A symbolic victory?

It has been a rocky three weeks. Lots of ups and downs.. both literally and figuratively. Figuratively because we made a trip to the east coast with family for four days and visited Pittsburgh and had a really great time with family. 

Kids got a detailed education on the family tree from the fathers side during this trip. We did three road trips in three days and visited Heritage sites, national/ state parks, the temple, not to mention Niagra falls. That was the up. The down was that I had multiple international trips and was sick for the most part and flying, even with a biz class upgrade was not a pleasant experience when your ear and entire face hurts at every takeoff and landing. 

The literal part of course was the number of flights in a 20 day period. Have not had a crazier travel schedule in the last two years. 

This intense schedule has made my yoga attendance near zero. Have gone to yoga class twice in 15 days. Many times I have wanted to drag my butt to the hot room inspite of multiple systems failing but decided against it. Today was different. Decided to go and give it a shot anyways. 

You see, this is not new. Most of my friends think that I am crazy to go do Hot Yoga when I have a sinus infection, sore throat or a 101 fever. Let me tell you something though. It actually works! As long as you are confident that you won't pass out in the room and are hydrated enough before class, you come out in better shape than you went in! 

This morning I was pitting multicolored phlegm, couldn't talk above a whisper and the place behind my cheekbones felt numb after repeated attempts to clear my sinus. My ears were hurting as well since the last flight and would pop on and off for no reason. 

While I got a few weird looks from the fellow yogis in the room for repeated coughing during the initial breathing exercise, the rest of the class got better and better. In sequence :

First your lungs clear during the breathing exercise. 

Second, your sinuses drain on to your mat (which is kind of gross but totally relieving) when you do hands to feet pose and get out of the pose. 

Third and this is the best part.. you break into a sweat by the time you are doing the third pose (Eagle pose). Now this is the best part because I think (cannot prove it) that the virus or bacteria that are fighting the body kind of give up when the body breaks into a sweat. Kind of like war time where one party hoists their flag up the fort and the other guys see that as an indication and just give up. Given the body goes into a sweat when it wins the fight against intruding bacteria or virus, this is probably a fake move.. but I will take it! 

The minute you break into a sweat and shiver a little bit in a hot room, magically you feel alright! (Not sure if others have observed this, but I have at least five times so far). 

By the time you do the stretching pose with your head to the floor, anything else left in my sinus is gone! I can breathe again and for a few seconds my body tries to grapple with what just happened. In another 10-15 minutes we are on the floor and I ace this part of the class and come out of the room practically feeling like every other class! 

I have managed to yell at Jr. once for not coming to eat lunch with us and the little one for picking up silly fights with her sister. They are both happy that daddy is getting back to normal and is yelling at them as usual. That also means that daddy is now responding when they try to push my buttons as opposed to "I don't care anymore as I am sick". Girls can be cruel that way. They cannot handle it when  you leave them alone. 

Anyways, now that I am getting my voice back and my breathing is back, going to start working again and process the hundreds of photographs still to be downloaded! 

One has to be blessed to be able to go do Yoga.. for those of you who have the luxury of a fixed time job with no travel, you have no idea how much I envy you! 

On a side note, a friend asked "how come you do yoga so regularly and yet you fall sick?"

My response ? "Sure my immunity is better but I am constantly traveling and picking up germs. If I had a routine between work, yoga and home, I do much better!" and that is true. 

Have you ever tried to wipe the tray table, arm rest, window and monitor with a wet wipe before the flight takes off? It will become black! That is how much crap is there on planes and they don't clean them anymore. 

Enough with the rant. On with life. Photoshop and powerpoint beckon...as do the kids!

Luck, Chance or divine intervention - A trip to Jaipur

My vacation in India was supposed to be two weeks, including the 4th of July holiday. San and the kids were to spend another 2 weeks while I was to experiment alone in the Kitchen and go back to Asia for a business trip in those two weeks. My stay in India extended by an extra four days, and I got a chance to spend those four days with the family on a Jaipur trip. The way it happened was scary though.

My FIL had dropped me off at Mumbai airport for a Cathay Flight to Hongkong. Being my first time at the new airport, was happy snapping pictures of the airport and was in general looking forward to a great trip. It was a full flight and just as we were cleared for take off and the plane was about to go around the bend to start take off, the plane made the usual funny noises. The pilot however, announced that he was aborting take off and instead was going to cross over to the other side of the airport and get it checked by Engineering. His exact words were "this is most likely to be a 10 or 30 minute delay".

There we were on the outskirts of the airport with twenty or so vehicles of different sizes flashing cop lights everywhere. We did not know if it was really an engineering problem or something else. One hour goes by, we are all asked to remain seated, not get up, no water, no tray table lowering and no updates. Slowly the passengers who woke up and realized they are still on the plane started demanding updates. The updates were few and far between and finally 4 hours and 45 minutes after sitting on a plane that was supposed to fly for 5 hours 30 minutes,  the passengers started a mutiny of sorts. 

It was my most ridiculous experience on a plane to date. Finally the pilot said "we are aborting this flight" but we cannot go back to the airport in the plane. You will be taken in buses 50 at a time. The only good thing was that the passengers in first class allowed the elders and people with kids to go out first. 

Once we got back to the airport, it became even more ridiculous. The ground staff, which was mostly new college grads in Cathay uniforms were clearly not ready to handle 400+ irate and tired passengers at 6AM and to top things off we had to get a "cancel" stamp on our passports to Re-enter India! Then we had to get our baggage back and go through "customs". Fortunately they created a separate line for this aborted flight and let us out fast. Now this little "cancel" stamp is making every immigration officer look me up and down (I have already made it back to Asia twice since July)!

When my FIL picked me up back at the airport at 7AM, the logistics of this hit me. They were leaving at 11 AM to Jaipur. I had to stay alone in Mumbai for 2 days, then fly back and forth across the Pacific within 3 days. So alternate arrangements were made in 2 hours. I got Wifi ready to work from Jaipur over the next 4 nights and got a last minute ticket to fly with them and fly out of India 4 hours after we land back in Mumbai. It was sight seeing by day and work by night and was brutal, but we were all happy. The photographer was now part of the trip!

I was also over joyed at seeing San and the kids and have never hugged them tighter. Turns out the plane had engine failure and it was a good thing the pilot aborted the flight! 

Off we went to Jaipur and boy was it great! My FIL always does an outstanding job of planning a trip months in advance. He had to adjust on the fly and cancel a trip to Bikaner given my work schedule, but we managed to cover things in Jaipur at a steady pace over 4 days.

The ITC Rajputana, where we stayed was amazing. Just look at the lobby! Had to do HDR images to just capture a fraction of what our eyes saw there. 

The kids were running up and down the marble stair cases. To date we have not been in a more beautiful hotel.

Then we went to the room. It had a great view of the pool and there were folks going through a Yoga class in the lawn. 

Even the hallway props in this hotel were awesome!

After relaxing for an hour, we visited the City palace of Jaipur. As soon as we entered the palace, we were greeted by a snake charmer. These guys know how to play to the stereotype!

There was a puppet show which included "Michael Jackson" which amused Jr. and the little one. I will reiterate.. they know how to play to stereotypes..

The Palace was full of weaponry from the 1700's and the gifts that the kings had received from various places over the years. 

 The halls were magnificent. I just went click crazy.. 

We used a tour guide who gave us a decent explanation for every thing we saw. This palace has multiple levels above and below the ground level. An engineering marvel if you realize they had a 10+ story building 350+ years ago.

My mind kept going to the same thought. These guys created so many wonderful things hundreds of years ago. What have we done since then other than figure out how to destroy them or disrespect them? and I did not think of this in an Indian context but a global context. Eisenhower created a fantastic highway system in the fifties and today there is not enough money to even maintain those, let alone reinvent. 

When it comes to creating architecture, we suck compared to our previous generations. It is all glass, concrete and steel. The artistry seems to have taken a backseat and chances are all these glass thingys wont last 350 years. 

This palace had 4 gates which were so ornate, one for each season. Apparently the king used to use the entrance for that season. 

Waited patiently at this gate for the two guys to leave, but no luck. They insisted on being part of the shot. 

 The stone work in the palace was mind boggling. 

as were the doors with all the metal work. This is one huge door to enter the palace!

Just look at this one pillar. I asked the guide how long it took to complete the palace and he said "one kings starts it and his grandson finishes it".. most palaces in the area were completed over almost a hundred years.

There were a few intersting artifacts in the Palace that caught our attention. One was this mirror gifted to the King from the Chinese. No matter where you stood, you could get a full length reflection. 

and what was the worlds largest silver pot! This thing made it to UK and back because the King would only drink and bathe in water from the Ganges. So he made two large silver pots, filled them with Ganga water and hauled it in a ship for his UK tour. 

The palace also had a big hall where all the artists who were patronized by the king for generations demonstrated their art form. The kids thoroughly enjoyed spending an hour watching the artist paint minute details with vegetable colors on silk. 

After spending a good two hours at the palace, we were off to have a traditional Rajasthani dinner.

Would definitely recommend the ITC Rajputana hotel for a stay if you can manage one of those dicount deals.

That is a post for another day...

Flying with kids..

In a recent post on kids travelling under constraints, a couple of links were pointed out to me by s.b. These links were good, really good!

Here is how we manage the kids during our flights. We do not let them float in the aisle. We did have two other kids walking up and down on their own constantly, during our last flight. One of the kids actually stopped by for almost 20 minutes near our seat and I was holding his hand so that he wont fall down. Eventually his mom came and took him back to the seat! We do let the little one out of her seat, but she is confined to our row, and sometimes I carry her up and down the plane.

We do not let them open the door hatch! Jr. is entertained extremely well by San and her mom, by teaching all kinds of grandma games on the flight!

This one is Dosai amma Dosai! (Dosa is a south Indian Crepe and amma is mommy).

It goes

Dosai amma dosai
arisi maavum ulutha maavum kalandhu potta dosai
ammavukku 4
appavukku 3
baby-kku 2
Jr. ukku 1
suda suda suttu
neiyla thottu
vayaru romba saapidalam!

(translation)

Dosa mommy Dosa
crepe made by mixing rice flour and lentil flour
mommy gets 4
daddy gets 3
baby gets 2
I get 1
hot hot and fresh
clarified butter dipped
lets eat till our stomach is full!

This goes on for 15 minutes before they switch to ice-cream soda!! Or I play "find that word on this page" with the in-flight magazine.

Point is, our kids are equally cranky, but we deal with a lot less negativity.

I have been thinking of starting a kid friendly airlines!!

1. I will have wide aisles for kids to run around
2. the walls will be painted with Disney , Sesame street, Barney, Dora characters.
3. I will hire daycare teacher turned air-hostesses or air-hostesses turned daycare teachers only!
4. Will not have any carbonated or sugary drinks on the flight that would make the kids hyper.
5. There will be little tables in the middle of the plane and little kid chairs where they can draw, paint etc., once the seat belt sign is removed!
6. There will be music and videos for the kids to be distracted.
7. There will be little beds for them to sleep comfortably instead of trying to lie down horizontally between daddy and mommy with those annoying arm rests pulled up halfway!
8. All adults who board will be asked a few extra questions.
a. do you like kids ?
b. did you let your kids put things in your bag without your knowledge ?
c. do you think kids should be allowed to travel on planes ?
a "NO" answer for any question will promptly trigger a cavity search by airport security and they will not be allowed to board the plane.
9. Instead of the pathetic paper barf bags, there will be a button next to the seat marked "V" which automatically drops a bucket from the top compartment. That way you can save yourself an inflight shirt change!
10. there will be a diaper change area and some special diaper trash containers. Have you ever tried pushing a full diaper into the small rectangle which says "trash" on local flights?

I have a lot more ideas for this plan, but don't want to get carried away! Damn, I already thought way too much about this. Now all I need is some nice billionaire to loan me some money to start Babiaire / Littlewings or Kidsfly Airlines!

Hope this inspires some other parents to control their kids during flights!

.