Clay and stones

It has been quite a long time since I posted travelogues. Although, there are quite a few to add, thanks to our wonderful vacation in Australia, this post is not about it, but a quick trip planned with the family.

Since the kiddo and his cousins did not have any good outing together, this summer, we decided to go to 'Our Native Village', near Hesaraghatta for a day.

Well, it was terribly hot, but the place had shade, thanks to the trees, and was full of engaging activities to keep us occupied, for the most part of the day. The highlight of the place was all the rustic games - Kite flying, Laggori, Gilli-danda, catapult, tyre-racing, spinning tops. There were added attractions too, in the form of pottery making, garland making, rangoli making, cow-milking (yeah, you heard that right!) and a bullock-cart ride! A few indoor games, like carrom, chess, snake and ladder were also present.

Through the bullock-cart ride, I was trying to recollect the bullock cart ride songs in Hindi/Kannada movies that I had come across! Some of the ones I remembered were 'Oh re taal mile' and 'Janumada jodi' songs.

It was a return to our childhood seeing the games, and the village ambience and the other activities made our parents nostalgic! Needless to say, the kids enjoyed thoroughly, making the most of the time we spent there.
The adults had fun too, although, there were pockets of time, when we did nothing, but just slept/sat on the mats/benches and talked. Well, doing nothing was fun too, I guess, if you could excuse the heat!

Food was very good, and the buttermilk was just what the doctor ordered for a hot summer day!!!
We even got to buy some organic vegetables, that were grown in the resort.

All in all, a good place to spend a day, esp. with kids and if you enjoy playing outdoors.

View greeting us on the way to the resort.

Inside the resort. The fruit ladden mango, sapota, lemon trees were a beautiful sight!

And so were the flowers!

Decorative door

Birthdays are fun!

Skanda's (my nephew) 6th birthday was approaching, and there was a function organized for that. So I took that as an opportunity to bake a cake for him. Since he loves chocolate, I decided on a marble cake (vanilla and chocolate) with chocolate butter cream frosting. Sounds fancy right? :D

This time ditched my oven and used one of Amma's good old reliable griller/cake maker. (forgot the name). The cake came out pretty good and I spent almost an entire evening preparing the icing on the cake! Creaming butter and sugar with a spoon was tiresome! Anyways, the effort was worth it as the kiddo loved it! Even mom, who does not appreciate baked stuff, liked it! Don't have a pic of the cake when it came out of the oven. But there is one with the icing on. It does look amateurish, but hey that's my first attempt ok! Be nice! :-D

And oh! Don't remind me that an 'A' is missing!!

Pyaar ke kagaz pe..

Ok, so I had a rather tiresome day on Monday travelling the length and breadth of Bangalore! But the bright side was I got to go to my parents' place and spent some quality time with the nephews.


They have their summer vacation and were driving the grandparents crazy. :) So I did a card-making workshop with them..Hehe..talk about spoiling the fun for the boys! The younger one is pretty interested in such stuff, but making the elder one sit though this was quite a challenge. On top of that, they wanted to cut the color-cones (like mehndi cones but filled with paint instead) themselves and made quite a mess with it!! They had very particular tastes when it came to colors that they wanted. (Skanda went orange while Pranav said yellow, but he secretly wanted purple.) 


I asked the kids what they wanted on the cards and pat came the reply 'Cheetah'. Ya right, like I was going to draw that! I asked them for something smaller and Skanda said 'Ant'. How innocent and straight-forward! :-) We then settled for a cat on Skanda's card and an apple for Pranav. 


And the occasion? It was their father's birthday. How I wish such craft items were available/affordable when we were kids. Sigh!


And oh, all the writing was done by Skanda! :-)

Tuesday humor

So this real funny thing happened today. It is my mom's birthday. No!! that's not funny.

The funny thing happened when I called her. After completing the 'happy birthday' formalities, she told me that she has asked my father to get chocolates for her grandkids (my 2 mischievous nephews).

She further explained - '5-star matthe lollipop thangonDbanni andhe. Aadre school indha bandmele 5-star koDthini. Lollipop evening mele koDodhu. Swalpa time aadhru adhanna thintha sumne irthaare!!'

(Translation:I have asked him to get 5-star and lollipop. I will give them the 5-star after they come from school. Will not show the lollipop until evening. At least they will spend some time silently in the evening, eating the lollipop!!')

There is treasure everywhere!

The kid turned 4 today!!!

He now goes to school, 2nd year Montessori to be precise.

Talks about what he and his friends did at school and in the school bus, which usually involves screaming at the top of their voice and driving the aaya mad!
He also wants the driver to switch on the indicator while turning, and sulks when he doesn't!

Knows most of the car models and recognizes many of them too! Boys!!! I tell you!
He also doesn't agree with his dad's decision to buy a Tata Safari. He wants a For Fiesta. Yes, according to him, its For not Ford! :-D

While traveling, he loves going through an underpass, and has a wide smile plastered on his face, when his dad actually goes through one!!
From school, he sometimes brings back some small smooth pebbles, stones etc and proudly shows them to his grandparents!! :-) Quite like what I used to do in school!!

He tries to pinch or squeeze his younger bro's hands when he thinks he (the younger one, that is) is getting more attention! At the same time, loves him too.

Fusses about the dress he wears to school and fights with his grandmom when she forces him to wear shorts!
Treats the granddad like his friend and fights with him!
Throws tantrums like a typical 4 yr old boy does...and gets scolded too.

Loves eating noodle soup and sweet corn and waits on his mom diligently everyday for it. Sometimes, even asks in a very small sweet voice 'amma, ivatthu noodle soup maaDthya?' Sigh! who can say no to that!! :-D

Absolutely loves going out on his bicycle, with the support wheels attached, with his dad. It doesn't matter if his dad comes home at 10.00 in the night, a small round on his cycle is a must! He has now progressed to a cycle without the balancing wheels too!

Wow! Time sure flies. Happy birthday Kiddo! Love you!

Skanda's rules of classification

A typical conversation with my 3 year old nephew, say, while watching animal planet. (Can be equally applied to any other show on any other channel too!)

Skanda: Adhenadhu?
Me(or his mom): Tiger
Skanda: Tiger kacchatte?
Me: kacchatte
Skanda(watching the tiger stalk a deer): Adhenadhu?
Me:Jinke
Skanda: Jinke kacchalla?
Me: kacchalla

I flip the channel to Cartoon Network..

Skanda(pointing to a book, that Tom the cat, is reading): Chikkamma, adhu?
Me: Book
Skanda: Book kacchatthe?
Me(Eh?): Kacchalla (Notice, I tell something that he is not expecting, usually whatever he asks, that should be the answer!)
Skanda(assertively): Kacchatthe!!!
Me: ok kacchatte!

So, according to Skanda, there are 2 types of people/animals/things etc in this world.
One that bites and one that doesn't.
Simple ain't it! :-) Aahh..to be as innocent as a child again!

Gidda's artwork!

My nephew has a new-found interest. Doodling!
The end result is a set of lines on a paper or on hands (his or anybody else's around him) or walls even!! The mothers - his and mine, have a great time showing off his skillful art. ;-)

Yesterday, he laboriously removed the cap of each of the 10 odd sketch pens and started 'drawing' on a piece of paper. :-) The person in charge of replacing the caps was of course, your's truly!

This was when he was half-way through the drawing.


(The arc of a circle and a line at the right is his mother's contribution! :-D)

This was when he finally completed. Such brilliant color combination na?




p.s: 'gidda' is how he pronounces his name - skanda!

He is now a year old.....

Yep! My nephew turned a year old on Aug10th! Time sure seems to be in a hurry! :-)

He has started walking now and wants to exercise his new-found skill every single minute he is awake. He has grown remarkably tall, which only means a quick re-vamp of the house - blocking drawers/shoe racks he can reach and pull out, moving vessels and other things to upper racks. Keeping his grandparents very active, to say the least!

Still speaks gibberish and tries imitating his chikkamma's naa-na-na-naa-na! :-) Loves going out of the house and calling every person who passes by. If the passer-by does not acknowledge him, well..he sure knows how to make them! A true leo cub in the making. :-) Time is not only fleeting, it also promises fun...loads of fun!
Here is a sweet, simple poem I came across, dedicated to Simba!

It's your first birthday, baby,
One candle on your cake;
Proud parents stare in wonder
At each new move you make.

We join in celebration,
As this special date arrives,
For baby has brought pleasure
Into all our lives.

We look forward now to seeing
How you progress and grow,
From the cute and tiny infant
You were one year ago.

So dig into your icing;
Enjoy your presents, too.
The reason for this day
Is a special person--you!

[Baby's First Birthday - By Joanna Fuchs]

The King and the Chosen ONE!!!

This is exactly the gist of the very FIRST story ever told by my sister.

There was a short power failure in our locality and skanda [the little chosen one in the story that unfurls below] got scared and started tugging onto mommy's dress. The chosen one he might be, but you see, he is all of 9 months old and is scared of darkness. Give the kid a lil consideration now!!
Well..where was I? oh yeah..The power failure. Well, mommy dearest quickly rested him on her lap and (hold your breath now) started telling him a story!!!

Aur kahani kuch aisi thi..

"Once upon a time in a far-away land, there ruled a king. The king snatched away a sweet little kid's Froggie, Pussy and Horsey. [Wasn't he an evil king?] And the little kid, [as he was also the chosen one] was so angry, he did the unthinkable!!! He ran towards the king and pulled the king's hair!! Well, he also removed the king's crown and put it on himself and he got back his Froggie, Pussy and Horsie [in that order]. And.."

And the power was restored. This brought us to the end of the very moving and enthralling story! The kid then happily trotted away to play with his reclaimed Froggie, Pussy, Horsey. Well..you must have got that by now.

Had amazing fun listening to it. And to think, the things that a little child can bring out in people!! Truly amazing.