-          George MacDonald

I spotted him, a tiny lonesome figure on the bench.  I hastily took in the scene – his downcast face, the dark wet eyelashes, his searching glances across the aisle in the deserted plaza.  Something was definitely wrong with the picture. 

I knew the child, he belonged to one of the Oasis Wimmera families – that’s how I like to call our members, especially, the loyal and regular patrons of our group.  As I excused myself from my friend and approached him, I saw him turn and look at me – his face suddenly lit with recognition and mostly relief. 

His expression tugged at my heart.

He is quite tall for his age which is why I always struggle to remember his actual age – he must be around 6 or 7 yrs old. 

“Hey sweetheart, are you ok?  Where’s mum?”

I fired a barrage of questions at him, swayed by his troubled face.

He mumbled softly amidst muted sniffles, his English lucid and clear, invoking a great sense of pride within me to hear him talk like a native especially within just years of being uprooted and reinstated in a new country.  Such resilience in these kids, my heart swelled with pride! 

Anyway I found out that he had come shopping with his family and suddenly found himself alone. He further added that his parents have not yet departed the plaza as their car was still in the shopping centre.  Already impressed by his astute thinking about the car, I was further taken in by his intelligence seeing that he had parked himself strategically within the plaza eyeing the entrance so he would not miss his parents leaving the building.

I told him that I would try calling his father and if I was unable to reach him I would drop him at his house.  I could see his young face relax and his tensed shoulders slightly slacken.  

I hurriedly punched in the numbers and while I conversed with the father, the little boy had spotted one of his brothers at the far end of the walkway.  He excitedly let me know and disappeared before I could say a word.  I then walked up to the family, exchanged words and laughter over the incident and bid them farewell. 

However, the rest of the evening I kept replaying the expression on the little boy’s face when I spotted him.  The relief on his face was so palpable and the trust so poignant that I found it hard to just dismiss it.

He was one of the kids who took his time to settle down with us.  He probably used to see me as this annoying grownup who was constantly plying him with food treats and inviting him to play games with the other kids.  I never fully succeeded in attempting to draw him out but as the months progressed, I used to see him participating and getting more involved in the activities organised but yet never fully at ease with anyone other than his family or their own circle of ethnic friends.

If I hadn’t run into him that evening, he would have still gotten home on his own. He would have stayed put at the bench, his parents or his brothers would have come out sooner or later and nothing would have been amiss. So I am not deluding myself about any role I played here.   In fact I was actually feeling a bit sheepish telling the father that his son was with me while the latter happily bounced away leaving me on my own in the walkway.  His parents probably hadn’t even realised he was missing.  He probably must have been away for a few minutes and that might have seemed like eternity to him.

However, the child’s expression when he spotted me told me a different story; a story that our efforts through Oasis Wimmera is paying off. 

It is not simple to build and sustain a group like Oasis Wimmera, the sheer difference being the very diverse composition of the group. There is no common thread of religion or ethnicity binding this group, there is not much familiarity in terms of belief or culture for the people to identify with each other.  The only common denominator for most of us is that we are here in the Wimmera and that we have no real family support or backup within Australia.

Despite the need for a group like Oasis Wimmera, not all migrants are ready to step out of their comfort zone of their own communities to see what Oasis Wimmera can offer.  Sometimes though living in a rural community, life is still quite fast-paced for some to take time off to socialise or integrate within the community.

So to have people turn to the group in the first place is no easy task in itself; further having these people break down the above barriers and cultivate a sense of belonging within the group is a double whammy. 

But yet having this little child recognise me (or the group that I stood for) and be reassured that he can trust and be offered support was in itself a big revelation – Oasis Wimmera is reaching out and making a difference.  

So what is it that Oasis Wimmera is envisioning to achieve and why is it I am waxing lyricals over perhaps a very insignificant event?

Find out in the next post!!!

-   T.S.Eliot

The smiley faces on the screen were grinning at me. Wordlessly, mouthing the question that my friend had shot across cyberspace “poetry club :)  What next, you taking up knitting??”

I couldn’t help laughing at her bewilderment over my latest indulgence.

Words are a siren’s call that I have never been able to refuse. Even the monumental happenings in my life have never allowed the lure of books to pale into insignificance. 

My friend and I share the same voracious passion for words – anything in ink makes us go giddy with pleasure.  Unlike her, I do not possess a discerning taste in print – I read whatever catches my interest, never allowing myself to be boxed into any particular genres or chronological categories. Despite our differing tastes, we have continued to share the books and poetry that we have enjoyed.  It is a thread of conversation we have kept alive over the last 14 years, bridging distance and time.

But we have never taken unto ourselves the onerous job of dissecting any of the writings – we have not indulged in analysing or discussing the style or the subject.  We have had a tacit understanding all along that we would never reduce the prose or poetry to mere words; forcing these texts to fall within the confines of our understanding was not what we were after.  We never felt the call to strip the words of their magic and laying them bare…and to what purpose?  We were happy to take pleasure in our own interpretations and happier letting them stay that way.

Perhaps we never took the time to stand still and smell the roses; we were always rushing off to discover new authors and new books.  Thus given our attitudes, I fully understood her bafflement over the poetry club.

When I discovered that few of the Oasis Wimmera members were interested in poetry and one of them an accomplished poet back in his country, I decided to set the wheels in motion for a poetry club. I was full of anticipation and dread at the same time and did not have the foggiest idea of how this would turn out.  Besides I had my own qualms about compromising my own standing with words.

The group has met a few times and contrary to my expectations, it has been a riveting experience.  It was quite daunting at first to find out that the other members had more than an amateurish interest in poetry and were backed with impressive credentials in literature and continued exposure to poetry.   But it did not take long for me or the others to get comfortable with each other.

It was fascinating to see how the group, a motley collection of distinctive personalities and contrasting tastes gelled within the short time to get really acquainted with each other and with some great poetry works.  Our preferences span across genres and types and our unbridled enthusiasm over our choices for the evening are only limited by time.

The poetry recitals in themselves are an art that I have started to enjoy and deeply appreciate.    I have to admit it is a sensuous experience to hear the passion behind the words – be it our own work or the ones borrowed from other great minds.  Our discussions are not the least polemic – no senseless butting of heads to disparage anyone’s credibility or speculation, but instead a fusion of tastes, free of highfalutin pretensions or literary aspirations.

When we first started, I thought we probably didn’t have much in common except our shared interest towards words but I am forced to eat my words now. It is fascinating to observe that we have become a close-knit group and have forged a genuine connection despite the difference in our ages, languages and culture. 

And it has all happened so effortlessly.

Given that I am still sewing the dress I started some six months ago, I would say knitting is out of my league and probably not going to happen in the near possible future.  But poetry club, do I need to convince you any further?

-          Brooks Atkinson

 Another year has crept upon me!!!

These are the times when I feel like I am hurtling through the corridors of time with the years just passing me by.   Like the passerby watching the blur of carriages of a speeding train rush past.

But strangely enough, I am happy about this.  There is something vaguely comforting about the quick passage of time.  It is usually perceived that time flies quickly when you are having fun, so perhaps I can interpret that life has never been quite interesting and challenging as it has been over the last few years.

For someone who looks forward to the end of the year with so much delight, the onset of the new year does not offer the same comfort to me.

Usually the dawn of the year leaves me with much trepidation.  I am not someone who handles suspense very well – even in the books I read.  Yep, I admit sheepishly that I sometimes finish the last few pages of the book first to find out how the ending pans out.  Apparently Churchill had the same reading habit though in his case I believe it must have had very little to do with suspense-handling; after all he had to accommodate his passion for reading amidst running a country and fighting a war.

Anyway moving away from Churchill and my own eccentric reading habits, I have to say it is not easy for me to contemplate upon the unknowns that the year might bring my way. So given my own nervousness about the advent of the new year, I am usually amazed when I see other people’s reaction to it. 

Every culture has its own ritual for welcoming the new year, traditions that are still kept alive irrespective of the passage of time.  Call it Hogmanay (Scotland), Silvester (Europe), Fin de Ano (Spain) or Reveillon (France) – they all signify the beginning of the new year.

You look at the crowds that throng the major cities in every part of the world, queuing up for ages for the New Year celebrations, be it rain, cold or snow and you see just one thing in common. The fireworks, the booze or the New Year revelry are not the only attractions that draw these people out there.  Even the hardcore sceptic can realise that there is something more significant masked beneath the frivolities of the celebrations.

It is the underlying resilient spirit of humanity – the utmost hope and belief that their life, their own little worlds would become a better place in the forthcoming year.  These are people who believe in fresh beginnings and in second chances.  This is why the New Year celebrations are the most significant when compared to other festivities, because it centers around the individual and his/her need for betterment.

People use this time not merely to reflect upon their past year but also to make changes in their own lives for the upcoming year.  They look forward to the promises of another year – a year where they are determined to take control of their own destiny, their potential and their expectations.  Everyone hopes for a clean slate to start over again – disappointments and failures are swept under the carpet and people revel in the luxury of making decisions and choices for themselves.

The spirit of the New Year continues perhaps for the first few months into the year.  Not everyone succeeds in sticking to the resolutions or making good the promises they have made to themselves.  But then there is always another year.  The saga repeats….and that is where perhaps the rituals gather strength.  There is a never-ending cycle of optimism for most people and as long as that lasts, the New Year celebrations will always reign at its supreme.

As for me, it is hard to have arrived at this age or stage in my life without being a bit jaded or overwrought by life.  So while I have not totally succumbed to the first flush of the New Year’s charm this year, I am still allowing myself to be open and welcoming to the experience. 

Wishing you all a wonderful start to 2012. 

For a second I wished it to be some gory scene from one of these war movies, so I can pretend that this is not happening in the real world.

Well, technically, it might not be my part of the world; I am so far removed from it physically, but yet seeing such inhumane treatment meted out to another woman is indeed making my blood boil.

The sheer callousness with which the military treats this woman, using her body as a punching bag, I desperately wish her mother never gets to see this. Now don’t call me a sexist, I know there were other men being brutally beaten around her, and yet I am raging over the brutality towards the woman.

Having women always customarily regarded as the weaker sex, a sex more revered for their physical fragility and delicacy, it is hard to see that body assaulted and treated in such an atrocious manner.  Of course such atrocities are not the first of its kind to happen to women in the human history, but somehow the dissemination of such incidents over Facebook and twitter makes it doubly worse these days.

Yes I am concerned about the political situation in that country, yes I am even more concerned about the woman and her treatment in the hands of the military, but above all that, I am stricken by the unabashed broadcast of that video all over the net.

Of course, the world is now aware of what is happening in that part of the world, but has anyone considered the fate of that girl if she survives this incident?  I bet this video is now making its way to every single techno savvy Arab’s facebook page or blog site and then what??  A few raging comments, a few wisecrack status comments and then life continues as usual for the spectator.

Take me for example, for all my horror and pain over this brutality, when tomorrow comes I would be rushing back to load the albatross of everyday life on my back; rallying for the woman and her injustice would be pushed to the backburner.

But as for that girl and her family, the powerful reach of media and technology has already done its damage, would you not say so? Would the woman, if she had survived the beating have the strength to face the oncoming days after the video of her half-naked body has gone viral on the net?

We are talking about an Arab woman, a female who faces the world through her conservative head veil.  Would she be able to return to normality after the ignominy of her situation has been broadcast to the entire world?  It is highly painful to see a woman who probably stood for her ideals and took part in a protest is now scarred for the rest of her life not just by the violence directed at her but also because of the media spotlight.

As much as I want to chastise the media to stop thinking about their victims as merely a major news scoop or the next day’s headlines, I believe this video has been voluntarily leaked by the activists to show their side of the story to the world without the least regard towards their own women-folk.

Sadly it is not just the media that is desensitized to the portrayal of such brutality towards a young woman !!!  Any scape-goat will do to push the cause forward.

  ~Elizabeth Stone

 It was a Friday night and like most people out there, I too was getting ready to unwind.  The week had started off pretty tumultuously and the days had only gotten progressively worse. It seemed an endless wait for the weekend. When it finally arrived, I could not wait to savour it.

 The kids were staying beyond their bedtime given that it was a Friday.  I was catching up with my reading when I heard my daughter scream in the living room.  No surprise there given that it is a noisy household, so I shrugged off the scream and continued to read.  But the howls were getting louder and her brother too had joined in the ruckus shouting for his dad.  I rush to the living room to find my daughter doubled up on the floor with her hand clutching her head. She takes one look at her hand covered in blood and starts screaming again.  To my horror, I find that she had cut her forehead on the edge of the glass table in the living room.

 Never the one with quick reflexes, I stand there gaping at the blood on her head wound.  You have had life throw a whole heap of challenges at you, you have weathered more than the average person and you have convinced yourself that nothing in life would rattle you anymore and yet you are proved wrong.  The sight of your bleeding child leaves you gutless and with a sick sensation in your stomach. All you want to do is crawl under a stone, leave life behind and never see the daylights again.

 Very soon with adrenalin pumping, my legs slowly shake off their catatonic trance and I rush to her with tears streaming down my face.  I am never the kind who would make a fuss out of anyone hurt or sick near me, yet seeing my first-born helpless and defenceless was enough to make a wimp out of me.  I examine her quickly and very soon find that it is not a serious wound but would still require a visit to the emergency as the wound was gaping and would need to be glued or stitched together.

 Things gathered momentum from there and once she got patched in the hospital and given something for her pain, she was fine and back to her normal jumping self.  Back at home, she kept repeating her hospital saga to her brother whose awe of his elder sister had gone up a few notches that night. I heard her boast how brave she had been despite the stinging pain when the hospital nurse had cleaned her wound.  She was proud of her good patient award and had stuck it on the fridge, our own hall of fame.

 Weariness overtakes me and I slip into a reverie while the voices continue their stories excitedly in the background.  I wish I had her resilience to get back to normality, I wish I could silence the pounding in my head, I wish my emotionally-battered body would find the energy to revitalise itself……indeed, I wish for a lot of things.

 I know we had been very lucky – the glass had not broken on impact, there were no splinters in her, her gash was not quite deep and it was a safe part of the head. No concussion, no after-effects.  She would not even have any scars to remember the night but I would.

 I would always remember how easily things could have gone wrong, how fragile life is and that how your life is no different from the hundreds who face tragedies every day.  I had not expected this constant vigilance, this living of life with your heart in the mouth when I signed up for parenthood.  Well, I guess not many of us even know to this day what we have signed up for.

 Millions of parenting books are out there, serving as signposts for a parent’s journey, but yet nothing in those pages prepares you for what parenthood is truly about.

 Night creeps in trying to coax the living into slumberland.  The family is finally asleep but I still stay awake.  My dreams of a blissful weekend have all gone kaput in a few seconds.

 My thoughts wander to those parents who have not been so lucky when their kids have been involved in freak accidents, especially the ones who have recently lost their toddlers in driveway accidents.  This is loss beyond any compensation, grief beyond consolation, lives torn beyond ordinary mortal comprehension.  Would time numb their pain, heal their gaping wounds, fix their broken lives…who is to say how and when would they get back to the land of the living?

 I realise with a heavy heart that there is no magic charm to ward off such accidents, no protective circle to bring up your kids in.  I know with a certainty that there will be no relief from the chill gripping my heart.  Parenthood will be a dicey game, with ever changing rules and challenges, but you cannot take your eyes off the goal.

 The day will dawn and I will resume my duties as a parent, my vigilance and care double fold hoping and praying that I never let my guard slip.  I only hope somewhere I would find the strength and stamina within myself to be back in the field playing the fullback in the parenting game.

PS: It has been almost 6 weeks since this happened, she is fine and healed with not much of a scar to be seen. Thank you.

]]> http://sumakanthan.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/the-game-of-parenting/feed/ 0 Sujatha Umakanthan http://sumakanthan.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/the-rental-saga/ http://sumakanthan.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/the-rental-saga/#comments Mon, 28 Nov 2011 04:58:02 +0000 Sujatha Umakanthan http://sumakanthan.wordpress.com/?p=358 ]]> Birds have bills too, and they keep on singing.

- Anon

 I moved houses a couple of weeks ago. 

 A Herculean task for sure – but even Hercules, the Greek mythological hero would be daunted at the prospects of shifting houses today.   Something tells me he would prefer cleaning the Augean stables than doing an exit cleaning at a rental.

Almost after a decade of living in our own home, it wasn’t easy getting used to rental properties and rental agents when we moved to Horsham.  After a stint of procrastinations and extending leases, we decided to shift to another rental property with better heating, especially since my son is prone to colds and chest infections.

So there we were struck anew by rental reality!!!  It definitely turned out that we would have had a better chance at being abducted by aliens than finding a rental property fitting our requirements at the desired budget. 

The rental market, what can I say……I never find it to be consumer friendly!!!  It doesn’t matter how much you pay, you still get treated like a squatter.   Take the simplest of things, like rental viewings …..not all agents are accommodating when it comes to fitting the rental viewings around the client’s work schedules – not even with empty properties.

So when finally an agent rescheduled her appointments to fit my timings in, I nearly wept with joy – all right I am exaggerating but seriously, I admired her pluck for breaking one of the real estate commandments that they must be groomed on “Thou shalt make life miserable for thy rental clients”. 

Truly, don’t rentals provide a consistent and unfailing income to the real-estate business???  So why are rental clients often given a very dismissive treatment??  Come on, if you don’t trust my words, just tell them you are buying a house and your phone will never stop ringing.  In fact I am tempted to try this tactic and string them along…….but I seriously doubt any real estate would allow me on their premises especially after this post.

Anyway after several unexciting and unappealing rental viewings, I finally got around to signing on the dotted lines for something the family liked.  Though after reading what seemed to be pages and pages of fine print, I was left wondering if I was moving just into the next neighbourhood block or the White House.

Once the lease was signed and our bank accounts made a lot slimmer by the exaction of bond money and advance rents, I realised my share of fun was still not over.  Then came the conversation of disconnections and connections of essential services with very obliging and friendly customer-service staff, well that’s just my sarcasm speaking for the uninitiated.  I don’t understand why the tenant gets fleeced in most cases for all these add-on expenses.

And yet one wonders why the numbers of homeless people are on the increase? 

Seriously at one stage after I calculated the amount I was going to pay for the removals, exit cleaning and all the additional expenses that got dumped me on with the move, I almost contemplated of moving to the nearest trailer park.  The rents are definitely higher than interest-only mortgage payments in certain neighbourhoods.  Often I have to remind myself I am still living in Horsham.

If only the neighbourhood banks are shrewd enough to win over this dissatisfied and unhappy clientele over to their side, it would make a huge difference in the housing arena.   At least this crowd would be better off paying their own mortgages than that of the owners.

Anyway after a few weeks of hectic schedules and stress, both physical and mental especially when having to deal with the demanding rituals associated with moving houses, I finally settled in my new house- unfortunately still amidst a sea of cartons. 

I have not met my new property manager yet; all our attempts to reach the person have been successfully thwarted by the efficient reception staff.  However, if  I have learnt anything from my latest experience, it is that we would certainly become best buddies by the time we leave this house, especially when we skirt around the formalities of exit cleaning and bond money return.  (A wry smile paints my face as I write this line).

Anyway, I don’t see this happening in the near future as I have no plans of budging out of this house anytime now.

(Disclaimer:  This post is not targeted at any individual in particular, but in general the attitude of real estate agents towards rental clients.  I have come across some wonderful people in this business and in call centres who have gone beyond their call of duty to help us out, but sadly the cases of genuine customer service are few and far between.)  – Despite the disclaimer, this post was considered too explosive to go into the local paper

I have nobody to blame except myself for my latest predicament.

It was simply ludicrous of me to have embarked on another plane trip before I had removed the dregs of my previous long-haul flight from my system.

Falling for the usual sales gimmick of low fares, I chose to travel with a lesser-known Asian carrier to Amsterdam. Of course, I had my travel blinkers on, which meant the airline’s discreet and fine-print disclaimer of ‘you might find yourself indulging more in transit than flying-time and your so-called straightforward journey will sprout as many legs as an octopus’ was conveniently ignored by itchy-feet me.

Ah poor me. Little did I know what ‘delightful’ surprises I was in for. For someone bitten by the travel bug for the last three years, I should be immune to the discomforts of travelling. But the rigmarole of flying, especially economy flying, never ceases to astound me.

I fully appreciate the rigorous and numerous customs and security checks undertaken in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But one cannot deny the hardships and excessive procedures that ordinary travellers are subjected to.

I am always one of the lucky ones to get metal detectors to ‘ping’ every time I walk through them. Bingo! Full body frisking here I come. How do I convince the stony faced security guard that I have no concealed weapon in my waist-band but just extra flab I attempted to camouflage under my one-size-smaller jeans?

Just when you think you have just finished your five minutes of frisk fame, you realize your ‘lucky’ stars continue to shine. You get chosen for a random drug test and more frisking.

It gets further maddening to discover all your space-saving strategies and nights of careful packing can be undone in a minute and your stash of undergarments and cheap tourist trinkets are out for public display yet again.

I still have not been able to figure out if it was the destination I had chosen or the political and bureaucratic intricacies of the transit country that posed one hurdle after the other this time.

Normally I am used to breezing through international airports with the immunity provided by my Australian passport. One glance and usually I get away scot-free with minimal control checks. However, this time I certainly found things to be quite different.

The moment I disembarked for transit, my passport got whisked away for so-called stamping. No prior information was given by my flight agent regarding the local customs of this particular country nor were the airport officials helpful as to what was happening. I then found out from another Australian couple, who were also detained, that our itinerary now included another domestic trip to the capital city of the transit country. Surprise, surprise!

After futile attempts at conversation in English with the dolled-up airport authority allegedly responsible for customer service, both my new-found travel buddies and I gave up and sat there resigned, waiting for our passports to arrive.

Finally after a nail-biting wait, we were reunited with our passports and without any explanation shooed off to continue our transit.
Then we began the arduous journey of seeking further information only to be passed from one desk to another and from one supervisor to another.

Most signs were baffling given the predominant use of the local language and was often missing or incorrect because the airport was still in the throes of refurbishment. Very few people spoke English. Soon a crowd gathered for Amsterdam and the motley collection of sleep-deprived passengers were herded sheep-like between various transit lounges, staircases and flights. Finally we were relieved to learn that we were on our way to Amsterdam.

It is perhaps a regular saga that people experience in airports; but I was struck anew with the chaos associated with what should have been a simple transit and travel.

There was something freaky about being kept in the dark in this Asian country known more for its information censorship than its growing economic and political power.

Our long period of stay in Australia has us accustomed to a country whose culture and lifestyle reflects its liberal democratic traditions and values especially including highly regarded freedom of expression and information. It was indeed a wake-up call to realise what one enjoys in Australia, especially us naturalised citizens. It is not just the security or living comforts that we are talking about here, but the littlest of things that one always takes for granted, especially access to information.

- Angela Schwindt

Eerily quiet, the house is.

(No, I am not converting to Yoda speak, but I should admit it works for me, at least for better emphasis.)

I bet the apparent lack of noise from our house for the last two weeks must be quite disconcerting to our neighbours. No, the kids have not yet flown the nest; empty nest syndrome is still a decade away for me.

Neither have I auctioned the kids on e-Bay…..erm, not yet. Well, school holidays do seem to bring all kinds of weird behaviour in parents and in some, as our Geelong mother would agree, a rather warped sense of humour.

Well, coming back to the post, the kids have gone to Melbourne to spend the school holidays with their cousins. Very simple it sounds…..but not so simple was the aftermath of our decision.

Two weeks ago

Like all other Kryptonian mothers out there, I too was resigned to spending most of my time juggling plenty of balls in the air and whingeing the rest of the time, about being exhausted.

To say mornings in our house were chaotic would be an understatement – everyday without exception, the house looked like being hit by a tornado. I should say my husband and I started each morning with a miracle; getting the kids ready for school without having a stroke in the midst of all the shouting matches was indeed something to be silently grateful for.

Something or the other constantly grew roots on our couch – if it weren’t for our technology addicted kids in front of the LCD screen, it was half-eaten food crumbs, wrappers, dirty plates, drink cups or socks. The house usually in varying states of disarray left me constantly exhausted, fractious and often staggered by the amount of work, two brats under ten can generate every single day of the week.

Above the inordinate amount of cleaning, washing and chauffeuring I had to do, it was the noise that usually drove me nuts. Not a day passed without the kids having a squabble over something or a fight for the TV remote, throw Dad into the fighting pit for his daily dose of news; it can get seriously ugly at home.

Dinner time, bed time, well to be honest every other time was a noisy affair at our house. The house did have noise insulation but unfortunately it was simplex in nature – only parents’ voices were filtered and never got through to the kids.

School Holidays

So naturally when my husband came up with this brilliant idea of offloading the sources of the noise for a couple of weeks to his brother’s, I greeted it with great enthusiasm. We drew up a list of what we were going to do during our two weeks of quiet and peace and I have to admit the list kept growing longer and longer by the impending hour of the kids’ departure. Very soon, the kids were dropped off at their cousins and we came home to a haven of tranquillity.

A day or two passed, everything was still in its place as day one – no bedclothes out of place, no dirty plates in sight, no overflowing laundry baskets, no vacuuming either. And above all no noise; by now we should have been simply overjoyed and ecstatic at the life of leisure and normalcy we had without the kids. But in reality, did we??

Very soon our sanctuary of peace and quiet was becoming too stifling for us, the monotony of the days was getting to us without the kids to break it or infuse the old sense of excitement into our lives. And thanks to the profusion of carbon tax in the media, the TV remote lay unclaimed. The house still remained clean but hopelessly empty, as if its very soul had gone into hiding.

We got to do the things we wanted – we fitted in dinners, drinks, movies, entertaining friends and even a weekend trip to Adelaide, but somehow there was not the imagined exuberance in it, but just the motions of completing a list that we had drawn up. As there was no pressing need to be at home at the said time, there were longer days at work. We hardly cooked, there were more and more takeaways or eating outside –no timelines, no routines to guide us and above all we both had this sense of free-falling or should I say failing? We even started missing the incessant noise and chatter that served as a backdrop to every single activity we did as a family.

Any modicum of work life balance that we seemed to have flew out of the window the minute the kids quit the scene. It was quite a revelation when we came to realise the routines and family rituals that we had put in place helped us parents more than the kids. Funnily enough without the kids to structure our time and life, things were increasingly chaotic than before. Suddenly we found ourselves adrift in the ocean of our lives without the kids to steer our course.

Two weeks seemed to stretch to an eternity and we were all ready to call it quits to our newfound bohemian style of living. We not only had selective amnesia about life pre-kids, but also it looked like we simply had lost the capacity to enjoy leisure and life guilt-free without the children in tow. The break that we had much anticipated for now seemed more like a sentence to us and we could not wait for them to come home soon.

Isn’t it ironical we spend the first 25 years of our life being moulded by our parents and then the next 25 by our children? I do not know if other parents are in the same boat as us, but it looks like we find our identity as parents more gratifying than any other identity we might take.

Yes, when the two weeks are up, I will resume my role as a juggling parent and even resort to the cardinal sin of whingeing….. but then we all know I would not have it any other way, right???

 - Derrick Cameron

 I was still in mid-air, 30000 feet above ground, when Prince Williams and his lovely bride had their nuptials a few months ago. I usually shy away from watching any telecast to do with any Royalty; their ceremonies fraught with superfluous protocols and excessive formalities are not my usual cup of tea, but I make exceptions for weddings. Guess it is the little girl in me still hankering for soppy and gooey “Happily Ever After” fairy tale endings.

Anyway after hearing rave reviews of Pippa Middleton’s shapely derriere and complexion that even eclipsed Bin Laden’s death mask, I had no excuse but to catch up with the videos. I have to say I was a tad disappointed over the “bottom”, but then bootylicious is no longer the buzz word I hear. Duh, even Microsoft Word does not recognise it.

First, let me throw in my disclaimers before I continue. I have nothing against Pippa, God bless her, she has a charmingly impish face and so refreshing that it is no wonder that she has stolen the show. But my rant is all about the tanned skin.

There I was expecting a pale English Rose with just the perfect milky white complexion and I get instead a skin that I wake up to every morning. Since my days as a teen (which lately seems centuries ago), I have spent a fortune on all kinds of skin-lightening products and here is someone who probably had done the opposite and had the world wowed with her acquired complexion. What is it with people and their obsession to possess a skin colour that is foreign to them?

During my short stint in Europe a couple of years ago, I had observed some of my European friends, who in their attempts to get ready for their summers, had gone overboard on the tanning beds. They had actually ended up with quite some noticeable damage to their skin. But I guess that did not faze them the least and they still probably continue to line up for their periodic solarium visits once summer hits their towns.

To my dismay, however, melanin has been my best buddy at all times of the year, irrespective of sunshine or rain, summer or winter. Possessing a skin colour that constantly reminds one of some kind of coffee beverage, there are days when I have longed for more “cream in my coffee”. Summer usually finds me in protective layers of clothing or hiding indoors as I freak about turning a few shades darker. It has taken me years to get comfortable in my own skin although I have to confess I still indulge in the occasional buying of the odd fairness cream that is guaranteed to work a miracle.

Raised in a culture where fairer skin and lighter complexion were held in high esteem, I usually find it difficult to comprehend a society where women would long for the reverse. Most cultures around the world seem to express a penchant for fair female skin, whereas the modern Western world has attributed attractiveness and socio-economic status directly to tanning…..and I am definitely not talking about tanning beds and sunless tan sprays here, but the jet setting crowd that can afford the natural tanning fromwarm summer days in some picturesque resort.

It is indeed an irony that tanned skin can get you into elite circles in certain societies and elsewhere be still looked down upon. Well, it is definitely not my intention to raise the topic about melanin induced prejudices in this light-hearted banter, but yet it is something that cannot be completely swept under the carpet when we string “skin” and “colour” in the same sentence.There are still undercurrents of stigma associated with darker skin tones in almost every society and yet we allow the world to get away with such double standards when it comes to skin colour!!!!

However, despite my whinge, I have to say some of us would be more than willing to relinquish the label of “dusky damsels” to our western counterparts. Don’t you agree with me as well??