The play (school) boy

Today is Ashwin's last day at the playschool. We do not plan to send him in April, since he keeps falling sick all the time there. (We might put him in a bigger school next year.) V is even wanting to pack him off to Kerala next week, but when I went to the reservation office yesterday to book train tickets, V changed his mind and asked me to come away.
Anyway, I am hoping to go to Kerala in early May and spend 2 weeks there. Maid will go off to her place to cool off too.
Kerala will be just as hot and even more humid than Chennai in May, not to mention the frequent powercuts. The monsoons dont begin until June 1st week.

Our new weapon

We recently acquired a mosquito bat, made in China! I guess we were one of the last to acquire this equipment in Chennai. It is quite handy in swatting mosquitoes - charge it, press the button and any mosquito crossing its path is exploded to pieces - like in a suicide bomb attack.

Ash enjoys the light and sound show that accompanies each killing.

Easter bunny comes home

An advance Easter gift from Tulika - Easter eggs chocos and a make-up kit for me.
Didnt realise Easter was so close. Most probably, I will skip the Good Friday-Easter mass at church this year.

Hopes dashed

India is out of the World Cup - well, nearly almost! I thought it would make it to the semifinals or at least to the quarterfinals. Boohoo.
Maybe Bermuda will meet Ireland in the finals at this rate! We get the matches late in the night and V watches till 1 am. I havent gotten interested yet. Maybe from the quarterfinals stage, I will watch. The maid is showing a lot of enthusiasm for the game too.
Tata sky
We got a Tata sky connection at home yesterday. Digital and very clear relay unlike the neighbourhood cable guy's service courtesy SCV. For the past 2 (or 3? I cant remember) years, Madras has been under CAS/Conditional Access System which decreed that one had to buy a set-top box (costing around Rs.4000) to watch paychannels like ESPN Star Sports, Animal Planet, Discovery etc. Most people, like us, decided the free channels were enuf - anyway it brought down our monthly bill too (Rs. 100 as against Rs.150/200 earlier) and we didnt have the time to watch the free channels even. Of course when World Cup Football came, many people went for the box but many others decided that Sun TV's free relay of the matches was a boon of the first order.
But the World Cup Cricket relay has not been satisfactory - I cant stand the Hindi commentary, while V doesnt understand Hindi much. Hence the scurry to own a Tata Sky, which is waiving off the first 3 months subscription fee. Dishnet (from the Zee group) is offering 6 months free viewing, and hence there is a greater delay in procuring that. Of course the box has to be bought for Rs.3000 but ICICI gave us a 6-month interest free loan.
I wonder if Madras is going to be the only place under CAS and whether the Centre will manage to implement it in the rest of the country. Delhi had cold-shouldered it.
Now Ash can watch NG and Animal Planet, which he prefers to Cartoon channels. He did watch 'Just for Gags' on Pogo with V. (Kids in Chennai swear by Pogo, in the absence of the Cartoon network channel.) I am no fan of slapstick comedy or WWF matches.

Guests

Took a day's leave as my s-i-l and family were here for a day. They came on Wednesday night and left yesterday evening. They were off to Townsville in Queensland, Australia where her hubby has landed a new job. I have earmarked Townsville as one of the places I must visit in the near future ... it is a long and expensive journey but maybe we could leave the kids with my parents and go.
With an efficient maid around, playing the ideal host is not a nerve-wracking exercise as far as the food is concerned. The menu included chapaati-chicken curry (dinner), idli-sambar (breakfast), rice and assorted side dishes including tuna cutlets and seer fish curry (lunch) and bread and pearlspot fish curry (an early dinner).
The kids had a pretty good time with sil's sons, though Ash simply doesnt get along with her younger one who is 3 yrs older to him (the last time round, he had bit his bum!). He is very fond of the older cousin though.
Visiting a club
After they left, we ventured out as we had to collect a parcel from a person staying in the Gymkhana Club premises. I waited at the Club lounge, my first entry into a real elite club. The building is pretty ancient and classy, having been a gift from the Rajah of Venkatgiri in 1886. The lights and furniture have an old world charm about them.
In one section of the huge hall(to the left, in the pic), old men and women sat playing cards and drinking while waiters refilled their glasses now and then. The hall was quiet and the senior citizens concentrated on their cards like students taking the SSLC exam. After one game, the partners as well as the cards were shuffled. It was past 8.30 pm and an octagenarian couple ambled out; a couple of others too also seemed to have had enough excitement for the day.
The next day sounded more interesting, going by the notice board - they could all watch and cheer the India-Sri Lanka match at the Club ball room/restauarant (I cant remember which).
p.s. Bob Woolmer's death has already cast a shadow over the World Cup festivities in the West Indies. Was he really murdered and that too by match-fixers? Sad the way the game is going.

Earnestly, Hemingway

I am reading Hemingway again. Men without Women - a collection of short stories, gifted to me by an intern from the UK.
The first story in the bunch, The Undefeated, about a veteran bullfighter who makes a valiant effort to come back, was pretty poignant. The story ends with a suggestion that the wounds he sustained in the ring is fatal. Manuel for whom there is no life other than bullfighting, who cant accept that his days of glory are over, who thinks that he 'was doing great' even in the final throes of death makes a sad hero. Of course one had to look up the Spanish bullfighting terms - corrida, coleta, faena etc. - and also read up a bit on the game in order to comprehend what the writer was saying. It even made me want to watch a bullfight though it sounds so barbaric and gory. (The game is so synonymous with Spain that a billboard on Mount Rd. advertising Spanish-style villas in Chennai has a matador wrestling a bull - "A home so Spanish that you will think you are in Spain").
The other stories are a bit abstract but I am making an effort.
The last Hemingway I read was The Old Man and The Sea for my MPhil dissertation. I think I will grab a copy of Death in the Afternoon, a novel on bullfighting, next.
Meanwhile I have procured Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Virginia Woolf's trilogy. Need to revive my reading habits - which is easier achieved at office than at home.

Toddler Biting

Ashwin's behavior is causing us fresh headaches.
The playschool authorities informed us yesterday that Ash bit a fellow playmate for grabbing the toy he was playing with. Apparently he has been doing it all these months in playschool but until now there had been no major casualties. But this time round he managed to get his teeth well into the poor kid's fair arm that it left tell-tale signs. The kid's parents rushed him to the dr for a tetanus injection, and blasted the school authorities for the poor care. Hence Ash was kept in isolation yesterday during playhours!
But websites on children tell me that it is not abnormal behaviour and is a part of the toddler years:
Biting from frustration
Frustration happens when children get into situations that they can’t handle. Children under about three or so are not usually ready to play in a cooperative way with other children in groups. If they are in a group and another child takes their toy they may respond by hitting or biting. They have not yet learned other ways to cope.
If biting gets a strong response, which is likely, they will see that it is successful and may try it again.
Self-Assertion. The accident report given the parent by an educarer at the end of the day reads, "Child was bitten during a struggle over a toy." Toddlers have very limited language skills. Consequently, biting is a way to register a complaint.

Oh Boy!

That was one sweet book and made me want to write about my childhood too some day - of fishing in the little streams of our fields, of the wild flowers and myriad dragon flies that kept us entertained during our summer vacation and our trips to the tution miss's house every evening among other things. By us, I mean me and my two first cousins as my brother was too young and not in school then.
Well, I should have read Boy first and then gone on to Solo but I did it ulta. Anyway it was a far easier read than Solo.

Ash has a dr appointment today - his Hepatitis A immunisation which was due in Oct 06 and which I forgot. Hope to get some shopping too on the way back, if he feels fine.

Short stories

I am reading collection of short stories by Anjana Appachana titled Incantations and other stories. I quite liked her style.
I prefer short stories as it is easier to finish each story at a stretch.

Holiday plans

I am planning my summer vacation already. Boss has approved a 15-day leave in May, when I hope to go to Kerala to escape the worst of Chennai summer as well as to attend our church perunnal. Although, it all depends on V's leg getting alright. Or else I will have to cancel plans or just send the kids with their nanny. Maybe I can let them stay on for a month till the weather gets a bit fine here or before my parents head for London in mid-June.
As for the nanny, there is a sea change in her attitude to Ash. I dunno if she is putting on an act of liking him but anyway Ash has sensed that she doesnt dislike him and has warmed up to her this time round. She generally drops and picks him up from the playschool and buys him a candy on the way back. I have instructed her not to do that on a daily basis. Tantrum Ash's latest strategy involves lying flat on the floor if he doesnt get what he wants, something he has learnt from Mira!
Miriam has become increasinlgy sullen and unsmiling after she fell sick - but the fact that she looks pretty when she scowls doesnt make it so bad.
Baby names
On hindsight I guess I should have named Ash Moses or Moshe. In the Bible Miriam is Moses' (older) sister. Tehre is an increasing fascination for Biblical/Hebrew names among the Christians in Kerala.
I was born in an era when harmless Hindu/Indian names (which had no religious connotations) were popular among Kerala Xians. Of course there were others who coined names like Licey, Rinsy and Bossy for their daughters and Glandy and Pleasy for their sons. My mom's school answersheets was a treasurehouse of such fancy names. Three siblings in her school were called A-mol, B-mol and C-mol. I think people still invent such names but north Indian names are more in vogue now. So we have a Nayana, Sreya or Akash in the family.
I have done the politically correct thing by giving an Indian name to my first child and a Xian name to the second - an effort at communal harmony (though it was actually a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth). Ashwin, proposed by Vinney, was a consensus choice among both families (save V, who wanted to call him Paul) especially as his star is Aswini/Aswati. Miriam was chosen by me and V after a 3-day debate, not realising that we hadnt made it a family event. The consensus earlier was on Anna but had to be abandoned for fear of being called something else in Tamil. Vinney proposed Neha (but V had a colleague by that name), I proposed Anamika (V said it was too anaemic) and V suggested Angela (but the name was already in the family). We thought we will call her Ria for short but later changed it to Mira - until Mil said she didnt like the name and that she be called Kripa at home. But I still havent effected that change in my blog.
We now sometimes call her kochundappi (the lil short one), courtesy the Mammooty film Kazcha. The maid calls her Malooti and Ash calls her Vaava.

Sick again

Mira has viral gastritis, similar to what Ash had last week. The dr. said it was doing the rounds in the city and that she should be better in 2-3 days. Been advised to give her a lot of fluids. She has been clamouring for bikat/bitat (biscuit) - a word she has learnt apart from Appa, Amma, Achacha (Ash) and Ammamma (maid). Took her to the hosp yesterday and day before, but we have been trying to prevent her getting admitted. Wonder if we will be lucky about that.

Sari shopping

One positive thing I can say about Kerala is the shopping experience, in sari showrooms especially. The salesmen are so enthu that you end up buying even if you dont want to. They spread the saris one over the other on the huge mattresses that separates the customer and the textiles, making it easy for you to choose. Choosing a sari is a pleasure and he even drapes it over himself to help you get an idea how it will look on a human torso.
Unfortunately, Chennai sari showrooms offer no such luxury. The customer has to stand while she searches for The Sari, the salesmen frowns if you make him open too many saris and unless you tell him which stuff or region's sari you want he is no mood to entertain you. It is like going to a govt office to get a copy of some land documents. So unless you are really keen on buying a sari and have an idea of what you are searching for and your budget, it is best to avoid numerous Chennai's showrooms though they have thousands of saris to choose from.
We made one such elusive sari search in a Chennai sari showroom today.

Shashtipoorthi/Completing 60

It was Vinod's mother's 60th birthday on the 1st though we celebrated it a day late. Ordered a vanilla cake, and noodles and chilli chicken (dry and gravy) from Noodle King for dinner. I got her buttterscotch icecream with honey and butterscotch sauce (Oh! they have poured turmeric water over this! she commented. Her tongue-in-cheek comments are famous in the family.)