Infinite thoughts

 So, you left us a new freshman.. As soon as Meghana and I entered the cab, the driver uttered. It took us a while to understand what was he saying, but then we realized. He was picking us up from the dorm address, carrying two empty suitcases. For the 75 yo, who had spent his entire life in the college town, it was an easy guess. He must have done it several times by now. All he needs to do is to follow the good things that he has learnt from you.. William said to Meghana. Years of experience talking. Assuring the parents that they have done a good job until now and giving hope that the kids will do good based on their teachings. And ending the topic with a note... "We'll take good care of him". Town's representative citizen assuring the guests that the town will not let them down. Meghana and I are visiting Ann Arbor, where Mrunmay is about to start his undergraduate studies in Comp Sci at the College of Engineering, University of Michigan. Mrunmay's journey tow...

Today was a special day. My son's results for 10th standard were announced today and he cleared the exam with flying colors. Three subjects with A* grade and remaining three with A grade, totaling about 87% of the score.  However, what makes this achievement special isn't just the marks themselves but the journey and other accomplishments he garnered along the way. If you have been following my posts on various other platforms, you probably already know that Mrunmay has participated in the Robotics competition - FTC - First Tech Challenge. This was a very competitive event where his team had to compete against some of the best teams in India and prove their mettle. The FTC is not only about robotics competition alone but is about a few other aspects of life as well.  This includes outreach, STEM-D promotion, fundraising etc. The team, comprising 15 children, was preparing for the competition the entire year and the competition was scheduled for the last week of January earlier...

I am not that person who doesn’t believe in celebrating these days. I appreciate the fact that the western culture has carved out days to celebrate these special relations. In routine life, we forget about the power of gratitude; we forget to dedicate time to nurture the relationship; we may tend to start taking things for granted. Such days allow you to rethink your acts, give some time to that relation and overall improve the happiness quotient of people around you and people who matter to you.  I feel fortunate to be part of the internet revolution, specially last 10 years or so. I was part of Giftease for a good part of last decade, where it was our job to find out ways to coax the customers to send out gifts. This was the time when I really started following the “gifting calendar” per se. I was introduced to numerous occasions including women’s day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, entire valentine’s week, sibling day, daughter’s day and what not. I, automatically, started sending ...

After the initial enthusiasm that lasted for 8 days, I got to pen down the thoughts only today. In the initial days, there was excitement about noting down the thoughts, experience for posterity.  But on 9th day onwards realized it has become repetitive (not a surprise at all). The work - office work as well as home work started consuming most of my time. There was stress building up as Mrunmay wasn't getting enough time from us (Meghana and Me). So blogging took lower priority as compared to spending time with Mrunmay.  While we have spent more time with him as compared any other vacation, Mrunmay is finding it very less. It is natural. Seeing your parents 16 hours in front of your eyes and still getting about 60 to 90 minutes of their time - most of the times fragmented is NOT same as seeing them for 4-5 hours and still getting 60 minutes of their time. Can't get a better way to learn/teach "Theory of Relativity"!! Just the other day, realized that I hav...

On way to his Robotics class, Mrunmay and I were waiting on a signal to turn green. And as usual, there were several vehicles breaking the signal and rushing ahead. This 12 yo had this question, again - "Baba, why are these people breaking the signal?" Most of the time, I have answered - "I don't know. They shouldn't". But today was different. I answered - "Maybe their parents didn't teach them to follow the civic rules.." I have been raised by parents who inculcated the habit of following the civic rules along with making me understand the "why" part of it. Even today, I don't jump the signals, I don't park in the no-parking zone, I do not enter from the wrong side. From day 1 of my car driving, I have been wearing the seat belt and from day 1 of my two-wheeler driving, I have been wearing a helmet. This was long before both these rules came into existence.  And Mrunmay has seen me doing it all along. Even he doesn...

While driving to work on Friday Feb 27, I happened to notice the big sign board outside IISER, Pashan which read "National Science Day 2015". I got curious and did a quick search on the net which told me that 28-Feb is celebrated as "National Science Day" to mark the discovery of "Raman Effect" by Indian Physicist Sir C.V.Raman on 28-Feb-1928 . As my curiosity grew, I checked for events happening in Pune on that day and stumbled across: National Science Day @ IISER Pune National Science Day @ IUCCA Pune It being a Saturday, Meghana and I decided to take Mrunmay out and let him have some fun during these events. IISER had an exhibition on "History of science", which I was doubtful if Mrunmay would find some interest in that. But IUCCA seemed to have interesting things even for Mrunmay's age.  Spent couple of hours at IUCCA enjoying the science park, which probably is open all through the year. More importantly got to see and listen...

Couple of weeks back, one of my colleagues told me about the recent event happening in Pune on every Sunday - Happy Street . At first it looked odd to me - people flocking the venue at 7 AM for no specific agenda, that too on a Sunday morning!! But then he showed me some of the photographs he had taken there and a video clip where two youngsters were showing off their football skills. I decided to take Meghana and Mrunmay to Happy Street and witness the event myself. For initial 3-4 weeks the event was held at Aundh and from last weekend (21-Feb) it is being held at Kalyaninagar, opposite AdLabs. The concept is very simple. An area gets demarcated as "Happy Street" and gets closed for all automobiles. Only pedestrians and cyclists are allowed in that zone. Then the organizers setup some events and are then joined by some other enthusiasts to setup activities meant to engage people. When we reached there on Sunday morning, people had started dropping by. Some had borrow...

Whenever  Meghana , Mrunmay and I step out somewhere, it usually is a challenge for Mrunmay to keep himself occupied. As much as we want him to converse with us, experience the surroundings, learn to appreciate good things around, he usually runs out of patience pretty soon, unless one of us starts telling him some story. Many-a-times that is not possible.  Out of sheer need to teach him pass time, I invented related words game , which Mrunmay pretty much loved. We end up playing it in long journeys or even on the dining table. This game can't be played at a noisy place or when Meghana or I want to have conversation either with each other or some other people around. This had necessitated me to keep Mrunmay engaged with various things. Things like asking him to count specific objects around - e.g. Count all the empty chairs in the hall. Once he has done that, I'd add some qualification to that - Count all the red empty chairs. And then may be count wall mounted fans etc....

A week back, on last children's day, Mrunmay got a fantastic gift - Game of Monopoly aka Business (व्यापार).  Mrunmay got introduced to this game through our family friend around 3-4 weeks back and in the first instance itself he fell in love with this game. He didn't want to stop that game but had to due to other plans. But since then it was a constant thing on his mind. So Meghana and I decided to gift him on the children's day and spent entire evening playing the same game.  And that point onward, on every opportunity Mrunmay is trying everything to play this game. Given today was Saturday, and off for me, I offered him an afternoon entirely for Monopoly and he graciously accepted ;) In last 3-4 games, Mrunmay learnt quickly how he can earn more by quickly building houses and hotels. So now his all energies are constantly focused on creating assets. Usually, Meghana and I have hit with bad luck and have ended up in spending more time in "Chance", ...

During our usual story time, rather reading time, Mrunmay picked up his current favorite - The bird with golden wings  - by Sudha Murthy and started reading one of the stories. Story had a reference to a couple having wealthy lifestyle and then loosing money in business, moving into a smaller place, with no servants etc. The story read - she had to do all the work at home as she couldn't afford the servants. And the question came beaming to me - "But baba , why wasn't her husband helping her instead of she doing all the work alone?" I didn't have immediate answer, but it got me thinking - he is trying to relate what he is seeing at home to what he is being told in the story and he is picking up the contradiction quickly. Same thing happens when the story contains "thief", he asks but why did he start stealing? And usually there are no answers to these questions. I think time has come to rewrite the stories that actually tell what our futur...

Last weekend while returning home, out of nowhere, Mrunmay started asking question. Actually, not really, he asks questions all the time. Almost every sentence is followed by "Why?" and we need to explain it in such a fashion that there are no more "why"s coming out. Almost every time we fail but at least after 5-7 such attempts in a series, either he gives up or gets distracted and we get saved automatically!! You might have noticed the latest TVC from Bournvita featuring Kajol as a mom trying to answer the questions from his son, which inadvertently forces her to study before she answers. We had our bournvita question ... आई, कुंकू कशापासून बनवतात ? We tried telling him what is turmeric and how it is made and all for obvious reasons... we don't know what is कुंकू made from!! For some strange reason, I don't remember I ever had that question... What is your Bournvita question? PS: I just blogged about that TVC, you can read it here -  Bournvit...

Weekend time. I was playing with Mrunmay, one of his games - 3 letter words. Basically there are some paper strips having one letter printed on it and then there's a letter dispenser, which dispenses 2 letters at a time. The game is to make up a word with those two letters and one of the paper strips. It's too early for Mrunmay to know the spellings and obviously the job of finding out matching spellings was with me. After every round, I was telling him the meaning of the word formed, in the form of question / answers. Like "Do you know this word?", "Do you know it's meaning?" and wherever required giving him examples and/or translations. After few rounds, the dispenser gave us two letters: "B" and "A". The only possible combination left was the word "BAY". I started asking him the meaning... Me: "Do you know what is BAY?" Mrunmay: "Bay??" Me: "Yeah.. do you know what is the meaning of Bay?...

It was Ragini's Birthday earlier last week and I was not in town, so Meghana and I decided to take her out on last Friday after I returned back. As a practice, we try to visit newer places when we go out and this time it was " Puran-da-dhaba " located at Pride Hotel, Shivajinagar.  Given that it was a Friday night, I thought there would be a rush and hence called them up and reserved the table for four. Fortunately, the place was not crowded at all. As we entered the place, the ambiance caught our eyes. The place was decorated to give the dhaba look and to a large extent it was successful. A "khaat", a bullock-cart, some posters. There were mehendiwali and chudiwalee and an astrologer too (this is something may not be part of actual dhaba.. but nonetheless it was there).  As we climbed up the stairs, a more Dhaba-like look appeared. Around 12-15 tables. Few were unoccupied. The captain pointed us to a table reserved for us. The curious eyes were looking all...