Picking your battles

When you are on a busy holiday where nine days of traveling where you are on your feet for 12+ hours a day, the choice of places to visit makes all the difference as you get close to the end of the trip.

Pick places with plenty of options for folks to sit down every now and then, places without long lines, places with decent restrooms (a big thing when traveling with wife and two girls).. these are lessons that should have already been learned.. somehow I keep failing at it.. classic example was day 9 (previous post on this series)

So on day 10, we all woke up late. There was a small Indian restaurant right below our Air B&B and I got some rice pulav and rotis to go first thing in the morning. We had been lugging around these MTR packets of instant Dal, Mattar Paneer etc.. we "cooked" (or hot watered is more like it) those, and ate a directl early lunch.

Then I told them we could go to a quiet small museum which was on my list. The Monet Museum. It was a 90 minute to 2 hour spend at the most and there would be no rush. The family having decided that being nice to each other was a pre-requisite for the day, all agreed to go. 

So we took an Uber and went to this place. I left my heavy camera bag in the room. It was going to be casual snaps on the iPhone if any for the day. In the middle of a residential area, is a three story building which is the Monet Museum. 

It is quiet, clean, the exhibits are done nicely and the write up to the exhibits are done equally well. However, one has to have a certain appeal for this type of art. I like it, but the family was just plain giggling. 

Appa, anyone could have done that.. 

Appa, those are supposed to be what? Lilies ? how? 

Did this guy have fogged up spectacles while painting all these? 

etc. etc. an endless list of questions that usually mocked me, not the artist for picking this place.. but was done in a very roundabout way. 

My kids and wife were smiling and laughnig and being happy, so it didn't matter if they thought my choice of art was funny. We did enjoy two of the rooms (other than the Monet hall) where all the paintings were done by a guy called Jean Baptiste Corot and a lady called Berthe Morisot. Her paintings were amazing. Wondered why we never heard of her before..

Here are two slide shows of most of the stuff that was impressive in this museum.

After we went through the museum, we exited into a park where we watched a bunch of school kids doing their PE class. There was an afternoon to spend with no particular plans.. so we were off to Champs Elysses by day. 

No one minded waiting in line for Macaroons and other stuff at Laduree and they were absolutely delicious. My kids declared that going to Paris and not eating at Laduree is like going to Benaras and not having chai at Bihari's for me.. I kind of missed the logic as I had lived on that Chai for four years, but they had never been to this store.. but kind of realized that it was the "importance" that was the connecting factor.

Then we walked through the Louis Vutton store. There was a long line just to enter the store.. My job was to steer them clear of their wants changing to needs and I succeeded in a big way. 

Saw people ring up 4000$ handbags and my jaw dropped. The bags looked great but I could not figure out the price tags. Maybe I never will. 

We wandered around a few more shops, spent some time at a starbucks and it was time for an early dinner. The decision was to make everyone happy, so we all ate crepes at a Brittony style restaurant (which is famous for crepes, highly recommended by three Uber drivers.. the La Petite Bretonne)

and started walking back towards Saravana Bhavan.. The streets were getting tense because France was playing the world cup soccer semi finals.

Roads were jammed, crowds were gathering in large numbers, our drivers had warned us to get to where we need to get to before 6PM.

So after crepes and dosas, we walked to the Air B&B to watch the semi finals. France won and we were not prepared for what happened next. The entire apartment complex had a noise level increase at that instant. It was like a mini earthquake. We opened the door to the balcony and could hear a collective roar outside. Folks were coming out in their underwear and shouting from balconies. 

In short, it was crazy!

The honking and shouting did not stop all night. The sound level dropped to bearable around 1PM. We were going to leave for London the next morning on the Eurostar at 9AM and given we had to go through passport checks and security, were told to be at the station by 7 AM. It was a 30 minute walk to the station. 

We were not sure if we would wake up and rush in time. We had had a pretty relaxing day and there was no exhaustion to force us to sleep. The kids were already reminscing about Paris while we were still lying in bed. It was weird. 

The video of the day is here..

It was time to say bye to Paris and move on.. we were already into day 11.. 

Filoli - again

Wanted to show FIL at least some local place before his return to India.

Chose Filoli. Promised a 2 hour trip max. Still bad idea.

It was 96+ C out there. The van temp indicator read 106 F!

Filoli gardens are very well watered. The steam sizzles off the floor. The heat, humidity and pollen form a bad combination for people prone to hay fever.

So, this post will be brief...

Two pictures..

Daddy danced with the little one again for a short time and she was ecstatic! We had fun while we were at Filoli. It just had side effects for daddy.

On a side note Jr. was busy making cards.

Me : ???

Jr. : I want to make a yellow card and a red card

Me : ???

Jr. : To give to amma! (mommy)

Me : (thinking.. finally someone in this house dares to give Amma a yellow card or red card ?! this must be some sight) ????

Jr. : That way if Amma feels slightly upset with someone in the house she can show them the yellow card and if she is really upset with someone she can give them the red card!

Me : (very disappointed, but accepting the inevitable fact that the only person who gets carding authority in the house as Amma) Can I give a yellow card?

Jr. : NO. Only Amma!

At the end of the day, we might actually adopt this system. Yellow is warning. Red card means person will have to go to garage for a timeout.

Jr. has some amazing solutions, doesn't she?

.

11 players 1100000000 fans !!

It is already stale news that India have lost their stake in the Cricket World Cup.

I actually went to a friends place and watched from noon to 1:15. Boy, was I disappointed. I saw 5 wickets fall within that space.

What infuriated me most was the transcript of the interview of the Indian Coach, Greg Chappell which I happened to read on Cricinfo.

In light of the fact that the coach of the Pakistan team has been murdered right after that team exited the world cup, is it even appropriate for the press to ask pointed questions to try and assign blame right after the match, knowing that there is a mob out there that is just waiting to lap up everything the press is going to dish out tomorrow ? Has the press no moral fibre?

It is this same press that takes these ordinary humans who are trying to play a game and escalates them to demi-god status. The same press is fed by advertising revenue from the very same sponsors who artificially inflate the worth of the players by giving them exhorbitant endorsement deals, publicity that would put movie actors to shame and way too much postive or negative focus to make or break their confidence and careers.

If the press were to put these players where they ought to be put, just players playing a game and if there is a law banning players from endorsing products or appearing in commercials, maybe things would improve. The press should actually point the fingers at themselves. They asked the Indian team coach if it is "time for a reality check?". It is time the press did a reality check on their role in this loss. They also asked the team captain "arent you answerable to your fans ?". HELL NO!! Movie actors play for their audience. Their end goal is box office success. Sportsmen play for the game. Their end goal is a victory against the other team! Not commercial success. Their game should not be linked to ratings or revenue!!

On a personal note,
1. I have made a promise to not watch or track cricket for the next 365 days!
2. There will be no requests to order the matches on Dish Network
3. No checking Cricinfo
4. No participation in water cooler gossip about things including and excluding Sehwag et. al. with the English, West Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans I know.
5. There will be no joint reminiscing with my co-brother or my wife's cousins from down under either!

This is Sundar's sabatham(wow)! Yeah, I am the next Mangamma...

ps. The wife is happy that she does not have to cough up the $199 or $ 129 or $... for ordering the remaining matches! Did you see the way the price for the Super 8 package drop as the Indian Wickets fell ?!

pps. As a person who has watched cricket for this long, inspite of all the scandals, match fixing, the crappy performance of the team, etc., I also share some responsibility for fueling this out of control fire. As an Indian Cricket fan, I take responsibility for my part!! Hence this decision.

.

Just another Cricket post ...

Have been reading all the furor over the recent India-Bangladesh match where India lost to Bangladesh (India are strong favorites and Bangladesh were typically being reffered to as Minnows in the media !). There is similar if not worse reaction to Pakistan losing to Ireland and exiting the Cricket world cup!

Mostly the blog world is polarized about the mob mentality of the Indian Cricket fan and how the ardent fan is justifiably pissed at the performance of his / her Cricket hero ! Most of it is in reaction to how a mob stormed into one of the cricketers home and destroyed property, etc.,

A sample is here.. here..and now that the Pakistan cricket coach's death has been declared "suspicious", we are going to see a lot more posts on losing and winning games when you have a huge fan base in the billions!

A message to my cricket loving brethren :

CHILL OUT !!!

It is a sport. Someone wins, someone loses, sometimes someone makes some money, sometimes someone loses money, they all become part of the statistic and pretty soon it is all forgotten and one goes about buying ones favorite brand of shaving razor or tea bag or insurance policy. Yeah, that same favorite which is common between you and your Cricketer idol!

Just think of how you would have watched the game were it advertised a little differently as a SUN TV movie.. (now pardon the Tamlish! and imagine the below words with a strong Tamizh accent)

Indhiya tholaikatchigalil mudhal murayaaga
thiraikku vandhu sila mani nerangale aana
Satchin, sEvAg, DhOni, Mandira matrum palar nadiththa
Indiava Bangladesha pOtti

Kaana thavaraadheergal !

I am sure it would be a laugh fest at that point..

I am still waiting for the Indian team to make it to the final 8 for a personal reason. I get to watch the matches only if they make it to the final 8 or else I forfeit the right to order the games on Dish Network (My bet with my home bookie a.k.a. wife!).

Considering the 250 Crore rupees loss mentioned in a few blogs ($ 50 Million) in advertising revenue, ticket sales etc. being projected, they must be playing like they have a fire under their youknowwhats, but I hope the match does not get fixed for ticket sales. I would rather see those cricket heroes do their absolute best and win it with their talent and teamwork!

Good luck to team India!

On a personal note to my dad : You are probably right. Most matches are rigged and I am still stupid enough to succumb to cricket fever! I always feel like that dude who watches the action replay and says "I hope he hits the ball at least this time"!!

.