I've been intensively tracking visitors to this blog using the tools Google provides. Vibhat kept seeing the usage graphs on the screen and asked me what was that funny picture. So I sat down with him to try to explain graphs. He got the basic funda in just a few minutes and was saying "Ok when there's a lot of visitors that's when there's a peak in the picture and when there's very few its low". I was very surprised. I was expecting a painful process of him having to understand x-axis , y-axis, lengths along axes. But without talking much about axes, I was able to communicate the idea. In contrast, I remember how I learnt graphs - getting introduced to graph paper, then counting distance along axes, then plotting abstract points like (3,4) and so on. It must have happened over atleast a month or so. In retrospect it seems a painfully abstract and unnecessary process. So, is graphing much easier to understand when you do it with a real-world example ? ---- Separately, I've been getting about 20 visitors per day to the blog, but there are two curious spikes in 2014 and 2016 as you can see in the graph which I am not able to explain. However, there seem to be a lot of spammers and other junk visits, so the actual numbers could be even lower :-(
Vibhat is going to school !!! Its called the Global Indian International School. Its about 5 km from home and Priya is currently dropping him and picking him up. He did very well on the admission test. But now he has a challenge - Hindi ! We chose that as his language, but he hasn't learnt much of it at his previous school. Neither Priya and I know much.
He was quite sad and stressed on his first day and cried three times, he told us. And the second day one time, so getting better :-). His previous school was the Earth School Montessori was very .. Montessorian (calm, quiet, teachers are very sweet) and its a bit of an adjustment for him to a mainstream school and this one in particular. Poor kiddo!
I had a very nice 'Eureka' moment recently. On Rainbow FM (the AIR FM channel?) there was a programme "Folks with Different Strokes" (?). It featured a lady whose child had a mental disability and how she and her husband coped with it and went on to found an NGO "KiliKili", to create playspaces for children with disabilities. The lady was simply fantastic. One could see that she had beautifully come to terms with the difficulty of having and raising a differently-abled child, and there was great spirit and strength and no bitterness whatsoever visible. The host was fantastic too, asking good questions, interjecting when needed, generally sensitive and soft-spoken. From the way the interview went, she seemed to have done a horrific amount of preparation. How wasteful and old-fashioned! To actually do research before going on air. Kudos to this hostess, whose name wasn't mentioned on air. The interviewee was Kavitha Krishnamoorthy and the organisation she co-founded can be found at www.kilikili.org .
The icing on the cake for me was a small personal connection through Chitra Vishwanath of Biome Solutions (www.biome-solutions.com), the redoubtable environmental architect who was mentioned on air as having worked with this group to design playgrounds that are usable by all kinds of children.
So - this was one of the best programmes I've heard on air (both TV and radio) in India. Truly an example of what TV and radio could be at its best. Not that these media should only show inspirational true stories, but the current fare on offer is mostly uninspired without depth or substance. The programme compared well with the best I've heard on radio in the US.
"Folks with different strokes" airs every alternate Saturday between 6 and 8 pm.
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I was delighted to see the following comment on this post from Rashmi Shetty :
Hi VK, I was directed to your blog by a friend. You sure write well.I am Rashmi Shetty, the hostess of Folks with different strokes. Thank you for the feedback:-) From the second saturday of May this year, Folks with different strokes has changed to INSPIRE .It is on air from 7p.m- 8p.m every alternate saturday. On reading your feedback thought I'd give you the update. Thanks again.
What is the purpose of education? There are many answers, and three common ones are below:
-'to succeed in the fast-paced, competitive modern world' (an answer that I find particularly moronic) -'to equip the child with the knowledge and skills to find work to support themselves' -'to discover one's talents'
Are you satisfied by any of the above answers ? I'm not, in fact I'm tremendous dissatisfied with the education system (of personal interest now that I am a father). Human minds are complex. We experience emotions - joy, anger, jealousy, contempt,love. We complain about other peoples' actions and justify ours. But do we have to take all these as given, these things are how we are, or is it possible to 'step outside' of oneself, and be able to observe how our minds work, why we react the way we react, what are the hidden motivations or insecurities. As the child is growing up and its character being formed - is it possible to have serious conversations about the rather imperfect nature of the world we live in, with how we rationalize the way we (in India atleast) make our peace with the enormous poverty and suffering outside our doorsteps in order to carry on our lives. Is it possible to teach children to be decent, happy individuals ?
Can we teach children to be alive to the mystery of life ? Here we are, blobs of protoplasm with odd projections that enable us to locomote manipulate, on a large orb circling a ball of fire, in the middle of a vastness we cannot comprehend. We are one in billions today and have been preceded by billions and will be followed by billions. So how do we come to terms with all this ? Normally all this is pushed to the back of the mind so we can get on with the day to day business of life, survival, freedom from pain and discomfort, pleasure, achievement and all that ? Can we teach our children to do a better of job of this than us? And what of the infinite complexity and variety of life on earth. Can we teach our children to be open to that?
Schools have to teach maths, physics and geography and so on. But if we as parents and teachers don't weave in the above we have lost the spirit of education. And this is the state of affairs across the board. I am sure the most expensive and fancy schools don't do that much better of a job than the middle-class schools in this, because the management and the parents are as much invested in the status quo of the world today, in fact even more, so that they are uninterested in questioning it.
Post Script: We were casually talking about something related to schools at work once, and during that I spontaneously burst out: "I have zero faith in the educational system!". I was myself suprised by my vehemence as it was not premeditated, and to some extent I didn't even know that I felt this way. Some subsequent reflection resulted in the picture I lay out above. I find it ironic that having done excellently by conventional standards in most of my education, I now am completely disdaining it. But all the reflection, discovery and learning that happened for me, mostly slowly and haltingly, completely parallel to or outside the educational system, is central to what I am today. I see that as a tremendous failure of the education system.
I don't think many people feel so negatively about schools as I do. This leads to a nicely ironic dilemma for me: at least others are comfortable with the current system, and they are true to themselves if they don't fight against it. If I don't, I am being a complete fake. And the job I am talking about above is so gigantic and so seems so much beyond my capabilities.
The above thoughts are tremendously influenced by J. Krishnamurti's writings. But I have internalized them so completely and find them so obvious now, that I am not parroting what someone else is saying.
"It is our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other. This is not some romantic nonsense, but the actual fact"
I haven't been writing about the baby on the blog, taking the shortcut of posting videos instead. Writing takes some 'quiet' time which is hard to come by nowadays.
Lets give it a shot here.
Vibhat is now 8.5 months old. And according to the latest doctor report that's the typical weight of a 13 month old. So that's taken care of immediately, we continue to be far ahead of the curve on weight ! Don't dare make fun of him! He's very nicely proportioned and just darlingly chubby nothing more. Maybe he's taller too and that's how he manages it.
Due to work commitments on my side, we postponed the first hair-cutting that is traditionally done as an event, so that his hair is now far too long and unruly. I'm sure he finds it irritating, poor bebe. The ceremony is on 2nd May at our village in Chittoor district and you all are cordially invited to join!
Priya is completely sucked into the baby's world as the major portion of the work falls on her. Her mother left yesterday so right now she doesn't have any real help as I don't count. We are planning to get a maid or use a pre-school soon. He is also very strongly attached to her which makes life difficult as most of the time he wants her attention. We hope he will come off this in stages.
The first gleanings of a personality that I can make out for Vibhat, is 'strong' ! He is not a mild or meek baby. He jets around the house with great enthusiasm now that he is crawling. He gets angry, as opposed to just being upset, and can scream *pretty* loudly if he feels like it. He doesn't cry a lot though, which is really nice for us. He is physically strong and likes to bang on tables, beat/scratch whoever is carrying him and so on. We have to figure out a way of communicating to him what's acceptable and what's not.
As with all babies I think, the experience and emotions of being a new parent can be quite strong. I resent (when I get the time to think about it!) the constant emotional seesaw from the joy of the baby to the demands it puts on you.
Well, there you have it for a quick summup. Hope I get to write more.
PS: The amazing photo is from Siddhu who managed to catch me looking presentable and smiling a natural smile, and also get a fantastic smile out of Vibhat. Click to enlarge
Anantagiri waterfall is a pretty good local tourism thingie. It doesn't seem to be pushed very actively by the tourism folks-that-be and guidebooks, but is a hidden gem. The waterfall itself is quite high and good viewing, one of the higher I've seen. The route to get there is quite an interesting mishmash. The last part of the drive is by a pretty bad mud road of a few kilometers and if you're energetic, its perfect to do it by walk instead, it makes the overall hike a good effort. At the end of the road, there's a steep flight of stairs in order to cross a rail track. Then down on the other side, and about a kilometer through brush to reach the base of the waterfall. Finally a badly maintained final stretch of steep climb alongside the waterfall to get to as high as you dare. Good fun !
Of course the bigger tourist attraction in the area is Borra caves, a really nice limestone formation. Its heavily promoted and a must do on the Araku circuit but well worth it. We didn't take any photos, but there are probably lots on the net if you're interested.
On the way back there were local markets with fresh produce. We bought a huge mound of seethaphal and spring onions. The spring onions was a funny thing, in most places in India it would be considered a bit exotic and used for curiosity value more than anything else, but here it seems a mainstream vegetable because it grows well, and the 'common man' was buying and carrying around spring onions.
Priya, I and kid went to the Araku valley area for a two-day trip. Pretty good.
We stayed at a 'eco-resort' called Tyda Jungle Bells. Not particularly 'eco', but it was built within the jungle sort-of, and generally rustic and pretty nice.
On board a submarine ! With cousin Ramana and daughter Mohita. Can you see the propellor in the background of one of the snaps.
And everybody gets their turn..
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Cross-dressing ..Grandmommy loves to dress him up
Who's got more hair ?
The 'V' sign behind the head is all the rage at a particular age...
And now in Vizag, with grandfather at a beach park.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Finally updates start again. Will do the excuses later, hopefully start getting a few photos up every day. These are from a couple of months back.
In his pram (which currently has a wheel off). Chinese product by the way. Another example of China getting into Indian markets in a big way
And in his "Bjorn". Came as a gift from namesake/godfather. Not a sign of Swedish companies invading Indian markets in a big way :-)
The bathed baby. Photos are a significant distortion of the actual state of affairs in terms of my invovlement in giving him a bath or cleaning him.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Its more than a month now since the baby came in, so lots of changes obviously..
He's putting on weight well, but according to the official nos far too well! He went from 3.41 at birth to 4.54 after a month -- according to the doctor that's really high. 20 gms. per day gain after an initial 10% loss is normal, which would be around 3.70. Huge difference. I asked the doc whether that's cause for alarm or satisfaction :-) and he said neither. We'll wait and see. Visually he's plumped out nicely and we're happy to see him this way.
There were some colicky type things for some time and he cried a lot but the doc told us we weren't burping and 'gassing' him enough, and that problem seems to have gone away. But he doesn't sleep easily and wakes up very easily so its been somewhat rough going lately. The books say that some babies are sensitive and easily disturbed and he seems to be fitting into the category.
He feeds really well from Priya. He was completely without problems on that front, he latched on like a pro on day 1 and pretty much never let go after that. His poop looks really healthy. I marvel at the coolness of the human system, where a 2-3 day old baby has his system working normally enough to get pretty standard-looking yellow poop!
Like all eager parents we're seeing him progress far faster than ordinary :-). He began sticking his head up quite early in the 3rd week or so. He's also kicking and rolling his arms around very actively, squirming like crazy. Its quite a change from the tiny, vulnerable kiddo at launch! He can't move forward yet, but manages to rotate himself quite a bit when put on his back.
Mostly I've not been getting too involved :-), and I haven't done a real serious diaper change yet, though did some simpler versions :-). My parents are at our place as is her mother and so I don't really need to get involved with the yucky stuff.
The house is cramped and a mess, but so it goes.
We went to the corporation office to name him on Saturday. "G. Vibhat Krishna" it is. We didn't get a real consensus and I got irritated with the process of trying to find a name after a while which was a pity. The final naming happened without too much consultation or feedback, so keeping my fingers crossed that we didn't make some boo-boo.
I was (and am) completely entranced by him, unexpectedly. So of course are most else in the house.
My dad had an unfortunate accident, we were driving on scooter and a car bumped us from the side. Apparently there is a hairline kind of fracture and he's been asked not to walk at all, in order not to strain the area. This was quite a shock, and unfortunate. It may need my parents to postpone their departure and go right back to Vizag without visiting anyone else.
Haven't been taking much photo/video unfortunately, although there are lots and lots of kodak moments.
Priya's been having a pretty rough time of it along with all the fun moments. Because he's breastfeeding and doesn't sleep easily, she can't get much of a break away from him. She had severe aches in her finger joints (which might be from iron supplements that she's now stopped) and currently a stiff neck from sleeping in a awkward position.
