Parenting…dreams

During my younger son’s eighth grade graduation, the principal gave a fabulous speech. He asked the youngsters to dream big dreams, to reach for the moon and in case they missed landing on the moon, they would fall on the stars. He asked them to ignore laughter and taunts that might come in the way of realizing their dreams. I loved the speech… thought it was one of the most inspiring I had ever heard. It reminded me of something one of the biggest and most imaginative dreamers in the history of mankind, Albert Einstein, said,

“Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.”

I have always been a person who believes that having big dreams is the first step to realizing them. And to me the biggest tragedy is when a child or youngster says he or she has no dream. To dream, to believe in a dream is the first thing that I tried to inculcate in my children.

For us, it all started with stories. One of my sons wanted to fly like Peter Pan and have dustbin dump truck birthday cakes. Another wanted a sunshine cake on his birthday and to do so many things together… he is still trying to concretize his dream. My five-year-old niece believes I have fairies and a balloon tree in my house and I can make magic dust to fly to Never-Never Land… she even wants to know how many people I know in Never-Never Land. The little realist in her also longs to read because reading brings her closer to things of which she dreams… fairies, magic dust and happiness. She saw many books in her fourteen-year-old cousin’s room and said, “I cannot read all those now.” Her cousin, brought up to think that all dreams are achievable, told her, “But you can eventually…” And  eventually she will realize her dream and pursue her passions. But the first step the little girl is taking towards growing up is to learn nothing is impossible. No dreams are too big. To dream or to find ones dream is the biggest adventure for a child. Their dreams will not just be a reality but something that will shape their lives, their existence. Of course, my niece will like my sons realise as she grows up, that Peter Pan is a myth but by then other dreams would have replaced the need to fly to Never-Never Land.

The thing we as parents need to do is to handle the transitioning of dreams with a light touch, with a sense of humor, and not get lost in the intensity and forced materialization of a dream. If a child wants to be an Olympic champion in swimming, but later wants to move on to being a businessman, we need to humor him till he has steadied his own mind and intent and is older. My elder son at a point wanted to be a neuro-surgeon, a space scientist and a bunch of other things… we humored him till he felt he found his dream… and now he pursues it with a passion… though there is still more of it to realize. The concretization started only when he was completing his teens! But he was allowed to dream and dream on the impossible…

As parents, many of us like to push our children towards pragmatic goals, the easily identified and achievable ends which will put bread and butter on the table and bring home enough cash. We urge them to give up their own dreams to come to terms with reality. Our parents might have told us the same when we were trying to find our dream. How many of us gave up our dreams, our romances to settle for the practical and we consider ourselves blessed and happy because we have the mundane; money, career, houses, cars…. or whatever it is that is important to you in your circle… could be clubs, travel, yatchs… However, these are what I would call ‘things’ as opposed to ‘ideas’. To me pursuing ‘ideas’ is more important because that is what makes mankind move forward towards civilization and progress. I would rather have an impractical dreamer who, as he grows up trying to materialize his dreams, moves towards a more pragmatic reality and blends his vision with the needs of mankind, to contribute to a more positive future.

If parents say their children have no dreams, no ambition except for playing online games or partying or watching YouTube videos, maybe they need to know their children better. Perhaps their children’s dreams lie wrapped in the things they are doing and the parents are too wary to acknowledge the unconventionality of their child’s dream. Some children also may take longer to materialize their dreams… but they all get there at some point if you let them be themselves and don’t impose your own fears and insecurities on them, including social acceptance… Of course, everyone will not be a star but at least let them try to be themselves, give them the tools to flourish but the blooming has to be theirs, not the parents…

Often parents talk of bringing up children with good values, make them focus on practicalities and destroy their dreams altogether and the children become part of the faceless workforce that live to earn and earn to live and accept anything that comes their way as long as they have their material comforts. Is this what we look forward to as a bright future? To me a bright future is not a life of ease and plenty but a future where a child feels fulfilled and happy, where a child will feel he has a purposeful life. To this end, it is important that the child pursue his own dreams and not that of his parents. Perhaps it is time to change our mindset, to start believing in the reality of dreaming and letting dreams exist. Perhaps we need to believe in what Einstein said,

“We cannot get to where we dream of being tomorrow unless we change our thinking today.”

Parenting…choices

Long ago, I dreamt of writing a book about living in China and walking on the Great Wall. And it happened.

I chose not to chase my dream instead I spent majority of my time chasing my sons.

My children came to me in my thirties. By then, they were more than welcome. My longing to be a mother overrode my other dreams. I reveled in my sons and brought them up to what I considered the best of my ability. I read Dr Spock when they were babies and talked to my friends about their babies’ developmental processes. I remember, I was worried about my son’s teething. Our friends’ daughter had many teeth by the time she was one and she loved eating watermelons. My son had few teeth and objected to fruit. He only drank mamma’s milk and half boiled eggs! He hated orange juice and clenched his gums/ few teeth when we tried to feed him solid food. He even spat out the food we tricked him into ‘eating’. My friend argued that all humans had teeth. Hence, so would my son, even if the process happened a little later. And she was right! Every child is unique and develops at an individual pace.

As parents, we can only watch, wait and pray. We do our best but the ultimate call is made by the child and the force that drives all life. As a parent, I discovered that I really enjoyed my children’s childhood and I miss it now that they have become older and have learnt to fend for themselves largely.

The funny thing that happened to me as a parent was that I forgot that I had my own dreams and goals from long before… from my teens and earlier. Perhaps, my dreams underwent a change. The feeling I am left with is these years of my life have been well spent. What could be more important than helping mold the future of mankind? Children are our future and to prioritise them over and above our own needs seemed the most natural thing to do.

I always remember the lines by William Wordsworth about the rainbow, poetic wonder and the child…

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

The wonder that a child feels in discovering not just rainbows but even his father’s oversized shirt or shoes often becomes a source of infinite delight and wonder to the parent too because as an adult we get in touch again with the novelty of things when we watch our child fascinated with what we had started to consider mundane. That is a joy that keeps every parent young at heart. And, thus the child forever continues the ‘ father’ of man. And perhaps that is what happened to me. I lost myself in the wonder of rediscovering life with my children. And on a daily basis, I want to thank God for giving me these bundles of joy and my husband for letting me revel in their childhood, while he slogged to bring home the bacon and help realize our dreams.

Encouraging children to have dreams, goals and ideals from a young age goes a long way. No age is too early and no dream too small or big! It can be a dream of being a princess, dressing up, flying to outer space in a rocket, driving a lorry or a dustbin dump truck, inventing something new, cooking a dream dish, writing a book or drawing a picture.

I know of a mother who helped materialize her son’s dreams by helping him publish a book in elementary school. The child at the age of three told her that he wanted to write a book and have it on a bookshelf in a bookshop. By the time he was eight he had the book. It started with doodles and ended with stories. His mother helped him materialize his dream of being an author. And she used his dreams to help him learn to read, write and develop a love for books!

For my children, the dreams were different but no less important. My elder son was so fascinated by trucks that his first poem in his kindergarten was a list of names of these juggernauts. That gave way to dreams of making robots. I was happy to hear out his dream because he said it was better to have robots clean high rise windows rather than humans as people could fall and get hurt. From then on, his journey started in the quest of making robots to lighten mankind’s burdens and it continues more than a decade and a half down the line. My younger son dreams of animations with music, math and science… I wait eagerly to see how it will concretize to make a rainbow.

Sometimes, we need to work to make our children’s dreams come true. For example, when my younger son wanted a sunshine cake for his fifth birthday, I made it! And the biggest reward I had was when my little one when he said, “Mamma that is exactly what I imagined!”

Children need to sense that dreams can come true without compromises. Let them fly… and you can fly with them. They can help you fly and materialize your own dreams while you watch them grow and soar.

Actually, that is how my book happened too. One day my younger son came back from his school in China and said, “Mamma, you have never been to university.” I contradicted him and said that I had been to two. And then he said, “But my Chinese teacher said that mammas who stayed at home had not been to university!”

I was alarmed. I spoke to the school, which was a well-known international one. Many of the expat wives in China had chosen to be full time mothers, which is something that the world did not comprehend. I had chosen to be a full time mother even when my elder son was in my womb because the doctor had recommended bed rest and I stayed home from then on.

I thought calmly, did it really matter to me? It was not my job to educate a confused ‘educator’ who looked down on child rearing as the task of an uneducated person but it was my need to be respected and seen as a role model by my son. I wanted to show my child that one can dream big and materialize them under any circumstances, even while indulging in the most daunting and time consuming adventure of bringing up children. So, I wrote a book, one and a half books actually within a couple of years. The half was a compilation of recipes from thirty countries by well-respected professionals, including chefs, writers, school teachers, principals done in collaboration with a German friend, who is an engineer and dreamt of writing a cookbook while in China as a homemaker; and the other, was my own book, a humorous retelling of living, travelling and bringing up non-Chinese children in China in a society where borders no longer were a truth. That was my individual solution.

But, it made me think… why would a mother with university degrees not want to bring up her child? Is bringing up children really a job to be relegated to a substitute with values and education at variance with your own? Do you want your child to feel closest to you or to the person who has substituted for you as a full time caregiver?

These are choices you need to make when you think of child rearing. You have to decide who to prioritise, yourself or your child?

 

 

Towards Driving to a Century…

What was it like to wake up the day after having crossed half a century?

Did I become wiser, greyer, more dynamic or more decrepit?

I woke up looking forward to finishing the new play on Harry Potter co-authored by JK Rowling. It was again a racy read after many days. I also reached a new high score while playing Sudoku on my ipad and started writing this piece.

Many might say what frivolous preoccupations or how childish! But, believe me, nothing could be better than tucking up with a new Harry Potter at the end of half a century of earthly existence.

And an interesting earthly existence I have had over the last half a century…

The last decade I walked the Great Wall four times, wrote and published my first book, fought with publishers (a number of them), decided I preferred being labeled a mom and wife to all things. By thirty, I was a first time mom and by forty, I had two kids. Thirty to forty was a great decade…went frolicking with my twosome and did things with them, for them and appreciated handiwork by them. I tried being a democratic and docile parent and my sons appreciated it by telling me I had the makings of a great dictator! The thing is most kids would not tell their mother that they were like dictators. Mine could, did and still do!

Twenty to thirty was the period I fell in love. What could be more enticing! I also published poetry and many pieces of somewhat immature writing in newspapers, quit journalism in disgust…went to universities, did theatre, travelled on university funding (a profoundly happy experience). Ten to twenty…I grew up…climbed trees, broke rules, had fun, almost got kidnapped once, fell down a number of times, fought with people, made some fabulous long lasting friends who never forget to greet me on my birthdays and wedding anniversaries. Zero to ten… I dreamt, sang (a trifle off scale) sitting on trees with my best friend (who sang more out of tune than me), danced, played games and pranks, fought and generally thought I would turn into a blonde-blue eyed princess when I grew up.

I definitely did not turn blonde unless you can refer to my silver grey hair (which I dye dark) as ash blonde…and my eyes remained a steady brown but I lived my life the way I wanted, the way I thought was right, with personal integrity. I lived out my dreams…a trifle differently perhaps… always wanted to write a book on China and did.

I keep writing … have done that from grade three. I miss writing when I don’t the way you miss a favourite TV show.

Now, as I browse over the old Harry Potters and write about the magical completion of my fiftieth year, I wonder if Nicholas Flamel of Philosopher Stone fame felt as I do. Did he also think that fifty was the start of life? Did he want to learn on at fifty? After all …. I just feel I am at the brink of life in its prime. In some Asimov’s, there are people that are a few hundred years old. So, fifty is really sixteen for them! Even in Hobbits, adulthood starts very late in years compared to our current society. So, life does start at fifty and learning an essential skill at that age is just great! The essential skill that I talk of is driving!

One of the reasons I do not possess a valid driving license is that driving instructors do not quiet appreciate my skills. I am very considerate. I was one of those people who stopped in the middle of a road (in the training school) when I saw a trainee driver driving in front of me. I merely gave way to a newcomer. My instructor mistook my consideration for panic!! He assured me what others achieved in five lessons, I would not achieve in fifteen. He did not appreciate my concerns about the other driver’s nerves.

Obviously, the instructor did not know my father used to get jumpy when I drove at eighteen. I had a valid driving license then. And somewhere along the way it expired and I had my husband to drive me…Finally, when I went for a refresher course, my instructor lacked the necessary attitude to teach me! Then, because I was expecting a baby, the doctor banned me from driving. I think I saw my instructor heave a sigh of relief when I gave him the news. Then, we moved to China where we were not allowed to drive but were given a chauffeur driven vehicle 24/7. Being docile and obedient by nature, I was happy to comply!

The joys of being driven is great! You never need to know the way to anywhere. You do not need to know left from right. This has always been a challenge for me. My husband has his first ride on the bike with me indelibly etched on his memory… He was driving and I was directing. I was saying right and pointing left. He figured out early in life left could be right and right could be right too. And left could be left or right. After all these are all names. And as Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet:

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose


By any other name would smell as sweet.

My husband had it all figured out then itself…. more than twenty-six years ago….before we tied the knot.

He used his common sense. There was no right turn and he turned into the only available turning, which was on the left.

Now that I am out of China, I have resorted to taking cabs when I go out on my own. I figured out cab drivers are not familiar with Shakespeare. The problem with cab drivers is that they ask for directions and get angry when you give them your own directions. They seem to lose their calm if you say left instead of right. They get even angrier if you mix up names of places and roads!

It has come to a point where I am thinking of self-reliance as an option. What better age to start at than my present one … fantastic, fabulous fifty!

Surely, despite automatic self-driven cars, my newly acquired driving skills will be well honed by the time I hit a century!

 

 

 

On the Fatness of Being

Over the years, I have collected a wealth of wisdom, which has translated itself into layers of adipose that rest on my formerly frail frame, gently insulating me from low temperatures and hard surfaces. People envy me my layers of adipose for whenever I walk into shops, salesgirls come forward with slimming teas and creams. I find their behaviour a trifle peculiar as they try to persuade me to get rid of the layers of carefully nurtured wisdom. It is the same wisdom you can see in the laughing Buddha, the symbol of happiness and contentment.

One of the things that most people nowadays find difficult to comprehend is that necessarily a well-proportioned individual may not be a sick individual. They take it for granted that everyone needs to be of a certain weight-height ratio…something they call the Body Mass Index. This is all a matter of statistics. I used to fall sick every month when I had a slim and svelte figure…twenty years and two kids down the lane, my weight has almost doubled but I rarely fall sick. Earlier, doctors called me underweight. Now, they call me overweight. Will they ever be satisfied?

Recently, a friend who is slim and was an exercise freak had a major bypass. She had shooting chest pains. And, now, she is not allowed to exercise or travel or eat as she likes despite her lack of adipose. Whereas I am allowed to exercise (or not exercise as a matter of choice), travel and eat what I like despite my layers of wisdom. Doctors keep nagging but it is their nature to nag, exercise and diet. I have heard of a few cases where people died while exercising and some even developed anorexia nervosa while dieting.

I do not want to take risks and feel happy the way I am. I want a long life to enjoy the wonders of the universe. I want to read all the fascinating books I find around me. I want to travel to different places…Egypt…on camel back to the pyramids; Easter Island…to stand in the middle of the circle of rocks like an ancient druid and feel the rays of the rising sun bathe my portly being; the golden fort of Jaisalmer …on camel back again wearing a ghagra like a Rajasthani princess. Here, I must pause to let people know that riding on a camel back is not a hobby as you might think. Camel rides are bumpy and, as I learnt from my experiences in China and India, these creatures can make you feel your innards are all dislocated when they start to jog or run. Never underestimate a camel!

The reason I want to be on a camel is to savour the flavour of the locale.

One of the major advantages of accepting my ample proportions and not fearing life-threatening illnesses is that I can enjoy the world around me. If I go for a walk, it is to enjoy the good weather or the scenery around me. If I see a butterfly or an exquisite sunrise, I feel relaxed. When I hear waves lapping or the breeze whispering through trees, it is like soothing music to my ears. The span of a human life is less than a dot in the lifespan of the universe. Is it worthwhile to spend ones life worrying over our BMI or fearing illnesses?

I wonder if Shakespeare, Tagore or Khayyam ever jogged for fitness or worried about their BMI index. Yet they have left behind a heritage of writing which trancends their lives and times. They have eternalised their existence in the history of mankind.  Shakespeare lived a little over half a century. The other two were octogenarians. Reading their works makes me happy and content.

Finding happiness to me has become synonymous with enjoying the wonders of the universe, including my family and children and mankind’s fantastic existence. I want to live life to the full. Perhaps this quatrain of Khayyam’s best sums up my stance towards the fatness of being…

 

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring,

The Winter Garment of Repentance fling

The Bird of Time has but a little way 

To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on it’s Wing.

 

 

 

 

 

Book of the Week

 

Title: Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Author: Jules Verne

Published in French as Voyage au centre de la Terre in 1864, Journey to the Centre of the Earth first appeared in English in 1871. Since then, there have been a number of translations and movies made of the original.

I have loved this story from my childhood for the uniqueness of the adventurer. Professor Lidenbrock, his nephew, Axel, and guide, Hans, journey to the centre of a volcano in Iceland in the footsteps of Arne Saknussemm, a fictitious, famous alchemist of the sixteenth century. Saknussemm claimed to have discovered the passage to the centre of the Earth through an extinct volcano in Iceland called Snaefellsjokull. Lidenbrock deciphers his writing in the ancient runic script and follows in his footsteps with Alex and Hans.

They discover a fantastic world. The interior of the earth seems to be lighted up by strange electrical impulses and has brown coloured vegetation( explained by lack of sunlight), streams, caves and an ocean. They discover bones of dead animals, mummies, strange plants and prehistoric fishes, some of which are eyeless. They sail on a raft in an underground ocean, watch dinosaurs battle and run away from a twelve-foot giant grazing a herd of mastodons. The spirit of the book is one of hope and adventure. While they ride on a raft of mummified wood on a hot solution of water and magma in hope of exiting the volcano by being thrown out with an eruption, Alex thinks they will surely die. The professor remains eternally hopeful. He says:

As long as this heart goes on beating, I can’t admit that any creature endowed with will-power should ever despair. 

The Professor is an eternal optimist who lives for his dreams. He does not pursue wealth or power as an end.

The three of them finally exit through Stromboli in Italy, thrown out by an eruption.

The book has an unusual and gripping storyline. There are some home truths that are spelt out by Professor Lidenbrock very well. Here is a sample I really liked.

Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

This is a perspective that is borne true by discoveries made by greats like Steven Hawkins even today. That truth is a perception at a given point of time of a reality as perceived by a person and is mutable, that there are no black and whites in real life is so well borne out by this observation made by the professor.

We have had a number of Hollywood productions on this book and on this theme. I remember watching another movie called The Core. This had a journey to the centre of the Earth as well for different reasons. The scientists ride on a vehicle with a giant drill that  bores through the Earth to it’s centre as the planet has stopped spinning. People are dying and the weather is turning violent. A team, dedicated to help mankind, journey to the centre to help restart the spinning. The centre of the Earth is shown to be made of magma and is very hot. Some of the team die while trying to do the job. It is rather bleak.

Verne’s novel is less obvious, more gripping and less gory. Both the storylines had to do with courage and heroism. But, I found Verne’s story more appealing for it’s sense of values, creativity and adventure. It had a more imaginative approach and a sense of fun. If I were to reread the book or rewatch the movie I would select the book, Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

 

 

 

Dawn

Morning

The sun sliced by a sliver of silver,
Glowed with the coming of dawn.
Touched by the lilting song
Of birds welcoming a new morn,
The sun started it’s day
Giving off vibrant rays.
The little boat
Touched by the gold
Of the bright sun
On the river front
Made ripples in the wave
That run and that shake.
Perhaps, a lady of the lake
Will rise in it’s wake
And shimmering with light,
Will swoop up and take flight.
Hidden by a cloud, she will fly
Beyond the reaches of our eyes
To an infinity beyond the skies.

Flight of Fancy

Uninhibited

Like a feather, I drift.
I float, I flit
Across the skies,
Uninhibited by ties.
Along my flight,
I watch the sunrise
Through the web of leaves
On sleepy trees.
The wind blows the tangled mess
Till the trees look better dressed.
Below, the coastline froths with white
And reflects the rising sunlight.
Painted gold, I hear the swish
Of trees or waves, I know not which…
Hills and mounds that lie below
They change and come and go.
Lifted by a strong breeze, I fly
Till I merge into the infinite sky.

Leaving China

Chapter 7 

After coming back to Singapore, what remains with me are the happy memories of China. As the cliched saying goes, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I find myself looking at Facebook more often for news of my friends. I WhatsApp more often. Last week, Maria had uploaded pictures of her daughter’s birthday party in her garden on Facebook.

Maria and Wolfgang had a lovely garden while I was in China. We all loved flowers and gardens. Heidi weeded the garden for “clearing her head”, she said. I used my garden for relaxing, partying, writing, planting and having fun.

This time when Surya had his birthday party in the party room of our condominium, I really missed my garden. The last year of our stay in Suzhou, he had his party in our garden. It was full of sunshine, laughter, spring, children and flowers. Sometimes if winter were a little late, one still had the pink cherry blossoms blooming during Surya’s birthday.

The year before the games had been to my taste. The kids had fun. I had fun too! We had a  Find the treasure game, pretty much the same as Pinning the donkey’s tail, except they had to find the treasure in the treasure map pinned to a mobile board. Instead of pinning the tail on the donkey, they had to pin the spot with the treasure on the map blindfolded. I twirled the boys and hummed a tune and told them they needed to dance with me before getting to the treasure. It was fun for me. Some of the boys were a little embarrassed, which made it even more entertaining for me! Later, they had Dancing statues in the patio. They enjoyed the party so much that some were reluctant to leave when it was time! Aditya and Salim helped with the party organisation and managing kids.

The next year the games were taken away from me! Surya told me he and his friends were too old to play my party games. Aditya and Salim had just ended their mock examinations.They obliged the youngsters and organised a Treasure hunt. I think they had three teams of five each and the boys walked all over the compound looking for the treasure which was hidden in our garden the hunt stretched to Salma’s and Maria’s homes among others. I remember, they put the clues in our fish graveyard!

I had a fish graveyard in my garden as Surya and Ali thought it was cruel to throw the dead kois in the dustbin. And fish do love to die in ponds and aquariums quite often. My job is to always put the dead one away (even now, in our little aquarium in Singapore), before the kids can spot it. If they spot it, I still needed to do the job. On the side of my garden, where the grass always died, we had a fish graveyard. I remember Salma saying words of peace for a dead fish when it was buried there! Most of the time, I found the dead fish in the morning when the kids left for school and disposed it off in the rubbish bin in a plastic bag. What surprised me through our tenure in that house is the cats never dug up the dead fish buried in the graveyard, whereas they did prowl around the fish pond but could not get their dinner as the pond was too deep for them.

One year, I had what I think was purple hyacinths in my fish pond. It was the same year I had baby kois. The baby kois looked like transparent tadpoles to start with. One day as we sat in the garden sipping cups of tea after lunch, Surya told us we had baby fish! I could barely see them. Then they started developing colours which became brighter and nicer as the fish grew up!

The other visitors to our pond were often frogs that jumped in! We had to ‘rescue’ them with a fishing net eventually as the pond was too deep for them to jump out. My ayi said her mother fried fat frogs for her to snack when she was small. It seems she used to catch the frogs and take them to her mom! However, she assured us she didnot partake of frogs anymore as she had plenty to eat. I know frog legs is a delicacy which I have never had the guts to savour. My husband says they taste pretty much like chicken! Surya shudders at the idea of eating frogs as he likes them as pets. Not that he is allowed to have them as pets! The closest we came was to breeding tadpoles for a few weeks. Surya also had hibernating frogs under his playroom window in a small grassy ditch, under some leafy plants. Those frogs were really tiny whereas the frogs that jumped into my pond were huge.

The other event that brought in hoards of children into our garden was Halloween. I had never celebrated Halloween in my life till I moved to China. We opened our homes to all and sundry. We hung lanterns in the garden and put candies in baskets, hung plastic bats and orange and black balloons from trees. Children didnot enter into the house unless they needed to use the bathroom. Surya dressed up as a zombie/skeleton/ vampire and went out with friends within the compound visiting homes. Other children of varied nationalities, including Chinese, visited our home and demolished our stock of candies. They came in costumes and filled their basket with sweets. It felt festive and happy. It was fun to see the little girls and boys come up the garden path and grab the goodies! For some strange reason, Aditya, Salim and their friends didnot join the Halloween hordes.

I always dressed in black on these occasions to add to the flavour. I never wore a witch costume because I felt mama witches didnot really need a costume! They just needed to hand out the candy.

The last year, I had been for a bar-be-cue in the afternoon of Halloween and between smoke and pollution, my skin became a little sensitive. When we were over with our Halloween in the garden, I reclined on the sofa with an aloe face pack and I discovered I was developing water-filled blisters on my face and neck! Surya commented, “Could you not have developed the blisters a little earlier, then you would truly look like a witch with warts!” His remark did wonders for my ego.

I was perhaps a bit better off than Heidi, who said her children had commented that she didnot need to dress up as a witch on Halloween as she naturally looked like one! Well if witches were elegant and beautiful, they were right.

This set me thinking on what witches were. They were perhaps just women different from others, who thought differently and did things differently… Were they really evil? Who are we to judge them? Were the Spanish inquisitors right? People always fear the unknown and things they do not understand. Witches might have been one such institution. I am very open in my thought process…believe in God, supernatural, paranormal, aliens, more dimensions and space or under water exploration for alternative biomes for the future of mankind… My threesome always find my imagination amusing. I find it inspiring…helps me write and create a world of my own anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

It is with the help of this imagination that I can make myself at home anywhere in the world. It makes me curious to know more, makes the world around me enchanting! It makes me want to travel. Sometimes, if I can’t in reality, I can vicariously. I have been to the scenic Pamirs that Marco Polo crossed on his way to China, Shangrila, Mongolia, Egyptian pyramids on camel back, Jaiselmer fort in a ghagra in ancient times, seen giants and aliens…all in that mind’s eye which my threesome find amusing. What people forget is that it helps me visualise icing for cakes, new recipes and live in a state of perpetual wonder with the universe. It makes me optimistic, young at heart and happy.

One of the things about China that I enjoyed was the vivid imagination of the indigenous inhabitants. You could see people rig up all kinds of contraptions to make things work, be it television channels, air conditioners or any other equipment. Near Suzhou, they even rigged up an imitation London Bridge. We did go down to see it. I had seen the real thing in my teens and twenties but I do not think it has changed as much as the one near Suzhou. The Suzhou imitation was narrower, had four towers instead of two, writing in Chinese on the top and a bright red bridge near it. This red bridge snaked along and over the narrow waterway so that people could view the London Bridge well from different angles…things that are missing on the real bridge spanning the river Thames. It was interesting though! One of our friends told us that they had actually seen an imitation of the seven wonders of the world in China, somewhere near Xian. When we had asked our guide in Xian, she didnot seem to understand what we were referring too. Hence, we never really got to see those. But I had seen the London Bridge with it’s red extension snaking over the narrow waterway in Suzhou, China.