Everyday is Mother's Day

Every parent has likely said something along the lines of, "However old you may get, you will always be my baby!" As kids, they likely look up to us parents, perhaps we are even their heroes.  However, I am wont to think that before too long, the scales drop.  But, maybe not....

Recently one of our engineer friends showed up on a list of "10 powerful women in the world of technology." Malini was perusing the list and Abhi happened to be sitting nearby.  She thought the mention was pretty cool and worth sharing. So she called him over and showed him the title of the article and in a bid to pique his interest some more, she said, "Abhi, there is somebody on this list that you know."  Now, Malini quit her software engineering job pretty much the day Abhi was born and he has only heard about her having worked in the tech industry. But, pat came his query, "You, amma?"

To him, amma was clearly still Superwoman. 

One More From Abhi

The little guy doth talk a lot - almost non-stop at times. You resort to strong arm tactics to get some respite and very soon you are missing the chatter and find the silence deafening. And then you start seeking ways to get them talking again without losing face. Just one of the many parenting traps.

Ok, back to the story.  BTW, a little knowledge of colloquial Hindi may be required to "get" this one.

Malini was putting the boys to sleep - the usual routine being to read to Abhi (while Arjun reads his book), and then turn off the lights and lie down with them until they drift off to sleep. Of course, most often Malini is the one who falls asleep first and has to be woken up later. Anyway, the reading was done and the light was off, but Abhi would not stop chatting. It was just one question after the other. Finally, in exasperation, Malini exclaimed, "Arre mere baap, just sleep already!" Of course, Abhi immediately wanted to know what that meant - What is "mere baap?" Malini gave the literal translation ("my father") and then added, "Ok, now go to sleep." Promptly came the reply from Abhi: "Why should I listen to you? I am your father!"

Kodak Moments

A blog post with a difference - just a few recent photos.

Abhi and Arjun model some Haloween props that they got as a party favor. With their recent haircuts, its almost hard to tell who is who...













The Ironman and Red Dragon Ninja are all set to go trick-or-treating...












And some selections from a weekend photo shoot at home....

Simple Matters

Another July weekend and another birthday celebrated, this time mine (next week will be my father's turn). The minor twist on the birthday meal was Malini asking me to come home for lunch on Friday and she had prepared an elaborate Kerala style meal with lots of my favourite dishes. The coup de gras was the jackfruit jam 'payasam.' I ate rather well and it was a struggle to dig myself off the couch to return to work. To complete the Kerala touch, Malini had served the lunch on banana leaves. As she was getting the leaves ready, Arjun inquired why she was going to use leaves.
Malini: "That's how we used to eat in Kerala for special occasions."
Arjun: "Why? Didn't they have plates?"
Seeing them struggle to eat rice with their hands I was struck by how different their upbringing is in some of these details.

Malini has been having a dry cough for more than a week now and it seems to ebb and flow. Tonight as she was putting the boys to sleep, she broke out into a prolonged coughing fit. Arjun was concerned and suggested "Amma, you should go to the doctor." Abhi was equally concerned, but for a slightly different reason: "Then who will put us to sleep?"

Murphy Was An Amateur

I had always thought that I had a special talent for self-inflicted injuries (for instance, slamming a car door on my thumb and losing the nail in the process), but Malini soon put paid to that assumption. Several stories are already in circulation - getting burnt trying to iron a shirt while actually wearing it is a well known one, but I have a couple more to add to the canon.
A couple of months ago she was sporting a bruise on her nose - the result of having brought the trunk door of her RX-300 down on it. Now, closing the trunk of her car is something that she does on a regular basis, perhaps even once a day, so it is hard to chalk this one up to unfamiliarity. The hydraulic lifts on the door don't work so good and so you have to push it down with some force to close the door - ensuring that the injury would serious enough even for Malini, to merit a mention. Things got a bit more interesting a couple of weeks ago when she banged the same nose on the lid of our clothes washer. For those amongst you that are puzzled about this, let me outline how you achieve this. You start with a top loading washer that has a full laundry basket resting on the lid. Then you decide that you want to check what is inside the washer, but don't really want to bother with shifting the basket. So you try to lift the lid while simultaneously bring your face down towards the opening and realize a fraction too late that you have miscalculated how much the weight of the laundry basket will allow you to actually lift the lid.

A new chapter was written yesterday. Malini asks me if I could do a taste test of a new daal dish she was trying, adding casually that she couldn't really taste much since she had burnt her mouth. Well, turns out she did a bit more than that - the daal she tried to taste was so hot that she burnt her tongue and scalded the roof of her mouth. The skin peeled off and she had to spit pieces out. The tongue is constantly making contact with the roof, so reminders of the raw surface are frequent. On the positive side, they do say that the mouth heals very fast.