For the past hmm 20 years year, my goals have always been focused on school or finding a job.

I have a longer list in my notebook, so i’ll break down here.

Watch my health. Learn how to cook. Travel.

http://artipatel.tumblr.com/

So at work I had to research mom blogs and noticed there were not too many coloured mommy bloggers. At least in Canada. So this got me thinking of what an Indian mommy blog would look like at least my Indian mommy blog:

Today is Friday and I made channa masala and my daughter attempted to make roti but it came out as squares story of my life 

Hey blog world, today is Saturday morning, I had some chai and decided to watch KKKG for the 100th time with my son, I had to change the channel when anything remotely sexual came on, I can’t let my kids know the truth.

Hey tweeps no wait this is a blog, hey blog world, it is Sunday and my daughter decided to spill nail polish on my brand new dresser so I had to kick her ass.

Yeah, the last part did happen to me and my mom did kick my ass back then but…I don’t think any mom would be blogging about hitting their kids.

Alright now back up a bit, I am obviously against any type of violence against women/children/men/people/animals and everything else and at no point am I endorsing the idea that my mom kicked my ass, but she did, so I will blog about it. Hmm and I wouldn’t consider this abuse, actually maybe I would, I didn’t as a kid, I thought it was normal, at least to all my Indian friends it was.

I used to watch hours of tv and movies and see kids get time outs and be grounded and I would always wonder why my mom would rather hit me with a broom or lock me in a basement. Did this toughen me up? Well duh look at me, I am so tough now. No, but it did scare me…and it worked. I would be scared of my parents and some of my uncles. With their deep manly voices, actually deep manly voices still freak me out.

I remember in class one day (at Ryerson, I will miss you), Caribbean class or something, we talked about parents hitting their kids at home and half of the class was in shock by the videos. Some of just sat there and laughed…and told stories about getting chased and hit by all sorts of objects. It happens, you cry and then learn – or so they said.

Would I do this? No probably not.  I don’t think hitting kids will teach them to behave, because no matter how many times my parents yelled or hit me, I would still do whatever it was I was doing. It also shows a really nasty anger side and this really has an effect on kids growing up. I would never say I was abused though, but it def was punishment. Hitting kids (like with a broom or chasing them or locking them in basement) yes this all happened to me…is almost a cultural norm, in my household at least – and a lot of other South Asians I know. Do I justify this because of that? No. But I grew up in a different household and had no power growing up. (Hey women and girls have no power remember? Barf*)

My mom hasn’t hit me in like a million years. I was probably eight or nine  the last time. She really can’t do that to me ever again unless I rob a bank or get pregnant or something, or worse date a Muslim guy. (dun dun dun dun dun). 

My kids? Well they will have a timeout and go to sleep…no I don’t know I am just saying whatever, just like many of my blog post this has no conclusion…or point really. When I’m 35 I will figure that out.

Goodnight.

When I went to India for the first time I saw so many people lighter and darker than I was. Maybe this is a good time to point out that growing up I really didn’t have brown friends and one black one, sorry diversity, I tried. Mind you I was like 5. This lady who lived near us (in India) always used to tell me how she will never be married because she was so dark, wtf was a 5 year old girl supposed to think about that? She is married now, but her marriage can be a blog post on its own.

But coming back, my ideas were the same. Growing up I loved the typical white popstars and destiny’s child, hit list what what and of course my friends were still the same. Lighter skinned girls to me looked better, could dress better because they could pull off any colour, I remember getting so excited wearing something bright pink because I remember seeing it on a white person. My life was sad at 8. LOL.

You know fast forward all these years later and it wasn’t really until  high school really I actually liked that I was a brown and realized how my strange orange-yellow-toned skin was actually something I could live with. Forget all that fair and lovely crap and Bollywood stars suddenly turning white yeah you can Google that, I am past this stage. I think this is called Shadeism. Whatever it is called, it exists and still this stigma of, you know what I am not even going to call it a stigma because I don’t get it.

Even today, going outside, I am constantly reminded not to get too dark. Or everyone around me doesn’t want to get too dark. Except my white friends who love to get their tan on. I love tans. I guess you can talk about this, in so many angles and in so many ways but if you feel like you hate the colour of your skin, I feel yeah, that was me. If you love it, I am jealous I didn’t figure it out a long time ago. And I am not writing all this so you can say sorry or feel sympathy I was like 6 and thought dinosaurs would come back and babies grew from a seed. Grade four shattered a lot of dreams.

So moral of the story kids, love your skin, its the only skin you have. Unless you tattoo yourself blue or something, you can love that as well. I wonder if anyone ever reads these blogs to the end?

Yo, I chose this photo because I went to the beach to tan and it was nice.

So everything seems to be breaking in the past few days. My router broke, my internet had problems, no more TV and right now as I type this I just witnessed the front frame of my bed fall off (and no it wasn’t because I was too big for my bed ha ha ha ).

I realize how freaking dependent I am with technology, especially when the blackberry turns off, while I’m still outside, so I can’t even charge it. My friend Peter calls my phone a budget berry. He is right. Since yesterday once it hits a yellow bar, it just turns off.

But that’s another problem on its own. What I really have realized is how distracted I am with my phone. When I see those teeny boppers at the mall with their Hollister t-shirts walking with their phones in hand and not watching which way they are walking, I often think to myself, in my head, we all talk to ourselves that will come on later in the post, and think wow these kids are annoying one day they might just get hit by a car. Sorry in all my death scenarios people get hit by cars .

The sad part of the above statement is that this getting-hit-by-a-car-tween is now me, but older, more unaware and really just into her bbm. I almost fall into ditches all the time what’s up with all these holes in Toronto, I bump into people, bikes and dogs, and I even get lost sometimes walking to random streets because I am SO busy on the phone.

So today as I was walking home my phone died. I didn’t hear Bruno Mars proposing to me, no friends to catch up with and no bbm/email/brick breaker I suck at this or status creeping and reading about people’s mood swings. I actually listened to my surroundings, I could hear people walking behind me, I could see them as well. I could hear and see cars and bikes making turns, hey I even started eavesdropping into some interesting chats about gardening and vintage clothing stores on Bloor St. W. And yes, I talked to myself, in my head, just about the weekend. I really hope everyone does this, my brain really is my only agenda. I even realized how many hipsters now live in the hood. Lots of them. their galleries and their fancy coffee shops. When did all of this happen to Parkdale/Dufferin? I also noticed how dirty Kent’s lawn was, I had a picture but again deleted off my phone like an idiot.

So now why that picture with my bike? Why did I choose this photo besides that fact that I had no picture of me walking?Well I think when I’m biking, I really am at a state where I’m not distracted, if I was I would probably get hit by a car or hit a pedestrian.