Snow snow every where, not a flake to touch

Wrapping up in India and settling here in UK has taken a good amount of my time..and now that the dust is settled..here I am back to my scratch pad.
So I am sitting on the other side of the window pane and watching these flakes of snow fall ..they seem of inviting and harmless from this window view..although the entrance for the house knows its good to stay in as of now…so lets stick to the advice. And here is Aki taking a sound nap after his first day in nursery..Though I am tempted to shake him up and share the view..but with the cold n cough he is hardly getting any proper sleep..so let him enjoy something that he needs more. And I rest my thoughts about Aki here and get back to my snowy experience..
The house oversees a road which has 4 lanes, two for driving either side and two for parking on the road.The road is run parallel by the lawns on either sides , which were green till early morning. Looks like the roads are in some hurry to prepare for the Santa visit and making a silver lining along the road.The bare and naked trees in the lawns, too are getting adorned with the peralish snow flakes.
There is harldy any human sole on road at this time..and those who are seen also don’t resemble much to humans with the long fur coats, high boots and fingers sunk in gloves, they are more like black or white polar bears . Bears of all shapes n sizes..The other row of glass windows opens to the Tram stop.Either sides of the rail has been sprinkled with salt, this would avoid the snow piling up there..Every now and then there comes a tram..gulps in all the people on the stop and moves on to its destination.. would probably have a different blog about that experience and thoughfull ness of the facilities here..
Back to to the flakes..Its all looks too gorgeous as long as you have rooms heaters to sit in and enjoy this from a distance.
Apparently this is my first ever rendezvous with flakes.. way back in india when I visited manali in December.. we missed the snowing by couple of days..so this experience is all the more engrossing and fun-filled.I think this has made up aptly for the loss.

Not so young Gen

After my office hours, I took Aki to park, a part of routine now days. Swing and slides are something that he associates with dawn now :) !

This was late yesterday and the usual mom-n-kids crowd had left for the day. There was a “herd” of kidos. Herd is true sense, given the noise and commotion they were making and each one increasing his decibel to be over the others.

I was so busy overlooking Aki, that I hardly paid any heed to their “noise” as I would call it. Till a time I heard one of them say “C’mon da he just joined a couple of months back ..which is too early to show results and deserve the Nobel prize”… huh!! Excuse me..are they talking about Obama and arguing over his deserving the Nobel prize!!

These kids in cargos and capries, so concerned about their looks and attitude -are they abreast with the developments? Ok this is not cricketing; that guys get interested may be from toddler age!! This was the current affairs.. And almost all 8-10 of them had their side of argument on it..
They talked about coming weekend,diwali plans, fast approaching board exams, skipping the swimming classes,Manmohan tripping to arunachal pradesh, their cool cycles ,racing..Almost anything and everything around..

I heard them for a while. their arguments their opinions, their ways of weighing things.. What was I doing at this age??
Mind you, they weren’t the “Elite” society kids ..Ambani or the like.....these are kids from a normal apartment that gets flooded almost every monsoon..

I was pleasantly surprised with their exposure and “not so young” mind set at young age.
They are cool , full of attitude, concerned about their appearance but as informed, if not more, as adults..The age for “innocent childhood” is fast decreasing..! necessary evil now!!

A trip to Yercaud

Yercaud is a hill station in Tamil Nadu,widely known as “Poor man’s Ooty”
So we had our expectations set when we left for the place on Saturday morning.

Had a comfortable drive in Innova, SUV makes a huge difference in comfort in long trips, specially with kidsJ The “Clifton Inn” where we stayed was good, good enough as per expectations from Poor man’s land.

We started for our first destination- “Lady’s Seat” at around 6:30 when it was still bright. And to our surprise, when we stepped out of Innova, it was thick mist. Dense to an extent that you would see only a meter or tow. It wasn’t as cold as thick the mist was. We got lost in our photography, and in no time it was bright again!! Aaha.. those are the moving clouds..!! Man.. that experience was amazing. Ooty also hadn’t felt so good to me. And from that eve till the day we left.. it was this wonderful experience every evening.. on the roads.. in the lake..on view points..anywhere we went ..Simply Amazing..

Apparently the place is coming up with good high-end resorts. There was club mahindra’s association resort “Lake forest”. Had good lunch buffet…some good food after a long time. and even better resort…Well spread ..British beauty in IndiaJ
Pleasant morning and amazing evenings, very good viewpoints and temples, lovely lake and on every corner there was a perfumery. In all good place to spend time with family
A pack of cards and a game of Tambola is all you need to enjoy this place to fullest, at least from our experience !!

The place is not the activity place. It’s small with just one day sufficient to explore it. Good for letting your hair loose and relaxing.

What’s the big fuss on austerity?

Off late the print and TV media have gone crazy on the display of austerity in politics. The Youth Icon of congress travels in train shelving his high profile and doing away with helicopter only to be the best food for the critics. UPA government seems to have committed the cardinal mistake by flying in the economy class.

No, am not negating the fact that these acts were hollower than they looked. That this pseudo austerity is the way to go ahead in shaping the jeopardized state of politics. I, like most of the other sound audience, understand that things need to go deeper than displays like this.

But are we being fair in making this act so down trodden? Was it better if this new phase of “being conscious” had not started at all? Or was it good, if we had not tried to question the stakes lost in keeping the ministers quenched at the fives stars?

There are gaps and grey areas in this “Austerity Raj” which makes it look phony. There is very little done on accounting how much it saves for poor man and how much does it pay back from those savings. If a minister can spent 50K on daily basis from “his savings” then he can as well donate prosaic amount of 5K daily to relieve the farmers from deaths and droughts. All this is true ..And this is being questioned solely because some one has ignited the move of austerity.

So, though not complete in it, we should appreciate the act has made a marked change in plotics. The NETAs would now have to do minimal and cut on the flamboyant image, to fool the janta.And for all we know we may revisit the Mahatma days where this philosophy was practised and not preached aloneJ

Make a Smilebox invite

Not so "CHeesy Bites"

This Sunday we decided to check out the new ”Cheesy Bites” offering that Pizza hut has come up with. The promos were promising; the pictures almost guaranteed a sumptuous bite. It was too tempting to resistJ

So, we land up in Pizza Hut at around 8Pm.Lovely ambience as always. Find a table just close to the counter and seat ourselves. We were waiting to experience “ pulling and popping the mouth-watering cheese-filled bites”.

We ordered the medium size Cheesy Bites of “ Paneer Bonanza”. And 1 portion of Garlic bread (prefer them over bread sticks) and the lemonade to run us through the wait.

Within 15 min we get our main order ready and served. And from then on we only exchanged glances with each other for the choice we had made. There was a slight hint of cheese..Nowhere close to mouth-watering…though it was hardly a few seconds it was off the hot plate.. The crust was soggy making it more uninteresting. The dough, which made most of the portion of the cheesy Bite, ruined the taste of cheese. A dipping sauce could have made for the damage..but was too late. Ofcourse, the service the drink ,the breads, the pizza inside, was all as good as is expected from Pizza hut..

I guess it has the apt punch line “Pull the fun out of your pizza” in literal terms!! So would rather stick to the old tried and tested menu from next time..

My 10 months Aki takes his first bike ride

One of the many “first time” things that I see with my 10 months old son, Aki (Ayush), was the ride on a bike.

Yesterday, while planning a quick hop n shop, we decided to take lil Aki for a ride on bike. There had been some amount of drizzle leaving a chill in the air. So Aki was covered with jacket, monkey cap n shoes. Not leaving a single inch open for the cold air to tickle.

We hit the bannerghatta road, at around 9PM, not a very good time for a joy ride J .

Aki sat right behind Ashish (my husband), with his legs on either side. And with his tiny hands he embraced as much part as he could of his Dad’s waist. And behind him, was his mom, re-ensuring he is covered from all directions.

The noise level and the smoky road was a new world to Aki, who had travelled only in a car with glasses pulled.

With every honk or noise, he would hold his dad harder or look back for assurance that things are fine. When the wind would hit him on face, he would move his head around to take a shelter behind dad’s back and in no time would start peeping again.

The excitement lasted only till our first halt. On our way back, I guess Aki was bored with the position. He didn’t want to just sit and view things passing by. Like his car trips, he wanted to get up, clap, twist and turn on his will. Something where a bike lacked.

In all was a good “first time” thing, though I now know its only we who are so crazy about biking ...while kids still love cosy seats and spacious surrounding where they can stretch and stand and enjoy.