by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Jul 28, 2011 | Child Care, Childhood, Humanity, Husband, India, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parent Care, Parenting, The Alchemist, World Interviews, World Moms Blog, World Moms Blog Writer Interview, World Motherhood, Writing
Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?
I now live in Chennai,India. I am from a smaller town, around 350 miles from here. I lived in the same house and even had the same room for twenty-five years of my life.
I did my entire schooling, college education and even post-graduate education there. After getting married, I settled down here in Chennai with my physician husband and son.
I have never moved much in my life, have strong roots and hopefully don’t intend to move out of this home anytime soon.
What language(s) do you speak?
I speak English, Hindi (India’s National language) and Tamil (my mother tongue). I read and writer the same three languages. I am not great at picking up languages, rather I should say, the necessity has never been there. (more…)
by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Jun 20, 2011 | Being Thankful, Cooking, Food, India, Inspirational, International, Life Lesson, Motherhood, The Alchemist, Working Mother, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, Writing
And then, one day, it happened.
It was a small thing, a tiny penny, a morsel to the hungry, ravaged person in me, but it was soul food, indeed. If you are wondering what this is all about, let me start from the beginning like all good stories.
If you have already read my bio in the Writers’ Page, you know that I have a post-graduate degree in Electronics for whatever it is worth. I also worked in the corporate world of sleek car electronics for six whole years; and like life and all other things, I had both, a love and a hate for the place, for the job and my time spent at work.
It was a livelihood, paid some bills and kept the bank balance healthy. With all the managing of the baby (I was a new mom back then), home, work and my own self, life still went on.
And, one day I quit. (more…)
by Purnima Ramakrishnan | May 2, 2011 | Childhood, Education, Exercise, Family, Health, Hobby, Holiday, India, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Sports, The Alchemist
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When we were little kids, my brother and I used to look forward to summer holidays. Usually, it was a full two months in most parts of South India. Both of us were book worms, and being the voracious readers we were, our parents had no problem in managing us during the summer holidays.
We both learned to read by the age of six because we were products of a strict education system, unlike today where the education system requires children to learn by themselves. And, most kids learn to read by eight or nine.
To make matters simpler for both us and our parents, there was a library just across the street where we used to live. We used to go there together, select our books, return the previous day’s books, pay our dues and come back home with a fresh huge stack to pour over.
The librarian became a great friend of ours. Life and holidays were indeed benevolent. We used to visit our maternal grandparents during part of the holidays, and there too, we became members of the local libraries.
In those days, in our little town in India, the concept of summer camps, summer activities for kids, special fun classes, and the like was still a novelty. And, even if some such classes sprung up in our locality, not many kids garnered enough interest to go over and check them out.
Everyone was more or less satisfied and well pleased with their own thing to do during the holidays. And, we were more than happy that our summer pleasure of reading from morning to bed time was not disturbed. Oh yes, our parents were a lucky lot in this aspect. They never had rambunctious kids at hand.
Ah, and now fast forward to the present day and, it is summer holidays for my son. He will be in the next grade sometime in mid June. I have 2 full months stretching in front of me, and I need to keep him entertained not only in the most educative way, but also with fun things in mind. (more…)
by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Mar 23, 2011 | Family, India, Kids, Motherhood, Parenting, The Alchemist
“Mama, how long until my birthday?” asked my son the umpteenth time in February. I said, “Fifteen more days.” He was turning five full years and was becoming quite a handful.
He was growing up into a boy. He was climbing up trees, gazing at new models of Hot Wheels cars, race cars, collecting dead rubbish and doing everything a boy would do.
I could no longer call him a young toddler. He was almost a little boy, and he kept counting down the days to his birthday from one month before. (more…)
by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Feb 9, 2011 | Being Thankful, Child Care, Family, Health, Holiday, India, International, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Technology, The Alchemist
There was a time in my parenting life when I thought everything was perfect: my dear darling son (henceforth DDS) was perfect; I was perfect; our whole life was a living proof of joie de vivre. And then, disaster struck.
Well, I should not say that really. It was during the holidays and DDS was diagnosed with astigmatism. We got him his eye glasses on Dec 24th and from the day of his diagnosis until now has been a very difficult time in my life as a mother.
When faced with the fact that he will be wearing glasses permanently, I initially was crushed, devastated; I felt lost, confused and upset. I felt guilty with myself and angry at the whole world. (more…)
Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?
