Black...White...And Shades of Grey...

One of the components of Raya's bed time ritual is to say a prayer. I just say a few lines aloud for her, as a prayer, and generally, this is how it goes, "Dear God, Thank you for another beautiful day of my life. Thank you for taking care of me, my family and all my near and dear ones. Please be with us always and help us lead happy, contented lives".

So after saying the above prayer yesterday, this is how Raya and my bed time conversation went.

Raya:"Mama, where is God?"

Yours truly: Raya, God is everywhere. God is abstract.
(I had to restrain a chuckle at my use of the word "abstract". Was I expecting a three year old to understand what "abstract" meant!!Either way, I have been expecting this question for some time. But for some reason, I was still not prepared with an answer. So my answer was quite vague. Fortunately for me, Raya decided to move on to her next question)

Raya: "Everyyy where....Abbbstact...Hmmmmmm". "Mama, why are you praying?"
Yours truly: "So that God takes care of you"

Raya:"Why will God take care of me?"
Yours truly:"Because God loves you"

Raya:"Why does God love me?"
Yours truly:"Raya, can you tell me first why does mama love you?"

Raya:"Because I am a big girl. I am a good girl"
Yours truly:"So God also loves you because you are a good girl"

Raya:"Mama, is everyone good?"
Yours truly: (I was stumped)...I blabbered..."we are good if we listen to our Mama and Baba...we are good if we listen to our teachers ...we are good if we are kind to others..."...(I went on and on for sometime...Couldn't figure out what parts she was able to comprehend and what she wasn't because she just responded with, "hmmm...")
Raya:"Hmmmm..."

Fortunately, the conversation immediately digressed into some other zone. But as I called it a night, I couldn't help thinking what do you really answer to a child who asks you, "Is everyone good?" It's easy to give a vague answer to a three year old, but what about older children...'D' had the most diplomatic suggestion for me. He said, just say,"Everyone is good in his/her own way!"...Made sense...but made me laugh out loud as well. Jokes apart, all of a sudden, the responsibility of providing a good upbringing to a child seems many folds bigger and more mammoth...I don't want to bring up a child who lives an absolutely utopian dream of a perfect life, unable to fight his/her battles in a world that can be sometimes so cruel. At the same time, neither do I want to end up rearing a child, who ends up being all cynical about the world. I just hope we, as parents, will be able to figure out a way to strike the right balance, so that our child grows up to learn that while it's best not to always view the world through rose tinted glasses,but at the same time it's important to be optimistic, energetic, hopeful and to always live with  the belief that the glass is half full rather than half empty!

That's definitely one helluva parenting challenge!!Only time will tell how successful we are though. It's tough because 'good' and 'bad' are really not as clear to distinguish as 'white' and 'black'. 'Good' and 'bad', in life, are after all just shades of grey!! It does sadden me to think though of all the heartbreaks and lessons that these little innocent kiddos will have to navigate before they are able to figure out their way in the maze, of the 'shades of grey', that life is!

On a lighter note, Ms Amber, Raya's teacher, told me about this following conversation between Raya and her classmate,Nicholas, on the playground.

Nicholas: "Raya, come with me to my home!"
Raya:"I can't come to your home!"

Nicholas: "Why?"
Raya:"I have to go to my home with Mamma and Baba. If I come with you, my Baba will be sad! He will be sad and shout at you! Do you want my Baba to shout at you?" LOL

Nicholas:(Confused stare at Raya, 'the firebrand'!!)

Oh well...looks like not just Raya has her 'Baba' wrapped around her little finger, but her 'Baba' too seems to have quite a disciple in her. It will be interesting to see how such a conversation pans out when she is 13 or better still 16!:)

Happy Friday folks!

Health Scare, Instructions, Stickers...Life!

A major health scare...panic stricken visits to the doc...multiple Ultra Sounds...finally given a clean chit...a sigh of relief...home sweet home...the following father/daughter conversation that brightened up my day, reinforcing the blessings of life! Happy Diwali folks!

The magic of the 'dhak'...

It's 'Durga Ashtami' today...If you ask me what 'Ashtami' is, all that I will be able to tell you, without 'Google search' coming to my rescue, is that it's the second big day of Durga puja, a festival that's celebrated with a lot of fervor in the part of India I come from. I don't know how many of you have heard the Durga puja 'dhak'( I have attached a sound clip at the end of this post). It is a traditional form of playing a specific type of drum during the pujas, as 'aarti' of the deity is performed. It's the part of Durga puja I love the most and it still gives me goose bumps. The resounding beats of the 'dhak' bring back memories of family get togethers, happy faces, beautiful, carefree childhood days and fills me with an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia and optimism!

I spent the formative years of my life in one of the most beautiful, picturesque hill stations of India...Shillong. While I hear it's changed a lot and is not the same any more, nevertheless the memories of Shillong I have are indelible...the charm of living in the land of mountains and hills in the clouds...the serenity associated with the whistling sound of the wind blowing through the pine trees...the calm that is brought in by the tip tapping sound of rain on the rooftop...the most delicious Indo Chinese food...and a lot more :)

Associated with these memories of Shillong are memories of those annual trips that we made to our grandparents' home in Guwahati during Durga puja (around September/October) every year. There was always a lot of fervor associated with the celebration of this festival, primarily because it was an occasion when the entire family got together...dressing up in new clothes, hanging out with the cousins at home and in my grandmom's maternal home(where they had a family pandal and
puja by the mighty Brahmaputra), chit chatting, playing with toy water pistols, pandal hopping...this was a once a year tradition that was a much 'looked forward to' period for the entire family. The few questions we had about the purpose of the puja too were answered very non-specifically by the parents and grandparents, highlighting only the good associated with each aspect of Indian mythology! Of course, that was the era before  google, wikipedia and the broader internet. So we, the kiddos, were pretty happy with the answers we got, given that they were all 'feel good' explanations:)

I have grown up to be a  non-'traditionalist', though...I guess I would be better off qualifying that statement because a statement like this has the potential for generating a lot of arguments...I do have immense respect for cultural and religious traditions...I love the camaraderie that different forms of cultural and religious traditions evoke...let's just say I don't like following traditions for the sake of tradition. However I have to admit, I am often guilty of following or not following a tradition/ritual just to make someone near and dear to me happy or just to revel in the sense of camaraderie that following a  ritual evokes.

Having said that, I am not an athiest. Neither am I an agnostic. I have faith. I believe in God. I pray. Is that possible without being a traditionalist? I believe it is, because I am and I always have been!

With a three year old in tow now, and that too someone who has a phlethora of questions all the time...why's and how's about everything on earth... these days I often find myself 'googling' for answers specific to religious and cultural rituals and traditions, more so with the onset of the Indian holiday season.Given the enormous options children have these days of finding out information,
I really want to make sure I articulate concepts associated with traditions and rituals in a way that doesn't make my little one doubt me as she grows up:)

I have found though that more often than not it's tough providing a logical/rational explanation for a tradition or ritual! The fanfare and celebratory part of Indian traditions and rituals aside, the only problem I have is when I dive deeper into the origins of some of the  traditions and  rituals (across cultures). The origins don't always lend themselves well to either my mind or my heart, given that a lot of the time, they inherently endorse the sense of entitlement of one gender over the other or one section of the society over another, encourage superstitions, validate the possibility of wiping away
conscious wrong doings/sins with the performance of a ritual!

Having grown up in a family that's very diverse and widely cross pollinated (for lack of a better term) across cultures, religions and nations, and also having always had a very diverse set of friends, I have been exposed to the traditions of diverse cultures, religions and nations. I don't ever remember being explicitly or implicitly being coerced to follow any specific ritual, though. Neither do I have any intention to enforce anything on my children.

Having said that, I do wish that I could fill Raya's life with the kind of memories I have of these festivities, because the memories are what have real meaning for me than any deep rooted meaning associated with the origin of the festivities.

We visited a a couple of Durga Puja celebrations here in the Northern Virginia area last week. At the end of a session's puja, the aarti and the 'dhak' gave me goose bumps, like it always has and took me back to those days when we ran around pandals with cousins and basked in the feeling of being together. It had nothing to do with the tradition itself. But it had everything to do with the people and memories associated with the tradition.

Today all that I wish for is the wisdom to be able to help Raya learn to revel in the feeling of wellness, optimism, magic and hope that some of these traditions evoke , without feeling burdened by lack of logic associated with the origin of a lot of them!:)

Leaving you with a sound clip of the traditional "Durga puja" dhak!! On this day of MahaAshtami, may you feel uplifted and hopeful for the year that lies ahead as the resounding beats of the 'dhak' reach a crescendo!

"How much do you love me?" ratings on a toddler scale !

The newest game in the Das household is the "How much do you love me?" game.

Yours truly: "How much do you love me, Raya?"
Raya: '10' mamma...she stretches out her arms as wide as those teenie weenie arms would allow her to.
  
Yours truly: "How much do you love 'Baba'?"
Raya: Hmmm...'8'

Yours truly: OK. What about 'Koka'? (Raya calls her maternal grand dad Koka)
Raya: Hmmm...'7'

Yours truly: Hmmm...OK. How much do you love 'Ma'? (Raya calls her maternal grand mom, 'Ma')
Raya: Hmmm...'9'

Yours truly: Ok Raya. What about Ashish mamu? (Raya calls my brother, 'Ashish mamu')
Raya: Hmmm...'1'

Yours truly: (Laughing out loud)Oops...Raya, Ashish mamu will be really sad if you give him a '1'.

Now every year Raya's 'Ashish mamu' showers her with the most number of expensive gifts ever. Every time my parents visit, he sends an overload of gifts for his one and only niece! But of course, the busy body that he is(with an investment banking professional life and a just as hectic social one) , Raya doesn't get as much face time(in terms of Skype time  etc.) with him as she does with everyone else in the family.

So I took this opportunity to psyche up my little brother about the dismal rating he's  received on his niece's 'love' scale. That resulted in a very distraught "Ashish mamu"  setting up a long Skype call with his niece, listening to and applauding the recitation of 'n' number of nursery rhymes and being at the receiving end of what seemed to me like "endless chatter". Looks like Raya had a lot of things
to tell her Ashish mamu, after all!

Now at the end of that skype call, we repeated the "How much do you love me?" game with Raya. All of us were literally rolling on the floor with laughter at the revised ratings, primarily because while all the other scores remained the same('Mamma' still got a 10, 'Baba' got an 8, 'Ma' got a 9 and 'Koka' got a 7), Raya's Ashish mamu's rating got bumped up from a dismal '1' to a decent '6'. Ah...such is the power of Skype!!Ain't it! So now Raya's Ashish mamu  needs to make that long over due trip to visit her, if he has any intention of seeing his"How much do you love me?" score bumped up further on his niece's scale. :)

On another note, while I am really happy with my ten pointer, looks like Raya's 'Baba's' score is a bit misleading. Apparently, from what her teachers tell me, Raya is all about "Baba" in school. So looks like "Baba" is a ten pointer in school and "Mamma" is a ten pointer at home. So all well there for household and parental calm and sanity, I guess...LOL.

On another note, my parents leave next week and they are indeed leaving behind a really spoilt brat for us to deal with. Oh well...that's what grandparents are for, aren't they?!

Other than that, Raya turns 3 this week. Time does fly. All I can say is I am really grateful for all the happiness and incomprehensible blend of sanity and insanity that my little munchkin has brought into our lives! I can only hope 'D' and 'I' can do justice to this enormous blessing and responsibility called parenting and help Raya  grow into someone, who in her own small ways, will learn to make this world a better place!

Wish us luck folks !

My teenie, weenie career counsellor...

My toddler seems pretty intent on helping me find an alternate profession...LOL

So the other day, out of the blue, Raya asked me, "Mamma, do you want to be a teacher?" I was in the middle of something and I absent mindedly muttered, "Maybe!".  Her questioning continued, "In Toucans?" (Toucans is the name of her classroom at day care). Just to see, where this conversation was headed, I said, "Yes, Raya!". This was, of course, enough encouragement for Raya to continue, "Mamma, you want to be a teacher, then you have to talk to Ms. Gina and Ms. Yesenia, okhay!". Btw, as a side note, "ok" is pronounced as "okhay" in the Das household these days! Now Ms.Gina and Ms Yesenia are Raya's class teachers at day care. So  what it seemed to me from her words and tone, my little toddler was essentially advising me to speak to her class teachers for  teacher training !!

Oh well!! While bringing on bursts of laughter, this also was enough to make sure my attention was completely focussed on her now. So I continued, "Raya, why don't you ask Ms. Gina and Ms Yesenia tomorrow if I can be a teacher at Toucans?".  She replied, with a flicker in her eyes,"Okhay, mamma!"

Next day when she was back from day care, I asked Raya, "So Raya, did you talk to Ms. Gina and Ms. Yesenia about mamma being a teacher at Toucans". After a slight, thoughtful pause, a resounding decision was delivered by my kiddo, "Mamma, you not going to be teacher at Toucans, okhay! You going to be teacher at home!"...Ha ha ha. So that's that.

On a more serious note, I just changed jobs. Started my new role a couple of weeks back and really excited about it! Fingers crossed that it all works out well :) So wish me luck!

Back to Raya. My parents are visiting for a couple of months and Raya is having an absolute blast with them, in addition to, of course, getting royally pampered. What worries me, though, is that somewhere in the back of her mind, she seems bothered by the fact that they will go back to India, sometime soon. Almost every morning, she wakes up, goes to their room and says, "Ma-Koka, you not going to India today, okhay!" Then the other day, she woke up in the middle of the night with whimpers of "I don't want Ma-Koka to go to India!"

You never really know what keeps going on in a toddler's mind, do you? Breaks my heart to think that these little ones, with their teenie weenie brains and hearts, have to deal with
all kind of adult anxieties! All I can say is this time around, saying goodbye to her grandparents is going to be even tougher than last time!

On that note, enjoy your little one's childhood while it lasts! For they seem to grow up real fast! :(

P.S. Raya calls her maternal grandmom , "Ma" and her maternal granddad,"Koka". Invariably, a lot of the time when they are in the same room, she addresses them "Ma-Koka" as if they were one human being..LOL.

"We are best friends, right?"...

The arrival of a child in a family gives birth to a whole set of new relationships. It is so rightly said that a child gives birth to a mother...not just that though, the arrival of a child gives birth to a father, grandfather, grandmother, uncles, aunts and many more relationships that only a child can forge.


More on that later...So the process of putting Raya to sleep at night has  progressively been taking longer and longer. When she was a little baby, it was the 'going off to sleep' itself that took a long time. Over the period of time, we have had to add a rather extended bed time ritual to it, which includes...bath, feeding her milk, making sure she pees, reading and re-reading favorite books, saying a small prayer and then listening to endless chatter that's a combination of the real and her make believe world..tales that she conjures up! Oh and dare I forget turning on the music at bed time, for if I do, I will be promptly reminded, "Mamma I want something to make me feel better, I want music to make me sleepy!" ...Oh well!


In that context, here's what happened last night. The bed time ritual last night was getting prolonged to the point that my patience was running out. So much so that, at one point of time, I lost my temper,  raised my voice and told Raya, "Raya you have to go to sleep, right now!!". A raised voice these days, gives us a taste of our own medicine and gets us the standard reaction of, "That's not nice, mamma!" "Don't talk to me like that. Be nice to me!"...I explained to her that I was getting angry because she was not listening to me. Anyways, a second of whining and a few whimpers later, I noticed Raya closing her eyes tight and then she said, "Look it mamma...look it...I am closing my eyes...I am sleeping...I am listening to you'...quickly and unexpectedly followed by, "We are best friends, right mamma?!!"...I just laughed out loud and said ..."Yes, of course we are best friends, Raya"
...and on that note, my little toddler finally decided to wrap up her day, finally falling asleep and I ended the day on a high note, all my exhaustion having melted away with this new found relationship with my toddler...that of a best friend!! :)


Now this is what happened this morning :
I ask Raya :"We are best friends, right, Raya?"
Raya : "No, mamma"
I ask her: "Why? Who is your best friend?"
Raya : "Baba"
I ask Raya :"But you told me last night, I am your best friend"
Raya: "Ahaa...Baba is my best friend now. You are my best friend at night!!"


LOL...So on that note of  'toddler humor', from our new found best friend...happy parenting !

Of egg hunts, emergency room visits, "Raya"ingo and a new year...

This past weekend ended up being quite eventful...it started with an easter egg hunt with Raya and her buds on a gorgeous afternoon, followed by the usual family dinner and soaking in the sun time, Bihu celebrations and a BBQ at home with some friends visiting from out of town. The weekend was almost perfect, yes I say almost perfect because there was an unforeseen trip to the emergency room on Sunday afternoon. So this is what happened. While cutting chicken in preparation for the BBQ we were hosting, I almost chopped off the tip of my ring finger , yes literally half the tip in the front and the back of the finger was hanging off.  As gross as it sounds, it was painful and a bloody sight ! A trip to the emergency room, a heavy dose of painkillers, antibiotics, wedding/engagement rings that had to be cut off and 4 stitches later, I was back home and was glad to be distracted by the great company of friends.


However life was hunky dory only till the effect of painkillers lasted !! The pain kicked back in soon enough Sunday late night and didn't go away whole of yesterday:(,so much so that I was beginning to get afraid that I will never be able to make full use of my ring finger. However this morning I woke up feeling much better!! So all's well, for now. The stitches come off in another 10 days and the optimist in me tells me, all will be well ! Let's hope so! Plus since Sunday, DD has been pampering me and has mentioned a couple of times how much he appreciated me being a good sport and for handling this without being a nag ! Let me tell you that doesn't happen often after  8 years of marriage and 16 years of knowing each other LOL!!


This was my first visit to any emergency room in the US, and I must say the folks at the Reston Hospital emergency center did their very best to make me comfortable. Everyone was warm and affectionate and kept me animated to distract me from wincing in pain.


So that's that! Fingers crossed for an uneventful recovery!


Other than that, Raya has been on a roll these past few weeks with her chatter. I was just going through some of my earlier "Raya" blogs and
was thrilled to realise that the blogs have succeeded in capturing some day to day moments that I am sure would have been long forgotten.


Sharing a few more moments, that I remember, from the past couple of weeks.


A week back, Raya insisted that she wanted to talk to her "Ash mamu" (my brother) at 9:00 in the evening EST, which meant I had to put in a call and wake up my dear sleepy head brother at 6:30 am IST on a Sunday morning, so that Raya could ask just one question, "What u doing, Ash mamu?"


She told her class teacher the other day, "I am going shopping to India!" When her teacher told her, "That's a long way to go for shopping". She apparently took her toy purse and walked towards the door,"No Ms Gina! but I go shopping only to India!"


Every time Raya sees an aeroplane, she thinks it is going to India. She insists she is going to take the next plane to India to meet her grandparents
and then just in time remembers to ask me, "You want to come with me to India, mamma?" Oh well, of course...next India trip we all know who will be guiding whom! LOL


Since Friday, every time you ask Raya, how many eggs she collected at the easter egg hunt, she will show you all 5 fingers on her right hand, while claiming in words that it amounts to 6 eggs.


Any question you ask Raya  now has an emphatic "because" in the response!

Yours truly: "Why do you want to go the playground, Raya?"
Raya: I want to go to the playground 'because' I want to, mamma!


Yours truly: "Why do you have to wear these shoes, Raya?"
Raya: I have to wear these shoes 'because' I have to, mamma!!


Everytime, I raise my voice at her for doing something inappropriate, Raya has a standard reponse, "It's not nice ,mamma. I not play with you anymore. I play only with Baba!". When DD reprimands her about something, "It's not nice, baba! I not play with you anymore. I play only with Mamma!".


Then of course, anything that we do in a way that she doesn't approve of results in a, "It's not a good habit, mamma!" or "It's not good manners, mamma!"


You get the gist! It's almost as if 'D' and I get a dose of our own medicine from Raya sometimes! Needless to say, it does fill our home and life with laughter and life seems so much more meaningful!!


On that note, Happy Bihu, Vishu, Nobo borsho and Baisakhi to one and all!!


May your year be filled with love, luck, happiness and contentment!