Even Peeves the Poltergist is Less Annoying Than...

- Those who constantly tell dirty jokes at lunch table- I had no clue about the Nityanand Episode or even a movie called Sindhu Samavali- but the way it had been discussed at my lunch table, scene by scene as shown on TV or word by word as published in teh papers, I feel as if I have watched all the leaked uncensored CDs of Nityanand episode.
My solution- Just give a sarcy look around to another lady colleague and say- see I told you he will discuss this ha ha ha....

- Those who send huge forwards that had already done its rounds a decade or so earlier, especially on the office network. My IT department once send a sarcastic mail to one such forward- for what official purpose have you set up a return receipt for this forward! I sent a silent cheer in his direction!
My solution- just ignore and definitely delete as it clogs the mailbox. Sometimes I just mention that this was an old one- some 10 years earlier I had read it.

- Ladies who involve themselves in the fights of kids. The kids forget about it in moments but the mothers- their fights continue because even if you do not want to involve yourself at some point you have to step in when the said mother is abusing your son- telling him bloody fool or shoving him even if there is a chance that my son is at fault.
My solution- is usually to call both kids and ask both of them to apologise. I don't usually involve myself with the parent unless it gets too much. I normally keep a check on what happened in the playground on a daily basis.

- People who ping me on chat again & again throughout the day- just because I am online doesn't mean I am in a mood to talk to you. Ok we did a hi hello in the morning. Why are you again doing the same hi in the afternoon. Can't we just exist in the cyberspace but not disturb the other person who might be seriously working on a blog post.
My solution- ignore when it happens second time in a day.

- Those morons who send Personal mails on my office id- When you know my personal e mail id why the F are you writing to me on my official id? That too mails that are entirely personal in nature?
-My solution- block the person. I don't mix business and pleasure or rather even "un" pleasure. I explicitly tell people to mail to my personal id if they are not my colleagues. And I am not a fan of asking official mails to come to personal id especially because if you have a mail address that reads something like itching....ufff you will know how it feels to share it with office people!
- People who come on a group forum only to seek solutions for themselves but never be around to even listen forget respond to other people's problems.
My solution- resist the temptation to respond to the frantic help requests.

- Ladies who seek you out in a group tour only to ask where the toilet is- as if we are appointed toilet sensors. Or to join your group because they see you are a prospective "helper" for shopping in a strange city
- My solution- let the said lady tag along and then lose her in the crowded shops. And do not tell her of your discovery- the secret location of the additional toilet 3 floors up!! Let her stand in queue for the common toilet and tell her you don't want to "go"

So what are your pet peeves?

Of Demons & Super Heroes

I thought I would religiously update the reviews of all the books of Ramayan series by Ashok Banker. But I got so tied up with the books that I just didn't want to invest energies in thinking about a review. But then what is the purpose of reading a book and then not blogging about it!!
So here goes a quick one.
So I have read
Demons of Chitrakoot
Covers the circumstances of Rama's exile, their struggles with the demons in Chitrakoot and the parallel story of Lanka and the circumstances in which Ravan is brought back to Lanka. In a true filmy style he is in a prehistoric version of coma which is something new to me- I have never come across such episode in all my understanding of Ramayan.
Armies of Hanuman
How can a book not be dedicated to the key force in Rama's army? Hanuman is introduced in this book- the Hanuman who is yet unaware of his great powers. We come to know who is going to be Valmiki much later. Supranakha manages to revive Ravan using Rama's blood (now where have we read that before? Hint hint- Harry potter & he who must not be named- he gets revived using Haryy's blood!!!) Bali is introduced here and we come to know that Bali tried to lure Rama by saying he knows the secret of Ravan's death. Political! In this book, Rama doesn't kill Bali while Sugreev & Bali are duelling but confronts him and kills him.
We come to know about the phenomenolly sorcerous powers of the Pushpak

The Bridge of Rama
The bridge building starts in this bok. The skills of the architect Nala is employed here - pure architectural skills not the other explanation that I liked to believe
There were many hermits living on a riverbank in cottages. While young, Nala & Nila entered these hermitages; while the sages were immersed in deep meditation, seizing the holy icons they used to cast them into the waters of the river. The sages were enraged at this sacrilege and they cast a curse on them, in this manner. 'Boys! May all things that you throw on water never sink; may they float instead. And, may they remain just where you have thrown them, even if the waters flow fast in floods.'
Hanuman our (original) Superhero's potent energy is unlocked and he leaps across the ocean and burns the city of Lanka.

And so, I am on the last book now- The King of Ayodhya- I could give you a sneak previews because impatient as even I have skimmed through many pages. But I will hold back till I have read the entire book

Punning Again

Ojas- Yashpal's hand broke
Tejas- Yashpaal?
Yash milk?
Paal= Milk in Tamil

Dastakar Exhibition at Kalakshetra

Is Back. The last one happend in Jan 2010. So we get 2 exhibitions this year and I don't know why it makes me so happy! Needless to mention, I had been waiting for January so that I could go there but then all of a sudden it was upon us and all thoughts of visiting it had to be put off due to the ceaseless cyclone rain.

Tuesday, I managed to go there.

I asked the kids before leaving-

Do you want to go to the exhibition or play here itself.

Now such a question is guaranteed to give an answer that looks like- we want to play here.

I was tempted to add some vile description of an exhibition but the kids took the bait easily.

So Mom & I rushed to Kalakshetra since we were already 4 days late and all the good stuff would have been sold and parked as close as possible to the entrance so that we could gain early entry advantage - every second counts when you have to get into the shops.

The theme for the year is Akshara- the script and there is lovely calligraphy work done by various states on various medium like cloth, pottery, cushion covers etc. I would have loved to pick every one of them but I have serious lack of space in my home.

I loved a huge ॐ with gods embroidered on it on a cloth backing.

Like a true blue blogger, I wanted to carry my camera and take lots of pictures. But shopping tops blogging at any point of time so I didn't. But I urge you to go here and see all the pictures you want. It covers the entire exhibition beautifully.

I picked up a lovely kurta from the Bengal stall, a pair of Haryanvi chappals with mirror work & embroidery, colourful metal bangles, a set of coasters & 3 trays (Mom's gift), Jute placemats. Not many but I guess there is only so much you can buy when there is no manouvering space in your home even.

The exhibition is on till 13th for those who might want to go.

And perhaps I could go again and check out the dress materials- look at them statewise and select what is missing from my wardrobe. No no, I am just going to look.

Or shall I pick up the blocks - for the sake of art- even if I am never going to print my own cloth. Perhaps I will just take the contact details of the stall owner. That way, even if I do not buy anything, I have an option of contacting him and buying later. Believe me, it gives you a lot of security- just knowing that you have the leads on where to buy something.

What about the lovely watermelon coasters I was drooling at or the rajasthani mirror work coasters - nah, I am not going to spend Rs 450 on coasters. The watermelon ones would have been over by now- and what of the ones that I have already bought? At this rate, I will have to buy new sofas & tables to accomodate all the coasters I want to buy

Clocks- lovely artistic clocks and my current clock has packed up- lemme give an honest shot at getting it repaired because I really really love the clock. And it matches with my wall.

I may just peek into the Delhi kurta stall- They were Rs 750 a piece and I turned my nose down at them but then the designs.. the designs. I also have to collect the shop owner's address so that I have a destination in mind for lovely clothes when the need arises.

Junk jewels- Nah, not my type but I could still see if I can begin to use them. After all the bead necklace that Mamma Mia Me a Mamma gave me (see the kurta pic above) looks great on this kurta.

May be I will take the kids this time- when there is a puppet show on. I am sure they will appreciate it and not even look at the wooden toy stalls all over the place beckoning them.

I need to check whether there are lipstick cases in the Shantiniketan Leather stall and perhaps a huge travel size handbag. Because despite having atleast 50 handbags I still do not have a decent travel handbag.

And while I am at it, spring cleaning is in order to make space for the "hawai and real purchases" I have done.

7 Year Itch

Has Begun. And yes of course I collected a lot of wishes by posting about it on facebook! (; strategy!)
Apart from calls and wishes from friends and relatives, I got 2 funny wishes

1st funny wish
Me- you know what is tomorrow?
Tejas- Yes, your Happy Diwali
Me- No it is Happy anniversary
Ojas- what is it?
Me- Mamma & Dadda got married on this day.
Ojas- Where was I
Me- you were not there
Ojas- I am not your friend (seriously, is he on FB?)
Me- you were in my tummy (well before you raise questions- they were born 2 years after the wedding)
Ojas- will there be toys during the wedding
Me- Ahem ahem..

2nd Funny wish
Happy Wednesday!
I thought because it happened to be a Wednesday but then I realized it was Happy Wedding Anniversary!

Melting Pot

Says Tejas on seeing his loosies

My Potty has melted

Signs of a Facebook Addict

I joined facebook very reluctantly. First it was for the sake of the many games like jumble or pathwords. I would open facebook just for playing the games. My friend list was very limited. And very restricted and private as I was not sure I could carry on so why add friends just for the sake of it. Second reason was to look at all the photos the family was posting which I was unable to view.

When I started realising the fun people were having interacting on this site and I started getting hooked on to it. Slowly the friend list went on an inclusive growth stage- so I added relatives, blog friends, school friends, college friends.... and so on until now I have a good number of friends though not really impressive.

Until sometime ago I thought facebook was for social networking. But now I observe it serves many a larger purpose.

So after a long hiatus- here is my notorious "list post" coming up.

1. Trumpet Blowing- happy about something? want to tell the world in general what you have achieved? Just post it on Fb and you will have a number of "likes" and "great work" and all raising your general happiness levels

2. Feel Good Factor Enhancer- Is it your birthday or any other special day- the automatic birthday indicator to your friends serve a great purpose- they will have friends rushing to wish you in advance so that they do not forget on the d day. So if people live on different time zones, in effect you celebrate your birthday from day -1 to day 0 to day +1.

and even if you suspect that people may miss wishing you- just start posting leading status messages- like, the hubby has already bought my gift or like the children made me a birthday card .... so on and so forth and people will be prompted to wish you

3. Support System- are you pissed off with something or someone? Are you going through a bad phase? Just post on fb and people will come in hordes to offer their sympathies or even bad mouth the objective of your anger with equal or more intensity

4. Annoyed? Do you want to indicate your annoyance? You could post something scathing and hope the person intended for reads it or you could subtly delete the person from your friend list. It is the ultimate insult to be deleted from the friend list and it is a parampara jo orkut ke zamane se chali aa rahi hai!

4. Paranoid?- suddenly you think that some of your friends might post something bad on your wall. Spill your dirty secrets while you are asleep (which means not online)? Give gaalis? Or take your pictures and morph them into something ugly and post it all over the net? But you are scared to "unfriend" them? Or worse, you want to secretly keep tabs on the going ons in their life but do not want to allow them to post anything on your wall?

Simple. Just restrict access to your wall, photos and all but cunningly keep them on your friend list thereby maintaining a one way communication controlled by you. And if the "almost unfriended friend" is just an idle gazer on fb and is not really comunicating with you, then even better- they needn't even know about your restrictions.

So what are your FB lessons? Let's expand the list.

Singing to the Tune

The kids are yet to get their Shruti Box. I mean it has come to the shop and it just needs to come home. Meanwhile, I got them this cheap keyboard for meddling with.

Well, are they meddling or are they doing a medley who knows but as of now it is a very fun thing for all of them.

Tejas sings as I play

But Ojas wants to play as I sing!

Their current favourite song is yashomati mayia. More so because they visualize themselves as Little Krishna and all. I dread the day they will ask me to sing a Ben 10 song of such type.

Ojas can sing the first 4 lines on his own but the rest, he find them too complicated to remember.

Kaleidoscope Classic

A fun game that involves using 18 pieces of different shapes and sizes to be fit into patterns. I got this game 7 years ago and it has been most sparingly used and all of it in the first year of buying it. The intent has always been there but I dare not take it out in front of the kids. Well, not that I have lost anything. The website has archives of previous puzzles which I can access and solve at leisure. The website access comes with the kit purchased.

Recently I took this game out for the kids to play. Ojas has really taken to it and he has made atleast 2 patterns with minimum help from me.

This is the simplest pattern and I helped him with only 2 pieces.

and here's Tejas mastering Ludo.

The Kids' Room

The kids are still not using their room but we are trying to make visible cues to make them realize it is their room.

Some of the work done so far...

The door to their room-

These plastic alphabets come with a 2 way tape behind. I picked them up from a home exhibition stall. They charge Rs 100 per name so someone like Saravanan Swaminathan or Chandra Shekhar Prasad will do a total paisa vasool!!

The kids stuck these themselves - that explains the curvaceous nature of the straight line!

Opposite to the door is their favourite Ben 10 welcoming everyone with a mean glare.Chota Bheem and friends painted on the wall by the husband. He has used glitter paints to emphasise certain things like Chutki's jewels or Dholu Bholu's turbans etc. They look really neat!Tigger on the wall painted by the husband, drawn by an enthu painter who simply wanted to draw something on the wall. The other side of the window has a lion drawn by the same painter and painted by husband. No prizes for guessing why there are lions and tigers here.

This one you already know- the wall at the head of the bed.

Since the last side remaining has the cupboards- the husband cannot paint anything else on that side. .....

The twin beds have a little history behind- it is the same that sis and I started using some 30 years ago. The parents sent it to us and here we have it set in the kids' room. So a nice piece of "heirloom" here. and I love it because the width is not a measly 2.5 feet that your get nowadays but more and the frame is not compressed wood.