Being the plus size ++

I was plumper kid in school, I remember everyone pulling my cheeks and saying 'kitni golu molu hai.' I kinda felt good that time.I thought people liked it and its a good thing being golu molu. I see the pics today I feel I really looked cute with all the chubby cheeks :-) I was not all that fat literally just a lil over weight.

As the days passed and I reached high school, this was the time I put on a lot of weight. The guys in the class would make fun of me being hefty. They called me elephant, hippo, called me names of some WWF players etc. I din like it. I felt deeply hurt. I didn't know what to do about it. What was my fault in being fat and what is there to make fun if someone is fat. I used to ask these questions to my mom with moist eyes :-( She used to console me by saying, "As you grow up and start going to college you will have to study more, you will loose weight and you are gonna look very pretty". I believed in her and ignored all the teasing. I was a bright student, concentrated on my studies and did very well in all the exams.

College days started and I wasn't becoming any lean, instead put on more.Hardly bothered about how I looked  and this weight concern was not on my mind at all as I was completely involved in my studies. During Engineering, it somehow happened that all my friends were also fat and great foodies. We all just loved eating out. I was so busy having fun in all four years of engineering, loosing weight was far from reality.

The real story of my blog title starts only after I came to Bangalore five years ago. I was astonished to see so many pretty girls walking around in pretty clothes in all parts of the city. I too wanted to be one of them.The desire to become thin hit my minds and as i told you i believed in my mom's words, I thought I am gonna look pretty if i loose weight. I enrolled to gym the very next day and the no chocolate,no sweets story started. I started watching my weight everyday, strict diet, no eating out, no pizzas, just fruits and vegetables. I could see the results and compliments I received from everyone kept me going. I was inspired to continue to loose more weight.

Yes, I lost around 18 kilos. I knew I looked great. I could wear any dress and pull it off well. I fell in love with myself. Its a great feeling to hear 'You look beautiful' from different people on every single day. I got married during this phase, I looked awesome that day and our marriage album has my pictures when i looked my best in my entire lifetime :-)

After marriage, during pregnancy and delivery I gained all the weight that I had shed two years ago. I have lost the pregnancy weight but I do not wish to loose more. I know I can do it again with my previous experience but something stops from doing that.

Here I stand today after one year of having a baby, fat and happy. Yes, you read it right I am happy being the plus size. I wear whatever I like, I eat what I feel like eating. I crack jokes on myself being fat. I have been both fat and thin, and I have come to conclusion, you don't have to either fat or thin to look good. Its what you are within that matters. I have realized a greatest truth, the more beautiful you feel inside, the more gorgeous you appear.

Fatness does not presume sadness, Happiness does not require thinness :-)

Housewife or a Working Mom ???

Recently while going through the Watsapp profile of my contacts, I came across my close friend's DP which had the following display.

After reading it, I remembered I had gone through the same feelings few months ago when I was going to have a baby. At that moment I realized my friend also is pregnant. I guess every working woman goes through this phase at least once in her lifetime. Its a very difficult decision to make whether to continue to work after becoming a mother.

It's the matter of each individuals choice,situations,priorities,needs and the support system at home.Life is not the same after having a baby. You have to keep so many things in mind before deciding what you want to do. At one moment you have a feeling, you are blessed with a child and all you want to do is take care of the baby and be a complete mother and give your 100% to the kid. On the other hand, you get the feeling of what about you as a person, what about your career, what about your dreams and what about your freedom.

In the past, man was responsible for all the financial matters and expenses, and woman for the raising of the children and all the housework. But society has changed and along with it the family structure too. Nowadays with the rising cost of living, we as a wife and mother need to support the family. Not only that, the hard work you have put into getting your education is going to be rewarded.You are gonna have a life for yourself too. When you are earning, you will feel proud, confident, secure and independent.

We are capable of doing more than just ordinary household chores. We give our husbands and children their own space and freedom.We are capable of running the house by ourselves.Our children need to know that women can be powerful and aspire to good careers, and also be a good mother. Their mother is the example they will see the most and will learn from an early age.

Yes, of course you will be missing your kid, you are gonna feel bad that your child is not getting your full attention and time. But at the same time if you think about your life after your child grows up and starts going to school,college and gonna have life of their own and they won't need your support anymore. Then it will be very late for you to start working again because you will have got used to being at home. Starting your career from the scratch is going to be really difficult.

I took the hard decision of being a working mother, I leave my kid at home with my MIL and go to work. I don't have to worry about the safety of my child as she is at home and she is with her grandmother. I miss out on so many of her first of things, when she crawled for the first time or when she uttered her first words I wasn't there to cherish it, but when she repeats them in front of me, I consider that was her first time. I miss on her day to day activities, I feel bad but I know all these sacrifices are for her, for her future. I am being pillar to support her happiness, well being, education, future etc.

I cannot say I am very happy being a working mother but there is a sense of accomplishment. My mother being a housewife always kept telling how she wished she had studied more and been a Working Mom. Now I know what she meant :-)

My love for Tea!

The subject of this blog is very discrete but it's very essential part of my life and may be for many of you reading this. My day starts with this and I need this at least 3 times a day and becomes 4-5 times on a weekend. I am tagged by friends in most of the posts in Facebook and Instagram regarding this topic. It’s easy for me to connect with and mingle well with those who share the love for this. My love for this annoys my husband to the core, but I can’t help it nor can he. He has to bear with it for the rest of his life. So what is this thing which I am describing in so many ways? Any guesses…YES, It’s TEA 😄

Some of you must be thinking what can be written about Tea, Can there be enough content for this subject? But if you ask me, I will always say YES. If ever there had to an essay competition and the subject be Tea, I am sure I would have secured full marks in school days but NO, the teachers always have more important topics such as National Politics, Science, Freedom, Festivals, Technology etc. even when the word TEACHER itself has the first three letter as TEA. I am not complaining though but I never got the chance to express my love for tea in words that’s why I am writing here where my thoughts my way can reach to all the Tea lovers out there and for non-tea lovers you can relate to anything you love to drink. 😁

I guess there is more tea running through my body than blood given the amount of tea I have been consuming from a very small age. This incredible love for tea also runs in my family. I have probably got it from my parents. When I was a kid and tasted tea for the first time, liked it and asked for more, my parents must have felt immensely proud and told each other ‘she is definitely our daughter’. There are so many stories of me around tea, I will share a few here.

one of the stories would be about last year when we were in France, my husband’s colleague invited us for lunch on a weekend. We were served the French food but with a twist that Indians can like. We were humbled by the effort they had made. It was post lunch we were all chitchatting and discussing the cultures of different countries and they were showing us the photo albums of their family and the colleague’s husband asks if we want to have some tea. The word itself excited me and I immediately said 'YES'. But my husband politely tried to tell me ‘You won’t like the tea they make, they drink just the decoction without milk and sugar’. Listening to our conversation, he asked ‘Is there a specific way we make our tea?’. Without any hesitation  I told ‘YES, would you like to try tea in Indian way today?’ (My husband was embarrassed but it was me and my love for tea and also my time for tea). The colleague’s husband ushered me their kitchen and assisted me in preparing the Indian tea. When I served the tea and they liked it and said they are going to drink the Indian way of tea once a week. ! It made my day, I felt so proud (my husband was now grinning). This is one of the memories I take back from France and cherish it 💭

The second story is about almost 7 years ago during the early period of our courtship, my going to be husband wanted me to meet some of his friends. We went to Orion mall, Rajaji Nagar, Bangalore. It was a nice afternoon with lots of chatting and loads of junk food pizza, burgers, fries etc. etc. It was 4 PM, all the friends left. And there I was saying to him ‘I want to have some tea!’. The last thing he wanted to do that evening was hunt for tea. If I ask him the same now, he will either say ‘I will be here, you go drink your tea and comeback’ that is if he is in good mood else he will say ‘Get lost, I am going home. Do whatever you want’. But it was a different era, he had to impress me so he said 'I can get you the Moon and Stars, Tea is such a small thing after all'. We went back to food court and searched for Tea everywhere in mall only to find out that there is no tea anywhere in the entire huge great mall. With great despair, we came out of the mall and started walking on the streets of Rajaji Nagar to find tea. We were asking random people of road where we get tea. It was 5 PM by now, we continued to walk for almost 2 Km then found a small stall where cigarettes and tea were sold. It was finally 6 PM by the time we got tea, I drank 2 cups to fulfill my desire. Both of us learnt something about each other that day. He got to know how badly I need my tea and I learnt from him that he will accompany me for tea always whether he drinks it or no.

I am sure many of us have our own stories of tea, coffee or any other food items we love in particular and crave for it. For me its tea, the aroma of it itself brings immense joy in me, the taste of it triggers positive emotions in my mind and amplify energy in my body. I am always first one in a group to say ‘Let’s go for tea’ may it be work place or a friend’s get together or a family trip. People close to me will vouch for this bond as they all have been part of the great mid night gossip with tea. My guilty pleasure is sipping a hot cup of tea anytime anywhere anyplace. 💓 what's yours???

The father in my husband!!!

It’s been almost four years since we are married and we are blessed with a lovely baby girl :) she is 2 years old now. My husband and I work in the same company. We live with our in-laws and that’s why it’s easy for us to leave our child behind and go to work every day.

So one fine day, my husband calls me to the extension phone and tells me the good news that he has got an onsite assignment and he has to travel in a month and stay there for six months. I didn’t know how to react. Obviously I was happy for him it was his first time and he always had this aspiration. From the tone of his speech I was sure he was thrilled about it. So keeping the same momentum I said congratulations :) he hung up saying he has some formalities to be completed soon and he will catch up with me later.

Now I had the time to think and I was wondering what about me and my daughter. Should we travel with him or stay back here. I wouldn’t give up my job for six months for sure, but at the same time I couldn’t live without him back here for so long. The big question running in my mind was how he will stay without his daughter. He loves her so much, he is a doting father. His day starts with her and ends with her. There is no single day he has stayed away from her. But I thought he is a mature man, he has made up his mind, he has taken right decisions, and it is for the good.

On the day he had to fly, we all went to drop him to airport. We three, my husband, daughter and I were in one cab. We were an hour away from airport. I was busy checking if I have packed everything and haven’t missed and messed anything. After a moment, I saw tears in his eyes. That was the second time I ever saw him cry (first was when she was born). He was hugging his little angel who was asleep and isn’t even aware and that her dad will not be with her for next few months. It was such an emotional display of a father and daughter relationship. I knew it would be very hard for him. He couldn’t stop crying for few minutes and then he told me, it was most painful moment of his life so far. He made me take vows that I will take care of her to my best and be her dad and mom both for the next six months. I had tears in my eyes not because I will miss him but because he was going to miss his daughter miserably.

That day I saw a father in my husband. Till that day I always thought I loved my daughter more than he did but I was wrong. Now when he has gone there, he makes sure they have Skype calls every day. Its pleasure to see the excitement in both of them when they are talking. He talks to her more than he talks to me. Yes, my daughter is the other woman in his life :)

I complete 15 years in Bengaluru today!

Fear, anxiety, nervousness and insecurity: These were my emotions on July 29th, 2010, the day I moved to Bengaluru. 

The day I landed in this gigantic city, I felt lost, I felt numb, I felt like a stranger. The first day in office was day full of unknowns and also filled with excitement at the same time. 

I was this naive small-town girl who had never spent a day away from parents till then. I had a job offer in hand in my final semester. I was very happy, exited and proud of that but at the same time had cold feet to leave my family & hometown Hubli. Trust me it was not easy. I had butterflies in my stomach. Mixed emotions I cannot express. Each one of you who have moved out of home to live alone elsewhere would have experienced it.

A month passed in the same struggle, feeling homesick each day passing, wanting to give up every single day but kept moving on with perseverance because that's the way we are all brought up. I also realized that I am not alone and there are thousands of people sailing in the same boat. I made friends and started enjoying work life. The first salary was like a priceless moment. It felt like an achievement and a sense of pride it gives you is out of the world.

This high-tech capital city of Karnataka - rightly called the Silicon Valley of India - has provided jobs to crores of people like me, who have lived in Bangalore for years, yet perhaps never paused to appreciate this beautiful city.

What makes Bangalore special?  It's the weather, trees, lakes, parks, eateries, pubs, metro, temples, roads, vibe and people of course.

There is no other metropolitan city that is as green as Bangalore. The trees make the city so beautiful specially in the spring when the city is colorful with yellow, purple and pink flowers all over. 

Lakes here give you that extra motivation for a morning jog and evening walk. Same with the parks. It is so rightly called the "city of gardens". A stroll in Lalbagh can take all your stress away.

I can't even get started on the eateries. You get the best breakfast in the world here. The dosas, idli, vada, chatni, bhaats and of course the coffee you get in the Darshini's here you will not find anywhere else in the world. The pubs here are out of the world and have the vibe that's unmatchable. There are restaurants that offer you all types of cuisines and flavors form across the globe. 

Talking about the people, the city has population from every state in India. The actual national cultural integrity of the country is here in Bangalore. I have had the pleasure of meeting people from so many states and work closely with them. Once colleagues who are friends and family now. 

The metro connectivity has brought the city closer and is helping solve Bangalore's huge problem - "The Traffic" and who creates this traffic? We - people who have come here for all that the city has to offer.

Bengaluru is my city now; and this is where I belong. Whenever I am away for a week or more, I am happy returning to Bangalore every single time.

Cannot believe it's15 years already in Bangalore. It has given me a so much and I do not know how I can repay, may be by doing my bit in keeping the city clean. It has given me a job, a livelihood, friends for life, a wonderful family, a home, memories I cherish for life 💙

Today I can proudly say "Namma Bengaluru" has a special place in my heart 💗and glad to call Bengaluru as my home now. 🏠