I am back

Hello to all my readers from the past and new ones to be. I have been away for long long long time! It almost feels like I took a sabbatical! The last time I posted was from Nashville, Tennessee and today I am posting from Savannah, Georgia. Yes we moved to south of USA, almost into Florida; so Disney World is like 3 hrs!!! Great time to move so close with a 2.5 yrs old toddler at home!

Ganesha - Acrylic

YES! My dear son Aarav is grown up and guess what, he started his preschool just yesterday! Now, that should explain why I am back here on my blog! :) From Nashville to now, a lot has changed and happened! We moved to this new place but have a bunch of old friends from India, so for the first time, it feels good and close to home here in USA. This movement makes me be in the same time zone as my brother is Boston! 

Crab Shack - Watercolor

I jumped back to my painting hobby and have taken it up a few levels up this time around...now when I look at the paintings I did 8 yrs ago, they look like some kid in 4th grade did them.

Dancing Lady - Watercolor

I started with Watercolor painting and slowly moved on to Acrylic paints. I have started painting on CANVAS! Now, that I hadn't even dreamed of. As always, my husband is pushing and encouraging me to go for big..do canvas ...do oil painting! Do big stuff. But I know my limits and I try to set smaller achievable goals...so far I am doing stuff I see on the internet, ideas that come in my head and I look for them and see if there is something I can replicate! There is lots to learn on YouTube, many tutorials and lessons that help me improve each time!

Traditional Indian Man - Watercolor

Friends only wonder how I manage to get time to paint with a toddler at home. Well the secret is that I do all my paintings late at night, after the kid and husband sleep at 10! I paint till late like 2 or 3 am! True Artist style! J

Buddha - Acrylic

We recently went on a long 5 week vacation to India. Had my son meet all possible relatives in both our families, had his hair removal ceremony. That was pending since his birth and he had really long hair..looked like a cute girl. Now he looks like a perfect BOY!

Spanish house - Watercolor

The past year without the blog has been so busy with raising Aarav, moving to new city. He has been growing up so fast! Learning things so quickly. He speaks English and everyday I hear something new and we are surprised how quick these kids can learn and speak! He is so thorough with the letters and numbers and rhymes. He's reading story books from the library! I am so proud of him!

Poppy field - Watercolor

In 8 yrs of our marriage, I never had a driving license in the USA. Thanks to my growing son and his needs to school I had to get it done...I am glad I did. Now I have a driving license and today it truly felt like the typical American lifestyle. Woke up at 6 am to drop my husband at work, came back and got my son ready for his school, dropped him, stopped at the post office and mailed off Rakhis to my brother and now back home; waiting to step out and get my son back in 2 hrs! Now I know what the other ladies meant by freedom after getting a driving license!

Cheers to taking more responsibility and of course freedom! J

Christmas Day - Cook Out Special

Opryland Christmas Lightings

My husband had a big official vacation period at work, 24^th Dec to 1^st Jan! We decided that we did not want to go out of town vacationing, considering we have a 9-month old and also that it’s chilly and freezing most of the days. My biggest concerns are by son’s food; as I give him homemade food everyday using Cerelac while on a trip needs a bunch of arrangements. So why not just skip the travel. Moreover, we haven’t seen much of Nashville yet.

Intricate lighting job!

So my son turned 9 months on 24^th and 25^th was my mother-in-law’s birthday. So I decided to make a common cake for both on 25^th. 24^th we went out to a resort close by, The Opryland. It’s a huge area with hotel and recreations, not to mention it’s probably designed for the richest class of people. But they have a free entry to watch Christmas lighting…for 20mins..beyond which you pay for your car parking.

It was freezing at about -2 degC and we for some reason decided to go and watch the lightings along with my husband’s colleagues. 10 mins out of the car, walking through the lighted area and my hands were numb from holding the camera and clicking pictures. I instantly got a fear of my son falling severely ill; though we had 3 layers of warm thick clothes on him. The place was small enough to drive around in your car and enjoy the lighting so I told my husband that we’d just drive around and leave. Nothing’s more important that my son’s good health. We all rushed back to the car and drove around.

Lights and Birth of Christ arrangements

So Christmas lighting's at the Opryland was a 15 mins event for us! But it was pretty beautiful. They could make it more colorful though! And since we were already in the area and the Opry Mills Mall is right next door, we thought lets go into the Mall and let our son play in the play area. He loves it there. He’s quite social as in, he smiles at other kids around him, goes close to them, doesn’t touch them though. He is always the youngest child in the play area..every other kid there is a walker or much bigger! So sometimes I feel sorry that my son is crawling around and watching other kids walk and run all over the place! He’ll get there soon, he’s quite close to walking. These days he is leaping a lot or raising his hands in the air as if to stand up…raises himself to ever elevated piece of furniture, box, wall, fridge, bath tub!

Buns brushed with milk, ready to bake

Pretty much everything is closed on 25^th Dec in the US..may be some stores will stay open exceptionally. So we knew we’d be stuck at home all day long, no place to go out. I already had plans of baking a cake. So decided to multi-task and use the oven at a stretch and bake couple of things, spicy savory buns – Iyengar styled added to the cake job!

Iyengar styled Savory buns - edible gifts!

My husband wanted to cook Dal Makhani for a while, so I planned to use the “25^thDec-stuck-at-home” day for it! Soaked and pressure cooked it for him and by lunch time he served me a delicious lunch of Hot Rice and Dal Makhani…such a comfort food on a cold wintery Christmas Day! I spent the afternoon baking an amazingly light white cake and Iyengar Khara buns that I devoured so often in Bangalore!

Super yummy Dal Makhani made by my husband

To sum it up,  Christmas day turned out to be a cook-out day. We ended it with meeting a friend of mine from Pune who was relocating to Michigan. We visited them with some Christmas gifts and Spicy buns for the two lovely girls they have!

Memories for future

I am not sure if I mentioned this earlier on my blog; mostly not! In the early weeks of my son’s birth, my husband came up with a cool idea – creating an email account for him; and mailing him from now on, anything. It could be updates about him.

I liked the idea and I created a gmail account for him. And since then I have mailed him...quite a few times! In the early weeks of course it was difficult to find time really, and later there were so many developments, I moved back to my home in Bangalore, then to the US…etc. So while adjusting to these changes, I lost track of mailing him.

After 5 months I today mailed him. Subject – Some updates J. I mentioned all the transitions and milestones he has been accomplishing since my last mail. One of his recent behaviors is that he is kinda scared of the mixer and vacuum noises! He wasn’t like this when we moved here. I use the mixer everyday to puree his food to feed him. So it’s unavoidable! And the times when I have to blend for dosa/idli batter; it’s crazy!

He is not a crying baby, he very rarely cries..but for the mixer and vacuum he cries terribly. Yesterday, my husband was with him and I warned him that I need to blend the tomato chutney so he is going cry now when I turn on the mixer! And as expected he burst into tears and loud cry..even with my husband being right next to him.

He was seeing me across the kitchen counter and still cried. So my husband and I both got a thought-that he might not be scared of the sound really; somewhere in his tiny mind he might be thinking that mommy is getting hurt L. May be that is why he breaks into a loud burst of cry! Like any 9 month baby he is very attached to me.

I have tried holding him and turning on the mixer to show him what it is and where does the noise come from. It’s my way to get him familiar with things; like I used to hold him and stand in front of the Indian pressure cooker to show him where does the whistle noise and white mist comes from. Somehow the fear of mixer noise is not going away.

Very often we think what he could be thinking! Since he was little my husband has been fascinated by this – what do babies think? If there was some device to find it out! 

So hopefully these mails will be fun for him and us in future to read!

Hand of God

My cousin brother, who lives with my parents, sent me this picture the other day; with the email subject – Guess who? Who in the world cannot identify the hands of their parents; those hands that held you first time you were born, ones that taught you how to walk, ones that held you all through your growing years and will forever!

"Hand of God"

I replied right away that it was my mother’s hand.  As obvious as is her saree in the back…I still instantly recognized her hands, the particular shape of her nails, the wrinkles she lately has developed..all through her physical hard work. She is a working woman, working both at home and at the bank! In the recent months when I lived with her during the birth and early days of my son, I noticed how she is busy at home all the time. Always cleaning something, furniture, grains/lentils, kitchen, vegetables or cooking. Of course she does watch TV, her favorite Marathi serials. But in these times when life is so easy and quick she still does a lot of things the old way. My husband those days once said, “How much your mom keeps working. Every room she leaves is neat and clean”.

As we had a couple of chain mails on this picture, I remembered a phrase ‘Hand of God’. Sometime ago it was someone’s email password, I don’t remember who. That’s how I know this phrase. I thought it was a perfect caption for the picture.

I googled the phrase just to see where does it come from; came across Soccer’s Deigo video – Hand of god where he made a goal with his hand and won the world cup for Argentina!  I further googled to see if it had any mythological reference. Well it has in Jewish and Christian culture.

To me, the caption brought deeper levels of interpretation of this simple picture. J

Fall is here

View from my Patio

It’s the colorful time of the year…fall color changing leaves each day. I have a great view from my patio. There is a tree right in front of my patio that is almost red now…from green to yellow-orange to red now…Each morning is so pleasant to see a more red tree! But of curse all those pretty looking leaves are going wither!

It’s time for American festival of Halloween! Kids dress up as some characters/object and go door to door asking for treat..sweets! Also they have pumpkins decorated around the house..most often the pumpkins are carved with a face and a lamp is lit inside. So you see a face glowing in the dark.

Paper lantern - 2012 in Banglore

Last year during my pregnancy, I started to make a paper lantern. Something very common during Diwali in India, especially Maharashtra! I had never made one and my idea was once I have a kid it would be a yearly craft task we do. Back then when I hoped of having a daughter, I said to my husband that I and my daughter will do this craft item every year for Diwali. I did the entire lantern from scratch; sticks, thread, color paper, paper cut outs! I never got to posting about it on the blog…my husband and my brother in-law did the final lighting of it.

The tools and the mess

This year now that we are here in the US, I wanted to do the pumpkin carving. So I bought a small pumpkin just for a trial. Lack of knowledge and experience brought my plans to dead end – the pumpkin was too hard to work with my regular kitchen knife! Its 30^th Oct and I don’t have a carved pumpkin outside. Actually I had a 2-in-1 plan, the pumpkin to be a Halloween and Diwali thingie! 

Happy Halloween and Happy Diwali! ---- 2013

I was feeling down about the waste of pumpkin, so I kept it out at the door. But while I was feeding my son, I got the basic idea of a lantern…holes! So I got to hammering the pumpkin and the stem was cut out. Way for the candle/lamp to go in. Now I had to hammer in holes on the side! After quite a loud hammering session, I had a pumpkin lantern! All I used was round screw, a cooker (hammer), spoon and paper!  Lesson learnt – soft pumpkin next time to carve out easily!

Home made Stacy's Pita chips bread!

A fruitful day; ended it with first time flavored pita bread. They turned out so good! I used onion powder, garlic powder, red chilli spice mix, Italian dry spices, sun dried tomatoes and our very Indian curry leaves! With some butter on it tasted awesome, next we just toasted it on a pan..delicious! I know I am going to be making a lot of Pita breads! Thanks Stacy;s Pita chips, for making me learn Pita Bread!

Happy Halloween to all!

Anna Prashana, Loveless Cafe and Pita bread

Chose the book first

Over the few weeks I have been trying to find time to post latest updates. About a month ago, I started semi-solid food for my son. Earlier it seemed a huge task and I did a lot of reading online, checking homemade recipes. But now it seems very easy, thanks to my mom’s easy suggestions for homemade food. 

I performed a simple Anna Prashana ceremony (first time semi-solid feeding) at home. I have never seen a ceremony, so again I sought the internet to find how to do the ceremony. Internet makes everything so easy. I found a site detailing the steps in the ceremony. Found another website that lists the auspicious days (muhurtams). Only important missing parts are relatives by which I mean his grandparents; our parents! But again internet to rescue, as we have two laptops; each was engaged to have a video conference with each of our parents. So we did have our parents through the quick ceremony.

Next the money!

So now-a-days, I am quite busy setting up Aarav’s meal and feeding him. Luckily he is a good eater; he loves the homemade food I give him and he is always eager to eat. Meal time is approximately 10-15mins max! But now that he is growing up he is almost crawling all over the place. My laptop is always the target! He pretty much spreads himself over the laptop, so much so that I fear my laptop is going to be in 2 pieces soon, with the screen and the keypad apart!

We haven’t gone out much these days, reason being the weather; it’s getting cold here now, cold enough to put on the heater at night! When we were new here my husband was looking for must-see places of Nashville and since then he had this place called Loveless Café; apparently it is a hot tourist place. We learnt that the biscuits here are famous. Now biscuits I don’t mean the ones we eat in India. Somehow the systems in US are always different than ours; we use kilometers and they use miles; we use liters and they use gallons! What we eat as biscuits in India are called cookies here in the US. And the biscuits I mentioned above are soft bread like food; almost similar to our Pav bread, but a bit more dense and moist…you can say close to the texture of a cake.

Anyways, we finally made it to this place. By the time we reached it was 11am and it was so crowded with wait time as much as 2 hours if you want to sit inside and eat; to pack and eat it out would still take 30 mins. So as its obvious we got our breakfast packed and sat down on the wooden benches outside the café! Yes their biscuits are yummy; but its more of a southern style place which obviously means all kinds of meaty breakfast. I am eggetarian meaning I don’t eat meat but eggs I do. So luckily I most often find a menu with garden omelet; or eating out in the US becomes really difficult for veg options! It was the beginning of October and pumpkins were places around the café..and quite large ones.

Aarav @Loveless Cafe, Nashville,TN

My son was asleep by the time we finished our late breakfast…pretty much lunch I’d say! And I really wanted to take a pic of him on the pumpkins while he was awake. And we were about to leave when one of the café person saw him and was admiring him; she said do you want to take a pic of him with the pumpkins? I said yeah but he is sleeping already; to which she suggested I could lay him on the pumpkin and we could still take a pic of him. I was too scared to let him go; but he layed on the pumpkin so well that we got a few pics and she said she’d post his pic on their instagram website. So when I got home in the evening, I searched for their photo site and there it was -  Aarav sleeping on a pumpkin! We had a fun day! 

My first attempt at Pita bread 

In recent times, I have been busy looking at videos to make croissant, puff pastry, khari etc. I have picked up interest since I successfully managed to make Pita bread (using Bhavna's recipe on youtube) – its Arabic bread similar to our roti/phulka except that it has yeast in it. They puff up in the oven like pooris which can then be used to stuff and make sandwich. My interest to make this bread was because of this snack I ate “Stacy’s Pita chips”. They are so tasty, that I thought if I could make the bread at home, then making chips out of it is a 10min job! 

Making the flavored one today..waiting for the dough to rise and I should have the Stacy chips by tea-time!

Oh my GOD!

How often do you get this question, “So, what are your thoughts about GOD?”? My counter question to this one would be, how do you feel when you are asked this question! To me it almost is as bad as a racist question! Why do we ask this question at all, to judge the other person?

Shouldn't your relation with GOD be one on one? Because now if we ask the same question to another relationship of a couple say wife, what are your thoughts about your husband – that would be crossing the limits. You are entering one’s privacy! Why should it matter at all what one thinks of GOD. God’s realization should be to each his own. It should not be influenced or forced.

I come from a family where my father is an atheist; he is an engineer and scientist by profession. His knowledge and intellect tells him to believe in what he sees, life is a form of energy. He has always shared his theories but then he has never forced them on us. We were always free to choose to believe in God. My mother, a working woman is averagely religious; such that she celebrates her couple of festivals round the year, lights the lamps before going to work and every evening; some days she gets late to work and hence can’t light the lamps. She doesn't think too much of it. Her thoughts “I try my best to do as much as I can”. Both have never forced us in to GOD or taken away.

Through my childhood, for every exam I have always touched my parents feet for blessings and good luck than running to the Gods. When I listen to my father’s theories I tend to lean towards nonexistence of God. My mother has taught me to pray to Lord Ganesha, so I do that. I am 31 and I haven’t put too much of my head to this HEAVY topic. My thoughts are, as long as we are doing our duties, responsibilities and being a good human being, that’s all we need. Isn't every god saying the same things? We always hear that God is within us. Then why do I have to sit 2 hours praying and show that I am such a sincere devotee? Or explain my thoughts on GOD?

Only recently I had to answer this question, and I answered just as above. Before this another time when I was asked this question, was a guy – possible alliance for me. Needless to say I never married him; the question totally pushed me away. His expectation was to be religious.

Religion/ God should never be forced. If we are good and we do good acts, what we’ll achieve will always be good.

Note: These are purely my views and opinion. This topic is no invitation for any religious debate!

Tribute to my grandpa

Last few weeks have been emotionally challenging for me..my entire family. My grandpa, mom’s father passed away 3 weeks ago. His health suddenly deteriorated. He was 84 and I knew he was growing weak. But while I was away at my mom’s place for my maternity, I hoped that I would return in time to show him my son; he eagerly longed to see my son. My grandma says, “More than seeing your son, he wanted to see how you play and entertain your child”. I have always been this crazy kinda grandchild, acting silly around my grandparents (that’s how you are); so to see me as parent is what he wanted to see! I am glad I have mentioned him at least once on my blog – funny incident. A few things to remember and mention about my grandfather!

A super duper movie buff, crazy for food, an endless gambler and a person with a huge heart to treat everyone each day- motto was ‘to enjoy life’. He always said that to my husband too, “Raj! We should enjoy life; what is the point of saving money if you don’t spend it to be happy”. Through my childhood he has been the first person who has introduced us to movies, theaters! I still remember watching my first movie with him Tezaab! In his younger days he was friends with the one and only Kannada superstar Rajkumar. We have photos of him on the set with the filmstars! So much so that I learnt that my mom and an aunt have actually worked in one of the films those times…a small birthday party scene! He’d watch every single hindi movie running in the theaters; Bond movies! I remember in recent years he had watched hindi movie Murder and he once said to me “Shilpa, I watched Murder. Excellent music”. Now we all what exactly that movie got famous for, so I went on teasing him, “Tata, we know what the movie is like” and I continued teasing telling my grandma “you need to check what movies he is watching out there”. In recent times he hasn’t been watching movies, I think the genre now a days are different from his times. He belonged to the Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor, Mohammed Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar age of melodious songs and clean movies. His all time favorite movie has been Padosan and I think he might have watched it a zillion times!

Till his last days he never gave up on smacky, street food, non-veg; everything that the doctor said to avoid, he’d go and eat the same stuff. Another trait of his was, to eat something compulsorily when you are out. No matter how many people he has with him, he will make sure he treats everyone to some snack! Bill was always paid by him! About a year ago, my grandma was hospitalized and we all were visiting her. My husband and my two cousins were also there with me. After the visit, my grandpa gave me 500/- and said you guys go eat some snack. My husband was in awe to see him handing so much money just for some evening snack! To this date my husband says “You are so lucky to have such a grandfather.”

His routine since he retired had been visiting his friends at club every day, play some card games and return back home. I don’t know since when he has been into gambling, but we all know that whenever he’d visit Mysore, he would go to the race course and bet some money on the horses at the race. In fact, on his 3^rd day ceremony we placed a pack of cards next to his photo. My uncle said we should also place a horse; that would make his soul happy!

A final confession I have to make; in 2011 when I lived with him I had some small argument and I had stopped talking to him. Almost for a month or two! I heard from other relatives including my mom that he’d weep and tell, ‘Shilpa, my grand daughter doesn’t talk to me anymore’. In subsequent weeks, I got back to talking to him, just as I always was with him. Now after he passed away and the fact that I didn’t get to see him before his funeral; I have this deep regret that may be I have been punished for my behavior in 2011, that I didn’t get the chance to even see him one last time!

If I have to celebrate his life, all I have to do is “watch a movie, preferably Padosan, eat some yummy junk food and may be go place a bet at some horse race or play a card game”.

A quote I read in TOI the other day, “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” For me, I just feel like I haven’t met my grandpa in a long time, I don’t know when I will see him, but he is around here somewhere.

Sorry Tata, I wish I could have reached a week before and met you one last time. I will always miss your absence when I visit Grandma! Rest in peace Tata!

Tricks and habits..

Through my pregnancy I read books, websites about pregnancy; of course I never had the time to read about what happens once the baby arrives; moreover I always thought I will have the help of all existing mothers in the family J.  One of the greatest tasks is to put your baby to sleep.

Since the day Aarav was born, I started to set him a habit of rubbing his forehead which should put him to sleep. This is still working unlike Gayatri Mantra which we used to sing in his first week. Although I have noticed recently, if he doesn’t want to sleep and if I try to rub his forehead, he will shake his head indicating “don’t do it” or “I am not going to sleep”!!! But if he wants to sleep, he will close his eyes at the first touch on his forehead.

Recently when my brother’s friend visited us; who is also a new parent, asked me if I am singing songs to Aarav, I said why should I sing songs to such a small baby, he won’t understand any of it. He said songs work great for babies!

But just out of the blue two week ago, I ‘by mistake’ started to sing “Lakadi ki kaathi, kaathi pe ghoda” song and he slept!!! INSTANTLY! I thought it might have been a coincidence, so I tried it for 3 days in a row…and guess what, it really works! Now I have a nap song for Aarav which works every single time. Easy and quick way to put him to nap; a few rocks on the lap with the song and Aarav goes into deep sleep. Each time it works and it feels like such an achievement! But experienced parents are warning me to prepare more songs as babies will need a new song every month..

So now I have to go hunting for baby songs from our childhood times…because these days we have only sheila ki jawani, chikni chameli etc..and I don’t think he should be exposed so soon to today’s bollywood item songs…

Now I am working on tricks to make him smile! They are pretty much weird garbled sounds, more like noise for adults that make him smile…random pitches of ‘ooooooo’ sound work great on him..and it’s so true that, that one giggle, smile your baby gives is so priceless! It’s actually getting interesting as he responds back with his own sounds….precious moments!

Mother's Day...annoucement

It’s been a LONGGGG pending update from my side; Here is the formal announcement, I have become a mother to a handsome baby boy, Aarav. For those who are curious, the name Aarav means peaceful, calm. Frankly, we were always sure and hopeful, we’d have a daughter! So I had spent most of the time in finding a girl’s name; with 2 boy names, just in case J. After the initial surprise, it later sunk in, that we have a boy indeed! However, we had our baby girl moment after coming home- the classic event in India of dressing up a baby boy in a frock; yeah we dressed Aarav in a cute pink frock that we had bought in the past!

Aarav ...

The moment when my boy was brought to me in the room and placed next to me, and how instantly he curled up to me; that moment was magical and will be unforgettable for the rest of my life!

Parenthood is coming to me each day; learning and observing my boy’s behavior; trying to set some routines with him so we understand each other well. He’s almost 1.5 months old and now it’s getting fun with him as he is catching his sight of moving objects, watching my face and smiling and watching him kick his feet in full swing when he is in play mode. Unlike most newborns that are awake all night, my boy sleeps well through the night and doesn’t trouble me J.

Each day I am getting stronger; initially I was very emotional each time he cried…now I can watch him get his vaccine shots and pacify him J.

Time sure flies very fast; I was waiting for these 10months to go fast; anxiously waiting and wondering how I would deliver a BABY! And now he is already 1.5months and growing up so fast!

Today is my first mother’s day, being a mother and I thought it’s a perfect day to make my announcement to all my readers. Here’s wishing all mothers and soon-to-be mothers a wonderful mother’s day! And I will try to make time to update stories of my son….

Bangle Beauty

Bangle collection

I picked on a new hobby when I visited my parents this time. My working mother born in Karnataka still loves her old traditional ways of dressing up. Even to date she enjoys wearing a jasmine garland in her hair; though she doesn’t carry long hair anymore as in her younger days. And even though it’s not very common to wear flowers here in Maharashtra, whenever she is in Bangalore or any south Indian city and if you offer to buy her a jasmine garland; she will happily accept it.  

Strangely, I only noticed now that she has a good collection of colorful glass bangles. Some she has bought, some she has got in various marriage ceremonies she has attended. But it’s a great collection to start wearing matching bangles each day to workJ; Yeah! That’s my new hobby. I decided that as long as I stay, I would arrange matching bangles for her sari each morning before she goes to work.

Matching bangles per sari

 Each day her friends saw her matching bangles and admired her matching skills and interest to wear different bangles each day. And she mentioned that it was her daughter who did it for her. J

It reminds me of what my colleague at work recently mentioned. She has 2 kids, young boys and how they are not so attached or close to her. When she says goodbye to them while leaving to work, her boys hardly even look at her to say goodbye. She said, it’s always nice to have at least one daughter, as they are close and sensitive; make you feel special. J

 Daughters are always daughters!

Childhood memories with Fevicol

Growing up, I lived in apartments with 24 homes in a building. And every year, there would be some furnishing work in progress in some house. So the carpenters would use the parking area for carpentry. Whenever we’d go out to play the carpenters work would fascinate us a lot. One main reason being the free access to Fevicol- the white adhesive!

When you get the adhesive on your skin and it dries, it peels off like dead skin. That used to be FUN! The oh-my-god, my skin is peeling fun! I am sure most of us enjoyed this. I remember the carpenter Shankar would keep scolding us, not to use up his adhesive!

We’d just hang around as if we were curious to see how they actually use the tools and do the wood work ( I did actually learn some of the procedures they do); and slowly when they’d be busy we’d sneak and squeeze out some fevicol and spread it on our palms.

Recently, when we did the furnishing of my apartment, I showed the trick to my husband. Apparently it was new to him. And since it’s my own furnishing work, I didn’t hesitate to take as much fevicol as I wanted. I managed to take enough to peel out an entire palm in one piece.

Repeated the same when I visited my parents this time, with them doing some kitchen furnishing. Yeah, I am 30 and some childhood fun things don’t change with time! J

My "Inception" Moment

I was in my sleep….dreaming ..now of course I know that …but in the dream I didn’t know obviously that it’s dream. My dream goes like this….(dreams are really weird) my husband and I were talking to a little girl…whats your name, age..school…blah blah. And every time she answered her front tooth which was shaky would point out…it almost was hanging by her gums with a small tissue…and she would pull it in and place it back with her tongue. So I say to my husband that her tooth is going to fall off…and just so she doesn’t panic we should tell her that….so we go ahead and tell her that oh your tooth is gonna fall off…and apparently I have a shaky incisor tooth from the upper jaw and I too push it off with my tongue….and we both lose one tooth each…kinda like giving her company so she doesn’t feel lonely…at this point I am very calm about my broken tooth…

But after few seconds …as I am just rolling my tongue in my mouth another tooth from the lower jaw unexpectedly falls off too, into 2 pieces….one piece is fine the other one is pretty much a crumble. At this point I panic…thinking..woah! I need my teeth to be fine…when I smile…the lower jaw is not visible but the upper jaw is clearly visible with a tooth missing…and I realize that I  need to have a good smile on my wedding day (wonder when my husband sitting next to me was not a husband anymore!)

At this point as my mind is so scared of my missing teeth and I am already thinking of my Dentist doc and  the visits and the expenditure…I tell myself in the dream…that wait! “This can be a dream, wake up and check Shilpa”. And I literally opened my eyes like the dead open in those horror movies…and I rolled my tongue to realize that it indeed is a dream; that I have all  my regular teeth and I can peacefully sleep than take myself through a long mental thought process of my broken smile. I actually smiled and rolled back to sleep!

When I woke up in the morning, I mentioned the entire dream to my husband saying it’s like the movie Inception…where I wake up from the dream by a nudge…to which he said where is your totem….like a jerk or a fall that wakes you up from the dream….I think my conscience is my totem that asked me to wake up! The more I thought of it, I found it spooky or eerie or strange – ‘to tell you in the dream that this could be a dream’. Does that happen often to people?

Still here....

It's been a while since I have posted on my blog. Frankly, work has been keeping very very busy. I have always wanted to be loaded with work so I am actually liking it. But it almost feels like I have forgotten to blog. Since most of day I spend at work, I meet or see very few interesting people.

I thought about writing my experience of working in one of the largest company in India, but then got bored of the thought! Yeah, its a huge company and I was never a fan of it. Not even today, when I work for it. But at this stage of life, there are very different priorities, work is still important but other personal matter are taking precedence too.

Working in a big company, where you lose your identity - I have never liked to work like this. The crowd I see everyday is like a herd...herd of sheep and cattle that follow blindly; most of the talks I hear around in the cafeteria sound so stupid that I am glad I dont have a gossip group. Actually, my husband also works in the same company so we have lunch togther :) Which still I am glad about; I dont have to make friends who gossip and chitchat on meaningless things.

The dressing sense is still a shock to date; sick of seeing girls wearing weird clothes that don't suit them, women who blindly follow latest fashion regardless of how they look like, can they even carry it off? Girls wear western attire but not with the elegance that the western girls wear! Pretty much a chaos in the fashion area.

Amongst all this chaos, we have been hunting for a house which is finally coming to an end. We have chose an apartment close to our workplace that takes care of the endless commute time of Bangalore.

All those paintings I did since couple of months were for my future house, I still have to get them framed. It's all happening at its pace. But soon I will have my OWN house. The first one. It's still out of my understanding how people make multiple properties but for now I will own one property.

And yes, it makes my parents very proud. Most of the relatives are in awe. Well, in their times they took a lifetime to own a house. These days we are reaching that milestone a bit early..may be a lot early. But looking at the property rates in India you always feel, Man! I wish I had bought a property 5 years ago...you could have been in college then! Still that thought does cross your mind.

I feel a good sense of achievement. It's not out of the world I know. But it's good to know we are on a good track.

The house hunt part of my past months....will be another article probably..Just wanted to share something for now.

Belated Ugadi/ Gudi Padwa to all ...hope everyone had happy long weekend....And advanced wishes for the next one - Happy Good Friday friends :)

My very own.... Taj Mahal

In my schooling days, we had a common drawing teacher..specifically sir from 5^th grade till 10^th grade! He was pretty good an artist; there were some master pieces hung up in the school. Lele Sir…if I have any of my school buddies reading my blog would remember. I had many assignments with A+ grade. There is this particular drawing style I remember all through these years that I chose to re-do even today after so many years.  It was as simple as drawing slant lines across the sheet and coloring them with different crayon colors…looking somewhat like a rainbow. Then you paint it with black POSTER color. When it dries off, all you do is scrap of with a blade to draw your idea/scenery/ object.

Back then I think I drew a village, which still looked great! I had this idea in my head for a while and didn’t know exactly what should be the art! So I got the idea of the sand animation videos that we’ve seen before…I got numerous ideas such as the two flamingoes, butterflies, tiger face etc….but this Taj Mahal idea seemed magnificent. Looking through how to draw Taj Mahal, I realized drawing Taj Mahal is so easy! Never thought of drawing a Taj Mahal before!

Here is a snapshot of the final piece! My husband is in total awe at this style of art, so Thank You Lele Sir J

Time travelling via Google maps

How cool is Google….I have a new found love for Google maps today. I always liked it even before, when I lived in the US where it’s so easy to travel from one place to another thanks to Google. There you don’t stop on the road to ask a paanwala or a random person to ask directions – no paanwala’s or frankly it’s not as crowded as India J But seriously, travelling is so easy there with efficient devices like GPS or new mobiles that have Google maps. In our first few months we’d just get directions on Google maps..note down the lefts and rights and drive down to new places. Travelling used to be sooo much FUN!

Then we bought the GPS device in a sale and had a full refund of the money we spent on it by going to tens of places!

At work yesterday, I was reading news about Syria and the events happening there. I went to Google maps to confirm my knowledge of how Syria is a small country caught up in age old border and religion conflicts. I had seen a foreign movie once from the Redmond public library, showing how common people across the borders are caught up in conflicts due political games! It is very miserable and unfortunate for innocent people to be caught in such environments! L

Anyways, read enough about the ongoing Syrian crisis and then for some reason I dragged the maps to see USA. And soon I was browsing the streets on which we lived…turned on the satellite view and a whole different experience. I took a snapshot of the apartments where we lived in Spokane. The satellite view is so clear and feels real. The yellow colored children nursery in front our apartment is visible so clearly! The community we lived in, neighboring church parking, opposite street and apartments, the super market down the street, Manito park etc….all visible clearly on GMAPS! I had a great refreshing experience of walking down the same old streets of Spokane, Bellevue.

Our home in Spokane, WA

GMAPS is like a time machine, where I can go back in time to places I lived in. And really, times FLIES! Looking through these satellite images made me feel like I was there YESTERDAY! Google your rock!

Elephants at sunset

I have drawn similar sunset drawings earlier....last time I had drawn camels in the sand dunes with sunset in the background...its one of the lost pictures now!  L
Lately, it seems my blog is turning into an art blog....but this is what I am doing on weekends now.

Before - The sketch

After - Final paint



Fav sketch

This is my sketch I drew when I lived in Spokane, 2008 . I drew it on a drawing book that was presented by my American neighbor Tracy. She gave it to me seeing my art hobby. I made a colored pencil sketch of it and gave her as a gift. I still preciously use this Christmas gift - drawing book for special drawings.

I drew the sketch just once, but I copied and painted them to gift a few friends..It’s one of my finest pieces. As you see I am not perfect in drawing human figures, what should have been a Japanese woman looks like Aishwarya Rai to my mom J I just love to color her and gift her to as many friends as I can. And now after all these years, this time she is freshly painted to be framed to go in my house!!!

General…Blah!

It’s Sunday morning; I am watching Rangoli on my cable TV. I wonder how many Indians really still go back to Doordarshan channel; I watched this ONLY national channel until the first 6-8 months of my first job..i.e as recent as 2006…so 1986 – 2006! My father never introduced the Cable network of 100’s of channels to us while growing up. I think it was a great upbringing. J In fact, I feel we watched some good programs compared to what comes in Cable channels. Doordarshan would be an enforcement to watch whatever was shown, so we watched Surabhi, Turning Point, serial with no saas-bahu over-drama, Hum log, Mitti ke rang, Rangoli, Chitrahaar, Alif Laila, Chandrakanta, Nukkad, Bharat ek Khoj, Malgudi days, Street Hawk,  UGC, Interschool quiz competitions, Meri Awaaz Suno, Vyomkesh Bakshi, Captain Vyom, Shaktimaan!!!!

I vividly remember the Japanese show called Oshin, Kashmiri show Gul Gulshan Gulfham, Mungeri Lal and the infinite mythological serials on Shiva, Ganga, Hanuman, Ramayan, Mahabharat; historical serials Tipu Sultan, freedom struggle episodes!! It really was the golden period!

Listening to Rangoli songs is so peaceful when they play even today, “Takkat, Watan ki Humse hai”, “Dil Diya hai Jaan bhi denge…Aaye watan tere liye”, “Virasaat - Taare hai barati ….”

I haven’t had the encouragement to write much these days. News I read are so depressing; needless to say Indian politics is fallen to the lowest level ever, it makes me think why did we ever get freedom from the Brits if this is how the Indian politicians were to mis-use the precious freedom we achieved with so much of sacrifice! The standard of living is actually falling when we read news of West Bengal babies dying, Medical care comes without safety and responsibility, 68% of milk in India is adulterated! Thank god I have stopped buying milk a long time ago.

I was reading how children in Africa are forced to work in Cocoa fields and they have never eaten chocolate in their life! They have no idea what is cocoa used for, but they are chained and forced to work. As a fellow human, if I stop buying chocolate or buy only fare trade chocolate it’s not really going to help these children. It will just become another reason for business; companies doing fare trade of chocolate will just hike the prices of the chocolate under fair trade name and make money but these kids will still be into slavery. I feel their govt. or the companies should build strong rules to stop or at least reduce such custom. But it really breaks my heart to read about these children, makes me wonder how would I feel to do the same or my child to be forced to the same as these unfortunate children!

Another curiosity made me read articles on how soldiers coming back from war have post-war trauma..like Soldiers who would have returned back from Iraq must be having trouble settling back in their normal life after coming back from a country where people die every minute with a bullet or a bomb!

I am in the middle of being a grown-up and doing grown-up things. Have been house hunting and it’s almost done. It is very exciting to see houses, colors, tiles, kitchen designs, furniture and decorative pieces. I keep getting wonderful ideas of decorating my own houses with my own creations. But the amount of mental stress we have to buy a property in Bangalore city, it’s unbelievable. It makes me think what are we doing, why are we doing? Buy a piece of land, we’ll live for a span of 80 yrs and then we’ll be gone, empty handed. All that effort and emotions put in building a house or property will be gone!

Gotta get another painting done..to keep up my spirits and peace of mind!