Getting ready for a photoshoot at school

My little girl is two and a half now and goes to a nearby playgroup for two hours.

On Thursday they were supposed to have a group photo taken.

I decided that I should get her impeccably dressed and ready for the photo shoot. (We mothers of girls are always at it aren't we! )

Well I was busy with something in the morning and the husband was glued to his laptop. Anyone with a toddler will vouch for the fact that a silent house is a most dangerous one. The silence ignited a doubt in me and I went to check. My darling had helped herself to my kajal stick on the dressing table and was now in the bathroom trying to wash herself. Her hands were black, her dress had patches of kajal. The toilet bowl had tiny handprints of kajal all over it. Above everything else, she had smeared it all over her face. I had a mini visitor from some tribal groups in Lakshadweep standing and grinning at me in my bathroom, soot all over her charming face.

After the initial gasp of utter shock I set about cleaning her up. I applied coconut oil all over her to dissolve the stickiness and then gave her a good bath.

She was roaming around the house while I was busy in the kitchen. After sometime she came running to me, this time covered in white all over. Oh dear! Who asked me to leave the curd on the table!

I normally give her a small bindi with eyeliner. As we set off finally she said "I don't want water bottle" and proceeded to remove the bottle that was hanging around her neck. In the process she smudged the bindi and had a huge black line all the way across her tiny forehead. Thankfully I had wet wipes and I quickly went about setting things right.

Finally when we reached school she tripped and fell down. She was not hurt but crumpled the uniform I had ironed with care and the tucked in shirt came out.

Nevertheless I smoothed it out , tucked it back and sent her inside the playgroup.

At the end of it all no photoshoot happened that day. It got cancelled!

Soup, the good old appetizer

I remember writing some post before about a topic that came to my head just like that, Bhindi.

My son has been saying that he wants soup today and hence my next post is going to be about , Soup!

I remember we had a Management course in college where the professor used to say , "In India we say we drink soup because its always a liquid here and in fact is served in cups on trains. But in other countries it has a lot of things like vegetables, meat etc and they say they eat soup not drink it" .

Its become customary starting any dinner with soup as it is supposed to be a good appetizer. But consider the gluttony all of us indulge at treats with friends or eating outside, does one really need an appetizer? What we actually need is an antacid at the end of the meal.

I remember going to restaurants with my dad and he loved adding all the sauces placed on the table into his soup. My mom would insist that those would actually shadow the whole taste of the soup and I think she was right. Of course every person has a basic birth right to eat what he wants to , the way he thinks is right!

He would also panic whenever I added salt to my soup assuming that I was mistaking it for pepper. Once he did not and the lid of the salt shaker actually fell into my soup. Of course along with its entire contents making my soup not at all consumable and an expression of "See this is why you need to be careful" on my darling dads face.

We once went to a restaurant , just me and my dad. The soup was obnoxiously spicy. Without realizing that he proceeded with his usual ritual of adding all the sauces including chilly sauce. The moment he put the first spoon in his mouth, his eyes welled up .  My poor dad! I remember how he did not want to waste what had been ordered and painstakingly somehow tried to finish it.

These days I see so many peddlers outside parks selling soups early in the morning. Somehow the word soup is associated with health conscious or sick people and so we have a variety of soups using all the traditional herbs meant to be good for the body.

I love trying different kinds of soups at restaurants and my favorite is Sweet Corn Vegetable soup. My kids love tomato soup or Tamatar Ka Shorba as its called in Tandoori restaurants.

Well thats not a bad post I guess. So what memories does the word 'soup' kindle in you?

Being fat invokes teasing

During my teens and early twenties I used to be an overweight person. Well there are those whose metabolism makes sure that any food they consume is converted to 100% energy even if they don't spend any of it. Unfortunately I did not belong to that group.

Being overweight is one thing. The amount of teasing and bullying that happens on that account is another thing.

You are nicknamed idly or jumbo.

You sit on a chair and someone will make a joke that it might break.

You step on someones toe by mistake and they tell you they must have a fracture.

Coaches tell you that you do not need to play basketball. Your mere presence in the field would scare the opponents away.

You already look like an aunty. Who will marry you? someone says.

Of course the extremely lean ones also have their own share of woes. They are drumsticks or cluster beans. The wind will blow them away.

Who is perfect physically? But the fat ones or the lean ones are easy targets for everyone to have a good time. Usually they just laugh along and sometimes even make self deprecating jokes. Thats just to avoid being left out or shunned.

But you know what? It hurts. Really hurts. Especially when one is in their teens or young years with dreams just like everyone else. It makes one feel like a mole.

Yes one needs to do positive thinking, think about whats good about oneself, all is fine. But when someone else keeps teasing about this it shatters their self esteem.

Once in a while, a joke is okay. But there are those who tend to overdo it.

Of course looking at it from a bright side, it sometimes does give one the motivation to try hard and lose weight. The focus of course should be more on being healthy and staying active.

Next time you see someone making someone feel miserable by commenting about their physical features at least try not to join and laugh along. Someones feelings there are getting hurt real bad.