Birthday Indulgence

It is not my birthday. It was a friend's daughter's birthday yesterday and we were invited along with Sunshine. The little girl's mom had cooked a very elaborate Indian dinner for the guests. There was a papdi chaat that tickled the senses, kachori with green chutney, palak poori and mattar paneer, malai kofta, biryani, nariyal ladoo and gulab jamun. She had cooked everything by herself, from scratch with a little help from her husband. I forgot all about medicines and weight gain and indulged myself. I had to work full day yesterday and instead of some quick fix dinner, we had a feast.

Sunshine had a ball of a time with the kids and I met some new Indian people. I find it very refreshing to meet people and I love to talk. I guess I talk so much, even to people who I meet for the first time, that sometimes they find it strange. Even my not so good German skills do not deter me from talking. Eventhough it was an all-Indian gathering, there were people from different states with different languages and we had to speak in English most of the time. But I suspect that most Indians like to talk so much that if they had no common language, they would probably still communicate with each other using sign language.

House Hunt

I am involved in a massive house hunt in two different countries at the moment and it has left me dazed and confused. We are looking to rent in Germany and something to buy in India. In Germany, things are slow. Not many new houses come on the market very often. But those that are there apparently do not get tenants that easily either. I see the same houses over and over again in the on line ads. On the other hand, in India, the market seems to be exploding and the options seem to be endless. Every single dream and wish you have ever had can be met and money is the only constraint.

When I say that money is the only constraint, it is a bit of an understatement. You have to see the prices there to believe how expensive real estate has become in India. I cannot fathom how people who work there and earn in rupees all their lives manage to buy houses or apartments. We have lived in Germany for so many years and a euro is more than 80 rupees at the moment. Still, I have to always remind the agents in India that my budget is limited, but my wish list is not.

Although it is time consuming, I am enjoying the hunt. As usual, it left me wondering if I should choose this field as my career. No wonders there. Every time I start a new project, I end up feeling that that would be my new career. I guess it just shows that I am immensely bored with my job or my field. Maybe it is time to start a career hut.

Soul Food

2013 has not been particularly good for me. I had to face some health issues which were bad enough to mar the quality of my life in general. So, this year, my resolution is to get my health back on track and get the other aspects to life right as well.

I have started practising yoga regularly. I have put on a lot of weight because of some of the medicines which I have been taking. I tried every possible exercise to lose it or at least control it and failed. That is when I started watching videos from Baba Ramdev, the great yoga guru. I am at a loss how it works, because for a given time, one burns a lot fewer calories with yoga than other exercises. Yet, where all else failed, it worked. It is not like those miracle pills or diets or exercises where you get a supermodel body overnight. But I have managed to finally halt the weight gain. And it has started coming down albeit at a very slow rate.

I also started practising Pranayam or breathing exercises along with yoga. I actually look forward to getting up in the morning and doing yoga and pranayam. Also, the unhappiness and helplessness that I felt at times last year seems to be slowly lifting. I feel more hopeful and happy. It is the perfect recipe for physical and mental well being and probably will atleast help start the spiritual journey as well.

Baby shower

My charming friend Deepa and her family are moving to India by the end of this month. She is expecting her second child and we threw her a surprise baby shower a couple of days back.

My biggest take back from the party is that I need to really pull up my socks. The surprise was not completely ready when Deepa rang the bell at my place. I was still decorating and only one guest had arrived. So we had to think of some quick plan to whisk Deepa away from my place so that I could complete the decorations and the other guests could come in and hide at my place. Anyway, the day was saved because Deepa decided to go for a car wash.

I will miss Deepa and sunshine will miss her son and DH will miss her husband. But their move may be only semi permanent and they might come back to Germany. In the meantime, we are also trying to move back to India. Life seems a bit uncertain right now, but hopefully there will be some clarity soon.

A Wednesday

Sunshine and a group of his friends meet almost every Wednesday for a playdate. It was very easy to arrange these in summer when the weather was good outside. We could take the kids to a big play area and they would get busy in no time. The only difficulty was convincing them to go home afterwards.

With the onset of autumn, we are in for gloom and grey and abundant rain. This has forced our playdates indoors. Yesterday was the first of those indoor playdates. There were six kids including Sunshine who were around 3 years old, give or take a few months. I thought it might be a good idea to organize some activities for them as leaving six playschoolers to play on their own could turn out to be catastrophic. So, we started our playdate with a song, my friend and fellow mom Jenny read a couple of books for the kids and finally, they were given a huge sheet of paper and crayons and felt pens to show off their artistic skills. After this, it was time for freeplay.

I have to think about new games and ideas for our future playdates. I really enjoyed it (probably more than the kids) since I love kids and it makes me immensly happy to be surrounded by them. I hope they had half the fun that I had. The biggest success for me was that they refrained from pulling each others' hair, pushing, hitting biting etc that they sometimes resort to when they get bored.

Hopefully next time, we will be able to move forward with the idea of creating a toy repository as well. 

Please give me strong shoulders

A lot of things are going on in my life and I need to be really strong to carry on. Today, Ms Postive asked me to go with her to Heidelberg, but I had to work. Some time with Ms Positve would have been just what the doctor ordered, but I just had no time to spare.

Last week, Sunshine and I were invited to his friends's little farm. He was one little terror over there throwing things, being mean to his friend and even her mom, stubbornly refusing to do anything and everything I asked him to do. In sharp contrast, his friend was a sweet little angel, helping her mom to set the table and clean it later and she was extremely understanding towards Sunshine and tried to save his back all the time. I have been completely unable to figure out why Sunshine acts up at times. He can be really good too and can share and play with his friends. The caretakers at his daycare give me the feedback that he is a very well-adjusted kid always taking care of the younger ones and playing nicely with almost every kid. Why does he have to be little devil around me I wonder.

I do enjoy Sunshine's antics but sometimes it gets just too much for me. Especially when he is aggressive towards other kids. I feel so inadequate as a mother when he ignores numerous pleas to be nice. He is barely 3 and he already knows how to have his way when he is in that kind of mood. It usually ends up in us leaving the place and I feel bad for the other kid(s) and also for dragging him away from other kids. He really enjoys the company of other kids and always feels sad when he or they have to leave. I wonder what I can do to teach him to be a little gentler around his friends.

Integration

As an expat living in Germany, I have created my own comfort zone in the last 8 years or so just like most other immigrants do. My social circle comprises mainly of Indians, expats from other countries and a few German friends and many international as well as German colleagues.

An Indian family moved into our building recently and as they are slowly finding their way in the new environment, I was reminded of our initial days here. We had it pretty easy here. We were 'adopted' by a few friends and they helped us in every step till we knew our way around. There was a lovely German family who were our friends before we moved here. They introduced us to ikea and the spoilt Indians (us) learned for the first time how to assemble our own furniture. There was my husband's German teacher who told me about language classes. Once I went to these classes, I started meeting people and making friends and shortly thereafter, I got a job. There was an Indian friend and colleague who drove us around and helped us find places to shop, for entertainment etc. There were many others who helped in different ways, but these three were guardian angels here in Germany.

Our new neighbours seem to be finding it difficult to cope. There are many more Indians in our village now and almost everybody has their own closed social circles. It is very difficult to break into these. The lady and her little son stays at home and unless she finds a daycare for him, she cannot start her language classes or start looking for a job. Language school is a great place to meet people and have someone to share your challenges as you master a new language. She does not have any venue to meet the local people either. It is very easy to slip into despair in such a situation.

Today, we went to a daycare center together to see if she can find a place for her son. She will most probably get one by October. But that is also quite some time away. I hope she will find some other activities for herself and her son until then. He is such a sweet and intelligent little boy and she is also warm and friendly. It will be a shame if they had to just sit at home till the daycare seat is available.