| March 9th,
Well, it is after 2am and I am finally home with my family after a
week of being just a cast member in the the V-Day play, The Vagina
Monologues. I can guarantee you all that being a mom is MORE
fullfilling, MORE dramatic and MORE undeniably exciting than being on
the stage, but there is a small part of me who misses the stage!
This week was hard on the kids especially. I had LOTS of
babysitters. When I started feeling guilty, I
just reminded myself that this was going to culminate with a very
large donation to YWCA Abused Women's Services, the local womens
shelter and a an organization that helps women who have been victims
(and survivors!) of rape.
The play was WONDERFUL! If you haven't seen it yet, GET BRAVE and see
it! You find yourself RIGHT THERE in the middle of each monologue,
and the emotion is SO powerful.
I know that alot of misconceptions about women, relationships,
anatomy and rape were settled once and for all in the minds of many
men and women who saw the play for the first time. Most people think
about rape and say, "not me, not my mother, not my sister, not my
daughter!".
It was staggering when our director asked the audience a
very important question..."How many of you know someone close to you,
who has been the victim of rape or abuse?"...and the WHOLE audience
had their hands up. This is an epidemic! It is not just "somewhere
else!". It is here and now, and it is in the US, and in India, and
more than likely, as someone so kindly pointed out (can't remember
who) that our happiness and the joy of our children, has likely come
from the sadness of the birthmother...either through date rape or
lack of understanding about her own body.
I know that some of you in who are in India may not have heard about
the play. Please don't let the title scare you off!
I have watched the faces of the men in the audience shift from having no idea
about what women experience as a whole, to having that "knowing nod".
If you get a chance to see The Vagina Monologues...DO! Better yet,
get involved in your local V-Day group. I have learned that V-Day is
very interested in having Indians and Chinese more involved in V-Day.
March10th,
SOMEBODY SAID
Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get you life back to normal after you've had a baby...somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, normal is history.
Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by instinct...somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.
Somebody said being a mother is boring...somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.
Somebody said if you're a "good" mother, your child will "turn out good"...somebody thinks a child comes with directions and a guarantee.
Somebody said "good" mothers never raise their voices...somebody never came out the back door just in time to see her child hit a golf ball through the neighbor's kitchen window.
Somebody said you don't need an education to be a mother...somebody never helped a fourth grader with his math.
Somebody said you can't love the fifth child as much as you love the first...somebody doesn't have five children.
Somebody said a mother can find all the answers to her child-rearing questions in the books...somebody never had a child stuff beans up his nose or in his ears.
(I personally love this one because one day I found Lakshmi sitting on the floor with bag of frozen peas, and she had several of them up her nose. I didn't know what to do, so I called my mom. She was great help. She didn't know what to do either, but remembered me doing the same thing! : ) So I remembered the ayah in Calcutta, India who I hired to teach me infant massage for Lakshmi, and how she showed me how to get all the mucos out of Lakshmi's nose when she was having a cold...just put the tip of her thumb and index finger at the top of the ridge of Lakshmi's nose, and ran both down her nose, with gentle pressure, and out came all the mucos. So I did that with Lakshmi and the peas, and out came the peas!)
Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivy....somebody never watched her "baby" get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten ... or on a plane headed for his first trip to India."
Somebody said a mother can do her job with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back ...somebody never organized seven giggling Brownies to sell cookies.
Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married...somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings.
Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home....somebody never had grandchildren.
Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her....somebody isn't a mother.
Pass this along to all the "mothers" in your life!!!
March 13th,
One more note about The Vagina Monologues that I was in:
THERE WERE RED ROSES ALL OVER THE STAGE, on our chairs, and all over the front row
of seats. The chairs had all types of red fabrics tyed to the chairs, the background was all red, pink and purple,
and we came up in the back of the stage through a "vagina" of cloth! Days later, I am still so thrilled I was in this show,
that I mananged to be upbead during a cold!
I heard that there are plans for a Desi Vagina Monologues. If you are a desi and interested in it,
please let me know. I will be happy to pass on the email to the director. Right now she is looking for Indian women to write
monologues for the show.
Here are the details, which were passed word of mouth (email) to me.
*********************************************************************************
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
South Asian V-Monologues, presented by South Asian
Sisters, called Yoni Ki Baat.
A few of their topic ideas:
birth, abuse, menstruation, smell, hair, genital
mutilation, orgasm, mastrubation...
What Bollywood song would your vagina sing?
What's your vagina's bio-data/matrimonial?
Is your vagina veg or non-veg?
What's the immigration status of your vagina? Has
it been detained by the INS?
How does your vagina feel about the Kama Sutra?
Continued:
What does any of this have to do with loving my children?
I believe that dealing with the abuse many women experience, either through birth, or marriage,
date rape or sexual biased employers affects my children, including my son!
I want to see these things improve before I leave this earth. The effort I make today in creating
awareness through out our culture about womens issues, and helping make this world a peaceful war free
world has to do with being a mother, and assuring that my children have the earth to live on,
and have marriage partners who are kind and loving. To me, this is all about my children.
And what about peace? How does that concern you or me? Please visit MoveOn to learn more about
creating a peaceful world for you and me, and for the children of the coming generations.
I can not accept that I will have to face war shortly, and at the same time, I am preparing for war,
just in case it happens. I am looking at my home, thinking about what I will do to protect my children.
It is scary. That is why I believe that WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER!
March 14th,
Waging Peace
Dr. Robert Muller, former assistant secretary general of the United Nations,
now Chancellor emeritus of the University of Peace in Costa Rica was one of
the people who witnessed the founding of the U.N. and has worked in support
of or inside the U.N. ever since. Recently he was in San Francisco to be
honored for his service to the world through the U.N. and through his
writings and teachings for peace. At age eighty, Dr. Muller surprised, even
stunned, many in the audience that day with his most positive assessment of
where the world stands now regarding war and peace.
I was there at the gathering and I myself was stunned by his remarks. What
he said turned my head around and offered me a new way to see what is going
on in the world. My synopsis of his remarks is below:
"I'm so honored to be here," he said. "I'm so honored to be alive at such a
miraculous time in history. I'm so moved by what's going on in our world
today."
Dr. Muller proceeded to say, "Never before in the history of the world has
there been a global, visible, public, viable, open dialogue and conversation
about the very legitimacy of war".
The whole world is in now having this critical and historic
dialogue--listening to all kinds of points of view and positions about going
to war or not going to war. In a huge global public conversation the world
is asking-"Is war legitimate? Is it illegitimate? Is there enough evidence
to warrant an attack? Is there not enough evidence to warrant an attack?
What will be the consequences? The costs? What will happen after a war? How
will this set off other conflicts? What might be peaceful alternatives? What
kind of negotiations are we not thinking of? What are the real intentions
for declaring war?"
All of this, he noted, is taking place in the context of the United Nations
Security Council, the body that was established in 1949 for exactly this
purpose. He pointed out that it has taken us more than fifty years to
realize that function, the real function of the U.N. And at this moment in
history-- the United Nations is at the center of the stage. It is the place
where these conversations are happening, and it has become in these last
months and weeks, the most powerful governing body on earth, the most
powerful container for the world's effort to wage peace rather than war. Dr.
Muller was almost in tears in recognition of the fulfillment of this dream.
"We are not at war," he kept saying. We, the world community, are WAGING
peace. It is difficult, hard work. It is constant and we must not let up.
It is working and it is an historic milestone of immense proportions. It has
never happened before-never in human history-and it is happening now-every
day every hour-waging peace through a global conversation. He pointed out
that the conversation questioning the validity of going to war has gone on
for hours, days, weeks, months and now more than a year, and it may go on
and on. "We're in peacetime," he kept saying. "Yes, troops are being moved.
Yes, warheads are being lined up. Yes, the aggressor is angry and upset and
spending a billion dollars a day preparing to attack. But not one shot has
been fired. Not one life has been lost. There is no war. It's all a
conversation."
It is tense, it is tough, it is challenging, AND we are in the most
significant and potent global conversation and public dialogue in the
history of the world. This has not happened before on this scale ever
before-not before WWI or WWII, not before Vietnam or Korea, this is new and
it is a stunning new era of Global listening, speaking, and responsibility.
In the process, he pointed out, new alliances are being formed. Russia and
China on the same side of an issue is an unprecedented outcome. France and
Germany working together to wake up the world to a new way of seeing the
situation. The largest peace demonstrations in the history of the world are
taking place--and we are not at war! Most peace demonstrations in recent
history took place when a war was already waging, sometimes for years, as in
the case of Vietnam.
"So this," he said, "is a miracle. This is what "waging peace " looks like."
No matter what happens, history will record that this is a new era, and that
the 21st century has been initiated with the world in a global dialogue
looking deeply, profoundly and responsibly as a global community at the
legitimacy of the actions of a nation that is desperate to go to war.
Through these global peace-waging efforts, the leaders of that nation are
being engaged in further dialogue, forcing them to rethink, and allowing all
nations to participate in the serious and horrific decision to go to war or
not.
Dr. Muller also made reference to a recent New York Times article that
pointed out that up until now there has been just one superpower-the United
States, and that that has created a kind of blindness in the vision of the
U.S. But now, Dr. Muller asserts, there are two superpowers: the United
States and the merging, surging voice of the people of the world.
All around the world, people are waging peace. To Robert Muller, one of the
great advocates of the United Nations, it is nothing short of a miracle and
it is working.
-Gordon Davidson
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March 15th,
Please help with a Global Vigil for Peace
Please visit http://www.globalvigil.org and plan a candlelight vigil
for peace in your area on Sunday, March 16 at 7 pm. MoveOn.org and
the Win Without War coalition, together with Archbishop Desmond Tutu
and many faith-based organizations, are calling this vigil, and we
need your help.
By the way, I will be attending a peace vigil in my area.
Otherwise, today Lakshmi tripped on a toy on the floor after Priya thowing it at her, and she
hit her mouth. Two teeth are loose, and she bled quite a bit. I gave her some
Bach's Rescue Remedy and the bleeding stopped right away, and she calmed down. I didn't
think she would want to nurse after that, but she did right away, and it was so nice to
know that I can still calm her down by nursing her. By the way, Lakshmi is wearing cotton panties now
and using the potty most of the time. Priya is just starting to use the potty now, and even climbed on the
toilet in the bathroom! That's a first for Priya. Given that summer is coming, I hope they are both completely
potty trained by this summer. Geesh, thought this part would be done now! See Lakshmi below in her new
panties.
The kids cousins came over this after noon, and Ravi went back with them. I have got to go
and pick him up now.
Tonight:
I picked up Ravi and we came home. The girls were so tired, so I put them to bed, and Ravi and I spent and evening of
playing tic-tac-toe. What fun. Kids can never tire of simple games. Then he was working on
his coloring pages while I was online. He came to my desk and picked up my copy of
The VBAC Companion - The Expectant Mother's Guide to Vaginal Birth After Cesarean.
He said, "Mom, (pointing to the pregnant belly on the front of the book) is she going to have a
baby?". Yes..I said. Ravi said, "Is that a picture of you? Are you going to be having a baby?".
I am pondering what to say to him when he says, "Can I look at the pictures of the babies being born?".
Sure I said. He spent almost 20 minutes looking at the VBAC book and The Birth Book (Dr. Sears)
. I don't know what was in his head tonight, but it has me thinking.
Recently he said to me, "Mommy, I know something you don't know". Whenever he says this,
he is about to tell me something that will deflate my ego or even tell me something that I REALLY don't know.
What Ravi...I said. "One time when Lakshmi was a baby, I saw daddy peeing inside of you. Why did
daddy pee in you?". THERE IT IS! He is both deflating my ego AND is telling me something I
don't know about! UGH! This is when all that fast thinking I had to do in my debate class, has finally come
to some use!
"Ravi, silly boy, daddy wasn't peeing in me, we were trying to make a baby". "And what were you doing in there
when you were supposed to be in YOUR bed!"....not really a question..more an admonishment!
Well, we talked this out and it seems that he did walk in on us when Lakshmi was a baby (Oh god what did Lakshmi see?)
So it seems, he was visiting with one of his freinds (a girl) and they somehow got on the subject of how
babies are made, and she told him that she saw her mommy and daddy dancing naked on the bed!
LOL! Good grief! What is the deal with all these 5 and 6 year olds...holding all this for 2 or 3 years and suddenly
shocking their parents with all this info.
(see Ravi with his friend Morgan and cousin Madelyn - it is from a regular camera, and I used my
digital camera to copy it by just taking a photo of the photo. That's why it is so fuzzy.)
So we got to have a nice conversation about making babies, about sex, and love and all sorts of stuff, and
I kept telling myself that this was way too soon. Later, I called my friend up and told her what Ravi said, and we both
had a good cackle! She said that her daughter has been talking about this too, so it seems that
now a days, this type of talk is going around with all the kids...even homeschooled kids who don't watch alot of
TV (WOW!) . I pride myself a little bit in the openess that Ravi has with me, because I would have never talked about this
nor would I have approached my parents with this type of information at age 6.
Anyway, I think I have recovered from the freak out I had when Ravi brought all this up, and
I am starting to think that open communication is very good. It was all theory before now.
About the VBAC Companion book, I have a new client (my first paid birth) who is going to have a VBAC.
I have been doing all the research since Vagina Monologues was over and talked with her again
today. Sounds like she will hire me, and I am so excited. I will meet her on Friday.
Before this, I was charging zero, zip, nada! I have been a doula for over a year now, so it is
time to start charging. I also plan to start advertising more now.
By the way, this was Ravi after he fell asleep tonight. Normally he has his "Ravi-Ravi" doll tucked
under his arm, but tonight, it was the trophy from his final basketball game just two weeks ago, that he took
to bed with him. Such a cute fellow. : )
March 16th,
We attended the Candlelight Peace Vigil tonight in our city, and here are some of the hightlights.
What a hopeful feeling I have now.
Memphis Peace Vigil
March 17th,
I don't usually write every day, but this peace vigil has me so humbled. Please, if you have a chance, go to MoveOn.com to see the photo's from all over the world
of peace vigils last night. My soul is still humming from my encounter with peace in my local community.
Love, Jyotsna
March 18th,
Tonight we had a severe thunderstorm. Our dog Raja got so scared during this time that he tried to chew his way
out of the house! He actually thought the sound was coming from the inside of the house, so he tried to get OUT of the house.
He couldn't chew his way through the front door, so he tried to go through a window. When I woke to the
sounds of something banging on the glass window, I thought somone was breaking in.
I ran into the living room and there was Raja pulling off the wooden blinds. There are bite marks all over the fallen blinds and it was hanging by only one
string. Completely distroyed! While I felt sorry for him, I was so mad at him too.
When Ravi was 3 years old, I took at job where I could take him with me. Lakshmi and Priya hadn't been born yet.
At that job, not only was I payed very well, I didn't have the cost of childcare, and got to be with my
son all day long. It was wonderful. My job boosted our family income significantly, and that was when I started buying
the wood blinds..2 or 4 at a time, until the whole house had wooden blinds in the windows.
Before that, we had those metal blinds, and I hated them. Now, there are more kids and not as much incoming money, and wooden blinds are a
luxury. I am still so mad. I have a blue bed sheet on the window!
Otherwise, today I felt depressed all day long. I worry about the impact war will have on us in the states.
I hate war. I spent some time today thinking about how I would protect the kids in the event there is ground or air
war in our city, and I just can't imagine what I would do. Our city is #29 on the list of cities likely to be attacked in the event
we have ground/air war. I would have to drive a very long way away from here in order to take them to a safe place.
I bet everyone else would be doing the same thing, and the roads would be blocked.
Anyway, I filled up my car today at $1.70 per gallon! I remember when my dad payed .45 - .50 cents per gallon.
I bought candles, a pack of lighters, and 6 gallons of water. What the heck will that help? But I had to.
March 20th,
My heart is so sad today. War started last night with Iraq and Afganistan. I hoped to goddess that I wouldn't have to see this war happen, but indeed it is.
I feel that my country is no longer a just country.
Goddess help all those in the path of our military.
March 25th,
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