Fasting is good

Every now and then fasting is a good thing. Helps your system reset. For some reason, fasting is more of a regular things with women in my life than the men. Mom, sister, wife, MIL all fast every now and then on a Friday or Saturday on some pretext (god's name) or other. Sometimes it is a full blown water only fast. Other times it is a liquid diet only and sometimes it is a "no tamarind, lime, etc.. sour or tangy"  fast. My dad's idea of fasting was skipping Saturday night dinner and no one in our house pushed me or my brohter to do any fasting. 

While fasting w.r.t. food is a good thing, that has been proven by eastern and western medicine and science, fasting with respect to external information is a very very good thing! Just went through that experience recently.

Three plus weeks ago, on an evening, I went through my Facebook feed, Twitter feed, Linkedin feed, google news feed and they all ended up depressing me thoroughly. There were mergers in the semiconductor industry that were unparalleled and folks were ending without jobs (this is Deja vu for me and it seems to have something to do with the election cycle for sure. Third time I am seeing this correlation), there were folks in south India fighting over a water dispute, there was US election politics and the ads in social media that just made me want to go throw up(I totally sympathize with swing state voters and what they go through), not to mention that work was tough as it is and we were going through what was probably the toughest phase of a remodeling at home. 

After some interesting feedback from my wife and kids, just decided to do the following :

- delete the folder called "social" in my iPhone (which meant no FB, twitter, linkedin, etc. )

- delete safari from my home screen in the Mac. So there was no internet searching, no news, nothing, no late night comedy shows watched the next day, nothing.

- there is no TV at home anyways, so that was automatically taken care of

- the radio was turned off in the car while I was in the car, no exceptions

This in itself was an interesting experience. The first two days, you instinctively search for that folder when sitting in the restroom at work or home, come home and try to check some cricket score, look for that FB feed... but with some training, you get past it after day 3 and stop looking. 

San and the kids were right. I spend a lot more time with them, have meaningful conversations without distractions (they are the ones more distracted now), had fights with them which I actually won! (doesn't happen), laughed a lot, lived a lot better in short!

Then just before the Asia trip, went to check the feed, just to make sure there were no world events in that part of the world that would affect me and sure enough there was a Typhoon going through on our flight path on the way back.  The fact that social media I am used to are all blocked helped continue the fasting!

During that 2 hours spent after a 10 day break, realized that nothing is really changing. Same news feed. Same negativity overwhelming the positive.

The only postivie things were : nice photos of dancing ladies, landscapes and puppies from three of my friends, posts of my friends improving on their yoga experience in and out of the hot room (either smiling faces or faces that could bore a hole right through you with their intensity!)  and the snaps of friends who posted things about their kids doing stuff!

The rest of the feed was a bottomless abyss which drowned out the positives. 

That made me want to do two things. Find a way to filter the things I didn't want to see (it is out there and we should know it is out there, but there is no need to over dose on it), or continue the media fasting indefinitely.

Two days ago, I had an interesting conversation with my yoga teacher and I realized again that it is good to have conversations, it is good to meet new people, interact. Just pick the people and the interaction and it will be okay. 

Now that there is a better system in place, will start writing again. Putting thoughts on screen (paper is better) is a good way to discharge some circuits in your head. A media fast and regular yoga, that is like a shutdown and reboot.. 

Let's see how Sundar 2.0 does in the coming months!

Enna Vechchu comedy kemedy pannaliye ?! (Not making me a comedy piece right?!)

That is a popular punch line of Tamil comedian Vadivelu (one of my favorites).  That seems to have already happened to me.. have become a comedy piece, literally!

Many of my friends and family who watch Vijay TV, have told me that they have a program called Comedy Starz where they used my picture as a "prop".. 

Got the whole thing on video here..

There is some good and lot of bad in this.

Good : Yoga gets some more popularity

Bad : Yoga is still seen as some kind of magic, illusion or rope trick (you see the way the compere ends it? that is the way illusions and rope tricks are presented by street performers).

Also, there is a way to get in and out of a yoga pose. When Jim Kallet was at BYSJ to teach a special class he told the teachers "never get into the pose in the beginner class using an advanced way. I saw this teacher do it in the front row. A football player was behind her in the second row. He was new. He copied her and we literally heard his knees go pop .. pop. He permanently damaged his knee. You can mess with the gods, but you can never mess with your knees".  People do things the wrong way and Yoga gets a bad name. 

Someday will post a video of doing this toe stand, or if BYSJ has one, will link it here. 

There is another bad side to this. Everytime a photo from the blog gets used somewhere (remember 80 feet cut outs of Junior bursting fire crackers in Chennai?), the family is up in arms and wants to shut down all my social media accounts from Facebook, to the blog to twitter, etc. Some will comment and say "get some money out of those guys" to which my response is "the day Indian media companies actually pay anything to take stuff.. that day will never come". Others just go to all out fear mongering "now every terrorist knows about you and your family" to which my reponse is "so the terrorists are all going to start doing yoga? That would actually be a good thing because there won't be any terrorism after they start yoga and do it for a few months!".

If anything, Yoga helps you let go and move on.. so AaaaaUuuuuuuuMmmmmmmmm ! 

This too shall pass!

The girls go sky diving with Varun uncle..

This weekend was interesting. Came back from Asia and was still recovering from food poisoning and jet lag. Sangeetha's baby cousin (not a baby anymore, just like how the Little One is not little anymore!) came to visit us. I decided to make the most of his visit and cheer myself up. This kid was seven I think during our wedding and somehow I still see him as a seven year old. . . as usual I digress.

He came for a weekend visit from Melbourne. So we decided to go take him bowling and then Indoor sky-diving.

He won the bowling by a wide margin and beat everyone in our house. Then came the sky diving..

he did great! He was startled at first but adapted well and went up the wind tunnel! 

but we had some unexpected surprises.

We learned that Jr. is a natural at this!

The little one surprised us as well.. 

Jr. went up the wind tunnel on her second try and that was something to watch! 

They all came out with certificates and coupons for future visits. Something tells me that we will be going there again. The place is 35 minutes away from home and if we can reserve a spot (which was available that morning) it is a good deal.. especially if you have had a rough three days and just want to watch some smiling faces and family members have a great time! 

Have not been in this tunnel in almost nine years! "Damn I looked young once!" was the thought that came to mind after looking at that old post from 2008.. maybe will go again to celebrate 10 year anniversary of first indoor sky-diving experience in January.. and maybe, maybe, will take Sangeetha with me!

At this rate, not sure if I will ever get to post things from the Pittsburgh trip. It is going to be another hectic week.. maybe this weekend... lots of tea, sit outside and blog! 

Happy Father's day!

Another year when Father's day ends up in rush mode with me traveling. Did not plan it that way.. realized much later that today was Father's day.

The kids have made some surprise gifts for me which I am guessing are things they did in art class. Have to wait till I come back to see those!

They asked me what Daddy's request was for a gift. Given how they are both at a phase where posing for pictures is a chore, asked them to come pose for a few pictures in backyard and also wear what I ask them to wear.. 

They agreed. Then realized it was one of those "let's take the same picture" deals and went "oh no! he is now going to ask us to look an an old picture and position just like that! 

This year my MIL is here. So went to Yoga class at 6AM and got a rose from Bikram Yoga San Jose, just like last year and the many years before. Last year Father's day was International Yoga day.. this year they are a day apart. For us every day is Yoga day! 

and here is how things have changed in a year..  

Let me make a few forward looking statements.. 

1. My hair will grow back

2. The kids have grown taller and will continue to grow taller

3. Here is to many more International Yoga days and Father's day's and roses from BYSJ! 

Time flies, sometimes with its arms and legs stretched as far as possible, like a 747 taking off.. 

Happy Father's day to my dad and all the other dads out there who are close to their kids! 

It is time to go listen to yet another story from an Uber driver who has survived persecution of some kind in the middle east or another conflict area. This year it has been 6 for 6.. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Ukraine.. I am too bummed out to talk to Uber drivers on way back and one does get to converse on the way in, especially when it always a Sunday morning with no traffic.

Here's to all those dads who are trying to do the best they can, with the cards they are dealt, not necessarily due to any fault of their own.  

Jr. grows up without us realizing it!

It feels like yesterday when Jr. was complaining about the blog being all about her baby sister and how her birth and early life was not detailed here.. and to appease her I made this video 

and it feels like day before yesterday that those events in the video happened ! 

Before we realized it, this little girl is all grown up and is now going to high school. 

In a space of two weeks we saw her do a Bharatanatyam performance with her dance school, get glasses, do a solo with pros thanks to her Saxophone teacher, do a band performance at school, get a distinguished student award, look way cooler than her daddy and walk graduation! 

This girl who is now into signature posing.. continues to impress us with her perseverence and work ethic! 

Her teacher had some nice things to say about her and told me that Anjana would make a great teacher. Think her school teacher grandma will be very proud!

 

The highlight of this week though was that both kids graduated from their respective schools and are moving on to new schools. It was great not to just watch Jr. but all her friends graduate. All these kids we have seen grow along with Jr. over the last 9 years, practically as an extended family! 

The smile on her face says it all. There is a confidence, an assertiveness, a certain independence that we are seeing now that was not there last year. It is reassuring to see her go through this phase at this age. By comparison I was a clueless kid till the age of 18. The kids in the US may not be pushed hard enough compared to how we were 30 years ago in India when it comes to Math, Physics or Chemistry (my perception) but they are surely getting a more well rounded education with a better perspective on how what they learn is going to change things in the future for them and everyone (again my perception). 

 

Recently a guy in Asia gave me a compliment "you look like you are 46-47 years old!" . He thought it was underestimating my age. I did not say anything and just smiled. 

Compared to the 13 year old, I do look 45 when I am 43, and for once, I am okay with it, because I am now "cool" by association! 

They say when you feel time go by fast, you are happy and when you feel time stands still, you are not in a good place. Thirteen years flew by! 

Credit to Jr. for making us proud and happy. I can already imagine writing a post on Jr. going to college. Hope she does well in high school as well over the next four years..