End of Summer?

Cool breeze, evening rains & cloudy mornings. Is it the end of Summer of 2010? Are we done with the hot days of 2010? Hope so.

End of summer has mixed emotions for me. On one hand, no more irritating hot days, nice weather to look forward to. On the other hand, it is Poorvi's school ! Oh God, all those running around in the mornings begin from next week. Poorvi will have 100's of reason not to go to school & we need to convince her that the best thing ever happened to mankind is the school. As she grows older, it becomes ever increasingly difficult to convince her to do something, including going to school :-( 

Coming back to Summer of 2010, it was nice last two months. We had IPL for most part of the summer, full of entertainment for 45 days. There was a match on each day & definitely made the summer evenings that much more hot with some exciting contests. So, I was looking forward to each day (rather evening) enthusiastically.

During this summer, I also tried commuting by Volvo bus for few days to beat the summer heat. It is a completely different world in Volvo buses compared to normal BMTC bus. Most of the commuters on board are either hooked to iPods or to laptops/mobiles & most of the crowd are from software industry. They also play music from local FM stations, which really makes the journey in Volvo buses all that more comforting.

Poorvi also had her first stay outside Bangalore for 3 days during this summer :-) Although she wanted to come back to Bangalore from day-1, she managed 3 days without much of fuss. Hopefully in an year or two, she will be big enough to look forward to spend her summer holidays in Ajji-Thatha's house.

Now that summer is almost over, am thinking of the coming months. Heavy rains, clogged drains & traffic strains? Hopefully it will not be as bad as the rainy season of 2005 when the lakes overflowed with water flooding some of the main roads of Bangalore south. 

Anyways, till next summer, wishing you all a very cool year ahead. 

Choices in Life

Vanilla icecream or chocolate icecream? Movie or shopping? Pizza or Pasta? Well, all of us are spoilt for choices these days. For anything & everything, there are umpteen number of choices to choose from. I am sure the Landmark graduates appreciate this concept of "choice" and how sometimes life gives us only one choice to choose :-)

Last month, Poorvi (rather, we on behalf of Poorvi) had to take a decision - probably the first major one - whether to take "Hindi" or "Kannada" as her second language in school :-) Difficult situation, eh? We decided to go with Kannada, but Poorvi was really upset with the choice. Not because any of her other friends took Hindi, but she just wanted to learn Hindi !! She says " I know Kannada, why should I learn again? I want to learn Hindi". We tried our best to convince her that she still has to learn "how to write & read kannada", "Hindi can be taught at home" etc. No, she was not convinced. For now, this is enforced upon her and as parents we always think our Kid is too small to make a correct "choice". Wonder when & at what age of Poorvi that I will stop thinking about this & let Poorvi make her own choice.

Anyway, people make right decisions sometimes by choosing what seems to be best at a particular moment & some people make a wrong decision. We all have been through these "wrong" & "right" choices in our life, isn't it? But, only when we think that "I choose vanilla icecream, because I choose vanilla icecream", one can be happy with any decision we take in our life. Let us just enjoy all the choices we have made so far & enjoy the choices we are going to make in future. 

Hurray, Hurray, its summer Holidays...

One more academic year has gone by. Poorvi successfully completed PP-2 (a.k.a. LKG). She has mastered the art of cursive writing now :-) She has already started spelling the words & reading words in her own "phonic" way (other day she was reading something like - "vel-ko-may", took sometime for us to understand it was "welcome"). She is still to master the cruel world of vowels (e.g. why the word "India" does not start with "E" :-)), but OK, even we goof up the spelling of most words & rely on Microsoft to correct our mistakes, isn't it?

One of the pass time for Poorvi & Me has been "word building". We choose a word & try to crack the spelling :-) Poorvi has to write one letter, I have to write the next, she will write the next one, so on. Its really fun to know how these small kids think - very logical & without any bias of "knowing some spelling already". So, "apartment" becomes "aprtmant" :-) In the world of short-message-services, this word is fairly acceptable :-)

Anyway, it is holiday season now. I can already sense the excitement in the air. Swimming pool buzzing with kids, people leaving to their grandparents house for a long vacation, kids enrolling to summer camp & other kids playing for atleast 15 hours a day :-) Its all happening. Wow, what a feeling to be kid, I miss those days. 2 months of break from everything. The joy of summer holidays is back & I wish all the kids a rocking, fun-filled, fantastic & playful Summer of 2010. 

Malatesh - A long lost friend

(Refer to my earlier blog : http://vikki-pedia.blogspot.com/2009/05/strangers-of-mini-forest.html)

As I was hurrying up in the evening to pick up Poorvi from her grandparents house, I found this very familiar person walking alone on Bannerghatta Road. Moment I saw him, I knew he is the same old person whom I used to meet during my mini-forest days. In my previous blog (refer to http://vikki-pedia.blogspot.com/2009/05/strangers-of-mini-forest.html), I had a mention about him & how I lost in touch with this wonderful guy - Malatesh. 

Malatesh, one inspiring person - trying to overcome all the trouble that life has thrown at him. Ever since he met with the accident, he is mentally crippled for life. He does not remember things quite well, but he never forgets to walk, walk & walk. His routine includes about 2 hours walk in the morning & 2 hours in the evening. He does not have complete balance over his body, but he has never given up on walking. 

It was about 10 years back that we used to meet in mini-forest. When I introduced myself last evening, he felt so happy to see me. I once thought that he may not remember me, but he really surprised me. Initially he was getting confused with another Vikram he knows of. Then he started talking about one more Vikram who is in Wipro and whose parents name are Kamalanath & Nalini. Wow, I was zapped. How does he remember my parents name which I told him about 10 years back ! When I told him that I am the same Vikram he is talking about, his joy had no bounds. He explained me how he remembers my parents name - KNN (just like CNN), which stands for Kamalanath & Nalini. I was just wondering, how short our memories get compared to him but still he is not a normal person :-( He says, he has just one obsession in life - walking. He had some advice for me as well - do not run, but walk, walk & walk :-)

Well, he has taken my contact number & invited me to join him for a walk during some weekend. Hope I will be able to join him in his morning walk one day, even though I am not confident if I can match his endurance & enthusiasm in walking. 

Bharat Sangeet Utsav

What happens when the likes of Nirupama/Rajendra with Kathak sequence, Sangitha Kalanidhi R.K.Srikantan with Carnatic vocal, The Manganiyaras (of Nimbuda Nimbuda fame) with Sufi music, Vidyabhushana with devotional songs, Manasi Prasad with music & dance, Anuradha Sriram/Sriram Parasuram with Jugal sangeeth come on stage & perform one after another for 2 days? Stage is on fire? Well almost yes (although real fire  happened elsewhere), it was an enthralling weekend at MLR convention centre in Woodrose club, packed with these music & performance from the best of the artists in their own field. It was called "Bharat Sangeet Utsav", it really did live upto its name & expectations.

I was fortunate to witness some of the great performances, special note goes to Sufi music by The Manganiyars (Jameel Khan, Mansoor Khan & party). It started at 10 in the night on Saturday & went on till 12 in the night. It was absolute hysteria at the venue when they sang "Nimbuda nimbuda" and "Dum mast kalandar". Crowd was literally on their feet & the kind of standing ovation they got at 12 in the night was just awesome & have never seen in any of the concert before. Same goes with Nirupama & Rajendra. It was a jam packed house on Sunday evening to witness this Kathak-couple dance in tandem for some lovely music. Overall, music lovers had a weekend that they will remember for life, for sure. Let there be more such events, more such entertaining weekends. 

200* (147)

200*(147) - Period. "God" had gone crazy today & records came tumbling down. What an amazing achievement by the greatest Cricketer of our times - Sachin Tendulkar.

Atleast two times he had come close to scoring double hundred in one day cricket, but missed it. Not this time around, although there were tense moments in the last over when he needed just 1 run to create history. Even a die-hard fan like me had little hopes from Tendulkar to score a double ton in ODI, not because anyone can doubt his abilities, but more due to his age. Wow, doesn't he like to prove people wrong? Go Sachin Go, Get more before you call it a day.

There was more than one reason to rejoice over this stupendous feet. Previous record of 194 runs was held by a cricketer from our not-so-friendly neighbor & that too against India. I always wished for an Indian to beat that record preferably against the same neighbors. Alas, although it did not happen against them, Sachin scored his double hundred against a much much better side in world cricket. What else can one ask for?

This is an era of 20-20. It has changed the complexion of Cricket. It is becoming common for a team to score 400 runs in 50 overs & to a player to score century in 60 odd balls. So, 200 run mark is bound to be broken. But I wish that this record stays for a long long time to come, challenging the Cricketers to achieve this feat. Just compare this whole show against completely contradictory innings from another little master Sunil Gavaskar - scoring 36 runs after playing for 60 overs in an ODI, back in late 70's. It is difficult to predict what kind of records we will be witnessing in the days to come. But, whatever it is, Sachin is the greatest cricketer NOW & I hope he will be the greatest EVER. We take a bow Sachin. We are privileged to watch & witness all your great knocks.