Whatever...

In my first post as a father, I intended to bring out what it is like to be a father. Basically, my life in the first three months of being a father. What I ended up doing instead was spend the real estate on the experience of Oorja's birth. So, here I am, trying to bring out how the first three months were. First and foremost, these three months were away from Shveta and Oorja. They both were in intensive care of Shveta's parents. Under the watchful eyes of the seasond grand parents and in close proximity to trusted medical facility. So, though I was relaxed because their looking after was assured, I was anxious all the time as they were away from me. As I visited them almost every alternate weekend, Oorja was growing into a new personality. She liked sleeping (probably all babies do) but had a very delicate sleep. So she would wake up at the slightest sound like someone coughing, rustling of paper or the likes. This meant all of were always on toes, literally! Besides, ...

I turn 31 tomorrow. That’s about half of my active life gone by. Out of these 31 years About 15 to 16 years, I have been allowed to take decisions for myself – thanks to my liberal parents. However, suddenly a feeling has dawned that I haven’t done enough. I haven’t written enough, haven’t travelled enough, not enough exercise, not enough photography…just a laid back life that passed by as I procrastinated. So, I decided to first have a clear idea of what I wanted to do in my life and then achieve them one by one. Not in any particular order, but just strike them out one after the other. So here goes – 1.       Get fitter. Be able to run at least 5 Kms , swim 1 Km and cycle 100 Kms without the need to be hospitalised after. 2.       Do a road trip of the GT road. The grand trunk road stretches from Calcutta to Punjab in India and even beyond into the neighbouring countries on either side. Travel this length, possibly with family. 3.     ...

I have been ogling at tablet PCs for quite some time. Though iPad always seemed out of reach, the launch of Samsung Tab looked like the arrival of a affordable option. But my experience with touch-screen android phones was not very good (details in further post). So I kept weighing my options of owning a tablet - should it be the only computing device I have, should I sell of the laptop and buy a tablet, what would be the best combination? And I never came to a clear conclusion. Something always pushed me away from a tablet. A few weeks ago in a casual conversation with a uncle, the answer emerged. A tablet computer was a consumer device. It gives a brilliant content consumption experience. Watching movies, reading blogs posts, playing games is awesome. But when it comes to creation, its a pain in the ass. My uncle owns a iPad2, supposedly the best tablet device of our time. But even he complained that a task as simple as responding to an email was laborious as compared to a laptop. ...

As I write this post, at 4 in the morning, my father in law is desperately trying to put our 3 month old daughter to sleep. He is the only other man in her life right now; other than me of course. Sometimes, she is more comfortable with him than with me. Similarly, she is comfortable with my mother in law. This got me thinking about my childhood. How was it with me? My maternal grandfather wasn't alive when I was born, so I don't have any memories of him. But I definitely remember my mother's mother. Then I realised that especially in India, most people have more attachment towards their maternal grandparents than the other set of grandparents. This is mostly true in case of nuclear families where grandparents are not staying with you. In my opinion this has it's roots in the tradition where an Indian lady stays with her parents during the delivery. Not only does the child hear the mother's parents while in the womb, but is handled by them right after birth. Most ...

Yesterday I completed 3 months as a father and I decided to write on this right away. For those of you who haven't had a child, let me try to put it how it is. It's like having a new person enter your life, without any personality or baggage. You don't know the personality that will enter your life, you are going to make that person who s/he is. So obviously, it is different from marriage. Is it a responsibility? Hell yes! But then so is zipping your pants. Why did I wait three months? It took me that long to figure out what was happening. So here goes... I always wanted a daughter. Everyone guessed from Shveta's looks, eating habits and what not that we would have a baby boy. But I deeply wanted a girl. Because I think girls are more balanced. Besides, a girl can do what a guy cannot but the vice a versa is not. Also, I wanted to bring up our daughter in a manner that would be unique with lots of freedom and adventure packed into her life. With a boy that would be...