Be Happy, Along with Me!

'Should I be giving her a banana at 10 AM or some ragi porridge?' 'Will she feel hungry after 2 hours for lunch if I feed her ragi porridge now?' 'Is it okay to bribe her into this so she eats her dinner?' 'Oh! I feel so guilty letting her watch rhymes on Youtube!' For me, the doubt of whether I fit quite right 'as a mother' dawned the moment I entered motherhood. My initial days of motherhood were filled with an overhaul of mixed emotions. A sprinkle of joy, a dash of doubtfulness, and waves of emotions that I wasn't confident to handle. There were so many days when I strongly felt that 'I don't quite fit right into the role of a mother'. I was 24 years old when I became a mother. So, there was this constant fight with the devil mind which kept telling me that I should have had a baby few years later. Especially, when you see your college seniors staying single till 27 and 28, without thinking about what to cook for ...

I know a lot of voracious readers. Take for instance, my husband. He reads a new book every week, he reads two books in parallel sometimes. A total non-sync with me! Give me any book, short story or non-fiction or novel or anything, I can't read more than 5 pages at a stretch. The irony is I have owned a ridiculous collection of books and encyclopaedias since my school days. But I always stuck to reading comics like Tinkle and Archies. Why can't I read? Do I lack the concentration to read through a story? Don't I have the patience to understand line by line and delve into a book's world? Low attention span? Recently, one of my college seniors posted a status update on similar lines. Just like me, he can never hook himself to a book and hence not use books as references in everyday conversations. I have the same problem. Hi-5! So, have people like us missed out on something in life? Right when I was feeling bad about my ignorance about books and reading, I started r...