The evidence is damning..

Tonight the bedtime quiz started with me playing songs from my Youtube favorites and asking the kids to guess the singer. Not the song or raaga.. just the singer! They got 2/10  on videos they helped favorite.. That was disappointing. 

Then Jr. suggested instead of videos, I just show them images of the singers and they guess who the singer is... so I played along.

Showed them old photos of GNB, MLV, MS, etc. and they guessed better... 4/10! again on pictures they had seen before..

Then on a hunch, I showed them pictures of movie stars.. Tamil, Hindi movie stars.. They guessed everyone from Rajni, Kamal, Sridevi down to Vivek, Vadivelu and Sivakarthikeyan! they even guessed Shahrukh, Amitabh and Aishwarya!

So there is nothing wrong with their memory or their willingness to remember things.. the what to remember is being molded by all the TV watching they do with mom in the evening. 

So the solution to my problem is to make mommy watch educational videos with kids and maybe spend time on Khan Academy. No wonder they don't like to spend time with me when I show them "cool stuff".. I am competing with the entertainment juggernauts of Bollywood, Tollywood and Kollywood!

When the time comes..

A few days ago, was going through a horrible time with the nose bleeds and all the other symptoms that come with an allergy attack. Thanks to all the cotton type stuff floating around in the air, a bee that decided to sting my leg and the temperature fluctuations in general. 

It was impossible to sleep with all the pain and I definitely did not want to go and get yet another prescription for Amoxycilin 500 and go through a cycle of switching sinus problems to stomach problems which is usually followed by a week long diet of only rice and yogurt to bring back the good bacteria in my stomach. Normally would go do Yoga just when the nose starts getting blocked and things would get back on track.

This time it was past that point and had to suffer through it. With all that pain, was trying the many tricks to just get to sleep. First it was patting myself on the back just like my mother used to do when same thing used to happen as a kid. That didn't work. 

Then suddenly out of the blue, was reminded of a song that my father used to play on a Philips Gramaphone record player to put me to sleep.. did a search on youtube and found one instance of the exact same song by M.S. Subbulakshmi and voila, was dozing off. What a divine voice! Even for someone who did not understand the words as a kid, the imploring voice always used to put me to sleep and calm me down!

Have been listening to this song a few times in the last week just reminiscing about the sound of that player and the needle moving slowly towards the center of the black disk in the glow of the night light when we were little kids. 

I am soo going to go buy a turntable and see if my dad still has those records in the attic and play them for Jr. and the little one!

Yesterday there was a weird dream. I am in bed dying. For some strange reason, everyone is around me and they know I have very little time, but there is a struggle and I am having difficulty letting go.. Then my sister, Jr. and the little one all sing this song in chorus and I let go and die. It was one of those dreams that actually made me sweat and sit up in bed! Funny thing was that I am older but all of them look the way they do today!

It was  a dream.. so whatever! Played that song for the kids today and said "if someday I am lying on my death bed, please sing this song for me and will leave this planet a happy man!" The kids got all pissed off for my mentioning death beds and said "we will never ever sing this song". 

Now I have my work cut out for me.. 

Mothers day

Every day is mother's day.. but when you live in a world where only one day is made special to mothers, one tends to go with the flow!

The kids made a cake, decorated it and let Mom cut it. By the time they were done fighting over who gets to write what on the cake, mom had pretty much given up hope on the cake's cuttability if such a word exists. 

Apparently it came out good and the three of them ate a sizeable portion of it. Daddy was happy to just play photographer as all those colorful things on top cannot be good as they are all some concentrated form of sugar!

In case you are wondering why Jr. has a big "bindi" aka "pottu" smack dab in the middle of her forehead instead of the tiny dot right between her eyebrows (mommy style).. she was posing for me earlier!

You see, these days it feels like I am 14 years old again because Jr. has a scary resemblence to my sister at the same age be it both at certain angles or her mannerisms.  To prove my point here is the picture of them around the same age, give or take a year difference!

Same controlled smile, same donna kaadhu, same collar bone showing, same type of earring choice.. just simply scary! Don't think I ever yelled at my sister that much when she was at that age.. but feels like I am making up for that by shouting at my sister's look alike! 

Here's to Mom's! If someone made a movie called "Mom's" the tagline should read 

"MoM's - terrorizing sons and daughters since the beginning of time"

My mother still has a superhuman ability to remote control me from the other side of the world. Not that it is a bad thing because chances are San has that magical ability and will exercise it when time comes on Jr. and the little one! Daddy Narayanan is counting on it!

On a side note, it feels like I have 34 mothers now. Every teacher at BYSJ reminds me of my mother. Almost makes me think that that my mother is giving them some secret coaching classes on how to push me past my limits. They all pick on me in class, somehow know I am trying to take it easy on some pose and call out my name and say "smaller step", "higher", "more".. and I go "how could you have possibly known that I did that? Touched my head to the floor with that wide a stance only yesterday and it was not your class. How could you possibly know! How?" .. that kind of thing happens only with Mom, because she has eyes on the back of her head and can know! 

Hope all those mom's out there had a great Mother's day. Tomorrow is unfortunately... just another day!