Dubious Doubters

To err is human. To point out how everyone around us is erring is even more human. The humanest of it all is pontificating over what everyone around us should do in order to stop erring. Having said that, I do admit that I do not miss an opportunity to point out my peers' faults. The fact that I am a teacher, and that people pay me to help pick out faults in papers they write, does not help matters any. So, it should not come as a surprise to me when people pick faults with things I do. However, I bristle when people make comments about my child-rearing abilities [or the lack thereof]. What REALLY TICKS ME OFF is when people who have NO CHILDREN of their own try and tell me how to become a better parent.
"Oh! So now you're teaching weeknights too in addition to your weekday schedule?" goes one such well-wisher. "Tsk, tsk. Won't the brat miss you? Seriously, you and your other half should get your priorities right. Spend more time with her." "Erm, well..." I falter in response. "We do alternate our schedules. Either MOH or I am at home every evening with the brat," I counter when my confidence returns. "That's not enough." Mr. Well-wisher shakes his head in disapproval. "She needs to spend time with both of you as a family every evening." Hmmm...yeah, sure. In an ideal world, that is definitely possible. Wait till you have kids and you try to balance work, parenting and other social commitments. We'll talk then.
"You should train the brat not to talk to strangers," goes another wannabe parent. I rise to the bait. "Why? Was she talking to anyone she did not know?" "Well, before she handed over your phone to you, she spoke to me for 10 min," comes Mr. Wannabe's reply. "Ok, but how is that relevant? She knows you. She knows I talk to you often," I parry. "Yeah, but when she picked up the phone and heard a male voice, she did it not know it was me. It could potentially have been a stranger pretending to be me. You should train her to be more careful next time." Sheesh! What is the girl supposed to do? Give every caller the third degree? Gimme a break!
I'm not saying I am the best parent ever. However, please don't tell me what to do and what not to do before bearing and rearing a child of your own.
Remember the old African saying: "Don't judge a man [or a mom] until you've walked a day in his [or in this case "her" ] shoes!

Delinquent Drapes

Last week I showed up at work in one of my chiffon salwar kurtas. “Ooh Maggi!” chirped my colleagues. “You look so beautiful in a sari.” This is not the first time that American women have referred to the salwar as a “sari” in my presence. Part of this problem could be the fact that most Westerners have some vague idea that the Indian woman wears a sari. What my western counterparts do not realize is that somewhere during the last two decades the sardarni bequeathed her traditional attire to the rest of India and now the salwar suit is even more ubiquitous as “Indian clothes” than the sari itself. This, according to me, was a very unfortunate turn of events.

When a sardarni wears a “suit” she makes sure there are enough nips and tucks added to the pattern to make this an almost feminine attire. First of all, she chooses the material with an eye for detail. Her suits are usually made out of soft crepe silk or bright chiffons that hug the contours of her body. Her kurtas are quite figure hugging and the salwars have a flattering “gher” [gathers] that mimic the sexy harem pants of Arabic belly dancers. Next, when she finally dons her outfit, the sardarni pays careful attention to the dupatta, the piece that can make or break the effect of the salwar suit. Her dupattas are often the focal points of her ensembles. They are carefully and painstakingly embellished with lace, sequins or embroidery. Often the duppatas are specially dyed to match the colors of the salwar suit. The sardarni arranges this piece-de-resistance artfully over the kurta so as to accentuate her feminine curves.

Unfortunately however, when women from the rest of India [especially South India] eschewed their beautiful saris in favor of not-so-beautiful salwar-kurtas they did not inherit the sardarni’s knack for turning this quite masculine [the salwar suit is nothing but a stylized pant and shirt ensemble] attire into something that can be quite beautiful.

The typical South Indian mami will don a salwar because “saris are so difficult to manage.” “Since when? For generations, Indian women have done anything and everything from riding bicycles to climbing trees wearing saris,” I’m tempted to retort. Anyway, even if the mamis do want to wear a salwar suit occasionally, can’t they find tailors who will do a decent job of sewing one that fits right? Their “modesty” will not let them wear figure hugging clothes, so the kurtas end up looking like shapeless tents. Furthermore, the tailor, in an effort to “save yardage” will fashion the salwar in such a manner that it has no gathers to speak of. The resultant “pant” is often a cross between a salwar and a churidaar. Ready made salwar suits are the worst offenders in this case. As if all this were not enough, the mami treats her dupatta like a poor country cousin. She doesn’t quite know what to do with it. Should she accept it? Should she give it up? She can’t quite do either. She definitely doesn’t think the dupatta warrants extra expenditure. So, unlike her Punjabi cousin, she will not spend the extra bucks to go out and buy this often extravagantly embellished piece of cloth. Instead, she settles for the “free” dupatta that accompanies her ready-made salwar suit. This often turns out to be a meager strip of cloth. We can blame the “let’s save more yardage” mentality for this situation. Anyway, the mami then hangs this strip of cloth in an awkward manner. Sometimes she pins it crosswise across her breasts like the mighty warriors of the Girl Scouts fame. At other times, she pleats it into a thin stiff strip and pins it to one shoulder like her father’s angavastram. Worst of all, she decides to give up the practice of wearing the dupatta altogether and sallies forth in an ungainly manner. Wonder what happened to her modesty.

Sigh! Ladies, I beg you, either go back to wearing your gorgeous silk saris, or go get some lessons from your friendly neighborhood sardarni.

Demeaning the Noble Profession

“What? You’re going to India again? When? Why? How?” exclaim people around me when I mention my plans for the summer. “Well, three months is a long time to be cooped up at home with the brat,” I venture in an apologetic tone by way of justification. “Ah! I forgot. You have three months off. No wonder,” they muse with a now-that-explains-everything nod. “You’re so lucky. Wish we all had jobs like yours,” they sigh.

At this point, I’m always tempted to make a “Well, you could if you really wanted!” retort. I’m really fed-up of trying to explain and justify my “easy job hours.” Everywhere I go all I hear is “Oh, Maggi, you’re a teacher. How lucky! All those days off.” That's all you see? The days I don't have to work? What about when I do work? Do you really think it is a piece of cake having to hold my own against 125 [5 X 25] opinionated self-righteous teenagers who're hot-wired to hate you simply because you make them do "hard work."

If I didn't get summers off, I would be stark staring mad. Think about it. Most of you can’t bear to be around the one, two or at the most three kids you have sired [or mothered]. The joy of parenthood vanishes the moment the cute smiling babies become little people with personal opinions. “How troublesome! He [or she] doesn’t let me do anything…gets in my way no matter what. I can’t deal with him [or her],” you say before bundling your child off to day-care, pre-school or all day kindergarten.

For the next 18 odd years of their lives, these kids are officially off your hands. However, can you imagine the plight of the poor teacher who has to shoulder the responsibility of 25 to 30 “headaches” for seven long hours five days of the week?

Maybe all parents should have a few mandatory “teaching years” before they become parents just like some countries require a few years’ worth of mandatory military service. Only then will these people realize that teaching is not all about “working half days and getting summers off.”

Dreading those "School's Off" Days

I just received the calender for the upcoming school year from the brat's new principal. There are a lot many boxes [read dates] marked with an X. These are days when school is "off." Apart from the national holidays, the brat will not have to go to school on the following days:

1. The day after Halloween because her principal "does not want to deal with the hyper kids who've eaten up all their Halloween candy." [Right, so now I have to deal with my hyper brat myself]
2. The MTW before Thanksgiving so that "families can make travel plans and leave early to beat the Thanksgiving rush," said her principal.
3. Spring break, which lasts one whole week [this happens the week after my spring break].
4. Every single last Friday of the month during the school year "so teachers can work on becoming better role models."

Other than these "holidays" there are several "early release" days too.

So, what am I supposed to do with the brat on her days off? I have to be at work, and since this is not India, I don't have "casual leave" days. Now that the brat is in regular school, I don't really have a child care center or a babysitter on my payroll either.What do other mothers do with their rugrats on their days off? Probably American born and bred moms have parents or other sundry relatives who can step in and take responsibility when there's no school to contain the tiny monsters during the workday. What do immigrant parents [who have no family here] do? Swap child-care services? You take care of my kid today and I'll take care of yours next week.

Every school district should probably have a huge drop-off zone where parents can send their kids to be baby-sat [is that even a word?] when regular school is off. Either that, or our workplaces should give us the option to bring our kids in with us to work when they are not in school.

On several occasions this school year, I've actually had to take the brat in to "school" [in the US, even colleges and univs are called schools]. No wonder she wakes up every morning and asks me, "Which school are we going to today? Mrs. Fleming's [her class-teacher] or yours?" When I tell her that she is definitely not coming to my school, she goes "Awwww, not fair!" and walks off in a huff.

Looking at next year's calender, that is exactly what I want to do -- pitch a fit and walk off claiming that the school district is not really being fair. Instead I console myself with a sigh and a "Such is life" comment. Life is war, and everything's fair in love and war, I guess.

Dental Woes

I’ve been receiving a lot of emails from my loyal readers asking me why I haven’t been ranting lately. Well, my dear friends, would you have the energy to talk [much less rant] if your gums were swollen and painful? That’s right. Despite the Sensodyne and the brushing-for-three-minutes-and-flossing-for-five-minutes-twice-daily routine, my oral health still leaves much to be desired.

“Why don’t you just go to the dentist?” was MOH’s irritated response yesterday, when I complained about my sore gums for the gazillionth time. “’Coz he’s the root cause of all this trouble,” came my tired whine. That, my dear friends, is the sum and substance of this sorry rant.

My saga goes back a decade or two [Shh! I’m not telling you the exact year, lest you figure out my real age] when I was still living in Mumbai with my folks. Part of being an only child granted me the right to eat one whole Cadbury’s 5-star bar all by myself at least three times a week. As anyone in their right minds will tell you, all that chocolate and caramel did not help my teeth any. To cut a long story short, I ended up with a cavity in my tooth. Those were the days when people [in India] did not really visit a dentist except at about 50-odd years of age [to get their teeth pulled out and have dentures put in]. Off and on some poor soul [read girl] in her late twenties or early thirties might go and get some braces put in if she found it really difficult to get married owing to a pronounced overbite. That being the dental culture then, I naturally accepted my cavity as a part of life and left it alone. I did not even give it a second thought till I met MOH and decided to tie the knot with him.

“Dental work is really expensive in the US,” exclaimed well-meaning friends at the software consultant firm [where I worked at that time]. “Get all the dental work you need done in Mumbai itself. Once you are here, remember we can’t afford to go to the dentist. I don’t have dental insurance,” advised MOH. Of course, I did not understand all this mumbo-jumbo about costs and insurance, but since eight out of ten people were giving me the same spiel, I decided to go pay Dr. Desai [the guy who put my dad’s dentures in] a visit.

That mild mannered dentist took one look at my 10-year-old cavity and told me that he’d fill it up with a simple silver amalgam. I gave him the go-ahead. He did his work in less than 15 minutes and charged me Rs. 500 for his efforts. I came home a happy camper.

Years later, after we got our green cards, MOH took up employment with a local US-based company. The most exciting thing about this job [for us] was that we’d now have dental insurance.

My first visit to local a dentist’s office was a complete nightmare. I walked into the office dreaming about sparkling white teeth like those of Vanessa Williams, all thanks to the bi-annual “free cleaning” services I was now entitled to. “Those fillings look really old,” exclaimed the hygienist who looked like a cross between my Italian neighbor and Baywatch’s Pamela Anderson [she had perky fake boobs]. “If you don’t get caps put in soon, you’ll have bone density loss and you could end up losing all your teeth before you hit 40,” she told me in a grave voice. “What?!” I shrieked in shock and disbelief.

“I don’t want to end up looking like my dad,” I told MOH that evening. “Dad can’t even eat the besan ka laddoos my mom makes with his fake teeth” I moaned. “But the insurance does not cover crowns and it’ll cost me $ 2500,” said MOH. “Think about it; why don’t you go to India and get the dental work done there?” he reasoned. “It’ll only cost us a fraction, and with $2500 I could easily pay for you and the brat to fly to India next month.”

We argued back and forth, and finally I did go to India. There, I eschewed old Dr. Desai’s office and instead patronized a sharp young doctor with a swanky office. He was US-returned to boot. I came back from that vacation sporting a brand new crown on my old cavity. I believed that would be the end of my troubles.

Fate [or rather, my dentist] had something else in store for me. During my next visit he asked me, “Where did you get that crown put in? The stuff looks like something they used to have in the USSR during the cold war days; really sub-standard stuff. It’ll have to come off.” Sigh!You can’t really argue when you are lying down on a dentist’s chair with your mouth clamped open and a shiny light blinding you completely. He went to work on my poor tooth. Off came the “sub-standard” Commie crown and in went a brand new American capitalist specimen. Was that the end of the saga? You bet, no.

Months later, when I went back on yet another visit, I learned that the other dentist had “quit the group,” and that I was “being assigned to another dentist.” My new dentist wanted to take a look into my mouth [to fulfill his curiosity, I imagine]. No sooner had he taken a peek into my open mouth, he asked, “Did Dr. R put in that crown for you?” I nodded in the affirmative. “These young doctors, I tell you; with their new fangled ideas and all,” he shook his head. “Sigh! How’re you managing with that crown? It’s really all wrong for you. It’ll have to come off.”

What more can I say? The cure seems to have become the disease and I am in constant agony. Maybe on my next trip to India, I’ll simply have my mom rub clove oil on my gums.

Days Off

Who says USA is "the land of the free?" I never have free time to do anything I want. Of late, I seem to be "running around like a dog chasing its own tail," according to MOH. Somedays I wish I had four [or eight] hands like the goddesses in our mythological stories. It would also be nice to have ten heads like Ravana. I can then compartmentalize my thoughts. One head could store all the details wrt work. Another head could store recipes. A third head could store phone numbers and important messages I have to remember to deliver to different people. You get the idea...
Why can't I have a bai to do the menial chores for me? Why can't I hire a cook who will make yummy Indian khana for me by the time I get back from work? I don't really dream of having a chauffeur, but why can't I have an autorickshaw wala who'll pick me up in front of my house and drop me off in front of my office? More than anything else I miss the dhobi who would sterilize, launder and press my clothes and linen. I'm tired of wearing semi-ironed clothes [I admit I suck at this chore] and I HATE sleeping on wrinkled sheets.
The brat summed it up well when she asked me one day,"Mom, you're always having to do hard chores all day long. Don't you feel like Cinderella?"

Don't tell me

MOH says I’m anal-retentive. My friend and cooleague [sure I know how to spell colleague, but this is what we call each other] Laura says I show traces of being obsessive-compulsive. BTW, she diagnosed that from the fact that I have a tracker attached to my blog that tells me how many people have accessed it, when they accessed it , from where they accessed it…u get the point.

Both MOH and Laura are right about their deductions. I do have a list of pet peeves and anyone who commits the crime of “peeving” [if I may coin a word like that] is in immediate danger of being blacklisted by yours truly.

Today’s rant is about one such pet peeve – the chronic mis-pronunciation/misuse of certain words.

Now I don’t have an issue with Indians who do not know [and do not claim to know] English very well mispronouncing these words. However, it’s really irritating when so-called educated Indians who allegedly know how to speak “good” English refuse to learn how to pronounce cabin and patio correctly. They’ll call it a cay-bin and a pay-tio respectively. I mean, come on, how hard is it? If you can say the a in apple correctly, you should be able to say the a in cabin and patio the right way.

Another problem word with many Indians is opportunity. People, please, it is pronounced op-per-too-ni-tee, not awpor-tu-ni-tee.

Before you begin accusing me of being racist, I do have a problem with my American friends as well. I can’t stand it when they refer to people they know as “that.” “My mother that lives in California, blah blah,” they’ll say. Ok, guys, here is the rule…your shoe can be a that, but your mom sure can’t. She is a who – My mother, who lives in California…

You may use that to indicate a person only if you can’t identify that person – a nameless, faceless person. E.g. the soldier that falls into enemy hands may be in big trouble.

I do accept that English is “a funny language,” as Amitabh Bachchan once put it in one of his movies, but these rules are really not that difficult to master, are they? So, the next time you use any of these words, watch out…the pronunciation patrol may be just round the corner!