On the verge of parenthood...

It's ninth month now..... it may happen any time.....
a new phase... a new role... a new relation.... a new responsibility...
tension... excitement....happiness... worry.... all at once...
The new face of the family. Someone we had been dreaming about....talking about....
even though just 8 months...it seems like a long wait.... an roller coaster ride though....
but each time there was a down.... it added even more to the excitement....attachment...

We have been doing so many things for the yet to be born so that it would attain a good growth as well as a good personality....
From the Manashakti kendra courses and Cd's to the James Nicholas Cd's to various Garbha Sanskaar Books.... as well as reading biographies of great personalities...
in short, what all we could do for the so called pre-natal education.... we did and of course are still doing.

One more regular lookout for Deepa would be babycenter.in website. She regularly studied all the information there week by week and that definitely helped in understanding the changes that happened.. both physical and emotional.

it may be that everyone goes through same experience.... but again it is unique for everyone...
may be because the personality that that enters the world is always unique....
we talk to the baby.... it may not speak.... but it responds through it's movements. We are already Recognizing it as an individual personality. Even though it is not “officially” born, it has already become part of the family. it even has a name...a gender neutral nick name...

The search has began.... for all the new things … cradle... nappies...all the infant care items....
past one month has been little tough though. Especially for Deepa... but like they say in Hindi, “Sabar Ka Fal Meetha Hota Hain...."

Just waiting for the happy moment to arrive....
eager to welcome a new member in the family...

someone has said, Parenthood, its not a job. It's an adventure!
We are just embarking....

A Mouse in My House

Last weekend.
I was in kitchen. Suddenly I saw a small mouse running around.
I knew that he roamed around freely in our house. But since he was not doing any harm apart from collecting all garbage into spaces behind cupboard, my parents did not have much objection to his stay in our house.

But now that I saw him running into a corner, I thought why not get hold of him at once and throw him out. So I moved towards the corner where I expected him to get cornered with a broom in my hand but now I was not able to find him anywhere. Where did it go? He must be there. He had not run away. There was no way out. But still it vanished somewhere.

I looked around carefully. It has already made an escape route ready. I saw a small hole dub between the door frame of kitchen trolley and the wall. He had carefully removed some white cement put in there to fill up small gap in the corner between the floor, the frame and the wall. Through that he went inside the kitchen trolley where I was very difficult for me to tackle him. When I opened all trolleys, the small pieces of paper collected there indicated that he was staying there since long.

That night, my wife woke me up at around 2 am. There was some noise in the room. I woke up and switched on light and started looking around. To my surprise I saw a mouse. It must be the same mouse because...... he was trying to make small hole for his free movement in and out of our room. I looked carefully to see exactly what he was doing.
He was cleverly trying to make a hole by using the same trick; he was trying to exploit the weak section where door frame touches the wall. He had already removed some small amount of cement.
I was amazed to see his effort.... he ran away behind cupboard. We slept... after some time there was the noise again. This time without switching lights, I got hold of my camera on table and tried to click by aiming it towards the door. I wanted to take a photo. But I missed the aim and he ran away. I opened the door so that he could move freely and I could sleep.

I remembered the definition of the term “Learnability” I learned in Infosys, it was something like “ability to draw generic knowledge from specific experiences and use it in unknown situation.”. Here this animal was doing exactly the same thing. It learned it in kitchen and was applying the knowledge in other rooms.

I have always had a fascination for the mice. This creature is always treated as a clever and intelligent character.
I am an ardent fan for Tom and Jerry and especially Jerry. Also look at Mickey Mouse....
If you are a movie fan and have seen movies like Mouse hunt you will definitely agree in the literature like “Panchatantra” also a mouse is a portrayed as an intelligent character.
The height above all is the “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy”.... there it says that entire earth is system created by mice to solve the problem of origin of the universe and they monitor we humans like guinea pigs in an experiment. It cannot get bigger than this :-)

Everywhere, a mouse is always treated as a clever character. This was the first time I experienced it myself...

3 Incidents

3 incidents,
Easy to forget... Yet memorable.

Incident 1.
Location, Vaishali Nagar bus depot, Mulund... Morning time... I was
Waiting for bus 402. No Q. A big mob was waiting for the bus. The bus arrived and even before it stopped, people started rushing into the bus.
Chaos was the order of the moment.
I was quietly standing aside and watching plus waiting for it to get over.
There was a man standing next to me. From overall aapearance he looked like a villagers who probably for the first time had come to Mumbai. He too was watching this whole eposode.
He looked at me, smiled and said "nusatyaa jagesathi avadhi hanaamari... Thode paise asate tar hyaa lokaani ekmekaanche gale kaapaayla kami kele nasate" (so much of fight just for a seat... no wonder these people would not hesiatte to cut throats if there was even a little money involved)
I had nothing to say. He had just uttered simple truth of our life in Mumbai.

Incident 2.
Churchgate Local from Virar...
Morning rush hour.... second class compartment...
One gentleman looked around the compartment. there were many small stickers of advertisements all around the compartment. many of types of "Baba Bangali" and likes.
he looked around for a while....cursed a little to those unknown people.... and then... then he started removing those stickers. he removed as many as he could and threw out of the window.
taking a clue... I too removed a few....
One simple act... but a good start....

Incident 3.
Kalyan fast local from Dadar
A young man standing beside me talking on fone.
He was talking to a friend whose grandmother had expired.
"what is use of that big package if you can't even take a leave for your dadi's funeral?"
he thundered into the phone. "look at us, we have a simple shop but when my dadi died, the shop was shut for 10-12 days.... what is use of all that money if we can not spare some time for our family?"
he made me think.... once again eternal truth.....

A lot of good people are around... just need to keep the eyes open....

Why the tiger became cat...

Just read editorial in Saamna…
So painful….

Not only the words but more importantly for the person who wrote them…
The article itself was telling the root causes for failure of Sena…

It says… “Marathi people betrayed ShivSena”

More important than the sentence is the mindset that exposes…

It means that the Sena always took marathi people for granted…..

Yes… ShivSena did a lot for marathi people especially in Mumbai…

But does not mean that it can take people for granted…

Existence of ShivSena is because of Marathi people and not vice versa….

This is time for introspection and not for blame game… and certainly not time to blame the voters…
Voters “Donate” their vote…and the candidates being recipient are at a lower level….
A recipient can not blame a donor for not donating to him.
He needs to think why the donor found him not worthy of donation.

The article also says that people elected some new candidates for ShivSena….

This clearly indicates that people are not fool and they voted for the candidates they found suitable for their constituency.

So the question is why the old candidates’ failed and fresh candidates got elected?

ShivSena is definitely not the same old one…. The article talks about what Sena did in past 44 years…. But unfortunately what matters is what it does today…

In fact why there is need to refer to the past? Is it because there is no present achievement to refer to? If past was only the reason for vote then the congress would have perpetually remained in power because the party did so much for the independence in the past.

It is not that Marathi people who betrayed the Sena… but in all probability it is that the Sena failed to meet the expectations of the people. When in power… there was no difference felt in the way Sena ruled and in the way congress ruled… the system moved ahead on it’s own inertia….

I remember a story here… not sure how relevant….

The one from Aesop…

A Fox after crossing a river got its tail entangled in a bush,
and could not move. A number of Mosquitoes seeing its plight
settled upon it and enjoyed a good meal undisturbed by its tail.

A hedgehog strolling by took pity upon the Fox and went up to him:
"You are in a bad way, neighbor," said the hedgehog; "shall I
relieve you by driving off those Mosquitoes who are sucking your
blood?"

"Thank you, Master Hedgehog," said the Fox, "but I would rather not."
"Why, how is that?" asked the hedgehog.
"Well, you see," was the answer, "these Mosquitoes have had their fill;
if you drive these away, others will come with fresh
appetite and bleed me to death."

May be that’s what people thought….

Entering the world of drivers….

Finally on 14th February, I got hold of the keys for my first car…. Chevy Spark.
It was more than 2 months after I got my driving license. It was hardly one month into driving school and that meant always with a trainer. Now I had to try on my own.
Staying a densely populated area of Thane near Mulund check post, everyone was thinking that I should drive with someone experienced alongside at least for a few weeks.

But there was no one around who could take up this job. This was the only second time that a four wheeler was bought first one being that of my sister’s. It was not possible to spent time and that apart from her and her husband I was the only person in family to get a four wheeler license.

So finally I decided to venture out on my own or rather I had to.

On the day of collecting vehicle from dealer, I had my brother in law Yogesh with me to guide me to take it safely (for me as well as for others :-)) home. And later we went out for a dinner when I drove it alone thus gaining confidence.

The very next day I drove it out to the petrol pump. It was an “end to end first gear” journey. It took me whole 10 minutes just to position the vehicle correctly at the pump. Also I did something which I had read so far in jokes about women driving a car…. I drove for sometime before realizing that I had not released the handbrake.

Then again in the evening I and Deepa went out roaming around the city. We entered into heavy traffic. I “managed” to brush against a biker who trying to squeeze between cars and make way. Thankfully traffic police there took my side. So that was first day out alone. The next day also we went out in the evening… this time it was something bigger I “managed”. Again in heavy traffic I hit an auto from behind when it suddenly stopped I could not. Although it was at less than 5 km speed and neither the auto nor the car had even a scratch, it was a start of dealing with the special class of drivers called “Rikshaw-wallah”.

Since then it has been a smooth ride so far… only once I did a mess up after that when I stopped in the middle of a fast moving traffic. I ended up getting too much curses and advices at the same time from all directions :-)

All this has taught me to look at the surrounding from a driver point of view. Earlier as a pedestrian I used to cross the road in anticipation that that approaching vehicle will somehow manage to stop or all of a sudden getting into the way of a vehicle when it is slow traffic in market etc.

Now after getting behind the wheel I realize how much pressure it gives to the driver.So at least one thing has changed for me… the way I look at the world… it ias a new perspective now, a “Drivers perspective”