Glorious Sixty Year Olds

         S-145, Panchshila Park Vasant Vihar seems  a bit like home now, not completely but the areas are beginning to look familiar, I do not wake up and wonder where I am any more and I still call S-145 my home but then I also call C 6/6 home. Why do we get so attached to bricks and mortar? Why is it that some place gives you great vibes and welcomes you, whereas in some homes as soon as you enter there is a desire to leave. We have always hoped that our home will be a welcoming one, a place where people were welcome to come when they want and stay as long they want - to some extent!. We feel that we have achieved it where ever we have lived and maybe our friends feel that to. Homes are our lifeline, they make or break our moods. They are places where we can look for happiness for ourselves or just sit back and make ourselves miserable. But we forget that each home is a new place and we have to establish the atmosphere and the ambiance o...

A s we prepare to move to a new home in Vasant Vihar, mainly due to family obligations, both of us are going through a period of introspection and of wondering what the future holds for us. We are getting older, an undeniable fact! We are getting slower and more lethargic, another undeniable fact! We are happy to move house - now that is where the facts begin to get muddled up, that is where we are not too sure about what is happening and whether it is the correct decision to make. The decision was not an easy one - my husband agreed to move faster than I did. I wavered back and forth. Spoke to many friends and relatives, took too many opinions and spent many nights just sitting and staring at the walls. What finally made the decision for me was one evening when I could not even turn round into my road for 30 minutes because of the traffic mess all around. Then it felt that enough was enough and a decision was confirmed. Do our children agree with us? I am not too sure, they are...

" During my childhood, I was afraid of my parents. As I grew older my teachers bossed me. Once I got married, I was afraid of my in-laws and my husband. Then my children took over and again I was the subdued one. Now my daughter-in-law has arrived and even though she is a lovely person, I am afraid to say anything to her because she might get offended." Does this refrain sound familiar? Does it touch a chord somewhere - or do you mock it and wonder which spineless woman is talking in this fashion? You will be surprised at how many women feel that life has somehow passed them by. Somewhere their individuality has been submerged in the sea of family and obligations. This is the generation of women who we have termed as "the sandwiched generation." Most of these women were born between 1945 and 1960. They were children when Freedom was achieved and were among the first few who were a part of the education system of Free India. They grew up in the heady da...

After watching the film " Bucket List " with two great actors - Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in it - I figured it was time I built a 'bucket list' for myself. It is unlikely that I am going to achieve even 10% of what I am writing - but it is good to get it down on paper.It is good to have something to look at and say - maybe I should do this - or maybe I should help someone to do this - or maybe Pran and myself should really try to do this. Most of these will just end up being words on paper, but then as in the BeeGees song - "words are all I have" 1. Open a school for children of construction workers. Most of them just play by the wayside while their parents work at the sites. They are not there for very long and the logistics involved in this are way too many. But maybe someday when I have enough money, I may be able to do this or maybe I can help someone who already does this. 2. Cut my hair short and let it go grey. Too much effort is involved to d...

As you get older, memories become an inherent part of your life. Everything that happens around you seems to have a connection with something that happened years and years ago. A lot of sentences seem to begin with - when I was young; or with sometime back. Every experience seems to be compared with another one that took place years earlier. No wonder our children begin to roll their eyes heavenwards when we only mention the words - when we were young. What are memories made of ? A weird question - but I have started thinking about what is it that we remember. I can recollect the name of my teacher in Class IV but I cannot remember what I paid for a certain vegetable today. Let me do some correlations of memories and how I react to things today : I remember spending a lot of summer holidays writing essays. This was considered by my mother to be the best way in which to improve our English writing skills. When I became an English teacher, I would never ask my students to write essays - ...

I got used to my arthritis, To my dentures I'm resigned, I can manage my bifocals But lord I miss my mind. Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; and now I have six children and no theories Life is a tough proposition and the first hundred years are the toughest. Varicose veins are the result of an improper selection of grandparents. Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. I'm pushing sixty; that's enough exercise for me. Familiarity breeds contempt - and children. A wife lasts as long as a marriage, an ex-wife for ever. Adultery is the application of democracy to love. Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is quite as satisfying as an income tax refund. Behind every man with pull is a woman with push.