Time-crunched

Now that my wife has become mad about MAD, for the past few weeks I am the baby sitter for Paavani for roughly 6-8 hours per week. One of the best pastimes is to take her to a park where she sits on the swing for a long time. During our recent ‘swinging’ session, a woman aged mid- to late- forties came with her toddler daughter and placed her on the neighboring swing. 

As I pondered on her age and having a toddler at such an advanced age, I imagined all sorts of issues that she may have gone through to successfully deliver this toddler finally. Subconsciously, for some unknown reason, my mind had placed this toddler as her first born. So it came as a pleasant surprise when I saw a girl in early teen come to the swing and play with her younger sister. 

This made some sense now. But I still wondered why there was almost a decade gap between the sisters and why the parents had not planned it properly. The bored mind keeps wandering I guess, so my mind kept running to find answers. Just then, another girl came near the swing. This girl was older than the toddler but younger than the teenager. Now it all panned out right. “Equi-gapped” three children. 

The effort of bringing up a child in the modern day world is tough mainly because the families are tending to be more nuclear in nature than extended. If the families are extended, then there are more people in the household to take care of, or even be with the infants and the chore of bringing up a child doesn’t seem accentuated as compared to the mother alone (or day cares) attending to the baby as in the case of most nuclear families. With such a scenario, having 3 babies would take a toll on the mother in specific and both parents in general for almost 2-3 decades. With one toddler, it has been years since we went to a movie theater and we have cut down on vacations to a trickle. With a children every once in 3 years, parents have to do so many sacrifices till the children are on their own. Much of prime life would be done with by then!  

I remember telling many folks that I am just drifting along on the River of Life, going where it takes me and making occasional minor adjustments with no major goals or targeted achievements. With one child, this river has suddenly become swift; and it is as if I am river rafting now – barely able to be aboard the raft with waves crashing all over. There is hardly enough time in the day to work, to sleep, to relax, to play. The To-Dos keep growing bigger and bigger. And it will become hectic and hectic, what with the daughter’s extra-curricular classes (yet to enroll!) and school and what-not. I am beginning to feel the middle-aged time-crunch.  

How ironical it sounds. I am in the park on a weekday at dusk swinging my child on the swing and playing with her, and yet I feel I am time-crunched.

The Death Song

This death song is one of the best songs I have ever heard.

It makes me feel how life is both worthless and invaluable at the same time.
It makes me remember those whom I knew and have died.
It makes me immensely sad yet I crave to listen to it over and over again.
For the sake of the departed...

Evaporation of a hope

Today morning at 5 am, I heard the sound of soft fall of water outside the apartment window on the road. Even at that hour, even though it was a Sunday, I could not lose the opportunity of what could only be rain. I have been in this city (Irvine, CA*) for nearly 5 months, and have hardly seen any rain. I, who like rain so much, am missing the pitter-patter of a downpour and the cool freshness that comes in its wake.

And so, I ran to the window to see if the last few weeks of summer heat finally welcomed the much-needed rain. Alas, the sound was only from a sprinkler outside my apartment balcony. Saddened, I made my way back to the bed with thoughts of Ghanana, ghanana…

* City of Irvine belongs to The Irvine Company (a real estate development company) with average annual rainfall of 10-13 inches.

Reading Out

In my eleventh standard, the English teacher asked for volunteers to role-play a drama. Well, not really “role-play” but more of “read-out” the dialog from the book. There were multiple characters in the drama and each volunteer was asked to pick a character. I liked talking in accent and I chose to volunteer too. It was damn fun reading out my part and I enjoyed it thoroughly. In my “vocality” (!), I tried to bring about life and feeling into each sentence and the audience – I was later told - enjoyed it.

Cut to the present. Recently I was asked to read out a 30 page document that my team and I had authored as part of my project to a group of 20 odd senior executives within the stipulated one hour. I had to read out practically each word in the document to obtain the sign-off and approval from all the executives prior to moving ahead with the development and deployment of the software product. It went well and I was appreciated for finishing right on time.

It wasn’t all that fun though but when I was reading it, it brought out memories from that day 17 years ago…

Rat-Race?

I saw a spiritual notice recently about how Man nowadays is keenly involved in rat-race and how useless it is to keep garnering the materialistic riches. I wondered if this is really so.

Most folks work to ensure that they can lead a decent lifestyle all the way till their lives’ end despite
(a) the number of offspring that they may plan and expenses incurred till their children are on their own,
(b) 30% - 40% of their lives being led in retirement and
(c) plan for any illnesses that may come their way.
Add to this the nemesis of Inflation and one feels any amount of money that is being earned is less at any point of time.

So, in reality, all that Man is doing is Surviving. Hence, more than it being a race amongst the rats, it is actually a game of mere survival. Right?

Cousins

The other day when I was thinking about all the fun times I had had with my cousins in various parts of the country, I mused if and how my daughter will experience similar joy.

If the world tends towards a no-sibling “We Two, Ours One” policy, it further shrinks the sharing, caring and other affections that only a sibling can rouse.

Add to this is the geographical expansion of base location of many relatives – so, what was in our childhood, a sudden trip to a cousin staying 3 hours from home, will become “This year you come; Next year I will try” once-in-a-year international vacation.

So much of lost free "Love". Sigh.

The Slow-Motion Tornado

Having a toddler at home is as equivalent as having a slow-motion tornado in progress inside the house every single day. Each night, the house is cleaned up and tidied but at the end of the very next day, it would seem as if the house had turned upside down. And again it is cleaned up at night just so that it can be rattled up during the following day. And the routine continues.

But unlike the aftermath of a tornado, the activities of a toddler inside the house bring a smile to the lips. After being used to seeing decades of neatness (quietly ignoring the years of staying with bachelors!), it is somewhat pleasant and nice to see someone innocently bring down the complete orderliness of a normal home to shatters.

It is fun to jump around the toys and books just to go from point A to point B. It is amazing to see the child take each toy each day as if it is her very first day with it. And within minutes, one toy is discarded mentally and physically in much the same manner just as soon as the eyes fall on another toy. If it is not a toy, it is any object that the parent is holding – whether it is a phone or the laptop or the remote or even utensils. The result?

A potato underneath the TV stand; a tomato on the bed; the car key in the bathroom shelf; the spoon inside the sofa cover; the cup fallen from the balcony grill; one shoe in the living room and its pair in the bed room; cards missing from the wallet, post-its unpostable anymore, 

Boy, it’s fun to be with this tornado!!

;-)

Aging

I was looking at some wedding snaps the other day, and I saw the youthfulness of the bride and the groom. But more than this pleasant sight, the picture of the fathers of the newly-weds made me sad.

These fathers, at the peak of their time, were pristine and in complete control of life but now they seemed to have shrunk and on the downward path. It is the ultimate truth of Life that Man ages and dies but, for some reason, when I saw many aging fathers in that wedding - a lot of whom I have been seeing since two decades - I felt an inexplicable pang. How elegant and how high these men would have been in their own weddings with joy profusely emanating but in such weddings, they seemed tired and old and worn out due to the rigors of Life with more relief written on their face of having finished another of their responsibilities than a hint of joy.

Ditto with many of my uncles. Since the time I have seen them, they have been energetic and dynamic and always dependable. But with passage of time - although it seems quite sudden - they seem to have grown so old that they need help from people like me and my cousins. When one is so used to being helped, it comes as a mild shock to actually being asked for help by the heretofore helper himself!

While it is good to see one's cousins grow up to become adults and get jobs abroad and/or become mothers, it is unsettling to see parents and uncles and aunts grow old and get white hair and become weak. Frankly I don't like this feeling.

:-(

14/18

The road from my home to office contains 18 traffic signal lights.
Last fourteen of those are on a single road that leads up to the office.
In the last 3 months, only thrice I have driven through those fourteen signal lights without stopping
As I got a green on all of them just as I neared the junction.

On days such as these, I remember how Truman felt when he got a red each time he tried to escape.
On days such as these, I feel special.
Each time I experience this, I feel I need to blog and dedicate it to my lucky stars.
Hence this web log post.

Project

A project is the single most widely used terminology in a man’s life. Unbeknownst to those like me who came from small-time little-known schools, it comes as a mild surprise how important a word it is! But I guess it is made very much apparent to those in developed countries at a very early age in schools and colleges. More than homework, it is “project” that counts. Every activity is considered as a small project that the child needs to deliver. Alas, the first time I heard about a ‘project’ was in my 21st year during Engineering. But once I joined employment, it was all about “projects”.

Been almost 10 years now since I became a salaried employee. So have experienced lot of projects and interacted with lot of people. I guess at this time, it kind of gives a holistic picture and in a way, it is interesting.

Each project that gets executed might contain individuals who are at different stages in their life. And yet, they are all brought together in that one project where everyone is trying to achieve the stated project goal. It is as equivalent to passengers commuting in any public transportation system such as a train or an airplane. Passengers can be equated to project team members and the transit mechanism (train or airplane) can be equated to the project. Different people from different walks of life are brought together by The Cosmic Time to move from one level of life to another and then they all depart to catch another train with different set of people moving from that level of life to another. So we all hop on and hop off and hop on and hop off. It is somewhat amusing, in a way.

Like in my previous project, there were team members such as a pregnant lady, a father who was searching a college for his daughter, a father whose son graduated from medical college, a son who had just lost his father, a father whose son had just started school, a bachelor, a husband whose wife was in a different country, a husband whose wife had just joined him, a wife whose husband was in a different country, a spinster in searching for a suitable groom, so on and so forth. It is not in order because life doesn’t make you meet folks in that order. It is all chaotic and yet there is a pattern.

As one dwells in a family, one can appreciate each of these changes that a man goes through. By bringing up my daughter, I can understand the pains (and joy too) my parents took in bringing me up. Each phase of life – womb, baby, infant, toddler, child, teen, adult all suddenly makes life seem so different: much different than the life of a bachelor. Responsibility, sharing, caring, being wanted adds a new dimension to life which heretofore would have been just work, work and chill. Suddenly, 24 hrs is so less in a day!

Projects seem so tiny when viewed from a Life dimension. And yet projects are important, challenging, irritating, annoying. Bread-earning, anyways! Still, at the end of any project, one always feels exhilarated. Happy. However hard or easy the project might have been, the memory of it all brings smile to the lips – either the hardships undertaken or the fun times in the project will always bring back happy thoughts. Like, however hard you might have struggled and cursed while climbing a mountain, you will always feel happy when you remember the attempt some time later – whether you were successful or not.

Its like when you are in train or an airplane on a long journey, you don’t like it so much. But when you finish the journey finally, you recollect the goings-on and will speak about it decades later with friends on what an experience it was. Ditto with school and college days – how we used to crib about going to college or school and attending those exams, And yet now, those days seem so heavenly!

I wonder why man was made in such a way that he always cribs during the struggle but remembers happily the bygone struggles!

A Balanced Relationship

“Was the curry sufficient today in the lunch box for the 3 chapathis?”

“Actually I don’t know since I did not manage it properly. I started off having very little curry for the first two chapathis, and in the end I was left with lot of curry and very few pieces of chapathi.”

“You should do the other way. Have sufficient curry for first few chapathis and as you near the end, adjust curry intake accordingly.”

“I guess there are two types of people in this world. One set like me who start off cautiously and end up having unused chunks; another set like you who start off the way you want to and by the time you near the end, you balance it out so that you have minimal quantity remaining.”

“It makes up for the two sides of the coin, I guess.”

“And hence we are perfectly made for each other.”

:-)

The 25 That Never Happened

Sometime in late 1987, I remember sitting in an APSRTC bus with my maternal grandmother, going to Gadwal. My grandma asked me to suggest a name for her newest grandson. I was 7 years old then and my the then best friend's name was Keerthi. So I said "Keerthi". I don’t remember anything else of this trip apart from this short bit of conversation. I don’t remember seeing the new born baby. I don’t remember Gadwal. I don’t even remember returning back to Bangalore. But in the months that followed I was told that my cousin was named "Pradyumna".

The next thing that I remember about Pradyumna was that he was one of the cutest little toddler-babies that I had ever set my eyes upon. We still have his photo with a hat on and he looks oh-so-adorable. Unable to resist his cuteness, my mother once got him to our home (South Bangalore) away from his parents (North Bangalore) for a night. Next day, my mother said Pradyumna never slept the whole night as he kept searching the house for "Mamma" and "Pappa". I felt sorry for having kept his parents away from him for one whole night.

Pradyumna's father - the same uncle who drives like an artist - had a job that made him stay in one city (or in some cases, village or a town) for only 3 years at a stretch. So the next thing I remember about Pradyumna is him being in Nagamangala. A small village with a handful of houses. All of us cousins used to go to Nagamangala during summer holidays and had so much fun playing so many newly invented games. I being the "oldest" among the lot used to take classes on Mathematics and act pompously as if "I-know-it-all".

During summer of 1993, I visited New Delhi for the first time with my mother and another uncle. It was the longest train journeys that I had ever been on - lasting over 40 hours. I got out of the train onto the platform and my uncle and Pradyumna were there waiting for us. The first thing Pradyu whispered in my ear as I met him was "There is a serial called Derrick that comes on DD Metro. We watch it daily. It is great!" I was amused that the first thing he told me was about a detective serial which he - I am sure - hardly understood. But it also showed how innocent a 6-year-old mind is. Sure enough we watched Derrick throughout the summer holidays and I went on to become a great fan of Derrick.

Pradyumna and his parents used to stay in a 3-storeyed building on the 2nd floor in New Delhi. The owner was a - if I remember correctly - garment merchantman who never seemed to work. Whenever we saw him, he was lying on a bed watching TV. His door was always open and the bed was right opposite the door. Sometimes Pradyumna used to go to his house, rather shyly and watch TV in his house. The only Hindi words he had learnt back then was 'Mein Chal' - a rough translation for 'I will leave now, bye' to the owner. Snippets such as these, for some reason, I never forgot.

There were million other moments that I remember sharing with him. During his upanayanam in Mulbagal Mutt (family was then in Srinivasapura), he cried like hell for cutting his hair short as part of religious custom. He was then a high-school-going boy and hence was becoming increasingly conscious of looks and fashion. I saw 'Hum Aapke Hain Kaun' with him and his family in a theatre in Secunderabad and absolutely loved the atmosphere. I remember going with him to the daily Sanskrit-sloka reciting classes in the nearby Mutt in Lingampally, Hyderabad and what fun we had trying to memorize those tongue-twisting God-praising words!

Then in 2003 he asked me to help him with a C program for his college assignment. Just because people work in a software company, there is always an impression amongst non-IT folks that IT folks will be able to solve any software program in any software language. I was able to save my face by successfully programming it although I was never into coding in C in my the then new IT job. I think on that same day his father asked him if he wanted to study his masters in US. I remember him clearly saying that he would go to US on his own account and not with his father's help.

As the years passed, we got busy and the interactions decreased. Once a while we used to meet in some family function or during festival gatherings. Brief though these meetings were, it was built on the warmth of the foundation years of our relationship.

I remembered all these on that fateful day on Jan 21, 2012. Sitting in my Nashua, NH, USA apartment, numb and helpless with what I had just heard, I continued staring out on the falling snow. Snow always makes the world look surreal. I realized that he had never seen snow in his life nor now ever would. There were so many things in this world that he could have seen and experienced and yet....

I being a father of a year-old daughter can understand how the news would have hit my uncle. Only a parent will know about all those immeasurable sacrifices that are undertaken in bringing up one's child...

If only he was alive today, he would have been 25 years.

If only...

Where is the Mole?

Today we were showing moles to Paavani.
She has only one mole while both me and my wife have many.
She is fascinated by these black dots on the body and keeps asking to see them again and again.
In the process, she constructs her first three-word sentences:

"Elli Mamma mole?" Mamma shows the mole.
"Elli Pappa mole?" Pappa shows the mole.
"Elli Paani (read Paavani) mole?" She sees her own mole.
"Elli Barbie mole?" She searches for a mole on her doll! [PS: The doll was not actually a Barbie]

I was fascinated how a 19-month old mind caught an obvious natural feature missing on a man-made baby that would have been designed, implemented, tested and certified by numerous adults...

Sleeping Hours

When Paavani was born, she used to sleep intermittently; But totaling almost 20 hrs a day.
When relatives came in expecting to see the newborn, they were disappointed to see her sleeping.

But with each passing day and month, this total sleep duration decreased.
When relatives continued to pour in, they were happy to see the bundle of joy active and kicking.

Between 6 months and an year, she fell into a standard pattern of complete sleep during night and two naps during the day: one in the morning at about 11 and one at about 2 in the noon, each lasting about 2 hrs.
Relatives were no longer in the picture now but the mother was grateful for the naps!

After she turned one, she no longer felt sleepy in the morning anymore. So she slept only after lunch for about 2 to 3 hrs.
The mother was still grateful as it gave her enough time to get the house back in order and attend to personal needs.

This last Saturday, after 19 months and 1 day, Paavani was awake for the first time straight from 8 in the morning to 10 in the night; and followed up on Sunday with 9 in the morning to 9 in the night.
Now, its scary!

:-)

The Indian Water

In one of the skype sessions, my mom mentioned that there is a severe water scarcity in Bangalore. Municipality had not released water for many days and people were forced to pay exorbitant rates to purchase water privately. After a few minutes, like a news channel, she changed the topic to something she had heard over the TV or read in the news: that there are millions of Indians in US.

After the skype session, I did some googling to discover the below facts:
- There are roughly 2 million Indians in US.
- An average Indian uses 135 liters of water every day in India.

Now if the 2 million Indians headed back from US one fine day, then the country would be short by 270 million liters of water per day more than the current shortage.
One almost gets the wry feeling what a tremendous help these 2 million NRIs are to their home land…

‘Children change your lives…’

I am very much what is popularly called a person from “old school”. I don’t keep up with the technological advances happening all around me. I generally don’t try something new – but stick to what works for me. Its not that I don’t like it but its just that I refuse to get out my boundaries and I always give one reason or the other. But when there is a need, or if I feel the necessity, or if I am just in the mood on a particular day, lo and behold, I am out of the antiques and well within the technological miracles, accepting it completely and fully, as if it is the obvious way of life.

This has been so since many, many years. When there was this wave of having a gmail account, I was of the opinion that its not needed because I already had yahoo and Hotmail. But eventually I did get myself a gmail account. Then I heard about Orkut and social networking. It was quite some time before I became an active member. Then, when I heard about facebook, I was thinking why do I need to be part of another social networking site when I am already part of Orkut. Eventually I did get into FB.

Once on gmail, my yahoo and Hotmail accounts got sunset. Once on FB, my Orkut account is almost unused. Now (?) that Google+ has come up (again I am thinking why - when there is FB) I wonder if I will become more active on G+ and if my logins to FB become rarer eventually.

Same was the case with many other things but eventually I get there. It took quite a bit of coercing for me to finally open a blogger account. Now, I have over 1200 posts. I became familiar with Reader, Latitude, Google Voice, Chrome, Picasa, Google Docs – all of which I now use quite often.

It is not just everything on the web. Applies to gadgets as well. The camera that I bought satisfied the bare minimum necessity. There were newer versions available by the time I got my hands on iPod and GPS (took many, many years to convince myself on the usefulness of GPS). But I am still holding up on the smart phone, iPad, Kindle, LCD TV – the list goes on and on.

Just the other day in office I overheard an elderly gentleman saying how his wife still never used a cell phone. But apparently his 2-year old grandson was teaching granma how to use Kindle.

This alarmed me. Paavani is going to be 2 years very soon. With a parent like me and antiques all around, I wonder if she will lose her technological competitive edge with her peers. So…..

Just goes to show what it means when someone says ‘Children change your lives…’ If not for our sake, at least for their's…

Numbers

onn
tooo
fiee
ixxx
senn
TENN!!

The urge to reach the goal as early as possible - by whatever means - starts as early as 18 months!!

:-)

9 Years, 4 Months, 13 Days

Well, well, well and well. One blog topic less in November from now on!

Finally the saga comes to an end. My mind is scripting pages and pages of thoughts, but I guess it is sufficient to pen “Wooo hooo what a ride!"

Amen.

The Ripple Effect

Imagine a pond.

The water in the pond is still.

There is no wind.

There are small floating objects on the surface.

Serenity and peacefulness everywhere.

Now imagine an object falling in the midst of the pond.

The falling of the object causes concentric waves.

The ripple effect of the waves is felt all through the pond.

Some of the floating objects get displaced.

This causes agitation and anxiousness.

I was once a floating object that had got displaced.

But this time, I am that object that caused the waves.

I somehow feel sorry for causing all the brouhaha but yet,

As many people wisely informed me,

“You gotta do what you gotta do.”

And 3 years later...

32
69.5

:)