U.S.B. 2.0

I have a daughter who's 9, but thinks (and behaves) like she's in her teens.

The other day, she kept going on how her hair is not right, how her skin colour is too dark and how she is - in general - quite ugly. No matter what we said or did could change her opinion of herself. And she really is quite a pretty girl (if I might say so myself), so I could not really understand where this was coming from.

So I went to youtube and showed her a couple of videos (specifically this one and this one) to show her how, as a society, we have a distorted and false image of beauty and that it matters more to be a beautiful person from the inside rather than worry about what people think of you from the outside.

I knew I had softened her opinion, but I had not won the battle.

So I went reverse psychology :-)

By some sheer coincidence, an advert for "Ugly Betty" was coming on TV at exactly that time. So I said to her, "yeah, you're right. You're just like her. But you're not really ugly, so you must be stupid! So from now on, I will call you Ugly Stupid Betty…USB for short!" And I would call her that every now and then. Every time she complained about it, I would remind her that I was merely agreeing with her original opinion, so she had no right to complain.

Finally, she looked at me and said "look, see my face, do I look ugly? I don't! So stop calling me USB"

So I changed it to USB 2.0 (Unbelievable Sundar Baby)…for those who don't understand Hindi or Marathi, Sundar means beautiful. So now she's USB 2.0 with the caveat that if she ever reverts to her original opinion, I will revert to the original name.

She hasn't once mentioned anything other than how happy she is with the way she looks the last few days...

Crisis averted! :-D

My daughter's first poem

Can you believe it? My seven year old has written her first poem all by herself!



Isn't that amazing?

I'm so proud of my baby!

Mea Culpa

Mea Maxima Culpa. 

But before I start justifying my actions, let me wish all of you a Happy New Year!!!

Back to the sob story. I can't believe that I have not posted a single blog for more than a month now. For someone who used to compulsively blog every single day, it's a strange feeling to get a message from a friend reminding me that I have not blogged for a while now. All I can say in my defense is that I was busy as hell. 

For the first couple of weeks of December, I was perpetually in Mumbai working on a couple of very critical bids. Both these extremely strategic deals came in at the same time and me and my colleague got complete sucked into them. That was only the half of it. Almost every day was an early morning and a late night. Felt so sleep deprived for those two weeks that I was sleeping for half of the weekend. 

What happened in those weeks is that my daughter won two more elocution contests. This lovely lady shows so much poise and confidence on stage in front of a mixture of more than a hundred students, parents and teachers that I am amazed. Her diction, her delivery, her confidence, her articulation, her tone has been so perfect that I pity the people who compete with her. She is, as I have always said, growing up just the way I would have wanted her to.

And to top it all, she has been chomping through the Famous Five book set that I bought her when she came first for the first time. In less than two months, she has finished sixteen (that's right, SIXTEEN) books out of the twenty one book set. If she gets a chance to read for the whole day, she will most probably finish a whole book in a day. That's how fast she's reading these days.

Coming back to the reason I have not posted for a while is that for the last week of the year, I was in Goa celebrating the New Year with a few friends. One of my buddies has a lovely villa there and we just had a blast. To avoid the crowds and the irritating possibility of spending new years in a the car, we decided to have a pool party by ourselves. The three couples, we bought two trolleys full of alcohol - enough to last a couple of days if not that night - and a bunch of stuff. Then we all got into the pool and had a blast. Then a few drinks down and the Cuban cigars came out. This pal of mine is a cigar fan and he brought out the Cohibas that he was carrying just for the occasion. All in all, Goa was wonderful and it was a shame we had to leave.

Other than that, it's mostly been all work and pretty much no play. I do have a bet going on with a colleague of mine which involves me beating the best golfer in my company two rounds in a row within the month. I would have probably won the bet had an old man not died on the golf course and we had to abandon the round. I was two up with three to play and this poor old man was just sitting there must have had a massive coronary and just collapsed near the 13th tee of the BGC. I completely lost my appetite for the game after that. The next round, I beat him quite comfortably. That should have been enough to get my winner's cheque. But no. The round after that, I spectacularly screwed up and lost. And then made up by coming back stronger in the last game to win again. So I have beaten this guy in three out of the four rounds we have played so far, but for that incident, I have not been able to beat him in two consecutive rounds. My next round with him will be the one to decide whether I win the bet or not.

The problem is that the best golfer in my company also happens to be one of my closest buddies. And he has gone out and injured his wrist. So he has been out of action for more than a week. And I would not want him to play for another week or so for fear that he will injure his wrist coming back to play so early and be out of commission for another few weeks. I would rather lose the bet than have him injure his hand. After all, he's way more important. He's my most competitive golf buddy and the only one who inspires me to play better than I am playing now. It is the incentive to beat him - and he is currently better than I am by far - is one that is what makes us a great pairing. He never gives up and neither do I. So it's fun playing against him.

What else? Nothing much. Will try and post more regularly from now on. Time permitting, that is! Until then...Cheers

I am so, so, SO proud of her!

My daughter had been preparing for a debate contest at school the whole of last week. The topic of the debate was "The excitement of Television is more than the adventures of a book". She came back from school (the day the debate contest was announced) saying that it was not really a choice. For her, it was obvious... Reading was way better than TV. And I know this for a fact as she spends more time reading on an average in a day than she spends watching TV.

Question was: what was she going to say and how was she going to say it convincingly. So we (the entire family) worked on helping her with what she wanted to say. She tweaked the content to suit herself and then made sure she could say it as she wanted it.

The day of the preliminaries, she came back glowing (so my wife tells me...I was travelling). She had been shortlisted as one of eight students who had made it to the final rounds. That night when I spoke to her on the phone, she was bubbling away with facts on how the rounds went and I could feel her amazement at the fact that most of the students had picked Television over books. To her, it did not make sense. She kept saying that using her imagination while reading a book was the most fun part of reading, something that she could not do while watching TV.

So the day of the final contest arrived. This morning, 18 students (8 from the third grade and 10 from the second grade) gathered to present their views in front of more than a hundred and fifty students, more than 50 parents and scores of teachers. The confidence these little ones showed while standing on stage, holding their microphones proudly and saying what they believed in (and had rehearsed) was outstanding. That day, they were all winners. The outcome was only a formality. Most of the students did not think so, though.

My daughter was one of them. 

She was in the contest to win! I can still remember the expression on her face while the marks were being announced. The contest had been fought so closely that the difference in the 3rd place and 2nd place was just a couple of marks. So was the case between the 2nd place and 1st place.

And when they announced her name as the winner of the debate, her face was radiant as she stepped forward to accept the applause. She had made the effort, she had performed flawlessly and she deserved to win. And that desire showed.

I am so proud of my little baby. She has shown that she can achieve whatever she wants if she just puts her mind to it. She has the instincts of a winner and I hope she keeps it up. I was grinning from ear to ear the whole day!!!

PotterMania strikes again

My daughter has always been a Harry Potter fan, ever since she watched the first Harry Potter movie. She likens herself to Hermione, because she's the clever one who manages to help Harry get to wherever they are going. She steadfastly refuse to be Harry, even though the story is all about him.

All this while, she has been intent on just watching the movies and has refused to read the books. Only recently, the books that she has been getting at school have been a little too puny for her taste. Reason: She has finished reading the book before she has gotten home from school. So obviously, she needs something to read which will at least last her a week. Now I have been asking her to read the Harry Potter books saying that the book is always a lot more fun than the movie and that it has more information that the movie can never have. All this time, she has patiently refused.

Until this last week.

I came back home from office to find my daughter burried in the Philosopher's Stone, the first of the Harry Potter series. Granted that she was only on the first chapter, but she was so completely engrossed in it that she did not even notice that I had entered the house. When she did finally look up, the first thing she said was "You were right...the book IS more fun than the movie! And it has a lot more information than the movie!"

YES!!!!!

Until last night, she has chomped through almost half the book and has to be dragged to bed as she has school the next day. That too with an assurance from my side that she can pick up where she left off when she comes back from school. Now there is an unwritten rule in the house to not disturb anyone when they are reading (something that my wife is not completely in agreement with, but gets over-ruled by my daughter and I). So she uses that to convince my wife to let her continue reading.

The rate at which she is reading, she will probably finish the book in the next couple of days. And then there is going to be that unavoidable disection of the book and the inevitable comparison with the movie and how it falls short and where it is wrong.

I look forward to that discussion :-)

The left side moves faster

Aah...finally back in Bangalore. Yes, we have finally moved. The Singapore chapter of our life has come to a close and a new chapter begins in Bangalore.

My wife and daughter had moved in ahead of me, mainly to get the school admissions done. While we had spoken to the admissions personnel at the Vidyshilp Academy School in Bangalore, the enrollment confirmation required my daughter to sit through an interview with some of the teachers of the school to test her on English, Math, Hindi (her language) and Physical Education. While we had no apprehensions about three of th four parts, her language preference in Singapore had been French and she had not had a lot of exposure to Hindi (apart from the stuff that we taught her at home).

The feedback we got from the interview was fantastic. She found all the questions on Math quite easy (it's her favourite subject at school after all). When she was asked what her hobby is, she said she liked to read. When asked who her favourite author was, she firmly replied "Roadl Dahl". From the teacher's expression, it was clear that she was surprised, but not convinced. So the teacher asked her to name some of the Dahl books she had read. And so "The Twits", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and other names were rattled off. I think that sealed it. Her other interviews also went well and she was admitted to the school. She has already started going to school and has already made friends. The school had it's Parent-Teacher-Meeting last weekend and, even though she had been there only for a couple of days, all the teachers had very positive things to say about her.

That made me feel immensely proud of my daughter. She has adapted to her new surroundings in a new city with the utmost ease and is making both me my wife feel guilty about how we are handling the change ourselves.

Then there's the house. Some of you may know that I have my own house here. We bought this about two and a half years ago. The last few days (I have landed here on the 30th of last month) have been completely consumed with making the house habitable. Nothing could have prepared me for the shock as I entered my house. The condition that it was kept in was - to use the most appropriate word here - appalling! After just one look at the place, I knew there was a lot to be done.

So the whole of the weekend and then some more was spent on getting the house upto scratch. The painting is done, the plumbing is fixed, the curtains have been drycleaned (they hadn't been washed for 2 years!), the floor is cleaned, the loos are fixed and now the place looks like something that I can stay in. We also managed to get in some appliance shopping on the weekend. So a huge 490 litre refrigerator and a washing machine has been installed in the house. So has the AquaGuard water purifier. A lot of the carpentry has also been taken care of. So it has begun to feel like the home we had lived in before we left for Singapore.

Of course, the bulk of our stuff has not landed yet. I understand from my movers that the container has landed in Bangalore, but is now awaiting Customs clearance. Hopefully that will be sorted out in the next few days and hopefully (again) my stuff will have come home by the weekend. So (hopefully) the house will be completely functional in a few days.

My first day in office was a revelation. The welcome very warm and it immediately felt like the place I had left only a couple of years back. What was fun was the laughter and the converstation that flowed through the day. It is one of the things that was a big differentiator to the days in Singapore. The fact that so many people were busy with the things that they do and yet managed to squeeze a little bit of time out of their busy schedules to have a laugh and just kick back and relax. The camaraderie was palpable.

What took me completely by surprise was the very short time it took me to adjust to driving in Bangalore. I had become used to taking cabs and busses and trains in Singapore and also the driving style in Singapore. But within my first few minutes behind the wheel, I was back at weaving in and out of the Bangalore traffic which, by all estimates, has only become worse since I left. The key to getting ahead and getting to where you are going is to stay, not in the fast lane which is on the right side, but on the left side. That side, contrary to normal traffic conventions, moves much faster than the traditional fast lane. It's surprising how much you tend to miss when you are in the middle of these situations, but notice only when you have been in a different environment.

All in all, this week has been about getting the house in a condition decent enough to live in and about buying all the things that we are not carrying from Singapore. Rest is something that we will have to take one step at a time.

And hopefully, now that most of the changes have happened, I will be able to blog more often. Here's to hoping.

It'sbeen 9 days

For the first time in her life, my daughter has gone (by herself) on vacation to India. Sure, she's surrounded by people who she is comfortable with (my mom, my sister, my brother in law, my other little girl), but this is the first time in her life that she's staying without either of her parents with her. And from the looks of it, she's having a great time.

And we (my wife and I) are the ones having the trouble living without her at home.

She's out there having a whale of a time, what with going to a lot of parties, playing with a lot of kids her own age (something she does not get a lot here in Singapore), going to all the fun places with her little sister, watching plays. Boy, is she having a lot of fun!

And my wife and I are adjusing to a silent house, things to do by ourselves on the weekends and in general a lack of energy at home, mostly because of our little one. But we're really glad that she's going on this vacation by herself. One, because she'll have a good time and be engaged all the time with something to do. But second, and more important, she's grown up to handle herself. There aren't either of us there to take care of her every little thing. Nobody making her go and brush her teeth twice a day (though she still does that with us telling her to do it), nobody to tell her to behave (which she does without anyone telling her) and all the time in the world to do what SHE wants to do without being told. And that to me is the best vacation of all.

When we were dropping her to the airport, she was laughing and upbeat all the way through check in. Even when we stood with her in the queue to enter the immigration zone, she was having a lot of fun and smiling. Only when we stepped back saying that we could not go through with her beyond that point did it sink in for her that she was going by herself and that we were staying back. And that is when the tears started rolling.

So we got out of the queue, me carrying her in my arms in a bear hug and whispering words of encouragement and reminding her of how much fin she was going to have once she lands in India. People are waiting for you to get there, I reminded her. There was even a Princess Party organized in her honour. She didn't want to miss all of that, did she?

After the sobbing subsided and she was smiling again, we assured her that she had to only say that she was not having any fun any more and either of us would be there to pick her up and get her to Singapore. She had the final word. So she stepped through immigration, waved cheerfully at both of us and gave me a big thumbs up. It was only when she went out of sight did I realize that I had tears in my eyes as well.

It's an occupational hazard for me to travel and miss her when I'm not around. But that has been too few and far between since I moved here. By choice, I had wanted a local role so that I could compensate in some way for all the travel I had done when I was in India. Leaving her at the airport made me realize how much more closer we had grown these lat few years.

It was back to the office and most of the time I could not keep my mind on works as I looked, every now and then, at my watch to see if it was time for her flight to land. And finally when it did, I could hardly hear through the din that my daughters were creating in the car. My sister and my other daughter (she's technically my sister's, but she's practically my own) had come to pick her up and there was a lot of celebration happening. A few words reassuiring me that she was fine and that the flight was a pleasant one, and then she was gone.

And I ralized how my baby had grown up. And I was proud and scared at the same time. Proud of the fact that my seven year old was game enough to take care of herself, by herself, for almost a month. That she was mature enough to handle herself without her parents being around. That she was having fun.

Scared because I always worry about her. That I'll always worry about her. And I realized that I will feel exactly this way when she goes to study or gets married. I will be proud of her achievements, and scared out of my wits for her safety, worried for her happiness.

My wife routinely calls me "Father of the Bride", mainly to remind me that, no matter how open I am and how encouraging I am, I will always feel how a father feels about his daugher. Possessive!

For now, she's having bucket loads of fun. But I can tell that she misses us a lot. She does not say it (she's a lot like me in a lot of respects...what do you expect?), but I know from the questions and te responses. She'e having fun, so she does not want the vacation to end. But she wants to come back and so the vacation has to end. It's in those lines of conversation when I notice her emotions the most.

It's been 9 days since she's been on vacation. And it's not even half time yet.

I really miss her. A lot!

Being the bad man at home

We had gone into Borders to do some book shopping. My daughter especially was hunting for books to buy as part of her birthday gift stash, which she had carefully kept in the new Barbie Princess wallet that she had added to her collection of gifts. While we were all hunting for books (I can't step into Borders without buying one), my daughter was wandering all around in the kids section trying to lay her hands on the books that she wanted. She did not realize that she had left her purse lying around.

So after we finished picking up our books and were ready to pay and step out, she realized that her purse was missing. A frantic search ensued to no avail. The purse was missing and along with it, the birthday stash that she had accumulated. My baby was heart-broken. She went on saying that "How can people do this? It's not good to steal. It's not fair!" amidst huge sobs. The only thing I could do was to hold her close and try to calm her down, something which she steadfastly refused to do.

While she had lost the money to buy the books, she still wanted us to buy them for us. And that is where I put my foot down. I tried to explain to her, as patiently as I could, that while it was wrong on the part of the person who stole her purse, it was as much her mistake for keeping it lying around. Had she kept it with her, she would still have her wallet with its contents safe. Instead she had neither. And I kept on reminding her that if I bought the books for her, then it would be as if I lost the money. Cause she would get what she wants without understanding the loss or the mistake and therefore the reason to correct her behaviour.

Her mom, being like every other mom, chipped in saying that from now on, she would carry my daughter's purse. That to me is the opposite of the solution. Instead of making my daughter more responsible, that would mean that we shoulder her responsibilities and in the long term, make her a complete wimp who is dependant on her parents for every thing. I want my daughter to be strong and independant and be able to hold her head high while standing side by side with me, not cowering behind me. Thankfully, my wife understood this.

After a few sobs and a few more "It's not fair" statements, she eventually managed to calm down. We even had great fun at dinner.

Last evening, when I got back home, my daughter kept saying to my wife "Let's go". Without needing to ask where she was going, I asked her if she was taking her mom to buy herself a new wallet. One thing I appreciate about my daughter is the fact that while she did not want me to know, she would never lie to me. So I sat her down again and explained to her why she will not have a new wallet. I even gave her a scenario. I asked her to imagine that we leaving the car keys, a bunch of money and some shopping in our car and then the car getting stolen. Would we be able to go to the car dealer the next day and buy another car? Just cause we lost one?

"No," came the prompt answer. "A car is so expensive."

"So whose mistake was it that the car got stolen?"

"Our mistake."

"And whose mistake was it to leave the purse lying around?"

"Mine."

"So who should take responsibility for it?"

"I should."

"Who lost all the money?"

"I did."

"Did Pappi lose the money?"

"No."

"So should Pappi have to pay for something that he did not lose?"

"No."

I think, at that time, she really disliked me. I was putting a damper on everything she was saying. But I don't want her to grow with the notion that it's ok to lose something cause her parents are going to buy it for her anyways. While I want to give her everything I can in this world, I want her to grow up appreciating all of it and the value of it all, not in terms of money, but the effort that goes into earning it.

I don't like to be this person who is the "bad guy" at home, who puts a spoiler on things. But I think it is far more important for her to be a better person and not a pampered brat who gets what she wants just because she threw a tantrum or shed a few tears.

I hope she will appreciate it some day. I hope I'm doing the right thing.

Being a parent is like uncharted territory. Every single decision leads to a new path.

"You are not the boss of this house!"

Me to my daughter: "Please put on your night dress and get ready to go to bed."

Daughter: "You're always telling me to do that. You're not the boss of this house!"

"Really? Then who is?"

" We all are. You, Mumma and me."

"OK. Then who makes the decisions?"

Thinks for a while and then says "Whoever the decision affects."

"Good. That's great. But what if it affects all of us?"

"Then we all decide."

"What if one of us disagrees? What if two disagree? Then what do we do?"

Thinks for a while again and says "We go by majority."

"Fantastic idea. So if two people say something, the third has to agree whether the third person likes it or not, right?"

"Yes."

"Great! Are we all agreed on this?"

"YES!"

"Good. Mumma, do you think daughter should change into her night dress and get ready for bed?"

Mumma: "Yes."

Me: "I think so too. That's two out of three!"

Daughter: "You tricked me!"

:-)

She continues to amaze me

Last night, as I walked into my house, I saw my daughter finishing with her dinner and I noticed some movie that was just ending. The credits were rolling and a familiar voice welcomed me home.

As I walked up to her, she said "Pappi, I was watching Brother Bear 2 and I think a lot of the songs in it were by Melissa". She of course was talking about Melissa Etheridge, probably my numero uno artist, who is almost always referred to at home by her first name only. And it was the same familiar voice which greeted me as I walked into the house.

So I knew that the last song was definately by her, but I checked just now and about half the songs on the Brother Bear 2 soundtrack are, in fact, performed by Melissa.

My daughter continues to astonish and pleasantly surprise me every day. I have not seen a child so attuned to music and so open to it. She does not discriminate, neither does she make her mind up before she's heard or seen something. She would listen to a song by Melissa or Pink Floyd or Tears for Fears or even Shakira (yeah, Hips dont lie is a big hit at home too).

And I am really glad she likes Melissa. Melissa has walked with me as I go though a lot. Everyday. Sometimes she sings about how I am feeling. Sometimes, she sings about how I want to feel. I really love her music and her lyrics. Of course, her voice is the perfect compliment to both of her talents.

I'm just glad my daughter has this amazing gift.

It's The Beatles these days

That's the music of choice for my daughter the last couple of weeks.

She listens to The Fab Four almost all the time. When she's playing, when she's reading, when she's about to sleep. Just about any time. It's not rare for me to walk into her room and have "She loves you...yeah, yeah, yeah" or "Love is all you need" or "Love me do" or some other classic hit me.

There's dual admiration here.

Firstly toward my daughter, for being able to recognize the great music and melody that The Beatles created more than a generation before her (let's face it, The Beatles broke up before I was born. So all those gorgeous songs are from my parent's generation). And I absolutely adore her for it. I've always said that she's got fantastic taste for music and she proves me right every single day.

Secondly, I have the utmost respect for The Beatles. The music they have created has endured for more than 40 years and has entertained more than three generations. They remain one of the greatest music group of all time and, according to the Rolling Stones compilation of the 500 all time greatest songs, The Beatles had the largest representation in the list with 23 songs. I grew up listening to and loving their songs and am thrilled to bits that my daughter is appreciting them as much (if not more) as I do.

She makes me feel better every single day.

Two pages per minute

This weekend, my daughter and I sat side by side reading books. She reading her library book and I with the current book of the week (A Peace To End All Peace - David Fromkin). Almost every weekend, the two of us are at Borders on Orchard Road where she sits in the Kids section reading a wild assortment of books while I go around hunting for books on my list.

Today, I noticed that she was flipping pages quite quickly.

So I asked her if she intended to finish the book. When she said yes, I told her that I would time her to know how long she takes to read the rest of the book.

She had some 40 pages to go and she finished them in 19 minutes!

Even if I take into account that she is reading a kid's book with large fonts and larger line spacing, it's a stupendous effort! She read more than two pages in a minute. That's phenomenal for a girl who is just six years old!

So a little later, after we had played for a while and after I had read her a story (an Indian epic called The Mahabharat), she herself said that she wanted to read, this time The Faraway Tree collection of stories by Enid Blyton.

I told her I would time here again. Lo and behold, she did it again. This time the book had smaller print and a lot more content on each page (you know how Enid Blyton can write). She read more than 60 pages in just over half an hour.

You have no idea how thrilled I am and how proud I feel about my baby. She's developing the habit of reaching for a book when she's free and she is finding a book almost as interesting as playing by herself. Of course, a book cannot compete with playing with her friends (something that absolutely shouldn't happen), but at least whenever she's not, she is hopefully getting into a habit of grabbing at one when she's alone.

I personally like to read a lot. Even if it is for just a few minutes in the morning (before I leave for work) or after dinner (just before I sleep). She sees me read all the time, whenever I am free. She even asks me why I read so much.

So over the weekend, we talked about how someone, a long time ago, invented the wheel. And how everyone since then has used that first idea to make a wheel for themselves. How people after the first man did not have to go through the pains of experimentation to invent it, how they did not have to reinvent the wheel. How Thomas Edison made more than a thousand attempts to create the light bulb, but after he invented it, people could use his design and his learning. All of these discussions were to impress upon her that a lot of people are working on a lot of different things. It does not make sense for us to "reinvent the wheel" (She got the meaning of that immediately!). And therefore the need to read books. Where we learn more about people, their thoughts and their experiences.

Then she said, "I want to have a bookshelf as big as yours!"

"As long as you read every single one of them, sure you can" I said. Cause I've read almost every single one of the books that I've bought (exceptions being the ones that I have recently bought, which are now in the queue).

Judging by the expression on her face, she will make me buy her all the books and will have bookshelf way bigger than mine. And you know what?

Nothing will give me greater pleasure than to go book shopping for her!

How can I deny this request?

You tell me...

As I mentioned in my last post, I was up until late last night watching the Arsenal - ManU game. Egro, I woke up later today than I do most days. That meant I could not get my daughter ready for school (which is supposed to be my job). Neither could I say goodbye to her when she left for school.

When I woke up this morning, I had a piece of paper in my hand. It was a note from my little baby. See for yourself...

In case you cannot read it properly, it says:

"come home quickly pupy. before I come."

Isn't that cho chweeeet? I melted right away. There is no way I am going to miss this request. This is the power my little one has over me. A tiny request on a scrap of paper and she made me the happiest person this morning.

Oh, and in case you did not figure it out...She calls me Pappi, which is her lovingly cute way of saying Pappa. And since she is not used to spelling it, she has spelt it the way she thought it would be...by pronunciation!

She's such a sweetheart. I really love her! More than anything! Ever!

A happy new year to all of you

I know I am a couple of days late, but it's the thought that counts.

Here's wishing all of you a Happy New Year and a great 2007 ahead! I hope this year is way, way better than anything you have ever experienced so far and may it be the stepping stone to a better, brighter future.

Now, back to my usual stuff.

So the new year came and went without too much pomp. It was a subdued celebration with a quiet dinner by the Singapore river at Boat Quay along with my family and my in-laws. A few beers, a few bites and then back home before the clock struck the magic number.

We did manage to catch my family on Skype (cause that's the only decent VoIP software available for the Mac) for a video call to wish all of them. And that too on the stroke of 12.

The day before, we had taken my in-laws to the standard Sentosa Island tour that we usually take all our guests to. This time, though, we decided that we all would not see the whole thing along with the guests. My daughter and I have seen these exhibits a zillion times and are not really interested in seeing them again.

So we decided to do our own little trip. My wife would take her parents to the major attractions and my daughter and I would spend time with each other.

I had, however, warned eveyone that Sentosa would really be crowded on Sunday, mainly because the sun had come out after a week's worth of rain and because most people had a long weekend. So Sunday was always going to be crowded. What my wife did not expect was the number of people who queued up to get into Sentosa.

My daughter and I took the cable car from Mount Faber, where the queue had to be wound around three times in that extremely cramped up space. But we did get into the cable car before my wife (along with my in-laws) had even got the tickets! That's how crowded it was.

So obviously, we reached the island(!) way before them.

I took her to the 4D Magix show (which I would strongly recommend to everybody, just for the fun experience) where she had a ball. She was talking about it for more than an hour after the show finished. Of course, we had to wait for an hour before we got in, that's how long the queue was.

From there, we took the Dragon Trail, which is like a nature walk with a few dragon figurines thrown in. But it was a great stroll with her chattering away with all sorts of questions and all kinds of observations. She really is a smart kid!

Then, while the rest of the family watched the Dolphin show, the two of us went across this rickety (well, not really) bridge to the marketted lowest point of the Asian continent. A few more pictures there and we had a really great time. Running on the beach, playing games, we just had a great time together.

Then it was back home to watch ManU beat Reading 3-2 with a Ronaldo double (AGAIN!). It was great to see Solksjaer in the form of old, with great first touches and even better finishes. Of course, Reading did not look boring at all. They had me on the edge of my seat for a while. And of course, it wasn't until Giggs came on that we started to make penetration into the Reading box more often. So it was a great night of football, especially since Chelsea drew with Fulham to go even further back.

As I write this, both ManU and Chelsea have drawn their respective matches last night (against Newcastle and Aston Villa respectively) and so the lead is now 6 points.

What I hated the most was Jose Mourinho cribbing that he could not win because he did not have the best players in the world. Yeah, John Terry and Petr Cech are out with injuries, but to say an entire side cannot perform "because the best players are not there" is insane. Whatever happened to Lampard, Drogba, Essien, Ballack, Ashley Cole, Makalele, Carvalho, Robben, Kalou? Most of these are part of the so called "Untouchables" in Jose's list...his first team people. All of them are fit and playing.

Just goes to show that just throwing money at the game does not make a great team!

Sure Chelsea have spent more money in the last couple of years, but ManU has been working towards building a team which works. And this is despite people like Rooney not completely firing right now. It has been a while since Rooney scored, but it's only a matter of time. And when that happens, may God have mercy on Chelsea!

But...enough of soccer. What else did I do?

Oh, we went to IKEA yesterday. I noticed that the bookshelf we had bought (also from IKEA) when we moved here was sagging under the weight of all the books that we I had brought with me from India and the additions that I have bought since. So we needed a bigger, better book case.

Which we did get. We also saw a great showcase that we liked and which was really cheap. So we got that as well. And so the evening was dedicated to putting them all together. A couple of hours of work and the new book case, complete with all the books put in, and the showcase were assembled and in position. A satisfying few hours. I really love putting these things together. It's probably one of the reasons I love buying stuff from Ikea. They design such great stuff, such precision. It's just fun to get my daughter involved and assemble everything.

So that was yesterday, which incidentally was a holiday for us. It's back to the grind from today.

The new year beackons.

That's how good it is to be a kid

In just a few days, my daughter picked up how to play James Blunt's "Goodbye My Lover".

This is a video that I shot using the camera in my phone (because I don't have a digital video camera and I have not yet setup the camera on my notebook), and so the video / audio quality is not the best.

But the point is not the quality of the video. The point is...she is playing extremely well for a six year old!

Isn't that great?

I thought I was good at this

Ever since I was little, I knew my mind worked differently when it came to music.

I could recall bits of music which I had heard a long time ago, remember songs which I had heard years ago, associate bits of music to songs very quickly and if I knew a song, I would recognise it within the first few seconds. Even now, if I cannot recognise the song as soon as it has started, I have never heard the song before.

Now I know one more person who has the same uncanny ability for music. My own daughter!

I always knew she had an ear for music...you can see from my earlier posts about her taste for music (really good one too) and her favourite songs. But yesterday she took me completely by surprise.

I was in one of my moods where I play DJ using my iPod and I play songs which fit my mood through the evening. Yesterday, I was playing songs which my daughter hadn't heard before.

After a while, when I was pooped dancing, I switched to Kenny G's "Songbird". It's a great song and has been one of my favourite instrumental songs.

As soon as I put it on, my daughter pranced up to me and said that this song was on the "Robots" movie soundtrack. I was half way into trying to convince her otherwise when she explained.

"Remember when Ratchett is lying down and the robot is rubbing his back...just before his mother comes in, this music is playing" she said.

And then it hit me. She was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! BANG ON!

Songbird IS actually played as a background track exactly at that time in the movie. The song is played only for a couple of seconds, but she picked it up instantly and associated it with the movie!

I stood there stunned and proud at the same time.

I guess this is what it means when people say the next generation gets better than the older one!