Healing benefits of water

While most of us like to rush to a doctor for every big or little problem there are some simple complaints which can be treated at home with just plain water.

Few things to be kept in mind are:
Any special water is not needed. Simple tap water is  all you need.
It can be heated whichever way you want and can be taken directly from hot water supply that come from the kitchen tap. However adding some cold water to the heated water mysteriously does not benefit in healing so never add cold water to the hot water for drinking for healing purpose.
Hot water doesn't do any damage if always drunk or drunk over a long period of time. In fact it helps quick digestion and metabolism of food.
It can safely be given to babies and children as well so long as you know the temperature will go down well with them.
It is especially beneficial to old people who have a tendency to easily catch cold, cough, body pains due to cold etc due to aging down.

So next time if you are hit with any of the mentioned problems you can give your tap water a try and see how magical it is. If you know of any more of such benefits please mention in comments.

1. Sour Throat/ over strained throat/ Voice distortion due to cold or coughing 
Drink plain hot water just as you would drink hot tea. Works best when drunk first thing in the morning after rising up and last thing before going to bed.

2. Weight reduction
This is decidedly for those who want to shed just 2-5 extra kilos off their body.
Sip slowly really hot water immediately after all your meals. It helps in burning fat content of your food without your exercising.
Drink 1 glass of hot water just before a meal as well for an even better result.

3. Stomach upset due to indigestion/ over eating/ mild food poisoning/ stale eating
Drink hot water as frequently as you can. Its really soothing for upset stomach. You can also drink it during diarrhea  for speeding up the stomach's settling down and soothing its irritated lining.

4. Eye sight that's just about started to weaken

Fill your mouth to the full with water, then sprinkle your each eye with fresh cool water 50 times literally counting from 1-50 so that your each eye gets 50 splashes of water in one sitting. Then you can empty your mouth. When you get comfortable enough with 50 splashes you can increase it to 100. This therapy actually reduces eye sight weakening.

It is also very beneficial to those people who do a lot of reading, computer work or field job in harsh sunlight.

5. Prevent attack of seasonal cold
Drink hot water morning and night (as long as you feel weather is really cold outside)

6. Headache due to cold sharp winds/ drafts/ hot winds
Drink hot water

7. Stomach ulcer
Sip slowly chilled water as frequently as you can.

8. Heat Stroke
Drink plain water (neither hot nor cold) as frequently as you can.

9. Headache due to gas in stomach, or atmospheric heat/ sun heat
Drink plenty of plain water ( neither hot nor cold)

10. Stomach ache due to cold attack/ seasonal cold
Drink hot water several times.

11. Limb pain due to over straining, excess walking or exercise
Shower the affected limb in running hot water and keep increasing water's heat gradually. Do this for at least 20 minutes. Then wipe dry and cover with warm clothes.

12. Stomach bloating ( temporary relief)
Apply hot water bottle on the stomach. You will amazingly look 1-2 inches flatter.

13. Simple eye strain/ eye itching/ mild eye infection
Wash your eyes several times with cool fresh water.

14. Mild Constipation

Drink 1-2 glass of warm or hot water first thing in the morning. It helps in bowel movement.

15. Maintaining odor free breath 
Rinse your mouth with hot water after each eating.

Some proven Indian home remedies for some common ailments

My father had an immense belief in natural home remedies. He had collected a great store of information and details on this subject and kept testing them whenever he could and found almost all of them to be hugely successful without any side effects or even additional costs. He himself never shied from adapting many of the remedies and largely due to this he was always in excellent health and body strength with not even a cold or cough approaching him ever. Consequently our whole family including a lot of his friends and neighbors as well as plenty of colleagues preferred to consult him first before visiting a doctor. As to us, we rarely needed a a doctor.

I have compiled some of his commonly used remedies here. Most of these have been personally tested by myself and I have found them to be excellent in getting rid of ailments; they are completely natural, without harmful artificial substances and also easily available. Most importantly they also do not have any side effects.
However if you want to try some of them make sure that you are not allergic to them and that firstly try only in a small quantity.

If you have any questions you can mail me or post your query in comments.

Waist / lower back pain and knee pain

1. Boil 6 gm methi ( Fenugreek) seeds with 20 gm. gur (Jaggery ) in a little water. Then drink this water either warm or cold.

2. Swallow methi ( Fenugreek ) seeds powder with water in morning for relieving knee pain.

3.  Mix dry aamla ( Indian Goose berry ) powder with double its amount of gur ( jaggery). make    small pea size pills; eat 3 pills daily for knee pains.

4.  Heat 1 spoon mustard oil in a spoon. Put ajwain ( Carom ) seeds and garlic and let it burn black . Massage with this warm oil is good for relieving body ache.

Sour Throat

1. Chew 20-15 pearls black pepper then drink warm water. Do this 4-5 a day.

2. Chew 4-5 black pepper with a little sugar or mishri at night before going to bed. 

3. Mix coarsely 1 tsp ground black pepper with 1 tsp mishri or sugar and 1 tsp desi ghee (clarified butter). make a paste and eat this, preferably at night just before going to sleep and do not drink water after this. This will regain your sweet voice and get rid of sour throat.

Eczema or other skin ailments / itching skin

1. Boil 250 gms mustard oil in an iron wok. Put 50 gms soft, tender neem leaves ( only baby leaves)  in the boilng oil. As soon as the leaves turn black, take off the wok, cool the oil, strain and store in a container. Apply this oil on affected area 3-4 times a day.

2. Eating 10 crushed black pepper mixed with 10 gm cow ghee ( clarified butter ) cures all skin ailments and itches.

3. Drink 1 glass water after chewing a little black pepper. This helps in curing many skin ailments.

High blood pressure

1. Eat plenty of water melons, litchis and carrots.

2. Eat 2 gms Sarpgandha powder twice a day with water.

3. Eating stale (wheat flour) chappatis soaked in milk in the morning stabilises high bp.

4. Eat mixture of 1 gm dry coriander, 1 gm sarpgandha powder and 2 gm ground mishri with water.

5. Consuming plenty of honey and lemons ( not together) is an excellent remedies for lowering bp
6. Eat / swallow 2 cloves of garlic every morning before breakfast in fact ideally even before brushing your teeth to keep your blood pressure normal throughout life.

Low blood pressure

1. Soak 32 kishmish ( raisins, whether green or black ) in 150 gm water for 12 hrs. Then refrigerate. You can keep increasing the water as it dries out. Chew just one kishmish out of this every morning.

2. Drink carrot juice with honey.

3. Eat carrot murraba ( sweet jam pickle of carrot)

4. Hing ( Asafoetida )is good for raising bp.

Diabetes

1. Grind dry Amla flesh ( Indian goose berry) and dry jamun ( Indian black plum ) stones in equal measure. Swallow 7 gm of this powder with fresh cool water every morning half an hour before breakfast.

2. Eat 10 green tender leaves of jamun with water in early morning for 10 days. Excess sugar will cease.

3.  Eat 10 gms leaves of bel tree ( wood apple) for 1 month.

4. Mix amla juice, jamun leaf juice and bel leaf juice in equal quantity. drink 1 spoon of this juice morning and evening.

5. Grind green tender jamun leaves and eat the paste in morning for 21 days. It will cure sugar in urine.

6. Consuming Aamla juice mixed with honey helps in diabetes.

7. Grind 5 fresh bel patra or wood apple leaves and 10 black pepper together. Mix with a little water. Drinking this water stops diabetes.

8. Grind 4 green and fresh jamun leaves in 60 gm water. Strain. Drink this water for 10 days. Then after 2 months drink for another 10 days. Good for stopping diabetes.

9. Put ripe jamun 60 gms in 300 gms boiling water then quickly switch off the flame and cover the dish.After half an hour, crush the paste and strain. Divide the whole paste in 3 portions and eat 1,1 portion 3 times a day. Cures urine glucose

10. Dry grind dried jamun stones and make its powder. Eat 2 spoons of this powder with water for 21 days.

11. Coarsely grind methi ( fenugreek ) seeds and soak in water overnight. swallow it in the morning. doing this for 2 months stops diabetes.

13.  Simply swallowing a tbs of raw methi seeds also helps curbing Diabetes as well as weight loss.

14. Soak about 10 cinnamon pieces in a bowl of water overnight. Drink this water in the morning half an hour before breakfast.

15.  Drinking juice of broad beans also cures diabetes.

Kidney Stone

1. Wet grind 30 gms papaya tree root in a little water. Drinking this water morning and evening.will cure stone in 1 week.

2. Drink apple juice.

3. Stuff 2 tola carrot seeds and beetroot seeds in a hollowed radish and dry roast the radish. then take out the seeds. eat 6 masha with water morning evening. stone will pass.

4. Stuff 23 gms carrots seeds and 23 gms turnip seeds in a hollowed radish. Then dry roast this radish preferably in ashes. Eat 6 gms seeds morning and evening for 6 months with water.

Good Health and Strength

1. Crush green aamla pulp. Mix equal amount of sugar or mishri and store in a glass jar. After 7 days eat one spoon of this paste morning and evening with water or milk.

2. Mix aamla powder in aamla juice and mix it well. After some time when it is soaked thoroughly, mix equal mishri and eat 1 spoon of this with water or milk.

3. Soak ripe aamla in lime water for a few hours. Take out and cook in sugar syrup. Eat this frequently.

4. Mix together half tsp aamla powder, half tsp honey and half tsp sesame oil. Eating 3 gms of this mixture for 1 month transforms the whole body.

5. Wash big ripe amla in lime water then cook in sugar syrup and store.Eat 2-4 aamla everyday for good health.

Brain Strengthening

1. Soak 10 almonds overnight In the morning, blanch them and mix with 1 gm mishri and butter. Eat this paste for 1-2 months.

2. Eat 4 almonds, mishri and saunf ( Fennel seeds) in equal quantity with hot milk at night. It increases eye sight and memory.

3. Mix together 100 gm almonds, 100 gms saunf ( Fennel )and 100 gms kuja mishri and make a powder. Eat 10 gm of this powder at night with milk and don't drink water after this. Excellent for memory strength, headache and eyes.

Improving eye sight

1. Swallow 1 tsp shatawar powder ( asparagus) with hot milk in morning. In 2 months eye sight will improve.

2. Mix together 4 almonds, mishri and saunf ( Fennel) in equal quantity. eat this with hot milk at night. It increases eye sight and memory.

3. Soak dry aamla overnight, then wash eyes in the morning with this water.

4. Wash eyes with trifala powder soaked overnight.It can also be eaten with a little desi ghee early morning.

5. Eat aamla powder with water, ghee or honey at night.

6. Drink 1 ounce fresh aamla juice with honey in the morning and wash eyes with trifala or amla powder water This can even stop cataract.

7. Swallow 5 fresh til ( Sesame )flowers in the month of April. The eyes will not pain for the whole year.

8. Mix onion and ginger juice and put 2 drops in the eyes to cure night blindness

9. Fill a glass container with lemon juice and put one turmeric root in this for 40 days. Apply this turmeric mixed with rose water at night in eyes.

Weight Reduction
1. Drink hot water after every meal. The water should be as hot as tea and must be sipped slowly.
2. Warm a glass of water. Add 1 spoon of honey and half a lemon's juice into it. Then drink it early in the morning everyday. Lemon juice must be freshly extracted.
3. Drink warm water with just1-2 tbsp of lemon juice early morning before breakfast and before going to sleep at night.

For regaining lost strength

Cook 250 gms onion juice in half kg honey. Eat 1 spoon morning and evening.

Heart strengthening and general body strength

1. Soak 24 gms kishmish and 1 ratti kesar in 150 gms water in an earthen pot and cover the pot with fine muslin cloth and keep it overnight in open space in dew. In the morning eat the kishmish and drink the water. Do this just for 8 days to strengthen your heart.

2. Dry grind mung dal. Roast it in gheè or clarified butter and add mishri. It is a good tonic for heart.

General body strength

cook 1 kg grated carrot and 1 kg grated pumpkin in 4 litres of milk. Then roast it in 250 gms ghee or clarified butter. Add 10 eggs and half kg sugar. Eat this for 1 month.

Calcium Deficiency

Mix aamla juice 11 Gms, lime water 11 Gms and honey 11 Gms  and drink it frequently.

Anemia

1. Eating mango pulp mixed with yogurt and sugar increases blood.
2. Soak 5 raisins either green or black in water overnight. Then eat these in the morning with milk or without anything.
3. Make a health soup by cooking together bits of carrot, radish, spinach, beetroot, onion, ginger and garlic. It can be stored in the fridge for 2-3 days safely. eat one bowl morning and evening.
4. Eat 1 tbs honey morning and evening.
5. Drink orange, carrot, apple, grapes mix juice.(best if home extracted and not the market' ready made ones)

6. Eat wheat grass powder or juice.
7.  Eat fresh salad with plenty of carrot, radish, grated beetroot and salad leaves with lemons.
8. Soak 2 ( only 2 ) leaves of saffron in milk overnight. Next morning boil it in 200 Gms or a glass of milk and drink it everyday.

Bed wetting Children 
Give them dry dates to eat at night for some days.

Stopping watery lose motions

Swallow a small piece of camphor or capoor with water.

Protection against common seasonal cold/ remedy for cold
1. Drink hot water immediately on arising in the morning and just before going to bed. Can also be had before going out in extremely cold weather during anytime in the day or night.
2. Rub a nutmeg on a stone surface using a little water to obtain nutmeg paste. Very little is necessary. Lick just a drop or 2-3 and drink water or milk after it. It prevents cold. It is especially useful for infants and babies.
3. Eat a spoon of honey with a glass of milk every morning to prevent catching cold. Mysteriously eating an independent spoon of honey with milk and honey spread toasts are two different things.

Dry coughing
Chew 2-3 whole cloves without swallowing them and let them remain in your mouth for 2-5 hrs as their juice mingles with saliva and sooths the irritated throat. This is especially useful if one cannot sleep due to atrocious coughing.

Stammering

Mix almond, butter and mishri and make a paste. Give a spoonful to the child to eat every day.

Cough

Burn garlic in a little mustard oil and then massage chest with this oil.

Migraine

Lick tulsi or Basil powder/paste with honey in morning and evening.

For strengthening liver

Peal raw papaya, cube it in small pieces and soak in vinegar for 8-10 days. Eat 2-3 cubes after every meal to strengthen liver.

Excess Urine

1. Take black till 45 Gms, Ajwain 20 Gms and gur 60 Gms. wet grind these and mix together. Eat 60 Gms with water in morning. This will cure too much urine even in old age.

2. Eat anaar ka chhilka ( pomegranate peel )crushed with 4 gm water twice a day. Caution: don't eat rice.

3. Crush black till (sesame )200 gms. Cook in gur ( jaggery )250 gms. Make into small balls. One ball for children and 2 for adults.

4. Cook 25 gm chopped onion pieces in one kg water. Drink this water 3 times a day. It helps in curing painful urination, frequent urination and full flow.

Pregnancy

1. Grate green aamla and keep it in a glass container. Sprinkle some rose petals and then pour honey till all the aamla is covered. Keep the container in sun for 8-10 days. Eat 1 spoon with milk. It is very good to eat during pregnancy for a healthy baby.

Good general health

Grind fresh green aamla and mix with fresh green aamla juice then let it dry. Eat this stuff 1 sppon twice a day with milk.

Body Strength
Soak 5-10 munakka or sultanas in milk or water overnight. In the morning boil it in a glass of milk. Add a spoon clarified butter or ghee and drink it everyday morning.

Hair Fall

1. Massage scalp with lemon juice.

2. Soak 200 Gms aamla powder in a little water for 2 hrs. Mix 1 whole lemon juice in this and wash hair with this water.(for long hair you will need double the amount)

3. Mix trifala powder with crushed gur and make berry size pills and store in a glass container. Eat one pill early morning before brushing teeth. It helps in blackening hair.

4. Take equal quantity of aamla juice and till ( sesame)oil and cook on heat. When all the water in this mixture is burnt, turn off heat and cool and store in a glass jar. Apply this on hair for strengthening hair roots and hair blackening.

5. Apply aamla juice mixed with lemon juice on scalp.

6. Crush unripe aamla and apply directly on scalp for stopping hair fall.

Witch Bitch......That's her.

I don't particularly like to bitch about anyone but some people in my world throw me exceptions. The latest one to do so is J.

She is exactly the person for whom ' Bitch' word has been coined. She is one hellish person to be around with, every bit the stuff the imaginary vamps in fictional films are made of - attire, make up, expression, activity, behavior all inclusive. The more you see her, the less you like her. How can she be so horrible is but a small question; the bigger one is how could H have fallen in love with her and married her ? Can really anyone be so blind as to mistake a witch for a fairy princess? I doubt...!

Her crimes are endless. Any attempt to elaborate or even simply enlist them would not only be endless but futile too but more than that it would be most boring document ever to read as it can only contain all negative adjectives one can dare imagine. An extravagant shopoholic, concieted bragart,  over dominant and utterly vain...these are the keywords to describe her. Her every little activity or conversation is a well calculated move generated solely for the purpose of showing off. She is as great a show off as I don't know what. It is her most passionate hobby; she litrally lives and breathes to do so. I tell you, you can't spend more than 10 minutes in her company without feeling nauseated and wondering which planet she has dropped from..

I hate the very expressions on her face. They are always so entirely devoid of any softness. The way she flashes her eye with a hard steely glitter, or smiles with that thin line like mouth which since ages and ages has been declared a sure sign of ruthlessness. But still the tone of her voice can be even more hateful and disgusting than her entire face; it reeks to death of artificial notes, arrogance, premeditated calculation, arrogance, vanity and dirty show off.

All this would hardly have mattered to me but for the fact that I feel deeply sad for her first and worst victims of her bad behavior namely G, her little toddler daughter and H, her husband.
 H is a picture of silent suffering and untold misery. In all respects he is a perfect gentleman a kind, generous, polite, helpful, friendly and hard working man, but as much trampled under her feet as a dandelion under an elephant's foot, he now looks resigned to his fate; he has not a shred of personal respect, social prestige natural freedom or personal happiness left for all of these have been butchered down by J by her publicly flung insults, scoldings, open disregards, and just about anything you can imagine except just flinging her shoes on him. Nothing to wonder that he finds solace in deliberately immersing himself in office work, comes late at nights, works even on weekends and avoids pleasure outings.
I would willingly go to state prison for murdering her than facing this hell every moment of my life. In any case, even to think about all this makes me feel murderous. I wonder what stuff H is made of.....

Her little baby has an even greater tragic tale to tell. Abused continually, scolded harshly and neglected criminally, poor G is the saddest baby one can see on this earth. She rarely smiles, and  has acquired the abnormal habit of sitting or standing in one posture for more than an hour without moving, fidgeting, smiling, talking, playing or even wanting to do any of these actions; it is just unearthly to watch her sitting or standing just like a stone statue.
At just 1.5 years of tender age, she broke her arm just because she had been negligently placed on an adult chair at a very dangerous spot. More than twice she has toured the emergency room (and rather mysteriously keeps falling ill ) but again as soon as she was back and but naturally needed lots of time, care and attention to recover, this monster of a mom instead chose to leave her in H's care by hook or crook and went to attend women's party....! Her partying didn't stop even when the poor tiny child was in plasters for a whole month.

Poor G ! Although her home is full of all toys and J has arranged her home furniture with the effect of showing off all the baby utility things she is in possession of, (and if you as much as cast a glance in any one of them's direction she will concietedly tell you which country she bought it from and how much bucks she paid for it.) most of the time G is too afraid to cry and she never smiles because she never feels happy from inside..... I had the bad luck of witnessing her second birth day party and believe me, it was a tragic spectacle.
To begin with, She scheduled the party not on the actual date but at some later convenient date so that everyone got to see her stuff without having a chance to excuse himself out. Despite invitations she made several calls alongside just to ascertain that everyone was really coming.
As per her vampish nature, she had organised a huge party. She sent out bogus 'Royal' invitations for a Royal party for a Princess that was G and called herself a Queen. She demanded that all children coming to the party be dressed up as princes or knights (which nobody did.) Without the slightest need for both, she rented a community hall and employed a photographer for the event, and had the nit whit to dress in a black shoulder less ball gown ( with a barrel shaped figure to support it )coupled with thickly black kohled eyes, tomato red lipstick and black jewelery, she looked a perfect witch just minus her broom. A character straight out of Harry Potter films......!

She had accordingly dressed G in a giant pink robe but far from looking like a b'day kid or even a special kid poor G looked  as miserable as Cinderella does in picture story books when she is ordered to scrub floors instead of going to the royal party. She just kept standing there mute and dumb, motionless and expressionless beside the huge b'day cakes which were meant for her. The sight and sound of so many other children playing gleefully in every corner of the hall and the so many interesting things like balloons and other decorations which only the children know are so damn interesting  did nothing to tempt her to even want to move and reach out to them.
It was a horrible sight to see such a small innocent little child so fixed to the ground in terror and so unhappy amidst such revelry going on all around her.
After the cake cutting, she invited all the couples for incredibly stupid adult games one after the other instead of something for the kids considering it was after all a kid's b'day party. She continued to conduct them while little G kept standing or later sitting in some obscure corner totally forgotten. The party really had begun to look like an adults party.....

 A question often irks me; Is H so humble, meek and timid because of J's behavior or is J so cruel and wicked towards H because of  his ineffectual, super gentleness. A woman can never respect her man if he is timid or doesn't assert himself but what can a man do if her woman is or decides to be a witch? With H always harried and well under her hooves, I wonder what their bedroom scenes must be like, that is, if they still have any....It remains a favorite chat topic between me and S to speculate what and how they manage the inevitables of married life, the most favorite one being,' Open the button.' 'Yes madam. Say thank you. Thank you madam.   .

I swear, I do not want to see her face again although it being a small place we still keep bumping into each other rather frequently but whenever we do so, I make sure I do not give her any opportunity to brag and show. I keep minimum conversation and that too when it is absolutely unavoidable. On another occasion I saw G again in company of both her parents and as usual she was sitting alone and motionless like a statue and when I took her in my arms she became so happy and animated with real happiness that I wanted to keep her with me forever. Whenever I think of G, I clap H tightly in my arms and think how unfortunate a child can be if he is not happy and how even more unfortunate those parents are who can't give love and happiness to their children.

UPDATE

December 2010

.................

In November, little G was admitted in my class. I didn't give J any extra importance but handled her just like any other parent but gave lots and lots of love and care to G. Little G became so happy and quickly settled in the school and even made friends with the other children.

 I couldn't help feeling shocked that G had just last night returned from India after her Deewali vacation and was brought to her first day at school early in the morning which must have been so taxing for her.

 I asked general questions about her feeds and J told me that she drinks milk every 2 hrs ! Come on. Even a small infant ideally drinks milk every 3 hours and G is a 2 and half year old kid! Doesn't J know that drinking milk so often can hamper with her solid intake and mess up iron and vitamin levels? She told me she is a very fussy eater and doesn't eat at all. We all observed within 2-3 days that she in fact ate well and full. Maybe, J just never tried hard enough and filled her up on just milk...! Then I asked her to give me her milk bottle as G might have rejected any other bottle from the school. You will never believe this; Her bottle was so so so dirty. Oh my God! I myself would never have thought such black slimy greasy dirt could be found on a small child's milk bottle unless I had seen it myself and also the fact that G was actually drinking out of it...! The nipple and the bottle rim was lined with slimy grease like dirt and I know that baby bottles are washed after every use so they can collect this amount of dirt only when they have not been washed at least for a month...! 

Maybe J was so eaten up with resentment because I didn't give her any importance and treated her coldly almost like a stranger that she decided on quitting the school. She gave the excuse that the school was proving to be too far off from her house especially in current snowy weather. 

So now, G goes to another school where I am sure J gets to show herself off the way she wanted.

Emotional Solitude...!!!

I feel terribly misunderstood and emotionally isolated. Nobody understands me for the individual that I am. I hate to be treated or even considered as the mere vegetable type who simply live and eat and sleep. I am different. I feel happy when I am learning something or researching, or following my interests with fiery passion. I am an artist who loves to create and takes singular pride in his creation. I like doing every big or little job with perfection no matter if it costs me no sleep and rest and plenty of strain. Nothing but the perfect and the best from me satisfies me; and anything which prevents me from giving my whole self, time, energy and all to my piece of art irritates me. 

It is surprising how I find each and every work in commonplace life as a canvas where I can make my own creation.  whether it is a new dish, or dressing up my baby, or writing in my blog or teaching the nursery class, taking pictures or studying an individual or finding my way according to a map... they all are like a piece of art to me. Ideally, I wish, I could follow my artistic and scholarly pursuits without any interruption and disturbance but active family life hinders all of it...and then I feel like someone who is getting parched with thirst with the glass of water just within his reach yet he cannot drink it because his hands are tied..!

House-Wifing Sucks...!!!

Before I got married, I was working. That occupied me nearly the whole day but still I was mistress of my own life and of my own time.My job was not without problems, tensions and frequent storms and gales. It didn't pay me riches and tired me out completely and yet I could find time to do all those things which I absolutely love doing. I wasn't rich yet my salary was sufficient not just to meet my needs but to keep me perfectly happy and satisfied, so much so that I twice declined promotion opportunities as I didn't wish to barter my precious time with a bigger salary package.

It seems incredible now how house-wifing is changing my life. I have a loving, caring husband and a cute little toddler. I am financially comfortably well off and don't work. I am a house wife..a stay at home mom and just that. House wife is just a decent synonym for  an unpaid, unappreciated but indispensable, full time servant. 

Not being any exception to this, my family life keeps me busy round the clock. I am all the time either cooking or washing dishes, laundering, cleaning or feeding and cleaning or attending to my child. I strive to steal a few moments just for myself and my interests but that is possible only when S is out, H is asleep and I do not have any other task of imminent importance. I love sleeping but again I can only sleep when S is out and H is asleep. I love reading books but neither there's time nor S and H would let me do that if I had any. S begins feeling lonely and H thinking its a new thing to play with, starts snatching the book. The last book I had read was two and a half year ago when H was not yet born.I love writing but this is coming to a stop too. The moment I pick up my pen, writing book or laptop some house chores or S or H start demanding my presence and I have to tuck away my thoughts or tasks for a more convenient time - which comes after several weeks or months ! My personal and physical grooming has been worst hit. Currently, a year has elapsed since I got a hair cut and my eye brows trimmed; this sounds almost unearthly !!! 

I stay at home the entire day doing house chores, go out for grocery shopping every week and sometimes visit Ss friends or colleagues and of course my language school and this is another irony. Before marriage, I had my colleagues and sundry friends to talk to. Post marriage, I have nobody. S keeps busy in watching matches and films and delights in talking only with his friends and I don't consider his colleagues's wives as my friends. In any case, I never was one to make a swarm of friends; I had always enjoyed following my hobbies and interests much more than anything but now unfortunately I can't even do that. 

I am inclined to think, this is the worst and most thankless job in the world. A house wife works interminably from morning to night and her man wonders what could she possibly have done to make her this tired. He as well as all the family members think its something funny to throw rubbish, empty chips packets on the carpet and slide empty tea cup below the sofa which your baby picks up and breaks or smears its dirty residue on the freshly vacuumed carpet. Leaving wet towels on living room sofa, dirty shoes in the bedroom are just 2-3 instances out of at least a million. I remember, once S had left wet towels on bed before going off on a month long vacation. Well, the bed cover, mattress and pillows were horribly destroyed by black stinking, fluffy mould. Just a few days back, he allowed H to play with wax candles while he was immersed in watching cricket match right beside him. H happily crumbled the wax and made a fine powder of it, then started rolling himself on it This covered his hair, face, nails, clothes, sweater and socks with wax;  where ever he sat even for a moment transferred it and it even got firmly stuck on the wooden flooring throughout the house. You can't even imagine what hell I went through in cleaning this sticky and powdery wax from all of these places. I immediately had to put H in a bath and shampoo, take off dirty bed covers, pillow covers  and H's clothes in the machine, put on new covers, and clean the floor but the wax had so badly stuck that I had to scrape it off  using a kitchen knife on my all fours. Taking away the candles from H would have taken only half a minute - it took me 3 hours to clean the mess !

This housewifing stuff is taking a huge toll from me inside and out. The endless cooking and cleaning and other chores from morning till midnight exhausts me leaving no time and stamina for exercise. My physical personality is fast changing from a smart, trim and prim, attractive girl to the dangerous specie of behanji, bhabhiji type who have ceased growing mentally but rapidly grow physically, who are great kitchen dragons, eternally cooking and washing, for whom buying tomatoes for curry is more important than lipstick and eye liner, for whom receiving a  new serving spoon or floor brush as gift is more thrilling than a new bracelet or a skirt, whose sole feat lies in producing perfect dinners and sparkling wash room mirrors, who guard their fabric stain removing secrets more possessively than their email passwords.... 

Oh I can go on and on with bated breath. I am afraid to look in a mirror and absolutely hate myself for meticulously remembering what to buy this weekend in grocery store. I am scared, having forced to use only 2 percent of my intelligence will rust down my brains like an unused knife. Wait a minute, I think, I am already smelling rust in there...

Oh well, I love my family well enough but being a house wife is a bit too costly and is becoming costlier still since I gave birth to H. The demands on my time have increased so much that I can't help feeling frustrated and miserable. I can work hard and live without a lot of luxury and comfort but I can't live without my interests and pursuits.Give me a book, a writing pad, a pen, an internet and I am the happiest person on earth.

Well, didn't I say '' A Scholar at Heart'' ? 

S's mother was a long suffering house wife. She had worked harder and endured unimaginable eccentricities of  her husband more than any  can imagine. When her daughters and relatives criticised her for suffering almost without complaint and happily, she replied,'' Oh well, after all, people who work in offices have to endure their boss. I am after all enduring only my husband. What's wrong if I consider him as my boss and my home as my office? Isn't it the same thing ?''

A great reply no doubt but one I would never want to follow....!

My German Class

My German class is so interesting.
It had 14 members initially but 2-3 people dropped off in the middle so now we are just 11 in the whole class.

The first one is Beh-jad from Iraq.
She didn’t tell us her age but she is roughly 40 yrs or more. She looks so severe and heavy masculine featured almost like a Babur or Humayun type female with  a big, heavy square face, very severe features, hair pulled so tightly back from the forehead that you can actually see their roots and forever a stern expression that well scares you out. She is polite enough and applies well at studies but definitely she is not one to pick a fight with. She seems well capable of beating the life out of you with her expression alone.
Just too often, she appears to be cursing the teacher for making her do exercises and etc.
I often steal looks at her and want very much to draw her face.

Marieta from Kosovo
She is one pretty, sexy lass with a sexy figure and an attractive face even though her features are not good at all. She is also very sweet and simple natured. Funny thing is she has a German husband for more than 3-4 years but still knows no German at all. I delight watching her taking an extensive body stretch with a long yawn after every exercise and it’s a record : whenever she is addressed by the teacher she starts violently and then in vain tries to locate where the class was reading the so and so passage from until the teacher beseeches,” Merita, bitte”
Its so hilariously funny…!

Next is Aziza from Kosovo. A youngish strictly burka clad pregnant woman who I never knew was pregnant because she wore such huge gents shirts. Can you imagine a woman of size 36 wearing gents clothes size xxxl..?
I used to think she must be sort of poor types to wear clothes of her husband. Nothing interesting about her except just the dress part. She remains quiet until spoken to by the teacher, has no friends or if she has, she doesn’t speak to them and does okay at studies. It makes absolutely no difference to class whether she is present or absent.
Anyways, she didn’t appear in her test as she is in the final stages of her pregnancy. Good luck to her.

Waheeda from Afganistan.
She was an Indian looking type female who knew a tiny bit of Hindi courtesy watching Indian Cinema. She was also pregnant so she dropped out.

Lendita form Kosovo.
She is a smart woman of more than 40 years. Looks great, speaks great, has a very attractive powerful sort of voice that makes you want to look again to see who is speaking. She is a very good student too. I have seen her taking much pains at making daily notes. Earlier she wasn’t interested in talking to me but when she realized that I solved the exercises quickly and correctly she started befriending me. Now she and I sit together. During lessons and even during tests she likes peeping in my book and make corrections in her own answers. During class exercises and conversation drills, simulations and roll playing we like talking to each other almost always giving the best, funniest or most interesting examples.

Mehtab G.
 A smart, well dressed, perfectly capable of looking after herself, worldly looking woman who can speak nothing but Turkish. Although staying in Germany since 9 consistent years and then spending another 7 months in Deutsch SprachSchule in addition to working too, she has been painfully unable to learn anything beyond “Wie heissen sie?” Even this question at times cannot be framed in the right manner.  It has not yet been established whether her inability ensues from willful ignorance or some genetic cause. However, she rarely  does her Hausaufgaben, rarely responds correctly and really never applies her mind or attention in class towards studies. On top of it, she wears such an accursed, impatient, irritated plaguey expression on her face that clearly seem to be telling what choicest of abuses she is mentally hurling at the teacher for making her suffer and appears to want to murder in cold blood all those students who actively participate in class.
Whenever she is asked any question by the teacher, she immidietly askes Fatma, another turkish woman, what the teacher has asked, then she gets the answer from Fatma in German and merely repeats it.
In yesterday’s test, when the teacher asked her to make a sentence on 'cycle' in German , she said her cycle has gone for a walk…and we all had to keep looking normal even after this.
As a teacher, I think such a pupil can be quite sickening!

Thido comes from Vietnam.
She is normal looking girl in all respects but wait until you hear her speak. She hideously pronounces ‘S’ as ‘F’ and ‘T’ so schreiben becomes treiben or freiben, zur as shooor, heissen becomes heiten, and so on. to add more to my enjoyment and the teacher’s woes, she speaks faster than the metro train, so it is practically impossible to understand her. Her speech sounds more like bud boot bud boot of water furiously boiling than any normal human language.
Today the teacher asked us to make any sentence using 'because' in German; well, Thido made the sentence, 'I cannot speak good German because German is a bad language !'
The teacher looked so offended !

Chancel from Turky comes next.
She is in early 40, sensible, normal in every aspect, student type who works to learn something but neither too much of it nor too little.

Fatma is from Turkey too.
She is sincere and feels intimidated that there are so many difficult things to learn and master in German.  She has a beautiful little baby daughter whom she loves breastfeeding in full public glare ( at least in the school) with her breast fully exposed to onlookers and which she sometimes even forgets to tuck back in after having finished the feedings. This helped H to discover that there is something women have there which babies rather like !
But apart from that she is really a nice girl. And she does not like Mehtab at all her usual sentence being” 9 years in Germany and still can’t learn heisse heisst?” She also praises me a lot for my ability to learn quickly and retain it.
Alia. She is also from Turkey.
She is a shy, sweet looking youngish girl but has 3 children. She dresses very nicely.  God only knows how she manages to apply so much of make up with 3 children at home. She too strives hard to learn but has her limits. She pronounces very solemnly ‘vater’ as ‘faataah’, ‘mutter’ as ‘motaah, ‘schwester’ as ‘shwetaa’  and ‘haben’ as ‘hhaaaben’ which I rather enjoy imitating at home.

Hurriye from Turkey again. Seems like whole of Turkey has immigrated in Deutschland !
She is pretty looking girl who likes to dress fashionably and speaks good German, learns good enough, solves pretty well all the exercises and has a good lively sense of humor. A nice girl.

Amira from Iraq.
A typical veil wearing muslim women with kohl lined eyes and sharp features and also sharp in behavior. She easily fights or argues, speaks German a lot even though if it is wrong in Grammar, strives really hard to do well in class. The funny part is she speaks German quite easily but reading gives her the jitters. She may have been saying  a word correctly but on seeing it written can’t make out what it is. So her reading goes like,” sc..sch..scr…schr…schra…schri…bane !!!
And she is one great gossip. For every sentence a teacher speaks, Amira has at least 2 stories to tell.
An interesting character.

Drenusha is from Kosovo and she is ok types, not very regular student so she isn’t one of the interesting characters one loves to hear or talk about.The only interesting thing I know about her is that her children eat hot dogs daily...in breakfast...!

My German Teacher

My German teacher is really very nice. She is a wonderful teacher.

At fifty six years of age, she is  neither young nor beautiful but tremendously smart and always equally smartly dressed. She is very cheerful natured, concerned, sympathetic, encouraging and is also physically very active and energetic. She takes such pains to make us understand, remembers to appreciate us for our every effort no matter how little it is, strives hard to instill correct pronunciation and above all this she is very affectionate towards all of us.

I love the way she professionaly dresses in trousers, jeans,  shirts and coats and a silk scarf tucked in the neck with a dignified pearl or metal necklace visible discreetly. I wish I could also wear a scarf like she does. It becomes so much on her !

I don’t know how is it, but I have a sort of habit of respecting and loving my teachers blindly, in fact I almost hero worship them just for no reason but that they are my teacher! I started admiring her since the very first day and even told her that I thought she was a great teacher.

I can’t help comparing her with my Dutch teacher Sofie in Belgium. She was a complete antithesis to Martina, my German teacher; she was least bothered about her students, never explained deep and far, was never sympathetic and never appreciated. She had no bonding with the students at all. I rather like blaming my bad Dutch all on to her.

I feel I am so lucky to have Martina.