The Balancing Act

My second born, my younger daughter turned five yesterday. Five years just flew by, I remember the very difficult pregnancy, the daily doses of insulin injections,  the day she was born she was almost bluish and how she was kept away from me for three days in the nursery, but still she seemed to be content and on her own. I was a very tired and depressed mother, the biting cold of Delhi winter was not helping much, but I remember distinctly that she did not bother me much, most of the times she was happy with the crowd of people around her, grandmothers, sister, cousins etc. As time passed I observed that she was most happy in the company of her big sis, she looked around when she could not find her sister , when she started crawling, I could see her following big sis everywhere. I never realized when she had started eating on her own, doing her own things, started doing her homework and even talking so much to her sister, father and me. The fact is I never put any eff...

‘Motherhood’, when I was unmarried, I felt it was the most overrated virtue. When my mother used to get up early in the morning, even in the hardest of winters, and me and my sister were still curled up in the warm quilts, I used to wonder why does she have to do all these things? okay she has to cook but why get up so early for it, okay we have school, but then what is the need to get up at 5.am to do the cleaning and mopping and why get after our life to get up and get ready ??… well.. I even used to ask her, why do you do so much? Why can’t you sleep some more? Why don’t you ever relax? and my mother used to tell me you will know when your turn comes, but I was very sure that I will never be like her, my sleep and my comfort was too precious for me to even think of compromising on it for anybody.. anybody!! Then I got married and even then I had no inkling, I still had the same feeling towards motherhood, I was not particularly inclined towards my nieces and nephews from...

Isn’t it absolutely amazing the way our mind jumps from one thought to another in a matter of seconds. To keep the mind focused is the biggest challenge, I have been trying for the past couple of days, unsuccessfully though, to practise meditation. The moment I sit down on my mat in the early morning, with nothing but calm and peace around me to practise meditation, my mind starts jumping like an accomplished high jumper, a thorough gymnast and an effortless dancer, seriously, it is as if my mind is deliberately doing it, it is teasing me and mocking me or even challenging me to make it sit quietly and peacefully even for a minute. My mind opens up a myriad topics, some of which has never crossed my mind for so long, I tried chanting, I tried visualizing , affirmative thoughts but alas! Nothing, nothing seems to work. 1) When faced with such dilemma I turned to Google baba who directed me to various articles on   meditation 2) I read lots and lots on meditation and...