Early mornings

I have been trying for long time to write on this.  After I took a pledge on not to expose our personal life on web, friends on FB said that we should not restrict our freedom of expression on various facts of our life which may reflect our life slightly. I completely agreed with them.  I had to come up with this sort of pledge coz today, the most worried confusion is to distinguish good from bad.  Most importantly, I thought it is our responsibility to save our kids from falling a prey to our personal life exposures on web :(  Otherwise its fine to expose our thoughts here and so came up with this post!

Early mornings, a very special thing in my life. The silence, the pure and fresh air you get in the mornings, I am addicted to it. As you get aged, there exists a different dimensions, varieties and stories to each and everything we come across. For instance, the food we eat, has stories in it ! The food we had at the age of ten, twenty, thirty and now thirty six. it has changed a lot! May be we still stick to certain things which has only a single dimension and has not changed at all! I still eat that “then  muttai”  (the honey candy), the same way I had in my childhood.  My god, the post is getting  a different dimension and giving a clue for my next post! Thought of writing about early morning’s dimension but writing about food!  Despite my meandering, hope you got my point!.

I just want to bring out the different flavours of my mornings that I had for the past 35 years. I did have the habit of studying in the early morning during examinations when I was in school.  You remember the famous  Tamil Gilli movie  dialogue, “Indian Economy is the best  Economy comedy” ?, the same way I used to study. When the exams are over, the extended sleep continued. During BE and ME, I used to see the early mornings with the blurred vision, as I used to be awake from night till morning during examinations. Today, I feel pity and scold the students who sleep in the examinations and I have to advice to take  good sleep before examinations, with the much  heavy guilty heart ☹. After my ME, I was working as Lecturer in Saveetha Engineering College for nine months. I must catch the college bus at 6.30 AM. My mom and dad used to struggle with me to wake me up! Then the Anna University stories, their the  timings,  I think  it was from 9.30 AM to 6 PM. So, I missed my early mornings, when I worked there.

Yes! After joining SRM, early mornings are must in my life! These early mornings are totally different from the rest of my ealry mornings. The past ones are responsible-free mornings! The current early mornings not only involve struggling to get up but also involves cooking and getting ready! I have to catch college bus at 6.55 The acceptance of  salwar dress code saves time and gives me an extra 15 minutes and plenty of peace of mind! But I would say, I like the current early mornings than the rest as it gives an additional joy to me ie  Preparing food for  the loved ones at home!  Preparing food is like yoga. Of course, you got to be in good mood to undergo that yoga or the sambar will taste like rasam  and  rasam as hot water. Not everyday, you can be perfect. With kid, you can’t skip cooking but I try to simplify on somedays to give me a break.  Ratings have become part of life. Right from OLA cab driver  to my teaching job, either you give or get ratings. On a week day,  If you don’t get a call from husband till evening , then you can rate your cooking as “great, good or ok”. If you get a call, then it is definitely, “ very bad”! Yes,  I have heard, most of the husbands including mine, don’t appreciate and only express the negatives. And yes, appreciations need not be in  the form of words always. It can be measured in terms of  the amount of food gulped too 😊  I always believe in one of my policies, “ No expectations, No disappointments” and this promises me a  plenty of happiness always.  Moreover, I am least believing in words spoken by people these days. I have started  believing more on how ppl act than on what they speak. 

And the last thing ! this habit of getting early regularly also taught me another fresh dimension ie spending time for me 😊 As a woman, most of my  time will go in looking after the family and work. Of course that’s the important thing and gives us happiness but at times doing things for your own happiness will make you feel fresh. Yeah,  over these years, I have learnt that happiness won’t come for free. it costs something. Fore goin things or accepting things as they are, will surely help. So, I thought why don’t I forego my sleep during weekends and spend time for me. I either listen to my favorite songs, write my blog, do research or  read about my friends  on web or go for a walk!  My timings would be from 5 AM to 7 AM ! yeah, the same time, I would be spending to cook and get ready to work on week days!  This habit has been a stress buster and helps me release my stress if at all I had accumulated that week and makes me feel as fresh as my morning filter coffee!

Thanks for reading!

Subalalitha

What my age has taught me ?

            DIsclaimer: You may get bored!    

         The beauty of teaching is in the change of its colours periodically.  First three months, you have to  teach and parallelly learn to teach, the next two months, you have to  conduct examination and evaluate answer papers and then last one month you are set free to take vacation then the cycle repeats. I like the head and tail part of the cycle.  Of course, research has become a perennial activity that keeps flowing throughout the year. Publishing papers in scopus/SCI indexed journals  and sending research proposals to generate funds has become top demanding tasks. I don’t fret for this as I like the research part of the teaching much, as it gives much deeper clarity on what you teach. As usual,  I have meandered. Next Para will be on the topic !

                       Recently, I crossed my  35^th Birthday. I would not have come up with this post if my daughter was with me on that day. She had gone to Vellore to enjoy her vacation with my sis-in-law kids. Had she been there, she would have kept my mind busy by talking. We both talk like anything and I worked hard training her since her birth. Found really hard to have a man of few words as my better half, but he listens to me and admires my mokka jokes and laughs like anything but does not respond.  So, I decided to make my daughter talk like me. Like we train a machine learning model, I trained her since her birth by keep on talking to her even before she started trying to speak. Yes! I passed. Now I need not indulge in a monologue. I can expect the unexpected counters from her! Sorry I again deviated. Back again. On my birthday I was totally idle. Selva wanted to cook breakfast and lunch. So, I was busy thinking back my life.

                   I have noticed many changes in me particularly after I joined SRM. Until I joined here, I never ever judged anyone as I didn’t even know how to. I feel judging is not very necessary but then this component grew up in me as part of my aging process.  Sometimes, it saves you from believing wrong persons.  As a teacher and mentor for many students aged between 16-35 (B.Tech, M.Tech and PhD), I  get to converse with at least 50-70 ppl every day and I work with ppl aged between 25 to 58 . May be this experience built me this quality of judging. But what judging has taken off from me is the happiness to move forward. It is  becoming bit difficult to move with people after we get to know about them  and when in a job, you cant avoid anyone and you have to hold that fake smile! The worst part is that you cant find close and good friends very easily!. May be this is life and I am learning it a bit late!  Of course, I can’t be happy without like-minded fun people around me. I make sure, I have at least a small circle of like-minded friends both at workplace and at my residence but still its bit difficult to widen the network that easily by breaking  that hard shell. 

                  Before I owned this quality i.e before I was 30 years old, life was fully colourful seeing the positive sides of people. I got many good people. Yes! I would have definitely missed Selva!  He is the best! He can understand me even before I speak.  After my mom, he can translate my  mind  perfectly!  Still I remember how he was trying to even make me understand his intentions during our PG days, and give me courage to take up things till marriage!  And yes friends! I had the most enjoyable friends in my UG, PG and Anna University !. They are the best till now. I don’t have the  idea of implementing the judgemental quality  towards them at any cost!   They are ever green! Whenever a UG/PG/TACOLA(anna univ) friend calls, the same old happiness comes out and makes me feel younger every time.  I don’t think a WhatsApp or a facebook can fetch you true people or true happiness! May be they can show the number of people you are living around with

           I know what you are thinking? You are getting confused on what  this post is about? Even I am trying to find out the same, along with you. I think, I am trying to introspect on what increased qualities in me are trying to decrease my happiness. But after all, I think its not about the quantity and it is about the quality. I still find good, sincere  and honest ppl and I admire their qualities and try to imbibe it. May be the ratio has decreased a lot! 

So without confusing you further, I conclude my Introspection by rightly using the components or qualities that comes along with age without spoiling the happiness of life at any cost!.

Thanks for reading!

Subalalitha