When Terror Struck

Not long ago, not far away was a place or rather a house in which 4 people lived. There was a peaceful silence surrounding the house. Not a thing in the house was out of place. Not a speck of dirt or dust could be found there. The people in the house went on with their day to day work in a very systematic way. They woke up early in the morning, cooked, ate and left on time to work. It was all so good to be true.

Then came a day when the ruling party changed. No there were no elections that took place. A dictator came and took the rule in her hands. Yes, “Her” she kind of just snatched the power off the hands of the present ruler. Not a single soul could raise their voice against her. She had her way of getting work done as per her whims and fancy.

The age old empire crumpled in front of the old rulers eyes and there was little he could do to stop the change in power. He could not be blamed, he was helpless. He was a ruler who would just give a stern look and the rest of the residents would meekly move to a corner and silently obey. But now the tables had turned.

The new ruler has been ruling for more than a year. It’s total chaos at any point of time in the house now. There are either loud wails or laughter to be heard. The rooms are all in a mess. At any said time of the day the rooms look like a violent storm had passed through it destructing everything in its way. The floor of every room had the ruler’s stuff strew around. And nobody is brave enough to clear the floor; else they would have to bear up with the violent reaction from her.

There was a time when the old ruler would think a million times before laughing or even smile at something. But with change in rule things have changed so much now that you could hear the loud laughter of the old king. He is found singing songs, telling stories, listening to hip hop numbers and at times becoming an elephant and carrying the new princess on his back. The old ruler’s wife can be seen running behind the princess waiting for orders and commands. The old ruler’s son can be seen dancing to the latest bolloywood numbers. His wife could be seen running around the house behind the princess trying to feed her or keep her clean by giving her a bath.

This is the condition of the house where a dictator called “Jelly” attacked. The Jelly rule seems to be increasing in leaps and bounds as each day passes by.

Size Does Matter !!!

Past few days have kept me busy with some “Shopping”, yes you heard me right “shopping” something I hate doing for the life in me. I know the next question coming is - then why I’m doing something I just don’t enjoy.

Well the firm that I work for requires us to wear uniforms (sigh!). But the fun part is that our uniforms change every year and we are given the freedom to choose what color we want to wear. Being in the service industry we have to wear clothes that make us look professional. We have been having sarees and western formal wear as our uniform all these years. But this year all of us decided that we have had enough of sarees and thought of going in for only Western formal wear. That’s when the entire problem started.

Two of my colleagues are on the higher side of the weighing scale. Not that I have an enviable figure, but I can quite well squeeze myself into some normal looking clothes. We started our uniform hunting from one of the famous shopping chains in India. Our string of bad luck started from there - from this year, they did not have a stock of formal shirts and blazers. So with no choice left I and my colleague moved over to another famous clothes chain. We looked out and found some good formal wear. But the happiness we felt at that moment was short lived, because the biggest size they had in the store would just fit a lady a size bigger than me. We said good bye to them and hopped over to the next shop. Well this also was a famous one with over 5-6 outlets only in my city and many more similar ones in the whole of the country.

We hopped in, found a shirt of our choice and were shocked to find the same story repeating here too. It was a true shock for me. In a place where I find at least 4 out of 10 people who are on the heavier side, shops don’t just stock clothes for such people. There were clothes which looked so tiny that I had a doubt if even “Jelly” would fit into it. They have casual wear for people who are on the heavier side but not formal wear. It’s truly crazy!!! What do such people do? Go around without any clothes? Or try and squeeze themselves into clothes that are way too small for them and look awful?

Believe me, we went hopping and jumping from one shop to another for more than half a day with no results. Why this had to happen to me? I don’t mind shopping, provided I have to just go to the shop where I want to buy a particular stuff which I have planned months in advance :D. I hate whiling away time in shops just making the sales guy display one product after another and after the whole ordeal leave the shop without purchasing anything(Grrrrrrr).

Finally we had to go get some shirt material and found a tailor to stitch the shirts for us. Has anybody gone through a similar situation????????

Latest Updates

I’ve been missing from the scene for some days now. I’m alive and all’s fine in this part of the world. New work (as in just a change in the job profile) kept me busy for some time. Now I’m kind of settled down into this routine.

Last weekend saw us attending for the very first time after Jelly was born a full fledged wedding. It was a common friend’s wedding. It was absolutely great to be in a place where I could get to see people I have known from my childhood days. There where friends whom I had met during my pre-university days, friends from my degree days and mostly the ones from the degree days who have still remained to be in touch.

It was a typical south Indian wedding and Jelly had a blast with the traditional wedding music playing in the background. She enjoyed looking at the lights and flower decorations. Something she did not enjoy much was strangers coming over and trying to carry her. Once the music stopped she wanted to be let on the floor to crawl. It was really difficult to hold her back from dirtying her clothes. So once we started restricting her movements she started getting a little uneasy or rather cranky…..But in short it was an enjoyable day.

After a whole year of Jelly being born we went to a studio and got a “Family Portrait” done………………now that the family is complete :D. It was true fun. The photographer had a tough time making all the three of us look at the camera at the same time. Once he would tell me “Chin down, look left……..no not that much, chin up a bit ……..ok ok that’s fine” and then would go on to SM and repeat similar orders to him but where his orders failed was with Jelly. She made him run from left to right with the camera to get that perfect shot. And hey it was a perfect shot. The pictures came out really awesome. We have decided to do this every year around her birthday to just keep a track of how much she has grown (and how fat we have become).

Jelly has been walking a few paces unassisted and when she does it expects us to leave all our work, look at her and of course appreciate the great work she has done. She has started showing a strong preference to solid food. By no means is she ready to drink milk during the day. We have been having a tough time on what to feed her. Anybody reading this could please suggest with any healthy solids that can be given to a 1 plus toddler……that just made me realize my baby is no longer a baby but a toddler now. I have been waiting all this while for her to start walking, talking and in short grow up and now that she is there I am missing her baby days……………Am I being a little too crazy? No idea……