My Perfect number 10

This year promises to be a watershed year in our lives. Husband celebrates his 50th, we celebrate 25 years of marriage that has been mostly blissfull and our youngest goes of to college. All very exciting but somewhere there is a yearning for the happy, young carefree days, of holding newborns and watching them take their first steps. Children keep you young but also age you prematurely. Many a night has been spent in wonderment over the first tooth and so many more waiting for them to come home from wherever their adventures with the car keys lead them. Today my daughter plays her last game of Varsity basketball for her school. What an amazing journey it has been from the first day she picked up a basketball at 12 to tonight when she closes out her last game as a senior. Basketball has just not been about ball handling and making shots, for us it has taught her the most important life skill of all- how to be one with a team. Many of our Indian friends back home and some here too wonder why is it that we are so crazy about our daughter playing a sport- afterall we live in the silicon valley and her time would have been better spent interning at the many tech companies which dot our area. To them I say come watch our daughter: see her play, interact with her peers, her team mates, her coach, her amazing sense of self-worth and confidence. I think it is Basketball which has provided it all. We cannot believe this is the same little 5 year old who had to be literrally dragged across the soccer field kicking and screaming for her first soccer practice. The first few days were an excercise in patience not just from us but from her amazing first coach, Tom. He dealt with a painfully shy,sobbing little girl suffering with separation anxiety and converted her into one of his star players who contributed to winning many a championship. He will be ther tonight to see the transformation he helped start. In time Kobe Bryant took over and her life was one basketball obsessed moment after another. If not practicing , she would be playing or flopped over on the couch watching one rerun of old games after another. The road has not been easy- Being cut, benched, not played enough, injuries but she has learned to take them in her stride, showing far more composure than her parents. Her coach has been her mentor, friend and guide. His mantra- Student-Athlete has stood her and her team mates well for all us senior parents can proudly claim that not only our daughters have excelled in the sports field but multiple colleges have come calling. Thank you Keith Ramee. But really, its not all about her. I will miss all the cool baadass moms who have screamed, cheered and clapped along with me and I can attest that there can be no better cheerleaders than us. Sure we don't do all the gymnastics but we do put up a show. I like to think the cops are there for us- to keep us in line and many a time all of us nurturing types have been nearly booted out. Remember the movie, Brave? Never mess with a Mama Bear or in our case Mama Eagle! So go out there Number 10 and play your perfect game! You've made us proud beyond imagination and we cannot wait to see where you go from here.

Carmen

Today is a day dedicated to lovers and all things romantic but for some reason Its my Naani I remember. What jogged my memory and I remembered my Naani was the smooth skating on Carmen by an Olympic Skater in Sochi this morning. I'm not an opera fan and have no knowlegde of classical compositions but as soon as the event was on I was glued and I mentioned to my husband that this was my Naani's favorite piece of music. Surprised by this. Because my naani came from a small town in Bihar- Chappra famous for giving India its first Indian President Dr. Rajendra Prasad and notorious for Lalu Yadavs. But more surprising is that my Naani - Dr. Sushila Devi was a teenage widow in the 1940s when becoming a widow meant a fate worse than death- you were a persona-non-grata, an evil shadow to be shunned and a social outcast. Its a testemony to her father and her father-in-law's Arya Samaj antecendents that she escaped her head being shaved and being sent off to Kashi or Mathura to face a fate very much like the one faced by Chuiya from the movie Water. Instead she went on to Medical school and became one of the first women doctors of post-independent India and the only woman doctor in an entire region. The lines outside her clinic were legendary and I'm sure not vastly exaggerated because as a Child I have witnessed patients lining up at 4 am to be seen by her. As was the situation in those days and probably it holds true till today, she could never remarry and to satisfy her yearning for motherhood, adopted my mom when she was an infant. Amidst great social prejudice she set up her practice and developed a a taste for the finer things in life. She taught herself many languages, Music, played the Taanpura, Harmonium, was an avid reader and I like to think that she transferred her love for reading to me and onto my daughter. For many a lazy summer was spent in her book lined library devouring Pearl S Buck, Shaw, Wordsworth, Jane Austen, first edition Readers Digests and Illustrated weekly of India. I think that's where my mom got her taste of and for literature and went on to do her PhD in English Literature. Every evening we would all change, look smart, and sit around her tea table waiting to be served Tea and Marie biscuits and listen to Carmen in the orignal form on a gramophone from HMV. Now how many women in India would have done that in the 60s, 70s and 80s let alone a child widow? She passed away 5 years ago but I know she lives on in my mother's fierce independence, my rebel soul and my daughter's quiet determination and steely core. So in my world I have already witnessed one in a Billion Rising and now I ache to see One Billion Rising. Rising for the hopes, lives and futures of our mothers, sisters, daughters and grand-daughters.

Having it all

Being the eldest girl in the family meant that there was no trail or path set by anyone which I had to follow or any tradition i had to confine myself too. It also meant that everytime I did something unconventional a lot of my extended family would tell me that "good girls don't do that". It could be as trivial as wearing a skirt at 15 or wanting to become a classical dancer. Which meant my parents especially my dad had to fight with a ton of prejudice and listen to a lot many lectures just to make sure that I could be free to do it all, have it all, dream big and be what I wanted to be. And for that I'm eternally grateful. Of course it helped that I come from a very strong line of women- My Maternal Grandma, a teenage widow who was one of the first woman doctors in her region and then my mom who was a mother at 17 and went on to do a PHD in English Literature, so I knew how to fight and get what I wanted and I sure did. So my dad just doesn't understand how so many of my younger cousins who have never had to fight for their freedom can just give up their ambitions and stay home as soon as motherhood arrives. I wonder too. But then doesn't freedom mean the liberty to choose? Should they be lectured just because ten tiny toes, an upturned nose and tiny fists rearranges their priorities? Isn't motherhood one of the most rewarding and meaningful jobs in the world? why can't it be a career? Eariler i saw this beautiful advertisement dedicated to the Olympic moms and it moves me beyond tears. for it expresses what we all feel- for our childern and for our mothers. Now which boss can rival that emotion? ad_n_4548505.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/06/thank-you-mom-sochi-ad_n_4548505.html I remember all the days spent in the cold mornings watching my son playing baseball. All the evenings where dinner had to be through a drive-through, Breakfast on the field, weekends spent on the road going from one tournament to another. Driving him from a game and consoling a tearful boy on not being played enough or exulting with him on a ball hit out of the ballpark. Of dragging a reluctant little 5 year old to play soccer, of rushing from work to watch her play basketball, all vacations being around their schedule and missing movies and office meetings to watch one more game. This was no sacrifice at all. It was an investment in their future so the worlld could have these wonderful citizens of tomorrow. It surely is worth it all. I realise this today after so many years, maybe the younger generation is smarter than us and have decided that being the "The Chief Cheerleader" is the best role of all. So who am I to disagree?