No thank you

Yesterday we went to a friends house for lunch. I dozed off on the couch in the middle of a conversation and while it is a big "no no" they understood that yours truly had a hectic work week and they let me stay in that state till the snoring got to disturb the conversation (or so I am told). One is lucky to have friends who will let you doze off like that...

Then my friend tells me when I wake up

"When I saw your head after your dozed off, realized that you are balding rapidly. Two months ago at my sons birthday party you had more hair!"

Me : I am not the same guy from 15 years ago when we met.. things are different. Age has caught up with me..or at least my hair. Well, don't care anymore!

Then we come home.. kids go to a birthday party and when they come home the little one does her usual lovey dovey cozying up with daddy who happens to be wearing his white baniyan only and says

"Daddy you have more hair in your kashki(armpit) than your head! Wish you could take some of that hair and put it on your head!"

Me : No thanks. Why are you so worried about my hair when I myself am not?

LO : I am used to seeing you with hair and now it is going away. How come thatha(grandpa) has more hair than you?

Me : Well Thatha was a difficult man to deal with when he was my age. So all the people who dealt with Thatha lost their hair from the stress. That is how Thatha still has his hair and I don't.

Now of course grandma hears this and is caught between defending her hubby or her son. So I quickly divert the conversation to the one topic that is worse than Thatha's hair.. my own hair.

It is only a question of time before I am going to start growing it long and put a pony tail with what is left on what will be called the "ring of fire" a narrow band that goes from ear to ear on the back which is the only area with any reasonable density of hair.

It is just hair..instead of saying "Please let it grow!" telling my inner self something different.

It is just hair..Let it go Sundar.. Let it go!

Surprise surprise

A conversation with Jr. just after coming home

Jr. : Daddy, do you like surprises?

Me : No!

Jr. : Why?

Me : I keep telling people at work "don't want any surprises" and somehow over the years I have come to not like surprises as a person. Why are you asking?

Jr. : No reason!

Me: Let me guess. You want to give me a surprise birthday party?

Jr. : (grins sheepishly) Yes. Thought we could organize a surprise 40th birthday party for you just like Suja aunty did for Vijay uncle.

Me: Don't think I will like that.

Jr. : In that case I think our only other option is to buy you some new lens for your camera and take you to some national park and watch you take photographs of non living things even though we don't like to walk around the national park!

Me : I love you lots. You have at least made an effort to understand your daddy. Don't think your mom will ever say those words that you just did!

So there you have it!

Jr. knows what it takes to make me happy. Walking around national parks taking pictures of "non living things" and them being around me although they hate it. That last part kind of hurt my feelings because all along I thought they all loved walking with me.. Apparently not!

Maybe we will spend a day as a family and they can ship me off to some Park on my own to take pictures?!

and yes.. WILL accept new lenses..

Rites of passage

If you are from Vanatu and you go through a rite of passage odds are there is a vine tied to your feet and you are going to take a 80 foot fall..

However, if you are born to a geek the rite of passage might simply be the handing of a Scientific Calculator from your dad..

Yes! My daughter is now a fifth grader and today was her first day of school. The back to school list said "Scientific Calculator" and she insisted on buying one at target as part of the "back to school" shopping ritual last week.

"Naansense!" said daddy in his typical Tamil accent. We shall have a small ritual at home where Jr. will get the keys to geekdom!

Problem was the calculator which was dad's first (the family's first for that matter) was a 1989 vintage Casio and it has been sleeping in dad's collection of memorabilia in a shoebox for the last 12 or so years.

Today the old "Novino" batteries purchased someplace in Varanasi in early nineties was replaced with some Kirkland batteries from Costco and the thing powered up!

Hat's off to Casio for making something this good. There was no battery leak in the battery compartment either! So a big thanks to Novino also for making some amazing batteries!

Jr. was happy that she gets to use the same calculator as daddy! Daddy is so proud that Jr. is using a Scientific calculator in fifth grade when he used it for his freshman year in college!

It is a win-win!

Likes and dislikes

Today our kids are easily impressed or turned off by things. They also have very short attention spans, considering the amount of time spent on DS and playing Temple run on the iPad, iPhone.

The six year old makes 1.5 million points in under 10 minutes of playing the game. I tried it a few times (okay a few tens of times) and cannot seem to cross 100k more than once or twice.. see, I digress as usual.

We do not have NBC, ABC etc. on our cable. San has signed us up for some special deal where we get only the Tamil channels so everyone except me can watch all the Tamil soap operas while I watch TED talks on the iPad for entertainment and get my news from the internet.

That means? We cannot watch the Olympics. So I keep showing the girls the highlights snippets on the NBC site for olympics.

They both can recite the Chevy Volt Ad by heart because it plays before every video. To top things off more than half the videos crash thanks to Adobe Flash and we end up sending an error report.

Today the six year old says "I hate Chevy volt and I hate Adobe" and she says "why cannot we watch this video in the iPad?" to which Jr. chimes in

"It is Flash. i things don't play flash because they crash"

I was amazed by their knowledge of this. Asked junior how she knew this and she said "We tried to play things on the Mac Mini and tried installing flash player also and we found out that flash cannot be used on Mac and that is why we get a ? in iPad for flash videos"

Technology has truly changed our world when a six year old can hate Chevy volt (for no fault of Chevy) and a 10 year old knows Flash doesn't work on Mac devices.

In another coversation yesterday, told the girls that after my time they can have the house. There was talk of "after my time" because the last two days have been busy with all kinds of tests.. x-rays, EKG's, heart ultrasounds, etc. etc. The good news is my heart is okay but my lungs are not, but will be in a few days with some medical help.

The kids had their usual discussion.

Jr. : What do you mean we can have the house?

Me: We will leave it to the two of you so you can live here

Little one: How can that be possible?

Me: Why not? You just live here till you are old!

LO : But only one of us can live here when we are old and have our own family! Which one is it going to be ?

Jr. : yeah daddy. we cannot both live here at the same time with our husbands and kids. That won't work. So you will have to give us two houses!

My Mom was speachless after hearing them say this. For a generation used to living in joint families to hear from a generation that living as an extended family is not even a consideration in thought was a shocker.

Told my mom that it is high time she understand why San and me have to save for a retirement home early enough! She still has a difficult time reconciling with what she heard...

Another conversation, this time with Jr. after I came home from work..

Jr. : (who happened to be doing her Kumon math on the couch with great difficulty) Grandpa keeps telling me about all his tablets every day . . .

Me : What is he telling you?

Jr.: He keeps counting his tablets, all 18 of them, tells me their names and they always have a number at the end of the tablet name and tells me what they are for. How come he needs so many tablets? and how can anyone have so many problems?

Me: Half the problems are because of the tablets themselves. He takes one tablet for his heart. that has a side effect. he takes another tablet for that side effect and that has two side effects and it keeps going...

Jr.: I am having so much trouble with this Kumon Appa. I really don't want to do it.

Me : If you don't do your Kumon and practice your math, you won't be able to count your tablets when you are as old as Grandpa!

Jr.: In that case I definitely don't want to do the Kumon!

Me: Why does Thatha (grandpa) keep counting tablets? Because he has nothing else to keep his mind busy. You might want to know your counting well because when you are his age and your body is weak, you might be happy that you have something to occupy your mind.

Junior smiled an understanding smile and got back to her Kumon. Not sure if she really understood what was said but at least she got back to the math..

The kids have been over nice to me the last four days because they have seen me visibly sick. They all breathed a sigh of relief when my heart tests came out good.

Today the entire house is in a happy mood that daddy is on the path to recovering.

Wheeeeezeeeee

Wheezing and allergic Rhinitis are not new to me. 2011 saw me skip the allergy season, which was attributed to Bikram Yoga and the regularity with which I did the yoga practice.

This spring season there was a lot of travel and in spite of that did Yoga here and in Austin with reasonable (read that as > 50% average attendance on a daily basis) and there was no hay fever. There was the stomach infection which took me down by another 4 lbs in 10 days and made me weak enough to miss yoga for almost a 10 day stretch. That is behind and have been catching up to the routine.

Something is changed, not with me but with the environs. Why?

Last thursday night, had just gone to bed at 11 and was already deep asleep. Suddenly woke up close to midnight and found myself wheezing pretty badly. No sign of any other symptoms. Just an inability to breathe and the old familiar feeling of drowning in your own bed.

Came out and did the usual remedies and made it to work and couldn't last even half a day on Friday. All precautions went back in place. Scour the kitchen for any accidental introduction of foods I am allergic to, clean the house for dust, etc. etc. as well as some extensive steam inhalation, medication etc.

Friday night comes and I wheeze at 11PM. Go to the hot room on Saturday and felt some relief. The lungs were clear again temporarily and spent a few hours with the kids and visited a temple to offer prayers to thank god for getting this over with. That was shortlived as Saturday night the wheezing started at 9PM.

Today it is not yet 8PM and I am gasping for breath already!

Anyways, there will be visiting doctors and more precautions and this will be resovled sooner or later. But the one good thing from this post?

One of my co-workers saw my plight on Friday and told me "I have some Indian Herbal cough drops that really work like a charm. Have some!"

What he gave me was called Zam Zam and I have never heard of it before, but boy did it give me enough of a repreive to be able to drive back home.

Note the formulation, exactly what my grandma used to give me when I was a child with these symptoms and the "Ella Pugazhum Iraivanukke" (all praise be to god which was popularized by A. R. Rahman at the Oscars).

Whoever made this thing, a big thank you.

Now we wait for a better tomorrow.