Notes to self

A set of reminders for a better everyday.

1.) Focus on being present in the moment . This has been a recurrent theme in my blog of late too. Learning the art of doing this from 14-month-old D.

2.) Set apart time for fitness. Work out at home, resume yoga, meditate for a while, go for a walk. Was regular with this but been lethargic ever since I got home to be with parents.

3.) Read good books. And read more often.

4.) Listen to music. Surprised that this is on the list because this is the one thing I used to do all the time. Now, though, my phone’s always on mute but I do play music in the background when D is eating or playing. But it’s mostly devotional or classical music, thanks to my family. Maybe pick different kinds of music too, so D is exposed to more variety.

5.) Mindless social media surfing needs to stop. My fingers and wrist hurt after a point!

6.) Start driving your car. Enough with the excuses and the baseless fears.

7.) Wear sarees more often, and learn to drape with more finesse. On a similar note, wear good clothes, give away stuff you don’t wear. Been doing this in regular intervals but wardrobe optimisation is a life-long process.

8.) Focus on self care. Seriously. It’s about time. Treat yourself to a good hair cut or a pedicure every few months at least.

9.) Practice patience. Easier said than done especially for someone like me who’s most impatient. But, but, I’m already doing a lot better than the last few weeks ever since I felt myself spiralling out of control. Point number 1 , aka, mindfulness, has helped.

10.) Get on top of your finances. Pending PF withdrawals, invoices, investment status, mutual fund returns, SIPs… get them all sorted one by one.

11.) Pick your projects. I’ve been turning down out a lot of work that’s come my way these days because I realise it’s not important now. Maybe it’s a good idea to say an outright No rather than reeling under the pressure once you’ve agreed to take on said work and then opting out. I want to spend more time with D. She’s my number one. Work scene seems more manageable now.

12.) Ask for help. You can’t and don’t have to do everything yourself. I can count on family and friends to help with babycare and more or just talk.

13.) Stay in touch with friends. And get out more to meet them. Also don’t shy away from forging new friendships.

14.) Do things you love. Sing, bake, cook, paint, photograph, write, work, laugh, play with abandon, with passion and zero expectations. And don’t think about how you’ll be perceived or if you’re good or bad. Treat everything as an opportunity to learn. Try it without holding back. Without seeking validation.

15.) stay grateful and positive. You are in a god place.

16.) Cut yourself some slack. It’s all right.

Why I am on Instagram

I’ve been grazing Instagram a lot lately and I have to admit that I like this social media platform. I post almost every other day and most of my content has to do with motherhood, D, and now that I’m home, snippets of our garden, my grandparents, and some glorious food which I don’t have to cook. Most of what I share are happy frames and the ones that are not so happy are usually disguised as light-hearted posts.

However, a few days back I found myself in a really dark space and I did something I’ve never done before: I vented on Instagram. I am a private person and I generally don’t like the idea of sharing too much information online but this time I was so lost and helpless that I had no second thoughts about honestly expressing how I was feeling. I got plenty of very thoughtful and supportive messages from friends and people I barely know and it made me feel secure. M completely disapproves of me doing this though. He believes that certain things are best left unsaid when it comes to social media and his view is that it’d soon become an obsession and you’d feel the compulsion to share every trivial detail of your life on a public platform. I agree with him to an extent considering I’m just as guarded about posting stuff online. Yesterday, for instance, I took down a story because M insisted it was showing D in bad light. I thought it was a funny post – irreverent but funny, nonetheless- about D’s sleepless nights but M said I was being harsh on D and it’s not ok to complain about our kid like that. Had a major argument with him and eventually deleted the story.

By now, it’s well established that Instagram holds an unswerving power over our relationship. Especially now that we’re in different cities temporarily, the stress gets to us: to me, more than anyone else. And I’m already plotting sweet revenge when I get back to Hyderabad: determined to go out and explore the city alone while leaving D with M all day. Anyway, the question is: why am I on Instagram?

The answers are multi layered. For one, I like the Instagram community, now that I’m a mom. Earlier I’d just post travel pictures and get on with my life. But now, I’ve discovered Instagram moms! I follow a lot of them for their absolute honesty, humour and no nonsense approach to parenting, for keeping it real, for normalising a lot of things like breastfeeding, postpartum depression and the hellhole that motherhood is, at times. No judgments. I also follow moms for book reccos, fun activities, toddler food ideas, and so on. More than anything there’s a sense of camaraderie, a feeling that we’re all in this together, our experiences matter and the anger, rage, irritation we feel as mothers is normal.

Secondly, I don’t have many mom friends. And I live in a quiet part of town that’s very far from where a couple of my only friends in the city live. I do not have friends in the building I live in or in the vicinity. So it’s a rather lonely journey with me staying holed up with D all day long in the flat except for walks in the park in the morning and evening. Instagram on the other hand is home to plenty of moms, most of whom I want to connect with and be friends with in real life. So I live in that little bubble when I’m home, exhausted and a little lonely.

Do I want to document my journey and D’s on Instagram? Not really. I quite enjoy sharing snippets every now and then but I’m not comfortable with the idea of flooding my page with personal photos. I used to deride moms who can’t stop sharing pics of their little ones but I kind of get where they come from, and I enjoy reading their posts so it’s all cool. Instagram captions are the new blogs, it seems like. I’m still pretty old fashioned though and prefer writing long winding articles here to posting lengthy Instagram captions. This is my safe space.

Why do I spend so much time on Instagram? The response to this is plain boring: i cannot leave D alone even when she’s asleep ( here our bedroom is upstairs so I have to be with her) during the day or night. By now you know that my little peanut hates sleeping and i have to draw the curtains to make the room pitch dark. It’s too dark to read a book. So my phone is my friend! Instagram to the rescue. Or Netflix on mute with subtitles.

One of my favourite things about Instagram is that it has helped me discover some fabulous indie brands – be it fashion, beauty, kids clothes, toys, books, home decor, food, recipes , you get the drift. It’s like Pinterest, Amazon and Facebook rolled into one. I’ll share some of my favourite Instagram brands in another post. Plus I’ve been following a lot of accounts related to fitness, food, home decor and parenting that inspire me and give me hope.

I am prone to jealousy but by and large, this community doesn’t stir up too many negative emotions nor do I feel the pressure to keep up. I look at these Instagram accounts and pages as free tools to learn new things, seek inspiration and get better. I even got interesting work opportunities thanks to the platform, so while I have toyed with the idea of deactivating my account I don’t see the need for it. On good days, I share the joy I experience and on bad days, I seek validation and support. Doesn’t seem like a bad deal at all.

Quick catch-up

D turned one last month. We flew to Goa with some friends including my sister and spent her birthday evening at a beautiful little restaurant overlooking a river in Salcette. D had cake and we had some beer. The rest of the days in Goa were just as relaxing and low-key – great food, pink-hued sunsets by quiet beaches, lazy brunches, extended siestas, and lots of play time for D who seemed excited to be with so many people who adore her to bits.

We made a pit stop at Madras before heading to my home town for her Ayush homam held at home. She slept through most of it thankfully, and later in the day, her ear was pierced; one of us cried more than the other, more food and cake were relished.

The 13-month-old is catching a snooze now and I’m so swamped with work and deadlines, but also groggy and sleep-deprived. Might as well nap now and work later.

Sorry for this hurried, uninspired post. There’s so much I want to write about but I have zero energy at the moment. This will have to cut it for now, will be back with a more nuanced piece soon. This is just a quick post to let you know I’m very much around.

Simple pleasures and the art of a hotel review

The last few days have been a blur. I had been looking forward to my work trip near Coimbatore and some fun times in Madras with friends and family. I did have fun, but I was mostly tired and sleep-deprived; plus the whole trip is now a foggy haze of delayed flights, airport counters, train journeys, lots of food, lack of exercise and an intense yet futile attempt at napping through all of this.

On the bright side, though, the trip was productive. I was put up at the most gorgeous resort outside of Coimbatore, as part of my assignment, and for the first time in a very long while, I was cut off from people I knew, and was free to be myself, do what I pleased, without having to check if the other person was cool with it. Most of all, I did not have to control anything, which was such a relief. I cycled up hilly tracks, revelled in the lush greenery all around me, spent what seemed like hours watching clouds drift over the hills, making the mountains appear different every few seconds, and chilled on the porch by the plunge pool like nobody’s business.

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Hotel reviews are always fun; they don’t seem like much work, and you’re guaranteed the best service because folks at the hotel know why you’re here. They invited you over, for God’s sake. So, really, it’s hedonistic, in a sense; those who aren’t as self-aware tend to nit-pick, and worse still, expect to be treated like bloody royalty. I’m wary of the pitfalls, and staying grounded is crucial for me. So I don’t approach these assignments through the lens of a review, but it’s just an account of my experiences; if something doesn’t work, I slip it in, but I’m not one to fuss over the thread-count of the bed linen or obsess over the variety of tea and snacks in the mini-bar. When we shortlist hotels to review, we usually do a lot of research, and only pick properties we think are worth reviewing, among the pile of invites sent to us; so, to some extent, we know if it’s worth a review even before we get there, although there are some rare cases where rude shocks lurk in every corner. My former editor once took a bus to review a resort in Himachal Pradesh or Uttarakhand, and to his utter shock, the property wasn’t even complete, and the room he was allotted was in such bad shape that he had to tell the PR folks that a review would not be possible. Thankfully, I’ve been luckier.

Although I absolutely loved being by myself at this fabulous place, I sometimes wished M had come along; would’ve been nice to have some company. Not that I was bored or lonely, but there’s only so much of enforced solitude that I can take. Only so much of ‘people-watching’ and gazing at clouds, hills and greenery that one can do. I’d be lying if I said it was life-changing and therapeutic. It was relaxing, of course; I was pampered to no end, had two very rejuvenating spa sessions, and even a private barbecue in the backyard. But pleasures like these are deeper when shared. And while I thought that I’d snore the night away, sleep proved very elusive, surprisingly. I’d stay up watching something on the TV both nights and try to doze off, but it was a struggle.

It was a welcome change of pace, though, and I got to meet and interact with some genuinely warm and friendly people, two of whom I hope to stay in touch with, professionally, at least.  And then I broke my dry reading spell with the superbly warm and fuzzy book, A Man Called Ove. I cried a bit towards the end, and the book just reaffirmed my faith in people, in humanity. I realised I tend to devour decently-sized books – 300-400 pages – but the big fat ones intimidate the hell out of me. Case in point: A Suitable Boy. This is my third attempt at reading it, and after 200 pages or so, I’ve hit a slump of sorts, and I’m cheating on it with other smaller, breezier books.

In Madras, I broke another dry spell and watched a movie at the cinema hall after ages. Dunkirk at Sathyam Cinemas. Had a bite of that vegetable puff at the canteen, and it took me back in time to 2008-2012, when going to the cinema, particularly at Sathyam, was a ritual. I love Christopher Nolan, and Dunkirk, no doubt, is a masterpiece; but to me, it was a difficult film to watch. It was too real, there was no sugar-coating, no backstories for characters, and no conversations. It was gripping, unsettling, and spectacular. But I wanted mush. I wanted lighter moments. Clearly Nolan did not think so, and of course, he’s always right. So I went home, feeling slightly conflicted, and wasn’t sure if I loved the movie, but now, on hindsight, I think I did. Little moments in the film stand out, and make you marvel at the unflinching strength and pride of its characters; they may not have said a word, but their actions speak volumes. And it’s only when that realisation dawned did I understand what a great movie this is.

I’m back in Hyderabad now, and today I’ve decided to be a couch potato. I need a day to recuperate and catch up on lost sleep; we landed at the unearthly hour of 1 am, and by the time we reached home, it was 2.30 am. And then we chose to unpack and sort out our bags before we went to bed, and I’m usually crabby when I’ve had less than 7 hours of shut-eye (last night it was five, so my tiredness seems justified).  There’s work to be done, mails to be sent, food to be cooked, a treadmill to be run on, but there’s always tomorrow. Today is a Netflix-and-chill kind of day, and I mean it in the literal sense – I’m going to watch Netflix and just chill and not move a muscle – not the twisted millennial double entendre that I was blissfully unaware of until I used the phrase in all earnestness. Thank you internet!

 

 

 

 

If it’s morning, it has to be Madras

2016 has not been an easy year. It will go down in history as a rubbish year ravaged by war, cruelty, natural calamities, of demonetisation and of Trump winning the US elections. It also saw the passing away of some of the greatest minds in the world of music and the arts, including some all-time favourites like Bowie and Prince.Closer home, December has been a nightmare for Madras-it was the floods last year, and now, it’s the demise of Jayalalitha and the brutal cyclone that has turned my favourite city into an apocalyptic wasteland. I’m sure the city will rise up it to it, like it always has.

Personally too, 2016 is likely to be a turning point in many ways, on retrospect. It has been a year of loss, but also one of learning. After M lost his dad, I find myself thinking a lot about death; it may seem morbid, but I’m trying to be more pragmatic about it, and find constructive ways to deal with the pain, and M and I now have conversations about what we could do to make our lives less complicated. Do we have nominees for our bank accounts? Do we know our financial credentials? Stuff like that. And trust me, while I would shun such conversations like the plague earlier, now I realise that it’s absolutely important, and it need not necessarily be uncomfortable or morbid.

Then there was my surgery after which I’ve come to the conclusion that health is indeed wealth. Extremely cliched, yes, but you never realise how much you take for granted until you have to spend months on end recuperating from an open surgery. So I’ve been off alcohol for more than five months, and while I was never big on drinking anyway, now I stay away from it completely. No sugary drinks either.

On the work front too, I’ve learned that it’s not enough to just be damn good at what you do, you need to make yourself visible, make some noise in front of the right people, all of which seem like too much work to me. I’m happy to be left alone, really. I’d gone to an office party reluctantly last night and spent most of my time fidgeting with my phone and got so bored after an hour or so that I booked myself a cab and left. I’m not one of those extremely socially awkward individuals though I can sometimes get restless if I don’t know anyone well enough. I need at least one person I share a good rapport with to sort of distract myself from the sea of humanity at a social gathering. And in my current office, I find it hard to connect with colleagues-they’re too intimidatingly cool (or they try to be), they dress up like they’re off to a party every single day, complete with make-up, and there’s so much emphasis on superficiality and showing off and I feel like I’ve nothing to talk to them about. It’s a very Delhi thing I guess, and something I’ve come to hate about the city and its flaky people. I’ll always be an outsider here.

While working in a travel magazine might seem glamorous and fun to a lot of outsiders, the reality is quite different. I don’t get to travel at all, on work, I mean; outside of it, I travel quite a lot, and whatever I write in the magazine is mostly based on my own holidays and rare occasions when I do get to go somewhere on assignment (Note: it happened just twice this entire year). You wouldn’t believe the number of promotions and research-based pieces and sales pitches I need to churn out, and the amount of time I spend chiselling copies to perfection or writing captions for pictures, changing fonts and following up with people to send in their stories. Besides, the only kind of articles I get to do are mundane interviews and uninspiring hotel and restaurant reviews in the city. But I don’t mind the job itself – the silver lining here is that it’s honestly been a learning curve and I’m sure this experience will come in handy. Plus I’ve been taking up online courses and I’m driven to learn new stuff and build my skills, so to that extent, the job gives me the time and space- it’s not all-consuming.

In other news, I’ve been waking up at 6 am every day, despite the biting cold. And I realise how much I love early mornings – the 6-am-filter coffee, Tamil news on TV, old Hindi songs on B4U, a shady channel – today though they seem to be playing only Ajay Devgun songs for some reason – the quiet, the reassurance that you can take on the day and the fact that I’m supremely efficient, well-planned and productive. For me, mornings are not a time to lounge or plonk in front of the TV; it’s when I get a lot of stuff done and out of the way and busy mornings are the best kind of mornings. Delhi, however, is not a morning city at all. Madras, on the other hand, is a proper morning city, much like most of Tamil Nadu. I miss the buzz around Margazhi; morning visits to the temple, pretty kolams everywhere, sumptuous breakfasts filled with steaming hot idli-vadai-pongal…and the morning kutcheris and lec-dems, walks in the park. Delhi, on the other hand, has the worst kind of breakfast. I do not approve of samosas, jalebis and desi-ghee-slathered parathas as breakfast material. Nope.

I’m also excited to announce that we might be shifting out of the city in the next three months, hopefully. And there’s a possibility that we may be moving to Hyderabad, a city I’ve only heard good things about. Fingers crossed.