bond or break

This sat was my 5yrs old's day out. Yes, for a change, we decided to have lunch from a place of her choice. That was how we ended up in McDonald's. What I noticed when I reached McD was that, the number of dads with their kid(s) were much more that the rest of the crowd put together.

Not sure if it was the dad having a bonding time with the kids or the mom having a break time with herself :)

flyover constructions in bangalore

Every time I pass through a flyover construction in Bangalore, I am reminded of the mechanic v/s doctor joke. I have some sort of respect towards the people working on such projects. After all they are working with the 'engine' ON and an uncontrollable engine too. Yes, I am talking about the traffic and the ignorant drivers.

One day, while I was traveling from office, I witnessed the construction workers demolish the supporting structure which holds the horizontal portion of a flyover. The cops & the workers had formed a loosely bound human chain to block the vehicular traffic. A maniac biker, squeezed his way through two workers literally hurting their spread out arms. Seeing this a cop came over to check out the situation & two cars squeeze their way through the vacant cop's spot. All this happened in a span of seconds & just when the drivers were through, the supporting structure came down with a thud.

These are situations where I believe in the force of prayer. I don't see any other reason as to why the supporting structure didn't fall on the biker or on the cars. And, if it had fallen on them, who would have been blamed - "the authorities" and/or the construction company.

Yes, I was waiting for this newspaper article to write this blog!!!

95% and nowhere to go

I was reading this article from India Today (July 4, 2011 edition). Some points mentioned in this article brought these snippets of conversation I was having a two friends of mine at different places, in an entirely different context ....

1st friend : I remember whatever I read like a picture. So, I never had to use my brain as such to clear my 12th exam. If you have practiced last 3 year's questions, you are all set for the exams. They don't even change the figures in Mathematics paper. So, just remember that picture with solution for this question & you are done with the exams.

2nd friend : I find it difficult to handle my 4th grader's English paper. They give a passage & ask questions which are directly not mentioned in the passage .... what would have been the premise for this passage, what should ideally come after the passage and so on.

The first friend is a university rank holder and she completed her 12th exam in 1997. The second is the mother of child who is currently doing her 4th grade. I can surely see the change in the education/examination system. Probably by the time this 4th grader completes her 12th grade, things would have changed in favor of the students.

Dreamzzzzz

 A couple of my friends & I were discussing about the weirdest dreams we have ever had and some interesting scenes unfurled.

Dream1 : I have dreamt that one fine morning when I woke up, I was unable to speak.
Pssst! I, being a talkative girl, can very well understand paranoia behind her statement.
Dream2 : I have dreamt that I lost all my teeth.
Dream3 : I dreamt that, I lost all my hair when I was trying to towel dry my hair after a bath.
Dream4 : I was kissing him on the lips and my teeth, the whole of it, fell into his  mouth.

No prizes for guessing who bagged the weirdest dream of the day trophy ... ;)

Know Your Child

One of my close friend is an active member of The Art of Living Foundation. On a regular day, he wouldn't ask me to attend any of their courses. But that day, he wanted me to attend the 'Know Your Child' course conducted at his residence. On any other day, I would have ran in the opposite direction. But that day, I agreed to attend this session.

The one thing that caught my attention was this question by the instructor - "Why do you want to limit your child's knowledge to what YOU know?"

Most of the parents I know, and I myself, have this urge to give 'technically correct' answers to all the questions raised by the children. And if we don't know an answer, we google & tell them. This question by the instructor opened a a whole new world of possibilities for me - The children might have an even better answer to it.

So, now when my child or her friend asks me a question, I try not to answer her question immediately. Instead, I ask her - "Hmmmm ... am not too sure ... what do you think it is?". And I was bowled over by their answers. I was completely amazed by the way they line up THEIR facts & THEIR observations & how THEY draw up THEIR conclusions. And we still call them kids!

PS.
Definition of Rain by a 3yr old boy .... I think they have switched on the air condition on the plane ... :)

categorize

I really dislike filling out personal data forms and their questions about one's self. Whenever I come across such a question I look up and ask, 'Duh?! Do you think I will be where I am if I had known the answers to all these questions?'.

Recently I had to fill in a personal data form & one of the category in that form was to list at-least 1 negative aspect about yourself. The coward that I am, I have never looked that deep into myself. So, I thought of flipping through the various feedbacks I have received from different people during various stage of my life. And, I was discussing my findings with a friend of mine.

Me : I am not great with guarding emotions. Whatever I feel immediately reflects on my face making it visible to the public.
He : Why do you want to compartmentalize it into good or bad? Why can't you just leave it as it is? In fact, why do you want to categories ANYTHING at all?

These questions propelled an entire chain of thoughts in me. That was when I realized, I have this urge to categorize everything around me into the good or the bad bucket. And worse, I am instilling the same thing into my child - this is not a good behavior, that is a bad way of doing thing, etc etc. And then it dawned upon me, I am being crushed by the pressure of being in the good bucket.

And the moment I realized that, the compartments vanished & all the items fell on the ground into a huge pile. And honestly friends, from that day onwards - my life became simple and I am enjoying this new outlook on life :)

PS.
This is a guest blog entry I had written for a friend of mine, Aisoorya Vijayakumar. The link to her blog is Coffee bean musings

laks reinvented .....

After an extremely long gap, I have decided to come out of my slumber & actually start updating my blog. I hope, this idea brings a smile on someone's face .... It sure did on mine ... :)

So this is me ... in my new Avataar ..... :)