Twenty- five Seven

First day of school

July 18, 2019

Today Ms Papaya and Little Po started their first day of school.

Last night Ms Papaya was too excited to sleep. After four months holiday, she couldn’t wait to get back to school . Just before she fell asleep she told me that she wanted ‘limboo paani’ in her water bottle and some nachni chips , badam and raisins in her snack box.

Funnily enough this morning I got this message from my school Whatsapp group.

Many of my classmates are grandparents ( one of them has a 12 year old !) and we often discuss the way our grandchildren are being brought up .

I suppose our parents were shocked at how we brought up our kids and our grandparents horrified by the way we were brought up.

From the benign neglect of my grandparents ( my parents tell me that their parents never had to drop and pick them from school as they walked there . They never had to meet teachers and never had to pack lunch boxes) to the more concerned parenting of my parents’ generation , parenting has transitioned to a complete scientific study involving spreadsheets and counselling services.

But somethings remain the same – new school uniforms, new shoes, a snack box and bottle and that apprehension on both sides as we stand at the bus stop and wave the little ones goodbye.

Today when I picked up the little ones from school, it struck me that Wow Dinga is already a big boy. Two years into school, he is already one tooth down and thrilled to be the big brother on the bus that will take his siblings to HIS school .

It won’t be long before I attend their college graduations and remember with nostalgia their first day of school.

Ciao
The curious case of the rocking chair and the laundry

July 13, 2019

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does the laundry grow?

Upon my teak wood rocking chair

From none to ten and more!

To paraphrase a popular nursery rhyme, I’m amazed at how the laundry in my house just seems to grow. Especially on my rocking chair.

The rocking chair

In my bedroom is a rocking chair – a handsome teak wood piece flown down all the way from Delhi. This was in the mid-eighties where furniture did not fly all over the place. Nor was it manufactured by furniture designers. In fact those were the days when trusty Bhagwati or Ramesh Mistry, made your customised furniture under your watchful supervision in your backyard or miniscule balcony. So my rocking chair, crafted and designed by Taaru ( a furniture shop in Delhi) was doubly special.

This chair rocked in my bedroom for several years till one day a nephew rocked it over and disjointed it completely!

I was heartbroken seeing the slats of wood fall apart and was about to consign it to Parmar the jaripuranawala to sell it at Chor Bazar.

Read all about Mumbai’s fascinating Chor Bazar here.

But the chair was brought specially by my dad all the way from Delhi, so when Ramesh Mistry offered to patch it up, I readily agreed.

Since then, the chair has rocked me and my babies in various stages of life. I used to read on it, relaxing with the music playing in the background while the girls used to study to its gentle rhythm.

However, of late, it has become the receptacle of washed and ironed laundry, kept there before being transferred to their final destination. And the chair never seems to be bare. No sooner do I put away one load, than another load miraculously appears. Higher than the one I kept away, the clothes balancing precariously in a random pile where a bed sheet can be kept on a pile of socks and handkerchiefs!!

I wonder how to solve this problem. Should I find another place to keep the laundry or should I wear disposable clothes?

Do you have a problem like this and how do you tackle it?

Let me know in the comments below.

Ciao
Stumped! #ThursdayTreeLove

July 11, 2019

Last week my brother sent me this photo of a tree stump that left me with mixed feelings.

This was part of a mango tree that had stood on the property long before any of us had set foot on it.

Once part of an orchard, this land was converted to a housing colony and the mango tree was one of the many lucky ones that weren’t felled down.

For years it dominated the back garden so that its shade prevented any flowering plants from blossoming. While our neighbours had lovely flowering shrubs, scented roses and the like, we had to do with some variegated foliage and any other plant life that didn’t need much sunshine.

However, every other summer it redeemed its position in the garden when the family guzzled down gallons of the sweetest ‘aamras ‘ that was a deep orange and silky smooth. This one tree would yield around 700 fruit of an indigenous variety of mango that was truly divine.

But a few years ago it actually began to rot and was perilously close to falling. Which is why this year, it was cut down.

Luckily this tree has been replaced a few years ago by a true blue Alphonso planted by my father. But as my brother told me, it will be a while before we can sing “Underneath the mango tree”.

Linking up with Parul’s #ThursdayTreeLove-67

Ciao