New Year and Old Memories!

So, Happy New Year to all of you! As another year goes by, you are wished dreams fulfilled, warm hugs, true love, lasting friendships, success and loads of time with your loved ones! :) Yeah, this is also the sms I sent and some pals in blogosphere must have got it. Though it sounds like a forward, leme assure you its original! So I am always amused when I get my sms back from some friend! hehe!

I have to do posts on our Pune and Mumbai trips, with pictures ofcos (considering thats all you guys come here for!:p), but I need to be in a different mood for that! Just got some mails from my dad with scanned copies of some our old pictures and I thought might as well put some of MY childhood snaps too! I mean why should Cubby get all the "sooo cutes!" hehe!

Before that leme just share some snippets with Cubby

Scene 1:

Other day when i was again stuck at work till late because one particular client activity that had been delaying for almost the entire week.

M - So when you coming home?

Me - I dunno. I am stuck!

M - Antiquity, again?!

Suddenly I hear a voice pipe in! (M has kept the speaker on)

Cubby - Aaantikooti.

We laugh like crazy and ofcos make him repeat it zillion times! Then,

M - Say Signature!

Cubby - Sinneture

Me - Now say Daaru!

Cubby - Daauuu.

M - Bolo! Bewda

Cubby - beddaaa

Yes! We are like that only! We get cheap parenting thrills by making Cubby repeat stupid stuff! But we had a good laugh! Cubby too. And dontcha worry. We didn't do the daaru and bewda thing again! But hearing him say Aantikooti is just too cute to resist! :)

Scene 2 - We are sitting and having our breakfast. Cubby as usual say Deee (give) and takes a bite of whatever we are eating. As soon as he bites it, he goes Teekha (spicy!) with appropriate sounds and expression! How the heck did he know?! :p

Scene 3 - Its chhutti, so I am bathing him instead of Amma. I pour first mug of water and I hear a little admonishing voice saying Garam! And yesterday he used Kannada equivalent and whined "Bissi!".

When did my baby grow up so much?! :)

And now leme share some moments from my childhood! Very few pictures I realise now. On next trip home am gonna get all of em! :) Ofcos they are all faded and not so clear, but memories are precious, in whatever form! nahi?! :)

Guess which one is me?! Clue: Teeth! :p

So did you get it right?! Thats me with my Mum n Dad at my Grand pa's house in Pune.

It was my birthday and all those kids were my friends in Pune since I visite my grand parents at every available opputunity! I am in touch with the only guy in the picture. I do love my frock and to think my parents let me choose from pretty early on and I bought some seriously horrid stuff!

Again in Pune. The toothy smiles started pretty early on and almost never stopped i guess!


Thats my bro and cousin and me doing the aarti for Bhaidooj.

Exchange Mela: Me wearing Mom's jeans and shirt and Mom wearing my skirt and blouse!

This is at Aurangabad during new years. I guess, I had started being the awkward teenager and my bro loved to make weird faces for EVERY picture. When he was little younger he wanted to pose with some toy or the other and yeah the tongue wagging! :p I started fitting into Mom's clothes for a bit. But that affair was short lived as my mom is very thin and has a small built. So now I don't fit into her clothes and she has to wear mine after altering them to make em smaller! Sigh! Also remember the fights that started with Dad around the time jeans came along about merits of looooong lasting "Abhyankar" chappals from Kolhapur with Jeans and why do I need another nicer pair of footwear! :p

This is Feb 97! TWELVE years ago almost!

This was our standard picture of four before going out for dinner on someone's birthday. This was Dad's birthday. Bro and me started picking places to eat pretty soon! It was quite an occasion! :)

Another one of Dad's birthday!

I think both of us (bro n me) were trying to make sure that we don't open our mouths while feeding cake to Dad! :)

Had fun seeing these again. Earlier everytime we got bored, we used to pull out all the albums and see old photos. We did that again this time when I went home. It's always fun to see how we and others around us have changed over a period of time. I wonder how will Cubby react to his parent's old pictures. Will he also laugh at our clothes and hairstyles, the way we laughed at our parents?! How many stories will I remember to tell him? Will he also see our wedding album and ask "Why wasn't I invited?"

We had decided that we will keep printing our digital snaps as well, because watching them on computer is like reading an e-book. You can see the pictures alright, but they cannot be a warm and cozy family affair albums are. We have lot of albums, but we haven't printed new ones in quite sometime. Should do it soon!

Are you guys ok with pictures just on computer? Whats your nostalgia factor?! :)

dabba gul!

I was going to write a post about how Cubby came into his current Ganju (bald) avtaar, but when we went for lunch today, noticed a guy opening his dabba to have khaana, and all of us wondered when was the last time we carried a lunch box!

Since I moved to Bangalore, post shaadi, I almost never took dabba simply because I would have to cook some lunch to carry. It is just too much effort! Ek baar kar lete hai wahi bahot hai! Of cos when I was in Mumbai for my delivery, I used to carry lunch to work everyday. One, it meant, healthy food and more importantly MOM was cooking it! :D

I remember in my primary school, we had two breaks. One a sorta mini snack break and second a lunch break. The snack dabba would obviously get over very quickly! :p By the time we moved on to secondary school (thats 5th std onwards), there was just one break around lunch hour. By now, we also had groups and certain friends would have lunch together. WE would open our dabbas and hope that the other person had something nicer (read chatapata and unhealthy!). Worst would be if multiple people got same subzi, esp if it was something dull like cabbage.

My mom made fresh lunch before going to work. It was unwaveringly chapati and subzi. Add to that I was a picky eater. I could count subzis I like on fingers rather than the ones I didn't like. The only silver lining was my mom is a good cook, so even sad veggies tasted nice unlike some food some of my otha friends got.

Pav-bhaji held a special place in our heart. Pav-bhaji was lunch meant it was made the previous day for dinner at some pal's place. The mom's would always make extra for next day! The person who got it would take one pav BEFORE opening the bhaji dabba, to ensure he/she gets something at least! The scene after opening the dabba wasn't a lot better than all brothers eating like uncivilised animals in Satte Pe Satta! :p

I remember buddy G who used to eat ONLY alu subzi and that too made only in a particular fashion. She used to get it at least 4 days a week. The other two days was egg sandwiches which incidentally were very yummy. Her mom used to send a whole dabbaful and we would still finish it all.

V was me thinks the only north Indian in the group. The achaar she got was always in demand and so were the parathas! :)

Once I dropped my lunch box and so didn't eat it. That gave my wicked brain an idea. If i didn't like something , I would tell mom dabba gir gaya and the food she had so painstakingly prepared would be go in the dustbin. Of cos this didn't last for too long. One day she said show me the gira hua khaana and realised I hadn't even opened the dabba and was lying through my teeth! :(

Now when I cook and someone doesn't like/eat it, I feel so bad. Now I know how much effort it takes to put a fresh and complete meal on the table. Now I know how irritating it is when you ask someone what do you feel like eating and the person says "Anything! Kuch bhi chalega". Now I know what it feels like when food you have taken effort for gets thrown in to the dustbin.

After getting married to the totally non-fussy eater M, I have started eating almost all veggies without a complain. We make them l'il more chatpata (northie style) to make it interesting. Trust me, lauki paneer is MUCH nicer than the bland Marathi style doodhi chi bhaji! My bro who swore he will never eat lauki (snake gourd) didn't even realise he was eating it at our place! :p

When we started working, someone or the other would order one extra thing from the canteen to add a little spice! Now toh only dinner is made at home and M cooks half of it and me the rest and I have to concede M is a much better cook!

Mom, this post is for you! Thank you for making healthy and tasty food for us everyday! Now when I struggle to make different breakfast everyday, I can't help but look back how you made so many different kinds and we still made faces when you made upma once in a while! Or the time we tried to "improvise" the food you made! Sorry! We were little silly and young! :) And when you ask me even today what do you wanna eat, I will still say "Kaahi hee"!

Some things never change! Love ya mom!

P.s dreading the day I have to pack lunch for Cubby!

PPS - Whats in your lunch box today?! :)

Ganpati Bappa Morya!!

The only God I have often heard being called CUTE is Ganpati or Ganesha if you will. With his round belly, the twisting trunk and the kind and smiling eyes (I hate it when idol makers screw up the eyes and make em angry and all), you cannot help but trust Him with your heart and soul. Add to that the stories of his very cool wit, his penchant for good food and lightening speed of thinking AND writing, Ganpati does come across as a lovable person errr... God! :D

The Arrival

For me Ganeshotsav has always meant a cartload of happy memories. Our family Ganpati used to be at my Dad's uncle's place every year. It was a small house with gray stone flooring and a constant roar of traffic under the windows. A place was designated for the visiting Lord. The previous evening some of us would go and get the statue whose face would be still covered with a silk cloth. There would be decorations made of thermocol. The next day morning all of us would go there again for the "sthapana". A long pooja ensued followed by arati sung in a particular tune with "zhanja" and bell as accompaniments.

After all this, all the women sat in a room to make delicious Modaks (they are like Momos filled with coconut and jaggery mix). All young girls who wanted to try their hand at it were allowed to mess up a few as well. Yours truly kept being a part of messing up gang till she got married and never made Modaks again! ;)



Then garam garam modaks with ghee poured onto them were devoured along with rest of the basic khaana. Talkathon amongst the whole family catching up on what's been happening would reach cacophony levels! All in all total dhamaal.

The fond farewells

The Visarajan - the day we say Good Bye to Lord Ganesha asking him to come again next year, is always tinged with certain sadness. We would all again go to uncle's house and the idol would be taken to Dadar Chowpatty. A last aarti would be sung on the beach among masses of people all doing the same, in their big and small groups.

The Prelude

Even more fun used to be Ganeshotsav in the building. I grew up in a chawl and we have a common Ganpati, more popularly known as Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav. The preparations would start months in advance for the celebrations to go off smoothly.


Someone would be working on the pandal and someone else on collecting the money from entire building. Some of us would be participating in a whole 3 act marathi play and others would be practicing their dance performance. Singing skills used to be brushed up and ideas for new competitions worked out!


The play practice went on every night for almost 2months. The dance practice happened in our terrace every evening. Music players were begged for and so was space to do the play practice. Towards last 15 days everyday one family would volunteer to give snacks and coffee to the team. Day before the ganpati came, we would all be cleaning the chowk with jhaadoos and mild acid that would burn out the dirt. The previous night everyone would be working hard on decoration and all that jazz! The whole atmosphere would be charged with excitement of next few days. Those were really the days!!

And not to forget late night jaunts at 2am to have bhurji paav and cutting chai with the whole gang!! For quite a few years, the guys would get parcel for the girls till i insisted and then begged these guys to take us too! what fun! bhurji never tasted that good before or after!

The Celebrations

And then those days went by in a flurry of activity. Fancy Dress and dance competition for kids where they outdid themselves every year. Anatkshari and dumb charades for adults that lead to major leg-pulling and happy camaraderie. The arati was sung everyday with gusto. Ours was one of the few Ganpatis where the arati was not just put up on recorder. A live dholak played by someone in the building played the beats of arati that went on for at least 45mins with volumes never going low. If some of us didn't know the arati we made up by clapping harder! :p


One room would get transformed into make-up room on the day of play and dances. We would all be white faced with amateur make-up done by fellow residents. But we were proud of it nonetheless because we never paid a single paisa to get some orchestra come and play for us or just show movies on projector. We worked hard for every event and its success and failure was our own to embrace.


Through all this arguments happened and sentiments got hurt too, mostly due silly egos. But at the end of the day it was our pride as a group at stake and we would make up and go ahead and do our best.


Last year I was on Mumbai post delivery and I made 40day old Cubby participate in Fancy Dress competition as a body builder! :p This year I will miss being a part of it, but I know like every year I will get nostalgic and smile at all those very special memories.


I have declared to M that I am gonna try and make Modaks tomorrow. Now M is someone who takes food very seriously and I better at least attempt them. So wish me luck, people!! I will tell you how they turned out!


Till then, Ganpati Bappa Morya!!
Ek, don, teen, chaar, Ganpaticha jayjaykar!
aani Pudchya Varshi Laukar ya in advance!

ps: On an important note, do try and buy small clay idols with natural colours instead of PoP ones commonly available which harm the environment since they don't dissolve completely when submerged. It's the least we can do in our human capacity for this divine occasion.

pps: the order is kinda awry, but Ganpati brings so many memories, it seemed almost impossible to even put them down, forget doing it in an order! So, pls to excuse! :)

bhaichaara, bhaigiri and behena!

Rakhi is gone already. The lazy bum that I am, i didn't bother sending rakhi to a dozen brothers that I have (all except one are cousins least you have been wondering just how busy my parents have been!;). On the other had you can also wonder, "She must be getting whole lot of gifts!"

Cubby ka Raksha Bandhan - Picture Story! :p

Kabir had his first proper rakhi this year. He REFUSED to get it tied and created quite a scene! But do check out his bright kurta pajama! :p

Oho! Kya pareshaani hai! :p

Ofcos all was well once the ceremonies were done with! And the scene was something like this!

fav anta didi with Vedu Bhaiyaa and Diti didi and Cubby

Mere bachpan ka Raksha bandhan! ;)

Raksha Bandhan meant buying whole lot of rakhis a week before because so many of them had to be posted. I diligently sat and wrote letters to each one (which were never replied to) and then put the rakhi, stick a stamp and go to the post office. Thatday all the guys in the school would be in hiding! Moonh bola bhai was a rage then! :p I used to tie rakhi all the dudes in the building too. Being the regular plain Jane, nobody ran from my rakhi wielding hand

When i offcially became bhena!

I still remember wanting a brother just so that I could have someone to tie rakhi to every year ekdum hak se! And then it happened! My brother was born after almost 7 years of my existence on this planet! I don't really remember much of those days. I really have no angst ridden stories about being ignored or having been a sacrificing elder sibling. I do remember being terribly excited about the lift in the hospital where he was born. Yeah! My priorities were indeed little warped then. I have Ahem! grown up now! ;)

The hospital was just opposite our building so I would go to meet mom and the baby before going to school and on my way back home. I would take all my friends too. I used to call him 'sasulya' an endearing term for rabbit because he was so small, fair and soft.

The aftermath of bhaichaara sapna

After the initial euphoria I really started getting bugged. I mean he was just too small. WE had absolutely nothing in common and it just wasn't fun the way I hoped it will be. After a point I bullied him mercilessly (am really sorry bro! i was just a kid too!). But at the same time, I would be very protective about someone from outside bothering him.

Every time someone harassed him, he would come crying to me saying Diiidddiii! So much so that my whole building still calls me Didi! :D He never went to my parents. My parents were also very cool type of people in general. I am sure all recent mommies will think we were a neglected lot if i tell them, I went for his PTA meetings! Yup Yup! I took half day from school with some lie and attend his meeting in the next building. I would buy his books and note down whatever teachers said and show it to my folks.

I went to pick up his results every year. I still remember when he stood 1st for the first time in 5th standard. He had gone out of town and the class was empty since I went after picking up my results. I saw his name on the board. My excitement knew NO bounds. No cell phones and all and i didn't know where to jump in joy and whom to tell! :)

We shed tears together when he didn't get scholarship in 4th standard when he was among the most consistent performers in the class. My brother is the regular genius while I am "could have done better, if she worked little hard" variety, which basically means i NEVER did well academically or otherwise! I was just lazy. Correction I am!

Over the years the gap reduced and we started getting along famously. We were a team against parents and anybody else who bugged us. We came up with our own weird languages that no one around us understood. WE had our own private jokes and we would break out into peals of uncontrollable laughter without knowing what exactly was so funny!

He got me introduced to cartoons like Dexter's Lab which was so similar to what we were as brother and sister and Dragon ball Z where i followed the adventures with equal fervour. One of us would take Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes to read and we would keep on passing the book to other saying you have to read this and laugh like crazy.

Just before leaving for airport. Can't believe Cubby was sooo tiny! and ugly!

He said when I get married, it will be a good riddance and he will never cry when the bidaai happens. He wept like a baby. Of cos he blames it on a moment of insanity and all that jazz, but I have photographic evidence and have never stopped teasing him since! ;)

Today he has worked hard, done exceedingly well in his engineering studies and become a superbly confident person. I was amazed and very proud when i saw how much his seniors trusted him and his juniors looked up to him. He was president of god knows how many societies and working hard for every college fest.


Proud Mama after having successfully fed Cubby the first time!

Bhaigiri se mamugiri tak! :p

He is now studying in the US and doing his MS. I am glad he was there when Cubby was born and he was so good with him. Cubby listened carefully only to him. My brother would be talking to him about theory of relativity or giving him snippets of latest Jeffery Archer he was reading and Cubby would be listening with rapt attention and gurgling. He volunteered to feed him and changed him with finesse of an expert.

They got very little time with each other, but I hope they will make up for it someday.

last photograph taken on the airport Oct 2007

The Summary!

We don't share major secrets with each other, but we both know we are there for each other. I call him occasionally and update him on Cubby happenings and whatever else is there to talk about. He was among the first few to call and check on me when the Bangalore blasts happened. He is the reason i KNOW i HAVE to have a second baby to give Cubby the same chance at sharing roots with someone who will always be there.

Miss you brother! Keep rocking and being the nice guy that you are! :) And try and argue a little less, will ya?? When the urge gets too much, just study law! :p

(it's a Rakhi post. I HAVE to say nice things about ya!;)

jab main chhoti bacchi thi!

ITW did this tag about 'what are the 7 favourite things you enjoyed doing as a child?' I am picking it up because nostalgia is almost always nice! :)

I loved the walk to / from the school! (I liked school too, but the walk more!).

We were a gang of like 8 -10 kids (gender didn't matter at all then!) who went to the same school at the same time. So we would meet up every morning and walk to the school. There were times if we were 8 of us, we would take a cab simply because minimum fare was 8bucks and bus fare of Re.1. So if we pooled in we could go by cab!! Imagine cramming 8 people in ONE cab!! :D Then, there was a huge tree on the footpath outside our school.

We used to wait there in the evening for everyone to come and the leisurely walk back home would start. There would be again occasional pooling of money to buy 'golis' from the sweet shop. There was one type - really small red coloured pellet looking ones, which cost just 5ps per goli! And the yummy kala khatta flavoured one that cost a whole 25ps! My mouth waters thinking about it even now! Thankfully questionable hygiene and ingredients were, well, not questioned so much then! :p There was another bhaiyya outside school how sold imli (tamarind), kairi (raw mango), bora (I have no idea about the translation) which was sold with mix of salt and chilli powder! Drooooool!

Summer Vacations at Kolhapur

Those were the days when vacation meant at least a month going to Kolhapur and surrounding cities where all my maternal cousins stayed! My mausi's daughter S is just 15 days elder to me, so meeting her was what I looked forward to the most! That is when I did yearly learning and forgetting of cycling. Going to circuit house opposite their apartment and trying to get 'english' imli off the trees with stones and crazy jumping! Talking late into the night, playing cards and name,place, animal, thing throughout the day to calling a cousin over just to tell us ghost stories really late! :)

Birthday Parties

How I Loved getting invited for friends' birthday parties. Of course they used to be simple affairs. Cake (Monginis was height of expensive cakes), wafers and Rasna! It would just be another floor and yet you wore your best clothes, matching clips and went with a little gift wrapped in shiny paper and had lotsa fun doing nothing super special!

Playing with friends

Be it playing house-house with the whole kitchen set and fake food (never would my Mom have thought i would NEVER want to cook) or pretending to be major career women walking on high heel making tic-toc noise (i have never understood why heels always considering i never wore them in real life when i had a job) to playing chain, catch and even dreaded langdi! Every evening as soon as you got home, you threw everything, had a glass of milk and ran to the gacchi (terrace) and played till your parents didn't holler!

Festivals

Be it holi or diwali, I loved being a part of the festivities! To get an oil bath early in the morning on diwali day to playing colours till you became unrecognisable during holi! There used to be Kojagiri (a particular full moon night) celebrated in the building. Thats the day they had the building committee meeting that was followed by snacks and coffee! Kids used to play in one corner of the terrace and rest of it was meeting. Soon we were too many to let sane adult conversation happen! So kids started having a separate Kojagiri party by contributing money. Yummy food and crazy games till late into the night. Those were indeed the days! I still love it all!

Shopping

Unlike now, shopping wasn't a can be done anytime kinda affair. One got new clothes only for birthday and Diwali. To go and shop for it was a HUGE thing! My parents let me choose my clothes from pretty early on. Now when I look back I cringe at my choice and wonder what must be going through my parents' mind when they threw their hard earned money to buy crappy clothes! Sorry mom and dad!

Sundays and television

Sunday meant watching cartoons and Rangoli! Mickey Mouse and Donald duck were preceded by best of bollywood gaanas. To accompany the gaanas we would get tea! Sunday was the only day bro and me got tea, which on other days was a glassful of bournvita! :) Sundays also meant buying khaari from the bhaiyya who went door to door and dunking it in chai and taking the soggy bit to your mouth without dropping it in the chai or somewhere midway! haven't you heard there is a many a slip between the cup and the lip?! :p

This was super fun to do!! Man! How life has changed?! I remember my mom telling us how much MORE fun their childhood was without TV and computer and no other forms of distraction really. Will i also be going "Hamare zamanein mein" with Kabir while he rolls his eyes in exasperation?!

Well, we can just wait and watch, can't we?!

I don't know if we can tag people when we have picked up the tag just like that. But then what the heck! It will be fun to read some other people's take on this!

I tag my namesake Mamma-Mia, Just Like That (she hasn't posted in AGES!), WIAN, Munchkin's mommy and Dee.

If you have done it already forget it! If you haven't and get time, do it!

It's a refreshing walk down the memory lane!

SwInGeRs CLUB, anyone?!

Rajat Kapur made a movie called Mixed Doubles a few years ago that dealt with wife / couple swapping or what in popular parlance is called Swinging! How true! Swing from one partner to another! Of course he gave it a desi touch with the couple not being able to go ahead with the whole thing on the said night. (I kinda like such desi happy endings! they keep complications out!). Around the same time I ended up watching a similar themed Hollywood movie, whose name I don't remember now! The husband there has been wanting to spice up their lives by swapping with his best friend and his wife for whom he has always had some hots! With all the begging, pleading and logical(??) reasoning the wife gets convinced.

On the D Day the hubby cannot go through with it and the wife does, if only to keep her of the bargain. The rest of the movie is about how the whole world goes topsy turvy when he has the gall to blame her for infidelity! Geez!

I wonder what makes couples want to this? In a way is it more 'honest' that closet affairs and one night stands? Whatever it is, its not a sign of a healthy relationship!

But that's not the kind of swinging I wanted to talk about! I just want to talk about the good ol' play swing aka as jhoola in Hindi and jhopala in Marathi! :D

I just LOVE the swing! I don't remember when did this fascination start, but it has never ended. I guess it was when i was in school and went to Ichalkaranji and Kolhapur for my summer vacations. Being in Bombay with hardly any parks in the vicinity, jhoola was a not a common thing! I remember the parks being full of kids in summer and having to wait endlessly to get a turn on the swing. Sometimes we had fights too if someone stayed on for too long!

Finally you got your turn. You sit gingerly on the swing as if to test its height and strength. Then you take it all the way back till your legs are straight and it's just your toes touching the ground! All set and you let go with your legs folding under! Up and above! You come down and push your legs back again to get the speed and height you desire! Take it higher than ever before and actually enjoying the feeling of your stomach turning and churning as the swing goes down from its l'il flight fighting gravity! It was your very own sasta and tikau roller coaster ride! :)

Even today I see a swing and temptation to just go and take a swing is just SO strong! I love it as I sit on one and take it higher than I ever could as a kid! The wind making my hair fly astray as my head moves back and forth with the jhoola, as if one with it! :)

There are many parks in Bangalore, but alas I am not a kid anymore. I did try at one close to our place, but the chowkidaar came running with a stick in his hand and loud whistle telling me to get off!! :( It was too embarrassing to try again. Not that it stops me from trying to grab a chance anyway!

So whenever I go to nice big colonies with a kiddy play area, i make the most of the opportunity! Hehe! Just the other day when we went to Corner House at Hotel Airline at 11pm. The place has a kiddy area outside. Everyone was sitting on jhoolas and see saws and enjoying their ice creams. M tol me to go and take a swing! :) I don't know why I said no. By the time we finished the divine Cake A Mocha both the jhoolas were empty (there was a cute couple enjoying PDA on one of the swings) and I just couldn't resist myself!

What a feeling it was! Yet again! God bless the person who invented this thing!! :p

Am hoping to teach Cubby the fun of it someday soon! Right now he just cries on swings and slides! :)

So if you see an old, fat woman going crazy on a swing, stop by and say hello! :D

the little miracle of our life! :)

Well, my darling, Kabir, this one... isn't about you! :p

I am talking about that l'il silver coloured thing that flashes light and by now you know its time to smile when you see it!

Indeed it is our digicam. It takes us at least 5 attempts till we capture you smiling, which you always mysteriously manage to not show my moving just at the last minute. Imagine having to do that on regular camera with rolls to buy, develop and pay for! You wouldn't have had half the photos!

I know! I Know memories are pricesless, but lets get real here! ;)

Yet, the fact of the matter is I do miss having piles of albums. I still remember taking out all our childhood albums and watching them, discussing the same stories everytime, showing each other the photos, making comments and generally spending a lovely lazy afternoon enjoying old memories! Getting nostalgic has a charm of its own.

Now with digicam, all the photos are there on the computer and you rarely end up watching them often, even though its lot easier. For one the angle of the computer screen and the comfort of your posture isnt always in tandem, especially when multiple people are watching them. And it's just not as much fun... i mean come on an e-book can never replace paper! (I hope! I Hope!)

So we do try and take prints of most special photos and have those piles (albiet smaller ones) even now. We set down a budget and number and get them printed every few months. We recently got close to 100 photos of Kabir printed for my parents. My mom complained how she can't show off the grandson to her friends at office! :)

Just the other day we attempted to make sense of all the samaan on our loft! We found lot of slides of M's bachpan. Not ngaetives, but projector slides that had to be developed in UK and all that. The projector is obviously defunct and imagine the pain of wasted treasure trove of memories languishing in all the raddi saman.

But thanx to modern day techonology, you CAN indeed print from these slides! So off we went to check out our options. Its obviously an expensive affair and costs close to 25bucks per print! (That's 5 times of your digital prints) But it was so worth it to be able to see what M's childhood was like, does Kabir look like him, seeing him with his younger brother and parents... all innocence and cuteness personified.

Now we are hoping to slect some more and get them printed. Of course these again will be scanned and saved in digital format! :D

With all the flipsides, digicam is indeed one of the best things to have happended to us in recent times! Clicking without worry, taking videos that will make you smile whenever you watch them and trying different settings to get that perfect picture makes it a fun thing to have!

So say Cheese! :)

dream on! ;)

will you be a music man? A DJ perhaps?

or will you be a sportsperson? :)

don't be paise khaanewaala politician though! :p

whatever it is you become dont lose that wonderous look in your eyes and the joy of discovering! :)

and I am doing this post just to show off your super cute snaps!! :p I really haven't started dreaming what will you grow up to be! Right now I am just too amazed to see you change everyday... just too happy thanking my stars that I have YOU as my baby... just too thrilled with every l'il thing you do!

So dontcha worry and take faltu ka pressure and tension! ;)

god bless you with dreams thats become real and a reality thats like a dream! :)

love ya so so much! mmmmuuuaaaah!!