smart bites

nidhi: where does sushma atthe stay?
veena: london, with viky mama.
nidhi: why?
veena: cos they are married and stay together. Like I'm married to your dad and stay with him.

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neha wet the bed yesterday night. She had grown over that almost 2 years back. So yesterday was an odd event. I asked her - why did you do it? she said "neenu kelali antha" (so that you can ask me that). tharle gunda!

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veena and Nidhi are watching TV. There is an ad on conserving water. A school boy sees a running tap. He tries to close it, its doesn't stop; he thrusts the head of the tap down, its doesn't stop. Finally he removes his school tie and binds the tap to stem the flow and walks away happily. Veena is pleased that nidhi saw such a noble message on TV. She turns to Nidhi waiting for an ack on the lesson learnt. Nidhi comments " hey, avange aa tie bedva?"

the way you see it

skipping rope + two rupee coin + ingenuity of a child (nidhi in this case) = POLAR BEAR

kalpana

Kalpana was a famed Kannada actress of yesteryear.
I don't know why she was a hit though. She looked horrible and overacted in every scene. Every emotion was stretched by her like a rubber till you nauseate.

Anyway, the take away from her to this post is that Neha has been overacting for the last two days. Watch the video below and you'd think she is recovering from a knee cap surgery. All she had was an injection of DPT Polio vaccine on her left thigh.

New Skills

Last one month has been hectic learning period for kids.

First was an attempt to learn swimming. The pool finally opened in our apartment complex and kids were over the moon when they learnt that there'll be a trainer to help them learn. the curve was usual. kids were excited the first couple of days and happy beating their legs in the water holding onto the railing. Third day, the fear set in when the trainer took them to the deeper end and later asked them to jump into the water and he'd hold them. Kids started crying and begged for freedom from this torture. Neha & Nidhi weren't unique cos kids of all ages were in similar mode then. I could re-visit my own fears when learning swimming at 32. The fear doesn't change, the expression of it does. Neha & Nidhi got fed up with us coaxing them to learn and they not able to deal with the fear of deep end of the pool. I had promised them to buy "island princess barbie" dolls if they learnt swimming. They decided it is easier to forgo that desire.

The second more successful venture is drawing. There is a very good artiste who is our neighbour. She is a pleasing lady who loves teaching kids and had been an art teacher earlier. Check her oil paintings exhibited last year. kids have started off well and seem to like drawing and the teacher.

The third exercise was picked up pretty fast. It was to use touch pad on the laptop and learn to color a picture. It is their new hobby to go and color at this link.

The fourth skill is brewing in school. They have enrolled for a group dance for their school day celebrations. A teacher with an unusual name - Harret is their dance teacher. Kids are shy to show me what they have learnt so far. I'll have to wait for the school day which is 2 weeks away.

Switching topics, I've been living in the comfy zone since August and been in the trap of nice food and no exercise. I was a regular to the gym in the first half of the year and the practice snapped around the time the festivals started in August. I needed a kick on the backside to start again and Nidhi provided me exactly that. She saw my growing paunch and asked "appa, ninna hotte yaake doddadhaagtha idhe, magu beli tha idhiya?"

Trip to the Forests

October is the time for the annual 'cousins club trip' as we call it. It has been an annual routine for the last 15 years now for my brothers, cousins to gang up with families and travel. We prefer some destination within Karnataka (there is so much to see) and a remote one at that. So forests are usually our destination. This time, we visited nagarahole & bandipur forests for 4 days and the crowd was 9 adults and 7 kids. Here is an account of the trip:

A few 'firsts' for kids:

• Kids did their first trekking in life - we trekked for about 4 kms in bandipur forest to view a beautiful lake. kids walked about half that distance. Our shoulders ached for two days because of carrying them for the remaining distance. We trekked in a thick forest with a local tribal man as a guide. Forget being armed for a risky trek like this, we were carrying kids and at nature's mercy for an hour or so. As I commented later, the only thing we could have done on sighting a leopard or tiger was to sing the popular Kannada folk song to the beast - "chanda vyaagrane, neenu idellava undu santhasadhindhiru". We watched a splendid sunset at the fag end of our trek. Kids felt very proud on doing the trek and posed.
  

• Kids had the first taste of a waterfall and a beautiful one at that - irruppu falls. The kids screamed in frenzy for 40 mins in the van on the way to irruppu falls in excitement. They trekked up the path in zeal as well. The imposing waterfall and freezing water almost killed all the enthusiasm in them. They did enjoy the dip in the water for a while and their jaws rattled for 10 mins after getting out of water.

• Kids played cards! It helps to start early :-) Kids were feeling bored one late evening on the trip, men wanted to play cards and women folk wanted a break from taking care of kids. The genius stroke from me was to give kids a pack of old playing cards and that kept them busy for more than two hours. The eldest kid in the gang came up with a game and rules were conveniently designed by him on the fly so that he wins all those games. Anyway that kept the kids engaged & happy and served our needs.
  

Other notes:

• Nidhi touched the tusk of a tamed elephant and was super thrilled

• Neha & Nidhi saw enough of forest that they could distinguish dung of four animals - goat, cow, gaur & elephant (no snaps for this :-))
  

• Kids loved the van safari ride in nagarhole and we could sight peacock, deer, elephants, gaur, wild boar, malabar squirrel & monkeys. First snap is that of kids wearing monkey caps and gazing at the forest. Second snap is that of the marks scraped on the bark of a tree by a tiger to mark its territory
  

We visited a rather cute govt primary school in murkal forest where the tribal kids are taught. Some interesting snaps from this school. Notice how small the benches are and how big the stick is! One true believer of 'spare the rod & spoil the child'.

Pics Time

First Pasta that kids tried out (at pizza hut, banashankari 2nd stage). nidhi didn't like it (and drank my ice tea instead & sucked out the remaining juice from the lemon piece). neha, as evident, loved it.

kids, tender coconut, mama, osi scoprio, mysore

both posing as goddess lakshmi - you have to imagine coins spilling off the plastic bowl in nidhi's case and in neha's case, you have to imagine the plastic bowl as well. neha is sitting on the plastic container we keep monthly provisions in.

how to describe khara

Nidhi & Ajji

In the last few days, there have been two instances involving nidhi and my mom that are worth noting.

Neha & Nidhi usually talk in Kannada between themselves except when it comes to playing with their army of barbies. They have watched a few barbie movies & tend to imitate the way she speaks in them and hence English makes it in as their communication tool. The other day, both were playing with their barbies and my mom entered the room. neha told my mom not to come in and nidhi wanted to say "mucchu baayi, namm ajji avaru".
she said "stop mouth, she is my grand ma"

yesterday, we had been to our parents house in the evening. Nidhi assumed that my mom will come to our house with us. When she didn't join us in the car, nidhi started crying inconsolably. My mom tried to cook up reasons as to why she cant come with us. She said I've not had my dinner yet and will eat and come later. between the 100 decibels of wailing, nidhi blabbered "namm manege ba, amma seege kaayi huli maadidhaare, alle thinnu".
seege kaayi huli? soap nut sambar? yuck.

Moral Lessons ke side effects

we teach the kids to be honest and speak truth always
Two weeks back one of my PUC friends visited me and I met him after long time. In fact veena and kids met him the first time. He had come along with his wife and sister & her family to check out an apartment to buy in our complex. Since birth, he has squint in one of his eyes & the eye ball is a little green. I guess it is called noonan syndrome but am not sure (I'm as smart as google search algorithm :-)). I and he were very close friends at one point of time but I had never asked him anything about this defect, thinking it is embarrassing to do so. Nidhi saw him and the first set of questions she asks him are : "ninge kannu kaanalva? kanna mele yaake sticker haakondu idheeya?" Thankfully he took it sportingly and brushed it aside as manufacturing defect.

This one happened a few years back but i still find it hilarious and is probably one of the most embarrassing moments I've been in:
i & veena had taken shreya (my brother's elder daughter) to a fruit stall near home. She was around 2.5 years then. While we were shopping, shreya noticed a very fat man standing next to us and buying fruits. she asked me " chikkappa, avanige dumma andhre baithaana?"
What am I supposed to respond back? if i say "yes, he'll scold you" that negates the moral lesson we teach the kids of speaking truth. If i say no, she would have told him that on the face. Either way that guys would be cheesed off. He already was but didn't know how to respond to the situation. Even i didn't know. I just carried her away from that stall as soon as I could without glancing at that person.

we teach kids to have ambitions in life
yesterday I gave neha examples of people in different professions (like teacher, engineer, doctor, bus driver, athlete...) and asked her what she'd like to be when she grows up. She responded "I'll become a mother". Now I was happy but thought it is a pretty modest goal to have in life (mind you it is the most challenging job once you get it but modest to aim for, i think). But then again, I was happy cos the job a mother does is what appealed to neha the most over others. This is recognition of some of the hard choices veena took after kids were born (to quit a good software career and become a home maker)

My Trip to Sunnyvale

"appa neenu beku anstha idhe, nange alu barakke aagtha idhe"
(appa, i want you here and i feel like crying)

those were the words that shook me out of my slumber today morning. i woke up when veena called me and kids spoke to me. These cute, incorrectly formed, emotive sentences were spoken by nidhi and that surprised me. Nidhi normally doesn't express her feelings and tries to wriggle out such situations by masking them with humor or mischief. she has my genes there. I like to keep a clean cool GUI myself in spite of what runs in my brain.
she was playing with other kids in the sand pit in apartment when veena asked her to talk to me. she went far from others, spoke these words in a very soft tone, and headed back to her friends with her usual glee and playful mood. I wonder how she does that. the way she can change her expressions, mask her true feelings makes me think she can be a wonderful actor if she pursues that field. It is very evident that the kids are missing me badly by the 6th day of my trip to US. And there are 13 more days to go. I hope they keep themselves busy enough and don't miss me badly. I hope i don't start missing them badly either. I sheepishly admit that I've enjoyed my trip so far and have enjoyed the solitude. I have been able to work better and have had a few busy days here.

The last time i did a business trip to US was about 18 months back. That time they were smaller and my trip was shorter. probably 9 days. This time I started preparing them for this break a week before i started.

I told them I'll be gone for 3 weeks - they don't understand what a week means.

i told them I'll be gone for 20 days - school has taught them counting till 10. for them 10 is the biggest number they know and 10 means infinite.

i told them I'll be gone for 10 days - they understood it like I'm gone forever (10 = infinity). Nidhi didn't tell me not to go for 10 days. but she wetted the bed the next 3 days (which she had stopped more than a year back) to indicate that something is not going right within her.

i realised what i had caused and I told them I'll be gone for 4 days - that is a lie and i felt bad telling that. but they could understand somehow.

And if you thought my kids really know numbers upto 10 very well, in the morning, neha asked me , "innu 4 days agillva?" (aren't those 4 days over?). Innocence is such a wonderful thing. I hope my kids age freezes now and they remain like this forever.

My cousin's wife landed from US for her vacation and we went to meet her a week before my trip. she gave them M&Ms and they loved it. They love "cadbury gems" and eat them very often. These new gems (in new colors) were interesting to them. I told I'll get them from US. Neha has been telling everyone since then that her dad is going to US to get gems. I wish i could add that in the invite letter of my business trip :-)

promptly, she asked me that as well in the morning conversation. she was very objective in this discussion:

neha - "appa, innu 4 days agillva?"
me - "innu 4 days beku kandha, kelsa idhe"
neha - "gems thogondya?"
me - "yes"
neha - "ammange phone kodthini"

Pun Fun

Phew, it has been quite a while since putting a post here. it is the lull after storm feeling at home.
last one month was brewing with excitement & activity around my brother-in-law's wedding. Shopping, inviting people, more shopping, then the wonderful wedding itself. All this occupied us till yesterday. Now the four of us back at home again trying to re-arrange our lives and run it at normal pace.

The school has started 4 days back and kids had no clue of it till today morning. They'll attend the school from next Monday. Neha sheepishly remembered that her teacher might ask her why she did not attend the first week and checked with me whether I've informed the teacher or not. Nidhi feels no guilt in this space and was too happy that her vacation got extended by a few more days.

An unique dish for breakfast in the morning threw up a bunch of PJs. The kids were not part of it but then I never wrote in blood that this blog will not have anything else other than about kids.

Veena prepared uppittu with aralu (i know it is not puffed rice and I dont know what the hell it is called. the one that you use to make sandige (now if that rings a bell)). there were some grains with the husk. she had not dehusked them cleanly before preparing it. dehusking is called kheru (sounds like care) in Kannada.

So here is the pun fun:

I: (on seeing some husk in my plate), veena you did not care enough

veena: I was in a hurry and could not care more. watch when you are eating

I: you could have cared more. you are careless. no one cares for me.

then my mind goes wild with this pun:

what does car care mean?
or even scarier, what does customer care mean - dehusk a customer?

what do you call a bunch of villagers dehusking paddy/wheat?
Intensive Care Unit?

birthday

Note the label on this post. Neha & Nidhi are in their fifth year now!

They celebrated their 4th year birthday last week and as expected the event threw up a few things that I can blog about. The kids have been talking and planning about their birthday since last Nov or so. They have not only bugged parents about their birthday but even their teachers. When Veena went to school last Monday to pick books for next year, the teachers asked her "isn't their birthday tomorrow? every time some kid celebrates birthday in school, these two shout out saying ours is on Apr 2". It is a pity that their birthday falls in the summer vacation. They would have had so much more fun celebrating at school as well.

Since Apr 2 was a working day and given my telecon schedules on weekdays, we decided to celebrate the birthday on Apr 5 (Saturday). They had been wanting to have one complete barbie doll set each as their birthday gift for sometime now. My mother gifted them that. Within minutes, nidhi's barbie doll looked like the most handicapped person in the world - no legs, no arms. She meddled with barbie's hair and made her look even uglier. the accessories in the doll set were scattered. But she kept playing with that barbie and she likes it. Neha's barbie ain't much better. We wished them on Apr 2 and they were puzzled and asked "so will we have the party today? will the cake be there today? will my friends gift me today?"

On Apr 5, they got into party mood only late in the afternoon after I brought home the cake. It was a vanilla flavored cake in the form of a duck pond. By 6:30 their friends in the apartment complex started pouring in. Nidhi was watching the door and as soon as somebody enters the house, she would go towards the person, extend her arms (to receive the gift) and welcome her. She did this with most of the guests. After a while she became even more shameless & effective with her method. Till then she would receive the gift (or snatch is a better word) and go & put in the cupboard. Later, one boy entered the house and she directed him to go put the gift in the cupboard himself. The boy was perplexed. So she held his hand, took him to the cupboard & asked him to put it there. Afterwards she commented to her friend "avanige put alli andre gothe agolla" (if i tell him to put it in the cupboard, he doesn't understand at all)

the kids circled the cake as soon as it was kept on the table. I & Veena had to make sure nobody touches it or falls over it. After blowing off the candle & singing, the kids cut the cake & ate a piece each. me & veena were hoping they would feed us as well but they were relishing the cake and the other kids seemed ready for the cake like hounds. We took the cake inside & served it with other snacks. All the kids left within 2 minutes of receiving the return gifts.

some things that I pondered over, after the party:

# In their last birthday, it was only a couple of months since we had moved to the apartment and hence did not know many people. There were only a couple of kids that we had called. This time, it was about 30 kids. Veena had a couple of friends last year and she knows about 15 or 20 ladies in the complex now. I had only one friend in the complex last year, I have only one friend this year. And he has been my friend for 17 years now. speaks so much about my networking skills! In spite of knowing very little english, neha & nidhi have made friends with kids who speak other languages at home with ease. they even talk quite a bit with an old day who is our neighbour & who knows only oriya & little hindi. why do we grow up? what is our problem?

# after showing so much enthu to receive the gifts & rather shamelessly at that, nidhi spent about only two or three minutes to look at all of them. the only thing that interested her & neha is the small tent house that I bought them. that has been their home inside home for the last 3 days. It now houses them, their favourite dolls, the severely handicapped barbie, their kitchen set... All that they needed & enjoyed that day was the small token of attention they received from their friends and us. For this they waited for months. The gifts aren't a great deal & they don't bother who gifted them what. do we adults look at gifts & gifting this way always? why do we grow up? what is our problem?

Big Cats

Mar 21 2008
Holiday on account of good Friday. Long weekend ahead. Think of escaping from Bangalore. Couple of hot product escalations pin me down to Bangalore as I had to check mails periodically and step in if necessary


8:00 am
Weather is gloomy. Thick clouds threatening to burst. And this is summer time we think. Me & veena decide we'll take kids to bannerghatta national park if weather holds good. Plan not to tell kids about it since they'll get disappointed if they know and it starts pouring & we cant make it.


10:00 am
It starts raining. We finish breakfast and the customary weekend tea. We decide to get ready for the trip anyway hoping rain'll subside by the time we leave.


11:30 am
all of us are ready and veena has packed a picnic bag with lunch & munchies. As we hoped rain stops but weather stays gloomy


12:15 pm
we reach bannerghatta. it is hard to imagine that there is a national park & a thick forest behind it only 19 kms from home. the thought of staying so close to natural habitat is exciting.


12:25 pm
we enter the animal park and realize the queue to safari is nearly zero. thanks to the gloomy weather & festivals of hindus, muslims & christians falling on the same day (holi, id, good friday)


12:45 - 1:45 pm
we enter the van that'll take us on the grand safari (covering herbivore, bear, lion & tiger safaris) . ticket cost is 125 bucks for adults. kids under 5 ride free provided they sit on the adults' laps. van driver & helper hint us to take the two seats in the front. we accept their graciousness to get a broad view of the safari thru the windshield. realise, it is a ploy of them to ask for bigger tips at the end. we play along with them as we get the best view in the van


the herbivore park has a few spotted deer, sambar, black bucks, bisons. wild pigs. only the wild pigs interest kids thanks to 'gaalipata' movie where anant nag loses & regains life in his legs due to a wild pig and his hunting attempts


we move to the bear safari. just a few ordinary bears there lazing under rocks. kids are disappointed that they are not moving around and lively.


I'm cajoling nidhi to befriend the van driver & helper so that she can sit with the helper and get the best view of animals. that would give me some space to move my legs as well. driver asks me if neha & nidhi are twins. I say yes. He responds ' namdu twins idhe'. I ask him really, you also have twins? he says not me but there are twin tiger cubs in the safari. I fell stupid and veena grins loud and says 'blog this'


we enter the lion safari. expectedly the male lions are sleeping. the female lions are more active but inside the cage & we do not get a good view of them. nidhi gets disappointed & does not want to look at the lions. reason - lion is shown in orange & brown in cartoons, books... here the lions are pale brown & with dirty brown hair. she tells me why they're not orange like in books. I tell her the lions aren't exactly orange in color and these ones are a little dirty as well. she tells me & the driver to get the lions bathed and then show them to her. alright queen, we'll do that!



the tigers were the most impressive and majestic. kids love them. so do we.




we pay 30 rupees tips to the driver. he is not happy. i think 'cant do much'.


2:00 pm
back in the park or zoo, we start our lunch. kids are eating kurkure & want to feed the crows. we finish lunch. kids survive on kurkure & icecream. we want to show them leopard & zebra. they are more interested in playing swing & see-saw in the play area. we tell them you play it everyday in the apartment complex & better see the animals. they win the argument & we end up getting some peaceful time on the stone benches while kids play & sway.




4:30 pm
we head back. there is a butterfly park to see but legs are aching & kids are tired. we skip it & head back home. i get stupidly adventurous & try an off track road to connect to kanakapura road. end up driving 10 kms more & reach home by 5:30

Some recent lovely moments

A collection of fun moments in our lives recently:

snaps 1 & 2 - neha & nidhi using clothes line as a swing. this is in spite of us having a big swing inside the house

snaps 3 & 4 - neha caught in some funny poses. first one was when she was searching for a marble behind the table & second, when she was sleeping

snap 5 - i call this height of optimism. neha & nidhi trying basket ball. nidhi was using a small light weight plastic ball (on the ground) while neha was using a tennis ball (mid air if you observe closely)

snap 6 & 7 - neha & nidhi flying kite. it was one of my dreams in the last few months to buy a kite and show kids how they fly. we managed to do this about 3 weeks back. you have to search for the kite in snap 7. fyi - the kite flew much farther than shown in this snap :-)

snaps 8 & 9 - kids on top a tree branch on NH48. When we were on our way from hassan and stopped at a dhaba for tea

snaps 10, 11 & 12 - it snowed in our house! veena had brought some thermocol sheets to exercise her artistic talent. kids scraped the sheets to bits before veena could show her skills.

Trip to Shravanabelagola

A job change has meant lesser time at home (or office :-)) to update the blog.

We visited shravanabelagola (SBG) last saturday on our way to hassan to attend a wedding. The journey was usual with breakfast packed for kids to be eaten during journey, kids' favourite movie songs playing on the car stereo (they also listened to 'gaalipata' songs {new kannada movie} and fell in love with them instantly), breakfast, snacks messing up the leather seats & flooring of the car and kids changing seats & moving between passenger & back seats about 7 or 8 times. First stop was kunigal to visit the stud farm at around 10:30. Thanks to my cousin Teju, we feel pretty privileged to have seen this farm a few times and it is a wonderfully maintained 200+ acres farm with some majestic breeds and their promising kids. teju showed us around the farm and kids saw a few animals - horses, dog, cat, monkeys, cows, rabbits. So many on that farm that nidhi mistook it to be a zoo and asked teju, where are the deer?

After breakfast for us and probably the best tea i've had in my life, we moved on and reached SBG at around 12:45 or so. I had visited SBG when I was a little older than what neha & nidhi are now and that is 25+ years back. I still had a vivid memory of seeing the monolith but had forgotten how hard it is to climb up & see that. or maybe my mom or one of my uncles would have carried me for a while. There are 590 stone steps to reach the top discounting the really small 30 odd steps on the rock slope near the summit. It was scorching hot summer afternoon and we felt it'll be a hard challenge to climb up with the kids. we were hoping that neha & nidhi would climb atleast 30% of the steps themselves and that would help us manage our energies well. what happened was pretty amazing. neha & nidhi started racing on the steps and we were following them closely behind to make sure they dont slip. after about 100 steps, we were panting and started taking stops to catch breath but not these two girls. they climbed up all the way themselves and took their only stop at around 400th step. that was the only time they felt they were tired. we forced them to stop once more cos we were exhausted by the 500th step or so and took longer to climb. Also the first 50 steps or so are pretty hot & cos burns on the feet. Cool breeze calms the heat on the steps higher in the array.

Once we reached the top and entered the temple premise, it was telepathy at work. I & veena did not plan or discuss it but we both moved away from the kids (about 20 ft away) and temporarily disowned them. and the reason for that was the anticipated embarassing situation. neha & nidhi saw the 59 feet monolith in awe for 2 or 3 seconds and then in chorus blurted out "shame shame poppy shame, all the monkeys know your name, maami" (maami is god in kids language). They got the queer look & smiles from the 20 odd people there who had braved the sun & climbed in mata mata madhyaana. We gave the same look as well (remember we did not know them temporarily)

SBG is a great place and you can feel the tranquility of the place and calmness in the temple. A nice place to meditate, great view of the flat fertlie lands around the hill and a nice exercise to climb up.
It was a day well spent.

kholo kholo

the TZP hangover has still not died down in our home. I bought the audio cd of the movie recently and all four of us listen to the songs frequently. The kids listen intently to most of the songs of that movie except bum bum bole. They dance to that one with vigor and seem to remember the dance steps well. I find kholo kholo song very inspiring and nidhi loves it too. She generally picks the tune of a song very quickly (mostly by the 2nd time she hears a song). She has got my genes there. I used to be good at that (am still good) and would pick tune and lyrics of movie songs very quickly. I could even sing more than 20 tamil songs for which rahman composed music. I'm a huge AR fan and even though i dont know tamil, repetitive listening made me pick the tune and sounds (cant call them lyrics cos they made no sense to me). For languages i understand (kannada & hindi), i think i have used (or wasted) about 60% of my memory cells on songs. I can claim to know the lyrics of atleast 100 each of kishore, rafi, mukesh, spb & raj kumar songs. then there are duets of these singers that i remember as well!

hindi songs' lyrics are probably nice sounds for nidhi at this time. so it is fun to hear her sing kholo kholo now. she goes like:

kholo kholo & slience (she doesnt know the remainder of the mukda)

thu dhoop hain, cham serikhe

thu ye nadhi, thu ye gabbar

beh chal kahin, ud chal kahin, dil khush jaha

there is a manzil hain vahii....

the lyrics are:

thu dhoop hain, cham se bikhar

thu hain nadhi, oh bekhabar
beh chal kahin, ud chal kahin, dil khush jaha
teri to manzil hain vahii...

nidhi converts the last line to a hinglish sentence. the good thing is her line is semantically very close to the original lyrics. but she sings this song with amazing passion and very close to tune. I'll be posting the video of her singing this one here soon.

Chitra Santhe

Dec 30 2007 was 'Chitra Santhe' day at Chitra Kala Parishath, Kumara Krupa Road. I've tried to attend the santhe unsuccessfully the last two times now. This time, we missed it as we had to attend a function (homa where kids sang makhan chor) on 30th. I wanted to see whats on show there and then show such work to my kids and see how they react to it. To kind of make up for that loss, I decided to spend time that evening at home and recognise and celebrate all the art work that neha & nidhi have done over the last few months.

We have got them a bundle of paper (DMP printer ones). Every day they pull out a couple of sheets from the bundle, express their imaginations on them and leave it on the floor. I have collected all those sheets for the last few months. 30th evening I checked all of them and asked the kids to explain what they've drawn. I've scanned a few such paintings below and have put some text along with them to explain. Please open the drawing on a separate window to see the text.

Innocence can kill too

Innocence can be a powerful weapon. How else can you embarass an elderly well respected person. Not that you want to but here is what happened yesterday. Nidhi was feasting on her lunch on a plantain leaf sitting next to neha & veena at a family gathering. An elderly man who is very well respected, admired by all kind of personality, was sitting opposite her. Here is the conversation he tried to have with nidhi:

elderly person: shall i also come to your school?

nidhi: but you dont have uniform

elderly person: then i'll wear your uniform and come

nidhi: then your underwear will show and my madam will say 'shame shame poppy shame, all the monkeys know your name, thatha'

elderly person: probably wanted to dig a hole and bury himself there

Kids & Devotional Songs

it is not often that somebody sings the title track of a cartoon TV serial at the end of "satya narayana pooja". But with kids anything is possible or to quote Adidas tag line impossible is nothing
The day was last Sunday and venue was a family gathering to view & attend & feast at a party hall where some relative performed gana homa, ayush homa & a couple of other homas & finally satyanarayana pooja. After the pooja and final mangala arati, one girl sung a devotional song on vishnu. The next scene was neha & nidhi jumping around near the place of worship and shouting we'll also sing, we'll also sing. I was only a spectator for all this as I was standing behind rows of people while neha & nidhi squeezed between people's legs and reached the front where the priests, family conducting the pooja & the gods had assembled. I did not want to stop neha & nidhi from singing but they had gone to the front with their slippers on! I was hoping that nobody observes that and censures them for that innocent act. After they got the nod from someone to sing, both looked at each other, whispered & decided which song to sing and went ahead in chorus "chor chor maakhan chor, chaliya maakhan chor" That is the track on TV when krishna cartoon serial is played at 7:30 pm every evening. And that is one of the regular shows that neha & nidhi watch. They also sang the music that comes in between the song. After they finished singing, expectedly somebody asked them why are you singing a TV serial song and nidhi shot back "ಇದು ದೇವರ ಹಾಡೇ, ಕೃಷ್ನಂದು" (idhu devara haade, krishnandu - this is also a song on god, on kirshna) and the wise elder person just shut his mouth afterwards.

The other time they sung a song that was not 100% appropriate was when somebody in the apartment complex had invited veena & kids during dasara. they had sung the song from manjunatha movie where the atheist hero chides shiva as kalla, sulla,....

But the credit of best joke I've heard about kids & songs goes to my cousin's son - karthik. On his first day at pre-school, the teacher made all the kids sit quiet and asked them, "ಯಾರಿಗಾದರು ದೇವರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಹಾಡು ಬರುತ್ತಾ?" (yaarigaadru devara bagge haadu barotha) , karthik raised his hand. teacher asked him to sing and he went on " ದೇವರು ವರವನು ಕೊಟ್ರೆ ನಾ ನಿನ್ನೆ ಕೋರುವೆ ಚಲುವೆ..." (devaru vara vanu kotre naa ninne koruve cheluve)