Shells

Tejas- I am going to keep these shells in our shell box

Ojas- we don't have a shell box.

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Sandy Hands

Oh the joys of not worrying about next day's school or cleaning sandy bathrooms or messing up the home

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Water Babes

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Beach Bums

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Book Building Event this Saturday at Tara Books, Chennai

Tara Books is holding an event at Book Building this Saturday evening.

Their principal architect and the founder of the Madras Office for Architects and Designers Mahesh Radhakrishnan will be giving a lecture about the process of designing spaces, with a particular focus on India and their new Book Building. He will discussing how architects think, their creative processes and tools as well as how they tackle challenges, and why it's important to have well-crafted quality spaces.

After the talk there will be refreshments & open tours to usually restricted areas of the building. We'll also be launching our new exhibition, which charts the progress of the Book Building project through photos, sketches and 3D models.

Full details are on our website: http://www.tarabooks.com/book-building/upcoming-events/

Mahesh on Key Aspects of Book Building

Book Building is not perceived just as a functional container but a platform for 

collaboration and dialogue. The flow of spaces within the building we hope will lend itself 

to opportunities for this to occur.

Art was intended to be running through the building, not as a museum but more as 

a studio or workshop where discovery, surprise or inspiration is pure happenstance. We 

imagined the building itself as an evolving canvas

The distinctive window grills are a direct take on what we identified Tara Books with. We 

took the local craft of using grills for security purposes and composed and juxtaposed them. 

For us this collage almost represents an imagery of the city through the building.

Notes for Editors

• Key Book Building statistics include: Plot area: 2455 sqft; Built area: 3450 sqft; 

Usable area: 4450 sqft; Building height: 11m from formed ground level

• The Design In-charge is Mahesh Radhakrishnan while the team consists of 

Aahed Mirza, Ludovic Tiollier, Shyni Mathew, Chandrika Ravichandran, Salome 

Houllier, Dhiyva Ravishankar, Ashwin Ashok.

• Book Building officially opened 25th February 2012

• Opening hours & exhibition timings: Monday – Saturday, 10am – 7.30pm. 

The exhibition officially opens on 28th April, and will run until 26th May.

• More details can be found on: www.tarabooks.com/book-building and on 

http://moad.in/

• For directions see www.tarabooks.com/contact

Plot No. 9, CGE Colony, Kuppam Beach Road, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai 600 041, India  

+91 44 42601033 | promotions@tarabooks.com | www.tarabooks.com

Note To Self

No more buying of handbags for quite a while...
Black, Grey, Brown, Tan...
Large size bags for carrying everything that is relevant or otherwise...

Purchased from Pond's export leathers.

I swear by the quality of leather and stitching. They last to the point of boring you with their tenacity.

Love them...
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Two Down

And Ojas' second tooth is lost and he doesn't know where it is. While Tejas still waits

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Samhita Arni's version of The Mahabharata

I haven't really read the book but skimmed through it borrowing it off a friend to inspect first and I am most impressed with whatever little I read.

The author started writing this book when she was about 8 years old and simultaneously illustrated them in very vivid cute drawings which depicted the characters aptly and most importantly differentiated them from each other. 

Each story/ chapter covers about 2 pages and are written in a language that children can understand- extremely simple and child friendly and explains the complex accounts very well.

I would strongly recommend this book for kids who are comfortable reading because it is a big book and I suppose kids around 8- 10 years of age would appreciate it.

Considering I read the Amar Chitra Katha Ramayana when I was in class 1, albeit very slowly and taking at least a good 1 month, I expect a little better from my kids whose reading in school was much advanced than mine!

Title- The Mahabharata- a child's view

Author- Samhita Arni

Price- Rs 450

Publisher- Tara Books

Jugaad

Tejas- i have only 5 pieces (of chicken) and he ( Ojas ) has 6
Ojas - ok break 1 piece

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Hungry Minds

Check out the Hungry Minds website at http://www.hungryminds.in/views/index.cfm

A lovely  online library that delivers books at your door step and even takes them back and replaces them.

Primarily meant for children From 0 to 14 years, they also carry parenting magazines and kiddy puzzles and DVDs

Simple Steps To Get Books from Hungry minds,

Create your list of books online OR they will bring 20+ books to choose the books.
Hungry minds deliver books from the queue. 2 FREE shipping/month

Keep them as long as you want. No due dates or late fees.

Return them and get a new set

Are you signing up for the same? 

http://www.hungryminds.in/views/index-4.cfm

Kiddy Room Redone

The Room with the hot wheels bed sheet as the inner bed sheet

Study Tables 

Seated on the new chairs...check the car mat

To solve the problem of which table belongs to whom...there pictures in the sliding glass case

A closer look at the tiny shelf in the tables

The Ben 10 dustbin

Colour boxes, Pencil boxes and endless number of crayons, pencils, color pencils

The Ben 10 figure welcomes at the entrance

We need your time, please

Have you shared thoughts on CSA Awareness yet?

So you have an experience to share?

Do you have advice to keep your child safe?

If not, we have another 11 days to go. 

I quote verbatim from a mailer sent by dear friend Sue (sunayanaroy.blogspot.com) and the appeal from the versatile lady Kiran Manral (thirtysixandcounting.wordpress.com)

10 minutes a day max but we do need participation.

Things you can do:
1. comment at http://csaawarenessmonth.com/

2. comment/post/share/like content from https://www.facebook.com/CSAMonthApril (I'm assuming you've all been kind enough to Like the page already)

3. comment/post/share/like CSAAM content from https://www.facebook.com/thealternative.in

4. respond/rt tweets from https://twitter.com/#!/CSAawareness

5. post to the app http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/csa-awareness/id513616154?mt=8

Folks, please pitch in. I understand we're all busy, but a few minutes a couple of days a week would go a long way. This is a sensitisation programme so the further we can reach the more effective we are. 

Mostly we're communicating directly with the people concerned like Fliplog and Web TV and The Alternative not to mention the various NGO folks.


Also, if any of you have been interested in the poster competition and not got around to putting up entries, please keep in mind that it's fine to send in photos/scans of handmade posters. It's not ideal but we'll figure it out.

Send in your feedback folks, that's the only way we'll know how far we're reaching.

Treasure House

A very talented blogger friend has started this lovely initiative in Hyderabad ...it is a Summer reading program at TreasureHouse, children's library, Jubilee Hills.

Refer the below URL for more details. 
(http://utbtkids.com/2012/04/12/treasurehouse/)

There are programs for age groups 0- 5, 6- 9, 9+

For parents of children age 0 – 5 - a parent information work shop that talks about why reading is important, what are the early literacy skills that are targeted by reading to young children, what to read, when to read, how to read, why we are reading what we are reading.

For children age 6 – 9, THE BUTTERFLIES BOOK CLUB. The underlying goal of this book club is to make children aware of other genres. The world of books is not just magic, fantasy and what-ever-my-older-sibling/friend-is-reading. There is fiction, non-fiction, drama, picture books, chapter books, environmental issues, humor, classics, mythology, history, exploration/discovery/voyages…. and many more. Catch them young, when they have started reading independently and introduce them to the different choices so that they pause at their age level and explore choices at level instead of jumping to what is popular and run out of choices soon. I call this, my 'prevent children from getting lost in the adventure/magic/mystery Bermuda triangle' mission. Children will interact with Sridala Swami, author of Cheenu's Gift and Sandhya Rao, editor of Tulika Publishers.

For children age 6 – 9- workshop based program... MAKE YOUR READING BLOOM. The idea is to work with beginner and reluctant readers on certain skills that will improve comprehension and fluency. This will be a 5 session workshop.

For 10+ children, in keeping with my Bermuda triangle theory, There is THE MYTHOLOGY BOOK CLUB. This club will analyze mythology as a genre, compare elements from various mythologies, talk about mythological characters and beasts and has two author interaction sessions. Devdutt Pattanaik and Anu Kumar.

I urge you to enrol yourself for summer reading...I would have if I was in Hyderabad ...sob

Also I have a favour to ask you.... if you have a personal blog, write about this program and talk about this on FaceBook using the tags @Treasure House and @utbt kids so that more people get to know about this initiative and join the same so that their children have a fun filled summer 

Go to www.treasurehouse.in for ,ore details.

Beautiful Country

For the blog readers, I have one copy of Beautiful Country to give away.

The only condition being You post a review of the same on your blog or Facebook or any other media and send me the link.

Quick, first come first.

 Mail me at itchingtowrite@gmail.com

About the Book...Beautiful Country is an attempt to explore the other India, the India which most of us do not know about,

It has fascinating tales about tribes that are getting extinct, about the indigenous crafts of the regions, facts about the miseries and triumphs of these far flung places which do not have access to even the basics for human survival.

In the words of Dr Sayeeda Hameed and Gunjan Veda, this book discloses the truth about various government initiatives from a first person point of view and forms a compelling read.

The book urges you to turn the pages and go about discovering the India that is by and large invisible to media and therefore most of the Indians.

Rush...write to me... This book really needs to be talked about...

Study Tables Arrive

And the books are all organised.
I guess I am more excited about it than them.
But there was much fanfare today with Ojas and Tejas and the kids R and S also organising the shelves with great enthusiasm.
Suitable chairs need to be bought.

We bought these from Woodpecker furniture.
While we had a choiceto take a smaller one without the sliding glass shelf but my expectatiin is the storage needs will go up anyway so it is better to invest in a bigger one.
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Pizza Takeaway

Ojas wanted to pack this leftover slice of pizza....uggh

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Flowers

The cactus finally bloomed and so did the crotons and the delicious monster finally split the leaves after 4 years.
And all this happened when I stopped giving a damn about them.

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Earthquake

While I did not sense the earthquake I did get to see a strange phenomenon. The electronic balance in the lab was fluctuating from 0 through 0.05 to 0.1 and back again.
Till long after the tremours were over.

Perhaps that is why trains are stopped after an earthquake.

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Toothy Tale

and so the tooth fell off while eating and as Ojas was washing it, it
went down the drain....

The Humble Datun

Packaged in Singapore for 2 dollars
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PTA Meeting

Straight A s except for Tejas who got a B in Maths in one paper. 

He said, I did everything correctly so I can't be getting B.

Ojas says ...actually he went to toilet and someone took his paper away so he got B grade...

Talk about supportive brother.

Speaking of whom, he cut off a portion of his hair leaving an uneven scalp visible.

OAS is planning for his impending richness as the tooth is wobbling badly.

New Car

On seeing the same, say Ojas, Tejas...does it have a TV?

And no, their expression wasn't very approving once they heard that the answer is no.

FW: Errand Boy err Animal

Are you a doggie asks Mamma
Ojas...no ...cat

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