June Photo A Day - Day 2, A Moment

A Moment: A moment when my toddler wanted me to sit on that decorated chair meant for newly wed couple in my sister's wedding.

June Photo A Day - Day 1, B is For..

This month I want to challenge myself for this photo a day challenge:

B is for...Birthday. 1st of June is my daughter's birthday. This year she joined the bandwagon of terrible - terrific two club.

Don't miss the amazed look on her face!!

P.S.: On this day, my Face book status says:

I won't sound clichéd by saying 'Time flies'...with YOU in our life, time moved on to unfold a new phase at every turn. We witnessed the drastic changes in our life with YOU as center of attraction. A carefree DINK couple evolved as sensible parents in these last two years under your supervision. 

Happy Birthday Ishaani (Mishti) ...Stay blessed, Stay healthy, Stay Happy, Stay Safe....Love U Ms.Naughty Chatterbox

N = Name Saga

After zipping through the A to Z challenge almost over the half-mark, when N came across, I have to write about my name which incidentally starts with N.

No, in case if you have guessed something, it is not about how I got this name. My dad gave me this name as he liked it…no fancy story attached to it. However, as a kid I never liked my name. I still remember when I was in Class 6^th; I gave my dad the option of changing my name to Neha or Nisha which was obviously turned down instantly!

I hated the fact that no one was able to pronounce my name correctly. Carrying a Bong name in northern belt of India is quite difficult.  I had heard so many versions of my name that it has ceased to amuse me now.  The most common assumption was that it would spell with a ‘V’ instead of ‘B’. Do you remember how Vidya Balan has to interrupt every time in the movie Kahaani when Bongs called her Bidya instead of Vidya…in my case it was vice-versa. Few inquisitive ones doubted my spelling capability and insisted that it has to be ‘Nivedita’ instead of ‘Nibedita’. I had to explain them that Bengali language has no sound like ‘V’ sound…it is either B or Bh.

In school, I heard so many variations of my name in terms of spelling & pronunciation from teachers & fellow students; it ranged from Nivedita, Nebidita, Nibidita, Nibodita, Nebudita and so on!! The college pals were smarter and they shortened it to ‘Nibz’. I felt so relaxed, it was definitely better than to hear twisted sound of your own name!

I can recall one incident, when I was in Class 12^th and appearing for board exams. For viva-voce, we had to face external examiners. I was so terrified in my Physics practical exam. The examiner asked my name. When I told him, he asked its meaning might be to break the ice….I told him that it means ‘dedicated’…He asked immediately, ‘To whom’? I had no answer ready for it so I just said ‘to God’….and he gave me broad smile. The Viva went very well after that.

My office colleagues started with Nibedita but I was rechristened as ‘Nibbo’ or ‘Nibey’ soon. My bosses preferred to call me with last name only. However, while handling overseas client calls it was a mammoth task to tell my name to them and ninety percent of time I had to spell it with phonetic sounds. So, it would sound somewhat like:

I login into a conference call which is spread across various geographic locations of world.

Hi, this is Nibedita Bose from India, site ABC, Operations.

I am sorry, who is there from India??

This is Nibedita….N as in Nancy, I as in India, B as in Bravo, E as in Echo, D as in Delta, I as in India, T as is Tango and A as in Alpha…..and yeah the last name is B as in Bravo, O as in Oscar, S as in Sierra and E as in Echo……..Hmpffff!!! (I always ensured after this to check whether the person on other side was still alive or not!!!)

Another fact with my name is that, I had retained my maiden surname. But, there were many instances when people assumed my last name to be my hubby’s surname. When we applied for my daughter’s birth certificate it came with my name as ‘Nibedita Ghosh’ instead of ‘Bose’, when asked they said that they thought we have mistakenly filled up the form with different surname, so corrected it!!

Many of my office colleagues congratulated me through SmS, after my daughter’s birth. Few of the messages were like: Congrats, Mr. & Mrs. Bose! I didn’t know how to pass on those congratulations to nonexistent Mr. Bose though!

Till now, I have faced so many goof ups about my last name that now a day, I keep my marriage certificate handy for any kind of paperwork involved in Banks or any other offices.

When it was time to christen my daughter, we raked internet to search for a contemporary but easy to pronounce name….the only criteria my in- laws requested that if it can have somewhat related to God. After an extensive search and rejecting almost hundreds of names, we pinned it down to ‘Ishaani’, hoping that it is not easily twisted as my name was.

So, what is your Name’s story?
P.S: After my Teen years, I started liking my name and I love it absolutely now :)

A = Abstract

All the other bloggers who have taken up this challenge officially have already reached till ‘E’, and here I have now finally decided to give this blogging challenge a shot, but not officially. Let‘s see, how fairly I am able to be consistent on this task. I hope I am able to catch them up soon.
However, I am not signing up for this challenge officially . I feel I would not be able to craft my posts as per international visitors. Keeping it as a personal challenge now.

So, I have mentioned A as in Abstract ….abstract thoughts, abstract rants, abstract ramblings. Here, I go.

I took a break of almost 20 days from my blog due to lot many reasons. The primary one being that cold, fever & cough had taken refuge in our household for almost 15 days. Mishti was down with severe cold, cough, throat infection along with bouts of fever & vomiting. For continuous two nights she was whimpering and shrieking. We took her to her regular ped who prescribed some anti-allergic & antibiotic medicines. But , pouring three medicines one after another into her system was a herculean task…..SG had to held her tight, And squeezed the medicines through a syringe in her mouth which she spat out while bawling  with her eardrum-piercing shrieks. So, we decided to switch over to homeopathy this time. Although, I have slightly less trust on it than the allopath way, but that time I just wanted any-pathos medicine going down her system which would recover that wailing kid. Homeopathy worked well…and she was up and running within few days.

We decided not to play Holi this year as it would mean wet clothes, water splashing and rubbing off colors with more water which might recall Mishti’s illness again. It was completely okay for me as I hate playing Holi, however SG was visibly upset. So, I gave him a long lecture on parenting sacrifices which tickled his wounds instead of soothing it!!

We also went for a short trip to Allahabad after Holi. Mishti was unexpectedly very social & enjoyed her stint with her both sets of grandparents. Her vocabulary has increased a lot and she had now started joining two words which we noticed in Allahabad. However, she did showed her true colors in the train journey. She pulled curtains of other people’s compartments, spit from the upper berth, pushed us away from the seats, ran through the coach like Usain Bolt, shouted on the top of her voice and even tried rolling on the floor!

But now, I am back to my regular routine…..bit depressed as my job hunt still remains unyielding. I think this post can be wrapped up now as I would keep other topics as fodder for my other posts.

Just now, realized this abstract term is so helpful when you have nothing concrete to blog and can still tap on the keyboard in an abstract way!

                                                                                        

Learning the other language...!!

Almost three languages are spoken simultaneously in our household – English, Bengali & Hindi. But now a day we are trying hard to understand a fourth language which is Mishti’s language. Our little lady is on a mission to increase her vocabulary by manifold by every passing day. She would mimic whatever she hears. But most of the time she comes up with some new word which would refer to that original word. Thus a completely new lingo evolves which we try to comprehend by ‘hit & trial’ method.

As I spend more time with her than hubby, I am able to make out almost 80% of her gibberish. No, I won’t term it as gibberish as she tries her best to talk sense just that the words are in some alien form!!

Few of the typical words Mishti uses and have no link to the original word are:

Gaga – Nope, she is not talking about that shockingly dressed singer but she uses it for drinking water!

Gog – Any other water other than drinking water. I think she started saying ‘Jol’ (bong word for water) as gog and then evolved this gaga.

Boonu – This means button.

Kichin – We first thought it as ‘kitchen’…but later realized that she is referring to ‘chicken’!

Patta – Now this one is easy to guess – Pasta

Fitti – She calls herself Fitti (Mishti)

Pain – Here airplane is referred.

Boonoon - Balloon

Kaapi - ???? I don’t know what it is but she says it a lot and gets irritated when we do not understand.

There are lot many other words like ‘mino’, ‘panzi’ , ‘tabita’ , ‘tima’ which we are not able to decipher till now.

Apart from this she loves to read her books with us and her favorite are the animal & the vegetable book. So within her limits she tries to pronounce them and which results is calling Elephant  as phant, peacock- peepock, crocodile as koki, squirrel as skoowee, horse as show ( and she says taga-taga just after that), monkey as pumkey, capsicum as gumgum, cauliflower as flarr-flarr, cabbage as papage and so on.

She loves her mongi book ( mowgli- jungle book) a lot and pretends to read it loudly for constant 4.86 minutes at a stretch. I got her few panchatantra story books which has bright pictures with one story in a book. Mishti loves these books and make us to read those stories almost 80 times a day.

Another phrase she has picked up from me is : ‘Ehhh ehhh chhi chhi dirty’. So each time we come across any heap of sand, mud, or soil she would loudly parrot this phrase.

She has found this new silly game where we open Google images and she would say any word, I would type it and she would give amused look as soon as various images pops up. So, it goes like this:

Mishti: Dondey dondey (donkey)

I type it. Different pics of donkey flood the screen. Mishti claps vibrantly and says yayyy dondey dondey.

It continues with different words like ‘soap’, ‘shoes’, ‘clock’, ‘lion’, ‘bag’, ‘phone’ or any other words which she is aware of. But this game takes a hilarious turn when SG sits with her. He understands half of what she says and then types those words on pure guess. Result is: Mishti gets more irritated while not able to make her daddy understand what she want -  Daddy keeps on asking ‘Okay tell me what do you want’ – Mishti shrieking more in frustration!!

Shave or Crave!!

It was my birthday few days ago.  This year it was special as my 18 month old actively participated in all the celebrations… be it wishing me at 12 midnight, savoring birthday cake, enjoying Pizza lunch or accompanying us for an elaborate dinner arranged by my hubby.

To make my day special, my hubby tried his best to give me small surprises throughout the day. However, one thing which I really wanted was that he should get rid of his stubble. It might look great for one evening but that’s it….not beyond that! But, being a non-nagging spouse who believes in giving space (!!) in relationship, I was never able to voice my thought to him. I tried passing subtle hints but alas!!..... He turned out to be a geek in understanding those clues.

 My first try went in vain when I commented that SRK looks like sick old man in his latest flick with that facial hair. Nevertheless, hubby didn't bit this bait as well and never even bothered to think why I am suddenly disparaging my teenage crush.

Then, when he took me out for birthday shopping, I suggested him buying an expensive shaving kit as return gift. But he refused any return gift by showcasing his persona’s humble attribute!

After cutting the cake in afternoon with friends my face was smeared with cream & icing of the cake by them. I purposely applied cake on his face as well so that it might trigger him to shave off that facial mane. But, he came out of the wash room glowing with all the cream facial and I even noticed few white hairs gleaming on his cheek along with the black ones. I took this as an opportunity and casually commented that it exhibits his ‘other side of 30’ age to the world. But he ducked this bouncer and claimed that finally he can portray his much desired ‘salt-n-pepper’ look!

Then it was the grand-dinner time. I wanted to look best for the evening so got ready accordingly. My li’l princess was dolled up in a beautiful princess dress. Hubby also took his time to wear his classy attire. Everything was perfect except that stubble. He thought it gave an intellectual look his guise!

Now, before we stepped out, hubby felt that this moment should be captured in a camera. Being a proud father, he took our daughter in his arms and asked me to click a nice snap. He tried to give a cuddly pose by chafing his cheek on her face…..and Fatttaakk!! The li’l lady pushed her dad’s face away with all her might and shouted ‘Oooohooo, Daddy Oohhhoooo’ and ran away. In her dictionary, this elongated ‘Oooohhhooo’ means pain. Now, it was a funny scenario. She kept running away from her daddy and shouting this melodramatic expression every time he insisted picking her up. Finally, he gave up. He glared at the watch and rushed towards the washroom. Within few minutes the man of our house emerged out with a clean shaven look. Our daughter looked at him intently and then jumped in his lap. He also understood that either he has to 'Shave' or 'Crave' for his daughter's proximity. Daddy happy, Dotty happy ……and me also super happy!! 

This post is a part of the 'Shave or Crave' movement in association with BlogAdda.com

The 'Just Married, Please Excuse' Contest

Since yesterday when I bumped into this contest by Yashodhara whose debut book has been launched recently, my blogging fingers itched to jot down few of the weird moments of our married life. Also, how can I not mention the highlighted words which caught my attention like “Mamagato”, “Gurgaon”, “free copies of book” and gave me a bleak hope that being a blogger from Gurgaon might act as an added advantage in my favour. (errr kidding….huh! :-))

As I go through Yashodhara’s blog and keep reading her previous posts, I regret why I have not been at her space earlier….Anyway, better late than never!

So here I try to recap few incidents related to our marriage and just after that.

Our marriage ceremony was packed with ‘comedy of errors & misunderstandings’. All Baraatis dispersed & went back home leaving few young cousins and an aunt of SG behind even before the completion of marriage rituals due to some stupid misunderstandings. The groom side priest took advantage of the situation and left hastily after them citing some weird excuses without completing all the important rituals….like Saptapadi or Saat pheras was skipped completely!!

In the midst of all these confusions, while my side priest was conducting the ritual of ‘Sampradan /Kanyadaan’, another funny incident happened which we noticed only when the video recordings were seen later.  SG’s knowledge of Bengali language is quite limited…while he can speak it mixed with a perfect north Indian accent, he, kind of struggles and gets confused if somebody speaks in fluent Bengali. So we saw in the video that SG was trying hard to follow instructions from our priest about when to repeat the ‘shlokas/mantras’, when to fold hands and so on. When the priest asked my dad to repeat after him the mantras of Kanyadaan, he also instructed SG to keep his hand on mine. GOD only knows  what SG understood & the next thing we saw him repeating the mantras of ‘Kanyadaan’ after the priest. So, in case we take all these rituals seriously( I generally don’t..!) it indicates that my dad performed my ‘Kanyadaan’  to SG and the ‘SG’ did my ‘Kanyadaan’ to GOD knows whom!!

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This second incident falls completely in the category of ‘Just married’ if in case the first one fails to make the entry because of the fact that we were still not ‘completely’ married then.

At the time of my ‘Grihapravesh’ in SG’s house, we had a seriously stupid ritual where I (bride) had to hold a ‘live’ fish kept in a bowl of water with my hand for couple of minutes!!! 

Here I should mention that I am a scaredy cat....I am very scared of any living being (except human) on this earth. Forget about dogs or cats, I cannot even run fingers through furry coat of a cute rabbit or birds or even pat an innocent cow. A mouse or mole in vicinity can bring out the most ‘versatile’ dance out of me!!! 

Anyway, I digress. Now, when I had to hold that slimy moving fish I was petrified. Being a new bride, I was even not able to refuse to participate in it outright. I tried to put my best brave face forward, but, the very moment my fingers touched that fish which wriggled away splashing water, all my acting skills botched. I shrieked, jumped, shouted and people even witnessed that ‘versatile’ dance by me duly applauded by my perfect hubby in the background!!

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The third incident happened just few days after my marriage when relatives had dwindled back to their home and we were just enjoying our marriage vacation at my in-laws place.

One evening I wanted to eat Momos, but in that city we don't get roadside stalls to buy  momos easily like we get in Delhi NCR. I thought of bugging SG about it and also test his ‘hubby skills’ to fulfill wife’s abrupt demands.

As SG was in FIL’s shop that time so that my FIL can take some rest I tried calling him on his cell phone. When I realized that he has forgotten his mobile phone in his room, I called on the landline number.

(The conversation happened in Hindi)

Me: Hello, Ghosh!! (Yes, I used to call him with his last name)

Other side:  Haan..Kaun? (Yes.. who is this?)              

Me: Sun na….Yahan Momos milta hai kya?? (Listen…Do we get Momos here?)

Other side: Kya…kya chahiye ?? ( What…What do you want?)          

Me: Arre…Momos !!! yahan pe momos kahan milega!! ( Momos!!!....Where can we get Momos here!)

Other side: Jee…ye to hamari dukan me nahin milega…aap kahin aur pata kar lijiye. (This is not available in our shop…you enquire somewhere else.)

Me: ????

Then suddenly I realized that it was my FIL’s voice which I mistaken for SG. And how can I forget that SG is not the only ‘Ghosh’ here but I am surrounded by the whole ‘Ghosh’ clan.  I hurriedly hung up and cursed my stupidity for this ’face-palm’ moment!! When SG came to know about it…..like a perfect hubby, he shared it with everyone in the family embarrassing me to the core.

While writing this post, I felt that walking down this specific memory lane is quite fun. Thanks to this contest for letting me revive this enjoyment.

What's goin on??

Do you remember the song of ‘Salaam-Namaste’ which says “Poune barah baje, dono ghar se chale….What’s goin on”. So last Thursday, Mishti’s parents recreated the same song but obviously the mood was completely different (coz life is not a Hindi movie….!!). Let me start from the beginning.

1^st Dec was one of those happening days. When I say happening don’t run your imaginations wild, for a SAHM, baby puking thrice for the first time is quite disturbing and happening. Also, I am bit jinxed about a stupid issue. My date of birth is 19^th. If you add 1+9 = 10;1+0=1, so as per numerology my number is 1. I feel that all those days which eventually are number 1 are generally happening for me. I mean to say dates like 1,10,19 & 28 are those days of month when something happens which is other than normal routine!!(Do not laugh, at least not on my face). I mentioned before that it is a stupid issue, there are many important events of my life which does not happened on these days, e.g. my marriage (is it not happening enough???), my first job(???), so consider it as a funny superstition!!.

Anyways, coming back to the context, Mishti puked thrice on that day so I worriedly called SG (hubby) in office. He came home early and took us to the doctor. It was nothing serious as the Doc said so we came back in the evening. When I was preparing formula milk for her in night, I suddenly realized that Lactogen is about to finish….!!!. What about her midnight feeds? So now the inevitable blame game started.

My story: I have told SG last three days to get this Lactogen. First day he ignored, second day he had an office event so came back late in the night and third day we were more concerned about the puking issue so forgot!! He blamed me that if he didn’t get it on first day why I never pointed out? Honestly, it slipped out of my mind as well.

SG’s story: I know she told me three days about it but if she can remember all the days and issues of our fights which happened long back then why can’t she remember to remind me about this? Last day she should have mentioned it strongly that it’s gonna finish!!!

So I have decided that from next time I would dance a bit and then remind SG if something has to be bought on priority…he might get the importance of issue then. (Any ways, did someone notice how  my side of story looks more convincing , isn’t it??. So what, this is my blog…this much leverage I can take…right!!!). We explored the option of giving her normal milk in a dilute form but then this would be the first time for her to have something other than her formula milk. We were apprehensive and ruled out the idea. (and also if it does not suit her system then again this blame game would start..Let’s play safe!!)

So at 11:45 PM after a bad arguement we went out to get the Lactogen. It was like Obama & Osama sitting in the same car and looking out for something!!! Finally, got that thing in a nearby (about 6 km) hospital’s pharmacy. Now you understand why I said "Poune barah baje, dono ghar se chale…What’s going on!!!”

It couldn’t have been better.......!!!!

As I start my first independent blog, what could have been a better topic than the birth story of my li'l doll. Obviously, birth of the baby would be the climax of the story.

To begin with, when we were confirmed that I am expecting, I started making better use of internet other than social networking & online games. In few days I was bursting with information about pregnancy and various scenarios attached to it. As we had decided not to divulge the news to anyone else till the 2nd trimester therefore my hubby -SG and my sis were the only person to whom I was able to show-off my knowledge!!.

1st Trimester: It started with a worrying face of doctor who clearly said it is a 50-50 situation. With a tendency of High BP (140/90) and a history of Thyroid problem, "extra-careful" was the keyword. My doctor took no chance and scanned me every fortnight. With no morning sickness or queasiness and increased gluttonous appetite, I utilized this opportunity to pamper myself with all those banned foods which I generally had to avoid being overweight. So most of the doc's visits were followed by heavy lunch at some food joints. At home, my sis heartily fulfilled my demands of Paranthas and Aloo -Bhaja (yummy bengali version of french-fries) and other similar not-so-healthy stuffs.

2nd Trimester: This was the most stable period of my pregnancy which started with the excitement and joy of our family members and friends when they were told about the news. It followed with a long list of do's-n-don'ts. Also, My doc found out about my eating rendezvous and caught me red-handed with a BP of 140/110 thus restricted my non-veg, oily and other tempting foods completely..:-(. I continued to gather information from all possible sources about pregnancy and a new born. But soon, all the excitement settled down and boredom started creeping in.

3rd trimester: By my 7th month, I really thought of writing application to Mother- Nature for trimming the human gestational period to 6 months or less (could have saved so much time...!!!). My "Saadh” ceremony (Bengali ritual similar to baby-shower) also happened this month. Ohh yes..not to mention that my BP dropped to 130/90 and my doc was now convinced that stopping all supplies of yummy food is the only way to keep my health chart normal.....:-(  
I continued my work and as I had no complications so never took any extra sick leaves. But the most irritating question I faced from my 8th month was "When are you going on your Maternity leaves?". This line changed with my 9th month as " When are you gonna stop coming to office?” Every time, I felt like telling them to mind their own business. If I am feeling fine and if my doc has no problem then why should anyone forcibly make me feel that I am a nerd who does not care about her pregnancy!!!

Anyways, till 27th May I went to office and went for routine check-up on 28th. Doc told me that my baby is almost 3.1 kgs and if we wait more then might be there is a chance of C-section. All other aspects like AF count, baby head-down position etc was completely in-sync. She asked us to decide on a date next week when I can be induced pain artificially. 1st June was zeroed as the D-Day. Honestly, I was not afraid but kind of relieved as would be getting rid of the huge tummy soon!!!

1st June, 2011: Day started with dose of medicine which was supposed to start contractions (pain) within couple of hours. But as nothing happened, I prepared the breakfast and then we headed towards the hospital. Like any of our regular drives this time also we had confusion about the way to hospital (we always met our doc in her clinic earlier) and me & SG had arguments about it. Finally at 12PM we reached hospital and my pain started around 12:30 PM. By 15:19 Hrs my baby was born. I was told it is a baby girl in the OT and then sedated. When I regained my senses, my mom gave my girl to my lap ...at first I really found the li'l one quite weird!!! SG told me that he had already decided her nickname as “Mishti”. Nice name...I thought and readily agreed to this as it is gonna heighten the chance that name of my choice would be finalized as her official name…J!!!!