Astrovelo

Following up my earlier entry with more photos taken around Charminar.

Charminar sits in the center of Hyderabad with lot of markets around it and with that comes all the traffic.

View from the Charminar.




Roadside stalls selling bangles.




Fruit market.






Pomegranates, anyone?

Started listening to “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. I had heard a lot about this book, but, it’s size always scared me. It is so much easier to ‘read’ anything with audible.com.

I already don’t like Howard Roark. He seems like an arrogant bastard. Let’s see if the rest of the book changes this first impression of the main character of the novel.

Yahoo! News - Mourners Brave Cold Night, Long Wait to See Pope

I don’t see the reason why people are doing this. There are many who are flying from US to spend hours in travel, then hours in the line to get in St. Peter’s and then 5 seconds with the Pope’s remains. Sure, I’ll go and pay respects to my relatives in same situation but, I can’t imagine doing this for anyone else. Maybe, I am missing something huge, please enlighten me.

We are just so pleased with Ashwini’s daycare. Her teachers are very nice and caring. Everyone who works there, has a degree in child development or child psychology or other children-related field. They actually have a curriculum for each child under their care. At first, I laughed at it, but, after seeing all the efforts they put in it, I know they take it very seriously.

Last week, we had a meeting with Ashwini’s teacher. It was a review of Ashwini’s development illustrated with photographs showing her perform certain activities and tasks. It was all summarised in big tables listing expected activities (classified as motor skills, cognitive skills, etc) for a certain age range and the date when Ashwini was actually doing that activity. If one of us was a stay-at-home parent, I doubt we would have known to chart out all of her development in this manner. We also received a big wad of Ashwini’s artwork. She used to be averse to all the art materials like paint and glue, calling it yucky. But, lately she has taken up all art with great enthusiasm. We have enough material to decorate several rooms, if one can call it ‘decorate’.

One of the milestone activities for 18-24 month old kids was ‘throwing a ball without falling down’. That was so funny. I couldn’t stop laughing the first time I read it. I still keep seeing an image of kids falling down as they threw balls.

According to her report, Ashwini is doing everything that she is supposed to do at her age. We couldn’t be happier.

One more thing that we like about this place is that there is no TV. All the teachers work very hard to keep the kids busy with books, toys, games, music and art activities. Even at home, we hardly let her watch any TV. It is not more than an hour a week. Ashwini is going to watch a lot of TV as she grows up, anyway. So, we would like to keep it at minimum as far as possible.

My children grew up in Ann Arbor and spent the first 20 years of their lives in this Winter Wonderland. Yet, they haven’t forgotten the sound of snow “crunching” under boots when it gets very cold. And their bodies had not forgotten what 10 degrees Fahrenheit feels like on your hands and face!

In Michigan, each day can be vastly different from the previous one. Every day we have to adjust our clothing, expectations, and attitude for the weather that we are given. My coping mechanism has been to embrace, with gusto, whatever is outside my door. The seasons have become a great adventure for me. I believe that children also see climate the same way— especially if they see delight and enthusiasm from the adults around them.

The teachers at GH are learning new ways to find delight and joy in the “winter wonderland” that Mother nature has so abundantly given us this year. Our Winter Staff Training will highlight outdoor science activities and projects to keep us busy before the thaw. Nature’s raw materials are free and far more interesting than anything manmade. Snow, ice, slush, mud, rocks, sticks, trees, hills, trails, logs, leaves, berries, etc. Our children love to shovel, smash, splash, throw, climb, squish, rake, bury, stack, and build. What would a childcare environment be like if we spent as much money on developing the outside as we do the inside?

When you ask a young child where s/he wants to play, the answer is nearly always— outside. At Gretchen’s House children and teachers go outside twice a day, everyday, or all day in the Spring, Summer and Fall. Only a wind chill factor below zero, an excessive heat index, or thunder and lightning will keep us inside.

We know that families do not get outside often during weekdays in the winter due to daylight savings time, so we make it a priority at our centers. We take seriously our responsibility to develop strong and healthy bodies with inquisitive minds. Thank you for supporting children’s love of the outdoors and healthy habits by bringing appropriate clothing for your child everyday and being a role model at home. Watch your child’s classroom for evidence of interesting outdoor adventures this season. If you have any good ideas for outdoor fun, pleaseshare them with us!

I bought one more pepsi drink… diet mountain dew this time. It had a free song too. So, I am 3 out of 3. I am pretty sure that I have used up all the good luck by now. The only regret is that I should have used it to buy a winning lottery ticket to get millions of dollars and not to win a 99 cent song.

• I hate it. I know all the reasons for it, but, many of them don't make any sense in this day and age. Everyone was robbed of one hour of sleep over the weekend. Ashwini wasn't happy about it this morning. She didn't want to wake up and then didn't want to do anything to get ready. aaarrghhhh.
• It would be nice to have cloudy skies every morning. We have to travel about 2 miles due east and the Sun just annoys Ashwini to no end. This on top of the time change was just a little too much for her this morning.

I was planning to post these photos for a long time, but, just didn’t get around to it.

kicking water




fetching a toy




kicking water on her back




dada doing a dunk




Ashwini’s turn for a dunk

The latest news about Mars:

Found: Water on Mars

The signs of spring are definitely here. All the snow has melted away. Had first of our spring showers last night and gardner’s friends are out in full force. And shoots of our tulips and daffodils are peeking out.

Today is 152nd birth anniversary of Vincent Van Gogh, one of the best post-impressionist artists. He suffered from a mental illness and committed himself to many sanatoriums to cure it. His illness and treatments had an effect on his perception and drawing. Here are two paintings made by him over a period of one year. Although the subject of both the paintings is the same, the differences in style are astronomical. The one on left is “Starry Night over the Rhone” from 1888 and the one on right is “The Starry Night” from 1889, one of his most famous paintings. He painted the second one while he was in mental asylum of Saint-Remy.

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He committed suicide about 13 months after he painted “The Starry Night”. The last year of his life was very productive. He did 150 paintings during that period; 70 in last 70 days. He died a pauper but, his paintings are priced at tens of millions of dollars today.

Both the photos taken from WebMuseum

Thousand salutations to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, on the occasion of his 375th birth anniversary

Photo taken in Jan2005 at kille Raigad, which was the capital of his kingdom.

viewed through a window.

India lost the last test match to Pakistan in Bangalore by 168 runs. It was just disgusting. Pakistani batsmen were playing as if the Indian bowlers were a bunch of school kids and our stalwarts except Sehwag, couldn’t even play through the day to end the match in a draw. Kumble could score 37 and Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman together make 37 and Ganguly was out on 2. Smacks of match-fixing. Or was it some political play? Be nice and don’t beat Pakistan, our loving brothers, in two test series in a row.

Whatever it was… it was fu(&ing disgusting.

India lost the last test match to Pakistan in Bangalore by 168 runs. It was just disgusting. Pakistani batsmen were playing as if the Indian bowlers were a bunch of school kids and our stalwarts except Sehwag, couldn’t even play through the day to end the match in a draw. Kumble could score 37 and Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman together make 37 and Ganguly was out on 2. Smacks of match-fixing. Or was it some political play? Be nice and don’t beat Pakistan, our loving brothers, in two test series in a row.

Whatever it was… it was fu(&ing disgusting.

Ashwini has learnt how to use these phrases correctly and she uses them at every opportunity she gets. If we are transfering food in her bowl or filling her glass of water, she always says, “too much, dada…  too much” and sometimes almost in a grandmotherly tone, “slowly, dada…  pour slowly… no spill”. When we are trying to talk her into putting her toy or book down to get ready in the morning or for bed, her response is, “not yet, dada…  not yet”. I must record these conversations. They are just too cute.