blah blah kiddie corner

“OOOOOOOO”,”IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII”,”EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”....are you someone passing by my home ??..then you are sure to hear these monosyllables repeated over and over again relentlessly. Oh no..please do not jump to a wrong conclusion that this could be due to domestic violence....”S” is too much of a good person for all that .Of course I would not dare to raise my hands against him..so the only other option is also ruled out. Breaking the suspense(???) , it is because of the coaching of a mum to her daughter ..Itz Me!!!!

My daughter, who has stepped into her toddler years recently, has been needing a bit of pepping up and help in improving her verbal communication skills. It is quite surprising that she is taking her own sweet time in this area because both the people whom she has known for her entire life and who have introduced her into this world ,need to be reminded often to shut their mouths and their nonstop yackety-yak(ing).

With a bit of help and inputs from the professionals in that area, I am able to see some steady progress in her. I wanted to share whatever little I have learnt from my experience with the rest of the mums who might need some techniques and tools to deal with similar (not so serious)problems. First of all, I am being told that this is a common problem with kids exposed to multilingual household. I am still having to question the veracity of this popular statement. Anyway our family also falls into the category of being conversant with and speaking in more than one language at home.

So the first step forward is to confine our day to day talks to one single language preferably our own mother tongues. This way our child is being given an opportunity to have a strong foundation laid in one language. Once this has been established well then getting acquainted with the secondary or more languages becomes relatively easier for them.

Often communication between the parents and children are encouraged to happen face to face. This way kids get to observe our lip movements and they eventually try to mimic the same. So we have to get down to their eye level whenever we talk to them and utter the words at a slow pace so that it could be easily followed.

The sentences that we use for the expression of our thoughts have to be as short and simple as possible. Preferably not more than 3 words in a sentence.

For ex: instead of saying “why don’t you remove your shoes” we could say “shoes off”
Instead of staying “ you should wear your shirt”, it could be put forth as “ shirt on”

Lots and lots of encouragement and appreciation need to be given to the little ones. Whenever they speak to adults they have to be made to feel very important and listened to. This not only offers them confidence to pursue their newly acquired skill, but also infuses a sense of pride in them simply because:

Their WORDS mean a lot to their parents who in turn mean a WORLD to the kids themselves!!!!

Stick on to routines that are very regular and try and use the same words as a part of the routine over and over again. For instance, every day after lunch, we could read out the same book to our kids and try and point out the same set of objects in the book day after day. Familiarity and repetition with a definite set of words goes a long way in stimulating the speech process.

Online games like the ones below come to our aid as well:
http://www.fisher-price.com/us/fun/games/phonics/default.asp

Real world objects and their association with names for identification accelerate the pace of learning. Instead of monotonously uttering the names of vegetables, fruits and other objects, a trip to a nearby local supermarket where the kids can see and touch every such vegetable and fruit and thus learning to identify and relate those using their names prove to be a fruitful technique.

I am no expert in this field nor do I do R&D in this area.. These are a few ideas from experts which have proven to be of some help to me. These could or could not work for others. Please do not hold me responsible for any kind of outcomes...Common Sense as well as trial and error methodology overrules everything!!!!!

The Karma Chameleon

The word karma meaning “action” in the strictest sense has always been a topic of debate and discussion in all parts of the world.

In India, this word has got so much integrated with our thought system that with or without much contemplation, we are instantaneously able to relate this to “As we sow, so we reap” . Hinduism elaborates on the laws that are pertaining to karma and how the entire phenomenon of creation is governed by the laws of karma. We shall come to it later.

Let us begin from the standpoint of a novice. Throughout our lives we see all sorts of diversities and disparities around us. There are always opposites in every aspect of creation ...the rich and the poor ..the able bodied and the disabled...birth and death...joy and sorrow.

What could we possibly attribute these differences to?.

Why are some babies born in affluent families treading upon the path of aggrandisement while a few others are born into families that lead impoverished life?

Can we dismiss all these differences as a random outcome of creation?.

But then as the Vedic exponents have claimed and propagated :

We ourselves are the witnesses of so much of orderliness in the way the elements of nature operate .The sun never fails to rise in the eastern direction and set in the western direction , the earth never takes a break from revolving around the sun or rotating on its own axis. The sea never stops experiencing the continuous evolution and expiry of waves. All these are essential components of this cosmic creation. When all these behave in such a predictable manner as though they are abiding by the laws of creation with utmost obedience and discipline, how could the human beings and the circumstances that determine the quality of their lives alone be a random outcome of creation?.

There needs to be an answer to all this. The only difference between the other elements of creation and the rational human beings are that we are blessed with the faculties of “free-will” and “intellect”. The omnipotent creator of the universe has empowered and authorised us to decide and enact our actions and thoughts in a way WE CHOOSE TO ,while the other elements of creation have been deprived of this faculty.

To be endowed with such a privilege does not come free of cost. The cost we pay for this is to hold the complete responsibility for all our actions and reap the consequences accordingly. Even according to scientific theories, every action triggers a reaction. Hence good actions fructify as positive experiences and bad actions fructify as undesirable experiences in life. This is the law of Karma.

But the next question that crops up in our minds is:

Then all good people should lead a blissful and gratifying life and all wrong doers should be punished intensely in their lives. But sometimes we do see contradicting happenings in our own lives and the ones around us. The answer proposed by Vedas is that we should not confine our assessment- only with regards to our current lives. We have to take into consideration that we are all a part of cyclic and multiple courses of birth and deaths in the cosmos. So the effects of our actions could be felt in either the current life or any one of our reincarnations.

But first and foremost we should have an unshakable faith in the fact that the Superpower that is the cause of all creation is unbiased and just at all times and does not endeavour to inflict unwarranted pain at any point in our lives. Every iota of happiness and sorrow that we experience in our current lives is what we have earned for ourselves because of our past actions. No one else or any other entity in the universe is to be blamed for it.

Strong belief in the above theory has two fold effects. The first one being, it serves as an incentive for us to lead an ethical and moral life so that our current doings would pave way for a good future. If our past actions are responsible for our current life, then drawing a corollary, our current actions should determine the quality of our future life (or lives).

The second effect being we can free ourselves from feeling victimised and getting entangled in the clutches of self-pity. To elaborate on this, if we believe that all the happenings in our lives are just random outcomes of creation, while we immensely enjoy the happy moments, we shall feel victimised when we are subjected to undesirable happenings. We shall wrongly conclude that the sorrow that we are undergoing has been unduly imposed on us. This would further reinforce the feeling of helplessness in us. On the other hand if we realise that only because of our “not-so-good “actions in the past , the current sorrows are inflicted upon us, then we shall reconcile to the fact and start thinking ahead on what needs to be done next to set everything right and do the needful.

The law of karma goes a long way in giving us a mental makeover to take control over our lives and feel the necessity to adhere to the Dharmic laws. It teaches us not to affiliate ourselves with the concept of fatalism. It reinforces the fact that how and what we want to be henceforth is completely in our hands and minds.

To demystify the key concepts of life and get a better insight into the very purpose of all this, lectures on the interpretation of Vedas and Upanishads go a long way.

A living legend is Swami Paramarthananda, a disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswathi. His logically organised lectures and his methodical reasoning out of the various concepts of Vedas makes it very easy for us to comprehend the essence of the great works.

For more details refer to:
http://sastraprakasika.org/Swamijis/Paramartha/c_l_para.asp
http://www.vedantavidyarthisangha.org/

The Abode Of The Queen

Last weekend was a long weekend as the humankind chose to commemorate the achievements of the labour movement. Simply put ....May Day holiday. S and I decided to spend one of those days in a place of historic importance. Windsor Castle was the closest and the most practicable option.

Anybody living in the United Kingdom would be aware even in the deep slumber state of the following fact. Getting hold of a parking space for their car in any public place in UK is a nightmare. So to beat this, we left for the Castle much before a British(er) would wake up on a holiday. That was around 9:00 in the morning. The roads of Windsor looked deserted and we were bestowed upon with the rarest of the privileges of getting to choose a suitable parking slot for our car, amidst hundreds of vacant slots.

We had a couple of tens of minutes at our disposal before the Castle was going to be opened for public view. We expended those minutes on the banks of river Thames while my daughter was becharmed by the ducks and swans in the river. Those were comparable to my daughter in size and were a delightful source of entertainment to her twinkling eyes.

Finally the gates of the Castle gave way for its visitors. The enormity of the building(s) and its surrounding open space would leave anyone gaping and gasping for breath. Throughout our tour of the Castle, we were provided with a “walkie talkie kind of thing” with key pad on it. Each key in the key pad unfolded the description and specialities of a particular area of the Castle through an audio clip. To this day, the Castle is one of the official residences of the Queen.

One of the wonders of the castle is the “Doll House” . This doll house has been created for the queen Mary as a gift by her husband. Whether it was originally intended to be a display of affection of a husband to his wife or was it more of an effort to leave its onlookers flabbergasted, is for its visitors to ruminate.

The Doll House has magnificent collection of miniature items , figurines and art pieces. In fact there was a miniature replication of the castle itself. One could estimate the amount of efforts, time and skill that has gone towards the creation of these exquisite items from the extent of details that has been brought out on them. Awesome is one word that could describe them. Every piece of display item, starting from the carpets to the flower vase to the functional flushable toilet were identical to their original counterparts, except that they were reduced in size of the order of 1:12.

As we moved on to the State Apartments, we got to witness some of the finest pieces of art and collections belonging to the Royals. The resplendence and the sumptuousness of the palace was a testimony of sheer power and wealth that they held, once upon a time. A great portion of them were the acquired wealth obtained as and when the empire colonised and took over the other parts of the world. One of them worth mentioning is Tippu Sultan’s gold Tiger’s head. If only our fore fathers had been united in India a few centuries back, we would have had the opportunity of boasting the ownership of such marvels today.

People who are interested in the complete details of the collection please visit:
http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/

As we moved on, we wondered about the workmanship of silver furniture, stunning chandeliers, ceilings covered with elegant drawings, wooden carvings transformed into architectural wonders that have touched unspoken horizons of perfection. The grandeur of every section of the palace, be it the State Dining room or the audience chamber or the drawing room makes us think if this is the closest representation of heaven.

It was a visual treat in the truest sense. Once out of the Castle I came to my senses that there were 2 more people who had accompanied me and at that moment I was incognisant of their whereabouts.

OOOOOOOO..

I could spot S distantly carrying our little one on his shoulders as she had fallen asleep hours before (and obviously had refused to get into the pram). The rest of the day got spent tending to S’s back pain and my little one’s crankiness due to lack of undisturbed sleep. Is this what people call as “paying the price???”.

Once Upon A Time

While I was whiling away my time on the Internet, I could overhear the dialogues of a movie, making references to World War, from the idiot box in the next room. Of course it was S enjoying a few hours of his evening time peacefully without being bothered by me or my little one. This, to him, is one of the vital necessities to refresh him after a tiring day.

Meanwhile I went back virtually in time by more than a decade. Back then,I was attempting to be a studious and an attentive student in school. Whether I ever succeeded in becoming one or not , is a zillion dollar question.

Until the tenth grade we were not offered with many options with regards to the subjects that we had to hear the lectures of and take exams. “History” was one subject that never failed to lapidify me. I always used to think it was such an utter waste of time and the tutors who handled the subject were invariably vocalising the text books ,word for word. That “one hour” or so of the lecture would seem like an interminable torture. I always used to prepare for history exams with an intense dislike, as I failed to see a purpose with “History”.

I used to think :
What use is of “History” when compared to Science and Maths which were going to help us realise our dreams of becoming doctors and engineers in future.

I was on the first day of my ninth grade .Our Maths teacher had just completed her session and we were waiting for our history teacher to step in. “Oh My God” how many more days do I need to endure this torment was what I thought to myself. I was waiting for a miracle to happen.

The miracle did happen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Much to my surprise, this new teacher never got on board with the textual lessons in the first session. She dedicated the whole hour for highlighting the significance of “history” and why it is so important to us.

History may be called, more generally still, the Message, verbal or written, which all Mankind delivers to everyman-Thomas Carlyle

I came to realise that, the present can never be fully appreciated and hailed without the information or idea of the past. What we are today is a consequence of what we were and what we did yesterday. It is from history we know what good was done in the past for us to realise its benefits now and what atrocities happened in the same past that has led us to where we are now. History shows us the correct path that we need to tread on and helps us distinguish the bitter from the better one.

The study of great civilisations, the downfall of great empires and dynasties, the study of renaissance , revolutions, the great wars and every other area of “history” casts light on some or other human behavioural tendencies and what man has been craving for from the beginning.

Instead of viewing history as a few lines in a text book, I learnt to treasure it as a snapshot of the world at any particular instance of time. It explains the evolution of mankind from being primitive Homosapiens to the ultra modern kind that they are today.

History teaches everything including the future-Lamartine

I take this opportunity to thank the teacher who showed me the bigger picture of the subject and helped me appreciate its true essence.

As long as there is a present , there will be a history- Itz Me!!!

Chak De Chennai

It has been quite some since I experimented with my writing skills. I was away on a vacation to my beloved homeland for a couple of months, the southern part of India for the annual “reunion” with my family. How much ever I like to call it as Madras , I am still practising hard reluctantly to use its current name Chennai. We had planned much in advance so that this trip would not turn out to be a yet another whirlwind trip. I was amazed to find the transformation that Chennai has undergone in the recent years. Although I grew up in this city, when I went back this time I could no longer relate Chennai to the same city that had fostered me all these years.

Chennai seems to closely follow and mimic the “Bombay” kind of life. All the roads and eat outs are illuminated well and brimming with people even at 11:00 in the night. The average standard of life has risen significantly and perceptibly. Mobile phones have become a necessary possession of everyone irrespective of which stratum of economy they belong to. There is no paucity of cars and automobile vehicles , needless to mention the stir that the “Tata Nano” has created. A great number of so-called “middle class” families (as identified in the early 90s) have climbed up the economic ladder and no longer want to be identified with that “touchy” tag name. I would attribute a majority of this to the emergence of I.T sector. The per-capita income has increased considerably and has paved way for more and more affordability.

Every other family seem to own a property and a vehicle and appear to have managed to grab a chance to visit the western countries as tourists. I could still remember those times when mere boarding a flight was like a dream come true . I am genuinely delighted to see the way my beloved place is flourishing.

But.......

Am I turning a blind eye to something else???

....May be....

It is true that all that I wrote above was meant to be delivered in all round earnestness...but it is also true that the infrastructure back in Chennai needs a serious intervention and improvement. The influx of the increasing number of cars is in a way intimidating when one notices the pathetic conditions of the roads and their scrimpy dimensional boundaries. There is absolutely no adherence to any of the traffic rules and the most aggressive driver gets to reach his destination first..( of course the destination could be in the earth or heaven). There is no more the concept of “peak” and “off-peak” hours of traffic. The moment you take your vehicle out of your house , be assured your time and patience would be quality tried and tested .

My friends working for I.T companies seem to have unreasonably long working hours during the week days that they are completely deprived of a personal time during the week. The kids are having to be reminded of their parents faces only during the week ends.

Mosquitoes are a never ending source of entertainment, as one could spend all night trying to electrocute them using the increasingly popular “electric bats”. These bats look akin to the tennis racquet and needs punctilious charging and maintenance. I was wondering what clever innovations and inventions such small creatures like mosquitoes could lead to. Tap water before being consumed had to be double and triple boiled after being treated by aqua –guard . That too, paranoid mothers from abroad are experts in extracting a single cup of boiled water from a jug full of tap water for their kids. (yes ..you got it right...The rest goes off as steam due to excessive and repeated boiling).

As I kept making my visits from one relative’s place to another, I could not avoid hearing the grumblings about how the politicians in power are handling the affairs of the state and if these politicians are more hell bent on dealing with their family politics rather than the state politics.

So I could only conclude that although there is growth in one end of the spectrum , the other end seems to be unaddressed. The day to day living of a Chennaiite is still a struggle by itself.

But who is to set it right?????

B +ve

In the past 20 and odd years of my life, one of the words in English that has become so dear to me is “optimism “. Synonymous to “positive thinking” this word has a charm on its own. It was during my college days that this word became very familiar to me , especially because we were geared up for campus recruitment and corporate interviews. We were expected to develop the so called “Right Attitude” in which optimism played a key role.

Irrespective of whether we understood the substance of such words truly or not, we knew by then, that such words had the magic powers of taking us closer to what we were longing to hear after a campus interview
“ Congrats!!..You’ve made it!!!”

Back then, I was not quite sure how I could fit “optimism” in all spheres of my life. I could only very clearly distinguish every happening in my life as either a “positive one” or a “negative one”. I was not sure how I could apply and associate the concept of optimism with an incident that could bring even a slightly negative impact on my day to day existence.

But as life stretches out and we come face to face with a wide spectrum of varying experiences (both good and bad ones) we learn to tweak our perspective a little so that it will keep us alive and kicking at all times. The vital difference being, we learn that instead of calling an experience “bad” , it only takes the slightest of efforts to call that same experience as one with “less of goodness” in it.

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose. -Kahlil Gibran

The rose being rose and the thorn being thorn , optimist gives emphasis to one aspect of it , while the pessimist views it from a different angle. At the end of the day, what is important for us is an attitude that will keep us moving forward at all times. It is here that optimism outweighs pessimism.

However ,these days we have given certain facets of pessimism a glossy finish by calling it “Contingency Management”. This of-course is a necessary devil.

As and when S listens to “Bhagavad Gītā” I get the privilege of over-hearing bits and pieces of it, while my primary job is to dance to the tunes of my the my little honey. Gītā says that there is nothing pleasant or unpleasant in absolute terms ,it is all in our mind and the way we look at things. Although at the outset this seems to be a very revolutionary thought to ingest, on a bit more of scrutiny there does seem to be some truth in this.

From the moment we embark upon our journey of life on this earth, we (our minds) are being constantly fed with ideas about what is good and what is bad. By the time we reach our adult-hood our minds are predisposed to gauge every happening in our life in a certain unique way:
Either as favourable or unfavourable to us.

While favourable incidents can cause mental comfort , unfavourable incidents cause turbulence in our system and disturb our mental equilibrium. That is when optimism comes in handy. When we compare the cause of our disturbance with a relatively much more stressful situation (hypothetical) , our mind automatically gets consoled that what we are currently facing may not be all that painful as it appears.

For instance, when S and I travel by car and get caught in the middle of a nerve-wracking traffic jam we always have two choices before us. We could either curse our stars for the unnecessary waste of fuel in our car or feel happy that at least this way we are forced to spend some time with each other.

But one thing that I find difficult to come to terms with , is that S always thinks both the two options stated above are worth “cursing his stars”!!!!

Me the Blogger!!!!!

It has been a few months since I started blogging and I now want to halt for a moment, take a deep breath and aggregate all my impressions and ideas about bloggers and blogging. I started blogging mainly because I did not know what else to do.

I was inspired by another blogger ,whom I accidentally bumped into, during one of the social gatherings. I did not have even the slightest inkling as to whether “blogging” was my cup of tea . Still I garnered all my courage to start one . Only because , if at all it becomes a “flop show” I can silently slip off into obscurity before anyone could take a notice. Of course I have stumbled upon a lot of web logs with no activity since stone age times.

After posting my first blog, I can still recollect the waves of excitement that pervaded all over me and thousands of butterflies that fluttered by , in my tummy. Somehow I had thought that the moment my post invades the world wide web, I would have thousands of avid readers flocking my blog spot and my comments section throwing a “comments overflow and out of space ” problem.

Little had I realised then, that web-logging world is a world on its own with innumerable versatile creators. I have been completely floored on reading some exceptionally good blogs which have touched unspoken realms of “out-of-the-box” thinking . I might not be able to emulate them all , but I do not intend to make a hasty retreat and hide myself.

I read this quote somewhere:

Well, there are more writers of blogs right now than there are readers, so that's clearly a vanity phenomenon - John Doerr

I do not agree with this at all . Every blogger has his/her own “free-will” to find an expression to his/her views and showcase it to the world. I think web -logging world is a network on its own which crosses all geographic boundaries and people from such varied backgrounds are able to exchange their opinions and ideas. This is so much of an open forum to express one’s thoughts either as short articles, prose, poetry ,pictures ,stories or even paintings.

In some cases I find web logs are more of an outlet of the author’s inner perceptions. In a few other cases they are not exactly a representation of the blogger’s true nature or thoughts , nevertheless in the end the blog turns out to be an interesting piece of read. In my observation the most popular ones are those that are soaked in comedy

Also how true these words are:
Whether your intended audience is large of small, public or private, you now have some extra motivation for writing as frequently and as well as you can. Knowing that someone is reading your side, you will unconsciously seek to express yourself a little more clearly and will likely be anxious to maintain a fairly steady publication schedule.
Rebecca Blood

I thank all those of you who have been giving me your encouragement and support to pursue this interest of mine .

I Promise!!!!

Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.
- Oprah Winfrey

Just about a month to go before another new year unfolds and here I was trying to jot down my new year resolutions. I was so much in a contemplative mood trying to do a thorough introspection, that “S” looked up at me incredulously .Reason being it was very atypical of me to get engrossed in such reclusive activities. Not able to resist his urge to barge into my thought process he asked me “What are you up to now?”.

I have been having a nagging feeling of restlessness within me of late, that my day to day life is more and more self-centred. From the moment I wake up to the time I hit the bed, all my thoughts and actions are focused either around my immediate family or myself. It is the monotony of the same old routine that repeats itself day after day.

“S” couldn't help but say “Oh God are you saying we need to swap roles?”. .Please spare me for heaven’s sake”. I could clearly make out from his horror-stricken voice that he dreaded even the thought of having to play mom’s role for our 21 months old sweetheart. He always thinks Dads are the blessed souls.

However that was not even close to what I had in my mind. I was more concerned about what is it that I was contributing to the world to make it a wee bit better place to live in. Given the restrictions that I have to attend to my full time employer( my daughter) and cannot spend too much time outside of my house, I had to come up with some ideas that are viable . These were a few thoughts that gushed into my mind:

1) Try and be prompt in disposing off my unused and old clothes to charities on a more regular basis

2) Try and set up a bird house in summer in my patio

3) Try and save 20p per day every day and donate the accrued amount to an orphanage, at the end of the year. Please do not ask me how I arrived at the 20p figure. The intention was to keep it at a minimum so one does not feel the pinch of it.Also to make it a regular feature of everyday life, so that I can be grateful for whatever the great God has given to me and not whinge about a few trivial problems in life.

4) Try and be regular in calling up my relatives and friends and giving them a little praise for their adorable qualities.

5) Try and add a few plants to my front yard .

6) Try and use the recycling bin more often.

7) Pray for 5 minutes daily to the Almighty for the welfare of this world.

8) Try and feed the ducks in the lakes now and then with left over bread.

After noting down all these in a piece of paper, I showed my list to “S” who was in our kitchen gulping water. When he finished reading I could see tears in his eyes .

During a quieter moment later on the same day, I asked him with all earnestness which was the point in the list that moved him a lot and caused his tears.

He gave me a startled look and said “Err…when you came into the kitchen with your list on paper, I guess you failed to notice the chopping board with cut pieces of onions near me ….you know my eyes are too sensitive to these onions…”.

GOD SAVE US.

Masala Masala

The chairs were arranged in a linear fashion with so much of orderliness. People had started occupying them here and there in a scattered manner. "S"and I filled two of the seats and I kept gazing at what was in front of us with my eyes wide opened .It took a while to sink into me that we had finally made it here . "S" and I had a feeling of having taken the pains of crossing seven seas and seven mountains similar to those narrated in fairy tales to reach this place in time. It was nearly after two years that we were able to make it to this .Yipeeeeeeeeee.. finally we were in a cinema theatre to watch a movie.I can hear you say " so much of a build-up for such a simple thing?". Well, my answer is ..come and meet me after you have a baby and I bet you would call this a herculean task.

Our patience was tried for the first half an hour with the screening of crazy advertisements and trailers which seemed to continue for eternity. Finally we were able to hear the title song of the movie for which we had purchased the tickets. We were transformed to a world that existed 30 years back. Hold on!!!!..we were not watching a movie of yesteryear but one of the most recent ones, the Hindi movie "Om Shanti Om". There was my favourite hero ShahRukh khan on the screen in his best form and for the first time I regretted for having lead a futile life not even knowing how to whistle. Then came the introduction of the heroine. I was utterly gobsmacked and wondered if such flawless beauties existed even in these modern times. Of course I was constantly sussing out the reactions of "S" to the introduction of the heroine. He was putting up a bland face concealing his true response perhaps to put me at ease(or so I thought).The bucket of popcorn that we had purchased outside , slowly and steadily had found its way into our tummies already.

The first half of the movie was shot in an ambiance of the late 70s. The atmosphere in the movie was brought out with so much of perfection and with a tinge of corny comedy which is so very characteristic of Farah Khan , the director . We could easily relate the memorable events of the 70s. ShahRukh was the protagonist and his acting reassured that his stardom was a well deserved one. Nevertheless one should not question the credibility of the story. The story revolved around death ,re-incarnation and retaliation.It has the recipe for a successful movie with correct proportions of romance, action, horror, thrill ,action etc etc. But this movie lacks in depth and intensity. We are somehow not able to empathise with the characters regardless of how well the actors emote.

This movie is an entertainer and I earnestly request you to shun your reasoning capability and rationalism if you intend to watch this movie.After a solid three hours the movie ended with the appearance of the technicians and the backstage heroes on the screen . This is something that I attribute to the directorial touch of Farah who is consistently making an attempt to bring these unnoticed artists to limelight.

As soon as we came out of the theatre , I beamed with pride and commented to "S".."See ,my selection has never gone wrong..truly a great movie!!!!". "S" only smiled and replied "If you are happy , I am ". What am I to infer from this statement?.

Baby's Day Out

To begin with, for my own convenience I shall refer to my husband as "S" henceforth. The first Sunday of last month dawned with an air of surprise for me. "S" bounced up from his bed and cried "Lets all go to Wembley today ". I doubted the intention of his declaration as I have known him to be an ardent lover of his laptop during the weekends .He, on a ideal weekend would prefer to be glued to his laptop as it is one poor thing that could serve him ceaselessly the whole day and match with his seemingly endless reserves of energy levels.

Trying to figure out the credibility of his plan , I muttered "Is Wembley not within London?? .Why this sudden interest for you to visit the place???"... One word that he uttered made me speechless and it was "Chennai Dosa". We live outside London and South Indian cuisines are not in our vicinity.Within the next 40 mins time we were in Wembley car park near Chennai Dosa. I was peeping out of the car window like a "child in a candy shop" from the moment our car set its wheels into Wembley .I was genuinely baffled as to whether I had boarded a flight and disembarked in India already.I had a "peep show" of all kinds of shops starting from jewellery shops to designer wear saree shops.

We spent a solid 1 hour in Chennai Dosa and I bet we had tried every other item listed in the menu .The look on the waiter's face made it evident that he thought that we were starved refugees from areas hit by famine. To add fuel to the burning fire , "S" said "After tasting the food you cook anything else tastes like "ambrosia". If only I had a magic wand like "Harry Potter", I would have converted "S" into a "plate of pulao" that was three days old. Our bellies were "house full" and unable to stuff in any more food we made our exit out of "Chennai Dosa" and started walking towards the chain of Indian shops.

"S" naively (not aware of the implications) offered to take charge of the pram with our little one in it ,while my Mother In Law and I went shopping. We set our foot into every "chota mota" shop that had a name board . I was in cloud nine when I managed to get a "gaagra choli" for my 20 months old baby girl. It was meant to be her attire for the impending Diwali(remember this is an one month old flash back) . I imagined her to be like "Aishwarya Rai" in that choli and all her boy friends queuing up before our home to get a glimpse of her. My "daydreaming" was interrupted by my daughter's father who screamed " I cant imagine it took one hour for you to select that one metre piece of cloth". Now you know why men are deemed so different from women.

Then came the handbag shop, saree shop ,jewellery shop and what not , with a touch of Indian designs and tastes. We ventured into each one of them and "S's" purse was put to best and maximum use that it looked a little worn out by the end of the day.Before I realised , it was time for the sun to set. "S"was drained of his patience levels (thanks to our extremely co-operative off spring) and one look on his face , I understood it was time to leave. Half hearted, I boarded into our car. This trip had stirred up a feeling of nostalgia in me and I kept thinking about the days when I used to go for shopping with my family in India.

It suddenly struck to me that how lucky we are!!!..We are in this foreign land fully reaping the benefits of the opulence, advancement and the development of this country and at the same time enjoying the richness of our Indian way of life which can never be complete without the unparalleled Indian food and Indian costumes.As "S" often puts it "We have the best of both worlds".

Of course , it would not be fair to end this blog without mentioning this. Since that trip "S" has never ever offered to drive us again to Wembley . He is still in the clutches of "post traumatic stress" of going for a shopping with " TWO WOMEN" and "an adorable elf".