Kuku attended a wedding ceremony yesterday, at Bangalore. Every body was beautifully dressed, and all the arrangements were lavish. All the guests had to queue up and go on to the stage to get their picture taken with the newly weds. Everyone wore wide smiles, all through the picture taking ceremony on the stage. And in order to capture the moments, there were endless cameras ……hot shots camera, digital cameras, and video cameras and photographers everywhere..……!
At the end of all this event, Nona asked Kuku, “Hum kahan gaye the…?”
A very happy Kuku replied, “Party…!”
Nona asked, “wahan kya dekha….?”
Pat comes the reply, “ Smiles and photo….!”
How uncomplicated is the child’s mind. He sees and conveys what he understands……!
Kuku’s perception of his surroundings is so clear and so is his memory…..he met an old friend after 7 months , at the wedding. He recognized him and gave him a hug too……..!
Inspite of being a small fellow (people at home even call him the small man of the house)….he seems to have grown fast in his brain…! Yooo…..Kuku….!

Kuku feels shy……..Oh ! sounds strange…..!
Kuku it seems these days is rolling on cloud 9 for some reason. Nona told me that he was walking around with both his hands in his pockets, with a lot of style and his nose in the air.
Nona exclaimed, “Oh, ooooo…….!”
Hearing this, he suddenly started feeling very shy, (aaj kal kuch jyada sharam anne lagi hai….!). Then he promptly tells his mom, “main googles pehen raha hoon,..... …ab oooooh......and aye hai………mat bolna”.
Its crazy but less than 3 years old’s can also feel shy. I would love to see him with goggles perched up his nose, and hands in pockets, rolling along happily with a “duniya meri jeb mein” wala expression.

Swati was in the hostel. One weekend when she came home, she asked for coconut oil. As it was over we decided to get it in the evening from the market.
Now, during evening time, specially, at the weekends getting in and out of A - Block market at Anand Vihar, is a real project. Both sides of the road gets blocked by haphazardly parked cars and there is no room for traffic to move in both directions. There is a permanent chaos. While coming back from the Sports complex we wanted to stop to get the oil.
As, was expected, I did not get any place to park my car. I stopped somewhere to let Swati get out. I told her to get the oil as fast as possible, as I was parked almost in the middle of the road. She went.
Five minutes passed……no sign of Swati coming back. I told myself that the shop must be crowded, so she is taking time. Another 10 minutes went by,……and I was having a problem with vehicles coming from all directions, as I had to keep moving my car, in order to accommodate others.
After, another 5 minutes was up, and I still could not see Swati anywhere….. I inched my car in a small place. I got off………and went towards the shop. I saw her coming out……….and the first thing that I ended up blurting out was….. “What were you up to….growing coconuts…!”
This was another day in our lives……maddening at that time, but hilarious for us now…..!

Ah....Suji toasts.........what memories they evoke....!

As it is the toasts are so damn good that the very thought of them makes my mouth water...!

and the same feeling is shared by Googi.

This incident happened when she was in class 8th.

After lunch,I did some work and was tired...........I lay down on the bed to rest for a while. Very quietly, googi crept upto the bed to ask whether I would like to have a suji toast..........as she was hungry and was making one for herself.

Suji toast was something I could never say no to. So, she happily walked off. By the time the toast was ready, I had dozed off.Googi came in quietly.....with a wonderfully, crisp toast, smelling like heaven.....! Ahhhhhhhhhhh.....ma will be so happy, its looking n smelling great..!

God know's why....but she somehow at that moment, felt a great rush of love for me......and she remembered heroes on TV screens, mesmerizing their heroines with lovely smells n flowers....!

So, copying them to the best of her ability, she rotated the plate with the toast on it, very near to my face. That did nothing.........! Then she crept closer to my nose and tilted the plate, so that the lovely smell could reach my nostrils....(hoping that would wake me up.....)but to her horror...........the HOT toast slipped from the plate and fell on my face.......!

And here, I was sleeping so comfortably, suddenly felt the hot toast on my face...........!

I screamed like anything and shouted at her.

" tawe pe se uttar ke seedhe muh mein dalegi kya"..........!

At that time I lost my temper, but now, whenever we look back, we laugh our heads off.

Now its always..." googi.....suji toast bana de"......!

Shyam and I were invited to attend this musical concert at Colombo. The lady who had organized this concert is a very renowned and a polished lady.We were her husband's guests, and were made to sit in the front row. Mr. Shahbandhu very nicely showed us the list of events, for that evening.

Then he informed us that the concert was to be conducted in spanish language............!

The lights dimmed and the show started.The lady played a beautiful composition on the piano near the stage. The performance of actors was excellent. The Suprano and Alto effects of the songs were (to our ears......it was just like some highly shrill sounding lyrics, punctuated by deep sonorous words,....the meaning was beyond our capabilities....!) really amazing....! Even the dresses they wore were simply perfect.

In the midst of the lovely performance I could see my husbands head rolling from side to side.I nudged him gently. He sat up alert once again. Thankfully, our host sitting next to him,was apparently unaware of what was happening.

After about ten minutes or so.....to my horror....I heard him snoring........!

There was total darkness, except for the spot light on the stage.....and the parting of lovers, depicted by a highly emotional scene was going on.. ..! The actors were really working hard to sing from the pits of their stomach.....! I could barely make out Mr. Shahbandhu shifting uncomfortably in his seat. I again nudged Shyam , a little forcefully this time....but atleast he woke up. I thanked God....!

He tried to keep his eyes open for a while. But then,after some time....I saw his head falling off towards Mr. Shahbandhu. And that really gave me the creeps.....What if, his head falls on his shoulders....!

With a lot of difficulty, i managed to keep him awake...on and off, through all those 2.5 hours of dedicated performance. But in the future, I made it a point to go to only those programmes where Shyam promised that he would be awake and be pleasant all through.....!

Suhani and kuku's visit to Srilanka (24.122011 -1.1.12)

The two adorable children of our house. Each day was so much of fun with them.

Kuku had started identifying some things........like every time he was on the road, he used to get very excited seeing the .....

lead auto.......( the red auto),

gleen auto.....( the green auto)....

And now I find the roads full of colourful autos.......they are in all colours that you can think of.....

Red,

Green,

Blue,

Black,

Cream,

And even a purple coloured one !

Now,whenever we are on the road, Shyam and I start screaming with joy, lead auto, gleen auto.....

On one of these days, while we were trying to exit our building....an American guy was telling Shyam to press the green button, to open the doors. After the fellow passed the doors...Shyam turns around and happily tells me that that man was saying.....

press the gleen button...., press the gleen button....!

The maid at home and the driver of the car , have positively made up their minds that both of us have gone mad...!

Some other memorable one liners of kuku were......

• Bola tha na maine..........tells the whole world....!
• Suhani, meli hai..............tells me....!
• Suhani ko godi le lo..........tells my dad.....!
• Bale nana chai....bana do.......said to my maid...!
• Bala wala paani jana hai.........refers to the sea......!

Suhani is quite a shy and a quiet child. But it was a real pleasure to see her playing and enjoying with the night kites at Galle Face Park.She was able to fly a kite very high....and very well. And in this trip I discovered that she has an uncanny knack of taking excellent pictures through my mobile phone. From a moving car, to be able to focus on distant objects is difficult. But this girl, took some amazing pictures. I was so awed by this, I had to ask Swati to get a camera for her........!

Suhani is 7 years old, and kuku is 2 years of age. In a few years time they will be all grown up.

But these moments of joy will always be with us............!