Whatever...

I have a 27 month (2 year +)  old daughter and she is a handful. Hence, my opinion in this post is not based on hearsay or from other parenting blogs, but from our experiences with our daughter. And like most learning, these have also majorly come from failing to communicate in the first place.  1. Kids don't understand sarcasm 2 year old kids are at the very nascent stages of communication learning curve. They don't understand complex of figure of speech like sarcasm or rhetorical questions. I'm sure every parent is aware but this point gets missed in the heat of the moment. So when your kid has just emptied an entire glass full of juice on your couch and you should 'neat! that should make you happy. no?'. They don't know what you mean! You are only spending your intellect on something totally uncalled for. 2. They are allowed to shout; you are not. It's not a parliament where you will win (or assume to have won) an argument by shouting on top...

This post is a result of a brief discussion I had with a dear friend over chai a few days ago. At various levels of our existence, we are always consuming something. Water, food, literature, information, petrol, music and Oxygen if not doing anything else. If we choose to be, we can be consumers forever, almost parasites. But then there is a part of us that wants to be 'creative'. We want to be making something, creating something. And to be creating something, we should be well aware of the consumer. A good photographer should have seen a lot of good photographs. A good actor should have seen a lot of good performances. You get the point! But then where do I draw the line? When does one say, 'Ok. I have seen enough, now let me do something about it!'. I am in a state right now where the social network and the Internet is showing diminishing returns. When someone shows me that '10 most beautiful photographs of 2013' post, I say to myself  "so what...

Let me leave this question unanswered by telling you a tale of 2 states - I belong to a place of abundant and free water - Goa. My village is self sustaining in terms of water ( in fact surplus) and hence water is free there. We have a well in our backyard that gives us enough water through the year. Though this is a function of geographical advantage that Goa has, we have taken extra efforts to deploy rain water harvesting to recharge our well. The government as well has a water shed development program across the state. In other words, we earn our water.  I currently reside in a water deficit place - Hyderabad. Hyderabad is so unplanned and densely populated that it is almost impossible to make it self sustaining for water. Last summer, we ran out of water (like every other summer). Our bore-wells (that run thousands of feet deep) ran dry. The tankers took care of our water needs. These tankers were filled on government owned bore-wells in nearby villages. And one day t...