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Weekly Photo Challenge: Family

I missed out on the last week photo challenge “Breakfast” though my kitchen was  most active during last few days. Everyday the clank of many pots and pans made the neighbors wonder what we were up to? Pickles and jams of Indian Gooseberry, jaggery filled Indian breads, khus-khus halwa(sweet made from opium seeds…..nothing illegal about it!!), aata-laddoo(wheat flour balls with a hell lot of roasted dry fruits and clarified butter), khandvi, gulab jamuns and lot many things…….all were miraculously appearing from the kitchen. The last fortnight was indeed an overdose of delicacies which normally was made throughout the year to keep us hooked to home cooked food when we were kids. So why squeeze it all in few days? Ah, that is what grandmothers do, I guess, when they come visiting….

Yep, my parents visited us. The love for their granddaughter and inability of their daughter(to make all these traditional dishes) made them to step in the kitchen instead of resting and relaxing!

So what is family?  A place where one is extremely comfortable is home. And the people with whom we can laugh, cry, scream, play, get annoyed, talk, share secrets, tease, hug, have worst hair day and if a stray FART escapes it becomes a matter of roaring laughter instead of embarrassment then that is family!!

I have had hundreds of arguments with my parents since teenage and I still argue on lot of things even today but that doesn’t stop them from loving me unselfishly. Every time they return back to their place after visiting us, there is this emptiness and a nagging feeling of not doing enough for them….

I hope to be of use when their feet are so tired that they need my shoulder to lean on to…. And this feeling is Family!!

And they say a man’s best friend is the dog! My daughter has always been keen to have a younger brother or sister. However, I don’t see that happening for whatever reason God has in store for me. To get over the guilt of not being able to give a sibling to her I got her a pet to play with… And what love do they shower on each other!! She is there to defend him if I happen to scold him and he is there to seek all her attention on her return from school.  He has become an inseparable member of the family. Though I do grumble on finding dog hair sticking to the curtains, bed, clothes and my carpets but nothing can make me to stop loving him because he is Family too!

   

In-laws are family too whether you get along with them or not! Nobody can take place of one’s own parent but spouse’s parents should be given their due place in the family too( you don’t want to get into sticky situation !!). They are there to lend a helping hand if the need ever arises and they love their grandchildren as much too….

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Wonder

I was busy watering my precious plants, answering my daughter’s numerous whys and why-nots when we saw this beautiful leaf green caterpillar happily eating away all the leaves. And sure enough the new set of questions started bubbling in her mind. She had recently read about the life cycle of butterfly in her science class and her questions came flooding–

“Mom, is this a caterpillar?”

“Hmmm”

“Will it eat away all the leaves?”

“Well, I won’t let it do that to my plants…”

“Will it turn into a butterfly?”

“I think so..”

“Which color, Mommy?”

Now, I did not know the answer to her question  and  that was what made me wonder too….  wonder what the caterpillar changed to, what size or shape and color!!

Nature is full of many more of such things. There is this plant which blooms only at night and it sure is worth staying awake to see the bud waking up to smile when the human kind prepares to sleep…We drove all the way at 10 pm to my sister-in-law’s place to witness its blooming!

The botanical name of this plant is “Saussurea Obvallata”(I do not know the English name). In India it is known as “Brahm Kamal” and  is the state flower of the state of Uttarakhand and Uttarpradesh. I do wonder, why the flower blooms at night and not like other flowers in daylight?

I wonder about a lot of things… My daughter wonders about the aliens! Unfortunately there is no photograph I could use for aliens!!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Window

For this challenge I wanted to have some thing different besides the regular photographs showing “windows” that I had selected.

I think that our “Eyes” are the first ever windows to the world outside the womb….God’s gift to peek in the world he created!

For me however this God’s gift functions well only with the added windows……my spectacles because without those my view as good as a curtained window!!

Another window to world is our dear “idiot box”. How else would we see the rest of the world?

Some other windows I found worth clicking :

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Weekly Photo challenge:Hidden

Guess what is hidden behind this beautiful bloom……?

Voila!! a cactus…..

Can you spot the farmer ???? Hidden for sure !!!

Spider-man, spider-man
Does whatever a spider can;
Friendly neighborhood Spider-man,
Look out ! here comes the spider-man !! 
 
Wonder who is hidden : man in a spider or spider in a man ???
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Opportunity

The woods implore,
To travel and explore,
To find what awaits,
on this road to infinity….?
grab the OPPORTUNITY….
Hunger drives away all fear,
And I let humans come near!
For want of this morsel,
I forget all enmity,
and grab the opportunity!!
A best friend,
always has an ear to lend!
Sharing something witty…
We grab this opportunity!!
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Possibility

Mommy mommy …
I want to meet a mermaid !!!
If I dress like one,
will she still be afraid?
Is it a Possibility?
Dinosaur………..!!!!!
or tree stump????
Imaginations…….
and everything is a possibility!!!!!
   Ah! Mr. Cat face Crab
  with fangs all bare,
  on his nightly prowl
or ready to attack?
His territory, he protects!!!
Possibility?
Possibility to reach the skies……………..
   
“Kaalaa Paani”…..Cellular Jail
CHAINED for eternity………..
straight to hell!!
Was there ever a Possibility of freedom?
Still hope existed!!!
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Lost …lost..

I am lost, completely clueless……No, I am at home and not midst of some calamity but I am truly troubled. People, my computer has crashed!!! I am so addicted to blogging now(thanks to DailyPost, my stuff is being read by people I have never met and I am loving all the ping backs and comments), that I am sitting here in a cyber cafe’ writing this post !!! Mr. Steve Jobs, may God rest his soul, might have made electronic world adventurous and exciting for people but I am a bit (okay! a lot of bit!!) handicapped as far as technical jargon is concerned. I am most uncomfortable to reboot my computer and so I will have to wait for my husband to return from his out-station trip before I reconnect to the world or else visit this cyber cafe’ for the next full week!!!

Write right….

I love to write, yes that is true. But there might be issues about which one avoids writing…..afraid of those topics? Na, I mean its more about keeping silent to avoid skirmishes rather than being afraid to write! So, let me find out myself what 5 topics do I avoid writing about…..

I did not actually have to think much about one particular topic which I avoid…. IN-LAWS!!! My mother-in-law had issues with her in-laws, my sisters-in-law have cribs about their in-laws, my friends, sister, mother all have some or the other issue with respective in-laws.  And like so many other married women I too have a lot many issues with them but I choose to keep quiet! Even such a statement is going to cause ripples in the household, I am sure!! So, this topic is a big No-No…

Another topic which I am superstitious about is bragging about my husband or daughter and so I avoid ever writing it. I fear that some evil eye will eclipse my happiness and fortune! In Hindi language it’s called “nazar lagana”. So, another no-no topic…

Gossip, is another topic that I avoid writing about. It might give a sadistic pleasure for some time but it totally mars our own reputation which is a very precious thing to lose…

Right or wrong ; I might find some issues wrong but they might be right for somebody else. Though as a good friend, I should check my friend from doing wrong but  if I start preaching on rights and wrongs then it would be the sure shot way to lose many friends. And I am afraid to write anything which may sound preachy…

One such topic which again I try to avoid is Tips on Blogging !! Ha, now that is one such thing which a lot many people write about and since the day I started blogging, I have read so many and they seem copied from each other. Since I am no expert and still struggling to draw readers to my blog, I better avoid such writing!!

That is it then; my five scary topics. The best thing to do then is to always write things which do not hurt anybody because we cannot take back the words once spoken and the hurting words get written then its doomsday ………

So, the mantra is ” Write Right….”

Weekly Photo Challenge: Comfort

To me comfort is a company of someone who just hears out my troubles and doesn’t start enumerating my follies or ways to what I could have done to save myself from troubles ……. What better than a Soft Toy!! And once I pour out my heart I find more comfort in letting the moment pass….. I think deep and hard. Awhile later I am full of beans….again !! They say a mother’s lap is most comforting but a tired brain and body can find comfort anywhere…

Dreams…

Of late I have become a sound sleeper(not that earlier I was a sleeper making sounds!!). May be I am so tired that the dreams do not dare to disturb me now.  But till about a year back I used to have an adventurous sleep with a medley of dreams almost all nights.

It is said that the dreams are the events which the  subconscious mind records and displays in form of dreams but I have no idea why this particular dream of mine recurred every time. I could find no connection of the dream and the events of the day… In fact if somebody can interpret dreams, I would like to know the  meaning…

The dream always had a small ant sized me pushing a boulder upwards on a slope. There always was dark all around and as the ant reached on top, lot of big boulders appeared from nowhere from all sides almost crushing it…. and then I would wake up. That’s it and this dream always used to be the same!!

I have had a happy childhood, a doting sibling, a pet, friends, good grades in school, enough play time in the evenings, a happy marriage, an adorable daughter and generally life has been good to me. What could have triggered such odd dream is beyond my comprehension….

Now with the topic idea by DailyPost I could actually put this in words but the dream still doesn’t make sense to me. Any clue anybody?!!?

Ha, maybe the desire to be a super-efficient, know-all, do-all woman conjures up dreams in my brain ‘coz I am definitely no hulk to lift any boulder!!