Wordsmith at work

  You wake at the break of dawn Filling the air With the sweetest birdsong. You collect twigs and sticks To build a nest small or big You soar high in the sky Inspiring me to spread my wings and fly. 

The month of September is a 'happy birthday' month in my home. This year my mother turned 84, a on the 8th of September and my sons will turn 23 and21 respectively. Ah, yes, the better- half turns 63 on the 22nd. Mom at 84 is not doing too badly. She may be feeble and slow of gait but she gets around. She remains prayerful and a voracious reader. Reading the daily newspaper is a must. At home with me for the past few months, she has had very little to do and is happy to catch up on her reading and bonding with her two grandsons who regale her with tales from their ever-so - busy lives. Mom can still sew a button or alter a hemline and am I grateful for that! Born within two years of each other on the same day, my sons are temperamentally as different as chalk is from cheese. Besides a common date, they share little else. The older is easy going, rectient, generous and musically inclined. The younger who turned 21 is thrifty, hot-headed,  extroverted and an artist in his own...

And I am back..                              My life changed on the April6th, 2019, when I was officially proclaimed 'sick' I am on the road to wellness. It has been a long and anxious 5months but I am better now and hope to get completely well soon. I have learnt that there is no greater wealth than good health. If you are healthy, you are strong, positive and happy. So take charge of your health. Thanks to the awesome support that I received from friends and family, I was able to negotiate every twist and turn that the illness brought. I learnt that self-pity is a total no-no and you just had to snap out of it.  Wallowing in self-pity just made you more sick and miserable. Spiritually, it has brought me closer to God. I have begun reading the Bible and praying like I never have in my 55years. Illness changes you in more ways than one. It may temporarily physically weaken you but will also br...

Erase hurt and pain, Forgive, and you will gain. Erase blindness, Let there be kindness. Don't misjudge, Erase  mistrust,  Work on a relationship Don't let it rust.  Erase the 'cannot', don't tie a knot, Let positivity be your mascot.  Erase envy, anger and fear, Hold close love and good cheer.  Erase the bad and the ugly Wear a coat of goodness snugly.  Always be happy and bubbly!

On disappointments It is okay to be down in the dumps To experience  life's many bumps Don't fret for too long anyway For tomorrow is another day A new beginning is on its way.  The storm was fierce The night was long I prayed, I trusted,  And there was a rainbow one morn Thank you, Lord, for the happy song.   

It precisely 4.27pm on this 27th day of March and the evening sun is streaming into the living room bringing with it the scent of summer.   How lovely it is to hear the cuckoo call in the early hours of the morning.  I feel bored, disturbed and restless. The results of a job interview were not as I had hoped for. I try and tell myself that whatever happens happens for the best and there could be something better in store for me. A cheat meal was in line.  I treated myself to a yummy banana and peanut butter smoothie a while ago. That is hardly something you have when on a diet. Since my head is all messed up, I might as well take refuge in comfort food.  The maid is in the grip of wedding fever. A nephew's wedding is on the horizon which will be followed by the weddings of her own son and daughter. She will go on leave and is keeping a substitute. The substitute is another young girl. I can hardly te...

I have not had the Monday blues this week, instead, a deep purple has been the colour of the day. Two lovely deep purple Portulaca flowers greeted me this morning and set my heart aflutter. I bought the plant last week in Pune and carried it all the way to Mumbai. Luckily it survived the journey and now shows off its blossoms in all glory and splendour. The younger son who is quite a pro helped me transfer it from the little packet of mud that it travelled in to Mumbai to a medium-sized pot.  My gardening skills are improving slowly but steadily. I do not have many gardening tools, in fact, I get by with just a broad blade knife at the moment.  I have learnt a little about mulching and watering and compost and manure. It is nothing but exciting to watch a plant sprout tiny leaves and then watch the leaves grow. You impatiently wait for a bud to open, checking on it every day and when it opens you are thrilled to bits.    There is a pale peach  Hib...

  A picture  is worth a thousand words. When the above picture,went viral, it received brickbats and bouquets.   At face value the picture is nothing but heartwarming. The children are happy as happy can be.  The real smartphone eludes them, but they make the best use of and find happiness in whatever comes their way even if it is a slipper. We adults spend our lives hankering for more...bigger, better, fancier...it goes on and on.  Making the most of what you have is what happiness is really about.   This post is part of BlogchatterBlogHop link.

I was born to middle-class parents who were raised by hard-working and God-fearing ladies and gentlemen. Here, I pay tribute to Mom's side of the family. Mom was the third of nine siblings. Two were taken in their youth. The oldest was a boy and the only son of his parents. Two of the sisters joined the convent, and two remained unmarried. Nana Dorothy and Papa Joseph raised their nine children in a four-room house in suburban Mumbai, which must not have been quite enough for them. Nana reared pigs and kept poultry in her backyard. Papa worked at the Port Trust and did voluntary work in the church. The church was close to his heart as it was to his home. The family saw some very difficult days but coursed through.  As adults, every one of them was able to fend for themselves. My uncle, Berchmans also my Godfather bought a pressure cooker for his mother with his initial earnings. He stood by the family in thick and thin. Gen...

Today's Times of India carried a piece by journalist Jug Suraiya titled Unpaid COOs and here's a page from one such unpaid Coo's diary...read on.  As a regular homemaker, my day begins pretty early. The 'cheerful' buzz of the alarm awakens me to the sights and sounds of the day. it is 7am and ever so cold these days. I reluctantly drag myself out of bed. My youngest has already left for college at the unearthly hour of 5.45am.Being quite adept in the kitchen, he rustles up breakfast for himself. I have much to be thankful for.   I remind myself to practice my breathing exercises and then trudge to the kitchen. My 'ginger -infused' warm water is all ready for me to glug down. (Thanks to my significant other)While tea happily brews on the stove, my significant other is busy pottering around in the kitchen, preparing his starters as in a smoothie. Now that water and tea both have been drunk, it is time to get down to the business of takin...

Today on world leprosy day, I quietly slip into memory lane. My thoughts are with a group of 10 lepers who came to our door every Saturday begging for alms. They held tin cans and we dropped 10 paise into each can. Ma prepared jaggery sweet for them as a special treat for Christmas. How happy they were and it made us so happy to witness their happiness.    My thoughts are also with Father Damien who served the lepers of Hawaii tirelessly and finally succumbed to the disease on April 5th, 1889.  January 30th is also observed as Martyr's day in India. It was on this day in the year 1948 that Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse. On this day, the president, vice president, three service chiefs gather around the samadhi of the Mahatma and lay wreaths. The last post is sounded by the Armed forces and a two-minute silence for Indian martyrs is observed throughout the country at 11am.    In remembrance of two extraordinary men who walked the earth. ...

He must have been five or six years old. Unaccompanied he deftly made his way into the ladies compartment of a Mumbai local at peak hours in the evening.  What struck me as remarkable in this quite unremarkable child was that he was cradling a pile of books written by popular authors desperately looking for a good bargain. There was Durjoy Datta, Twinkle Khanna, Khalid Hosseini and a host of others to choose from.  Most of t he women gave him a cursory glance or just smiled sweetly. One straightened a book in the pile and went back to her cell.  He continued to look imploringly and expectantly at the ladies but none obliged. Then suddenly lady luck did smile on him when a young college girl made her choice and bargain. He quoted Rs250. "Rs200," said she. The deal was struck.  The little bookseller had money in his pocket and and one book less to carry. My heart went out to him. Did he at least know the alphabet? I  think not. Most probably he would grow up ...

  A nasty freakish fall in my kitchen does damage to the palm of my left hand, which is also my working hand and has me literally in stitches this New Year. Praise God, it could have been worse. My head is intact and I do not have to contend with any broken bones.  There are all these diets flying around, I have tried a couple, succeeded and failed and tried again. At 54 you want to dress well and look good. What does looking good entail, especially for women of 50+?  A healthy weight. For some of us, a healthy weight is hard to come by. One is called upon to garner every ounce of self-discipline and motivation in order to achieve that ideal weight. I have burnt my fingers and presently struggling with weight issues. The festive season did not help. It is going to be a long uphill climb. God help me! A haircut that does not add years but dignity to your face and elegance to your being. On the matter of hair, whil...