Traveling with the baby

After traveling overseas with navya twice, I am often asked if i've actually had fun on these two trips. Considering the baby interfering with all entertainment activities. To tell you frankly, it is difficult and we've had to compromise on a lot of things like scuba diving together, gambling in the casino together etc... Pretty much everything that involves the 'together' bit.
But there was the other fun bit. Seeing her enjoy the sandy beaches of Maldives, watching her eyes light up when playing with abhiraj bhaiya in Kathmandu and a whole lot of other things. Traveling with navya is difficult but it's the challenge that makes life fun and adventurous. It has been a learning experience and I am about to offer some free advice on some lessons learnt for traveling with babies. Read on if interested...
1. Always carry all baby medicines and doctors file.
2. Always put babies clothes in waterproof suitcase.
3. Have enough food supplies on hand if baby doesn't like food there.
4. Buy the best stroller in the market.
5. Buy the best baby pouch in the market.
6. Have a travel friendly diaper bag one which can double up as a backpack.
7. Always book a hotel room with carpet so baby can crawl freely.
8. take enough toys for the baby to play with.
9. Check with your hotel if they will provide a baby cot. Else try and carry a travel cot. It can double up as a play pen too and come in handy when trying to keep the kid away. ;)
10. Tele check in before hand so you get the front row in the aircraft, this of course only applies to the economy travelers and the have-nots. The business travelers don't have an issue here. P.s most flights don't allow online checkins for traveling with infants.
11. Always check for baby poo before boarding a flight.
12. Always keep the stroller as cabin baggage. You can hand it at the boarding gate to a flight attendant who will hand it over back once the flight lands and you get off.
13. Always ask for a baby meal on the flight. It is better tasting than the other crap they give to adults. For greedy Indians like me, take two baby meals. Lol. You can refrigerate the other one to feed later.
14. Always ask for an extension seat belt for the baby.
15. Choose a baby friendly destination and hotel.

Forget traveling light.
Forget budget travel and backpacking.
Forget you are a couple, you are a family now!

Gym essentials!!

I made some interesting observations after spending some time in a gym in West Delhi. While I lost little weight and a lot of hope, I would love to share these gym essentials with you. So if someone plans to join the gym in the near future, they need to know they have the following before they join a gym:

1. A wafer thin body( for the girls), A V-shaped macho physique with bulging biceps (for the guys). The fat ones need to stay home.

2. A swanky car. Anything upwards of a Merc C Class will suffice. If you're not that blessed, then you can park your Accord next to that Ducati.

3. A gym wardrobe that boasts of only Abercrombie, Ed Hardy, Armani tees and bottoms and has costed more than an average human's party clothing.

4. Gym shoes that match your clothing and never get dirty.

5. Blow dried hair let open on the shoulder(for the girls). Mascara, foundation, kohl, the works....Who's going to sweat it out after all?

6. The latest Headphones to connect with the Gym music. You can connect your iPad with the treadmill if you want. Who carries iPods now? 

7. iPhone and Blackberry. All those with any other phone can leave it with the valet.

8. Your own set of Blowfex Dumbbells. Who uses the dirty gym ones to exercise?

9. Designer mug to carry your protein shake.

10. Last but not the least, oodles of time. Cos that's what you come to the gym for, simply wile it away. 

Exercising is so cliche....

Ways to figure out if tomorrows match is fixed?

HYPE is the buzz word since India won their Quarter final match of the Cricket World Cup 2011 and set up the Semis clash with Pakistan. Everything from the past records to the Pak PM attending the game to match fixing has been discussed. Offices across India(and Pakistan too, I am assuming) will shut down after lunch and match zones a.k.a your TV room which will double up as your own expert commentary plus watching area will experience a high decibel level. The rivalry does take a totally new turn now.

So while Arnab (Times Now) gets a panel of experts(???) ready to figure out if the much talked about match is fixed or no, I have figured out some of my own methods of checking the credibility. Watch out for the below mentioned things:

1.  At the start of the match, a certain pseudo Man in control of India, Mr. Singh asks for peace between the two nations and says, "We all know that Sri Lanka is supposed to win the cup but let's come out fighting and defeat them today".
2. Sharad Pawar arrives at the stadium wearing a Sri Lanka T-shirt thinking he has come to watch the Finals.
3.  Afridi wins the toss and says " Were we supposed to bat or ball?".
4.  Sachin Tendulkar discovers his pants have been stolen. After wearing a borrowed pair, he finds his bat is broken. After borrowing the same, he cannot find his elbow guard. After borrowing the guard, he finally reaches the ground, to be timed out by the umpire.
5.  Kamran Akmal dives all the over the place and makes the most impressive catches possible.
6.. Virat Kohli stretches to take a catch but the ball hits him on his hickey. Which one? You ask?
7.  Shoaib Akhtar comes out balling but decides to stop mid way. When asked why he did so, " the Rawalpindi express derailed this morning". Didn't you hear?
8.  Umar Akmal appeals after a sensational catch off the bowling of Munaf Patel. The problem: Mohammad Hafeez is on the batting end.
9.  Misbah Ul Haq and Saeed Ajmal go for an 'up in the air' catch and both say, "Its yours" and run the other way.
10. Umar Gul comes running full steam to bowl his sixth ball of the over and delivers a perfectly legitimate delivery. He apologises to Afridi for 'overstepping' and goes to ball a seventh one.
11. Yuvraj Singh heaves the ball high in the air and the umpire catches the ball. The batsman starts walking back.
12.  Dhoni wins the toss. (How many does he win these days?)

Sorry but no offence to any of the esteemed cricketers. Just a few funny ones i thought of.
of course the match isn't fixed and both teams will come out firing.
Pray for the betterment of the game and peace between the countries...

Look who's talking?

There is nothing more hilarious(sometimes frustrating) than watching a boring cricket match with Hindi commentary on. From the ballebaaj dor rahe hai to the fielder ne lapak liya to ball hawa mein uchal di hai, it all is a lot of laughs...

Today was one of the days when I was forced to watch the match with only two hindi commentators for company. I decided to take advatnage of the scene and noted the following jewels. Read on and decide what was more interesting, the match or the commentary:

1. Aur wicketkeeper ab batsman se bilkul chipak kar khade hain.
2. aur ye michael clarke reng kar ball par lapke.
3. aur ye acha shot aur nischint hi chaar run. Par ye out. kahi se ek fielder udta hua aayan aur hawa mein se ball ko kheech nikala.
4. After five overs: Aaj balleebaajo mein kuch taalmel nazar nahi aa raha.
After six overs: Kaushik, kya aap dekh rahe hain ki aaj dono batsman bahut achi running between the wickets ka pradarshan kar rahe hain.
5. Aur drinks break mein humne dekha ki gambhir ne khub gap gap karke kele khaye. Shaayad ab unme Shaktimaan wali taakat aa gayi hogi.
6. Australia ek aisi team hain jise aap ek ungli yaani ek wicket pakdayo to woh pura haath yaani puri team ki wickets ko le jaati hain.
7. agar aap kaptaan ke chehre ko dhyaan se dekho to aap samjhege ki woh mathe ki stress lines fatafat gayab ho rahi hain.
8. Aur Brett lee ball par aisa kude ki khoonam khoon ho gaye.
9. Brett Lee wapis maidan mein aa gaya hain aur khooni sher jo ghayal ho gaya ho, bowling ke liye daud rahe hain.

Funny...But very irritating when India seemed to lose track of the match.
All panned out well in the end, India won the match. Or should I say it in the same way the Hindi commentator said it in 'matri bhasha'

"Aur iss tabad tod shot ke saath, Punjab ke sher ne bharat ko apne sheher Mohali ki ticket dila di hain."

Ufff...He must have completely written this down as part of a script earlier. No one is that funny(read dumb) to come up with this one...

The Vizag Diary!!

It is always fun to go on a trip. And going out with family to meet family is all the more fun. And when it is your first holiday in 16 months then it is the most awaited event of recent times. So Vizag bound we all were. Packed to the tilt. Rather, very heavily packed. The luggage weighed more than Navya and me combined so you can imagine...;)

Now, amongst the four travelers, Vishakapatnam was new only for me. Of course, for Navya everything is new. And travelling with her by air was giving me goose bumps. A full check list of medicines and advice later, we managed to land safely, leaving aside the gaping strange man at the feeding mother.

A sea port, I expected Vizag to be extremely cool and breezy. Cool it wasn't, rather the opposite, breezy it was but only at night. We landed to a great welcome by our hosts, Mohit's sisters family. And soon we were at the Naval Park colony. The colony living I always loved and when it was packed by smart Navy families greeting each other in style it was the cherry on the cake.

The one week holiday was extremely exciting with some great hospitality and some good bonding with my nephew and niece. Laughs between the family was something we all needed. Each day I had learnt something new about the Navy style of living and realised how small the civilian looked in comparison. How very distinguished the Navy kids looked when they straightened up and wished an officer in the lift or how a Navy officer bowed to let the ladies go first or how they let the guard down to celebrate Holi. Rain dance, loud music, beer and full of silver, black, yellow and red and all the other colors possible. I saw all shades of a lifestyle that I had never known was so cultured and enjoyable.

I am not the kinds to make fun of a language but I couldn't help but make my judgement about Telugu. The written text surely resembled all sorts of tomatoes put together. So it became a common joke amongst me and the kids to talk in katta tamatar, paka tamatar, aadha tamatar, sada tamatar dialect...

Take a look at the picture and you will understand...It means 'Telugu' in Telugu(???) but this is how we deciphered it...sada tamatar, do tamatar, ulta kata, kata tamatar... Funny but apologies to the Tomato language. ;)

From the long walks in the breezy evenings to the long drive along the beach road to the trip to the submarine to the great Andhra food and Dosas to the loving warmth of Didi and Jiyaji, Vizag was surely a landmark trip.

Is it 2012 already?

Last year when I saw the movie 2012, I shuddered. Woke up at night with a nightmare that there was a massive earthquake in Delhi and everything and everyone was destroyed and killed. The following morning was nice and sunny and all was forgotten. But come 2011 and it seems the reel life is turning to the real life.

Catastrophes after catastrophes are the order of the day. If the man killing man wasn't enough, natural disasters  like Earthquake, Tsunamis, Volcanoes gather the frontal of newspapers these days. While earlier pictures of a certain bearded man grabbed centrefold's, now it is the faces of tearful people rendered homeless.

Is it simply too much of media coverage and man taking attention or suddenly there are too many natural calamities happening? To me at first, it seemed like a little extra awareness and exposure to media from humans that led to them knowing of each and everything happening in each and every speck of the world. But on second thought, a careful study of year on year earthquakes revealed that there was far too much destruction now than in any years earlier.

It was in 2004 when I heard the word Tsunami for the first time but now it is a regular one in the daily news. Are we tampering with Mother Nature too much and this is her way of retaliating? Is 2012 staring at us too soon? Will we wake up to the nightmare and see a rosy morning or simply not get up at all?

View these stats and do some thinking:


Earthquakes in 2011: There have been 6 major quakes in the 65 days that have passed in this year, the Japan quake on March 11th 2011 being the biggest.


Earthquakes in 2010: There were 20 major earthquakes in 2010 that measured more than 7.0 on the Richter scale. Out of these, the Chilean as well as Haitian Quakes were the most devastating. 


Floods in 2011: The Queensland Floods in the beginning of the year were the worst leading to damage of almost $38 billion. They were the biggest in a list of seven fatal floods this year.


Floods in 2010: The Pakistan floods led to a loss of life and damages amounting to $43 Billion. there were around 30 other smaller flooding.


Other big natural disaster of 2010 and 2011: 
Russian Heat Wave killing 56,000 in 2010
Volcanic Eruption in Iceland in April 2010
Earthquake in Tibet in 2010 killing more than 2000 people.

Pray all stays well.

Consider-REconsider!

A chance conversation with a relative over tea last sunday brought me to the 'Re' factor. I can go on writing pages explaining what I mean but I assume the following words will tell all.


Relook. Reduce. Recall. Restyle. Remember. Review. Restructure. Rethink. Refresh. Recharge. Rejuvenate. Revive. Relive. Refuse.


Strike a thought on the 'Re' and life will be better I guess....


REJOICE!!


R

Did I lose the 'Me' in 'Her'?

When I was single, I would always make fun of all the mothers who completely engrossed themselves in their kids and did everything for them. From bathing to feeding to taking them to the park to putting them to bed at night, all by themselves leaving them no time on their own. I would always think it was funny how women immersed their life totally in their kids with no escape route to their own life. How they lost their self while looking after their child?

And here I am losing myself completely in my child. It seems everything about me has somehow become everything about her. To quote an example, the last time I shopped for myself was in my seventh month of pregnancy and now Navya is five months. So it was seven months back that I found the time to indulge in myself. Ever since, shopping has been only about her. This is just one instance which made me realise how I had transformed from a carefree girl to a responsible mother, doing a tad bit more rather. Pushing it to the limit of completely losing track of my life and letting it evolve into hers.

Don't know how or why I let that happen, but I did. Maybe that is the case for most of us, we let life drift off towards our new-born so much that the 'self' is forgottten. I had heard about husbands feeling neglected as wives devoted all their time and energy towards their kids. But maybe I am the one off case where 'my own self' is being neglected 'by my own self'. Strange, but true!

Confessions of a spiritual mind

It is Maha Shivratri today. For an average Shiv bhakt like me, it is 'THE' day to worship thy Lord and ask forgiveness. Though Wiki defines it as something complicated, Indian mythological tales inform me that the 13th or 14th day of month of the month Maagha is his favorite day and that is why 'Maha Shivratri' is celebrated today. For me, it meant waking up on early(uhmm...I mean around 8:30) and showering to get blessings from The God.

I left early(why do I keep using that word when actually I went at 10) only to find a hundred more people had turned up at the same time. Now the temple(behind my house) is divided into three small structures. There is the complex dedicated to Shiva and his family, then there is another one for Sai Baba and the third biggest structure houses all the other main deities. It took me 10 minutes to buy Pooja samagri and finally enter the Shiv Mandir complex. Only to find another 100 people.

Goals...Then, now and for times ahead!

This one is a really long one...Read at your own risk...
------------------------------

On the outer, I looked very ambitious to all. Had to put up a brave and smart front to everyone, after all. But on the inner, I always was the timid 'small town girl' with a smartish head but few ideas of my own. So while I had heard of the word goals, I never had a clear opinion on them.

At a time when people were thinking of becoming Doctors, Engineers et al, I was still having fun writing articles. While everyone stepped on the entrance exams bandwagon, I crossed the dirty, cob-webbed, old newspaper stacked aisle of the Ludhiana office of Indian Express. Everyone else thought that their teens were the stepping stones to a career, I thought I already had one. Proud and happy to be getting a Rs.5k pay check per month after working college hours as a journalist writing sports stories, I never paid heed to anything that my friends mentioned about CAT prep and SATS. I thought this was my true calling and writing was my sole goal. All deadlines crossed and there I was with my pocket money and a stressed out face saying my goodbyes to friends departing for higher studies to Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, some even London.

That is when my Mom took charge of my life and told me to set my goals. I thought I couldn't be left behind alone in Ludhiana, again forgetting the goals and looked for courses in Delhi. Found one that suited both my parents and my interest (atleast for the time being, my intt was not staying back in the rat race to go out of Ludhiana) and off I was to FORE School of Management. Half way into the course, I was pretty sure this was my calling and soon getting a good job and settling down in Delhi seemed to be the goal. In the top 10 of my college course and a recommendation from the Dissertation prof later, I landed a job in Samsung earning Rs.10k. WOW! I had doubled my pocket money within an year. Though my parents had spent 3 years worth of this salary to get me there.

The year of the babies-2010

It is a tested fact in life that when you are going through a new phase then you feel the same is happening to the whole world. So it was pretty obvious that when we were having a baby, we thought the whole world was having one as well. Or maybe it was that time that we noticed that loads of others were making babies too....

While there were many on the baby bandwagon already, it seemed the whole lot of Mohit's friends were delivering babies in 2010. Almost all of those married for sometime had a baby in this year and after counting one or two couples here and there everyone had a baby now. 2010 saw seven babies besides Navya happening in the friend circle and two in the family which makes one wonder if it truly was the year of the babies.

Babies, babies everywhere and many to-be-parents. All of a sudden, we had all become from the usual culprits in the drinking crime to parents discussing breastfeeding and nappy changing.  The sweety-pie messages declaring the birth of the babies to long phone conversations, every little thing pointed to the arrival of a little one in someone's life.

Now I stood and took notice every time I heard the wail of little babies. The world had changed around us. So maybe it wasn't hallucination that everyone seemed to be in the same activity as us. The reality of the babies coming into our lives was true. There was hope, love and warmth in our life now. All brought upon by the birth of a little baby made entirely out of our tissues and cells and love and heart. So many of us had leapt upon the newer and better things in life. Graduation year for many of us. Cheers to 2010- the year that was for the babies...

This year I have to...

Each year, all of us form an endless list of resolutions and decide we will do them dutifully. For some it might be starting a new hobby, for others it would be to quit smoking or drinking while for most people(like me) year after year the resolution is the same. Yes, you guessed it right. Losing weight. And invariably it goes ignored by the end of January. And I speak for the collective voice of most of the weight watchers who forget their vows in the heavenly abode of a Ferrero Rocher.

So I decided to cut the Resolutions list this year at the start of the year. What is the point of making a list that can never be followed. And anyhow each year it is more or less the same list, give or take a few things. After dumping the list, I felt pretty good till I read people declaring their special to-be-done-things for 2011 on Facebook and started having second thoughts about my Jan 1st decision.

So here I am at the threshold of February 2011 with 1 month almost complete and only 11 to go to fulfill the vows. Rather to think of them first and then go about fulfilling them as well. Another thought(I am so full of them) later, I figured that each year, there was a list of things that started with "This year I will...." etc and by mid year, it was always "This year I couldn't but next year I will....".

So 2011 has begun(and also reached feb) and I am taking a harsh stand on myself. From 'This year I will' it is 'This year I have to'...And what is it that I have to do you ask?

This year I have to be happy and keep people happy...
That's it. Plain Vanilla as all of us like it.
See I started my making you happy didn't I?