Surviving Empty Nest

Folks, I am back! With a bang!! Yes, the Diwali season is over and here I am typing away on my laptop, during my lunch break. Call us Indians very superstitious, you can’t be more right - yes, we are superstitious. Every time there is a planetary transition, we go running to the astrologer to see how our horoscope would be affected – will it be good? Will it be a challenge? What will happen? Are we prepared enough? What prayers can we do to avert things? The recent planetary transit was Jupiter’s. Bro moved house from Vrishik to Danur raasi. In legible terms, the planet Jupiter moved from Scorpio constellation to Sagittarius’. Planet Jupiter is said to be the one and only benevolent planet. It can affect you positively, but never adversely. Any astrologer will say that Jupiter either gives or keeps silent. It is one planet that will not affect us adversely and I for one will not agree. When Jupiter moved into my 8 th house (known as ashtama) I was jobless for 13 months. 13 month...

Yep, happened yesterday. Gave me a mild heart attack. He was quite restless because there was no work yesterday – he does renovation related jobs to earn money, though his passion is in the gym. Was a champion in his country in 2016. So, he went off with his friend to some location about 20 kilometres away from his place. The friend dropped him off in the middle of nowhere and drove off. He sent me location – trust me it was middle of nowhere! Though a localite, I was worried, asked him to take Grab car to the nearest ERL station and take the transit train from there to Putrajaya, then back to his place. Somehow, had a bit of confidence that he would make it but was also worried because he doesn’t speak much of English – yeah, whoever built the Google Translate – I kiss your brain – that’s how we sometimes communicate. His English seems to have improved lately, though  😊 Then he sent me a photo of him in Grab car.   Was quite relieved because finally he is...

For many of us, every month is a struggle.   Making ends meet means having to ensure income and expenses at least balances out at the end of the month. That’s a hard struggle. Life is such, just when you have planned the expenses for the month, something crops up. Unexpected expenses that throw your plans into an abyss and you have to start over again. My hardest struggle was when I was jobless for 13 months with totally no income, not even a trickle, mind you. (That’s what happens when you put all the eggs in one basket-basket falls, all eggs break!) But expenses had to be met, regardless. Housing loan, car loan, international school fees, bills, credit card bills (you tend to use more when there is no income because life has to go on), food, travel and other miscellaneous items. Here I share a chapter from my book SINGLE (with a kid) , JOBLESS AND DROWNING – Chapter 2 (as it is from the book) on how to reduce expenses when there is less or no income. Trust me, this tec...

My late mum used to lament that she had to breastfeed me as a child, till I was 2 years old – teeth and all. But I was spared when my two daughters were born, because the maternity clinic where my elder one was born, trained her on bottle from the first time she was started on milk. When the second one was born, I had lactating issues, so again, that breastfeeding thingy didn’t quite happen. So, the issue of weaning was not so huge. Then came the phase when the kids need to be weaned from milk to solid foods. It was a walk in the park, trust me, because, Asian parents, especially Indians, love spoiling their children with adult food from the moment the child is able to taste something. So, in went KFC’s mashed potatoes, gravy and all, small bites of baked chicken wings, bread soaked in milk; the list could go on. More adult food than baby food. Weaning was no more a phase in the child’s life as adulthood seem to descend faster than expected. The harder weaning would be to let...

Someone sent me the following cheeky picture!                              That’s smothering or `mothering’ with (of) an ass (S) (pun definitely intended). Let’s face it – every girl wants a daddy sometime in her life, so does every guy – a mummy. Basically, we all need to be cared for. The question is – do we need to be cared for in that way, in a relationship?   A relationship is a level playing field. You are in it together, not for the sake of one another. One should be in a relationship because he/she sees value in it for himself or herself. Because he/she wants to be with the other person.   Not because there is a reason that appeals to the sense. If someone says ` I am in this relationship for so and so…’ it’s time to get out of it.   I said that, too, once a upon a time. I thought I was `sacrificing’ and yes, in the en...

Years ago, when my elder daughter was studying at a government school, the Malay language teacher had often picked on her – my daughter was plump, had buck teeth and well, race was also an issue for that teacher (now deceased), I think. During Bahasa Malaysia classes, the teacher often embarrassed her in front of the class. She was in Year 6 at that time. Many a times she had returned home crying, shamed by the teacher, feeling very small. I had only one advise for her – beat the teacher at her own game. The next few months saw her put in extra hard work into her studies and when the government exam results were announced, she scored an `A’ for her Bahasa Malaysia paper. Apparently, while handing out the results transcript, the teacher had said `See, she is an Indian, but scored A in Bahasa Malaysia’ to other students in class predominantly Malays. Defeated at her own game – the teacher. Fast forward 2017, my second daughter was studying at an international school, in the Inter...

This morning, at breakfast I witnessed something unusual – a patron at the food court where I usually have my breakfast took his plate and glass to the dirty crockery stand and left it there after finishing his breakfast. I was impressed. I have seen this at McD and some other fast food outlets, but at a food court? Nah! Well, as usual that reminded me of a story a friend told me years ago - about 25 years ago, to be more precise. This friend of mine went to Switzerland to work during his summer break, when he was studying in London – days when the exchange rate would not cause a heart attack. One day, he said, when he wanted to cross a road, he had just walked across while the pedestrian light was still red. A few seconds later, it turned green and guess what?   An old lady who was waiting to cross the road with him, hurried over and started beating him with the umbrella that she was carrying! My friend was shocked. Then he understood that she was angry because he crossed th...

Mention Gaza and one would imagine ruins littered in a city which would have thrived at one time in history. Governed by Hamas, it is a land 140 square miles (363 square kilometeres) wide along the Mediterranean Sea, northeast of the Sinai Peninsula. Embargoed by Egypt and the United States, controlled by Israel, import of goods including medicines are very limited. Basically, life there is a game of survival.  In this land which the war had torn apart, lives a man of steel who had made his three sons winners, in their own right. Yes, Dr Azir Shinpary, an expert in Physical Education and former President of the Palestinian Weightlifting Federation, had spent four years of his life in New Delhi, before returning to Gaza and rising into a renowned weightlifter, which eventually brought him to presidency of the federation . And in his course of life, has also moulded his elder son, Raed Shinpary into the first place winner of the Palestinian Bodybuilding Championship in 2016....

The first thing I learnt about growing up in my sleepy hollow was, karma revisits. Be good and do good, was the mantra I grew up with. But, trust me, those who preach usually do not practice because we are all very selfish, by nature. Yep, growing up I saw how when needs changed, the perceived law of karma also did. That’s us, human beings. My meditation guru used to say that all other things except human beings have set characteristics. For example, she said, the nature of the sun is to provide heat and no one would have ever stood in the sun and said `ooh, it is so cooling’, the same would be for snow. Trees do what they were created for, water does what it was meant for, only human beings behave according to the situation. Thus, they may say something is right today and then, say the same thing is wrong, another day. Likewise, they may cite one principle when dealing with one party or group of people but cite another principle when dealing with another group. And another g...

Happy Monday, folks! It has been a quiet weekend with the entire Sunday spent exploring some nice places at Putrajaya, with a friend. Somehow the topic of dating a younger man was broached – well, I think the conversation started with Arjun Kapoor and Malaikka Arora, who have been dating for sometime before their relationship became public. You see, their age difference is 12 years. The media and social media went into frenzy when their relationship was announced, not to mention reaction of Jahnvi Kapoor, half-sister of Arjun who openly declared that she hated Malaikka for dating her half-brother. It was not so much about who the couple are but so much about the age gap. Seriously, does that matter? Me, for one, could not sit still; as soon as I returned to dreary K L, I started `researching’ on the Net – older women and younger men. There is actually a list of women (famous, obviously) who have married/dated men much younger than them – Heide Klum married a dude 18 years you...

There are two Hindi movies that remain fresh in my mind – Pink (2016) and Article 15 (2019) because I hate it when women are ill-treated or portrayed as weaklings. This piece is not about who is right or who is wrong or feminism; today I would like to explore the topic of self-respect and dignity . Quite a heavy preweekend read, though. What is self-respect? The Merriam Webster dictionary gave two definitions: 1:  a proper respect for oneself as a human being 2:  regard for one's own standing or position. Cambridge dictionary said `a  feeling of respect for yourself that shows that you value yourself’.   So, the question is how does one respect oneself?   What do we do to respect ourselves? Late grandpa used to share lots of stories while I was growing up in my sleepy hollow hometown. He once told me a story about my late grandma, who was his first wife. They were all rubber tappers who went through the horrors of lif...