Dearest 12 Year Old Avani - Earn Your Tomorrow's !

June 1st 2021 : Last year as we had a close knit family celebration at home, we made promises of seeing everyone in person for a real birthday party this year. Today, yet again, we find ourselves on video calls with our most loved members of friends and family. It has been a year more challenging, than the last. What seemed to be, only a momentary struggle with the pandemic, spiralled into a nightmare with the second deadly wave of the corona virus. While the world learnt to come to grips with their stories, we too lived through our suffering. 

We no longer have your great-grandmother around us in this home. Genie, who very fondly made you fall in love with dogs forever, is gone too.. Two deaths exactly a week apart, certainly brought about immense pain and a sense of permanent loss. There is a hole in our hearts which I'm afraid will never firm up. It brought back the feelings we had when panji-ajji passed away in the December of 2014. You pointed at the skies and asked me if she must have now reached heaven - You were just five then. 

Today as you turn twelve, You have learnt to express your pain, the sorrow of losing someone you related to, the grief of never being able to see them, the sense of never being able to touch them, feel them, or even smell them, ever again…! You still have an innocent resolve to break world records by being a mother-daughter pair who live to become centenarians. 

As a mother, I can only pray to God that may you be granted even the smallest of Your wishes true. But, I also want You to understand that our lives should never really be measured by how long we live, but by how we contribute in making this world, a better place to live ! 

So fret not, if we don't make the world record - There will always be a bright shiny star You can forever look up to ! 😇

If there is anything this pandemic has taught us it is this - 

"Death is a door through which every human will pass, a glass through which every human will drink - Death is, the only certain event of Life, once You're born". 

If one can learn to embrace this certainty without fear, one can truly feel fortunate for having being given an opportunity to contribute to humanity by showing Your Love ! As we express gratitude for being given yet another day as a gift, I want You to read this poem...

Have You Earned Your Tomorrow?
by
Edgar Guest

Is anybody happier because you passed his way?

     Does anyone remember that you spoke to him today?

This day is almost over, and its toiling time is through;

     Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you?

Did you give a cheerful greeting to the friend who came along?

     Or a churlish sort of "Howdy" and then vanish in the throng?

Were you selfish pure and simple as you rushed along the way,

     Or is someone mighty grateful for a deed you did today?

Can you say tonight, in parting with the day that's slipping fast,

     That you helped a single brother of the many that you passed?

Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did or said;

     Does a man whose hopes were fading, now with courage look ahead?

Did you waste the day, or lose it, was it well or sorely spent?

     Did you leave a trail of kindness or a scar of discontent?

As you close your eyes in slumber do you think that God would say,

     You have earned one more tomorrow by the work you did today?

                                                     As a Mother, I can only say, 

Let Your answer be a "Yes", every single day !

In a world where there are and must never be any free meals, I wish You all the courage to Earn Your Tomorrow's !  

Stay Brave and Be Kind ! 😚

Happy Birthday Dear Ava, Love You to no ends...!!! 💗

Hugs, cuddles and kisses... 😘
- Mumma.  

Once on Your Lips.. Always on Your Hips !!

Have u ever thought that chocolate could influence your childhood in profound ways ? 

A dairy milk always taught me to “share” and “eat in moderation” owing to its pre designed cubes ! 

Whereas a 5star always taught me to indulge ! 

Right now .. I feel like having this entire bar .. even that 25% extra and I know that happiness is only going to be momentary and guilt ?? 

Once on ur lips .. Always on ur hips 😃😃 ! 

No wonder why I’m still a dairy milk fan ! 😇 Chocolate taught me to love ! 💕💕😃😃

Riding a Bicycle on Hot Lava & Five things You "Must-Not" do to be a Good Runner !

Alright ! I'm back - ten days on and I've kept my attempts at running alive. Although, I must admit, I almost went dead on my second day of the Couch to 5K eight week challenge that I've set myself on. 

Yes, you read that right - the C25K as its famously / infamously known in the running world. 

So here are a few of the things I've been up to : 

1: I've earned a batch for exercising all 7 days a week - 😉

2: Attempted not one, but two five kilometre runs and completed them in 43-45 odd minutes 

3: Felt nice about reconnecting with my old running motivators on Strava 

4: Got back to the Nike Training and the Nike Run Apps - which means I have a more structured warm up and cool down routine

5: I have cleaned up all of my distracting subscriptions on YouTube - which encourages me to focus my screen time only on watching Running Videos - which, I am totally loving, at this point in time ! 

As important it is to know what is a 'must-do', it should be equally critical to know what is a 'must-not-do': 

1: Not Staying Hydrated : 

Never step out without the right intake of water - I almost dehydrated myself on my last run by skipping that glass of water before I headed out.

2: Skipping your Warm Ups & Cool Downs :

Lack of time should not be used as an excuse to skip your warm ups - go back to your childhood and reckon the days you've played a sport. Your coach never allowed you to touch that ball / racquet / hockey stick without ensuring your muscles were all warmed up. 

Even if you've never played a sport, remember to warm up using the below sequence, starting from your head down to your toes : 

1: rotations 

2: jumping (well head to toe sequence doesn't obviously apply in the case of jumping) 

3: stretching 

and for a cool down, slow down for the last five minutes and end with the same stretching routine.

3: An Under-Fuelled Body :

Yoga is probably the only form of exercise that can be done on an empty stomach. All other sport / exercise requires you to eat a healthy snack before you begin to burn those calories. 

4: Using only your Nose to Breath In :

Yes, in my last post I remember recommending breathing in through the nose for 3 strides and breathing out through the mouth for 4 strides. That worked, since I was probably just getting started and wasn't in it for the distance. But two 5Ks in the kitty and now I cannot emphasise enough on the importance of using your nose and your mouth to both breathe in and out. It keeps you going longer since you take in more oxygen to your blood cells this way !

5: Bad Form :

Sitting for long hours with a hunched back or being a stomach sleeper resembling the pose of a Spider-Man climb or dragging your feet while running - bad posture has disastrous consequences on our skeletal system.

I haven't really started to take my running so seriously, so as to give importance to form or technique - but my timings and the level of exertion I've felt on running two 5Ks are indicators enough that I should ! 

So while four of these five things are easier to do, the one I will be focussed on over the coming weeks, is my Running Form. My feet touching the ground for a fraction of a second and quickly off the ground - ensuring my Achilles Tendons are powering my runs ! 

And must I mention that I will Run like I'm riding a Bicycle on Hot Lava - Ouch, Ouch, Ouch !! 😊

Ouch ! That Hurt's !

It began how it begins every year - Year 2021 ! With renewed hope of keeping fit, I spent a week trying to get my body accustomed to walking long distances.. five, six, seven, even eight kilometres. 

There is something about Monday's - after the morning blues are gone, I finally make up my mind to try n run this evening. And wow, Do I feel awesome ? "Hell yea!"

What went right that day is what I will replicate on my following attempts I decide. 

So here it is - whatever went right & more of what went wrong : 

1: I made peace with my circumstances : 

Yes, this is a running tip. Anything you will attempt out of your comfort zone, has everything to do with your Mind first and your body later. So you may have demanding pets / children / ageing parents n in laws needing attention, maids that don't keep commitments, unannounced guests, incomplete errands, abandoned chores, a hard day at work, subordinates that under-deliver or bosses that over-commit, you're thinking about finished groceries or that course you had to tick off a week ago, which you remember not starting at all, laundry, dishes, prepping meals, several notifications crying for your attention, basically all hell breaking loose - but the truth is - life has always been like this - irrespective of your age, gender, relationship / employment / financial status - chaos is synonymous with everyone's life in one degree or the other. And hence, rather than trying to dot every i and cross every t, you must just make peace with your circumstances and get things and people around you, used to your short-lived absence ! 

2: Warm Up : 

While a lot of You tubers will claim - "30 minutes a day is all it takes" - that is not the truth ! It takes me a while to train my mind n body to get into that "zone". Then there's the dressing n lacing up for the run - a transformation from your Work-From-Home clothes. And now-a-days you will most likely come back to fetch your mask - if you are a mask hater like me ! Then you will want to take at least 10 minutes to warm up and another 10 to cool down, if you intend to run injury free. That is 50 minutes of your 24 hours gone right there.. ! However, if you really are a sucker for your time and other commitments - you do a ten minute run - just as good. In the age of capsule wardrobes, why can't there be capsule runs !  ;)

3: Breathe : 

To breathe is to live - literally ! Its taken me umpteen injuries and bad runs to learn to attach importance to the right breathing pattern. For this Monday evening what worked was breath in for 3 strides and breathe out for 4 strides - an odd-even breathing pattern. So let's say you took your breath in on the right foot strike and then after you breathed out for four strikes you end up taking in your breath on the left foot strike - ensuring both sides of your body get enough oxygen in the cells. Result - no injuries due to incorrect breathing. 

That's all that I got right on my Monday evening run. 

On Tuesday, I avoided these mistakes : 

1: Replaced my earphone with ear pods : 

Running with a phone in your hand and the cord hanging from the earphones makes one feel like you're running with too much circuitry in a wireless world ! 

However, even my ear pods fell off while I attempted my run today. (Lol !! :) ) And no, its not the B&O earpods at fault - it's just how my ears are. I've struggled for years trying to find something that fits well ! :) So if you're like me who refuses to move an inch without music, then it's worthwhile to invest in the right alternatives. 

2: Went without my jacket & with my waist pouch : 

You can get warmed up pretty soon and even the weight of a light jacket can prove to be a drag, especially when you're just starting. So you may be better off leaving it behind, unless you're running in the north pole ! 

Anything in your hand is a distraction. Your phone is best carried in a waist pouch. Better still, don't carry your phone at all. But again, if you want to carry your music along and don't really have a GPS enabled watch, you are left with little or no choice but to invest in a waist belt. 

Tuesday's run should have been better - or so, I thought ! It turned out worse - cause I committed new mistakes ! :)

1: When starting anew running everyday isn't going to work : 

While my knees don't hurt at all, it was my calf's and hamstrings that refused to let loose today. 

2: Of course the absence of music was a big let down : 

Elite marathoners never run with any music on - but its years to go before I get there ! For now Music is Motivation ! or to be precise - "Shape of You" is motivation ! ;) 

So this is how my first two days of a new running season have panned out. 

And hopefully, I'll keep learning, un-learning, re-learning along the way until I join the club of "Elite Runners" - for 

"If Your Dreams don't scare You - they aren't Big Enough!" 

Sweet Dreaming...! :)

We were, we are and we always will be "The SuperAwesome Family !! "

Dear SuperAwesome's, 

As I sit down to pen this, the smell of the soil from the raindrops that God surprisingly blessed us with last night, makes me want to relive an entire monsoon with all of You - like a child, all over again. :)  

While there is no rewind button to our existence, I'm glad we all had a chance to create new memories for time immemorial ! 

The five days spent together cannot possibly be captured in a twenty minute movie and neither can our experiences as a family, but the journey of those five days has been reflective of how all of our lives have panned out so far...

On our way, we've soaked it all in..!! 

Those long winding roads, at times gave us a sight of the deep dark valleys - never making us forget, how we were trapped into those at one point in time. 

Somewhere along the road, we got a  glimpse of the treacherous mountains - always reminding us of how vehemently we've bounced back, standing tall with all our might and pride today. 

We stood by to witness the waves, banging against those rocky stones on the beach, the noise they made, the splashes of salty water they left - bringing back flashes of some of our biggest disagreements - but eventually, even they retreated to unite with the ocean ! 

Sometimes the water currents were so strong, as though trying hard, to remind us of how we all needed to get back into motion to save ourselves from sinking in grief. 

The other times when we swam with the waves, brought back joys of the times we've showed confidence in traversing unknown territories and banishing our own fears..!! 

With every experience we've had over this vacation, there has been a parallel to the time we've both - failed and triumphed in our lives, together as one family !  

Fortunately, we are all the descendants of a legacy richest in its values and beliefs - the elder generation has served to be the best "Cheerleaders" one could ever ask for, while we battled it out on life's playground. 

It is not so much for the money, or the fame, or the power and neither the perceived notion of success that we have strived for. These, I'm glad each of us have, in one magnitude or the other, achieved as a by-product while we were focussed on looking out for each other.  

Our Family propels me to live for those moments when I turn back and I know for sure -  "I will see You All" with clapping hands and smiling faces, cheering me on... into the next day, the next chapter, the next challenge - reassuring me of a better tomorrow with all of your heart ! 

You may not hold my fingers any longer, but I do feel Your humble touch every step of my way ! 

And I'm glad our next generations will enjoy this very feeling - the feeling called "Family". A place where I belong, You belong, We All belong and the ones to be welcome Will belong... ! 

A place where "We feel at Home" will never be built with four walls - it will go on to become our abode only when, we will continue to have each others company - for Now and Forever ! 

" Each one for Everyone - Stay SuperAwesome ! " 

P.S : Here is the short film compiled by Abhi -  

Click on this link - best watched on the laptop or the TV screen - bigger the screen, more the fun. 

Scripted & contributed to by All of Us, where we ALL are the stars, the Celebrities of our own lives ! Time to sit back, relax and prepare for the next Block Buster Hit of the Year 2021 ! 

Cheers to MySuperAwesome Family ! :)   

Year 2006 : The year of the Serial Blasts

I hold a new surname, a new residence address, a new email and a newer email signature. From being 'Sayli S. Mahajan' I am now 'Sayli A. Yadav' ! Well, like any new bride, these were some of the most simplistic things, I had to get accustomed to. The more complicated ones, as they did in each bride's case, unfolded, as I spent time with my new found family and more often than not, willingly integrated them in my lifestyle. So effortlessly, that when I visited my parents for the first time post marriage, my mother said - "Everything from the nails of your toes to the strand of your hair is a changed Sayli!" And I had'nt even realised that the transformation was so swift. As a mother she could only stand back, admire and take pride in the new version of her daughter - as flamboyant as ever, less of a rebel and god-willingly, a little domesticated - Just the right balance of salt n sugar in a glass of lemonade!

As I observed the run up to the marriage on both the sides, my very neutral lense, couldn’t ever overlook one fact - it does not matter if you have a son or a daughter. The truth is, if you are born in an Indian middle-class family, chances are that the parents will slowly start to plan for their children's marriage as much as they did for paying up for their education. While the mode of funding the gold purchases was selling stocks for my parents, for my in-laws it was in exchange of the bits they accumulated on each 'Gurupushyamrut' / the three and a half auspicious mahurats of (Gudi Padwa, Akshaya Tritiya, Dassera, Dhanteras).

Throughout our courtship and the year that followed, one thing was very evident - Abhi and Me took a liking to great clothes, exotic food, dignifying simplest of days, wining n dining and basically spending our way to credit card bills through the tons of shopping n pub-hopping we did. We never really discussed money or finances. Until one day, we had an ugly discovery over our financial priorities being dramatically misplaced in each others views - Abhi wanting to buy a brand new car and me wanting to invest in a house! My shock only amplified, when he mentioned he intended on buying a new 'Honda City' as his first ever car ! We had obviously discussed his fondness and dreams of owning one, while we courted. But I had never imagined it to be our first big purchase in the initial year of marriage.

The tussle was fairly evident to the extent that my mother-in-law had to get involved. My father played it down and made it all seem so trivial stating - it's not as if you're staying on rent, neither as if you have no roof on your heads, so buying a house could wait. He went onto say, that for any normal man Abhi's age, owing a car is a very identifiable dream! At this point I thought to myself - why should his words come as a surprise, after all, here is man who himself had changed 5 cars in a span of less than one and a half decade! Also, one of the reasons I had fallen in love with Abhi, also had a lot to do with the fact that my Dad took a liking to him first and I would never doubt his choice of what "goodness" meant! So it wasn’t any surprise that I took his word for it and was more than happy to contribute my minuscule bit towards our first big buy !

So here we were in the middle of 2006, looking at our sparkling new 'liability' and making future plans of building a new 'asset' !

Life is not all Black and White. The beauty of 'Life' lies in making sense of the Grey's in the background 😉! 

A picture taken with our Silver Honda City - at the onset of Abhi's Birthday in 2007 outside the SOHO Toscana Lounge in Kalyaninagar...

Year 2005 : Smitten forever…!

It had almost been, a year being away from home and I had already made yet another painful transition from Secunderabad to Chennai, leaving behind a girl gang I had come to love in a matter of days of staying together. It was heart wrenching, settling farther away from home, paying for every single thing from drinking water to laundry ! But I soon started to find solace in a place where I never had to bathe with 'Hot' water, where I would wake up and go for a jog by the beach, return to do an intense ab workout, put on the Gayatri Mantra as I got ready for work, devotedly light up an essence stick and a diya to do my daily pooja as I soaked in the power of the hyms and was all recharged to take on the day in my stride !

I had come to love myself, to love the city and to B.L.A.Z.I.N.G.L.Y love my routine, which I thought, was the most balanced life I've ever lived ! I remember telling my mother, that I wouldn’t mind marrying a south Indian and settling down to retire by the beach side in Chennai.  She said it's not going to be long before you start to feel home sick - and like always, she was right !

Just as quickly as I had fallen in love with my new found freedom, it was time to un-settle myself, with the thought of getting married and it being arranged, just meant I was flying back home sooner ! I was leaving behind memories of half a year, of being surrounded by peers - almost all of the seniors in the integration practise had returned/were being posted abroad for long/short term stints working with onsite clients. Which also meant, I was surrounded by at least a dozen folks who were sitting on high net worth's just 2.5 or 3 years into their careers..!

I've never been happy being dumbfounded while others carried on with intellectual conversations. And when men make money, they talk a lot about where to put their pennies. If not participate/contribute to those conversations, I had to at the least, comprehend the jargon around stock market investing and the likes ! This was the anniversary year of me being a tax-paying citizen of my country. Introducing myself to investments was relatively easy - I just familiarised myself with the tax declaration form and had a long hard look at section 80C. I then started to research each instrument in my free time from PPF/VPF, NSC, ULIP, ELSS, Endowment plans to even Home Loans. A lot of websites came to my rescue - from moneycontrol to valueresearch, from personalfinance to msn money. My leisure reading on weekends was dedicated to picking up and reading magazines like Outlook Money (apart from the ones on GoodHomes and Good Housekeeping).

Working in Tidel park in Chennai, made it easier to gain access to a broker - Centrum Finance was located on  the 1st floor of the same building where I worked for a while. These guys were the first ones to help me with investing in tax savings mutual funds -a.k.a ELSS.

There were three close friends who critiqued my investing decisions at that point in time:

Seema : She believed that buying NSCs from a Chennai post office was a bad idea, since I may not be in Chennai when it matures - I was never going to return to the Teynampet Post Office to redeem the investment six years on.

Krunal : Who felt insurance and investment should be separate and I should instead, start to build up a decent equity portfolio. 

Santosh : Who felt a ULIP investment was expensive when compared with the total contribution vs. the administrative charges and future returns.

I have a lot to thank them for, for contributing to those views! But like always, I went ahead with my gut. 

It truly proved to be one landmark year mixed with lessons in investing to experiences of being Smitten - by someone Tall, Dark and Handsome. Literally my knight in shining armor, the one I had pictured in my mind as a young school girl, a gentleman who charmed me with his quiet demeanor, who sat in my room as a stranger and said "its ok if you can't think of anything to share, you can call me if you wish to speak.. once you are ok." - and I thought "Wow ! This has got to be Him !! Here is my Prince Charming! Finally !! 😃"  

Abhi and me courted each other for 9 long months before we tied the knot on December 25th and ended 2005 with eternal vows !

Yes, I digressed - it was supposed to be a post on my financial timeline, but 2005 was a landmark year, which can never be complete without the mention of a love story that began, the mention of "The" man who took my heart away and a year that taught me that everyone from my friends to my mother were indeed right !

A picture taken at Ravi n Rasika's wedding reception in January of 2008 !