“I felt like Cinderella at the signal”

 “I felt like Cinderella at the signal”

That’s how Shri Gauri Sawant narrated her feelings when she came to Mumbai after her dad banished her for being a transgender and the members of transgender community in Mumbai gave her footwear and some good clothes to wear..

One of her dreams she shared was that she admired Usha Uthup, the great singer, and wanted to be like her [she did narrate how she was elated when Usha Uthup met her on the sets of KBC when she was invited to participate in an episode]. While she may not have achieved that dream, she has still made great achievements in her stride to uplift the #LGBTQ & Sex Workers community in India.

It was an absolute pleasure to listen to Gauri in discussion on the webinar “Being Your Authentic Self With Pride “ hosted by MMC India as part of the PRIDE month initiatives.

Some of us may have seen her in the famous VICKS commercial few years back [here is the link to it in case you haven’t ] as well.

While she shared a lot of views, the simplest way I could summarize them is, be inclusive and accepting - be it Sexual Orientation, Differently Abled, Choice of dressing up, Choice to speak lesser/be less social, Choice to live in a preferred way or Choice of food (Vegan/Vegeterian/Eggetarian/Fisheterian/Non Vegeterian/Only curry but no meat pieces and probably 23 other such classifications), – what matters is how they perform (if you are employing them) and how they treat you. If they are not unkind to you, there is no reason to be unkind to them or dislike them and they deserve to be treated as you would like to be treated by others!

Was nice to see Shashi narrating the whole discussion in sign language.

We can have more Cinderellas around and it doesn’t even need you to act like a Prince [but we can definitely try not act like Cinderella's step mother]…. Just accept and be inclusive…

Link to original post :- LinkedIn

Father''s Day 2021

 Monday

Viana (my 6 yo): Papa, Sunday is Father's Day, but this time I won't be giving you anything (last year she made a beautiful card for me and made some gifts from her toys).
Me: 😔

Tuesday

V: What's your favorite food dish?
Me: Sizzlers.
V: But we will make Khichdi on Sunday.
Me: 😥

Thursday

(I spot her and her friend making some stuff trying to hide from me)

V: We are not making anything for Father's day, we are just playing.
Me: 🤔

Friday

(During her online school.. incidentally I had an office call at same time)

Teacher: OK Kids, what are you planning for Father's Day?
V : Papa, I am not going to do anything but I will tell Teacher a few things for sake of it... it's not true but...
Me : 🤨
V : Can you go to other room and take your calls I am getting disturbed.

I leave the room and then I guess she shared her plans with her Teacher.

Sunday (Today)

1. I get a beautiful card
2. A Brownie Cake
3. A Magic Show
4. A Quiz Show
5. And A Lip Smacking Home Made Sizzler (planning credits Viana, Execution credits Wifey Dearest Shruti Morzaria )

The day ended with our weekend movie routine and this time we saw The Walt Disney Company 's latest treat #Luca on Disney+ Hotstar

With due respect to all fathers of sons... I think the fathers of daughters are super blessed to experience the love and care that a daughter showers on them right from a very tender age... I sometimes ponder if 100 years down the line the Govt may have to come up with a campaign called "Ab Beta Bachao, Beta Padhao" coz the daughters are gonna rule the world! Well, most already are...

Wishing a Happy #FathersDay to everyone!

Link to original post: LinkedIn

Viana - 30 , Papa - 19

 #Uno Scorecard: Viana - 30 , Papa - 19 (Yep, seems i will never get past her!🙄). Yesterday we played 5 games and she won 2 and I won 3 (All baked in the overall score above) so she was upset..

Me: But you are 30 games to my 19, 11 games lead, so be happy!!

Viana: So what.. that was before today.. today you won more than me and when we started today I was 28 and now instead of 33 i am at 30!

After trying to explain her again to enjoy the game and look at long term, what she said had a learning for me.

Learning: - Don't look at past profit/progress as profit/progress. The profit/progress becomes new capital base/norm. So your last (L)earning is just the new base. If u look at it as profit/progress, you may get complacent by thinking pehle ka profit/progress hai so am still doing fine if i don't (L)earn for a while.

Be it wealth or experience, it has to be built upon continuously.

Link to original post: LinkedIn

UNO Chronicles

 ..to continue the #UnoChronicles .. So I, Viana (5yo) and her mom were playing another game of #Uno .

Me: Uno!

Viana (with a lot of determination) : Take that.. and that...and this ( she dropped a series of draw 4s and 2s in next few rounds and actually won first so it was me and her mom fighting out now)

(Next thing she does - comes next to me and cuddles up)

V: Let me help you beat Mom!

Me: What's the point now, when i was about to win you bombed me!

V: But that was because I was in the game and I had to do it to win... I gave you so many cards so now I'll help you get rid of those and win...


Learning 1 - When you gotta be professional you gotta be professional but its very important to switch your hats once the task/goal is accomplished.

Learning 2 - Don't judge your opponent/peer based on their actions while in the game (or at work)... Look at the hat they are wearing and judge the hat and not the individual.

Celebrate every win! However big or small!

 ...so it seems I will never get any better at #Uno 🙄 The scoreboard says it all! But I observed something very interesting. Everytime Viana (5 yo) won a game, she updated the scoreboard and did a victory lap around the house showing everyone that she had won a game. So that's 17 Victory Laps so far!

Lesson 1: Celebrate every win! However big or small.

It doesn't end there. After the first few games she lost (ya she was upset so I pulled out the "enjoy the game and not the wins" message as usual) she did something more interesting! Every time she updated my win, she did another round to show the score to everyone. Not with the same wide smile but nevertheless she went around telling everyone "Papa won this one but i am still ahead"

Lesson 2: Take a note of your opponents' victories and be aware that you have lost (talking and accepting losses as imp as celebrating wins?), but also be aware that you have lost just this round but are or will be ahead in the overall game with enough time, skills and efforts..

Draw 4

 Have you ever played UNO? Most of you probably have.. how do you react when your opponent drops a Draw 4 card on you? Annoying right?

But whenever I play with my 5 y.o. daughter, she gets ecstatic when i drop a Draw 4 on her! Why? Coz when she gets to draw 4 cards, she looks at it as an opportunity to get more magical cards, as she calls them (draw 4, draw 2, skip, reverse, wildcard)!!

Superb learning, that we often look at an adverse event as annoying whereas a kid looks at it as an opportunity! And quite often even after dropping the Draw 4s I end up on the losing side coz she makes the most of the 4 cards she drew...

Let's embrace the Draw 4s coming our way - perhaps we will end up with better cards that help us in the longer run..

Chronicles of a forced bachelor...

... so mom's gone out for a long pilgrimage and wife's gone for a while as well.. so here i am back to bachelor life.. just a couple of weeks in it though with many more weeks to go before it changes back to normalcy.. before i get into the couple of weeks thing ( had its good and bad moments, saving it for another blog though), penning down events as they occurred in last 24 horrendous (exaggerated though) hours....

So its 1pm on Aug 31st Sunday.. our maid has happily gone on a long leave since a week so the home's in a mess.. i target tidying up 1 room a day so start working on the living room and balcony today.. putting things in right places and clearing up the room... not having a maid is a biiiiiig challenge as we all know and maids hold more importance than even our family members at times... its ok if the son/daughter is not home till wee hours but if the maid doesnt show up within +/- 30mins of her scheduled time of visit it is chaos in any home.. so i have been trying my luck to get my neighbors to send in theirs for a day atleast once a week to mop up the floors atleast... somehow asking someone for a maid is like some goon is asking for your daughter's hand... the privileged (the one who has a maid) will give you the looks and assess you carefully to decide if they should share the maid with you.. what if you just poached her or offered her a higher pay and she walks out on them for good.. anyways, so somehow i convince the neighbors to send over their maid and they agree... after several "promises" the maid doesn't show up and come today (Aug 31st) i also realized that i haven't used the washing machine for a few days and have run out of clothes to wear!! So after am done tidying up the living room, i put some clothes in the machine and I see that i am not gonna utilize the machine's capacity adequately so i pull out all sorts of stuff and put it in the machine and start it (very proudly as i feel i have just done a smart thing of getting some bed sheets also washed) and behold! - The machine refuses to start washing and displays an error that indicates that the door open!! So i bang the door in every angle and degree of intensity to see if it works and after about 15 mins of trying i finally give up.. then it strikes me that i have been procrastinating on the washing which has now resulted in me not having much to wear for the week starting Monday! So i raise a ticket with my washing machine company (wondering how will i be able to attend to the technician if i go to work from Monday) and in the mean while again start maid hunting, now not just for mopping the floor and washing utensils, but also to wash my laundry - which included bed sheets that i proudly/foolishly put in.. somehow i get an assurance that one maid will come at 8am the next day and i should be ready to receive her (yes, receive, as in receiving a celebrity)... So Sunday evening i have enough problems in hand already and i go to sleep hoping Monday will be a better day (let me omit the bit about food related issues and other misc challenges.. will save it for a blog another day..)

Monday morning (Sep 1st) i wake up at 7.30am as i had set up the alarm to wake me up in anticipation of receiving the "bai".. its 9am and there are no signs of the maid (again!!) and so i call her up and get to know she would be on leave on account of rains! So here i am on my last pair of clothes which meant probably in the evening i would have to just give up on maid hunting and get into it myself - sweeping the floor, mopping it up, dusting the furniture, washing utensils, washing clothes... and am sure some more unexpected chores.. So its time to put the thought behind and rush for work as i have an important personal event to attend to in evening for which i have to leave from work early.. so i rush to my car and open the door and just before i step in, i notice a small flower lying down on the floor mat near the clutch! so i bend down to pick it up wondering how did it land up there and whoa!!!! I discover 3 tiny mouse pups laid on some sponge (eaten from my car somewhere obviously), probably born overnight in the car (as i had driven it at 11pm the previous night and it wasn't quite a maternity home then!). I was just too awestruck to decide what to do and it took me a few mins just to figure out what to do.. i could not lay the pups out in the rain as that would be too cruel so i carefully lifted the carpet and dropped the mouse pups in a safe place, hoping they would survive somehow and their mum would find them and take them to a safer place... with that, i go back to the car and try starting it... now the mice and my car go a long way.. its a routine for me to find that the mice have either cut my wires that start the ignition or the water hose which sprays water on the wind shield.. just a week back they had nibbled on the water hose (they do so when they are thirsty and dont find a place to drink i guess) and this time they even nibbled on my car's ignition wires! Now don't know if its thinking too much or probably the mother mouse and nature's way of protecting the new born... first i find a small flower on the floor mat which ensures i don't step in the car directly without noticing the pups, then the fact that they are laid on a mat on the car floor due to which i could just move them to another place.. and then the mouse nibbling on the wires as of to ensure i do not start the car and take it away (no mum would want the maternity ward just moved away i guess!). To top it off, i try calling the mechanic and he is not reachable as well.. so i have no option but to take a rick to work... now if you stay in Mumbai, you know hitting a lottery has a higher probability then getting a rick to the place you want to go to.. so I face rejections after rejections from rick-wallas and i walk nearly 2 kms in rains in search of a savior.. finally after umpteen rejections i decide its not my day and walk back home thinking of taking the day off from work instead of facing more challenges... just then near home I flag down an autowallah just going thru the motions and voila! i do find my savior.. just got into the auto and just to clear off my mind thought of penning this down and so came this impromptu, unstructured blog post (blogged after a year again).. This one is more like an outlet for my woes so might not be that enticing a read.. but then if you read up-til this line then guess it wasn't that bad... reached office after a bumpy auto ride so calling it a day on this one! Until next time.. if i come up with chronicles of a forced bachelor part 2..