Triple times the immunity, triple times the naughtiness!

I am often accused of being the partner in crime with my nephew. Since the time he was born, started crawling, walking, running, screaming, hiding stuff and happily yapping on his own. My sister often told me, it looks like we have two kids at home, one who is genuinely a kid and the other one, just enjoys being one. Grow up!

I would reason myself saying that when you have a tiny little kid at home, what more do you expect me to do? That takes care of the situation slightly and gets followed up by scolding. But I know for sure, she enjoys every bit of the naughtiness that we do. Well, I only supervise, he does the execution part. The house remains filled with laughter and joy and there’s always a fun moment in everything that he does. But when he falls sick, none of us could find the energy to do anything except for care for him as much as we can. Especially me. I just need him to get back on his feet, running around with the toys following me and Didi around, occasionally seeking help from my brother-in-law to help him catch these two women in the house.

I still remember one incident when Adi had fallen sick just after returning from school. I was in office when Didi called and asked me to bring a thermometer. Adi had high fever and our thermometer wasn’t working properly. I came out of work as early as I could, bought a thermometer from the medical store and ran home. His doctor diagnosed the fever as a seasonal viral fever and suggested that he must be taken care well because his immunity system is still weak. We needed him to recover and stay healthy. Every one of us in the house went berserk to figure out what to do to make his immunity system strong so that he doesn’t get prone to falling sick every now and then. Suggestions poured in from everywhere, and each had their own reasons. Someone, at that point of time, suggested Dabur Chyawanprash, a time tested formulation that we as children ate and loved too. For us, it was just a black colour formulation that tasted very different from what we ate or any medications that we took during fever. Dad made it a point to bring a bottle and had to be shared amongst the sisters every morning. This time, both of us, thought of understanding why is it important and why should we give it Adi. We scanned through https://www.liveveda.com/daburchyawanprash/ for more information.

Dabur Chyawanprash contains a number of herbs including Amla (one of the best antioxidants), Giloy (also known as Guduchi which has some of the best immune-modulatory properties) and 40 other natural ingredients. The anti-oxidant properties of Dabur Chwayanprash helps in strengthening the body’s internal defence mechanism or the immunity system as we know it. This helps in protecting us from infections and cough and cold. Dabur Chwayanprash helps in stimulating the natural killer cells in our bodies and assist in fighting with virus and bacteria in the body. Its anti-allergic potential has also been proved.

Didi got a small bottle for him and started feeding him every morning one spoon of it. Initially, he started making faces because of the taste that was so new for him but gradually, he started eating as a compulsory food as part of his breakfast. It worked wonders on him. Within no time, after he recovered from his fever, he showed signs of improved immunity with less bouts of cough and cold and no running nose. He was back on his feet running around the house, cycling in the park and giggling at everything he saw. His smile and laughter replaced the crankiness that he was having for the past few days.

And when he’s back on his feet, I was back. So was Didi. Scolding us for running around and troubling her! J

I am going home this Diwali! :) #GharWaliDiwali

While scrolling down the news feed in my Facebook wall, I saw a friend had shared a post with #GharWaliDiwali video from Pepsi some days back. I did not see it. Not because I do not have the time or interest to watch it, but because I didn’t want to cry sitting in my office. I was pretty sure it will have something that will make me emotional and remember what I was about to miss again this year. Like three years in a row.

In the past two years, I have Diwali spent sitting back at home, lighting diyas just to follow the tradition and spending time reading books or cleaning the house. Alone. All my friends and flat mates had gone home to celebrate Diwali with their families. Whomever I called, they were already on their way back home. I could not join them because I was going home a few months later and getting leaves was difficult. Yes, my mom felt bad but she said, it’s ok. You’re coming in January, in her choked voice.

I was all prepared to spend this Diwali alone here again when this tiny incident happened. My boss called for a meeting a few weeks back to check our schedules and whether we are taking leaves during Diwali and when are we planning to join back work. One team member was already going home for a week, the rest of us replied in unison that we’ll be back at work on the day office resumes. None of us were happy with the answer though, he felt. He took a minute and looked at us. He said, “I got a call from my mom. He wants to Shaurya to spend his Diwali with his grandmom this year. Shaurya hasn’t spent one single Diwali with his grandparents till date and it has got us thinking. So, this year, we are going home. I am going home to spend my Diwali with my mom.” We saw his smile widen. But it failed to bring to smile on our faces.

The next morning, we all got mails from him to assemble for a meeting at 11 am. He had something very important to discuss. He came and sat with his laptop, connected it with the projector and looked at us. He announced his dates of travel. Then, looked at us again and said, “You need to quickly tell me the dates of your travel as well. It will help me synchronise the work schedule accordingly so that none of us lose our jobs!” Where are we travelling was the look on our faces. “To your homes, of course! I saw your expressions last evening and could understand your state of mind. Diwali is a celebration to be enjoyed, not a regular holiday to spend cleaning the house and watch movies. I want you all to go home, spend time with your families and come back with a bang.” We weren’t expecting this. Seriously.

We booked our tickets and planned our return dates accordingly. And we decided, let’s surprise the parents and enjoy the smile on their faces. We’ll whatsapp on how each of our parents reacted. Let’s preserve those priceless expressions.

Diwali is a just a few days away and my tickets are booked. All of us leaving very soon for home, to meet our parents, to enjoy the puja, the burn the crackers, to get scolded for not coming back home despite getting late, to hang out with friends and remember how we spent our Diwali together, to eat as many laddoos as possible without caring about the numbers on the weighing scale and to breathe in fresh air. 

And in the meantime, while I am busy shopping gifts and packing my bags, I decided to watch the PepsiCo #GharWaliDiwali film. This time in a happy mood.

After watching the video, I wanted to thank someone for making this Diwali happy for me. I logged on https://www.gharwalidiwali.com/ to check the offers on the gift hampers. I typed my message for my Boss, thanking him for what he’s done for us this time and sent him a Pepsi Ghar Wali Diwali hamper. It’s definitely not a bribe for the upcoming appraisals but a heartfelt thanks to him.

Image courtesy: webneel.com

Happy Diwali! :)

Did she just blame us for not smiling?

Do you remember your school days? I am sure all of you will be excited and nostalgic now about how fun those days were, your friends with whom you share a lifelong friendship now, etc. And school day memories are such that we keep going back to them whenever we face any similar situations that we might have faced in school. Recently, I had one really nostalgic moment. Trust me, the feeling was just the same.

We all have heard about loving thy neighbours. Neighbours are your next door people who become your immediate friends outside home gradually but in the same premises. You meet them, you greet them or simply know them. Today, as I speak to you, I choose to share a rare experience about one of my encounters with my neighbours here in Bangalore. I grew up amidst neighbours who were my relatives. So I could never relate to the type of neighbours who were shown in the television serials or the movies. But this desire of mine got fulfilled in a very interesting way when I moved to this new house in Bangalore.

My apartment has a lot of families who are either living their retired lives and have moved in to enjoy an old age life and are taken care by the children. And then, there are the flats occupied by working bachelors. You will often find these retired folks taking a walk in the long corridor together, discuss about the people living in the apartments, gossip at times about who they saw with whom, etc.

Now, we, my flatmates and I stay in a place, which is quite strategically located between the flat of the Secretary of the Society aka the apartment and the Vice-president. So, both of these families have the men in the leadership roles and the women to feed them information.

One evening, when one of my flatmates and I are at home, watching movies, our doorbell rang. I went and opened the door only to find my neighbour lady, an aged Bengali woman, walk in. No, not walk in, she barged in. Dressed in her night gown, hair tied into a bun and chewing paan, so yeah, bright red lips. While she chewed paan, she asked me to call my flatmate out. Both of us thought that it might be some apartment issue that she’s come to inform us, but her face said something else. She looked angry.

She asked my flatmate, I have something to ask you. Looking at her face, I had quietly went back to my room. She continued, today, while coming back from office, you saw me standing at the corridor with Mrs. G. You saw me, right? She nodded yes. There, you did something that you shouldn’t have done. A, my flatmate, stood stumped and confused and so did I, in my room of course. With confused expressions on our faces.

A asked, what exactly happened Aunty? Aunty replies, you did not smile at me. Like you do every time. That too, when I was there with Mrs. G. Do you know what she told me? Look those girls do not smile at you anymore. What happened? They smiled at me just today morning. Now you tell me, won’t you feel insulted if someone comes and tells you that your neighbour did not smile at you? I was called back in the room.

We stood still. Was she scolding us for not smiling at her? Really? We tried telling her, that there was a phone call that she was attending and she did not notice her. She accused me of the same thing. She refused to listen to us. She rejected our reasons. We had no intentions of insulting her by not smiling at her. She felt insulted and she made it clear. She barged out that same way she had come.  

Here, our neighbour came to us not to ask for sugar but to scold us for not smiling at her. The entire concept of having a neighbour turned upside down for me. We didn’t have any answer as to why it happened.

There she left and here we felt like school kids who had no answers as to why we did not do our homework. I remembered how teachers asked us why isn’t that we haven’t done our homework? We never had any answers because no answer can satisfy her brain and mind. I felt absolutely nostalgic.

She angrily walked out leaving us wondering, is this also a reason why your neighbour can knock on your door? Blame us for not smiling at her? Well she did. 

She wasn't alone this time

She came back to her desk teary eyed. No one asked her why. May be no one noticed her any more. She needed to breathe fresh to get back her mind to work when suddenly a voice whispered, I won! You couldn't do anything to prove me wrong. She turned behind to find him standing and winking at her. She had no choice but to cut the crap this time. Her fingers raced through the keyboard as she drafted her resignation and attaching a few images to prove her point. The mail was marked To All. On her way out, she heard a voice, loud enough to say, Thanks for making everyone know. Wait, we are joining you. They marched out of the office together, feeling safe and breathing fresh air.