Monday, October 17, 2011

A full week!

Last week was very "full". Of experiences and memories. I met a couple of people very dear to me!

One was my director when I was in SJ. He is an awesome guy and built a really awesome team too! When I was moving to India, I used to sit in his office for half an hour everyday and crib about how much I will miss being in the team and he always used to listen patiently and eagerly. A great listener, we always found a ready friend in him :) He was here on business travel and thanks to the fact that he was in the same campus and staying close to our place, I was able to catch up with him a bunch of times both at and outside of work while he was here and it felt really nice! I was meeting him after nearly four years (since I moved).

Then later in the week, one of my very dear friends, S, stopped on her way from Hyd to Chennai in Bangalore for a few hours to catch up with me. As always, very sweet of her, she did not really need to do it. We have been friends for 16 years now and she is one of my friends I really admire and adore. Yeah, we don't speak as often anymore and catch up only once in a couple of months, but somehow this never eroded that bond:) I took her out to lunch (which I believe she loved) and then some shopping and then it was back to the cab and on the way to the airport for her. She was last here for the housewarming of our home (lucky coincidence) and again, nearly 3 years since I saw her. So all the more special :)

Friday, October 14, 2011

Fed up!

With this central government for more reasons than one. But probably the most dangerous of these is this:

Now in Uttarakhand too

The friendly neighbors encroach more and more and we live blissfully on. What a pathetic state of affairs.

Saturday, October 08, 2011

Food for thought

Today I had to go by MG Road for an exam. Somehow, once I cross Domlur and go towards MG Road, I feel the memories of the past flooding back. When we were kids/teenagers, a Bangalore-Mysore-Tumkur trip was a done deal at least once a year since all my dad's family was here. And when I start going towards MG Road, the old Bangalore visits always come back to my mind. It's like the Domlur bridge is a separation between my pre-twenty Bangalore experience vs my current life in Bangalore.

I used to quite hate Bangalore in those days, more often than not, because it made me miss school when I was very young and this meant asking permission from Sr Rose! (usually cosuin's weddings would happen in non-vacation times). When I grew older, it was more because Bangalore was more open cultured while Hyderabad (at least where I lived and grew up) was more conservative.

But somehow at the back of my mind, I always knew, no matter how much I hate this city, I will have to live here some day. Because I knew this is where IT was going to boom (at that time Hyd was still not so much on the IT map). And here I am! Today, I think of those days when I used to hate this place, I feel quite neutral to it, have adopted it to some extent as "my" town, and more than anything, look emotionally at it as the birth-city of my son :) But my past Bangalore and my present Bangalore have almost nothing in common. Since we moved back, I have hardly visited Majestic (maybe twice at most in four years nearly) whereas in the past that was the centre of my experiences. Sometimes I wonder, is this the same city that I used to visit? I rarely visit the same places anymore: Rajaji Nagar, Malleswaram etc)

On that note, I always feel, if my 13-year-old self saw my 31-year-old-self, it would be in awe and would want to emulate it. I guess that is a sure sign of having achieved whatever I wanted to (at this age, at least) and of contentment? :)

Monday, October 03, 2011

Sickness

Less than a week after his second birthday where I was wishing this year should have less sickness, I got that dreaded call from the daycare. He had discharge from his eyes, they suspected conjunctivitis and they wanted me to take him home. He did have a lot of discharge in the morning when he woke up but I didn't suspect anything serious. So I went, dropped him and picked him back and came home, all within an hour :( We took him to the pediatrician in our colony and she gave him some drops.

Sickness comes in all varieties I should say, but every time there is something, I feel like I have lost a lot of my own energy :(

A comment to share -

I got this comment on my previous post :

Anonymous said...

wow nice my daughter is 1.5 .How and when should I start letters and alphabet books ? does your son sit at one place and read them.When do they start speaking?

@Anonymous - If I say I didn't do anything to make him start saying his letters you probably wouldn't believe me? :) We do have some board books (for letters) which others had given him either as return gifts for parties or when visiting home. There is also a rhymes book that he has which one of my colleagues had given him. But besides these, we never bought anything as such. I think I should give most of the credit to his daycare where I believe the curriculum is really good and he has picked up a lot of stuff.

That said, I would not worry about when they will learn numbers, alphabets etc. In fact I never worried about any of his milestones. They are just babies and they have the rest of their life for the race that is inevitable, why take any pressure as parents from now itself? At least this has been my mantra and I stick by it with my life. When he didn't roll-over till he finished 5 months, I used to get questions by the day on why, how, what etc, technically I should have been very worried since kids rollover @3 months typically. But he rolled over very very late and he is perfectly fine for that. They will be. It all comes in due course of time so don't get worked up over timelines etc :) That is all I would say :) I have noticed a great difference in babies when it comes to milestones. They all take their time. Sorry for the free advice, but this is the only answer I can give I guess ;) As for when he started to talk, again, that too was very late (by most aunties' standards), maybe around 19-20 months old. Since then his curve with words and numbers has been steep. So don't worry, when they start, you can't stop them ;)


Enjoy!