be stronger, and have real expectations 🙂 And while we still agree to disagree on a lot of issues, the bonds are stronger than ever. She guides, unhesitatingly, and silently. Waits. Never nags, or asks. It’s cool, either way. She gives us space. Our own, and asks we never trample on hers :D!!

Linda Goodman, in her Sun Signs, speaks of the Taurean Woman as someone who walks tall. That’s her, my mother. She’s barely above 5 feet, but towers in ways we never could. To her indomitable spirit, and endless enthusiasm, not to forget her sheer gregarious spirit, here’s a toast! For health, peace of mind (she says that is fairy tale :D), for smiles each day, and less pain, esp around the knee 🙂 :)… (she’s going to blow a fuse when I show her this one, but it will be worth it! )Since she has already approved the Vishu and Thrissur Pooram posts, I think I might strike lucky with a third I share with her 🙂 🙂

Mummy, you’re the best. That is why even we are 🙂 Happy Birthday! May you grow even more years younger, each passing day 🙂 🙂 And may we be blessed to have your grace with us, always 🙂

The slide above has been prepared by my sister in law 🙂 Thanks Trips and Vinu, for saying is so beautifully for all of us 🙂 🙂

(Click on pic to enlarge, to read the beautiful words they have written 🙂 )

11 May, 2010, for 15 May, 2010