Thursday, May 29, 2008

Mother tongue

Prior to having kids, I used to feel very strongly about this subject. Whenever I saw kids conversing in English to a degree where few of them didn’t even understand their mother tongue since the mother favored it that way, I contemplated that I am going to make a difference. But little did I know that I would jump into the same boat when it came to talking to my kids. Like many others my motivations were alike. When my children go to kindergarten I didn’t want them to feel alienated when everybody spoke in English owing to the fact that the teachers and helpers have their limits when it comes to language.
More over the number of English medium schools that is sprouting up compared to the native language schools will very soon lead to a stage where Native language schools will get extinct. I cannot comment on whether that is a good or bad sign to our nation but as far as I am concerned, it’s only my reaction to the present situation, so my kids don’t feel estranged. Living in a cosmopolitan city, I take this as an advantage considering the fact that there are people belongto different communities, and the only bond language can be English. Moreover we cannot deny that it is this language that is going to help our kids give an edge over the other non-english –speaking –kids when it comes to higher education or highflying jobs. But I pity the kids in the south as they have to learn two languages, hindi and the native language as compared to kids in the north . I must say that it helps in one way since knowledge of the native language will keep away some unsociable people from taking advantage of us. For instance the shopkeepers, auto drivers etc. All said,I am a malayali, born in bangalore ,Karnataka, which gave me an advantage of knowing 6 languages which is Kannada , Malayalam, English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, the advantage being that the older generation are at ease being in my company.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Headlines today or Comedy today?

I have been following Arushi’s murder mystery for a while now. Thanks to the media and numerous blogs that contribute their personal opinion about how they feel about it. The media in particular never wear out repeating the same thing over and over again, particularly channels like Headlines today , Aaj tak and Times now. The competition between channels has gotten so far that they don’t mind stooping down to any level to get publicity. For instance the interview with Arushi’s close friends was so ridiculous when all they said was that they want the mystery to be solved as quickly as possible and justice should be done to her murder. Towards the end they said “This is Tanvi and some guy(I don’t remember his name) signing off from Headlines today.”Ugggggh what a way to market the channel . It appears like Headlines today is looking for future correspondents. Not to mention the interview with Nupur talwar for HT where the interviewee sounded like he knew the Talwars are innocent owing to kind of questions he put forth. Well! one can never tell until the truth unfolds. I am certain that the media will never want the mystery to be solved and hence they actively contribute by creating more confusion.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Clean Up


Board games and toys have actually managed to occupy half our abode. It’s been a while since I have been thinking of clearing out the mess but somehow I managed to put it off until yesterday when I realized that our home is choking up with the fresh ones from yesterday’s party. Realization about grave space shortage dawned in my otherwise lazy head and I instigated a rapid clean up. Thankfully my maid agreed to take away a few, particularly the ones that appeared new and refused the considerably older ones giving me the same reason-“storage problems”. I can pledge that Adi has not played with these games more than once and here I am trying to clear stuffs that are 3 years old. What was I doing until now? I kept imagining that Adi may lay his hands on them sometime and that time never came. Instead he managed to get us into buying new ones whenever we visited the toy store with other intentions. Today am glad for having given away at least half the stuff to my lucky maid who has three children herself. I swear never to buy anything new for my son and I only hope not to break my resolution this time in any case. Thanks to my bribing habit.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Missing and lethargic

I had to inscribe the incident before I forget. Tired after adi’s birthday , I can’t help but think and laugh about this little lad who lost the return gift. He came up to me and

U= Aunty I didn’t get the return gift waaaaa…. …
Me=I am sure I gave it to you.
U=No aunty, I swear I dint get it.
Me=What is that gift-wrap in your hand.
U=Oh that! I opened the gift you gave me.
Me=Now where is the gift.
U=I don’t know.That is why am telling you that you forgot to give me the gift.
Me=Hmmm…its time for your mama to pick you up and before she arrives, you look for the gift you lost.
U=Aunty, I cant .Why don’t you just give me the one in your hand.
Me=Hmmmmm!! Hey your mama has come…go go go quick

Ufffffffff

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Gloomy but Content

Yesterday was Adi’s birthday and my boy is 6 year old. I am alarmed at how time flied. Memories are still fresh in my mind and they don’t seem like memories to me. The pregnancy, the way I panicked on the night when I knew he was coming, rushing to the hospital, the anxiety which led to fever and throwing out, the doc taking me in for a C-section, the anesthetist asking me if I like idlis and then then blank….few hours later, I see my hubby staring at my face and saying ”hey it’s a boy”. The minute I heard that ,I felt like running to the nursery to see my little one. As I was nudging Aju to get him, I saw a nurse coming in with a small bundle. One look at my tiny boy and I knew he is going to be a handful. From there the journey began with the delightful infant stage, the troublesome two, mischievous 3, snooping 4, spirited 5 and now the accepting 6. That was quiet an expedition and am grateful to him for keeping me busy and not letting me know how time passed. Gone are those potty days, the days when he clinged to me seeing a stranger, his babblings, his cute talk, his charming silly stories, his naughty peers, his rhymes etc. I am going to miss it badly as he acts grown-up already. He is happier in the company of his friends than with me and I guess it’s time to let go. I am sure I’ll find the coming years interesting in other ways.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Timing Issue


Awwww ! summer holidays is almost done and am already feeling my adrenaline rush thinking of adi dashing to school in the early hours of the day. Until last year I was stress-free with Adi leaving to school only by 9 A. M. There was enough time for him to have a leisure breakfast. But this year he has to leave home by 7.30 AM and I am anxious about my wake up time and his breakfast issues. Adi has been an early bird until now and I the lazy bum don’t have problems in my wake up time but can’t get myself to get off the comfort of my bed. My thinking process is in progress as to “will it make a difference if I get up by 5.30 or 6 given that half an hour of sleep really makes a difference to lazy bums like me. Will ajith wake up by then so I can plunk half the burden on him, like feeding him just incase adi gets lazy in front of food. “Years back (during our courtship, ajith had claimed that he is an organized man, early bird etc etc and there is no place for a lazy bum like me in his life (that is if I prefer to be stubborn) and so I need to change incase I have get along with him. I am sure that sounded a bit rude but not bad although thinking positively. But now the organized man has been transformed into “me” and I have taken the opposite direction-thanks to my kids, not him since it din’t take long for me to change him. After I got into the parenting role, a straight 8 hr sleep has become a dream come true and yeah I miss it even more now in view of adi’s school timing. The saying that goes “everything happens for good “ is true in my case. Atleast my body clock wakes me exactly at 6 A.M, since Atul needs to be fed at that time. The arrangement so far was that I drag myself out to prepare atul’s milk at 6 A.M and slump back as soon as he has gulped that down. Now slumping back will not work and I just have to make up my mind to drag myself to the kitchen .A hot cup of tea may HELP!!!!

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Mandira Bedi and My Hubby


Now come on dirty minds, don’t get ideas. I am talking cricket here. From a woman of substance in the mega Shanti to one of the most happening faces on television today Mandira gave a shot at anchoring cricket(male dominated game) for Set max 6 years ago. The first time Ajith saw her on his favorite channel, he stared at her like it was the most inappropriate thing happening to the channel. Infact I was also taken aback but unlike Ajith, I was a bit more liberal towards her presence initially. Some color to an otherwise unexciting channel in my outlook. But color slowly began to show skin and controversies slowly cropped up, the major one being the Indian tricolor displayed on her saree below her navel. Ajith never missed a chance to make comments when he the expert listened to her layman knowledge about cricket.
Few go like this
· Look at Charu sharma’s face when she says something dim-witted
· Is she wearing a blouse
· Nice earrings, do you want one like that. Call her and ask her to stop hosting cricket and I’ll buy you one
· When will set max realize that they have made a mistake
· Wish she knew atleast as much cricket as you knew.

By the way Mandira shot to fame for her noodle-strap blouses while presenting 'Extra Innings' on TV during the 2003 and 2007 Cricket World Cup. And she feels that more women started appreciating the game because of her.When controversies cropped up, this is how she justified herself
It was all the handiwork of people who had difficulty in accepting a woman doing well in a field that was known to be dominated by men. They just needed a reason to remove me from the scene. But again, I am not a controversial person at all. I always believe an apology works best when rest fails. It is never my intention to hurt anyone’s religious sentiments. And I did just that.

What do you think about that comment Ajith.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Birthday Bash


It’s noon here and Adi is prepared to go to a birthday party at 4PM. He is all energized and sitting here dressed from past an hour. Talking about birthdays, we live in an apartment, where there are around 200 families in our complex most of whom we know. Majority are couples our age and Adi has ample friends his age. A minimum of two to three birthdays happen in a month and Adi gets to party on these days. Gifts play a vital role and depending on whether it’s a girl or a boy, sensible gifts need to be chosen. That will ensure a visit to the nearest toy store couple of times a month. Boys favorite being anything related to Ben 10, Power rangers, hot wheels etc while girls stick to Barbie, bead games, play doh etc. Parents favorite for their kids being puzzles, books, brain games etc. Note that parents are constantly working to enhance the brain potential of kids rather than providing them with toys they prefer. Getting to the celebration part, few birthdays are organized in the clubhouse of our complex, few others at fast food chains while others at the convenience of their home. Most kids prefer fast food chains to the other two considering the play options and junk food available there. Adi’s birthday is fast approaching and to my surprise my neighbor told me the other day that Adi has invited them for his b’day at pizza corner in Indiranagar. Infact I was planning to keep it simple by partying at home, inviting just a few of his close friends. Parties here have definitely influenced my son .He does not want to settle for anything less and our aim to see him happy has finally led to “Adi dictates and we follow”.

P.S: While I was writing this, Adi came to me and said that he wants to download some cool games from zzapi.com – The Pizza Corner virus catching up.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Aditya Petrified


This incident happened a year ago and I am not sure why am blogging about it at the moment. Bangalore malls are so crowded during weekends that we don’t even get hold of a mouthful of air. It was one of those days when we decided to shop in one of the malls and I had particularly warned Adi to cling to us to keep him from going astray. However this time it was his dad’s blunder. Ajith happened to drool over the Esprit watch that was showcased in the heart of the mall and he didn’t even realize that he had let go of adi’s hand. Luckily even before we panicked, we heard the announcement from the reception, which said that they had found a boy wearing red T –shirt and jeans, and his name is ADITYA. We dashed towards the reception to find my boy in tears. I glared at Ajith like I could gobble him down. After that incident, I make sure to turn back every 10 seconds to see if Ajith is drooling.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Riches to Rags

Today’s piece of writing on paper regarding the story of rags to riches has certainly caught my eye. I was taken aback when I read the facts about hundreds of farmers who owned agricultural lands worth anything between Rs 3 crore and 30 crore in Jakkur and other neighboring villages, in the past four years have become daily wage workers. This is the result of bangalore’s fast development and it is these people who have become victims.
The farmers have been lured by the bangalore development authority with a compensation rate of about 4 lakhs an acre. In actual the market price was about 2.5 crore to 3 crore an acre. Now these landowners neither have the land nor the compensation. Setting their self-esteem aside, they have sent their daughters and wives to work as domestic help in apartments that have come up in their locality. It is very depressing that our government is taking advantage of the ignorance of poor farmers.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Ooty The Beauty


I am not sure why we set aside this destination when it came to planning a holiday. Goa being our preferred target, we constantly headed there when we looked-for a break. I presume Bangalore’s increasing mercury level ought to have stimulated us to set off to some place cool. To begin with, we made a few enquiries about the place and the response was negative as many of ‘em said that ooty has lost its charm. But since it has been our first time to ooty, I was delighted to see the mountain range filled with eucalyptus trees and tea plantations covered in mist. Not to mention our way to Ooty which is incredibly scenic. We took the Bangalore –Mysore- Masinagudi route and passed through the bandipur forest where we saw couple of elephants, deer and monkeys on the way. Sadly or luckily we didn’t cross our paths with a tiger since most of the forest route indicated tiger reserves. Our stay at Holiday Inn in Ooty has been very comforting. The location of the hotel is key since we were lucky to get the valley view from our bedside window, which was spectacular. The food and service was also first-class. Our intention was to relax and take a tour around the local attractions at our pace. To begin with we went for a boat ride in the late evening and it was fun. The next day we visited the tea factory and botanical garden. As our booking at holiday inn was only for 2 nights, we were reluctant to return the following day. So we extended our stay and settled in Monarch (Mithun Chackraborthy’s hotel.) for another day.The executive suite was good but food was a disaster. My taps opened the next day and we decided to return to Bangalore. I popped in some meds on our way back and the journey was uncomfortable because of my physical condition. Except for my return trip, our expedition to Ooty was absolutely fabulous.