Word Attack!!

Mr. Andaleeb Wajid???

Ever since my articles on computers, and keyboard shortcuts started getting published in Open Sesame, I have been getting emails from people who have read the articles, and liked them very much. Every single email reads, Dear Mr.Andaleeb Wajid.

I always forward the emails to Daksha who gets very excited because it shows that there are people out there who are reading what we’ve written. And we always rue that apparently not many kids are reading the articles, because I get mails from people who are well into their forties and once there was an email from a man who was 82! There could be a couple of reasons as to why kids are not responding. One - they may not have internet access….two - even if they have, their parents probably don’t let them create email IDs(yes…that is a possibility!), or three - they read the articles, but they’re just too lazy to respond. The worst possibility is that they aren’t reading the articles…Saboor never reads Open Sesame, even when I thrust it right under his nose! Whatever it is, I’m glad that someone is reading the articles, and people are responding. Now to just tell them that its not Mr. Andaleeb Wajid.

Sheesh! Just imagine what they’re probably thinking. Some bespectacled man, sitting at a computer, fervently typing out articles on keyboard shortcuts….and what is actually the scenario? Me, sitting with my laptop on my bed, with clothes strewn around me, baby powder lying here and towels lying there…and of course, Azhaan sleeping, because that is when I write!!

School starts tomorrow!

Saboor’s school starts tomorrow. I’m relieved like anything. Two months of having him at home all day is enough to turn your hair gray! Add a distended larynx to that…from screaming at him constantly. Whew!

I suppose Az and Rayaan will miss him most during the day. I’m waiting for the day I can pack off Az also to school! God…How I dread the time it will take for him to get acclimatized to school! Saboor cried from June, right till August! And only then he kind of settled down in his kindergarten. Az here is more clingy and I dread the hard time we’ll have when I enroll him in pre-school next year, inshallah! Some people think 2.5 years is too young for a child to go to preschool. Someone ask the harried mother!

And now I got to dig out that uniform and press it and everything….Sheesh! And what to make for lunch for him tomorrow…he always brings back whatever I send him almost untouched!

Got it right finally!

Yes! And to think that I didn’t even realize it would be so simple. I wanted to link my blog on my website directly. From days whenever I’ve had some spare time I’ve been scratching my head over it. But no matter what I did, I wasn’t able to do it. Before I continue, let me clarify. I am not a supremely technical person. I like technology, but code and other such things just fly over my head. So I have been a bit hesitant to look up the help feature in Yahoo Site Builder to check out where I was going wrong.

Today while putting Az to sleep I was just looking at the help section in Yahoo Site Builder (YSB). I had given up the possibility of bringing my blog directly to my website completely. Then I found out something about these things called iframes. I learnt that I could use them to accomplish what I wanted. After a little tweaking around with sizes and frames, I finally got it right!! It will be most weird if I put the link to my blog on my website here….:D

But I do want you guys to check out what I did…so go to www.andaleebwajid.com and click on Word Attack! You’re most likely to see this very post…:) Only the header will be the pink flower thingy thats there on my website….one more grouse about YSB…I don’t know how to change the theme of the pages…maybe some more investigation into YSB’s help ought to help me out too!

Back from Vellore

Got back from Vellore last night. It was tiring and we were all feeling a little under the weather. I put the kids to sleep and contemplated switching on the laptop but was too tired for it. I met a lot of people at the housewarming ceremony yesterday, but for some reason I sleepwalked through the entire episode yesterday. I didn’t really speak to anyone and these were people I was seeing after a long gap. Much later, in the car I was wondering what they would have thought of me. Its no wonder that people think I’m aloof and snobbish But it wasn’t something I did deliberately. I guess I just wasn’t up to socialising yesterday. I met a lot of people, but there was no one I could really connect with. At times, it feels like there’s only one person I can connect with, and the non-availability of that person at most times makes me feel a little out of sorts. Ok, I’m not going go too deep into that. Its something I have never blogged about and I didn’t intend to start now.

So, my Sunday passed by peacefully and passably. How was yours?

Going to Vellore tomorrow

Hi guys….we’re headed out to Vellore tomorrow for a day. Will be back tomorrow evening, inshallah. Going there because my uncle has his housewarming ceremony tomorrow. Its a time for new beginnings for most Pisceans I think! I’m flush with new beginnings myself…new house, new job…and here, Shakeel mam too has something new to be happy about! A brand new house in Sathuvachari(Suburban area in Vellore).

Over and done with!!

The daawat is over and done with! Last night, everyone came to our home, for the fatiha and dinner. We’d ordered biryani and my mom had made kutt! I don’t know how many people actually know what kutt is, but its this absolutely divine curry that is made from boiling horse gram in water and reducing the broth over low heat(its a process that can take days also!)…yes…then this broth is then given this tingling tadka, and then we add brinjals(never my favorite) and boiled eggs and kofta to it(yum!) In the end, its this dark, deep brown curry that has to be tasted to understand the flavor of life! Now that I have gone on and on about kutt, let me say that it takes a lot of patience to make it as it isn’t something that you decide to make in the morning, and you have it ready in half an hour or even by lunch time. So, its a rare treat and every one loves a dash of kutt.

So, as I was saying, Ammi had made kutt and along with the biryani, everyone loved it. My only disappointment was that since we had decided to have dinner upstairs, all the women were sent off straight up, and the men were sitting below. Hardly any of the women came to my house as we were all upstairs. I mean…why did I take so much trouble in cleaning and dusting if no women were going to come and see it? Only the ladies would actually notice the lovely sheets I had put on the beds and they would see how neatly the kitchen was arranged. I am not a tidy person but when I do take the effort and it goes unappreciated, its a waste!

Nevertheless, some women did come downstairs and they did inspect the kitchen and other rooms…so it wasn’t a complete waste after all. Whew! Now that this is behind me, I think I can breathe in relief and carry on!

A little pissed

I’m a little pissed. Actually a lot. I have realized that there are more than a couple of people in my relatives who feel that I need to be put in my place and are constantly doing it, by saying something rude to me. Its happened twice in the space of three days. I don’t know what I will do if someone does it again. Ignoring them is the best option I feel. I dont want to get into any sort of ugly confrontation and then the repercussions of that are aplenty. So am I just going to stand there and let them say what they want?

I realised that in a way it almost works. Both times, I fell silent and the opposite party didnt know what to do. I think if you let them go on, others in the vicinity will surely see that you are being victimised and their sympathy will be towards you. But what help is that? God save me from such relatives! I wish I too had a caustic tongue that could say a lot of spiteful stuff and hurt the person who hurt me. But I don’t. I just have a bad temper and when that explodes I only feel foolish afterwards. So i prefer to rein in my temper and shut up. Such people are not worth my time.

Anti-climax - No Daawat

Hi guys…I was going to post an entry yday about how the daawat got canceled but I was just too caught up with work and by night I didnt even have the energy to power on the laptop so I left it for today. An uncle in Vellore passed away late Saturday night and my mother in law canceled the daawat at the last moment because everyone would be heading to Vellore for the funeral.

So we ended up eating dal(which I made) and some chicken( which MIL had made and kept upstairs). Our daawat got postponed to Friday evening. I guess that gives me a few more days to finally gear up! Thanks for all the support you guys!! Love y’all!

Not geared for tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day when my house will be thrown open to all the relatives who will descend at the same time. I haven’t even started cleaning the house yet….gosh…where first it was my tension about cleaning the room, now the entire onus of the house’s respectability depends on me!!! Wish me luck!!

Rat Escapades Part 2

Having not seen the rat for another two days, I thought that this time its gone away for sure. But this time it decided to make its appearance in the morning when Mansoor was around.

This morning, it jumped from behind the TV and scampered behind the fridge in front of our astonished eyes. Mansoor swung into action. He grabbed a broom and tried to push the rat out and finally it ran out, reached the hall, clambered over the sofa, clung to the curtains, and hid on the window. When Mansoor poked the broom there the rat then jumped back right at us, and scampered behind the cupboard(from where he had hidden in my earlier post).

Mansoor was in full josh now. He poked and prodded behind the cupboard, it ran behind the fridge again, and then from there it did the SAME sequence of events I described just a while back. There it was in the window. Mansoor tried to move it from there, and then when we pushed the curtains aside, we saw it wasn’t there!

I thought I saw the cushion on the single sofa moving. I told this to Mansoor and he dragged the sofa outside the house and tipped it. Voila! It fell out, scrambled up and ran away somewhere else. We finally pushed it out of the house. Success!!