Trip to Kolkata during Diwali

In the train, on way to Kolkata

Diwali celebrations to begin

With Shilpa Didi, the eldest of the flock!

Babi, her partner in crime!

Turiya Didi

Catching up with Oindrilla

It has been a long time that we could really get down to update this blog. My dad is becoming lazy and keeps giving excuses of travel and office work. And above that neither does he allow me to touch the new computer that he says he has bought for all of us!

On the other hand, my cousin Shreya has been too regular on the blog and is capturing the eyeballs and TRPs. So we thought we will put up some recent snaps in chronological order. You know the addage, a photograph is worth a thousand words!!

Practicing some dance steps @ home on the Navami (Durga Puja, Oct 2010)

Attitude pose. Just back from Dashami celebrations (Durga Puja, Oct 2010)

Growing up in Fast Forward

The frequency of my blogposts to keep up with Jia's developments are far and between. She is growing up and expressing her independence in incremental measures as the days passes by. These days she strikes a conversation and has opinion about what she wants and what she does not!! Its a terrible endeavour to cook up all the conky logics to make her agree to actions which she is not acceptable to :). She also has her group of friends at school and best friends at that. Ofcourse, the "best friends" keeps changing as per moods and fights. The most popular though are R (a boy) & M (a girl). Two anecdotes on her friendships: One evening we found a nice hair clip with her. I asked her where did she get it and prompt was the reply: "R gave me that"! ;). Another evening she said in all seriousness, "Mamma, Mujhe shaadi karna hai (I want to get married)". Mamma had a shock and asked "with whom?". Jia replied "with my friend" (with a but-of-course look!).

Two photographs which gives a nice comparison of the flying time:

Jia finished her playschool recently. She starts going to a bigger school for her kindergarten classes and onwards from June. These days the schools have all the paraphernalia of photos and shows. We never had play school but seeing Jia makes me feel that it is definitely a very enjoyable session.
And I have never wore a graduation / convocation dress - neither after my engineering nor after my B School!!

Dhakka Malo - Updates on Oindrilla

Sometime (few months) back I had mentioned that we will shift Jia's updates to the main blog. However, some friends suggested to maintain status quo as I tend to sometime write serious (read boring) stuff on the main blog and hence the fun of keeping up with Jia will be lost in that. Hence, the status quo is maintained. Sreejata thank you for the lovely idea.

The last couple of weeks have been hectic at home. We were in the midst of shifting to a new residence and it had its own share of workload. And last couple of months has been hectic for Jia. She has been growing and growing fast. She has started speaking more fluently as the days go by and is a serious competition to me as far as being talkative goes.

Every phone call that comes these days - cellular or the fixed line, it is her birthright to answer them. In case you do not toe the line, be prepared to be frowned at and with a deadly pout. In case she has been nice to let you go, she demands that the least we can do is immediately give the phone to her. Her way of asking is "meleko mai" - that is "mereko bhi" / "me too"! She tends to use "l" for a "r" in some cases! And thats the reason for the strange title of this post. She loves to announce and play "dhakka malo" - pushing around!! Family members these days also have given us (me and wifey) the status of a second grade citizen. People calling from home ask about her and for her, more than for us and about us!! As the weeks goes by, her repertoire of conversational questions also increases. She started with the typical bong dialogue "ki korchho" (what are you doing) and generally keeps repeating the question. But these days she also answers questions on if she had food and what did she have etc.

She also has developed a knack for watching TV!! She demands that she wants Tom & Jerry (T&J) everytime the TV is on. And that is her version of cartoon. Both her grandfathers had a tough time catching up on their sports and news stuff during their recent visits and had to rely on her going to school / sleep!

The most recent obsession is her own computer! Our dear friend Ranita gifted her a laptop for kids, during her visit a couple of months back. It is a small, colourful laptop, with a display, a mouse and pre set modes for teaching alphabets and numbers. We took that out for her as she now has started learning alphabets and numbers. So she makes it a point to tell us "mela computer" and keeps it on her lap to work on it, a la her parents. So much is the adaptation of the modern lingua franca, on my asking her last evening, what was she upto, she responded in bengali "am working on the computer" (ami computer e kaaj korchhi). We were in splits and had a hearty laugh at our predicament in handling this kid in the years to come!

And ofcourse she has one constant line every 5 minutes of her waking up time - "Sharanya ghar jana hai". Sharanya is her best friend and she always wants to go to Sharanya's home (albeit it is 20 kms away and of no importance to her!!). Those who may be wondering, Sharanya is the daughter of Manish and Dipti, our very close friends, and a year elder to Jia. So the party of fights, tantrums and destruction is on! And we are loving it!!

I promise to be more regular now as the ideas have started flowing and am fresh these days after shifting to a more green and pristine area of residence.

Do let me know your feedback. Am planning to write the next post on her new phase of school going! Will also upload few snaps of Jia in her new abode along with her "lappy"!