Handicapped..who?

Two days ago as I was watching this video of Jessica Cox, Betu came over to my side to see what I was watching. He asked me who is this person. I told him this girl doesn't have any hands and can still fly a plane. I showed him how she uses her legs deftly and manouvers the airplane so beautifully. He kept watching and when she started to play piano with her legs he asked me why she was playing with her legs. I again reminded him that she doesn't have hands. He then asked me "par woh apne pair se kyun kar rahi hai? Pair nahi lagate na? Gandi baat hoti hai na?" I knew where this came from. I always tell him not to step on books and toys and he was repeating what I have been telling him. I tried to explain and reason but he was not convinced. I knew it would be difficult to explain.

He continued to ask me questions about her and how she does things and I tried to answer as best as I could. During the conversation I asked him to thank God for making us healthy. The moment I said that I felt my statement was wrong. Having 2 eyes, 2 ears, one mouth, 2 hands and 2 legs doesn't make us healthy. Its your heart, mind and your physical abilities in totality that make us 'healthy'. Even if one bit is missing, it will be a state of unhealthiness.

And just because we cannot think of suriving and doing things without our hands or without legs, we call others as handicapped or as disabled? Isn't the other way round? Aren't we the ones who are handicapped?

My discussion with Betu left me pondering for long on the whole aspect of our being and calling us abled. The impact the video had on Anirudh, I realised only the next day morning. After he had woken up and was snuggling with me, he asked me again about the video and the 'girl' in the video. His questions were endless - "How she would brush her teeth? How would she drink her duddhu? How would she take her bath? How would she wear her clothes? How would she wear her shoes?" and it went on and on. I again tried to answer to my best and in the end told him "Betu, agar aap try karoge to sab ho jaata hai.".

And I closed the topic at that. I felt it was enough for him at such a young age. But it sure is a topic which we grownups should think and do something to change our attitude towards life.

Laughter

Yesterday night while I was ironing in our bedroom, I could hear Betu squealing with laughter every now and then. And once he just kept on laughing really hard. (He was in the living room watching some cartoon.) And hearing his laughter I started to laugh too. Not those little laughs but good loud ones.

Hubby was also there in the bedroom and when he heard me laughing he asked me what was I laughing at. At first I said "Kuchh nahi" but when he insisted I just drew his attention to Betu's laughter which was still going on. And then Hubby also couldn't help smiling and laughing a bit himself.

And then hubby and me looked at each other and smiled. We both had a feeling of contentment. Of happiness. And suddenly I was feeling so relaxed after a long day at work.

Whoever said that "Laughter is contagious" and "Laughter is the best medicine" was so very right.

Pictures from the Manali Trip

Here are the pictures from the Manali trip that I wrote about earlier.

Morning sky enroute to Manali

A submerged temple in river Beas

River Beas

Hot Water Spring @ Manikaran

Evening Sky enroute to Manali from Manikaran

View of snow caped mountains from our room

Me and Betu all set for zorbing

Betu enjoying the snow

Ooh..the snow is sooo cold..brrr...

Trip to Manali - January 2009

We finally managed to plan and go for a trip to Manali after pondering and some more pondering to utilize a three day long weekend. Betu's demands of wanting to see snow actually made it easier for us to decide what place to go. Manali was the closest destination where we could see some snow. So off we went there along with another family. Their son and Anirudh have been daycare buddies since the past 3 years and now thanks to the kids we parents are quite pally too.

Jan 23, 2009
We took a train to Chandigarh and stayed over at my sister-in-laws's place overnight. She had called up a day before to ask what we would liek to eat. First she asked Anirudh and he said "Chhole-Bhature". Then he asked hubby and he said "Pav-Bhaji". So when we reached there she had made both!! :D And she had also prepared yummy gajar halwa. It was so delicious that I had to literally hold myself for not taking more after gorging on 2 huge helpings. We finally forced ourselves to go to bed at 12:30 am since we had to get up at 4:30 am.

Jan 24, 2009:
We managed to wake up by 4:30 and and Started from Chandigarh at 6:00 AM in a hired Innova for Manali. We stopped over a few times for nature calls and chai-calls and snacked on the the stuff that we were carrying with us. We were dilly-dallying whether to go to Manikaran as we were not sure how much time will it take for us to reach Manali. Once we figured we could comfortably reach Manali by 6:30 PM after stopping by at Manikaran we decided to go there.
Manikaran is famous for hot water springs and cold water flowing together. I've already written about the Manikaran visit, thanks to mobile blogging, in an earlier post so you can read the details there.

We reached our place of stay at Manali, Sterling Resorts, by 6:15 PM. The resort was quite nice and peaceful. After we checked into our rooms, the other family came over to our place for chit chatting along with rounds of chai and snacks while Anirudh and Prithvi, his daycare friend, played on. We had a kitchen in our room so hubby got some Maggi, tea laves, sugar and milk and we prepared the tea in the room itself.

Around 9 PM we went for our dinner at the restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed the food. The 'garma garam' tandoori roti's seemed so heavenly. Finally around 10:30 PM we retired to our respective rooms.

Jan 25, 2009:
We woke up at 8:00 AM. When I opened the curtains beautiful sight of snow clad mountains greeted us. We all went 'WOW' at the sight in front of us. After enjoying the beautiful view I made some 'adrak ki chai' and had it snuggled in rajai. And then we got ready for sight seeing. We started at 10:00 AM to go to Solang Valley. We rented some snow gear (body suits, gloves and gum boots for Rs 100/set) for all of us. On reaching solang, we did some snow sports such as snow-slide and zorbing. In snow slide, we would climb up till some part of the mountain and then those fellows would make us sit in the inflated tyre tube and push us down. Me and Anirudh did that and it was really thrilling. I actually closed my eyes the moment we were sliding down. Anirudh insisted on doing it again and I didn't say no to him. And the second time I managed to keep my eyes open and it was all the more thrilling. Anirudh wanted to go again and again but the each ride costed Rs. 100 and so we had to say no. Then me and Anirudh went for Zorbing (thanks to Mampi for telling me the correct term). Its a big inflated ball with two layers of walls. We slipped inside it, they strapped us inside and then rolled the ball down on the mountain slope. Me and Betu were continuously shouting 'yippee'. Betu wanted to go for it once more after we were done but I was not sure I could manage another round of it :D.

Then we went for a horse ride up the mountain while Prabha, Prithvi's mother, stayed back as she wasn't comfortable riding horses. We saw so much snow there and Betu -Prithvi had a gala time walking on the snow. But soon with their feet getting cold, they both started to cry. We saw a group of guys with a fire lit inside a tin canister. Those guys held both the kids in their laps and stretched the feet of the kids over the canister to make them warm. And I hung the socks at the rim of the canister. After 10-15 mins their feet and the socks both were warm and both of them were smiling again. And at this point Betu did a complete 360 degree turn and said "main aapko bol raha tha mujhe snow nahi dekhni. Snow bahut thandi hoti hai!" And I just rolled my eyes thinking that because of him we made this trip and now he is blaming us. Aajkal ke bachhe..baba re baba.

On the way back it started to rain a bit and was getting really cold. Thanks to the rented gear we were feeling warm. So off we carried on with our ride down the mountain and from there to our resort. But we got stuck in the jam close to 2.5 hours. Luckily we had snacks in the car because with just breakfast and no lunch, our tummies were growling. We finally reached our rooms around 5 PM.

After freshening up, we made maggi in our room and after than some tea. It was the yummiest Maggi I had ever eaten :D

After than we went to the activity center where all the people were gathered. A localite was acting as the host and we played some really interesting games there. In the end he sang some songs and he had such a beautiful voice. He could easily put all these Himesh reshamiya types and the younger breed of singers to shame. And after that proceeded to have dinner and then to bed. All of us promptly dozed off thanks to the tiring journey.

Jan 26, 2009:
We had planned to start by 7:00 AM. But we didn't wake up until 6:30 AM and were scrambling to pack things and get ready. Betu didn't want to get out of the bed at all. He said "Mujhe yahan achha lagta hai. Mujhe is new ghar mein hi rahna hai. Mujhe dilli nahi jana." :D But somehow managed to drag him out and we were on the road by 7:20 AM. Stopped by at a "Raja" hotel for breakfast at 11:30 AM and had yummy gobhi and aloo tandoori paranthas with fresh curd. We reached Chandigarh by 3:30 PM. Had yummy daal-rice at sister-in-laws place and were off again by 5:30 PM to catch our train back to Delhi.

And thus came the end to our short and quick holiday trip.

You know its time to lose weight...

...when you can feel your cheeks jiggling in a moving train.


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
Sent on my BlackBerry®.

Manikaran, Himachal Pradesh

Its 3:45 pm and we just started back from Manikaran. The place is famous for hot water spring and cold water spring flowing together. Calling it "hot" would be an understatement. It was boiling and bubbling. You can't put your finger inside for more than 1/2 a second.

I bought a small bag of rice and kala chana for Rs. 10 each from there and left it dipping in the pool of hot water spring and it got cooked there. In 15 mins rice was completely done and kalachana was 75% done.

There is a gurudwara there and they cook the food in big earthen pots in one of the hot water pools. We ate at the 'langar' at the gurudwara and relished the kadhi with roti and rice. A young boy helping there told Anirudh that he is not supposed to waste the food and Betu followed his instruction to the T. He did not even leave one spoon of the food in his plate. When I asked him to eat as much as he wantsto, he told me in a very serious tone "unhone bola hai na ki bilkul khana nahi chhodna. Poora finish karna hai."

We were earlier planning to skip going to Manikaran because of tight schedule but am really glad we came here. It was an experience in its own. The pictures will follow few posts down when I reach back Delhi.

- Jan 24, 2009
~~ Keep Smiling! ~~
Sent on my BlackBerry®.

What do you do when...

..your son picks up the shirt, that you have taken out to wear that morning, looks at it questioningly and asks "Yeh shirt kis bachhe ki hai?" (This shirt belongs to which kid?). And when I said its mine, he looks at me with raised brows and says "Yeh to aapke liye chhoti hai. Yeh aapko nahi aayegi." (This is small for you. It won't fit you.)

I suddenly felt so 'fat' hearing his comment and that too right in the morning!!

:(

Edited to add: The shirt size was 'L' and was bought 2-3 months after delivery to fit my huge size in.

The journey of 4.5 hours

Almost barren trees with leaves sprouting on some branches.

Kids playing cricked on open grounds where the wickets were made out of earthen bricks.

Ladies in colorful lahengas with gota work embellishments, sitting in a circle chit chatting, laughing and smiling.

A calf nuzzling up with its mother cow.

A little girl, sitting on the pillion seat of a scooter, carrying a really tiny baby goat in her arms.

A farmer working in the middle of his mustard fields surrounded by a sheet of yellow flowers.

A small white temple on the top of a huge barren mountain.

Little girls in blue uniforms with red ribbons in their hair walking to their school.

Little girls selling newspapers at the traffic signals instead of begging.

And finally the jubilation of Betu when we reached his Dadu-Dadi's place.

All these happened during 4.5 hours that made me smile and feel happy at heart.


~~ Keep Smiling! ~~

Sent on my BlackBerry®.

My cake baking rendezvous!

What are your first thoughts looking at this picture? Are you thinking on the lines - looks yummy, so well baked, wanna dig your teeth into it?

But wait..hold your horses. The phrase "Looks can be deceptive" fits so aptly here. This cake was a total fiasco.

So what went wrong? For one, it had very little sugar so it kind of tasted very bland. Second it just didn't rise. Reason? Even I don't know :|

But you know what? My Betu still eats it with enthu that it just melts my heart. He goes "Wow! Cake" and gorge on. His expressions are priceless. As if he is really really enjoying the cake and as if the cake is really really delicious. That makes me feel so guilty because he so wanted to eat a cake and I told him I will make one instead of buying. And eventually it turned out to be such a flop show :(

Betu, next time I promise I will bake you a better one.

P.S. Its a Chocolate Yogurt Cake.

A fractal broccoli!!??

How cool is that?

Read the details here.