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"