Remember Daddy?

Husband got back early morning from the US even as baby was fast asleep. I was waiting for them to be awake together and really looking forward to their re-union. One, I wanted to see if baby would be able to remember her father and start again from where they had left off. And two, I wanted Daddy to discover that his sweetie was well on her way to start crawling. It was going to be a surprise for him.



At 7 am, Bobo stirred and so did P. As both awoke, P looked at her and flashed his sweetest 'Hi Bobo' smile. And what did he get in return? The famous pouted lower lip followed by an urgent scan of the room to locate Mommy! So she couldn't place him after all? Not expecting this reaction, I quickly picked her up and got her into the living room. I'm not sure what went through P's head at that moment. A successful foreign trip only to return to an infant who has forgotten you in that time?



Anyway, luckily baby quickly 'crawled' her way back into the comfort zone and adjusted to having Daddy around again. Daddy in turn watched with pride and awe as his little one picked herself up on all fours and darted off!

Monsoon magic

This evening, I positioned myself near the open window in my parents' home to show Bobo the rain. I just enjoy the rain from indoors, and why not? When you have nowhere to go to, no stress in life, watching the rain from the comfort of your window can be an ethereal experience.



It's hard to say whether Bobo really understood what was going on. But she certainly seemed to notice the school children pass by under colorful umbrellas. My sister and I used to sit on the window-sill of our house as children and watch the Mumbai rains for hours. Our feet would be dangling from the designer grill and we would invariably be eating some home-made delights alongside. We had a special diary for 'counting umbrellas'. There would be two columns - black and colored, and we would make tally marks for each umbrella that passed by in that few feet of road that was visible from our window position. When we were busy with our 'activity', people used to morph into umbrellas, of various colors, going at various speeds, at various angles! Later we added a special column for raincoats, to avoid the disappointment of a person passing by in a raincoat especially if the tally were set to hit 50 or 100 or a similar round figure.



I missed my sister like crazy (Love you, sweetie) as I counted out umbrellas for Bobo- both black and colorful. It was easy to see what a long long way we have come in life. And yet there was that joy, for Bobo is going to give me a chance to enjoy those simple pleasures in life all over again.

Stranger's envy, Mother's pride

Discovered stranger anxiety yesterday. It set in rather soon, and starkly at that. The four grandparents came to receive us and she refused to go to any of them. The look on her face was all too astounded, and astounding too. Then realisation dawned. The little one is now enlightened. She knows mommy as someone more than the lady with weird hair who feeds and cleans her. I'm now the lady who loves, comforts, soothes and protects her too. It was the most flattering feeling on earth.

Biryani @ Ruky's

Ruky's was recommended to me by a good friend. Situated in Kothrud, they are a take-away and delivery non-vegetarian eatery. The last weekend after visiting both parents we decided to carry dinner home. We needed something quick, filling and both of us wanted to eat chicken.

Ruky's had the standard fare - tikkas and such that is an integral part of non-veg places. My boneless chicken biryani was delivered in under 5 minutes, packing was standard. The good part was that they provided a rather spicy and chilly curry separately, so we could just omit the spice. The biryani itself felt like a combo of grilled chicken pieces and pulao, the making of which in fact I witnessed in their open kitchen - a large plate of pulao went in to the microwave and 2-3 plates of different made-to-order biryanis got concocted for people waiting for their orders. Quite an idea!

The only thing I didn't approve of was watching one of the cooks smack something out of his hand from a huge kadhai, apparently to taste it! I would've pointed it out to the man behind the counter if I weren't so tired or hungry. And again there was that very sleepy baby waiting in the car with her daddy. Back home, I tried to forget what happened and ate up. The taste was strictly ok. No big awards to be given out, but no eliminations either.

Anyway, I hate to think of what goes on in the kitchens of restaurants after this - I guess ignorance can really be bliss.

Band Baaja Baaraat - Reasonably Gratifying

Noticed the new 'trend' in 'movie premiers' on entertainment channels these days? They play the same movie twice on the same day - 12 pm & 8 pm or some such. Strange? Not quite. If (huh?) there is a movie you would really want to catch, it's not a bad idea at all. Snatch half of it in the afternoon until siesta time and the rest in the evening well before sleep time if you may (the best of both worlds - ha!).

I'd read a few good words about Band Baaja Baarat and watched the movie (in the fashion noted above) last Sunday. Well. Tell you what, not a bad effort at all, especially from a debutant director Maneesh Sharma! In fact, if the actors (Anushka, Ranbir) were slightly more than the amateurs that they are in this flick, it would've deserved an extra star rating. I liked the way the movie flowed (no flashbacks, no side-kicks, no inserted humour), I liked the practical, believable characters and the well written dialogues. (I particularly liked the exchange between the two in the last-but-one scene). I liked how convincingly the wedding planning industry is depicted. Some unnecessary songs and a few over the top heroics notwithstanding... Bollywood has to survive after all!?

The female protagonist (Anushka/ Shruti) is an urban, independent sorts with the courage to pursue her dream confidently. Endorsing her cause is the rural, not very sophisticated young man (Ranbir/Bittu) who wins the partner's role in her venture and her heart too. Anushka, the menacingly annoying off-stage gal (if you were patient enough to see the 'extra shots' you would realise how Anushka didn't let Ranbir complete a single sentence) actually played a sweet girl, though I wish her dialogue delivery wasn't so slurred and hurried. Ranbir's rural touch was way better than his namesake's in Ajab Prem....

How the love angle comes up is how it would normally happen in real life - no melodrama, emotional outbursts and filmi-stuff here. Eventually it had to have that predictable happy ending, but it didn't happen in the predictable sort of way. There were a few surprises - a few directorial surprises at that. The lack of the usual climactic run-up to the end made it more enjoyable for me.

I often find that liking a movie on television is a bit more difficult than liking it in the cinema hall where there are so many parameters installed to make it an 'experience' for you. You also don't judge the movie in the same way - in a theatre you mostly look for value for money - at home you may just look to relax on a weekend with something passably watchable.

Catch it if you missed it last weekend. I'm sure you'll get plenty of opportunities to do so - I bet its going to be television's next Jab We Met.

My verdict - 3.5 out of 5

The boxed up Indian

Notes from the fence is "back" for the nth time - so much so that I have decided to stop announcing my (imminent yet unpredictable) return to the blogging world. This time the rather long hiatus was thanks to this new addition to the family, which is currently rolling away to glory as her mother rolls up the new post in her old blog.

This time I think I am going to come up with an array of reviews on restaurants that provide home delivery, for reasons that need no further explanation. "Indian in a box" deserves to be congratulated for one simple reason - saving me the trouble of cooking up a meal on a saturday evening after the new Smokin Joes in the area declared that they work only from 11 am to 8 pm. Recommended by the Mr.'s colleagues, we decided to order Chicken biryani.

I had several reasons to "like" what we got:
1) It came in a record fifteen minutes.
2) The food was piping hot when delivered.
3) It came so well packaged that we almost felt bad to unwrap it.
4) The biryani was delicious, flavored very well and had just the right amount of spice and chilly factor to suit our palate.
5) The pricing too suited the pocket well, though I think I may have easily agreed to pay a few more tenners.
6) The menu provided along with the food was tempting enough to go for another order.

Indian in a box already has three outlets in Pune (or let me say the non-Pune Pune if you know what I mean), and are reportedly take-away specialists. With only Indian and Chinese on the menu the choices could well run out for a regular, but there is still quite a lot of fare to try out for at least a few times. They apparently also have a few offers running. This time we opted out of the 'spicy' IPL offer but could try another some other time.

Angled!

Watching the baby hit the turning milestone was an incredible experience for her as well as for both of us parents. It was in a way the first real attempt at mobility. The flaying and kicking that started in the second month notwithstanding, this was different. Here the baby was actually going that extra mile to do something that will ultimately lead her to adult, human behaviour. I hope I was able to explain what I meant!

It was also a celebration of evolution - to watch that little thing try so hard to get at something we take humongously for granted. Have you ever spared a thought at what it takes to turn on your side at a 90 degrees angle? But watch a baby try to do it and see for yourself - first she puts her head back (with great effort) at about 45 degrees, then slowly pulls her shoulders to match that angled head, then the torso turns to meet the shoulder line and viola, we are on our side! Don't ask us to go back again that easily though! That's a skill we still have to master :)

Welcome party

After months of planning, Bobo chan's welcome party finally went through this Sunday. Rather successfully I must say, most particularly since the little thing slept through-out the function! It was incredible, since I have so far never seen her sleeping for so long at a stretch during the day. And certainly not amidst so much noise, so many people and so much activity. The fortunate consequences of this phenomenon were several. For one, I got to actually enjoy the party, have meaningful dialogue with the guests, have a laidback easy lunch. I haven't had too many of such occasions since Bobo was born so I went all out to seize this one and made the most of it. Since there was no 'back-up' required, my mother was able to have her share of merriment and interaction too. This was in sharp contrast with the scene on the eve of the party. The tension, anxiety and stress was beginning to show. Bobo had been extremely cranky two days in a row and I was looking at the prospect of spending the entire function holed up in the room beside the party hall. But all thanks to my lovely daughter, none of these odds played out. Further, most other parameters fell into place. The ambience was great, decoration simple but classy, P's aunt's speech marvelous, food good and the overall atmosphere relaxed and chattery. More than that, most of the people who mattered were there, especially the sister whose presence we had timed into the party date. I would have loved to see a few other people, but I already knew their limitations so had to be liberal enough to excuse them. All in all, an event that went off well - ironically because the protagonist slept right through it!

Santa Claus comes a'calling

A dear friend came over to visit Bobo this afternoon. Her visit was special because she was the first friend to see my baby. It was also special because two other friends who had planned to come by last week could not make it due to inexplicably stupid reasons, leading to a lot of disappointment. Her visit was special because she brought along so many different gifts for Bobo that I was totally overwhelmed. It is at moments like these that you realise how much value good friends hold in life. That you almost come to expect their presence, support and encouragement, and something gets missed out in life if you can't have that.



We spent the afternoon talking, mostly giving and taking advice on new mom stuff. Very very valuable practical tips that no book can dole out, or no mother or grandmother can remember enough from their experience to tell you. Baby slept through our talking and later woke up enough to be seen and cradled. Another moment that will stay in my memory for years to come!

A celebration of life

It is 5 days already since baby was born, and we are finally home from the hospital. Baby is fast asleep on her new bed at Ajji-Ajoba's and I'm beholding this new addition to my life, my daughter. Nowhere in my wildest dreams would I have imagined what it would be to hold this little thing, a part of my body for the last nine months.

Now that she is here, all those months of nausea, bed rest, exhaustion, acidity, anxiety, etc. seem to be behind me as if they never happened. I can stay stuck in this moment forever and ever. Love you my little sweetie pie.