Stopped Searching

Sometime I ask you things that I can easily find on the Internet. I ask you via the Internet on chat. I ask you things you previously told me via an online chat. When you are away or offline, I wait till you return. I never resort to looking for it on my own.

p.s: Don’t tell anyone where I work.

Composting in NYC

I thought before I gave my two cents on How to Compost, I’d direct those interested to easily available resources here in New York City. The go-to site is http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/compost/composting_nyc.shtml. It gives easy to understand instructions about both indoor and outdoor composting. The Lower East Side Ecology Center (LESEC) runs the Manhattan Compost Project and you can find where composting workshops are held here. I attended mine last year for a mere $5. You can certainly make your own worm bin but they sell discounted worm bins either right after a workshop or give you a coupon for a discounted bin which you can pick up later at the Union Square greenmarket. The worm bins are very well made with built-in air vents and prevent odors. The LESEC also has a composting hotline at 212-477-3155 where you can call should you have pressing questions. Don’t laugh – I once spent a sleepless night wondering about the excessive condensation in my worm bin. Don’t get too excited though; they only answer questions Monday through Friday.

You can also buy a pound of worms (about a 1000) along with the bin for about $44. I remember the chilly Fall day I bought this and couldn’t find a cab so took the subway as usual. This is NY so you can never be too unconventional and no one is bothered enough to get curious but I reckon even the most blase New Yorker would’ve thrown a fit if they knew they had worms as co-passengers.

Reducing waste a thousand times over

In the last few months of deafening silence, I’ve had about a thousand silent guests in my home doing some very important work. Reducing waste that would go to landfills. You’ve guessed by now – I’m talking about worms. Oh, you didn’t guess?

Back tracking a little, I took a composting class in downtown NYC where some very capable instructors took us through the How-tos of composting. We walked through what can and cannot be composted, how to start and then finally, how to harvest the vermicompost. A fortnight later I was the proud owner of a worm bin and a pound of worms – which is about a thousand. Don’t balk – thousand is not much. They can only go through about 3 lbs of food scrap a week, way less than an average household that cooks produces. And we cook every day. Below in pictures are the step-by-step of how I went about setting the worm bin up.

1. Shred newspapers into strips. Color is fine but stay away from glossy/ thick paper.
   
2. Wet the newspaper in a bucket of water and wring it out completely.
   
3. Get 1 year old daughter and cat to help with the project
   
4. Fill up about 3/4^th of the worm bin with these newspapers.
5. Empty the worms in! red wiggler worms work well for indoor composting. If you are composting outdoors it means you have all sorts of great worms and bugs and you have enough space so I don’t want to talk to you.
6. Start feeding your worms!

You can feed the worms everyday but like I mentioned earlier since they can only eat about 3 lbs a week, it’s easy to lose sight of how much you’re feeding them. Just like not feeding enough is dangerous, over feeding is also a no-no. so I feed them once a week, about 3 lbs worth and check on them. You can add additional newspaper bedding if it looks low.

My worms, I’m proud to say are a composting machine. They are translucent so you can actually watch the compost travel through them from top to bottom. Clearly you can I see I have lost all the initial queasineess I might have had around worms and such. And you should too. Composting has been going great and in fact I am really close to harvesting. Next up some troubleshooting and tips. Remember, trash talk but don’t trash!

A little green, a little grey

If I am so green, then why is everything so grey. And by that I don’t mean my mood or outlook, just that being green is not cut and dried. The more you read, the more you know, but the harder it is to take decisions. In some ways I wish the gurus would give me really exact advice like- use 32 plastic bags in a year because 1 more and it will cause a continental shift. Or don’t bother with worms and composting, food scraps are favorable to landfills (I think my family desperately wants me to believe this). For instance, cotton uses less resources to maintain over its lifetime but growing cotton takes tons of energy – then, what is the right choice – cotton or synthetic? Same goes for paper vs. plastic etc. It’s getting really hard to draw a line in the sand as to what works and what doesn’t. Or more importantly in trying to live practical, urban lives, what are the things we can let go off while diligently doing the others? I wrote here about how a lot of the little things don’t add up – morally, they work. They make us more conscientious and humane, so I’m not knocking them but they don’t scale. Here’s a site attempting to answer some of it: I think all moms will appreciate this.

Diapers: Cloth or Disposable?

In the grand scheme of things, the debate over the relative merits of cloth versus disposable diapers, like the one over paper versus plastic bags, tends to arouse passions out of proportion to its significance.
In 2005, the U.K Environmental Agency attempted to settle the question once and for all. The verdict? It doesn’t matter. No really, it doesn’t. Both manufacturers and parents could do more to reduce their ecological impact, but the choice between cloth and disposable is one of personal preference.

 

MM wrote about wanting to separate recycling but the garbage man thwarting her efforts. So MM, I am not entirely sure about Delhi but Bombay is the absolute epitome of recycling. One walk through Dharavi (which btw, calling it a slum is a giant misnomer) shows a thriving recycling industry. India has been recycling for eons before the word was coined or before it became fashionable. It was and is still done in a slightly inefficient way through rag pickers but the sheer volume available labour makes this surprisingly scalable. In Dharavi I saw bottle caps being color coded and separated, plastic beaten down and finally sourced to manufacturers. It is intuitive that historically poorer countries value their assets more and recycling came naturally. Little surprise, US and China are the biggest polluters and wasters. This doesn’t mean India shouldn’t up its ante – this article talks about the hazards of humans recycling dangerous trash and some new regulations for modernizing recycling.

But MM and Sue – keep me posted on how this develops and if you see changes that reach you. But also rest easy – our people don’t let much go to waste

Finally, I am trying to keep track of design innovations that help what you buy last longer. In a consumerist culture where the dollar is powerful and everything is replaceable, designing for use or even just for fun might be a clever way of elongating an object’s lifetime value. Take for instance a pizza box – it literally gets used and dumped within an hour. It’s a decent amount of cardboard that might not necessarily get recycled, especially because many states in the US don’t want you throwing greasy, food stained stuff in the recycle machine (food is a big contaminator and deterrent). Here’s an awesome pizza box that can be used for lunch the next day or serves as plates for you and your friends. And it stays in your fridge just a little longer and gets to the landfill just a little slower.

Talking Trash

The NY Times is especially adept at taking precisely 3 people who are inspired by the same idea and crafting a compelling agenda about how everyone is doing that or at least should be doing that. Lately, they have really been going at consumption. I’m not complaining – they usually get me and I feel like the last person in the know.  By now anyone who knows someone who knows someone else who reads their RSS feeds from NYtimes.com has read this article – Tammy Stroble and her husband now live in a 400 sq ft apartment. They own 100 things total. TOTAL. Yes, counting their tooth-brush and dog leash. (do they count the dog?)

Couple that with the others articles and people/ blogs I follow like No Impact Man, Michael Pollen, Wasted Food (love this blog), our government and my own father-in-law who is a horticulturist and knowledgeable about all things composting (worms!), it’s hard not to feel like I am doing nothing. Going green is too ubiquitous and turning off lights and cranking down your tap doesn’t scale. It feels good but it doesn’t scale. Few things do. So in terms of scale in my own life, I did take one thing away. Make less trash.

And you know what, that is SO hard. SO SO hard. Even those of us that are passionate about REcycling and REusing don’t do one thing very well – REducing. I often hear the same people who recycle talk about being shopaholics. I’m not being judgy-wudgy. I get it – It’s because these dots don’t connect easily. We don’t connect consumption to going green. We just go buy more eco-friendly bags. We just conscientiously throw our print-outs in the recycle bin. Clearly it starts with buying, accumulating and then burdening the environment with the waste. It still takes energy to recycle, much more than it does to consume. I mean all consumption – food, energy, water, plastic, clothes. There are nuances of course: veggies versus meat, cotton versus nylon but consumption is a leveler. Consumption translates to impact on the environment; there’s no getting away from it.

So for my part I have some very non HD photos of my trash. The picturesque plastic bag holds my food scraps from cooking or leftovers. The 2 Whole Foods paper bags hold all that’s recyclable in my building – plastic, metal, glass and paper. The large trash can is well – empty.

Here’s my goal: Keep the large trash can empty. What goes in there is assumed to be the most impactful – there are a few culprits that are hard to recycle or get rid of (I’m looking at you STYROFOAM). Keep the trash to a minimum. Start composting with the biodegradable stuff (worms! a one year old!). And do a little empirical experiment of my own to see the patterns in my trash which of course will reveal my patterns of consumption. Then it comes to whether I will reveal that to you, or anyone. In some ways, isn’t our trash the most personal of all things? An eye into our life, our habits. You can look into my trash and see how much I cook, how much I order in. My bills and receipts. My birth control or lack thereof. How much I waste, how unsentimental I am and about what. Love letters and shredded pay checks.

This is an experiment in trash talk. Stay Tuned.

Yesterday

It made me smile yesterday when I saw a pretty girl with long legs wearing a very short skirt but holding down her hem ever so often. I thought – she should wear a short skirt, enjoy the attention and forget about it or not wear it at all. Then I thought about the times I show cleavage and fidget endlessly. Often the pervert constantly looking down my blouse is me.

It made me sad a few minutes later to see a elderly lady driving the roads of Manhattan with a spoon in her mouth. Only, it was a thermometer. She had a thermometer in her mouth, one hand on her forehead and the free hand on the steering wheel. I hope that she made a U-turn and went home to a cool house, warm tea and someone who whooped for joy to see her back.

Bollywood for Children

This is not necessarily in response to MM’s 90s songs post but certainly inspired by it. While for most people it brought back memories of a decade ago, for me it brought back one of a month ago. While in India on maternity we re-watched many “classics”, cringed through the yellow plastic earrings and perm hair. For my gora husband many of these were a firsttime watch, not reminisces. Imagine my surprise when he sings to Mishki…Twinkle Twinke Little Star …you’ll learn this soon enough when….you watch Maine Pyar Kiya!!!

Tell the truth now, how many of you instantly know what he’s referring to? Yes, it’s the background music everytime they flashback to a kiddie Salman asking for chocolate from his uncle Alok Nath and they replay it when Salman re-renters their life as his daughter’s beau.

MPK for all of us was many things – Salman’s dashing debut, one-hit wonder Bhagyashree, a pigeon with amazing sense of direction, a harbinger for Hum Apke Hain Kaun and family values, knowing that pretending to be a cripple is the most underhanded thing EVER…but it took a first-time watcher to make it a movie that introduces his infant to this most revered nursery rhyme.

Bollywood, your breadth knows no bounds. Salut!

You have to skip to 3:16 to get to the good part here, although Reema Lagoo giving her future bahu her choodis is also priceless.

Boobs!

Ok, now that I have your attention.

 

I’ve been at my parents’ in Bombay for the last month and living in my maika allows me to live sans phone, internet and well, responsibilities. As a nursing machine for my 3-month old I don’t get out much. So I live a retired pensioners life along with my parents instead of the happening clubbing youngster life every other Mumbaiker does. OK I’m not a happening clubbing youngster anyway but one can pretend. I’d be lying if I said I felt like I was missing out – we eat at home, my splurges are on childhood memories such as Appy and my daily outing is to the local gym where sweet gujju aunties come work out alongside in salwars and sneakers. No I’m not being malicious, I love it. I love not being part of the trappings of hanging out in the latest bars, shopping at the sprawling malls (I know - sprawling is a word used a bit too generously for Mumbai) and not spending thousands on a night. My big outing for the week is a thali lunch at the Gujarati club which allows non-Gujaratis – gasp! – to eat there on Sundays. The line is long and you have to put your name down and everything. It’s nerve-wracking. Yes I’m a stodgy, behind-the-times NRI stewing in nostalgia, so sue me. On another note, I should’ve been born Gujju….NM, are you listening?

 

Anyway, the subject of the post wasn’t in vain. I am hollering to new moms or those whose boobs stayed much the same after they became old moms. This seems a timely conversation in the midst of the “what colour bra are you wearing” campaign which I entirely missed living under aforementioned rock. So cut to the chase, my boobs are gynormous. They started getting that way while I was pregnant. From Bs, I started entering D territory and wondered how long it would take my spine to crack under the weight. And then when someone suggested that they would get only bigger once I started nursing, I kept the number for the Guiness Records handy. No sense wasting the gift.

 

Living in the US, I’ve always had a problem with sizes. Due to my height and frame, I needed an XS or S top. But wouldn’t you know it – American girls that size have peanuts for boobs, not Bs. So I needed a M for boobs. Much joy when I found a S top which allowed for what I had. And horror, I didn’t need pushing up or padding. I think we all know now that Victoria’s secret is that she doesn’t acknowledge women who nurse, only those who need bras that double up as bullet-proof vests. In all the optimism that giving birth affords, I thought – surely in India tops are built for Indian women. Who are shorter, petite but dude…have BOOBS. But noooooooooo, same to same problem. I went to buy kurtis, perfect on shoulders and in height but pressed my boobs so they threatened to spill out of the sleeves.

 

So Indian women, speak up! in India and abroad, where are you buying clothes once you become mothers? Tell me I’m not alone. I just let it all hang out. 

A birth as it should be

My dear Mishki,

I wrote this soon after you were born. It is the typical self-centred convoluted sort of thought process and reaction I’ve had to most setbacks in life. And I thought some more and decided that you deserve better. You deserve a mother who is a role model. If you watched a beauty paegent (please don’t) you’d think this is most natural and obvious – your mother being your role model. Life sometimes works differently. Relationships emerge differently. One thing I know from my own life is that while I appreciate the spontaneity and natural evolution of parent-child bonds, setting a foundation is paramount. I dare say I lacked it in my own upbringing. But there I go again – this is not about me. This is a story for you. It begins with you and ends with you.

Your (now) father and I spawned you quickly. When people ask how long we “tried” (a phrase that makes your father cringe), I usually say 20 minutes. They look at me mouth agape and I say “OK, 10. I was sleepy.” Needless to say these very words will make you cringe. Hah too bad. When I learned we were pregnant I didn’t think much about birth experiences. I had read enough mommy blogs to know many women had c-sections, that they were on the rise and there was a lot of conflict about why this was an unpleasant phenomenon. Around my 4^th month I started getting interested in natural birth. Since you will be growing up in close proximity to your parents you will soon see why this was not a stretch for us. We even considered a home birth, crunchy couple that we are. We read, we took classes, we were prepped for everything au natural.

My fondest memories of you are from when you were in my belly. Your drum-like rhythmic kicks and the way you swam around making my whole tummy contort, especially during weekly status meetings at work. My favorite by far though are the many miles we walked together. You and me. To and fro from prenatal yoga. To and from from bus stops to the subway. To the grocery store and to movies. Out in the open but a completely private time. Sometimes you made it known you were awake and ready for the ride, sometimes you snoozed, the rhythmic movement of my steps comforting you. When I got down on all fours in yoga and rocked, I imagined rocking you. When the room reverberated with Ommmmmmmm, I thought of you soothed by the vibrations. And then that fine day when you decided it was time, I was still walking. Walking with your grandmother towards the museum, past central park. What a little New Yorker baby you are. What a little woman of the world!

My sweet Mishki , you worked so hard. You worked with Amma to come down. All 9 lbs of you. Yes you big baby. You stretched amma’s uterus to its fullest. You challenged my body and mind. My body obliged achingly, my mind had trouble grappling with the vast expanse that was you. Still, we tried. Valiantly we moaned through contractions. We breathed with our stomachs the way we learned at yoga. You were (are) so long, even while you were descending into my cervix, I could still feel your feet at my ribs. You made your Amma work for you and she doesn’t regret it. When the dreaded c-section happened I knew there was one thing I dreaded more. Yes I’ll say it now – I dreaded a son. But no! You sneaky little thing were the girl I wanted all along. When the doctor pulled your fat head out she gasped at the “big baby”. Your father however, said the 3 words I’d been waiting to hear all my life – “It’s a girl.”

You came out screaming bloody murder. I know crying when you’re born is a good sign but jeez did you make your point. I, well, I sobbed like a baby. The tears flowed freely and I wailed. We both looked at you in wonder – how did this child fit inside me was our first thought. When I finally had sensation in my arms and they gave you to me, you searched for food and assured me with your strong suckle. Even now when you feed, you suckle like an efficient machine. With big noisy gulps like “6 pigs eating” as your grandma says.

I won’t forget my birth experience Mishki. And I won’t stop feeling that I wanted something entirely different. But never confuse that with you or your entry into this world. You came in strong and screaming, ready to take on whatever was in store. Even now we call you “the beast”. Yes, we’re sweet that way. Somehow I know you’ll fit in with us, your green parents with our irreverent sense of humor and lack of sense of grandiose.  And if you don’t, too bad, we’ll keep you anyway.

Sometimes when I succumb to those feelings that engulfed me the first 2 weeks I recall what Appa said and it gives me solace “You still birthed this baby.” I still birthed you. And you’re all mine.

 

A birth interrupted

Written four weeks ago:

I debated long and hard about how to write this post.  I found some words, scratched those, formed others. I thought about my blog friends, my few readers. What they’d say. How they’d compare this to their own experience. Most of all, I debated long and hard about whether to write at all. The last week has been both the most fulfilling and disappointing of my life.  Accordingly, my words are dichotomous, my feelings fragmented, my thoughts fuzzy. My daughter was born a week ago.

There’s no running away from it. I detailed in black and white right here, what I thought about birth, how I hoped my child’s would be, what I believed, how I worked towards it and the vision that carried me through my pregnancy.

I decided to write both ways. First, the way, I GoTB react to it. React to most setbacks in life. Harshly, disdainfully, resignedly.

Labor started on Monday morning. It felt like cramps but when I went to the doc, she felt my tummy and said “you’re having contractions.” Yayy! This is what I had wanted – a natural start without any induction. Once again she said I was going to have a good size baby 8.5-9 lb! I laughed it off. You just have to see my 5 ft, 3 frame to know how impossible that sounded. Regardless, I was determined. I had learned size was not anything to fear in labor. My mother-in-law pushed a 10 lb baby out without drugs. That baby is married to me now. So my mom and I carried on with our morning – her a bit tentatively, me cheerfully. I took her to the MET. Of course it was closed for the Monday. At this point, the contractions were getting a little harder to manage so we took a cab home. I told her I was taking a nap and started breathing and managing my contractions the Bradley way. I counted breaths, I stayed hydrated and I timed my contractions. I walked, I climbed stairs, all in an effort to bring the baby down. At 3 pm my water broke and I asked my husband to come home. There was some meconium in my water but it didn’t upset me too much. I called the nurse – she asked me to come in but I told her I wanted to labor at home a bit longer. She seemed concerned – contractions were now 5 mins apart so said ok- just 2 more hours. Almost exactly 2 hours later we left for the hospital. I was in it intensely now. I was in the zone. I took my electrolyte drinks, ate and left. At the hospital I stayed calm through admission but threw up promptly as we got to our room. We refused IV but got hooked to the fetal monitor. At this point I could no longer talk but stayed focused only on my husband. He counted breaths through contractions with me – he was my rock, everything I could ask for. We were going on about the 15^th hour of labor now, about 6-7 of those active and intense. I started getting back pain and suspected that the baby was posterior i.e. sunny side up. I couldn’t believe it – all the prenatal yoga, watching my posture – even at 36 weeks she was anterior in her ultrasound. What happened?? The doctor came in and confirmed – yes, baby was posterior. Now I was about 8-9 cms but had some work to do . Baby had to turn and descend.

Contractions were coming in every 30 seconds, which basically meant on top of each other with no break and were 80 to 90 seconds long. I looked at my husband, defeated and begged for pain medication. He looked me in the eye and asked me to tell him if I really did. No he wasn’t being hard on me. I had drilled it into him not to take my pleas at face value and to help me get past self doubt. But I was sure. I took the epidural in tears, ashamed at my lack of strength. The night was spent on all fours trying to turn the baby. In the wee hours of the morning the doctor came back. I was still at 9 cms. An hour later, no change.

Then I heard the words I hadn’t prepared for. Not once in the nine months leading up to this moment. She said the baby was not descending and I had to have a c-section. My mind blurred. Surely, this couldn’t be happening to me. Not after everything I had visualized, what I’d planned. The dim realization that a birth could not be planned occurred much later. We asked for my OB – she was at home. We were just asking her for her second opinion. Instead to our surprise she said she was coming in. On seeing her I burst into a fresh set of tears. She said how surprised she was to see me still laboring. She was so sure I would have had the baby by now. You and me both, sister.

But she concurred with the advice – c-sec was the way to go. She felt the baby was too big to fit down through me. And so I was cut open and my baby girl was delivered to me. I was numb with drugs and couldn’t even hold my arms out to hold her. Yes she is my joy and makes every day of the nine months and 30 years of life prior worth it. But it doesn’t change my birth experience from being traumatic. It doesn’t make me stop feeling like a failure. I join the ranks of hundreds of such women, and still I am alone in my grief. I mourn this privately lest someone take it as ingratitude for a healthy child. To those who chide me I have no words. All I can say is you don’t know. You don’t know what it is to come so close to birthing the baby you’ve carried for nine months only to have her delivered to you like a package. You don’t know how excluded I feel from my own baby’s birth. You don’t know how it feels to know that what’s most natural turned out to be the most impossible.

Coming soon: the post I should be writing.