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