When things went horribly wrong

Hello world! It was a fantastic weekend, till Sunday morning 5 AM. On Friday night, I spent time practicing a dance that I will be performing soon for a local event. Saturday morning, I spent cleaning house and talking to a dear friend. Afternoon, went out window shopping for furniture. Anu and family came over to my place in the evening. We had dinner together. Anu and her son stayed back. We talked like there was no tomorrow. At around 2:30 AM, we decided to wrap up and went to bed. We fell asleep, as soon as our head hit the pillow. Little did we know what was waiting for us.
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I am a very sensitive sleeper. At around 5 AM, when I turned over to change positions, I was awake for maybe 6 seconds. Enough to hear the sound of pouring rain. (at least that is what my brain registered at that point). Startled, I woke up and started running to look out of the window. It was not raining. So, then what was that noise? A little, frazzled, I decided to walk through the house. I first checked in the kids bedroom. All safe. Phew! that was a relief. Normally, I would have woken up my husband, but he was out of town. I checked the guest bathroom next. And what do I see? The toilet was overflowing, and the water was all over the bathroom and had come out int o the walkway, making the carpet all wet. The first thing, I did was, switch off the source of water to the toilet. Aah! I thought, everything was under control. But the sound of water that I could still hear, was louder than this over flowing toilet. That told me, that this was not all. There is something else, that was happening. With a sinking heart, I decided to go to the first level. An unpleasant situation welcomed me. There was a big hole in the ceiling of the formal living room, right under the leaking bathroom. See pic. below. I only have one side of the room. There were more patches, that I do not have the pics. for.

Water was gushing through the hole, with full force. The formal living room was completely soaked in water. It was a mess. I immediately ran upstairs and brought a bucket and placed it under the water fall. I placed dry bed sheets all over the floor, to soak the water out of the carpet. By this time Anu was wide awake and started helping me too. Together we used up at least 10 bed sheets (that's all I had). The water still kept dripping. I soon found out that the bucket had a hole, and my plan of collecting the water had failed. Luckily, Anu found another bucket.  I had a doubt that the water would have seeped into the basement too.  True to my guess, the water was dripping from the living room floor through the basement ceiling. We laid some towels there too. After around 2 hours of serious work, the water flow stopped. Phew! We were exhausted. The carpet and the rug were still wet as could be. We had reached a point, where there was nothing else we could do. I am still waiting for everything to dry. Now, there is a big gaping hole in the ceiling staring at me. Also, the water has flowed down walls. The paint of the walls are wet. A lot has to be fixed by contractors to get it back in shape. I plan to start looking for a contractor tomorrow. Till then no one uses the guest toilet. Since, we had guests, we had decided to use the guest toilet. The flush was not working properly. I was just looking at the positive side of this adventure. What if, I had not woken up at 5AM? I shudder to think. All things happen for a reason. Some unexpected losses are bound to happen in every one's life. Life has to go on. Like they say, what  doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. 

Modern day solution to couple fights

Namaskar blog dosts! Finally, after 4 long months Beti B now has a name. "Aaradhya". I am not quite liking it. As long as the Bachans like it, what else matters. Guess what this name means? It means "one who is worth worshipping". I expected something like this tough. A traditional name, which speaks for itself. After all, the Bachan's are all about themselves. Correct?  Still having a slight headache today. A good day otherwise. My heart skipped a few beats, when Sanil did not come home on time. He was a good 3 hours late. Apparently,  he got selected in the school Tennis team and was playing a match, which their team lost. :(. At this time, I am glad that he is home safe.
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After 19 long years of marriage, I cannot count how many fights I have had with my husband. Just this past weekend, we were fighting about when to buy the much needed furniture for our living room. I wanted to buy it now and he wanted it 2 months from now. We were fighting over a non issue. Really, what difference does it make?  In the heat of the fight we were blinded to the fact that both of us agreed upon buying the new furniture. When couples fight, both people feel that they are right and in the process become too stubborn and refuse to give up.

In every argument there are 2 sides. If both parties continue to argue their point, then there is no end to the argument. After analysing the innumerable fights that we have had over the years, and heard about the fights that some close friends have shared with me,  I have come to the conclusion that couples argue to be appreciated and recognised. Once, we understand this basic need, I think the next plan of action should be for one of us to pause for sometime and listen to the other. it's easier said than done. Personally, this blog has helped me a lot. Putting my thoughts down when these challenges happen is a great way to relieve my emotions. They say, not to wash dirty linen in public. But for me, sharing grief with close friends is half the sorrow. Also, when your share, the friends tend to open up a little too. It's a nice feeling to know that you are not alone.  In any relationship, communication is the key. This has been my experience. These days the fights between my husband and I are very minimal.  Do you want to know the secret? Personal Laptops. We mind our business! There are times when we have communicated over Instant Messenger. Modern day solution. Try it!

Uff! these headaches...

How are my dear blog friends? Participated in too many activities over the weekend. Yes! I played Holi for the first time yesterday. Here is proof.

At the end of the 2 hour fun, it was impossible to recognize who's who. Can any of you recognize me? We did not play with colored water as it was very cold. Although it was good fun, I don't think I want to do it again. The cleaning up after, is too much work! So, Vidya Balan is back in the news. This time for her stupendous acting in the movie "Kahaani". She is being compared to the great actor Aamir Khan when it comes to choice of scripts. Nice! 

                 I had to help Sanil with a project today. I recorded him cooking "fajitas". It was very stressful, as the delivery of his speech had to match the shot. At the end of  3 hours we had it ready. I was so proud of him. He learnt to edit videos by himself pretty quickly. Lets hope he gets a good grade. Unfortunately, I ended up with a severe headache. I tried to sleep, but could not fall asleep, so I thought I will blog instead. I hope this de-stresses me. 

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Nearly everyone gets a headache at some point. I mostly get tension headaches. The reasons could be many. Dehydration, loud music, change of routine, over eating, starving, too much sun etc. The headaches I get start out as very dull aches. If at this time, I do not take medicine, they turn into migraines. Call me old fashioned, I hesitate to take medicines. My mom has trained me to fight small issues without medicine for the fear of losing the ability to heal naturally. This advice has stuck with me. So here I am now, with a throbbing headache. I have learnt to live with these tension headaches now. I have to get a good nights sleep for the headache to completely go away. In the past, applying a topical balm  like "Amrutanjan" to my temples used to give me temporary relief. However, these days, I need a stronger smelling balm like "Tiger Balm". The authentic "Tiger Balm" is only available in Dubai. There are numerous imitations available all over the world now, none that can come close to the original . My husband is a big fan of these balms too. He tends to get migraines very often. We have many bottles of these balms all over our house. If there is a table, you can bet that there is a bottle of balm on it. It is really amazing how aroma therapy is so soothing. But then there are some odors like that of the smoke from cigarettes, gasoline etc. that cause headache and nausea. The brain works in strange ways. OK, folks, I am going to bed now with the thought that tomorrow will be a better day. :)