Comparison Mode

OK - I have to agree having become a mommy of a 45 days old girl, I think I have already got the comparison mentality of comparing Niveditha with other kids of her age group!!!

We went for her vaccination today to the hospital and there were lots of kids born around the same timeframe as Niveditha.  I am in a phobia about weight number currently!! I do lot of math on what average weight gain Nivi should be gaining on a daily basis within 3 months , so that she almost reaches double her birth weight! She didnt gain much weight initially and now slowly picking up! I am happy that she is progressing , but still expectations are high! I saw another baby of the same timeframe and that baby is already 1kg more than niveditha!!

S was pissed off with my comparison mode conversations today in the hospital. Another comparison I did today, was to look at the other new mom's and see how much am I looking fatter/ thinner than them ;)

There is no end to comparison mode I am in currently I guess or Its just that my time out from house between the endless nappy changes and feed sessions  has made me to think so!

I am completely cut out from outside world- be it time for a newspaper or some TV time!!

I was so happy with a short 30 min shopping I did for the first time all alone by myself after almost 9 months  last week,purchasing few stuff for Niveditha! I felt elated to shop for her! :)

I want to get into an exercise routine - I am trying for a 30 min walk in the night. Hopefully Niveditha gets into a better sleep pattern allowing some time for myself and I shall try for getting slowly back to weight before pregnancy if not to my ideal weight number !!

Baby news!

We have been blessed with a little princess on March 29th, 2012. She is adorable and still getting used to this new world.. We have named her Niveditha alias Sahana(santha,harihara,nagam).

She weighed 2.3kg weight and quite tall now itself ..

Still the feeling that the little one was inside me and we have been deliver her normally hasn't fully sunk in me..

Am getting adjusted to sleeplessnights and feeding now.. Sometimes, it's little depressing and sometimes watching her sleep makes my day..

Long way to go..wish am able to cope up well and be a good mother and care giver..

Anniversary

As we are entering our 7th year of married life, thought of surprising S with a chocolate cake..

S was on leave for the last 2 days, so couldn't bake as planned. I got up slightly before 5 am today morning and baked the below cake. This anniversary is even more special, as we are expecting our bundle of joy in a few weeks time..

School day

Myself and my sister are excited that my niece is part of her nursery school day celebrations.My sister is taking extra interest in finding the songs which are taught for the function. As both are Hindu songs, she has downloaded the lyrics to understand the wordings to help teach my niece. I am not sure if this is expected out of parents these days, but I feel this will encourage kids to participate in group activities. My niece seems to enjoy going for practice over weekends.

On the similar lines was reminded of my first school day celebration participation (goof up). As you all know, we were in a township for most part of my schooling. Being in a township has many advantages as well as disadvantages. One of you them being, everyone knows about your academic and extra curricular activities and it's being discussed by parents!! In those days, our school teachers took real pain to give best programmes for PARENTS DAY celebrations. The selection of the performers will happen very much in advance for dance, drama, singing etc.. The teachers will go round each class, pick few students from each class from I standard to X standard depending on the requirements. Then, they will have a selection round based performance. If you have performed once for PARENTS DAY celebration, the chances to get selected in subsequent years are better!!

So, as usual its dream for all kids and parents to be part of this mega gala event every year AUGUST. Once, I guess I was in my I standard or II standard, was selected for an english drama. I hardly had some two - three lines to speak, but still need to go for practice every evening to understand the whole flow. As it was my first time in parents DAY celebration, Both myself and parents were excited. In meantime, I wanted to get a very very short haircut done for a longtime. I used or lied my role in drama as a reason for getting a haircut done. My poor parents, though not very happy about cutting my then very curly hair, accepted reluctantly to my hair cut.

Twist of event was that the drama team removed me from the play because of my short hair cut!!! Looks like I was roped into that play mainly for my long curly hair!! I was devastated and was not sure how to tell my parents about this.. I again lied that and somehow managed without my mother meeting the drama team to understand the real reason!! I still feel guilty for my act!!

Cabbage kofta gravy

Its been really long since I posted any receipe. Had craving for some new side dish for roti. was blogging for few non-onion based gravies that my MIL can also have..Came across this receipe from manjula's kitchen blog. Am always a big fan of her jain receipes and videos. All her measurements are perfect.. Only change we did was to try shallow frying of koftas with non-stick appakarai pan. One lesson learnt is that the gravy base and kofta can be prepared in advance. But, the addition of kofta into gravy should be done only at the time of serving. Otherwise, the koftas absorb most of the gravy base. Can probably add another 3 tomatoes if we have to add all the prepared koftas. We added only 10 koftas for the tomata base gravy we obtained . We got 20 koftas of medium size with the measurements given. Could get the cabbage shredding very fast with the help of food processor and prepare the dish in a jiffy..My MIL was recollecting her days of preparing suran (chennai kilangu) kofta using hand grater and stone hand based grinder(aattukal) during her joint family younger marriage days!!! Things have really got simplified by modern kitchen gadgets for our generation :)

2012 wishes

I do know my blog space has been neglected a lot in the last few months.. I do have a reason for my absence from this space.. there were lot of changes around like moving to our own place to many interesting changes in my world.. will share in another post on the details. for now, I want to start 2012 by wishing the blog and its reader  -NEW YEAR wishes and positive attitude.  I also want to start this new year with a wish to all of you to be healthy and active.i want to share this link which has got few videos on a different type of treatment.dont worry, its not very complicated or costly. But, rather I feel it only helps to realize the self healing property of our body.Do spare sometime to view and try to practise the simple techniques mentioned at the end. Www. Anatomictherapy.org   

Bread peas masala

Had been reading lot of foodie blogs and was somehow suddently reminded of my college days favorite "bread peas masala" . This was introduced by my close buddy "S" in "HOTEL SARAVANA BHAVAN(HSB)". This chat was too additive. I will get down one BUS Stop later than usual one along with S ,just to eat in HSB and get dropped home by her in Sunny scotter. We both very well know that both our Amma's would have actually made some snack at home. Those were Golden days of our life. Half the time, I will not have the reqd. money and invariably S wud give my share as well. :) Today, we tried to re-create the same receipe at home. We were almost close to getting it right!!!

Wht am I upto?

From spoken Hindi classes to trying to get the best "AADI" deals for various items - Am having lots of fun.

Did try to meet up with many old township friends/familes- for a wedding for which we got 3 invitations -We knew both the bride and groom's family very well and to prove again that world is small, the groom works in SG's office!!

Spoken hindi classes - Am taught by a physically challenged, retired hindi teacher. In a spacious hall, there are many school kids stuyding on different topics separately - each having a doubt or query to the teacher at any point in time. I am the only adult middle of these kids , learning to speak "SHUDH HINDI" :). If I religiously practise what am taught with my family, teacher says that can complete the course in 36 classes of 1 hr each.

Able to catch up with 2 close office colleague and family. Somehow, felt a little different - We were surrounded by our better-halfs. So, didnt feel that closeness in our talks .

Managed to get my Visiting cards on time , was useful to carry it around for the "Chennai Jelly" event.

It was an informal work event organized by "THE STARTUP CENTER" in Chennai. When I entered the place first with my laptop and things to work with, I had few apprehensions. What is a HR consultant going to do, among lot of startups / Techie ppl!!! I was the only girl in the entire place for almost 2+ hours!! I chose a corner work place , connnected my laptop and started working or pretended to work . I did a cleanup of my data in the laptop /mail box(a long pending item). Then, slowly people walked-in and started sitting in groups and introducing themselves. I was a little hesistant to join them from my corner workspot. Resisted my inhibition, joined a small group of 4 . I could gel pretty soon and then we did work in our own things for more than a hour and a half with good aircon and mild music on the floor!! Then, felt a need for a refreshement break. Two guys gladly accepted to join me for the same and we bonded pretty well. There were not only start-up guys , but also people working full-time with companies abroad and currently located in India. So, they dont have any colleagues in their own nation. So,only work from home and hence miss being in an office setup!!! Then, met up with a young looking girls group. Thought, all were still in college. But, found out that they have their own social media marketing company!! It was quite different to know their courses in college and their current work nature .. Out and out- I definitely felt nice to meet up with new group, energetic mind-set people and felt great to work there for a few hours! Given a chance, will definitely want to work more often like this :)

Official Updates..

1) Got our long pending (our own newly designed) MQM brochure sent to a prospective client!

2) Have given my first MQM visiting cards for printing!

Am all excited about this new assignment. But at the same time - also worried that I don't have the formal exposure of working in a consultancy setup before! I would definitely want to work for at least 6 months as an employee in an another consultancy firm to understand the intricacies of this business!!

While working from home, has got its own charm of giving you flexibility of working in your night gown, less or no travelling, no worries about traffic, juggling between cooking and mail answering, entertaining guests /shopping and still responding to queries, travelling without worries of deadlines/queries and still able to step-in if need arises!

It does have its own disadvantages too!

For a person like me – people are everything. I constantly need company or be in a group. It keeps me in good mood! I tend to share a lot of things with my friend(s) while am around with them. But, that depends on how frequent I meet the person. If am meeting a friend after a long time, it will mostly be generic things and don’t get to share small small sweet/bitter nothings! I guess you need to have someone to talk to like that on a daily basis! Does it not make you feel better!?

Why am I writing this post- It was one of the days, while I really longed if I could have someone to talk to heart-to- heart ! Am all by myself in a MASSIVE 3BHK house with nobody else around for most part of the weekday(S)!!

I happen to chat with a long lost colleague (Singapore) of mine. I started to feel nice chatting with him and made me get into this mode!

AppaKarai..

I made potato bonda (South indian name) in an "Appakarai" instead of deep frying. It tasted good and still we felt its healthier than the original version!!! I actually was trying to make that for an evening snack for a weekend.

Suddently, it struck my FIL that we could have them as "Vada Pav" for dinner.We rushed to our nearby baker. As we couldn't get Salt Pav from our bakery in such short notice , we got hold of soft salt bread packet and enjoyed them as "Vada Bread". ;)

Similarly, I also tried making koftas(Dhoodi /Potato) for Kofta based gravies using AppaKarai. It also turned out to be good..

"AppaKarai" - is defintiely a healthy alternative to deep frying :)

Spending time...

During my recent Bangalore trip, we made sure we spent good time with both mine and S close friend's house.

We stayed at L(my close flat friend) along with her parents , hubby and cutie kid for a day. It was nice to talk for long just like old college days :)

I was happy that S was also very much comfortable at their place and enjoyed very much playing with L's 2 year old girl :)

Shaam E Ghazal...

When popped up with the question if I would be interested to attend a live concert of the famous Ghazal Singer -Jagjit Singh- I was frankly skeptical! I knew S likes Jagjit Singh music very much - both for the meaning and the tunes! As I am not very good at Hindi - I was not sure if I would really relish the same!

But, I accepted to try the new experience of listening a live concert in Bangalore during our short trip there..

We drove along with S friend's family from one end of the city to the other end for the concert. It was truly nice to listen the ghazals -though I could not appreciate the wordings as much as the other's did . Though S was kind of - to translate a few of the most fond songs of his -during the concert!

S did I tell you - It was romantic - to walk hand-in-hand till the car- on a chilly mid-night , after listening to the melodious music concert :)

Upma- All new heights

Upma - All new heights...

Want S to see this article. This humble , simple, fast ,easy yummy breakfast or tiffin or snack - be in rava,samiya, broken wheat, aval upma - Is my all-time favorite. S hates upma and resist to eat even if he is very very hungry!!

French connection

I am not trying to do any advertisement for FC brand here - as I am not a big fan of them anyway though.

I am triyng to console myself of visiting a place with some french connection instead of my original dream/plan of visiting Paris for this weekend (French open finals weekend in Europe).

"Matrimandir" - Auroville, Pondicherry is a beautiful place to spend sometime away from the city hustle and bustle. We could not arrange for a pass for a concentration (meditation) inside the premises during our sudden visit today, as it requires prior booking. It would be better if we can stay in their affordable cottages for a day and plan for a "concentration" in Matrimandir. To know more about the setup of Matrimandir, visit the Auroville official website.

Personal satisfaction..

I was reading an article of "Super 30" founder - on what was Mr.AnandKumar motivation behind starting an IIT coaching for financially poor students. The level of commitment and mind-set required for supporting and sustaining such a noble cause should be tremendous.

This reminds me about how I feel nice for the small things which we try to do. We try to give inputs to town-based graduates who are trying for a break into the industry in this cut-throat competitive world! They lack in communication but have the technical knowledge and aptitude to come up in life.

Recently, happened to speak to a final year MBA student for one of the positions which we are trying to close. He is just one year less than my age, but only now completing his MBA. When I first saw the resume, I assumed the candidate might have failed in his exams repeatedly and hence so much delay in his completion! When I spoke to him - he proved me completely wrong in my assumption. He had met with a very big accident and had to take a complete rest for more than 4+years. Then, got into UG and then now completing his MBA with a decent percentage. He is from an agricultural family background. I could see the urge and determination to come up in life and looking for a good break for starting his career. Such people only need some motivation and guidance to help them succeed in their lives.. I am trying to provide some inputs on his communication skills and going to try my best to get him a career break.

There is more scope for giving back to the society..

I have an update on the above candidate- He has managed to find himself a job as BDE in a firm based out of Tamilnadu with a salary of 3lacs pa!! I am more happy that he considers me as his well-wisher and made a point to inform me that my inputs for interview preparation, helped him to get this job!! :)

Divine Healing..

There has been lot of reading from my side- if complementary medicines like Reiki etc., will be good or rather was more curious to know what it is and how they really work! This is mainly because of the physiological dis-ease I presently being diagnosed with! I felt I want take charge of my body , life and not be too dependent on the medicines!

Another step towards that was attending a "Pranic Healing" workshop for 2 days , last weekend. I did try to do a lot of search to corner down on a good pranic healing trainer.There seems to be a mushroom growth of teachers/healers in the city! Though, its inline with founder's vision of "One pranic healer per family", I still didnt want to take a chance on the tutor and finally was fortunate enough to land up in Dr. Cliff Saldanha center in Adyar. The course was nicely timed, more practical exercises and good friendly coordinators. I definitely have to accept that it is/was difficult to grasp the idea and the concept about feeling energy around a person or "etheric body" was not very easy.

I would still say I have not got a complete hang of it. But, definitely feel a little better in my understanding of the process. Though a long way to go on the practise and feeling the effects of the same. :)

Too demanding..?

Am I offlate becoming a very demanding person at home!??

I suddently started to feel I dont get the attention I need or am I just bored being at home whole through the week days and expect to be out for the major part of the weekend -which dont seem to be happening? Am I unreasonable in this ?

Am a stay at home wife now and dont understand if its just this transition phase from working women to housewife , which is causing me such wierd thoughts?

I dont know whether am unreasonable or whether SG's office schedule has become way too demanding with little or rather no time at all for the partner?

I am also upset SG is going on a business trip to Europe for almost more than 20 days!! You might think I should be stupid to think so - considering its an oppurtunity for me also to go on a dream vacation to Paris!

I had done lot of search about The Hague and other tourist places around!! I had built too much of castle on air!!

The chances of me joining SG look bleak now with sudden changes made in Schengen visa appointments! :(

I should learn to enjoy my time here in Chennai all by myself. The climate is too hot to step out and so is my mood swings!!

Who is to be blamed for this state of mind of mine ??

Proud Daughter

How many daughters get a chance to see their parents in Graduation gown??

I was reminded of my graduation day -My mom and father had come down for my graduation and were all in joyful tears after attending that. I didnt realize the importance of that at that time . Now, its been 8+ yrs and I now cherish my graduation day, while being part of a celebrations of more than 80+ youngsters all completing their PG and awaiting to turn a new leaf in their journey of life.

Coming back to my appa being in graduation gown - He was honored during that convocation for being part of the senior faculty team of a management institution in Chennai.

It was nice to be there for my father while he received the same! I was proud to be called as Papa's daughter (in resemblance, yet again) by many colleagues of appa who met me for the first time yesterday :)

Kudos-Men in Blue

Could not have asked for more fun than watching a nail biting cricket world cup finals with a bunch of kids and elders around on a Saturday evening! We were all screaming, being sentimental in seating positions and praying to be in the very moment and very much rejoiced at the end for the brilliant victory!! Special congrats to the Indian skipper- MS, who did a great job!! What more fun can be for a budding baker like me to celebrate India's victory in the world cup with homemade eggless chocolate cake with vanilla ice-cream at late in the night and to be praised by all of them!! I tried the receipe from Rak's Kitchen. The measurements are perfect and came out pretty well. I didnt have the time to take a picture of the cake though.