Proud Mom

I cant help gushing around the antics of my little one. She will complete 16 months in the next few days and here is a small update on her
1. She is able to repeat the words i say like - Mamma, baby, akki, anna, chapathi etc. She is not able to clearly pronounce the words but make full attempt to speak clearly.
2. She is fond of travelling - i mean to say she like to go out of the house and roam around. As soon as I reach home, I have to take her out to the park for a walk and this has become a routine for quite sometime. She brings her slippers to me and sighs me to put it on and points out her finger at the door.After we step out, she knows to call the lift and press 0 inside the lift to go down. She smiles at me in a unique way trying to show that she has accomplished a big task. If i try to ignore her, she will scream loudly, cry and start rolling on the ground. She surely knows how to get things done from me.
3. She has a unique capability to get things done her way. At this age if she is able to do it then I must commend her. She knows how to behave with me, my dad, my mom and my spouse. She does everything my mom says to her and never troubles her. With my dad, she expects him to show her train (pronounced as taaain), show her animals, even big ants.
4. She is fond of animals and recognises these animals - dog, cow, buffalo, hen/cock, crow, butterfly and birds.
5. She starts dancing as soon as she hears good music. She twists her hands, shakes her leg and even sways her body. I think I should encourage her to learn dancing.
6. She knows how to hold a phone and pretends to talk over the phone. she pauses inbetween with a laugh, or a sigh, keeps looking at the phone in between just like us. If someone happens to observe her mobile manners from far, it would be hard tpo believe that she is just pretending.
7. She likes to watch TV and hands over the remote to me if she doesnt like the channel. She is fond of some ads and starts smiling and cheering even before we realise what ad is going to come.

Let me pause here for a while and continue later..

Little Big Girl

I don’t know whether it is necessary to use an oxymoron to describe my little one, but her behavior over last few days have really made me realize how fast my 14 month old baby is able to learn things and quite mature for her age.
Here are a few instances.
- After having a cup of tea or a glass of water, if I tell her to put the used glass in the sink, she promptly grabs the cup and carefully walks all the way till the kitchen and carefully puts the glass or cup into the sink and comes back cheerfully.
- She clearly understands what I tell her and promptly obeys my words like – switch off lights or fan (and yes! she can make out the difference between the two)
- She will bring in any stuff that I ask for – book, remote, toys, newspaper, towel and some clothes. If I ask her where are her clothes or diaper – she points out a finger in that direction and waits for my approval to bring it to me.
- She knows different animals too. Cow(as ambaa),dog(as bow bow)and hen(as ko ko)
- She folds her hands in bhakti whenever she sees a picture of God. My hubby was spell bound when he saw her folding hands and bowing her head as we were passing by a temple.
I could add a few more points, but got to get back to work now. I will soon find more time in add in more things.

Training on TIPS

Recently I happened to attend training on Team Building and Interpersonal Skills. I had attended a couple of similar trainings earlier also and this was one of them. The trainer was our HR director and we were about 20 members in all. The training consisted of different team building exercises and development of interpersonal skills through active listening, questioning, constructive argument, providing feedback, appreciation and summarizing. I was able to brush up some of my existing skills, develop new skills and develop rapport with some people with whom I was hardly interacting.
Some of the team building games we played were – Flying Eggs, Building of bridge, Win as many as you can and making a model for transportation of eggs. At the end we all got a certificate of participation,
The after effect of the training is that some people have started wishing me every morning and evening who otherwise would hardly notice my existence.

Milestone

My daughter recently achieved two milestones after turning one!!
One - She started walking independently. I wanted to see how long she can walk independently and started moving backwards, so that she can slowly walk and catch me.To my utter surprise, she walked almost 10 steps and seemed to be quite amused. She then surprised my mom by sprinting towards her. My parents said that her walking style was like her father. He too walks fast - as if in a hurry ( dunno whether to call this as Mumbai effect). She walked on 23rd July 2010.
Another milestone achieved after 2 days was she recognised my voice on phone and responded as if I was there in front of her and talking. My parents said, her face changed after listening to me and she heard me with great concentration and responded intelligently.

First Birthday

The little one turned one!!! Time flies so fast.. It was just a year ago, when I held my little angel in my hands and wondered how innocent she looked. She was a little baby and slowly started turning, crawling and now walks. She is a keen oberver and learns things pretty fast. She screams loudly and can get anyone's attention with her loud voise. She has started talking a little and sometimes surprises us by saying auntie. Her favourite words are baa( for come), taaku (thank you), daayi (for mama and papa), aakum, edda , ethho. I am thoroughly enjoying her company and feel blessed to have such a wonderful daughter and supportive parents.

The birthday party was a family affair. we celebrated it in house in Bangalore and had Tom and Jerry Cake. There were about 60 guests and I made most of them write a birthday message for my little one. I am planning to make a nice book and put in all messages in there with the guest's photos, so that my little one can read them all when she is a big girl.

My spouse was a proud father and couldnt help gushing around the antics of his little princess with everyone around. A had so much fun with V, that she would happiliy clap her hands to see V after a long gap. Next year, I will plan to have a theme party with some games, so that my little one can enjoy.

Smart Thinking, Self Belief and Good Team Member

What are the key skills required to be a good carom board player? It requires focus, good judging capacity and ability to shoot the pawns at the right speed… right? Well, our company organized a carrom board competition as a part of the recreation activity for all employees based here in Bangalore. Though not a good player, I was keen on playing after a long gap of 10-12 years.

When I realized who was teamed up with me, I was not sure how would we play as a team, as my interaction was limited to just once or twice in the last 3-4 months. Ours was the third match and our opponents were exceptionally strong. Three strokes and 75% coins were covered, while both of us were struggling to pocket the pawns. It was a new board and we had no practice at all. First game was a cake walk for our opponents and we lost badly. The second game was better – we were able to pocket some coins and by that time we had analyzed our opponent’s weak points and made sure took it to our advantage and starting clearing the coins. This game wasn’t as bad as the previous game. When everyone thought the game was going to end soon – we being out of the game, there was a sudden twist in the game and we won! This called for another board, where the same strategy worked and we won again! It was unbelievable for the audience who watched the game as our opponents were supposed to be the best team and had full potential to become champions.

A lot of people told us we were just lucky and it was by fluke that we were selected for the next round. I was happy to be playing again. This time again we were to play against a strong team. We had practiced a little for this round, as it was quarter finals and the same stuff repeated – we lost first game, won the second and third game… Again the audience was aghast! We couldn’t be lucky again! Our strategy worked for semi finals as well – we couldn’t believe that we were one of the finalists.

The final match – we on the first round and the second round would also be in our favour if I hadn’t made the mistake of moving the red colour pawn in favour of the strong player. We lost the finals, but managed to get cups engraved with the letters “ Runners – Innovations Cup 2010” . Both of us were thrilled and felt bad as we could won the finals if not for the small mistakes we did while playing and also lost focus in a few places.

Some things I learnt while playing this game

- Have Self Confidence and Self belief however bad player you are. Its a motivating factor!

- It’s important to work as a team. Have good co-ordination and faith in your team member(s) so that each one is aware of what the other person is going to do. Stay focussed.

- There are smart ways to do things even if you are not technically sound. It’s a necessary skill required to be successful. Dont be over smart

- Be prepared for sudden twists and turns in life.

- Always have a back-up plan in mind if something happens in the worst case. This gives confidence to bounce back quickly rather than lamenting on why and how this happened.

Dont lose your mind, Lose your weight

I recently read this book written by Rujuta Diwekar, the lady behind Kareena Kapoor’s enviable size zero look! What I liked about the book is the simple language used by the author and I could relate many instances with my own life. She has also written about the common mistakes people do while trying to lose weight and how badly our body gets affected by this.
I have recently started on a weight loss regime and thought this book would be useful for me.I am duly following the 4 basic principles that she emphasizes
1. Never wake-up to tea or coffee
2. Have breakfast within 30 minutes of waking up…I have before 2 hrs.
3. Have small meals more frequently. I have started eating 6 small meals a day.
4. Finish dinner 2 hrs before going to bed. Actually after eating small frequent meals, sometimes I feel like skipping dinner.
The result – I have actually lost weight and am excited about it. I don’t know what’s helping me more – the gym or the diet, but I’m getting the results. Hope I will be able to maintain this for long time.

Friendship - Loss or Gain?

Recently TOI published an article based on a research that was conducted with school kids and they found that children in the age group of 10 – 14 years value friendship a lot and that they considered losing a friend as a greatest loss. I thought - Wow! Is this something that nobody knew and Was it really necessary to conduct a research to prove this point?

Well,as soon as I read that article – I went into flashback mode and tried to recall an incident that happened when I was 12 years old. I considered VR to be my best friend. We studied in the same class and both of us were bright kids (I say that because we used be among the first 5 in our classes). The friendship started when we were 10 years old and became strong by the time we were 12 years. We ate, played and sometimes went home together.Our friendship was pretty strong till mid term exams.

I still remember that day. It was PT Class and while we were playing some games I happened to pass the ball to some other girl and didn’t give preference to VR. I didn’t think of the consequences while playing, but could clearly make out that my best friend was not too happy. In the evening after the classes, when I went to her enthusiastically to speak, she turned her face away and stopped talking to me.

It was the most hurting moment for me. I still remember how much I cried and said sorry many times, and cursed myself for not passing the ball to her. I had never felt so bad and had never cried so much in my entire life. I was totally shattered and everyone in the class came to know of this. Many of them tried to sort out things between us, but it was all in vain. She was very adamant and thought of punishing me by breaking off our friendship. My head and heart were thinking in two different directions and I didn’t know how to patch-up. So that was the end of our friendship. I considered that to be a great loss.

After class 7 we joined the same school for class 8 onwards and studied in the same school for 5 years. There were some instances where we had come face to face, but this time it was my chance to turn away. After all how could I forgive someone who had hurt me so much!

I don’t know whether it was such a big thing, that I had to write it in my blog, but somehow this incident is permanently stored in my brain. It’s been a long time now and now I feel how much immaturely we behaved.

Now, I have been blessed with some very good friends – I can rely on them for everything and I can speak about anything with them, without bothering about the consequences. I am very happy I have a few but really trustworthy friends!!

Corporate Ladder

As you move up in corporate ladder, a lot of changes take place in you as well as your responsibilities.

# Your day-to-day responsibilities goes down but your year-to-year responsibilities go up.You are looked down upon as a person who will provide long term direction to business.

# You are more accountable and less responsible
More accountable for your team, their performance and cumulative business. Less responsible as you are not involved in day-to-day stuff.

# Soft skills are of prime importance to handle subordiantes and get them motivated to do things efficiently.That’s where a management degree would help, but for a person with right attitude, skill and knowledge this would hardly matter.

# Physical stress vs mental stress
Physical stress decreases, but mental stress increases.

These are some of the changes that I have observed. Are there any other changes?

Mini Wedding

Its been a while, since I’ve moved to Bangalore…oops Bengaluru. The advantage of staying here is close proximity to relative’s place and getting invited for each and every function that happens at anyone’s place. In about 2 months time, we’ve got an opportunity to attend atleast 4-5 such functions – naming ceremony, cradle ceremony, small puja, lunch party, engagements, weddings and more. I am not pro attending such events as most of the conversations revolve around common topics – gossip, boasting of their children’s achievements, foreign trips, money spending power. But the advantage is you can catch up with a lot of people at one place and get updated about a lot of things.

Recently,I got to attend an engagement party that was almost like a wedding reception. There were atleast 300 people who attended the event and most of them seem to be proudly showing off their valuable assets – hitech gadgets, cars, clothes, shoes, bouquets etc. I could over hear people talking about many things with appreciation - guy's sherwani worth 10K, diamond earrings, studded slippers, sarees bought at x,y,z place etc. This made me wonder again – Are our Indian weddings are based on pomp and show? The more money spent, the better. . There are many people who barely earn enough to have 2 proper meals a day and there are others who blow up so much money for a small function - what do they achieve by doing this?
I can never understand this logic

I remembered a friend’s wedding that I attended in Amsterdam,Europe. It was so much different and I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the ceremony.. Nancy and Paul - I'm remembering you guys and hope to meet up sometime in the future.

It happens only in India

On 16th March 2010, I read about the grand opening of a mall in Mantri Square Malleshwaram. I had heard about this for a while and wanted to see the place. I was more interested in visiting Spar hypermarket, which claimed to have opened the biggest hypermarket in South India. The biggest hypermarket I have visited till date in India is Shop rite at Nirmal Lifestyle Mulund and Hypermarket at Hyper city Malad. These are the best markets I have visited in Mumbai. I expected something similar or better, but was disappointed as soon as I entered the market. The entrance was rather small and congested with people who were unable to decide whether to go in or not and finally we managed to find our way inside the shop and shop for a few things. The eating counter was located right at the centre of the shop and this was a little inconvenient for people moving with filled trolleys, as they had to squeeze in the middle of hungry people.

I didn’t expect so many people to be present at that place and it was over crowded by Bangalore standards. I had not seen so many people in any other super market – be it Spar at koramangala, Big Bazaar or even Reliance mart. By the time I finished my small shopping – it was closing time and just as I removed my stuff before the counter, the person told me there was a problem with the system and he wasn’t able to bill in my stuff. I had to put back all my paraphernalia and carry to another counter. The person seemed to be a little irritated after a hectic day’s schedule and seemed to be in a great hurry to punch in the details and carelessly packed the things I had purchased.

The whole experience was draining and I swore to think twice before going there again. We reached home and then my dad was casually going through the bill, he found that the cashier had forgot to punch in the bill for 2-3 items I had purchased and had blindly packed them for us without charging us the amount. Probably the guy at the counter was exhausted and in a hurry to pack-up. I considered it as an inaugural gift and kept it for myself.

As I was chatting over this experience with a colleague, he mentioned to me that such things are very common in super markets even on normal days. Some items don’t have a bar code on them and hence doesn’t beep when an unbilled item is taken out. Lot of people take advantage of this and someone managed to sneak away with a LCD TV worth 1.5 lacs, when the systems crashed during peak shopping hours and while manual billing was being done, the guy coolly walked away without paying even in a penny…. Guess what? The company realized this after 6 months during stock checking and then traced out the person.

Waow! It happens only in India!!

Principles of my life

Some of the principles I follow in my life:

Dont hurt someone as far as possible.
Spend quality time with people you love.
Have an aim or ambition in life and believe in it. Work towards achieving it.
Look after your health. Its important to eat right - in quality and quantity.
Make a few, but good and trustworthy friends.
Read lot of books and remember one key point from every book.
If you cannot be a part of the progress, donot be a hindrance to the progress.
Speak only if required and think twice before speaking.
Be honest to your employer and be punctual.
Dont take work home.

Flash back 2009

Year 2009 zipped off really fast. Its hard to believe that one more year has passed off. It was a memorable year and some things I remember are listed below
Jan - went on a trip for 3-4 days to Pune and visited mini Tirupati temple on Satara road
Feb - Trip to Shirdi and Nasik with parents
March - busy with work
April - Trip to Singapore (wish i had time to do more shopping) and Baby shower ceremony at home.
May and June - enjoyed at home and work, countdown had begun.
July 8th 2009 - arrival of Aditi at Hiranandani hospital.
Aug till Oct - Spent good time with Aditi in Mumbai.
Oct and Nov - Came to Bdvt.Naming ceremony and Diwali celebrations with BKV.
Dec - Spent 2 weeks in Mumbai. Aditi's first flight experience and her "special" attachment to Bangalore airport.