Category: Family

Surrogacy.


This article explains surrogacy as “is a legal arrangement in which a woman agrees to become pregnant and bear a child for the benefit of another person who will become the kid’s parent.

I am inspired to write this post as a friend, let us call him SMV,  contacted me earlier today to share a family secret about which I was not aware.

I have his permission to write about this, as he hopes that there would be others who may benefit as he and his daughter did due to surrogacy.

His daughter, who I have known since she was a babe in arms was married when she was 21 and was unable to conceive for many years. After investigation, it was found that she had a medical condition that made it impossible to conceive in her uterus, and the couple were advised to get a child via the surrogacy route which is legal in India.

I have met the grandchild who is now a strapping young lad full of beans and good cheer and I never knew that he came into their household thanks to the surrogacy programme available in India.

So, what inspired SMV to share this information with me after all these years? He compared the surrogacy process to the Koel in my blog post Invasion, begetting its chicks via the surrogate route using the Bulbul as the surrogate mother!

Strange how one innocuous thing leads to another!

Lottery And Regrets.

I was quietly sitting on my recliner and reading a book last evening. My DIL was lounging on the sofa and catching up with her messages on her phone.

She must have read about this lottery winner which has been doing the rounds in all our media here the last couple of days.

She suddenly asked me “What will you do if you won a lottery like the auto driver did?”

I reflected for a while and said, “I will put the money in the bank and spend some of it in sprucing up our home and leave the rest for the two of you.”

DIL – “No going to see all the grand children in the family and of friends all over the world, no vacationing in exotic places?”

I – “No dear. My travelling days are over as you well know. I have seen my share of exotic places and modern mass media enables me to be in touch with everyone all over the world. I am now in my comfort zone and am quite content.

I don’t think that she expected that answer and the chat ended there.

This little chat however reminded me of a book that I had read some time ago. While reading the book I could well relate to the dying regrets that the author writes about and even at that time I had placed myself in their position and wondered whether I would have the same regrets and had come to the conclusion that I would not.

The five regrets are:

1.”I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

I believe that I did.

“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

I never had to work hard anyway! And I am not being facetious. Things were different during my working years.

“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

While I did not, till about my late teens, I changed when I started regular salaried employment and performance linked incentives, and was able to express my feelings without being afraid of the outcome or the reaction of others.

“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

I have, and continue to do so. The longest lasting friendship that I have is with my Primary-School-mate who lives now in Mumbai and many others from my high school and business school days as well as others who came into my life due to my career, travelling and blogging.

“I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

I have been very fortunate that apart from the sorrow of the death of family, friends and pets, I have not had many occasions to be unhappy. I have been and continue to be quite happy, perhaps even to the bemusement to some others.

How would you rate yourself on these five parameters dear reader?

Chutki Is No More.

Chutki came into our home nine years ago. I had written in detail about her in my post in December 2013 and you can read that post here.

She has been a cheerful part of our family all these years and was also popular among many visitors to our home as well as in our neighbours.

She has been ailing for the past few weeks and slowly deteriorating. She even had to be hospitalised for a few days but, was so unhappy there that we brought her home.

She started to moan and groan this morning and was taken to the vet who diagnosed liquid in her lungs and suggested that we let her go. We did.

She was cremated with due honours just over ah hour ago.

Satgathi Praaptirastu. Om Shanti.

Small Pleasures.

A few days ago, one of the crossword puzzles that I was solving had this clue – “Tea and ——-“.

It took me a while to figure out the solution as I tried English habits like scones, sandwiches etc before I struck gold and made it “Tea and Biscuits”

This one little event that morning took me on a long nostalgia trip to my field selling days when, customers would insist on getting tea and biscuits for me. It was not unusual for me to end up having perhaps around eight to ten cups of tea and around twenty biscuits during a day in the field. Youth took care of digestion problems but the memory took me to this particular brand of biscuits that somehow seemed to be the only one on offer everywhere.

It has been many years since I had the pleasure of having tea with Parle G biscuits and so I decided to try that combination again and requested my son Ranjan to get some Parle G biscuits and,  he very generously got half a dozen packets. Since then, I have been revisiting the good old days every afternoon with my tea. Every time I do so, many forgotten memories come rushing back of people and places.

Do you dip biscuits with your tea? If you don’t please try. It is bliss!