A little too late to worry

Prasad was reading this book called Outliers and read out bits and parts to me. In one portion of the book, it studies the demographics of professional Canadian hockey players and found that 60% of the players were born between Jan-April and this was consistent across all professional players across the country. They correlated this to the children's hockey enrollment cutoff being January 1st. The older children had the advantage of being more coordinated and skilled and were picked for the advanced teams, they had more practice on the rink, access to the best coaches and eventually this advantage carried through in their life. This age aspect was very evident for sports where a special rink/equipment was needed unlike basketball where in the US, everyone has access to a court so they could practice as much as they wanted. He correlated practice as one of the main factors in people excelling at a skill and that talent played a small part. He researched musicians and found that if the musicians were categorized into less experienced musicians (teachers), medium level ones (play professionally) and the stars, that the biggest differentiating factor is the number of hours they practiced. 10,000 hours of practice was some sort of magical number for musicians and once they clocked that number, they reached their pinnacle. According to the book, the age advantage plays out in school also. The older children especially during the younger grades have an advantage which boosts their confidence and gives them access to advanced classes. The skillset advantage evens out by 10 but by then the older children already benefitted from their age advantage. Prasad and I discussed how I agonized whether to enroll Sindhura in kindergarten when she was 4 or hold her back a year. Now reading this book, I think we should have held her back and I was thinking, great, I ruined her life and there is no going back. I wonder if it's a good thing to read books like this after the fact. Maybe we can find something that she enjoys doing so she can clock the magical 10,000 hours of practice. We know what Rushil likes but he already thinks he's good enough at it. Or maybe I should go back to going with the flow and hope for the best.

Happy Holi!

Srikanth and Prasad

I think the pictures speak for themselves. This is the Holi celebration that took place at our apartment complex today.

Holi Fever

They started selling Holi goods at our complex this week, water guns, varied non toxic colours and balloons filled with colours. Since Thursday, the children have been testing out the water guns and today the colours started coming out. If this is any indication, Sunday's full fledged Holi celebration will be "rocking" as Rushil would say. This will be our first real Holi celebration in India, last year our colony didn't celebrate the festival so we didn't really get to experience it, I'm really looking forward to Sunday. Holi lands on Monday and I have it off so I'm planning a day of pampering starting with breakfast at the Oscars, haircut at a salon, pedicure and a massage since the kids are in school and Prasad will be travelling.

Polar Opposites

Her new wicker swing, so comfy

Today, I arrived home to a power cut. Usually the backup kicks in but I just assumed, we had no power due to a fuse problem and went along my merry way. I called security 3 times but when the problem still wasn't resolved, I called Prasad. Turns out we didn't pay the bill and as I've mentionned before, they are merciless about that. It was already past 6:30pm and it was dark outside. I scrambled to find some candles. Prasad sent our driver to pay the bill and have the electricity board reinstate our power. Sindhura and Rushil walk in separately after playing outside.

Sindhura: Why is it dark in the house?
Me: Today is "Save our power day"

Sindhura: Oh. Can I turn on one of the light switches?

She walks over flips one of the switches it obviously doesn't work.

Sindhura: Why is the power off?

Me: We forgot to pay the bill, so Daddy and Vijay are taking care of it.

Prasad walks in, lights another candle, and they hang out in Sindhu's room on her new wicker swing. Sindhu keeps asking when the power will come back on. Prasad is praying that Vijay will be able to convince the board to turn it back on and won't make us wait till tomorrow.

Rushil walks in.

Rushil: Where is everybody?

Me: They are hanging out in Sindhu's room

Rushil: Why is it dark?

Me: It's "save our power" day.

Rushil: Oh.

He walks into Sindhu's room and says we should have more "save the power" days, this is fun.

Power is back on. Phew.. I wasn't sure how we would manage without the fans at night, it's quite hot nowadays. Sindhu starts turning on all the lights in the apartment. Rushil starts turning them off saying it's more fun with the lights off. Polar opposites.

Sindhura's Leadership Camp

Sindhu went on the 5th grade leadership camp for 2 nights and 3 days and just got back today. She was initially apprehensive about being away for 2 nights mainly because she is not a good sleeper and envisioned herself lying awake all night. As the day got closer, she became more and more excited and spent a couple of days packing for the trip. They had an amazing time! The campsite was in Yellagiri, Tamilnadu which is about a 3-4 hour drive from their school. When I called her both evenings, she was having so much fun, she didn't speak to us for more than a minute.

Some of the highlights of the trip:

1) She was worried she would be placed with someone she didn't know very well but fortunately, they got to choose their roomies so she slept in the same tent with 3 of her best school friends, Nisha, Sarah and Mahima.

2) They made soup with vegetables, turmeric and chilli powder. Sindhu said she didn't really like the soup but she would make it for us. Apparently breakfast was the best meal of each day and the curries at lunch and dinner were too spicy so she ate plain chappatis.

3) They went on a 8 hour hiking trip, they were all exhausted that night and slept much better the 2nd night.

4) The bathrooms were clean so they were able to take a shower.

5) They had a big bonfire and roasted marshmallows their last night.

It was definitely not a "girl scout" kind of camping trip. They had people that pitched the tents for them, carried some of the luggage and cooked all their meals. I was one of the first parents to arrive for the pick up so all the other girls were still around and they were just bursting to tell me what happened at the camp. Sindhu said this year's trip was far better mainly because the activities were more fun, and she was more comfortable with her friends. Rushil missed Sindhu, the first night he insisted on speaking to her, the next day, he wanted me to call her before he left for school so he could to talk her and yesterday when I asked him if he missed her, he claimed he didn't and I said, I'm sure you're missing her a little bit and he said, ok but then added, "only a very little bit". Although we missed her a lot, it was so quiet without her, I'm glad she went, it was a wonderful experience for her.

Chennai with a bang

Madhu and her daughter

Easwar, his daughter and his brother-in-law

Sindhu and Preetha

Ajay and Rushil

Meena, Ravi, Preetha, Ajay and Us

Highlights of the Chennai Trip:

1. We stayed at the exclusive Madras Club for one night. Prasad has a friend with a membership and she was able to get us a last minute booking for one night. I was quite impressed with how peaceful and serene the location was. The club is located along a quiet street lined with trees in the Boat Club area. Many of the members walk or run along the CooumRiver, the lawns are well groomed, they have a well maintained pool and their pool side cafe has an extensive Indian and continental menu. Other facilities include a small playground, tennis courts, a game room, a formal dining area with a dress code and they have tried to maintain the same architecture of the buildings over the years. The rooms were spacious and comfortable.


2. We visited my aunt and uncle in Annanagar. We enjoyed her delicious Andhra lunch. My aunt, Sindhu and I stepped out to do some shopping. Sindhu got her ears pierced for the 3rd time a couple of weeks back and she needed a pair of earrings she could wear daily to school. Unfortunately, one ear was infected, the goldsmith was convinced that it was because a gun was used and if he had done it manually himself, her ears would have been fine. Sindhu's ears were pierced in a doctor's office by an ENT, how much more cautious could I have been? Anyway, she picked out a cute pair but I'm worried the stems are a bit thick, they don't have thin stems like the ear rings you can buy in the US but these earrings will likely not fall off either.


3. That evening we had dinner at the Park with Prasad's friends Madhu and Easwar. Madhu's family is very well connected in Chennai and she knows the "who's who of Chennai". She is very helpful and sweet and quite an interesting person to meet and I'll leave it at that.


4. S & R swam in the pool at the club and didn't want to get out, the water was apparently very warm. Although we have a pool at our complex, the water is cold so the kids haven't been in the pool since the summer.


5. On Sunday morning, Meena, Ravi, Preetha and Ajay joined us at the Madras Club for breakfast and lunch. Sindhu and Rushil had a ball playing with their friends, it was like they were never apart. Meena and I made a quick run to Kalpadruma across from Chola Sheraton, a store similar to Fab India but even better. I bought a few printed cotton fabric pieces with which I'm planning to tailor kurti tops for Sindhu, let's see when I get around to this project. Kalpadruma sells cotton fabrics that are vegetable dyed, ready-made clothing for adults and children, linens and they have a handicraft center all for fairly reasonable prices. It was great to catch up with Meena and nice to see she hasn't changed. She brought over a suitcase full of bottled water from the US so they could drink it at their village during her father-in-law's 60th birthday celebrations. She was worried they would not be able to boil any water at the village given how hectic their schedule was and Meena doesn't trust the bottled water in India so buying it here was not an option. I had a good laugh although she did have a point about the bottled water being of questionable quality in India, we all did see SlumDog Millionaire.


6. Ride to and from Chennai with TK, it was great to have the company. Somehow we always estimate that Chennai is only a 4 hour drive away but the drive is actually 6 + hours long. The weather wasn't too bad in Chennai, we slipped in before the heatwave started, it was hot in the afternoons but pleasant in the mornings and late afternoon. The weather seemed to have suited Rushil's skin. His skin is now healing from all the boils last week and he's doing much better now, let's see if it lasts.

Update on Rushil and Sindhu's homeopathy treatment.

This is more for my records so I have a log of the treatment, you can ignore this post as it is pretty boring.

We started the treatment on Feb 2nd so it's been over 1 week. Sindhu is showing no reaction to the treatment so far but it could be too early to tell. Rushil is however having a pretty serious reaction to the treatment. He has small bumps/boils all over his entire body including his face, his skin is quite raw, he is very itchy and he is not sleeping well. His asthma flared up and he was on a nebulizer on Monday and Tuesday but seems to be better now. The homeopath has also given him treatment for asthma. We're continuing with the medicine and hope that the worst will be over soon.

On a more lighter note, we are driving to Chennai for the weekend, TK is also coming up with us, so should be a fun ride. We'll be hopefully meeting up with Meena, Ravi, Preetha and Ajay who are visiting from SJ on Sunday and have plans to see relatives. If we have time, I can do some T nagar shopping if TK can suggest a few good places. All the pressure is on you TK, if you want me to post great things about your favourite place in the whole wide world :-)

More on his skin and other frivolous details

Last week we started homeopathy treatment for Rushil and Sindhura. Within a day or two, Rushil started getting boils on his arm and developed a cold and cough. We took him to see the doctor again and he said we'll have to be patient as he is driving out the eczema and it will get worse before it gets better. I am fairly familiar with homeopathy so I know this but it's still painful. It's going to be tough to send him to school like this, he stayed home today. We debated about whether we should have started this in the summer. The next couple of months will be rough.

Since we were already in Indirangar, we visited "the bright side", a designer lamp store that recently opened. They had some interesting light fixtures, we're looking for a set above our kitchen counter in our Fremont home as one of the pendant lights broke. I hear that Chickpet has a large selection of lights so we may go there one of these weekends for a more "local" experience.

Next, we visited this designer clothing store I've heard so much about
on 100 ft road. Bandhej is an Ahmedabad based boutique and luck was on my side, they were having their half-yearly sale. I bought a couple of pieces off their sales rack and surprisingly their prices were affordable. They will have their next sale in August and I will surely be back.

We headed to Leela for bowling and a stop at the Oxford bookstore. Bowling only brings out two emotions in Rushil either sheer joy or sheer unhappiness. Last time, they didn't have a lane with guard rails, he kept hitting gutter balls and broke out into tears after each ball. This time around, Prasad reserved a lane that had the rails and Rushil was on a high and his only disappointment was that he couldn't play one more round. Sindhu's favourite hangout is the bookstore and she quickly read through a number of Geronimo Stilton books while we were browsing the shelves and Rushil was playing hide and seek. I always enjoy strolling through the Leela jewelry stores, they have an exquisite selection silver jewelry sets inlaid with precious stones, I hear there are a couple of other similar stores off of Brigade road that I need to check out. Anokhi is another favourite of mine with their unique block printing kurti tops.

What a long day.... Sunday was far more relaxing.

TK and Kiran were here!

TK, his nephew and wife came over for dinner on Thursday evening. S & R were sleeping as it was quite late when they arrived, they were very excited about seeing TK. Ofcourse when they did see him the next day, TK could barely get a hello out of them :-) On Friday night, both Kiran and TK stayed over, what are the chances of both of them being in town at the same time?!? Other than Manoj all the guys from the San Jose playgroup have visited us in Bangalore. Although Madhav didn't officially come to our place, we did meet with them in Goa so we can sort of count him in. We went to a local eatery called Sammuk, it's very conveniently located a few minutes from our home, service is a bit slow but drinks and food are decent. It's certainly not one of the trendier places in Bangalore but we wanted to avoid battling the Friday evening traffic, it's one of the pitfalls of living so far from the city. We had a fun evening together and it extended late into the night as Kiran's friends joined us for drinks at our place after dinner. Kiran left early in the morning and we had lunch with TK at Nandini Palace as he was craving spicy Andhra. We'll be seeing TK later this week.