Sheela-ki-javaani is out and over.

Chamak Challo is taking our house by storm. Yes, we are late and we are like that only. No TV and no computer, we are usually stuck in a different time warp. The children hear about songs from their friends. By the time they register a song, memorize it and start asking for it, the rest of the world would have ridden that wave and would have moved on. But we peak!

Now I can measure every place I drive them to, by Chamak Challo scale. Airport, one way, almost 6 Chamak Challo’s. Grocery store – 3. The auditorium where the children had their annual day function – 3. Copying place close by – 1 etc.

Enthused(and irritated) by the number of times the husband heard the song, the eager beaver he is and with his ever wanting need to get to the bottom of things and understand the meaning, he, of all people, asked the maid the meaning of Chamak Challo. The maid started blushing. I, who was dusting close by, froze. And gave him the look that means, ‘this maid is a keeper, don’t ask her meaning to Hindi movie songs, which usually contains lots of read between the lines material and make her stop coming to work’. The husband, as usual, blissfully unaware of all looks and meanings and implications, moved on with his simple existence.

Another song that the children are singing non-stop is Kolaveri and holds the record for entering the house while it is still in vogue. They dance for Chamak Challo, Mieja has two moves – a standard march past kind of move for male voice and a hip shake with hands crossing for the female voice. But their response to Kolaveri gives me the creeps. They lounge, please note, not sitting but lounging, on the couch and sing dreamily, ‘Hand-le glass-u, glass-le sctotch-u’. Suddenly they tell me ominously, ‘Amma your future is dark-u dark-u’. For which I reply is full childish demeanor, ‘Noooo, my future is not dark. It is bright. I am going places!’

Last but not the least ‘Dhinka Chika’. I don’t even know when it came, so can;t say if we entered this wave soon/late/at peak. But I can tell you that I have heard it so many times that it has filled my head, over flowing from my brain and finding its way out through my vocabulary. Yesterday I told the younger child, ‘Yes, I will tell no if it is not appropriate. Don’t expect me to do Dinhka Chika to all your whims and fancies.’ She missed the point and wanted me to play Dhinka Chika.

Ta folks, have a good weekend!

 

UPDATED TO ADD

Hilarious!!!

and

Mieja lurves diamonds. Now, according to her, diamond is anything that is smooth, shiny and the size of a lemon. At this point of time I would like to clarify that I am not feeding her with unrealistic expectations. Many a pebbles were picked up from the park, washed, spat on and shined till hands ached and disappointment levels soared. But the child being the tireless kind, decided to change the process. As a result of which multiple diamond experiments were carried on at home.

I nodded approvingly and decided to keep a photographic record of the experiments, because (a)once her heart is set, no matter I reason, she will refuse to listen and (b)if at all by blind luck she did manage to make a diamond?! I mean, the child was talking about rocks the size of lemons. It surely wouldn’t hurt to have a few, wouldn’t it?!

So here it goes, the process, pictures and the product.

Experiment 1

Ingredients: Leaves from your garden, a bucket, water, scissors, plenty of sunlight.

Process: Watch out for the time sunlight falls on your kitchen faucet. Now open the faucet and check if the water sparkles in sunlight. Only sparkling water results in sparkling diamonds. Now fill half your bucket with sparkling water. Cut the leaves in to strips about an inch thick. Fashion these leaves in to little cups. Pour about half a teaspoon of sparkling water in to each leaf cup. Place the leaf cups in to the bucket. Leave the bucket in direct sunlight for a week. Check for readiness and leave them for an additional week if required.

 

Product:

Experiment 2

was formulated after said child’s mother complained to every one under the Sun about the stink emanating from the bucket and scientists needing to clean up their own mess(“Marie Curie’s mother did not run behind her with a mop and scrubber” my exact words). The goal of this experiment was to (a)keep the initial experiment to small scale and if successful scale up as required (b)compress the process to a couple of days, so that said diamonds are ready before the leaves start decaying (c)avoid contamination from air borne pollutants.

Ingredients: One tbsp of chopped onions, leaves from your garden, one tbsp sparkling water, fridge in working condition.

Process: Clean a big broad leaf. Mix chopped onions with sparkling water. Fashion the mixture in to a diamond shape. Place the mixture on the leaf and place the whole thing in the fridge. You can place it in the freezer, will cut down the process time in to 1/3, the trade off being the three footer’s dependency on her parents(read mother) to check the diamond formation every millisecond.

Product: This time the mother raised hell that the fridge stinks of onions and the child gave up after a week.

Experiment 3

Ingredients: Grape seeds, white acrylic paint.

Process: First eat the grapes, one needs the strength from the grapes to convince one’s mother about yet another diamond experiment, then collect the seeds. Wash the seeds in sparkling water. Pat dry. Paint every seed with white acrylic paint. Place in cup. Place the cup in fridge.

 

Product:

Amma had nothing to complain about. No decay, no stink. This experiment stayed for the longest in the fridge and was discarded after the unsuspecting spouse, looking for a late night snack, consumed about half of it.

Experiement 4

Ingredients: Glass, preferably in a sphere shape. One tbsp sparkling water. Hard surface. Pointy, sharp tools.

Process: Take the glass sphere and drill a small hole. Pour the tbsp water through this hole. Place right side up and place in the fridge to set. When set, tap the water filled sphere on a hard surface to chip the sides to make a shiny diamond.

Product: Promptly nipped in the bud by Amma. So no pictures or products to complain about.

She is taking a break right now and I am shuddering that she will come back invigorated after the break.

 

 

This is classic Colbert style, okay?

Tip of the hat to brake oil. Paint scratches on you car paint, the ones that have gone through just the clear coat can be repaired by rubbing over the scratch with a soft cloth dipped in a little brake oil. If the scratch has gone all the way to the primer then, there is no hope. Now DON’T you dare ask me how I chanced upon this information. Consider yourself warned.

Wag of the finger to Reliance shops. IMO, they are like cockroaches. Inferior(in quality) and pop up everywhere. I got a kurti from Reliance Trends (the model with no slits at the sides) for myself. Looks like it is specially designed to wear for people doing adipradhakshinam. Being an aggressively cut, fabric saver model, it is okay as long as I don’t intend to sit cross legged or take wide strides. I did try it out before I purchased it, but one hardly walks and tests comfort level for a piece of garment! The track pants I bought for Chula came out of the washing machine with small holes after one wear and one wash. Very disappointing.

 

On Diwali day, I did something I thought I would NEVER do! As a result of which child1 declared before she went to sleep, ‘Amma this is truly the worst diwali ever. I hope I make enough happy memories to forget this sad, sad day. It is the saddest and baddest day in my life. What is the use of celebrating if I can’t read amma?’

Yes! I told her she cannot touch or even look at a book for one more week. She needs to show and act like a six year old otherwise she will lose her reading privileges.

The reading, as much as I am proud of it, is reaching an extreme. Three volumes of Chronicles of Narnia in one day, forgetting the time entity and then whining that I didn’t take her to the park, I am not letting her meet her friends, not showing even 10% interest in making friends, always living in a dream world….. This is not just one or two days, has been going on for three months now and I have had enough of this.

Now that she has no fall back, she is making an effort to make friends. Otherwise the first sign of something that does not go her way, she would turn and walk to her book.

As for child2 she hopes she can irritate me as much, so that her reading privileges will also be revoked!

Two very different peas in a pod!

– Met Uma and it was great. It was nice of her to stop by for a quick chat session, much to the cabbie’s dislike, on the way to the airport. She got the kids awesome scrap books made out of hand made paper. I have put it away for a rainy day craft activity. We talked like we knew each other for ages. Kids behaved. So all in all a good meet.

– Are you ready for CROCUS2011? At Saffron Tree we are busy over working our keypads and gearing up for CROCUS2011. ST is turning five and the CROCUS theme for 2011 incorporates our birthday. ST is five and the theme is ‘THE FIVE ELEMENTS – EARTH, AIR, FIRE, SPACE, WATER’. Stay tuned with us and you will not be disappointed. We are bringing our A-game, you guys prep your cozy reading chair. 7 days of back to back reviews, the famous CROCUSword, teacher resources, art, activities and much more.

 

– Mieja is in to making money for some reason. Of course I do tell her often that things do not grow on trees and that we have to work hard to buy things. After buying money from Target, her next idea was to grow a money tree in our back yard. The most recent in this unique line of thinking is, ‘Amma, let us sell the market. There are so many things in a market right?! If we sell the whole market, then we will get lots of money right?!’ Soon she will be selling me. The day is not too far.

– Chula….. something is going on. With every day, she is living a little bit more inside her own head. There is lots of dreaming, thinking, drawing, reading, shutting off her links to the world outside going on. Some of her pictures blew my breath away. She is drawing Little Mermaid scenes. Shading with her pastels, looking at it from right-left, top-bottom, just a shade here a shade there. Perfecting it, sometimes after spending hours on a picture deciding to throw it away and starting it from scratch. Finally when she is happy showing it off to me and asking me to frame it.

– Uma tagged me for Mommy Guilt, few months ago. When she met me, she was nice not to smack me on my head as I am still sitting on it. So here it is.

With every day, my priority in life is getting defined over and over again. Now it is clear – my personal space, kids, house keeping, thousand mundane things, at the very last bringing up the rear, cooking. The bandh and the kids lounging at home played a major role how this priority list got shaped up. The kids are no longer allowed to play inside the house. They have strict instructions to play in the corridor and to eat what is put on their plate at the time it is put on the plate or else wait till the next scheduled eating/snacking time. There have been few occasions in the past month, when they were hungry and I ruthlessly, said no to the unscheduled snack quoting that they nibbled their lunch and now have to wait for another hour for their milk/buttermilk.

If there is fresh made hot rice or idlis, I get first dibs. I have often fed the kids left over rice and kept the fresh made rice for myself.

I maintain it is for the greater good and do not feel an inkling of guilt.

– Went to Ohri’s Nautanki Gali. It gave me the impression of ‘wanna be a good restaurant’. The food was aplenty, the waiters were super nice. But felt as if something was missing. We sat in an auto and ate our dinner, definitely a high point for kids. I was not too kicked about the general garish do and loud music. Food was so-so. High point of the buffet seems to be the chocolate fountain, though the fountain looked watery.They also have Rajasthani style puppet show, but the puppets were resting when we went.

– Went to Skandagiri temple in Secunderabad. Major renovation going on. So I had to watch the kids like a hawk. Right next to the temple was a branch of Giri Trading. They have golu dolls,  marapachis, all types of pooja items, devotional CDs/DVDs/books, golu stand etc. In general gave me a Mylapore/Saidapet feel. Also next to the temple an Anjeneya temple by Kanchi mutt.

 

 

 

One Friday evening,
Two kids playing,
One kid trying to eat the other kid,
One kid running out giggling, banging the door shut,
One door lock released inadvertently,
One kid trapped inside the bedroom with the keys inside,
Two parents puzzled,
One parent giving instructions to the kid to open the lock from the inside,
One parent teaches the kid to slip the key under the door,
Two parents finding out that the key is not of any use,
One lock stuck,
One trapped kid amazingly calm and collected,
One kid giving running commentary from outside,
One parent slips a book under the door,
One parent puts the other kid down,
One kid goes to sleep by herself,
One trapped kid forgetting the situation and lost in the book,
One parent calling every one sundry,
One parent googling how to break lock,
One carpenter promising to come by 10.00AM the next day morning,
One parent asking carpenter to get lost,
Two plumbers arrive,
One hour passes by,
Two more plumbers arrive,
One hopelessly broken key,
One family friend runs outside the community and manages to find two carpenters,
Seven fully grown men breaking the door around the lock,
One kid peacefully sleeping inside,
One kid peacefully sleeping outside.
One house owner needs to be informed about the door.

Weekend has started with a bang, literally.

PS: 9.00PM – 10.00PM, there is so much noise and not one neighbor peeped outside to see what was going on!

Mieja: “Amma just get me a Barbie and a carrot. No, no, many, many carrots. Okay?”

Background information.

Amma, at some point of time: Carrots are good for you. They make you healthy and intelligent.

Amma, at all points of time: Barbies tell little girls that ONLY beauty is important.

A frustrated Amma, at some point of time: Playing with Barbies will make you stupid.

For more truly original thoughts visit here.

 

Living in India got to experience bandh right?! So highlights of the bandh.

Day 1:
* Parents caught unawares. Kids thoroughly kicked more because of the uncertainty than the actual holiday.

* All the critters climbing up and down all 11 floors, yelling and screaming. With the mixed age group comes different climbing speeds. So at a point there were multiple groups going up and down and extra screaming when opposite forces met. All the while we parents pretended that these children do not belong to us.

* After some time the kids got tired and decided they will only go down the stairs and come up using elevator. So they went to 11th floor, climbed down to 10, went up in elevator to 11, climbed down to 9, went up in elevator to 11 and climbed down to 8 etc. This master plan was (unfortunately) devised by Chula. The adults who managed to shrug off the inertia to get to work, were stuck in their respective floors because the elevators were jammed by the kids.

* All swimming pools and play grounds were full. So were the stair cases, elevators, parking lots, cricket pitch, basket ball courts, tennis courts and roller skating area. Which made me suspect that all kids in the city some how managed to come in to this community.

* On the way to the pediatrician saw multiple TV channels, vans with dish on top, reporters with mike, camera men…the whole nine yards, reporting in front of Hi-Tech city. Probably telling the world that the bandh has not affected this part of the city.

* Two children came home for play date and got prolonged to snack date, dinner date, story telling date, art work date, a mini fight, some tears, making up, extra love and begging their respective parents for extra play time.

* Two tired children who went extra early to sleep. One tired mom who decided to check out the idiot box. Chanced upon this Tamil soap where a three year old is the reincarnation of her grandma(the child’s mother’s MIL). Each is terrible standalone can you imagine this dreaded combination?!! Seriously, how do people come up with such original stuff?

Day 2:
* Better prepared parents. Many play dates were planned. So stair cases are quite, elevators are free. But there is mucho screaming and giggling sound from every apartment window. Again there seems to be at least 25 kids in every apartment and yet the average is only two children/apartment. See…. the numbers don’t add up.

* My free day today, the children are out of the house till PM. I plan to check out this. So wanted to lay my hands on this book post Harini’s review. I threatened the children that they better behave and not fight and N.O.T come back home( there was much emphasis on the last part) and cut my me-time short.

Ciao good people, got to go enjoy the rest of my bandh.

Sunday afternoon.
The children are playing in their room and I am watching them play.
They are pretending that they are selling mangoes:

Mieja: Amma, would you like to buy some magical mangoes from me?
Me: Ummm… that depends on the price. How much does your mangoes cost?
Mieja: Oh, don’t worry about that amma, the mangoes are free. Would you like some?

Namma than free-a koduthal phenoyl kooda kudipome (We belong to respectable family that will drink even phenol, a cleaning liquid, if it is free), so my eyes light up!

Me: Free? Sure, I will have 2 kgs.
Meija: Here amma.

She hands over the mangoes and says,

Mieja: Amma, but these are just the mangoes. The magic is separate. You have to pay me to sprinkle the magic on the mangoes. That is not free.

I am stumped! I am upset that I signed up for this deal without reading the fine print.

Me: You never told me this! I thought that I was buying magical mangoes. I don’t want your magic. I will just make do with my free mangoes.

Chula, neatly cuts in,

Chula: Amma, I understand why you are upset. But the magic makes sure that you don’t have to keep buying more and more mangoes. Once you eat a mango, another one will appear magically. Don’t you think it is worth it? Isn’t is a great deal?

And I did buy the magic, with many possible career choice for the girls running through my mind, with a sheepish expression, with my pretend money.

The thing about settling down to a life in India is that, no matter how much one is prepared, there is always a hidden factor that throws your loop out of sync. For example, the community we live in, is well serviced and plumbers come to your door step in minutes etc. But that does not mean that your bathroom leak will be fixed ASAP. (Read in IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE style)

If your bathroom has a leak,
The plumber will most probably say that it is because of the water heater.
If you call the water heater repair technician,
He will respond in about 24 hours.
If the water heater technician inspects the unit,
He would most probably be the person who changes ONLY the coils and points you to another person.
If after 10 phone calls you get the other person,
He would say that he cannot do anything till he speaks to the first technician who came ti inspect the unit.
If you make a date for the two,
The both will agree that a replacement unit needs to be ordered.
If you ask them to do it,
They will do it and say that the response time is 7 – 10 business days.
If you try calling them in between to find out the status,
They will not pick up the phone.

Mean while water is turned off in your bathrooms. Currently we have one bathroom in which the only the toilet works, one bathroom in which only the sink works and one bathroom in which only shower/heater works. All this gets to you at certain point of time and you go immerse yourself in Bikanervala chaat.

Three words – Bikanervala – chaat – yuuuuuum. Thanks A-kay for mentioning it. We were en-route to QMart @ Banjara Hills and I saw Bikanervala, decided to scratch Qmart and indulge our palate. Of course the fact that we were completely lost and were rather hopeless about finding QMart was a big factor in the sudden change of plans. The ground floor is fast food style. You order, pay, self serve. Seating management is streamlined by staff. Some one takes your name and then calls you in about 15 or so minutes, this on a sunday night, peak crowd. If you don’t want to wait, they also have a sit down restaurant upstairs. Of course pricing is up-marked. I did my hallmark test – Bhelpoori, pani poori and ragada, order and assess. The result was out in flying colors. The kids enjoyed the bhelpoori and there wasn’t much left for me. Mieja approved the kesar pista kulfi. The rad thing we did is to give the kids filtered water from the restaurant instead of ordering bottled water. I mentioned to R in passing that the next thing for me to do is to order bhelpoori from street vendor. He thinks it is a joke.

Right next door to Bikanervala is Karachi Bakery. Chula(yeah, she is such a sport*) and I dived in to the traffic at Road#1, jumped over the divider to go to Karachi biscuits. I think that says it all 🙂

But for the Rs.25 entrance fee and Rs.20 parking fee, I can totally see myself living in Shilparambam. I have my eye on some of the craft classes they offer. I did mention to R that I am going to take a block printing class and make curtains for the house, the way I want it. Again, he thinks it is a joke. I found some awesome Pathachitra artists, Madhubani artist, Kondapalli dolls and Channapatna toys. The Madhubani artist was super thrilled that I knew the name of the art form and offered me a seat to sit and watch him do the work. He forbid me from taking video/pictures though. I was doing a mini interview of sorts with him. Also found in Shilparambam this cool easy chair at a wood working shop. And some clay pots. And some trinkets. And kurtis. And shawls. And bags. And….

One thing I was sure I would miss from US is Amazon. Apparently not. I am now in Flipkart heaven. Excellent customer service, hassle free ordering and good prices. They have something called cash on delivery(COD) and I am taking full advantage of it. I have already exhausted my self imposed cash limit for book ordering for this month and waiting for July to use up my next month’s quota.

The only good thing that can come out of the situation where your child comes home with a palm sized and growing, red, hard, painful, itchy swelling on her hip is that you get to experience first hand the working styles of pediatricians. We went to couple and liked the later. So that has been sorted out. Phew!

*On the subject of crossing roads, while visiting clinics, we had to cross a busy intersection. Mieja was very scared and after the experience she told me, ‘Amma, if an auto hits me, I could die. Did you even think about that?’. See why I called Chula a sport?!