Twenty- five Seven

Dry skies dry up hopes in a Mumbai sky #SkywatchFriday

June 17, 2016
Saturday’s overcast sky and light rain showers had Mumbaikars Tweeting and Instagraming as the first few drops of rain finally made their appearance.

Saturday’s sky promised relief from the oppressive heat

Even the ugliest bridge in Mumbai looked ‘pretty’ in the rain

So out came the umbrellas and rain gear with Wow Dinga wearing a new pair of gum boots . Alas! This turned out to be what is crudely translated from the local idiom as ‘ a cat’s piss of a shower’ as the clouds went away and the skies turned blue once more.
The sun bade us goodbye as the clouds covered it up.

With the sun shining brightly again, perhaps I’ll bring back my parasol and go for a swim to cool off.

Happy weekend Rain Gods! I hope you listen to our prayers.

Linking this post to #SkywatchFriday
Are you celebrating Father’s Day ?

June 15, 2016

Why do we in India celebrate Father’s Day a US National holiday?

Advertisement in shop window reminding us to buy something appropriate for Father’s Day

While shopping for gifts yesterday, I came across this huge sign in a shop window advertising Father’s Day. Over the years, this public US holiday has become part of our holiday list as well. Luckily it is a Sunday so we don’t have the loss of another working day, but what it ensures is an increase in sales of men’s shirts, perfumes, ties and other accessories. It also means more dinner/lunch reservations for families celebrating Father’s Day.

As Ripley would say, believe it or not, the Third Sunday in June has been declared a National ( read US) holiday by none other than President Nixon in 1972, 6 years after President Johnson mandated it to be celebrated as such. Several countries since then have followed suit, India included.

Undoubtedly, the US achieved el supremo status after saving the Western World from two terrible wars that radically revolutionised the social order. They also changed the way the world did business. It was no wonder then that it’s superiority extended to the cultural domain, and Father’s Day , like chewing gum, apple pie, Coca Cola, garbage bins and yellow school buses have gained Universal acceptance and become part of our traditions too.

Unfortunately, I’m not celebrating Father’s Day with my own father, but am celebrating it with a lazy brunch at the Club with the father of my girls.

How are you celebrating Father’s Day?

[ctt title=”Happy Father’s Day to all the Daddies of the World! May you have a lovely Sunday.” tweet=”Happy Father’s Day to all the Daddies of the World! May you have a lovely Sunday.” coverup=”T91EN”]
Why my jobs are never done #MondayMusings

June 13, 2016

The never ending list of “jobs to be done”

Yet another Monday and yet another week. After a reasonably relaxed Sunday ( if you count washing bathrooms and cleaning cupboards relaxing!) I woke up refreshed to seize the day and seize my “to do list” that seems to be growing longer by the day. There were so many jobs to be done, so many jobs to be completed and so many jobs to begin doing. I often feel that I will go through life and still have an endless lists of jobs that are still to be done. Does this mean that I am biting more than I can chew? Does this mean that I am highly inefficient or over ambitious? Or does this mean that I am incapable of doing half the things I want to do? Pondering over these questions and wondering which of the jobs to start off with, I came across this message in my Twitter feed. Voila! I had the answer thanks to Erica Jong who put it so succinctly.

The root cause

Falling back on Freud and his psychology, obviously everything can be traced back to one’s childhood and beyond. Growing up in a a non digital age when TVs and phones did not exist, in my home, we were encouraged to take up hobbies. During holidays which came twice a year, we were motivated to engage in worthwhile projects. Of course we were allowed to choose what we wanted to do and the first day of the holiday we got all the material together. Depending on my interest at that time, I did a photography project one year where I used my box camera to record our holiday, another year I made cross stitch embroidered table mats, one year I pressed flowers from neighbourhood gardens and made a detailed album with the botanical name of each specimen. But with each passing year as my interests became more and more complex and the projects more and more ambitious, there soon grew a pile of unfinished projects that my mother still has, kept away somewhere in a bundle, in the hope that at least my children will finish them.

Similarly, after I got married I continued with my stitching and knitting and painting and photography and kept stuffing things in the cupboard – dresses that just needed to be hemmed, quilts that needed to be finished, stamp albums that need to be re-organised, books that need to be kept in some order, photos that needed to be sorted and kept in albums , and even now – a BLOG that still needs to be organised.

This feeling of inadequacy is enhanced when I see people showcasing their own projects and people oohing and aahing over their talents.

[ctt title=”When will I be able to show off my projects too? ” tweet=”When will I be able to show off my projects too? ” coverup=”_Ib45″]

But now, thanks to Erica Jong and her timely quote, I can tell my mom to clear out her attic and rid my own cupboards of the unfinished projects.

[ctt tweet=”After all, some projects are just never meant to be finished isn’t it? ” coverup=”5X3fw”]

These are my Monday morning thoughts that I’m linking up with #MondayMusings hosted by Corinne of Write Tribe