Welcome to our world

Ruatsanga Renthlei was born at 9:30 am on 13th November, 2010, weighing 3.250 kg.

Elder sister Ruatfeli is confused and a little jealous, and being unable to vocalise....she has taken to throwing tantrums every now and then. So we are the perfect example of a 'chhangchhe' family. H distracts one while I put one to sleep. Then the other one has to put lulled to sleep. If one wakes up and wakes the other one, then you have two very sleep deprived parents. Both (the kids) are yet to be toilet-trained and Ruatfeli has five meals a day and two naps. Life is pure bliss!! :)

All posts lead to...

.....Ruatfeli. She's 1year 9 months now and is the joy of our lives. It's strange to think she didn't even exist before, that we coped and got along fine without her. Now, she's our first thought, first concern, our little joy-maker, who is still so innocent and unaware of the happiness and worry she brings to our lives.

When she's quiet for too long..she's definitely upto some mischief.

She loves all thing pretty and girly.. lipsticks and creams and nailpolishes. First thing she does when she wakes up is look at her newly painted nails :)

Poor little tyke is not even 2 years old and she's going to be a big sister in a few weeks. Everyone is wondering how she will cope, especially me! I hope she's more resilient than I give her credit for.

Do not disturb

Nobody likes to be disturbed unnecessarily. Although we Mizos are probably much more patient and polite than others, maybe because we ourselves are so social!

What brought this post about is the advertisement I saw today on 'Vanglaini', October 10-11, 2010, Vol XXV, No 235.

While the rest of India has been grappling with the issue of Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) for the last few years, Mizoram continues to be quite oblivious to our rights. Most of the major mobile services in India are available in Mizoram- Airtel, Aircel, Reliance, Vodafone, BSNL, Tata indicom to name a few. Correct me if I'm wrong, but none of them have a helpline where you can talk directly, toll-free, to a personnel who can help you with your problems and queries.

I use Airtel prepaid services, and I hardly get telemarketing calls on my mobile. Their *121# menu is quite useful. I have registered with  'Do not disturb' registry, and although they occasionally start weird services like 'Good morning sms', 'Cricket updates' etc, I can stop these services through the '121' menu.

On the other hand, Aircel has zillions of numbers where robotic, peppy people on prozac talk to you  in Hindi and English, and they will call you up anytime of day or night. H has a whole 'vai group' of contacts, vai1 to vai22, vaichhia, vainu, etc who share a subtle ringtone so he doesn't have to pick up the calls. But they come up with new numbers all the time. Most Aircel users I know have the same problem and nobody knows how to stop these maniacal callers.

And let's not even start on BSNL.

And now comes this blatant advertisement on our daily newspaper. I am thinking of calling the numbers on the advertisement and warning them of dire consequences if I get even one unsolicited call.


You can check out the present TRAI guidelines on UCCs at http://ndncregistry.gov.in/ndncregistry/index.jsp.
Some salient points:
-Sms 'START DND' to 1909 to register.
- It takes a whooping 45 days to be registered.
-You can check your DND  status by entering your mobile number at the 'DND registration check'  on the same site. Mine is :)
-Rs 500/- is payable by the telemarketer to the service provider (not the customer, bleh) for every first UCC.
-Rs 1000/- is payable for every subsequent UCC.
-The telemarketer's phone number may be disconnected if UCC is sent even after levy of Rs 500 and Rs 1000.
-If the service provider does not comply with TRAI regulations, they may pay upto Rs 5000 for the first, and upto Rs 20,000 for subsequent non-compliance, to TRAI I suppose, not the poor customer.

So there you have it. I am hoping my registration with DND will stop the hopeful advertiser from giving away my number. But this is Mizoram, and anything can happen in Mizoram, especially in ways of flaunting laws. We do need more awareness of our rights, and we need to be more vocal, more staunch, so that vais or fellow-Mizos alike stop abusing our rights.

Snippets

Ruatfeli's hesitance to start walking preyed constantly on my mind, like her failure to become a  fat, chubby little baby like her peers. I tried to play it down, and said she will have her whole life to walk on her own, etc. But you see and hear about  precocious little hussies walking even before they turn one year old, and the mother in you cannot help but hope she does start walking too. 

I guess everything comes in good time. Towards July end, she started standing on her own, but only on the bed. Then she started taking steps, again only on the bed and not on the floor. She's pretty careful, I guess :). Later on, if we gave her something she really likes, like 'vaimim chhum', she would walk all around the house, clutching the vaimim for dear life. She didn't like to walk around empty handed, she'd simply stand till someone gives her a hand, or she'd go back to crawling. At 1 year and 6 months, she was finally walking around confidently, and sometimes she won't hold our hands even when we want her too. I guess she's reveling in her new found independence. Now she goes walking about the house, taking a peek at us sitting in different rooms, and walk away as soon as we call her name. Although we spent so much time worrying about her milestones, I suppose  she's finally caught up with most of her peers. Now all we have to do is worry about when she'll start talking, and then her  schooling :)

On other news, today is Eid. And I was really looking forward to it because I wanted to browse leisurely through Thakthing tlang secondhand market without worrying about being late for work. Every Saturday, the secondhand people from all over Aizawl come and spread their goods at Thakthing, and you can get real good finds here. I usually don't get beyond vegetable shopping on other days because I'd have to go to work. But like I said, it was a holiday today. So I marched up the hill, pregnant and all (yep, it's a little soon ), bypassing vegetables and meat alike, and started riffling through a pile of baby clothes. I checked my bag to see if my purse was still there, and it was. I finally chose a shirt for Ruatfeli's sibling-to-be, and when I reached for my purse to pay for it, it wasn't there! Someone had picked it, in the twinkling of an eye, and I stood up, mind reeling, and all I could see was would-be pickpockets teeming all around me.

I called up H and told him the bad news. His curt reply was 'So what can we do?'. A little commiseration would have been nice, but he'd always said I was careless with my purse, so his reaction was not unexpected.

My purse was quite new, the most expensive one I'd ever owned, purchased in Kolkata for me by Hlimpuii. I didn't carry a lot of cash, around 900/- of my own, and  our department's lunch money in my care, about 500/-. I was more worried about my ATM card, my driving license, my electoral ID, work ID, the key to our almirah, and also....my husband's electoral ID! I am guilty of carrying everything in my wallet. I have to say in my defense I don't usually lose things. I used to be quite proud of myself for not losing cash or mobile phones, unlike some of my hair-brained friends (Padma for one!). Now I feel terrible, I have flashbacks of my fine leathered walllet being manhandled, visions of my poor ATM card getting abused, the thief coming to our house and opening our almirah, the hassle of getting duplicate IDs and license, etc. 

A lot of good Eid brought me, I hope you guys had a better holiday.

Bad news, Bad news

A friend's sister, aged 29, was recently found to have multiple lumps in her liver through ultrasonography. The initial FNAC (fine needle aspiration cytology) showed only blood, so we were hoping the lesion would turn out to be a benign or infective one. But since the family was a little panicky, their doctor immediately referred them to a bigger centre without a repeat FNAC. And now I hear she might be having cancer of the colon which has in fact metastasized to her liver.

And just this week, one of H's close friend's mother was found to have cancer of the colon with metastasis to the liver.

A 22 year old man from Lunglei went to the doctor because the lump in his neck felt 'ugly'. They turned out to be malignant. Biopsy from his nasopharynx showed the cancer started from there.

A 14 year old girl from Saiha has lumps on her neck, which kept growing. Biopsy and CT scan showed she had widespread Lymphoma.

A 9 year old boy has a hugely swollen upper jaw. Investigations proved he has cancer of the maxilla.

We have 360 cases of cancer in Civil hospital, Aizawl so far this year (some duplication possible from FNACs, then biopsies). That is approximately 51 cases per month. The statistics are scary. And the saddest cases are the ones where the patients are still so young!

Homemaker extraordinaire :)

I spent last weekend trying to develop my homemaking skills. Somebody introduced me to homemade soya mayonnaise and I really loved the taste. So I looked up the recipe on the www and it turned out pretty simple to make.

I. Making the soya milk :

• Bought 1 kg of soya seeds from the market. They were mixed with little stones and other debris, so required a good cleaning.
• Soaked a little less than half kg overnight in water. This amount proved to be way too much, a quater kg (250gm) would be more appropriate for personal use.
• Next day, I blended the soya beans with thrice the volume of water in a blender. Since my mixie jar is small, I had to do it in several batches.
• I strained the whole slurry through a muslin (read cotton) cloth and boiled the milk for around 10 minutes.
• I got around 2 litres of soya milk.

II. Making the soya mayonnaise: 
  You need:

1.   1 cup of soya milk
2.   Half a tsp of salt
3. 1 tsp of lime juice
4. 1/4th tsp black pepper powder
5. 2 egg yolks (optional)
6. 1 cup of vegetable oil.

The procedure is simple. Blend 1-5 in a mixer. Add the vegetable oil a few drops at a time and blend till the whole cup is added to the mixture. Adding the oil slowly seems to be the most important part. If you add it too fast, the oil tends to float. I got 2 jars and a half from 2 cups of soy milk. Taste great!! Just like store bought mayonnaise, but better than the Funfood brand. Only problem is you can keep it only for a week or so.

I also made these moist chocolate cakes. I think they taste better than they look :P

And some pictures of Ruatfeli

With her new umbrella...

My take

It was disturbing for me to read that the Mizoram Law Commission was planning to reduce the age of consent from 16 to 14 years.      www.news.outookindia.com/item.aspx?687062

I don't think children at 14 have the required maturity to decide to have sex. Most girls would be undergoing sexual development, with development of breasts, menstruation etc at that age, and full development is said to be at 16 to 18 years. And boys are known to be slightly slower than girls! So even with our changing lifestyle and maybe a slight precocity seen in today's children, 14 is way too young, for males or females, to start having sex.

The argument for the cause is that men who have consensual sex with underaged girls are having to face charges of rape. In my book, serves them right! I don't think any self-respecting, God-fearing, NORMAL man would go around having sex with a 14 or 15 year old even if she happens to be a Lolita. An adult has to show restraint, even the face of great temptation. I don't think it saves him from being labelled as  anything more than a pedophile. And if there is sex between two underaged children, I don't think that makes it any more right. We as parents and adults have to simply try to teach children about the right time to have sex, and taking the extreme shortcut of reducing the age of consent is a terrible injustice done to all  future generations. Because a law once passed, will be difficult to change, if not impossible.

So what will be the possible consequences if this new age of consent comes to pass?

• Much younger children are going to start having early sex. Even with the present age of consent being 16, there are already many underaged children indulging in sex. When it actually becomes legal, we can expect 12 and 13 year olds to start experimenting with sex.
• More men are going to beguile and persuade innocent children to have sex, or rape them, and then say it was consensual in defense. 
• Parents will have to be even more careful and maybe even neurotic, about what their child is upto. I for one will not want to my children to have pre-marital sex, forget about sex at 16. And since even the most careful parents can never completely protect their offsprings, we would be living in constant fear in a world which is growing too fast, too complex for us.
• Studies say early sexual encounters lead to delinquency, poor mental health and adversely affect a child's entire future life. I don't think there is a study that says the reverse. 

So why encourage and legalise something which we already know to be harmful? Shouldn't we instead make sure the present law is carried out more firmly and stringently? The reason there are so many  orphaned children and  divorces in our state is that too many kids have sex without proper education, get pregnant, get an easy marriage and get an equally easy divorce.

Chick flicks

I love movies that make you cry. It is the only masochistic side of me, because anything else that causes pain is abhorrent to me. But put me alone in a dimly lit room, and play a movie that will squeeze my tear ducts dry, and I will be happily wiping my tears away.

We all have so many disappointments in life, inconveniences and little things not going your way. But when you're all grown up, you cannot cry at the minor stuff anymore. So crying at the heartaches and misfortunes of imaginary (or sometimes real) people is a soul cleanser for me.

'My sister's keeper' is a wonderful story about a sick teenage girl, and how she and her family members all respond to her sickness. All so believable performed and heart-wrenchingly told. I loved the little romance she experienced while dying of a terminal disease and all.

'P.S. I love you' is tenderly hopeful, in the terrible scenario of loving someone you love. I've been blessed with not losing a dear one, yet! And just the mere imagination of doing so scares me to death. I've always wanted to die before I lose anyone I love, because I am too cowardly to deal with the pain of losing someone you love. The finally of death and their consequent absence is way too terrible to contemplate.

"The lovely bones" is also beautifully made. The father's anguish and helplessness is something anyone can empathise with, especially if you are a parent. The surreal quality of the entire film, the hopeful desire to see the evil neighbour found out and arrested kept me entranced through the movie. I would only have arranged a more violent end for the bad man than the one he had.

Other tear-jerkers are 'Stepmom', 'Love story', 'Switched at birth', and the rest can't come to mind at present. If you haven't seen these movies, you should go see them. It's therapeutic to have puffy, swollen eyes at someone else's expense.

Arrgghh! etc

My driving is driving me crazy. I feel like a particularly slow student who can never understand a particular formula.

I can drive forward fine, I am actually beginning to enjoy our early morning rides. But I've been trying to learn how to back and park, and I am doing everything wrong! I have a major directional problem. I can never remember right and left. I have to actually think 'right hand, left hand' whenever a patient tells me he has a lump on his right neck, because I'd otherwise start feeling his left neck for the lump. And when I give directions to autorickshaw/taxi drivers, I always tell them the wrong side. Now when I try to reverse, I go in the opposite direction, always! It's driving me mad! I feel like giving up.

My other recent problem is that I forget things. I would get up to do something and find that I have already done it. I usually don't lose things, I am usually meticulous with where I put stuff so I pride myself in not being one of those harebrained ladies. But age is catching up with me and fast.

Lately I find myself hunting high and low for things I know I kept somewhere. Most of the times, I'd find it neatly tucked away. A neighbour asked to borrow our ration card today, and that made me discover I have no idea where the heck it is. I'll hunt some more, and when I don't find it, H will tell me off a little. And I'll go apply for a duplicate, and once I get the copy, I'll probably find the original safely filed away somewhere. I just know I'm doomed for a miserable old age.

The SAD syndrome

I hate the rain. I don’t mind the occasional drizzle that cools the earth and cleanses the mind. But the constant downpour of wet, cold rain can make anyone develop some syndrome or the other.

When we were kids, rain never bothered me. It meant mostly splashing in puddles, secretly blocking the water drain on the rooftop and my brother and me having water fights. For mom, it meant wet kids, wet clothes, muddy floors. Now that I am old, with my innate practicality in full bloom, it means canceled outings, wet laundry, wet floors and wet everything. 

Nothing can persuade me to get out in this weather. I would like to spend my days reading, or watching the TV or browsing the internet. I get out to work only because I have to. Going to church, to friends or families houses are way down on my list right now. For one, there’s a cousin who just delivered her first baby, and it nags me day and night to go see the little kiddo and the mother. But I keep putting it off because of the rain. The joys of hunting at secondhand markets, the pleasures of bargain sales are dampened by the incessant rain. Nothing tempts, except hot tea and the cozy bed.

God knows that rain is a blessing. Most obviously for the farmers, and even for the whiners like me. It makes me feel slightly guilty that I complain so much about something that is so necessary for  life. And if it was sunny for days on end, I'd probably be one with the worst heat-stroke. But then again, the wet-cold state of affairs does do something to me. It makes me irritable, melancholic and a little crazy. Some smart alec went and described a condition - Seasonal Affective Disorder, aptly SAD for short. This is probably not even a proper syndrome, more likely just a manifestation of a worse mood in moody people brought on by bad weather. But it does make one feel better. 'Oh, there's such a syndrome that describes my symptoms exactly. I'm not just grumpy, I actually have a syndrome!'.And you are no longer a psychotic going around the bend, but just another poor old sod with a fancy syndrome.

Update

So what happened during my five month long hiatus? Nothing much really. I still work at the same job, and do mostly the same thing everyday.

Ruatfeli did turn 1 though. She's now 1 year old and 3 months old. Here's a picture of her with all the presents her well-wishers gave her.

She continues to thrive and amaze us, but refuses to walk....on her own at least. Maybe we should enjoy her dependency on us a little longer, because once she can walk, she will be running  and we'd probably be spending all our time chasing her. There is a lovely 8 year old neighbour whose parents say began her walk only at 1 year 8 months. That gives us a lot of reassurance. Who cares if there are precocious little babies who can walk at 7 months?

In the meantime, I've gone back to learning how to drive a car. This is really my 4th attempt, and my  final attempt. When I mention that I'm taking lessons to mom, her reply is "Again?!". Anyway, I roped in a kindly neighbour to teach me, and he is patient and persevering, and I'm learning a lot of things I didn't get to before. I've mastered the starting and the stopping, and can change gears without hitting anything. But I am somehow inclined to veer towards the opposite direction when I reverse. I  manage to pass other cars on blind turns, and almost hit a car only once. I've developed a new-found respect for all drivers, including taxi-drivers. I'm hopeful that I would finally drive alone in traffic before year end. So finger's crossed that I don't hit you or anyone else!

Filler

What good is a blog if you have no idea what to post on it?  Nothing much seems to happen in my life these days, which is also a good thing, but does nothing to my post list.

The only thing that I can think of are gripes, all negative and angry about minor upsets that happen all the time.  For example, the perfectly horrible time I had with SBI. I could go on and on about it. My request for a new ATM PIN took 4 months, and the staff's helpful reply to my query - 'How can you lose your ATM PIN?'. (According to them, I shouldn't have torn up the letter telling me my PIN, even though it was their firm instruction to do so.) But who wants to listen to just another nobody ranting uselessly against the world?

So the only solution in these wordless days are pictures, and who's a better candidate than Ruatfeli?

With some of her cousins.

2010

The maid went home for New Year and I reminded myself how terribly ill-tempered I am. Thank God she's back now.


Mizoram, full of meat-enthusiastic Mizos, is once again threatened by 'Food and Mouth' disease. Our locality, for one, had to go without beef on our Christmas and New Year feasts. It was just two meals but I did miss the beef. H does not take it, so an opportunity to have the dish is always looked forward to.

The Director of the Veterinary world said on the local news last night that eating meat of FMD-infected animals is not advised for many reasons, although he didn't (couldn't?) go into details. On curiosity's sake I looked it up on the net, FMDinfo.org  clearly says...... 
Food Safety While the FMD virus may be present in the uncooked meat and some types of milk products from contaminated animals, it would be destroyed when these products are cooked. The virus does not affect humans and the primary risk of raw products is transmission of the virus to susceptible animals.

So we could merely be overreacting to the epidemic, although obviously the butchers and the meat-handlers could be at some risk.

Anywhichway, it's a new year, and most of us haven't gotten used to writing the date yet.  The future is full of hope, and it's a mystery what this year is going to bring us. I hope the happy times will far outweigh the sad ones, and that you'll spend more time laughing than worrying.

Read this little speech by Chetan Bhagat, who is currently big in the news for mostly the wrong reasons.

Speech by Chetan Bhagat at Symbiosis


Don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.

There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.

"Life is one of those races in nursery school where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same is with life where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die. ....................

One thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. Life is not meant to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? ................

It's ok, bunk a few classes, scoring low in couple of papers, goof up a few interviews, take leave from work, fall in love, little fights with your spouse. We are people, not programmed devices........." :)

"Don't be serious, be sincere."!!