The day when they missed each other!

December 2nd morning:

He is all set to go, but he doesn't really know where he is going! All that he probably knows is “I am going with them”. He has absolutely no fear as it is like any other day for him. But she certainly has a fear some where in the corner of her mind that how he would react without her though the decision was already taken, i.e. to be with him for a week or so till he gets accustomed to the new environment.

The initial couple of days she accompanied him and the days passed without much trouble. But there was a strong resistance from him to stay there without her and mingle with the rest. Multiple attempts to encourage him had already failed. So had to make a new strategy.

Poor little Abhinav at 2.5 yrs of age hardly had any clue about this trap. The deal was for next couple of days I go with Abhinav without Mukta, stay there for about an hour and leave to office. She would join him little late once I leave. Abhinav was never exposed till date to stay without his mom and I could think this as one of the strategies to reduce his attachment with his mom. Even when I accompanied him in this play home, he was never willing to go with any one else. He always wanted to stay with me despite of my many attempts to convince him to play with other kids. My attempts to stay away only resulted in putting him in to tears which was really painful for me.

The next couple days passed like this. But even this strategy was not working well as Abhinav was not developing any attitude to engage himself with others and I was not in a position to go to office late every day! He used to continuously cry and was not even eating any thing during the snacks break. Worse, he used to pee almost regularly and some times vomit also. His painful crying face, gesturing he can't stay without me every time I had to leave him was literally killing me. The Strategy again had to be altered, but nothing profound we could think. The teachers said this is normal and you don’t have to be baby sitting next week onwards and they will take care. That certainly gave us some confidence.

The next week since I was occupied with some work, Mukta had to drop him and pick him back later in the afternoon. As Mukta narrates, the moment Abhinav sensed that she is leaving him he was uncontrollable and started crying vigorously. He was sobbing inconsolably. He was screaming “AMMA” (Mummy) helplessly and it was as if some one poking her intestine fiercely. She was determined not to think emotionally and had made up her mind. If not now at least in future he has to attend school. He had to learn to live without parents at least for few hours in a day! With this thinking she left the place to go back home.

Mind was disturbed a bit and was roaming aimlessly. But the subconscious mind was making an attempt to think that she forgot something while returning from the school. For a moment she thought whether it is mobile phone or purse. No they weren't. She kept on recalling what she had carried while taking Abhinav to the school only to realize when she reached home that “mother had left her soul” in the school. Throughout on her way she felt her hand was empty. The hand which always used to hold her son's hand every day while visiting a nearby park on the same road was not holding anything. Since the day he was born she had always accompanied him.

When I returned from office that day she could at least share her feelings with me. But the little baby could not express his emotions in any way. All that he said when asked if he cried in the school was "yes, he did". He was too young to give any reasons for it. All that he could say was "Summane" (i.e. cried just like that). It was difficult for me even to imagine putting myself in his position :-(


Many a times we as parents create an environment where our kids develop an attitude to depend on us for every small thing and all of a sudden we expect them to stay away from us at such an early age. Seems inhuman (or I don't know how to put it across). I think the urban system is making all this happening. I can not think of any other acceptable alternative either!

Trip to Wayanad (18th Sept - 21st Sept )

Wayanad was one of the southern destinations I always wanted to visit and this time decided to go with my family and Vivek along with his wife accompanied me. Vivek is my hostel batch mate in Davangere during engineering.

To maximize our stay in Wayanad we thought of driving to Wayanad on 18th itself, but we were informed that after 6pm driving beyond Muthanga wildlife sanctuary is prohibited. So we decided to reach Mysore the previous day and the next day morning drive to Wayanad, which in fact worked out well for us. We reached Mysore on 18th evening, visited K.R.S and stayed in a nearby Hotel that night.

I had booked our stay in a home stay “Sarah Jones” which belongs to Ashish’s uncle. The stay at Sarah Jones was pleasant w.r.t. it’s location which is surrounded by lush green vegetation all around. Also the facility was kept quite clean. But one has to drive half a kilometer through a patchy mud road to reach this facility which was bad and rain had made this more miserable. Another biggest problem I found was, nothing (like hotels, glossary shops etc) was available in the surroundings and to make it more miserable Sarah Jones did not have a cook to prepare food for you. Since we had no intention of cooking there, it was disappointing. However the staff was kind enough to arrange food from outside.
19th we could not visit any place as it started raining and all that we could do was to play badminton, chess and cricket for a while and went to Sultan Batheri for dinner.

On 20th we visited Soochipura waterfalls, Pookot Lake and Banasura Sagar Dam. Out of the three, Soochipura waterfalls we enjoyed the most (my kid Abhinav in particular). This falls is more or less like a Horsetail Waterfall. We could also get into the cold water stream, swim a bit and enjoy the water getting sprinkled all over. But reaching the location (and coming back) was no good fun, as we had to carry Abhinav who was
just 2 yrs then. Reaching the falls required more than 2 kms of walk across the mountain and more than hundred uneven steps.

Pookot Lake was no special for us as we had visited similar lakes in Ooty and Munnar. Neither had we found worth in spending money in taking a boat ride! The Aquarium there had hardly anything special to see. My friend Dr. Shesha in fact has much beautiful fishes in his aquarium at his clinic ;-)

Banasura Sagar Dam I would say is pretty good. Many small islands with the background of Banasura hill covered by thick cloud was producing a great sight. So the walking through the dam was quite enjoyable. This is the largest earth dam in India it seems. The speed boat ride was also pretty good, in the sense that, while going around those tiny green islands covered by cloud was indeed looking great!The next day, we wanted to return to Bangalore. So morning we visited “Edakkal Caves”. Reaching the top was more challenging than coming back from Soochipura falls! I managed to carry Abhinav for about 25% of the total distance, where they issue tickets. Little above to the ticket counter, there is a cleft. We decided not to carry Abhinav beyond this point as we found this would be risky. Since Abhinav was reluctant to stay with Vivek and Sahana, we had to split. I and Vivek went to the top first and later Vivek again accompanied Mukta and Sahana.
By the time we came back (to the point beyond which private vehicles are not allowed), it was already around 1pm. When we were about to move out of that place, Mukta asked me about my Camera which I had deposited at the counter and forgot to get it back! Errrrrrr….I again had to board the Jeep and run to reach the ticket counter! The authorities were kind enough not to charge me extra for this trip :-)
By the time we reached Sulthan Batheri for lunch it was around 2pm. We thought of visiting Muthanga Wildlife sanctuary but by the time we reached the Muthanga check post, it started drizzling and later started raining heavily. So all that we did there after was drive back to Bangalore.

Overall we enjoyed.

Within this 2 day trip we could not visit many places. And visiting places like Chembra Peak was not possible at that point of time and there was no intention too! In any case driving in Kerala is really fun. You feel like stopping every now and then and take some pics!

Will visit again!

Trip to Pondicherry (4th and 5th July)

This time we were 7 of us, so we went in a Toyota Innova! New entrant this time was Srinivas murthy Alias ‘Seena’. We started from office at around 7:30am and reached Pondy by 12.30pm.



Most of our earlier visits being hill stations, Pondy was a different experience. The resort where we stayed had big garden, play area & a swimming pool. The nicest among all was the location as it was attached to the beach. Though the food and service in the resort was not great, it was OK.





We visited only couple of places like Auroville & Aurobindo Aashram. Otherwise we roamed around the city, played cricket in the resort and roamed in the beach. Some of us bought few books written by Aurobindo and the Mother (Mirra Alfassa). I have not started reading any of the 4 books I bought so far! Hopefully soon.







On 4th night we visited the city at around 12:00 midnight, walked around the road besides the beach (I think it is Goubert Road), visited a 24x7 Coffee shop. The espresso at this hour was really wonderful to have!



Overall another pleasant short trip I would say!

Trip to Yercaud

After the Yellagiri trip last year, our team decided to visit Yercaud this time. After a lot of fuss the Sterling resort guys accepted to give us the facility on 14^th and 15^th of March. The sterling people seem to have this habit of saying “No facility available on Saturday/Sunday” even though they seem to have enough! I guess they want to balance between week ends and week days J

This time we had Selva’s Star performer gift voucher to use. But last moment he had to cancel his trip and rush to his native place to take care of his Dad who had met with an accident. But he happily let us use the gift voucher as the voucher was getting expired very soon. Dayanand was new entry this time.

On 14^th March morning around 7.45am we started from our office in my Chevy U-VA. The route is same as toYellagiri till Krishnagiri. From Krishnagiri instead of taking left we have to go straight till Salem. After Salem we had to drive about 32 km of ghat section, consisting of 22 hair pin curves. But the road till Yercaud is very good. We reached Sterling resorts at around 12.45pm. 5 Hrs for 230Kms I think is too much. But considering the amount of breaks we took I think it is OK!

Sterling facility in Yercaud is much better than Yellagiri. The location also is quite good though it is not facing any water body as such. The location of our room also was good with a very pleasant, lush green downhill view.

The resort has facilities like Table tennis, Carom, Chess, Badminton and a mini library. Surrounded by mini gardens and steps all over, it looked quite different.

On 16^th morning we started at around 5:30am and reached B’lore by 10:00am.