Anurag teaches Alapony

Anurag is often seen fooling around with my phone. Today I found this gem in my phone gallery

silly games to start the morning

A game of war techniques

Nostalgia

Trying to find some older gems...here's one beautiful one! From when Kabir was 2.5 years old.

Anu loves his laddoos

Blast from the past....found this video which I haven't posted here. This is from when Anu was 11 months old. He has always had a sweet-tooth!

Games they play..

Sometimes I feel they are growing up too fast, and at other times....😊

Blast from Past

Found this gem from the past while organising my files. So grateful for these time machines.

A gem - Selfie video by Kabir

I bought a new phone recently and Kabir (who happens to be a gadget freak) has apparently been testing out its features. I found this video on my phone. Looks like someone had been testing the phone's selfie-video capabilities. :-)

Kol-dongri

A couple of Sundays ago, Pradeep offered to take us for an early morning guided tour of Kol-dongri - another bio-diversity-rich part of the IITB campus. I am ashamed to admit that I had never been to koldongri as a student (even though I had heard of it from my more adventurous batchmates). So I was glad that we finally had a chance to go there and felt lucky that the wild woods still exist for our kids to enjoy - though unfortunately I'm not sure how long they will survive. 

A bonus for us was some interaction with the local fishermen who use some innovative ways to fish in the Powai lake, and an impromptu market was set up!

a walk in the woods

  Powai lake from Kol Dongri

 Floating device + fishing net combo

A fisher-boy shows us his catch

a somewhat spooky video of the catch

 Our friend buys them all!

 Impromptu cleaning drive by the boys

 the boys called this the "dinosaur" tree

Anu sings a rhyme

The boys and their lego

Caution: boys at work, hard hat needed.

Anurag's Ganpati procession

Anu recreates ganpati procession on nani's bed. (He's down with conjunctivitis this week and spent a lot of time at nani's house).

playing games

Kabir likes to show off the new games he learns from his friends in school

Horsing around

A fun video of the boys playing ghoda-ghoda. The video is taken by nanaji in his house.
In case anyone is wondering, the "Prakhar" in the video title refers to Kabir. Kabir's nana refuses to call him Kabir to this day and has instead given him a name of his own choice - Prakhar. He is, ofcourse, the only one to call him by this name. We know where the stubbornness in the kids comes from :-)

Anu and jhadu

Utha ke toys rakho...Anu jhaadu maarta hai....

Anu is completely obsessed with sweeping and mopping. In fact, he thinks that's what all adults do at work. Last Thursday, I took him along to my work place and seeing a lot of people in the building, he asked me why they were there. When I said that they worked there, he asked - " yeh log yahan poncha (mopping) karte hain?"  I'm glad no-one heard him!

The big splash

Kabir's swimming camp ended on Monday with a big splash - a drop from the 5m high floor into the deep end of the pool without the support of a float!

Its amazing how far he has come along in the past 4 weeks. He's obsessed with swimming and asks me to take him to the pool everyday even after the camp has ended. Here are links to some more videos in which he is showing off his swimming skills to nana-nani.
Fun in the baby pool
Crossing the big pool width

Xmas singing

This weekend turned out to be one packed with action, the highlight of which was the Xmas program at IIT Staff Club organized by some really talented women on campus. Kids had been practicing for this for a month. On Saturday, they presented the program at the Staff Club and today they made a trip to the local Asha chapter for yet another program. The main program included carol singing, dancing and skit by older kids and ofcourse meeting with Santa.

Kabir was dressed as an angel and was one of the younger kids in the group. His favourite songs were: I'm an angel, Go tell it on the mountain and King seekers travelling. After these first three songs in the sequence Kabir couldn't wait to be done. Soon after, he ditched his buddies and ran over into the audience section and sat next to me, which was all the more funny because his friends in the singing group started calling him back as he vigorously shook his head :)

The little angel




This next one wasn't supposed to be an action song, but I guess Kabu really wanted to express himself.


He was visibly bored by this song and can be seen signalling that he wants to come and sit in the audience


The nativity scene set to "Silent night"


And finally, some dancing and giggling with Santa!

Playtime

The boys letting out some steam after dinner this evening. The show went on for atleast half an hour!

Open spaces

I'm frequently asked what I miss most about the US since returning back to India. My answer undoubtedly is "open spaces" which should not be surprising to anyone in Mumbai. However I had hoped that things would be different on the IIT campus.

We live across the street from the IIT gymkhana, yet it is not too accessible to children. It is reserved for students between 5pm-8pm on weekdays and we have been rudely asked to leave the grounds many times. There are other smaller grounds on campus but they are ill maintained. For example, we frequently spot snakes in the Shishu Vihar play ground which is closest to our house.

When I was a kid growing up on the same campus, children would always play in their building compound and grounds were only meant for more organized sports. However, with the large number of cars in every building it has now become dangerous to let children play in the building compound.

So unfortunately, we don't have many options left. Usually, evenings are spent going for walks on the campus road sidewalks with the kids (Kabu usually rides his scooter). Sometimes we go to the guest house which has become the meeting point for most campus kids in the evening (playing on the covered concrete area or on the sloping guest house lawns). On weekends and off-semester days we go to the gymkhana grounds where we play soccer with the kids or just let them run amok.

Mother's helper

Anu has turned into a big helper! He was found diligently sweeping the floor this evening. Now this is a hobby he shares with his brother. Afterall, sweeping floors was Kabir's favorite passtime when he was about the same age. It must be in their genes!