A star is born..

For the longest time, this niece of mine really had no competition when it came to being my favorite! 

So you can imagine my surprise, seeing her be all grown up and emote so well at her Arangetram in Chennai two months ago, not to mention do a solo on stage for two hours to a packed audience in a city that is not her own.

Had just landed in Chennai the previous day and thanks to AirAsia, my entire lens kit was a mess and I did not even want to put everything back together. Throughout her dance performance, was missing my camera. Then I managed to get it cleaned and fixed in Mumbai.

They say life is all about second chances. Second chance I did get last evening, when she did a solo performance for all her bay area friends and family, most of whom, did not make it to Chennai. This time, I had my camera.

She did an amazing performance again! More than her performance, I was so happy to see her respect her teacher the way she did. That is something you simply cannot teach a child with ease in the US of A. It comes naturally to kids in India from a culture standpoint. It does not come naturally to kids here. Even Indian parents here suddenly start seeing teachers as service providers. Guess that whole "maata, pita, guru, deivam" (mom, dad, teacher then god) thing disappears in a uber capitalist system! 

The way she talked about her teacher was what impressed me the most. She did a great job dancing, and I did take lots of pictures. I will post only three here.. 

1. with the star of the show!

2. to put it in current teen speak, "she simply slayed it"

3. If she can hold poses like this, chances are she is already a Yogi! 

Looking forward to many more performances. It is not easy to do this without a significant time commitment from the kid, teacher and parents.

Given the number of friends who are having their kids do Arangetrams (getting on stage to do a solo), the Indian dance art forms are definitely thriving in the US! 

Had happy tears watching this kid make us all proud, for the second time!

A social facial experiment

It has been a month since I deleted the folder on my iPhone that said "social" and also deleted the entire history and autologin for all sites on my laptop.

The accounts are all there, but with two easy steps I cut off the urge to go click on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin etc. 

This is not the first time I have tried this, probably the longest in recent years though..

Still kept blogging and am reasonably sure that deleting the cross post into Facebook/Google Plus for the posts made sure no one actually read any of my posts! Blogging is pretty much dead and other platforms have taken over. Those of us who still blog, do it for their own reasons. . . 

The world is doing what it is doing, my work kept me more busy than usual and I managed to do another 60 challenge, the first time in summer, against all odds. The absense of social media helped. 

Still had to check gmail and everyday would be getting emails from FB and Linkedin etc. saying "have you seen so and so's comment on so and so's picture?", "we miss you. please come back and login" etc. etc. Even my mom was not that concerned when I stopped calling her during my Ph.D qualifying exams in those days!

Given no one was going to see my face in pictures over this month absence, I decided to stop shaving. Everytime I try to grow a beard, there will be so much negativity from parents, inlaws, friends, not to mention San and the kids trying every trick in the book to get me to shave.. the pouting, the "dont kiss me with that beard" routine .. 

Also given the travel to Asia every three weeks, my face has to resemble my passport picture or I am sure there will be some "extra checks". Thought there would be a longer break between travels this time, but that was not meant to be. 

The beard growing was going reasonably well, till this morning. You see there is an activation energy for beard growing. It takes at least 21 days for me to get the beard looking like a real beard instead of patch facial hair. Once it crosses that point, there is some chance of making it with continued maintenance. It is my face, but apparently I have no rights to it per wife and kids! 

This morning I had to shave it off. It was a good experiment while it lasted. It is interesting to watch how people react to this.

Most people at work thought I was mourning something or someone. 

Most people at Yoga said "look different. it kind of suits you, but learn to trim it"

Most friends who saw me said "mid life crisis?" followed by "this too shall pass" or something to that effect.

Then there was one person who assumed I was a muslim because of the beard. That one was interesting in a funny way.

Asked Jr. to take a few snaps, with and without the beard this morning...

Apparently I look a lot better without the beard and look younger per the little one. I am allowed to kiss the family again and that is a big plus point! 

Now it is back to the routine. It is time to login to Facebook again and see who has been born, who has died, who has changed marital status, who has gone where etc.

Will be like visiting Chennai after three years! 

Good times in Chennai

The Chennai visit also got us a chance to go visit the great grand parents for the kids, go visit temples, feed the crows before eating every morning.. little things that define Chennai life for the rest of the family that we enjoy when we go there.. 

First stop as usual was Kabali temple... 

We did the usual veggie shopping, goli soda drinking, and walking around the Mylapore area thing that puts some memory markers in their respective places.. 

A single photo that captures that evening..

Then there was a miracle. My mother and Jr. went to the local temple and overheard the local priest tell a bunch of folks that given the solar eclipse coming this year on the same day we change our threads, a section of folks who follow the Yajur Veda should change their threads in July. While the oldies in the family were debating the technicalities of doing "aavani avittam" outside the month of Aavani, I jumped at it. Have not been able to do this with my dad or brother in 25 years! So this was a sun moon and earth given chance. 

The changing of thread was followed by some yummy food and the rest of the afternoon was spent taking a nice nap! To me this ceremony is about renewing a commitment to learning and keeping an open mind. Have learned a lot of new things last year about myself, folks around me and the world in general and have continued to realize that there is more to learn and all this learning still wont help you because something is always going to come way out of left field and knock all this learning meaningless. 

We did the usual rounds visiting friends and family and also did some shopping for the kids. The great grand parents are all managing their health issues and pushing onwards in their late eighties or early nineties.

We wrapped the trip up with a visit to Kaleidozone, a place where kids and adults can do Virtual reality games. Basically they have a nice set up with VR goggles and some interesting games.

The rates were reasonable and we spent more than an hour there followed by a nice dinner at a Delhi food restaurant and before you could say "I miss Chennai"... I had to fly back!

Don't know when the next time would be to visit Chennai, alone or with family. Here is to hoping it is sooner than later...