The swollen with pride music tutor (SWPT)

This specimen comes to our apartment complex twice a week and terrorizes the kids and adults to learn classical music. She claims to be "THE BEST" and never forgets to mention that "some or one" playback singer(s) in Kannada film industry are being trained by her. The two invisible horns on her head get prominent when she demands to empty our parking lot for her car if she doesn't find a lot in the visitor parking area. An year back when Adi was not yet 6, we got to meet this rare breed. She agreed to come down and grace us with her knowledge after a wee bit of compelling. She declared the cut off age as 6 and those below will not be allowed to join. However I decided to try my luck and I dragged a dispassionate Adi to meet her. There were couple of other kids and mums around as I got into the clubhouse. To my utter dismay I saw the SWPT auditioning the kids. Whoa! this is going to be tough as I had to get Adi to sing. It was Adi's turn and I asked him to sing a rhyme. Adi did complete justice to it and the lady said she wants to hear a movie song. What the heck! I begged Adi to sing Dus Bahane (that being the only song he knew then and only 3 lines). Adi plainly declined and so did she. A year later I get to hear tales about the way she intimidates the kids if they forget lines or cannot articulate the hard lyrics of a Sanskrit song. But the adults do claim that it's helping a few kids who otherwise tend to slack. Hey, what about the humiliation? Does the kid suffer from that? I am not sure if anybody thought of that since kids are sensitive when it comes to getting shamed in front of public. Should she not be using the terms good, very good or best to convey her opinion in a constructive manner? Couple of days back my friend mentioned that she is contemplating on starting another batch. Adi is 6 now and the brat needs to be tamed??? Questions pondering in my grey matter!

Will Adi get tamed to an extent where he will hate music?
Will the SWPT influence him in a positive way as MIRACLES do take place??

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Devil's Advocate

Starring my hubby!! On a lighter moment contributing for his office magazine.Click on the image to zoom for those who have vision problems :P

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NDTV talking about the brave new world of blogs

Barkha Dutt of NDTV discussed about the new world of blogs in her talk show yesterday. It was graced by the presence of some popular bloggers across India. (Unfortunately I was not considered popular and so I dint get invited .I am angry about that barkha) .). The aim of the talk show was to ponder on whether blogs could be regulated.. Now without a debate, I would say that it is impractical and I would recommend readers to make a choice of blogs they like to read or ignore, so they can regulate it from their end. I would not like an external medium to regulate something that was basically created for the sole purpose of personal expression.
There was this girl who kept her identity anonymous and discussed intimate things on her blog and many read it , revisited her and wrote sick comments though they enjoyed her blog for a fact. I entitle this group as cowards. Barkha claimed that some blogs did engage in fabricating stories on people and I would say , it’s upto the people to make the right judgment after reading such blogs. A young gay blogger finds it easy to express his feeling on his blog than sharing the same with his parents or friends. A journalist in the show said that he is bored of saying stuff that others want him to articulate and so he finds blogging a means where he can express his own thoughts about something he strongly feels about be it discussing about his neighbour’s refrigerator or some other lame thing whithout worrying about getting edited. Like barkha put it, “Blog is definitely a small car with a bigger pollution”. It does have many advantages and drawbacks .To strike a right balance is the query here and as far as I am concerned, I still haven’t had the courage to blog something that I strongly feel about. Few years from now may be different.

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Meet the class teacher

And finally I went to meet Adi’s class teacher for the first time after school began. I joined Adi in his van along with his friends and our ride was fun err hassle filled with adi and friends busy drumming each others head followed by complaints pouring in from all sides about ruining each others hairdo. I was the targeted object for coming up with justice, which I badly failed at since I also ended up drumming everybody’s head. While that was done, we reached school and we were a bit early. We said bye to the others while Adi led me to his class. His class teacher hadn’t arrived yet, and as I entered the class few students who were already there, stood up and said good morning. Ah! Now I can play class teacher for a while I thought .I smiled and mumbled good morning while they sat and I was contemplating about what to say then.. Adi was not aware of my plans and he was leaping around while others were watching him with wonder. Just then another student came in and she stood near the door and said, ”excuse me maam”. I said “YES! GET IN”. Whoa! That was fun. A swift sense of power tickled through my body and I wanted to play a bad teacher. I started asking everybody their names and they meekly responded one by one. Another student stopped near the door and I looked at her and asked “why so late”. Her face was a mix of uncertainty and alarm. I made her stand there for a while since she was figuring out the best excuse. Just when the fun began, a smiling tall hefty lady walked in and unanimously the kids stood up and said “good morning” whilst it was my turn to be puzzled. I figured she was the class teacher and I talked to her for a while letting the kids in a “guess who I was” mode while I took leave. FUN!

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Clogging leading to Annoyance

One and all is aware of traffic in bangalore and I would like to cite about how worse it is in front of our apartment located on Old Madras Road. There has never been a day when hubby dear has not complained about trying to pass that road without getting stuck for at least half an hour owing to the bottleneck, which is the K.R. Puram, railway bridge. Last year the road widening work caused congestion and after completion of this, the bottleneck created much more congestion with double the number of vehicles getting stuck under the narrow passage of the bridge. While many industries have their own staff buses, hundreds of IT professionals, who work in ITPL near Whitefield, prefer to use their own vehicles because of their flexible working hours. The difficult driving conditions make their working days longer.

As The Hindu newspaper quotes it
Jurisdictional problems have made matters worse and delayed timely repairs to Old Madras Road. As far as policing goes, the Bangalore Traffic Police have authority up to K.R.Puram. The road on this stretch comes under the limits of different police stations, Ulsoor, Indiranagar, and K.R.Puram. Beyond it, the Bangalore District Police have jurisdiction till the road enters Kolar District The traffic congestion is expected to ease to some extent after the new Benniganahalli flyover is completed and the cable-stayed bridge is opened to traffic. Until then, road users have to take deviations along the narrow temporary bypasses. The road itself is partly maintained by the PWD and partly by the National Highways Authority of India. The former appears to have neglected its role.
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The traffic police have tough time regulating the vehicles during peak hours, which is almost every other hour on Old Madras road. Accidents have become a norm on this road and not a single week passes without news of a person dying or getting hurt. The two wheelers feel like they have entered a death trap with the impatient truck, taxi and bus drivers trying to make their way either by running over them or tripping them for a minute advantage. Life has no meaning in their dictionary owing to the irksome traffic.

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Something Missing

Its 4.30 A.M as I look drowsily at the clock, hmmm I can sleep a bit more and I twist around to get some sleep, 4.45 a bit more, 5 a bit more….somehow I keep twisting and turning around on the bed till 6 a.m and finally I haul myself out of the bed to fix some milk for the baby . He drains it down in a flash and now I have to get myself to make some breakfast for adi who is staring school today. Now you know the cause of my restlessness. It’s the first day at school ,the first time that adi is leaving home by 7.30 and so I get busy. I pour the idli batter into the idli plates and leave it to cook while I brush my teeth . Thank god! I had planned it earlier since I have some sambar for the idlis in the fridge. I go to the bedroom to wake adi and aju. I nudge adi saying good morning and he leaps off the bed,strides like a monkey saying” ‘O’ I got to go to school today”and oh! How lucky I am to have a son who does not lazy around saying that he wants to sleep a bit more though I complained about the same habit few months back :P. In a blaze he brushes his teeth ,takes bath and settles down to have his breakfast. I want him eat it up quickly so I demand aju to assist him. At 6.40 my cook comes in and says” wow the breakfast is ready. How nice”. I fancy slapping her on her butt since I had told her to be on time yesterday and she didn’t bother. But now I have got used to these ladies and I don’t wait anymore. I tell her “hey! don’t be so happy. Make some chapathis for adi’s lunch “ and she gets to work. I go back to label some schoolbook, which I had covered last night and the time, is 7.15. Quickly I dress adi in his brand new uniform and he is all excited since everything is new, the school uniform, the bag, the lunch bag, box, shoes, socks, and his favorite water bottle. When ajith tries to pep him up a bit more by saying “hey all new for you”, adi snaps back saying “yeah! A new tummy ache too”. He runs to the toilet to poop” and more than him, I am relieved. Hastily I pull up his shorts and its time for the van .We run down and all his friends are there waiting for the van with their parents. The van has not arrived yet and that leaves us time to whine about the traffic which must be delaying the van. I must add that our van driver has been very punctual last year and all of us were planning to increase his remuneration to keep him happy while we see it arrive. Some kind of telepathy seems to have happened as, the minute he parks the van, he gets down and talks about his pay. All of us agree in unison although we would have liked to say it first. Finally the van leaves with our kids waving bye bye and after some more gossip, I return home to find something missing …..or someone missing….

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