Tubbety Tub

This is a teeny weeny rhyme for my little grand daughter, Ira....

                                               Tubbety Tub

Splashety Splash

Bubblety Blub

That’s Iru In

Her Little Bath Tub

Froggety Frog

Duckety Duck

Join Iru In

Her Little Bath Tub

Soapety Soap

Goes Rubbety Rub

On Iru In

Her Little Bath Tub

Spongety Sponge

To Scrubety Scrub

Our Iru In

Her Little Bath Tub

Wrappety Wrap

In a robe that’s snug

Our Iru’s Out Of

Her Little Bath Tub

Warmety Warm

After a Milkety Mug

Iru Gives Daddy

A Goodnight Hug

Iru and the Happy Seed Song

Ira and the Happy Seed Song

(Written for my granddaughter, Ira, when she was not yet one year of age!)

                                                          

One day, Ira’s Mummy and Daddy took her to a garden. It had soft green grass and lovely flowers. 

The flowers were in many sizes, big and small. They were in all kinds of colors – red, yellow, white, orange, purple, and pink. The flowers waved at Ira as she walked past them, and she smiled back at them. You see, Ira loved flowers!

She liked one little flower more than all the others. It was pink and its petals were so very pretty. Iru asked Mummy if they could take it home. So Mummy took her to a shed in the garden where they sold seeds in little bags. Iru chose a bag with a picture of little pink flowers on it.  

When Iru came home, Mummy helped her put some soil in a little blue pot. Iru put a seed deep into the soil and then covered the seed with some more soil. She took her toy watering can and poured water in the pot. Not too much and not too little! Iru did it just right! 

Do you know why? It was because Mummy had taught Iru to sing The Happy Seed Song. This is what she sang:

In a little pot

Is a little seed

Put it and pat it

And just let it feed

On a little water

On a little sun

On a little air

Isn’t that fun!

Upward and upward

One little shoot

Downward and downward

One little root

Give it some water

Give it some sun

Give it some air

That’s such fun!

The seed will grow

Big and strong

Just like Iru

Who sings this song

So now you know how Iru took such good care of her little seed. You see, she knew exactly what to do because of the Happy Seed Song.

One morning, when Iru woke up, what did she see? One little seed had woken up too, and a tiny green shoot had pushed its way out of the soil. Iru smiled at the little shoot. “Good morning, little shoot,” she said.

Then, another day, Iru woke up to see the shoot had grown into a little plant. It had teeny weeny little leaves on it. Iru was so happy.

And then, another morning, Iru awoke to see that her little plant had grown a lovely pink flower. It was the nicest pink flower you could ever have seen. It had five little petals and a pretty green stalk with a tiny, curly leaf. The flower smiled at Iru, and Iru laughed out loud. She had a flower of her own. It was such a pretty flower too!

Mummy gave Iru some paper and pencils and colors.  Iru sat in front of the flower and drew it on her paper. How well she drew! Then she colored the petals in pink and the stalk and the leaves in green and the little pot in blue. What a nice picture it was! Daddy and Mummy loved Ira’s picture and they put it up where everyone could see it.

Now Ira has her little pink flower with her all the time!

What color do you like best in flowers? Just go with your Mummy or Daddy to the garden and bring home a seed. 

The Happy Seed Song will tell you what to do and you’ll have the prettiest flower in the world – just like Ira does.

   

It’s a beautiful world!

It’s a lovely Friday evening, and I’m on the cusp of a weekend. I amble down a walking track delighted at the thought of two whole days of leisure. I’m determined, though, to plan my time wisely, and my list of must-perform end-of-week tasks is already typed out and pinned to my desktop. This is how it looks:

My Weekend Tasks:

1.      Watch the latest movie – the one with a 1.5 star rating -  to bust the myth that movie goers are becoming increasingly intelligent and discriminating

2.      Contribute to the success of start-ups by shopping for life’s essentials (such as perfumes and totes) on the new retail portal

3.      Visit a salon for rudimentary assistance with the way I look

4.      Wipe the dust off the weighing scales, stand on them, and pray that they aren’t the kind that implode if challenged beyond their means

5.      Log the calories that have been burned to cinders in performing the four tasks

As I continue my unhurried stroll, a shamelessly enthusiastic jogger on a fast run approaches me, and I see it’s a friend I haven’t met in a while. My thousand watt smile is met with an uncertain searching look till a glimmer of recognition lights up her eyes and she stops in her tracks. “Oh, it’s you!” she says, “Sorry! Took a while to register who it was. You look different …. Mmmmm….. older than you were when I met you last month...Haha!, What's with the dark circles and the listless hair, girl? Well, do take care! I’m timing my run for the marathon next week, so we’ll chat up another day, ok? Bye!”

I stare after her in disconcertion as she speeds down the track. Sure, my mirror’s been acting up lately, but could her words have really reflected what she saw? Trudging back home, I do a reality check. I’ve neglected myself far too long, I realize, and it is time to review my plan of action and turn my weekend to-do list upside down. This is how the revised version looks:

My Weekend Tasks _V2:

1.      Visit a salon for radical assistance with the way I look

2.      Threaten the salon assistant with beastly consequences if she fails to restore my beauty

3.      Ignore the start-up and do comfort shopping for life’s essentials (such as age defying creams, concealers to hide dark circles, and instant noodles) at the neighborhood store

4.      Deal with crises one at a time; stow away the weighing scales, dust and all, till the countenance improves.

5.      Remember that Keynes said “In the long run, we’re all dead,” and forget all about logging calories

I’m lucky to get a Saturday afternoon appointment at an upmarket salon that, in the lingua franca of corporate outfits, “specializes in personalized, solution oriented beauty treatments for ramp-ready radiance and unequaled aesthetic outcomes.”

“I don’t quite know what that means, but I’m sure it’s just what I need,” I say to myself as I sink into a leather cushioned chair and subject myself to a thorough examination of the pedigree of my skin and hair. The beautician (“It’s aesthetician or cosmetologist, please! Beautician is so passé!” I’m informed softly) weighs in and proclaims that irregular and infrequent salon treatment, poor life style choices, and being on the wrong side of fifty have combined forces to wreak havoc on my looks and that only fate (in some part) and her expert help (in substantial measure) can set things right. She then proceeds to speak intelligently about deep conditioning treatment for damaged hair, infusing proteins through a mist, microdermabrasion, optimum skin rejuvenation, and oxygenating hydration. Even as I goggle at her uncomprehendingly, I realize she’s asking me a question. What efforts have I made so far to counter Mother Nature’s determined efforts to nudge me towards geriatric care? When was my last weak attempt at self-preservation using beauty treatments and makeovers? “Never, ever!” I answer. Now it’s her turn to reel in astonishment and goggle back at me, so I prevaricate and deftly modify my response. “How strange that I should have said that! I mostly use cucumber slices for the dark circles, avocado oil for the hair, and a mixture of honey, milk, and orange peels for the skin,” I answer brightly, “When I have time, I mean…..which is often.”

“Hmm,” she says with a distinct chill in her voice, “Let me see what I can do ….. under the circumstances.” She lays bare her action plan. The cleansing, steaming, deep-pore scrubbing, and moisturizing are guaranteed to transform my skin tone, and hot oil massages and keratin treatments assure me of the most lustrously gleaming mane in this part of the world. I meekly submit myself to zealous refurbishment in which my meagre aesthetic possessions are zealously polished, burnished, and brought to a shine. Many organic mud masks, facials, and deep conditioning treatments later, the woman who stares at me in the mirror looks perfectly coiffured and pleasantly artificial. Beauty is indeed in the I and the beholder! I am pleased with what I see and set off home feeling chic and svelte and ten years younger.

Riding the elevator to my apartment, I am joined by a friend and a neighbor who stiffens slightly as she sees me. “I met Dina yesterday, and she was worrying because you were looking pretty run down. I can see why! You do look listless …. Mmmmm….. older, somehow, than when I saw you last – which is a week ago! No time to take care of yourself? At the very least, visit a salon for some quick remediation. They’re good with skin and hair treatments. Want me to help you fix an appointment?”
I stumble out of the elevator, enter my apartment and totter towards the desktop. It's time to make another to-do list.

Exercising Caution!

9 pm, 21 October, 2015

The bitter half looks at the pathologist’s report and frowns at me. A rather difficult feat to be simultaneously looking at one thing and frowning at another, but he accomplishes it with an ease born of several years of practice. “It’s exactly as I thought! Your parameters are all wrong. Very wrong!” he pronounces in a grave baritone. “Only years of wilful neglect of good eating habits and a complete disregard for physical fitness could have led to this. As one sows, so shall one reap,” he aphorizes.
Attempting ballistic self-defense, I hurl myself into a persuasive monologue about metabolic and hormonal discrimination against 54 year olds and genetic predisposition which is only another word for cosmic karma that no woman worth her estrogen should even attempt to resist.  And what if the Path Lab’s got me mixed up with someone who loves eating out and hates all things non sedentary and is master procrastinator of diet resolutions and doesn’t ever listen to her doctor’s sage advice just because that doctor’s her husband? A fat lot of good such a report would do me, wouldn’t it?
I am met with a dangerous glint in the eye that tells me that an armistice is really my only recourse - for now. “Well, I know you think I’m a junk foodie’s patron saint, and I may (a few score times, not more!) have done one lazy saunter round the jogging track and said I’d run five, and I might have enrolled for Yoga classes (six times at last count) and found reasons not to go (ever!), but that is all in the past. My internal audit has opened my eyes, and I now view myself in new light. I have high tea, a brunch, a school reunion lunch, and a barbecue evening lined up this week, but I am completely determined to start practicing austerity six days hence.”
Nonverbal communication reaches its zenith of accomplishment as an unrelenting set of the jaw complements the glint in the eye. “Oh, alright! Alright! Have it your way! Starting today,” I proclaim, “I shall starve myself to death and simultaneously exercise hard enough to be reduced to a skeleton – an exhausted one at that! If the diet and the exercise kill me, I won’t have to worry about cholesterol and its likes anymore, will I? Happy?”
“Absolutely!” says the good doctor. “I’m glad you’re being so reasonable. Here’s an excellent diet and exercise regimen you can begin to follow starting this instant.” He flourishes a paper in front of my eyes, and I quail when I see a listing of sprouts, boiled veggies, greens, soups, and fruits that wouldn’t nourish an infant for an hour.  “No sugar, refined flour, or fats. I also recommend that you have an early start to your day, as early as 6 am perhaps, enjoy a brisk walk for 30 minutes and, for starters, choose between swimming and yoga for another 30 minutes. Don’t worry, you can work out even longer over weekends,” he says encouragingly.
A debilitating weakness of sorts begins to engulf me as I envision a dreary future blighted by a horribly healthy lifestyle. Would his brutal behavior hold in a court of law as evidence of domestic violence? Could I call a family council and garner support from like minded members of the female fraternity? Oh, there must be some escape! It tires me out to even think about the ordeal ahead and the tactics I must employ to survive it. It’s best to let sleep take over and to put off strategizing till the next morning. After all, things don’t seem quite so bleak when the sun’s nicely up, and Vitamin D is good for the grey cells, they say.

Another day…..
I come back from a long invigorating brisk walk that’s lasted more than an hour. I have outpaced most other walkers, and my face is suffused with the glow that comes from good health as I enter my home and hearth, a spring in my step. After a nourishing breakfast of carrot juice and half a bowl of sprouts, it’s time to read the morning papers in that special place on the terrace that gives me just the right amount of sun. My friend calls and asks if we can have a Thai luncheon at an art café, but I decline politely, masking my wonderment about people who know how to count but never measure their calories.
This weekend, I absolutely must shop for new outfits. It really is a bother looking slim and svelte the way I do; it means having to buy an entirely new wardrobe with small sized clothes that only mannequins can slink into.
My better half brings home my blood report from the vampire lab. Every single parameter looks so good he can’t help smiling with joyful pride. The prodigal has returned. I smile back at him, but not for too long. My treadmill yearns to be treaded on and my happiness lies in the calorie deficit I hope to see at the end of a beautifully grueling session. I haven’t the time to celebrate mundane successes when larger victories like an hourglass figure and the healthiest internal systems in the world await me.
6 am, 22 October, 2015
The alarm on my phone trills melodiously, and I wake up, the remnants of a smile the evidence of a beautiful dream.  My smile freezes and then wilts into nothingness when I hark back on the conversation with the good doctor the evening before.  Truth stares me in the face. A stark day replete with hard labor and a starvation diet beckons. I succumb to the inevitable. What must be done must be done. So……I turn off the alarm, dunk my head under the pillow and promptly go back to sleep.

The Dawn

I am a rationalist and I rely on logical thought

The continuity of family names, genealogy, and proud ancestry

Are, I believe, over rated notions

Testimony to men’s overwhelming desire to remain immortal

And live on narcissistically through their descendants

People are born - and then they die

If they’re lucky (and, sometimes, if others are not)

They leave telltale signs of their earthly presence

Offspring that bequeath more of their own kind to this world

Before they depart, and so it goes on, this endless narrative

That they romanticize, eulogize, and philosophize

As an ode to the eternal cycle of life and the part they play in it

I scoff at such mush (though I don’t say so aloud)

Because I am a rationalist and I rely on logical thought.

And then you come along, my grandchild, and shatter my carefully created constructs

I realize (to my horror and my elation)

That a tiny part of me will live through you

And that a tiny part of you will be a reflection of who I am

I search for my mother in the crinkle of your eyes

I find my son in the manner of your smile

There’s a drop of blood that has coursed generations

To reach you and tell you that they lived too

And that you belong to them as much as they belong to you

Like a gentle flame that is passed on from lamp to lamp

You were passed down hundreds of years to light up my life

Is there meaning, perhaps, in a family name, genetic lineage, and proud heritage?

Am I really a rationalist? Do I really rely on logical thought?

I could have felt this way when my son was born

But I didn’t; so why not then and why so now?

As I walk over the top of the hill

Do I seek reassurance from the sunrise at the horizon

Each of its golden rays the genesis of fresh hope 

Infused with the promise of a new day and of eternity

Telling me that it will continue to light up my world

Long after I have let go of it and that nothing will change?

Is that why this sunrise is more precious than the ones before it have been?

And why I linger over it and celebrate each of its changing hues?

Perhaps. Probably. Quite possibly, in fact

It’s a relief to have answers even if they are conjectural

After all, I am a rationalist and I rely on logical thought.