Quote of the Day

My iGoogle says :

At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.
- PG Wodehouse

Happy Birthday to DEAR ANIRUDH !!!

Spicy Talk

Spice Garden ,Goa was quite an interesting place to see.Though initially we were reluctant to go there , we enjoyed it at the end of the day.

So where do our most common spices come from :


Betel Nuts (Supari) come from the yellow fruit above


Pepper and white pepper are here.The red fruit is dried for black pepper and boiled for white pepper.


Cardamom appears at the bottom of this herb.



Cinnamon(DalChini) and Bay leaves(Tej Patta) come from one tree


Those green buds are cloves(laung)


All your herbal tea from this lemon grass

Nutmeg(jaiphal) and Mace (javitri) come from this fruit.

Some chillis known to be 800 times stronger than usual ones. I forgot the name.

Cashew Tree

Cashew in all its colours

Earth Hour .. March 29. 2008 8 pm to 9 pm

Dear All
On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming – coal-fired electricity – by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world.

In 2008, 24 global cities will participate in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. Earth Hour is the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis. It is about simple changes that will collectively make a difference – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty, to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.

This mail is to request each and every one  to take part in the Earth Hour on March 29. 2008 and switch off lights for one hour from 8 pm to 9 pm and be part of this movement against global warming. You can also spread the word around to your friends , family ,neighbourhood etc and get them to participate too.

P.S : The above information is from an email I got from a friend , who inturn got it from the higher management of his company. So I assume this to be authentic and I am spreading the word.

How would you feel ?

There is a little thing that pinched me twice during the Goa trip. You may find it funny too, here is what happened.

We ate at a shack and the dish had a typical odour. Anupam told the guy and he replies , "No Sir, it cannot be. We have foriegners coming here , how can we serve them if its bad."

Does that mean that its okay to serve bad to Indians ?

At another place , there was a 10 feet broad pathway and I was standing on one side. The host of the place comes with a foriegner and tells me to give the way.

I was also a guest in that place and I bet, I am not THAT FAT.


How would you feel , if you were me ?

Goa Fun - A Lttle in Detail

We started off to Goa on 21st afternoon. That day we had little time for the beach. So we decided to go for a sunset cruise. Though there was no sun (it was cloudy) , we thought cruise would still be fun. And it was ! Breeze was nice and so was the view. Aryan enjoyed the music and clapped along. He even went to dance on the floor , though he was feeling a little scared due to too many people on the floor.He was not interested in returning from the ship at all. Aryan slept on way back. (For my personal records , the ship was called Santa Monica). The day was completed with nice food at the guest house.

On 22nd morning, Aryan opened his eyes and started dancing.It was good enough to prove the fun he had previous night.We started off the day , to see the dolphins in Arabian Sea. It was a 45 minutes boat ride. On the way we saw central jail and the prisioners waved to us. And Mallaya's private ship and a diamond merchants house were also among the tourist attraction. Dolphins did appear but only for a short while. I guess they were scared of the boats chasing them. Aryan had good fun watching the birds though , while we clicked the nature.

After the boat ride we went to agoda fort and beach. Aryan ran above the water tank. He was amused to see such a open play ground may be :) Agoda beach was not much of attraction for us.

Then we headed for Bagah Beach and started off with great food at a shack. Soon it started raining. Aryan wanted to run around in rain. He made a friend and walked around with her in rain. Weather got cold and we decided to call off the day , and postponed the beach fun for Sunday.


Sunday , 23rd was whole lot of fun. Morning we went to Anjuna Beach. The water was blue and clean and it was such a peaceful heaven.After spending soemtime in a shack we moved on to Bagah Tod beach. We all enjoyed a bath there. Aryan had a blast and did not plan to come out of water. Later part of the day was spent at Calangute , with good food , lazying around the beach and getting wet time to time. The day was closed by watching Chake De on TV in our room :)


We had our flight on 24th at 4.00 pm and so we decided to checkout after breakfast and spend the rest of the time in South Goa , which was still unexplored. We saw Bom Jesus church , Mangesh Mangal Temple and Shanta Durga Temple. The day was closed at spice garden with a tour to the farm and a buffet.



There could not have been a better vacation :)

Goa Fun

I took monday off for a long weekend in Goa. Here are a few pics :


In the cruise


Cruise Driver :-)


Aryan is style


From the Boat


Another view


They called it "Queen of Hearts"


Agoda fort -Spot me :)


Aryan Smiles


Happy to be drenched


Lovely water


Splash :)


More Fun


Food time


Sea at its best


I love this pic

I thought of doing a detailed post..but I think pics say all. Look forward for more beach pics on Times of Aryan. And for spice garden and Church pics here.

Happy Holi!

Wishing everyone a colourful long weekend. Have a good time !! See you on Tuesday.

Why not on Monday…coz ..will tell you on Tuesday ;-)

What Has Changed

Life changes when you get married and then when you have kids. And so do people , just a introspectory post on what has changed in me as a person (good or bad) and what still needs a change.

I used to be too puntual for anyone to believe. I used to reach to class ,office , outings , dinners and whatever you can think off , ahead of time.And used to fight with friends , who used to get late by even 1-2 mins for making me wait. Good that all of them are far away now , to see how I am changed.These days time runs faster than me and I have stopped trying to be puntual. A puntual person once is a latecomer now. This sure NEEDS A CHANGE , ATLEAST A LITTLE.

Politics and stock market never interested me. I used to know little about politics , coz I had to while market used to be a alien to me. Thanks to Anupam and his interests in politics and market, I can now speak a little on these issues at the lunch in office.

I used to listen to a lot of music. On TV , all the music channels were my faviourites. Music doesnot interest Anupam much and so catching up with each other , I lost my interest in music. Though its soon to redevelop , thanks to Aryan , who has started showing interest in Music. Now thats a different story that Aryan likes High Pitch ,high beat fast music unlike me.

Chatting with friends on phone for long times was something I enjoyed. They also looked up to me for advice and conselling. Now with time I have started loosing touch with them This ofcourse is BAD.

I was once too short tempered and aggressive in teens. Which did change and continued the same way after marriage. But of recent I have noticed that I am again becoming short tempered and impatient. Which again is a REAL BAD BAD thing especially with the kid.SO I NEED TO CHANGE THIS BACK TO NORMAL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Internet has become my friend only after marrige and mainly in pregnancy. Now I resort to this for all my doubts , be it through blogs , forums or general articles.

Well you know this already , but still , for the sake of it, I have grown BIG after wedding and gained a LOT.NEEDLESS TO SAY , I CHANGE IS SEEKED HERE.

I used to be a  super slow worker with household and a super fast worker at office works. This did not change too much after wedding too , since we had enough time , we being alone in the city. We could do everything lesiurely. But thanks to Aryan , I HAD changed with house work , or atleast with cooking. Though with cleaning and other things , the bigger the mess the lesser the speed.It doesnot work , I HAVE TO BE FASTER and SMARTER And yes , when something gets added somewhere , something gets substracted too. So I subtracted the 'Super' from office works :P.

I used to be technically updated before marriage , though I would not say I used to be TOO sound , but now technical reading has come to a ZERO. BAD FOR CAREER, NEED A CHANGE.At the same time I switched to reading a lot about parenting and kid related stuff , which is good. I have stopped reading literature and soft skills books , which again is BAD , but I am ok with this ..coz the rest is more important.

Cannot think of more now , though there will be more for sure. Will edit it for that later. Plus will introspect again after a few months

How have you changed ? Looking for an intropective posts from a few of you.

Would you dare...

..to walk on this.

Got this as an email. Does anyone know where this place is ?

Editted to Add : ~nm told me where this is. Read it here.

Strange Behaviour of Aryan

We started daycare for Aryan in July last year. He was almost one year then. Mornings , he used to cry when we used to leave him. We thought its okay for him to cry in the mornings for some time. We read in books and were told by friends that its called seperation anxiety.
When we used to pick him up in evening,he used to cry a little as soon as he would see us .But once in our laps he used to smile , at us as well as the ladies in day care.So we waited for him to stop crying in the evening. He did. But he used to show great joy and come running to us , in the fastest way possible. Crying in morning also became less and there were days (off and on) when there was no crying at all. While that’s not a daily trend still.
Now , why am I writing this today ? Because we have noticed a very strange thing from past three days. When we reach in the evening , we see him sitting happily on a rocker or a toy car. But when he sees us , the joy and the smile vanishes. The happy face suddenly changes into a sad face. He does not run to reach us. He comes to us normally. Though once in our laps , he still smiles and laughs at us and to the ladies. In the car on the way back, he is just fine.Happy as always.
But that 30 seconds , when he suddenly shows no joy to see us , is killing. What could be the reason ? Is he complaining ? Or is he disappointed to see us there, that now he would have to leave all fun and go home ? Does he has a problem there ? If so , why does he smiles at the people there and say bye to them.I can see an affection in his eyes for them.

Has some one been in a similar situation ?

A Movie and A Prayer

Taare Zammen Par , its too late to write a review for the movie. And I am sure, I will not be doing any justice if I attempt also. Last weekend we got a chance to see the movie and both of us were touched somewhere deep inside.

Dyslexia is something which I heard recently but the movie and the TV programs and articles after the movie definitely helped me understand it better. But Dyslexia or No Dyslexia , the point here is that we do not try to understand the real problems with our kids and just keep comparing them with siblings or kids in neighborhood. Why talk of someone else , even I do at times , unconsciously. For example , Ohh , Aryan is speaking only 5 words , the other kid in the building speaks so many. Ohh..Aryan is still not potty trained , XYZ is. WHY ?? When his doctor said its normal , why do I compare ?

Its natural I guess to some extent , else how would you know when it is NOT normal.But I think we need to watch the extent to which we compare and watch what we do after we compare. Do we panic , do we put pressure on our kids , do we crib and curse our kids? The movie tells us what should be done. It tells that our kids too like to be the best in what they do , and if they are not then there is a reason to that.It also tells us that everyone cannot be at the top and we have to accept our kids as they are , with all our love.

Another thing that touched me is the fact that , our little kids trust us and love us more than we think they do. They can bear anything in the world , but not an indifferent behavior of their parents. The song "Tujhe Sab hai Pata ..Hai na Ma" made me shiver and sob at the same time.

I was left in an ocean of thoughts and emotions after the movie. And I could conclude only with a prayer, please God give me the wisdom and strength to fulfill my responsibility as a parent, with complete sincerity and dedication.

Am I still human ?

Feeling a little sad today. Morning I saw an accident. One girl fell down from a bike due to bad poth holes(created by recent pipe line work).She had a head injury. She was holding her head tight. My husband said , she was unconcious. The guy with her and a few people were trying to help. We were on the other side of road. We halted for a minute and then went ahead.We were running late as always. People were honking on both sides of roads. No one wanted a traffic jam. What if I was in her place?

Is that , in our busy lives we all have left humanity far behind. Good that their were some human beings to help the lady.

Blog Designs

I got too bored with my previous blog designs and was trying different things from sometime. I think, now I am done with the changes. I would stick to this look on 'Times of Aryan' and the current look on my blog for a few months atleast :-)

Also in this process, I lost my linked list to other blogs...sigh. Have been creating a fresh list , with Baby blogs on 'Times of Aryan' and rest here. That process is still ongoing.I do read everyone from the reader and its a time taking process to add all the links back here..so if you were here before and you are no longer seen here and on 'Times of Aryan' as well , wait , you will be soon be back at one of the two places :-)

Thanks for all your compliments here and looking forward to your latest feedback.

P.S. I cannot close , without thanking Aryan's Tai Ji for her help on the design of Aryan's blog and the background of this blog.

Innovation at its BEST!!

What can be the most innovative use of a mineral water bottle ?? Any guesses ? Ohh no , don't say that it can be used as a flower pot. Think out of the box ;-)

Yesterday evening , I was in office when I got the call from my husband. He and Aryan got locked outside our house. They came out for a second and the door got locked somehow. We did not know what to do. It was our bad luck that once in my lifetime , even I did not have the duplicate key.To add to this , Aryan is not well these days and had slight fever. Car keys were also inside.

We requested the apartment care taker to get some help. After an hour he got someone , who asked us to arrange for an empty mineral water/ cold drink bottle and a scissors. "Is he nuts ?" is what I thought. But then he was our only hope then and so we did what he said. He told us , he is trying to save our 1500 Rs lock , which he will have to break otherwise. "HUH"..With Aryan not well and cranky and we outside the house for more than one hour , I was even thinking of breaking the door and windows and he was talking of lock.

Anyways, within 5 minutes the door was opened. And the lock was saved. All because of the mineral water bottle and the guy ofcourse. He cut opened the bottle and slid it inside and did something for 2-3 minutes and THATS IT :-)

So now you know the answer :-)

Editted to Add : Hey Everyone , Hang on..my idea was not to scare anyone out there. The lock is pretty safe and even the guy said so. He said , he was able to open the lock , since it got latched on its own , without the key being used. So it was only first level security , a spring latch from inside. He said its impossible to open this one if you loose your key and it can only be broken. It has a computerized key and its not possible to make a duplicate without scanning the original key.

This post was triggered , since I was amused by the innovative use of a waste bottle and by the fact that sometimes simple things help in big troubles.

Experimenting with the looks

Experimenting with the looks of this page ..please bear with me :)