Loved you 2017

Bring me more years like you, 2017!

Here's what has made this year so colorful -

Career

As put down perfectly by Leonardo Di Caprio - 'If you can do what you do best and be happy, you're further along in life than most people'. Fortunately enough, I can relate to this quote. I love every bit of the sweat that goes into my work. Provided it does not sweep into my personal or family time. With occasional bumps here and there; and with great mentors (Pankaj - I still don't understand how you have managed me and my clouds with such intelligence!), support and opportunities that I have been lucky to find along the way, I sure must be on the right track.

Kanav

Parents support kids in their endeavors. But Kanav, all this while, you have supported your mother in all of her endeavors, by letting her pursue her stuff, and staying behind, waiting. It's a payback time. You, my love, my sunshine, are on my prime radar now. Nothing stands in between you, your childhood and your art of life. I am here to guard you, throw you into the pool of opportunities, encourage you and be there as your (like we call it in programming) exception handler. Be your friend, be your buddy. At the same time, be someone who's happy and content in her pursuits. Knowing the over ambitious mother that you have, this calls for immense discipline and creative routes. I am game. Are you?

Family

While in my growing years, I always used to say to my sisters that they have consumed all of my parent's energies, leaving no space for me. Being a fairly independent and luckier kid, I occasionally felt Middle Child Syndrome within me as I saw my busy parents catering to my sibling's growing needs and helping them with the decisions. Little did I know that it was weaving me into a jinx that brought me back to my parents after years of being settled. This time throwing me back at them in a very emotionally and physically dependent state. Thank you mom dad for being such a tremendous support, during such a trying time. I couldn't, absolutely couldn't, have come through if it were not with your support.
Same year, I lost my 'great' grand mother. Must take generations and experiments to produce a being like her. Her demise meant relief for her; and infinite memories for us, specially Kanav who misses you a lot, a lot. You stay in our hearts forever, Bhabhi Ji.

Home

My new one, my only one, where I have felt my soul inhabitating, is this home, this haven which I call my precious. It sure, does keep me consumed, almost drowned in the sea of household chores, but I absolutely love every bit of my space I live here.

Friends

Developed some deep and meaningful friendships along the way
Which I hope are there to stay

On Men

You are my kind -
- if you respect women (and men)

- if you strike real conversations
- if you don't carry success in your head, and/or failure in your heart.
- if you respect 'space' - yours and others
- if you are honest, sensible and capable
- if you emit sufficient warmth and charm as to be seducing to my emotions

Seasonal obsession is good provided that it's weaponized the right way.

Epiphany

I live segmented lives. One segment of me is quite self obsessed. The other half segment is quite similarly oriented towards enabling those in need. There are days when I live in intersection of these two. And that's where true magic happens - when there is awareness of self and enabling of another. Patterns like these are for the keeps, until hell freezes over.  

A glass of wine never hurts

As it turned out, all it was needed was a glass of wine to shut down the bloody procrastinator in me. 

Black out

All those lazy, procrastinating creatures like me deserve to go through exactly what I'm going through right now. Total black out. 

An Ode

Congratulations Oscars! You deserved Leo and finally you got him.

And Leo - I think you should donate sperms. This planet needs many more people like you.

The hunch

As I breathe in here in room no 3511, bed A at Apollo hospital, I come in rather close touch with my hunch that says that I'm just a few miles away from the encroaching avalanche that has been awaited all this while.

New Days

Where women have got balls
And men bitch!

The Chronicle

I am the city, that never sleeps.

I go on and on, and on and on.
Day after day.
Night after night.
People are born. People die.
People fall in love. People fall out of love.
People come. People go.
I stand here, the same.
I don't wake up. I don't sleep.
I stay.

Rusting.
Renovating.
Restructuring.
My roots run deep.
My spine runs firm.

I am the noise.
Breaking into the stillness of being.
I am the silence.
Gasping in the middle of noise.

I smoke. I quench.
I live. I age.
I exhilarate. I replenish.
I exhaust. I deplete.
Day after day.
Night after night.

Every beginning must come to an end
Every captivity must give way to its rupture

As I await mine. The salvation. The avalanche.

It's one more silent night tonight.
It's one more deafening night tonight.
It's one more sleepless night tonight.

Beat that

As if Sun in Scorpio was less enough. I am sanctified with a Moon in Scorpio as well.

Quick Bday Bite

Gosh! Bad bad idea to be working from office on your birthday.
Reasons later!

Forgotten

I know not what forgiveness is
I know not what forgetfulness is

All I know is
You are forgiven
Only, as long as you are forgotten

Why so serious!

"Hey! You know she's a 'divorcee'. He is a 'divorcee' too!"
..."Must have done something terribly wrong. She anyways comes across as a really weird girl"
...etcetra

Quite a perfect thought, natural too, rational too. Just my 2 cents -

In future, use the word 'separation'. I will tell you why :
One. It will make you sound sound.
Two. It will make you come across as someone who knows English. I bet you loved this one. That's ok. Pleasure is mine.

The interesting thing about this 'sensational' divorce -

(By the way, do you have anyone else in your stretched vicinity going through it? I bet no.)

-Is that it does not really suck the way it is anticipated to. Terms and Conditions apply. And that's what makes a person going through it come across as 'weird', when in the first place you had wondered why could you not use the word 'sad'. That's sad. I know.

"Lipsticks and all... She is dating for sure."
Well.
Hell.
No! A woman wont wear it only when on date.
She can also wear it when she is trying to seduce you.
And craving for that stare, that you and only you can give. You silly.

And the...
"Singapore trip"
"I call that Desperation"
Yeah! It is. Indeed. Just the right word you used here.
Desperation to sleep with a secret Leonardo di Caprio that I am travelling with, in the rosy beds that await me in the sensual beaches of Singapore with my 02.7570 year old son guarding against any interruptions what-so-ever.

Last..
"...why this clarification all of a sudden?"
That's because this shit that I hear occasionally bangs my head. I shed it every time until over a period of time it auto-mountains itself into a huge heap. And suddenly I am a yogi sitting on the hill top of Mount Everest.

Be Right Back!

Dear Kanav,

Till you are grown up to catch me stealing away. Or rather, till you are grown up to occasionally gift me sanity, I will continue to steal and celebrate, like this.
Movies. Caffeine. Reading. Writing.  - Bring it on!

[P.S - Done with my share already. Your super-nani just came from a break that I had forced on her! :-)]

Yours only
-Neha Mumma (@ Mother's Day.10.05.2015)

What not to expect when you are expecting

Gratitude to those who have stuck by me, through thick and thin.

My maid's sister delivered a cute little boy a week back. She is going through some post partum complications, the super-set of which I once had. She was hospitalized for reasons more than one. She felt clueless, hopeless, close to suicidal for reasons more than one. That's when I decided to pay her a visit. That's when I decided to pen this down. And that's when I decided to share it across. Hoping it paves hope for those going through it.

Ok. Will cut short the foreplay.

After a delivery that started with unnatural bleeding, spanned across 24 hours, turned into a back labor, leading to a forcepted labor, 3rd degree episiotomy, 15 days hence diagnosed - a severe life threatening infection because of the gauze pads being left inside during THE hour, sour lactation experience, a thing called endometritis, another thing called vistula, some 5 finger Diastasis Recti in the abdominal muscles, a bit of varicose veins, a financial breakdown, a marital breakdown, if me and my baby can make it. So can you, and your baby.

Just keep in mind -

1. No, even if it's a little more in your case than what I mentioned above, it wont kill you, or your baby.

2. Despite the conditions, the medical warnings and the evidence to not let me pursue my weight loss regimen, I exercised, and exercised (wont suggest you do this).  Till I lost that each bit of extra Kgs trapped inside my skin. Till I restored my abdominal muscles to where I wanted them to be, and not where they were announced to be, and were expected to accept. I am back in shape, even better one, just with a bit of loose skin around the tummy, which I am still working on, post 2 years of delivery. If it's in mind, body follows. Mostly. More tips here.

3.  Make sure you have at least ONE strong support system with you, preferably a woman.

4. Try not to rely too much on your partner though I do hope that you get all the support you need. For he has little approximation of what you are going through. Any expectation, unless met, is likely to bounce back with even more frustration. And is likely to further prolong the healing.

5. Stop thinking negative. Even if it means a bit of sleeping pills, anti-depressants, just go for it. Irrespective of what your sane care-takers tell you. Trust me, they help, at least more than what you can expect from anyone around. And if taken with the right zeal, are not that tough to wean off.

6. Father of all - Screw those who tell you to go for a normal delivery (and not a C-section) even if your instinct says, you cant. A screwed up vaginal delivery is n times (n being in inverse proportion to your luck quotient) more hellenous than a well operated C-section. In every possible aspect. The process itself, the healing, the precautions, the life.

7. Mother of all - Do not google negative stuff. Never when you are not in the right frame of mind. Even if you have to, search for the cures and not just the terms you are diagnosed with. I tell you, this concept of manifestation, or the law of attraction as some call it does work. Or I should say that it worked at least for me. As I feel I have a pretty strong imagination power. I've seen most (if not all) of my visualizations, readings, fears, aspirations come true. Negative googling can manifest the hell out of your life if you are a strong thinker.

72 to 52

For few, it comes naturally, for few it doesn't it has to be earned.

Once my baby popped out, I weighed barely 3.5 Kgs lesser than what I was just before my delivery. And that was precisely the birth weight of my baby. Quite contrary to what I had heard from the mothers and their success stories of being in control of their weight and shape post delivery, I relied on the scale's correctness and gave situation the benefit of time. Life continued. I incorporated all healthy life-style practices. Healthy diet, Exercising etc. Few months hence, I was done with breast feeding. Few months further hence, my menstrual cycle happened. My date came, and went by. But, rather Big Butt! My scale tip went down by just a few grams.

Sensing the big trouble that my body had landed itself into, and the consequent restlessness in me, my GP gave me clear warnings, lest I be doing castaways with my body.

None-the-less. I took that as a self proclaimed wake up call. And what followed next was an austere project. Within about 4 months of that GP visit, my scale started showing 52ish Kgs. Consistently.

Coming to the point, here are the broad level tips (other than the regular exercising tips that can be easily googled) that by being aware of, you can make your journey more predictable and less prone to failures -

• Stay away from those who care for you. They wont be able to stand seeing you being so harsh on yourself, and would out of care try to distract you, reverse-talk your agenda and the likes.
• Stay away from those who are fond of eating. For obvious reasons.
• Prioritize and time cap the weight loss program - Understand the difference between staying healthy in general and losing intense weight. Former is a life style and can happen every day for the rest days of your life, but latter is a project that needs to be kicked off, implemented and be done with. Paving way for the former.
• Be aware that any such heavy weight loss can get extremely cruel on the skin and the area being targeted, leaving you with loose fat-less flab to keep you struggling for years. Get into the habit of doing a regular deep massage on the area or the entire body. 
• First few pounds are easier to lose. Let that be a motivation and not a distraction. 
• Talk to yourself, watch motivational videos, whatever. Keep the fire burning till you are there. 

And remember, if it's in mind, body follows. Mostly!

Crushed

There's this guy who suffers with 'Clarity of Thought' syndrome. And I swear, I cant stop crushing on him.

Tresses & Messes

The look in his eyes says
what's with the frizz gurl!
Let the kisses
And the caresses
Calm thy tresses
And thy messes

This and That

Dear Lord,

Please give me friends who don't hit on me, and the man that I desire who does not just want to remain a friend.

~Neha.