Rain musings

2018-01-05T12:37:00.001+05:30

And we are back again , again and again ... hmmmm

The years have just whizzed by and V is already 3 , talking loads ,going to school and S entering tween phase but having all the attitudes of a teen . The craziness has increased multi folds and we sure are enjoying our days that blink by so fast.

I missed updating the lovely laughable moments we have had with V. Given that he is the ideal poster boy of Terrible Twos and Threes , we sure have our fair share of crowd stares in public places, scream symphony at homes.

High time I capture our lively moments here for rewind some other day.

The update --

2015-03-19T16:28:00.000+05:30

a. Work place change happened.
b. Hectic working schedule happened.
c. The SIL and her family moved across the globe.
d. Little cutie boo boo V arrived towards the end of the year :P. The source of happiness completing the 2014 with a bang .
e. Miss S growing leaps and bound. Had her paintings exhibited in her annual drawing class expo :) .Mighty proud moment.
f. A happy and peaceful 2014 it was .

A lot has happened ....

2015-03-17T15:48:00.001+05:30

since the last time a post was published in this space. Look out for the updates. Hope to resume blogging again :)

orissa tales - part2

2014-06-09T16:10:00.000+05:30

Day-3 - To Gopalpur.

We had early breakfast at Ananya resorts and started towards the beach town of Gopalpur. Enroute we went to the famed Chilka lake. We boarded a private ferry that takes us to the Kali temple in the island right in centre of the chilka lake. Sanja was all enthu to spot the dolphins. We had to tell all white lies saying the dolphins are there but we wont be able to see them in this part of the lake.
The lake is clean for starters but then again we humans are a nuisance here. The water surrounding the Kali temple is filled up with algae and all sorts of plastic waste. The temple itself is very dirty with slippery floors , flowers kumkum strewn everywhere. We dont know how to protect our places period. I was totally disgusted with the people's attitude here. Eating stuffs and throwing the waste into waters.

Thus we completed 3 hours of boat ride. S, me and Sanja ended up with a headache from the hot sun and salty water drive :(. We had the food in the only hotel available, the atmosphere was a bit creepy but the food was awesome. The quantity of food for the amount paid was large. We ended up wasting the food and were not so happy with this. Large portions are served in these places.

Then we travelled through Brahmapur and ended up in the Swasti Resorts that was in need of complete makeover / renovation. The rooms are old fashioned ( nothing to complaint about) but it would have be better to have hotel without any cracks being displayed.

Sanja fell in love with the billards board here. She wouldnt leave the said place till we left Gopalpur. We invented the hand billiards :) here , who needs sticks when we have our hands ;). It was comical to see Sanja cry everytime someone else took over the billiards board. She wanted to have it all by herself. So Sanja passed her time watching Chota Bheem and playing billiards.

Now you can see this place had nothing to see and so we were stuck doing things within the hotel.
There is the famed Gopalpur beach for namesake. We made the trip the day we landed and it didnt impress us as the other beaches did.

So we were sorely disappointed in this place and the first day itself we were thinking how are we going to spend another day here.

As if this disappointment was not enough the next day held its store of bad experiences :(.

By this time we were fed up Rotis, fried rice, finger chips - this was the standard menu we could choose from the menu card as our options were restricted .

So the next we headed to the famed Taptapani springs. Now we alll including Bijju sir had great expectation out of this place. We thought it would have many springs, free flowing water and we all would have a good bath there. So we packed extra dress for Sanja and Srini. After 5 hours of journey we landed at a dump of a place. It was overcrowded , dirty and there was no spring in sight. All we saw was water trickling in a pond below a Durga idol. We were hugely disappointed. Then we planned to go the Tibetan settlement, but people coming from that direction dissuaded us. Apparently that place fell in the Naxal area , and it would take us 2 -4 hours to go and come back. We didnt want to take the risk. So it was a total waste of time. Nearby we saw a deer park, had a palatable lunch and scolded our tour planner for not letting us know these things. We again went to back to the beach, walked along the sea shore and eagerly awaited our departure from Gopalpur.

The next day Bijju was sweet enough to compensate for the bad yesterday and showed us some more temples (to dismay of Sanja ;) ). We tried our luck at Chilka lake , wondering if we could take the ferry to see the migratory birds. The ferrymen said it would be waste of time as the Govt of India has totally restricted the area after the people stoned these birds some years back. And it was here that Sanja lost her second teeth :). How she lost the first one is another post in itself. We were joking all the way back, Sanja submerged her tooth in Chilka ;).

We had a good night stay at Bhuvaneshwar VITS. We did some local shopping for Orissa papads and tasted the Ramphal of the place. The next day we bought some these fruits for sampling at home. Bijju dropped us at Bhuvaneshwar station. We boarded the train to Chennai. It was fun time for Sanja watching Frozen a dozen times. Jumping around in the upper berth.

The only song going in loops

2014-04-03T11:44:00.000+05:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEKLFS-aKcw

Frozen- Let it go .
The other songs from the movie are also awesome but this one "the" song.

The enthu of a 5 year old on April fools day

2014-04-02T16:22:00.000+05:30

Since Sanja has grown up to be a 5 year old and understands things, we told her the April Fools day . She wanted to play the pranks the whole day and here are the samples from the enthu 5 year old trying to fool us.

1. To her Patti - patti anga oru anaconda poruthu paru( Pathi see there is an anaconda there).
2. Amma - there is a lizard near your feet.
3. Pathi your chappals are missing.
4. Appa - someone is calling you on your cellphone, and when S goes to see it- sings out April Fool.
5. Thatha there is a cockroach in your dress.
6. With all the seriousness to me - Amma, you know B akka, she was cycling fell down and fractured her le. I get worried and turn to ask her further details- She sings back- April Fool :)

We had a fun time yesterday morning making fool of each other :P. Th enthusiasm of the kid spreads to the whole family.

The importance of time

2014-04-02T16:09:00.001+05:30

Last saturday with S at work, sanja and self were wailing away our time doing nothing .
And Sanja starts getting to my nerves .
The IL plan to visit one of their friends - I plan to go for trimming out the bush of eyebrows and a long walk to cut down all the food gobbled down.
So I plan for Sanja to leave with them saying- If you want to come with me you have to walk, with them you can go in the 2-wheeler, and moreover since your friends are not there, there is an Akka there , you can play with her.
Sanja- So what is the plan, what are you going to do ?
Me: Iam planning for getting my eyebrows done, buy some supplies for the cupcake to do tomo, and a walk.

Sanja: Oh dont do your eyebrows today, you do it tomo, i want to see.

Me: Okay then I will go for the walk alone , you go with the grandparents.

Till she leaves in the 2-wheeler , she keeps telling me to come with her. I dont yield.
While she has a gr8 time there, I go for a walk, buy milk and some lame things( nothing for the cupcake), visit the temple and reach home.

When she returns home around 9PM, she looks at me and asks - what did you do , did you go to the parlour.

Me: No, you said to me to go tomo.

Sanja: Oh, but what a waste of time, you should have at least got it done since you didnt come with me . See , I told ya you should have come with me

Me: !!!! ( so much for considering her wishes)

it is another thing that she was not interested in coming to the parlour the next day :(.

Orissa - tales - part -1

2014-03-12T13:22:00.000+05:30

It has been 2 months and couple of days since we returned from our trip to Orissa. To be writing the travel tales this tale without forgetting details implies -it was an awesome relaxing trip :P

And it had its fair share of drama , boredom, the stupidom of us in not looking into certain details and of course the stupid thing turning out be a blessing in disguise :P .

Here we go -

Day 1: 25th Dec -2013 - All packing done, Sanja tries to push in as much toys as she can :). I on the other hand is busy - churning out rotis, sabzi, MIL /FIl are busy packing tamarind rice , curd rice and chutneys . My parents in between call up asking when are we starting , and preparing snacks for the trip. The SIL & family dropping off loads of biscuits , cakes etc . The food baggage alone filled up one big gab :P . All for a 20 hour train travel with 8 hours gone in sleeping :).

The drama - Now with regular tickets we had got hold of only the sleeper class tickets for 3 of us . But with parents insistence - we tried to get AC tickets in takal- so we ended up having 3 sleeper class tickets, 1 3rd AC confirmed ticket and 1 3rd AC in waiting list. With this status we boarded the train in Central. Even before the train departed, we found that the waiting list ticket got confirmed now. So now
3 sleeping class ticket , 1 AC ticket in B1 coach, 1 AC ticket in B2 coach. The sleeper class was getting too crowded with unreserved ticket holders as well. And so I went to the B1 coach and asked people for adjustment.

Somehow after loads of confusion we took all our baggage to one AC coach, dumped our things. Then somehow we managed to get both seats in single coach but separated by couple of seats :P.

We had a good time shuttling between 2 places. This was first time Iam experiencing all this shuttling - what ~~tension~~ fun it was .

While I had a good night sleep, Sanja sathachified S - appa I want to go to restroom, appa move a bit , I dont have place to sleep, Dum falls sanja's legs on the S .

And then on the second day after having our tea in the train, we landed in Bhuvaneshwar.

Day :2 - Bhubaneshwar - to - Puri .

Temples galore .
We accumulated Puniyam ( good karma) by visiting many temples here.
Sanja was so pissed off that the uttering the word temple was enough to push her over the edge of her temper :) .
So we took a room just for freshening up, had a decent breakfast in a small hotel and proceeded to seeing the Abode of Gods (Bhuvaneshwar).

The roads are well laid out and you get a feeling that you are in the 90's of Chennai. The lanes are less crowded, the buildings are small and there is no glass covered buildings towering over us .

So what all we visited -
a- Udayagiri , Kandagiri - These are rocks with caves craved out for the Jain priest settlements. The tour guide was saying there is a hidden tunnel in the caves used by Ashoka, but we left that out and explored the place on our own. It was quite a trek to the top and Sanja scrapped her elbow putting the end to our enthusiastic trek :(.

And then we proceeded to Bramheswar, Mukteswar temples. While Puri jaganath is the symbol for the Orissa architecture, these temples are way better than it. You see vast temple complexes and intricate architecture everywhere. By this time Sanja was irritated and we just had a glance at Brahmeswar and other temples scattered across Bhuvaneshwar on our way to the most famous temple -Lingeshwar. What we didnt like were- the stinking smell around the deity - with people offering everything to the God , the so called priests make it difficult for us by haggling for money.

Our driver Biju (I think) took us to a decent vegetarian hotel and we experience the Odissi cuisine - Dalma and vegetable curry.

With the craze for anything Ashoka ( after having read one of the novels based on the secrent nine) , was full enthu to see Dauligiri. The place were there is a stupa. Legend has it that the river flowing nearby turned red during the kalinga war. The stupa has been renovated by a team from Japan. Various statues of Bhudda in different positions , The emporer Ashoka asking for forgiveness , and becoming a disciple of Bhudda are portrayed here.

And then we proceeded to Puri. We stayed at Ananya resorts. Excellent place to stay and the evening we spent at the Puri beach.
And of course the shopping started right here. Got some awesome emborided kurtas and Prui jaganath logo t-shirts.

Sanjana had a great time at the beach. And so ends the day 1. Looking forward to meeting Jaganath, Subhadra and Veerabhadra . We can see the temple dome from our hotel room. The lighting is not as impressive as in some of the photoes we see , but the temple is visible.

Day 2: We get up early around 7 AM ( early for Srini /Sanjana considering they are on holiday) and ready ourself to see the Lord. Now to go and have a dharshan ( a quick one at that) we need the priests help , so a guy came with us and took us striaght to main temple and within 15 min we had done our dharshan. The grandeur of the temple left us awestruck but then we were disappointed with the crowd management, again the priest haggling after money , the poor maintainence of the temple.
Most of the sculptures are damaged. The broken pieces with intricate carvings are replaced with blank stones. But still to have built such a huge temple long time ago leaves us proud of our ancestors.

We then proceeded to Konark, The sun temple. Loads of conspiracy theories , stories circulate regarding the ruins of this temple. The pathway to the temple approx 1 Km is full of shopprs delight.
Enough has been said about this temple architecture in Wiki, so Iam skipping that part. But then when we left this place, we had a heavy heart- what great places are getting ruined either by nature, by man and in this case by both. We are lacking the artmanship to preserver these temples , the glorius architecture. If I had stayed longer I would have actually cried :(. And so with a heavy heart we went to the Chandra bhaga beach.

S and Sanja built the sand version of the temples and we had a happy moment playing in the sand and right at noon time .

People planning to buy soveniors and stuff do bargain a lot. We saved quite a bit of money by bargaining. The stuffed animals / flowers made from rope were really cute.

We head back to our hotel and again went shopping to buy some more T-shirts as gifts.

The next day after our breakfast , we headed to Gopalpur. And this is were we messed up by not getting the actual ground reality information.

Will follow up with part -2 post.

Counting my blessings

2013-12-06T13:49:00.002+05:30

So I grow up by one more year today. And i look back to the blessings in my life. There are many misgivings in life but from this day for a year (to begin with) I would like to count my blessings every single day.

My daughter . Every single time I look at her, I get to understand LOVE. She might drive me crazy on school days, but I find comfort in that routine chaos.
S - for being there always for support. Though not very good in showing off his affections/ emotions or organizing surprise parties , his take it as it comes attitude, and little gestures he does , almost setting no expectations from me or others makes me thank GOD for giving me a good partner in life.
My parents - Yeah , Iam truly blessed. Having them live close by and seeing them at least once a week , thank GOD . I will be totally in a mess if it wasn't for my father reminders and mom's advice and her prayers for me.
My parent-in-law- They are easy going ppl and dont put pressure of any kind. With MIL taking care of the household, I have a breather there.
My managers/ workplace - Have been lucky enough to have managers who are there always to help me out. Being supportive and understanding .
Friends - Having my friend from Kindergarden call me up every single bday . I also reciprocate but then the wishes count. Same goes for Appa's friend -A uncle .
Relatives - Awesome set of cousins , though we are spread over a decade age gap -we take time to wish each other. Uncles aunts and the whole lot from Appa ,Amma, FIL, MIL side. Though we are not that very close like calling each other every week or so, we get updates :P

I want to look at life with a different perspective from what I was looking at all these past years. Though I seem to have a longing / spirit for making things happen, travel new paths , something is holding me back. I just want to give away the negative thoughts and stride ahead.
Wish me luck: )
Seeking The blessings of elders and God .

And so I start with wishing myself - Happy birthday . Have a happy year moving towards the next decade of life :)

6 years of being with S

2013-11-22T15:03:00.002+05:30

Same day 6 years back, we got married. The toy car loving book reading game creating S married the cartoon loving , book reading just a year work experienced me. And what a ride it has been for 6 years. Adding to the kid behaving adults came along Sanja very early on. It looks more like a family of kids with a mom kid, dad kid and the actual kid ..lol. Anyone walking into our home can either witness a kid fight between S and Sanja / sanja and me. If it hadnt been for our parents , we don't know who would have looked after us kids :P. And S being the first grand child for his paati doesn't help either, he is still the baby of the family and being his wife makes me a baby as well :). When S amma calls some one kutti ma - Sanja gets confused - whether she is calling her, her mom or her aunt.

While S is not busy fighting with Sanja , and his nephews over the toy cars , he is the person balancing our life. epitome of patience against the short fuse me. With so much work tension happening at his work front I have never seen him lose his cool ever at home. While at the other end of spectrum is me, who brings the home down even if a bug is filed against my feature at work. While S is not bothered about celebration , I want each celebration to be a surprise. While S lives in present , I ~~worry~~ plan for our future . While S is lover of metal rock bands I prefer the melody and soft music. S loves sweets, potatoes , hates okra , I love savouries, pickles ,okra and hate potatoes. The only thing common between us is our love for reading mysteries , ancient history :P.

The sound board for all my angst, pms'ing, hurting talks , he has never spoken back in the same way. Oh we do have our fights , how else would this life be interesting. I make it a point to have war of words , S would never start them you see.

I seriously don't know how Sanja is going to grow up watching us behaving like kids. But then these are things memories are made of. When we have finally grown up we want to look back at these years.

6 years have gone by way too fast for us. What will no courting time between engagement and marriage. I and S married as strangers but then I wouldn't have found a better partner in life.
God knows what the future holds for us ... but then let me cherish the present. :)

Happy anniversary -S .

Trying to break out of laziness :p

2013-11-21T12:43:00.000+05:30

Yup,

sheer laziness on my part for not posting the soo many exciting stuff happening in our family.
What with self going on path of self discovery and still discovering what I actually need in life. Surrounded by so many questions , so many paths to choose from can be tiring . There is a kind of drag that Iam not able to pinpoint. Always looking forward to week ends , holidays and sleep . Nothing seems interesting in life except for the Sanja conversations :P. Am I totally lost , I don't know.

So there have been ideas and thoughts for posting in the blog, I didn't feel like putting them down. Laziness. Iam trying very hard to break the shackles , move forward .
At work front as well - procrastination is killing me . Again trying free myself.

Spending all my time reading blogs, sleeping, reading books , sleeping, cooking as if iam a robot , sleeping, - I am hating this . I seem to be making no headway in terms of career( I doubt if I have one :) ) . Every day morning I look forward for the night to come. Hopeless case . The only time I see myself lively is when Iam with sanja , and Iam going to sleep ..
It has been almost 3 months since Iam living this kind of life.. Ppl if you have any suggestion do help me out .

Is this just a phase? So every1 feel this at least some time in their life? How do I come out?

Today step- start posting in the dormant blog :P

5 year old

2013-08-16T16:47:00.002+05:30

Yes, the little baby has blossomed into a little girl.
It has been 5 years of learning and fun for me and your dad. We were very young (at least your mom was ) when you came into this world. I hadnt yet developed the patience one ought to have to raise a child. But then these 5 years I have come to learn things are learnt as and when situation arise. You are a darling of a child. No major tanturms, accepting the life as it comes. This 5 years I have learnt many things from you than you form me.

There are many firsts that you have done from a 4 year old to 5 year

1. Learning to cycle . You wanted a cycle and we got you one for this birthday. it is your prized possession. Polishing off the dust and riding the shining cycle. You wont take it on the roads if they are slushy- they will get dirty is what you say. I say it is your laziness at your face but secretly I appreciate the care you take of your cycle.

2. Helping out in the kitchen. You love water and you love washing the dishes. (I dont how you came to like it though). But yes me and your K paati love the time we spend cleaning the dishes with you. It is the all gals time in kitchen ;). Oh but you dont have to cry for 15 minutes if you forgot to come and help us out. It is okay , I know you like doing it, but you are too young to start helping us out. And it took us another 15 minutes to console you. The only fear (he he he) I have is , you will finish of your helping tendency now itself and when I actually expect you to help me , you may cry to excused from chores. Hmmm ,

3. Love for drawing and writing - Oh you draw the wonderful kozhi muttis right from 2 years . pen and paper are more than enough to give you company . We have put up a sort of collage in our room with all your paintings. Proud of you my dear.

4. Love for stories - You know the ramayana, mahabharata, the story of garuda , etc etc. But the most fun you have is providing you father the characters you need in a story, the base plot for it and listening to your father spinning tales out of them. Imagine making chota bheem and angry birds friends. Only you and your father can come up with these stuffs.

5. Expressing yourself with your words.

6. Your first potrait picture done

And here are the things that you continue to love (touchwood).
1. Travel
2. Sumithra aunty( the main reason you love your school)
3. Music
4. Dance

and as the birthdays go, this time again you cut 2 cakes- one on your english birthday and other on start birthday.

And for records sake ;) it was a princess themed party - with return gifts of barbie for gals, ben10 car tracks for the boys.

And you have a cycle , a barbie school bag you wanted so much as your gifts.

The portrait (sorry for the wrong angle of the photo)

Wishing you happiness and good health .

Doing late nights

2013-07-25T13:34:00.000+05:30

For the past few weeks -work days and weekend nights - burning my midnight oil like never before
- for reading some books- giving a a good laugh and memory trips to the 90's .
-some seriously overrated book but actually found to be quite errrrrmmm un putdownable.
-for once again living the joy my teens seeing the Road to avonlea series. A better understanding of the dialogue adds to much more fun and admiration.
-some crappy kollywood movie ( read singham2 ), and really good ones also.

Have never actually done so much reading even for my exams.

Ah, really glad that this year I have taken up reading again rather than watching movies .

So what all I have read so far
1. The Anne of Green Gables - the whole series at it. 7 books ( Woow...fell in love with this).
2. Those pricey thakur girls.
3. The zoya factor .
4. The oath of the vayuputra
5. The taj conspiracy.
6. some other novels again related to taj.
7. some e-books
8. reading the battle of bithora.
9. some M& B books written by Indian authors.

It has more or less been more of soft reads like in family , romance genre. There are piles to read on action, mystery novels that S has piled up for this year . Will have to start on them. :)

And regarding the Road to Avonlea series - what can I say- it brings back the good old days ( i do sound old ,tsch tsch). The characters were amazing then and ever more amazing now. S is downloading the whole 7 seasons. I would so like Sanja to watch this seasons when she grows up.

I also saw the Anne of Green gables TV series but didnt like the way the story deviated from the actual story line in the books. Nevertheless it was good to put faces to the characters in the book.

Graduating again :)

2013-06-27T11:53:00.000+05:30

Yep, done with my MS. Software Systems from BITS PILANI through WILP . The feeling of completing the post graduation if we can call it , is yet to sink in.

The past two years were busy with studying on weekends, cancelling many joy rides with Sanja and crankiness, exam apprehension and want not...

But at the end of it , gave me an immense satisfaction - managing - work, house, studies .

It helped to have a great company for studying- my friend from coll and office - C- she also having to manage work a small kid and family. Thanks C, for all the support and partnering .

The two years we re-lived our college days , taking last minute print outs , seeing lecture videos, comparing notes. Rants about was it really necessary for us to get into this mess exactly before the exams. It was fun.

But two years rushed by with the final semester dedicated to project work.

Ans we being we , we made sure we booked the viva dates for same day same place . We turned it into a vacation of sorts. And so my first outing with my friends family happened.

The viva itself left us wondering have we actually completed our MS. My viva took place for just 15 minutes . We stayed in Hyderabad for 4 days and only 15 minutes for the final step to graduate.

We had a small celebration at the campus canteen. The kids, the spouses and us. It was great to achieve something and have the close ones esp the kids to appreciate it.

And so Sanja and S are mighty glad that they wont have to face grumpy me , and wont trouble them by pollambifying about studying .. :).

Well the support from family was awesome and thank them for it. It wouldn have been possible without S and my mom especially.

Thanks a lot ppl.

Holi

2013-03-27T11:44:00.000+05:30

Sanja was enthu to celebrate Holi after she had listened to our tales of Holi celebration in the past. The our includes me and my mom. Every holi we remember the fun we had when we lived in Blore and the all the families in the compound celebrated holi with great enthu. It would take several baths to rinse of the colors. Staying with neighbours who were Rajasthani made us celebrate holi in its true sense. At end of day Mom was orange in color and it wouldnt leave her for a few days ;).
So hearing these stories , Sanja was asking us if we can also do this colour splashing at home and we indulged her with little bit of pink, blue, orange and purple.Granny has stored the color packets safely. Hence it helped. Being a working day , we kept the celebration to just 15 minutes. But those 15 min were the best having a colorful kid running across rooms and painting colour on her mom, dad, grandpa and granny. Her granny went one step further and poured bucket of water on her in the backyard. The pure joy on Sanja face was priceless.

The girl who cries to wake up on mornings to get ready was up in an instant on hearing we are playing holi now.

S was spared much color since he is sick. But his cheeks were painted pink ;)
And after the bathe , Sanja has some gulab ka rang on her palms - she is going to show them to her aunty and friends at school -saying I played holi. I have the gulab ka rang on my face **face palms**.

But the day began with smiles and my heart is content - my daughter has got a taste of Holi colors.

Happy holi.

A letter to my grandma

2013-03-12T16:28:00.000+05:30

For the past few days we ( esp my mom --your daughter and me ) have been thinking about you. What fun we used to have? How Sanja is missing the experience of being with you.

I remember you as the 70th something kid playing palankuli, parama padham. Fighting with your daughter when she cried you made some cheating moves , calling your grand daughter to settle the disput :P. Your kollu pethi is missing all this. wish you had lived some more years healthy to see me get married and provide one more team mate for the games .

The way we used to pull your legs when you were watching the mega serials. How you used to complain to my amma like a child - ava rendu perum enaku tv veka mathengara ...( those 2 are not keeping the tv for me).

The way you used to put food in our plate secretively ;) and say you had nothing to do with that extra food in our plate.

The affection you showed by make necklace type muruku (savories) for me for the festivals.

The way to adjusted to life as situations demanded. You had an orthodox upbringing and had to follow some but you waived them when you knew it didnt matter more than people. Amma still remembers how you kept aside all those ritual norms when she was sick and you took care of her .

The trips we took to Tirupathi where you will have only the avul (beaten rice) as food since you wont eat outside food. But you allowed all of us to have whatever we want.

I still call mama (uncle )place as Patti veedu ( grandma's home) though you are no longer there.

sanja sees your photo everyday at amma's place. And I tell her the sweet memories as stories to her.

The way you opened the home for anyone . Your helping tendency.

I really miss u patti.

And once you were gone , we felt a great loss , as if the main support beam has gone. You suffered a lot in the last few years, for which I would ask God why he makes good people suffer and then die.

The long lost post of Sanja's 4th bday

2013-03-12T16:06:00.001+05:30

yes it is long lost as in the post is delayed by almost 7 months :(.

So here are the updates of her birthday celebration as I remember .

This time around we had 2 cakes - one was ordered and another was a tutty-fruitty cake baked by me.
I guess this will become a tradition of sorts for the years to come since
1. Sanja has a huge friends gang in our locality.
2. S Grandpa ceremony is around this time -so the elders at home wont take outside food.

This birthday we ordered a photo cake with chota bheem and his friends . Sanja was and still is crazy about anything Chota Bheem. She is tired of the episodes but loves the characters. It has become a nighttime ritual for the gal to hear to chota bheem adventure stories spun by S . :)

So coming back to the birthday-
It again fell on working day and so we preponed the celebration to a weekend. Inivited her friends and cousins.

The decorations were that of princess balloons and paper hangings.

This time we invited 2 of her school friends and were glad they turned up.

We hand made popcorn holder cones . sanja has a br8 time coloring them. I have stored up some these holders to cherish the first handmade stuff by Sanja.

The bday dress-
Sanja longed to have a princess fork - so we got her a pale yellow dress with huge pinned up yellow roses that is simple , princessy and usable .

Her gift:-
Dresses , a jigsaw puzzle from Tangled series.

The snacks -
A sweet .
2 pieces of cake.
Pop corns
Juice.

The return gifts
A small jigsaw puzzles for the kids.
Skipping ropes for the bigger girls.

And on the actual bday date we had a family dinner at her favourite resturant.

Since rakhsha bandan was also in the time frame - I tied rakhi to my bro and sanja to her cousin brothers .

Singva Singamata

2013-02-28T16:19:00.001+05:30

That is tanglish.

Sanja is in the middle oflearning many english words and she is trying make them appear more tamil but saying them in the way we pronounce the tamil words.

A sample

Amma, I sing pattu, but R ( her class mate) always singamata as is to say - I sing but R doesnt sing.

We say in tamil- ava pada mata to mean she doesnt sing so she just substituted the pada with sing :P

And as a baby she never said I , me , mine , she used to say naaku, naandu .
Some other words that she used to say - ava kamballala meaning ava kelambarala (are they starting).

And so these words have stuck to us. We have started using them in our daily talks having words of our own.

Looking out for more of these kinds from her.

The weekend that zipped past us

2013-02-11T14:53:00.001+05:30

It has been a hectic weekend this Sat / Sun. Am left with a bodyache and reddened eyes .
saturday morning we were off very early to an eye hospital for Sanja 's eye checkup. We had our breakfast at the hospital and since the check up got over by 9:30Am ,S suggested we take a peak at the Landmark sale. so off we went to nungambakkam land mark and waiting for half hour for the shop to open.. Sanja had a gr8 time looing at so many books. She was totally in awe with so many books around. we chose some books for us and 3 barbie stories (horse rider , zoo vet and ballerina) for her. we picked up some earrings from estelle and it was noon. We decided to have our lunch out at Pizza hut , Sanja stuck to her routine affair with garlic bread and we both had the heart shaped pizza. Came back at 2pm and were in dreamland till 5pm. Then went off again to some vegetable shopping. Cooked dinner and read some novel late into the night.

Sunday we woke up at 8am and had our breakfast by 9:30. Cleaned up the bathrroms and wash basins . Soaked self, Sanja in oil, had our routine oil bath .Then i cooked lunch. S came back with H and we all had lunch together. S went off with her Athai(aunt) to her home in Mambalam and play with Mr.K. That left us just some time to relax and go for the movie Vishwaroopam.
The movie over, we caught train to Mambalam. It took us some coaxing to make the kids come out of the play area in park . Fed sanja her dinner at H 's place we were home bound at 9pm. Had a late dinner, cleaned up the kitchen and was 11 when I hit the sack. Some more novel reading and the aftereffects are evident today.

PS: This is the first time Sanja has went to a place without her parents. She apparently slept off with her cousin , then her aunt and uncle took them to a park nearby. it was a new experience for me and S to not have Sanja around. It is time to let her grow her wings :) . I was the one poundng S with inumerable questions - will she be ok, what she must be doing now etc etc. I have to get used to her being out without me. ;(

The mandatory school visit

2013-02-08T16:23:00.001+05:30

Happened on feb 2nd .
So S, Sanja and myself took our Duro for the ride till her school that is almost 12km from home taking a highway and beatuiful scenary of the air force training cetree on one side and small lake on the other side.

As usual ,anythingto do with school, starts by visiting the awesome temple they have inhouse. Then we were shuttled to the play area where Sanja played played and played. She is addicted to the slides there . She introduced us to couple of her friends there. Then we took a walk to the swimming pool area where Sanja showed us the safety tubes that they use. They also have some rubber made small cutting / shapes that are they play with to make patterns in water.

Then we went to the environment (class room) building. Sanja studies is sec E2 , one ofteachers asked usto go to E24, Sanja was hesistant to go anywhere but her class her aunty. They then told she has to show what all she jhas learnt in in that specified classroom and then meet her aunty. So a dejeted child and her parents trooped to said class room and she took her time to settle down. She had eyes only for me and doing all sorts of gimmick like asking for water every 2 min, asking for hankie to wipe the not to be seen cold mucus from nose.. When one of her batch mate dropped in, she relaxed and started off showing her learnings .

Here they are
1. States of India
2. Words , phonetics and playing match the following.
3. Numbers from 1 to 10 and how you count the bead strings and place aagainst each number.
4. Carrot cutting. (To their embrassement , the knife was too blunt, and the kid had little strength for the strong and sturdy carrot, so they changed the knife and Sanja cut through the slice and gaveeach of us a piece of carrot to eat )

and then she asked - Amma when can I go to aunty. When I said as soon as you finish it up here , she was all the more eager to do things quickly.
We then met her aunty and akka and they were all praises for her. Her aunty knows she is very sensitive and tries her best to avoid Sanja getting hurt. we hope she has one more year with her favorite aunty before she will have to leave behing the Junior montessori.

Then we had our lunch and came back to say goodbye to her aunty. And we met the famed gang members of Sanja whom she keeps talking about - Mr RK and Mr B. It was good we got to see so many of her classmates.

A fun day indeed.

What made my day

2013-02-08T12:57:00.004+05:30

conversation between my colleague say B and myself while having tea at office

Me: What do you do on weekends.
B: I take much needed rest. What about you?
Me: I do grocery shopping and plan something to do with my kid.
B: **shocked** - You have a baby ? How old
Me: Oh she is 4 .5 years old
B : **shocked again** : Such a big gal. I thought you were recentl married ..
Me: thinking- do i actually look that young (he he he ..)
it has happened many times now, people cant believe I am a mom to a 4. years old daughter.

30 years of togetherness

2013-02-04T15:35:00.000+05:30

Happy anniversary to Appa and Amma as they complete 30 years of wedded life and 35+ years of knowing one another .

Appa ,amma decided to visit the temple at Thiruneermalai where they got married. It has become a tradition like to visit this temple on their anniversary day (since they celebrated 25th year ). 30 years of togetherness through the highs and lows of life. To have had a love marriage in the 1982, to playing host many a friends get together, bringing up a daughter, maintaining relationship with double the extended families, and now spending their life together fighting like kinder garden kids, they have seen it all. :)
The enthusiam to celebrate their anniversary has never left them :P

**TOUCH WOOD**
may they stay like this for ever

S ,sanja and myself joined them for a lunch out.

Edited To add: S 's aunt and uncle from his mother side celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on same day. Wishes to them as well.

2013 is here

2013-01-31T16:26:00.002+05:30

And no new year posts , no travel updates means I was in rather disturbing phase of life if one would call it .
Updates are many from home side, work side and all sides ;) . It is almost a month into the new year , and the mayans actually made so many of us fools thinking we wont be there to see this day. However that was good timepass finding out what theories would one associate with the so called - END of the world.

Am at a better phase of life now than the previous few months. Growing up in years within a span of months. But that doesnt me I have become a matured lady... far from it, iam still the same getting excited in a moment, getting dpressed, gloomy the next instant. Life is having a hard time forcing me to grow up :) .

The princess of our family has grown indeed to a beautiful young girl ( yeah girl, she is no longer a toddler). Has her own views, preferences and the works ;)

Mr S is having a very busy time managing 2 kids as he puts it ( the younger one more managable than the wife), his own company and figuring out when he can escape back to his days of reading novels , playing games .( ha ha I know he will still be figuring out after many years).

Appa is still not accepting he is a bit old, not so old -not so young man. It broke our hearts to see him go through a bad phase in last few months. he has yet to accept that what happened was for good and come to terms with it.

Amma has aged many years within the past few months. She had to bear the brunt of appa depression/ mood swings or whatever. She has become a stonger person but she has also become so sensitive to appa's needs / appa's well being that it drives us crazy sometimes.

Mr K, the nephew had a terrible terrible time. A small kid going through so much pain broke our hearts. Praying that his health gets better this year.

And we had a new addition to the family. S brother got married. The only good thing happening in the family.

Overall was glad to see the back of 2012 .

Thuruvan

2012-08-23T17:15:00.000+05:30

Scene: Sanja latest obsession is to draw draw color color draw draw color color atleast 10-15 pages a day.
So she is busy drawing and finds that her pencil is not sharp enough. Here is how she got hold of a sharpener

Sanja: Appa , appa , thruvan thariya
S : !!!! apadina - (means?)
Sanja: Adhan pa pencil thuruvardhu
S: (smacks on head) you mena sharpner.
Sanja: yes appa.

We say thuruvardhu for coconut grating. She applied the same word for the sharpening her pencil.

And guess what the actual tamil word for pencil sharpener is vericil thuruki(வி ரி சி ல் து ரு கி .). Wow that was a close match.

Where have I been/ What am I doing

2012-08-22T15:08:00.000+05:30

-sadly neglecting the blog. :(
-studying :)
- having inner struggles :(
- seeing a baby gal grow up to a miss little lady :)
- watching a little gals dream come true , seeing the happiness shine in her eyes :)
-cooking :)
-fighting with low self esteem, :( and still not winning over it.
-trying to find a purpose in life :|
-lose weight and get back in shape :( :(
-scolding the little one :(
- health issues :((
-getting worse in maintaining family ties :( [ After marriage I am noticing a decline in my interactions with my paternal/maternal family]
- disillusioned :(
-understanding what love is when I wake up everyday to a small form sprawled next me and every time she utters "Amma" Inga vaye , paaren (Amma .. come here see this ). :)

I see lots of :( than :) which translates to admonishing myself for not living my life as I want or as I perceive it to be.

Hopefully will WILL myself to blog more. I need some outlet . I have so many things to tell Sanja, and want to put them down here for her (and I dont want to forget telling her so the jottings are done here).