A rape, a fast-track court and a death penalty

Last month a five year old was raped by a 20 year old man. The entire process of investigation, filing of case, the trial in a 'Protection of Children from Sexual Offences' (POCSO) court and the awarding of death penalty to the accused was completed in a record 26 days. 

I am indeed happy and proud to read this news todays and hope such police officers and courts continue their exemplary work. While we recognise the obvious parties and their dedication in bringing this judgement to fruition, we should also laud the parents, family, friends and cousins of the girl who all played an important part in not only aiding the rescue and treatment of the girl, but also provided enough witness power and direct & circumstantial evidence to identify and arrest the culprit within five hours. 

This in a country which routinely feels ashamed to admit rape and protects the accused by not filing a case in order to protect the victim. Yes, it is a highly confusing and vicious cycle which enables most rape perpetrators to go scot-free!

This case is an example of all systems - families, villagers, police and judiciary - coming together to do the right thing in a very timely fashion. It will serve as a good lesson and send out a strong message to society at large. We applaud everyone involved and hope the POCSO courts continue their good work. Justice delayed is indeed justice denied!

Naming talents

My daughter seems to have this uncanny ability to give the most perfect names to our pets. This includes animals that we have just rescued or she has just met. She would not know much about their personality by then but she still does it every time!

She names one of our husky rescues 'Diva', the very first day she came home. Even if I had sat with a book and made notes I could not have come up with a better name. She truly was and is a diva and her forever family made no changes to her name after they adopted her. She could never be anything but  a diva!!!

Few weeks ago we rescued a family - mum and four pups from the streets of Doha and my daughter named one pup 'Cheeky'. Again a truly fitting name for the cheekiest monkey I have ever met! :)

My LG seems to have a natural talent for naming pets and what perfect names :D 

India, COVID-19 status and my theories

When COVID-19 reared its ugly head last year, I was petrified. Not for myself living in another country but for my fellow countrymen and women living in India. With such a vast population, diverse cultures and people at all rungs of the social ladder, it is impossible to implement any kind of measures and expect to handle all this with our less than perfect public healthcare system. 

Or so I thought.....the government and administrators, irrespective of party affiliations, did an admirable job of containing the spread in initial days. While the economy did suffer and is yet to recover as in most parts of the world, and we did lose many lives, the statistics and status are so much better than what I feared! Of course I am not celebrating yet as we are by no means out of the woods and we are yet to deal with any mutating variants. Just saw a post in news about how it will be another seven years of living with the virus at current rates of vaccination around the world! But there is still the mystery of how India fared as well as it has.

I agree with common expectations but immunologists such as herd immunity, but I do have a theory of my own. I cannot help but attribute a good percentage of these numbers simply to the food we eat as Indians. The sheer number of vegetables and fruit we use is mind boggling. I often tell my daughter she is lucky she was born with Indian roots as she would never have heard or experienced some of the food otherwise. How many of her friends from her international school in Qatar would even know of ridge gourd, snake gourd or flat beans! Don't even get me started on my all time favourite Sundakkai or Turkey berry as they are better known. No dish in the world would beat Sundakkai sambar for me and I have many delightful memories from my childhood associated with this dish. The list of course is endless and I am barely scratching the surface here. Let us not go after the new superfoods only, but also remember and use native /indigenous products from our own countries. India has long used millets and lentils which are recognized superfoods today and there are so many more that need to be revived. 

So my fellow Indians and others from various parts of the world; don't fall into the trap of eating processed food and regular veggies only. Go back to your roots and use other less used veggies and fruit. Eat healthy as much as you can and of course exercise. Good immunity is what we can aim for and work hard on. I am sure our bodies will be in a great position to fight this and any other diseases in store for us in the future. 

Kids, Moms and work ......in that order

 

I found these quite common but funny videos of kids crashing on their mom's video calls while working. Especially when they were on live TV! 

 https://scroll.in/video/966264/mummy-whats-his-name-daughter-crashes-professors-live-interview-on-bbc 

The struggle is very real and it is especially so for mothers. Sorry dads and I know some of few are quite hands on too, but children always seem to seek out their moms to ask for any kind of approvals or suggestions. I love how they have their own priorities and are so focussed on getting their job done, regardless of what is going on around them. They are perfectly justfied....in one case the boy wanted the mom's approval to have two cookies and in the other a little girl was just trying to find the perfect place for her unicorn painting! 

The way the two hosts handled the issue was also very different. One ended the interview abruptly and said quite seriously how these can happen in the times now. The other included the kid in the conversation, although she humorously then dominated the rest of the interview :) But you could clearly see relief on the mom's face when it was handled much better. Notice that both moms are holding senior and important enough jobs to be interviewed but motherhood is not negotiable. It is one responsibility that once accepted lasts forever. 

 I am glad I have mostly phone calls or team meetings without video, but I am sure people can usually hear my little one demanding to also speak to whoever is on the other end! :)

End of an era!

 

June 2020 has been one of the hardest months of my life for many reasons. The most important one of them was the passing of my dear Sandy. My constant companion since 2009; my most faithful friend and family member; my reason for coming home many times! 

I admit that I have simply been bursting into tears anytime I simply thought of her and hence this delayed post. I still do, but I can now write about it.....well, somewhat! Sandy made me a mother for the first time. I now had a fellow living being that depended on me to take care of her, walk her, feed her and bathe her. A member to include in grocery shopping lists and to talk about to everyone who would listen. Everyone knows how mothers cannot stop talking of their children, well, that was me too with Sandy. I moved houses for her and planned every day with her in mind, including visits to friends and family. Planned weekends ahead of time so that I could do more activities with her. When our second baby Dexy got added to the family, I was happy since Sandy now had company. Then the human babies came! 

Unfortunately, my time had to be divided between four babies now and there was little to go around. That is probably my biggest regret. While Sandy was always high in my priority, having fun was not always, as all young mothers would know. Now I wish I had had more time just being silly with both my babies. They are gone all of a sudden this year and the house is not the same. No barks and walks to worry about. We are still fostering a dog, thank goodness for that. But life is not the same without my two babies. I see her favourite treats that I never gave to other dogs since I cannot always find them and have to ration. I wish I was not saving them and just had given more to her when she could enjoy them. Regrets....guilt....stuff for mothers! It was early morning when she passed, but I was with her. I could not sleep and knew in my subconscious I think. She wanted me next to her and I sang her last good night song before she passed. Small consolations. While I can still not come to terms, I am glad she did not suffer long. I love you my baby........always be next to me.

Book readings for kids by a kid!

Parents, now more than ever, have a great need for good sites or videos that help children read or take an interest in books at least. There are too many videos for kids, however don't we all wish for less screen time already? Book readings mostly have been done by adults for kids. While this is still better than animations and regular videos, there is still a need for kids to feel more connected and enjoy the reading, which could be better achieved if done by another kid. Please find below one such site and do subscribe if you have kids who would enjoy such reading and discussions of very cute books or classics: Little Dragon Reader on YouTube. Videos are now being updated daily and I hope parents and kids find this useful as well as entertaining. Enjoy!

Cross stitch project

I first learnt cross stitch 23 years ago! A dear and talented aunt taught an enthusiastic 15 year old me then. I cannot claim that I have done much with this skill since, but hasn't Coronavirus made the impossible possible by giving us all a bit of extra time and motivation?! What do you think?

It is more complex than the simple patterns that I had learnt and I had a great time. The bonus is my daughter has also learnt about cross stitch now and made quite a few stitches and memories in this project :)

One or two?

For a while, a phase in life, all I did when I met fellow parents was try to ask them about the number of kids they had and if they were happy with this number. If I already knew how many kids they had, I had to know if they were happy with their decision. If they had one, I wanted to know if they wanted another and their opinion in the matter. All this was not because of my inquisitiveness in other people's matters let me assure you. I am quite a private person and appreciate decisions that people make for themselves. I do like the mantra 'mind your own business' and live by it. Why then did my personality undergo this sudden change for a while you may ask......well, I had a child and was not sure if I had to have one more!

For all practical purposes, I was done. I am an environmentalist who firmly believed that I did not need to populate this earth anymore. I had wanted to experience motherhood and I was quite happy with the one continuing experience. To plan yet another pregnancy, to face everything again, I had no interest in it. But my little girl, being a very friendly, talkative child, showed all signs of wanting a sibling.

So, I started asking people how they made the decision. I was not interested in people who just had more without a thought process or it being a conscious choice, but people who made a decision after deliberation had interesting thoughts. I did my own case studies on people who were only children to see if they were happy. I reflected back to my own childhood to imagine how my life would have been if I had not had a little brother to fight with, plan games with, scheme plots without my parent's knowledge and of course to generally take care of. I did not like the thought much. While I was still musing, my daughter helped us to decide by beginning to randomly adopt kids in school as her sibling! We had no choice and the decision was made for us.

Over the years there have been times when I have regretted this decision (gasp)! Of course it is extremely difficult to manage two kids, work, home and a million other things. Many times I wondered whatever possessed me to do it! How much easier it would have been if I only had to deal with one child who had been relatively easy to bring up in the early years in many ways.

To top it all, the second one we had fooled us initially by being a quiet, observant one. We thought we had a calm thinker. Boy! Were we in for the shock of our lives! Once she could move and grab things, we were punished and how! She did everything late this one, after she teased us for a while with worries and then did it better than her sibling or contemporaries! She was infinite times more active than her sister and had a mind of her own. Actually, I don't think she listens to her own mind most of the time and her actions are uncontrollable even by herself. She just can't seem to help it! She is the opposite of her sister in so many ways and it is hard to believe I am the common mother of these two kids.

Her sister has by now, over the years, admonished me for creating such a monster and tricking her when all she had asked for was a nice sibling. She expected me to take her back and bring another nicer one for a while, but soon understood this was not an option and was doomed for life. But slowly, somewhere down the line bonding started that lasted for more than five minutes. They could understand each other better and succeeded in making me the common enemy, a major step in sibling bonding.

Now with COVID-19 crisis and all of us forced into our home all the time, their bonding has also expanded. They fight and play all day long, especially since the little one is not old enough for school work yet. Their playtime has now have gone beyond structured games and is in full invention mode. Much like my own childhood (from ancient ages as they would say), anything they see is converted into something they could play with. Pillow forts are built and guarded throughout the day. Of course it is not doing much for the sanity of adults, but I am really glad to have two of them to keep each other entertained. As with most relationships, theirs is blossoming and this time had been a blessing to set up a strong foundation. Although my elder daughter answered in her school survey form "My sister is my biggest problem" for the question "how do you think we can improve your online learning experience", I know she would not have it any other way :)

Their personalities deserve posts of their own.