Whose Line Is It Anyway ? - #8

• I wear a ring with the letter "M" (first letter of my name) on it. I was showing this to my son and asking him to read it. When he asked why an "M", I figured that I will use this as a chance to test out his reasoning skills. I questioned back,"How do you spell Appa's name ?". He spelled right, "M-A-G-E-S-H". But dint immediately relate that M to my name. I wasnt too happy to note that he dint make the connection. After a thought, he turned towards his mother and asked why he doesn't wear a ring. My wife faithfully replied that he has one and that he is not wearing it as he is a small boy. Upon persistence, we had to produce the proof - a cute little ring he wore as an infant. He tried it to his satisfaction. Then with a quizzical look retorted back, "Why is my ring not having an "S" ?". The little one indeed had already figured out the name connection.
• Kids in my son's class are in the phase to trying to identify their names when written and spell it. My wife does that too with my kid's name and his friends' name for practice. On the other day, my wife was commenting about how a girl in my son's class had asked her mom to write my son's name when they were practicing spelling at home. True to being a boy's parents in Indian sense, we got a bit macho and for a good laugh, one of us commented to the other slyly that the said girl has "one-eye" on our boy. Our boy, intently listening to this conversation, couldnt figure out the signifance of the term "one-eye" but was quick to correct our mistake, "no, no, she has two eyes too". Time to be careful hereafter...
  
  
  Pic shows my son's cars and other vehicles duly parked in the couch.

A Bet on Obama

Today I came across the most interesting news in recent times. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. While I admire Obama for various reasons I mentioned in my earlier posts - (closing of Gitmo, Healthcare Public Option to mention a recent few), his choice for the prize did come to me as a surprise as it did to most of us. Given his policies, while he may be a promising candidate for the accolade sometime in the future for sure, bestowing upon him the honour now (barely 5yrs at National scene and barely a year at International Level) seems bit premature. However, as one new article put it, this news is seen as a "daring bet on the future" by the Prize committee. I surely concur. I only wish they succeed in their bet as Obama lives up to their (our) expectation.
Interesting angle is - the nobel peace prize committee seem to be showering praise upon people inspired by Mahatma, perhaps as a way of compensating the Mahatma for not bestowing the accolade on him while he was alive. I was surprised to learn today that when Mahatma was assassinated in early 1948, he was apparently the forerunner for that year's Peace Nobel and hence the committee declined to give that to another person citing "there is no one alive that deserved that award that year". Very touching. Since then, the "Mahatma Club among Nobel Peace Laureates", as one media calls it, has grown strongly - MLK Jr, Dalai Lama, Aung San Syu Kyi, Nelson Mandela and today, Obama. It would only have been more fitting had they announced this a few days ago on Oct 2, the birthday of the Great Soul. While the rest of the Mahatma Club had strong "resumes" by the time they were hounoured, Obama is starting to build one at international level.

Oddly enough, a line from Harry Potter comes to mind - In his first year, when Harry visits Olivander to purchase his first wand, interestingly, the wand that chose Harry happens to have a feather of a Phoenix while the only other feather given by that same Phoenix found its way into Voldemort's wand. At this, Olivander comments, "I am sure we can expect great things from you, Harry, after all He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things, terrible..but great". Obama is like a first-year Harry expected to do great things in coming years and his Voldemort (Mahatma) is not his nemesis and has achieved greatness in a benign way.
Attached pic for today's post was taken by my cell phone camera at office. Had kept a cup of hot water closed and when I opened it a while later, I saw this nice condensation of the vapor along the sides in an orderly fashion (row/column) and looked beautiful.

Whose Line Is It Anyway? - #7

• The battle of wits between parents and kids is always classy. In our case, we knew, it reached a new height when our toddler disarmed me completly with a unassuming disarming comment recently. These days he has picked up this habit of pulling his lip's dry skin with his fingers. We are trying to get him out of that habit. While driving to school, I decided to implore upon him that he shouldnt do it at school. With a warning tone, I finished that if he did it at school, I will get upset and I dont know what I will do. Our kid is used to such warnings by now which are usually followed by well defined "else" clause. eg. You should not do such-and-such act, else you will not get to color today etc etc. Usually depending on the stakes at hand, he will decide either to go for that act or otherwise. We feel victorious if he backed out. In the case of the above said warning against picking his skin, I deliberately left out the "else" clause undefined as I dint want to sound too harsh. But used to hearing what his stakes are, he got back innocently from the rear seat, "If I do it, what will you do ?" From his view, its a very innocent plain question. He wants to know the outcome. But for a grown up with an ego at that, a question like "what will you do" from a toddler is very unnerving and disarming. To be frank, I dint know what to respond.
• One fortnightly activity for my son is to attend the Balabhavan(kid's school) at our local temple where parent-volunteers try to imbibe concepts about our religion into these young minds. In one such class, they were mentioning about Lord Shiva who also goes by the name Shankar. When the teacher asked "Who is Shankar", our son promptly replied "Shankar is my daddy's friend". Everybody laughed assuming that I had friend by that name. I laughed too while thinking which friend of mine he has got confused with. Only later then we realised how much this young one's memory and mind are alert. Upon our Bay Area trip a month earlier, I met one of my friends by name Shankar. We spent hardly an hour at a hangout place there and I mentioned his name only once to my son. He has remembered it so well that he was able to make the connection while I was searching for a local friend by that name who doesnt exist.

Pic for today's post features our son playing in the white sands of the "World's Most Beautiful 17 mile drive".