Life and times...

While trying to keep life simple, every once in a while I like looking back and doing a check on how meaningful my life really is! Sometimes I like seeing what I see, sometimes I don't...but either way it gives me a chance to revisit my priorities and lead a more meaningful life!


Work...Family...Friends...Giving back to the society in care and kind, given what we are fortunate enough to have at different phases of life...I feel it's always worthwhile to  periodically go  back and do a check of what our life is all about!


Human nature fascinates me! Being a keen observer of human nature, while trying  not to be judgemental, I would like to believe , enables me to nurture human traits in myself that give me peace of mind and also helps me draw the line in relationships with others, so that life,in general, is easier.

I don't know about you, but time and again, I have come across people who can easily be put in one of the following , shall I call "buckets" of traits. Each bucket of traits comes with it's set of pros and cons. and needless to say, there may be overlap.But always easier to figure out where you are or where you want to be, if  it's 'bucketed' out , right?!


Sometimes these traits are inherent in people,(borne out of securities/insecurities, confidence/lack thereof, environment)
and sometimes it's acquired over a period of time. But they are what they are! Social relationships constitute a primary component of our lives. Given the dynamics of social relationships, we are constantly acquiring new habits and to a certain extent changing our ways. I find it really useful to look at these buckets of traits and figure out which bucket I fall into at a specific point of time, which bucket I want to be in and where I need to draw the line in relationships with people so that there is peace of mind !


As captivating as  Kevin Spacey and "House of cards" has been, you cannot deny it that it does leave you with a depressed feeling, at the thought of there being no redemption for goodness for I am sure most of us seek peace of mind more than any other form of success!!


Leaving loners aside, here are the buckets I find folks will generally fall into in social circles.

Bucket 1:
This bucket of traits is the toughest bucket to be in and the toughest to find .

Authenticity, genuineness, empathy, security, confidence,patience are the trademark traits of this bucket.

Pros:
People with these traits do not need overwhelming validation from others to go about their life! While being amicable, cordial and good hearted, they are not the quintessential people pleasers nor are they attention seekers.They are not afraid to say it like it is, without feeling the need to suck up to anyone. They are capable of standing up for a cause and person. They are good hearted, but don't feel the need to shout out how good hearted they are from the rooftop .More often that not, such folks are content and happy with how they look and what they do and if they are not, they find ways to
do what they love and look how they want to look, without whining and depending on others. They always find time to spend with near and dear ones and for good causes. They know how to be cordial, yet keep a distance from folks when interests don't align. They love having conversations on different topics.They prefer to live and let live!


Cons:
'Live and let live' is not the most appreciated quality in this world after all nor is the lack of the ability to suck up to others or inability to follow the herd!! So often times, people with this bucket of traits tend to be taken for granted and go unappreciated. Their confidence is misinterpreted for snobbery. And their 'live and let live' policy and no demand for
attention is considered detachment! Oh well! Such is life.


It may be tough to get to completely know such a person. But once you do,
you always know where you stand in such a person's life. There are no mixed signals and dilly dallying!

Bucket  2:
This bucket of traits is the most prevalent.
Social, harmless people pleasers, good hearted, empathetic, reasonably secure and intelligent.


Pros:
Fun to be around. Seem to be always surrounded  friends. Reliable for the most part. Confident and secure while they have validation from a sub set of people. Not mean. Do not expect undivided attention from anyone. Can be good listeners. Love having conversations on different topics, even if not aligned to their likes and dislikes.


Cons:
People pleasing is not an easy task. For the most part, unable to take a stand when it matters. Trying to please all people all the time can be tough and lead to unnecessarily complicated relations.


May be tough to figure out where you stand in such a person's life! As long as you know that, good to have them around.


Bucket 3:
Social, people pleasers, good hearted, seekers, insecure


Pros:
Fun to be around. Seem to be always surrounded by friends, but unfortunately feel no number of friends is enough. Essentially good hearted but insecurities make a mean streak surface intermittently and the demand for attention can be draining. Can be good listeners and conversationalists, if the topic interests them.


Cons:
Always seeking more in terms of quality of life and relationships. Lack confidence and require constant validation from people around.  Expect undivided attention from everyone they know, without being able to reciprocate. Can be intermittently insensitive when insecurities take hold. Unable to sustain attention in topics that do not interest them.
Impossible to figure out where you stand in such a person's life because of dilly dallying and flakiness!

Good to be around them as long as it's fun and the whining doesn't get annoying!

Bucket 4:
I prefer to call this "the all about me" bucket.


Such folks need a lot of attention and control. They do what works for them at a specific point of time, as long as they get the attention and control they seek. Sometimes reliable, sometimes not. Sometimes mean, sometimes not. Sometimes friendly , sometimes not. They do what it takes as long as it's about them getting the attention they need to survive!


Pros: Probably get transient kicks and highs when one gets the attention they seek.


Cons: Life in general can be tough with a lot of need for attention.


Keep them at a distance?

Bucket 5:
Then of course there are some overall mean spirited people! The only time they get a kick is when they get a good  laugh at someone else's expense or one upmanship on another person.


Pros: Can't see any


Cons: Spread of negativity


Better keep them at a super, super distance?


I think I know which bucket I want to/should aim to be in and which buckets of traits I want to be surrounded by!

Do you?

Ramblings...

11 days...a plane with 239 personnel on board, missing from the face of the earth...speculation...over speculation...analysis...over-analysis...the unrelenting pain faced by friends and family of the folks, on board that flight...the pain that comes with the knowledge of potentially never again seeing a near and dear one...the anguish of not being able to say good bye...the pain of potentially never finding closure...and add to that the pain of suspicion looming large over the heads of everyone on board!!


How unpredictable life can be! You or I could have been one of the passengers or their family member. Such incidents only reinforce and drive home the point of how important it is to live life in  the moment, to let go of often unnecessary worries and whinings...to enjoy and make the most of the little and often what seem to be trivial  moments of life, while they last...for one never knows what the next moment has in store. And as I write this, nothing rings in my ear louder than William H Davis' lines , 'A poor life this is if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.'


So the mantra of my life, for now, is "Live in the moment"!!


So that's that . I often make resolutions like the above, but before I know it , I am so boggled down by the weight of the 'cares' of the world, that my life's mantra gets pushed to the abyss of my brain!:(


Yesterday was one such day!


Yesterday just happened to be one of the days when Raya insisted I help her with all 'toddler tasks' aka getting her ready for day care, helping her brush her teeth, helping her with the potty, giving her a bath, putting her to sleep etc. etc. No amount of insistence from 'D' could convince her to allow 'D' to do one of  her tasks. No 'mamma' meant mega tantrum time. 'Baba' was only for play time!! Oh well!


At the end of the day, Raya gave 'D' a goodnight hug and kiss and was waiting for me to take her upstairs to put her to bed. A hectic past week at work combined with the exhaustion of bringing up a toddler was beginning to take it's toll. "Live in the moment" /"Enjoy your child's innocence and charm, while it lasts", was slowly being pushed to the abyss of my mind.


Exhausted and exasperated, I whined to 'D', "Sometimes Raya is so unreasonable! It's tough ! How can I possibly do everything?!"


Even before D could say anything, pat came Raya's spontaneous response, 'You sure can, mamma!'...'You sure can!'


That brought on a burst of laughter...with it, was washed away all the fatigue, and of course, it was  all that was needed to revive the significance of the "Live in the moment" mantra ! What  better way to end a day than with the knowledge, or shall I say 'illusion' , that there is a little toddler in this world who believes, I am a super woman, after all !!


With prayers and hope that friends and family of all aboard flight MH370 find closure.

Shaking it like Shammi...

Parenting is exhausting for sure, but then let's just say it comes with its share of sometimes not so obvious 'perks'. More often than not, at the end of the day, once Raya is off to bed, and I finally have a chance to reflect on the day's happenings, there are way too many 'toddler' incidents and situations that bring smiles, to my face, than scowls!!

Of course, toddler tantrums abound. This blog post contains  some tid bits about the entertaining portions of my 'toddler parenting days'...incidents and situations that keep me grounded and happy, when toddler 'parenting' blues threaten to engulf me.

As of now (yes as of Feb, 2014), 'Mamma' is Raya's 'fav' parent. That translates to shouts for "I want only mamma. I want only mamma" and 'mamma' being essentially needed to do all the hard work (bathing her, dressing her up, potty time, teeth brushing, putting her to sleep, reading time ...you get the gist) while 'Baba' dear gets to do all the fun stuff...play time...puzzle time...lego time...choo choo train time...tv time...not too bad a deal for not being the 'fav' parent of the moment, I guess...but oh well, loyalties keep changing fast as far as a 2.5 year old is concerned :). Let me relate a recent incident to prove this point of ever shifting loyalties. It made 'D' and I literally ROFL.

The way our usual morning looks like is this:
Raya wobbles her way from her room to our bed at around 4:30-5:00 am with her entourage of 'ninny's' (aka blankies, an entourage of exactly 4 blankies, she cannot do without, at sleep time). She comes to my side of the bed, climbs over my body onto the bed, slumps and goes off to sleep for another couple of hours. Thereafter 'D' is officially the first one to wake up in the morning. He gets Raya's cup of milk to the bed. She drinks her milk and from then on, it's 'only mamma' time. Brushing teeth..'only mamma'...help with the potty...'only mamma'...dressing her up....'only mamma'...brushing her hair...'only mamma'....dropping off to Toucans(her classroom)...that's for baba, but only after I answer in the affirmative to her question, 'You pick me from Toucans, mamma?!!'. Oh well, I am 'loving' the love while it lasts!! :)

Coming back to the tale of shifting loyalties, so on one such morning, after the 'only mamma' sessions, 'D' (he had an overnight work trip planned for that day), was about to head out of the home with Raya and was saying to her,"Raya...I am going to Richmond today for work. I will not come back this evening. I will see you tomorrow. Don't trouble mama." A second later, pat comes Raya's reply, "No baba, don't go to 'Richmound'"..."I want only you"..."I want only you"..."I don't want mamma"...LOL...now you know what I mean about quick  shifts in loyalties among 2.5 year olds:) That evening, in D's absence, started with whimpers of 'Where is Baba?','Where is Baba'.'I want Baba'. But we managed. DD came back the next evening from his tour, and after the usual exchange of hugs, kisses, huddles and cuddles between father and daughter, while they were playing with lego blocks, 'D' started troubling Raya again. I don't remember what exactly the issue was , but I think he was hiding and not giving her the blocks she was asking for. First Raya started with, 'Give me red block, Baba'...'Give me red block, Baba'...When 'D' didn't pay heed, she started complaining to me..."Mamma, Baba not listen to me"..."Mamma, Baba not listen to me"...and that was followed by..."Go back to 'Richmound', Baba!"....ha ha ha ha...another one that brought on rolls of laughter.

So that's that. Other than that, the Das household these days is in constant chatter mode!

Here are some tidbits of conversations that have lingered on in my mind and will be best remembered if captured in writing.

Scene 1:

I fill my water bottle with a few ice cubes and water and am drinking from it. Raya notices it and of course, starts saying, "I want ice, mamma"...
"I want ice in my 'bouttle'" (Oh toddlers and their obsession with ice).  Of course, I refuse to give her any. She gets really annoyed and in a raised voice says, "Mammaaa...I want ice in my 'bouttle'". I refuse again. Now she is really annoyed, on the verge of crying, but still putting up the fight , and in a slightly more raised tone of voice , "Mammaaaaa...you have ten ice...give me one ice in my 'bouttle' please"!!! The 'please' kind of trumped me. Did I have a choice but to give in!

Scene 2:

We were having the usual conversation about whether Raya resembles 'D' or I with some friends. So I was saying, Raya has 'D's eyes. 'D' then said to Raya, "So Raya, do you have my eyes?". Pat comes her reply,"No baba, you have my eyes!" LOL.

Scene 3:

Over the weekend, we had a few friends visiting from out of town. They have a daughter,'A' (Aanya) . Raya and 'A' bonded well over the period of the first day, after some initial hiccups. In the evening, Raya had to go to another friend's birthday party and 'A' was at home. I, of course, had to run around Raya throughout the party(she being more than her usual bundle of energy) and by the end of it, I was exhausted. Post the party, as I slumped into the seat in the car after strapping Raya up in her car seat, I hear Raya taking out stuff from her goody bag and then she says, "Mama, where is 'Aanya's' goody bag. I want to take goody bag for 'Aanya'". For all the exhaustion that parenting brings on, all the the prep talk about 'sharing' and 'caring', and for all the times, when asking her to share with kids of the same age, proves a struggle, moments like these make it all worthwhile!

Leaving you with a video of Raya 'Shaking it like Shammi'. Happy parenting !

Another day...another year...

2013 has whizzed past...

As compared to the same time last year, some things have changed ...

- I am a few pounds lighter(it's a different thing that I still have 20 more pounds to shed to reach my target weight). Baby steps perhaps, but steps nevertheless :)

- 'D' is a few  pounds healthier and blames it all on all the delicious food I feed him (LOL...btw, complete pun intended here , for the benefit of all those who don't know me well enough!!)

- Our parents have found a few more reasons to worry about now, with a growing grand child in the fold...is Raya eating well...is Raya sleeping well...is Raya playing well...does Raya remember us...you get the gist!:) 

- My younger, commitment phobic, brother seems to be closer to leading a commitment phobia free life ! 

- I seem to be steps closer to reviving my reading habits. Managed to read 8 out of the 12 books, I had challenged myself to read at the beginning of the year! Have been able to pick writing back up as well. Personally for me,
that's an achievement with having to run around an active toddler in the household, taking priority over everything else.

- Our list of places to travel to/cuisines to try before we die is shorter by a few entries.

- I am a few steps closer to mastering the professional skills I had set out to build.

- We have made some progress in achieving our goal of giving back to the community in kind. In 2014, I will hopefully be able to spend more time and physical effort on such ventures, more specifically related to education of the girl child and poverty stricken/abused children.

- My little girl is growing up faster than we would like her to:(...And these days, much like Joey (from 'FRIENDS') , she asks,"Hey...What u doing , mamma?" .

Her favorite phrases these days are "Hey guys!"..."Know that?"..."What u doing?"

Her favorite books are "Brown bear" by Eric Carle and "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein

Her favorite TV shows are "Dora the Explorer" and "Minnie Mouse Bowtique".

Her favorite songs are,"I like to move it" and "Hokey Pokey".

Her favorite activities are making tea and coffee in her kitchen and serving everyone, building blocks with lego and letting her hair down and 'jump dancing' in the rain and snow :).

- On a more serious note, our families have had to learn to live without two important people of our lives, 'D's atama(maternal grandmom) and my jethpeha(my maternal uncle). The only consolation is that both of them led lives that were personally and professionally fulfilling. And they leave behind a legacy that would need a lot of hard work to sustain.

As compared to the same time last year, here are some things that haven't changed...

- My eternal optimism...

- Our marital status... (Jokes apart , this seems be something we need to keep track of now, given the rate at which relationships are failing and marriages crumbling, more so, to stop getting complacent and to keep the spark alive:))      

- My piano and guitar strumming skills... ( I think I'll just have to join Raya in her classes)

As for resolutions for the new year, like I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, on the personal front, I never really make objective/measurable resolutions for myself...My resolutions are always hazy, more in the likes of read more, sleep less, write more, weigh less, dump the piano, pick up the guitar, work hard, party harder...You get the gist! None of my personal resolutions are such that I can look back at the year gone by and objectively declare their fruition/failure. It’s great that I, at least, have ‘SMART’ (in managerial lingo, 'Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timebound') professional objectives for 2014...that will keep my life balanced as far as resolutions are concerned, for sure. A complete dearth of objectives for a new year could potentially deem life directionless whereas too many ‘SMART’ personal and professional resolutions can make a year of life end up becoming one helluva marathon with no finish line in sight !

We ended 2013 with a road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway of the United States, driving from Los Angeles to Santa Clara, with pit stops at the Terranea Resort , Palos Verdes...Santa Monica...Santa Barbara...Pismo Beach...San Louis Obispo...Morro Bay...Big Sur...Carmel...Monterey. Managed to squeeze in a side trip to the Napa valley as well.

The best part of the trip was, though, catching up and spending some quality time with 'D' and my college buddies. Having almost grown up together through the ups and downs of the four years of undergrad hostel life, it reinforced our belief that these are the only friendships that probably never go stale...over a period of time, most friends and acquaintances come and go...but with school/college buddies, you can always pick up from where you left off...relive memories, drink, eat, argue, debate about random/controversial topics, speak your heart out without being judged and still maintain the pristinity of the relationship, no matter what!

What better way to start a new year than with the reinforcement of this belief!

Happy New Year folks!

The 'why' of a goodbye...

Yesterday, my parents left for home, in India, after a two and a half month stay with us.

We've been trying to mentally prepare Raya for this for the past couple of days, telling her that her "Ma and Koka need to go back to their own home in India"...That " Mamma, Baba and Raya will visit them soon next year" etc. etc. Her initial, vehement , "Ma, Koka ...No go to India ! Ma, Koka...No go to India!" changed to "I want to go to India too!" yesterday morning, followed by a major meltdown ( uncontrollatable shrieks for 'Koka' and 'Ma' ) at the airport, seeing them leave, as they made their way down to the terminal on the escalator.

Goodbyes are tough for the kiddos, for us, and I think more so for the grandparents, whose lives generally tend to revolve around their grand children as age catches on!

I am so glad Raya was able to spend some quality time with D's mom as well as my parents this year! The 'toddler turning into a spoilt brat' factor aside , I think time spent with grandparents enriches the lives of little ones like nothing else can and there is absolutely no substitute for grand parental affection!

We managed to calm Raya down yesterday, after a big struggle, telling her about how she could still talk to 'Ma'/'Koka' on the phone and skype  with them like she does with her Ata. We gave her a ride on what she calls the
"excalator" (escalator) and tried our best to distract her with other stuff.

Today morning she  woke up with the question,
"Mamma ...Ma, Koka gone to India in excalator?...Why mamma?"

While I managed to put together an answer to her "Why mamma?" , the look on her face, as she asked me the question, broke my heart!

Goodbyes are tough indeed! Tougher, when you have to explain the "why of a goodbye" to a little toddler!

P.S:
Raya calls her maternal grandmom, 'Ma'...her maternal granddad, 'Koka'...her paternal grandmom, Ata and her paternal granddad, Dadu.

Of rights, voices and our children...

Yesterday I was just watching a rerun of the episode of the Daily Show where Jon Stewart is in conversation with the 16 year old Malala Yousafsai, the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize ever , someone who was deemed the most favored to win the prize this year before the actual announcement came in. More important than that though, at this point of time she is the face and voice of millions of girls worldwide, clamoring for the basic right to education for girls in civil war ravaged countries and others.

Peace has been anything but ubiquitous in the world this past year. But it's reassuring to see that the voice of one child, speaking and acting for millions of others, has the ability to make the world stop and relook at some of the most basic human rights violations in different parts of the world.

 One of first things Malala mentioned to Jon in her conversation with him was how it feels when something you value (for her,it was education) is snatched away from you. How that pushed her to be an outspoken activist(with support from her father), clamoring for the basic right to education for girls in her native Swat valley in Pakistan. We ofcourse all know what her journey has been like since that first word of rebellion was raised. So kudos indeed to this little girl!

That aside, being the parent of a girl child, her statement got me really thinking . 

As parents, we always wish and strive towards providing the best of everything for our children. We hope that they will grow up
to become well rounded human beings. We intend to add to the world a compassionate, kind, intelligent, empathetic, courageous, independent and socially aware human being! Intentions and hopes, as parents, of course, are clear!

How do we really, ensure, though that our children don't suffer in silence when a fundamental right is violated ( theirs or someone else's)?!

How do we really ensure that,in dire circumstances, they will know how to differentiate between the 'basic' / 'fundamental' and the 'superfluous' and make the correct choices?!

How do we ensure that we are not bringing up a child who is oblivious to the needs of the people in their vicinity and the rest of the world?!

We ourselves take most of the basic rights, that a lot of people around the world have to fight for - food,lodging,education and even speech and mobility very much for granted,

The kind and type of food we eat is  based on choices we make given a proliferation of options.

The kind and type of place and home we live in is a choice we make given a proliferation of options.

The kind and type of education we seek is a choice we make given a proliferation of options.

So on and so forth...

As parents, D and I are learning ways to inculcate patience in our little girl. Through words, action and example, we try our best to nurture her inherent compassion that we believe every child is born with. As time goes by, we will work hard to figure out ways to teach her the value of money, the pitfalls of instant gratification, the importance of humility...so on and so forth.

However we, as parents, will always struggle in figuring out how one teaches a child, in today's developed world, the difference
between 'the basic' and 'the superfluous', as the boundaries between these two abstract concepts keep shifting with time and space.

As I attempt to provide my little girl with life's very best, I often wonder if I am really doing the best I can to enable her to let go of the superfluous when the need arises...I often wonder if I am really doing the best I can to help her have a voice of her own. Am I doing the best I can to sow the seeds of confidence in her so that whenever she faces a situation where she has the choice of speaking up vs suffering in silence, she has the courage to stand up and clamor for her own rights and for the rights of others, in big ways and small...so that she grows up with the belief that her voice will be heard and has value, when she speaks from her heart!

Yes, I wonder...and wait for time to tell!

 

"My's" is the new buzzword...

...in the Das household. In case you are wondering what "My's" is, let me explain. It sounds like "Mize", means "Mine" and it's "the word"  Raya has begun to use these last few days to assert that something belongs to her.

It's amazing to observe how a child's cognitive, verbal communication skills evolve and the challenges that we, as parents, have to face to make sure that we are able to nurture the inherent goodness,resilience and curiosity that each kid is born with.

So a couple of months back, Raya started becoming aware of the fact that she was a separate 'entity' (I am not particularly fond of using this word in the human context, but oh well no other synonymous word immediately comes to mind) from her 'Mamma', 'Baba' and the rest of the world.

She began saying stuff like, "Raya cup" or just pointing to an object that she believed belonged  to her and saying "Raya's". Similarly she would point to my purse or something that she believed belonged to me and go "Mamma bag" or just say "Mamma's"...point to 'D's car and say "Baba caw" or "Baba's"...point to her grandmom's sandals and say, "Ata's"...point to a pen being used by her teachers (she absolutely adores them) at day care and say "Holly's /Ms Holly's" or "Kiki's/Ms Kiki's"...essentially she had begun associating material objects with people and talking in the third person.

These last few days though, instead of using "Raya's" to assert that something belongs to her and thus implicitly indicating that everyone else should keep their hands off it, she has started saying "My's" and "You's" , the "My's" being more proliferant than the "You's" ,of course...LOL. Funny as it sounds , it is probably her first attempt to comprehend and speak in the first person. That aside, the proliferant use of "My's" has meant repeated urges and prep talks by 'D' and me, to make her understand the importance of sharing. Needless to say , it's a challenge to make a toddler understand that everything in the world doesn't belong to her or work like she wants it to. Inculcating the notion of sharing and patience in a toddler is a challenge, but I personally feel, it's one of the most important aspects of parenting...more so because these notions sow the seeds of feeling empathy and compassion for others, as the child grows into an adult. Of course nature and a child's inherent personality is one of the things that determines what a child grows up to be. But the least we can do, as parents, is to try and  nurture their inherent goodness to the best of our ability.

So yesterday so we had a couple of friends visiting us with their kiddos. Before they came in, I sat Raya down and gave her a prep talk,"Raya...we all know that these are your toys. But you have friends visiting , so you will have  to share all your toys with them ok". I repeated the sentence one more time to make sure I had all her attention. She first said,'Yeah, mamma'...and then followed it with,'Yeah, mamma...share'...the first part of my day's mission of teaching Raya to share having been accomplished, I waited to see how the evening would unfold. I should say she did reasonably well. I have observed a prep talk more often than not does it's magic. There are some days more difficlut than others though when tantrums seem to rule the day. Yesterday evening, the number of "My's" reaching my ears were
minimal and the other kids were playing with her toys without much intervention while she played along with them or by their side. But of course, that was yesterday. Today is a different day and with a toddler in the home, every day comes with it's own set of challenges.

On a slightly different note, here are some snippets of recent conversations in Raya'ingo' in our houshold that I wanted to pen down before
they get pushed to the  abyss of my mind to become distant memories:

Scene 1:
I ask Raya : "What is your name?"

Raya replies : Raya ("Yaya" has finally become "Raya" now)

I ask her again : "What is your full name?"

Raya replies (after considerable thought) : Raya Das

I ask Raya : "What is mamma's name?"

Raya replies : Mamma Das (This came spontaneously and brought  oodles of laughter from me before I could  proceed with any further questions)

I ask Raya : "What is baba's name?"

Raya replies : Baba Das...

I ask Raya : "What is Aata's name?" (She calls her paternal grandmom Aata)

Raya replies : Aata Das...

I ask Raya : "What is koka's name?" (She calls her maternal granddad koka)

Raya replies : Papa (I guess that comes from the fact that I call him papa:))


I ask Raya : "What is ma's name?" (She calls her maternal grandmom ma)

Raya: No response

I prompt her : Dehu

Raya echoes : Diu

Scene 2:

After the above conversation, 'D' took it on himself to teach Raya what our actual names are and he did a reasonably good job of it I should say.
So now, conversations like the above progress as follows:

I ask Raya : "What is mamma's name?"

Raya replies : Panka

I ask Raya : "What is baba's name?"

Raya replies : DD

I ask Raya : "What is baba's full name?"

Raya replies : D'paanan Das (This answer comes back only if she's in the
right mood:) )

I ask Raya : "What is Ata's name?"
Raya replies  : KD (That's what she has been taught, her grandmom's name being "Kalyani Das' :) )

I ask Raya : "What is koka's name?"

Raya replies : Papa

I ask Raya : "What is ma's name?"

Raya replies : Diu

Scene 3:

'D' and I are having an animated conversation and we are laughing at something silly I did. 'D' playfully slaps my back. Raya absolutely doesn't like it and pop comes her angry reaction aimed at 'D' and she says, "Baba...Baba...Mamma,Boo Boo...Huggie...Kiss", pointing at me...when DD gave me a peck on the cheek in response to her urge, it brought the biggest grin to her face...LOL

Scene 4:

Our landline rings, she points to the phone and says, "Phone...Ma...Koka". She calls her maternal grandparents "ma" and "koka" respectively and believes that they have proprietary rights to call on the landline. If anyone else does, she is not a happy baby :)

Scene 5:

Right or wrong, I have my own bag full of tricks to get hudddles, cuddles, hugs and kisses from my munchkin. So last Saturday, I was skyping with my parents. I was sitting cross legged on the floor and Raya was holding on to my shoulders and trying to stand on my legs. I was like, "Raya...mamma is getting hurt"...When saying that a couple of times didn't help, I pretented to cry and said, "Raya...mamma..boo boo"..."Raya...mamma..boo boo"... I immediately got a big bear hug from my munchkin accompanied with , "Mamma...huggie...mamma huggie"..."Mamma...no cry"..."Mamma...no cry"....It's a different thing that I could cry all day to get that hug and hear that version of "Mamma...no cry"...LOL...

Her current favorite Bollywood numbers are Mika Singh's , "Mere Agal Bagal"... "Kashmir se Kanyakumari" and D's all time favorite "Om Shanti Om" from Karz...She even attempts to sing along with these too...and her current favorite nursery rhymes are what she calls, "Eee..Wee...Spyder" (Incy Wincy Spider) and "Ol..Ga...gaas" (Old Mac Donald). Other than that, in Raya'ingo', 'butterfly' is 'bug fly'...'remote' is 'motot'...'medicine' is 'mecidine'...'swimming pool' is 'swinging pool' ...so on and so forth :)

So that's that. Raya will turn two in a couple of weeks. It's an exciting and challenging phase of parenting. It's also a very important phase of Raya's as well as our lives,as parents, as she begins to learn the ways of the world and take baby steps towards becoming more and more independent. Bitter...sweet...it is, this feeling of your baby growing up.

But for now, "My's" is the buzzword in our home and "Sharing" is the mantra ruling our lives.