The Story telling Workshop

Saturday morning turned out to be quite unexpected for us. As we dropped our daughter  to school for a story telling session, little did we know that the workshop was actually for us and not just for the children. We had an elaborate plan of sending a courier, going to a dress boutique and generally conquering the whole world as our daughter attends the session. We were swooped in for this wonderful experience with Sowmya Srinivas, who is heading Pre Primary in Sri Chaitanya Techno school and an artist in All India Radio. She has a neat way of telling stories through sound, expressions and gestures and she also sings.

The session started with some activities for parents. For example, we had to draw our child’s favorite thing or person and then enact or tell a story on that drawing. We drew a Lotus (Daughter’s favorite flower) in a pond and Sun and my wife thoughtfully named them as Kamal and Suraj and that the story is about their deep friendship. As we went on, Sowmya enacted how a story can be told with deep, long, loud expressive voices, facial expressions and hand gestures with rhyming jingles. The story was about the Monkey and the Crocodile. It reminded me of my Hindi teacher who took us this lesson – “Magar aur Bandar” and how he pronounced Magar (crocodile) as Maagarrrrrrrr, which earned him the name Magarji. There was then a touching story of a boy who lost his mother and then considered his teacher to be his mother. She showed how flashcards might also be a good aid in telling stories, probably just like the story books filled with pictures. Lastly we had a small activity of enacting an animal without narration by 4 different teams. We did the peacock with one of us as the dancing peacock and the rest of us making the sound of rain and hand gestures of rain falling from the top.

It was a day when we loosened up a bit for our children. Adults in their late 20’s and early 30’s were turning themselves into 5 year olds and learning the art of having and spreading fun. It also helped us to see how the teachers of our children turn themselves into 5 year olds to teach our children, as they participated along with us. Lastly as we had a brief chat with Sowmya, She reminded us where we actually heard stories from, our grand parents. I heard stories from my Grandma, My daughter hears stories of MGR killing the pirates from my father and other mythological stories from my in laws. Perhaps when we become Grandparents we will have stories of Rajinikanth to tell our Grandchildren. It becomes so, that as we age, as we go through our life, we finally learn the value of Fun, the fun that we can have with our Grand children. We remain busy until then taking care of the life.

Ultimately, be it a simple story telling session or playing a video game on a phone, we fail to recognize that it is Fun that we are actually having and not the object of Fun. Objects change, but Fun remains the same. Hopefully, we will get to this inner realization as we age.

Until then, Just have Fun!

Dressing with Ghaghra Choli

Consider the following statements:

1. It looks cute when a full sized adult dress is miniaturized for 1 to 2 years old and so a Ghaghra Choli for 2 years old is very cute.

2. When you dress for a party it takes the longest for the Woman in the family to get dressed.

These 2 points imply that the father in the family gets to dress his 23 months old daughter for the party. It takes longer for a Man to dress his toddler daughter than for this wife to dress herself up for the party. The challenge is not in just dressing but tackling the active toddler and then dressing at the same time. It is like trying to dress your bike in a pyjama while you are riding it with both the hands and the bike going in a random direction no matter how you hold the handle bar.

So It was a day of one of the parties at our friend’s place and I took the mission of dressing the daughter.

First, Undressing the daughter is very easy. You just have to pull the top upwards and in 3 seconds you will find the kid 3 meters away from you while you will be holding the top inside out. Same goes to the bottom, except she would have only reached 2 meters for that. After that you will need to perform 3 somersaults to change the diaper (perform 4 if you have the intentions of saving the nearby objects from being vandalised).

Now comes the tricky part. I made a few attempts at getting her dressed and here they are:

1. Is the top part called Choli? Assuming it is, I took the choli and put it on her left hand and then I put the other end on her right hand. During this time I didn’t notice that she took off her left hand from the choli. I went back and put the choli on the left hand and she cleverly undid the right side. The cycle continued for a while until I decided to go attempt 2.

2. Knowing that putting it one hand at a time is difficult, I tried to put it on both the hands from the front side at the same time. She bent down, got under me and ran away into the other room while I was sitting there with my both hands partially inserted into the choli. It took me a while to chase her down and clamp her to my lap before trying attempt 3.

3. This time I was very determined. I wasn’t budging, I wanted to be the one in control. I wanted to show her who the daddy is. So after a brief bit of wrestling with a combination of above 2 attempts, I finally got the choli on her and started to tie the knot. The knot was tied and She was dressed. There all done and neat. That’s when my wife came and looked at me with a stare.

Wife: What’s this?

Me: I dressed her, what else!

Wife: Is this how you dress Ghagra choli?

Me: I haven’t dressed myself in Ghagra choli in any way possible. So I don’t know.

Wife: Funny ha! Why is the knot on her front?

I didn’t realize as my daughter was turning and I was turning around to get into position I was off by 180 degrees. I had tied the knots that come on the back, to her front.

Me: Oh! You are right, was that supposed to be tied backwards. Let me try again.

Wife: (walking away) and Put her bottoms will you!

That must be the Ghagra I forgot and that was why I was wondering why the Ghagra looked exactly like her diaper. After a brief hunt, I found the Ghaghra barely hanging off from the ironing board.

All is well that ends well. I was finally able to dress her up for the party and we were ready to go. Just one thing was left. My wife adjusted the bottom by rotating it for 180 degrees.

Wife: “This is the correct side”

Me: How would I know? It looks the same on all sides!

Wife: Watch the label on the inside. It is the same way you wear your Banian.

Now we were definitely ready to go for the party, except I have to put the daughter’s shoes on! And there I went again!

The Battle of the Bathian Sea

Captain Shorty Pie is standing short in the Bathian Sea and this time she is surrounded by a multitude of sea creatures. One by one the creatures are floating towards her. A star fish, a sea horse, an octopus, a blue whale, a sea lion, a shark and a jelly fish all of them in every single direction, lay there waiting for her to make the next step. She is completely surrounded, she has nowhere to go. Oh god! this is the first time in the history of Sea creatures attacking a short Captain, that there are so many sea creatures attacking a short captain all at once.

The star fish is all orangey and ready to feast on the prey. The sea lion makes an echoing moo noise which is extremely devastating. The sea horse does the sea horse neigh and taking quick swim steps to get ready for the attack. The octopus waves all of its arms in every direction and makes its move slowly towards the captain and getting ready to embrace her in its venomous arms. The blue whale squirts out water from the top and opens its mouth wide open with the blue whale noise. The shark makes rapid swims and jumps with its fins and coming in closer. The jelly fish emanates its vicious jelly like substance that will get anyone who comes in its path.

Such was the situation, so dangerous and nowhere to go. But our captain has conquered the 7 seas. She has been there to every corner of the world and fought every creature in her way. She is no stranger to such situation. She can handle this with ease. Captain gets ready with her crouching stand with legs wide apart. It is the strongest of the stance and only experienced adventurers adapt it.

She quickly moves to the right and grabs the star fish with her palm and squeezes the juice out of it and throws it away. The rest of the creatures pause for a moment and get cautious. They come to know she is not an easy prey. She is a fighter and they have to beware. The sea horse quickly tries to make an attack from the back, but our captain is too smart. She grabs the sea horse by its stomach and squeezes its juice out of it and puts it in a container. The rest of the creatures are now really scared, they are not going to take the next step but will wait for her.

But she doesn’t wait, She has got into her stance and there is no turning back for her. She now grabs the blue whale with her right hand and the jelly fish by her left hand and squeezes them and extracts an ocean of juice from them in just a few seconds. She growls and makes an angry face when she does that. It scares the big juices out of the Octopus and the Shark, who are the only ones left in the battle. They are not sure if they are strong enough to fight the almighty captain. Shorty pie puts one step further towards the octopus. The shark takes one step back. The octopus tries to bow down to the incredible pie but it is not forgiven. The shark tries to give an attack from the side but she is too clever and moves away. The shark now goes to her left and watches the captain squeezing the last drops of juice from the octopus.

It is now a duel between the shark and the captain. The shark makes one final attempt to jump on the captain. The captain catches the shark and squeezes the juice out of it too. The shark screams in agony but that is masked completely by the arrogant growl of the juice squeezing captain. Captain Shorty Pie of the bathian sea once again smells victory.

And this is how I see, when my daughter plays with her squirt toys in the bath tub.

Marathon Marriages

Law of Marathon Marriages:

1. When there are cousins and relatives who are in the same age range chances are they will not get married in the same year, unless you plan a Vacation to India during that time.

2. The net amount of marital force is calculated by the formula = Number of vacation days multiplied by Number of Marriages.

3. For every Marriage happening in a Marriage hall in Madurai, there will be a Balloon seller standing opposite to the hall.

Marriages are made in heaven goes the old saying. But when Marriages happen in quick succession and especially if you are supposed to attend each and every one of them right from the time you land, it becomes drastically deviated from being heaven. I wouldn’t call it hell though as I loved the experience and the food. Well Ok, mostly the food!

The last vacation to India, We had close to 25 days to spend in Madurai but most of the days were spent in attending marriages and functions. We had to attend a marriage function right on the day we were landing in Madurai and I totally wished I had the following conversation with the Air hostess of the delayed Air Deccan flight from Chennai to Madurai.

… IMAGINARY CONVERSATION BEGINS

Me: Excuse me, Artificially-looking-beautiful-due-to-heavy-makeup Air Hostess! I am getting late for my cousin’s marriage. Can you please ask the captain to drop me by the marriage hall.

Air Hostess: Sure, why not! Whatever the customer says, Customer is first.

(She moves towards the cockpit)

Me: While you are there can you ask him to not wiggle the airplane, it feels funny! and ask him to drive faster, I just saw a 90 year old passing us in his bicycle in mid air! and Please go in and change the color of your uniform, your bright red color dress is blinding me!

(She comes back from the cockpit.)

Air Hostess: The Captain said you must be crazy. There is only one runway in Madurai airport, so if we take that runway and put it near the Marriage hall, where your Cousin’s marriage is going on then there will be no runway in the airport.

… IMAGINARY CONVERSATION ENDS

After we arrived home we were immediately transported to the cousin’s marriage. We were hardly dressed for the occasion and by the time we went there the marriage was over, but we were about on time for the Photo Session and Lunch. I enjoyed the food so much that I shamelessly had extra helpings of Veg Briyani when everyone had almost reached the end of the game eating their curd rice. Such was the start of the Vacation of Marathon Marriages.

The procedure to attend a marriage function after you are married is drastically different from attending one when you are bachelor. The itinerary between your home and the marriage hall is usually intersected by a visit to the in laws, especially if the marriage is happening on your in laws side.

So, The next day we got ready and went to my in-laws house from where we were supposed to go to another marriage hall for attending another cousin’s marriage.To avoid myself explaining the relationship (which I am terrible at) I am just going use the phrase “Another Cousin” for every Cousin. My wife had to get dressed for the occasion at her place, as the materials needed were (in)conveniently at her place.

As I entered the in laws house, I couldn’t help notice my Father in Law sitting on the sofa wearing a Munda Banian and a Sangu Mark Lungi. He was sitting there silently channel surfing with the TV remote control. Here I am completely dressed and ready for the function and he was lounging in the couch. So I had to ask:

Me: “Aren’t you getting ready to go FIL? We have to be there in 30 minutes.”

FIL: “Relax, Your mother in law has just now got in to get ready. Please sit down now, why don’t you have Bovonto and watch some TV for a while”

And so I made up my mind and sat down on the couch watching TV with him. In few minutes I was involuntarily getting restless of the fact that the time was approaching, while the daughter merrily played with her toys and FIL still in his relaxed at-home costume watching TV. Just then, my Wife and MIL came out of the room in their Saree.

Me: Great, we are ready now. FIL, I think you should get ready now and we should go.

FIL: Relax, They just got dressed. They have to wear Jewels now.

Me: But, we have to be there in 5 minutes. We will be disrespecting them if we go late. ( Which I actually meant to say – “We gotta go, what if the food gets over? I want to eat the main lunch, not the Its-over-so-let’s-make-up-something-quick lunch”)

FIL goes back to his TV watching. I now wanted to beat the restlessness and so carried myself to the computer room and played a few games for a while. Apparently it seems it takes the same time for a Woman to wear Jewels as wearing the Saree and I am scientifically unable to explain this phenomenon. So we were obviously getting delayed. I finally realized it doesn’t matter how restless I am, things will happen at its own pace, I had to be patient, a self realization moment.

The Jewels were on and I finally heaved a relieving sigh and got up from the computer. But FIL is unbelievable as his relaxation didn’t end even after that. I badly needed a magic wand to wave at him and get him dressed but his reply was “There is always the last touch up!” and he was right. As they were just about to finish on their last minute touch up, the FIL man went in and came out in his dress in 1 minute. He simply put a Well disciplined McClaren Formula one Pit Crew to shame.

But I learnt something that day. I learnt to be patient, I learnt to endure under circumstances and keep myself cool. I learnt that it doesn’t matter if you get restless, you just sit down, relax and play along. When we got there we were not as late as we thought. Everything was fine and I was able to have my moment of eating a delicious meal.

20 out of 25 days of Waking up early, getting ready and going through the waiting process of the ladies getting ready, attending the function, smiling at people, laughing at jokes, cracking intelligent jokes and receiving blank stares, cracking dumb jokes and setting the entire hall in laughter and so on it went. We had a fun time and when it was all over, emptiness returned and we were back to our normal life.

When we work on things, we fail to see the bigger picture. We only see how difficult the task at hand is, we forget that we have worked tougher tasks before or there are people who have worked tougher tasks before. If you learn to see the things in that perspective, there will never be a moment of frustration. You will be able to handle and solve any problem in your life. I will leave you with a Haiku:

See not a Problem

as a Hurdle, but see it

as a task to solve!

What I mean is if you are going to be late for a Marriage don’t be so late to miss the lunch!

The Indian man who went to buy Chicken but came down with a lot more

I had already mentioned sometime back that doing Grocery Shopping is an Ordeal here in the US.

On a usual work day evening, I had to face the ordeal for the millionth time again albeit due to my own fault. I suddenly had a craving to eat Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani and so I wanted to hit the store to get some chicken for next day. I was all dressed up (which is wearing a T-shirt that would beg washing and a Shorts that would wish it was worn inside out) and checked with my wife if I should get 0.5 or 1 pound of Chicken, as I was the only chicken-eat-tarian in the family.

Wife: “0.5 would be too less, you won’t get much for making the 65. 1 pound will be too much, you won’t be able to eat it fully. 0.75 pounds! How about that?”

And so w(if)e decided that 0.75 pounds is the right quantity of chicken I would need, if I should minimize the wastage, never mind that the Grocery store itself wastes tons of meat every single day that could not be sold.

The Hitchhiker’s guide to Grocery states that, If you know what you are going to buy, you should never turn back and check to see if anything else is needed. Because 100% of the time, you will be asked to get more. As I am someone who hasn’t read the guide (heck, the guide doesn’t even exist!), I ended up going for the door knob and making a courteous turn around and asked the dreaded question.

Me: “Do you need anything else?”

I could have simply opened the door and walked away merrily with just 1 item to buy, but no I had to be Mr. Nice Guy and turn around and ask. Little did I realize when I asked that question, that I was in for a big list of things to buy.

Wife: “Oh sure, we certainly need milk. I forgot about that!”

It is like Dominoes. You just tip one and the rest of it follows through and falls down. Now, being in US buying milk is not as easy as going to the nearby bakery and getting a half litre Aavin milk packet. It is much more confusing than you think.

Me: “Which ones?”

Wife: “Hmm… half gallon of 1% milk, 1 gallon Fat free and 1 gallon Whole milk” (Good luck trying to understand how the word “Milk” became such a long sentence).

Me: “Ok, I will get them.” and I thought I would be spared and that’s all I might have to get, but no. We are now going full fledged.

Wife: “Let me see the fridge!”

That is when I realized I would need a paper to write down the list, because my brain cannot hold more than 2 grocery item at a time. I already had 4 (Chicken and 3 kinds of Milk). I quickly grabbed an old receipt lying on the kitchen countertop and tried to look for a pen. After fighting for 2 minutes with the daugther over the only pen I could spot, which she was using to scribble notes on from her previous experiment, I was ready to take down the rest of the list.

Wife: “We need Apples. 4 or 5.”

Me: “4 or 5? Please give me one number and no, we can’t do 4.5″

Wife: “Ok 5 it is. You and your obsession with accurate numbers. We will also need a bananas. Just get a bunch whatever number you feel like and the usual Bread that we buy”

Choosing a bread itself is a big task. There are thousands of varieties to choose from. In India, it is easy to buy a packet of bread, you just walk to the nearby bakery and ask for a bread packet. That’s it your 2 minute bread shopping is done. But here, you have to choose if you need white or wheat or honey wheat or whole grain or multi grain or thin sliced or anorexic sliced and the list goes on. Thankfully, we just like the Sara lee Honey wheat and just stick to it. So no big deal there beyond your first few attempts of trying to choose and like one from the variety. We have already attained nirvana in the kind of bread that we need.

Wife: “And finally a Cabbage. Make sure it is white in color, it shouldn’t be green”

For a moment before that I thought the list was over with the bread. One more to the list didn’t hurt and so I added cabbage to the list.

As I was ready to shop in the store, working my shopping cart through the multitude of aisles, I realized that Cellphones are necessary evils. I have a separate post on themselves that I am waiting to post. I say this because, with an already confused mindset I get a phone call from home adding 2 more items to the list.

Wife: “Can you get 1 bunch of Cilantro and a bunch of Green onion? I forgot about them”

Me: “What? wait I don’t have a pen, I can’t write it down, I can’t remember the other ones, what did I buy, what else I need to buy, my god my brain is short circuiting, I see sparks.”

Wife: “You need those for your Hyderabadi Biryani tomorrow!”

Me: “Oh ok, let me just get it then, hang on!”

Butchers can easily upsell you.

Me: “0.75 pounds of Boneless skinless chicken thighs please!”

Butcher: “Sure!” and puts it on the scale “Oh! it comes to 0.84 pounds”

Me: “Take a little bit out please!”

Butcher: “oh, it is 0.64 now! that will be too far away from 0.75, you want more or you want less?”

Me: “Got me, I want more. Let’s do 0.84 pounds”

And so my friends, an average ordinary Indian Man who was quenching to eat a Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani one day, set on a mission to buy 0.75 pounds of Chicken but came back with a big list of items – 0.84 pounds of Chicken, 3 kinds of Milk, 5 Apples, 6 Bananas, 1 Bread packet, 1 Cilantro bunch, 1 Cabbage and 1 Green Onions bunch.

This post should have really been title “The Ordeals of Grocery Shopping – Part II” but I thought it would be cool to make the title rhyme like a movie and hence I titled it “The Indian man who went to buy Chicken but came down with a lot more”. Anyone wants to guess the real movie name that sounds like this title?

Edit: And the winner for the Movie guessing contest is Nikhil. The answer is “The Englishman who went up the hill, but came down a mountain”, starring Hugh Grant.

Happiness from iPod and a Water Fountain

It was a cloudy saturday evening and we decided to go off on a mission to get some groceries done for the week. After finishing the ordeal that is called Grocery shopping, we thought we might want to check out the new Apple store in our area. This store has been opened up recently and we never got the time or need to drop in, until now. Apple has released a new iPod Nano and iPod Touch and we thought we could test drive it at the store. We drove around looking for the store for a few minutes, our eyes lying on several different things trying to locate a big Apple logo. My 1.5 year old daughter saw the big Apple logo sign first and said “Apple!” and that’s how we found the store. The store was slightly bigger than the one at Country Club Plaza in Kansas city.

How thin can an iPod be?

Apple has put iPod Nano on a strict fat free diet. It has squeezed the jelly out of it using a sugarcane juice maker. Then using a Chappati rolling stick, normally used by wives to beat the crap out of husbands, they have rolled the iPod Nano sideways to give it a thin oval look. This thing was so thin and light that if someone stood upside down in the store on his index fingers, I would have said “huh! Big deal!”.

The screen was brilliant and bright and the interface response time was quick. The colors were fantastic and I loved the Orange, Yellow and Silver of the lot. The screen is too small for playing a video, so it is probably just for occasional peeking and wouldn’t be usable for full length TV Shows or Movies.

The new iPod Nano shuffles beautifully. You just shake the iPod and it plays the next song in the shuffle line. Remember the days when you used to beat the top of your radio to get a clear reception, well this is sorta like that. This is a cool new feature, I don’t have to look at the screen and just have to shake it to listen to a random next song.

Available in 8GB for $149 and 16GB for $199.

Me: “I love it. I want it one now, honey! Can I buy this 8GB one? It is just $149″                                                                     (Picture: http://www.apple.com)

Wife: “You already have a perfectly good iPod Nano!”

Me: “But this is new. Owning this will make me the happiest man, please, pretty please! See even the daughter is loving the iPod.”

My daughter was getting all curious and attempting her minority report stunt to grab hold of the iPods lying on the table. She was very curious looking at all the colorful ipods.

For Bargain Hunters, I saw the older iPod Nanos at 4GB- $99 and 8GB – $129. Just put a word to your relative in US heading to a vacation in India, but don’t point them to this blog!

iPods are also Touchy!

(Picture – http://www.apple.com)

When you get rid of the phone component in the iPhone, you get the iPod Touch. The new iPod Touch is even more thinner than it’s predecessor. Thin is becoming a feature now, a fashionable demand. Whenever you think how much thinner can it get, Apple shows it in the next version of the iPod. iPod touch has WiFi and can do email, Web browsing, Games, Applications and YouTube. In the first version of the iPod touch it was difficult for me to type on the touch screen, but this new version seems much more easier to type and I was quite surprised by that. I wonder what changed, perhaps the software.

YouTube is the key here. It can be very addicting especially due to the simple and cool YouTube user interface on the iPod Touch. So I searched and watched this song and it came out really well on the device.

I also played this song, one of my daughter’s favourite. She always laughs whenever she sees Rajinikanth on the screen. Perhaps, she thinks that he is a comedian and he is always funny, especially due to this song.

She smiled wide as she saw Rajinikanth dance for the Style number in Sivaji.

Me: “This is a cool iPod. I think we can buy this. I don’t want the iPod Nano, I will have this one. It is just $229 and it will make me very happy.”

Wife: “You keep changing your mind!”

My daugther concurred with me as she was now all stimulated to grab hold of the iPod touch playing Rajinikanth’s song on Youtube.

We finished our window shopping and then came out of the store. It was a cool dark evening and the fountain just by the store was glittering beautifully in the halogen light coming from inside the fountain. We stood there for a while to enjoy a calm moment, a gentle breeze, sound of the water flowing in the fountain. It was a happy moment to just look at the fountain in silence.

I didn’t want to buy it and have it for myself, but it made me happy. It wasn’t a cool iPod with cool features, but it made me happy. My daugther was agreeing with me as she smiled wide looking at the water and the light and making attempts to try and catch the flowing water.

I realized two things:

1. Happiness is a temporary feeling that shifts from one thing to another that you like.

2. Happiness is not just in buying cool things but Happiness is in the way you like something around you.

It is amazing to see the wisdom that a child brings to you.

CD in the bathtub

Our daughter loves to conduct experiments. Her field of specialization is to perform a regular act of a toddler and examine the reactions of two fully grown adult species of Homo Sapiens, one from each sex – Me and my wife. She likes to improvise and hence her experiments have been more offline which means she does what she wants to do stealthily without our knowledge and then when we see it with our eyes we react and she takes down the readings, more like scribbling with a black ball pen on the Telephone directory.

In one such experiments of the toddler, I was stepping into the shower on a lazy saturday morning (No, Please don’t picturize this unless you want to suffer from Flu for the entire winter) when my feet stepped on a flat hard object. It was a CD. A CD in the bathtub. I went “arghhhh …..no……”. I then took a deep breath and said “it’s ok, it’s just a CD”. One close look at the CD and I was actually quite relieved. It was a Sony CD-R that I had used to copy some photos from my friend’s laptop. The photos were already added to my iPhoto library and hence this CD can be actually thrown away with no harm done (except occupy some square inches in the landfill and let it sit there for several decades).

Little did I know that I was going to be the subject of the toddler’s experiment and open my mind into self realization. I picked up the CD and wondered what other things it can be used for. I was feeling itchy on my back and used that CD to slowly scratch my back (Again don’t picturize). It felt great, tremendous. All of a sudden, an object whose primary use was to store some seemingly important data, was led into one of its possible other uses – Scratching my back. This CD could very well be doing it’s job of displaying photos on a  computer or a DVD Player but it perfectly worked its way comforting me from the itch. This was the moment of enlightenment.

Are we all CDs in a bathtub? Are we in the right place doing the right job we are capable of and not just the one we are qualified for? Could I have done better as a doctor saving lives rather than sitting in front of a computer all day and working through spaghetti of lines of programs? Perhaps a courageous Journalist? or a Sportsman? Or a Car Designer? Or a musician?

Was MGR a better actor than a Politician? Would Aishwarya Rai have been better off doing Modelling than acting in Bollywood? Didn’t Kumble and Srinath do great as Cricketers rather than Software Engineers? Don’t we dance to the tunes and voice of Shankar Mahadevan rather than do nothing with the Software that he might have written? Didn’t Bikerdude kick IT recently and enter Arts? Is Arnold better being a Governor than the Terminator?

Life doesn’t allow us to do everything at one time. We get to choose and when we do, we don’t know if we have chosen to be the CD on the player or a CD on the bathtub. But what we should do is we should remain truthful and good as the CD and shouldn’t mind being in a player or the tub. Who knows, being in the tub might perhaps make the CD feel better than being in the player.

I have to tell my daughter that her experiment was a success, she is a genius, after I change her diaper.

Color of Wisdom

I love listening to music. Tamil, Hindi, English, Language of the Dolphins anything that sounds good I hear it. I had made a few attempts at learning music. At one time, as a Bored Bachelor in Bangalore (wow, that seems like a nice title of a post!) I attempted learning Guitar. I made through bruises in my fingers and was imagining myself as Slash or Roger Waters while I was not even good at going quickly from a A-Major Chord to C-Major. The Tutor told me that I am useless when it comes to music and I should get married and this was why.

Tutor: What’s this?

Me: Guitar pick.

Tutor: Why is it thick?

Me: The last one I had was thin so it broke easily, that’s why I bought a thicker one.

Tutor: Only Bass Guitarists have the thick ones. You are trying to play an Acoustic.

Me: Really, Sorry I didn’t know that. Who is this Bass Guitarist?

Tutor: A Bass Guitarist is one who … sigh … never mind. For now let’s say you are not the Bass Guitarist, just use this thin pick.

Hence, I stopped learning music and got married. Well, It doesn’t sound exactly like that but me being useless in music learning and the “Thick Pick” incident part is 100% true. Everything else is masala mix.

I made a second attempt with a M-Audio Keystation Keyboard connected to my Mac and tried to learn rolling my fingers on the keyboard with the aid of a Mac software called Garage Band. This time I wanted to learn music the right way by trying to understand the Musical Staff notations. Only, Whenever I saw the staff notation, all I could remember was spaghetti. But Hey, I learnt to play the Happy Birthday song somehow, that is a progress right? Time went on and I didn’t go back to the music lessons and have kept the Keyboard aside hoping my daughter would pick it up and learn to play someday or may be we will learn it together. Otherwise I have to use it as a Surf board.

My learning of music remained ephemeral. Finally, I learnt to play 2 more songs. Row, Row, Row your boat and Twinkle Twinkle on my daughter’s … ahem … Xylophone. This is the relationship between me, music and learning. You can see how dull that is.

But with Garage Band, it is very easy to compose music. Even people like me who have little to no knowledge of music can easily put together the loops of music available in the software and come up with scores that sound good.

Now, Coming to the post ( This is probably one of those post that has 90% introduction blah! and then 10% actual content) I made a Haiku called Color of Wisdom. What color will wisdom be? (no not the Wisdom tooth!).

I found there,

Color of Wisdom,

A Grey Hair!

Sucks right? (Both Haiku and the Grey Hair). So I sat down and used Garage band to come up with a small theme music for this feeling.

I wanted to relate the strings to the (Grey) hair so I used Classic Rock Guitar loops.

You are free to download this music and use it for your personal purpose (Are you sure you want this?). Also, this means that I have a podcast. If you put my feedburner link in iTunes or any other podcast playing software, it should download the music automatically whenever I post a new Music or Video post (I think!).

Have a wonderful weekend! and Have a fantastic long Labour day weekend for those in US.

The Toy Music Story

Last year we bought a Rocker for our Infant daughter. It had a nice little bar toy which when pulled, plays a sweet soft tune for the baby. Our daughter got so fond of that toy she used that to develop her motor skills by pulling it. As days went by she started pulling it so hard that we just decided to unhook it from the bar and give it in her hand.

This toy went through a lot during its life. It plays on a Lithium ion CR style battery and it has been playing on and on. We used to lug this toy around everywhere we go. It became a standard accessory for my daughter and a favourite play toy in her car seat. After she started crawling and moving around she would carry this and drop it somewhere in the apartment. No one can find where it went and only she can crawl around and find it. She does this with other things and we have been unsuccessful to find things like her Sippy Cup, my Watch, an iPod Shuffle and the list of tiny things goes on. She finds it herself when she likes and returns them to us and that is if she wishes.

This music toy went through the same game of hide and seek throughout the apartment and must have visited every room and every corner that my daughter did. We also took this toy with us when we were on our vacation to India and again this toy visited several places there – Our home, in-laws home, Uncle’s etc. Among these places, there was one important place that caused a turn around in the usage of this toy – The Bath tub. Yes, One fine day she took it with her to the bath tub and before I could snatch it off from her, it slipped and fell into the water filled tub. When an electronic item gets immersed in Water, well you can forget the water. We had no hope that this toy would come back alive and replay its soft tunes. We let it dry and tried to pull the handle and No, It didn’t play the music.

We thought it was end of life for the toy and put it aside somewhere. One night, when we were watching the TV, we heard the same familiar soft tune. Was it coming from the TV? Nope. Was it the old music toy? It sounded like, but we couldn’t find where it was coming from. Our daughter was giggling and playing in a corner and no she wasn’t holding it either. It was a mystery. It then started to go off randomly once a few minutes and it was kind of like the toy asking us to find it and recover it. We did try hard and finally found it inside the closet, somewhere in the corner. We pulled the handle but it still wouldn’t play the music. So it was still broken, but now it works randomly. The battery for the toy was not replaceable either.

The Toy went on and on for several weeks playing the music randomly at odd times, scaring the guests, scaring us at night and it finally gave away its last music. The music reminded us of our great times with our daughter as an infant. But the music has now stopped, perhaps it is its way of indicating that our daughter has grown up and she no longer needs that toy. Perhaps, it was the love from the toy towards my daughter that made it play randomly even though it was broken. Perhaps it wanted to and tried to stay back in music with my daughter. Time had its last say.

Everything in life keeps moving, but we don’t want to. We like our old things and we stick on to it as much as we can and as long as it can go. It is hard for our human mind to know that for everything there is an end, there is finality. We don’t get over things as fast as we should. This toy has taught us a lesson. We love and have to love the things that we have in the present, but should also know that it cannot go on forever. When it stops, we shouldn’t. We should expect new things and move on with life. That toy played nothing but the same music over and over again, but it brought me this wisdom.

So long Music Toy and thanks for all the music.

A Duck for a Reward

The other day we took our daughter to the doctor for her 18 months examination. It is quite different this time around as she has grown up enough to know her surroundings and exert resistance wherever she is made uncomfortable. Personalities develop as they grow. It was so much easier for us to tackle her when she was younger, but now we have to be at war with her for making her sit through the procedure.

First comes the deception. Our daughter is fond of going out, she loves to go out, anywhere, doesn’t matter, just out of the house and she is a happy camper. She just doesn’t want to get back home. So obviously we told her that we are going bye bye and she was pretty happy to accompany us and was really jolly. She had no idea what was coming though.

Stripping is usually easy at home, whenever we have to change her dress. But when you are in the hospital she gets suspicious, “Hey why the hell are you stripping me off here in a strange little room. This is not good at all, something is wrong”. Still, she is happy to be in a different surrounding, something to give her a feeling that she is outside her home at some fun place. She doesn’t mind being in just the diaper and hangs around the exam room, tries to pull open the “child proofed” cupboard, skates the wheeled doctor’s chair … whee … whee…all that.

But when it comes to the Nurse and the doctor trying to perform a certain simple procedure like examining the eyes, ears, vitals she is done. She cries and yells out loud and gives the best of abilities in resisting the inevitable. The doctor promises it will be just a few easy steps and reassures her that she will get a reward in the end. What seems like an easy few steps is an ordeal for the babies as they are not used to it (only 18 months old, duh!). All through these, she threw her hands up and around so much that she would have saved quite a few baskets in a basket ball game. I guess she was feeling it like a roller coaster ride. Thankfully there were no shots(Vaccination) that day.

When all was done, it was time for the reward. I didn’t even remember that there was going to be a reward until the doctor reached for the cupboard saying “ok, now its reward time”. He pulled out a small pink plastic duck and handed it to my daughter who was still sobbing. She stopped sobbing but now gave a strange look. I guess this is what she should have been thinking:

“A duck? I sit through all your peeking around and poking over my body and all I get is a plastic pink duck. Come on dude? you don’t have anything else, how about a cell phone or an iPod? or atleast a toy phone? oh, what a rip off! I mean look, this thing can’t even make some squeeky duck noise …. I have to make quack quack quack noise on my own!”.

But for some strange reasons we only heard “Quack Quack Quack” and not the rest of the words. I imagined advising my daughter “Honey! It is not the reward that matters, It is the experience, the journey that is the reward”

She must have said “Oh, yeah you mean the car ride from home to here? yeah that was fun! better than this lame duck”

I imagined “See, you get the hang of it already. It is that easy!”

“Quack quack” said my daughter and we drove back home merrily expecting the rest of the day.

The Minority Report Stunt

When Tom Cruise gets accused for a future murder that he is yet to do, he has no other choice but to run. In the movie Minority Report Tom says “Everybody Runs” and takes off into the futuristic Lexus car on the multidirectional freeway. But when his car gets taken over by the system, he just gets out of it and jumps on to another. This is one of the best action sequences I have ever seen because even though Speilberg works so much to show how a futuristic highway looks like, in the end it is completely the physical effort of the protagonist to perform the action in the chase.

As I was doing my weekend grocery shopping the other day, I was walking down the aisles trying find the things in my list. My daughter was enjoying the shopping cart ride but quite soon she seemed to be getting bored. She begged for attention and invited some gimmicks out of me as I continued my futile search of Vegetable Stock.

She then slowly pulled her legs out of the front opening and crouched on the seat holding the bar in front. From the crouch position she lifted herself up still holding the bar and gave a shout. I looked at her and politely asked her to sit down and continued glancing the racks for vegetable stock. She then released her hold on the bar and just as I started pushing the cart, she did a slight jump and reached me and grabbed me by her arms around my neck.

That was one hell of a Minority Report Stunt.