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.

I like.     

The text appeared in a message on my Facebook page: “Are you Kalyani from Lady Irwin School? Please, please say yes!” I stared at the computer screen uncomprehendingly. The message came from……..Rachna!!! One of the two "best friends" I had in school, who I had last met in 1983, and who, I thought, I would never ever meet again. There was a phone number too, and within seconds, we were squealing with happiness; our tears, words, and laughter all getting into each other’s way.

Marc Zuckerberg has no idea that a woman thousands of miles away and on the wrong side of fifty thanks him over and over again for something he did back in 2004. That light bulb moment in which five grad students at Harvard conceptualized Facebook, led to one of the most interesting innovations ever. It is fitting indeed that Menlo Park, where Facebook is headquartered, shares its name with the town in which Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb – another game changer.

However, this isn't an article about splendid inventions or super brilliant inventors. It’s much more mundane than that. It’s my little ode, my personal vote of thanks to the social networking site that brought back into my orbit those precious friends who had disappeared from my universe for nearly three decades.

When, in 1984, we left Delhi for Tripoli, Libya, little did I know that I would become “communicatively-challenged” during my stay there. Letters would take weeks to reach (if at all!) and telephones would be the last word in luxury. Back then, computers and the internet were in the neo-natal stage of existence. The direct consequence of this pariah status was that over seven years, I gradually, and then completely, lost touch with all my friends. It didn't help that most of them got married while I was away. Names, addresses, and telephone numbers changed irrevocably, and familiar identities were completely erased. When we returned to India and settled down in Pune, far away from Delhi, the isolation from my friends was complete. Frankly, it didn't matter terribly. My days were filled with looking after my own two kids and the hundreds on lease in school. Wonderful new friends were made (lots of them!), and I soon gave them a special place in my heart.

Then, unexpectedly and out of the blue, came the message on Facebook. I accepted the “Friends Request” and with that one click, I became a time traveler. Through a virtual world, I entered another that had been left behind a few decades ago. Friends’ lists were scanned for familiar first names, tentative leads got translated into euphoric discoveries, and very soon, eighty five of us in the batch of ’79 were connected on Facebook. Actually meeting up each other would take time. At least a third of the girls had reached foreign shores, and the rest were scattered all over the country. There was one space, though, which was our own and which would help us transcend intercontinental distances and varying time zones – our FB group page of LIS ‘79. We pored over each other’s photographs, clicking on them to increase their visibility; frantically searching the colored images of self-assured, cheerful looking middle aged women for traces of the friends we knew. Where were the gawky, awkward young girls with oily hair tied in two braids, worrying more about the acne on their faces than what their future held out for them? In the list, there were IAS officers, a representative at the UN, doctors, a VP in Infy, journalists, home makers, a scientist with CSIR, entrepreneurs, software professionals, professors, and teachers…... We rejoiced in the way all of us had metamorphosed over the years, but honestly, it didn't matter a whit. Who we were, what our husbands or children did, and whether we had tasted success, were all non-issues. All that mattered was that, miraculously, we had rediscovered a precious time and a priceless bond. At will and with a click, we could exit our homes and families, enter our school gates and our classrooms and be “girls” once again.

Today, we log in to Facebook and visit each other on our page at least once a week. Old memories are dusted out, advice is asked for and given, pictures are shared, humorous teacher anecdotes are revisited, witticisms exchanged, our children’s success celebrated, and the loss of a parent mourned. Tomorrow, there may be another “avatar” of Facebook or another technology that may make it redundant. For eighty five of us, though, it will continue to be the magic lamp whose incandescence helps us find the way to some of the most beautiful days of our lives. 

The caricature of a differently abled driver
 
I get into my car, put the key in the ignition, start it confidently, reverse it expertly out of its narrow parking space, and turn the precarious bend outside the gate with remarkable finesse. The car’s wheels grow wings, and I zoom off into the distance with husband and two kids in tow. The kids lounge on the back seat and play book cricket without once squabbling. The husband has a benign smile on his face, and he actually hums a tune (the way tone deaf people do) instead of muttering under his breath…..
I break out of my cognitive reverie. Alas and alack - that’s as far as I’ve ever dared to go even in the wildest of my dreams, and here I bare my soul and reveal my deepest sorrow – I can’t drive a car!
The symptoms have been the same every time I’ve attempted to get behind the wheel – a dangerous rise in the pulse rate, clammy hands, and the perception that my heart has transported itself to my pharynx from the region of the thorax. The in house physician has no remedy for this condition, much less any sympathy. I think I hear him say words such as “melodramatic” and “irrational” under his breath as I give him a succinct, hour long explanation of what ails me.
Voice aquiver, I tell him that it’s not as though I haven’t tried. For years I have sung “We Shall Overcome” every morning (with the bit that says: “Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we are not afraid today…..” louder than the rest).  King Bruce (the chap who shared cave space with a perseverant arachnid) is my favorite role model. I have prostrated myself in devout supplication before Intrepida, the ancient Roman Goddess of weak kneed charioteers. I have regarded the potbellied instructor in the driving school I went to as Her chosen oracle. I have even added an extra K to my name because the friendly neighborhood numerologist said it would turn the wheels of fortune in my favor. It hasn’t. I’ve reached the end of the road, and a No Trespassing sign continues to bar my entry to the elite legion of people who can drive.

Honestly, it’s not driving this mechanical monster that’s such an issue. It’s the other two, three, and four wheeled Goliaths on the road that scare the hell out of this David. I self- examine my childhood to trace the roots of this fear. Did I, as a two year old merrily riding around on my tricycle, fall and get a bump on my head that resulted in discarcuria? No such luck - I didn’t. I am sure the answer lies in past life regression. As a prehistoric, stone age woman clad in a svelte animal print sarong, was I regularly nagged by my husband, the insensitive cave man, to practice driving the family wheel? I was too! I close my eyes and relive the trauma of those days thousands of years ago when I first set out of my cave to roll my stone wheel. I hear once again the caveman’s angry nonverbal communication in the form of guttural sounds which would today translate as “Slow down! SLOW DOWN!!! Can’t you see where you’re going? What the…”

So it is that when I try driving a car on a busy road, I experience a cave woman’s primordial instinct of self-preservation when faced with the threat of rampaging animals of all sizes running amok. And I do what any self-respecting Neolithic woman worth her rock salt would have done – in a show of supreme attitude, flounce off and pledge never to have anything to do with riding wheels again -  except in a favorite day dream.
I get into my car, put the key in the ignition, start it confidently, reverse it……….

Ruminations

In October, I shall step into my fiftieth year and that’s as good a reason as any, to look back and reminisce about the path that has been trod and the experiences one has gathered along the way. (Writing this line makes me feel rather grand and old, which is strange because I don’t feel old at all – I am ‘childish’ as Uday puts it and ‘young at heart’ as I prefer to express it.)

I spent my childhood in Delhi. All through school and college, I think I missed the fact that it was a privilege growing up in a historically important, culturally vibrant and politically dynamic city. It is now that I realize what an enriching experience it was and what an exposure my sister and I got to events we would normally never have experienced.

Within two decades of being born, my destiny was tied for ever with a certain young doctor from AIIMS. Rather (in) appropriately, the fact that we would be marrying each other was decreed by both sets of parents on Raksha Bandhan day!

After Rahul was born, the three of us proceeded to Tripoli in Libya where we spent eight delightful years. While we were in Tripoli, Kunal came along as well. It can only be the enthusiasm of youth and the first flush of new motherhood that saw me through endless household chores, raising two boisterous boys (who amply proved the adage that one and one don’t make two – they make eleven) and a life devoid of ‘essentials’ like the telephone, television, newspaper, books. However, there was one thing we had plenty of, and that was time. The four of us spent a lot of hours of togetherness. If some divine cosmic voice had told me back then -  ‘Enjoy this period of your life -  there will soon come a time when your dedicated doctor will make himself scarce for twelve straight hours a day and your sons will fly the nest to make their own futures,’ perhaps I would have saved up all those precious moments.

We made Pune our home in 1992. I have to thank Pune for several things – a beautiful home, an immensely satisfying profession, the opportunity to indulge in multi hued cultural activities and the most amazing set of friends.

 I had decided not to go out to work till the kids were in primary school and so it was that in 1997 I agreed to work in Dr. Kalmadi Shamarao High School. It was a decision that irrevocably changed my life. I joined this most wonderful of institutions and immersed myself in revealing to my students, the joys of the English language. I tell my children that it’s a great privilege if you are able to make what you love the most, your profession.

For fourteen years I gave as much of myself as I could to my children (the ones on lease). I would be deluding myself however, if I thought that it was I who had done any service to them. For I gained so much from my school –unconditional love, an enduring rapport with my students, an  understanding of young minds and the privilege of being allowed to touch their lives. I grew emotionally, intellectually into the person I had never been before.

Today I’ve decided upon another course professionally. I have to be ready to give some more time to the elders in my family and my children (all three of them). As importantly, I owe myself some more attention and so there has been a change of tracks. It meant a lot to me that Uday supported me one hundred percent during this transition. (This praise from unexpected quarters is sure to perplex and surprise him). I get to meet new people, read a lot; I have a lot more independence and flexibility. In that sense, my work is certainly enriching and rewarding. I hope that one day it will be as joyous and fulfilling as my stint in school was, and that I can go into raptures when I talk about it - the way I still do about my school.

Well, that’s it then – a common account of a common life for any one who reads it but an uncommon narrative for yours truly because it is inhabited by the people who mean the most to me and recounts events that shaped my life. Adios till we meet again.

The story of a nest - An epic play in two small acts of uneven length

Playwright’s note: Keen connoisseurs of literature may suspect that parenthetical insertions in the play far exceed the lines spoken by the lead actors. Their suspicions are well founded, proving once again that they richly deserve the epithet “keen” used for them. However, the playwright intends to continue writing in a similar style. She has sufficient evidence that what is left unsaid often expresses itself better than that which is said.

Act I:

Setting: A little nest in a high rise tree. It’s a cheerful little nest with father bird, mother bird, and two little baby birds happily living together in perfect harmony. (Exaggerations are permitted under the dramatic license recently acquired by the playwright.) The stage setting must be done so that the curtain opens to a rather untidy nest with a rough and tumble look.

 It’s a peaceful evening in the Bird household. Father bird is away on tour. Baby Birds have just been escorted back from a “speed flying” class by their mother. Mother bird has had a long day. Her job and her home demand a lot of her time and energy. Every day, she packs in a lot more work than seems possible in just twelve bird hours. She is now snatching a few minutes off and is on the telephone with her best friend, catching up on important human interest news stories, also called “gossip” by ill informed skeptics.

 Baby bird 1: Play with us Mamma, play with us. You haven’t done that for four whole days. You said we would build a toy nest together. Mammaaa…

Mother bird [Into the phone]:  I’ll have to call you later …. What is it? Play with you right away? Baby bird 1, I’m busy. We’ll play later, I promise. - As soon as I get the dinner done and house tidied. Now be a good bird, and do something useful. Oh, the unending chores in this nest…

(Mother bird starts rustling up a dinner that both the babies can eat without loud lamentations. However, ten Mamma years have taught her how to make boring nutritious fare pass off as tempting junk food.)

Baby bird 2: Mamma, Mamma, shall I help you? I want to help you.

Mother bird: Hmmm?

Baby bird 2: Mamma, Mamma, why does an onion make you weep so? Will this food make me as strong as Super Bird? You said good birds don’t cry, but my friend cried in school today. She hadn’t done her composition on “The early bird catches the worm.” You know what happened then?

Mother bird [Stirring the mozzarella cheese, spinach, and bird seed in the pan]: Hmm? Yes…. Look, be a nice birdie, and go watch that nice film about Uncle Penguin on Discovery Channel. We’ll read a story together at night, ok?

[Baby birds sprawl all over the sofa, pecking on their dinner, happily watching a cartoon about a dumb cat and a smart mouse for the 146^th time. The decibel level is so high, the door posts of the nest need no longer be hearing impaired.]

Mother bird: Birdies, are you set for school tomorrow? Birdies – did you hear me? This infernal noise! Down with the volume, do you hear? DO YOU HEAR ME? LOWER THE VOLUME AT ONCE!

[She marches to the television set and turns it off. Baby birds set up a synchronized, heartrending wail, designed to make the friendly neighborhood Child Rights activist trot over at double speed.]

Mother bird: Good God! You’ll bring the tree down with that racket! And what a mess the room is in. Just look at your toys strewn all over the place. Such expensive toys too! Pick them up, and let me see the room cleared in the next five minutes. Else, I’m going to give all these toys away to a little bird that hasn’t any to play with.

[Baby birds continue to sprawl inelegantly, exhibiting what psychologists have called the Delayed Response Syndrome.]

Mother bird:  Well, if you would much rather study, that’s great too. What fun for you! Which will it be - Math sums, Grammar exercises, or your Geography lesson about soil patterns?

[Baby birds react with astonishing speed. They gather up their toys, and retreat into their rooms before Mother Bird can hurl more weapons of the scholastic kind at them.

Mother Bird tidies the house, makes a call to Grandparent Birds, checks the laundry, and dashes off an important mail. She looks in on baby birds, wanting to play with them and tell them stories, but they are fast asleep. She looks at them and is filled once again, with deep love.]

Mother Bird: I have the sweetest little birds in the whole world. I’m going to give them more time – tomorrow

[She takes them under her wings, kisses them goodnight and tiptoes out.

The curtain falls]

Act II:

The Time: Many years and four new versions of MS Office later.

The Setting: The little nest in the high rise tree. It’s a quiet little nest, with father bird and mother bird living together in perfect harmony. (Exaggerations are permitted under the dramatic license acquired by the playwright. a while ago) The stage setting must be done so that the curtain opens to a tidy nest with a spruced up look.

It’s a peaceful evening in the bird household. Father bird is away on tour. With the junior birds away in a far off university, Mother Bird has a lot of time on her hands. The house doesn’t need tidying anymore. Cooking for two is done faster than one can say, ‘What’s for dinner?” and she no longer has to launder clothes that are stained with chocolate, tomato ketchup, and grease from bicycles.

She has been trying to reach her baby birds over the cell phone, but these seem to be kept on silent mode. She turns to the internet, and finds to her delight that one of the baby birds is signed in.

Mother bird: Baby bird…Hi baby bird…r u there?

[ Mother bird is comfortable with the new age text language – a bit of it anyway. She stares at the screen for a long time, waiting for the words “Baby bird is typing” to appear – but they don’t. She calls on their cell phones once again. This time, one baby bird takes the call.]

Mother bird: Baby bird, I’ve been trying to reach you. Where’s your phone? Where have you been?

Baby bird: Hi Mom.

Mother bird: Why don’t you take calls? Are you alright? I’ve been worried.

Baby bird: Yeah, it’s been a busy day – lots of assignments and an important project.

Mother bird: We haven’t talked for four whole days. Are you busy? How was your day?

Baby bird: Good. I’m a tad tired though.

Mother bird: Have you had your dinner? Make sure you take your vitamins every day. You are at an age when you need to develop strength in your wings. You understand, don’t you?

Baby bird: Sure

Mother bird: Guess what? Something really interesting happened today. You remember XYZ Uncle and ABC Aunty? Met them after a long time and ….

Baby bird: Hmm? Yeah ….  Look Ma, I need to go to the library right now. We’ll talk when I’m back in my room, ok? I’ll have more time then.

Mother bird: Ok, baby bird. Love you lots.

Baby bird: Sure. Bye.

Mother Bird [to herself as she puts the phone away]: I have the sweetest little birds in the whole world. Of course they would give me time if they had any to spare.

[She thinks of them and is filled once again with deep love. In her mind’s eye, she takes them under her wings, kisses them goodnight and tiptoes out of their thoughts.

The curtain falls]