In the news...

So our complex made it into the news. Folks that we run into every day were interviewed about life in India after moving back from the US.  They were raving about how great it is here. Check it out, the correspondent's perspective is quite interesting....

Full article located here:

Tennis Shots

We'll be shooting photographs today at the studio and tomorrow at Cubbon park. In preparation for today's class, I was practicing taking pictures in "manual" mode this morning during Rushil's tennis class. I tried taking pictures from different parts of the court and each time I had to adjust the settings, it was difficult to get the right lighting and I had to experiment quite a bit.  I'm hoping that if I can teach Prasad what I've learned, between the two of us, we'll be able to get better photographs during our next trip.

 With shadows and puddles of water, there was a huge downpour last night.

Taken aerially from our balcony on the 7th floor

New Look

A friend of mine was telling me that she finds it very hard to read my blog because of the white on black contrast. Noone has complained about it but she has mentionned it a couple of times so I thought, why not give the blog a new look. It's nothing fancy, I just picked a new template from the blogger list, let me know if you like it.

Family Portraits

We hired a photographer in Seattle to take a few pictures of the family. Still a bit raw but here a few of them.

Aperture and Shutter speed anyone?

I started photography lessons this weekend with  Bangalore School of Arts and Photography. We have spent the last 2 days learning theory and analyzing photographs. It's been a real eye opener for me. I have never been able to take good pictures with our SLR and most of the pictures on this blog were taken with a point and click camera. I hope I'll be able to apply the theory we've learned to our SLR. The instructor, Anand Sharan  makes the topic so interesting, the hours have just flown by. There are about 20 students, all from different backgrounds, with 6 of them being women. The instructor is  a renowned photographer, articulate and passionate about photography.  Next weekend, we'll be out of the classroom and out in the field taking photographs.

What do I do with him?

Me: Are you learning anything in tennis?
Rushil looks at me incredulously and says: Yes I am.
Me: But there are so many children in the class, do you ever get a turn?
Rushil: I do, I get to play a lot.
Me: Hmm.
Then Rushil confides: Sometimes my friends give up their turn for me.
Me: Why do you let them, they should get their turn too.
Rushil: I don't know, they think I'm their master or something.
Me: Rushil that's not right, you should let them play too.
Rushil: They want me to take their turn.

By now he's regrets he has said anything and has tuned out my nagging. 

Now he's deciding which schools to go to!

Rushil : Mommy when we go back to the US, can I go to Challenger? (school)
Me: Why?  (He had never heard of Challenger before)
Rushil: Well there is this boy in school that was at Challenger last year and he's really good at math  and I think it's because he went to that school. He did this test at school and he was the fastest.  I want to go there.

Rushil wants to be the best at math in his class and is bothered that this this boy is topping him.  The fact is that Challenger does a really good job in preparing children to excel at traditional math concepts but it was surprising that Rushil picked up on this and went as far as asking me to send him there. Every day the children surprise me with something or another, I wish I could remember and capture each and every one of them.

So what have I been doing?

Believe it or not, I feel a lot of pressure to use my time wisely.  I feel almost accountable for my time and I'm afraid of wiling it away.  I've debated whether to post this or not but finally decided to go ahead with it. Here's what I've been doing.

1) I joined  S& R's school PAC (Parent Action Committee). Initially I was overwhelmed with the expectations and keeping up with all the emails but now I've fallen into a rhythm. It's nice to be recognized by the school staff, the principal and other parents unlike before when only S&R's teachers recognized me.

2) I started Hindi lessons last week. I've had two classes so far and I'm pretty happy with the teacher, he's balancing between teaching me some basic grammar along with teaching me some basic sentences. Although it should be easy for me to pick up Hindi because I know one Indian language, it's not. For the most part, I don't translate from English when I speak Telugu but with Hindi, it's not easy to steer away from that. I have to remember where to place the verb and all the other words in the sentence and it's not intuitive. This weekend, as part of my homework, I had to construct a number of sentences and I needed quite  a bit of help from Prasad.

3) I'm waking up at 6AM to take tennis lessons. I'm not a morning person so it's a bit of a struggle to get up but it's well worth it. I'm enjoying the classes and you just can't beat the convenience of having a coach come to your complex..

4) Photography lessons. My classes start next week, the goal is for my SLR camera to be demystified.

5) I'm putting together a children's play for the Diwali program at our complex. I'm not sure what I'm getting into, I have to manage 10+ kids every week for rehearsals but I've been wanting to do this since last year so this is my opportunity. I want to keep it simple since I'm  not very artistic and don't want to get into making sets and elaborate costumes but I think it will be fun for the kids to perform.

6) We're planning some trips in October and December  so I'm currently researching the locations. 

7) Volunteering in the reading program in Rushil's class. I made it only once last year so I'm glad that I'll be able to go every week this year. In general, my involvement in the school activities has increased tenfold so at least for this year, I don't need to tag team with Prasad and can handle most of the activities myself.

Although I have a number of items on my list for the upcoming year, the biggest one that I have  yet to close on is where to volunteer and what should my involvement be. I wanted to get involved with an English medium school meant for lower income families but I couldn't find one in the area.  I've contacted a number of organizations but I'm still not sure which one to commit to so the search goes on.

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi - 2010

Sindhu designed how they would place the fruits and flowers and later they made a flower decoration which read "God Ganesha"

My "kundan" rangoli set - sparkles at night time when the lights reflect off it.

We performed a quiet Ganesh puja this year. I was a litle disappointed that I did not take pictures of the huge Ganesh idols they were selling on the streets, I was feeling especially nostalgic since it may be our last Ganesh Chaturthi in India. Although the vendor claimed the idol we purchased is eco-friendly, I can't be sure. Prasad and Rushil performed the puja and as you can see, Rushil takes his "praying" very seriously. He performed 101 gunjalu! (crouches while holding his ears), Sindhu managed 50 which was impressive in itself. Sindhu designed and drew her own muggu (rangoli) in front of door with colours, I wish I was better at it so I could guide her, Chaitra our previous maid  used to help her before. They had a small celebration at the clubhouse and they had beautifully decorated the room and served prasadam after the puja.

My new girlie phone

Prasad surprised me today with a Micromax Bling phone. It's the most girlie girlie phone you can get: diamond studded with a white cover, mirror at the back and a hot pink protector cover. Sindhu literally died when she saw it and begged me to give it to her. She's actually contemplating staying another year in India if we let her have it when I'm done with it.  I haven't had such a sophisticated phone in years and I've been perfectly happy with my $30 phone for the past few years. When I saw the commercial for the Bling on tv a few months ago,  it looked so glam and chique in Twinkle Khanna's hands, and  I told Prasad that I liked it, and I guess he remembered, he's a keeper for sure.

Our Maid has Moved On

Chaitra, our maid that I really liked has left us. After we came back from our US visit, she said she will be moving to where her children are staying and it'll be an 1.5 hour commute to our apartment but will still continue to work at our place.  Her children are attending an English medium school and were staying with her sister. If you remember, I was trying to convince her to let us pay for her children's education and at one point she did agree to it  but then backed out and enrolled them in an English medium school farther out from the city as it was more affordabe. I was happy that she moved them to an English medium school and didn't push any further. After we came from Hyderabad last weekend, she didn't show up our first day back. When Prasad called, she sounded sick and he understood that she'll be off for a few days. The next day when I called, she said, that her children were sick and there were lots of problems at home and that she wouldn't be able to work at my place. I was really disappointed and initially upset that she didn't give any notice and she didn't even bother to call and this after being with us for a year.   I guess I had to move on and find someone elese and I did (the new maid has her own sad story, where does the misery end?!) . Chaitra and her husband came to see us over the weekend, she was dressed nicely and was very friendly and happy. She said that both her children had contracted a severe case of the mumps and the younger one is in the hospital and is slowly recovering.  We gave her salary, a little extra money and a sari. She was very touched and cried when she left. She is a good person, I was hoping she would stay on with us until we left,  I wonder if I'll ever see her again, I hope so.

Hyderabad Weddings

Prasad's cousin Kishore got married in Hyderabad last weekend. Prasad's siblings and many relatives came from out of town for the wedding. Here are some pictures from the event.

All 6 cousins in one picture

Prasad's mother's sisters

                                                      Sindhu with Prasad's aunt

Prasad's mother with her sisters and sister-in-laws

The 2 three year olds

The couple - Kishore and Kalpana

With my mother-in-law and 2 sister-in-laws

Reading Incentives

Rushil's friend has a Facebook, gmail and yahoo account. Now why a 7 year old needs all those accounts I don't know, but Rushil started bugging us about getting him an account.  FB is definitely out, Sindhu doesn't have one, so Rushil doesn't get one. I asked Rushil why he needs an email account and he said he could email me, Prasad, Sindhu and that one friend of his that all those accounts. That same friend that is in his class at school, goes on the bus with him every day and then plays with him after school, so what exactly they need to share over email, I have no idea. But it's not easy to convince Rushil, and he was hellbent on getting at least an email account. So, I thought I could use this opportunity to get Rushil to read a couple of novels.  It still took him a  couple of weeks but finally, he finished 2 books and he got his email address. He sent me one email and then begged me to check and sent another nasty one asking me if I was ever going to reply to him. After 2 days, the excitement has wore off because he has only  so much to say to us and he needs to find some friends that have email accounts.  But I got him to read 2 books, now I need to find another incentive for him read.