to write a novel.

the idea came to me as i was struggling with my 20,000-word final masters project, which was a film (story, screenplay) for ram gopal varma*. i was fighting to reach it to the deadline, working from home full-time, and (with praveen to help), looking after then-six-month-old athri – who i was being repeatedly told by other have-been-mothers – was a remarkably manageable child.

as a first-time mom, the pressure was too much to handle no doubt, but an intense-three-week project-wrapping marathon, and less than a day after i handed in the 74 pages of my hard work at the university’s postgraduate centre, i was beginning to experience withdrawal symptoms. i was addicted to the research, the river of information, and the writing that gushed from it. i now wanted to write a novel.

there was a reason. somewhere in my head was something that remotely resembled a good story. i thought i’d let it rest for a while…perhaps it would pass? but a month later, an excited email from my teacher told me i had a distinction in my project, and a masters degree with merit. i was thrilled. perhaps it was not to pass, perhaps it was a sign!

i held on.
today, five months since, i wonder why it is still there.

am i again going through that clumsy phase, which, like most young girls stepping out of their sheltered lives and protective families, and into the wide world for the first time, leave them so naively attracted to the idea of love? now that i can sit back and laugh at how confused i had been, how almost-annoyingly innocent, i can’t help but suspect if the i-want-to-fall-in-love affectation has just been replaced by another syndrome. i-want-to-be-a-writer.

but i don’t have the time to be one. after my project submission in may, and my last post in august (which, between you and me, i wrote across two-and-a-half weeks), i have had visiting in-laws, house-moving, many sleepless nights thanks to a teething, charming boy (who turned one two days ago), viral infections that seemed to come and go in waves, fibromyalgia-pains, an application for a phd, work – and i haven’t written a single word.

i haven’t been reading either. the 40 minutes that i commute to work (on thursdays) lets me read about 25 to 50 pages of a book, depending on what i am reading. i had to return a dalrymple book that i renewed about five times already. i can’t wait to return to wodehouse (my first), who made me laugh aloud carelessly on the tube journey home, whose humour, like a sweet-smelling balm, instantly cheered all those rushed, sleep-deprived nerves.

there’s the sink – i call it the akshayapatra corner, that which never runs out of dishes to wash, there’s food to be cooked – new recipes to try, clothes to be washed, a husband and son who demand attention i love to pay attention to. i like a clean home, the rooms need to be vacuum-cleaned, everyday, the toys need to be put away. there’s my office work, stories and websites to go through, blogs to browse…

and yet there is that adamant, that idea for a novel. in my mind, curtains of a story flap noiselessly in the breeze, restless. its characters stare at me (thankfully, not many right now), enquiring what their fate is going to be. some of them grow large at times, like balloons filling up with air, some lurk in the shadows, afraid to come out. others just shrink and lie there, emaciated, waiting.

me? i have already learnt my lessons in young love. i do everything possible, to avoid their path.

* anyone with any kind of contact with the director puhleeease get in touch with me…you won’t regret it, i promise 🙂

and let the world be your playground 🙂

in my time, things weren’t so simple…i had to walk 12 miles to get to school…you have it so easy everything’s laid out in a plate…i would never dream of talking to my elders like that…getting a government job in those days was a blessing from above…

everytime my parents complained about us being the easy-generation, or my grandmother started her story about how she struggled because of a lack of education, i almost always felt guilty for not having to rough it out as bad as them.

but now, i realise that each generation has its own share of challenges. of dilemmas and decisions that will change the course of their lives, and those of the generations to come.

we – the non-resident desis-at-heart – have a question too, looming in our minds until we finally take a side, whether or not the question is answered rightfully: to leave, or not to leave.

for praveen and me, the reasons ‘for’ and ‘against’ are on an almost equal scale, in spite of me being the more fussy one of both of us, and praveen being the veenedam vishulokam-types (one who is happy wherever he gets a place to rest).

i had a long list of complaints when i first arrived here in the uk, which kept increasing in almost all the five years i’ve been here. but in the last few months, including the ones we were away in india, i have grown to live with my differences. there are a lot of things i would have loved to change here, but for some of these i am now grateful as well.

of course this doesn’t mean that i love my bombay any less, but that london is growing over me as well. and i have realised that both the cities are individualistic in their own way, and… well, that there is no point in making any comparisons anymore.

with the arrival of athri, our equations have suddenly been tilting this way and that…

not many months ago, another ‘n-r-i’ malayalee friend who lives in leeds here (and whose sister jayashree was my classmate) and i were sharing this dilemma, when he presented a different perspective. suddenly he said: ok, lets look at it this way…why did our fathers leave kerala and settle in bombay? for better opportunities, right? better lifestyle, better schools, etc, etc… haven’t we turned out to be good citizens because of their decision? it has paid off hasn’t it?

hmm, i nodded. it was an interesting question. one i haven’t been able to find a truthful answer to yet.

i loved my growing years in bombay. maharashtrian, gujarati, punjabi, tamil neighbours, all varieties of food and tastes, the languages, get-togethers with cousins and their families, the hindi movies…we were so multi-cultural that not once did i think of myself as a ‘malayalee.’ we celebrated onam and vishu, much in the same way as we enjoyed holi, diwali and raksha bandhan.

i don’t remember having any malayali neighbours. in fact, the only, and closest connection we had in bombay was my mema‘s (father’s sister) family at mulund. and her children – my cousins – were as much ‘bombayites’ as us. apart from the rare mohanlal or mammooty movie we watched on video, or travelled together once to my father’s village (when my grandfather died), ‘kerala’ was just a place we visited occasionally. there, at my achchamma‘s house, and with our keralite cousins, although we all laughed and played and danced together, the geographical and cultural distances between us only seemed to magnify our differences.

as i grew up and came across more from-kerala-malayalees, at college or at work, i began to detest everything about their attitude. their accents, their outlook towards women, their sense of dress, their wanting-to-include-coconut-and-rice in every meal, their males-get-to-be-served-first rules, the hypocrisy in their manners, their narrow mindedness… (there were one or two exceptions though).

i must have come across to them as a snobbish hinglish-speaking bombayite too, for no sooner would i make an attempt to converse with them in malayalam, than they would flash a stupid yellow grin and say sympathetically: bombayinne aane alle? (you are from bombay, aren’t you?) or, the even more annoying malayalam ariyo? (do you speak malayalam?) in the same sarcastic tone. and that would kill any other potential cause for communication between us once and for all.

at home i would murmur and complain to my parents: yes so what if i am from bombay, i am a malayalee and my language is more refined than theirs. what did he mean ‘malayalam ariyo?’ did he think i was born with a hindi tongue? why, i can speak two or three languages more than him and he still acts like a bully! why was he looking *through* me like that? kerala men have never seen a woman or what? and on and on until my sister rolled up her eyes and changed the subject, or switched on the television.

if she was in the mood, my mother – who is an iyengar from bangalore – would add in her own list of complaints (her favourite being: they served me rice with their bare hands!).

but my father – the real malayalee among us who left his kerala home when he was 16 – the one who took the decision to stay on in bombay and give us a better life, would never be offended. even when i angrily vowed: “come what may, i will never marry a malayalee man,” he seemed more amused than hurt. but he never rose to defend his people either.

green, green grass

my husband is not a malayalee but a tamilian from kerala, which makes him more malayalee than most of the keralites i have known. despite the fact that we live in london, in the six years in his company, including the frequent trips to his home in kerala (and subsequently, my grandma’s place), his malayalee friends, the ‘left’ and right’ of politics, a lot of south-indian movies and music…i think there has been a lot of unlearning – conscious or unconscious – in my bombayite upbringing.

going to university here only speeded up the process, giving me an exposure to even more cultures of the world and making me approach subjects and books i would have never known otherwise existed. somewhere along the last few months, my mind has stopped rejecting everything-kerala and, on the contrary, turned curious about everything-kerala instead.

my MA writing-projects included, among bollywood and harry potter, ayurveda and naalukettu houses. reading about the nayars of malabar, about kerala before and after tipu sultan’s time, was fascinating. a friend’s narration of two small stories from the aidihyamala brought big fat tears to my eyes. it was then that i realised: i was so thirsty for this knowledge that i had been running away from it.

had i been brought up in kerala, would i think differently, or would i dismiss the rich malayalam literature, and culture as ‘ghar-ki-murgi-dal-barabar’ (loosely, meaning taking things for granted) as is usually the case with things that are around you? would things be different, if my father had taken even a single offense to my zillion complaints about keralites, or/and then defended them? would things be different if we visited his home more often?

today, i know it’s not too late to catch up on my kerala lessons. but less than twenty years from now, athri will be looking for somewhere to stand among our roots as well.

do we give him a better ‘quality of life’ staying here, learning about the british culture (or comparatively, the lack of it) along with him, listening to him speak in a foreign english accent? or do we go back home to india, where we can ensure he learns the values of respect, tradition and family, the indian way.

i can only sigh and wait for life to decide.

for now, looking at the slim, roots-in-jamnagar-brought-up-in-kenya-and-london surveyor who had visited our house and admitted (very sadly) that he didn’t belong anywhere, or my dear sri lankan neighbour roshi, who says she envies me because her own country is war-torn… “at least,” like she put it, we indians “have a choice, and a place called home.”

firstly, i am a poor student of history. it might fascinate me and all (sometimes), but ask me who attacked whom and the names of the generals and viceroys and suddenly it is as if you are talking to me in another language.

but, i am more of a visual learner; i can remember any story from the amar chitra katha picture books. even better is when i am reading history that has already been televised. that is why when i came across my father’s worn-out copy of bhagwan s gidwani’s the sword of tipu sultan at home last year, i picked it up without a second thought.

during those long days in the bare hospital with a stubbornly-skeptic-about-ayurveda-praveen, even athri kicked excitedly inside my tummy when i read about hyder ali’s exploits in the south, how young tipu and his brother escaped with the help of a little girl (who waited for him to ask her hand in marriage years later), how he lets his prisoners go after teaching them a lesson. why, i also wept when faithful purniaih was asked to leave before tipu’s final encounter…

gidwani’s prose was fluent, picturesque with its battles and treacheries; i voted it as the best non-picture-history book i had ever read, and wished we had this and more at school. in fact i began to look forward to reading more about tipu as soon as i was finished with my MA project, and i did. like a sincere student, i enrolled at the soas university library for this self-assigned subject, and borrowed a few books on ‘the real tipu sultan‘ and the mysorean invasions on malabar…

now that i have an hour’s travel to work and back once a week (while praveen stays home to look after athri athri looks after praveen), i thought it will be wonderful to indulge in some rare history lessons again on the train. what i didn’t expect, were the bonus lessons on writing, or rather how not to write – in the book’s preface itself:

Tipu Sultan has recently jumped from history books to the TV screen. This has resulted in a great interest in him and in his times. It has also generated great controversy, as many people, especially in Kerala, believe that Tipu was not what he is being shown in the TV serial. The novel ‘The sword of Tipu Sultan’ by Bhagwan S Gidwani (on which the serial is based), they claim, is full of untruths and misrepresentations…

This controversy made me read about Tipu in detail. I was shocked to learn the facts about him. I found that his detractors were much nearer than the truth than those who were projecting him as a nationalist and a secular ruler.

…(In this book) the focus is on the character of Tipu as he really was: as a ruler, a soldier, a general, a family man, a cruel despot, and a fanatic.

sharma clarifies right in the start that his book has not many details on the battles and seiges. however, what i found interesting, was his acknowledgement towards the end of the same preface:

Readers may find some slant in the book against Tipu. History can not be written without a slant. However, truth has not been a casualty in the process, I believe.

so at least we had that straight…history cannot be written without a slant. that means gidwani wasn’t so wrong in his eulogising the sultan…but what made me uncomfortable was the writer’s over-fictionalising history, rather than making it work the other way.

for instance, gidwani’s book (which, unfortunately i don’t have here with me to quote from directly), said tipu was born only after blessings from a mysterious p’ir sultan-baba who also instructed fakhr-un-nisa (hyder ali’s wife and tipu’s mother), that he (tipu) be sent on the spiritual path as he is a child of god. for the first 12 years therefore, on his mother’s request, tipu was trained in sanskrit, and both hindu and islamic texts…in the following chapters, both in the book and tipu’s life, gidwani gives the impression that it was this education that made tipu see all religions as one.

sharma rubbishes this theory. according to him it was hyder ali who, being illiterate himself, appointed a maulvi so at least his son got the education he had missed out on. unfortunately, hyder ali never questioned tipu’s teacher and after many years, discovered that instead of the well-rounded education, modes of warfare and “diplomacy with surrounding nations” that he expected his son to learn, “tipu had all the makings of a good maulvi…”

fine. now that i knew that perhaps gidwani got a little carried away, and that maybe sharma was right, i picked another or the remaining two books i had borrowed from the soas library: tipu sultan and his age, a collection of seminar papers – edited by aniruddha ray. the very first line in the very first 21-page paper (by one b. sheik ali) in this book made me put it down and scratch my head again.

tipu sultan is a fascinating figure of the eighteenth century who offered his blood to write the history of free india.

as far as my limited history-knowledge goes, india had so many kings and kingdoms who constantly fought with each other for more territory and wealth. tipu too was merely doing the same. so where does the concept of a ‘free india’ come in?

the style and tone in another paper (by abdus subhan) from the same book, continues in ali’s footsteps and seems to be blindly infatuated with tipu’s character again…

in his passion to liberate his country from the colonial rule of the british, tipu offered his blood…. tipu gave away two of his sons as hostages to the english in order to secure peace and well-being of his people.

according to the treaty of seringapatam – in sharma’s book – tipu owed three crore and thirty lakh rupees to the british, which he didn’t have, and was allowed to pay in installments. his sons (he had but two) were taken as hostages by charles cornwallis until tipu paid the full amount, and not ‘given away’ as subhan puts it.

well, whatever.

i had thought i could learn more about the tipu sultan who has an entire section dedicated to him in the british museum and windsor castle, whose character got me interested in history perhaps for the first time. but all this haggling by the writers is not helping me. and i haven’t got past the preface, or browsed through any of their books yet.

even after these many years of independence, when the historians of india themselves are biased, how can we expect the common indian to relate to his or her past, and more importantly, not judge if it was right or wrong.

if only the real tipu could stand up…

more reading:

the sword of tipu sultan (1990) – by vm korath, former editor of matrubhoomi

tipu sultan as known in kerala – by ravi varma

h d sharma’s book reviewed by nilagriva

maybe i should call it a mutiny. you would too, if you saw the yellow dal-chawal-puree flying around everywhere in this little room yesterday. and now, dried up evidences of the fight remain, only to be continued this afternoon, when i try to feed a six-month-plus athri again. spectacular yes; you haven’t even heard his war cries!

athri seems to have developed a taste for the sweet pure-fruit purees that i used to give him before his ‘chorunnu’ (rice-eating ceremony) day; the low-salt-almost-tasteless khichdi and vegetable mashes invariably end up everywhere but in his tiny stomach. sigh, one day, we will reach a settlement…
🙂

other little victories for me, and why i have not been able to blog, is that maha-20,000-word project that was leftover from my MA professional writing class last year. thanks to the series of unfortunate and not-so-unfortunate events that have occurred in the past 10-11 months, i had to push the deadline by another semester and finally, managed to submit it well on time last week.

it was multi-tasking at its best: full-time office work, looking after athri, and working on the project – a film (my first) story and screenplay for ram gopal varma (shh, don’t laugh! and i don’t know if it will reach him yet). all this along with the routine household chores, for which i had a lot of help from my dearest ‘better half’.

and now its all over. i took some days off work this month to s-t-r-e-t-c-h, and enjoy some real maternity leave that i deserved at last, and am now waiting to hear of my results.

somewhere inside, i know they don’t matter anymore. what matters is the will. the will to fight, the will to complete something that means a lot to you, the will to go on despite- and against all the ill-forces of the universe, the bonds of a young family that have only grown stronger, and the never-ending hope that everything will turn out fine in the end. and if i can do it, anybody can!

yes, i feel so much alive! and its great to be back 🙂

ps: here’s my toothless tiger with his new cushiony friend.

stressful. addictive.

hee 🙂

meet athri praveen ramanathan, my new director and boss, all of a 100 days old today. you don’t suppose he could be up to any mischief, do you?

yeah, right…
😉

my first post in a long time, albeit ammani-esqe…

She irons her old shirt and pyjamas, a habit she has almost forgotten. She has been having quick showers lately, praying that her infant son doesn’t wake up howling for milk. Tying up her hair in a hurried knot, she glances at the mirror, at the months of neglect that stare back at her. Ugly, undone eyebrows, the million blackheads, that always tired face. Behind her, the infant kicks the air excited. His mother has that fresh smell again. When she turns, he gives her a high-pitched happy cackle that is so precious these days. “Mummeee! I love you just the way you are!” say his eyes, brimming with life. She thanks him with a warm cuddle and a kiss, the new love causing a lump in her throat. Putting him down again, she then reaches out for her moisturiser.

despite the three-and-half-hour powercuts we have daily, today we’ve had the internet connection for longer than usual. i wanted to write a lot…about the project i am stuck with and *have* to complete before my baby is out, about writers like kiran desai and others and why i too so want to start on a story, about why indians in india will always blame their country and i will always fight against them…

instead i started writing and before i knew it, i was rambling about my own struggles with being myself while being happily married (five years this 25th!), my problems with staying away from my roots, and the hope that babies, for better or worse, can change anything. this post has turned out to be rather personal, but here it is nevertheless…

…the trouble with living abroad with just your spouse is that you simply get used to each other.

you wake up seeing his or her face and you go to bed doing the same. your life revolves around each other’s, for all the 24 hours of the day, each day of the week, all month and through the year. friends drop in and out of your lives and you talk to family over the phone. once in a year or two, your parents or in-laws visit you, change everyday routines into whirlwind tourist escapades that leave both of you sinking in your chairs exhausted. at least not for another year, you think.

and then it is time for you to visit home. his family and then your family, or vice versa. gifts for everyone. neither of you are really satisfied with the holiday, but that’s only natural and you know it. then the calculations begin…who stayed for how long at whose home and why. one of you demands more time with (one) family. sigh, and one of you has to compromise. always.

is the trouble – staying abroad away from family, getting homesick, missing your old friends, constantly compromising – worth it at all, i wonder.

this year, long before praveen‘s back forced us to take this unscheduled and almost frustratingly-extended holiday, we had decided to give each other some space…

every year, i would fly alone, early, so that i got an extra week with my family, and he, with his, and i hated every moment of it. the separation i mean. i was used to us being together all the while, and i didn’t regret it one bit. we had (and sometimes still do) begun to complete each other’s sentences, or spookily, speak out what the other was still thinking about. we were growing within each other and without. we were the best of friends, and yet, we were like any husband and wife.

this year, boldly, we thought that would change. we would fly together, no matter what. and once we met everyone we would live in our own homes. he would be in kerala and i, in mumbai. at first i shuddered at the thought, but i belong to that category of women who at times consider themselves to be independent, or at least pretend to. (and believe me they do try). so i agreed, wholeheartedly.

but we ended up staying at two ayurvedic hospitals instead, for over five weeks. thankfully, praveen had begun to recover after his ordeal. he had had his prescribed month-and-a-half-long period of strict bedrest. as he got better, he got restless and wanted to move around, walk, and be with family. his family.

it was a painful three days and nights, before i finally let him go last week. will he be able to fly alone, will he take his medicines on time, what if he accidentally stumbles, what if the pain returns on the flight to cochin, who will apply all the oils on his back…thousands of questions played in my mind. after all, there was a lot that had already happened…the pain, the treatment, the house we had to vacate through our friends, the MA degree i had to postpone to next year…and besides, i am in my last month of pregnancy. i am allowed to be an emotional freak, am i not?

but then, i also realised i was unintentionally mothering someone already. him. and when a best friend begins to parent the other, one of them is bound to rebel. that’s when it is practical to let go.

praveen is away for just two weeks, of which a week has already passed. he’s with his family, free to do what he wants to, and i am with mine. i cannot do a lot of things though, since i look and waddle like a sea horse, and have trouble travelling on thane’s permanently-dug-up roads. but then i was restless too.

so i took part in a four-day tribal art or warli painting workshop to keep me sane. i am sorting out pieces of leftover cloth from my mother’s old tailoring bags, for quilts i can make once the baby is out. (i wish i could do that right now but we indians don’t shop/prepare for the baby before it is out. and don�t ask me why!)

i am still struggling with my MA project that has to be submitted in january as soon as i get back. i am hoping my warli art teacher gets some more students so i can learn madhubani painting from her. before praveen comes back next week, i must spend some time with my aunts…

perhaps this is what giving each other ‘space’ really means. or is it? had we not been residents of a foreign country, perhaps i would have learnt this sooner. i don�t know if everyone who�s abroad goes through what I�ve rambled above. perhaps babies change everything.

hopefully, they will.

…and so this diwali we are in mumbai.

we hadn’t planned for it. nor had we ever imagined the turn of events that life can bring. for the first time in perhaps both our lives, praveen and i have had to take some really ‘grown-up’ decisions. so far thankfully, we’ve come out unscathed, and stronger.

it all started mid-july, when we were getting ready for a museum-visit in sunny london, praveen bent to lift a cushion and he thought something in his back snapped. it was just a year since praveen had recovered from his sciatica. he had put on some kilos since then, and also regularly escaped the four exercises that were a ‘must-do’ for the problem to heal completely.

we hoped the nhs doctors were right; for all the four times that we visited them during a painful one-and-a-half month, they insisted it was just a muscle sprain – nothing that some ibuprofens could not take care of.

for all the faith that people have on ‘firangi’ doctors, they were terribly wrong. praveen grew dependent on the painkillers, which bloated his stomach, and yet he couldn’t walk or sit without significant pain. meanwhile, our baby was growing inside me, and the number of days i had to work from home so i could care for him kept increasing. i put my foot down finally when the ambulance that we’d called one day, came after eight long hours ‘due to the heatwave’ that london was apparently experiencing. despite a night at the hospital and some strong morphine and diazepam tablets to take home, we returned empty handed. ‘just a muscle spasm,’ they insisted again.

and i insisted too. the next day – aug 2nd – we were on a bmi flight to india. we lied that i was only 5-months pregnant, and not six. anything to get home. i was sure that if kerala’s ayurveda could cure the 13-year-old backpain and fibromyalgia that i had, it would surely cure praveen. unlike the nhs, at least we wouldnt have to wait for months to find out what was wrong with him in the first place!

by aug 5th, we had the MRI report in our hands. praveen had not one or two, but *three* herniated discs in his lower spine, plus something called stenosis that narrows the spinal canal, causing him severe pain. i could just strangle those nhs doctors that day. muscle spasm indeed.

decision number 2 was easier. the only alternative to a risk-laden surgery that all the allopathy doctors suggested at the MRI clinic, was ayurvedic treatment. praveen was skeptical. he was also tired of all the pain. he had lost his cheerful manner, he had become irritable, and totally unlike the husband i had known for the last five years. ‘i know,’ i tried to make him understand, ‘i’ve been there before. pain makes you lonely.’

for the next three weeks, we stayed at the ayurvedic hospital at kottakkal. i worked from the cybercafe for a few days, and then a cousin helped me with a reliance internet connection so i could work from our room. whenever i could, i also tried finishing my MA project, but i was racing against the deadline. about the treatment itself, praveen was skeptical, the doctor was trying his best, and i still had my faith in them and the herbal medicines. (later the doctor would confide in me that this condition is usually so severe, he himself would have suggested surgery, but he had wanted to give it a shot!)

aug 31st – we flew to cochin for my seemantham (pictures coming soon). it was the best break we could both have, with relatives, well wishers and love pouring from all around. but praveen was far from recovery yet. since it didn’t make sense travelling all the way back to kottakkal, the doctors suggested staying at one of their temporary branches closer to home, at aluva.

another two weeks of treatment began. yes, ayurveda takes time to settle down in a body, but once it does, it begins to take effect surely. praveen didn’t know it then, but he was improving. he still found it painful and at times impossible to walk, stand or sit, and even more frightening was the month-long bedrest period that he would have to endure till the next month-end. i still held to my belief that this was the best treatment, and he at times argued for over an hour that he didn’t know what would work and what not.

in the meantime, we had to take decisions number 3, 4 and 5:
– vacate the house (with the help of our friends) we had just moved into at harrow, to save on the rent we were losing for every month that we were going to be in india,
– forget about the MA for now and push the project to next semester (in spite of the plausibility that my newly-delivered baby might not be in a mood to help), and,
– deliver our baby at home in mumbai.

i’ll be lying if i say i hadn’t wished for that last decision at some point during my pregnancy, but that was my first trimester, when i was craving for wada pavs and ussal-pavs, and missal and pavbhaji and kalakhatta golas. nevertheless, this is one lesson i will never forget: be really really careful of what you wish for.

today, praveen can’t wait to get up and walk about. his discs might have not made a 100-percent recovery yet, but he’s convinced they will. it’s been over a month since he had his last diclofenac-sodium, and at times i have to push him to go and take rest. while i struggle with my own pains in this ninth month, he’s learnt to cope with his. we’re hoping for a normal delivery, so the doctor will let him be with me in the delivery room. best of all, he’s his cheerful self again, and as most of his friends would acknowledge sadly, the pathetic jokes are back as well.

for a change, this time i am not complaining 😉

happy diwali, everyone, and wish you good health and prosperity in the years to come. and whatever you do, take care of that back of yours.