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. 

25 years of Nayagan

It was by sheer luck today that I chanced upon last Sunday's (21-Oct) supplement (Magazine) of  The Hindu.  The cover page had an article written by Kamal Haasan on the interesting incidents around the making of the iconic Tamil movie "Nayakan". Apparently it was exactly on 21st October 25 years ago that Nayagan was released.

Wow, already 25 years. Seems like yesterday. In 1987, I was doing my 2nd year Pre-degree at Kerala and over the past one year since we moved to Kerala (after spending time in Western and Eastern India), was getting exposed to Malayalam cinema, which was at its best during that period. Since Dad was working at Chennai then, we used to visit Madras often and knew rudimentary Tamil, but were not really fluent.

While Tamil cinema had its masters like K.Balachander, Bharatiraja, Balu Mahendra etc who offered brilliant movies, the average Tamil movie of the time was run of the mill stuff, loud and crude. So Nayagan came in as a breath of really fresh air, in the way it was directed, the music and the performance by all the actors involved.

One of the scenes that still stays in memory is of a waif-like and cute Saranya in the brothel, asking Kamal to not leave till morning, lest the madam send in another customer, which will not let her study for her exams. That was the 1st time I knew of an actor called Saranya and I still remain a fan of the lady's facial beauty. And I am sure the very act of a man marrying a prostitute, which till then would have been unimaginable for most men, would have become acceptable for many, after this movie.

A must-read article if you like cinema or Kamal or Nayagan or all three. You should be able to find the article online in The Hindu's archives. And if you have not seen Nayagan yet, there could be no better time than in it's Silver Jubilee year to rent a DVD and watch the classic. If you did not know, Nayagan figures in the Time magazine's All-Time 100 greatest movies. The only other Indian movies to figure in the list being Guru Dutt's Pyaasa and Satyajit Ray's "The Apu Trilogy".

P.S.: Until today when I was "researching" Mani Ratnam for this article, I did not know that his 2nd movie was in Malayalam - a film called Unaru (Wake up). Neither did I know that he started his film career in Kannada with the movie "Pallavi Anu Pallavi". 

There's a reason God entrusted child-rearing to women.

A news item in the paper couple days back reported a woman in Alappuzha (my home district in Kerala)
causing the death of her kid by spinning the infant in the washing machine. The reason she gave for doing
so was interesting - since the birth of the kid, she did not get to sleep properly !!!

While the report mentions her to be slightly mentally challenged, the reason she gave cannot be ignored as
trivial. Humans need sleep as much as they need food and lack of sleep can have disastrous consequences.
I still remember the drive back from Velankanni to Chennai few months ago, when I was so sleepy that I
could not stay awake at the wheel.  I am only a few hundred kms from Chennai, but sleep had so tightly
overpowered me that I could not stay awake. I would stop the car, wash my face with cold water, have a
cigarette/coffee, but as soon as I got behind the wheel, I would feel sleepy in the next few minutes. It took
innumerable such pit-stops before I reached Chennai and heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Now that was just because I had limited sleep for the past 2 days. Now imagine going without proper sleep
for a year. And add to it the routine of managing a household, taking care of an infant and making sure the
elder one is got readied for school every weekday at 7:45AM ? I can't even imagine myself doing all that,
without a proper night's sleep.

As Ishaan turned 1 year old on 22nd August, it marked a year of little or no sleep for Sheena. Unlike Aman,
who used to sleep like a baby (literally), Ishaan seems to revel in limited sleep. In the year past, we have
never seen him sleep for hours like kids his age would normally do. Apart from the fact that getting him to
sleep at night was an ordeal in itself, almost no night went by without him waking up crying atleast 5-6 times,
which means Sheena has to get up, feed him and get him back to sleep. And by the time she does manage to
catch a few winks, the 5AM alarm would go off as a signal for her to start the day so that she can get things
ready for Aman to catch his 7:35AM school-bus.

Last Saturday night was a sleepless one for both of us in the train to Chennai as Ishaan was crying all night.
For some strange reason, a night in an a/c train sets off this fever in him and this added to his crying. At
home, I would maybe wake up a couple times at most and give Sheena some moral support and then go to
sleep. But in the train, since the crying would be disturbing for others, I also stayed awake for most of the
night, helping her by taking Ishaan out of the a/c area and trying to put him to sleep.

Sunday night was no different though now we are at home in Chennai. The fever which had subsided during
the day, reared up at night and though I did manage a few hours of sleep, it was way below my usual quota,
leaving me tired during the day at work. All this for just 2 nights of lost sleep. Gave me a new perspective
into what Sheena must have been going through for the last 1 year and still not even chiding the kid.

I am sure I would have flipped my lid on day 2 itself. Which explains why God felt men could not be entrusted with child-rearing. :-)

Blessings of life

Over the years past, I have learnt that while money is indeed required to be able to live well, it's value is way low in the actual scheme of things. I have learnt that it helps more to have good friends, a caring family, peace of mind at home and more such things to which we cannot put a monetary value.

And today when he becomes 1 year old, what more should Ishaan need than a loving and caring brother who truly wishes him all the best on his 1st Birthday. Check out the video.

                                                Happy Birthday Ishaan !!!
And may God bless you always, part of which is evident in the loving brother you have. 

Thinking out of the veil !!!

This came in the last issue of "The Week" magazine and caught my interest for the sheer brilliance of the idea.

Apparently, Kemal Ataturk Pasha, who was the 1st President of Turkey, was against the idea of women wearing purdah. However, he was aware that banning the veil in a Muslim country was only going to fan anger/discontent/resistance and not help in any way.

So, he instead applied psychology and declared that purdah was optional for all Turkish women, but that it was compulsory for prostitutes.   Veils vanished off the streets almost immediately. :-)

What an idea, Kemal-ji !!!

Mea Culpa - a confession with a twist, by Aman

In the last year or a little more than that, Aman has been throwing tantrums for very small things, thus getting
on Sheena's nerves. More so because she is already overloaded with taking care of  Ishaan (who is currently
in a cling-to-Momma mode), getting Aman to school and other work at home. And usually these sessions
happen when she is getting him ready for school or when he is back from school.

Reasons could be as simple as "the tucked-in school shirt is not fully tucked-in as per his expectation, with
a wee bit peeping out" or "he wants to wear red pants with yellow t-shirt, which we think would make him
look like Salman Khan (yuck)" or "while the tomato-rice she packed for lunch that day was good, it had the
skin of tomato or its seeds in it, inspite of his making it clear the previous day that he hates it".

Though the reasons seem trivial, we see in it a possible hint of sibling rivalry or jealousy. While he loves
Ishaan, we reckon that sometimes he feels everyone is more bothered about Ishaan. And in the last month
or so, this is partly true to. Reason# 1 being that Ishaan has started taking baby steps to walk with support
from tables/chairs etc, which means he sometimes loses his balance and falls. So all of us are a little careful
about him. Reason# 2 is that for some strange reason he is now very clingy to Sheena and does not let her
leave his side for even a second when awake.

Anyway yesterday evening on return from school, the reason was tomato-skin in the rice and he flopped on
the sofa. Assuming he is tired after a hectic day at school, Sheena lets him be and goes out to the swing in
our front-yard and spends some time with Ishaan - basically laughing / playing with him. Not sure if the
mother-son bonding got to him or what, but he starts off on his tantrum spree. Finally, Sheena takes a small
twig and gives him 1 beating which calms him up. As a rule, we don't hit him as we believe the rod should
be the last resort.

Anyway later, when the 3 of them are sitting on the swing, Sheena decides to do a talk session with Aman.
Basically she tells him how with both of them being kids, she needs to ensure that they are doing things right
and which apart from her other chores keeps her busy and if he starts off his tantrums, then it becomes too
difficult for her.

Aman is all attention and finally says, "Amma, it is all my fault."

Sheena is estatic as it seems like he has understood his fault. After all correction starts with understanding
and accepting one's fault.

And he continues, "It's all my fault, because it was me who asked God for a kid brother."

Basically his implication is that if there were only 1 kid, there would not be so much load on Mom and since
it was his request that led to God giving us Ishaan (as he believes now), the whole fault is his.

Can't fault this logic, can you ? :-)

P.S.: Incidentally it is close to a year since I last posted here. Hope I am more regular henceforth. 

New addition to the family

On 22-Aug-2011, we welcomed another member to our family. While we were hoping for a girl, God decided we would be better off with another boy. Aman is thrilled though - he said, he now has someone to play cricket with. Though he got sad when we told him that it would be some time before the baby started even walking, let alone play cricket.

Sleeping blissfully on the hospital bed, after keeping us all awake for 3 nights in a row.


All swathed in soft blue.


Aman watching the baby. Since it was him that wished for a baby brother/sister, we hopefully would not have to deal with any sibling rivalry here.

The 1st snap of the baby, as soon as it was born. Looks so much like Aman looked at birth.

We had girl names ready, since we were almost sure it would be a girl. Now, we need to start looking for boy names. For now, the kid would be called "Appu", as Aman used to address the baby even before it was born.

Thanmathra (Molecule) anyone ???

Last Sunday I am at home, helping my maternal aunt with her packing as she prepares to return back to Bhopal (where she is normally resident) after spending more than a month at Kerala with us. Among her luggage are two baby tortoises caught from the flooded fields behind our home. Her young grandson is an animal lover and wants to have these as pets at Bhopal. Apparently it would cost you 750 bucks to buy one at Bhopal.

I am packing a carton with all kinds of eatables when my niece Divya comes to me and asks, "Biju-uncle, what is the spelling of Giraffe?". I am amused at the question which I find to be trivial, given that it is an easy to spell the word, but I still answer, "G-I-R-A-F-F-E".

"Then why did you write it as G-I-R-A-F" on the puzzle pieces ?", she asks, while laughing.

I am quickly jolted to the context she is referring to. Some months ago I had bought Aman a set of 4 animal-based jigsaw puzzles, consisting of a camel, tiger, giraffe & hippopotamus. Aman is only learning to solve the easier puzzle and since the tougher ones (having more pieces) are a strain even for adults, I decided to mark the correct order of all 4 puzzles on the reverse of each piece as "TIGER 1 of 8"..... to "TIGER 8 of 8".

It seems Divya noticed this marking on the reverse and that is when she saw that I had spelt it as GIRAF. Now that she mentioned this, I tried to think back as to why I wrote the spelling wrong. But could not see any reason behind the spelling mistake. Being a person who is bothered about spelling/grammar even when sending an SMS, this seemed too silly a mistake to make.

Or, can it be written off as a mistake / oversight ? I hope this is not any indication of memory loss or even worse Alzheimers, like depicted in the 2005 Malayalam movie Thanmathra (meaning Molecule). This is a movie to be watched, given the awesome direction and superb acting by all involved, including Mohanlal who plays the pateint so convincingly. Get a DVD when you have couple of hours to spare. Subtitles would help those that dont know Malayalam.

Rains @ Kerala - and stills that convey falling rain

I was at Kerala some weeks ago, combining the weekend with 2 days of work from home, when it was raining like crazy. While I do like the rains, it can become bothersome if you are working(power goes off, can't hear people over the phone due to the roar of the rains etc) and after a few hours of it, I could swear I was done with rains.

A Mallu colleague @ our Chennai office comes on the instant messenger and asks if it is raining. I tell him that nothing seems to be happening other than rain and I am sorta fed up. Ofcourse he being at hot Chennai, the idea of pouring rains makes him home-sick and the least he could do to satisfy his desire is to atleast see it pouring in a snap. He requests me to take a few snaps of the rain, which I am OK with, though I wonder how we can capture rains in a still photo.

Anyway, I step out onto the porch and take these 3 snaps, which I send to all the mallu-crowd at work. One of them replies, "Nice snaps. I could actually see the rains in your snaps and feel it sitting here". Posting below the snaps I took.

When it is raining, it is bliss to sit/lie on the swing, reading a book or drink a cup of tea/coffee.


This was taken around noon, but look how dark it has become.


Wish a still-photo could capture the swaying trees too. :-)