Back at work

The lovely four months of maternity leave flew by & I'm back in office on weekdays now. Its much, much tougher than I imagined it would be; the separation anxiety is excrutiating, listening to Kabeer on the phone makes my heart break into a thousand pieces, expressing milk at work is painfully tedious, & weekends have never been this precious. Working mothers often worry about how their child is going to get good parenting while they're away. That thought crossed my mind too; but my bigger worry is a selfish but agonising anxiety that maybe Kabeer will stop missing me eventually; maybe he'll forget my face which has always been his favourite, most familiar face; maybe he'll think of me as someone who just shows up on weekends. And then instantly I feel terrible for wishing that my son misses me & cries for me when I'm away.

Also, we moved apartments this weekend. That seems to have added to Kabeer's disorientation a bit. But the new apartment has a ceiling fan which manages to delight him every time it makes a rotation.

Anyhoo. Back to opening the cartons now. Someone please tell me - why cant I stop bursting the damn bubble-wrap plastic????

Dev D.

I loved this movie. I had seen SRK's Devdas and hated it (special mention needs to be made here of SRK's long-drawn death scene & its hideous melodrama); and when I saw the promos for Dev D, I expected it to be an edgier, less glamourised, more real version of the same story, but the tragic tale of Devdas without melodrama was hard to imagine.

I also thought that the story of Devdas was basically bland - lost love makes this weak man drink himself to death - devoid of any strong characters. Well, Dev D is a loser too, he is selfish too, and he definitely suffers from a bigger male ego than SRK's Devdas; but he never tries to invoke pity from me (the viewer) & I wanted to know how far he would go with his insane broken heart/ ego. A Paro with attitude and gumption also was an interesting twist.

What I liked about this movie was its audacity. I don't mean just the audacity of the language, or the openness about sexuality, or even the audacity of Paro's character; but the audacity that the movie has shown in doing away with the filminess of Devdas' tragedy.

Abhay Deol, I'm a fan.

The Banyan Tree, Bintan

The beauty of South-East Asia in all its glory: the pristine beaches, the blue water, the warm sun, the green valleys; we saw it all in our weekend stay at the Banyan Tree in Bintan, Indonesia. The beauty of the place was beyond words & the luxury of Banyan Tree left us mesmerised. I'll let these pictures tell the rest of the story:
PS: Staying in a villa in the middle of a valley did get a bit spooky at night. Especially when I heard bats outside. I was glad Kabeer made the night really short by waking us up at 6 am :)