Life of Pi

My wife got bored of cleaning the home and wanted to watch a movie. Itunes- pay –buy- Life of Pi- But slow internet, life of pie trickled slowly into ipad all night. Next day life of pie was there on Pad. I can’t say she liked that movie. She did not give any review nor compelled me to watch and hence I assume that it was not great. Meanwhile, Gauri too watched partially “tiger wala” movie. But most important point is she did not watch the beginning of the movie. Now fast-forward 2 weeks. Her all pink-panther, curious George, snow white, Krishna and of course Doremon were over.  Sharp 10 pm my wife takes remote to watch Grey’s anatomy. After a short fight, Gauri is pushed to next room to watch her stuff on computer.

 I am relegated to do the job of computer operator or phone answering machine. Yesterday Gauri was suffering from running nose and mild fever. Her Random access Memory (all parents know how random child can be) accessed “tiger wala movie” aka Life of Pi. Opening shots fine, zoo part enjoyed- dialogue part got bored. Fast-forward the movie- or I have to explain the dialogues and the consequences. Questions pop up much faster than subtitles in the movie!!. Now ship scene has started. Rain, storm, ship sunk; boy and tiger survived. Meanwhile she forgot to clean her nosy and got engrossed in rapidly happening sequences. Cast away is drifting in the sea, then fish, then, meerkat, floating island......... she watched with few questions.

 Now, suddenly she popped up most important question; where are parents of the boy ( appa amma elli?). I said they are drowned (trying to give reality). She went to her mother and asked where his parents are?  She didn’t get satisfying answer. Now it is already 12 pm and Gauri is sleepy. But she is determined to find out fate of his parents. I said I don’t know. She said you know. She sat on my lap. I said may be in the end those parents come and pick up the boy from hospital. It gave great hope to Gauri. She sat patiently on my lap and watched last boring 15 mins with lot of dialogues. She did not ask anything. She was sitting quietly to see happy union of son and parents. Well, they never came. Ending titles started to roll. I turned off the PC and looked at Gaui’s face. She looked at me and said “I feel like crying” “( alakke bartha iddu) ”. Then she held me very tightly and asked “rain and storm over?” 

Epilogue: Since she did not ask about his parents, I think she realized what happened and hence the question about rain and that hug.( Photos are just represent Gauri's mood)

Holi

Gauri wanted to play the Holi. All preparations were done. Herbal colors, water sprayer were bought and kept ready. On holi morning, she was very excited.  I applied some oil on her face, hair and hands. Now she is ready. I too applied oil and got ready. One set of cloths, water bottle and snacks were kept in a cover. I was in dilemma, whether to carry camera or not. Holi, is color (dust) and water, both are not good for a DSLR. Finally I decided to take it. I placed the camera in a plastic cover and made a two openings for lens and viewfinder. I mounted Canon 85 mm 1.8 on my Canon 50D, a fast prime lens, should be good for portraits and blur the background.  I set my camera, in AV mode (aperture priority), F 2.2, iso 400 and +1/2 EV ,spot metering, auto focus in AI servo mode and continues shouting. Due to plastic cover, I may not able to change the settings in a holi setup! My anticipation was perfect. As soon as we entered the battle field, colors were flying and water was sprayed from everywhere. Gauri was with one of my friend and I could concentrate on photography!! Still Gauri was not very comfortable with so many unknown people and hence she wanted to put colour only to me!! . Very soon water sprayed on my lens barrel, and also I could see some colours on my lens. One hand was engaged in managing the Gauri and so I had to shoot with one hand only. Using plastic cover was very clumsy, the finger used to slip from shutter. Very often opening made for view finder was out of alignment, and hence many were blind shots. I shot for 20 min, and later I kept camera back in my scooter box (hand was paining and was worried about lens). After that, whole morning I enjoyed playing holi and loved the way Gauri played the holi and she enjoyed thoroughly. Few pictures are here from this small adventure. ( Double click on the photo, you can have a slide show!!)

My friend Shreya!!

Gauri getting into ground......

Friends

Gauri the teacher

Climbing  staircase.: What is new in that? Oh my daughter has taught me different ways of doing it. Now our house is in third floor. She will use all different strategies’ to climb up and down. Two step jump one step jump, one leg jump, holding the railing, back ward , forward, three together or one by one, one part I will carry her on my back other part she will carry me !!  or she will carry her doll, she will sit and protest or she will slide, she will peep in each step or she will teach and give all the instructions to me and the doll about the safety.

Gauri in bathroom. So what? Different ways to take bath; shower, below tap, inside bucket, Sometimes, bucket will go to the hall and she will watch Doreman sitting in warm water. oh luxury, soaps will disappear, today she rub the soap froth on her belly and made triangle rectangle and even a cow on  her belly. She would take different colour shampoos soaps and mix them. She will be fish in the bucket , I need to catch her with towel as net, only when she comes out of bucket!! She will play many times, oh intelligent fish will test my patience!

Wear the cloth- what is in it?

She has choice. Choice changes every day. If she wants to kill the time, she will change options randomly. Wearing a dress is part of her journey. I mean she will run around the house, I need to catch her and put the shirt on her neck --------- running--------then one hand------ again running -  another hand, and for each cloth process repeats. 

Sleeping-

She thinks that sleeping is waste of her valuable time. So in all possible ways she will postpone her sleep. I never knew time is so precious and should not oversleep. First she never lie down and watch TV in the afternoon, she may fall asleep! In night, she runs for 10 min, lights are off she will bring chair and put on the light, we military parents show our power, she will agree to sleep, but now she wants milk, “no milk” , give me water, that can’t be refused, can I? Now she wants to go to loo, how can I refuse; now she wants to do potty that to at 1 am in night!! Even she will push to her limits and pass out a  small roll of shit to show me that she is not lying, finally stories then songs, then play on tablet....endless... her creativity to avoid sleep. 

Potty- what is this? Oh she will do potty , triangle, rectangle,  train colours and diet she ate, what would make watery and what makes rock.  How flush works – meanwhile she keeps playing with water, I am supposed to see each of the potty sometimes they will roll down the hole (Indian toilet) but still I need to bend and see it. Smell, she is very particular about smell. Appa, today it smells bit different. All potty have names, sometimes they are father, mother,  granny or her friends or they may be good bad and ugly. 

 Anger (gussa/sittu)- She will throw anything or she will go and sit in a corner. When she do this, how do I control. I wonder about it, since when she does this, I too get angry. But doing so, I cant tell her, don't be angry. Bit tricky, keep your cool and tell her that dont get angry is one of the most difficult thing I ever did. Cant imagine? just think, one big bowl of rice with ghee and salt, was thrown across the dining hall; fine, I will get chapati, she will spit it around the house, ok, I will get milk, milk is purposefully spilled on sofa ............. how about that , now keep your cool and teach her anger is not a good behavior!!!  

Food- Let me not write about that, it is long story. She consider it as harassment. This is how she takes revenge.

She is my teacher for the course “creativity”

“It truly takes long time to become young”

“Life is all about journey not destination”