Wednesday 29 April 2015

T is for Twilight

For those of you rolling your eyes, I am referring to the books, and not the film adaptation (which, despite the fact that the books are way better, wasn't too bad either - don't pretend you didn't watch it and that you didn't like it).

I was introduced to Twilight through the film. A good friend of mine allowed me to gatecrash her cousins' movie date and I was pleasantly surprised at the film - vampires, romance, hot guys; all my favourite things in one film, and I left the cinema quite happy to be in love with Edward Cullen.
Anxious to know how the rest of the story unfolds, I went and bought myself the books.

Life is so serious and sad, and for my sanity, I escape into the worlds of movies and books. I have my preferences when it comes to my entertainment, but I have only one rule: the less of reality in it, the better. I wish I could read the Twilight series for the first time again, because it would be so amazing to experience those emotions all over again. 

Not only am I drawn by the romance (and not just of the lead characters, more so, in fact, of all the peripheral couples), but by the way Stephenie Meyer has managed to show us this dream world. She is, in my humble opinion, brilliant at her craft.
I read all the books a week (I spent a whole day in pajamas reading Breaking Dawn and finished in less than 24 hours, only getting up twice to use the facilities) and it was as though I had a cinema reel inside my head - every word played out behind my eyes as I read them.

However, the two greatest things that this series has done for me: it led me to my best friend and led me to writing. 

And inspired me to set an actual goal for myself. Hopefully one day I will be able to create something just as magical.


Monday 27 April 2015

S is for Sagittarian

I’m not one who follows the Zodiac – in fact, I usually think it’s a lot of hogwash. But my bff sent me this email, which shares seven characteristics of Sagittarians. I laughed at how spookily accurate the following were, pertaining to me:
  1. It’s always funny to see how uneasy they can be with compliments/flattery, even though they love it. (yup, me in a nutshell)
  2. It’s not that they’re blunt and don’t care, they just say what everyone else is thinking. (My filter is a work-in-progress)
  3. They love meeting new people…who think and act like them. (Hahahahaha! I totally do!)
  4. You’ll be surprised at how “easily touched” they are. Yes, they are sentimental…sometimes. (Big mouth, small heart – that’s me)
  5. Their sarcasm will crack you up, especially when they’re mad. (Don’t say you weren’t warned)
  6. They make great sidekicks. They like to have fun and do new shit. (I am THE wingman…winglady…wingperson)
  7. To really make them understand something, use logic. They don’t really care about your “emotional revelations”. (It’s not that we don’t care – we just don’t always understand that language)

R is for Reality TV

This is a phenomenon that I just have not embraced. Yes, people might tell me that these shows depict how the world and people are today. And they would be right – the world is a weird place right now, and is getting weirder by the minute.
But we have only ourselves to blame for this because we sanction weird behaviour by watching these shows.

How can we consider physical struggles (sickness, hunger and exhaustion) of a group of people marooned on an island as entertainment, when there are an obscene amount of people in the world who experience these struggles for real every single day?
Who in their right mind would want to televise their quest for love? It is hard enough to find it without an audience. These people are deluding themselves into thinking that they’ve found real love after going through what is essentially a catalogue.

What frightens me most about reality TV is the rapid rate at which it has grown – because we watch it. It’s become normal to throw random people into a house and watch them deteriorate. It’s become normal to publicize people’s dirty laundry. It’s become normal for teenagers to fall pregnant at seventeen. It’s become normal for housewives to beat each other up in front of a camera.
This is the result of reality TV.

Times move on and societal norms and customs do change. But does no one worry about the fact that we have regressed to a point where unacceptable behaviour has become accepted? Does no one worry about the effect it will have on the generations that will come after us?

I feel like the world has now become the forty-floor building from the novel High Rise – and like those people in it, we are racing towards our own decline.

Q is for Quotes

A couple of months ago I was browsing through a store and saw this adorable little notebook with teacups on the cover. Said notebook became the home of my collection of quotes – from books, movies, songs, people. I think the quotes I collect say a lot about me as a person, and for this particular post, I thought I’d share a few of my absolute favourites.

“I want to be the best version of myself for anyone who is going to someday walk into my life and need someone to love them beyond reason.” ~ Jennifer Elisabeth

“I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.” ~ Patrick Dennis

“Follow the three R’s: Respect for self, Respect for others, Responsibility for all your actions.” ~ Dalai Lama

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” ~ Herm Albright

“No one has ever drowned in his own sweat.” ~ Ann Landers

“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.” ~ Ingrid Bergman

“Rudeness is the weak person’s imitation of strength.”

“I melt. And am not of stronger earth than others.” ~ Coriolanus

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you. Especially when you are near me as now; it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in a corresponding quarter of your little frame: and if that boisterous channel and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt, and I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.” ~ Jane Eyre

“You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate. There is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them, than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs.” ~ Henry V

Saturday 25 April 2015

P is for Pilates

November last year I discovered Pilates. I had a very different view as to what this form of exercise was about – I still had images of Julie and Kirsten of the OC, bored California housewives looking for something to do.

And then I met Naz, our trainer, who made me do Pilates in a dress for the first time (I was with my sister that evening, and just went along to observe). The next week, I officially joined.
Naz makes Hitler look like a Backstreet Boy. The hour we spend with her every Tuesday is split into twenty minutes of very high impact aerobics, thirty five minutes of Pilates and five minutes of stretching. We don’t perspire in her class. We sweat like pigs.

I like doing physical things but I hate gym (too boring and monotonous and solitary). And this has been a blessing. We are a small class of about seven ladies, so Naz can focus on each of us. The other ladies are all very cool, and are great at motivating one another.

In addition to being able to see the physical changes on my body, I am sleeping better, have less tension knots in my neck, and have been able to avoid going on meds to help with depression (endorphins are AH-mazing).
I’ve also started a class at school with my kids, incorporating some of the stuff I learn in my own class (trying to pay it forward).

So, get up and go and find a form of exercise that works for you and that you can stick with.

O is for Originality

In 2013, I enrolled into a Journalism class. Two nights a week for four and a half months and copious amounts of writing (I actually miss having writing deadlines, and this challenge has been good for me).

Our first writing assignment was labelled “Originality” and we had to answer fifteen questions about ourselves, so that our lecturer could get to know us better (we were a class of seven people, so this was possible for her to achieve).
The last instruction was for us to tell her some things that we have very strong feelings about. I read through this assignment this evening and although it is now two years later, the following still stand:

“I believe that wisdom does not always come with age. I believe that every major problem we face in the world today is a result of greed, intolerance and lack of accountability. I believe that there can be no love between a man and a woman before marriage. I believe that the breakdown of society is directly linked to the breakdown of families. I believe in speaking and hearing the truth – even if it is bitter. I believe a smile is the best form of charity.”

N is for Nerd Girls


I would like to dedicate this post to the women in my life, the ones I have met recently and the ones I have known almost forever – my best friend, A, my sisters, my mother and my new friends I’ve made via Twitter (Z, K, Deb, Holly, Red, etc.).


This is us, ladies.

I am not going to sit here and spew some unrealistic crap about how looks do not factor into what makes a person hot, because it does.
I will say that tastes vary and attractiveness is subjective (and therefore cannot be STANDARDIZED, LABELLED or STEREOTYPED), and so everyone will have their own idea of what they find hot.

But. Intelligence is ALWAYS sexy. In my own experience, limited though it may be, most men fear intelligence in women. A clever girl will see through all of your bullshit.

But she will also be able to recognise your insecurities, and when this cleverness is coupled with kindness (which you will find it often is) she will never use them against you, she will never play on them – she will work to bring out the best in you, and if you are equally smart, it will lead to her to giving you the best of herself.

So guys, once you overcome your fear, break out of your Paris-Hilton-esque mind-set and are brave enough to venture into our world, you will find us nerd girls surprisingly sexy and romantic. 

Friday 24 April 2015

M is for Madrassah

The word "madrassah" is an Arabic word that literally translates as "school". For a Muslim, it refers to the Islamic equivalent of Sunday School, where young Muslim children go to learn about their religious history, to learn of the practical applications of Islam (prayer, fasting, charity, pilgrimage) and to read Arabic (thereby enabling them to read the Qur'an).

Of all of my mother's children, I was the child most resistant to this stage of my life. Yes, I went. I learnt how to read Arabic, and I learnt how to pray and fast, but I did not enjoy the experience, and my religious duties were for a very long time a chore to me. We were always warned of the punishment that we would receive if we did not follow our Creator's laws correctly.

At the age of 23, I got to perform my obligatory pilgrimage. It was the most difficult, but the most profoundly beautiful experience of my life, but it also made me realise how poor my basic knowledge of my religion was. A year later, I left my job and enrolled at an institution that offered religious studies for adults. I stayed at this institution for three years and my experience with madrassah this time around was completely different to my experience as a child. I was not only reminded of the correct manner of the various forms of worship, I also learnt why they were important and how they developed over time. I got to know my Creator better and my love for Him and my religion grew.

I didn't enjoy madrassah as a child because my teachers did not instil a love for Islam in me.
I still do not follow my religion perfectly. No one can because we are human, and therefore imperfect. 
But whatever I do now I do happily and willingly, from a place of understanding and love.



Sunday 19 April 2015

L is for Letters

During the eleventh grade at high school, a group of my girlfriends and I received a naughty letter as a joke from a group of our male friends. This became a competition to see who could scandalize the other more…and ultimately led me to my first boyfriend experience.

Said boyfriend and I were together for thirteen months. During that time, he used to write me letters when he was in English (he had an arse-numbingly boring teacher) which he used to slip to me during intervals (we were not in the same class).
I kept these in a special box, which still smelled like him four years after we broke up.

I love receiving letters – not email (although I don’t mind these when they’re personalised messages instead of chain mail) but hand-written ones. There is just something about it – the smell and texture of the paper, the handwriting of the writer, colours and types of ink…these things can tell you so much about the writer, and what they think of the person they're writing to.

Mostly though, I love them, because a hand-written letter says to me that someone finds me worthy of their time and effort.

K is for Keats

I was flipping through the movie channels one afternoon and came across a movie called “Bright Star”. For those of you who do not know (like me), Bright Star is the title of a poem written by John Keats. I happened upon this movie somewhere towards the end, but I do know that it documents his life and, more importantly, his relationship with Fanny Brawne, the inspiration for Bright Star.

We read some of his poems at school (Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn comes to mind here) but beyond that, I have no other knowledge of him. But the character of Keats was so beautifully portrayed by Ben Whishaw (I mean, I was completely convinced of his love for Fanny, despite the fact that Mr Whishaw is not attracted to girls) and it led me to do a little bit of research on the poet.

I was amazed to discover that he studied medicine and had received his apothecary’s licence, which allowed him to practice as an apothecary, surgeon and physician. He left the medical field because it interfered with his writing (brave chap) and composed a number of poems and wrote many letters.

Unsurprisingly, I am more drawn to his letters, than his poems. “They glitter with humour and critical intelligence. Born of an ‘unself-conscious stream of consciousness,’ they are impulsive, full of awareness of his own nature and his weak spots.” The romantic that I am is naturally drawn to the letters he wrote to Fanny. Reading them showed me how powerful words can be and inspired courage in me, who, as a fledgling writer, is extremely self-conscious and afraid still to display her weak spots.

Sadly, he did not linger long in this world. But for me, John Keats is the perfect embodiment of the following words from Virginia Woolf:
“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”

Saturday 18 April 2015

J is for Jane Eyre

Over the last five years or so, I’ve fallen in love with the classics. Not all, as I am struggling with Thomas Hardy, but among my favourites are Shakespeare, Austen and recently Orczy (thank you again, Holly, for introducing me to the Baroness).

I tend to favour romances, and as a rule, only read stories with happy endings (real life is hard enough and I unapologetically prefer my entertainment to be as far from reality as possible). It is for this reason that Austen is a particular favourite of mine.
However, Austen’s heroines are too perfect. I like stories which depict women as equally strong and vulnerable, and equally virtuous and flawed, and Anne Elliot is the only Austen heroine, in my opinion, who portrays this beautifully, which is probably why Persuasion is my favourite Austen novel.

My absolute favourite classic story though, is Jane Eyre. Those who know me well might find this surprising, as the story has a very dark element, as is indicative of the Brontë sisters. I’ve read Jane Eyre quite a few times, and in addition to the story, the language always surprises me. I know language changes and evolves with time, but I wouldn’t mind at all to be wooed in the way Rochester woos Jane. Some of my favourite scenes include the part where Jane leaves to visit to her sick aunt and Rochester’s happiness at her return to Thornfield Hall.

My favourite line from the novel comes from Rochester, when he tells Jane, “I have a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave I’m afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I’d take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you would forget me.” In all of my reading, I have yet to come across a more beautiful way of saying, “I am in love with you”.

As regards the actual story, a few things come to mind, which gives me hope as regards life and romance…
The heroine is a teacher, and makes a significant difference in the life of her student; Jane does not compromise her principles or dignity for the sake of a man; Rochester falls for Jane’s mind, heart and spirit, not for her arse; Jane is tested in many ways, but never takes the easy way out; the plain Jane, not the princess, gets the guy in the end.

Of all the tales I’ve read in my life, this one will remain one of my all-time favourites, for imparting the simple wisdom that life may not be a fairy-tale, but it is quite possible to experience fairy-tale moments and fairy-tale endings.

I is for Introspection

Plato asked, “…why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are?”

Two years ago, I would have laughed uproariously at the above question and said that Plato = NATO (No Action, Talk Only). All my life, I have been a doer. The bare minimum thought before taking action. Always the one who had no patience for talking or thinking (in excess, I mean), and no patience for people who basically live in their heads, and not enough in the real world.

However, Plato has a point, and circumstance and people have steered me towards a path where I had to sit and examine my conscious thoughts and the motivations behind my actions.
It is human nature to readily be critical of others, but to turn that critical eye on oneself…it is one of the most difficult and uncomfortable experiences one will ever have to deal with.

I still believe that it is dangerous to permanently reside in your head. A tree does not become a piece of furniture because the carpenter wished it so – he had to get off his ass and convert the tree into timber, and fashion the timber into a table, or chair, or book shelf. Action is imperative when you want to progress.

But action without thought, can be infinitely more dangerous (I was the poster child for this), and it is up to us to be able to strike a productive balance between the two.

H is for Hiddleston

This challenge would be incomplete if I did not find a way to talk about Tom Hiddleston. Sigh. Where do I begin? Or rather…instead of going on and on and on about his perfection (which I most definitely can do), perhaps I could talk share two positive ways my actual life has been impacted due to this person and the madness that is the Hiddleston Fandom.

Unexpected Friends: My favoured means of social media is Twitter. If I’m having a particularly bad day, I can simply open my timeline and my mood is instantly lifted. It is there that I officially became part of this fandom, which consists of millions, all ages, all shapes, sizes and colours, spread all over the globe. I must thank you, Tom, for the new friends I have made through you. I have yet to meet any of them in person, and I sincerely hope that I will get the chance to, because they have been a comfort and solace through a particularly difficult period. Together with Tom, they have re-introduced me to Shakespeare, expanded my reading repertoire, encouraged me to try new things and celebrated my successes with me.

Embracing the woman: For as long as I can consciously remember my life, I have been a tomboy. I was a little girl who played with toy guns instead of dolls, played sports, preferred jeans and dirt to dresses and make-up. Even when I hit my teens and twenties, getting me to dress up or even just presentably was a chore. Grooming was not my thing. But then I became part of this crazy world and became kind of infatuated with this man. As I watched his interaction with his female co-stars, or just females in general, I became more and more aware of myself as a woman. I want to be someone’s Peggy Bell, Kate, Virgilia, Eve…
I take a little more pride in my appearance these days and I embrace what makes me woman. 

Who knows? Someday Tom and I may run into each other (the world is such a small place these days)…and I want to make him turn around and look again. 

G is for Guns

When I was sixteen, my sisters and I went shopping a few days before Eid (the one we celebrate after fasting). I was tired and cranky, and decided to wait with the trolley near the exit while they ran into one last store. I sat down on a bench facing the store and suddenly I heard screaming and gunfire. It was a good few seconds before I realised that I was in the middle of the crossfire, and ducked behind my trolley. I managed to sprint into the store when the firing stopped, and thankfully, none of us were hit. But when I got home, I went to my room and burst into tears.

Ever since that day, I’ve had an issue with weapons. Even if I saw a police officer (trained and licensed to carry a firearm) with his weapon, it caused a mild anxiety attack.

My phobia was cured eighteen months ago. My younger sister decided on a very unconventional “Cowgirls and Indians” bridal shower. There were the usual games and food (but of course) and her fiancé had sent along an assortment of handguns and rifles (these all fired pellets, not live ammunition) and set up targets in our back yard for archery and shooting. I became acquainted with a rifle called Buttons, who helped me get over my fear of weapons.

Last year, for my new brother-in-law’s birthday, we arranged a paintball shooting party and there was a section of the park with metal plates placed at various distances for target shooting. My bro-in-law is anally safety conscious and is a patient shooting instructor, and that day, I discovered that shooting is, within a controlled environment, a great way to relive stress, and that I have quite a skill with a rifle.

I had to wait a few months, but finally managed to purchase my own one.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is Loki.


Wednesday 15 April 2015

F is for Friendship

I don’t have many friends, true friends, and I am quite okay with it.

Friendship is, in my opinion, the most difficult relationship to successfully maintain – as with all kinds of relationships, there is always the risk of an imbalance, and you don’t have a contract binding you, like a marriage, but there is a level of emotional intimacy; you are privy to another’s best and worst, and there’s really nothing to stop you from saying ‘screw this shit’ and walking away when there is difficulty or conflict.

Being someone’s friend, in the truest essence of the word, takes a lot of effort, and the challenge for us all is to find that person or persons who are worth the effort and who think that you are worth the effort.

I read a beautiful quote on Twitter the other day, which says: “Friendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest. It’s about who walked into your life, said ‘I’m here for you’ and proved it.” It resonated with me because it is something that I have experienced most acutely over the last few years.

I have drifted so far from some of my oldest friends…but I have been caught by a person, who has been there for me (and continues to be) through some of my darkest hours. And if my lot in life is to only be able to call this one person my friend, I would be more than contented and happy.

E is for Envy

“Envy is the ulcer of the soul.” – Socrates

“Blowing out the other person’s candle will not make yours shine brighter…”

I’m one of those mental characters who celebrates others’ good fortune more than those persons themselves, and what grates on me is when people cannot be happy for the success of another.

Envy is an emotion which is natural in everyone. Wikipedia describe it as occurring “when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement or possession and either desires it or wishes the other lacked it”.

I do not have a problem with desiring to possess good that I see in others for myself, be it in qualities, achievements or possessions. A moderate dose of envy could be a motivating factor or catalyst to achieving your goals. Those who have achieved more than me inspire me to be more than I am. But I am not going to injure another in order to gain, nor am I going to wish misfortune on those who have what I want or desire.

It is absolutely exhausting to be envious of another person.
At the end of it all, the envier is more affected by it than the one envied.  

Sunday 12 April 2015

D is for Dreams

I cannot wait to go to bed at night. Not only for the “dear repose for limbs with travel tired” but for the “journey in my head, to work my mind when body’s work’s expired”.

The title of this post does not refer to aspirations or goals, but refers to the journeys my thoughts take when I close my eyes at the end of every day. I’m not sure whether everyone experiences dreams the same way, but mine are very sensory and real, as though I were transported into another reality. I feel every touch, I smell every smell, and I feel…every single emotion, amplified times ten. Some things I have yet to experience in life, I have had a taste of through my dreams.

Dreams have been the inspiration for most of my attempts at fiction. And I suppose if I want to become better at my craft, I need to progress to drawing my inspiration from real life and actual experiences.

But this is a process, and not one that should be rushed. And while I amble through it, I happily welcome Nature’s soft nurse, to weigh my eyelids down and steep my senses in dreamy bliss.

C is for Challenge

Every child experiences a period where they want to hide from things that are challenging – whether it is school related, or peer related, or whatever – of which the time and duration is different for everyone.

For me this lasted very long, into a time where a person should have developed some kind of common sense but still be brave enough to take on new challenges.
My resistance to challenges was amplified, I believe, by a combination of things – growing up in a very sheltered existence, an unhealthy attitude towards failure, not really having to struggle for things, not wanting to attract negative attention, not wanting to be ridiculed. Despite normal adolescent issues, I’ve never really had to (or wanted to) fight for anything, and I kind of floated through those years, contented to be content and under the radar.

While this kind of approach may protect you from extreme disappointment, it also deprives you from experiencing overwhelming happiness and a great sense of achievement. It took a long time for me to realize that the most difficult and challenging experiences, more so than easy successes, have made me discover my strengths and abilities (some that I never thought possible for me to possess).


This may have come at an unusually late stage in my life, but I am happy to at last be in a space where I am not afraid to say, “Bring it on!”

B is for Bride

I spent four days with the family of a very good friend of mine who got married two Saturdays ago.
My connection to this family is not through the Bride though – I have been friends with one of her older sisters for seventeen years, and almost immediately from the start of my friendship with her, I was welcomed into their home like another daughter.
The Bride was thirteen years old, when her sister and I became friends, and after her sister got married and had children, myself and said Bride became closer as friends too.

Those of you who are Indian and who have friends who are Indian will know that an Indian wedding is a marathon, not a sprint. There are many little functions and events that happen during the week leading up to the wedding. Lots of fun, as all the family gathers to celebrate, but also a fertile breeding ground for petty squabbles and unnecessary drama.

Something that has always been a bitter pill for me swallow is my community’s tendency to measure a woman’s worth by her marital status. This is actually something that the Bride and I have lamented to each other many times. Every achievement you have ever earned gets overlooked when they hear you are a certain age and unmarried. The evening before the wedding, I managed to get the Bride alone (with her best friend) and it gave me an opportunity to tell her how proud I was of her, for all that she has achieved professionally (passed the bar exam at 22 and at 30, she is an associate at her law firm), for the way in which she has looked after and preserved herself (her virtue and, more importantly, reputation and dignity is beyond question), and mostly for not succumbing to her family or society’s pressure to marry before she was ready and before she had found the right person for her.

The morning of her wedding, we all gathered at the local mosque to bear witness to the marriage ceremony (called nikāh in Arabic).
I watched her as we heard her fiancé utter the words that would make her his wife…the happiness brimming over her eyelids outshone the breath taking bridal dress she was wearing, and I lost the battle against my tears. As the groom gazed upon her for the first time as his wife, I was absolutely certain my ribcage would shatter trying to contain the happiness that welled up in me.


Those looks remained on their faces for the rest of the day. And my prayer is that in the face of all the challenges they will undoubtedly face, that they would still be able to look upon each other as they did that day.

Wednesday 8 April 2015

A – Aunt


Inspired by my Twuddie, @HiddlestonedZelda, I have decided to try the A-Z Blogger's Challenge for the month of April. I've been in a bit of a funk as regards my writing, so thank you Z, for this - hopefully it will help to unblock.

I have 21 nieces and nephews. Yep, you read that correctly. Twenty one. Three times seven. Yes, they are the children of my brothers and sisters (not cousins). And yes, I know all of their names, birthdays and ages.
I became an aunt for the first time one month before my fifth birthday. Even though I was so little, I still have memories of my sister’s pregnancy. The next came two years later, and the rest of them came almost every year after that. Our family’s eldest grandchild is 27 years old, and a doctor, and our youngest is 5, just starting school.

I have a different relationship with each of them. Some are like younger siblings, because of the close proximity of our ages or because of my youthful personality (the teens come to mind here). The little ones regard me in a parental light.

One of my nieces was my guinea pig – I learnt how to look after babies and children with her, and even though I am only fifteen years older than her, she calls me her other mom. She is the only one whom I’ve had a very active hand in raising, and even though she is 17 now, I still regard her as my baby. A title she now has to share with our youngest, who, along with his sister, stayed with us two years ago while their parents were on pilgrimage. He was 3 years old at the time, and it was the first time ever that he was away from his parents, so naturally, it was going to be a struggle. And we had to come up with creative ideas to get him in a compliant frame of mind – as a result, I had to memorise the Pitch Perfect soundtrack so I could sing it to him at bath time and read Cat in the Hat every night for 6 weeks. All the things I learnt with the 17 year old came in handy with the 3 year old.

In some way, shape or form, I have been a parent to 21, and I am happy for the roles I have played and get to play in their lives (baker, tutor, potty-trainer, financial adviser, career counsellor, hairdresser, stylist, chef, nurse…the list is endless).

I have yet to experience motherhood for myself. But if it so happens that I leave this world without experiencing it, I won’t be too disappointed.


And I am extremely excited, because soon I’ll be able to be all of this for number 22.