About me, in mummy's words!

Mom wrote this a month ago. I love it!

My daughter Puja

She has been living in Singapore for the past 11 years. I visit her about once a year from India. She is not comfortable when I ask her how much she paid for our meal in the restaurant etc. because I immediately convert the $ amount into Indian rupees. I thought it was quite natural for a person hailing from India to convert the price into rupees. To tell you the truth, for a few initial days, I can’t help it and keep doing it. The result is that I am never told the secret of the bill.

The other day Puja announced that we were going out for Aloka’s eye check up as she keeps getting these awful styes, one after the other. The clinic had a long list of patients waiting and we had about an hour before our turn. Puja decided to take a walk in the neighborhood. 

The weather was beautiful; imagine walking out at 11:30 am in Singapore? She noticed ‘Courts’ in the distance. So we walked into the store. It is a famous store and has huge outlets in every locality. Whenever I have been there, some or the other thing is on sale. I remember Puja had bought her flatron TV a couple of years back; Anu had bought the home theatre from the store when she came here. 

Aloka and I were looking at the TV shows on display and enjoying the water world. In the meanwhile Puja started browsing into the digital cameras. I also slowly drifted towards her and her objects of interest. I soon figured out that she wanted to buy a camera because her last one was not working now.

On the aside: When my camera started having problem, I drove for about 40 KM  in heavy traffic for over an hour to reach the canon service centre to get my camera repaired in Chandigarh. Here I am 100% sure Puja has thrown away her canon camera which had developed some snag because Aloka had messed up with that. 

This new camera she was looking at, had the latest applications and was on sale at a lucrative bargain like $600 slashed to $400. Can you believe that the next moment this was bought by my gorgeous crazy daughter, who had come out for her daughters eye check up and walking up a store for just window shopping? Amazing indeed! Compared to her, if I ever went shopping for a camera, I would have planned and calculated and decided the budget before I even ventured out. 

I admire her impromptu impulses. She did the same when we were trying wigs for the sake of just trying them out. She felt the shop woman was awfully sweet to let us try so it became obligatory that we buy one (for me). The other day we had gone to Thomson Plaza to do shopping for the weekly requirement of grocery. My dear daughter’s eyes alighted on some of the little frocks on display. Well in an instant she got a frock to fit her daughter and next I see her picking another ballerina skirt with yellow frills and buying the two in a split second. Here my mouth and eyes both were wide open marveling at the impulsiveness of my daughter. I wish I could have done that when I was her age.

Thanks to her, I have eaten in some of the fabulous places where I would not have ventured in my wildest dreams. Mind you, despite my experiences caused by her, I could not still do if I were on my own. May be, it is part of your habit.

So that is just some of Puja.

There is lot more.

Feb 3, 2011

First day of Chinese New Year