A pleasure I wasn't lucky to have - having a daughter.

A pleasure I wasn't lucky to have - having a daughter. 

I have 2 sons & while I love them to bits, I have always yearned for a daughter.

Our 1st kid was born 8 years into our marriage. By that time, we had given up hope & we were looking at adoption options. And then we got lucky - we are going to be parents. Name searching was first on the to-do list. 

I was convinced it will be a girl. So I didn't think up any boy names (my wife did - it's not without reason we say that women are smarter).

My name choices were the girls that influenced me in my life. Actually that's bullcrap. I just listed out the names of the girls I had a crush on. :-)

So Sangeeta (my very very super senior in Ahmedabad), Ritu (my senior at Assam), Madhumita (my classmate at Assam), Rachel (my classmate at Kerala) all figured in the list of probable names.

And then the first kid was born - a boy. Wifey promptly named him Aman - she is a Shahrukh fan & that's the name he used in some movie. 

We aren't even thinking of a 2nd kid, but 4 years later, again we get lucky. I dust up Sangeeta, Ritu, Madhumita etc, but wifey looks up boy names.

Another boy. He is promptly named Ishaan - a Shahrukh movie name ? Don't know. 

Anyway by this time we are too old to bring up a 3rd kid. So my dream of having a girl kid ends there.

Those of you who have a girl, you guys are lucky. A girl is a treasure - cherish her like one. 👍

Teaching Aman to blog

Aman wanted to know how one could blog on the internet.
This post is only to let Aman know how a post is done.

The above picture was taken at Giethoorn, The Netherlands.

It has no connection to the blog. Just added it to show Aman how a picture can be added to a post. 

A hunky SUVs, some offroading etc

Today I thought I would walk around the Airport area itself. I am staying at the Sheraton which is bang opposite the airport - not even a 5 minute walk. So, I take off after lunch, sticking to the cycle / pedestrian lanes, slowly leaving the Hotel behind. I see a rabbit (or is it a hare) scamper and get inside a burrow, like the prairie dogs I saw at Denver. Waited for some time for it to come out, with no luck. 

Anyway I continue walking and I should be like 2kms away the hotel when I come to a junction with big buildings - one of them being the Microsoft office. I click  few snaps and wait there thinking whether to return back to the hotel or continue forward. 

That is when I see a hunky blue SUV cross by. I think I have seen the same one earlier and glance back to look at it. There is something written in dutch on it, which I assume (wrongly, as I learn later) to be the name of the company it belongs to (that part was correct). As I glance at it, the occupants (2 males) in the front seat look back at me. 

And then I see them slow down and take an illegal U-turn on the road itself, which surprises me because folks don't drive like that here. And what the driver does next zaps me. After coming over to my side of the road, he just drives the SUV over the grassy stretch separating the road and the pavement I am standing on, gets onto the cycling track and stops near me. 

Now, this is not an offroading range for someone to try such driving. So, realization immediately dawns on me. It is the local cops. Well....

As I stand there, the Jeep parks a little away from me. While I am wondering what it is that I did wrong, the cop in the passenger seat jumps out and comes towards me, saying, "Hello". I wish him back and ask him if there is any problem. 

He asks me a series of questions, "Why am I walking around here?", "Am I alone?", "Where do I stay?", "What am I in Netherlands for?" etc etc. I tell him that I am here on work, am staying at the Sheraton nearby and I am alone. He asks for an ID and I show him my passport. He wants a business card - I hand over one. He takes these to the guy driving the SUV - they talk for a couple of minutes and then he returns the documents to me. 

He tells me that everything is OK. I ask him if it is not right to walk around. He says it is perfectly OK to walk around, but with the threat of terrorists, they have to be careful and thus the quick check. He adds. "It is nothing personal". 

Throughout the conversation, he was polite in his conversation. And thank God he knew English (pretty fluent too), else I would have had a tough time explaining myself. 

Note to self : Blue is not just KLM's colour. But also that of the local police and their uniforms. :-)

Back in Europe. My favourite place on earth, after India.

I landed in Amsterdam on the morning of 15th November and will be here till the 20th when I move to Belgium for a week. The last time I was in Amsterdam was in 1998, when me & some friends drove down from Belgium. But that was to the Amsterdam Central area which is where all the action is.

This was my first touch-down at Amsterdam Schiphol airport which is a pretty funky airport. For one thing, when you land, you can see freshly ploughed fields just near the runway, which was pretty cool because usually the runway is kind of fenced off. And the other interesting thing is that Schipol is not just an airport.
It is also the train station from where you can take local and international trains. And it also has a big shopping area inside with a variety of dining options.

One of my favourite things to do in a new place, is to walk around and explore the place on foot. While this is comparitively tougher to do in winter, it becomes even worse if it is raining. And from the time I landed here yesterday, it has been drizzling almost all day. But the good side is that the drizzle is mild and nothing to drench you. 

Yesterday I caught a train from inside Schipol Airport to Amsterdam Centraal and walked around the whole place. Like last time, the canal-network reminds me of Alappuzha. If only our government were to take some effort, it won't be long before the canal-network of Alappuzha could be a big selling point. 

Anyway, I am enjoying my time here and the food, especially the wide variety of breads/croissants available for breakfast. My last visit to Belgium was in 2002 and goes without saying that I am really looking forward to being back there this week. 

Contentment vs ambition.

Last weekend I was rummaging through the junk stacked in the terrace at our home in Kerala, looking for a
foldable kiddy-seat. We had thrown it there because it was not stable and Aman used to fall off it, when he
was a baby. Now, she had found some use for it and so the search.

Along with it, I found some other stuff that I knew the kids would find interesting - a toy-pistol, a plastic
cricket bat, a green Kawasaki Ninja replica bike, a toy binocular etc. I wash the dust of all of them and
immediately they are lapped up by Aman and Ishaan. While Aman takes the binocular and bat, Ishaan takes
the pistol and Ninja.

Ishaan is a sucker for bikes and cars and is already dreaming of riding my SheeBeeAar (as he pronounces CBR) to school when he grows up. Once the dust was washed off, the Ninja in its signature green colour was gleaming and for some time I was lost in the bike's looks.

Sheena looks enquiringly and I say, "I should have bought the Ninja, instead of the Honda CBR250".

The Ninja was the bike I wanted, but did not buy because I wasn't sure how serious a rider I was and also
the sales & service points were some 100 kms away in Trivandrum. It also cost double the CBR, but that
was worth it, since it is a direct import from Japan - quality would be better.

Sheena asks, "Do you regret buying the Honda ? Don't you like it ?"

"Well, I do like it and enjoy riding it. But since I keep automobiles for a long time, the next chance of buying
one would be light-years away, by which time I might be old to ride and thus I should have bought the one I
yearned for."

"Hmm, I thought we should be content with what we have."

"If you are content, there won't be a drive to achieve.", I reply, though I don't mean a word of it.

"I know only one person in this whole world who is absolutely content with what he has. And it is 
you."

She had the last word and she was right too. I am content with the CBR and the Ninja is just a fleeting wish.

Maybe once Aman & Ishaan grow up and reach riding age, I will get them a Ninja. And live my dream through them. That is, if Sheena allows it. No bikes for them, as per her. Due to safety issues. 

Where do they stash all this money ?

I am writing this from the 12695 Trivandrum Superfast to Kerala. OK, ignore the "Superfast" part, which as with most qualifiers used by Indian Railways, does not really mean what it is supposed to mean. Given that we have the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) and TGV running at close to 300kmph in Japan and Europe respectively, calling a train that does an average speed of 60kmph (922kms in 15 hours) as Superfast is the heights of imagination. I remember taking a Shinkansen from Tokyo to a customer place some 800kms away and reaching in 3 hours. Now, that is superfast. 

Anyway, coming back to topic, as is common with most Indians, an elderly gentleman is yakking away on the mobile phone. In a voice loud enough for people sitting couple cubes away to hear. Obviously we can't hear the response from the other side, but that does not matter. He is talking (shouting, would be more correct) : 

I have a nice land deal available for you. It is a 68 ground plot (one ground is like 5.5 cents) and the going rate is 3 Crores per ground. Which puts the total value of the land to a little over 200 crores. I can wring a good deal for you, but make note of the non-negotiable payment terms. I need 85 crore of it (which is the Government prescribed guideline value) in the form of a Demand Draft, with the rest in cash (black).  

Yes, he mentioned "black" and did not even lower his voice. 

200 Crores is a lot of money. And while I don't doubt the deal per se, I doubt any sane person would go around blabbering about such money with all to hear. Especially about the tax-evasion / black-money part. 

Anyway, assuming the deal was finalised at 200 crores, of which 85C was paid in the form of a DD, what about the rest of the 115C. Where would the seller stash such a lot of money ? Banks today won't take cash deposits of more than 50K. Actually even for that they will ask umpteen questions about the source of the money. So there is no way one can route it into the banking system. 

So, how will one manage such a lot of money without worrying about theft/burglary etc ? Or worse, getting into the hands of the taxman ?  Put it in a bank locker ? How much cash can a small locker hold ? Even assuming all the money is in the highest available 1000Rupee denomination, we are looking at 11,500 bundles of Rs1000 banknotes each. You will need many lockers. 

If at all you are planning to spend it, it will take a lot of shopping before one can exhaust it. The costliest car in India today would be yours for max. 6-7C, which still leaves a lot of money. I am getting a headache just thinking about it. But then I am glad I don't have that kind of money. And the accompanying stress.

Selective grief / outrage !!!

You see a puppy on the road groaning in pain after being hit by a car. Does your heart not go out to it automatically or do you grieve only after ascertaining its pedigree ?

What if you came across a suffering human (in person or on the news) ? Does his/her race / religion / ethnicity make any difference to your grief ? One would hope not.

So, it never ceases to amaze me when I see folks reserve their sorrow / emotions / empathy for only those that share their religion / language / ethnicity.     I mean, can we not just look at the unfortunate folks as humans, instead of bothering about their religion / ethnicity ?

Background for the above rant :
- Till recently, we had Muslims praying for the Muslims being killed in Gaza.
- Latest is Christians praying for Christians being killed in Iraq by ISIS.
- In the past we have had Tamils concerned about Tamilians suffering in SriLanka.
- Before that were voices concerned about Hindus being persecuted in Pakistan.

And so on ......................

How situations bring out the best/worst in you.

This happened a month or more ago. Sheena was returning from work & had boarded a train at Trivandrum Central and managed to find a seat and was looking forward to an uneventful 1-hour ride home. A lady boards the same compartment with her kids and they take some time to settle down in the available seats.

The lady is speaking Tamil and having spent quite some time in Chennai, Sheena can understand the language and can even hold a conversation. The lady is getting out foodstuffs / drinks for the kids to have during the journey and is addressing the kids very lovingly as Kanna, which is a synonym for Krishna and a common petname used by folks in Tamilnadu. Actually the other week, I heard my sister call her son as Kanna, and we are Christians. :-)

Anyway, what follows is a constant litany of "Kanna, come have this" or "Kanna, drink this" or "Kanna, why don't you go to the upper berth and lie down?" etc. Sheena sees how sweetly the lady is addressing her kids and mininstering to their needs with patience and starts feeling guilty thinking of the times when she has been angry with Aman/Ishaan or when she had berated them. Guilt turns to a silent determination to avoid hurting the kids and to instead be more patient with them henceforth.

Only a few more minutes for the train to depart and Sheena is lost in her thoughts of more loving child-rearing when someone sitting nearby mentions the destination of the train as part of their conversation. And that is when the afore-mentioned lady learns that she has boarded the wrong train. She panics because in a minute or so the train will leave before which she has to get off the train with the now stowed away luggage and the kids.

She urgently asks the kids to get their stuff together and get off the train. The kids, oblivious to the mistake Mom has made, neither comprehend the situation nor the urgency and just sit there wide-eyed, wondering what has happened to Mommy dear. Having lost all patience and in her panic, Mom comes into her true self and starts blasting the kids. The endearing "Kanna" has now been replaced with "Naaye", "Kazudhai" etc. Somehow she manages to drag the kids out of the train just as it slowly pulls away from the station.

It is now Sheena's turn to sit there wide-eyed after seeing the transformation of the woman from a loving, gentle Mom to someone possessed. It hits her that it is OK to admonish the kids depending on the situation and there is no reason to feel guilty after getting a brief & incomplete glimpse into someone else's life.

Welcoming a new member to the family

No, not another kid. We are happy with the two kids we have, though I occasionally wish how great it would have been if one of them had been a daughter. But, yeah, you cannot have it all, I guess.

The new addition is a spanking new quarter-litre bike (a baby superbike, if you will) which we brought home on the 24th of May 2014. An amazing looker in black. Me and Sheena both have a preference for black when it comes to automobiles and so the color was a no-brainer. Though I did linger briefly on the Repsol edition, but was quickly brought down to earth by Sheena's comment that it is more of a college-kids bike.

Which is to mean that having crossed 40, it is not for me. Well, wasn't hard to agree with her and that was that. 

Welcome the new All-black Honda CBR 250R, which is essentially a gift from me to myself and would essentially be a bike for me to use at Kerala when I am there during the weekends. 

Let the pics do the talking. 

At the showroom before delivery.

Divya and Ishaan with the bike

At home, raring to get going

Frontal view

 Kids with the bike

Ishaan near the bike - on our first ride to the beach

Love the bike. Just that I wish I had more time to spend with it - a weekend is just not enough. 

Nothing's holy anymore. Not even the front page of the newspapers.

Some weeks ago, this was how the front page looked like for all the 3 newspapers our office subscribes to.

Whoa !!!  Yeah, we understand you need advertisements to run newspapers in a world where the subscribed readership is reducing by the day and many big names in the US / Europe print-media have already shut down. Add to it the cut-throat competition that makes you sell a copy for 3 bucks - does that even cover the cost of the newsprint ?

In contrast, a Malayalam newspaper that has only maybe half the pages sells at double the price. Which means they can actually print news on the front page, instead of using it as a big paper billboard like the English press.

Atleast retain the sanctity of the front page, guys !!! 

Enthralled : on seeing a working auto-meter in Chennai

Landed at Central yesterday morning after the usual weekend at Kerala. It is drizzling lightly which makes me abandon the usual plan to walk over to Park station to catch the electric train to Nungambakkam. The other option is hailing an auto, but knowing the humongous rates they demand, it is going to be a pain haggling with them. But I don't have an umbrella and don't want to get wet. So, hail an auto, tell him the destination and from habit ask "Evlavu ?"    // "How much?" in English.

To my utter surprise, he says, "Saar, as per meter. Please get in" and turns on the meter. Once I am seated, he says, "The RTO guys / cops are nearby and you are asking me "How much?". If they had heard it, would be a big problem for me. As it is the cops are worried that they are not getting enough defaulters to penalise"

Along the way home, I keep checking the meter and it is working like clockwork - Rs25 for the first 1.8kms and then Rs12 for every subsequent km. I reach my place and the meter is showing a few bucks less than Rs.100 for the ~8km distance, which is exactly as per the new fare. Give him another 15 bucks just for the joy of seeing an untampered auto-meter in action in Chennai - I think the last time I saw a meter running in Chennai was sometime in the mid-90s. :-)

And to think that these guys used to charge anything between 120 to 200 for this distance - depending on time-of-day, weather, bus-strike etc.

Thanks to all the folks including the Times of India for their sustained campaign for getting the auto-meters back in action in Chennai !!!

It does help to complain.

Infact while there is nothing to lose other than a few minutes of your time, there could be a lot to gain as a recent incident proved. A longtime friend (from Engg. college days) had come down to India from the US for a few weeks and spent last weekend at my place before boarding his flight back to the US last Sunday.

He is a hardcore Apple fan and ensures to upgrade to the latest iPhone / iPad etc and always travels with both the gizmos. During last weekend, it was Aman who was mostly using the iPad to play games. His flight was on early Sunday morning and since he had to check-in a little after midnight, I book him on a Fastrack taxi to the airport.

The first thing he does on Sunday evening after landing in the US is to call me to tell that he seems to have misplaced the iPad. He remembers arranging his luggage while in the cab and thinks that possibly he left it in the cab. Or maybe he left it in my home, which is quickly ruled out when I do a quick search at home. Another possibility is it being flicked from his luggage either at Chennai or Doha (he flew Qatar airways) or at Dulles (US), because the lock on his check-in baggage is missing.

Anyway I call up the cabbie (had his number on my cellphone since he had called me asking for directions to my place) and while he clearly remembers dropping my friend at the airport, he asserts that no iPad or other item was left behind in the cab. My friend is now slowly reconciling to the possibility that the device is lost, with no chance of seeing it again.

I myself do not see much of a chance of tracing the device again, but reckon that we should atleast file a complaint with Qatar Airways so that this hopefully does not happen to someone else in the future. My friend files an online complaint with Qatar, listing the broken lock on his luggage etc and expressing his disappointment at losing a costly piece of equipment while travelling with them. A few follow-up mails fly back and forth and my friend leaves it at that.

The next day morning, he is woken up by a phone from an employee of Qatar Airways, to be told the happy news that they have traced an iPad and want to confirm if it is indeed the one my friend lost. The device is password-protected and if he could give them the password and it opens the device, it is indeed his and they will ship it to him in the US. He reels off the password which matches the device and that is authentication enough for them to return it to him.

So, for just a few emails and some minutes of time, my friend was reunited with his iPad, saving him many hundred dollars which he would have had to spend to procure a new iPad. Never hesitate to complain if you have been short-changed.

A big shout-out to Qatar Airways for their quick dekho into this and helping my friend. You would not only remain the airline of choice for my friend, but I would also recommend you to others. 

The challenge of keeping kids engaged.

It is tough keeping today's kids engaged in a constructive way. Which means, TV is not an option. Infact there was a study done recently which indicated that too much of TV viewing can potentially impact the behaviour of kids so much that the chances of them turning criminals on growing up was high.

And unlike our generation when TV was the only big deal, today's kids have a plethora of similar options that lead them to be sedentary. Aman for instance has his own laptop (my Dad's hand-me-down) and also a Nabi2 tablet. Am sure most kids today have access to better tablets like the iPad.

Ofcourse it is not like the kids don't want to engage in games or other physical activity. Just that either they don't have companions to play with, like in the case of Aman or the parents themselves are so busy with the demands of life that they don't have time to engage the kids.

To be frank, it is strenuous to engage kids and I know this from experience of playing football / cricket / pittu  and other games that I make up myself (like hitting a bottle with a ball) with Aman, and which lately Ishaan also joins. For one, all the game equipment is kid-size and it is not fun to play cricket with a 1-feet long plastic bat that is almost weightless (for adults) and a plastic ball. Ofcourse this is more than made up for by the satisfaction you seen on the kid's faces.

So, it was another weekend when the kids wanted to do something out in the yard. And there was Amy too in the group. I rack my brains and think of putting a swing on the tamarind tree in the yard. I have the rope, but I need a flat piece of wood for the seat. I am searching on the terrace for one that would be suitable, but without success. And that is when my eyes fell on the just-replaced tyre of our Suzuki Swift. Like any true Indian, we never throw such stuff away thinking it will be needed some time, though usually that time never comes.

Anyway, in this case, the tyre was the perfect fit for my problem and the swing is ready. Ofcourse Aman is hesitant since it is not easy to get on a tyre-swing. Amy being the fearless girl she is, cooly jumps onto it and is having fun swinging.

Now Aman's male ego takes a hit and he is now a little more open to the idea and finally gets the hang of it. Ishaan by nature is fearless and open to any challenge and cooly gets on to it with my help and while Aman is squealing when I push the swing, he is just having fun.

As they would say in the old MasterCard advertisement :
     5 metres of plastic rope : Rs30
     An old tyre : free
     Seing the smile on the kid's faces : Priceless. 

There are somethings that money can't buy. For everything else, there is imagination. 

Finally an investment in realty

Though I would like to think of myself as a balanced investor with a judiciously diversified portfolio, the one  investment that eluded me was real-estate. Not that I did not make an effort. I started looking around for a good plot / flat in Chennai in the early 2000s, but inspite of looking over various options, I never came around to actually buying anything. Colleagues who started the search with me then, today own 2-3 homes at a minimum.

And it was sometime mid-2012 that I decided to lock-in to the 9.5cents plot (with an old home on it) adjacent to our home in Kerala. This plot has been for sale for years, but never got any buyer for 2 reasons. The seller always wanted ridiculously more than what the going rate was. And more importantly, the L-shaped plot (wider part at the rear and narrow part on the road-side) had a temple adjacent to it, which kept buyers of all religions away. 

Understandably, the Muslims and Christians kept away because they would not want to have a temple in front of their home. But what surprised me was that even the Hindus kept away. Primarily because they felt that they might incur the wrath of the diety (Bhima of Pandava fame) if they cooked non-veg in the vicinity of his abode. Which is funny because I don't think Bhima was a vegetarian anyway. And more importantly, in Kerala since the Hindus usually cremate their deceased in their plot itself, there was the fear of how the deity would take to this defiling of his surroundings. 

Anyway, our current home has been sharing a wall with the temple for as long as I can remember and we have no issues with that. So there was nothing stopping us from buying the plot. More importantly, if someone did overcome their fears and ended up buying the property, they would demolish the existing home and the new one would be built too close to our home for comfort. 

Unlike Chennai were homes share walls, we in Kerala are used to living in big plots without having nosey neighbours too close. Our home stands on around an acre of land with our neighbours also having their homes on similar large plots. So for that strategic reason alone, the plot was worth it. And after some hectic bargaining and encashing many FDs, I finally became the owner of a plot of land on 20th September 2012. 

Some snaps of how the plot and the home on it looked like when we bought it. Snaps taken from the terrace of our home. Please note that the home was built sometime in 1962, with one room at the front having a concrete roof (a big deal in those times) and the rest of the home having tiles on the roof. 

You can see the roof of the temple in the snap below at bottom-left corner. The whole place was overrun with shrubs/weeds, which we cleared and the resulting space was promptly taken over by Sheena for starting a kitchen garden - more on that in another post. 

The front view of the home, as seen from the road.

Another frontal snap in which to the right you can see part of the temple. 

The roof being renovated completely. A key thing in Kerala where it rains round the year. 

The initial thought was to demolish the old home, but then we thought it better to give it a new lease of life by doing a complete renovation, which in hindsight turned out to be a big task, both in terms of effort and cost. We started with repairing the leaky roof - changed all the rotten wood on the roof and false-ceiling, replaced the broken tiles, patched up the chipped away concrete, had new doors and windows made by a carpenter, built a wall linking our home and the new plot and cordoning off the temple (Bhima got a compound wall free). And finally applied a few coats of paint (awesome color selection by Sheena). Anyway, the end-result was totally worth the money spent. 

Front-view as it looks today. 

Another view of the front, with the temple also in the picture. 

A view of the home as seen from our backyard. 

So, 4-months after buying it and spending 2lakhs+ on renovation, I now have real-estate also in my portfolio, though quite late in the day. Atleast better late than never. 

An Edison in the making ?

One of the standard chores on my list for every weekend at Kerala is to water the banana-plants and coconut saplings that we are cultivating on a small plot of land that we have. This is one of 2 plots that we have offsite - that is, a little away from the plot where our home is located, the other one being alongside the river. This one is around 400 metres from where our we stay and half of it is high land where we have the coconut and banana plants with tapioca cultivated in between them, while the rest is low-lying field suitable for paddy cultivation.

Usually, Kerala has rains almost round the year and there would be no need to water the plants. But 2012 has been pretty bad as far as rains go and in the last 5-6 months, we have not had any rain except for one or two days. Infact everyone in Kerala is predicting a severe drought due to lack of rains. There is an irrigation canal running alongside our plot which ideally should have helped our cause, but for the fact that no one has ever seen water flowing through it. While it was built years ago to help the farmers, the only folks who benefitted were the contractors, local authorities and the politicians.

Thus the need to draw water from a small pit I dug in the low-lying field to irrigate the plants. With each passing week, the water-table level goes down and I need to dig the pit a little more deeper to get water. So the usual routine is for me, Sheena, Aman and Ishaan to ride out their in the Scooty with a spade, couple of buckets and some snacks/water for the kids. When they are in town, Divya / Dany / Amy also join us - a snap below of them playing in our field when they had come home for the X'mas vacation and had joined us. 

A snap of the plot, with the grassy patch in the foreground being the low-lying part and in the background you can see the higher-land with banana-plants, coconut saplings and older coconut trees. If you look closely to the right-edge of the snap, you can see Aman walking on the canal.

Aman usually loves coming to the "canal land" as he calls it (the other one being "river land") since he can walk/run along on the canal or in the fields. But last week when we are getting ready to go there, he says he can't join as he has a "meeting". Since I have been working from home atleast once a week since the time he was born, meetings and calls are part of his vocabulary. 

"Aman, why don't you come with us to the canal-land ? We need you to engage Ishaan."

"I am not coming, since I have a meeting now."

"Meeting ? What meeting do you have and with whom ?"

"It is an "Invention meeting". So I am not coming with you."

"Invention" is another term that has got into his vocabulary and he is trying hard to "invent" something. He draws some fancy sketches and tries to explain the hi-tech functionality to us who are not as intellectually blessed as him. He mentions engines and power and what not. Anyway, we don't want to be obstacles in what could potentially be the next path-breaking innovation and move on. Because, he could be the next Edison, for all we know. 

Political doublespeak and hike in fares (long-pending)

So, finally the Indian Railways hiked passenger fares in all classes / segments. Though this is going to hurt me the most (due to spending 2 nights every week on trains), I should say this was long overdue. I guess the fares in lower classes have remained the same for years now and with input costs rising over the years, it would be bad financial sense to not hike the fares.

New fares came into effect from 22-Jan-2013 and the journey to Kerala that I make today would be the first one with the new fares. Instead of the Rs.316 (+10 for Netbooking) that I have been paying for years, I will now have to shell out Rs.365 (+10) which is a 15% increase. The suburban train fares also have been increased and instead of the Rs4 I used to pay for a Nungambakkam - Park ticket, it is now Rs5.   Fair enough.

However, it was hilarious to see the front page of the newspaper, the day after the hike was announced.

It was hilarious to see the Tamilnadu CM (Ms.Jayalalitha) protesting the hike saying it is not fair. More so because after having come to power in the state a year or so ago, she had herself raised the prices of anything that was in state control - be it milk or electricity or bus fares.  So now to crib about hike in rail fares that have remained stagnant for almost a decade would be illogical. Ofcourse again she did not have much of a choice in those decisions since allround inflation meant that production costs went up and the only way to stay afloat would be to hike prices.

I would not mind paying double or even more, if they could do something about speeding up the trains. Currently the 800kms takes me 13 hours to cover. The Shinkansen (Bullet train) that we took in Japan to visit a customer covered the same distance in 3 odd hours. OK, I am not asking that kind of speed. But atleast if they could do the distance in 7-8 hours it would have been great. If so, the train could leave Chennai at 11PM or so and reach my place by 6 in the morning. Same for the return leg. This would give me enough time to wind up work on Fridays, get on the train, have a nice sleep and be able to spend the 2 full days of the weekend with fmaily. Ah, if wishes were horses, software engineers would fly !!!

Living the experience again. And loving it.

With Ishaan growing up, the whole experience is akin to re-living Aman's early childhood. Only difference is that while Aman was a docile kid (still is), Ishaan is more adventurous, keeping all of us on our toes as he goes about climbing chairs/tables/ladders and running all over the place. Other than that, the similarities are very evident. And looks like in some cases, we need to again find a solution to a problem that we had fixed earlier with Aman. 

Last Monday I am returning from Kerala to Chennai after spending the weekend there as has been the norm for almost all weekends for the past 5 years since Aman was born. My parents, Sheena and the kids are in the car to drop me at the railway station. I take my bags from the car and as I wave my goodbye, I hear wailing inside the car. Ishaan is crying his lungs out repeating "Ba-ba", which is how he says "Papa". 

It was the same with Aman too. He would cry when seeing me off and then as I posted here, when my Mom explained the whole situation to him, he understood and never cried again. Being the first kid and the accompanying novelty of being a father for the first time, I was very close to Aman and thus I could understand his dismay when I vanished for 4-5 days after spending the weekend with him. 

Ishaan, on the other hand is more of a Mama's boy and I also got less time to spend with him since I needed to spend time with Aman. It was only recently during the 11-day long year-end vacation that me and Ishaan got a chance to bond and since then "Ba-ba" has been on his lips quite often. Often enough to even make Sheena slightly jealous that he craves my attention more than hers. :-) 

So, guess it is time to sit down Ishaan and make him understand that the farewell is temporary and that I will be back in a few days. Ofcourse, this is easier said than done, since he is very different from how Aman was at that age, I really doubt he will understand. Anyway, no harm in trying, I guess !!! 

There's something about X'mas. And Diwali. And Holi.

The 1st week of December is the time to bring out the X'mas tree, set up the crib and last but not the least, put up the X'mas star. Till Aman came along, we would only have the star and never bothered about a tree or crib. But for the past 4 years I have been spending time on setting up the tree and also a crib, since kids usually like this part.

As me and Aman started working on the tree and crib, I see the same activity happening in the home opposite ours. Nothing odd about it, other than the fact that they are Hindus. In Kerala, it is pretty common to see the star hanging in Hindu homes, but not many bother about a tree. In this case, again I believe it could be due to the presence of a kid in the home. And possibly in part due to the enthusiasm of the kid's father who married into this family.

X'mas with its stars / cakes / carols / wine / trees / Santa Claus etc has in it something that attracts most people and in general heightens the mood of the festive season for everyone. And it does not really matter whether you believe in the story or not. Same with Diwali where the sweets / crackers / new-clothes ensure that even non-Hindus get into the mood of the festival. Same goes for Holi too, where the fun and frolic with vibrant colors is something that is attracting.

Having grown up in North-India, Diwali and Holi were among the festivals that we enjoyed and celebrated the most. The fact that these were not X'ian festivals was irrelevant. Kerala does not really have Diwali, but I do make it a point to get some sparklers and small crackers during Diwali so that Aman / Ishaan have an idea about this festival. Holi is something I would like to celebrate with the kids, especially because Aman expressed an interest in celebrating this. But as far as Kerala is concerned, this festival does not even exist. Next time, need to pick up some colors from Chennai. 

Quickest way to picking up a new language ?

On weekdays, Aman has to wake up atleast by 6AM so as to be able to catch the school-bus that arrives at our gate around 7:35AM.   Like me, he also loves sleep, especially early in the morning and when I see how tough it is for him to get up in the morning, I would wish his school started a little later in the day. To make up for the early rising on weekdays, we usually let him sleep a little late on weekends / holidays.

So, last Sunday, he is in bed even at 8AM and Sheena comes over to wake him (and me) so that we can get to church in time for the Sunday mass. The hot tea she brings along lures me to wake up, but Aman is still reluctant to get up. When Sheena insists he get up, he replies in chaste/fluent Hindi, "Mujhe aur thoda sone do, Ma", which would translate to "Please let me sleep a little more, Mom".

And when she reminds him (in Malayalam) that if he wakes up, he can go play in the mound of river-sand that we have in the yard for some construction work, he replies again in fluent Hindi, "Woh to mein bhool hi gaya" (Oh, I completely forgot about that) and jumps out of bed.

He has not started learning Hindi at school. And while me and my parents are fluent in the language, we never use it at home. So, when he started speaking fluent Hindi of late, it initially came as a surprise to us. And the strange thing is that there is no trace of accent in his Hindi, though he normally speaks Malayalam at home and thus I would expect his Hindi to have a Mallu-influence.

We traced the source of his learning to some kiddie serials he is glued in on TV. These are Japanese serials dubbed in Hindi and me/Sheena mostly find it useless content-wise. The characters have names like Kitretsu, Butta Gorilla, Kurasoke etc and this airs on HungamaTV channel I believe. We would see Aman glued to the TV, occasionally laughing at the jokes and would wonder what he understood, since he knew no Hindi. But looks like he not only understands the content, but in the process has picked up a new language too.

I have always believed that the best way to learn a language was to speak it. That was how I picked up Tamil, when I was thrown into a group of Tamil-speaking guys at Engineering college. I never imagined that one could pick up a language by watching TV content in that language. Funny thing is that he also watches quite some kiddie serials in English, but does not speak English that well. Go figure !!!

WYSIWYG - not really

Last Thursday was a classic case of What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) being proven wrong.

I had left for work early around 8AM. The cyclone Nilam had passed by Chennai the previous night, but thankfully had spared Chennai any major destruction. While some trees got uprooted all around the city, thanks to the cops and Chennai Corporation officials, the roads have been cleared and the drive was smooth.

As I enter Haddows Road, a bike overtakes my car and perched behind the guy driving the bike is a young woman in saree. Very petite, prim with saree draped properly - in short, the perfect Indian woman image for most guys. As I get onto Nungambakkam High Road, the couple are still in front of me. Since he is riding like a typical Chennai biker (weaving in and out of lanes), I lose them briefly, only to see them at the next signal.

As we approach the traffic light at Landmark, I think I saw a whiff of smoke come out from between them. My first thought is that the guy is smoking while riding and more importantly when he has a woman seated behind. But he is wearing a helmet, a full-face helmet at that with vizor, so would be tough to smoke through that. And then I see our fair lady bring the ciggie to her mouth, take a deep drag and puff out smoke like a seasoned smoker.

She takes a few more drags and flicks the butt away. I am caught by surprise, to say the least. It is not that I have not seen women smoking. Have seen lots of them smoking in EU / US - infact in EU, there used to be more women smoking in the office smoking-zone than men. Heck, even in conservative Chennai, this is not a rare sight. Since our office building also houses a call-centre, it is a pretty common sight to see the women employees of the call-centre come down to the basement for a cig-break with the guys.

But it always is kinda odd, if not disconcerting, to see a woman draped in a saree smoke.