Rain musings

Day 1: start of late -to catch the flight. hurry burry get in and settle down. Have Sanja ask 101 question on when it wil ltake of, when the blades will spin.Feed chapati when stationed at B'lore. Then land at Goa around 1:30 pm. First thing that hit us was the heat. Even chennai was colder compared to Goa. Then travel for 1 hour to reach the resort. Paradise valley.Settle down in the suite. Head to a resturant -have some snacks as it is late for a lunch (and they didnt have lunch).We could see the Calangute beach from here. The hotel had a back entry to beach!!. Sanja wanted to get into swimming pool. Roamed about ,familiarized with the place. GOt some cool chappals. Day2: The most hectic day. Being our wedding anniverary day, we all donned new dress. Headed for a quick breakfast. Waited for outrtour bus to South Goa. Place we visited: - Dolphin  visit (which we didnt go).  marimar beach. mangeswar temple. shanthi durga , bom jesus, st.basilica.(Francis Xavier)-his body. Lun

Saturday- Got up at 6:30AM - cleaned up the house (sweeping . mopping). Had head bath since we had Karthigai deepam. Then started cooking food. Dishes : Pumpkin pullipu koothu, rasam, raw banana curry, payasam, vadai. Sanja on the other hand was painting some of the new diyas , the newspaper etc.. Then snoozed alongwith Sanja. In the afternoon - cleaned up the diyas, helped MIL GMIL with the kadalai orundais. Made maggi for self and Sanja. Sanja put manjal -kumkum on all the diyas. Slef poured oil and placed the thirees. All got dressed up, lit the diyas and decorated the home.  Bursted some flower-pots, thara chakaram. Then went to mottai madi to watch the lunar eclipse. For the first time saw the whole thing live. S and I were guessing the constellation and found the Orion. Sanja had a quick look at the eclipse and ran away to her friends place to play.Apparently she couldnt digest the raghu eating moon and spitting out the whole thing ;). Then we all had the bath and then

So the whole family had a picnic on saturday( Sep 10th) at Sanja montessori school. (Iam almost 2 months late in posting this --ooops) First we visited the temple inside the campus. Then the school van took us to the various places inside the campus. The swimming pools for the big kids and the tiny tots are well maintained .it is good to see that extreme care is taken when they are taught to swim. Then to the kids-friendly park. The swings, sliders , see-saw and whole works .There is a gym which is child proofed. This has small houses, sliders, hoops and that kinda stuffs. This the place Sanja likes it the most. Shaded from the sun and no sweating ,tiring you see. Last we were dropped off at her class.We chatted up with her Sumitra aunty and other akkas. She showed us what all she does in the class. She picks up her work (game) , plays it and then places them back at their place. Her aunt comments- Sanja has almost learnt whatever she has to learn for the year. She and another g

So what we tried making. 1. Pudina parathas 2. Yummy healthy samosas And both turned out to be gr8. The pudina parathas could have been a bitter more spicy. The samosas were a hit. The vacation form studies does wonders. This is the first weekend after my exams and was left with plenty of time at hands. So tried out these dishes.

Well it is almost a month since Sanja turned 3. Here is quick look at what we did. 1. Morning- Sanja had the nalangu and head bath. 2. She wore a new dress -a skin colored pant and green-white checkered shirt. 3. At school, her friends sang the birthday song. The temple in the school premise gave her the prasadam after archanai. 4. At home, we had a small decoration- couple of birthday banners, balloons. 5. Her neighbourhood friends , R T, GP, H attai, S athimber, and Mr. K arrived and we had the cake cutting. This year we had 2 cakes- one  chocolate fudge cake  from bakery and another baked by me. 6. Sanja was dressed in whilte - blue-grey frock. 7. Some dances , music, eating later the party was over and we spent time playing with the gifts. 8. The return gifts included - capsule pens, M&M gems packs, tiny memory cards. This year we gifted her with play tent , wooden tool kit and the numbers mat. The three year old had a bad beginning with fever, cold, vomit -happeni

இன்று ஒனக்கு 3 வயது ஆகிறது சஞ்சனா - தமிழ் கணக்கு படி. (Your 3 rd birthday today -Sanjana - as per tamil calender ) பிறந்தநாள்  வாழ்த்துகள்

Pixeldruids Co-Founder Srinivas Shortlisted for YCE awards by British Council 2011 Yes !!! you have heard that right. British Council India has shortlisted our pixeldruids co-founder as one of the candidate for it's Young Creative Entrepreneur in interactive section . Congrats Srinivas. We are very proud of you. We, pixeldruids, are growing and making right noises. Here is the link of this years short list. http://www.britishcouncil.org/india-arts-yie-award.htm All the best for the company's success.

since you started school.- Sanja. So I see that we have settled down pretty well to the routine. Morning - appa and amma walk with you to the bus stop, bid goodbyes . You go all chirpy and happy looking forward for another day of fun and play. Come back home with grandparents, eat and sleep. - You are trying out different kinds of food at school. -Learnt to eat a bit by yourself, and I must say you are a really slow eater - in tamil we say paraku pathundu sappidhara . -Though your only activity is playing,  you have picked up quite a few tamil rhymes from your seniors at class . - You say few shlokas . -Every day you smile at ll the kids who get into your bus, but you dont talk to them. It your way of greeting them Good Morning. -You have o, means have to carry something with you from home to bus stop, then you handover them as soon as u see the bus. -The days we reach the stop early, you go about running in the street to see your yellow house and sometimes to the temple. Proud o

Sanja as usal was playing around and avoiding her dinner. I was running behind her and feeding her when she declared she will eat only if grandmother will feed her. So we told her , if you want granny to feed you, you stay inside the house. This she wouldn't agree. So Amma got fed up and placed her plate on the table and left. Sanja slowly creeps into the house , takes her plate , goes out, sits on the stairs, declares - Papa ve sapidhaporen ( I will eat on my own). So there was Amma sitting and gushing with pride as the little one ate her curd rice all by herself. She ate them by playing around making balls out them and eating them. So Sanja has learnt to eat on her own without much spiling around. Hurray.  So when I sit to eat, Sanja sits on my lap and says - Papa will feed amma now  and goes on to feed me the chapatis mixing up the side dishes . :) And here is another Sanja ism we heard at night whe nshe ate her fruits - mango. For a person who doesnt like the skin of any frui

On Monday, Sanja household  got up early bright and shiny. The little princess starts her school. Two sets of grandparents , her mother, father, chitappa accompanied her to school. While she went of to her Environment ( class ) , the elderly went to school temple and then sat in shade eating the chakara pongal and sipping the tea. Amma went to get the kiddo at 11:45 am and all of us were back home at 12:15pm. Amma / appa/ etc..etc: So Sanja what did u do today, what play things are there ? Sanja: Oh there are the building blocks , kitchen set, beads , koozhal kalu(a smooth polished stone).. I played with building blocks and kitchen set. Another uncle asks: So what did they give you to eat Sanja Sanja - Chappathi (This she made it up .. she wasnt given anything to eat at school. So amma appa are wondering if the above said koozhal kalu is also made up as we havent shown her that kind of stones.) The next day Sanja with amma and appa goes to school. Jumps out of the school bus a

Noting down temples visited on 2and 3 rd June 2011 Thirukadaiyur  - Abirami, amirtha kandeswara vallalar - medha dakshanamurthy vazhuvur - gajasamharamurthy. Adhi vinayakar, mukthiewar - spl - rama performed devasam here. Lalitambikai- thirumeeyachur koothanur - Saraswathi temple Trinetra chatur/dasa buja anjeneya maamagudi ayyanar temple thirumencheri - kalyana sundareswar.

So here we were S , Sanja and myself playing around in the evening. S asks: Sanja can I also go to school. Sanja: Ok. S : Onodha school ku varatha (can i come to your school). Sanja : No, you go to boys school . V : But Sanja, in your school both boys and girls study together. S: So I can come right. Sanja: No no no, You go to another school or class, don't come to my class. S and V wonder -- Does this attitude start this early in age. S aunt works in a government school that has seperate campus for Boys and girls. Sanja knows that the great aunt works in the girls school. I think ,her assumption from conversation above is that girls go to girls school and boys go to boys school. 

Things are looking up in Sanja household -- here is what we have been doing for the past few weeks / months  Clay modelling - While Amma and Sanja friends sit and patiently make clay stars , butterflies and tree - Sanja is busy crushing them and making all of them into balls.  Walling painting-  To make the Sanja doodles les visible on the wall, the bigge kids (S and myself) set about doing Warli paintings on the said wall. The parents of the bigger kids have sworn that they will never leave the house in the hands of these kids for a long time.( They have been to US for 6 months),  Fabric painting; Got hold of one of Sanja's frock and painted a girafee on it. Planning on doing more of this .  House cleaning - Loads of trash and dust thrown away.  Got ourselves a new auto washing machine.  A convention oven-  The big gal is dreaming about making loads and loads of cookies , cakes.  Myself finding more time to play with Sanja since all work gets done pretty fast with 2 ppl aro

So today was the day Mr K came into our family. Mr .K is  Sanja cousin from her father's side. K is my SIL son. He was with us for the first five months and so is almost like a bro to Sanja. Today he finishes his 1 year of existence filled with many mischief . Since we celebrate the first Tamil birthday in a grand way, today we have only the closest family memeber getting together for celebration. Sanja is all set to wish her lil bro Happy Birthday. She was a bit miffed that he couldn't speak on the phone with her when she wished him in the morning. Looking forward to seeing the little bundle this evening. God Bless You  dear K . Many more happy returns of the day

Yippy ,  first milestone for the BLOG.

It breaks your heart/ makes u proud  and is amazing to see that a 2 yr -old kid understands the situation and adapts easily to changes unlike the grown-ups. Sanja paternal grand parents are back and so her daily trips to her maternal gp place are done with for now. We took a day off to take care of all of them (Sanja, K patti , V thata). Today when we left for office, all Sanja wanted was  to come to my office.This is basically because she was sick for past few days and we are at Her Majesty's serivce all the time.Later on she accepted the fact that now on she will be with her K Patti and will be going occassionally to G patti's place. Same thing happened when they left for US of A. She would eagerly await her daily DURO trip to Radha nagar( where G patti and R thatta lives). While she has adjusted , her mother (read Me) thinks it will take her some days to get used to having the elders back at home after 6 months of running the home all by herself and as per her wishes and wh

Sanja is all excited to be going to school this June. In the series of conversation that we are having all centered around this, she said the following things in a very serious mood- Sanja - "Amma, papa-ve school ko poven. classroom poven. Nee ennodha school ko varadhe.Papa ve school bus la poithu vandudhuven. Teacher apparum papa va thithuva."  (Mom, you don't come to school. I will go on my own to school and class room. I will go by bus and come home. Teacher will scold if you come) Amma quips- But Sanja teacher will ask me to come there a couple of times. Sanja- nee varadhe ma, theveye illa !! (You don't come, there is no need). Amma - But I know some your teachers ( since i studied in the same school) Sanja- Pakka venam!! (No need to see ) Rendu veyasula ippadhi naan pandhu veyasula eppadhi iruka pordho ..... (If in 2 years it is like this ,what will happen when she is 12)

A must deserved holiday was spent in Munnar. Thanks to last minute (literaaly a few days )decision we couldnt get any train tickets to Kochi. So Sanja got her first flight journey booked from Chennai to Kochi. From Kochi we were picked by our travel guide/ driver to proceed to Munnar. On our way we had breakfast and Sanja had the bout of travelling sickness. Puke smelling we saw the Virala falls and the Deepa spice gardens. After the purchase of home-made chocos, some spices we reached our resort arount 2:30 PM. Ordered roome service for lunch and spent the remaining day lazying around and catching up with world cup final. Day 2:  After a yummy breakfast  headed to elephant ride, Mattupatty dam , speed boat ride , kundala lake, echo point and Tea museum.              Sanja enjoyed the elephant ride very much. The elephant we  rode on was a 30 year old female named Yamuna. Yamuna is accustomed to camera and knows when to pose and how to pose. S offered it a fruit basked that it gobble

Orange !! Orange Orange -- Sanja wants her world painted orange :) The girl inherits S genes when it comes to color preference. But we fear she has got a overdose of ORANGE liking. Here is list of things she would like/wishes to see/have in orange color 1. Teeth (gulp gulp ) 2. Bicycle. 3. Head band. 4. Dress ( managable as long as she doesnt want to be mistaken as Saintess) 5. Orange juice. 6.Orange rice (carrot sprinkled curd rice) 7. Clothing clips. 8. Orange bathroom tiles. 9. Orange toys. 10. Orange shoes. 11. Orange bag. 12. Orange mehendi. Now wait, she wants the cone to be Orange in color and its content to be orange color as well. The conversation we had other day Me: Sanja the bathroom  tiles, they are baby pink in color for th efloors and white on the walls. Sanja : (Replies without any hesitation)- Mathedalam Amma, orange tiles everywhere . No, this is not the effect of the Fanta ad. Even "S" has been surpassed in the ORANGE madness by his daug

This weekend I planned to cook something new. So tried out - Aloo -palak (came out very good). and  Ragi sweet adai(dosa)- this turned out OK, S said it needs to very thick like the puranpoli and needed more jaggery.

Morning - rice- patani/chow-chow pulipu koothu, rasam, beet root curry. Lunch- Rava kichidi Dinner- vegetable rice (attending a function)

Morn: Rice- vazhakai puli curry, brijal- coconut arachvita sambhar-rasam Lunch- Mixed rice - potato-onion-brinjal. Dinner- Adai-mango pickle, rasam rice.

Morning: Rice- onion vetha kolambu-rasam-soya beans karamadhu(curry) Lunch: Raw mango , carrot rice Dinner: Chappati/ Rice with cabbage Subzi , onion kolambu/rasam.

I did like to do a regular post on what is cooking in my kitchen everyday. Just to see how (not so) repititive it is. Morning: Rice -paruppu- manathakali koothu- podalangai karamadhu(curry) - rasam. Lunch: Cabbage/carrot/Karamani vegetable rice. Dinner: Chappathi and subzi.

Sanja will be going to the same school I had attended. Since I did most of my schooling there, teacher's who have been there since then are still working and were pleasantly surprised that Kutti vz is also going to do the honours. Yesterday, Feb 14th we had the admission formalities completed. Sanja starts school this JUNE 28 ( my baby has grown up..). 8:40 AM: sanja is all set to go for the school visit. She brings along her Pink Dora . 9:15 AM:  Appa and amma are filling up forms, Sanja for her part contributes by scribbling in a paper. 9:45 AM: She knows she is wasting the open space and decides to run around with her mom playing catch catch. 10:15AM: Sanja: Amma ,can we meet D, B,R . They are here only right.(Here friends in our locality study here). Amma: You ask that teacher inside for the permission. Sanja goes all silent. Then Amma pacifies - D has gone to the sports complex for swimming. So we wont be able to meet. Sanja: Okay amma, we will go to New Colony(our h

That is what is happening to my writing as well. Som many thoughts are running in my mind. I dont know what to write what not to write. And finally end up not writing at all . Humph. Since my last posts have ll been revolving around Sanja, I would like to take a break from it and write abt something else.

Hostess: Sanja Guests: Mickey,Minnie, Pink Dora, Black Dora, Goofy, amma, appa thatha (if present). chef - your's truly. Yes, we are hosting tea parties the English way :P. Sanja: come all of you. lets play teparty. Amma make Mickey and Minnie sit. Bad Minnie she is always falling down. Hey Dora take your place on the pillow. Amma make Tea for all of us. Amma asks: Why me, you are hosting the party, you make it. Sanja- No ma, you make. Make sure you put Mollaga podi( idli chilli powder) and sugar in the tea. (Amma thinks - where did she learn  that from..) So the Tea is served. Sanja - Amma make us some cake. Amma - Here it is . Whose birthday is it. Sanja- Amma , it is your bithday.( Maska you see, she doesnt want to even cut the cake ) All of us sing Happy Budday. and they all finish of the cake. Amma- Sanja , can you please clean up the dishes. Sanja- No ma, that is also your work And off she goes to sleep . I tell you, she is aiming for the "no responsib

Yes yes and yes thats Sanja latest activity. Sanja and her GM were playing on the terrace.They came across the song - Adhuthathu ambuchata pathela .. from film Ethur Neechal. So the duo set to bringing out their own lyrics with this tune. GN says :- Gand matti pera solla porandhurke oru laddu, laddu peru sanju .. Sanja sings - Sanju sanju sanju,. Now she conspires with her father and comes up with this Sanja sings: - Geetha Raja pera solla porandhurka oru gandu , gandu peru Varshu ,varshu varshu varshu The other day she was talking to her Chittappa K and sings out Gandu matti pera solla porandhurke oru Karthi , karthi karthi karthi. And on her little cousin bro Harini pera solla porandhurke ore kutti kichu, kichu kichu kichu ...