Happy, Happy, Happy

All it takes is another birthday and a party to make us feel this a way.....
We aren't too sure about Dad though....

UBUD WITH THE KIDS

We were very, very busy at Ubud.

I had my sessions, the kids had their workshops. And there were plenty.

In a telling statement, Aneesha said "I need a break" and took a day off during the festival only to emerge re-energised for Kirsty's session.

There she created a character all of 10, a journalist who read a lot of books, who sounded a lot like me albeit with long black hair.

When I asked if I was her inspiration, if not her guide, she responded:
"No, your hair is brown, orange and white."

Considering it was uttered in the presence of an award-winning author, I can already see the line travel.

There were several other Aneesha moments, which found their way to my sessions. It was great fun all round.

Dhruv made it to record books by repeating family history by burning his leg courtesy the motor-bike silencer. Since Nick was missing this time round, he kept his clothes on. Though, we never did get another invite from Dirty Duck. No, we didn't mind the slight, we soaked in all of Casa Luna's nuggets and drank all the orange juice we could. And before we packed our bags, we did what good tourists do - take the stroll down Monkey Forest Road, shop at the Pasar, hang out at Casa Luna and return with more than a bagful of tales. Interested?

Dhruv & I

In our Mac glory....
so Aneesha says....

Splish, Splash

She wanted a splash at 8, a splash was what she got.

All coloured, all enticing, urging you to quickly bite into it. It was looked like the cake was meant for two and the presence of her best pal, sure made it seem that way. When it comes to friends, a thank you just isn't enough. So the pictures will have to do....

What Was She Thinking?

On the day she turned 8....
A cake....
Some candles....
Some prezzies....
Some friends....
Some fun-filled bubbles....
Some blocks and crosses....
Or was it mere thoughts of stepping into another year?
Clip Art holds some answers....

The Company of Friends

Makes every moment special....
Whether it is playing....
Sparring....
Jumping....
Running....
Falling....
Or even indulging in simple pleasures, like eating....

They've Got The Look

There's something about those ringlets, that gorgeous smile, the amazing manners.
Each time Vashti walks my way, Aneesha seems to emerge a couple of years younger.
Maybe its true, all lovely little girls are made that way.

Role Reversal

Bala to Aneesha:
How are you Aneesha?
Who is your friend?
What did you eat today?
What did you play?
Did you watch TV?
How long did you watch it?
Did you sleep in the afternoon?
Did you study?
Do you like homework?
Do you like playing tennis?
Do you like swimming?

A couple of patient replies later, an extremely harried Aneesha responds:
Daddy, can you stop asking questions.

There, she almost sounds like us!
Things do come full circle, if only you try.

Looking for Adventure

After getting back to Singapore.....

Wait, don't go anywhere without me....

See, isn't my million dollar look worth the wait?

Old Friends and New

My blog and our sporadic emails that followed helped us stay in touch. We last saw each other in 1991, when we made our way past the hallowed precincts of Panjab University's Political Science Department. He went on to join the Indian Police Service and has done superbly for himself. I'm not surprised. A S Rai, like other civil service aspirants in the class of '91 was focused. After lectures, even the ones who weren't aspiring to be in civil service (like yours truly) made a mad dash for the Department Library or the main campus library. If there was ever a bunch of book worms, it had to be us. We were always the first to find out about the new books, always attempt to be the first to borrow them and studiously work on our notes.

I know our Professors loved us. 'The best class', was a phrase we'd heard often enough. We only made time for 'serious lectures' and ensured nothing was lost in trivial conversation. No cooler talk for us, no time for the Student Centre, no time for relaxed campus walks.

So in the two years that we spent doing our Masters, I knew virtually nothing about Rai, his interests or his family. Catching up after so many years, it was a surprise to learn he did his schooling in Mussorie, to meet his charming wife who studied law and his amazingly well behaved daughter. Seeing her and Aneesha yakking away, after Dhruv was ceremoniously dispatched home, it almost seemed like we'd never been away.

Water Baby

When she is not standing in the middle of a fountain, she takes to water like a fish.
30 laps in a row, she packs twice as much energy as I do. She can beat me stroking hollow. After a bout with her weak lungs, she has survived swimming. A bronze down the road, she's at work on her silver.

Yes, when she started it was endless visits to the paediatrician. Once the breathing was sorted out, her lungs emerged stronger as did her spirit.

For that and for many other non-competitive facets of her life, Aneesha does us proud.

Animal Farm

Lying dogs don't bite, so Dhruv believes...


Can I really feed them? She wondered then...


We are not afraid...


But I am. Aneesha tells me smile, its just a haathi, saathi...

Tressed

It takes a couple of hours, lots of patience, but once its done the tresses stay that way. You can wash them, rough them up and they would stay that way till you pull the lovely beads out. It's a look I miss a lot. I know Aneesha does too.

It Gets Harder....

To make friends as you grow older. Unlike fine wine, others interest in you wanes. Or you end up being more discerning or the family takes over. Some folks can perfectly fathom why you need to cancel the lunch appointment at the very last minute, why you can't make it for a show after having made plans for it all week, why you work insane hours, why you go into hiding when the exams are around or why you refuse to stir out of your home during the weekend.

Tripta Singh understood all of that and a whole lot more. For those of you, who've followed my other blog, you probably know this story. We met close to two years ago. It was through work. Then we ended up bumping into each other at a couple of social events. One thing led to another. We discovered we were both Army brats, we'd been to pretty much the same parts of India, we were both in the media, we liked pretty much the same things. The plot thickened when I invited her to my birthday and realised we were born on the same day. Over the months, that have passed all too quickly, we went shopping together, went on movie marathons, occassionally hung out at malls, exchanged notes on the books we were reading, our travel tales (oh well, more often they were her travel tales).... to cut a long story short - our good days and our equally bad ones.

She'd be the first one I'd call if I needed help with anything - right from food for my party to what's the propah outfit to wear. We even ended up buying the same white Payal Jain kurti you see in this picture from Mumbai Se. Lesson learnt, if shop we must, we must do it together.

As our friendship evolved, so did the friendship with her husband Tarun. Nothing could get keep Dhruv and Aneesha at home if they knew Uncle Tarun and Aunty Tripta were coming home. They would look at the clock, time their arrival, wait near the carpark, then resort to phone calls if they handn't made it on time. Aneesha would even insist on accompanying me for some of our shopping expeditions and patiently last from noon to evening.

When I told both of them they were going to Hong Kong, their initial reaction was:
"So good, we can go to Hong Kong Disneyland."

As the days passed, realisation struck that they will be gone for good.
"You mean we can't go out with Aunty Tripta?" Aneesha asked the other day. She was imagining some of her fun weekends fizzling away.

True, they might be in and out of town, but it just won't be the same thing.

I guess it was thinking of the imminent departure that took Aneesha went back to her drawing board yesterday. She took a mini-study break to indulge in what she does most passionately - her art.


She took her time over this. Adding the colours, the dots then the words to the drawing to pass it on Tripta who's grown to be her "favourite Aunt."

And with that, it's time to pull out the Kleenex and wish both Tripta and Tarun the absolute best for what's bound to be another exciting adventure in their packed lives.

Number Crunching

I still remember that feeling. Staring at the blackboard for the full maths period, trying in vain to make sense of what Ajay Sir was rattling off with intense seriousness. In Class 8, my dismal affair with numbers saw the report card slump into red, after which arrangements for tuition were made. I thought I was getting the basics right, at least till I took my exams. It might have helped in some way, as I did manage to get pass marks once the tuition supplemented what I learnt in class.

In Class 10, I spent copious hours over my Maths textbooks, learning theorems, figuring out the algebra and everything else that went along with it. Before the exam I prayed hard - really hard. If there was anything that could pull me down, it would have to my Maths. My heart was in my hands when I made it to the exam room after the long ride from our school in Clement Town to the test centre on the other side of town. I felt I was going to be sick. Though going back was not an option. The CBSE board wouldn't give me another chance to take this test - unless I failed of course.

With the impending sense of doom, I made my way to the exam room. When I got the questions, the first thing I wanted to do was cry out loud. I couldn't make sense of half of the stuff, I couldn't even figure out one of the questions on the theorem that I thought I knew so well. I struggled, sweated and somehow got to the end of it all.

That was only the beginning. While the rest of my papers went well, I spend the extended holiday after the Board Exams in a sense of perpetual dread. Nightmares became a regular occurrence. They followed a pattern. Sit for the exam, get the result, look at the F, then cry. It was the middle of summer so each time I got up, it would be me drenched in sweat. Failure became such an obsession that the only thought that came to my mind was being back in my school in Doon.

When the result finally reached my Dad's home - at that time in Amritsar - I couldn't believe I'd scraped through. It was a 48/100. Not the best score in the world but enough to get moving on to the college journey where I vowed to stay as far away from numbers as I could.

To this day, I remain an unparalleled disaster with numbers. It takes very little for bankers to convince me about parking my money in the silliest schemes. I have to resort to a lot of finger counting when too much addition, division, subtraction, multiplication is involved.

So it is with a sense of trepidation and dread that I approach my daughter's maths exam.

Fortunately, she's got her Dad's genes when it comes to numbers. When we sit together and I'm attempting my mental maths, she would have usually solved the sums, moved on to the next one and the next one. I love to watch her in action. It's like seeing a little human calculator punching in and punching out numbers quick time. Given that she's got the edge and knows it, it's also next to impossible for me to teach her anything logical when it comes to maths.

The one time that I did, all her answers were wrong. I strongly encourage her to do it all with Bala. It works well, if he's around, it takes a disastrous twist when he's not. Which is what happened this time round when work resulted in India calling.

Straddling through numbers, I ended tossing and turning through the night with 10th standard coming back to haunt me all over again.

It wasn't for long though. The alarms went off and in less than four hours after I attempted to sleep.

I was back at work looking at numbers all around. From my cab fare, to the vending machine to cricket scores, to tennis, to soccer goals, to the markets. There truly is no escape.

Insights on my job

Aneesha has finally decided to share some of her thoughts from her 'secret diary.' She's made remarkable progress with it, her target is to finish it before Daddy comes back, so she that "he can buy me a new diary."

Lots of things are being furiously scribbled into it. We talked about it yesterday while enduring another endless wait at the doctor's. There is God, family, friends, brother, TV and my job.

"You are a Producer because you love words," is apparently one of the entries. Boy, am I touched. If all it takes, is a Strawberry Shortcake diary to inspire such gems, I'm getting the whole loadful.

Swami & Friends

The exams are upon us. These are moments when I'm at my antsy best. It takes very little to get me to snap. The slightest excuse can have my temper reach fever pitch. As a rule I never hit my kids - forget the cane - so I have to do a lot of walking around to restore a semblance of balance in my system and to prevent my pounding heart from popping out of mortal body.

Things have been different this time round. Yes, Aneesha has improved. She reads a lot faster, focuses on her work and at least before her pencil hits the paper, she is always going for A - "easy, peasy," is her preferred turn of phrase. Yes, a lot has changed since she entered a 'real school.' Exam after exam, where grades have vacillated violently between C and A have taught me that at the end of the day it's not the paper grades rather the brilliance from within that matters.


Helping me with this philosophical take is this timeless R.K.Narayan classic. Swami & Friends, which was first published in 1935 by Hamish Hamilton has gone into several re-prints since. I have a copy of it in my Nani's home in India, left in the hope of setting that library if and when we do return to our shores. The copy that I am reading now was picked up at the Vijitha Yapa Bookstore in Colombo and guess what it's the 37th edition. Such is the charm of the book.

The story is as simple as it comes. 10-year old Swaminathan (Swami) is a student of Albert Mission School whose life changes when the smart Rajam enters the school. "He (Rajam) was a new-comer....He spoke very good English, exactly like a European; which meant that few in the school could make out what he said."

I'm not going to read too much into that, it's already been done by many others. Let me stick to the key characters. Swami also has four other friends - the mighty Good-for-Nothing, Mani, the brilliant Sankar, the Monitor Somu and Samuel, the 'Pea' who had nothing outstanding about him.

When Swami decides to befriend Rajam, this tightly knit circle of friendship threatens to break away. They survive that test, but it is the tests that remain an imposition of the education system that break them.

As I revise Sabki Surahi and other lessons and the test sheets of the various Hindi books that a 7-year old and their parents have to grapple with, I wonder how much has changed since 1935 when Narayan first published this classic?

Children remain children, doing everything in their power to escape the drudgery of homework for the charms of the playground. I was like that once. They re-visit their course books only when threatened with the gravest of threats. In my days, my mother's rose cane was enough of a deterrent, these days, it's more likely to be "no tv, no playstation."

The pressures of the system remain, parents being parents want the Swamis to keep up with the Rajams. It's a tough job, as Narayan showed us, but someone's got to do it.

Booked n Baked

Took the kids for Felix Cheong's book launch on Saturday. Something positively interesting is underway. For the longest time, all I've heard is complaints that Singaporeans don't read enough. Three recent events at one of the finest arts venues, aptly called The Arts House prove otherwise. Alexander McCall Smith drew a huge crowd on a weekday. Ditto for Jacob Sam-La Rose's performance poetry. And the story repeated itself at Felix's launch at The Earshot cafe.

Almost everyone from all ages was there. There were school students, his students (from NAFA, LaSalle), poets, writers, friends and my kids. Felix had a tough time reaching out to everyone and he wasn't quite helped with what my twosome had to say. Aneesha had to win a prize at the quiz (she's like that) so even before the question was asked her hand would go up and she'd turn around and go "Mamma what's the answer, quick." Dhruv didn't want to be left behind so he'd raise his arm as well and go "I know, I know."

At one point, when the mike was getting disastrously close to my twosome, Dhruv took off: "You know my sister, she never let me......" At which point Aneesha effectively gagged him and said "Shut Up." So much for creating a first impression.



After the launch, which much to the merriment of my kids provided Coca-Cola, we decided to do the Singapore River walk. Turned out to be a bad idea. At 4:30pm the place was hot enough for a sizzler. Took a couple of shots from the other side of the river, where you the old and the new thrive together in perfect harmony. Dhruv was drawn to the bumboats and looked in vain for some crabs. Aneesha, on the other hand, was drawn to Sir Stamford Raffles. We re-read the plaque several times to make sense of the year he arrived in Singapore. There was a lot of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers. I, who have a tough time, going beyond 2 plus 2 without the help of a calculator so wanted to give up. Helping us was Dhruv who gave up without the joy of crab-spotting.


Since Bala is not around and we have no access to the car, we ended up walking around. Well, the walking almost saw my curious dude walk into The Supreme Court. He's constantly amused by the sight of the automatic opening and closing doors. Before he could do too much of it, I spotted the security folks and that was enough to get him to move on. We thought we could do a longer stretch but a KFC waylaid our plans.

Then we ambled into a Bata at Peninsula Plaza after Aneesha complained "have you seen my school shoes?" This one turned out to be a real discovery. It is the biggest Bata store in Singapore and on that day had the most amazing deals. The kids were happy coz there was a play area complete with those balls that Dhruv decided were perfect for jumping, a TV as well and some not so scary dinosaurs. If you want to get there, here are the details: Ground Floor, 111 North Bridge Road, Peninsula Plaza, Singapore 179098. Ph: +65 6339 7000 Email: bata.singapore@bata.com

Apart from the shoes, I also picked up a note-pad for Aneesha and she's been busy writing away, though I'm not supposed to look into her secret diary.

I know Sir Stamford Raffles has an entry in there somewhere as does Felix. There's a lot of love for God, mother, father and family. I know it coz the better part of my Saturday night and Sunday was spent spelling these words and more.

This Hand Is....

When they are not at war, the duo do get together to create stuff like this.

It all started with the 'Charity Is...' campaign, I brought five cards home and told them to come up with a concept. It was Aneesha's idea to use a 'helping hand'. So Dhruv became the scapegoat. Not that he minded at all, it was more a case of 'my hand, my hand'. In the end, a series of hand cards were created and made their way to a deserving notice board, raising more than just a dollar. It is moments like these that fill us with unbridled pride and we say so unabashedly.

From War Emergeth Love

When they are not sparring, they do give us Kodak moments like these....
Wish they weren't far and few between...