That shoe fetish!

I have written many posts about shoes.. so much you must be thinking it is an obsession with me! Well shoes has always been a pet peeve with me! I have always felt my legs were oddly shaped and that it is so hard to find the perfect shoes for me! Not to mention, I like the shoes to be just perfect too.. I hate broad shoes, I hate those that are too narrow, I hate stilettos but would like to leave behind the flat shoes (remember the height difference between the hubs and me). So the quest has been on for finding the perfect shoes!

When I was foot loose and fancy free (naah not literally, I mean when I was not married), I went home one weekend to spend the time with my parents. My room mate of those days had a shoe fetish and literally hoarded shoes. I on the other hand had landed with one pair of sandals on my foot that broke on the very first day! We had spent the next day hunting down the perfect pair of sandals in a new town! We had ended up finding some really cool places (This was in Jayanagar 4th block - Bangalore.. for those of you who have been there, you know why I did not at all regret hobbling around with one broken shoe)!

I went home one weekend with a re-awakening. I needed shoes! I dragged my dad to one shoe store after another in the hunt! I wanted to get 5 pairs of shoes. I don't really remember what else I got, but one of them would continue to remain with me for years. I wore that lovely pair of high heels to my wedding reception (so I could atleast match the Hubs height). Year later I had lost track of that favorite shoe! This year on my vacation my heel fetish hit me again and I was found shopping at shoe sales to find some shoes I could bring back with me! Nostalgia struck and I began the hunt for that favorite heels. After much searching my uncle told me it was probably hidden somewhere in my grandmom's home as he had heard my grand father complaining about all my shoes taking up so much space!

So one afternoon I made my uncle hunt the shoe down and bring it to me. To his credit he did warn me "I am sure you really weren't expecting this" he said as he handed me the bag of shoes. And there in the heap lay my precious pair with its sole peeling off! I wonder if my grandmom used it to hit something? Maybe it made a good hammer? The heel was broken in two!

My grandmom was capable I tell you. Remember the time long ago when Stone wash jeans came into fashion. My mom would mumble about these ridiculous looking jeans that looked like they were a million years old. But who listened? I got a pair and treasured them. About a month later they went missing and how! I went home to a beaming grandmom! I am not sure if this is possible now, but in those days (God do I feel old) you could give your old clothes to the plastic vendor and he would give you plastic goods in exchange for the clothes. So my beaming grandmom told me "Remember your old jeans that were so faded? I gave them to the guy and got a bucket (pail)" You've got to be kidding me I thought but just ran in to check and confirm my suspicion. I couldn't crush her bouyant mood, so I said "Wow that must be worth 20 bucks.. congratulations" while inside I cried!

Now back to the shoes! Remember how I wrote about the made to order shoes for kids that were available on this website? I wish I could get those! I need some made to order shoes this instant. The 10 or so pairs in my closet do not suffice! Meanwhile Cheeky wants yet another pair of shoes.. he claims his feet have grown again. I think it is just a ploy to get shoes that tie up. He has been caught chanting "Loop, Sloop (whatever that means) and pull" and he just now told me he is going to practice on my shoes. I better be off to extricate my fav sport shoes from the imp's hands!

Getting glassy eyed about shoes!

Is it just me or is it true of all you mommies out there? It takes very little to send me oohing and aahing down the nostalgia lane! M of course snigger's on my crazy ways.. but then he is not a Mommy, so who is he to talk? Even imperfect mommy's like me take that trip down the memory lane once too often and fret about their kids growing up way too fast! I already have a kindergartner on my hands, can you believe that? I can't!

I bet you are wondering what caused this misty eyed look? We were visiting family in India and a little kid just over an year old toddled up the street and to our house. As I was yapping with his mommy (M's cousin) the kid refused to stay still! He kept hopping up and down the little step in front of our house! While little Mr. Cutie's penguin like trot was very reminiscent of Cheeky, it was the shoes that did me in and that made him keep hopping! They were light up shoes!

When he was a toddler, Cheeky would walk with his hand out on the side balancing his unsteady trot with his hands extending away from his body. Cheeky had taken his time walking.. he walked at about 14 months.. but then I have wondered it that was a ploy too. He had just upped and walked one day after making us wait for him to take those little steps! No holding furniture and trotting about mind you, just one fine day he got up and walked! Meanwhile as we waited, friends and family seemed to have a fascination for shoes! Even before he was born a friend of mine got him 4 pairs of shoes. Apparently she had gone shopping and had fallen for the tiny shoes.. so the unborn Cheeky got lucky. That had kind of set the precedent, everyone would get him shoes, from around the world too! He had shoes from UK, US, Nepal and so on. He had little squeaky ones, ones with floppy ears, ones with trucks and cars, canvas ones, cloth ones, woolen shoes and shiny mirrored shoes (like that of an Indian Prince). However the ones that he loved where the ones that lit up. I am sure each one of you got that for your kids.. The Laser light shoes - like this one. Little Mr. Cutie had one such on, and it even prompted a comment from the Big Cheeky Imp about how cute that looked.

I of course got misty eyed.. and made the mistake of asking the cool dude if he wanted one. I was immediately admonished "Amma, I need tie shoes not those baby ones" he said! In case you are wondering what tie shoes are.. they are the lace up ones! Cheeky has been asking me for one for such a long time now.. while I have been getting him all the rip tape ones!

I have always worried about shoes. It is so difficult to make sure that the shoes fit the little feet perfectly. That they are not going to trip and fall from shoes that are bigger or get blisters from smaller shoes! Talking of which, we all have unique feet and sometimes when we pick the shoe of a rack it just isn't perfect is it? I have always wondered why they no longer made custom shoes like olden days! I would love to have custom shoes just for me! And then I found this site online - Boys shoes. They have detailed instructions on how you can take a pic of the little feet on a grid and upload it, so they can make custom shoes just for your little one's feet. They also tell you how to make sure the shoes fit just right! Seems like an answer to my prayers, eh? Moreover they have a nice parenting community too that you can check out! Do check them out! They do deliver across UK and to some countries outside the UK too. Check out their store locator and see if you are lucky to be in one of those locations!
As for me.. I am going to go dream some more about shoes!

To be (geek) or not to be?

I made a post yesterday and deleted it in response to the household censor board. But apparently it still appeared in some readers.. so if you do see it, just ignore it will you?
Meanwhile as promised I am moving on with my life.. and starting to turn my worries in the directions of Geek-dom!
I keep claiming about what a handful I was in school and hence non-geek. That is not true.. I was a geek alright, trying very hard at being cool. I tried to be the jock and tried my hand at sports.. but this is how the story went.

I enjoyed badminton quite a bit and even toyed with volley ball for a while. However around the time when it looked like I would get chosen in the school team, my hand started swelling up every time I played. For some unknown reason my fracture in both elbows years back decided to come back to haunt me! So that was the end to my claim to fame.

But I was unfettered. Every PT (Physical Training) hour would find me trying to learn a new sport! Oh yes I was trying to find the one I had real passion for.. So I tried my hand at table tennis (ping pong), football, hockey (no not the ice one thank goodness, imagine me fumbling around on thin ice!), basket ball (I have never made the basket in life), baseball and so on. My friends used me as a distraction but I turned out to be quite the opposite... and caused them a lot of stress as my coaches!

I decided to try athletics and started running - if you picture some one bouncing and flailing hands and gasping hard while trying to move, that is what I called running. We had sports teams/ houses as they were called. My team lived to rue the day they put me on their relay running team. Despite the fact that I was always placed conveniently in the middle (2nd or 3rd position) so that the other runners could make up for my fumbles and tortoise pace! Not one to be undone, I tried javelin throw, discuss throw, shot put, high jump , long jump ... you name it!

I keep listing this off to M every once in a while much to his amusement. Like all guys he has played cricket all his life.. from gully to college team to office team to US league matches. He is a weight lifting, ab crunching jock who makes my life hell by showing off his perfect muscles! However as I keep running off the mouth with my athletic proficiency, I have figured one thing to be proud off. I never feared failure. I took the center stage regardless of how well or badly I faired and my only promise was to have fun doing it or a good laugh.. whatever! Not anymore though, I keep looking around to see reactions when I walk even.. do you think those people are laughing at the way I swing my arm?

And this was not all.. there is more to the list of my failed attempts at school. I tried joining the school band, no cymbals or trumpet for me mind you, I wanted to beat the drum much to the amusement of my band master.. Do you think you can carry this around during a march past he would ask.. and I just brushed it away as that was the easiest thing to do. So along side the big able bodied boys learning to keep beat on the huge drums, I learned too. And then I tried the guitar. I went to the first day of class and the minute I learned I had to buy one to join I chickened out. If I had gone to my parents with the demands of a guitar I would have heard an earful for sure given my history. I tried to sing, even join the choir (lets just say I was not the only reason the teacher abandoned us). I tried my hand at art - my teacher gave up on me in despair, no sense of color she said lightly, cooking - my culinary skills are tribute to those classes. I would stand with a book in a corner and wait till all the others were done then I would push to the foreground and eat all the fun stuff {wink}. I decided I would try HAM - Amateur radio. I got tired of the dot and dash pretty soon - how boring, why would someone do that rather than pick up the phone and call? I asked the school founder and a big HAM fan this and he glared at me with such intense that I made a bee line for the door. I tried Karate but my body ached so much I never made it to the 2nd session. My parents held hope for me till the end, and encouraged me as I stumbled to one class after another! Or rather they pretended to encourage me (I can imagine my dad telling my mom "As long as they keep her busy")

Then I found my true vocation, talking.. now that was something everyone knew I would excel at and I did that for a while.. traveled around the city and district in search of something to talk about. With my history, my parents refused to let me go beyond that. Spent hours looking up quotations and cutting out interesting articles on the newspaper. But sometime in college, I saw all the fun I was missing out.. when my friends sat in the audience gossiping I was up on stage talking about something inane like "What came first - the chicken or the egg" .. honestly who cares! And that was the end of that!

I studied to be a computer engineer and enjoyed my work with geek-ish satisfaction! Working late hours, bringing work home and smiling through it all! But then I tried my hand at motherhood.. stumbling through the sleepless nights when I poured the water into the formula box and just anointed my baby with water when no one was around and claim "Oh I bathed him!"! Lets just leave out the gory details of my motherhood stumbles... there are many posts in this blog which are a tribute to my fumbling through!

At the end of it all, I do not want to do what I studied for, and we have figured that I wasted all my school days trying to figure out what I was good at and ending up empty handed. The only thing I am good at is talking and I get that out of my system by my long phone calls every day and this blog where I rant on and on. Geek or not? thats for you to say!

A trip down memory lane...

No fodder for blogs.. or so I thought as I sat at my computer this morning. So time to vaccum the house, and clean the tub and finally iron some clothes - I cant remain in PJs forever can I? But no, I had to turn on the computer, and go to blog lines and read other bloggers...
This has sent me down memory lane.

UTBT wrote about Kootanchoru. It took me back in time to the vacations I spent in my grand parents home as a kid. I would go there every vacation as both my parents worked. Sometimes mom would join me too. In December my uncles and cousins who lived abroad would gather too. Summers were spent with my aunts, uncle and grand parents. On such occasions we would gather around my grandmom and she would mix the rice and give it to us in our palms for us to eat. She would make one big bowl of rice for all of us. Summer vacations when no cousins were around, we used to do this with my mum, aunt, uncle and me. As I was the only kid I got fed by mouth while the others would get the food in their palms. Then my uncle would always lie down put his head on my grandmom's lap and claim she was his mother first and my grandma next. I would argue till blue in the face about how I was younger and hence got exclusive grandma rights!! Such mean relatives I had, torturing a little kid like this.. but I think thats why I remember my vacations so fondly.. All the banter is truly unforgettable! Grandmom was so much fun.. she would play Pallankuzhi with me (an age old Tamil board game played with tamarind seeds for coins and thayam kattai for dice). Pallankuzhi is similar to Mancala (African board game) or Pits and Pebbles game. Summer vacations also meant, story time. Grandmom would tell me stories tirelessly till I fell asleep every night from exhaution.

Prats wrote about street vendors who come knocking in India. I would hang on to the balcony rails to peer at the street vendors calling out their wares in sing song tunes on the road every summer vacation. "Paper Pazhaya Paper" was the most common... The man who collected old paper would walk down the road many times every day. Today I haul the paper to the trash every once in a while. I finally stopped buying paper in fear of the disposal!! I remember the vendors who would bring stainless steel dishes and plastic ware to the door step. They wanted old clothes in return. How convenient. Rambler wrote about how he had a tough time getting rid of clutter.. and here was a great way to do it. And you would get these dishes/ plastic ware in return. When I started working I went to live with my grand parents for a year. I came home one day to my grandmom proudly displaying a plastic bucket to me.
"See does this look good" she asked.
"Did you carry it all the way from the store? You should have told me I would have got it for you!" I said
"No the pathrakaran gave me this" she said (the plastics vendor)
I knew there had to be a reason she was beaming so much
"What did he give you this for free?" asked I in all my naiveté'
"Oh no I just gave him one of your old jeans and he gave me this big bucket in return"
Old Jeans? I did not have any old jeans lying around.. I ran to my room and rummaged through my stuff and confirmed the gnawing suspicion. She had exchanged my brand new expensive stone wash jeans for a plastic bucket. And she stood there proud of it, beaming with happiness. I did not have the heart to tell her that was one expensive bucket!!
Cheeky had his first sighting of a street vendor when he was a year and a half. I hide from these persistent vendors. We were on a vacation to my parental home and were both playing in the car porch. I spied the vendor and tried to lure Cheeky to the back of the house, so that the vendor would call out and then leave disappointed! The vendor called out "Amma, Amma". Cheeky escaped my clutches and ran to the guy and pointed to the turn in the wall where I was hidden and said "Anga" (Over there) and He came back to me to say "Amma unna yaaro kupdara" (Amma someone is calling out to you). I had to come out of hiding shame faced and buy the stuff I did not need as the poor guy had not sold anything all day and I wanted to stop him from convincing me and let me go back to my playing ball with my now restless son. So I bought the jug and cups that he sold and it still lies in a forgotten corner in my dad's house!

Now thanks to all my fellow bloggers I am on a never ending trip down memory lane while my house lies in a complete mess!

Take Me Along!

As you already know I am getting to be an addicted blogger. This knowledge of course has no effect on me. Despite the fact that the past few weeks have been pretty busy in the Nantu Household I have been sitting down at the blog-dome! A couple of days back I decided to start authoring another blog ... at Sulekha.com. I decided I would get creative and write short stories. So I wrote my first one yesterday and waited day and night and all day today to receive a comment. I did receive one comment from my dear blogger friend Suma. But it did say 77 views. I wondered, is Suma just being nice to me? So I caught hold of DH (at least caught hold of his attention) and made him listen to the story.. With a very questionable smile (of course I haven't figured the meaning of the smile) he said that the story was good. But he went on to say "But maybe you should post it on Incessant Musings, then people will read it". (I choose not to interpret this!!)

Incessant Musings is for my rants and raves though, I dont want to use this space for my sparse creativity. Hence I renamed the erstwhile Poetic Trails to Creative Outbursts. I have always sucked at multi-tasking, so am not sure what to do with the Sulekha blog now. I think I will just let it be and die a slow death!! I already have one blog too many..
I have posted my first attempt at story writing in Creative Outbursts. Hope you my blogger friends will read and give me some honest feedback.
Meanwhile here is another story!
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She had always been very fond of and attached to her Aunt . Her aunt had doted on her all through her childhood. She had made dresses for her, read to her and spent all vacations with her. Every vacation her aunt took her to Vandalur Zoo (Chennai) and to the IIT Campus (where her aunt was doing her doctorate). She looked forward to every vacation.

However when she turned 7, her Aunt decided to get married to a guy in Australia. She was very upset that her aunt would choose a stranger over her!! Everyone in the family did their best to develop a special bond between her and the would-be uncle. So by the time of the actual wedding she was reconciled with the fact that she would still be very important to her Aunt!

Soon the wedding was over and it was time to say Adieu. Her aunt and uncle were going to have a short honeymoon in Fisherman's cove (Taj Resort near Chennai) before they took off to Australia!However as the left for their Honeymoon her ever teasing Uncle (Mama) took it upon him to etch that moment in the memories of all present!
Mama: Chitti and Chittapa are going to Vandalur Zoo without you. Don't you want to go say bye?!
Her: Really? But the Zoo is closed at night!
Mama: I don't think so, if they close the zoo at night where will the animals go?
(For some reason that made sense)
Her: I want to go too!!!
(She ran up to her aunt...)
Chitti Take me along, I will come too (Naanum varuven)
Her Aunt (No clue about the conversation She had had with Mama): Kids cant go there sweety
Her: No they can.. I will go too..
(Wailing - and standing in the middle of the road before their cab)
Her: I don't like this chittapa, why does he have to take you away.. Why cant I go too?
Her cousin (5 yrs older and wiser): Hey you idiot they are going on their honeymoon, kids can't go there
Her: Really where is honeymoon?
Her cousin: I don't know
Her: You are the idiot, you don't know anything? What will they do there? Why cant I go??
Her cousin: They will look at the moon and eat honey I think
Her: But I like honey!!
At this point to prevent further embarrassment to the couple her dad stepped in and carried her screaming and wailing into the house!!
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Unfortunately the little girl was me, and the chitti and chittapa have not let me live this down!! Neither did they let my cousin live it down.. We (as in chitti and me) made sure we let my cousin's wife know about this episode on the eve of their wedding.. so that she would know what to expect from him - We also made sure we gifted him with a bottle of honey !!

College Nostalgia - Part 2 (Forging Friendships...)

College friendships I have always been told last all life. Same is the case for me.
I met some amazing people there who stood by me through all my craziness, and continue to do that today. There are the people who have listened to all my frustrated ramblings then and later in life.
I read this quote somewhere...

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."

How true... the friends I mention here are people who can write this narrative of my life better than I ever will.

Akila (Kil) - One of the first people I met at college! She had a knack of talking just when the lecturer was looking at us, or better still falling asleep. I spent a lot of time kicking her under the table! When she was not sleeping, we were yapping away and getting into trouble for that!
Sandhya (Sandy) - Another of my first friends at college! She sat between Kil and Me all of first year to keep us from getting into trouble! She and I had a lot in common including our love for books, and all competitions which invloved speaking! We had some great times attending every possible competition in every possible college.
Bhanu - I camped out at her house so often, and spent hours on the phone with her... We shared the passion for books and computers!! She has always been rake thin and I have always wondered if I should pin her to the ground to keep her from flying away. Her mom is one of the sweetest people I know!
Ananthi (Nu) - She was always calm and composed and kept us all grounded to earth... but was always raging a storm inside... She has also listened to the most of my frustrated ramblings then and later in life. We created a joint email account and used to chat with strangers every sunday at the internet cafe!!!! I was a chauffer for her and would chauffer her around in my scooty! She was also the person who gave me valuable advice (on makeup and posture) on how to get my photo taken (at a studio) to send to alll the prospective grooms family. She took me to the studio and we got my picture taken. My mom rejected every one of them!
Priya - She is probably the one person I have argued the most with.. and enjoyed the arguments! She is also the one person who is very similar to me in nature.. we are both non-conformists, to put harshly rebels! She is also a very dear friend who thinks friendship is sacrosanct and will do anything in its name!
Sri (Lekha) - I have always thought of her as this dear nutty girl. We had so much fun at her expense, but she was always quick to forgive us and love us! She would read M & B's at the rate of atleast 10 a day! She religiously passed notes in class and kept us in conversation through all lectures! She was also this clumsy butter fingers with a penchant for accidents!
Vijayabanu (Viji) - She has been a good friend to many of us mentioned above, although she didn't belong to "the gang". She was the one who kept me grounded in the crazy Odyssey days. She is such a cute person, I am really very fond of her!
There were many others who made my college life so memorable - Rashmi, Nandini, Veena, Krithika, and many many others!! The list is endless!

College Nostalgia - Part 1 (Getting There)

Its been years and years since I passed out of college... well not really that long.. but its definitely been a while. I am in constant touch with my good friends from college, who are still the closest of my friends! However all of a sudden this week, I am stuck with Nostalgia... thinking about the fun college days! So here I start a series on my college days!

It was the year 1996... I passed out of my 12th grade with a not so great marks to speak of. I had a 90%, but thats not good enough is it? Like most kids in India, I needed (mind you not wanted but needed) to be an engineer. I had played with computers most of my life (not so common at that point in time). Like all parents, mine too thought my life was doomed if I didn't study computer engg. I had no patience or courage to wait for the "general counselling"! My parents dint want to let their pampered and spoilt brat to rot in the myriad college hostels strewn across Tamil Nadu nor did they want me to travel miles and miles to the outskirts of the city to study.

We had our solution... and the one and only "Avinashilingam University of Women", Close enough to home and all women (I bet my parents were happy. I most definitely wasn't!!). Well to cut the long story short, I got ACCEPTED and went reluctantly to the first day of college. It was a bit overwhelming to see a classroom filled with some 75 or so girls. But as I started to get to know the people around me, I found some like minded people on the very first day!!

A couple of these people - Akila and Sandhya stayed on to be my great friends for the rest of my tenure in Avinashilingam! And these two and others made the Avinashilingam I remember not a strict and opressing place, but a fun and happy place. We shared many laughs, pranks, jokes, frustrations and struggles through the years!