Happy 6th Nyra Baby

 Today’s the day! Nyra grown so fast. It feels like yesterday when I held her in my arms and struggled thru the challenges of motherhood, nursing, balancing work and motherhood etc etc. 

As i see my little baby grow, and the kind & loving human being she is growing into, i feel blessed. A part of me also wants to hide her from the world, to save her from the pain, despair, heartache that the world unsparingly bestows on us through the journey of life. 

As i look back at the last 6 years, i see some constant themes emerging. The first is my fear that I may turn out to be a mother like my mother. Like in my weak moment, my reactions may clone that of my mother - gaslighting, ignoring, angry, arrogant, cursing, hitting, there is no end to it. 

This fear is deeply ingrained in me. I feel it’s like a monster hiding in me and may show up at the most unexpected moment. Can i ever get rid of this monster? There are moments when I feel like I have left it far behind me, and then there are moments when i am caught off guard by its haunting presence. How do i protect my daughter from this experience that i have carried with me all my life?

I am also struggling to forgive my husband for his lack of support thru my pregnancy and Nyra’s early years. Did I expect something miraculous from him, def no. But i expected him to be a partner, to share the journey, to share the burden, to be stronger for me when I didn’t have it in me to be strong. The lack of support from him, makes me resent him so much today. the thing is i pretty much gave up on expecting him to support me with his family, but I did expect that he would be a partner with me in bringing together our family. This is not a let down, it’s a betrayal of trust. Today as I hit my early forties, my chances of having.a second baby look slim with each passing day. I yearn to be a mother again, to hold a little bundle of joy. But.i don’t want the experience i had with Nyra with my husband. I don’t have the courage to go thru it all alone again. 

the most prominent theme is that of the love i have received from Nyra and how she helped me change as a person. My little baby has been mending my broken heart without even knowing it. I have so much gratitude for her, and to her for being the fabulous little human being that she is. Watching her grow, watching her experience life, watching her experience joys & sorrows and frustrations - has helped me relearn my own outlook towards life. So often I find myself looking at me from her eyes- mama you are watching too much kdrama, mama you are not meeting with friends, mama you are not chanting, mama you are being lazy, mama you are only working. 

As I stitch these pieces of my experiences together, here is looking ahead to- believing that I am and will be a better mother than my own mother. I will create my own rule book and play book of what motherhood means for me. Nikhil’s lack of support for me & Nyra is on him, that’s the karma he has created. I can be strong enough for both Nyra & me, I don’t need to depend on anyone for the two of us. I will live my years with Nyra, laughing & loving deeply, like never before. 

Happy birthday my love, you are my heart, my soul, my pride, my tribe ❤

Life does not owe us love

 Possibly the hardest truth that I am coming to terms with, as I age, is that Life does not owe us love!.

There is no guarantee of love for anyone at any age. Husband & wife may not love each other, parents may not love their child, siblings may not have love for each other. When you discount for the constants [closest relations], the love from variables like friends & boyfriends will always be compensatory & momentary in some form but not foundational. 

Love had been a fleeting concept for my parents- both aspects of it i.e love for each other or love for their children [this too is discriminatory between daughters & son]. Blame it on the fixation of parents in the 80s and 90s, showing love to own children was contrary to even social norms. For parents, the closest substitute for love is care- and may parents did care a lot. They cared that I should be topping my class & no other rank was acceptable, they cared that I should further their social image thru my achievements, they cared that I should be able to achieve stellar academic performance without having to take tuitions, they cared that the objective of my education was to ensure that I cleared Civil Services. They definitely cared heaps. They just didn’t care about how any of this was making me feel. 

For a big part of my life, i have tried to ignore this void in me. Did this make me emotionally stunted?- it was not possible to have experienced that kind of childhood and not see an impact of it. Growing up, I became an introvert, I couldn’t make close friends as I had serious trust issues. I also pushed myself in a crazy way to do multiple stuff -academics, debates, Quiz, riding what not- with the hope that maybe this will make my parents happy and make them love me. The mind of a teenager is naive right. When I didn’t do well in the tenth exam and saw their behaviour change towards me [they said I had gotten arrogant and that led to my downfall], I didn’t care after that whether I was doing well or falling behind anymore. I found myself sinking into a big hole I couldn’t find a reason to push myself anymore, and no the myth of parents love & my share of it,  had been busted.

Foolishly I presumed that when I would meet my life partner, this void would naturally be filled. I expected toe curling love, and a deep connection that would make me feel like I belonged with someone. It needs some level of discerning to know a myth from reality. 

Ten years into married life, and it’s safe to say that this void has swallowed me whole. For all his declarations of love, my husband couldn’t spare even the day of our wedding & wedding night to hit this point home. And just like that, that night became the foundation of my marriage. Marriage is genuinely the most transactional relationship. there is little room for love there. In marriage love is commonly substituted with trust & respect. I have not experienced spousal trust even thru some of the most difficult moments for me. And I def have zero trust in my husband that he will support me in conflicts with his family. 10 years of marriage enriches you with enough examples and hard hitting experiences to remove the tint from the tinted glasses. 

My mom took care of sibling love too. She ensured that we siblings have zero trust in each other. She played nasty games of pitting one against another, to the point that we have grown up with strong sense of hatred, unhealthy sibling rivalry and distrust between us.

How’s it that when love is such an integral part of life, I am still waiting & yearning to experience it? I presumed that I should be loved - not by the world, but at least by parents, siblings, husband. But nobody really owes love to another. 

The love that touched my heart & soul finally was from Nyra. Sometimes her love is like a shower, at other times like an oasis and then again like the warm sun of winter, making me want to bask in it. I have cried with her and laughed with her. I have felt myself in her and felt her in me. It’s such a free love.

While my life being devoid of love [except Nyra] may be my karma for the lifetime, the only choice I have then is to fill this void with other stuff that my life has given me in abundance- kindness & compassion for others, and success in all forms and some serious talents. 

The world does not owe me love, clearly, but I def owe it to myself. 

Singapore - you hurt me always

 This has been a year of hectic travels for me. I do not recall having to travel so much in the past. immediately after the US trip, I travelled to Bangalore for a summit. I was still jet lagged when i made that trip and i can assure you that I have not been more disoriented in my life before. 

I am now in Singapore for an APAC summit. In a moment of mad inspiration [or not sure what had got into me] I planned this trip with my mother and sister. I have regrets a plenty. the most important one being that I had to leave Nyra with Nikhil to accommodate few extra days of travel with them. 

Singapore was such a reality check. I had been swayed by my foolishness and naivety to think that all of my childhood experiences with my mom would not be repeated. So to imagine that it happened in Singapore, during s supposedly holiday with mom and my sis post an office offsite, is a shock that I am still reeling from.

Immediately after the excitement of being in Singapore died down, i could sense a weird tension with mom. Like always i knew it had been building up from her side. And the showdown with Fittu a couple of days before our departure did not help. Once again I found myself walking on egg shells around her. Every now and then there were offhanded comments flying, which would take me aback and challenge a reaction from me. 

While I could escape on the first few days when I was at work, the reunion didn’t bode well. Once the snide remarks started piling up, I couldn’t resist a retort on it. I found myself reduced to my first memories with my mother - as an abandoned 4-5years old kid waiting for mother to give some attention. How pathetic is it that that’s my first memory of childhood and my mother. Would it have been asking for too much to show some love to a young kid?

And how is it that it still hurts so much! Mom’s behaviour triggered so many childhood memories, that it became overwhelming to be around her. Strange that a five year old’s memory is no different from a forty something’s experience today. Will this ever stop? Will i ever find myself outside the dark washroom that I would be locked into by mother for refusing to eat food that I did not like?

What parenting allows you to scar a child emotionally like that? And who will come to protect a helpless child from the atrocities of their own parents?

The Summer of our US trip & more -Part 2

( I am typing this out on my brand new iPad keyboard [white], newly purchased from NY. Oh the joys of typing…)

Post a brief reunion with didi and jeeju, I set about [with much anxiety] for ATlanta, where our team summit was planned. That flight from Tampa to Atlanta, must have been the worst flight of my life. I got a seat right next to the washroom on the last row of the plane. Throughout the plane ride, the washroom stank. I don’t recall a moment in recent times where i have felt so compromised and wretched. Through that flight of an hour & more I promised myself that never in my life will I allow myself to experience something like this again. 

Atlanta was good, and I had great fun meeting my team there. The long travels from India to Orlando, then Tampa to Atlanta had left me quite disoriented though. Nevertheless, I powered through it to make the most of the experience.

The real madness of the trip began once I returned from ATlanta, to be reunited with Nikhil & Nyra. The shopping missions that we embarked on, left us with a hole in a pocket but a sense of wonder at our own capacity to shop. Nikhil & Nyra were the surprise package- Nikhil shopping like never seen before & Nyra my doll helping mama and masi with makeup and perfume shopping. 

The last of the strip was a stop over in Manhattan. NY was a shock to our senses. It was everything that I had not expected. It was smelly, dirty, busy and overwhelming. Hanging out with Harsh became the highlight of the NY trip.

In all we concluded Nyra and my first US trip with a lot of fanfare and a while in the pocket. 

The summer of our US trip & more - Part 1

 Over the last 2 years, there were many holidays planned and unceremoniously shelved at the last min, for all plausible reasons- finances, work pressure, or lack of alignment with Nikhil.

But how we surprised ourselves this year by going over and beyond and travelling not to any lame country in Asia but all the way to the Americas! It worked out in a way that a) I was desperate for a leave post the recent audits at work, b) RG’s invitation to travel for a Summit c) the US Visa being conquered, one felt there was a need to brandish it.

And on that note on 14th June, Nikhil, Nyra and I set about on our travels to America. True to my own style, I didn’t start with the packing till 4 pm of the date of the travel, and then realised with a sinking heart that we would need to add another big suitcase to our travel kit. From the sight of it, you could safely presume that I was packing to move to the US, leave along for only 2 weeks. I had packed for all seasons and all occasions [work, casual, ethnic, super ethnic, super casual], you name it! After furious discussions and even more furious weighing of luggage, we set about for the airport and onwards to US.

There were butterflies in our tummies, but that paled in comparison to the excitement that Nyra showed- she entered the Virgin Atlantic plain claiming it was the best day of her life. that energy level tat 3 am in the morning was something. The photo below says it all :-)

After a super mad rush at Heathrow, where a hop over of 40 mins required a100 m Olympian racing skills, and where Nikhil learnt a rude lesson in female handbag packing [no matter how thoroughly you check them, there are always some stray liquid bottles hidden in random pockets of the bag], we made it to our connecting flight in (delayed) style. As we flew over the continents, a new sense of anticipation set in. I hadn’t met Didi and her family for 8 years. I was anxious what to expect and how Nyra would settle in. We were received so warmly by Jeetu & Yana that all feelings of anxiety disappeared in secs. The ride from Orlando to Tampa tingled all my sensations, the lush landscapes, the beautiful lakes filled me with a sense of calm and appreciation for being close to nature. 

Finally meeting didi, Yahoo and seeing the beautiful like they have created for themselves so many thousands of miles away from India, made me realise how much courage & strength it may have taken for them to get this far.

(The girls on the Clearwater Beach)

The World is Waiting to be touched by your Unique Light, Nyra!!!

 My darling baby Nyra graduated from primary school last week. Time flies so fast!! Feels like it was just yesterday when she started school. 

Through these two years Nyra and I learnt so many new things together, most important of which was a lesson in processing our emotions. Nyra was so brave and embraced every challenge beautifully. I still remember how we had to work with her Base group teacher to identify her writing hand. Nyra being ambidextrous is capable of writing and colouring with both hands. But we had to consciously work with her to identify her dominant hand. 

In two years my baby grew from feeling different and feeling lonely in class to finding good friends as she graduates from primary school. There was a time when my baby felt really sad that she did not have good friends, (in school & society) many times I have chanted for her to have a break through in this (and I continue to chant for it) Today I am surprised to see how social she has become. We are now going to focus on ensuring healthy boundaries in friendships, which has become important for us to address given her ups & downs with Gurbani.  

Primary school was a revelation for us - Nyra surprised herself and us by her talent for colours and art. 

I hope my darling baby will continue to colour the world in the most beautiful hues and giving us a peek into her most amazing & kind self !! 

Nyra’s graduation card from Gunika Ma’am 

New Year, Same (New) Me

Happy 3rd month into 2024! 

Its amazing how every new year comes with a dash of hope- that things maybe different, or life may get  better - but all such disillusions are dashed swiftly within the first quarter, if not the first month! 

After the year we had last year, I honestly didn’t think that there could be a lower bar for rock bottom, and yet we see there is one actually!! 2024 has been super crazy from the start.

Even so, my big determination for the year has been to push myself like never before, to challenge myself like never before, to test my mettle and forge it! Oh but the journey of getting there is so difficult! I m in pain spiritually, emotionally & physically- is it the path of creative destruction? 

Earlier in Feb I created a structure for myself for a daily list of things I must ensure I complete, to help myself on this journey of forging:- 

Chanting  

Gosho study 

Breathing exercises 

Walk or workout 

Water intake 

Reading 

Diet 

This list keeps changing, based on my awareness of self & need of the hour. 

In a short time of one month I have def seen & felt tremendous benefit, nevermind the pain I feel . But I am also aware of how easy it is for me to get derailed from my identified structure on some days, specially when I am exhausted or have too many things going on my mind or when my mind, body & soul are not in sync  

Today I am reminding myself again, of the Samurai warrior within me, of the power & wisdom of my body and the limitless potential I have the ability to tap into. 

By posting it here, I hope to make myself more accountable towards my life goals- including my longest cherished goal of losing weight!  

Will keep going 💪🏻