Anglo Indian friends/families from my native town

We  had  many Anglo-Indian neighbors living around my house during my childhood/school/college years. They introduced me to western- music, fashion and lifestyles. I enjoyed all the delectable cakes, sweet confections from their house during  Christmas.

I loved to watch the Christmas tree/decorations in their homes. I had a secret wish -  to be a Christian during Christmas just to get a gift from Santa Claus. Well ,sometimes our secret wish can come true after many years. I loved the unique interior decorations in the house. My desire for  mid-century modern furniture and home decorations was influenced by them.

Most Anglo Indians from my town immigrated to Australia during my high school years. These are some of the memories of  them from my childhood.

Nordmann family lived opposite to PS mama's (my dad's best friend) house on the first floor . My family lived in the same neighborhood. I used go to PS mama's house often after school especially when my mom was in the  hospital.

Nordmann family had 4 adult kids all in high school. I vividly remember their daily evening routine . They had this huge dining table near the front door and they never closed the doors except at night. I remember seeing Mary amma - the tamil Christian house keeper who worked for Nordmann family, taking out huge cut/blocks of cooked beef from the huge pressure cooker and placing it on a huge plate.  The hungry teenagers usually ate the meat with knife and fork.   I was seven or eight years old girl then. I always ran back to PS mama house when I spot Maryamma bringing the cooker to the table. I hated the smell of meat and I would watch them eating dinner from PS mama's door step.

The eldest one - Cleito was a funny guy. I used to call him Cleito anna (big brother) . He would take a big chunk of meat in his fork just to scare me. Now when my American friends order beef in the restaurant this scene comes to my mind every single time. I had a lot of funny colleagues like Cleito . During lunch outings, they would eat the steak (cooked to rare which look like a raw meat to me )with all funny expression just to make me feel uneasy. 

Childhood never stops at school for some happy guys.  I had a  group of colleagues/buddies at Intel who were kids at heart in spite of having kids.  We got the attention of serious faced techies  at the cafeteria almost every afternoon thanks to our thunderous laughter.  The curious CB used to sit with his team mates (desi guys mostly tamil guys) few tables away from us. Atleast one of them would always come and aske me "Enna  eppadi ragalai everday ? (why so much laughter everyday) .  We had such fun/happy times like kindergartners  though we all worked on core security prodcuts for a world famous tech giant.  I missed them big time when I joined qualcomm.

Mr. Nordmann daughter Sandra’s collection of faux pearls in pastel colors mesmerized me.  I was 8 years old, when I  had a first glance at them lying on a dressing table in her dimly lit bed room . Till date, I love wearing huge colored bead necklaces because of her. She reminds me of sultry actress from American/English movies from 1960’s. She ranks first in the list of pretty girls I knew from my childhood.

Cleito anna's  pet - a white mice . He was like a magician with his mouse. The white mouse would come out of the attic when he whistled to eat the food. He was sad  to have lost that mouse in train while travelling to Banglore before leaving for Australia. He was a gorgeous guy who had this short girl friend. Both were famous hockey players in our town.

My first ball room experience was at an annual Anglo Indian’s New year celebration. I was in elementary school then. Fancy dress competition was a regular event at the new year's gala.  A guy came dressed like leper sitting on a wheeled cart. I stared at him thinking he was a real leper and wondered about his presence in the New Year’s party. I cried out loud when he came closer to just scare me.

I was scared of lepers during my childhood. I heard factious stories from adults about lepers abducting kids. My school was located next to a  famous cathedral in town. And many of them used to line up and sit against my convent's wall asking for money.  Growing up I was very touched by our convent nun's kindness - embracing poor kids in the school and helping the lepers.  This aspect of Christianity made me an admirer of that religion.  And my Montessori school nuns helped us tremendously during my mother's long stay at the hospital.  Two decades later I was married in that famous cathedral.

I remember my favorite baby girl - Kitty Paul from Paul's family dressed like a cute yellow chick for new year's fancy dress competition. She was then a 2 yr old beautiful chubby girl with catchy blue eyes. In 1999, I met her as a beautiful young girl along with her mother Mrs. Paul and Sister Ruthie at the railway station while travelling to Bangalore. My mom and Mrs. Paul were admitted in the same hospital when my mother went for kidney operation and Mrs. Paul for open heart surgery.

Mrs. Paul was CB’s kindergarten teacher. She hasn’t seen  him after 12th grade and could not believe that tiny little guy from her class has turned into a tall and broad guy and married a Hindu girl  she knew well . We were friends with Michael Paul’s family. My father used to call him Mickey Paul.

Rozario's family with seven kids lived just behind our home. They were loud all the time.  They had six girls and one boy. While returning from school every day I would see at least one Rozario kid talking/flirting with the boy friend in front of their house. I also remember their loud parties with loud music. I loved hearing loud western music playing round the clock in their house. Candy a reputed hockey player from this family was my batch mate at college.

During Indira Gandhi's death we were in Chennai enjoying our Diwali break with our extended family. On returning home, we heard the news about the hush-hush marriage Andrea since she got pregnant. She was the prettiest of all Anglo Indian girls from my town and her parents were very conservative people. The marriage took place on fateful day when Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Her younger brother was CB's classmate. During my trip back home in 2002 my cousin showed me the infamous hotel in our town which was hot spot for Anglo Indian lovers during those days : ).

My college dress code was liberal which meant Anglo Indian friends wearing backless formal dress, Kaftans and spaghetti strap dresses to college in late 80’s. My college provided us with micro mini divided skirts for sports day parade (inter department parade).  And as a  NCC cadet I had to take part in the dept parade every year.   Every tom, dick and Harry from my neighborhood got a sport's day pass by citing some imaginary sister's name during our sports day parade just to drool over the hundreds of girls wearing micro mini skirts. Our college watchman never allowed us to go outside the campus to get some refreshment after our NCC drill during college hours . My Roman Catholic college had some weird rules like this.

My good friend Anita my collegemate  is a guitarist.  She was a famous guitarist (in campus and in our city) and would play for us during lunch times.  Me, Anita and Nachal represented our department in fashion parade event. Anita for western dress, moi for cotton sarees and my married classmate Nachal for silk.  Anita's dad was CB's french teacher at school. Anita was the first friend to know about CB . She used to call me "saint" during college days . She was pretty surprised to hear that I had fallen in love , that too with roman catholic guy . CB played soccer at school and she  knew CB well during high-school  years.

Anglo Indian friends had a good influence on my life growing up in small town in Tamil Nadu. I cherish the best memories of my childhood thanks to their Christmas and New Year parties and their friendship.  Though CB and I went to different schools, after marriage we  realised that we had many Anglo Indian friends in common. And we talk often about our friends from our native place. This is best part about marrying a guy from your home town who knew your friends too. When I share a memory about our life/friends in our hometown with CB, we both go back to that time.

This week we fondly remembered and shared our memories from our home town. Thanks to FB, I was able to see the pictures of all anglo Indians friends who left my home town in seventies and eighties, especially picture of Sandra N in her late forties and other Nordmann family members.  That night I went to bed feeling like an eight year old Montessori school kid.

Autumn

Life has been busy in general during the month of October with festivals and other celebration.. Many of the post written during October are in draft stage since I am spending my time watching lot of television before going to bed and talking for hours with my family and friends back in India.

I liked my commute to work during autumn looking at all the trees covered with red/yellow leaves with mild weather. Autumn marked the start of festive seasons both Indian and western. During autumn I frequented restaurants during lunch. I loved the cozy corner and comfy table in my favorite restaurant drinking my warm soup served with bread. There is a lot of good restaurants in Lake Oswego /King city near the place I used to work and having variety meant happy lunch time. I miss going out to pubs/restaurant with friends /colleagues in the evenings and having good time. My friends loved having a friend who doesn’t drink. I was their official designated driver .

Ten years back, every weekend we went out for bowling or had friends for lunch or dinner at home especially 3 of my husband's colleagues. They came home for lunch and used to spend the afternoon and evening watching games and go home after having dinner.  Not once I complained about them hogging our weekend or all of them conveniently forgetting that we were newly married couple ; ). Well, things changed when they got married. And my husband learnt a lesson.

This is first year, I missed going to Garbha ( I even attended garbha just six months after delivering NR). Autumn started with vengeance in portland with cold , damp nights/days. I was in no mood to get dressed in traditional costumes and drive out in the pouring rain. Garbha starts at 9.00pm and goes till 1.00am . I curled up on my cozy warm bed and watched TV instead.

This is also the first year I didn't make any deepavali sweets/snacks. NR kept me busy during the day and after dinner I was too tired (or just lazy) to make deepavali sweets/snacks alone. This year deepavali at my house was a low-key affair.

When I don’t work, I’ll start hibernating during cold season. And this autumn/winter I am thankful that I am not working. I don’t have an hour’s commute to work in blazing winds and rain.  Every morning we (NR and me) get to sleep till 8.30 -9.00am  and I love this part of my SAHM life. Well, I am grateful to have a husband who makes this possible.  Thank you lord for this special luxury I enjoy even after becoming a mom.

Happy 2nd Birthday NR

NR turned 2 last month. The first call I received was from my periyappa informing me that temple is distributing food to everybody and the kurukkal (priest) came home to give the first prasad . I was pleasantly surprised and  felt very happy . My sweet and thoughtful younger sister had arranged for “Anna dhanam” for NR’s birthday in my favorite temple in Chennai. Only sisters can read our heart and thoughts right?. Here in US, we did the usual routine of visiting temple and church. Unfortunately church didn’t have the scheduled evening mass that day. 

My younger brother had a sudden business trip planned to US and arrived in New York around first week of April. He planned to visit us, a week after NR’s birthday from New York. Since Mamu was the chief guest we decided to have NR’s birthday party a week after his real birth date on the day mamu came home.

We had his birthday party at home this time .We had NR’s favorite “Go Diego Go” birthday party theme.  We arranged the table with Diego themed decorations, wall hangings complete with cups and plates. We invited few of NR friends (well our friends with kids of his age). 

I made “Go Diego Go” themed - 10 inch double layer round lemon cake with coconut pecan filling. I made kids friendly white and chocolate butter cream frosting. When I checked the web for Diego themed cake, almost all the cake had green frosting. I decided to go light on using food colors and decided a butter cream yellow as a background. I baked and frosted the cake two days before the party.  Just an hour before the party, I completed the final decorations on the cake. 

I cooked the dinner at home. I served Indian style Vegetable puff pastry as an appetizer. Main course included Indian style Vegetable fried rice served with Thai Red curry gravy with hard-boiled eggs and potatoes, Idlis with Tomato and Kothamalli chutney, home-made Puris with  Peas Paneer masala. Since there were dozen adults and few kids we ordered chicken pizza for kids along with other party favorites for kids. 

The kids took home goody bags filled with Diego themed party favors. NR received suitcase full of gifts mostly dress and loads of books from his dearest chitha (my younger sister).

Thankgiving 2009

We spent our thanksgiving enjoying each other's company at home. Papa spent his four-day weekend by playing with his son throughout the day. And mama loved the big break from routine work since papa completely took over duty of taking care of NR right from morning till night. I went for shopping around late afternoon on black Friday (not for the deals though) and ended up buying loads of fabric. Not sure when I will get time to finish all the projects : ).  

The Christmas gift for NR and CB arrived last week. I am sticking to a strict budget this year since I am living off on limited income from investments. We live below our means and never get carried away with desires of occurring or buying more stuff. This spending habit of us helped us to make SAHM possible and doable and our life style hasn't changed a bit.  Our dreams, plans , wants and needs in life have taken a back seat with NR's physical and emotional development taking the highest priority.

I want NR to feel safe , secure and free spending time in the familiar place aka his home. He is just a baby and I don't want to leave him with stranger who can never understand his needs like us.  The more books I read on parenting I feel assured that this is the best thing to do and the benefits are rewarding. NR spends time at home doing whatever he wants at his own schedule. I like NR to have this freedom and not restricted by adult like schedules /disciplines at this tender age.

NR co sleeps with me and he almost pushes me to edge rolling in all directions specially in the morning when he is hungry. Even a queen bed is not able to accomodate this little guy.    When he gets up he is happy to see me. He spends next half hour either sleeping lazily in the bed next to me or on my shoulders. When I visited day cares this summer to check out the facility it broke my heart to see little babies sleeping in a tiny cot. I mean really tiny space meant for little puppies (in my opinion : )).

As a mother, I feel I need to give this simple pleasure in life for him, a privilege I had growing up. I would rather take a late retirement but leave my baby with a stranger and go for work. I am comfortable leaving him with a  nanny at home if one of us can work from home .Taking a late retirement will help me stay younger and free me from a boring empty nester syndrome.  I would feel comfortable leaving him with strangers when he will be able to communicate his needs and wants clearly. Until then, I will be his primary care taker. 

On this thanksgiving day, I am very thankful for able to stay at home taking care of my son  and praying for such simple blessings for all the people in our family and for mothers around the world.

Diego - My new found god

NR received  Diego story book pillow as gift from his dad when we returned home after our India trip. NR at that stage was very much fascinated with little boys (thanks to the little boy illustrations from his fav book - It's a good thing you are not an octopus ). So papa bought Diego story book pillow from our local costco warehouse  as a surprise homecoming gift for NR among other gifts. It was an instant hit with NR. It has become his fav bed time story book . Thus I was introduced to the existence of this great phenomenon called "Diego , the animal Rescuer".

A month after our return, purely by coincidence I bumped into "Go Diego  Go animated show on cable.  NR did not take his eyes off the TV not even for a second while watching this show.  NR was almost 13.5 months old and I have never allowed NR to watch TV till that point. He is hooked onto this show ever since that fateful day. 

Cooking dinner everyday was a tedious task since NR never wanted to be alone . He would constantly cry or laugh or do something to get my attention.  Diego entry into NR's world made my dinner preparation a breeze. I DVR'd the episodes and allowed NR to watch the half an hour episodes while cooking dinner everyday before his dad's arrival. 

When his paternal grandma returned from her daughter's place on July she forced me to put Diego for NR every day.  Feeding solid food(s)  to NR required me to give out my best performance of story telling, puppet acting, mimicking animal sounds etc etc. But  my new found God Diego have made solid feeding an easy ritual . Diego has become the secret password for making NR to open his mouth . All I have to do is to switch on Diego show and his mouth opens automatically as if  I had said "open sesame". 

This is first time after NR was born that I am able to leave him alone to do chores in the absence of CB. NR is a clingy child and he never allows me to even to dress for 10 minutes before going for a walk. Now Diego has made my world little easy .

Both mama and son are getting educated on various animals and its habitat. I even learned what tapir eats : ) .  Look, I am overly obsessed about food & eating habits being a new mom. We are also becoming proficient in spanish language. When I say "Subir" NR runs to climb up the stairs and we are even counting in spanish :).  NR observes keenly and smiles when kids speak in spanish during our play time in munchkins.  I never imagined my introduction to spanish language would happen this way . Thanks to NR , I had kick-start in achieving my goal of learning spanish . More than ever, I am determined to take the spanish immersion program .

I know in my heart that this  phase will not continue for ever but I am going to worry about that later. Till that time, I am going to use my new found God's help to run my household with little ease.  Go Diego Go !

VegSeatarian

I am a VegSeatarian. Yes, I eat vegetables and love sea foods specially crab. Though I like fish very much I eat only particular varieties like anchovies, seer fish ,pom fret and sankara (red snapper). My hometown is not a port town so we don't get fresh fish . We rarely get pom fret. We can get "almost fresh crab"  since they had good shelf  life unlike fish. My paternal grandmother made crab dishes and she taught my elder sister to clean and cook crab . So , my sister became the official crab chef  in my house . My mother never knew to clean or cook crab. Now during my visits to India she makes crab and I am not sure when she learnt it.

During my college /working days I used to travel from chennai to my hometown almost every weekend.  I learnt the art of travel conversation during those days.  I never liked bus travel till KPN buses came into business. I met lot of interesting people during my train journeys.  People wanted to know everything about you during those short 8 hours journey.

I always had atleast one brahmin co passenger travelling  with me to my hometown from chennai.  Just after 10 minutes of conversation with me , their usual question would be " Are from this Sri.........?  which implicitly means Are you Iyer or Iyengar ? Thanks to the famous temple, the residents of Sri......... locality are predominantly Iyengars and Iyers.

Not sure if my fair skin or my knowledge in carnatic music made them to think I should be from this particular caste .  Whenever I was asked this question I resist giving this answer " If crab eating people are Iyers then I am an Iyer too : ) ". Being  young and naive and brought up in a family where we don't make fun of  elders I bite my tongue and say " I am not from "sri..." and I am not a Brahmin.

Later on when the same question was asked by my colleagues of my  age , I would tell them my famous answer" If crab eating people are brahmins , hee hee I am a brahmin too".  After an initial shock, they would get the joke and burst into laughter.

I no longer get this question when I travel alone. Thanks to my screwed up hormones my skin has become brown.

I no longer get this question when I travel with my family . Thanks to tall , broad and almost dark skinned husband . His accent and belly speaks for us ; ).

Bye Bye Spinach love

I used to love spinach to the extent that I had to have a spinach dish once in a week atleast. The more the merrier. I made simple dishes like spinach masiyal, moongdal with spinach, palak paneer (palak tofu - I substitute tofu with paneer).

Thanks to NR, My love for spinach started fading slowly and now I have come to a point even the sight of spinach dish gives me goose bumps.

Readers who have a baby will know the reason for this. Readers with no kids, come back and read this after having a baby.

Windup Toys

 NR has very few toys to play with and most of them  gifted by friends. He is very fascinated with our hands, legs and face. CB and I constantly entertain him with our hand’s mimicking various animals, objects along with sounds. CB shows all kinds of silly faces. NR gives non stop giggles when we entertain him with our face and hands.

We want him to grow up feeling happy just like us being grateful for  simple things/blessings  in his life. As a couple we enjoy simple moments in our life than a lavish lunch/dinner at an expensive restaurant or expensive gifts . Simple things in our life make us happier like a stroll in the park during the weekday or spending some quiet time at home with each other. This was the reason we fell in love with each other 17 years ago .  We shared the same values, beliefs and philosophy in life though  we are from a different religious background. Life in US or success in our career haven't changed us a bit. CB and I  are two simple people leading simple life with no drama.

NR has started playing with toys and I was planning to get him some age appropriate toys like this, this, this  and this. I want to avoid buying big chunky plastic toys as much possible. I am going to try my best to keep this resolution.

Past Sunday, I was running an errand and I parked my car in front of a toy store. I ha n't visited this toy store since NR’s birth. I went inside and searched for the toys to buy for NR. Then I saw a 5-year-old girl trying out all sorts of windup toys on the floor and it brought back my childhood memories. I am not an  impulsive buyer but ended up buying lot of windup toys for NR.

I had a favorite tin windup toy – a skating monkey which skates and somersaults. This is was in mid seventies and having such a toy was big luxury at that time in small town like mine which never had a toy store. I don’t think even now my hometown has a decent toy store . Anyways, coming back to skating monkey toy, this was the popular toy when kids of my age or less/more visited our home. I shared all my toys with visiting play mates but I used to have few unlikable adamant visitors .They were the adamant  kids who want to take the toys with them to their home . They did everything in their power to get what they wanted. My dad always made me to give the toys . At that time I felt he was a villain like Nambiar. But the skating monkey always came back to me thanks to their parents. Later on when I heard if those kids were visiting us again, I  cleverly hid my toys. I never had guts to stand up against bullies neither then  nor now.

Feeding solid foods to NR is a big task by itself which takes me at least 45 minutes. I have to get all the tricks under my sleeve to make him open his mouth. I used these windup-toys on his high chair and it was an instant hit. He opened his mouth wide with his giggles and ate his food faster .One drawback was, he spat out more food than usual due to thunderous laughs.