Here is the list of my Top Ten Hindi Party Dance Songs. The list below is only in Chronological order. It does not represent my preference of one over the other.
Mauja Mauja(Mika Singh) - Jab We Met(2007). I have a funny story about this song. I was at an event in a Children's library where a group of Indians were presenting to a class of kids and interesting locals about Indian Classical Dance forms. They belonged to a local Classical Indian Dance schools and the kids from the school did some Bharat Natyam and Koochupudi as part of the event to teach the local public about India and it's dance forms. That was all fine. In the end the teacher of the kids tells the audience that there is another popular dance form called Bollywood Dance and put in a DVD and played this song from the movie Jab We Met. I was surprised at the selection of this song which is no way close to being Indian Dance form. It was closer to a Hip Hop song with semi-clad women strutting around the leads-very much inspired from Hip Hop. I am not complaining about the popular music as most Classical Music Aficionados(like Sankara Sastry of Sankarabaranam) do. I think it was just a wrong choice for a wrong audience who were mostly kids. Also this happens to be one of the most popular songs of recent times and hence on top of the list. Not my most favorite.
Ek Mein aur ek tu hai(Abhishek Bachan, Sunidhi Chauhan) - Bluffmaster(2005). I like this song beacuse it is true hip-hop version in Hindi. It has the 1-2-3 beat that makes your foot tap and want to be the in the center of the floor with your lady. Abhishek's voice suits well to this type for songs and the dance moves fit the tone of the song. Sunidhi Chauhan is my favorite singer in the current generation, though she doesn't have much in his song, except to croon a line or two along side Abhishek. The next song will display her full potential.
Saaki(Sukhwindher Singh, Sunidhi Chauhan) - Musafir(2004). I like the beat and dance steps in this song. I like all the songs of this movie. I saw them first when they were repeated over and over on TV during my visit to India way back in 2004. Some of the moves are not meant for family audience but the song is great nevertheless. Gives me a jolt every time I listen to this song. And I love Sunidhi's voice. She is best of the current generation especially when it comes to high energy songs. She has great control over her voice and displays good skill in high octane, high pitch songs. Sukhwinder has become monotonous with these kinds of songs, but he was still fresh in 2004. Shh..Nobody tell but I lost my heart to Sameera Reddy while watching the songs from this movie. The dancer in the song is Koena Mitra and the other dude is Sanju Baba aka Sanjay Dutt.
Khallas(Asha Bhosle, Sudhesh Bhosle, Sapna Awasthi) - Company(2002). I like the recklessness in this song which was the last good movie from Ram Gopal Varma. He became a fast food chain offering quick junk movies from a gourmet restaurant offering sumptuous selective meals after this movie. The song fits well with what is happening at the moment in the movie. Asha Bhonsle appears old and not suited for this song, but Sapna Awasthi provides the much needed salvo. Sunidhi Chauhan would have been an appropriate singer for this song instead of Asha ji. I think it is time for the Mangeskar sisters to retire. I was very impressed by the movie making capabilities of RGV and must have watched it several times repeatedly in 2002. For those who dont know, Asha Bonsle is the singer and not the dancer. The Dancer is Isha Koppikar.
Babuji Zara Deere Chalo(Sukhwinder Singh , Sonu Kakkar) - Dum(2002). The movie sucks, the song is for mature audience only. This song made the list - courtesy Yana Gupta.
Koi Kahe Kehta Rahe(Shankar Mahadevan, Shaan, K.K) - Dil Chahta Hai(2001). I must have seen this movie alteast 20 times. It was one of the biggest movie of our time and was a trend setter. I even imitated Amir's goatee. Great Movie, great Song by the trio and great dance moves. Simple and elegant, just made for closing time of the dance floor.
Ek Pal Ka Jeena(Lucky Ali) - Kaho Na Pyar Hai(2000). This movie catapulted Hritik Roshan to a huge star overnight. He displays amazing dance skills that was sorely missing from Hindi Movie Industry then. The Industry for all it's glory still lacks a good dancer and will find nothing but vaccuum if you take away Hritik now. The tight dress and group behind him appear comical now. The one dance move from this song has become his signature move. Alas he still awaits a hit suitable to his talent and skill. The singer, Lucky Ali, obtained so much fame that he became a movie star himself and then he disappeared.
Khambakht Ishq(Sukhwinder Singh , Asha Bhonsle , Sonu Nigam) - Pyar Tune Kya Kiya(2001). The movie is pardonable and was only a curtain raiser of what was to come from RGV Factory. The song is in the list for the choreography. Great moves, good use of the red fabric and the limited skills of the Khan. Urmila is great in her dancing skills. Did I say Asha Bhonsle should retire. Actually this song is not that bad as her vocal chords were still working then.
Edit 08/03/2008 11:00 PM - Had to insert this song.
Kay Sera Sera(Kavita Krishnamurti) - Pukar(2000). Despite not wanting to intentionally load this list with AR Rahman's songs, I had to include this song for reasons other than the singer Kavita and composer ARR. The video reveals the outstanding personalities who try to outdo one another in their dancing skills. Madhuri Dixit is the female and Prabhu Deva is the male dancer - the two most recognizable dancers of my generation in India. Madhuri took the baton from Madhbala and Rekha, while Prabhu Deva is a self-professed idolizer of Michael Jackson. Hats off to them both and here is the song.
Mangta Hai Kya(AR. Rahman, Shwetha Shetty) - Rangeela(1995). A.R. Rahman is one music composer after R.D.Burman who uses his vocal chords very effectively and puts them to limited use unlike some (like Anu Malik, Bappi Lahiri, RP Patnaik etc.). He has a great voice and is used very effectively in this stomper. The choreography is good for the age it was made in. Urmila looks like a kid in the song with a short skirt during the beginning of the song. Swetha Shetty was fresh from her success of the pop song Deewane To Deewane Hain and provides good support to ARR.
Akhiyon se Goli Mare(Sonu Nigam, Jaspinder Narula) - Dulhe Raja(1988). Govinda could be called the biggest comic hero in the Hindi Movie Industry ever. More famous for his gaudy dressing sense, he is also skilled in displaying his dance moves while bringing smiles to the audience. I loved his movies before Hera Pheri made Akshay Kumar a star with comic flavor and every Tom, Dick and Harry followed suit. I look forward to his come back. This movie has Raveena Tandon on his side who is not that bad a dancer herself.
De De Pyar De(Kishor Kumar) - Sharaabi(2004). This song has Kishore Kumar at his best, singing drunkard tone with ease. But the credit must be given to Bappi Lahiri for composing this ever lasting memorable song. The other reason for this song making the list must be my soft corner for Jaya.
I am an Disco Dancer(Vijay Benedict) - Disco Dancer(1982). I have not seen this movie to date. But I grew up listening to this song. Not at home as we did not have TV or a Tape Player yet then. Must be from here and there during Ganesh Chaturdi pandals in the street and on AIR. I do not know who the singer Vijay is. But it is a great song and part of my childhood memory. This movie has two songs in my list just because of the impression these songs left during my childhood.
Edit - 08/03/2009 11:45PM - The female of version of the song is here. Not sure who the singer is here.
Jimmy Aja(Parvati Khan) - Disco Dancer(1982). Parvati Khan was my introduction to Indian and Hindi Pop long after this movie came out. I think the first pop by an Indian I have heard must be 'Papa Dont Preach', originally by Madonna, sung by Parvati Khan on a late night pop music show in Doordarshan on a New Year Eve.
Na Mangun Sona Chandi(Shailendra Singh, Manna Dey) - Bobby(1973). It is probably Prem Nath with his funny suit, the Goan dances or the innocent looking Dimple that makes this song a great watch. The filmi masala genius of Raj Kapoor is visible in every frame of this movie.
Hawa Hawa - Hasan Jahangir. This song 'Hawa Hawa e Hawa' was one more childhood memory of mine from listening to it from the Ganesh Chaturdi Pandal Speakers who would steal the electricity from the street post. I did not know that the singer was a Pakistani until yesterday. Good job Youtube. Great songs and great lyrics.
Another live performance from the singer Hasan Jahangir can be found here.
All the songs listed below are quite old and I will upload the data when I get time. I was exposed to these and many other songs from Chitrahaar of Doordarshan National Channel that used to be called DD1 during my time. DD1 was telecast in Hindi and sometimes in English. It would be surprising but it was the only channel available in India about two decades ago. I learnt Hindi just watching the programmes in the limited broadcast they published.
Mere Sapnon Ki Rani - Kishore Kumar. I think this is from the movie 'Mere Sapnon Ki Rani' starring Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore. Rajesh Khanna was the soft lover boy of my Father's generation, Numero Uno of the Hindi Movie Industry before Amitabh, the angry Young Man, forcibly took over the mantle.
Baar Baar Dekho-
Johny Mera Naam - Pal Bar Ke Liye
CID - Leke Pehla Pehla Pyar
Shree 420 - Ramaya Wasta Vaiya
Naya Daur - Ude Jab Jab Zulfe Tere. This is a digitally remastered version of the old movie song from the movie Naya Daur. Great movie. Thanks to DD for some good memories.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
R.I.P. King of Pop MJ
I was huge fan of his music and dances. I think he was single most icon of western pop music to the world. Every where on earth his name is synonymous to western pop music and crazy dance moves. R.I.P. King of Pop.
He came alive in Philadelphia recently. Check these videos below. He is good but not as good as he was when he was alive. These are short 16 second videos clipped taken from my cellphone.
My favorite song of his can be viewed here. Not sure why I like 'Black or White'. I think it was the first video of his' that I ever watched long time ago as a kid. I was amazed at that time watching the faces morphing into another at the end of video.
He came alive in Philadelphia recently. Check these videos below. He is good but not as good as he was when he was alive. These are short 16 second videos clipped taken from my cellphone.
My favorite song of his can be viewed here. Not sure why I like 'Black or White'. I think it was the first video of his' that I ever watched long time ago as a kid. I was amazed at that time watching the faces morphing into another at the end of video.
Labels:
Living Arts,
Philadelphia
Friday, July 10, 2009
Giant Scallions, Mini Zinnias and Constant Gardener
After a not so humble beginning to which I had a modest outcome last year, I set out a far more outreaching goals this year. I went nursery style, from seeds with lot more varieties and increased the footage. I was lucky to have a about 50 sq. ft. of land in front of my apartment that I could use for gardening. I will detail later on why this luck resulted in back breaking work for me.
I decided to challenge myself this year. Not only did I wanted to raise the flowers and vegetables from seeds, but I wanted to raise them organic style with minimum or no synthetic materials like pesticides and fertilizers etc. I learnt that it was lot of more harder than it seems and gardening in this part of earth is lot more different than in a tropical country like India.
I bought the seeds for five types of flowers and red bell peppers. The winter was long this time in North East PA. I could not plant these seeds outside until mid May which turned out to be a mistake. I learned that most people who raise plants from seeds begin the process early in April indoors. So by the time the frost ends beginning May, the seedlings grow about two inches and are ready to be transplanted in the garden and blossom in June. But those were for experienced gardeners to know. The minimal gardening knowledge I carried across the ocean watching my Mom do her garden was of little help. Last year, I bought almost ready to blossom plants and hence that experience did not come handy this time other than the fact that I have to be watchful for aphids in pepper plants.
The seeds were either not so good or the timing was late, the germination did not happen for about three weeks and that too a very few came out of the lot. The rest took even longer. I sowed the seeds in the three 24in window trays I bought last year with the intention to transplant the flower plants in the garden in front of our town home.
During this mean time something happened that would be brought the most outcome with very little effort from my side. I bought a bag of onions from Walmart. After a week some of these onions bore green shoots out of them. My mother-in-law not wanting to throw them away, cut the good part of the onions and buried the green shoots in one of the plant trays that did not bore any plants yet at that time. She did similarly plant some carrots and beetroot shoots and nothing came out of them yet.
During the end of May after about 3 weeks some of the seeds sprouted. I transplanted all the flower plants into the ground. The trouble that came out of this endeavour was multiple and involved a lot of work. First of the all there were two inches thick mulch above the soil. I had to clear them before transplanting the plants into the soil. The soil in this area was clay soil, suitable for making pots but not so much for flower plants. To top of it as soon as I planted them, heavy rain poured in that kept the soil soggy for a long time.
I did not cover the mulch over the area around the plants after transplanting. This caused a trough and soil remained wet for a lot of time. As if this was not enough, the plants began to be eaten by weird bugs from the soil. They were small and white in color. A little search revealed them to be slugs. But I gave up the idea of organic gardening after a period of about two weeks and severe damage to most plants. I got a slug killing pesticide and sprayed them on the soil. I was quite late already and the slugs ate up quite a few plants.
I had some more seeds and after the back breaking transplantation process the first time, I sowed these seeds directly in the ground. But rain was incessant. The rain was so heavy that they washed most of the seeds out and what were left were transported to places close to the edge of the walkway. The plants that came of these are about 2 in tall now. I have no hopes of them bearing any flowers anytime soon.
The slug pesticide was very effective in arresting the death of the plant that remained. I also learnt that it is best to use potting soil in combination with compost. I had potting soil leftover from last year and obtained four 20lb bags of compost from a nearby park for free. I replanted almost all the plants I put in the ground, removing the clay soil for about 3 inches deep and replacing with a mix of potting soil and compost. I did this replanting almost every week for about 4 weeks.
Added to these later were cherry and vine tomatoes and green chilies, courtesy my mother-in-law. She dipped some seeds out of cut tomatoes into some indoor pots we have and almost all of them germinated. She did the same with red bell peppers and green chili peppers. The peppers were the most surprising. After a month from sowing them, more than a h
undred of the plants came out and I had to transplant all of them into the ground.
But in all of this, the surprise were the onions that were put in the soil nonchalantly. They grew out to be this giant scallions I have never seen before. Some of them were about 3 feet tall. The two synthetics I wanted to avoid, both seemed to be necessary. The tomatoes hat I transplanted to the ground, refused to grow. I bought Nursery Select 20-20-20 Miraclegro fertilizer to speedup the growth and that did the trick.
After two months of waiting the first flower to blossom was a marigold. It was the ugliest flower imaginable. I shouldn't have expected more from the plant that was hardly 3 inch tall. But as time passed the other marigolds grew and are bearing good normal sized flowers now.
The Zinnias were the most effected by the slugs. The slugs had feast on these plants. Those that survived have a very stunted growth. I have not had time to re-pot (with compost) these plants as I had become busy at home and work. They are bringing out one flower each which are the tiniest flowers I have seen of that variety. I am still waiting for the other kind of plants to bring out flowers. The same is the case with the peppers, tomatoes.
I had also bought about 8 Zucchinis plants to add to my madness. They bore some flowers and they are fast dropping now without turning into Zucchinis. I was told that this is normal and that the first flowers are male flowers and they fall off. I am eagerly waiting for all of them to fully blossom. With some luck and good weather my gardening experiment might be a success making me one constant gardener moving forward.
The humble flowers of my efforts so far can be viewed here where you can find a lot more pictures of my garden and the 3 ft tall scallions.
I decided to challenge myself this year. Not only did I wanted to raise the flowers and vegetables from seeds, but I wanted to raise them organic style with minimum or no synthetic materials like pesticides and fertilizers etc. I learnt that it was lot of more harder than it seems and gardening in this part of earth is lot more different than in a tropical country like India.
I bought the seeds for five types of flowers and red bell peppers. The winter was long this time in North East PA. I could not plant these seeds outside until mid May which turned out to be a mistake. I learned that most people who raise plants from seeds begin the process early in April indoors. So by the time the frost ends beginning May, the seedlings grow about two inches and are ready to be transplanted in the garden and blossom in June. But those were for experienced gardeners to know. The minimal gardening knowledge I carried across the ocean watching my Mom do her garden was of little help. Last year, I bought almost ready to blossom plants and hence that experience did not come handy this time other than the fact that I have to be watchful for aphids in pepper plants.
The seeds were either not so good or the timing was late, the germination did not happen for about three weeks and that too a very few came out of the lot. The rest took even longer. I sowed the seeds in the three 24in window trays I bought last year with the intention to transplant the flower plants in the garden in front of our town home.
During this mean time something happened that would be brought the most outcome with very little effort from my side. I bought a bag of onions from Walmart. After a week some of these onions bore green shoots out of them. My mother-in-law not wanting to throw them away, cut the good part of the onions and buried the green shoots in one of the plant trays that did not bore any plants yet at that time. She did similarly plant some carrots and beetroot shoots and nothing came out of them yet.
During the end of May after about 3 weeks some of the seeds sprouted. I transplanted all the flower plants into the ground. The trouble that came out of this endeavour was multiple and involved a lot of work. First of the all there were two inches thick mulch above the soil. I had to clear them before transplanting the plants into the soil. The soil in this area was clay soil, suitable for making pots but not so much for flower plants. To top of it as soon as I planted them, heavy rain poured in that kept the soil soggy for a long time.
I did not cover the mulch over the area around the plants after transplanting. This caused a trough and soil remained wet for a lot of time. As if this was not enough, the plants began to be eaten by weird bugs from the soil. They were small and white in color. A little search revealed them to be slugs. But I gave up the idea of organic gardening after a period of about two weeks and severe damage to most plants. I got a slug killing pesticide and sprayed them on the soil. I was quite late already and the slugs ate up quite a few plants.
I had some more seeds and after the back breaking transplantation process the first time, I sowed these seeds directly in the ground. But rain was incessant. The rain was so heavy that they washed most of the seeds out and what were left were transported to places close to the edge of the walkway. The plants that came of these are about 2 in tall now. I have no hopes of them bearing any flowers anytime soon.
The slug pesticide was very effective in arresting the death of the plant that remained. I also learnt that it is best to use potting soil in combination with compost. I had potting soil leftover from last year and obtained four 20lb bags of compost from a nearby park for free. I replanted almost all the plants I put in the ground, removing the clay soil for about 3 inches deep and replacing with a mix of potting soil and compost. I did this replanting almost every week for about 4 weeks.
Added to these later were cherry and vine tomatoes and green chilies, courtesy my mother-in-law. She dipped some seeds out of cut tomatoes into some indoor pots we have and almost all of them germinated. She did the same with red bell peppers and green chili peppers. The peppers were the most surprising. After a month from sowing them, more than a h
undred of the plants came out and I had to transplant all of them into the ground. But in all of this, the surprise were the onions that were put in the soil nonchalantly. They grew out to be this giant scallions I have never seen before. Some of them were about 3 feet tall. The two synthetics I wanted to avoid, both seemed to be necessary. The tomatoes hat I transplanted to the ground, refused to grow. I bought Nursery Select 20-20-20 Miraclegro fertilizer to speedup the growth and that did the trick.
After two months of waiting the first flower to blossom was a marigold. It was the ugliest flower imaginable. I shouldn't have expected more from the plant that was hardly 3 inch tall. But as time passed the other marigolds grew and are bearing good normal sized flowers now.
The Zinnias were the most effected by the slugs. The slugs had feast on these plants. Those that survived have a very stunted growth. I have not had time to re-pot (with compost) these plants as I had become busy at home and work. They are bringing out one flower each which are the tiniest flowers I have seen of that variety. I am still waiting for the other kind of plants to bring out flowers. The same is the case with the peppers, tomatoes.
I had also bought about 8 Zucchinis plants to add to my madness. They bore some flowers and they are fast dropping now without turning into Zucchinis. I was told that this is normal and that the first flowers are male flowers and they fall off. I am eagerly waiting for all of them to fully blossom. With some luck and good weather my gardening experiment might be a success making me one constant gardener moving forward.
The humble flowers of my efforts so far can be viewed here where you can find a lot more pictures of my garden and the 3 ft tall scallions.
Labels:
Gardening,
Green Living,
Organic
Saturday, June 20, 2009
When it rains, it pours
The events that took place last week could be summed up by the idiom 'When it rains, it pours'. It was the first time, I was leaving home after the birth of our cutie pie. That was slightly depressing enough, but I brushed it aside as a mere part of life where we have to do things leaving our loved one's behind. For some reason the two and half hour drive that morning was exhausting and I desperately wanted a rest. After work at around 6:30 PM, I went to a grocery store to pick some vegetables where my brother joined me. He moved into a new apartment in Center city and I do not have a copy of the key. So we go to his bachelor pad together and what do we find. The main door to his apartment was open slightly without the lights on. My suspicious brain triggered something was amiss. I ordered my brother not to enter the apartment outright and to knock the door to find if anybody answers. There was no response. So my brother went inside and thought everything was fine. But my mind was reading something else. There was lots of stuff thrown on the bed, every drawers from his side table were on the floor. The doors to his friends room and to the basement were open. There were screws on the floor with a non-uniform wooden wedge next to them. I looked at the door casing and quickly knew that the wooden wedge was a result of a forced open of the door. The burglar broke open the main door with sheer force and my brother's room with an iron chair from the kitchen.
We called the landlord and dialed 911. They both turned about two hours later. The cops think it was some homeless guy looking for cash and valuables like jewelry that could be cashed quickly. He concluded that in few minutes as nothing was missing from the other bedroom, whereas every valuable that was in my brother's room iPod, couple watches, currency, loads of coins were stolen. His roommate had valuable items like printers, camera, projector etc but just not valuable enough to the homeless guy. To top it off there was a cassette FM radio player missing from the living room.
The next day was even worse. The news broke that they were plans to layoff 500 employees at work. Then at the end of the day I was crossing a road while I was walking to my car. There were a bunch of cars waiting at the signal. A kitten jumped out of nowhere and slid under the tire of a car. It was drizzling and it was chilly. The cat thought that corner of the car tire was cozy. As soon as this happened, the signal turned green and car raced off. While the car was moving, the cat moved an inch, hesitated and stayed back only to be driven over by the car. The kitten was crushed. It jumped thrice in the air and that's it, laid there on the floor dead. All this happened in a few seconds and I was still frozen. It was saddening and I was feeling sick now.
I reached the car and was thinking what else could go wrong. I put everything in the trunk and sat in the car to start the ignition. Lo and behold I see an envelope behind the glass in front of me. It was a parking ticket. Guess what! My inspection expired and the PPA granted me a violation for the expired inspection. I did not know how I let my car inspection sticker expire. Nor did I know that parking authorities issue ticket for the same. I was depressed now. I was even superstitious if all these events were omens and something worse was yet to come. I even entertained postponing my ride back home. I spent a few minutes in silence so as to gather myself and set off to one last stop - the Indian grocery store on my way home. I am so glad the week passed by quick after those dreadful two days.
But these events only enhanced my belief in the randomness of life and taught me a new lesson - Preventing and protecting oneself against potential huge losses is more important than making several small savings. When you lose money, like in a break-in, the losses are typically huge. They can erode all the small savings that one makes over a period(ranging from months to years) of time. I plan to get myself a renter's insurance and worry less about checking multiple stores for making small purchases.
We called the landlord and dialed 911. They both turned about two hours later. The cops think it was some homeless guy looking for cash and valuables like jewelry that could be cashed quickly. He concluded that in few minutes as nothing was missing from the other bedroom, whereas every valuable that was in my brother's room iPod, couple watches, currency, loads of coins were stolen. His roommate had valuable items like printers, camera, projector etc but just not valuable enough to the homeless guy. To top it off there was a cassette FM radio player missing from the living room.
The next day was even worse. The news broke that they were plans to layoff 500 employees at work. Then at the end of the day I was crossing a road while I was walking to my car. There were a bunch of cars waiting at the signal. A kitten jumped out of nowhere and slid under the tire of a car. It was drizzling and it was chilly. The cat thought that corner of the car tire was cozy. As soon as this happened, the signal turned green and car raced off. While the car was moving, the cat moved an inch, hesitated and stayed back only to be driven over by the car. The kitten was crushed. It jumped thrice in the air and that's it, laid there on the floor dead. All this happened in a few seconds and I was still frozen. It was saddening and I was feeling sick now.
I reached the car and was thinking what else could go wrong. I put everything in the trunk and sat in the car to start the ignition. Lo and behold I see an envelope behind the glass in front of me. It was a parking ticket. Guess what! My inspection expired and the PPA granted me a violation for the expired inspection. I did not know how I let my car inspection sticker expire. Nor did I know that parking authorities issue ticket for the same. I was depressed now. I was even superstitious if all these events were omens and something worse was yet to come. I even entertained postponing my ride back home. I spent a few minutes in silence so as to gather myself and set off to one last stop - the Indian grocery store on my way home. I am so glad the week passed by quick after those dreadful two days.
But these events only enhanced my belief in the randomness of life and taught me a new lesson - Preventing and protecting oneself against potential huge losses is more important than making several small savings. When you lose money, like in a break-in, the losses are typically huge. They can erode all the small savings that one makes over a period(ranging from months to years) of time. I plan to get myself a renter's insurance and worry less about checking multiple stores for making small purchases.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Professional and Private life, can we truly separate them?
A few days ago a couple of our friends who happen to be my spouses' co-workers visited us. Here is a conversation that happened.
"The patient had tidal volume down. BP in control, prone ventilation, atrial fibrillation. On epinephrine, pco2 from 60 to 70. Oxygen in monitor at 50. ativan drip, saturation 50, heart rate 100, levofed 150. ARDS and can nothing if she is not responding. She has bed sores. She has AIDS, no WHITE blood cells in the body. Everyone is afraid to touch her for fear of worsening her condition."
This is a very typical conversation when these medical residents meet. It does not matter who else is around them. Their conversation does not go beyond their patients and the hospital settings. I have tried to steer them to other conversation like my favorite team Lakers winning the championship. What I call normal conversation (like everything other than work) is a rarity and is very short lived with these folks which could be testing while others (people not working in a medical profession) are around. I have gotten used to these conversations and actually am amused by their interest in the field. I am also sometimes shocked to hear certain things, but that is beyond the topic of this post.
I am a strong believer in having a private life outside of work. Meaning not to ignore work but there should be boundaries. When I leave work, my other life begins which is interrupted only when things are critical and stressful at work. This enables me to have other wise pursuits in life like watching TV and getting all the exciting world news from The Daily Show by Jon Stewart etc. I can hardly imagine a nerdy tech talk outside work which goes something like this
'The server load had exceeded leading to a network failure bringing the server down. The memory of 8Gigs was not sufficient. So we are trying to double that RAM. But the servers space is limited and server runs of 2000 which is way old. It is time to move to Windows 2008 with .Net framework 3.5 and last but not least it should at least have IIS 6.0. IP v6.0 would be nice but our entire server system has to be changed which is unlikely at this point. On top of it the vendor support is not so good. And the developers produce memory leaking software without any null checks causing the logs to be filled every weak with information about errors. No wonder the business is always behind doing data batch uploads to the database causing bandwidth strain on the database servers. BTW have you tried the new iPhone it is super cool and fast.'
This is the extent of my nerdy tech talk. I think most people familiar with computers can understand most of it but it still is associated with a server admin professional. I cannot have a conversation like that daily after work.
Having said all of this, there are couple questions that should be raised in this context.
1. Why do medical professionals (insert any other profession) invariably return to their work in a casual settings.
2. Can one truly separate Professional and Private life.
The causes for the first question could be multiple. One needs to understand the work setting. In the case of Medical Residents, they spend about 80 hours a week working at the hospital which is double the time a normal person spends at work. This means it takes away 40 valuable hours away from the medical professionals life which could be used for other pursuits outside work. Then there are the stress levels to consider. My job can hardly be considered stressful. There were times they were stressful and I could dream 'if' and 'for loops' in my sleep. Imagine a job where lives could be at risk on your decision calls. That is stressful. The same could be the case with advocates and stock traders etc who spend long stressful times at work. These folks are always thinking about work and they don't have time for other distractions to pursue. A good family atmosphere can alter this, but most medical folks marry within the profession leaving very little room for something else to discuss. Then there is a passion for what you do. Some people are very passionate about their work. Passion is good and necessary if you want to achieve excellence, but it can blind you to others windows of life.
The second part is the separation of Church from the State, I mean professional and private life. I don't think one can truly separate them. If things go bad on any one end, the other is affected. One has to be a machine to block one from the other. Besides people at work are humans after all and friendly relations can be forged with some of them. Every place I left, I took with me a good friend from whom I learned a lot professionally and stay in touch ever so often.
One can and should only strive to seek an optimum balance between work and home. One needs to keep your skills up to date to be competitive at work and also take care of the family so as to not worry about them at work. Taking a break like a vacation once in a while helps. Having hobbies and interests can be effective. Reading, gardening, watching TV and browsing works for me albeit that the latter two take too much of time that could be utilized for more constructive measures like blogging.
Happy July 4th to everyone and take some time off from work this weekend.
"The patient had tidal volume down. BP in control, prone ventilation, atrial fibrillation. On epinephrine, pco2 from 60 to 70. Oxygen in monitor at 50. ativan drip, saturation 50, heart rate 100, levofed 150. ARDS and can nothing if she is not responding. She has bed sores. She has AIDS, no WHITE blood cells in the body. Everyone is afraid to touch her for fear of worsening her condition."
This is a very typical conversation when these medical residents meet. It does not matter who else is around them. Their conversation does not go beyond their patients and the hospital settings. I have tried to steer them to other conversation like my favorite team Lakers winning the championship. What I call normal conversation (like everything other than work) is a rarity and is very short lived with these folks which could be testing while others (people not working in a medical profession) are around. I have gotten used to these conversations and actually am amused by their interest in the field. I am also sometimes shocked to hear certain things, but that is beyond the topic of this post.
I am a strong believer in having a private life outside of work. Meaning not to ignore work but there should be boundaries. When I leave work, my other life begins which is interrupted only when things are critical and stressful at work. This enables me to have other wise pursuits in life like watching TV and getting all the exciting world news from The Daily Show by Jon Stewart etc. I can hardly imagine a nerdy tech talk outside work which goes something like this
'The server load had exceeded leading to a network failure bringing the server down. The memory of 8Gigs was not sufficient. So we are trying to double that RAM. But the servers space is limited and server runs of 2000 which is way old. It is time to move to Windows 2008 with .Net framework 3.5 and last but not least it should at least have IIS 6.0. IP v6.0 would be nice but our entire server system has to be changed which is unlikely at this point. On top of it the vendor support is not so good. And the developers produce memory leaking software without any null checks causing the logs to be filled every weak with information about errors. No wonder the business is always behind doing data batch uploads to the database causing bandwidth strain on the database servers. BTW have you tried the new iPhone it is super cool and fast.'
This is the extent of my nerdy tech talk. I think most people familiar with computers can understand most of it but it still is associated with a server admin professional. I cannot have a conversation like that daily after work.
Having said all of this, there are couple questions that should be raised in this context.
1. Why do medical professionals (insert any other profession) invariably return to their work in a casual settings.
2. Can one truly separate Professional and Private life.
The causes for the first question could be multiple. One needs to understand the work setting. In the case of Medical Residents, they spend about 80 hours a week working at the hospital which is double the time a normal person spends at work. This means it takes away 40 valuable hours away from the medical professionals life which could be used for other pursuits outside work. Then there are the stress levels to consider. My job can hardly be considered stressful. There were times they were stressful and I could dream 'if' and 'for loops' in my sleep. Imagine a job where lives could be at risk on your decision calls. That is stressful. The same could be the case with advocates and stock traders etc who spend long stressful times at work. These folks are always thinking about work and they don't have time for other distractions to pursue. A good family atmosphere can alter this, but most medical folks marry within the profession leaving very little room for something else to discuss. Then there is a passion for what you do. Some people are very passionate about their work. Passion is good and necessary if you want to achieve excellence, but it can blind you to others windows of life.
The second part is the separation of Church from the State, I mean professional and private life. I don't think one can truly separate them. If things go bad on any one end, the other is affected. One has to be a machine to block one from the other. Besides people at work are humans after all and friendly relations can be forged with some of them. Every place I left, I took with me a good friend from whom I learned a lot professionally and stay in touch ever so often.
One can and should only strive to seek an optimum balance between work and home. One needs to keep your skills up to date to be competitive at work and also take care of the family so as to not worry about them at work. Taking a break like a vacation once in a while helps. Having hobbies and interests can be effective. Reading, gardening, watching TV and browsing works for me albeit that the latter two take too much of time that could be utilized for more constructive measures like blogging.
Happy July 4th to everyone and take some time off from work this weekend.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Expecting Parents FAQs
Should I Have one?
One of my friends posed this question 'Why have Kids?'. I could not answer it then, I don't have a right answer yet. That question never occurred to me. I just thought of it as a natural part of life. It was always a matter of when if not now. The question of when was answered with our planning of finances and career position. 'Should we?' was never raised. There was pressure from the grandparents and family but that did not alter our time frame. I could be philosophical about life being precious and that bringing one to the earth will be a right thing to do etc. But I am not philosophical. Now that my kid is here, she is a bundle of joy.
What does it cost?
This is a very touchy subject that raises a lot eyebrows and how dare he's. But the fact that kids cost a lot is a fact that one must be aware of before the plunge. From the day you know that your wife is pregnant, to the day the kids are independent and on their own, there are a lot of costs involved. I will summarize the immediate costs here and give a small estimate of what it might cost to raise one kid.
There will be monthly visits with your Obstetrician and in the ninth month there will be weekly visits. There will be 2-3 ultrasound scans of your wife for determining the wellness of your baby while inside. There might be emergency visits to the hospital. We had 3 emergency visits. One in the night and twice while she was at work. Luckily for my wife she works at a hospital and the emergency was a elevator button call away. But a good insurance is important. Find out what is covered and what is not. I have heard of scary stories where the bill came out to 25K etc. 25K might not be a lot for a few, but if you are an immigrant and just starting your life, it might mean a lot of debt for sometime. Some sites put the cost of delivery between $5,000-$8,000 for a normal vaginal delivery, up to $12,000 for a cesarean delivery. Of course this does not include other services like the suite, medication and health care in case of complications.
There will be stuff that you have buy for the infant baby that might cost 2K-3K depending on what and where you buy. I will list what to buy for the immediate few weeks and months later on. Then there is the cost of day care, play school, preschool, school, college education etc etc as they grow up. Here is a good summary of what it cost to have a baby. The calculator by the US Department of agriculture puts the annual cost of an infant at $20,500. The longer term cost to raise to the age of 17 at about 270K that's about $16K/annum. The first few years could be more expensive if you plan to have them in a day care or have a part-time/full-time nanny. Full time nanny can be $1500-$2500 out of your pocket. If you plan to fund their college education as most parents do add another 100K-150K. Basically what you could save towards your retirement would be channeled towards raising your kid.
What to buy before the kid is born?
I have listed the most items in the next section, but what I list here are other care giving matters.
Cord Blood Storage - If your family has a history of cancer or diabetes, you might consider storing Cord blood of your infant. Cord blood is the blood in the cord that could be collected at the time of delivery and stored for later usage. Cures to about 40 diseases have been found with stem blood. We have used Stembanc and it cost us about 2K including the registration and 20 years storage. There are other places like Cord Blood registry and Viacord that were expensive. It is kind of medical insurance. There are places where they do the storage for free but the blood stored there could be used for research purposes and could be used for other persons if the blood matches them. Utilizing private firms like Stembanc would ensure that your kids blood is saved for future in case your kid might need it.
The second thing is to find from the hospital your wife is scheduled for labor/c-section if they need a pediatrician appointed beforehand. Some insurance firms might need that your pediatrician be within your network etc.
Third but not least find from your insurance provider how and within what time frame you need to add your infant to your insurance plan. Typically the first month is covered under the mother's plan and you should add your kid to the plan within that time frame.
What to buy for infants?
It makes sense to start buying the items listed below a few months ahead of time as they list is quite big and procuring them is very time consuming. I bought most of the items from Walmart as I found them to be the cheapest and of same quality (many times same products at a far lower prices than Target or Babies R Us).
-----------
Tooling Around
_____Car seat - Infant Car Seat up to one year. You need a car seat to take your kid home. The nurse will come and inspect the safety of your car seat and I heard that they won't let your take your kid home unless you have a car seat. I was not sure about it but did not want to risk the safety of my kids. I bought Graco travel system.
_____Stroller -
_____Travel System - I bought Graco Travel system(carseat+stroller) for $155 at Walmart.
_____Booster seat for kids 20lbs and up. Not need to buy now. Could be bought later on when the kid is about to complete 12 months.
Beds and linens
_____Crib (if you plan to have a bassinet, you do not need this immediately)
_____Crib mattress. About $50-$70 at Walmart
_____Bassinet/cradle (if you don't want to put your baby in a crib right away. This could be good for only 3-6 months). $80 at Walmart
_____Two to three fitted crib sheets.
_____Four or more waffle-weave cotton receiving blankets for swaddling baby.
_____Two mattress pads.
_____One to two waterproof liners (for crib or bassinet).
Swing/Rocker to make your infant sleep
_____Rocker - Fisher Price
_____Swing - Fisher Price
Diapers
_____Diapers. Disposables: One 40-count package of newborn (birth weight under 8 pounds) or of size 1 (birth weight over 8 pounds). Cloth: Two to three dozen, plus six to 10 snap-on, waterproof outer pants, and two to three sets of diaper pins, eight to 10 all-in-ones or diaper system covers;two to three dozen diaper system inserts. I bought a big box of Huggies containing 264 of them from Sam's club for $40.
_____Diaper pail (with refills or bags as needed).
_____Diaper bag.
Diaper Dispenser - Diaper Genie is one brand and you have buy the pail for storing used diapers.
Bathing/Grooming
_____Plastic infant bathtub. Summer bath tub spa from BabiesRUs for $30.
_____Three soft hooded towels.
_____Two packs of baby washcloths.
_____Baby body wash that doubles as shampoo.
_____Pair of blunt-tip scissors or baby-sized nail clippers.
_____Zinc-oxide-based diaper rash ointment.
_____Soft brush and comb.
_____Mild laundry detergent.
Extras: Nice but optional
_____Baby monitor.
_____Changing table - New one in target for $80.
_____Changing Pad - Babies R Us carries this for $30.
_____A rocker or glider.
_____Sling or strap-on soft carrier. Walmart
_____Boppy, a Croissant-shaped pillow designed to make holding baby during breastfeeding or bottlefeeding easier. Bought it from Walmart $20. Very useful.
_____Nursing cover up. Attaches at your neck and allows for private breastfeeding when you and your baby are in public.
_____Infant swing - Fishcer Price Rain Forest in Amazon($112). Retail $140 in Babies R Us. If you are not buying Bassinet this is needed.
_____Bouncy seat/Bouncer.
_____Night-light. Any table lamb which is not brightly lit bulb would do. You don't want the kid in the dark, and you also want to sleep.
Some of these items could be bought at craigslist like the car seat and cribs. There is nothing wrong with that and do not feel guilty about doing that(like I did). Most parents are as careful as you and take good care of them.
Future Planning
529b plan for education.
I will add to this list as I learn my way along.
One of my friends posed this question 'Why have Kids?'. I could not answer it then, I don't have a right answer yet. That question never occurred to me. I just thought of it as a natural part of life. It was always a matter of when if not now. The question of when was answered with our planning of finances and career position. 'Should we?' was never raised. There was pressure from the grandparents and family but that did not alter our time frame. I could be philosophical about life being precious and that bringing one to the earth will be a right thing to do etc. But I am not philosophical. Now that my kid is here, she is a bundle of joy.
What does it cost?
This is a very touchy subject that raises a lot eyebrows and how dare he's. But the fact that kids cost a lot is a fact that one must be aware of before the plunge. From the day you know that your wife is pregnant, to the day the kids are independent and on their own, there are a lot of costs involved. I will summarize the immediate costs here and give a small estimate of what it might cost to raise one kid.
There will be monthly visits with your Obstetrician and in the ninth month there will be weekly visits. There will be 2-3 ultrasound scans of your wife for determining the wellness of your baby while inside. There might be emergency visits to the hospital. We had 3 emergency visits. One in the night and twice while she was at work. Luckily for my wife she works at a hospital and the emergency was a elevator button call away. But a good insurance is important. Find out what is covered and what is not. I have heard of scary stories where the bill came out to 25K etc. 25K might not be a lot for a few, but if you are an immigrant and just starting your life, it might mean a lot of debt for sometime. Some sites put the cost of delivery between $5,000-$8,000 for a normal vaginal delivery, up to $12,000 for a cesarean delivery. Of course this does not include other services like the suite, medication and health care in case of complications.
There will be stuff that you have buy for the infant baby that might cost 2K-3K depending on what and where you buy. I will list what to buy for the immediate few weeks and months later on. Then there is the cost of day care, play school, preschool, school, college education etc etc as they grow up. Here is a good summary of what it cost to have a baby. The calculator by the US Department of agriculture puts the annual cost of an infant at $20,500. The longer term cost to raise to the age of 17 at about 270K that's about $16K/annum. The first few years could be more expensive if you plan to have them in a day care or have a part-time/full-time nanny. Full time nanny can be $1500-$2500 out of your pocket. If you plan to fund their college education as most parents do add another 100K-150K. Basically what you could save towards your retirement would be channeled towards raising your kid.
What to buy before the kid is born?
I have listed the most items in the next section, but what I list here are other care giving matters.
Cord Blood Storage - If your family has a history of cancer or diabetes, you might consider storing Cord blood of your infant. Cord blood is the blood in the cord that could be collected at the time of delivery and stored for later usage. Cures to about 40 diseases have been found with stem blood. We have used Stembanc and it cost us about 2K including the registration and 20 years storage. There are other places like Cord Blood registry and Viacord that were expensive. It is kind of medical insurance. There are places where they do the storage for free but the blood stored there could be used for research purposes and could be used for other persons if the blood matches them. Utilizing private firms like Stembanc would ensure that your kids blood is saved for future in case your kid might need it.
The second thing is to find from the hospital your wife is scheduled for labor/c-section if they need a pediatrician appointed beforehand. Some insurance firms might need that your pediatrician be within your network etc.
Third but not least find from your insurance provider how and within what time frame you need to add your infant to your insurance plan. Typically the first month is covered under the mother's plan and you should add your kid to the plan within that time frame.
What to buy for infants?
It makes sense to start buying the items listed below a few months ahead of time as they list is quite big and procuring them is very time consuming. I bought most of the items from Walmart as I found them to be the cheapest and of same quality (many times same products at a far lower prices than Target or Babies R Us).
-----------
Tooling Around
_____Car seat - Infant Car Seat up to one year. You need a car seat to take your kid home. The nurse will come and inspect the safety of your car seat and I heard that they won't let your take your kid home unless you have a car seat. I was not sure about it but did not want to risk the safety of my kids. I bought Graco travel system.
_____Stroller -
_____Travel System - I bought Graco Travel system(carseat+stroller) for $155 at Walmart.
_____Booster seat for kids 20lbs and up. Not need to buy now. Could be bought later on when the kid is about to complete 12 months.
Beds and linens
_____Crib (if you plan to have a bassinet, you do not need this immediately)
_____Crib mattress. About $50-$70 at Walmart
_____Bassinet/cradle (if you don't want to put your baby in a crib right away. This could be good for only 3-6 months). $80 at Walmart
_____Two to three fitted crib sheets.
_____Four or more waffle-weave cotton receiving blankets for swaddling baby.
_____Two mattress pads.
_____One to two waterproof liners (for crib or bassinet).
Swing/Rocker to make your infant sleep
_____Rocker - Fisher Price
_____Swing - Fisher Price
Diapers
_____Diapers. Disposables: One 40-count package of newborn (birth weight under 8 pounds) or of size 1 (birth weight over 8 pounds). Cloth: Two to three dozen, plus six to 10 snap-on, waterproof outer pants, and two to three sets of diaper pins, eight to 10 all-in-ones or diaper system covers;two to three dozen diaper system inserts. I bought a big box of Huggies containing 264 of them from Sam's club for $40.
_____Diaper pail (with refills or bags as needed).
_____Diaper bag.
Diaper Dispenser - Diaper Genie is one brand and you have buy the pail for storing used diapers.
Bathing/Grooming
_____Plastic infant bathtub. Summer bath tub spa from BabiesRUs for $30.
_____Three soft hooded towels.
_____Two packs of baby washcloths.
_____Baby body wash that doubles as shampoo.
_____Pair of blunt-tip scissors or baby-sized nail clippers.
_____Zinc-oxide-based diaper rash ointment.
_____Soft brush and comb.
_____Mild laundry detergent.
Extras: Nice but optional
_____Baby monitor.
_____Changing table - New one in target for $80.
_____Changing Pad - Babies R Us carries this for $30.
_____A rocker or glider.
_____Sling or strap-on soft carrier. Walmart
_____Boppy, a Croissant-shaped pillow designed to make holding baby during breastfeeding or bottlefeeding easier. Bought it from Walmart $20. Very useful.
_____Nursing cover up. Attaches at your neck and allows for private breastfeeding when you and your baby are in public.
_____Infant swing - Fishcer Price Rain Forest in Amazon($112). Retail $140 in Babies R Us. If you are not buying Bassinet this is needed.
_____Bouncy seat/Bouncer.
_____Night-light. Any table lamb which is not brightly lit bulb would do. You don't want the kid in the dark, and you also want to sleep.
Some of these items could be bought at craigslist like the car seat and cribs. There is nothing wrong with that and do not feel guilty about doing that(like I did). Most parents are as careful as you and take good care of them.
Future Planning
529b plan for education.
I will add to this list as I learn my way along.
Labels:
Life,
New Parents,
Parenthood
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Introducing the New Alla
June 2, 2009 12:41:12 PM. That is the time when our precious little one was born. I want to share some of my experiences and old wives tales of the wise people in determining the sex and others. I will also try to answer some of the most commonly asked question from friends and folks at work.
We were hoping to have a baby a little later in the year when my wife would be in her last year of residency. The schedule for third year residents tends to be easy. But our baby decided to come a few months early.
To confirm the pregnancy, we tested thrice with pregnancy kits from the Pharmacy stores. The first two were inconclusive. We thought that the cycle was just delayed. A couple weeks later we tried one more time and the kit this time confirmed it. My wife panicked as she was not prepared for all that is going to happen. Most of all she was worried that she had to upset the schedule at work and thereby causing inconvenience to her colleagues. With due persuasion from me, and our first visit with our family physician(who also happens to be her Program Director) her worries subsided and we scheduled our first appointment with our OBGYN doctor. We were confirmed of our expectancy and we were elated.
The First trimester and the first month of the Second Trimester were testing times, especially for my wife. She had severe morning sickness and those mornings lasted 16 hours for her. There were couple days where she was admitted to the emergency due to dehydration from the morning sickness. She was persistent, strong and continued her work. She also managed to reschedule all her overnight calls to the second trimester. That turned out to be very helpful. Having my Mother-in-Law with us is also a positive thing. She was there when my wife needed her support during the tough period. As for me, the only thing I went through was the usual stuff - am I ready for this, can I handle it, were we jumping ahead of ourselves, are we financially stable enough to make this plunge. I did not let my wife know these thoughts then. But all those concerns do not worry me anymore.
The second trimester was relatively easier one for us all. We knew it was a girl on our second scan. We were excited as I always wanted my first baby to be a girl. The good times lasted only a few weeks. She started having severe back pains and other discomforts. We had to get back our Mother-In-Law so we could manage at home. The third trimester was the middle ground, it was better than the first but worse than the second. The baby got heavier and my wife could barely walk. Her work kept her on her feet most of the time which was unlike my job which keeps me on my bottom most of the time. We felt we should have switched jobs just for the few months.
Here are some of old wives tales, we came across, that tried to predict the sex and when the baby was going to be delivered. If the morning sickness last long it's a Girl. Turned out to be true. If you see the back and can tell if the lady is pregnant then it's going to be a girl, otherwise a boy. This prediction turned out false in our case. The story behind this is that the Girls will have a round belly, while boys will have a big front belly. My wife had a front belly and not so round one. Then there is this one. Boys will be less active all along the pregnancy period, not troubling the mom and become very active the last few weeks. They also come out early(< 39 weeks). The girls on the hand provide all sorts of discomfort to the mother and are highly active in their movements during the pregnancy period. But girls feel cozy and not so active during the last few weeks. They also take longer to come out(39+ weeks). Also get this, apparently if the kid is born in the day, they sleep mostly in the day and not so much during the night and vice versa. This means trouble to us as our kid was born almost mid day(12:41:12 PM).
We named our kid Poorvaja Maala. Poorvaja according to Hindu Epic books means 'One who preceded everyone' or 'One who was born before everyone' from whom everyone else came. Maala is the middle name of my kid named after our grandma Maha Lakshmi. Took Ma and La from her name and joined them - Maala means garland.
The week before the delivery, I started reading the book 'Hot, Flat and Crowded' by Thomas L. Friedman. I dropped it after a few chapters into the book, as I could not take the patronizing attitude of the author. I am a beneficiary of the flat world and I was welcoming a new life to this hot world. When my kid is sleeping on my shoulder, when her cheek caresses the cove of my neck, the world doesn't seem crowded at all. Malthusian economics - forget about it.
Photos Here
Video - Work in Progress
FAQs Here
But the amazing part of all this experience is that the transition from a carefree person to a slow going, caring, over sensitive guy happens the moment the kid is placed in your hands. All credit goes to our Sweety(Granmom's nick name)
We were hoping to have a baby a little later in the year when my wife would be in her last year of residency. The schedule for third year residents tends to be easy. But our baby decided to come a few months early.
To confirm the pregnancy, we tested thrice with pregnancy kits from the Pharmacy stores. The first two were inconclusive. We thought that the cycle was just delayed. A couple weeks later we tried one more time and the kit this time confirmed it. My wife panicked as she was not prepared for all that is going to happen. Most of all she was worried that she had to upset the schedule at work and thereby causing inconvenience to her colleagues. With due persuasion from me, and our first visit with our family physician(who also happens to be her Program Director) her worries subsided and we scheduled our first appointment with our OBGYN doctor. We were confirmed of our expectancy and we were elated.
The First trimester and the first month of the Second Trimester were testing times, especially for my wife. She had severe morning sickness and those mornings lasted 16 hours for her. There were couple days where she was admitted to the emergency due to dehydration from the morning sickness. She was persistent, strong and continued her work. She also managed to reschedule all her overnight calls to the second trimester. That turned out to be very helpful. Having my Mother-in-Law with us is also a positive thing. She was there when my wife needed her support during the tough period. As for me, the only thing I went through was the usual stuff - am I ready for this, can I handle it, were we jumping ahead of ourselves, are we financially stable enough to make this plunge. I did not let my wife know these thoughts then. But all those concerns do not worry me anymore.
The second trimester was relatively easier one for us all. We knew it was a girl on our second scan. We were excited as I always wanted my first baby to be a girl. The good times lasted only a few weeks. She started having severe back pains and other discomforts. We had to get back our Mother-In-Law so we could manage at home. The third trimester was the middle ground, it was better than the first but worse than the second. The baby got heavier and my wife could barely walk. Her work kept her on her feet most of the time which was unlike my job which keeps me on my bottom most of the time. We felt we should have switched jobs just for the few months.
Here are some of old wives tales, we came across, that tried to predict the sex and when the baby was going to be delivered. If the morning sickness last long it's a Girl. Turned out to be true. If you see the back and can tell if the lady is pregnant then it's going to be a girl, otherwise a boy. This prediction turned out false in our case. The story behind this is that the Girls will have a round belly, while boys will have a big front belly. My wife had a front belly and not so round one. Then there is this one. Boys will be less active all along the pregnancy period, not troubling the mom and become very active the last few weeks. They also come out early(< 39 weeks). The girls on the hand provide all sorts of discomfort to the mother and are highly active in their movements during the pregnancy period. But girls feel cozy and not so active during the last few weeks. They also take longer to come out(39+ weeks). Also get this, apparently if the kid is born in the day, they sleep mostly in the day and not so much during the night and vice versa. This means trouble to us as our kid was born almost mid day(12:41:12 PM).
We named our kid Poorvaja Maala. Poorvaja according to Hindu Epic books means 'One who preceded everyone' or 'One who was born before everyone' from whom everyone else came. Maala is the middle name of my kid named after our grandma Maha Lakshmi. Took Ma and La from her name and joined them - Maala means garland.
The week before the delivery, I started reading the book 'Hot, Flat and Crowded' by Thomas L. Friedman. I dropped it after a few chapters into the book, as I could not take the patronizing attitude of the author. I am a beneficiary of the flat world and I was welcoming a new life to this hot world. When my kid is sleeping on my shoulder, when her cheek caresses the cove of my neck, the world doesn't seem crowded at all. Malthusian economics - forget about it.
Photos Here
Video - Work in Progress
FAQs Here
But the amazing part of all this experience is that the transition from a carefree person to a slow going, caring, over sensitive guy happens the moment the kid is placed in your hands. All credit goes to our Sweety(Granmom's nick name)
Labels:
Life,
New Parents,
Parenthood
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Flea Markets and Coconut Candy
I have a lively bunch at work that I lunch together with. The Philadelphia Metro was running a full page on the last page on a local Flea Market in Philadelphia. This lead to a discussion about Flea Markets.
I have been to several of them in Pennsylvania and these markets could be a good pastime with a bunch of people selling their used wares and folks bargaining with them. One of my lunch mate is an intern doing her Master's at Drexel. I recommended her to go to the advertised flea market. The only other colleague at the table that day was a naturalized British who like me is also very fond of flea markets. That was one thing a British and an Indian could agree upon.
We were all sharing our experiences and teaching the newbie at what to expect and what not to. Flea markets bring out the entrepreneurial abilities of people in surprising ways. I am not talking about the junk that people sell on their tables. But here are some instances that might throw a better light.
One guy at a flea market had a van with electric generator. He would charge a small fee for testing any equipment that runs on electricity like a toaster or a blender. Personally this is a great idea. It is better to test your precious junk bought at the flea market than to go home and be disappointed when it doesn't work (like the all-in-one printer I bought). The guys surely had enough business to make his trip worthwhile. Remember that this is a big flea markets that spans multiple acres and close to 100 vendors.
One vendor would have a makeshift table with not so salable items on it. But he would be drinking a soda with a cooler under the table or next to him. The people coming to his table, seeing him drink soda and a cooler next to him inquire 'Where did you get that? Do you have more?'. He would then sneak out a bottle/can and take a buck or whatever he takes. The deal is that you are not allowed to sell eatables and drinks in some flea markets. This guy was catering to a demand with a sneaky supply of his own undermining the non-suspect authority.
What strikes me surprising about these eventful flea markets and yard sales are that they are unique to USA. At least they are not to be found in India. I assumed that this must be an American thing, but I was not sure if that existed in Europe since culturally America has a lot in common with Europe.
I have never seen anybody setup a yard sale or a flea market in my hometown. I mentioned this to my British friend and he was surprised to hear that. I explained to him that we rarely sell items to regular folks. Our junk are mostly donated to others in need down the social economic ladder. The junk are sometimes sold to or bartered with street hawkers. I narrated several commodities like paper(newspaper, books), iron(cooking utensils, old broken tools, left over iron rods from house construction), aluminum(cloth hangers, bulbs, wires) etc.
I narrate the same with detail below at the expense of risking my image. My narrative later could be misconstrued for having a childhood like the kids from the Christian Child Fund promotion that airs on TV regularly. The Christian Child Fund is rechristening to 'Child Fund International' to better market itself to a wider audience leading to an uproar(Video here) by the conservative media at Fox News. But perception is reality in most cases. 'The organization shed its religious teachings more than 30 years ago'. The organisation was perceived as a Christian Charity by having a Christian in it's name. In it's efforts to shed a religious image and reach a wider audience they are apparently losing their current Christian donors. Isn't that a irony. Shouldn't charity be done irrespective of the religion? But I digress
There used to be newspaper hawkers who bought used newspapers. English newspapers like The Hindu would fetch more(when sold by issues) than the native newspapers for whatever reasons. I think the English newspapers had more leaves in those days. The newspapers would fetch Rs.4 per Kilogram (little less than 4 cents/pound) in the late 80's. Then there are the used clothes that would be exchanged for Steel Utensils. The housewives of AP(Sree Lakshmi comes to mind immediately) were notorious for selling their old clothes in exchange for these vessels and were made fun of in several Telugu movies especially in movies by Late Mr.Jandhyala who was very famous for his subtle clean humor in Telugu movie industry.
My favorite vendor was the aluminum hawker who would exchange aluminum metal(anything aluminum) for a coconut candy (Kobbari Mithai). It definitely must be my pre-teen age, but I still remember it vividly. I would stash any item made of aluminum so I can exchange them ounce for ounce of the savory coconut candy. I would save the broken hangers(they used to be made of aluminum in those good old days). The metal end of light bulbs (both incandescent and tube light) were also a part to the cause. We would hang around the electric pole whenever there was work going on there. The crew from APSEB (Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board) left behind some electric cable that contained aluminum in them. Luckily for us we had an electric pole right in front of our home and we had frequent maintenance requests by our neighbors. I thought the coconut candy exchanged for the aluminum was worth the trouble of collecting them. In retrospection, some of the stuff we did was highly hazardous. Breaking a bulb or a tube light is dangerous and accident prone. All this to extract out a few grams of aluminum to exchange them for a few grams of coconut candy to be shared by four(we were four siblings who had equal stake in the candy).
Some hawkers would barter onions and/or munchies like roasted chana (chick peas) for old iron and other metal items. Other than the above there are other means where one can buy and sell used items in India. Used book stores at Barracks in Vizag and Koti in Hyderabad comes to mind quickly. Then there was also an auction house of used items near Nehru Bazaar in Vizag where my dad bought a sewing machine. Well the sewing machine had no table where the sewing machine could sit and hence the sewing machine stayed unused for almost a decade until my sister got married and took it home with her (It was one of the several parting gifts that still continue to date). The story of the sewing machine is for another day.
My colleague doesn't recollect if there were any flea markets in Europe as he came to USA when he was very young. His cousin from Belgium is visiting him soon and he promised to ask him about it. But I could not wait for my colleague's cousin's story. So I used the help of our dear good friend Google to find some answers. From what I could find, flea markets might have started in Paris where they were called Le Marche aux Puces which literally means market of the fleas. The Parisian's those days were highly unoriginal - they named the market 'Le Marche aux Puces' as they used to find fleas in the wares sold at these places. If French were not so subtle, the English were not any better, the translation 'Flea Markets' appeared in English sometime in the 1920's. The history is not so good, but the continuation of the legacy is.
I have been to several of them in Pennsylvania and these markets could be a good pastime with a bunch of people selling their used wares and folks bargaining with them. One of my lunch mate is an intern doing her Master's at Drexel. I recommended her to go to the advertised flea market. The only other colleague at the table that day was a naturalized British who like me is also very fond of flea markets. That was one thing a British and an Indian could agree upon.
We were all sharing our experiences and teaching the newbie at what to expect and what not to. Flea markets bring out the entrepreneurial abilities of people in surprising ways. I am not talking about the junk that people sell on their tables. But here are some instances that might throw a better light.
One guy at a flea market had a van with electric generator. He would charge a small fee for testing any equipment that runs on electricity like a toaster or a blender. Personally this is a great idea. It is better to test your precious junk bought at the flea market than to go home and be disappointed when it doesn't work (like the all-in-one printer I bought). The guys surely had enough business to make his trip worthwhile. Remember that this is a big flea markets that spans multiple acres and close to 100 vendors.
One vendor would have a makeshift table with not so salable items on it. But he would be drinking a soda with a cooler under the table or next to him. The people coming to his table, seeing him drink soda and a cooler next to him inquire 'Where did you get that? Do you have more?'. He would then sneak out a bottle/can and take a buck or whatever he takes. The deal is that you are not allowed to sell eatables and drinks in some flea markets. This guy was catering to a demand with a sneaky supply of his own undermining the non-suspect authority.
What strikes me surprising about these eventful flea markets and yard sales are that they are unique to USA. At least they are not to be found in India. I assumed that this must be an American thing, but I was not sure if that existed in Europe since culturally America has a lot in common with Europe.
I have never seen anybody setup a yard sale or a flea market in my hometown. I mentioned this to my British friend and he was surprised to hear that. I explained to him that we rarely sell items to regular folks. Our junk are mostly donated to others in need down the social economic ladder. The junk are sometimes sold to or bartered with street hawkers. I narrated several commodities like paper(newspaper, books), iron(cooking utensils, old broken tools, left over iron rods from house construction), aluminum(cloth hangers, bulbs, wires) etc.
I narrate the same with detail below at the expense of risking my image. My narrative later could be misconstrued for having a childhood like the kids from the Christian Child Fund promotion that airs on TV regularly. The Christian Child Fund is rechristening to 'Child Fund International' to better market itself to a wider audience leading to an uproar(Video here) by the conservative media at Fox News. But perception is reality in most cases. 'The organization shed its religious teachings more than 30 years ago'. The organisation was perceived as a Christian Charity by having a Christian in it's name. In it's efforts to shed a religious image and reach a wider audience they are apparently losing their current Christian donors. Isn't that a irony. Shouldn't charity be done irrespective of the religion? But I digress
There used to be newspaper hawkers who bought used newspapers. English newspapers like The Hindu would fetch more(when sold by issues) than the native newspapers for whatever reasons. I think the English newspapers had more leaves in those days. The newspapers would fetch Rs.4 per Kilogram (little less than 4 cents/pound) in the late 80's. Then there are the used clothes that would be exchanged for Steel Utensils. The housewives of AP(Sree Lakshmi comes to mind immediately) were notorious for selling their old clothes in exchange for these vessels and were made fun of in several Telugu movies especially in movies by Late Mr.Jandhyala who was very famous for his subtle clean humor in Telugu movie industry.
My favorite vendor was the aluminum hawker who would exchange aluminum metal(anything aluminum) for a coconut candy (Kobbari Mithai). It definitely must be my pre-teen age, but I still remember it vividly. I would stash any item made of aluminum so I can exchange them ounce for ounce of the savory coconut candy. I would save the broken hangers(they used to be made of aluminum in those good old days). The metal end of light bulbs (both incandescent and tube light) were also a part to the cause. We would hang around the electric pole whenever there was work going on there. The crew from APSEB (Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board) left behind some electric cable that contained aluminum in them. Luckily for us we had an electric pole right in front of our home and we had frequent maintenance requests by our neighbors. I thought the coconut candy exchanged for the aluminum was worth the trouble of collecting them. In retrospection, some of the stuff we did was highly hazardous. Breaking a bulb or a tube light is dangerous and accident prone. All this to extract out a few grams of aluminum to exchange them for a few grams of coconut candy to be shared by four(we were four siblings who had equal stake in the candy).
Some hawkers would barter onions and/or munchies like roasted chana (chick peas) for old iron and other metal items. Other than the above there are other means where one can buy and sell used items in India. Used book stores at Barracks in Vizag and Koti in Hyderabad comes to mind quickly. Then there was also an auction house of used items near Nehru Bazaar in Vizag where my dad bought a sewing machine. Well the sewing machine had no table where the sewing machine could sit and hence the sewing machine stayed unused for almost a decade until my sister got married and took it home with her (It was one of the several parting gifts that still continue to date). The story of the sewing machine is for another day.
My colleague doesn't recollect if there were any flea markets in Europe as he came to USA when he was very young. His cousin from Belgium is visiting him soon and he promised to ask him about it. But I could not wait for my colleague's cousin's story. So I used the help of our dear good friend Google to find some answers. From what I could find, flea markets might have started in Paris where they were called Le Marche aux Puces which literally means market of the fleas. The Parisian's those days were highly unoriginal - they named the market 'Le Marche aux Puces' as they used to find fleas in the wares sold at these places. If French were not so subtle, the English were not any better, the translation 'Flea Markets' appeared in English sometime in the 1920's. The history is not so good, but the continuation of the legacy is.
Labels:
Culture,
Flea Market,
Yard Sale
Friday, May 8, 2009
A to Z easy, Z to A not so easy Mr.K
The basic law of physical distances is that 'the distance between x and y is the same in either direction'. Like from the image below, if a person say Mr. K moves from Z to A, the distance to go back to Z (from A) should be same.
But that is true only when the all the basic conditions (environment) of Mr. K's homecoming to Z (from A) are same as they were before going to point A (from Z). But whenever human try to apply, mathematical laws to daily lives, the outcome sometimes is quite different than the expected. An example of this is the mathematical model (based on Random Brownian movement and heat diffusion principles) driven hedge funds trading by LTCM in stock market which lost huge money in the 1990's. LTCM was too big to fail in late 90's like Citi, Bank of America, AIG are too big to fail now in a nation that is getting too big to fail.
Going back to Mr. K, his expectation is normal. But now, as you can see in the image to the right, he faces many challenges to visit his home town Z. Now Mr. K has to go to R then to G to go to Z. This violation of basic law can be seen below where distance to go back from A → Z is sum of A → R, R → G, G → Z is lot greater than the distance from Z → A. Before I explain what A, G, R, Z are and who Mr.K is, I have to give a background story. All stories should start with once upon a time. No, this story is not about old times.
But that is true only when the all the basic conditions (environment) of Mr. K's homecoming to Z (from A) are same as they were before going to point A (from Z). But whenever human try to apply, mathematical laws to daily lives, the outcome sometimes is quite different than the expected. An example of this is the mathematical model (based on Random Brownian movement and heat diffusion principles) driven hedge funds trading by LTCM in stock market which lost huge money in the 1990's. LTCM was too big to fail in late 90's like Citi, Bank of America, AIG are too big to fail now in a nation that is getting too big to fail.
Going back to Mr. K, his expectation is normal. But now, as you can see in the image to the right, he faces many challenges to visit his home town Z. Now Mr. K has to go to R then to G to go to Z. This violation of basic law can be seen below where distance to go back from A → Z is sum of A → R, R → G, G → Z is lot greater than the distance from Z → A. Before I explain what A, G, R, Z are and who Mr.K is, I have to give a background story. All stories should start with once upon a time. No, this story is not about old times.
So a few weeks ago, I was talking to my colleague Mrs. Kikorov, aka Mrs. K. She was going on a week long vacation. Knowing her nationality, I inquired if she was going to Russia (you should have guessed what R is now). She said she was going to an island in the Pacific Ocean near Dominican Republic. I asked if she was going with the family. She replied 'With a friend'. I asked if her husband was Russian and she said, 'He was when we married'. His home is in an Internationally non-recognized self independence declared country called Abkhazia (Z).
She went nostalgic on mentioning Abkhazia. Apparently, Mr. Kikorov's home is walkable distance from the picturesque Black Sea. She proclaims that Abkhazia is a heaven of earth, with beautiful tourist destinations abound. There are several man made boundaries that prevent Mr. Kikorov visiting his home in Abkhazia. According to Mrs.Kikorov, our protagonist has to get a Visa in America (A) to go to Russia (R), then a Visa in Russia (R) to go to Georgia (G) and special permit in Georgia to go to Abkhazia (Z) and now Georgia does not permit anyone to go to Abkhazia. There is a lot of sectarian violence that goes on between Georgia and Abkhazia and there were 3 full fledged wars between the countries since 1991. The map of the region discussed above can be seen below.
View Larger Map
It is a shame to deny a person to visit his home in his homeland. I can only imagine the pain and anguish people felt during the division of India and Pakistan and the fate of Kashmiri Pandits driven away from Kashmir by the militants and violence in the valley. Not everyone is lucky to settle in a relatively safe land like America (A) outside their native homeland.
Coming back to our story, while man made physical barriers have prevented Mr. Kikorov from visiting his homeland, there are other non-physical but man made and self induced barriers that are preventing Mr. Kikorov joining his wife on the vacation to an alias to Abkhazia. Mr. Kikorov is a business man in Philadelphia who owns a restaurant. The recession (excess leverage induced which is ultimately man-made) has hit his restaurant business badly.He could not afford to close the restaurant and go on a vacation with his wife. So off goes Mrs. Kikorov to an island near the coast of Mexico with her friend.
While bad-luck and responsibilities have restrained Mr. Kikorov, though she could go to the vacation Mrs. Kikorov does not seem to have avoided bad luck either. She had multiple phone calls, emails etc from her manager, her company HR asking her not to come to work within 96 hours of her returning back from the coast of Mexico. Little did she know that in two days into her vacation, Swine flu would break out in Mexico and the whole world is terrorized by the rumor of an impending pandemic. She had to convince the powers that she is healthy, did not come in contact with anyone with a flu on her vacation and that she did not actually go to Mexico.
Not knowing that she jumped through these hoops, I asked how her vacation during our weekly staff meeting. She replied 'And your next question is?' to which I joked 'You don't have swine flu right?'. The whole team joined me in poking fun at her. She gave the safety message for the week about Swine Flu.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Baby Shower
I had invited a bunch of our friends with their families to the Baby Shower of Seshu on April 25th, 2009. Seshu is due in 5 weeks time. Hopefully things will go well. The mother and baby are doing fine for now.
Some of my colleagues had asked me if I was having the Baby Shower in the Indian tradition or American. I tried to make it a mix of both traditions as I know neither of them completely well (just in this case). This is my first time attending or organizing a Baby Shower.
I had the ladies do their thing in Indian tradition at the beginning of the function. Our friends from New York city were gracious enough to bring the betel leaves and nuts for the function. I had the guests entertained with games like, Guess the Bag(s), Mummy's Tummy, How well do you know the Mommy and Blow the balloon. Indian food was served for lunch in a buffet style while these games were being played. I made the event a co-ed which I believe is an American way of doing it. If I not mistaken, the Indian(Andhra) equivalent-Seemantham is an all women event.
About 30 attended the function, as you will be seeing me counting somewhere in the video. We thank you for coming and bestowing your warm wishes on us. For those who could not make it, here is your chance to view the event via photos and video.
I have a new found respect for feature film editors and directors. You kind of fall in love with every frame of your product. In this case, my brother is the producer of the mother video which was about two hours long. But still, the event being personal to me, I developed an ownership feeling with it. To give a perspective, I spent more time editing the video than on planning and organizing the event. I have managed with terrible pain to edit the length of the video from almost 2 hours to about 15 minutes. So please, please watch the video. Here is the link to it.
I personally like paintings better than sculptures, 2D better than 3D, photos better than videos. So, here are the pictures from the function. As you can see Seshu is looking gorgeous as ever.
While I am anxiously waiting for the Baby, Seshu is very tired now and wants to have Baby out as early as possible. We thank you all for your well wishes and will send an update one more time when our baby is born.
Some of my colleagues had asked me if I was having the Baby Shower in the Indian tradition or American. I tried to make it a mix of both traditions as I know neither of them completely well (just in this case). This is my first time attending or organizing a Baby Shower.
I had the ladies do their thing in Indian tradition at the beginning of the function. Our friends from New York city were gracious enough to bring the betel leaves and nuts for the function. I had the guests entertained with games like, Guess the Bag(s), Mummy's Tummy, How well do you know the Mommy and Blow the balloon. Indian food was served for lunch in a buffet style while these games were being played. I made the event a co-ed which I believe is an American way of doing it. If I not mistaken, the Indian(Andhra) equivalent-Seemantham is an all women event.
About 30 attended the function, as you will be seeing me counting somewhere in the video. We thank you for coming and bestowing your warm wishes on us. For those who could not make it, here is your chance to view the event via photos and video.
I have a new found respect for feature film editors and directors. You kind of fall in love with every frame of your product. In this case, my brother is the producer of the mother video which was about two hours long. But still, the event being personal to me, I developed an ownership feeling with it. To give a perspective, I spent more time editing the video than on planning and organizing the event. I have managed with terrible pain to edit the length of the video from almost 2 hours to about 15 minutes. So please, please watch the video. Here is the link to it.
I personally like paintings better than sculptures, 2D better than 3D, photos better than videos. So, here are the pictures from the function. As you can see Seshu is looking gorgeous as ever.
While I am anxiously waiting for the Baby, Seshu is very tired now and wants to have Baby out as early as possible. We thank you all for your well wishes and will send an update one more time when our baby is born.
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