Kiran Manral's Blog, page 49
May 19, 2015
My Parent Quotient Post for the week: Sorting out your tweens wardrobe
The offspring has a wardrobe that is bursting at the seams. Most of the clothes, like the wardrobes of most adults, are either outgrown or so old that he’s done wearing them and has no desire to wear them, or clothes he simply doesn’t like and ergo will not wear come hell, high water or a high pitched maternal command. This results in a situation where he has been recycling the same three to four t-shirts and shorts on a loop. It was time for firm action, and this meant gritting them teeth and getting down to reorganising his wardrobe. Easier said than done. This is task one normally does every couple of months, given seasons change, and full sleeves shirts and t-shirts need to go into hibernation when summer comes upon us and the quick dry t-shirts and shorts emerge from the back of beyond during the monsoon, only to the uncomfortable realisation that between this monsoon and the previous one, he has outgrown them so much so as to render them unwearable.
Here then, are some tips to get your tween’s wardrobe into ship shape.
Read the rest of the post here.
May 12, 2015
There is no substitute for practice.
As a parent, your journey is never that of yours alone. It is always thinking twice, as a wiser person than me once said, once for your own self and again for your child (or children as the case might be). I was recently approached by HP to do a short video with them on the principles I live by and what I try to pass on to my son.
It was something that resonated instantly, because, as a parent all one does is try to pass on what one has tried and tested as a never fail formula. It is a formula that I have arrived at after much trial and error and realised, contrary to my natural tendency towards sloth, that nothing comes easy. My motto has always been try and try again, practice, revise, do it over and over and over. There are no short cuts to anything. He knows this through his swimming, he puts in hours and hours of intense practice every single day, he needs to learn this in his school work. This is something I try to teach the offspring and this is what I speak about in the short HP video.
Take a look.
May 10, 2015
My Parle G Post from last week: Sleeping on time
Sleeping on Time!
Posted by Kiran Manral
Back
As your child grows and is challenged with the demands of increasing studies, extracurricular activities and socialising with his or her peers, you will find that the one thing that does get sacrificed at the altar of trying to fit it all in a single day, is sleep.
Children are staying awake later than they should be, and struggling to wake up in the mornings because they haven���t had their 9.25 mandated hours of sleep that is essential for their rest and growth.�� Lack of adequate sleep can be detrimental in many ways, the obvious ones being inability to focus and concentrate at school the next day and by hindering repair and growth of the body. Sleep boosts the immune system, aids recovery and improves energy levels. Moreover, lack of sleep can lead to headaches, grumpiness, which in turn can lead to a negative fallout on social behaviour, moods and concentration.
But this new trend of falling asleep later at night and getting up late in the morning can be blamed completely on the change in the pre-adolescent brain which begins to secrete melatonin much later at night than they did when they were younger. Nonetheless, you can as a parent, try some winding down techniques to help your child to fall asleep earlier, so that he or she gets his or her complete quota of sleep? Here are some tips.
Read the rest of the post here.
My Parle G Post this week: When your tween gets online
When your tween finally gets online!
Posted by Kiran Manral
Back
By a strange fluke of fate, a tab entered the home a couple of years after I had declared the home a no gadget zone and disposed of the iPad. The offspring took to it like the proverbial duck to water, squawking excitedly to add verisimilitude to the scene. ��He was two years older now from the time he had been introduced and then surgically separated from the iPad. Surely that would also mean a trifle more responsible about his time, and there were always benefits to technology, I thought. He could download apps which would help him with studying, watch videos on competitive swimming that he trains for and not to mention videos on topics relevant to the syllabus he needed to study. He, obviously, had other plans. Before I could blink, he had downloaded WhatsApp and Instagram and was hard at work informing the world at large about his arrival into cyberspace. While I rushed to put privacy controls in place and learning his password by heart for supervising purposes, I wondered how, as a parent I could introduce him to the joys of online social networking but simultaneously ensure that he stays clear of the very real and tangible dangers of social networking.
Read the rest of the post here.
Letter to my mom for Indusparenting.com
Dear Mom,
I have a confession to make. I���ve turned into you. The realisation dawned upon me, as most realisations do, not in a calm, let���s get this thing done with manner, but the rather unpleasant manner that sledgehammers have when they connect with cranium. Bang. And followed by splintering realisation.
It happened the other evening when the offspring, or the apple of your rather jaundiced grandmotherly eye, was raising the usual dead in his efforts to amuse himself around the house, leading to clear and present danger for the unwary occupants of the premises. ���YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!��� I thundered, with all caps and exclamation mark of course, and added, ���Or else,��� for good measure, leaving it at that.����Then it struck me, like a sudden squeezing of my intestines with a cold clammy hand. Your voice had become my voice. But my offspring, unlike the me of yore, has no fear of the implicit threat in the ���Or else������ and looked back with barely a flicker of fear. ���Or else���wot?��� he asked.
Read the rest here
April 24, 2015
Of when the brat and me got up to some pranks with Rob
Check out the episode here
My Yowoto post for the week: When I became outdated re music
by Kiran Manral
The one where I mistook Wiz Khalifa for Burj Khalifa
The child is segueing swiftly into a manling. The shoulders are broadening, the hips are narrowing down, the puppy fat has made its way into the land of distant childhood memories and the jawline is getting into the defined realm territory which will be mandatory in the future if he needs to be granite-jawed in the way the romance novels state a respectable romantic hero should be. But I digress.
The fact of the matter is that he is changing. A slight shadow on his upper lip has him scurrying to experiment with his father���s razor behind a locked bathroom door emerging suspiciously fuzz free and angelic, denying all wrongdoing vehemently until I pop into the bathroom and discover traces of foam drying awkwardly in the washbasin. He checks himself out in the mirror one gazillion times a day and constantly eyes the marks on the wall put to measure his progress upwards in centimetres in the vain hope that he would have suddenly sprouted a couple of additional inches after a night of deep sleep. He has also, heaven save the world, been caught flexing a fledgling bicep and admiring it in the mirror.
This advance into potential teendom has not gone unnoticed. Along with it comes the gut wrenchingly horrifying realisation that as a parent you automatically don���t quite cut it in the coolness quotient. And nowhere is this more evident as in the case of music. The boy is listening to more music than should be considered legit. But then legit is a debatable point, given that there is only so much world and time a young boy in secondary school and a competitive sport can free up to devote to the act of listening to music.
Very often, I find him singing lyrics which, in gentler times, would have had me scour his mouth out with toilet cleaner. ���Mamma,��� he will squawk, much offended when I raise angry objection, ���Bud dat���s d song, I���m only singing the song.��� I sigh and retreat. This is karmic butt bite for when I publically embarrassed the mater by singing George Michael���s ���I Want Your Sex,��� in tones loud enough to have the dead wake up from their graves from the neighbourhood cemetery, and the neighbourhood aunties purse their lips disapprovingly.
Read the rest of the post here
April 10, 2015
Of the Summer Crop–My Yowoto Post this week
by Kiran Manral
The one when the brat had to get a haircut…
The offspring had a haircut last week. Now why is this momentous, you might ask validly? After all, in the 11 years that he has been on this planet as a part of the race, he has contributed on a bimonthly basis to the flotsam of the snipped hair on assorted salon and barber shop floors.
But this was a haircut with a difference. For one, this was one in which he was accompanied by the pater. For another, it is the summer upon us. Let���s put things in perspective here. For years and years, I have been the sole adult responsible for the grooming of this child, and I am an indulgent parent. I allow him to sit in the barber���s chair, the cape snugly around him, dictating terms to the person in charge of shearing him to presentable in public levels. ���Cud liddle frum d side and liddle frum the top and keep dis part longly.���
This often has had the unhappy consequence of him emerging from the salon with his hair gelled to gravity defying levels in a vain attempt to make himself look taller, never mind that I look at him and wonder if I should have just thrown the money I spent into the waste paper basket given that barely a millimetre seems to have been reduced from the circumference of his foliage.
Read the rest here.
My Parent Quotient post for this week. Getting a pet
Getting a pet. My Parle G Parent Quotient post this week.
The occasional whine in the household is that of getting a dog. Thankfully, this has replaced the incessant whine of wanting a sibling, and this is something I can deal with.
I���ve realised that the offspring hasn���t really realised the actual nitty gritty involved in keeping a pet which means training and twice a day walks and taking care of the pet as one would take care of a baby.�� I���ve so far stayed unswayed by the constant pleas of ���Please please please, can I have a dog, I will take care of it, I will give it a bath and take it for a walk and give it food, please please, please.���
As any sensible parent knows, keeping a pet will never be the child���s responsibility but will ultimately be the parent���s responsibility. But I also know that there are pros to having a pet in the house
Read the rest of the post here
April 5, 2015
Interview with Madhuri Banerjee, plus a special giveaway
Madhuri Banerjee and I first connected on twitter and met at a panel discussion at the Wassap Andheri in 2012. She’s one of those wonderful people who immediately light up a room when they enter, lovely, articulate and very warm. She’s also the best selling author of five books. Her latest, released in March 2015 is called My Clingy Girlfriend and is written from the point of view of the male protagonist, I have a signed copy by my bedside I’ve been reserving to read once the dratted final exams (the offspring’s, not mine) get done with and I am sure, as with all her other books, this one will be as enjoyable.
Here’s a bit about Madhuri.
Her debut novel Losing My Virginity And Other Dumb Ideas sold over 40,000 copies.
She followed it with a sequel called Mistakes Like Love And Sex. She also has a romantic college story in Advantage Love. And her last release Scandalous Housewives is the first installment in the sizzling new series that explores the psyche of unsung housewives in urban India who want more from life and will go to any lengths to realize their deepest, darkest desires.
She has also worked with actress Karishma Kapoor on a non-fiction book called The Yummy Mummy Guide. She has two more books releasing this year and is currently working on television shows and a new film script.
She is also the writer of the successful Bollywood film, Hate Story 2.
Here is a short Q&A with Madhuri about writing
What are your earliest memories of ‘writing’ something? How did you know you were meant to be a writer? I started writing diaries as early as eight or nine years old. I used to write about the places my family travelled and what I felt on a daily basis. And soon enough it went from ���Angry at Ani (my brother) for dropping my book into the water��� to something more meaningful and introspective. So it was a calling that I didn���t recognise for a long time because I just thought it was a hobby.
What kind of a writer are you? Do you plot assiduously, or do you let the story flow organically?
I have an idea and then write out the main character���s traits. After that I let the story and plot flow organically.
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What is your writing routine like? Any rituals, habits, quirks?
I wish I was more disciplined but I���m not. If there is a luncheon to attend with my girlfriends, I will happily let go of writing for that day and take off to chit chat. I call it ���research��� because I am inspired by their stories and lives and ask them probing questions about sex. It all goes into my books and columns somewhere. But I do write like a mad person for days and nights when I���m possessed with an idea and the story haunts me till the words come out on a document. In retrospect I think I need more balance!
Your writing influences–authors, poets, artists, any people, and anything you turn to, you draw upon for inspiration?
I���m inspired by good writing really, not just a person or book. It���s not that I take someone else���s story and adapt it to my own. Or I want to be like anyone else. When I read a book or a poem, I need to be moved. I need to feel something. And that���s what I take for my writing. I want my writing ��� columns, books and blogs to make people feel, cry, love, smile, laugh, think, inspire and awaken. That���s what fulfills me as a writer.
You do have a hectic schedule–plus you are a mom. Are there days when you are overwhelmed, unable to write? How do you deal with them?
Absolutely. I sit and drink! #mommyneedswine
Do you agree that discipline is an essential part of the writing arsenal? How important is writing discipline to you?
I try to have discipline but it never works with an exact time schedule with a child, managing a house and multiple projects. If a meeting comes up, I need to abandon my writing at the time and go. If my child demands more attention from me that day, then I need to put my writing on hold till she sleeps. But I do try to finish everything before a deadline and I���m always prepared for far more than what is expected of me. It���s probably because I���m always thinking of the larger picture.
What kind of reads are your favourites? Books you turn to over and over again.
I love reading Elif Shafak, Jhumpa Lahiri, Agatha Christie, Murakami. But I also love Chick Lit. It���s my comfort food for the soul. A good romance with interesting characters and a different plot always makes me happy. And it���s not too taxing on the brain while I���m working on my own novel.
We’ve discussed this at aPaulogy, but a recap for my blog readers, what is your opinion on the slotting that gender automatically seems to assign to an author?
It���s sad really but Indian women writers are slotted into these categories
a) She���s a woman, she must only write about romance and that���s sooo boring!
b) She���s Indian so what does she know about how to write in English? Also she���ll keep everything in the Indian context while I���m more of an international reader you see.
c) She���s not popular so I don���t know how her books will be.
d) She���s popular so she must have really bad writing!
It���s strange that men will not pick up women authors. I recently released my 6th novel My Clingy Girlfriend which is a novel from a man���s point of view about relationships. Men can���t believe I can write so well. But they���ve not read my previous works to realise that I have always tried to exceed myself in my writing and do something different with every book! One gentleman on Facebook said, ���It constantly amazes me how you have effortlessly crossed over to the men’s side and deliver such finessed nuance that is so unerringly masculine in its genesis… Kudos��Madhuri Banerjee���
How difficult was it to write in the male voice for this book? How did you get into the skin of the character? My Clingy Girlfriend has been the easiest novel I wrote! I wrote it in a month, after spending a few months figuring out what I wanted from the novel. When I started writing, the words just flowed. I guess while I was ���researching��� I was so in the head of men that it became easy to see their point of view. And I loved writing Radha. She was me in an extreme form.
And finally what writing advice would you give aspiring authors?
Find your unique voice. Don���t go with the flow. Be better.
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You can buy My Clingy Girlfriend here: http://goo.gl/VwPjmN
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Other Books by Madhuri Banerjee
Losing My Virginity And Other Dumb Ideas – http://goo.gl/9mID7O
Mistakes Like Love And Sex – http://goo.gl/fs7KUP
Advantage Love – http://goo.gl/LJyJsT
Scandalous Housewives – http://goo.gl/VUCLNr
(Edited)
A slight change in the giveaway as requested by Madhuri. Answer the two questions below and you could win a special gift from Madhuri.
1] Where does Obrokranti go to eat on Karwa Chauth?
2] What is Obrokranti’s best friend/colleague’s name?
The correct answers to these questions must be posted in the comments section and Madhuri will pick out two winners. Contest on till May 10th. Madhuri’s decision will be final.
