Mother's Day or Mothers' Day

I was never "aware" of Mother’s Day until my daughter first went to pre-school. Since then I’ve been the happy recipient of trinkets from her (school) with cute cards and cliched statements like “you are the best mother in the whole world”.

Don’t get me wrong, I am quite thrilled to receive these trinkets (mainly because they are hand-made trinkets, and not some gifts from the mall) and I have them all stored away like a treasure, but on many levels I am not a big “Mother’s Day” person .

What is supposed to be a sentimental expression celebrating all mothers and their service to the community has completely morphed into a for-profit commercialized rigmarole mainly celebrating the domestic service rendered by moms! A day in the spa to make up for all the time you were covered in poop and vomit, or a diamond ring for all the time you did the laundry. Case in point: As i am typing this, Google thought it relevant to present me with ads like "Mother's Day Coupons", "Mother's Day Flags", "Hot Gardening Gifts"... and I don't even have a garden, which i should, to qualify for the "Super mom" points.

While "Mom" is the most perfect descriptor of myself these days, I still remember my pre-mom days and the social pressure both obvious and sublime on "old maids" like myself who at the grand old age of 30 still did not get to celebrate "Mother's Day" **sigh**. To me one of the unintended consequences of Mother's Day is one more source of social pressure on women everywhere, seeming to remind them one more time, the reason they were put on earth - to go forth and procreate!

With all the media circus around the octo-mom, celebrity moms who look sexier than ever even after the birth of twins, women in 40s delivering babies and being successful at the careers, super nannies on Television telling you how to be a better mom, Breast-feeding evangelists who can make you feel inadequate with just one look for choosing the bottle, and the emerging class of "green moms"who can give you 25 reasons in 5 seconds on why you should not use disposable diapers..... hey, that Spa certificate doesn't look all that bad right now!

So this mother's day while I will still take pleasure in attending a breakfast celebration at my daughter's school I've also resolved to
1) not keep harping on the glory of motherhood at every occasion
2) stop feeling guilty about failing to be a supermom. (It's OK if she ate Mac&Cheese one night for dinner!)
3) Stop offering free parenting advice to moms who don't want any (especially on breast feeding and being green!)
4) Appreciate my mom more on regular days
5) take part in more community activities instead of blaming everything on my domestic duties in the true spirit of Mother's Day

That's a wrap!

Thomas Friedman - Emperor has no clothes!

For 10 years I have had this healthy disdain for Thomas Friedman and his writings. I read "Lexus and the Olive Tree" several years ago at the recommendation of a friend and that was a genuine attempt at trying to understand what he had to say, and that was more than enough. Since then, I've tried to stay away from all his books and his column in the NYT, but to my dismay I found this guy's words being plastered all around and there seemed to be no getting away from him.

Here he was churning one book after the other and I found it incredible how people who are deemed smart could fall for this "pundit"who uses mixed up idioms and phrases to explain the obvious (something like "we need to learn how to learn how to learn") or say things that were outright ridiculous. My oft repeated example was him saying everything was fine and dandy in India by visiting Bangalore (which he believes describes the entire sub-continent BTW) when the communal riots happened in Gujarat (the world being flat, he probably could stand in Bangalore and see Gujarat with an unobstructed view).

Anyway, i've never been able to articulate exactly what i felt for Friedman when I stumbled upon this review by Matt Taibbi which says everything i've ever wanted to say.

"Someone take away Thomas Friedman's computer before he types another sentence" is the only article about Friedman that i've read and re-read many times.

Needless to say I am a fan of Taibbi and underneath that humor and sarcasm I find his writings to be an accurate portrayal of America today. I wish he would write more on his Blog!

On Fathers and Daughters

As I sat thinking about the beautiful friendship I shared with my dad, I suddenly realized that maybe that was the reason i was drawn to certain novels which portrayed this relationship very well.

So here is my list of characters(both fathers and daughters) which I think all fathers and daughters who (want to) share this unique bond could easily identify with, making these novels a must read for them!

1) Atticus and Scout in "To Kill a Mocking Bird"
2) Mr.Bennett and Lizzy in "Pride and Prejudice"
3) Paresh Babu and Lolita in Tagore's "Gora"
4) Dr.Gibson and Molly in "Wives and Daughters"
5) Mr.Caleb Garth and Mary in "MiddleMarch"

While all the daughter characters were quite different from each other, the father characters all shared a few things in common. They were all

• Calm and collected even under extreme stress
• Men of high integrity and values
• Highly respected for the above 2, despite being not the richest or most powerful person in their community
• Very respectful of their daughter's opinions while at the same time providing the much needed stability/support in their lives

My dad was all of the above to me and I hope my husband will be the same for my daughter. After all as Spencer Tracy remarks in "Father of the Bride" (which incidentally was the movie my dad and I watched before my own wedding), "My son is my son till he gets a wife, My daughter is my daughter all my life"

So here's to all the Fathers and Daughters of the world!

That's a wrap!

"Give them our love but not our thoughts" - What? How?

These days we are listening to "Sweet Honey in the Rock" and one song that is getting repeated play at our home is Khalil Gibran's "On Children" sung by Sweet Honey.... Wanted to share the lyrics here

Your Children
They are not your children
They are the sons and the daughters of Life, longing for itself
They come through you but they are not from you
And though they are with you, they belong not to you

You can give them your love but not your thoughts
They have their own thoughts
You can house their bodies but not their souls
'Cos their souls dwell in a place of tomorrow
That you cannot visit not even in your dreams
You can strive to be like them,
But you cannot make them just like you


As you can tell from the title of the post those two lines got my husband and i thinking. Our child is trying to ape everything we do. Granted that has made us more responsible about what we do, say, and even think! Now is that equivalent to giving our child "our thoughts"?

As I watched the debate on Prop 8 unfurl last year, I was amazed to see the number of young kids (some still in diapers and strollers!) out there carrying banners for / against Prop 8, I was wondering do the kids really understand what they are doing out there... a clear case of parents giving them their love AND their own thoughts!

That made me think of my own. Here is our child growing up "accepting" that "Tom's of Maine" is a cooler toothpaste brand than Dora's, believing that "The Nation" is to mommy as "Lady Bug" is to her, capable of picking Gandhi, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Arundathi Roy, Chomsky out of a line-up if they are ever in one (and they look like their mug shots on the back cover of their books), and incidentally loves to sing the above mentioned song... constantly reminding us that "we can give her our love but not our thoughts".

I am not trying to make her like me (or am I?) but I don't know any other way to bring her up. I guess the key takeaway is for us to be there giving her the tools to make good choices while accepting of what/who she becomes as she starts asserting herself and making her own decisions beyond choosing what to wear or what to eat today!

That's a wrap!

An anglophile...who me?

After 200 years of British Raj in India, one cannot deny the overwhelming influence of the British among Indians, so when one of my friends accused me of being an Anglophile (in jest of course)it got me thinking.

Look at all the things I favor!

1) Favorite comedy: Fawlty towers and the Yes Minister series
2) Favorite car: Mini Cooper (although i dont drive one!)
3) Favorite children's author: Enid Blyton (despite the stereotyped gender roles that i can now see in some of her books)
4) Favorite Band: Radiohead
5) Favorite classics writers: Doyle, E.M.Forster,Austen, Gaskell, Eliot.....
6) Favorite comedy writer: Wodehouse
7) Favorite news channel: BBC without a doubt (I get so many of their podcasts - Global news, Analysis, Sky@night, Documentaries etc)
8) Movies/TV: Here Hollywood triumphs, but i make sure i get my yearly dose of the Brit/Irish movies (recently watched Mrs.Brown, In Bruges). My favorite TV show these days is "House" and that has everything to do with Hugh Laurie
9) Favorite Grandslam: Wimbledon (that had more to do with Becker than with England though!)
10)Huge points for public transportation Vs the US!

What i don't/didn't like:

1) Cricket - grew up liking it, now cant stand it
2) English soccer league - preferred the Italian league and the Italian team to England (don't follow it these days)
3) Food - that doesn't need any further explanation does it! (although I should give them a few points for their vegetarian options even in Fast food joints!)
4) Castles - there are just one too many!
5) Obsession with the Monarchy
6) Ticket prices for museums - they fleece you to see everything that they looted from the rest of the world!
7) The Blair Bush love fest
8) Weather
9) Legacy of colonialism - Growing up in India, being stuck with so many of their meaningless rules and laws from Grammar to civic life
10) CCTV nation


So does it all even out, or am I still an anglophile? Hmmmm.....

That's a wrap!

Walk for Water

My 2nd consecutive day of getting out of my comfortable armchair. This one was for a 5K walk organized by PCI to raise awareness of water issues and support projects in Africa. About a 1000 people braved the rain and turned up for the walk and I was one of them.

Just a decade ago living in another corner of the world i've walked a bit for water so i am someone who was taught to appreciate how priceless water is. So I had to raise a couple of points with PCI on how they organized the event.

I was uncomfortable with the fact that the event was sponsored by Nika water, a bottled water company with a twist - 100% of their profits support developmental projects in Africa and they are carbon neutral certified. This was the rationale provided by PCI when my friend and i raised this issue with them. But our objection was not just to the plastic, i have a problem with issue of privatizing water and bottled water is the most visible facet of this privatization. To PCI's credit, they acknowledged that they didnt think about this aspect and that they will discuss this.

Overall a good day! Enjoyed the walk, the company, the weather, the view and to top it all came back home in time for a delicious lunch with the family and if my walk indeed reduces the water burden on a little girl... hey can't complain!

That's a wrap!

Got out of my Armchair...after 6 years!

After being an armchair activist for 6 years complaining about the war, I finally got out of it and did something today! Took part in a march to commemorate the 6th anniversary of Iraq war demanding "Money for Jobs and education, not for wars and occupation". True to the anti-war nature of the protest it was a peaceful one. It was heartening to see the young and old together in such a protest.

Photos from the event

I heard somewhere that the "New Deal" was a direct result of people taking to the streets demanding a New Deal! So if we expect Obama to do a "FDR" then the onus is on the citizenry to spur him into action.

Had an interesting conversation with an Obama grassroots worker who was trying to get signatures to support the President's economic stimulus plan, his healthcare, education and "green" policies. I brought up the question of single-payor healthcare and how that seemed to have vanished from the Obama administration and she was trying to convince me that that's the job of the Left/Progressives to apply the pressure on the administration so that these issues are part of the national agenda, which i totally agree, but at the same time i am skeptical largely due to the people in the current administration.

Long story short, it was an interesting 2 hour rally to be part of and as I looked around the crowd it suddenly looks like "socialists" are coming out of the closet and socialism is in vogue in the new America with a President who is labeled a "Socialist"!

That's a wrap!