Being a parent has its perks

It has been a great weekend! Months of preparation went into Jr.'s Arangetram. First time she is doing a solo dance performance, in front of a large audience with a live orchestra. It is a new beginning for her to take her Bharathanatyam (form of south Indian classical dance) to the next level. 

Jr. has always loved dancing. Like most kids, she first performed THE CHICKEN DANCE! She would spontaneously dance to movie songs.. She then wanted to learn Bharathanatyam and tried out a local teacher, but she dropped it after a few months. Mostly ten year olds were substitute teaching her, as the teacher had to go to India for a family affair. Kumon took precedence and she stopped dancing. The next year she bugged us again and we decided to take her to Meena teacher in Sunnyvale. She loved Meena teacher. She has been learning from Meena teacher ever since.

Have been pretty much dropping her at the dance teachers house, once a week or twice a week, over the last eight or nine years, go do groceries, or have an occasional chai samosa at Bhavikas and go pick her up at the end of class and drive back home. It is a 20-25 minute drive, which was done with monotonous ease over the years.

There was a time, when I would go in and sit down to watch the lesson. That was when she was around 7 to 8 years old. Soon she declared that she doesn't want me sitting there and watch as she will "thappu panni" (make mistakes). So daddy was banned from coming to watch. She would practice at home, mostly with her sister competing for the mirror in her own cute way!

The only time I have seen her dance, is once a year during the Pushpanjali dance academie's annual day function or the occasional dance performance as a group in some temple or other. The costumes went from various paavadais to a borrowed dress , another borrowed dress, finally to her own dance dress three years ago!

If you read the posts in the links you will see three themes:

1. I keep missing my sister everytime I see Jr. dress up in a dance costume.

2. We are very critical parents, grand parents, relatives when it comes to her dancing

3. In spite of everything, Jr. loves to dance and she does it for herself more than anyone else

The dancing has also improved over the years. Last year at the annual day, I finally got to see her dance very differently from the previous years.

She wanted to do her Arangetram (solo stage debut) last year, but we sent her to India for an entire summer so she could spend time with my parents and brothers family. The event was pushed out to this year. 

Meena teacher and Jr. put in a lot of effort in taking her dancing to a higher level so she could do the arangetram. Given Jr. is a bold girl and I have no stage fright, was confident that somehow she will manage the stage part. I had never seen her dance a single song from her Arangetram at any practice. So I had no idea what was in store.

There were only two things, that kept me up at night the last few months. 

1. Her ability to hold one legged poses (my mom would eventually watch the video and she is a stickler for kids holding the Nataraja pose in an arangetram)

2. Her eyes getting irritated with the eyeliner.

Jr. has ended up in a hospital thrice with her eyes getting so irritated after an annual day performance because of an allergic reaction to the eyeliner. Was praying that it will not happen durng the event. She never wears it during regular class, practice or even the full practice she did the entire week before the event. Fortunately, she got no reaction this time. Her eyes were red, but not to the point where they had to be shut for hours. 

The first time I saw her dance the numbers was last Friday at a rehersal with her uncles. Yes.. there is a flashback in this post, that tops all other flashbacks.

Many years ago, when Jr. was a year and a half old, we visited Melbourne for the first time. San's cousins who were little kids then, went to perform on the Mridangam and Violin at a local music school function. We were in the audience and at the end of the event they said "if Jr. ever does her arangetram, we will come and accompany her!".

We have talked about it many times and Meena teacher agreed to have them accompany her, after we showed her videos of them performing at events in Melbourne area. Practice tapes were sent and things co-ordinated and I was oblivious of all the effort that San and an army of people supporting this were doing. Continued to play chauffer..

Last Friday, at the practice, was blown away by the improvement in her dancing. Had no words.. just sat silently in the car on the way back home with a realization that :

1. my daughter was no longer a kid

2. if she could switch her face from anger to scared to happy to sad, I should be very careful with her going forward.. this is a girl who would put a puppy face and bat her eyelids, to get anything she wanted from me at 4 years old, but that was her only method.. now she has some acting talent, my brain went on high alert!

3. I don't have to worry about the event

On Saturday evening, she got on stage and danced. She did it for herself more than anyone else. She made us very proud that evening. Then she told us "we should tell Meena aunty that I want to come back to the regular class schedule". 

Dancing on stage for the first time alone is all well and good, but it takes a lifetime of practice to improve at anything. Was very happy to hear her say that. As long as she keeps it up, we are happy for her. 

The first step in her dance journey was finding Meena teacher and Pushpanjali dance academy. The second step was this Arangetram. The next step is scheduling the first class after the arangetram. The step after that, is to keep going...

Do not have photographs from the official photographer / videographer yet. It will come in a week. Did walk around with a camera, during the performance, through a side door that goes to backstage and took some shots.. 

A big thanks to her uncles Venkat and Narayanan (aka Varun) for coming all the way up from Melbourne to accompany her,

Smt. Jayanthi Umesh and Sri. Ashwin Krishnakumar for supporting her with the Vocal and Flute

and Meena teacher who is nothing short of a miracle worker.

Sometimes I wish Meena teacher would teach Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics etc. also.. 

Jr.'s aunt Aditi was the MC for the event. 

Was too tongue tied at the end of the performance and opted not to speak. So I get to thank everyone in this blog for posterity.. the voluteers from the dance academy, friends and family who came from near and far, the folks we hired and the folks who volunteered for every aspect of the event, makeup, stage set up, decorations, sound, lighting, compering, taking care of the dancer, the artists, the attenees, video, photos, a very long list of things that I did not know, that have to work perfectly for an event of this magnitude to happen, our entire list of guests who came to the event or sent messages that encouraged Jr. on this event. 

After my wedding, this was the first time we had my brother, sister , San's brother and sister all be here in one location. Some of them made it with their families. We had 20-21 folks stay in a house where normally 4-5 of us are there. Now we have an empty house effect after everyone has gone. The silence is deafening. 

Two photographs that never saw the light of day.. they were taken during the still shoot for the invitation..

San doesn't get enough thanks from me, for making me see what could be, because she knows what our kids are capable of, has a wider imagination, and she is not soft on them like me.. THANK YOU SANGEETHA! 

You were right, again! The girl can dance!

Here is to Jr. and her continued dancing journey...

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.. 

When life takes you on strange Arcs..

Day 9 on our Europe trip had already seen the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Sienne boat cruise, Notre Dame cathedral and we found ourselves at a boat stop ready to hail an Uber to go back to the Air B&B for a quick rest, wash and maybe something to eat.. before going on to the next stop I had been planning.

The previous post on this series is here..

The Montmartre area where we were supposed to go up the steps to another unique piece of architecture, watch street painters do their caricatures, art etc. and watch the sun set over Paris and see the Eiffel tower and all of Paris light up.. 

Many a friend had recommended this to me as a not to miss.. 

However, after all those staircases, sun in the face and head on open boats, walking through museums as fast as your legs could carry, wandering around cathedrals.. the family had.. how to say it? "HAD IT!"

So my plan to go to the hill was not materializing. If you are a photographer, you want to see the Eiffel tower light up .. not see it as just a steel monster towering above Paris.. but there we were, no one talking to anyone else, quietly sitting in an Uber and almost at the Air B&B. Was taking pictures of interesting streets and corner buildings on the way..

We went, sat in the Air B&B for a few minutes and decided to get out and do "something".. but first food!

When I am tired, hungry and cranky (if you lug a 30lb camera bag around your back the entire day you might be too.. especially with a corn in your foot that is getting worse by the day and you are practically hobbling), I usually gravitate towards Indian food.. no surprises there..

Even San, who works very hard to steer me away didn't argue. She had a slight cold and thought a milagu rasam would do her a world of good. The kids, were not for it. They wanted to have Crepes or anything French... given French food wasn't exactly the top on a Vegetarian families choice we had a conflict. 

By the time we decided what to eat (I had already given up on Saravana Bhavan although we were not that far away from it) we just stopped the discussion and walked into the first restaurant that came our way. It was an empty but newly renovated Pakistani restaurant. 

The kids stopped talking to us, we stopped talking to each other and with enough hate to go around the table for years to come, we ordered a biriyani, nan and two side dishes. Except for one of the side dishes, the rest of the items were below par. The price was way cheaper than any other place though and we thought we got what we paid for. There was more silence as we walked out. It wasn't exactly dinner time yet and we were probably early and the fact that some food had gone inside and the family was willing to walk again was a plus. 

Then I suggested that we walk around the Champs Elysses as that was one thing we were planning to do on our last day in Paris. So there were some silent approving nods and shoulder shrugs and the Uber was hailed again. 

It so happened that we had to cross the Arc to go to the shopping part, so I asked the driver to just stop before we reached the roundabout in front of the Arc de Triumphe. The driver said "thanks" and I didn't know why he was thanking me..

History has failed to teach me in all its repetitive glory that when I dig my self a hole, I dig really well. The god Saturn was probably dancing at the tip of my tongue (at least my Grandma would have concurred with that statement) when I said "how about we just go up the Arc and see if we can catch the Eiffel tower light up from there?"

The silent approvals and shoulder shrugs that had gotten us that far evaporated and turned into "I hate you!" stares. Was pretty sure the family was putting silent curses on me. 

Then they realized that daddy was not going leave Paris without taking photos of the Eiffel Tower by night. There was deliberate shoe shuffling, feet dragging noises but we went through the tunnel and ended up at the entrance to the Arc's stairs. There was a freaking line to buy tickets for climbing the stairs and no one was at the counter!  

This was not helping my cause. After standing there for a good 20 minutes and going through security, we came across a board that clearly indicated how narrow the stairs were and how many steps had to be climbed to go to the top. That was not helping my cause either! 

Basilisks would have been scared of San and the kids after seeing them stare in my direction. We climbed, slowly and just before we started, the little one decided to turn all her anger at her mom. Sparks were flying and then silence. No one talks to anyone anymore. Given it was Paris and if there was one time I HAD to take my wifes side, I said something nice and at least the two of us walked together.  Jr. was trying to mediate with minimal results. 

Everyone was right and everyone was wrong at the same time for all the same reasons. It was 8:45 PM and we had reached the top of the Arc. The views from the top of the Arc were spectacular and we could see the Montmartre area and the hill from the Arc. This would top anything from that hill hands down, is what we all realized and there were some smiles. The family was together again, realizing that this was more comfortable and closer to the Air B&B and we could see the tower up close!

There was a lively crowd all jostling for space to catch the lights and we parked ourselves. Got a lot of pano shots from the top including the sun that was about to set..

We saw a glorious sunset at 9:54 PM and the lights were to come on in 6 minutes.

They did come on slowly. Unfortunately the lights were not making an impression as it was still pretty bright outside. 

Also the lights did not do the twinkling thing that was advertised earier in the day. We had to wait till 11 PM for that.. but the Arc kicks out people before 11 as it closed around that time. So we stayed there till 10:20 in the museum area..

Some photos from the 2 hours we spent up there..

Then something happened again.. no one knows what, maybe because the kids decided to go down without telling us and we kept searching for them between the two levels.. and silence returned. The kids would not sit with us to watch the little video that was on auto play at the gift shop level below the open terrace..

Again, by some strange miracle, we patched up and decided to walk around the Champs Elysses.. hunger it must have been.. the big golden arches were spotted and we ran in for some fries and Ice cream cones.. It was midnight at McDonalds and we had refueled to get back to the Air B&B...

Everyone was glad to be back on an Uber. Without saying much except "don't bother waking me up in the morning" , "me neither", "me neither" to me from different locations within that small apartment, the lights went out.. 

Day 9 came to an end! I was actually glad it did..