A memorable year 2012

It has been an eventful year. There have been only a handful of memorable years for me, of them 2012 is the best.

The year started with registering a property in my and N's name. The biggest achievement till now. I never had so much freedom to think about till I joined my current company. Financially speaking I am sound than ever. Doesn't mean that I have leverage of living a King's life, but spending as much as I haven't done before.

Chinni's school admission was another step. There was time when I sometimes didn't believe I am a father. And this year, I got admission to my kid. Uuffff, unbelievable!!! This was quite revealing, as the school is near to our home, hardly takes 15-20 minutes to reach. I always wanted Chinni not to travel far to school and thankfully we got a good and economy one near by.

Avenger, my first bike (although I had a scooter, but bike is a bike). This wasn't a dream. I just got attracted to bikes very recently and it happened immediately. It was such a co-incidence, Deepa and Vijay also got a baby on the same day. And also N's Dio arrived this year. So we bought 2 two wheeler-es this year.

Trip to Singapore. This was totally different. The trip reminded Hong Kong everyday. It was an awesome trip and a good break during stressful days.

Naina is carrying. Another baby expected in the first quarter of 2013. I am really waiting, will get back the memories of Chinni :)

Jyoti and Navneet returned to Bangalore. We got a good companion in them. A trip to coorg, couple of times we stayed at their house and weekend visits have made really a sought after friendship. During our stay in Vijaynagar, it was Deepa and Vijay's house.

Another unsuccessful year in my professional life. Didn't get a promotion this year as well, I was expecting it though. I have the skills, the expertise, a 'will' to accept any task, complete the assigned task and the all the ingredients, but still I am not 'there'. Definitely there is something missing in me, don't know exactly what!. One thing I realized (after publishing this post), that I lack ownership. I feel, I don't own the product I am working on. In simple words, I don't take up work by myself. I do take up tasks myself, but not always. There is an inconsistency in this regard. One has to work towards getting the product through all the odds. 

Its been 8.5 years. The initial years were bad. I had lack of concentration, didn't understand what I have to do and just finished my job. Truly speaking I didn't get a hang of it. All my peers moved to next level, I was left alone. Couldn't bear this and changed company. I improved a lot in the next company. Technically I grew, but the lack of ownership had just begun. This has been haunting me till now. This is my nature, a built-in feature, its in my genes and little hard to change it. This happens not only at office, but also at home. N knows this very well. She is a victim of it. For eg: Chinni makes the living room a mess before going to sleep. N makes her sleep and comes back to see the mess still lying around. And I am watching tv as if I have nothing to do with the mess!!! Just takes 2 minutes to clear it up, but I don't do it. 

These things have to be taught in childhood. And in my childhood, I haven't done anything on my own. I was never taught/told to do things, cleaning, washing, small small works at home, helping mom etc etc. So I have grown up without taking responsibilities on my own. Now I find it difficult to do it myself. 

This was a good realization. Blogging is making me realize a lot of things I never think of. It's good to get to the root cause and bring a change in me. Wish I had a friend who can "discuss" all these stuff. Well, the least I can do is teach my daughter. I don't want her to blame me when she grows up. The biggest responsibility is teach her.

Ufff, this post is going in all directions of my thoughts. Will find a new post for these thoughts.

Hoping the new year party is going to be a rocking one :)

Good bye 2012. I will always remember you.

Teaching good and bad to Children

One of the most difficult phase of your(mine too) life is teaching your child(ren) what is good and what is bad. Every parent and child goes through this phase and very few parents are successful in this task. I am not complaining that parents don't  do their job properly, but they don't do it in the right way. And the result you see it in the children. 

Don't you find your friends/colleagues/neighbors complaining that his/her child doesn't obey to what they say ? Parents just see the result part of it, what one should be thinking is "why" is the child not obeying even after explaining things. Do you get the drift ? This is when the parents will get an understanding and find the exact solution. Even I have been through this phase and still haven't come out of it yet. But I think I got an answer, just need to implement it. Hopefully I will be successful in teaching Iksha the good and bad part of life.

And wait, I am not done here, read on. If you find this helpful, then please thank Lakshmi, who shared and made me realize the things i was doing in a wrong way.

Normally, we elders (consider aged above 18), understand what is told to us in plain simple words. Whereas children don't. They do understand, but don't realize. This is the gap between elders and children. So how do you fill this gap ? You need to tell a story. 

Let me give an example. How do you tell a child that eating chocolate is bad ? You must have definitely told this a thousand times and your child must have eaten chocolate thousand and one times. You will always think that your child doesn't listen to you at all, he is ill mannered, he doesn't have understanding capacity and what not complaints against him go on air. Did you ever ask yourself "why doesn't the child understand" ? Now try to make a story of a boy who eats lot of chocolates. The story should go through lot of phases like he liking chocolates, eating it everyday, then getting a bad tooth, visiting a doctor, tooth decaying, show some pictures of bad tooth, then the tooth getting removed and the pain the boy goes through after removing the tooth and all in a dramatic way. The child will be able to relate to this story very well and the next time he gets a chocolate, he will definitely think of the boy's situation who ate lot of chocolates. Probably, your child will reduce eating chocolate, which is what you expect your child to do. 

Don't expect overnight results. Your child will take some time to learn things. 

You may ask, this is just an example of chocolate, how do I teach him/her what is good and bad ? Well, my friend taught me that too. What Lakshmi says is - tell the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata. These stories have a lot of good and bad characters. You need to tell your child that this person is good and give the proper reason. Tell your child that this person is bad and give the proper reason. So the child will be able to relate the things that he/she does in real life and will definitely think that doing this is good, doing this is bad. FYI, there is a publication called Amar Chithra Katha, which publishes these stories with pictures. You can find many other stories and publication. 

During Lakshmi's visit to Bangalore, she gifted me one of these books, the Ramayana. That day I opened the book and started telling the story to Iksha. She was actually interested in listening to story. But I didn't know what to tell her. Every page I was going through had no meaning, I thought. What should I tell Iksha that Dasharatha, father of Rama, had 3 wives ? Kaikeyi plotted to send Rama to vanasa for 14 years ? And Ravana kidnapped Sita to marry her ? Iksha would have not related to none of these. The very next day I called up Lakshmi and asked "what book did you give me? this story is useless for Iksha!". 

This is when Lakshmi explained me everything that you read above and much more. Since then I have been finding the moral of the story in each story, good and bad in each character, if you have read my Talaash post you would understand.

Lastly, I would like to thank Lakshmi for teaching me all this. Thanks a lot Lakshmi.

Talaash: The Answer Lies Within

First thing first. Its been years that I saw Rani Mukherji onscreen and its still a treat to look at her pretty smiling face. I am a die hard fan of Rani, no way that is going to change ever. I literally have no words to explain at a greater detail and I am bad at that. Reema, the director, has portrayed her as an ideal house wife with all the simplicity and Rani fits in so well that every scene she appeared I wanted the time to stop right there so that I could have a glimpse of her more, more, more and more. Her eyes are simply mesmerizing, Aishwarya's are more attractive, but I still think Rani's eyes have lot more to say :)

Rani was her best in the white saree

Now the movie, Talaash. It's rightly named. Right from the first scene of accident I was tensed till the story reveals the answer. I wasn't really thinking of what's going to happen next, because I was so much involved in each scene and character. The way the truth is revealed is also so much in a surprising way and so instant, I didn't have time to react. Totally it was a journey through the emotions of a few characters. Kudos to Talaash team.

Now coming to the actual reason why I am blogging this post :)

As we came out of theater and headed towards home, N asked "what do they want to really communicate? that there are ghosts?". But also some praises to the movie. But this question caught my attention. There is lot of moral we can learn if you look the characters and the whole movie. Frankly, I thought over N's question today while I was driving to office and then realized about the morals we can endorse in our life. 

Sekhawat's character should be an ideal one for men. 

• He is dealing with so much emotions and going through so much difficulties, but yet he doesn't tend to cheat his wife. His character is given so much opportunity, he doesn't give a second thought getting himself out of stress with such a beautiful lady. 
• Not only that, the helping nature he offers to Rosy is also what one should look at. 
• There is one more ideology in the character, he doesn't blame his wife for his son's death, but blames himself. Blaming himself is also not good, but at least better than blaming others. It really takes life time to come out such situation, as explained in the movie and I go with the director.

Shreya's character is so simple and not much defined. But look at her carefully, you will find that even she knew that both, her husband and herself, are going through a rough patch, she agrees to meet psychiatrist to please her husband.

  

I think every movie has some moral to offer, only if the perception changes one can understand. 

This movie is special to me and N. After a very long long gap we had been to theater and watched movie together, probably after around 4 years :)

Update: If you have enjoyed Talaash, then watch The 6th Sense

Do you love yourself?

During my visit to Singapore, I met Barry, one of my colleagues in previous company. As far as I remember he equivalently had attraction towards these high calorie food like muffins, chocolates, etc etc. We went to  a coffee shop and thought of ordering something and have chitchat. 

There were lot of options I could hog. Was telling him I am not able to decide right now and settled in for a big blue berry muffin. I asked him what was he ordering and he says "I was so stupid before, I realized how much I hated myself and used to eat everything I liked. Now I love myself so much that I want to keep myself healthy". And he just ordered coffee.

Isn't what he said was so meaningful? Think about this when you are having junk food next time :)

Improvised version of Chinni

Situation 1:

On the flight to Singapore, Chinni was just refusing to put on the seat belt before take off. I had a hard conversation with the crew member. I had to force Chinni to make her sit on her own seat and belt her up. She continued crying for over half an hour. 

Since then I had started thinking what will happen during the return flight throughout our stay in Singapore. Very much to my amaze, Chinni proactively agreed to put on the seat belt well before the take off and removed when we were flying :). Really don't know what made her to think in that way. I was very pleased.

Situation 2:

Bad weather, Chinni got soar lips last week. She was struggle to just forget it. N had to tell some stories and apply moisturizer to get it healed. 

Just a couple later, Chinni saw something weird on N's foot. N described being hurt. Chinni quickly goes to room and gets the moisturizer. Isn't she clever ?

Situation 3:

Chinni has drastically reduced having Ice Cream, thanks to cold and cough which immediately attach her. This has been explained to her in a pretty nice manner and she very well understands. But the crave pops up sometime and there is no stopping.

On a weekend, when me, N and Chinni were stepping out, Chinni's grandpa asks her to get ice cream for him. Chinni smartly replies "Don't eat ice cream, you will get cough".

Situation 4:
This was couple of months back. Chinni was suffering since couple of weeks with cold and cough. Cold somehow got settled, but cough didn't agree to leave. Nebulization was indeed necessary. Chinni had disagreed to nebulize since day 1. I made up my mind to get the cough out of Chinni, what ever it takes and brought a Nebulizer. As usual, Chinni refused. I forcibly had to hold her tight and put the mask on. It wasn't a easy task to hold her without making her move (believe me, its damn difficult even with a child). She reluctantly took it for 2 minutes. And then cried for 30 minutes before going to sleep.

The very next day, her cough was very much under control. This was not that astonished us. Chinni readily accepted to go for nebulization the next time and I didn't have to hold her at all. And even now she takes Nebulization easily without much hassle.

This was one of such incidents that I would definitely never forget.

Situation 5:
Chinni's playlist

1. Ladki kyon - Hum Tum
2. Chak de - Hum Tum
3. Gore Gore - Hum Tum
4. Po Po - Son of Sardar
5. Roja jaaneman - Roja
6. Rubaru - Rang de basanti
7. Dil garden garden - KSKHH 
8. Disco deewane - Student of the Year

I never thought Chinni would like Hum Tum songs as much as I did. She even watches the songs with so much interest that the dvd was worth buying it.

Meetup Groups

From past a month or so.....I am doing some weird things. Don't know what exactly I am looking for something new, but my search is still on. Searched a lot of group which organizes meetups, parties, travels, seminars, dance groups and all. I could hardly find a handful which attracted me and more over the most important criteria was it should be based in Bangalore.

The are few reasons why I was searching. I wanted to expand my friendship network, meet new people from variety of professions, meet people from different countries, culture. Possibly I will not settle outside India any time(could be short trips that I can make), so there isn't any chance of meeting non-Indian unless and until I join such groups.

Finally I hit upon meetup.com. There are lot of groups but few are active. So I did join a few of them. Some are knowledge based, a lot of them entertainment, a group actually plays board games, there is an adventurous group. So far so good, but the problem is I haven't been able to catch up any of them. Missed a few quite interesting ones like the Cloud seminar, Bollywood dance practice and a few board game sessions. Now I am feeling like is this really what I was looking for ? Will I ever get time to participate ? Only time can answer the questions :)

Trip to Singapore

This was one such where I take quick decision. Had been thinking of travelling to Singapore since very long. Financially I wasn't capable to plan till last year. But now, I have some freedom to breathe my expenses.

Consulted Rajesh and Bhaskar about their availability and book the tickets on 21st Sept to travel on 5th Oct. Bhaskar had a scheduled release, but still accepted my travel dates.

So my post starts with Gratitude to Rajesh and Bhaskar. Thank you guys, you guys made the trip memorable right from booking the tickets till the last cup of tea at the Changi Airport.

Both of them received me at the Singapore Airport, Bhaskar greeted us with a bouquet  I was delighted, never had received such a warm welcome before. Adding to that was the Mercedes, even thought it was a taxi, ride to Rajesh's flat. As the proverb goes "Well started is half done" suited the situation perfectly. 

Day 1: Suma had prepared breakfast well before we were hungry. Chinni didn't have a sound sleep during the travel. So N made her sleep around 12 noon and she slept along with her. They woke up and I slept for couple of hours. This wasted the first half of the day. We started our exploration in the evening. 

We all gathered at Dhoby Ghaut went for a walk along the streets. The street was set for the weekend. Variety of crabs, fishes and sea life were kept on display as if in a museum, but were actually ready to be feasted on. 

Singapore river was the first attraction. We hopped on a boat which took us through the river. A good boat ride for 45 minutes showed us the Merlion, Marina Bay Sand and few other prominent spots along the river.

By the time we reached home it was 11.30 pm. We did go to sleep after a relaxing chat with Rajesh and Suma, but it was already 3 am :)

Home Sweet Home

I was wondering where should i capture this memory and milestone of my life, didn't actually wanted to post on social networking site. Blogger is also open to public, but very limited people visit my blog. Hence updating it here.

We bought a flat in Jan this year. It was definitely stepping towards peace of mind from rented house, its owner and shifting often. And more over I can say "I own a property". To be frank, the initial investment came from borrowing from Dad and relatives. We hardly had the amount required for down payment. But slowly i have started to repay the loan, well I can't repay the help anyways.

Even though we bought in Jan, we got to move only in March (or was it April, I forgot already) end. Had to fight a lot with the carpenter to finish it soon. Lot of work was pending even after we moved in. Could not invite friends or relatives for quite some time. But finally we did invite relatives, it was a good get together. We had invited friends too, later.

Here are some picks

One part of the hall

The other part of the hall

What do you say?

TV Unit

Pooja mandir - not able to make this pic straight

  

The Kitchen

Again the Kitchen

There are bedrooms, just keeping them private ;)

Now office is lot more near to both of us. Just that I am not able to use the swimming pool in the apartment, don't regret anything else.

Habits

I have never been addicted to bad habits, there are couple, but they can't really be termed as "bad". Lately, I am getting an urge to try smoking or alcohol.

Smoking is too bad as it sticks to me throughout the day. My hands will smell, my dress will stink and my breath will also exhibit that I smoke. May be Chinni might say "chennagilla" when she comes near to me. The effects are too much. I know, people don't think of all these when they start, but that's the difference between "people" and me. Probably they might have started without an intention of getting addicted, whereas my case is to get addicted. 

In fact, I myself don't like the smell of cigarette smoke. May be it's different when you are an active smoker than passive. Let me try once!

Alcohol, it could be a dangerous addiction. I know stories who have spoiled their entire life before realizing. The problem with me is, I get addicted very soon and might not come out of it. Hence I am not sure if alcohol is a good option. Who is going to drive me home when I am drunk ? lol. Mom has never liked people who drink or smoke. She has strict warnings "don't meet me when you are drunk or after smoke". And if I drink or smoke purposely, can't imagine her reaction.

Not quite getting what should i get addicted to. I want to try something "BAD".

Chinni is getting smarter

As the days are passing, Chinni is getting smarter and smarter. This new generation is very fast and more importantly intelligent.

The other day my sister was pulling Chinni's leg, but it didn't deter her. Some how it ended up owning the relationship. Here was the conversation between my sister and Chinni-

My sister, comes to me and says "This is my pappa"
Chinni, goes to N, hugs her and replies "This is my mummy"

Everybody started laughing, but the war didn't stop.

My Sister: I will go with my pappa in car
Chinni: I will go with my mummy in plane.

My sister, being an advocate, didn't have an answer. The laughed continued......

Where can I get mustache from?

All these days Chinni had not observed my mustache. But all of a sudden today, the question popped up. She notices my mustache and asks what is this ?

I replied its called "mustache", well now-a-days most of the times I talk to her in English.

Cleverly Chinni pops another question "Where did you get it from?"

What do I answer?

Unix Shell scripting

This post was badly required, just for me. Every time I have a write a script, I google. Its difficult to remember the various options of various commands. And most of the time its search, extract or replace. So here it goes

1. To split a string and extract a value
value=$(echo $line | awk '{split($0, splitValues, " ");  print splitValues[1] }')

• Input to split is the value in the variable line.
• split command splits the string, executing the regular expression within quotes and stores in an array splitValues.
• print splitValues[1] returns the first element in array splitValues
• If you dont want to store the value then  echo $line | awk '{split($0, splitValues, " ");  print splitValues[1] }' will print it on the console

2. Find a matching pattern in a file and extract them to another file
grep -n 'match this' test.log > result.log

• grep searches the complete file test.log for the string mentioned in quotes
• all the lines which matches the pattern are extracted to result.log
• -n prefixes the line number of every match (-n is optional)

3.  Print last few lines from a file
tail -n

• This command extract the number of lines of the specified file and prints it on the console
• The output can always be redirected to a file tail -10 output.txt > subset.txt

4. Executing an sql in shell script - There are few steps to achieve this

• Write a sql and store it in a file, say SelectQuery.sql
• The shell script to connect to database and execute the query in SelectQuery.sql looks something like this

 #!/bin/bash
sqlplus -s -l /@  << EOF >> output.txt
@SelectQuery.sql
exit
EOF

while read line
do
    echo $line
done <  output.txt

errorCode=$?    # checks if the last operation (sqlplus) was completed successfully or not

if [ ${errorCode} -ne 0 ]
then
echo "SQLPlus was unable to connect the DB with the supplied credentials"
else
echo  "SQLPlus was connected successfully"
fi

So what does this script do ?

• Connects to database using sqlplus command 
• output.txt is where the results of the query will be stored
• @SelectQuery.sql actually executes the query
• The while loop, iterates through each lines in the output.txt and prints them on console
• A small check to display an errors at the end

Chinni's advice

I was dropping Chinni to school today morning. While driving I coughed couple of times and Chinni instantaneously gives me an advice

"ಪಪ್ಪಾ , ಐಸ್ ಕ್ರೀಂ ತಿನ್  ಬೇಡ, ಕೆಮ್ಮು ಬರುತ್ತೆ"

meaning "Pappa, don't eat ice cream, you will get cough".

How clever!!!

A compliment from Chinni

I am wearing a new T-shirt today. Chinni was ready to go to school and I was ready to drop her. She noticed the new shirt and comments "ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿದೆ ", meaning its good.

Where as my dear wife didn't even noticed that. Well, yday even though she had noticed, there wasn't a comment.

Oh no, My god

The new generation is very fast, super sonic. Chinni started opearting laptop even when she was unaware English. And mobile too.

The latest addition to her skill set is English. Yep, she speaks a lot of English, all of which comes from the play group she joined couple of months back. Schooling has also helped her a lot. I don't see the days far away when she starts speaking English fluently.

The most commonly used words are
No
My god
Oh no
Come here
What is this?
Where are you?
Please
Open door
Get up
Let's go

Well, I am not remembering all of them at this moment, but intend to update her skill set often.

The First Sorry

I had been waiting for this since long time. Chinni learnt "Thank you" very soon, but uses it seldom. Well, there is a saying "its never late", so I was more than happy to hear it.

Unknowingly Chinni's hand pushes my mobile from top of tv table bang to the floor. There were exactly 3 pieces. And Chinni says "ಅಯ್ಯೋ  ಫೋನ್ ಬಿತ್ತಾ ? Sorry ok?"

I smiled, what else could have been the reply!

Mango - Chinni's favorite

This year Chinni tasted and hogged Mangoes well beyond my expectation. We had tried a lot make her eat mango in the previous 2 years, but it didn't work.

This year, astonishingly, we didn't even have to put an effort. She has gulped a mango everyday in this season and sometimes more than one in a day.

"Yummy" she says after the first bite.

Iksha vs Rani Mukherji

I have been a big fan of Rani Mukherji, ever since I have noticed her smile. Have always thought she looks gorgeous because of her smile. Posting a couple of her smiley face, these aren't my favorites, but still its Rani!!!

Well she may not seem gorgeous for you, because its your perception!!!

I wanted my wife to have a smile which would make me drool. But when I got to know N, the smile requirement just vanished. N's inner smile appealed me more than the physical smile. Its been 5 years and I don't regret my choice.

But I found the smile I was looking for. Iksha's smile is the one. It's simply amazing. Even when I am angry on her, the smile makes me forget the entire world. Such a beautiful smile she has.

Unfortunately I have not been able to capture that beautiful smile in camera (its captured in my mind and heart). Either she shy away or wants to look at her snap even before it is clicked. Will definitely update this post with couple of her smiles when captured.

The 5th Anniversary

Should I say Hurray or Phew or Wow (never will I say Alas) on completing 5 years of our married life. Whatever, it indeed ended in a memorable manner. The wasn't special as it went routine till 10.00 pm. All the activities where finished for the day, even Chinni slept, except for dinner.

N got little lazy to prepare dinner at that time. The wish to order pizza was the last resort. We tried calling at least 5 numbers and everybody refused to drop in for delivery and so we decided to step out at 10.30 pm. We had never stepped out so late....ever. That made the anniversary special.

We found Pizza hut still open in Bommanahalli, ordered pizza and pasta without anymore delay. For the first time we both were trying pasta. It wasn't a bad choice, in fact it was very good. Both of us were so hungry, hogged everything that was order!!!

9th April, 2012 will be remembered as 5th Anniversary and Pizza day :)

180 - south movie

This post is pending since a long long time, at least since 4 months. There have been several movies like 180. I am reviewing this because the message given is so wrong and no, I am not not going start reviewing movies.

As I started watching the movie, I felt "it's so refreshing". The hero in the movie is standing out from the common man, else who would watch a movie ?. The acts, behaviors are so different, it catches everybody's attention, and so does the heroine's.

The heroines were also so refreshing to watch. Guess I was bored with the typical Bollywood looks, or they are really pretty?, you decide!

Priya Anand

Nithya Menon

The curiosity, of why hero has no rules, increased tremendously by the time the movie reaches interval. The curiosity got shattered when the secret is no more. Anybody could have guessed, he is approaching death, hero is fighting cancer which leaves him 180 days to live. I was really taken a back seat with this reasoning.

Why should one have "No rules", the tag line of the movie, only when he knows that death is very near? Is death the penultimate thing ?

When I started watching the movie, I felt "why shouldn't I be like him ?". There is more in life than death. There is more to achieve in life than be scared of death. 

I would say the hero in the movie is actually scared and so he starts living with no rules for that short period. This is definitely a wrong message. Another movie of the same genre, Anand, was a huge success. People still watch it as a classic movie. But for me, it gives a wrong direction, to the living human beings.

Got my point ?

The Sweet Dishes I tasted in HK

Can't forget the sweet dishes I tasted in Hong Kong. They were really yummy yummy :)

Egg yolk bun.

 Inside of Egg yolk bun

Portuguese Tart

I tasted couple more of assorted dim sum dishes, yup I forgot them :(

The Urge to Dance

She likes dancing
She enjoyed singing and dancing.
She danced with Ayush today.

I read the "dancing" comment everyday in Chinni's play group dairy.

And yesterday it was apparent when she started to dance to the song from Main Hoon Na. Not only that, her wish was pappa should also dance. The mood continued with others song played on 9XM channel.

Guess the time? It was 11 pm :)

Chinni's Complaint

Here is the situation - Chinni avoids having dinner. N is well behind Chinni to feed her. So finally they compromise to go downstairs and have dinner beside swimming pool. Chinni drags me as well saying "nannge pappa beku" meaning "I want dad also to come with me". This change as come recently, she pulls me every now and then when N forces her to do something in which she is not interested.

So we go downstairs, sit beside swimming pool. Chinni starts having dinner as if N has swirled the magical stick. Chinni is chewing food and something is running in her mind. I was just sitting enjoying the full moon who had just woken up colored in orange. 

Chinni utters - 

Chinni: Pappa, ma'm didn't give me colors to paint

Me: Is it? ok, I will call up ma'm and ask her to give you colors

Chinni: No no, I will call ma'm

She lifts her left palm, as if its phone and dials numbers using her right hand. She speaks

Chinni: Ma'm give me colors tomorrow to paint.

Ma'm on the other side (this is Chinni's imagination): No

Chinni: You won't give? I will tell pappa. (And then tells me)

Pappa: Ask her to give you colors to paint.

Chinni: Ma'm give me colors to paint.

Ma'm: ok

Chinni: ok? ok!. Bye

She disconnects the phone and continues chewing!!!

Best Buddies

Iksha and Anu have been enjoying each other's companion. In the previous post I had uploaded the swimming pool pics. Here is a video, shot on the same day, in which both of them are dancing.

They are having a good time with each other. Hope this friendship lasts forever.

Update:

The friendship has gone beyond swimming and dancing. Would like to mention here, Anu calls up N's mobile and requests to speak to Chinni!!! And what's the age of these 2 buddies, just below 4. Chinni too acts like calling Anu and speaking to her. Chinni still doesn't understand the concept of phone completely. But she enacts our actions while we are on the phone.

This update is because of the photos shared by Jyo just after I published this video. So here I am including the photos where these 2 fellas are busy painting.

I was really surprised to see Chinni painting. Little did I know that she can paint too. This was during the last weekend visit to Dharwad and it was Jyo's home.

Thanks a lot Jyothi, for clicking them and sharing.

First time in Swimming pool

The photos describe it all. I don't have to explain how much she enjoyed in water.

A lot of occasions have passed where she was afraid to get into the pool. This weekend she just followed Anuskha, Jyoti and Navneet's daughter.

Aren't they pretty good friends? :)

What did you do when you are in lift and power went off ?

Chinni was in the elevator along with the play school maid. The power went off. When N told me this, my immediate question was "Chinni cried loud?". What else would I expect from a 3 years old kid! Well my imagination was totally wrong. I was thinking like an adult, if only I had thought a child's perspective I would have asked a better question.

But then what did Chinni do? She asked the maid "Charge mugita?", "Current hoyta?" (translating in English "Charge finished?", "Power gone?"). Only me an N could relate to her reaction and questions and obviously were surprised. She has a brilliant sense of applying thoughts. This is not the first time, there have been several such occasions.

Normally when Chinni has watched too much of movies, videos on laptop we some how manage to switch it off without her knowledge and say "Charge mugitu!" and she quitely accepts it. She applied the same engineering to the lift and asked "Charge mugita?". Similarly, when power goes off tv shuts down automatically. NextGen kids are very very smart.

What does these tears mean?

So its been a week of Day Care or Pre-prep, or what ever it is called, for Chinni. Initially we were little hesitant with the decision, but N has always been pushing. This is one side of the story.

On the other side, Chinni is actually enjoying it. She is having fun. She is having food. She is playing. She is mingling with other kids. She is learning. She is exploring the outside world..... and what not!

The teacher keeps a diary of her day to day activities. I have read some amusing things about Chinni. The first and the fore most was "Iksha is not fussy about food". Nobody in my family would agree to that. She had finished everything served in her plate....idli for breakfast, pasta and jucie for lunch and pakodas for tea time snacks !!!! Just not to miss, she ate everything by herself itseems. 

Children's greatest difficulty is sharing. Toys and chocolates stand first in the list. But the teacher says she is very generous and shares any toy she is playing with. This doesn't happen at all at home.

The second and day she was little reluctant to go. Third day she didn't refuse and today she went happily. In fact, she waved bye followed by a flying kiss. That's when my eyes were filled with tears.  Really didn't understand the meaning of those tears.

Workout - nothing makes me feel so good

I started exercises once again, after a very long long time. One of my colleague says "the pleasure after the workout is much better than after drinking alcohol". Well, I don't know how it feels after drinking alcohol, but definitely I would go by his experience. Nothing makes me feel so much good, now.

I was addicted to gym during MCA days, the university had one. But could not continue after coming out of college. Tried couple of times later, but failed miserably. This time there is nothing stopping me and I have a very strong mindset to reduce my weight and tummy. Hoping that i will achieve this goal, will plan for more in months to come.

My aim is the next year Marathon organized by TCS. Want to run the complete 10 kms, within appreciable time limit.

CML aka Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia

Looking forward to compile a few posts regarding CML.Will make sure I will put some effort to give as much knowledge I have and share with you all. My only thought is to give information, which might help anybody in need. 

If you need more information, not published in any of the posts then you can contact me as well at avinash [dot] thm [at] gmail [dot] com

Not that I am an expert, but I have been with a person who has suffered this deadly disease for more than 10 years now and is still struggling with it for life.

Stepping towards a new chapter

Chinni's school is 2 months away, but the preparations have started already. Today the school had organized sale of books, stationery, uniform and other necessary stuff. Since she is joining Nursery, thankfully, she has no uniform.

The books and stationery itself cost me around Rs 600/-, phew!!! and this for Nursery. I am not scared of the expenses, but "how much is she going to learn out of it" is my worry. Well, looking back at my school days, I too had many books. Only I know how of them have I read.

Hoping for a eventful schooling for Chinni :)

The naming convention

It has always been a convention that our fathers, fore fathers and their fathers have followed to mention a person by the relation like mom, dad, ajja, ajji etc etc. This happens in the boundaries of relation. In case of friend, it absolutely crosses all the boundaries and limits.

Recently this has been an exception in office space, only the software industry as of I know.

But have you ever called your mom or dad by his or her name? Quite astonishingly Chinni did it yesterday. It's just that we are constantly putting an effort to make her remember her dad's and mom's names. Well she used to remember my name easily and forget N's name easily. yesterday she not only remembered both of our names but also started calling us by the same. We both were well surprised and happy to hear.

 No need to say the young generation is quite fast.