Up's And Down's

By Sushma R

Let his dreams live in your thoughts,

his milestones in your memories.

Tears of his in your eyes, giggles of his in your smile.

Bring it in with zeal,

there is still so much more for you to deal.

He is a little miracle; he is sometimes a pain pleasure.

He is so precious for you to treasure.

Let him be naughty, let him scream,

let him run around to live his dream.

gaze into his eyes, to see yourself in him,

cuddle him with love so that everyone can envy him.

Smile now mom and cry about it later,

because there is no time to know what's in.

Before you realize he would be grown,

to hold your hands and not to leave you alone.

Giving way to yours

(Refers to everything that a wife does to see her husband successful)

Giving way to yours,

I delved into a dark hole to look for light.

Giving way to yours,

I saw only those gloomy days so that you get to see the sun shine.

Giving way to yours,

I cried deep within just to see your eyes filled with victory.

Giving way to yours,

I forgot my name, so that your name shines everywhere.

Giving way to yours,

I never realized how worthy I am. But always believe in your potential.

Giving way to yours,

I stepped back so that you could stand out of the crowd.

Giving way to yours,

I learnt how to see my passion in yours.

Giving way to yours,

I lost my way. A way that could lead me to dream, create, achieve and progress.

By giving way to yours,

I always adore the growth you have got so far that makes me a proud wife.

A letter to my darling son on his birthday

I want to write a letter to you on every birthday of yours so that you can read them all once you grow up. You may think mamma is silly, witty, jobless, but whatever, this is her way of expressing love towards you.

Where do I start? - so far I only knew the meaning of obsession and passion. But had not experienced it till I saw you having one.

Your obsession towards trains, passion for planes is something that's always worth mentioning. Remind me when you grow up, I have a lot of train and plane stories to share. Most of these stories are from Burlingame, the city that you were born in.

Most of the mums want their children to excel, they want to see a future scientist, engineer, doctor, a national champion etc etc, which is not wrong to dream at all. But this mamma of yours is a little selfish. She wants to see a human in you first. Be that man, just like your dad and walk on his footprints, so that he feels proud about you. Walk above and beyond him, so that you are always there to protect him. Outgrow him, so that you are more intellectual than him, grow so big enough so that one day appa can see a true image of him in you.

Love you my kiddo for ever and ever. God bless you.

From Coffee to Wine

My Husband and I belonged to a middle-class family. Both of us had our share of struggle, happiness, and responsibilities before and after marriage. Both of us had a pretty decent and a well-paid job In Bangalore and we thoroughly enjoyed living in the southern part of the city. Eating street food, often meeting at a common point after office for window shopping was always our favorite past time. The most ever green moments of our life.

My husband used to travel to US very frequently like once a year..We never knew or dreamt that soon we would swap the scene to travel to India once a year. I still remember when i first came to US in 2014. I was thrilled excited and amazed to see this beautiful country. I was visiting my husband for a couple of months. I went spellbound to see skyscrapers, great infrastructure, the freeways, the speed cars different people with different culture each and every thing I saw was totally mesmerizing and enthralling.

The beaches, greenery, mountains, everything made me wonderstruck and appreciate this great country. I made sure to enjoy and live every moment because i just had 2 months to cover most parts of US. We travelled to East Coast to visit my uncle and Aunt. We also travelled to most parts of California.

Moving to US was not even there in the wildest of our dreams. None of the friends stories of moving abroad inspired us or even convince us to apply for a job in the US. Neither the dollar nor the infrastructure influenced our contented mind to dream about the American life. When i was visiting my husband in 2014, his Company and his Boss decided to transfer him to their HQ in California. When they broke the news to my husband, he was of course very happy and never knew how to react to their offer. The next thing he did was messaged me regarding the great news. Honestly speaking, I felt terribly happy and sad at the same time. Happy and proud because of his achievements and the company recognizing his talent and sad thinking about everything i would miss with this big decision. Esp. my parents as i am the only child and them getting older day by day. Even to this day, their world rotates and revolves around me.

Our families supported our thought and insisted that we don't miss on this opportunity, and they called it a Golden opportunity and because of which we had a seamless move from India to US.

This country was very welcoming, and we moved ahead to have a great and pleasant stay. Often what we see and hear is always different from what we experience, and grass is always greener on the other side. The practicality of the situation can be felt only when we go through the same.

The organized life, healthy lifestyle, great infrastructure, weather proved to my mind that we have come to a distinctly unique place. We started exploring many more places in and around California like Lake Tahoe, Lassen Volcanic national park, Yosemite Park, Los Angeles, Las Vegas etc. We lived our lives in such a way that no one watched us we slogged and worked during the weekday and enjoyed during the weekend. Indeed, these are the best and memorable times of our lives. Developing healthy eating habits, having an organized life, having work life balance, easy commute to office with less traffic, none interfering into our lives are some of the best pros of this country.

On the flip side lot of things changed after moving to this country. Its not just a physical move, but it’s a transition mentally also. Salwar to office changed to be western formals, putting a bindi on forehead became an occasional thing and became a weekend affair. Could never get a chance to know who our neighbors are. Processed food is abundantly available. Faking a life and lifestyle which was never ours became inevitable. Living a western lifestyle started becoming a part of life. Cultural differences were very evident. We do miss our family and friends, we truly miss all the celebrations, precious occasions like cousins Wedding, Naming ceremonies, Birthday parties etc.

Everything in life has its own pros and cons. Like i always tell, everything depends on how we take and accept changes in life. Sometimes the thought of moving out of India is exciting, but also intimidating at the same time. No doubt moving to a new land creates open mindedness but homeland is where we build the most profound memories.

Rebirth

Giving birth to my son is one of the beautiful things that has happened to me in life. Certainly, it's a life changing event. I worked with one of the Leading Software companies in their global HQ. I worked almost till my labor started. No doubt my job gave me a sense of satisfaction. But to grab the immense happiness, I felt it's important to take some time off from work to take care of our little baby and hence my husband and I took a combined decision to quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom. Honestly speaking there is no right or wrong way of looking at this big decision, it's just about a personal choice. This being the case I did not want to be a typical home maker by not giving at least some time for myself.

I wanted to start somewhere. I have a great flair for writing and hence decided to blog. Now biggest question what to blog? Started mind boggling topics, overwhelming resources in internet. I am not a great expert to pick any of the niches and most popular ones like weight reduction, fitness, financial planning etc. I do love to cook but felt it's not a great idea to blog because I did not have enough pictures of recipes and having a toddler at home it's tough to be in kitchen with a purpose to blog.

What else to blog? My mind was racing with thoughts, heart full memories and life has many awe-inspiring stories and experiences to share and i wanted to bring all this to light under one roof and start a personal blog. Perhaps it might fall under the lifestyle blog category. When i discussed about the content of this blog with my friends, i got mixed reviews, most of them said it's a great idea to express oneself and some of the happy moments in my life might inspire others, motivate others and some of the dull moments will soothe others mind saying they are not alone. But while others said, why would anyone be interested in knowing anyone else's life? Useful content with full of information will help the browsers than these personal stories. Certainly, considering both the reviews in mind, I moved forward to write my personal blog I intend to deliver meaningful content, inspiring stories, heart touching moments in this blog.

Many ppl talk about niche, life is so diverse, and I did not want to miss smaller moments of son that bout immense happiness to me. We decided to give a small break for my job as i wanted to see him grow. I wanted to enjoy those moments to see those first things that he does. So we cautiously took this decision.

I'm not alone. Mind will be racing in thoughts, heart is full of memory, life has very interesting stories to share, and I wanted to bring all of these 3 things under one roof. I want to deliver meaning full content and pen a few awe-inspiring stories and heart touching moments. I am only hoping this small desire of mine will be accepted and appreciated by my readers.

Ripple Effect

After settling down with our new house the next thing that i wanted to do was to apply for a legal work permit and start working soon. I had heard that it's extremely difficult for other national people to find a job in the US and I had not understood the magnitude of the problem unless i experienced it. The ratio of getting a call for a telephonic interview was 10:1.

I was not getting through to the 2nd level of interview just for the fact that, i neither had any experience working in the US or with the US customers or I had not even studied in the US. Overall, I wasn't associated with this Market at any point in time during my tenure in India. And all these points proved very strong for the interviewers to reject my candidature over Telephonic interviews. Day by day my confidence of getting a job in the US went down. I have always been told that US is a land of opportunities, but this land of opportunities was not making a sincere attempt to explore my talent.

This fact disappointed me, and I started sulking each day and each moment. Though I had rich experience working in India market for about roughly 6 years into IT Sales, my confidence levels kind of dropped at once Even though I self-proclaimed as an Average performer in Academics i still had managed to get a decent job with a decent pay in India. Each time I lost confidence in getting a job in the US, I used to recollect those days back in India where I did not lose confidence even though I had to face a failure in my Academics. The thing is how did i gain back the confidence? I had and still have a set of distinctly unique people in my life who seems to be closely associated to my life and who also have a close watch at all my success and failures. Each time I failed they tried to drain my confidence and each time i tried to wake up from failure and fear, they tried to show their jealousy. I applied the same logic here to grab a job in the US.

I remembered 3 things, the profound hope and confidence that my husband had and has on me, my parents who struggled all their life just to see me as a successful person, my friends and well-wishers who always had and have confidence on me and most importantly my favorite people who always anxiously wait to taunt and talk behind my back when I fail.

This mix of things created impulsive ripples in my mind and the next minute I promised to myself that come what may, I will take a job in the US. I worked extremely hard towards it each day. I kept myself updated with the current trends in the industry and prepared myself very well for the interviews in such a way that, I give less opportunities for the interviewers to reject me and the result of which within 2 months of getting the legal work permit I landed in my dream Job. I accepted the offer with one of Leading software Giants and was privileged to work with their Global Headquarters.

Absolutely nothing in life is impossible. It needs hard work determination and a strong will to succeed. I sincerely thank to this mix of people who still exist in my life and because of them I get motivated each day to achieve the impossible.

By Sushma R