2015 - A year to remember

I was blessed by God with an angel in my arms. My boy. Mikhail. My body was unstable from normal delivery. I was bruised and in pain. But I was relieved that after a long period of time(almost 10 months in stomach) , finally he was in my arms. For first few months it was the usual round-the-clock every 2 hrs breastfeeding. It was difficult. I was used to a comfortable life where at least 8 hrs of sleep was necessary to keep me sane. Here, I was awake whole night and day with rough, short patches of sleep. I cried, for the fear that my will never be normal again. I was inside home for 3 months, without any social life, without any fun. Thankfully, my mom in law was there to always guide me. Very soon, the time came when I had to join back office. I was apprehensive whether I will be able to manage the stressful job at the startup that I was working with , the home , a very small kid and the added responsibilities. God helped us in getting a sweet 13 yr old girl as maid who saved my job. She used to stay at my place to supplement my mom in law at household work from 10 am to 6 pm, during my office hours. I paid her well because I knew what she saved for me ! My career ! At office , my team changed. Got a very nominal increment. I was shifted to a project where not much work pressure used to come. I missed my friends from the former team. I became lonely in office. My sole happiness was at home where the little kid was growing fast and becoming round and round like a rasogolla. :)  But with time, again I made some good friends in the new team also. Everything was good.

But problems love me. :) My husband always travelled from Gurgaon to Noida to his office and back every damn day and it was too tiring for him. We started talking less because of two reasons: 1) he always reached late home and 2) added responsibilities for the small baby who needs much care. Hence, the next target I gave myself was to change my job. I almost died of boredom in office. I made a target to leave the job in 2 months. I started preparing for interviews.

In the meanwhile , the day came when my mom in law went back to Guwahati and my mom came over to take charge over the home. And very soon, my life reverted back to normal because of my comfort level with her. I was back watching TV at home, going for movies, dining out, sleeping well whole night etc. and of course taking my mom for granted. But never did she mind ! She always wanted me to relax and be happy. :)

One day,  thankfully luck favored. Got a good offer from another startup.


We soon shifted our home to Noida. Phew ! It was not an easy task. We became almost bankrupt.
But that was okay, because joining the new company was a absolutely pleasurable experience. Happiness took over. :)  Now I am struggling to be updated with the latest technologies, thanks to the great project we are building from scratch. We have a client facing role that's challenging yet fun. A great team we are. Clients are more friendly and helpful than I ever dreamt of. More like friends in team.  I now don't even know how time passes away in office. Parties and work :) And coming back home from office is more than fun because of the playful kiddo growing up and learning to do more and more naughty stuff. Best part about kids is that you are everything in the world for them, you are showered with more love than you would be able to handle. :) For them , you are the bestest person in this whole world.

Very soon Mikhail , my boy turned 1. :)  We celebrated his birthday in a grand way at a party hall in Shopprix Mall. He is nowadays cheerfully walking around the home and throwing things from home from the balcony all the way down.... So we are doing up down all the time and burning calories ( we take the stairs) :)

 Well, what do you think ? A great year ..  Yes ! The first year of motherhood was not that tough after all. :) I had unnecessarily worried about it so much at the beginning of the year ! Ahhh, useless worries . I will learn to be more positive this year !

Living in fear - a way of life?

This is a very bold post which I have decided to write just to let out the frustration inside me.
One of my bad experiences in Noida.
I left my former job in Gurgaon with a lot of thrill because I started to have monotony in my life. I needed a fresh start , a fresh outlook.
We moved to Noida where I used to live before my marriage, a familiar area with lots of friends and relatives around.
We came here and were pleasantly delighted by the greenery and the number of parks here , the local vegetable markets here has fresh fruits and vegetables from villages, much better in comparison to Gurgaon. We have small shops and local markets to buy small necessities at a walking distance from home. We have tailors everywhere. Mom was happy because our mamaji and mausiji live here with their families at 10 mins distance from our home.
Also, my husband's travel to office vehemently reduced due to which he is available at home by 6:30 pm and he spends much more quality time with our son.
Joining the new company has also been a absolutely pleasant experience  till now.
I was happy to hear from everyone that public transport is good in Noida and we don't need to book Uber cab everytime when my husband is not available, for moving around , like in I used to do in Gurgaon.
So far so good.

BUT, some issues did cropped up.

Once I started using public transport for commuting to office , I was once again exposed to dirty looks of men, no matter how decently I dress.
One day while returning from office at around 6:30 pm, my colleague dropped me halfway to home and then I took a cycle rickshaw because my home was just 10 mins away.
The rickshaw puller used a shortcut to my home which I am quite familiar with. It gets dark soon nowadays because of the winters approaching, and to top that , there was a powercut due which the shortcut road was completely dark. The rickshawala suddenly stopped his rickshaw. I panicked. I am a regular viewer of Crime Patrol and that made my mind to reel through all horrible things that can happen with a lady. I asked, "bhaiya rickshaw kyun roka?". He answered, "andhera hai peshab karna hai maam ek minute mein ata hun." He then went to the side of the road 10 mtrs away from me. I was waiting for him and kept an emergency phone number ready on my phone , just in case something happened. 3-4 minutes afterwards I heard him calling me.."maaam maam". I turned to look at him. He stood staring at me showing his 'u-know-what' from the zip of his pants and started coming towards me like that !!! I jumped down from the rickshaw with the office laptop bag on my back , tiffin box and phone on my hands. I looked around to shout for help but there was no one on the dark road. I started running with all my might, thanks to Almighty that in the morning I had decided to put on flat comfy pump shoes that day and not heels. While running I thought of the android emergency button or calling my husband but by the time anyone comes to save me , he would have definitely pounded upon me. When I caught pace running , I looked back once, to see him starting his rickshaw chasing me, ringing the bell continuously , shouting at me , "maam maam maam, paise to de do". I could feel hot red blood rising in my head due to uncontrollable temper going up and up. How dare he I thought , how dare he !!!!? What was he even expecting out of me ...that ..I won't be able to keep my sexual hunger in control after I see him ??!!!

Had there been people around, I could have shouted for help and would have slapped him tight.
Worst part is that it happened just 5 minutes away from my home at a familiar road , because power was not there that time.

After that day I stopped using public transport in Noida and started using Ola cabs or Uber cabs on everyday basis.

And this is not the first time this has happened to me by lecherous men. I have had to mend my otherwise  logically correct lifestyle to tweak in the danger from beast-like men.
I hate it !!!... it angers me from within !! What do this class of men think ? What pleasure do they get out of this ?

Why in spite of being educated and independent , why do I fear darkness , why do I fear unknown men , why do I fear small roads ?
Why can't we women take public transport even though our homes may be few minutes away ?
Whatttttt is needed to rectify this in India? Or should we continue teach our daughters to live in fear, avoid public transport , shortcut roads and from men and their needs ?

I feel guilty ! Because that rickshaw puller must have been doing the same thing to some other girl on some other route because he did not get beaten up properly that day, to teach him a good lesson for life !! He has the courage to do it again because he thinks he can get away with it...!! Why are some men so sex-starved here that they can stoop to any level to get it from simply anyone , even small kids ?

Too much care?

The battle to live an exorbitant life that should be 'advertisable' anywhere, is leading people to fool themselves into believing that struggling for career growth is the only way to prove love for their family by surprising them with fancy gifts at the drop of a hat , living in an marvelous apartment, dressing up like models and VIPs , and moving around with luxury cars. And STILL !! We often feel the need of vacations from this supposedly-awesome life. On the contrary , when I look back at my prior years of life , I don't remember feeling the need of holidaying just to run away from the normal life. We did not have any luxury then. The only luxury we enjoyed was exceptional relationships with family , friends and neighbors. Everyone around me seemed to care. I remember sulking my face to school one day. I had innumerable friends to ask me what's wrong, it spread like wild fire in the class that Maryam is not doing well and the whole class was up to something crazy to make me smile. We sulked more because we had more people to care. We feigned sickness just to get extra pampering from mom , so that she would bring fresh, hot food to your bed. We looked like extra-lean 'Gawars'. Neither we cared nor did anyone else.

But nowadays, even if we don't feel physically or emotionally well, had a fight with someone close, won a war in the crazy traffic to show up in office , still we have always have the pretentious smile on our faces , we just never sulk on the outside because we know today, there no one who would care, instead you would promptly be labelled as a "negative" entity. I have seen people in my office having heated arguments with someone and 5 mins later you see both the entities smiling and laughing merrily with their own so-called friends circle. They are "vibrant" people. But how is this possible? Because... nobody really cares (other than family of course) . Fighting is very natural thing. They say it is a greatly required skill to be at peace with yourself in the modern times.

And , want to know who cares most nowadays about you ? Yes..........!! it is Myntra, Jabong , Flipkart , Foodpanda, BookMyShow etc etc and what not , who seem dead concerned about us.They care to bring us the almost impossible-to-believe offers for our advantage. They have offers to fight our Monday morning blues, have freshest styles(clothes) for our Tuesday , of course, the don't-cook-Wednesday food offers and the famous Big-Bazaar Wednesday sale , throwback Thursdays (they seem throw us back the money we gave them for purchasing stuff), buy-one-get-one pizza at Dominos and happy hours for Friday. You have the male deo companies promising the males that any sexy girl won't be able to resist on you and would cling tight with your body. VLCC's claiming to help you lose 10 kgs in one month's time. Happy hours on drinks are needed for friends to talk and connect well. Young couples relationships are somehow sustaining and managing on "give and take" policy, instead of love and care.

Till date , I have experimented a lot on attaining peace with myself and for me , I have found that healthy relationships helped me a lot on this. There is no investment required for love or friendship but yes, can make your journey of life much more joyful and full of energy! You can cut down on so much of boredom. Don't fear setbacks/back-stabs so much ... Before you get the setback (if you ever get one, ..... and if you don't , you are lucky for life !) , you will have some of the lives most cherished moments !! By God's grace, I am lucky to have experience some of such moments.  :)

Are we really intelligent?

Last two days were the days we always long for during the whole week. The Weekend.  :)

After a long tiring week , as usual I was planning to be extremely lazy during the weekend by sleeping , cooking special dishes, eating , watching TV or go out for a movie. But , my son , Mikhail sensed that the weekend has arrived because me and my husband were at home and did not leave for office like week days. He was delighted , excited and thrilled to have us the whole day. He was laughing , shouting and jumping the whole day. We were doing all sorts of things to make him sleep, so that we can have some time for ourselves to relax. But he did not. He was just super happy because we were there for him whole day !! By late evening , both of us were very exhausted after playing with him whole day, just because we did not get our afternoon nap. We got a feeling that the whole weekend finished just by playing with him and not by doing our favorite hobbies which helps us to relax. But his energy levels of fun did not lower down.. still his eyes were twinkling with delight, longing to play more.

Finally after dinner, he curled up inside my chest and went to sleep. I heaved a sigh of relief. I looked at his face and realized that God has really created us in the purest form. 

Look at Mikhail. He really knows to count his blessings. He made most of the time he had with us ! As we get more and more brains , we start understanding negative things better than positive things..and over the course of many years , we become impure souls  !

If Mikhail was an adult today , we (me and my hubby) would have been taken for granted during the weekend, and if he knew and understood the fact that we were tired of playing with him , it would have hurt him so much, and it would have some negative effect on his mind and hence his nature ! 

But now , at very young age, kids can see only positive energy around , don't really mind anything , make the most of their time, don't keep anything bottled up in their hearts.  And.... hence they look so charming and attractive, skin so soft , eyes so bright, and so full of energy ! 

As they grow up , they will start taking things for granted, won't be valuing the present situation they are in , they will soon start having egos/sentiments which will eventually start hurting them, they will start feeling jealousy for other peers, lose valuable relationships, and then start feeling lonely. 

Is it all worth it ? As intelligent beings , are we being really intelligent ?

Best compliment which was supposed to be unheard

I don’t know why I have always been a girl who’s usually the first one with, whom close friends will share all their tragedies. It’s a very fond memory about my life. My friends would always forget me in their good and fun times but suddenly I become their best friend when they are in some sort of trouble. I never have had any solution to their problems, and they go away after talking to me with the same problems on their back, but still they will keep turning back to me whenever any other tragedy occurs.

I have never asked them what they like about me so much. Nor do I want to know. I am just happy about the fact that they feel that I am worthy enough for their trust.

Just one fact I know. There’s a girl who’s my close friend (luckily she does not have a Facebook profile now, otherwise I would not share this link). She often came to me with her problems and used to stay over at my place. Her problems were so deep that I sometimes did not even utter a word because I did not know what to say. One day at night I was fast asleep. Her phone rang. She went outside in the balcony so that she would not disturb my sleep. I don’t know who called her. But I heard her saying on the call. “I truly would have committed suicide, had it not for this girl Maryam. Her actions always remind me that life is simple, if we have fewer expectations from life and sometimes let some problems remain the way they are. I know it’s easy to say but I have a friend who actually LIVES this principle. She enjoys almost everything. I have seen it every day in her life”. I did not ask her anything on our morning tea ..

 I don't even know whether I changed over the years or still am that way.

BUT that was the best compliment about me I received so far in my life.  

Pangs of Guilt

It is 3 am at night and I am breastfeeding my son and writing this blog on my mobile. He did not demand to be fed by his screams. I was just checking him if he's sleeping and saw him sucking his palm, which he does when he is very hungry. I immediately picked him up and started feeding him. For producing this breast milk, I consume a lot of healthy (and hence obviously costly) foods. And to make and serve all these good foods we buy, we have brought a maid all the way from Guwahati who charges us a lot. But we are more than happy to do all these for our baby. To supervise her and to help my newborn son, my mother in law is here whose is like the second mother to my son, since she took more care of him more than me, right from the day he was born. My family too came to meet him with a huge, heavy sack of gifts and a thick gold chain. Such is the fate of my son. So fortunate, so blessed.
The other day we were going for just a routine checkup to Fortis. Costly but still we keep doing that just to ensure that not even a small illness should catch him. We had a one hour wait there because the doctor had not arrived. Immediately, me and my husband had this amazing idea to go to have kebabs in a nearby restaurant. We had a heavy breakfast but still we were hungry for kebabs. We crossed the road and reached the restaurant. Outside the shop, a scene shocked me to my core. A beggar lady of my age who had a baby boy of the age of my son, shook her bowl of coins begging for money. Her bowl had only two Re1 coins. In this chilling cold she held her naked baby close to her chest only with a thin, torn dupatta. The child was sucking his palm wildly exactly like my son does when he is hungry. His mother was patting his back, trying to comfort him. But she was not even trying to breastfeed him. May be she did not have breast milk to feed him since she herself doesn't have food to eat. How will her body produce milk? Did she not love her child like the way I do? My world collapsed under my legs. Here we were enjoying every possible luxury. Costly vaccinations, routine checkups, best possible food, costly baby products, throwing away parties for his birth and what not. We can’t stand even an iota of trouble to touch our child. But what is the fault is this young lady that her child and she herself doesn't even get the most basic need, that is, food. 

Now I will shift abruptly to another topic. I ponder a lot about The supernatural power. My belief in Him keeps changing according to what I see around me. This time, after I was blessed with my son, my faith in Him shooted up. But again the faith broke when I saw this young lady with her newborn. What was the sin committed by this lady, that, most probably, she herself was born in family where one-time meal for a day was a luxury, where daughters are not wanted, no roof over the head; she must have been unwillingly raped in the streets at night by strangers. What was her sin that she has to see her child in so much hunger? I have no answer. Now I must mention that I am totally surrounded by people in family and society by people who have firm faith in God and who have every possible explanation as to why God does such cruel things to people. Such people will come up with an explanation that why doesn’t this girl work somewhere? But I feel that if a person is consistently so hungry all the time, will they have the ability of even thinking what is “opportunity” for them , or “where” to find the “opportunity to work”? All they can think is where to get food and feel relieved temporarily. Her son will probably eventually grow up without any lessons to learn in childhood, without knowing the difference between good and bad, he probably will go about to do anything to quest his hunger. So, friends, I would just like to know your thoughts, and the other side of view. Why God discrimated amongst His own children? Why some people get too much from birth and some don’t even get the basic food? Isn’t the innocence of every baby born same?

The picture of the lady with her child got imprinted in my mind; I feel guilt while enjoying every luxury. Even though we all try to help out unfortunate people when we can, but that’s too small to make any difference, and yes, we all are too selfish to compromise on our family’s luxury. We all have a very good explanation that we work very hard to earn this money, so we have the right to fulfill all our passions. Which is true. Very true. We study hard, we tore such tough competitions, struggled so much to get to the position we are in right now. And obviously after that, we WILL fulfill all our passions from the money earned. And hence the vicious circle is continuing generations after generations and will continue forever.

Giving life to a Life !!

I stood there in the washroom with awe and shock as I saw those two red lines in the pregnancy test kit. I was not expecting this. I came out with the strip, showed it to my husband and said: "Positive" with a long, hung face. To my surprise, a huge smile flashed on his face (it’s a very rare gift that you get to see, considering his sober nature) and he said “That’s great news! You are going to be a great mom for a little angel! ”.  And as they say, smiles are contagious, his one attacked me too. My mind flashed through a lot of stories I have heard from my female friends, seniors and relatives and mostly, movies of course, where ladies jump at the positive news of pregnancy but husbands become silent and nervous at the thought of the huge extra responsibility. I felt if my life partner is so eager to take up all the responsibilities, then may be in this field I will get through with much lesser responsibilities and why not experience this phase. I was anyway bored of my job and wanted something new in my life. And trust me, later on, now I know how wrong my calculation was about me having much lesser responsibilities.

We kept visiting our gynae and every ultrasound showed us our growing-up baby’s images, it always increased the feel of attachment for our baby. Sometimes, I felt he showed resemblances of my husband and he used to feel the opposite (as usual, our thoughts HAVE to be opposite!). Pregnancy went good; my doctor said it is almost perfect!! J

Mostly, I loved the attitude of people close to me, they always said positive things. Always! It felt wonderful. I was pampered all the time. All friends in NCR made out time to visit me with some or the other very-thoughtful gifts. People in office opened doors for me, always left their chairs for me to sit whenever the area was crowded. I had lady friends in office who were also expecting and we had a great time discussing all small details of day-to-day pregnancy issues with them. Female senior colleagues were like an encyclopedia of information to us from their past experiences. They mentally prepared us very well for delivery and new-born baby care, and the reasons to enjoy each experience. Even while on roads, I saw respect in people’s eyes, instead of their head-to-toe-scan-predator-type eyes. And, yes, most importantly, even the laziest of husbands (like mine) keep offering to help in some household work or the other. And for some strange reason, they seem to love you more than ever. All these were enough to compensate for the various kinds of back/leg aches and nausea that are normal in pregnancy!

Now comes the deadliest part.. my baby was delivered after 14 hours of labor pain.. pain was unbearable ! During the labor pains, I was extremely angry on simply everyone around me because they all say its “NORMAL” delivery… nothing is ACTUALLY normal in that pain I was in (when I must mention , I have a good enough capacity to handle physical pain , I am not a delicate girl , I am a tough tomboy girl). There came a time when I thought I would die silently inside the huge oxygen mask on my face. On the top of that ,the two young lady doctors handling my delivery case, were laughing and gossiping on all sorts of weird topics in the world. Starting from sexy lipstick shades and designer saris to why Fortis hospital was the worst hospital they ever worked for in their whole career. And then an interesting topic came up. Some surgeon named Rakesh had resigned from Fortis unexpectedly. It seems he was under real mental stress due to what Fortis had given him for his career as compared to what he deserved. Lot of negative stories were going on as to what what had happened with Rakesh during his job at Fortis.  Seems like he love-married a lady doctor from Fortis itself, had a son and later on had a divorce with her, who still works in Fortis and now has  another lover  AND……. there I was crying and screaming, as if this Rakesh was a very close family member of mine who was about to die that day itself due to all miseries that had happened with him. During this Rakesh story only, I delivered my baby via vacuum pump suction. Then , the lady doctors HAD to stop the Rakesh story and I heard them saying “Hey Maryam, it’s a handsome BOY !! ”. The whole environment changed thereafter. All the nurses out shouted the news happily to each other and to my family members, whistled and started demanding sweets from Lutfur. My mother in law and hubby started making phone calls to important members in the family. In the meanwhile, they cleaned and heated up the baby and placed him on my lap.  Trust me, he was the cutest ever kid I had seen in my whole life. I kissed him and he smiled in his sleep. Tears due to all the pain I had suffered started flowing….. uncontrollably. Tears of the extreme pain I was in after the delivery and happiness at the same time.