Thursday 14 March 2013

Learning the other language...!!


Almost three languages are spoken simultaneously in our household – English, Bengali & Hindi. But now a day we are trying hard to understand a fourth language which is Mishti’s language. Our little lady is on a mission to increase her vocabulary by manifold by every passing day. She would mimic whatever she hears. But most of the time she comes up with some new word which would refer to that original word. Thus a completely new lingo evolves which we try to comprehend by ‘hit & trial’ method.
As I spend more time with her than hubby, I am able to make out almost 80% of her gibberish. No, I won’t term it as gibberish as she tries her best to talk sense just that the words are in some alien form!!
Few of the typical words Mishti uses and have no link to the original word are:
Gaga – Nope, she is not talking about that shockingly dressed singer but she uses it for drinking water!
Gog – Any other water other than drinking water. I think she started saying ‘Jol’ (bong word for water) as gog and then evolved this gaga.
Boonu – This means button.
Kichin – We first thought it as ‘kitchen’…but later realized that she is referring to ‘chicken’!
Patta – Now this one is easy to guess – Pasta
Fitti – She calls herself Fitti (Mishti)
Pain – Here airplane is referred.
Boonoon - Balloon
Kaapi - ???? I don’t know what it is but she says it a lot and gets irritated when we do not understand.
There are lot many other words like ‘mino’, ‘panzi’ , ‘tabita’ , ‘tima’ which we are not able to decipher till now.
Apart from this she loves to read her books with us and her favorite are the animal & the vegetable book. So within her limits she tries to pronounce them and which results is calling Elephant  as phant, peacock- peepock, crocodile as koki, squirrel as skoowee, horse as show ( and she says taga-taga just after that), monkey as pumkey, capsicum as gumgum, cauliflower as flarr-flarr, cabbage as papage and so on.
She loves her mongi book ( mowgli- jungle book) a lot and pretends to read it loudly for constant 4.86 minutes at a stretch. I got her few panchatantra story books which has bright pictures with one story in a book. Mishti loves these books and make us to read those stories almost 80 times a day.
Another phrase she has picked up from me is : ‘Ehhh ehhh chhi chhi dirty’. So each time we come across any heap of sand, mud, or soil she would loudly parrot this phrase.
She has found this new silly game where we open Google images and she would say any word, I would type it and she would give amused look as soon as various images pops up. So, it goes like this:
Mishti: Dondey dondey (donkey)
I type it. Different pics of donkey flood the screen. Mishti claps vibrantly and says yayyy dondey dondey.
It continues with different words like ‘soap’, ‘shoes’, ‘clock’, ‘lion’, ‘bag’, ‘phone’ or any other words which she is aware of. But this game takes a hilarious turn when SG sits with her. He understands half of what she says and then types those words on pure guess. Result is: Mishti gets more irritated while not able to make her daddy understand what she want -  Daddy keeps on asking ‘Okay tell me what do you want’ – Mishti shrieking more in frustration!!

Wednesday 13 March 2013

Hit-back or Not!!

Few days back I witnessed a familiar incident in the lawn of my housing complex where many kids of age group 4-10 years were playing. Suddenly one of them pushed another kid after some verbal arguments and soon it turned out to be a freestyle wrestling show between those two boys.
One of the boys’ elder siblings of around 12 years of age appeared in the scene and started bullying the other kid. Few other kids also joined the fight and then it was utter chaos supplemented with loud cries by both the boys. They went back to their respective home and later in the evening we witnessed another round of verbal duel between their parents.
This incident compelled me to think that how would I react if my child is bullied or hit by some other kid. Even for that matter how should I tackle those incidences if my child gets involves in these kinds of fights. Although at present she is too small but within a couple of years I have to let her play with group of kids in my neighborhood.I can teach her not to hit others but what if this result in her getting bullied repeatedly.
Kids are generally taught to report these incidents to teachers in school & other adults when at home but I have witnessed that after sometime even people other than parents discourage the complains of the child and other kids might brand them as ‘cry baby’. Also, there would be times when no adult is nearby then the course of immediate solution remains translucent.
Read the complete post in Parentous :) Do share your views with comments.

Thursday 7 March 2013

Gearing up for CSAAM 2013


Reblogged from CSAAM 2013

Dear Friends,
April 2013 is a month away, and we are gearing up for the 3rd year of CSAAM. As you are all aware, through the month of April we talk about the menace of CSA across social media, via Facebook, twitter and blogs. We count on your support and participation as always.

Partnering us in our efforts this year will be organisations working in this field like Arpan, Tulir, Human Rights Watch as well as online initiatives like Blogadda and Womens Web.
You will see personal testimonials, expert advice, twitter chats, information sources, resources, workshops, an iPhone app and lots and lots of blog posts across the blogosphere.
We need to get people talking about this elephant in the room. If you would like to post on your blogs, do send us a tentative date, so we can schedule your post in. If you would like to participate in a twitterthon, do let us know. Even forwarding this email to anyone you think might be interested in participating and contributing would be welcome.
If you would like to add to the discussion or know somebody else who would, please note that we welcome entries
• mailed to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com OR
• posted as FB notes and linked to Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month Page OR
• posted on your own blog with the badge and linked to the main blog OR
• linked or posted on Twitter tagged twitter.com/CSAAwareness OR
• Anonymous contributions are accepted and requests for anonymity will of course be honoured.
• You can also support us simply by adding our the logo of the initiative to your blog’s sidebar. Grab the code below to do so http://csaawarenessmonth.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/batch-code-txt-2013.docx
• Please remember to send in a mail with all necessary links or just your input to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com so that we can track your contribution and make sure that it is not inadvertently lost or something.
Some guidelines
1) Please precede the title of your post with CSAAM April 2013. Then add a hyphen and your title.
2) Please insert the badge html in your post. If you carry it on your sidebar for the entire month of April too apart from just within your post, we would be honoured.
3) If you refer to sources for information kindly italicise that part of your post which is taken from the source and provide the link to the original source in a bracket.
4) And finally please avoid graphic descriptions of the abuse. Stay as factual as possible if you’re doing first person accounts.
We need all your help to make this month a success, and are counting on your support.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Warm regards,
CSAAM team

Tuesday 5 March 2013

Everything in this world comes with a price tag...

Everything in this world comes with a price tag!!. Why this sudden realization of materialistic nature of world cropped inside me? This insight actually keeps on popping in my head since my daughter was born.
I am a mom who has to take the charge of the turbulent ship of parenting of a 3 month old alongwith her hands-on spouse who was equally naive about parenting as her.  My mother was there to support me during my delivery and she stayed back for couple of months after that. But prolonging her stay was not a feasible option for her. Following months witnessed a completely different persona of mine. I fretted, got irritated and almost gave up lot many times. I took refuge of Google-dev, got myself enrolled in n-number of parenting forums and fished out internet to amplify my awareness about parenting nuances. My mobile phone bills soared with the long duration calls made to my mother & mother-in-law to discuss the changing color of poop of my daughter. Joining back to work became a distant option for me.
As time passed by, the level of challenges to be a nuclear mommy sky-rocketed.  Activities like taking bath & answering nature calls took record minimal time to get completed. Other household errands took place only when ‘her highness’ doze her beauty sleep. I went green with envy for those ladies who had the presence of elder generation at their home and enjoys the wonderful cushion of support system to handle their kids. Sometimes I also did felt selfish about my change of mindset about nuclear family, a concept which I liked till now.
But, few interaction with one of my neighbor who was incidentally a new mom (her kid is only few months elder to mine) staying in a joint family set up compelled me to review the backdrop of my cribbing. 
Read the complete post in Parentous :) Do share your views with comments.



Monday 4 March 2013

When the Signal Turns Red - Book Review


Snapshot:

A global ordeal
A couple in distress
The struggle to keep afloat
Prudent thinking in tumultuous times

Girish and Prajakta are in love. Very soon Girish will be joining the numero uno IT company of the country. He prepares himself by buying expensive clothes and other accessories he had always dreamed of. He and Prajakta have together planned to build on a good bank balance and then meet each other’s families to talk about marriage, probably after a year or two. Unexpectedly, the families get involved before Girish can join the IT Company. Against all odds, the couple manages to convince their family and an engagement date is fixed. But destiny has other things in mind. A global catastrophe mars their plan which leads to the engagement getting annulled. 

Will Girish find a way out of his predicament? Will he ultimately win Prajakta’s hand or will he move on in life, learning to live without her? 

My Take:

I received this book as a review copy from the Author. This is his debutant work. A simple, fast paced book revolving around the life of handful of characters within a span of a month. The plot of the book involves the journey of love stung couple who fights with turbulent circumstances knitted by fate with strings of Global financial recession. Many people who are associated with multi-national corporate sector can very well relate to this book which portrays the financial recession as the catalyst of chaos in the life of main protagonists. 

The language of the book is very simple but quite indianized and the length of the book (198 pages) is comfortably manageable. I finished this book in my metro ride from Gurgaon to Noida. However, I feel that few sub plot blended with the main story could have added that extra zing to the book. The lucid character sketch of lead characters remains as mild dampener however too much detailing has been included in few parts of the book. Those pages gave me feel of reading a screenplay of any movie or TV soap where minuscule facets about less important things have been elaborated to the core which could have been trimmed. 

Also, the end was bit abrupt and I would have loved to read about few good moments spent by the main couple after the tempest settles down. Overall, a one-time read which you can enjoy in journeys or bed-time with a relaxed mind.


  • Title - When the Signal turns Red
  • Author - Jayanand Ukey
  • Publisher - Alchemy Publishers
  • Pages - 198
  • Price - Rs. 175
  • My Rating - 3/5