Kiran Manral's Blog, page 35

Some pics from the inauguration the MW Mommies World Christmas Carnival yesterday

Some pictures from the inauguration of the MW-Mommies World (For U & Me) Christmas Carnival with Rustomjee Cambridge International School yesterday. Thank you for inviting me Shalu R Varadkar.

“Bombay’s own Bombeck” Review of Karmic Kids on Goodreads

“Bombay’s own Bombeck… brings this tense but vital period to vivid life with her own unique brand of humour, which has some key insights too (and some good advice from a range of experts, though a few can’t resist their own subversive humour). Should be essential reading for not only mothers and would-be mothers, but husbands and children too to realise what one woman faces – and usually masters…  ”

By Vikas Datta here

Namrata Sadhvani reviews Karmic Kids on MyCity4Kids.com

All through reading Karmic Kids, I had the hugest of grins on my face and broke into spontaneous laughter at so many intervals that my husband was quite worried. “The last time I saw you laugh so much was when you were watching that F.R.I.E.N.D.S rerun for the 1000th time. What’s gotten into you? Is it really the book that’s making you laugh or are you daydreaming about being Brad Pitt’s wife again?”

Because to me, that’s what the whole experience of reading Karmic Kids was- One Incredible Joyride.

It was just such a relief to understand that all moms go through that whole phase of feeling like “Mother Dairy” when have this HUGE responsibility of being responsible for another humans nutrition ( and in my case, two of them!).

All kids throw temper tantrums that could put “The Hulk” to shame and so did Kiran Manrals’ “BRAT” and yes, so did my kids and I’m sure yours did too! (C’mon, you can admit it. We’re all in the same boat here!)

When I read about her son’s obsession of “jakkid with jeans” in the third year of his life, I can’t help but compare it to my kids now when every SINGLE day they want to wear the T-shirts with the “bhows bhows’ on them. (To the uninitiated, bhow bhow could be any animal, or anything which even looks like an animal!) So much so that when I now go shopping for the boys I quite innocently ask the salesperson for “bhow bhow” T-shirts and am unable to understand why he can’t comprehend what I say!

I love the fact that this is not a preachy preachy parenting book, neither does it advise you on how to raise your child(ren). It’s just humorous anecdotes from a “chilled out moms” life in which she’s trying her level best to get her son to develop a mind of his own, and listen to her while he’s at it! I also love the fact that it’s so relevant to “today”- with references from Fifty Shades of Grey and Taare Zameen Par to The Exorcist and all Superheroes.

Ultimately, this book is a good laugh because EVERY mom will identify with it, and that I think is its biggest plus point. The language is very simple and truly what moms like me need to read to refresh themselves in those five minutes off we get from raising our kids.

I would recommend this book to every mom out there; it’s a great read and will definitely make you laugh at the absurdities which are all common to the sisterhood of motherhood.

Happy Reading everyone!

Read the original here.

Thanks Namrata for the lovely review, and so glad you enjoyed the book.

At The Indian Networker

I was invited by the very gracious Sampath Iyengar to be part of the 26th meet up of The Indian Networker and he also conducted a quick Jam With Sam with me. Here are some pictures of the event.

 

 

Karmic Kids review on The Reading Corner

If there is one parenting book that you need to read, let it be this because you do not need another one telling you how you are doing it all wrong. You need the view from the inside, that soul sister who believes in you and tells you that no matter what, in the end, everything will be OK. You need not be that mom who needs to excel in everything that she or her child does, need to take up every little activity and have an action packed day.

If you are that kind of parent you believes in time to do nothing, in having fun while parenting, in letting rules relax a time or two, then be happy, here is a book that tells you it is OK to do that.

The Parenting Journey

From the first day of the birth of her son to so far what she has learnt, Kiran Manral packs the book with anecdotes about her parenting, with pearls of wisdom and lots of insight on her parenting journey.

It begins with sleepless nights and just as one begins to lose hope then there comes the moment of crossover where the child is old enough to become independent leaving us with sad tears that the solid weight of a tiny body on one of the arms will be a thing of the past.

The book is not the run of the mill parenting book but an emotional journey which deals with the everyday concerns of parents which no one else can solve. It could be something as simple but as worrisome to us reader parents that the child is not willing to read or as mundane as what should a parent pack in tiffin boxes to ensure a healthy and wholesome meal.  Kiran shares her own experiences regarding these common concerns and renders the readers hopeful that one day, the child will learn to read.

There are personal opinions and life stories from various mothers who add dimension to the writing and truly proves that it takes a village to raise a child.

In her easy and light manner, Kiran introduces topics of parenting that we grapple with like talking about the birds and the bees and teaching children about good and bad touch and how easily the children interpret the same in a different manner, sometimes resulting us in heaving a sigh of relief that we have not permanently scarred the children in any manner by being too soon or too late in dealing with these scary  topics.

Read the original here.

The Dabur Chyawanprash Immune India Challenge: Helping the underprivileged keep warm in winter.

Winter is one of those seasons when immunity is at risk, children fall ill, miss school, and stay home riddled with racking coughs and colds. For every parent, building a child’s immunity is a major concern especially in this season, and for me, I’ve been a devout espouser of Dabur Chyawanprash especially after I saw how it helped my son stay healthy through winter, even when he was training in competitive swimming and spent winter mornings (albeit the Mumbai winter) and evenings in the pool every single day.

So, it is interesting to a convert like me when Dabur Chyawanprash takes on an initiative like #ImmuneIndia which looks at building up the immunity of children across the country. Dabur Chyawanprash began the Immune India School Challenge four years ago in a bid to measure the health of today’s school children and to evaluate schools on basic facilities to ensure a clean & healthy environment for students.

What is very encouraging though, is the new initiative they’ve added this year. This year apart from the search for the most immune schools of India, a new leg was added to the program to spread warmth amongst all and protect them from winter. Dabur Chyawanprash in partnership with Hindustan Times  has started a warm clothing collection drive as a part of Dabur Chyawanprash Immune India School Challenge 2015.  This drive would reach 1800 schools across 19 cities. The collected clothes would be handed over to GOONJ, another key partner for this initiative, for further implementation.

Goonj, which is well known in the sphere of disaster relief, is also championing the noble cause of providing warm clothes to the poor and homeless through North India through the severest winter. Their annual winter campaign seeks to raise woollens and blankets for those who need them the most, the poor who at times have neither shelter nor the means to get warm clothes in this unforgiving session. Many of these unfortunates lose their lives during the merciless winter.  It is heartrending to see families living in the open, in the biting cold that often sees temperatures touch or dip below freezing point.

This year, Goonj had a disaster itself, during Diwali when an errant firecracker gutted their entire godown and with it the warm clothes, woollens and blankets they had painstakingly collected through the year for distribution during winter to the poor and homeless.

A lovely way of involving young school children in a drive to not only boost their own immunity but also develop a social conscience, and a sense of responsibility to the welfare of those less privileged than they are, the Dabur Chyawanprash #ImmuneIndia initiative does a two fold job—that of providing warmth and protection from the cold to the homeless and poor, and getting children involved in the act of giving.

One nos parenting panel. Four moms. One dad. Infinite laughs.

Litventure and Mumbai Mom invited me to be part of their panel on Parenting by the Book to be held at Children’s Academy last Saturday. I promptly said yes, for multiple reasons. The first being that I had a parenting book (well not parenting advice, as I continue to insist but parenting anecdotes) out, and if you haven’t read it yet, well, you and I are no longer on talking terms. Seriously though, I have a book out on parenting, two dear friends were going to be on panel with me, the founder of Mumbai Mom, Nidhi D Bruce, I couldn’t say no to, and Children’s Academy was ten minutes from home, thankfully, compared to most events which happen a two hour drive away.

I was so glad I went. It was a packed auditorium with an enthusiastic audience, that thankfully laughed when I tried to be funny. We had a lovely discussion. And I came home with a smile, from a morning well spent. I realised that morning, that we need more such events this part of town, in distant suburbia, there is an audience willing and ready to attend, and hope to see more of such. Thank you Litventure, Mumbai Mom and Children’s Academy for inviting me.

Here are some pictures.

My iDiva column this week: I Uninstalled Facebook and Twitter from My Phone and Life Couldn’t Be Better

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Kiran Manral

Kiran was a journalist before she quit to be a full time mommy. Her blog is considered amongst India’s top blogs. She is the author of The Reluctant Detective (2011), Once Upon A Crush (2014) and All Aboard (2015). An advisor on the Board of Literature Studio, Delhi she is also an Author Mentor at Sheroes.in. She now blogs at http://www.kiranmanral.wordpress.com and you can follow her on twitter @kiranmanral.

I did something pretty drastic recently, I uninstalled two major apps from my phone- Facebook and Twitter. I also began switching off mobile data after work hours. Luckily for me, I have a 12-year-old who considers it his God-given right to usurp my phone in order to watch his beloved Justin Bieber, so mobile data limit is a thing of myth. Barely does the month begin that he has made me reach close to my limit of usage. This has been a blessing in disguise. More often than not, I exhaust my mobile data limit, and can only access net in spots where I have WiFi available. And there is no WiFi at home, intentionally of course, there are no computers at home.

This makes me incommunicable to those who are on email or WhatsApp, but there’s nothing that can’t wait until I get back into office, I tell myself. And if it is anything urgent, the folks who need to get in touch, will get in touch- via sms, or the good old-fashioned way of calling. The phone, after all, is on 24×7.

This is something that was long overdue.

Social media is a fascinating monster. There is an entire world out there of fascinating people whom one would have never come in contact with on a regular basis, barely a tweet or a retweet away. The addiction to Facebook is the stuff that could render the snort-able stuff redundant. The number of likes on a post is a greater high than anything you could cut into lines on a smooth surface.

I began blogging over a decade ago. I moved into other social media like Facebook and Twitter soon after. They’ve become a way of life for me. I’ve learnt how to keep the public and the private separate; there are very clear lines of demarcation that I adhere to. It is a self-imposed diktat I’ve been following ever since I stepped into the social media space. But yet, there was a compulsion to be polite and reply to whatever came my way, sparing the nasties of course. This took up time. And it also distracted. One could be in the middle of editing a chapter, and be distracted by a ping notification that one would HAVE to check now or die to know what it was, only to find it was a random unknown soul telling me nasty things about myself I didn’t already know.

It had become an addiction, a compulsion. The flickering light of the notification as it flashed in the dark of the night, would make me sit up in bed and check for something, anything, even the notification of a promotional mail that promised to stop my hair fall and for the fat to miraculously disappear from my midsection without me having to exercise. I would leave a conversation hanging midway in order to reply to a tweet. I was taking more coffee breaks than legally permissible because I had allowed myself to check social media only during coffee breaks when in the midst of work. My attention span had been reduced to that of a gnat. I was merely days away from getting tremors in my hand and cramps in my stomach if taken away forcibly from my smart phone. Hell, I thought then, would be a place with no WiFi or mobile data. I know better now.

Read the rest of the article here.

Did I really make this wailing ball of flesh? Chapter One of Karmic Kids.

Chapter One Karmic Kids

Chapter 1

Year One

Did I really make this wailing ball of flesh?

He had been nine months in utero, and god knows, I was curious to see how he’d turned out. So when they placed him on my stomach, a little mewling ball of flesh, I recoiled. The blood, the blood. I am, to put it politely, a little squeamish about blood. It was a miracle I didn’t pass out from the sight of this little creature they said they’d pulled out of me, even though it bore little resemblance to a human right now, never mind that it gave credence to the man descended from the apes theory. And of course, there was the myopia. Mine not his.

“Where are my spectacles?” I squealed, realising that the first moments of mother child bonding were to be perennially marred by the fact that I couldn’t see him too clearly. And of course I wanted to see him clearly, I had a roster list of things to be tick marked off, five digits per limb, one nos male appendage, two eyes, two ears, one mouth and such.

“Where are my spectacles?” I squealed again. The anaesthetist looked at the gynaec who looked at the nurse who then looked at the ward boy who grunted and looked around in a fair amount of confusion before it dawned on the cabal that the spectacles in question had been handed across to the mater for safekeeping, and the mater was outside the operation theatre, and a minion was despatched to retrieve the spectacles from her, and my mater in keeping with her penchant for keeping everything safely, had deposited the spectacles in the shelf back in the hospital room we were in, which was at a considerable distance away from the operating theatre. Consequently, my first view of the offspring was that of a red blur that looked somewhat like a newborn kitten or puppy, although the primary impression, in retrospect, was that of a monkey.  Maternal love did not well immediately in the maternal breast, I must confess.

They whisked him off to be cleaned up, weighed and tested and announced proudly to me that he’d got an AGPAR of nine and my competitive streak automatically reared its ugly head and asked what the top score in this test was, and damn it, if he couldn’t ace his AGPAR now what hopes did we have at the JEE some years down the line.

I should have kept those spectacles handy. Perhaps for the next offspring, I told myself.

Finally, I was wheeled out of the operation theatre, the needlework completed, attached to a drip, smiling from a combination of relief that this was finally done with and I could get back to walking around without a baseball in my stomach and wobbling uncertainly every time I approached a long, curving flight of stairs.

I then drifted into a chemically induced sleep, and when I emerged blinking into the cold fluorescent light of evening, the offspring was brought in to see me. Swaddled in regulation hospital swaddle cloth and an ugly frilly cap on his head.  No no no, I thought to myself, my kid cannot wear ugly frilly cap, not when the troops are marching in to view him and pass judgement on who he looks like, talking of which, whom did he look like, me or the spouse. I stared at the little mewling ball of flesh kept gently next to me, the side of me that wasn’t attached by intravenous needle to drip.  Just then, he scrunched up his face or the crumpled, wizened, red squashed thing that was his face then and opened his eyes to look at me. Grey eyes. I froze. I imagined the spouse dashing off paternity suits and shaking an irate fist at me. Such lovely grey eyes and thick curling lashes. The newly minted maternal heart, it completely melted into mush, the oxytocin I know now, that had kicked in, and how. I would fight tigers barehanded, climb down cliffs, throw myself in the path of a speeding car, and even do calculus again if I needed to, for this child.

The child in question gave me a scathing, startled look and began bawling at the top of his voice. And what a voice it was. I was sure people from three adjoining suburbs would despatch representatives to check the source of this nuisance and were writing out petitions in triplicate to the authorities to do something about it.

“Feed him,” said my mother, who had been hitherto fawning over him with beaming grand-parental pride, throwing him at me.

What?

“Feed him,” repeated the hospital ayah who was standing around with no actual purpose except to look most amused at my complete incompetence in the situation.  It was a line I would hear the most often in the next 365 days. It was also the moment that I realised that I would never look at my breasts in the same way ever again.

Whenever the offspring so much as emitted one bawl, he would be thrown back at me with the command, “Feed him.”

I had never ever held a newborn in my life and all the dolls they make you practise with in the pre-natal classes don’t come with amplifiers for voice boxes, making your hands go all jittery, and likely to drop the swaddled ball of flesh onto the floor, and all the horror stories they tell you about babies who’ve been dropped on the head flash in Font Size 200 in the mind’s eye.

A nurse was sent for and the doctor on duty as well, because well, you might as well have an appreciative audience while you try to figure out which part of you should curl up and die when you have to reveal in a public situation a breast that is suddenly gigantic with what the mater casually informs you is “the milk coming in,” which you assumed would be nice and pleasant and the cause of much maternal and offspring bonding and nothing like what it really is, which is two massive boulders on your chest which you assume you will need a couple of wheelbarrows under, if you plan on moving out of the hospital bed ever and navigating the earth again.

All those years you spent, errm, stuffing your foundation garments with socks and such like, are nothing on this. But alas, there is nothing, nothing remotely sexy about suddenly finding your chest morphed into a natural heritage rock formation site, and I’m not even getting into the reason my kind doctor offered me a tube of lanolin based ointment with stern instructions to apply it on my nipples at regular intervals. Suffice to know it involved cracks and bleeding and not in the manner made popular by the books which dealt with red rooms of pain.

It was scary, this being the source of nutrition for another human.  Another, very demanding human, who raised hell if he wasn’t provided with his feed on the dot, every couple of hours, ensuring that the entire suburb knew that he was being deprived of his victuals by his cruel mother.

Finally, one night, when all was quiet and nothing moved, not even the mouse, I stared down, in the flickering light of the television set to mute as I watched stick thin figures on fashion television, resolving to get there soon, at a little ball of flesh gulping greedily from my chest.  I created him. He is mine, I thought, never mind what Kahlil Gibran had to say on the issue, and I couldn’t have been more proud.  The grey eyes, by the way, have morphed into a lovely deep brown, like his father’s and the boy is now, a reduction Xerox of the spouse, and has inherited from the Y chromosomal donor the temper sitting on the nose, as they say in the colloquial. The plans for DNA testing have been well dropped.

Order your copy here

Karmic Kids in Butterfly & The Bee’s 20 Titles to read and gift your loved ones… ~This Holiday Season~

Order your copy here.