The Annual Event

If I ask you "is there any event in your life that happens every year during a specific duration?" then the obvious answers would be birthdays, anniversaries etc. If I ask to think of something apart from the usual answers, then you might mention annual gathering of old friends, visiting a particular place, the appraisal meetings (despite the recession), policy premium payments, etc.

If I'm asked the same question, I would say:

"I have accident every year... on road... on a two wheeler... injure one of my knees.... alternately... during Jan-Feb duration"

This is fourth year in a row, when I fell on the road, without any apparent reason, during regular kind of commute between office & home.

It was a usual (dreaded) Monday morning, & I was on my way to office on wifey's scooty pep plus (note the stress on plus- this means it was not an ordinary scooty or ordinary scooty pep, it was scooty pep plus). As I was about to turn for office building on my left hand side, I noticed Indori avatar of John Abraham from Dhoom coming fast on a bike in my scooty pep plus' left-hand-side-rear-view-mirror (yes; I use rear view mirrors on scooty as well, both side...err I meant scooty pep plus). Though I had already switched on the indicators; I decided to be extra cautious by signaling him with my left hand; and it was then when the unthinkable happened - as soon as I lifted my left hand from the handle, a small road-dent that used to lie quietly on middle of the road, came hurtling towards me. It was all over the road & almost impossible to be avoided; and before I could notice anything else, me & my scooty pep plus, both were lying on road in such a mingled state that most of my body ( heavy body ) was on scooty pep plus, and scooty pep plus was in turn on my right leg.

While I was trying to muster my fallen dignity & body, I heard John's avatar passing by & saying "अबे साइड हो clear the road"; I was about to shout back "चल हट" when I saw that the traffic signal some 200 meters distance has turned green. So, I hastened the process of picking my shattered dignity & body & the scooty pep plus (I've never heard of a guy who falls on a scooty pep plus) & entered office premises.

Thankfully my body suffered lesser injuries (just a bruised knee & aching ankle) than my dignity (shattered), and surprisingly scooty pep plus suffered even lesser injuries than my body (only one of the rear-view-mirrors now looking in front instead of back). I'm sure that it was the plus effect that saved me & the Scooty. I will always remember that Plus is important!
Anyway I'm glad that this happened because now this year's accident quota is full, hence Aaaal ij Welllllll :)

Piku loves Mummy

My kid has recently learned a new word "Mummy"! Whenever he intends to summon his mom, he would shout "Mummyyyy......" (of course) and then he will utter something in his own lingo which no one can understand; & again shout "Mummyy......"; & keep doing this till he wishes. Cute, isn't it? Well, not always.... & I learned that yesterday only.

We were in a so-called hep shopping mall, surrounded with many so-called hep people (coated with an extra layer of fake-sophistication), when I heard Piku's familiar voice reciting "Mummy... mummy... mummy... " on top of his lungs.

First thought (admiration): "How sweet"
Second thought (confusion): "Why is he calling his mummy; he is already with his mummy"
Third thought (more confusion): "Why is everybody smiling at us, especially me"
Fourth thought (panic): "O God! He is addressing me as his Mummy!!!"
Fifth was not a thought, it was a sentence that came out of my mouth (hasty reaction): "Betu, Papa. Paaaaapa. Say Paaaaa...pa..."

But the trick backfired; Piku turned towards his mom & started chanting "Paapaa papa papa..."!

Now by default, both of us are summoned as "Mummy". If we interrupt, then only either one of us randomly (& optionally ) gets addressed as "Papa" for next few minutes.

Piku learns to crawl

Like every other concern, this has been my wife's one of biggest concerns - our kiddo hasn't been able to crawl, neither by himself nor by any support. He is 9 months old now but in terms of certain physical activities he is running late by almost 2 months as compared to other babies of his age. To me, this is quite normal. In fact, I assume this isn't a matter of fitness, this is a matter of lazyness (like father like son). However, wifey thinks  differently. To her, if anyone's baby in our acquaintance has been able to do any activity then Piku should also be able to do it.

Almost every other day, we would indulge in a conversation (read debate) where she would be doing her best to take a plunge into state of depression over lack of junior's competitive instincts, and I would be trying my best to counsel her. Our conversation would mostly be ended abruptly when she would accidently see the clock & say "Oh! Its time for Piku's meal." Surprisingly (& consistently), she notices time only when I'm about to win the argument.

So, this fine day, all of us were busy in our respective routine activities; wifey preparing meal for junior, me trying to watch TV & junior trying to pluck a bunch of hairs from my head. After sometime she came out from kitchen looking distraught; I hesitated for a moment & then asked "What happened?" "Our maid was telling that Mrs. Saxena's 8 months old daughter has started crawling; but our 9 months old son does not even sit properly." I immediately wished for two things: First - the moment of hesitation should've lasted for some more moments & I would've not asked the question. Second - a law should be passed banning all maids to pass information of one house to other.

"If I remember correctly, our maid was the person who told you that baby girls learn faster than baby boys; so don't worry." I said remembering the smirk on her face when she propagated this male-bashing statement to me.

"Yes, but that was 2 months back; and at that time it was matter of when Piku would be able to rollover; now it is about crawling." she snapped back.

"That doesn't make any difference. Anyways, that's not the point; all I want to say that don't worry; he will learn to crawl also whenever his body is ready." I responded.

"... but... the doctor also said that babies start crawling around 9 months" she mumbled.

"Honey, we've met more number of doctors for our son than the number of months he has seen on this planet, and all of them give a different age for different activities. If we try to draw a range, babies can start crawling at any age ranging from 6 to 12 months. So don't worry, he'll be alright" I tried again to soothe her.

"But why us, why our child had to be a slow learner?" she took a deep plunge in her depression.

"C'mon! He is not a slow learner, he has done somethings pretty earlier than other babies. Don't you remember he gave us his first smile within 3 weeks" I tried to highlight the positive side; and for a moment it seemed to work because I saw the effects of remembrance of a good memory on her face. Without waiting for her to speak again, I added another piece of my wisdom "You see every child is different... like every other child". My advice to guys - never ever end your sentence with an assertion when you're in discussion with your better half. That will start a brand new discussion.

"I don't like your tone when you do that" she retorted.

"What tone?" I tried to bring innocence in the scene.

"The tone in your voice when you spoke your last statement" she gazed at me.

"I was just reminding you of Piku's first smile, how can my tone possibly be bad while talking about something beautiful like that" I smartly tried to skip my assertion.

"No, that was not your last statement. The one where you mentioned about every baby being different than every baby... or something like that"  she stuck to her point.

"What? Oh that.... whats wrong with that? Isn't that true?" I edged deeper into the mud.

"Yes, that is true; but why do you've always to put such statements?" she spoke with anger increasing in her voice.

"No, I don't do that; this is first time I ever gave a statement; and that too a right one" I spoke forgetting completely the original point of discussion.

"Fine!" she announced.

Another word of advice to guys - if your better half speaks a sentence that has just one word "Fine", then that means nothing is fine (or anywhere near being fine); and anything you say after this would be a punishable offense.

However, I entirely forgot the piece of advice I just gave above & said "Fine? What is that suppossed to mean? (like I didn't know). That is not even correct response to my sentence." another bad move.

"I don't want to talk to you on this anymore. Besides, its time for Piku's meal" she ended the discussion.

" OK"  I spoke and then we realized that Piku, for whom this whole discussion was taking place, was not in the place where we left him. Irritated with our talks, he was crawling towards the door....

Shunting between Indore & Lucknow

Last 4 weeks have been pretty hectic for me. There were couple of marriages in my family @ Lucknow, separated by a week's duration. First was for my brother & second was for my brother-in-law. Needless to say, I couldn't afford to miss my brother's marriage and couldn't dare to miss my wife's brother's marriage :)

To complicate the matters further, both the marriages were accompanied by few ceremonies starting a couple of days prior to the D-days & lasting a couple of days afterwards. The total duration of ceremonies was spanning across a period of 3 weeks. To add even more spice to my problems, a couple of my brother-in-law's ceremonies were planned at Rae Bareli (nearly 80 kms from Lucknow).

That means that now there were 2 dimensions to my troubles - time & distance (you might feel as if you're reading about some problem from high school physics).

From time perspective I had two choices: first - take leaves for 3 weeks & enjoy; second - take leave on the days of ceremonies only & move back & forth between Indore & Lucknow. Of course, the former option was out of scope because I couldn't get leave for 3 weeks for even my own marriage; so I had to stick to the latter.

From distance perspective - Indore's train connectivity is very poor, so every time I had to go to Bhopal via taxi (200 kms) & then catch train to Lucknow, and then take bus route for Rae Bareli. In fact, during my last journey from Rae Bareli to Indore; I made use of almost all kinds of mechanical public transportation available. It included bus, taxi, train, cycle rickshaw, auto and city cab. Thankfully, none of my routes involved bullock carts!

My final itinerary had me shunting between Indore & Lucknow every 3-4 days. Typically if someone at Indore asks me "what are you doing this weekend?"; I reply "Nothing as such, just going to watch the upcoming movie"; but during last few weeks I would reply "Nothing as such, just going to Lucknow".

Diwali celebration

This diwali was going to be special; coz it was 2nd diwali for my 9 month old kid... how? Last year he was in "invisible" mode (yeah, this is what they call as addicted-to-Yahoo-messenger syndrome).

I started preparing for the festival weeks ago (by saying preparing I mean thinking). All the calculations were done in my head. My younger brother Shashank was also visiting us for the occasion, so the entertainment was almost guaranteed (this sentence also proves that the word "guarantee" can be used with word "almost" without sounding shady. May be, product manufacturers can use this on their guarantee cards).

Just one day before Diwali we all headed to market for doing necessary purchases, but ended up watching movie folllowed by feasting at Pizza hut. Needless to say that we didn't do any "relevant" purchase.

Next day was the day of celebration. Our main attraction was to show some fireworks to Piku & see his reaction so most of the day went in planning the evening. After spending most of the day in planning, we realized that we have missed the most important part of showing fireworks to Piku - purchasing them. So, I went to the the market and (un)happily purchased crackers at almost triple price. When I returned back around 7 pm, I found that our kiddo has fallen asleep; I'm sure that he must've done this knowingly because this is the time when his photons are fully charged & he becomes capable of manhandling an entire family. Anyway, we didn't give it much thinking because we were sure that he will soon be disturbed by noises being created by loud crackers. So, we continued with our other tasks, like putting on new clothes, doing lakshmi-pujan (with a sleeping baby by our side), having dinner, having desert, getting into our nightwears, preparing bed, getting sleepy... yawning.. zzzzing... oops oh sorry,, got carried away! The point is, Piku, who can get up even if I sneeze in a nearby room; didn't even winced for even very loud  crackers being played nearby. Even the mighty सुतली-बम, 1000 की लड़ी, डबल- धमाका, 7 in 1 crackers etc. failed to wake him.
Well, while we started to feel sleepy after our all enthusiasm was drained out, junior woke up around 10 PM. I wasn't sure whether I was happy or irritated about that; may be happily-irritated. We reluctantly changed back to the new clothings, & went out to show some fireworks to Piku.
I was mentally prepared that the increased decibel limits would definitly scare him & I might get another chance to show off my super ability to calm babies but he took even this chance away from me. Scene was wonderful, adults standing (some hiding ), hands over their ears, eyes flinchig (actually shut for a few), Piku's mother trying to decide & adjust how to do all above activities for her as well as Piku simultaneously;  and just one brave kid; waiting patiently, looking at the scene-of-action and probably thinking "लानत है इन बड़े लोगो पर".
If he could've spoken, after every cracker he would've said "बस, इतना ही; इसे तुम धमाका कहते हो? और ये क्या है, 5 रुपये का छोटा सा अनार, या ये बच्चों वाली चकरघिन्नी, और अभी तक फुलझडी से ऊपर ही नहीं उठ पाए. हे भगवान् कहाँ भेज दिया!"

Piku's Mundan - a different perception!

In my previous post, I mentioned about my kid's mundan. I did note that he didn't threw up much tantrum as we were expecting. Probably, he had analyzed the situation better than us.

I'm sure if he could write a blog about his thoughts-about-the-moment, then it would be something like following:

--
Today has been an unusual day! Ma & Pa have been discussing about getting up early with firmer determination than ever since yesterday.
They decided to get up early with me because I've been regularly getting up at 5 AM and demanding for water; normally they go back to sleep but for today they decided to get up & prepare to leave for some place called omkashwa... omkrshw.... omkareshwar (I think thats the name).

Anyway, since I knew their plan & sensed something fishy about it; I decided to lay asleep. When Ma got up at 8, she almost shouted "Oh my God! We're late". Boy, it was some fun watching them getting up so fast. I think I would love to do this again :)

I wasted as much time as possible by throwing tantrums, spilling milk, resisting to bathe. My parents' expressions were watchable. Had I not been just 8 months old, I would've gotten a tight slap (may be more); but their facial expressions of helplessness mixed with frustration were priceless.

Finally, when we were all ready, my Dad said " We were suppossed to leave by 7 and it is nearly 10 now; so lets drop the idea of going Omkareswhar & go to Ujjain instead; we'll get mundan done over there & would still be able to get back in time". Hmmm... now I understand the value of experience.

After an hour or so, we reached Ramghaat; some place in Ujjain near Shipra river. It was very hot & everybody except me was sweating. While I was enjoying the scenery with Ma & her parents my Dad secretly disappeared from my sight, and came back with some other guy with funny moustaches. "Must be some pundit (priest)" I thought.

We picked up our stuff (my dad picked a sheet & some packets, mom's dad picked umbrella, mom picked ME & I picked confusion) and moved towards a boat resting by the shore. " Maybe the other guy is a boatman not a priest, but it doesn't seem a good time for boating; its too hot " I thought.

However, instead of getting onto the boat, my dad spread the sheet on a large bed-sized stone just by the river bank & sat there perching me over his shoulder. "Is it time to sleep?" I questioned myself because that is the only time when he does this. Then mom wiped my face & head with water. Now that was too much, because she does this every morning when it is time to get up.

"What are they upto?" while I was trying to figure out something out of confusion, dad started playing some song on his mobile. Full of suspicion I looked around; everything & everyone seemed normal except for the distasteful looks on their faces because Dad was playing "Numb from Linkin Park" on his cell. I've found that dad & I share same taste for music so only two of us were enjoying the song.

As soon as the song was over, it occurred to me that something is wrong. I looked around again & found the other guy too near, smiling at me with somet sharp shiny thing in his hand.

"He is gonna kill meeee....." I shouted and everyone immediately started applying their tricks to calm me down. "What are you people doing, look at the sharp object in his hand, do something" but like everytime no one was able to understand me; they were busy in trying their respective calm-the-baby techniques.

Then I heard a strange whistling sound; it was funny & was coming from the toymaker who had probably arrived to rescue me. The sound was coming from one of his toys; I looked at him with hope & he handed me the toy. "Technology!" I thought; "music comes out from something made of plastic" I got lost into admiring the toy.

Few more minutes passed & I again returned back to my state of alertness about the other guy. I looked around and found him again nearing me, I started crying again but to no avail. Moments later same toy man came back to my rescue; this time he handed me a small drum like thing. "Muuuuuzziiiikkkkkk.... so many forms, so enchanting, heavenly..... "  I was again drifting away in my thoughts.

I returned to my dubious state moments later & again found the guy nearing me. Same cycle repeated and same toy maker came to offer me something different; but this time Dad muttered something & handed over some currency to him & he went away.

"No one to help.... waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh" I was crying on the top of my lungs; eyes tightly shut, mouth wide open, arms moving as fast as  possible; that was my best performance ever. Now I know what do they mean when people say that they perform best when under pressure.

Moments later, everything was settled; my dad was holding me in his arms, mom stood there with a water bottle, her dad with an umbrella over me and the other guy was no where around. I felt very light now; maybe it is true that crying makes you light hearted... but wait, instead of light hearted, I was feeling more... light-headed! "Must be something, who cares" I shrugged in my own way.

"Lets go!" said dad and we all headed back to our car. Since the vehicle was very hot, so we all were standing outside it for sometime allowing the heat to escape; it was then when I looked at the car's window and said " Look Mom, there is a bald kid in our car!"
--

Piku's Mundan

A couple of weeks ago, all of a sudden we realized that if we need to perform our kid's mundan ( मुंडन ) then that has to be done on 20th Sep 09, Sunday (i.e. yesterday). For those who don't know about mundan: it is a religious ceremony in Hindu dharm where baby's head is shaved & hair are flowed in river. Apart from religious purposes, it is believed that this helps in getting good hair growth.

Since I'm a guy of planning (that is what I'm known for in my family) so I rolled out my plan on Saturday evening. The plan was pretty simple, get up early & leave for Omkareshwar by 6 in the morning; reach there by 9, find a barber, get the mundan done, be back by 3 PM.

Of course there were few tiny insignificant irrelevant factors that could've disturbed the plan but I knew I could easily avoid them. Some of the insignificant factors were:

1. 
   
   Finding a petrol station early morning because my car was nearly out of fuel ..... not a big deal at all; I've heard there are 24 hrs petrol pumps in Mumbai, so there must be some in Indore also; after all Indore is also known as mini-mumbai
   
   
   
2. Finding a barber at a place 100 kms away from my residence ..... not a big deal again; every place has got barbers
3. Preparing food for our kiddo before we leave ..... I know my wife is very keen about our kid's diet, so she would figure out something
4. To leave by 6 AM, we had to get up by 4:30 AM ..... piece of cake!

 So, as we all can see how miniscule these factors were; I didn't pay much attention to them & went to a peaceful sleep on Saturday night.

Next morning, exactly as per plan - we woke up, bathed our kid, prepared his foodings, our breakfast etc etc and left home at 10 AM for Ujjain!


PS: Ujjain is around 50 kms away, whereas Omkareshwar is 100 kms away from my residence!