sleep well (sleep fast!)

For mommies and daddies around the world, music tends to play a very important role in the nightly duties. Grandma's songs, rhymes, folk songs, just random strings of words. Anything and everything will be tried to make the little monsters (angels?) sleep!

In our house, we have used a combination of singing (mostly by the out-of-tune mommy) and playing something from iTunes and/or You Tube (mostly by the tech-savvy daddy). In my mental perfect-mommy-world, the plan was to get the little one so attuned to sleeping on a particular song that the minute he heard those familiar strings, his eyes would grow heavy and before he (we) knew it, he would just be fast asleep.

Alas, babies never figure out the grand plans and conspiracies that grown-ups want to shower them with.

Over the past 22 months, he has managed to convert the following unlikely contenders into successful lullabies - the classic Bollywood refrain of Lakdi ki Kathi, the peppy beats of Sunny Sunny by Yo Yo Honey Singh (eeks!), Phillip Phillips crooning Gone Gone Gone, the classics like if you're happy and you know it or the A-B-C song, the recent dance party anthem - Kar Gayi Chull, John Denver's Leaving on a Jetplane, random nursery rhymes like Five Little Ducks or Hickory Dickory Dock, and even the funky rock of Cake's Short Skirt Long Jacket, among many other (equally confounding) choices. We've also managed a few times with a simple google search for "music to make a baby sleep" - which in fact yields some interesting instrumental videos on You Tube. (I use the word "interesting" rather liberally.. the first time we put on such a video, daddy and mommy were nearly asleep with baby wide awake!)

But they're all so different! Which one will work on any particular night, you might ask. Well, my theory is that an effective lullaby basically needs familiarity and repetition. The music can be of any genre, the beats or words just need to be on a loop; and eventually it just becomes background noise that pushes the little one into la-la land (hopefully before the parents get there themselves!).

What works (or has worked) with your little one?

the Beauty in Melancholy

Picture yourself in the backseat of a car, looking out the window to see miles upon endless miles of lush green rolling by. It's been a good year with the rains. Healthy, tall, swaying crops are waiting to be harvested. And then, out of nowhere there's a barren tree on the horizon. Standing by itself, lonesome; abandoned by its own leaves.

And it just takes your breath away.

The silhouette of black looks stunning against the clear blue sky, and with a carpet of green kissing its feet.

One immediately wonders what stories and lifetimes this Ent descendant has been witness to. Did it once make a favourite rendezvous spot for young teens to share their first kiss? Or did it give much needed shade to the tired farmer after hours of sowing under the harsh sun? Did it stand tall and green in the lean years when the drought hit the crops? Did a mother sit underneath to feed her babe while she waited for the father to fetch some water from the well nearby?  Does it still hold the secrets of a thousand conversations, secrets shared with the pink sunset skies for company? Maybe all this, and more.

The rich history it has been a part of is in stark contrast to its sterile present. And that perhaps explains the beauty of a lonely soul which appears to shine despite the brightness all around it. The stories told (and promises of stories untold) are what make the gloomy interesting.

what does it take to Write?

What does it take to be a great writer?

Does it need inspirational events around you? No I doubt it. The greatest writers are the ones that can spin the mundane into the extraordinary. They tell tales of fantasy while all that is around is banal.

Does it need dedication? No I doubt it. You may write an hour a day everyday and yet end up with naught. Writing by itself isn’t the art. Expression is. A clever sentence so often catches your eye in the midst of a book. Like a lotus sprung amongst the dirty pond of letters all around it. 

Does it need one to be extremely well read? No I doubt it. A great scholar need not necessarily have the best command over the language. An articulate speaker, a witty companion, a master of jousting with words, may know only a fraction of what there is to know about the things worth knowing. 

Does it need time? No I doubt it. Unless you believe in the adage that a monkey given enough time and a typewriter will almost surely type out all of the Bard’s works. Mathematically probable, but so unlikely to that it’s practically not possible.

Does it need everything? Yes. I reckon that’s the answer. Great writing needs you to be inspired. To be dedicated to the desire to express your story. It needs knowledge - not on everything, but on some thing for sure. And of course it needs time. 

But most importantly, it takes your everything. 

New Year (same me)

Last year, my mum took up the (figurative) pen. She entered the world of blogging with her very own thought universe (check it out here), and an aim to write a post-a-day for a year. Considering I've known her all my life, it shouldn't come as a surprise that her posts are on many levels "familiar" to me. Some days, I know what her post of the day is going to be about (her favourite musician, on the day of his birthday); or on some days, I read the first few lines and know what the rest of it is going be (her life philosophies are deeply ingrained in me too); or I'm just in the mood for some mommy advice so I dig out her entry to read (and re-read).

While I've been writing bits and pieces over the years, to have the commitment to make writing a regular daily habit is still much beyond my grasp. Much much beyond. I like to write down snippets of my day on facebook posts ofcourse. They afford an easier channel and allow you a brevity that blogging doesn't. And the recent memory feature of "On this day.." actually makes me realise my timeline has been very active over the years. Sure, some of my older posts feel like they're written by another person. But then aren't we different people in different phases of our lives? 

But I digress, the point of this post is to reflect on blog writing as a concept. Is it simply a modern day online version of the Dear Diary of our younger days? I don't think so. Unless one is a exceptional story teller, normal day-to-day living does not make for interesting content. Much as reality show makers would like to disagree!

The beauty of the internet of course is that there are blogs written very frequently on what to write blogs about! The irony of it. Haha! 

The basic gist is that to have a blog worth reading, one must have good content (d-uh) and it must have a consistent theme. This is one thing that I'm yet to get my head around. Topical blogging like fashion / food / travel et al requires a commitment of time that I don't think I can give. My expertise at work (structuring financial products *yawn*) is hardly a topic worth exploring on a continuous basis. My everyday life interests change so much over the years - travel, family, partying, being mommy, cooking - I can not seem to pick one to create an entire online persona around. 

So eventually I come back to this.. one-off posts, whenever I have the time, inclination and an inkling of a half baked idea I'd like to expand upon. Ah-well...c'est la vie! 

Here's hoping for more frequent flashes in my blogging pan this year.. Happy 2016 to you!

Capturing stories in images

I love photography. The need to capture every important moment on film is an obsession I've inherited from my father. His love for the lens predates the digital revolution, of course. When we were youngsters, he had a special imported Pentax SLR camera (note the absence of the 'D' there, this was the regular 36 film roll non-digital camera). Our baby books and other albums are choc-a-block full of photos - carefully preserved, some black and white, some coloured and some even lovingly labelled by my mum. A treasure trove of memories. 

And then the burst of digital cameras and smart phones happened. There is now an ever increasing need for photographs in a common person's life. Facebook profiles, Whatsapp DPs, Instagram accounts, the ubiquitous #selfie.. all fuel the need to click-click-click. You come across all sorts of gems (and disasters) on any social media platform on a daily basis. 

One trend (a very popular one) though that disturbs me no end is getting photo shoots done. I initially heard of the concept 5-7 years ago; a colleague mentioned that the latest 'it' thing was for couples in Korea to get pre-wedding photo shoots done. We had a hearty laugh about it - how ridiculous! Wear your wedding finery before the wedding and get photographed?! I mean, really?! And then, before you could say cheese, the idea had permeated our very own desi weddings. Social media these days is awash with frame-worthy airbrushed pictures of betrothed couples. The more 'candid' the clicks, the more sought after the photographer. 

But wait a minute, what is so candid about such a photo shoot? You wear some pretty clothes specially picked for the day, and go to some picture friendly location - which in a majority of cases has no relevance or importance to you both as a couple. You take the typical look-into-each-others-eyes photo, or the hold-hands-and-walk-into-the-sunset photo. Look at that point away from the camera, zoom lenses, some filters, some photoshopping... and voila! Your very own set of (meaningless but very nice looking) moments worth framing. Really? 

Pregnancy photo-shoots are the other thing-to-do apparently. Not only do I find this equally ridiculous, I also wonder what motivates these mothers-to-be to parade what is probably their least attractive, ill-fitting-clothed, constantly-in-pain, hyper-hormonally-moody selves in a studio, for so many hours, at the whims of a photographer. I'm not saying don't click a photo of yourself while pregnant (trust me, I've got a hundred of those too), I just don't understand the need to manufacture a magazine worthy image which has no story behind it other than - "oh, we went to this guy's studio and spent half a day changing clothes." 

And of course the obvious next step is to do an equally brushed up photo-shoot for the baby. Now these baby sessions are very tempting to new parents. Who doesn't want the world to see how precious their creation is?! 

I confess that even I (partially) succumbed to this Pinteresty temptation.. saw one such photo of a baby boy sleeping on top of a football, and decided that we would do that with a basketball if we have a boy. (The husband is a basketballer in heart and soul). So 12 days after being blessed with a little munchkin, my father, mother, husband and I decided to do our baby's "first shoot". We still didn't look for a professional because I still find that ridiculous. But we put our own heads together, tried to set up the 'studio' at home, and got the props and baby all ready for his perfect shot. It was a very entertaining half an hour - a little soul wondering why these monkeys are jumping all around him! Clapping, screaming, laughing, trying our best to get his attention.. under the perfect light, the perfect angle. The fruit of our efforts was a collection of more than a 100 clicks of baby with ball. We picked a couple of them, and cropped and focused, and filtered - very pleased with our efforts. 

But you know what the best capture of the day was? After the entire charade was done, my husband picked up baby in his arms, and in the other hand held the basketball. He was having a quiet conversation and telling baby how much his dad loves the game, and how he'll teach him to play once he grows up. That moment, captured in a photo - baby looking lovingly into his dad's eyes, and dad holding his two loves so dearly. Perfect. No one looks at the background in that photo, no one cared to airbrush it. It's perfect as is. 

That is precisely the reason I'd never get a photo shoot done. A picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words. A studio photo is worth maybe four (oh-that-looks-beautiful); and that's just not enough in my books.