Of Ghosts, Foxes and other Creatures of the night!

When I was a child, we lived in a house with a huge Neem tree, which grew in our front yard, right by the gate. 

I was a morbid, lonely little child who spent most of her time engrossed in books; by the time I was 10, I was borrowing books from 3 libraries. And when I wasn't reading, I would spend my evenings staring at the skies expecting aliens to show up in a flying saucer; and during the day, would be busy making little matchbox graves for ants and mosquitoes I had killed, all of whom would then be buried with great pomp and ceremony under the trees in the garden. It is a mystery how I didn't turn out to be a serial killer, because to the adult me (and probably to anyone who reads this), it seems like the child me was exhibiting every promise of turning into a she-Dexter!

I spent an inordinate amount of time under trees until someone told me that Neem trees as a rule, tend to be a refuge of sorts for all types of ghosts, demons and spirits as well as being the abode of choice for the scariest Indian demon there is, the "Bramha-daitya" - who comes into existence when a Brahmin priest dies an untimely, violent death (If you thought the priests you encountered in the numerous Hindu temples were obnoxious, then as per legend, these are supposed to be a thousand times worse.) ;)

Once that little nugget of information got stuck in my brain, my morbid, over active imagination started conjuring up scenarios where in the ghostly denizens of the Neem tree would creep up at night, stick straws through the open window, suck my blood through the straw & turn me into a zombie (Didn't I warn you I was morbid, though it makes me wonder now just how much more morbid my friends must have been to make up stories about ghostly spirits sucking blood out through straws!!)

Anyway, I was so terrified, I would never sleep with the windows open; and after almost 2 and a half decades, I still don't. On nights when it was my turn to lock the gate, I would sing, croak more like it, given me being completely and hopelessly tone deaf, Bhajans (devotional songs) dedicated to Lord Rama, who I was told, has the powers to chase away all evil spirits. My mom used to tell me on those nights, people living even a km away would know that it was my turn to lock up for the night thanks to all the devotional songs that I would be belting out at the top of my voice!!!

I grew up, went to a hostel, moved out of that house & that little town. While I may still sleep with my windows tightly shut even on sweltering hot summer nights, years of living alone & watching Criminal Minds have taken their toll; I am now more scared of serial killers & axe murderers than of ghosts, demons, poltergeists, witches whose feet move backward when they walk!

Along the way, I also acquired a ghoulish love for horror movies, most of which I watch alone, on TV and late into the night. I get scared, I scream and I watch them with my eyes half shut, I put the sound on mute when something scary is about to happen but I continue to watch them nevertheless!! 

But with most of these movies I don't suffer from any residual after effects (except the Ring which really, really scared me & I couldn't sleep for atleast a week) - I almost never sleep with the lights on or stay up nights waiting for something to jump out of the cupboard and I don't jump in fright when the door creaks. In my mind, I was secure in the belief that ghostly spirits tend to prefer living in large, old houses rather than apartments; atleast that's how it was until Ram Gopal Verma tried his best to sabotage this entire belief system with Bhoot!

So when we moved into this 100 year old house with an attic - which usually is the centre of all spooky activity in old houses, I was understandably a little apprehensive and scared.

One night, after a couple of weeks post having moved in and not encountered any scary experiences, I gathered up the courage to sit up late, all alone in the ground floor, working on my blog. But I was a wee bit jittery & with every strange noise I heard, my heart would skip a beat; and let me tell you that there were quite a few strange noises I heard, like the wind rattling the windows or the foxes howling in the neighbourhood - seriously spooky stuff even by a non horror movie addict's definition. 

And then it happened..... 

Just as the howling of the foxes started to freak me out, I heard a new sound - that of someone whimpering. At first I thought I had imagined it but it continued and gathered momentum. I gathered my courage & came out of the room to check the source of the sound, all the while reciting the Gayatri Mantra. Then I remembered what a friend had gleefully pointed out while I was living in Indonesia - according to him, only Hindu ghosts would understand the significance of the Gayatri Mantra. But the ghost of a person belonging to another religion would not know what the words in the mantra meant and thus, the mantra would be useless against them!! 

So here I was in the middle of the night, in a large, old English house which had been empty for the last one year. Now what were the chances that I would run into a spirit perfectly capable of understanding the Gayatri Mantra? Not very good I guess. So I decided on the next best option - to flee for my life! I gathered up my laptop and other stuff and ran up the stairs. The whimpering sound seemed to follow me up the stairs. It seemed to be coming right behind me, except there was NO ONE behind me. Holy Mother of God, I was being followed by an invisible spirit!!! At best I would end up like the kid in M. Night's Sixth Sense, going around whispering "I see dead people". At worst, I could end up ...... Oh I didn't even want to get down to imagining what the worst could be, the possibilities were endless, and each scarier than the last!

But as I continued to run up, it hit me - Wait, something's not right with this scenario!. Why was this whimpering sound so close? Almost as if it was coming from within me! Was I possessed already?? Petrified I stopped to glance down, only to discover myself holding a baby monitor, from whence all the whimpering had been emerging all along!!!! 

Now we may not have any ghosts in this new home of ours, but we do have a resident fox who very generously provides a spark of adventure to the place. He has half a tail and so is quite easily recognisable from the other foxes who meander in once in a while to rummage in our garbage bins. He is a cheeky little fellow and is not shy of humans unlike the other foxes who run away the minute they see you. The Vs are fascinated with him and call him the Fock! (making this mispronunciation, the source of quite a few laughs). 

Now while I do feel pangs of worry about his existence; after all I have 2 children running around in that garden the fox frequents, I also have discovered many fringe benefits of having this little wild creature around. My 2 brats happen to be quite scared of him and so I drop his name liberally each time I want them to eat their food, to not pick flowers, to not throw the pebbles from the driveway at each other. Every time they say No, they throw attitude, they dilly dally, they pluck my flowers, they try to walk into the hedge of holly, all I need to do is drop the F (fox) word and then watch them immediately fall in line! :))

And because of that, as potentially dangerous as he may be, he is currently the best Boogeyman a harassed mother of twins could hope for!

Its been raining all day. 
As I look out of the window, I find the Fox crawled up in the garden.

I try to shoot pictures from inside but am not happy with what I get.
So I carefully tip toe out side and walk up to him.
He still continues to sleep as I click pictures

I make a noise that startles him.
He wakes up and sprints away and watches me from a safe distance

When he realises I am not following him, he yawns and stretches.
And goes back to keeping himself warm (didn't I say he is a cheeky little fella!)

At this point I feel sorry for the poor guy and ask Vj to get  him some bread.
Vj throws a fit when I ask him if he could toast the bread before we can give it to the Fox.
"For heaven's sake, that creatures eats out of garbage cans! And you want me to .... what!!" he yells. :(
But Fox doesn't seem to mind the cold bread

He takes it and moves off, back into the hedge.

A recipe for a pick-me-up!!!

One would have thought that it would be the English weather (Kindly explain to me again why they call this a "summer"??) that would have dampened my spirits but let me tell you from first hand experience that dull grey skies, cold winds accompanied by sudden drizzles and capricious weather are simply no match for trying to manage for 3 weeks without a bank account, a credit card, a Wi-Fi connection, a TV connection, a post paid connection, being stuck with a pre paid scheme that has been demanding top ups like some insatiable black hole and on top of it all, finding out that there is no 24/7 repair service for a refrigerator that decides to conk off on a Saturday when it is full of baby food!!!

So, what do you do when you discover that life in the First World is more like being teleported back into the Stone Age instead of living in the midst of an Inception meets Matrix vision that you had created in your head? 

1- You bloody well feel low. Understandably so. You yell at the husband off and on. After all he is the one who got the transfer and put you through this misery in the first place! 

2-You live on Maggi for days at a stretch and ensure Nestle profit margins register a dramatic upswing! At the same time you cross your fingers and secretly hope that the mutual funds you have invested in have atleast a teeny tiny finger in the Nestle pie, so you are atleast sure you are making some profit out of your own misery!

3- If its Les Paul's b'dy, you use the Google doodle guitar to strum "Beta sabun ki shakal mein, tu to nikla sirf jhaag.... Bhag bhag D.K.Bose, D.K.Bose.... bhaag" to capture the mismatch between your expectations and your current reality...

4- Alternately, if you are vocal and unafraid to share what you feel, you rant and vent all your frustrations on the medium that makes every other agony aunt pale in comparison - I am referring to the mother of all agony aunt columns - Facebook of course!

And so I did, all of the above. But before I could perfect point No. 4 into an art form, concerned friends started sending email links about the guy who got sued by Vodafone for doing the same, i.e. using Facebook to vent his frustrations with Vodafone. 

WTH!!! 
What is this world coming to?? 
Ghor Kalyug I tell you!!! These days you can't even say what you feel without worrying about someone suing your a@#e!!! 
Now how the hell do you pull yourself out of the gutter of despair that you have landed in if you aren't allowed to spread a bit of the despondence and misery you are currently wallowing in??

So, after a bit of trial and error (the process is always a work in progress) I did come upon an almost perfect pick-me-upper that comes without the risk of getting sued. It is somewhat time intensive, labour intensive but the brilliant thing is, unlike hitting a shopping mall and regretting it when you get your credit card bill next month, this one isn't too heavy on the pocket either. How much more perfect can it get??? 

So the next time you are wallowing in the depths of despair, shedding large tears online about your state of life, this is what you could do instead! (Applicable for anyone who has recently relocated to England!)

1- You walk to a park nearby. (Pl try this at your own risk if you don't live in the UK) Anyone will do, chances are there are at least 3 within a mile's radius of where you live. Choose the one least crowded with screaming kids on the loose. Now lie on the grass and admire random dandelions and daisies in bloom while reciting Wordsworth in your head. Imagine yourself transported back into Victorian England with dashing gentlemen on horses and graceful ladies carrying parasols passing you by.

Hang on to this prim and proper mental image for dear life. Remember, the next time you get mad about the infrastructure, the response time, the works; this vision will help you bite back all the swear words forming in your head! And it will help you remember that as far as keeping pace with technology is concerned, UK, atleast the 'not MI5/6' and 'not 10, Downing Street' part of it, is still stuck in the Victorian era!!! (Although I am no more sure any longer about the MI5/6 part of it! If you did notice, James Bond has started using his fists these days instead of all those fancy gadgets. Now what does that tell you? Cost cutting or aversion to all things hi-tech??)

Spent half hr gazing at these pretty lavender 

blossoms in bloom in the park

Tip : If you are a mother of 2 brats, make sure you send the kid(s) off to chase some random birds and dogs so you can gaze at the D&D (dandelions and daisies) in peace. 
Alternately if you are more likely to fall under the social creature rather than the flower gazer segment, you could spend your time gawking at the hot men jogging in the park (Why should men have all the fun, I say! After all, living in the 21st century should have some perks!). On days you feel particularly adventurous, you could even strike up a conversation with one, something you unfortunately can't do with the D & Ds.

The Vs are chasing the pigeons in the park while I lie admiring the Ds and Ds

2. You drop the kids off at play school and take a nice looong walk all by yourself. Make sure you don't wander aimlessly but head purposefully towards the nearest flower shop. There, buy yourself a nice bunch of exotic English flowers that you have so far managed to see only in your online Farmville England farm!!!

I bought myself some nice bright blue cornflowers which till now I had seen only on my FV farm!

3. At the flower shop, also buy yourself some nice flowering plants. And then plant them in your pretty English garden and admire your handiwork every single day. 

Remember, give a woman a bunch of flowers, make her happy for a day. Teach her to grow her own, and make her happy and the husband relieved for a lifetime! (Okay I just made that up, but doesn't that make infinite sense?)

Tip : Buy something nice and hardy like geraniums which won't die even if you exhaust your newly developed enthusiasm for gardening and forget to water them. And if you are the kinds who gets mad a little too often like me, you could do well to invest in a couple of lavender bushes for some free de-stress aromatherapy benefits in the future!

Sensible moi bought some pink and red geraniums, some pink and white calla lilies & some lavender.

4. You sit in your patio, sip a lemonade (diet) and make sure you take enough pictures to post with the sole objective of making your friends envious. But ensure that you don't dilly dally and finish this task quickly as the patio chairs are still wet from the rains and the cold breeze is freezing your a#$e every minute you stay outdoors! But don't be stupid enough to tell your friends that! Just focus on getting the "I am lazing outdoors in my own garden while you poor sods are working your a@#es off" part right!

See how cleverly I have edited this picture to brighten
up the dull grey skies and have cropped out the wet chairs!

5. If you are really lucky, then you may get your very British neighbour to give you an orientation course on the neighbourhood and the way of life! I am extremely lucky to have such a neighbour so I got mine!

So, now I know that my bread has to be from Warburtons, my cucumbers from Kent, my ham from Wiltshire and my eggs have to be bought at the butcher and not the supermarket shelf! I've also been fortunate enough to have been introduced to a real English butcher, who talks in monosyllables, who scoffs at you for missing the heat of Singapore & for eating store bought sausages that he calls "American trash", and whose sausages are so bloody amazing that once you've had them, even you start referring to every other sausage you have ever eaten as "American trash"!

Remember if all this doesn't work for you, all you have got to do is walk to the nearest shopping center; and you might just stumble into a 50% off sale at Gap or Debenhams! 

WORD OF CAUTION: 

No matter what you do,

1. Do NOT re-read this post. You will realise just how many times you have mentioned the term "walk". Then all this carefully nurtured sang-froid will get shattered into smithereens by memories of the good old days when you texted for a cab to drive you to the mall which was a mere 7minute walk away! And then, you will definitely need to hit Gap, sale or no sale!!!

2. And most definitely do NOT go tinting your meagre & almost invisible eyebrows jet black! Not only will you end up looking like a grotesque and grossly untalented version of Frida Kahlo, with new facial hair now visible from outer space; you will also have to suffer the additional humiliation of having it go unnoticed by the husband. 

And make sure unlike me, you are not beset by the urge to commit harakiri by proceeding to mention the coloring of your eyebrows to the unobservant husband of yours & then asking him for his opinion. If you do, then you bloody well deserve to hear him ask you this priceless gem of a question, "So if you coloured your brows black, then what colour were they all these years?"!!! 

Yes, I was asked this little priceless gem of a question; and that too by the man I have known for 15yrs and have been married to for almost 11!!! 

You know what? To hell with the pick me up!!! Situations like these call for more intense measures! Maybe its time to take the credit card and hit the shopping center after all!!!

Terrible Two times Two!!!

The Vs turned 2 this week!

I was browsing the net the other day when I came across this extremely cute poem about what life is like with a 2yr old!

(Source - Jamie25,) 

"There's crayon marks on my walls,

and toys up and down the hall,

There's something that used to be a couch,its true

now it's turned into just a cool-aid stain for two.

This morning I found a toy in my shoe,

but then again I guess that's nothing new,

There's a girl who screams"no,no!"

until my anger starts to show,

There's a girl who wants a cookie and whines until she gets,

I do have to say she's getting good at those little fits!

There's "Sponge Bob Squarepants" on my t.v. all day long,

I swear I'm gonna scream if i hear another "Blues Clues" song!

She tells me NO! when I say it's time to sleep,

and there never seems to be a time she don't make a peep!

Everyone says it's a natural thing she's going through,

But I swear I don't know what I'm gonna do!

These terrible two's are going to kill me!

I guess I'll just hope it gets better when she's three!"

Sounds just about right! Except I have to deal with Terrible Two times Two!!! 

Now our Terrible Two started early, a few months back. I'd love to say that in its present form, it is a full blown crisis, but I have a nagging suspicion that what I have seen is just the tip of the iceberg. The Crisis of the Terrible Two hasn't as yet, been unleashed in all its glory!!! (Wise attitude on the part of moi, I'd say, considering all parenting blogs suggest having the lowest possible expectations at this stage!)

So what does it entail? So along with dealing with the attitude and with the energy of 2 hyperactive boys who can't sit still for even a second, here is my countdown of the Top Ten challenges that this phase has already thrown up! 

At the very bottom we start with,

10- Suddenly thinking Daddy is cool and Mummy is sooooo not! 

This for instance will involve picking & eating every bean & pea & every other vegetable that is normally persona non grata at the table, just because Daddy went to the market by train and got it home but leaving virtually untouched every food that Mummy so painstaking cooks, because what's the fun in that? 

Or get this, here I am, braving the chill and pushing the stroller along to the park when along waltzes in cool Daddy and suddenly I am unceremoniously asked to step aside with a curt, "Go Mammy, Daddy push".

9- Spending a good part of the day stuck to the iPad and iPhone and giving me visions of a nightmarish future full of video gaming & multiple online avatars & God forbid, peeing into bottles while playing MMORPG games!! Point to note - Its amazing how the Vs can clearly say iPad and iPhone while they have problems clearly enunciating a simple Yes. 

8- Now two toddlers being stuck to one gadget can only imply one thing - WAR!!! Thus I get to spend the entire time, trying to stop them from mutilating each other over who gets the iPad or the iPhone. Unless you have worked as a part of the UN Peace Keeping Forces, you will have no clue, how exhausting, dangerous and thankless this job can be!

7-Believing that every phone call I make or receive is intended for them and that I am simply butting in, hogging their phone time! So every time I talk on the phone, I end up simultaneously fighting off 2 little chimps who keep trying to take the phone away from me! 

6-Saying No to everything I say, almost as if its their life's mission to do exactly the opposite of what I ask.

5- While saying No seems to be their birthright, the other hand, hearing the same word seems to kick in some extreme allergic reaction! The symptoms of this allergic reaction are manifested through rolling on the floor, kicking, screaming, crying large drops of tears, looking at me with "oh how could you break my heart" look and finally with threatening to "Kickh Mammy", a phrase that I hear about 298 times each day!

4- Suddenly flipping personalities every alternate day. Now for a Taurean who thrives on lists and To Do charts, dealing with chaos and inconsistencies is nothing short of trauma. Add to that the fact that my Gemini twins thrive on being capricious. And then factor in the teeny tiny piece of info about how they immediately swap personalities the minute I think I have figured each out and have developed strategies to handle each accordingly!

So one day V1 loves peas and the next day he won't eat it but V2 who hated it till then, will miraculously develop a constant craving for it!

And one day V1 is the guy with the unreasonable tantrums and V2 the pleasant, adjusting one and the next day its the opposite

Or its V2 having the nightmares one night and sleeping soundly the very next, while his brother takes on the job of staying awake and howling!! 

I tell you, its enough to drive any sane person mad!

3-Acting on the assumption that I am one third of some weird Siamese triplet combo and that all 3 of us are joined at the hip. Which basically means even a trip to the loo for me involves the Vs walking in with me and demanding I perform while they sit in! And when I manage to plead/beg/cajole/threaten/bribe them out, I still have to endure the loo door being banged constantly by one while the other tries to peep from underneath the door!

2-The only exception to this assumption is the "Go Mammy, go sit there" command I hear occasionally, where "There" is as far away from them as humanly possible. Now this phrase, I get to hear only in parks and playgrounds, esp if there are older girls around who the Vs feel the need to impress through some activity that involves the threat of a broken limb and therefore the presence of Mummy simply cramps their style!!

Finally at the very top comes the mother of all problems - 

1- Being a beacon that attracts everything dangerous and life threatening. So one minute I am trying to stop V1 from riding down the stairs while sitting on a 4inch big toy motorcycle and the next minute I am trying to stop V2 from opening the washing machine to stick his head in. Or after thinking I have sufficiently scared the boys off the gas and the oven by showing them my third degree burn, I walk in to find them standing with their butt to the radiator and screaming "bumbum hot, bumbum hot"!! Or trying to scare them from chasing the fox that comes visiting only to find that one has walked into the hedge of holly and the other into the rose bush and both have ended up with scratches all over their body!!!

"A woman who can cope with the Terrible Twos can cope with anything" ~ Judith Clabes